In this post: Discover the CEO mindset entrepreneurs need when sales slip. Learn how to balance creator mode with strategic business planning for better results.
Have you ever wondered why your sales are slipping, even though you’re creating more products than ever? Here’s a thought: You might be stuck in creator mode when your business desperately needs a CEO.
I learned this myself the hard way when my own sales started declining despite cranking out new products left and right. I was making whatever I felt like creating without any real strategy behind it. I hadn’t taken the time to step out of creator mode (which, let’s be real, is my favorite thing to do in my business) and put on my CEO hat to think strategically.
In this episode, I’m sharing the difference between creator mode and CEO mode, plus how to know which hat you should be wearing right now to get your business back on track.
Table of Contents
What Is Creator Mode?
Let’s start with the fun stuff that most of us love. Creator mode is doing the things that feel like the exciting part of our business:
- Imagining and creating new products
- Designing social media graphics or website pages
- Recording new video trainings or courses
- Writing podcast episodes and blog posts
- Tweaking website layouts and product designs
- Adjusting your logo or brand fonts
These are the things that light us up as creative entrepreneurs. They feel fun and energizing. This is where the CEO mindset entrepreneurs need becomes critical.
Why Creator Mode Feels So Good
Creator mode feels productive because at the end of the day, you’ve made something. You can physically see what you’ve accomplished, and that’s energizing and exciting. It feels good to check something off a to-do list and have a digital product that you’ve completed.
Your creativity is what sets you apart from your competition. It’s what makes your audience love your products and what makes you unique. Creator mode is obviously super important.
Here’s where things get tricky: Most of us get stuck in creator mode and avoid the strategic business planning that actually grows our business. But the CEO mindset entrepreneurs need means knowing when to step away from creation.
Understanding the CEO Mindset Entrepreneurs Need
The less fun reality is that developing a CEO mindset for entrepreneurs is just as important as your creative work. When I talk about CEO mode, I’m referring to the business of running your business.
What CEO Mode Actually Looks Like
Strategic business planning and a CEO mindset include:
- Looking at the money – Reviewing your financial data regularly
- Analyzing metrics – Understanding what your numbers are telling you
- Setting data-driven goals – Making decisions based on actual performance, not just gut feeling
- Making strategic decisions – Planning your next moves based on data analysis
- Updating your offers strategically – Improving what you sell based on customer behavior and sales data, not just what you think you should do
- Building your team – Hiring and training team members to support growth
If you sat there reading all of that thinking, “Oh, that sounds terrible,” I totally get it. These aren’t usually the fun parts for us as creatives.
Why You Can’t Wear Both Hats at Once
The hard truth is, you can’t wear both hats at the same time, and your business needs them both.
What I’ve found works for me is to make a conscious shift between modes. Both matter, because as important as the creative work is, without the CEO work, we can run ourselves and our business into the ground. We end up cranking out tons of products with no strategy behind them, or spending forever tweaking tiny things on our website or logo that aren’t really making a difference in our business.
Why CEO Time Feels Less Productive (But Isn’t)
Both roles are super important, but the thing that trips most of us up as creative entrepreneurs is that the CEO work doesn’t feel as productive.
Like I said, creator mode feels super productive because you have a thing at the end of the day. When I’m in CEO mode, a lot of times what I have at the end of the day is a to-do list. That doesn’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything. In fact, it can sometimes feel like you just gave yourself more work.
The reality is that the work you come up with for yourself out of your CEO time is better quality work.
Want to hear more about why this matters? Watch the full episode above where I share my personal experience with this struggle.
How CEO Time Prevents Endless Trial and Error
The CEO mindset entrepreneurs develop through your CEO time sets you up for doing the right creative tasks later, for making the right strategy-based or data-backed changes to a product or a sales funnel. It prevents you from endless trial and error.
Without strategic planning, we get stuck in this cycle: “Well, this product isn’t selling as well as I want, so I guess I’ll try this and wait a little while. Okay, it hasn’t really turned around, so let me try this new idea. Let me go to ChatGPT and see what ideas they can come up with for me.”
When we do that, we’re doing all this work that maybe the data could have told us wasn’t going to work in the first place, or was addressing something that’s not even the problem. When you put in the time on that CEO work, it helps set you up for better creative work down the road. This is the CEO mindset entrepreneurs use to break free from guessing games.
How to Schedule Your CEO Time
For me, I have to treat these as separate things. I put tasks on my to-do list that I know are CEO tasks, and other tasks that are creative. I do this with a little bit of time blocking.
It’s pretty casual in terms of the way some people talk about time blocking. I don’t have a set hour of the day that I must do CEO work or anything like that. But generally speaking, I do have a monthly CEO day.
Monthly CEO Day: The First of Every Month
Every month, on the first of the month, I do some CEO tasks. These are essentially the things you need to do to close out the previous month and get ready for the next one.
During my monthly CEO day on the first, I am:
- Looking over the numbers
- Paying invoices that need to be paid on the first
- Paying my team and myself
- Looking at things like taxes that might be due
- Looking ahead at the coming month
- Making strategic plans for how I’m going to spend my time during each week
- Identifying what things need to get done by a certain week
For example, if I’ve got a big sale happening the third week of the month, then I know in weeks one and two, I’m going to need to do some email writing and get things ready for that sale.
Weekly CEO Blocks
On a weekly basis, I also drop in a few CEO blocks for those tasks that just need to be done every week. Things like responding to emails and actually addressing whatever was in them.
It can be easy to put off answering an email about an error in a product or something that’s not working the way it’s supposed to, or someone who has a question. But those things are important for keeping your business moving forward. So I drop in some CEO blocks for those every single week. These regular check-ins help build a habit of that CEO mindset entrepreneurs need to stay strategic.
How CEO Mindset Entrepreneurs Match Time to Energy Levels
For me (and this may be totally different for you), I do my best thinking and deep creative work in the mornings. So my mornings are when I block out creative tasks, and I do the CEO stuff in the afternoon, when I’m not feeling as creative, maybe my energy is down a little bit, and I just need to sit and check things off a list without doing a whole lot of deep thinking.
You may feel the exact opposite. You might need to do the CEO stuff in the morning, or maybe you do all your work in the evenings and on Saturdays. Whatever you do, you need to think about your own energy patterns, the way you work best, and make a plan to block out some time for that CEO level work you need to do for your business.
Your CEO Time Action Plan
Here’s how to build the CEO mindset entrepreneurs need:
Start with Monthly CEO Time
Block out the first of the month for a half day or so – two to four hours, depending on how much you need to get done.
During that time, you want to do things like:
- Reviewing last month’s numbers
- Paying yourself or your team
- Any financial tasks that need to get done
- Looking ahead at the coming month
- Mapping out what you’ll need to get done during each week
Put it in your calendar now on a recurring basis, and treat it as non-negotiable. I block it in my calendar with a recurrence on the first every single month, and it’s marked as busy time, so nothing else can get blocked in there.
Add Weekly CEO Blocks
Every week, add some weekly CEO blocks as well – one, two, maybe three shorter blocks of time. For me, I do that during my low energy times. This is when I’m handling emails, fixing issues, maybe checking over some weekly data if I’ve got things like ads running that need more frequent data checks.
Match Your Schedule to Your Energy
Schedule your creative work during those peak energy hours when you are most effective and excited about work. Then schedule the CEO work for the times when you might be feeling a little more drained and less creative.
If you’re just getting started with this idea, start with just one hour a week and build a habit of blocking that into your schedule.
The Bottom Line
Your creativity is absolutely what makes your products and your offers special, and it sets you apart from everybody else. But without the CEO work and the CEO mindset entrepreneurs develop from it, you’re creating into the void.. You don’t have any strategy behind it, and you’re just throwing things out there and hoping they work.
Really successful digital product sellers know when it’s time to create, and when they need to lead their business, because a successful business needs both.
My challenge for you is to look at your calendar right now and ask yourself: When was the last time you really, truly, honestly put on that CEO hat and did the CEO work?
If you can’t remember, then maybe it’s time to schedule some CEO time in today.
FAQs About Developing a CEO Mindset
How much time should I spend in CEO mode vs creator mode?
There’s no perfect ratio, but most entrepreneurs benefit from dedicating at least 20% of their work time to strategic business planning and analysis. Start with one monthly CEO day and a few weekly blocks, then adjust based on what your business needs. The CEO mindset entrepreneurs develop grows with practice.
What if I hate looking at data and metrics?
You don’t have to become a data scientist. Start with the basics: revenue, email open rates, and conversion rates. Even small amounts of data analysis will help you make better decisions than guessing. Schedule it during your low-energy times to make it easier.
Can I hire someone to do the CEO work for me?
While you can delegate some tasks like bookkeeping or data reporting, the strategic decision-making needs to come from you as the business owner. You can hire help to prepare the information, but you need to review it and make the decisions.
How do I know when to switch between creator mode and CEO mode?
If your sales are declining, you’re feeling overwhelmed, or you’re creating without purpose, it’s time for CEO mode. If you have a clear strategy and need to execute on it, that’s creator mode time. Use time blocking to create structure around both.
What should I do during my first monthly CEO day?
Start by reviewing last month’s revenue and expenses, pay yourself and any team members, check on any upcoming tax obligations, and then look ahead at the next month. Map out your major projects and deadlines for each week. This gives you a strategic roadmap for the month ahead.
Ready to Balance Your Creator and CEO Mindset?
Developing a CEO mindset for entrepreneurs doesn’t mean losing your creativity. It means channeling that creativity more strategically so every product you create, every piece of content you publish, and every hour you work actually moves your business forward.
Your business needs both the creator and the CEO. The question is: which hat do you need to be wearing right now?
If you’re ready to grow your digital product business with strategy and systems that actually work, join me in the Savvy Seller Collective. We focus on creating signature offers, building strategic website content for organic traffic, and developing repeatable sales systems with funnels and email sequences – all without the constant social media hustle.
Want more strategies for growing your digital product business? Subscribe to The Savvy Seller podcast for weekly no-fluff tools and strategies that move the needle without burning you out. Find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.
