5 Crucial Decisions to Scale Your Business and Lead Effectively

Hey, Luck Hackers!

Welcome to this issue of the Luck Hacker Newsletter. Today, I'm diving deep into five essential decisions every CEO must make to accelerate their business, unlock growth, and become a more effective leader.

Running a business is complex, but success often boils down to asking and answering the right questions. These five decisions are the foundation for scaling your business and achieving your goals:

1. Do you know where you’re going?
2. Is what you’re doing now going to get you there?
3. What’s holding you back?
4. What will get you there?
5. What are you going to do now?

Without clarity on these questions, even the hardest-working CEOs can find themselves stuck—running faster but not farther. In this newsletter, we’ll break down each question, explore common challenges, and give you actionable strategies to take your leadership and business to the next level.

1. Do You Know Where You’re Going?

This is the foundation of effective leadership. What’s the big picture for your business? Where are you taking it, and what does success look like when you get there?

Why This Matters

If you haven’t defined your destination, no matter how hard you work, you’ll be running in circles. A clear vision serves as your North Star, aligning your team, guiding decision-making, and ensuring that every action you take contributes to the bigger picture.

A Powerful Exercise: The 10x Question

I often challenge CEOs to think bigger by asking:

• What would your business look like if it were 10 times bigger?

This question forces you to break free from incremental thinking and reimagine your business.

Example:
I worked with the CEO of a $40M company. When we explored what a $400M version of the business would look like, he realized it would require a fundamental shift—from serving many small, transactional clients to cultivating a few large, repeat-business “program accounts.”

This vision drove a complete overhaul of his strategy, operations, and product offerings.

Take Action:

• Use the 10x exercise to stretch your thinking and identify what needs to change.
• Define your long-term vision. Write down what “better” looks like for your business in 3 to 5 years.

2. Is What You’re Doing Now Going to Get You There?

Once you have clarity on your destination, the next question is whether your current actions align with your vision.

Spoiler: They often don’t.

Why This Matters

Most businesses are designed for the present, not the future.

Incremental improvements (10-20%) can optimize today’s processes, but they won’t deliver the transformational growth required to achieve a bold vision.

Breaking the Status Quo

The strategies and systems that brought you here won’t take you to the next level.

To achieve meaningful growth, you need to rethink how your business operates.

Take Action:

• Identify the key strategic shifts you need to make. What key activities and behaviors are needed to deliver on the 10x version of the company.
• Identify the gaps: What systems, processes, people, or capabilities are missing that will be essential for your future goals?

3. What’s Holding You Back?

Every business has constraints, but often the biggest bottleneck is the CEO.

How you manage your time, focus, and priorities will either accelerate or stall your business.

Why This Matters

The CEO’s effectiveness sets the tone for the entire organization. If you’re overwhelmed, unclear, or stretched too thin, your business will reflect that.

Conversely, an effective CEO empowers their team, clears roadblocks, and drives results.

The CEO as the Bottleneck

The biggest constraint on growth is often the CEO’s time and attention.

Without clarity and focus, it’s impossible to lead effectively or execute transformative changes.

Take Action:

• Simplify your role: Focus on three key responsibilities—setting the vision, making high-level decisions, and empowering your team.
• Conduct a bottleneck analysis: Identify where your time and attention are being consumed and eliminate low-value tasks.
• Invest in personal effectiveness: Improve your time management, communication, and decision-making skills.

4. What Will Get You There?

With clarity on the constraints, the next step is to build a roadmap.

• What needs to change, and how will you implement it?
  
  

Why This Matters

Knowing what’s holding you back is only the beginning. To achieve your vision, you need a structured plan that addresses obstacles, prioritizes initiatives, and clearly outlines a path forward.

Building Your Roadmap

1. Identify Key Obstacles: What challenges are preventing you from reaching your goals?
2. Prioritize Changes: What foundational shifts (systems, processes, or structures) need to happen first?
3. Sequence Initiatives: Create a timeline with specific milestones to drive incremental progress.

Take Action:

• Design scalable models for your key value engines (growth, fulfillment and innovation)
• Build a one-year roadmap that breaks down your vision into quarterly milestones.
• Align your leadership team around the plan and ensure everyone knows their role in executing it.
• Set up transparent OKRs and KPIs to ensure accountability

5. What Are You Going to Do Now?

This is the most important question of all:

• What immediate action will you take today to move closer to your goals?

Why This Matters

Clarity without action leads nowhere. CEOs often get stuck in analysis paralysis, procrastination, or inconsistent execution.

To make progress, you must commit to taking the first step.

Calls to Action

• Find an expert who can help you walk through the process. It will be one of the best investments you will ever make.
• Create accountability by sharing your goals with a mentor, coach, or peer group.
• Establish a regular review cadence to track progress and adjust as needed.

The Business Accelerator Program: Your Path to Clarity and Action

If you’ve made it this far, you’re likely realizing how transformative these five decisions can be. But tackling them alone can be overwhelming, which is why I developed the Business Accelerator Program.

This program is designed to help CEOs like you:

1. Enhance Personal Effectiveness: Optimize your time, focus, and decision-making to become a more effective leader.
2. Build Leadership Effectiveness: Create and lead high-performing teams that drive results.
3. Scale Business Effectiveness: Implement systems and strategies that enable sustainable growth.

Example Success Story:
One participant used the program to identify their bottlenecks and delegate more effectively. Within six months, they reduced their workload by 30% and doubled their team’s output—all while achieving clarity on their long-term vision.

Over the next four years, the CEO grew the company from $30 million to over $273 million in revenue.  More impressively, he grew EBITDA from $1 million to $79 million per year.

That’s the kind of impact great leadership can make.

Final Thoughts

The five decisions we’ve explored are simple but profound:

1. Do you know where you’re going?
2. Is what you’re doing now going to get you there?
3. What’s holding you back?
4. What will get you there?
5. What are you going to do now?

Answering these questions isn’t just an intellectual exercise—it’s the roadmap to scaling your business, unlocking growth, and becoming the CEO your business needs.

If you’re ready to transform your leadership and accelerate your business, the time to act is now. The Business Accelerator Program is here to guide you every step of the way.

Until next time, be somebody who happens to the world.

Stay lucky,
Alex

Alex Nesbitt
Founder, Strategy Academy

P.S. Ready to take the next step?

If you're a CEO or leader of a $1-200 million organization, click here to learn more about the Business Accelerator Program and start building the business of your dreams today. You can join the waiting list here: https://academy.alexnesbitt.com/opt-in-f5fdecda-b075-4fab-bcdf-3579955f4005?lh

(1) Contact me for 1:1 CEO coaching and advisory services