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Stepping Into Your CEO Role with Amy Traugh – Ep. 148

In today’s episode, we dove deep into the journey of stepping into your CEO role. I’m joined by Amy Traugh shared her transformation from healthcare to empowering entrepreneurs and reminded us that money is a tool for impact. We uncovered the power of KPIs, debunked the myths that hold us back, and highlighted the importance of believing in our worth to succeed on our own terms. If you’re looking to lead your business with confidence and clarity, this is a conversation you can’t afford to miss. Her answer to the last question I asked was so golden, so let’s get to it!

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Podcast Key Points:

0:00 – Episode Overview
2:31 – Money Means Flexibility
3:54 – Living On Autopilot
7:15 – What Does It Mean To Step Into The CEO Role
13:38 – Shiny Object Syndrome
14:33 – Networking Calls
16:08 – Belief In You
20:46 – Connect With Amy

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Stepping Into Your CEO Role with Amy Traugh

Aimee Cerka
Today we’re diving into the journey of stepping into the CEO role in your business. I’m joined today by Amy Traugh. And she shared her transformation from health care to Empowering Entrepreneurs, and how we use money as a tool for impact. We talked about uncovering the power of KPIs debunking the myths that hold us back.

We talked also about the importance of believing in your worth and how to do that and creating success on your own terms. So if you’re looking to lead your business with confidence and clarity, to things that I know you want, if you were here, this is the conversation you can’t afford to miss. And her answer to the last question that I asked was just so golden.

About Amy Traugh: A Passion for Empowering Entrepreneurs

So Amy is a self proclaimed chaos coordinator, a three time business founder and business strategist specializing in helping online service providers grow their companies, and the host of the top 2.5% globally right podcast, The Motivated CEO. She is passionate about empowering and educating others how to regain control and design a business built around their lives because there’s so many other things you know, we’ve all seen that right? All the shiny object syndrome, everything is so out of the entrepreneur space. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And with that, yeah, let’s just get to it.

Aimee Cerka
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast, I’m your host, Aimee Cerka, a money confidence coach for female entrepreneurs on the path to six figures. After over 10 years in the personal finance industry and multiple personal financial and medical crisis. I was fed up with the lies that are being shouted from the rooftops by the Gurus and the media.

So now I help you simplify, solidify and scale your money. By blending tactile money, strategies with mindset work, you can create unstoppable finances together, you’ll finally figure out the money thing. So you can make more money in less time without living off of beans and rice, or sacrificing your lifestyle.

Episodes here on the podcast are short and sweet. Being married, having four kids at home, homeschooling being the CEO running the household, I’m kind of busy. And I know you are too. So let’s keep it simple. And get to the point. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Aimee Cerka
Welcome, Amy to the Your Money, Your Life podcast. I have to say I’m really excited for this conversation because we had such a great conversation when I was on your podcast of couple months ago. So welcome.

Amy Traugh
Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m so excited to be here and chat with you again. I loved our conversation.

Money: A Tool for Impact

Aimee Cerka
Yeah. So starting off, I always like to ask the podcast is Your Money Your Life? So what does your money your life mean to you?

Amy Traugh
Yes. Oh, my gosh, this is such a great question. Because to me, it means flexibility and freedom. I used to be so afraid of money, I had such this money block surrounding everything with my business. But I realized that in order to make more of an impact I can do that with the more money I make. So money is just a tool that’s helping me make an impact in this world. It’s that ripple effect that all starts with us.

Aimee Cerka
I love that you said that. And one of the most popular episodes that people like still go back and find on the podcast is called It’s Not About The Money. Because it’s the thing when people tell me I’m not money motivated. And that all of that like it’s like, no, that’s not the point.

It’s like what can you do with the money? It’s not. We’re not like obsessed with this because it’s money. It’s what we do with that. So now, of course, I have read your newest book, really sped read, but I loved your story about how you became a business strategist. So for those of us listening, that haven’t met you yet, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that?

Amy Traugh
Oh, my gosh, it’s been a wild ride. If you would have told me you know, five years ago, I’d be doing what I’m doing. I would have looked at you said and said like you’re absolutely crazy.

Because I came from a career in health care, it was one of those things that I went through life checking boxes, you know, go to college, get married, have the kids like you’re on paper. I was living my dream. I was living what I thought was, quote, unquote, success.

But what I really came to realize and it hit me upside the head during the pandemic was, what am I doing? I was going through the motions and living on autopilot that I forgot to actually stop and ask myself, What do I want? Because I think we all learned that nothing’s guaranteed in life.

We can have everything and then some, but it can all be turned upside down in the blink of an eye. And that’s really what the pandemic afforded me the opportunity to do and so I got quiet. And I reflected and asked myself, What do I really want.

And at first, I had no flippin clue, like none. And it was hard coming to that realization that this career that I had worked so hard for, I mean, I was licensed, I went to college, like, I had everything, but it just didn’t feel aligned anymore. Because I’m on a whim, I started my first business, which then turned into another business and has since evolved into what I am doing now. And what I absolutely love, which is empowering and educating fellow entrepreneurs, on how to achieve success on their terms.

So often we’re seeking and striving for these things that are external. But it really starts with getting clear on what do we want, so that we’re not adopting other’s goals as our own. So in a nutshell, yeah, it’s been a wild ride, it’s been a lot of learning. But I get to do what I absolutely loved about my career in physical therapy, and that’s helping others achieve success on their terms.

Aimee Cerka
That is a common thread with us entrepreneurs, I find it’s like, we’re here to help people. And we talk about this often even like, because there’s that money, we were talking about money. Yes, there we go.

Trying to remember if that was before we hit record. But we were talking about the money and so many people will be like, you know, they’re afraid of being green. It’s like, getting greedy, people aren’t afraid to be being greedy.

And those things that we have those fears, we still obviously still have to work through those. But that’s the common theme. Like we want to help people. And I love that you bring that up about the pandemic, because that’s one of the things that I say all the time, it’s like, something’s gonna come up.

And I think that was the pandemic for a lot of people, we, I was in a position thankfully that like we had gone through our major thing beforehand. So I really felt like I was able to help more people, but like that was, I don’t know another word to call it but like the blessing there that people like had their eyes open that we could kind of see like, This is what life is, can be like, and we have to be more prepared for some of those things.

So we’re talking about your book, and we’re gonna give a link and all those things at the end, to make sure to access that. But one of the we would call it a major theme is talking about stepping into the CEO role, CEO role of your business. And I love I love the idea of it.

I love the concept of that because I feel like so many times that it’s loud, right? The entrepreneur space is loud, and they’re telling us to do all those things. And we have to do this and you should be doing that. And if you should be on TikTok and all these shoulds. And I know you talked about that in the book. But what does it actually mean, to step into the CEO or CEO role of your business, right.

Finding Clarity in Business Strategy

Amy Traugh
And this is something so many business owners struggle with, we’re wearing all the hats, many of us are still solopreneurs. So we’re doing all of the things and we’re treating ourselves as our own worst employee, we’re burnt out, we’re stressed out, we quit our nine to five. So we’re 24/7.

But the thing is, when you get so crystal clear, when you establish those systems and automations, and you have a solid marketing and sales strategy, that’s when you truly step into the role of CEO. That’s when you become the trailblazer and the leader of your business. Because now you’re taking that zoomed out 30,000 foot view of your business, I’m really truly treating it like a business, we’re not getting wrapped up in the emotion of it.

Because at the end of the day, we’re human, we’re going to have emotions. But you don’t think that the CEO of Walmart is sitting there when somebody decides to go to Target and not shop at Walmart and losing sleep over it. No, we need to use and leverage our data in our businesses to drive our decisions. And when you start to get more strategic when you have that massive clarity. That’s what will allow you to step into the role of CEO.

Unveiling the Power of KPIs

Aimee Cerka
I love it. And you talked about KPIs, some of the KPIs that you like to track inside the book. So I have to ask though, is there like a favorite unique KPI that you love seeing like it was surprising or something when you started tracking that? You know, honestly,

Amy Traugh
I think it’s always and this is something I see with my clients a lot too, is where are your customers coming in from? How are they becoming aware of you?

A lot of times we like to think that the things that are fun, like social media, oh, I’m spending all this time on social media. I have 10s of 1000s of followers. Okay, that’s great, but are they converting? Where are your current customers finding you how are you getting visible to them? And if you want to know simply ask If I ask people, How did you come into my world, every single person that comes in and follows me on Instagram, I always ask them, Where did you find me?

Because chances are organic search is such a small percentage, let’s start to work smarter and really harness the effects of relationships, retention and referrals. I think that referrals, especially are something that’s so undervalued as a business owner, and one of the easiest ways that we can grow our business with aligned clients versus spending hours and hours creating content on social not knowing, okay, what is the exact reach?

And I mean, I don’t know about you, but I really don’t get many clients from social media. Yes, I use social media as a tool to further nurture those relationships. But I’m not using it as top of funnel, it’s there to be an awareness piece.

It’s used for collaboration. But for somebody to just randomly stumble upon me, it doesn’t happen very often. So I would say that is the most like surprising KPI out there that when you start tracking it, you realize, oh, I don’t need to be spending nearly as much time and energy on this as I thought.

Aimee Cerka
Absolutely, yes, it’s not a growth tactic. It’s a nurture tactic and the conversions that I get from Instagram, they don’t start on Instagram, they’re on nurture. Yeah, they’re nurturing.

We’re in my stories all the time. Because, you know, I’ve got the kids and people watch my stories just for the kids, I swear. But like, that is the way that it converts. It’s not like my strategy isn’t to go viral on the reel, like, even the people who do go viral because I had a reel that went semi-viral.

And I don’t think I had a single client that converted from it, because you’re not necessarily getting the aligned people. And that’s one of the things that I love that you talked about. Because we don’t need, I’m pretty sure this is what we talked about when I was on your podcast, we don’t need to do the more work it gets.

There can be in enough space. And we were talking a little bit about like some of the things that I’m dealing with here. Before we hit record, and I took another step back and like kind of went through this process again, it’s like okay, reevaluating? Are we doing the things that are actually needle movers? Or am I doing this, like, what are where things are at?

And it’s kind of funny, I don’t know, you might relate to this as well, when you’re kind of in the process of you’re doing this, it’s already like, Okay, I am doing this, like there’s not really anything that I need to tweak, because I’ve already kind of established what works for me and what feels good. And it’s just kind of like, okay, yeah, we’re good. We’re just gonna keep doing more of these things that are already existing.

Amy Traugh
Yes, I love how you mentioned your kit, and how those seem to get so much more engagement. But what we’re doing is we’re humanizing our brands, right? We’re being people. And that’s what attracts aligns clients, versus just this uphill battle.

In the sea of sameness out there. Everybody’s doing the same thing. And as a consumer, I tend to not engage when they see like the same thing over and over and over. It’s like, oh, it’s the same audio. Oh, it’s the same trend.

I don’t want to be trendy. I want to be the trendsetter that standing out away from the crowd, drawing and attracting people in because relationships are so so valuable, where people are buying from people. And really something else you said too, is figuring out okay, what works for you taking that time to intentionally pause.

And guess what, there will be times when everything is working, and you don’t need to tweak anything. As entrepreneurs, I feel like we’re always chasing shiny objects. So we’re pivoting and pivoting and pivoting. And we’re not really giving any of the strategies that we’re trying anytime to work.

And a lot of that I think comes from our like microwave society, right? We want those instant results. We want things right now, because we’re seeing somebody that’s already on chapter 20.

Someone that’s gone through 5, 10, 15 failed launches, doing the same thing over and over and over. And we’re comparing our chapter one to their chapter 20, when at the end of the day, it’s just that consistency over and over doing the basics and showing up when it’s crickets, but really getting crystal clear. It all comes back to clarity at the end of the day.

Aimee Cerka
Absolutely. I have to love that. You said that because I laughed when I was reading the section when you talked about the networking calls. Because I recently try this again, because you know, you’re talking to people in the industry. And they’re like, Yeah, I don’t know, probably a dozen people that have all been like, yeah, networking calls are the best converting thing for me.

And it’s like I do not enjoy networking calls. But you know what, everybody talks about it. So sure, let me go ahead and commit to this and It was like from a bundle I was a part of they were doing a networking call was like, Okay, I’ll get on like, that’s fine. We’ll do this. And it was such a full body.

Not for me like 45 minutes into it, it was so crystal clear like, okay, no, this is not something that I need to add on and do but I know, like the shiny object syndrome kicks in and that are you doing, but not for you taking care of what you’re supposed to do. So really getting clear and getting quiet.

I love that you talked about that as well, because it’s so noisy for lack of a better word. There’s so many people out there that are talking in like, this is the only way to do this. There’s not one way to do this. This is not this will be okay.

When this airs last week’s episode. That’s what we talked about on the podcast. It’s like I can’t give you like this, the simple step-by-step roadmap, just do XYZ and you’ve achieved all your goals with your money, because your emotions are different, your goals are different, all these things like it varies. And we have to be able to get clear and listening on that.

So we need to step into the CEO role, right? Oftentimes, when I know I’m talking with prospective clients, there’ll be this like objection that comes up like this feels great. But this won’t work for me. Because x, whether it’s a myth, it’s a belief, whatever that is, when we need to take that first step. What is that objection? That myth? What do we need to kind of remove so that we can take that first step into that CEO role?

Overcoming Obstacles: The Myth of Worthy Success

Amy Traugh
It’s really that belief, the belief that you are worthy. And that’s a really, really common one. And because at the end of the day, it’s usually not about the money. If somebody wants something strongly enough, they’re going to find a way, you know, I always go back to when I was in high school, and I went to, like Doc Martens were the thing. And I think they’re coming back right now I keep seeing them around.

But I’m like, I can’t do that. Again, we’re not going back to the 90s. But if you want something enough, you’ll find the money, just like we’re willing to pay, you know, $10 for a bottle of water at a concert because we are so parched. And it’s so hot, or you know, the ridiculous amount of water you spend on water and snacks at Disney, all of the things, you know, if you want something, if there’s that demand, you’ll find a way.

But it’s really that belief piece. And it’s not my job to convince somebody that they’re worthy. We need to do the inner work as entrepreneurs. Who do I need to be in order to achieve the results that I desire?

And that’s something I’ve really been embodying this past year as well. You know, that’s my word of the year. I picked one this year. And just like everybody else, you know, speaking of some shiny objects, everybody else is doing a word of the year, I should probably do one.

And this year, I’m like, I don’t know, I have no clue. And it was really cute. Because my daughter last year, she painted this picture, and it says, Believe on it. And I’m like, You know what, that is totally spot on this picture that a third grader at the time painted that said, Believe? Like, yeah, if I don’t believe in me, how am I going to show up and serve others if I don’t believe that I’m worthy.

So it really comes down to giving yourself permission to go after the business and the life that you desire. Because if there’s someone else out there doing it, that means that there’s proof, that means that you can do it too, and that you should do it too. There is so much room for us.

At the table, there is no limit to the amount of success. That’s not like, okay, there’s only 10 seats at this table. And then once all 10 of those are filled. Nope, that’s it. Like, take, for example, like the library. I love. I am a book worm like I love to read. I absolutely love. I read books on the same subject. But sometimes it just takes that person saying things in a different way with a slightly different analogy, a little different spin on it, that it finally resonates and hits home. So yes, there is room for you as well.

Aimee Cerka
I love that. I have spent the last year probably 12 months or so really working on myself as well. It seems to be a theme. I’ve heard several people say that lately that we’ve kind of turned to working on the inner part. I would also I don’t know if you’ve heard this before, but there will be books that I’ll reread and you have that whole like that was not the same book.

Like there’s new content added something because you’re in a different place, different perspective, different season of life, and things will land differently. So absolutely love that. Is there something that we need to make sure that we add in that everyone needs to know the answer a question I didn’t ask that everyone needs to know the answer to?

Consistency: The Key to Long-Term Success

Amy Traugh
You know, I would say just consistency. It’s not the overnight success. That is society that social media really portrays it to be. This is a long game. And it’s honestly entrepreneurship is the biggest personal development journey of your life. But in the willingness to bet on yourself to give yourself permission to try to fail to learn to grow. That’s where true success happens.

It’s in taking those little micro steps, day after day after day and celebrating every single win along the way. So often, we’re always looking towards the next school, the next school, the next school. No, let’s just stop and really appreciate how much we have accomplished. And that will get you through those tough days.

Aimee Cerka
Absolutely. There’s success that you already have. We just have to see it. That is a lot. Perfect posted. We’ll just leave it at that. So why don’t you tell our listeners where to get a copy of your book? And then of course, connect online?

Connect with Amy Traugh

Amy Traugh
Sure. So the best place to grab the book is over on Amazon. If you just search for The CEO Method. It’ll pop up and you can connect with me over on Instagram @amytraugh.

My favorite thing and I’m sure Aimee you agree with this is when you’re listening to the episode, drop into our DMS and tell us that you hear us because we’re putting these messages out into the airwaves we see that people are listening because of the downloads. But we love connecting with you like it’s us on the other side of the DMs. So tag us drop your biggest takeaway we would love to hear it and share you out in return.

Aimee Cerka
Absolutely. Those conversations are always the best. Like yes, like please talk back to me. Please.

Amy Traugh
I swear I’m a real person over here.

Aimee Cerka
Yes, there’s no bots. There’s nothing it’s me, I promise. Right. Exactly. This has been wonderful. Amy, thank you so much. We’ll make sure all the links are in the show notes for our listeners. And we’ll see you next time guys. Bye for now.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Aimee Cerka
You’re struggling with shame and guilt around your finances. Whether it’s debt impulse spending mistakes from the past or the fact that you still haven’t hit your income goal, then it’s time for you to work with me. There are different levels of support and price points that you can use on the path to removing that guilt and shame so you can step into your unstoppable life.

After all, your finances are unique to you and your support should be too good to workwithaimee.com to get started with one of my most popular programs, or you can book a q&a call with me. We’ll figure out what your next step should be. And of course, all those links are hanging out in the show notes as well.

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Aimee Cerka
Aimee Cerka

Money Confidence Coach - I make money simple for female business owners. By blending together simple strategies, and mindset work to simplify your money so that you can step into your unstoppable life. It's time to go beyond the numbers, so you can finally embody your ideal life. Click Here to Learn More

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