Promote Yourself to CEO | Small Business Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs

• Why a Big Enough Business Is Key to a Business & Life You Love

  Send us a text  You’ve seen the hype about small business and entrepreneurial success out there. It’s unreal! Not a day goes by when I don’t see photos of fancy cars, vacations, oodles of cash, and the typical success catch phrases that come with them on my social media. Here’s the conundrum, though: when your business crosses into the territory of making seven or eight figures, it can quickly become less about doing what you love and more about grinding things out as an entrepreneur to meet demand.  So does bigger actually mean better for you? Or is big enough... enough? In today’s episode, I talk about why I believe in creating a big enough business to create an actual business and life you love. On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO: 5:54 - I discuss what it was like growing up around entrepreneurs, and the surprising information I recently learned from my mother. 8:16 - Why should you beware of creating a business that grows too fast? I tell you what I’ve seen from businesses that experienced hyper growth. 10:02 - I retell a parable about a CEO and a fisherman that illustrates my point. 12:47 - I describe the time I was at a crossroads when I first heard the parable and the realization I came to after some reflection. 15:30 - The big questions I want you to ask about your revenue goals, and defining a Big Enough Business, the kind that loves you back. 17:10 - An early lesson in my business that serves as an example of why NOT to model your version of success after someone else. 20:05 - An example of what my "Big Enough Business" looks like and why it serves me in creating a business and life I love. 23:55 - How being intentional allows me to succeed without sacrificing my life and without causing me to be in a constant state of emergency in my business. 25:20 - How a big enough business allows you to live in your business sweet spot, and stop dreading Monday morning. 27:50 - How a big enough business and building a business and life you love will mean you must know your non-negotiables.  29:40 - Does focusing on a big enough business, mean you lack ambition?  34:00 - The questions I want you to ask to define your big enough business. Show Links The CEO Collective Racheal on Instagram Connect with Me: Instagram: @racheal.cook TikTok: @rachealcookmba LinkedIn: @rachealcook YouTube: @the_ceo_collective Website: The CEO Collective Subscribe & Review: If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! 🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

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• Why You Need to Build Your Village (and Stop Trying to Be Superwoman)

  Send us a textStop burning out while building your empire. CEO and entrepreneur Rachel Cook reveals why your success is setting you up for a crash—and the three-layer support system that saved her business during family crisis. Learn the exact reset strategies, email scripts, and relationship-building tactics that let you scale sustainably without sacrificing your sanity. This isn't typical self-care advice—it's strategic business infrastructure. Discover how to spot burnout before it hits, build non-transactional support networks, and create recurring systems that keep you resourced through any challenge. Essential listening for ambitious women who refuse to choose between success and wellbeing.Connect with Me: Instagram: @racheal.cook TikTok: @rachealcookmba LinkedIn: @rachealcook YouTube: @the_ceo_collective Website: The CEO Collective Subscribe & Review: If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! 🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

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• It's Messy in the Middle

  Send us a textI'm recording from a completely new space today, and honestly, that feels fitting because everything about my business and personal life has shifted over the past 18 months. What started as managing my parents' care while growing a thriving business has turned into something much more complex.You might think successful entrepreneurs have it all figured out, but I'm here to tell you that's not how it works. While my business was scaling to a team of 12 and hosting sold-out retreats, I was also getting new medical diagnoses, watching my father relapse into alcoholism for the third time, and spending $16,000 a month on my mother's care. Sometimes life demands that you make hard choices about what you can and can't handle.This isn't your typical business strategy episode. I'm sharing what it actually looks like when the CEO of your life has to make decisions that nobody prepares you for - from letting go of team members to setting boundaries with family to completely restructuring how you show up in your business. If you're navigating major life changes while trying to keep your business running, you'll want to hear this.On This Episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:• Major business pivots under pressure - Why I closed my downtown office, scaled back my team from 12 to 2 core members, and what that taught me about sustainable growth• Managing chronic illness as an entrepreneur - Getting a lupus diagnosis and finding the right medical support while running a business (and why perimenopause is no joke)• The real cost of family caregiving - How spending $16K monthly on my mom's nursing care led to difficult decisions about boundaries and what "responsibility" actually means• Navigating addiction in the family - What it looks like to watch a parent go through rehab three times and why I had to learn that you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved• Building business resilience for life's curveballs - The systems and mindset shifts that allowed my business to not just survive but thrive during the most challenging 18 months of my lifeConnect with Me: Instagram: @racheal.cook TikTok: @rachealcookmba LinkedIn: @rachealcook YouTube: @the_ceo_collective Website: The CEO Collective Subscribe & Review: If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! 🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

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• 6 Lessons to Work Smarter, Not Harder

  Send us a textI used to get so frustrated when people told me to "work smarter, not harder." My parents were entrepreneurs who embraced the hustle, and I thought success meant being willing to work 80-100 hour weeks, doing anything and everything to grow your business.But here's what I learned the hard way: there's a ceiling to how much harder you can work. When you hit it, you become the bottleneck in your own business.I've built a multiple six-figure business working just 25 hours a week—not through some magical productivity hack, but by fundamentally shifting how I think about work itself. In this episode, I'm sharing the six strategies that allowed me to step out of the grind and into true CEO-level thinking.This isn't about cramming more tasks into your day or finding the perfect time-blocking system. It's about questioning everything you've been taught about what it takes to succeed and discovering that the entrepreneurs who scale sustainably aren't the ones working the hardest—they're the ones working the smartest.If you've hit that wall where working harder isn't the answer anymore, these six shifts will change how you approach every aspect of your business.On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO:• Do less with more focus - I'll show you why having a signature offer and focused marketing strategy delivers exponentially higher returns than trying to be everywhere at once• CEO doesn't mean Chief Everything Officer - I learned this lesson the hard way about letting go of control and building the support systems that freed me from day-to-day busy work• What got you here won't get you there - I'll walk you through the critical pivot points every business faces and why your current strategies might be holding you back from the next level• Embrace rinse and repeat - Find out why I had to overcome my creative nature to build reusable assets that prevent me from constantly recreating the wheel• Create the money to invest back - How I shifted my mindset from "I can't afford this" to "I can create the money for this" and transformed how I view business investments• Find mentors and masterminds - Why you can't Google your way to success and how having the right people in my corner accelerated my growth exponentiallyConnect with Me: Instagram: @racheal.cook TikTok: @rachealcookmba LinkedIn: @rachealcook YouTube: @the_ceo_collective Website: The CEO Collective Subscribe & Review: If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! 🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

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• 3 High Leverage Ways to Keep Up Business Momentum

  Send us a textJust because it's a slow down season in your personal life doesn't mean your sales have to follow suit. Summer especially is known (and sometimes feared) as a dead time for business revenue. Unless your product specifically caters to what people purchase during these months, you're probably bracing for that dreaded dip in sales.But what if I told you the sales gravy train can keep rolling, even while you're enjoying those precious summer moments with family? After realizing I only have a handful of summers left before my twins prefer friends over family time, I knew I needed a solution that wouldn't sacrifice revenue for relaxation.The truth is, momentum doesn't require constant hustle. In my 15+ years helping women entrepreneurs scale sustainably, I've identified three high-leverage tactics that keep businesses thriving during personal slowdowns. These strategies don't demand more time—quite the opposite. Once implemented, they work automatically in the background while you're at the beach or enjoying summer evenings with loved ones.In this episode, I'm sharing exactly how to keep generating the sales and revenue you desire (and deserve) when you step back from your business, so you never have to experience the feast-or-famine cycle that plagues most entrepreneurs during summer months.Complete your mid-year review first to identify what's actually creating momentum in your business.Remove friction from your buying process to make sales effortless even when you're off the clock.Discover how pre-selling future projects keeps service providers booked without sacrificing summer freedom. Learn why repurposing content creates more impact with less effort than constant creation. Find out which marketing strategy to double down on when everyone else is scaling back. Implement these three momentum-maintaining tactics for a relaxed summer without revenue drops. Connect with Me: Instagram: @racheal.cook TikTok: @rachealcookmba LinkedIn: @rachealcook YouTube: @the_ceo_collective Website: The CEO Collective Subscribe & Review: If you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! 🎤 Thanks for listening! I'll see you next week!

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