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Promote Yourself to CEO | Small Business Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs
Promote Yourself to CEO | Small Business Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs
Author: Racheal Cook MBA: Small Business Owner, Entrepreneur, Business Growth Strategist
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© 2026 The CEO Collective LLC | Promote Yourself to CEO
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If you're fed up with the non-stop solopreneur grind… I'm so glad you've found The Promote Yourself to CEO Show!
Each week, join host Racheal Cook MBA for candid conversations about stepping into your role as CEO of your business, the hard lessons learned along the way, and practical, profitable strategies to grow a sustainable business without the hustle and burnout.
Listen in to the latest show and connect with Racheal at http://www.theceocollective.com or on Instagram @racheal.cook to continue the conversation!
466 Episodes
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Send us Fan Mail Most Q2 plans are built for a version of you that doesn't exist. The version with unlimited energy, zero personal obligations, and no curveballs. And then April hits, and you're already behind, already overwhelmed, already wondering what went wrong. Before you open a planning doc or write a single goal for the next quarter, there's one question worth sitting with first: What do I actually have the capacity to sustain right now? This episode is a bridge into Q2 — and it starts...
Send us Fan Mail If you set big goals in January and you're already feeling behind, I want to be honest with you: the problem is not your discipline. It's not your motivation. It's not your mindset or your willpower. It's that the goal-setting approach most of us were taught was never designed for the stage of business you're actually in right now. In this episode, I'm breaking down the real reason so many service-based business owners end up in a cycle of setting goals, falling behind, and s...
Send us Fan Mail If you've opened the news lately and felt your stomach drop, you already know how hard it is to justify sitting down to work on your business. The guilt is real. The distraction is real. And if you've been quietly wondering whether it's okay to keep going, this episode gives you a completely different way to think about it. This is not an episode about ignoring what's happening. What I'm making the case for today is that what we are watching unfold is the death throes of a sy...
Send us Fan Mail Most business advice assumes you're operating at full capacity. But what happens when life doesn't cooperate — not for a week, not for a month, but for the better part of an entire year? In 2025, I went from working 25 hours a week to about five. My parents needed more care than they could safely manage at home. My mom moved into memory care. There were hospital stays, doctor visits, Social Security calls, house sales — and ultimately, her passing in December. It was, without...
Send us Fan Mail From hiding behind NDAs to leading a thriving book writing business, Amanda Edgar's journey proves that embracing visibility can transform your entrepreneurial path. In this candid conversation, the ex-professor shares how she escaped the constraints of third-party platforms, built a strong team, and developed a unique framework for helping others write books. Her story demonstrates how the right business systems and community support can help you scale while staying true to ...
Send us Fan Mail If you've been wondering whether a marketing framework like Client Growth Engine could actually work for your business, this episode is going to answer that question. I'm walking through three real client stories — a product-based business, a service provider who was stuck on a third-party platform, and a concierge medical practice — and what they all had in common might surprise you. None of them needed more marketing. They needed a repeatable system that fit how...
Send us Fan Mail You make yourself available to your clients constantly. They can email or text or call you 24/7, and you make it a priority to respond to them as soon as possible. And you might even be making great money in the process! From the client's perspective, this sounds great. But while the constant availability works for them, it means your business isn’t really working for you. Today, I talk with CEO Collective member Dr. Libby Wilson whose functional medicine practice looked grea...
Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO, I invited Gabi Day, CEO and founder of Brightbody, to discuss her entrepreneurial journey. Gabi shares insights on running a non-toxic, refillable personal care line and her new venture, Hype Ma'am, which supports women in product-based businesses. Gabi reflects on her transition from healthcare administration, dealing with chronic health issues, and becoming a mother of twins. She emphasizes the importance of creating flexible syst...
Send us Fan Mail If your marketing strategy feels like it was stitched together from a dozen different experts, programs, and podcasts — it probably was. And that's exactly why it's not working the way you need it to. I've been in that place, and I know how exhausting it is to keep up with a to-do list that never ends, while still not knowing where your next client is coming from. Here's what I've come to understand: the problem isn't your motivation, and it's not that the advice you've been ...
Send us Fan Mail Here's a question most business owners can't actually answer: Do you know where your next 10 clients are coming from? Not their names — just the path. The channel. The sequence of events that gets someone from "never heard of you" to handing over their credit card. If you paused on that, you're not alone. In this episode, Rachel Cook gets into the specific patterns she sees when she pops the hood on a client's business during a strategy review — and why so many smart, hardwor...
Send us Fan Mail Here's something nobody wants to admit: most marketing advice actually works. The problem? It's just not working for your business. And that disconnect is exactly why everything feels so much harder than it needs to be. I'm pulling back the curtain on why you keep getting stuck in this exhausting cycle of trying every strategy, tactic, and tip that crosses your feed—only to end up more burned out and no closer to the sustainable business you want. We're talking about the onli...
Send us Fan Mail You're showing up, creating content, following the advice. So why does marketing still feel like pushing a boulder uphill? Here's what I realized after the hardest year of my life, when I had to step back from my business for months: most marketing advice wasn't designed for the kind of business you're actually building. The strategies you're following? They're built for high-volume businesses with massive content teams. That influencer playbook? They have five people followi...
Send us Fan Mail As soon as you get up, the dog is already begging to be let outside. The kids don’t want to get ready for school, so you have to practically drag them out of bed. Your partner is wondering where the hell this or that is while you’re trying to get ready yourself for the day. And you’re still just barely awake in all this and haven’t had your coffee yet! Are your mornings crazy like this? Let’s do something about that! High performance CEOs know how to manage their day and con...
Send us Fan Mail As a CEO, you’ve got many potential distractions in your business. Answering emails or other ongoing administrative work can keep your attention off the tasks that’ll actually move your company forward. Then by the end of the week, you’ve made little (if any) progress on the tasks that do drive business growth and success. In this episode, I talk about how you can run your week as a CEO with five top strategies that help you skillfully manage your time and energy while priori...
Send us Fan Mail I go on CEO dates with myself. Once every month (as well as on a weekly basis), I take some time to check in on my business and ensure I’m continuing the progress toward the goals I’ve set. This is how I create business plans that I follow through on and adapt as circumstances arise. And in this episode, I discuss how you too can build in self-accountability so that your plan isn’t just another document you’ll never open again. On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO: 2:...
Send us Fan Mail Every new year feels like a new chance to go after the big, audacious goals of your dreams. But as recent years have shown, you need to have adaptable plans for your business so that it can have the flexibility it needs while still getting the results you want. That’s why I love running my quarter through 90-day plans. Today, I talk about how to actually dig in and start creating these plans for your own business. On this episode of Promote Yourself to CEO: 3:34 - Why go fo...
Send us Fan Mail I need you to meet Michelle Mercurio. She's one of those rare people who refuses to pick a lane—and that's exactly what makes her brilliant. In this conversation, we dig into why the traditional business advice to "niche down" might actually be killing your ability to show up as yourself. Michelle's built a career that spans branding, community building, teaching, and yes, witchy practices—all tied together by two powerful threads: understanding who we are and how we relate t...
Send us Fan Mail The best entrepreneurial stories rarely start with a grand vision. They start with a rug being pulled out. That's Ashley's story. A layoff. A pandemic that destroyed her in-person business overnight. So she did what many of us do in crisis—she picked up watercolors and created. A hundred days worth. Except it took two years to finish. When Ashley came to me, I saw what she couldn't see herself: a hundred pieces of unique, marketable content in a space flooded with generic coa...
Send us Fan Mail Your revenue is down. Sales have slowed. And every time you log into social media, you're hit with another wave of news that makes you want to throw your entire business plan out the window and start over. But here's what most business owners don't realize: when things slow down, the problem is rarely everything. It's usually just one or two key levers that need your attention. The CEOs who come out stronger on the other side? They're the ones who can diagnose the real issue ...
Send us Fan Mail You know that feeling when you open your closet and somehow have nothing to wear—even though it's packed full? That's what running your business feels like right now. Not because you lack options, but because you have too many of them. Fresh off our CEO Retreats, I've been hearing the same thing from small business owners across the country: they're stuck. Not on client work—they're confident there. But on the CEO-level decisions that could make or break their next year. The ...















Fast forward to the half way mark. Rachel takes way too long to get to the topic of each podcast. Too much marketing fluff
Fast forward to the half way mark. Rachel takes way too long to get to the topic of each podcast. Too much marketing fluff.
This is the first time listening to the show. wow. EXACTLY what I needed to hear. I can't wait to hear more.