• My rating: 3/5
• Solid book that covers all main areas needed to level up from pre-Product-Market-Fit to 7 figures. Not enough details and examples though.

Main Takeaways

• Craft a vivid vision of your future for the next 3 years, making sure it’s clear, compelling, and aligned with your bigger purpose.
• When considering new projects, think about alignment with your vision, who should own the project, and what systems are needed.
• Focus on identifying and targeting your ideal clients in order to improve sales and market positioning.
• Shift towards 7-figure-CEO tasks such as strategic vision, marketing leadership, optimizing team growth, and building partnerships.
• Use KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track important business metrics and assign owners for each metric for better accountability.
• Emphasize the importance of systems to address issues and replicate success across different areas of your business.
• Avoid reactivity by focusing on long-term solutions and teaching your team to bring up issues at designated meetings.
• Implement meeting rhythms and structures to improve communication and overall business efficiency.
• Attract high-performing talents by highlighting your company’s vision, mission, and the opportunity to be part of something meaningful.
• In sales, aim to have leads that are 80% pre-sold and clearly demonstrate your understanding of their situation, desires, and pain points.
• Gain a deep understanding of your ideal customers through surveys and interviews, then use their words and phrases in marketing.
• Aim to “own a phrase” in your market to solidify your brand identity and create a constant flow of qualified leads.

On Crafting a Vivid Vision

“Take some time, get outside or away from your normal workplace and environment, and craft a 3- to 10-page overview of exactly where you’ll be three years from now. Define the future and create a document to share around. Cameron Herold’s Vivid Vision process is invaluable here.”

“Here are a few signs that you have the right, clear, compelling vision: You can see it and FEEL your vision as if you’re already there! There is a bigger purpose or mission to it other than making money. It makes you smile even simply thinking about it. It’s a bit scary and will stretch you; but you still believe to your core it can (and will) happen. It helps you realize that 99% of the challenges you face are minuscule compared to where you’re going. They’re nothing but tests to make you stronger. It helps you attract your dream team into your life in and out of business—clients, employees, spouse, friends, partners—that also have the same vision and values.”

“6-Figure Hustler: General goals, often changing. No clearly defined business vision. Team isn’t very clear on the company direction and overall mission. 7-Figure CEO: You have a specific, compelling personal and business visions”

“When a new project or opportunity comes up, the seven-figure CEO thinks first about alignment with their future vision and whether or not it is essential. The reality is, most things are busywork and not aligned or strategic to help you achieve your vision. So this is a huge first step. Then, if it is aligned, they think two very important things: Who should own this project? What systems are needed?”

On How To Think About New Projects

“You come up with a new project that has potential for a big ROI? Great. Instead of immediately taking it on and adding yet another thing to your plate, stop and think: Who is going to own this project? And what systems do they need to make it an ongoing success? What happens if a fire comes up? Sure, it happens (hopefully less and less), but instead of hopping in and handling it yourself like normal, think: Who is going to own this issue? And what systems do we need to have so this never comes up again? This simple mentality will keep you out of the weeds, empower your team, improve your operations, and ultimately allow you to grow your company better and faster than ever. It’s a subtle difference that makes a massive impact.”

On The Importance of Finding Ideal Clients

“Are you selling the right people, the right products, at the right price, with the right positioning in a way that can scale? If you are clear, targeted, and strategic with this, you’ll be the market leader in no time. But most are not!”

“Here’s how most six figure businesses look. It’s a mix of ideal (ITA), ok, and pain-in-the-ass (PITA) clients. But imagine if you go a few layers deeper”

“Who is your perfect customer? Who can you best serve? Who can you be the undisputed market leader for exactly? Who would you love to duplicate as a client over and over again?”

On Focusing on 7-Figure-CEO Tasks

“If you only had 10 hours per week to manage your business, what would you do?”

“Some of the most common CEO income-producing activities we suggest are: To create, maintain, and evolve the strategic vision and direction of the business—your team needs to see and feel where you’re headed, as this ‘North Star’ guides all of the decisions and creates more than just a ‘job’ for people. Lead growth and your overall strategy to scale. Be the spokesperson of the business leading the marketing and content. Focus on mass sales opportunities (reaching the masses and optimizing your time). Growing and optimizing a world-class team by recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, and developing your employees.”

“Form strategic partnerships with others who have an audience of potential buyers of your products/services to create a win-win. Managing and optimizing finances and capital to drive growth. Acquiring other businesses to include or leverage to exponentially grow your own. Creating a best-in-class scalable product/program. New product development and extensions. Spearheading the biggest bottleneck initiative at any time.”

"”Tier 1: Admin - Email inbox, social media posting, simple tech, customer service, setting up blog posts Tier 2: Technician - Doing ‘the work,’ low-level project management, client delivery, editing and optimizing web pages, basic content creation, prospecting, sales Tier 3: Manager - Team management, employee optimization, running meetings, legal, creating systems Tier 4: Executive - Strategy, leading big marketing initiatives, hiring key roles, building partnerships””

“Start there. Brainstorm a list, and then trim it down to the top five swimlanes. Remember: It’s time to stop being a do-it-all superhero. Get clear and step into your role as a seven figure CEO. It’s time.”

On the Importance of KPIs

“If I had to make all of my business decisions based on only 10 numbers, what would they be? You’ll likely want some KPIs (key performance indicators) related to: Profit Cash Client Satisfaction Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) Cost to Acquire New Customers (CAC) Employee Satisfaction/Performance A Leading Marketing Metric (e.g. number of qualified leads) Number of Sales Opportunities (e.g. sales calls scheduled) Sales Conversions. Revenue Growth (total rolling 90-day revenue chart) Average Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) Churn Rate (how many clients cancel; you could also do client success rate or customer satisfaction, such as Net Promoter Score, but we like churn as a top metric to know) Cost to Acquire Customer (CAC, broken down by channel and overall) Monthly Free Cash Flow (you could track profit margin) Number of Sales Opportunities (booked sales calls, only counting those who are qualified). Close Ratio (of total qualified sales opportunities) Core Capital (making sure we are ahead financially; more on this soon) Employee NPS And a leading metric for our top marketing focus at the moment”

“Once you identify which metrics matter most, track them regularly, assign an owner to each one so that you can offload the responsibility of driving and improving that metric, and then hold your team accountable to them just like you would yourself. Now your team is clear and aligned on what the output is. It’s wild how few entrepreneurs get their team clear on the metrics.”

“So start by tracking these regularly to monitor trends and issues. Most metrics will be great to track and update weekly. Have the owner of each metric (not you!) provide updates on the results and their plan of attack to improve as needed. This is a game-changing shift, as you’re then empowering and leading by the numbers.”

On the Importance of Systems

“This mentality is what Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, has used to help build one of the top companies in the world. My favorite story about him goes as follows: Mr. Schultz was on a trip and went to one of many Starbucks locations. At the store, a light in the sign was out. This was not a good look for the manager there, as Schultz was making a very rare one-time visit. What could Howard have done here? A. Have the staff fix it right away B. Get mad and reprimand the store manager C. Neither of the above (He chose C.) What he did instead is a crucial reason why Starbucks has such an insanely successful and scalable business. Per the story, Howard immediately called back to headquarters and asked: “What is our process to handle a light being out?” He could have handled it a bunch of different ways, but he immediately went to the source of the problem. He addressed the system so that this problem wouldn’t happen again. He didn’t immediately go to the Band-Aid solution to fix that single bulb. He focused on the big lever (the system) that would impact his entire chain of stores. That mentality and thinking is absolutely game-changing.”

On Avoiding Reactivity

“By making things tangible, it’s much easier to address. So, we created a spreadsheet log to list out any reactivity that comes up in our day-to-day operations. Each time it does, we go to the source to analyze how it happened and plan out what systems we need to create/improve to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

"”We have a ‘72-hour rule’ that if you need something from someone else, you should request it at a minimum 72 hours ahead of time. Every person on your team (not just you) has some important things to get done, and if you pull them off their work to be reactive, that has a major ripple effect. Then you wonder why they aren’t getting anything important done?”

On the Importance of Meetings

“Most six-figure entrepreneurs have no set meetings or rhythm. If they do, they’re often inconsistent and a waste of everyone’s time (and your hard-earned money!). We have to change that. A good meeting rhythm and structure limits reactivity, improves communication, gets everyone aligned, improves the culture, and helps everyone move more efficiently. Here are the top six meetings and time-blocks that need to go on your calendar immediately.”

“1 - The Daily Huddle This is the 80/20 of meetings that we broke down in detail in Chapter 5. If you do only five actions from this book, make this one of them. It’s a very short meeting every workday with your entire team (or department if it’s more than ~8 people) to improve communication and management with one central daily check-in. This way, everyone brings their main updates here, dramatically reducing the back-and-forth throughout the day that often pulls people (and most importantly you) away from tasks and out of focus. Train your team to stop the reactivity throughout the day and bring their questions and challenges to the Daily Huddle…and watch your company’s output double with one move.”

“The Daily Huddle This is one meeting that changes everything—and it takes 15 minutes or less. Done right, this meeting improves communication, focus, accountability, team planning, and efficiency. Long story short, this is a must. This is a quick 8- to 15-minute meeting to run through: Quick numbers update—check in on the top KPIs to refocus everyone on the objective Everyone’s top focus for the day—the most important priorities they’re going to complete “Stucks”—quick questions, needs, or things they’re behind on to discuss End with clarity—wrap up quickly with clear next steps, reminder of the current big focus, and momentum so everyone is focused and set for a great 24 hours until your next huddle This meeting is fast, focused, and has you able to effectively manage (and hold accountable) your team. Train everyone to bring their questions and challenges to this meeting to discuss and solve at once. This reduces reactivity and gets everyone aligned all at once. Then everyone is off to the races to execute. You included! So block it off and get a daily huddle started immediately if you don’t already do it. For small teams under seven people, we recommend one daily huddle. But as your team grows it’ll likely break into department huddles. Regardless, this is the most important meeting. Make it a part of your culture, and your team performance will improve immediately.”

On Hiring

“Everything starts with the vision and mission of the company. High-performers aren’t looking for a job. In this day and age, people are searching for meaning now more than ever. They yearn for that connection and mission—especially top-performing people who have lots of options for what they could do. They are looking to be a part of something. So give them that opportunity! Share the vision and mission of the company, and create something much bigger than just a boring old job. Where are you headed? Why does it matter? Whether you’re selling coaching programs or accounting services or anything else, it doesn’t matter—create a compelling future that will get the right people you want to hire fired up to join you.”

On Sales

“The goal with this is to have your leads be at least 80% pre-sold on your product/service before they ever get a pitch and price. This makes the sales experience so much easier and smoother, plus you don’t have to rely on crazy sales tactics.”

“Imagine that your sales team only talks to hot, qualified, pre-sold leads that have seen your best content and top case studies, and they know what you offer. What would that mean for your sales team? What about your conversion rates? What about your confidence in scaling your marketing?”

“What you want to do in your marketing and lead-up to the sale is nail their problem and situation. You want them to be thinking, “Yes, you made this for me. That is exactly my situation!””

“You should know their pains, dreams, desires, and fears so well that you can speak directly to them and have them think, “Wow, this company gets me!””

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how clear and targeted are you on your perfect customer? Do you know them inside and out? Are you specific and clear in your marketing? Or are you casting a fairly wide net, afraid to turn away business?”

“One thing we do is send leads to a couple videos that explain some of our key methodologies. This touches on some of their pain points and why they’re stuck not growing their business. Even more importantly, we give a lot of value and show that we have the solution that will forever solve their pain.”

“The common saying in sales is, “Time kills all deals.” Instead, show them social proof, get them excited, build that momentum—and strike while they’re hot. Don’t delay.”

“A few examples of trial closes are: Where do you see our product having the biggest impact? How do you feel about what we’ve discussed so far? Which option are you leaning toward so far; the {option 1} or the {option 2}?”

“The best way to handle objections is by addressing them before they come up. But even if this is a focus in your pre-sales process (using the ‘80% Sold’ rule), objections will still come up, and you need to be ready to handle them.”

“Another great way to understand your ITA is to do what seems almost crazy to some, and that’s actually talk to your ideal audience. I know, it’s a wild concept. Pick up the phone, do a video call, or meet them in person, and just ask them a few questions.”

“And then here’s another million-dollar marketing hack that seems way too simple: Use their exact words and phrases in your messaging and copy!”

“Let’s recap the process: Identify who your ideal customers are. Go deep in understanding them through surveys, interviews, and working one-on-one. Learn from them to figure out exactly how and where to market, what to sell, etc. Use their exact words, stories, and examples in your marketing. And continue to repeat this process.”

Owning a Phrase

“Own A Phrase “The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind.””

“At a previous company of mine, Epic Launch, we wanted to own the phrase ‘book launch’ for our ITA, and we did for a while. As a result, we had a constant flood of new, qualified, and interested leads—so much that we didn’t have to do any marketing at all!”

“Now at 2X we are known for the word ‘systems’ to our audience of business owners. The vast majority of clients that come into the 2X Accelerator program are pre-sold on us and the idea that they need systems to make their business much more repeatable and scalable without more hours. That makes us a no-brainer for them.”

Other

“Get more strategic. Compress time. And start blowing past your goals. The next chapter will help make sure that happens. It’s the “tipping point” where everything changes in your business.”

“The average person is looking to save pennies, while the best are looking to make big money moves.”

“I love the Winston Churchill quote, “For the first 25 years of my life, I wanted freedom. For the next 25 years, I wanted order. For the next 25 years, I realized that order is freedom.””