Traveling Collective 54 While on a Budget – A Time Budget

From the start, I want to acknowledge that this blog may not be for everyone in the Collective 54 family. 

For some, Collective 54 is as much a part of each day as that second cup of coffee or the trip through the Business section of the Wall Street Journal. You wear your 30% annual EBITDA growth like a finely tailored suit. You have a strong and deep team behind you that lets you focus fully on scaling and your eventual successful exit.

If that description fits you, you can skip the rest of this blog. This is written for the huddled masses within C54 − the new members, the still-growing members, the ones pushing through a new plan that has become a 60-hour-a-week grind instead of the smooth transition the PowerPoint promised.

Like me, maybe you are on the small side of the Benchmark Tab’s revenue chart. My firm’s growth is a jagged line that generally points upward but is far from a smooth slope. I’m straddling between growing and scaling, often uncertain how to separate the two. I am becoming a Founder, but I keep finding reasons to work in the business. 

TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE – USE IT WELL

Time is a valuable commodity, and for some of us, it is impossible to prioritize C54 as much as we should. We can’t regularly free up both Wednesday and Friday mornings for classroom sessions, join Blocks, and also fly in for regional meetings to connect with interesting members.

And the website? Good Lord, the Library of Congress probably has less information about Lincoln than I can receive walking in through the Collective 54 portal. How can I find the time to learn everything I need to know about a successful exit? And if I can’t, why am I spending money on this membership?

Early in my C54 journey, I had doubts about belonging. My business was too small, I was too busy and these other members were far better business people than me.

Well, I have learned that those feelings are just a lot of bullshit. Collective 54 is a uniquely valuable experience, and it is not one-size-fits-all. It is tailored so I can make it work for my schedule and demands, learning and pushing myself even if I could never win an award as the most active member of this community.  

Much like daily physical exercise, I know that as I allocate more time, I will certainly get more fit. But because I have to ration my time dedicated to learning, I need to find ways to efficiently get the most out of the C54 experiences.

CREATE A PLAN FOR MAKING COLLECTIVE 54 WORK FOR YOU

Rather than worry about what you can’t do, focus on maximizing the quality of the time you can allocate to Collective 54. Write a plan for how you will use this community most effectively to help you grow, scale and exit. Then hold yourself accountable for executing that plan week after week.

Here’s my approach:

1. Remind myself regularly why Collective 54 matters to me. This is a brand-new journey in my professional career. Just like I need doctors and financial advisors, C54 outside counsel gives me perspective I will never gain sitting alone in my office with a notepad.

2. Make appointments each week to focus on self-education and planning. We are all busy people, driven by the irrational control our schedules have over us. If you don’t intentionally set aside time for Collective 54, even just a few hours a week, you won’t commit. Schedule time to learn, and then schedule time to plan based on what you took in this week.

3. Focus on your best tools. I listen to most podcasts on my commute, which guides me to the topics that require more attention. For those areas, I participate in one or both expert sessions, either live or via recorded video on the weekend. When I am stuck and need individualized assistance, Solution Guides and Office Hours become more important. Someday, I want to leverage other resources, but for now these are the best uses of my time.

4. Enjoy a few great meals, rather than trying to taste everything. This is the lesson I learned from EOS Integration. At first, I felt that I had received the Golden Ticket when read the plan, and I was ready to share everything with my senior team. Within a few weeks, I realized that the limited amount of time we had for thoughtful integration meant that my team needed to first join me in Vision and Scorecard, while I focused separately on People. We are getting to other Chapters, but the foundation needed to be in place.

5. Apply concepts, rather than copy others. My business services are different from most of those represented in C54, so what unites all of us are the principles that guide successful professional service firms. For example, I listen closely to what other members say about how they are applying AI because this helps inform my thinking goals and outcomes, based on what fellow members have chosen. From there, I can be smarter about the specific impact AI can have on my business.

6. Prioritize at least one in-person event annually for direct interaction with other members. When community members gather, we can quickly move from classroom teaching to discussing real-world challenges and successes. I attend the Reunion every year, and I leave with a different type of knowledge that would not emerge unless I was in the room with other firm leaders.

Finally, when I feel really stuck, I go back to The Boutique and The Founder Bottleneck. The wisdom within each serves as reminders of the path ahead.

You have found the right place to achieve your goal of a successful exit form your firm. Don’t hesitate to make this journey your own, even with just a modest amount of time each week.