[00:00:03] What we do, you can see it. Pia's Brand wasn't always this well defined. Cheryl and Cliff Pia founded their agency in 1996, with Cheryl running the business side and Cliff as the chief creative. For some time they felt without direction,
[00:00:49] haphazardly moving from day to day without goals or a plan to grow beyond themselves. Cheryl didn't know much about running a business and often pictured the day that she would leave to spend time with her family and become a stay-at-home mom.
[00:01:01] But over time she realized that wouldn't serve her, that she was passionate about the business and wanted to commit herself to embodying the role of CEO in earnest. Something happened for me at that point just having that title when I had been Vice President or whatever.
[00:01:17] Really not a title person. Something happened for me psychologically where it was like, okay well if I'm going to have this role and I'm going to be this person and I am saying to myself that I'm committed to really doing this
[00:01:30] I'm going to learn how to do this and do it really well and really own it. Owning it meant going back to school for her Executive MBA at Dartmouth and working with EMYTH coach Nick Lawler to focus on her growth as a leader,
[00:01:42] where she wanted to take the company and how she was going to get there. It was that learning process, her will and big aspirations that made it possible for her to achieve her goals. Here's Nick. You walked myself and Cliff round this empty office building which was huge
[00:02:01] and I imagined the eight employees that Pierre currently had at the stage just rattling around this huge building thinking, oh how on earth is this going to happen and it felt so scary but that was you sequencing your goals. You couldn't increase your revenue
[00:02:20] until you were in a position where you could increase the size of your team and you couldn't increase your team until you had a place for them to work. That was setting your intention and then sequencing your goals. In the last two years, Cheryl's hire to CFO
[00:02:40] nearly tripled her employees, expanded to three locations and enjoyed tremendous growth. Cheryl's recommitment to her business and herself as its leader has changed everything and when you listen to her speak you can tell that Pierre and Cheryl are not only getting started.
[00:02:58] I'll be talking with Cheryl and Nick on this month's episode of On It, a production by E-Mith. Each month we tell the stories of owners and how they transform their companies. You'll learn about their struggles, their successes and the changes they made
[00:03:12] to create the business they always wanted. One that, in the end, serves the life they want to live. I'm Martin Kymenski, CEO of E-Mith. E-Mith is the original business coaching company and over the last three decades, we've worked with tens of thousands of business owners
[00:03:29] to help them systematize their business, improve their bottom lines and find more meaning in their work. Schedule a free one-hour session with an E-Mith coach at E-Mith.com. That's E-M-Y-T-H.com. We'll personally match you with a coach based on your industry, location and what help you're looking for.
[00:03:49] You'll have a real coaching experience and learn the steps necessary to produce both immediate results and long-term change. Learn more on our website, E-Mith.com. Thank you, Cheryl, for joining us and agreeing to spend some time telling us the story of you and your business.
[00:04:11] We really appreciate it. Sure. Happy to be here. There was a moment in your business's history where you realized the need to start approaching it not just as an owner, but that you really had to embody a role of a chief executive officer
[00:04:32] that you really needed to understand how to be a CEO. What brought you to that point? Well, you know, the history of our business was it's a partnership with my husband Cliff and I and it was for all intents and purposes really the Cliff Show.
[00:04:53] He's a creative genius behind everything we do and I was sort of more of a support person and I always sort of thought of myself as more of a support person even though I was the president of the company I just didn't think of myself in that way
[00:05:07] and for the longest time sort of thought that I was doing this until I didn't have to and I could stay home with the kids and kind of we finally we got to a place where I could have done that and I realized that I didn't want to
[00:05:24] that I actually really was passionate about the business and that I really did want to own the title of president and CEO and that I really wanted to to build this thing into something that we had never even considered. So it was just a really big turning point
[00:05:43] for me and at that point I went back to school and did an exec MBA program at Tuck and that was when I kind of came to E-Math it was around that time well it was a while after but that was really the turning point for me.
[00:06:01] Can you tell me a little more about what that was like before that point, before the Masters in terms of how your business function day to day what it was like getting in there working with your partner your husband and sorting out responsibilities? Yeah, it was
[00:06:18] it always felt overwhelming it always felt you know I didn't I always felt like I didn't quite know what I was doing and I was kind of faking it and we were very successful to a point we had large brand clients we were highly profitable
[00:06:38] this is all up through 2008 highly profitable, low overhead so you can cover a multitude of sins when you're highly profitable and you've got cash coming in and you have low overhead it becomes much more important to have an understanding of for example financial fundamentals
[00:07:01] once you start to grow and during challenging time periods your skill set and leadership become really more important than they are when things money is just flowing so that also was something for me to look back on at the time you know I felt a lot of responsibility
[00:07:27] when we went through 2008 I felt a lot of responsibility with how the company had done and even though we did weather the storm we took some very serious hits and had to lay off most of our people and I had to kind of own the fact
[00:07:42] that it probably wouldn't have looked quite as bad as it did if I had a more basic business understanding yeah I think that was one of the really early conversations we had was why is this business such a roller coaster what are the patterns that are going on
[00:08:03] that makes us kind of go through this kind of boom period and then we kind of hit a slump and surely there must be a way of thinking about this business in a systematic way that allows us to understand what's happening with the business
[00:08:20] so that we can smooth out those horrible troughs yep correct and I can imagine there's a lot of people listening and a lot of business owners who've been in that position faking it until you make it works up to a point and you're doing the work
[00:08:43] of whatever your business is not necessarily working on growing the business yet but then something happens and for some people it's about losing a key employee in your case it might be financial challenges or the economy turning down but something happens and you realize how important it is
[00:09:04] to do those things and work on things like leadership and putting systems and structure into your business was that a difficult transition for you to make at all in going from the way you were relating to the company to approaching it from that lens? it was
[00:09:26] it was difficult in that it required me to look at myself in a different way it required everybody that worked with me and us to look at me in a different way there were additional challenges brought on by the fact that my partner is my husband
[00:09:46] and he's been incredibly supportive of this journey for sure but it changed our dynamic as well yes it was challenging and exciting and I would say more exciting than challenging you know there are so many businesses in the United States
[00:10:10] and I know that we have a lot of clients and probably some listeners who are in businesses where family members are involved and it's always tricky it always gets complicated both the business relationships and personal relationships can you tell me about how some of that changed
[00:10:28] in the way you were well overall it's been really beneficial advertising is a crazy business and it's a very time consuming business it can really consume your life and I think if we weren't in the same business and in the same company
[00:10:46] I'm not sure how well our marriage would have done but because we were understanding of the demands that were placed on our time and energy and focus when I really took ownership of being the CEO I think what changed for us and some of the challenges around that
[00:11:08] was just shifting the dynamic of you know finding the balance between being the CEO of the company and guiding the ship in the office and not necessarily bringing that home with me and in the beginning didn't do a great job to be honest but I remember that
[00:11:36] we seemed to do our best work together you, me and Cliff seemed to do our best work together when you'd had a week off the two of you together and had spent that week walking the dog on the beach spending time reconnecting thinking about your strategic purpose
[00:11:52] and then you came back because you are both very high energy both highly creative and both lead the these just kind of crazy busy working lives but it was always that week or a few weeks after you'd spent time away from the business that you came back
[00:12:16] and the business grew do you remember? that's absolutely true I think taking time off to recharge and especially in our case to recharge together as a couple and recharge as a family is absolutely critical and I think up until really a few years ago we would do it
[00:12:42] we would take the time but we wouldn't really detach in any way because we didn't, number one when we did detach things would fall apart, we didn't have a team in place that could step in at any juncture and run the show and we do have that now
[00:13:04] but for the longest time we didn't really and we so we would step away we would go on vacation but we would still be completely engaged in the business and there was no recharge time and we might as well have not gone
[00:13:18] but when we do take that time and really just connect personally we come back with phenomenal business ideas always and we're re-energized and we're ready to recommit to the business going forward so it's absolutely for anybody that's out there listening that has, is in a family
[00:13:40] business or anybody really taking that time off when you're not just being the technician who can't leave the widget machine is really, really, really important. Yeah and I'm wondering just if we can even keep EMYTH aside for the moment part of what you're saying about
[00:14:02] not being able to get that time away was not having the people in place to not let everything fall apart but what can you tell us do you have any other tips in general for business owners about really unplugging while you're away what
[00:14:20] things that help make for a really restful time away from your business? Well I think for, I'm not sure I can answer that for all business owners but I know for me I never really completely unplug but I'll check in in the morning I might check
[00:14:42] in once in the afternoon there may be a day or two that I don't check in at all I make it really clear to my staff that I need them to kind of own everything that's happening and that seems to be enough
[00:14:58] now I do find for me personally that when I completely, completely unplug I have a little anxiety kind of playing in the background about what's going on so that's probably not necessarily healthy but it's how I am No, I, I, I kid that I believe it
[00:15:20] When you were first introduced to Nick as your coach can you tell me about the first area that the two of you set out to tackle together? Well, you know the first area Nick I'm trying to remember I mean the first thing that we did
[00:15:36] was it was over the new year I think the new year break we tend to close our office for two weeks the first thing that we did was self-organization which I think in the EMYTH kind of process was the first item and that was
[00:15:54] really excellent for me because it sort of gave me a refresh, you know sort of a restart button for how I started, how I began in my office how I thought about organizing things, you know up until then really tended to be very disorganized
[00:16:14] and have a lot of things all over the place so the self-organization part of it was really important and then I believe the next thing we did was values, passions and purpose and that was also a really powerful exercise that I did and it clifted as well
[00:16:34] and we kind of merged them to some extent but were very much aligned so it made sense for us to do that but that also really gave us a strong understanding of our why which we you know we always think about the why when we're creating advertising
[00:16:52] of any kind or marketing of any kind but our personal why I think had been lost and that exercise allowed us to really get clear about our personal why and I remember you did that separately you both spent time on your own working out your personal
[00:17:10] why and then you brought it together to share and that created a really interesting and useful conversation about whether or not you were both pulling in the same direction and it allowed us to have a conversation about trust trust in your leadership
[00:17:28] as CEO and that allowed us to have a deeper conversation about roles and responsibilities in the organization and how you and Cliff related to each other at work yes absolutely I want to go back if you'll let me to the self-organization point and if you could drive back
[00:17:54] down memory lane and help us paint us a picture of Cheryl's pre-self-organization existence what did that life look like what was your desk like what was your calendar like what kinds of things were you putting your energy and attention into
[00:18:14] and what were you not focusing on as a result of that I know it's personal but if you're willing to go there with us I'm really curious to hear what it was like well I'm actually sitting here surrounded by files of papers so I feel hypocritical but
[00:18:32] I'm working on it today actually I'll tell you that before I did that exercise I always had files of paper little pieces of paper 20,000 emails in my inbox and my calendar was abysmal I didn't have an assistant we were having some big challenges
[00:19:04] finding and keeping the right assistant for some time I would miss meetings a lot which is just inexcusable but really just always had this feeling of overwhelm and I didn't know where things were and I had so many pieces of paper that didn't really even, I didn't need
[00:19:26] there was not really a system to put them in their place and so I found for me I'm not a terribly structured person but the structure that process provided was really helpful because it gave me a real understanding of the why of it
[00:19:46] again I'm very driven by that and the way to think about it and so I did it when I did my office it was in one fell swoop I took it literally took the day to come in when the office was closed I had piles
[00:20:04] mounds and mounds of paper went through it methodically and put things in their place it's really very transformative and very cathartic so it just really cannot recommend it enough I think that was the start it was an excellent place to begin the process of working with Nick
[00:20:28] and looking forward and doing things in a way that I hadn't done them before Nick I'm wondering if you could speak to why it can be a really helpful place to start this idea of self-organization as opposed to starting in other places in the EMYTH process
[00:20:50] what does it open up for the business owner to be able to declutter in that way and get themselves organized? I think it establishes some standards and I don't think any system truly works in any organization unless you're clear what the standard is that you try to achieve
[00:21:12] and standards around self-organization are no clutter no clutter no emails, things are filed you complete the process that you've started you create a system where you can find what you're looking for you can teach somebody else that system and Cheryl I know you said
[00:21:32] you'd had some issues around finding an assistant but I remember what that office looked like and it would have been a really difficult place to go in there and organize unless you were clear what the standards were on that person
[00:21:48] and how they were going to deliver it for you on your behalf and I think when you start with your own standards then it gets very it's leadership you're setting standards for others in the same moment You said something kind of interesting Cheryl about the way that EMYTH
[00:22:08] point of view gave you some structure not only to how you deal with your office but you said that it actually impacted your your thinking in general what did you mean by that well I think for for me I knew the areas of focus in any business
[00:22:32] I just knew them but I hadn't really seen them laid out in the way that EMYTH was laying it out and I know we don't want this to be a commercial for EMYTH but it gave me it gave me a framework that for somebody that is
[00:22:50] that tends to be a creative and tends to not necessarily be terribly organized it just gave me a framework to reference and a visual to reference so it's I knew that these are the areas of focus what is it the seven areas I think that I could
[00:23:12] look at that at any point in time and say how am I doing here what needs to happen in this area where my strengths and weaknesses and obviously that's the first exercise you do before Nick even became our coach as you do that sort of self-rating
[00:23:28] but I find myself referencing that fairly often with and without Nick and find that framework to be really valuable that roadmap of leadership, brand, finance management, delivery sales marketing is just such a great way of thinking about the business in the moment where am I strong
[00:23:52] what do I need to work on how does our organizational structure support this at the moment am I concentrating on the right things exactly right and it gives you something when a situation arises where you're dealing with growth or whatever challenges might arise
[00:24:12] again it gives you that sort of framework to look at where you need to really be focusing your energy for optimal performance or for the best outcome before you had that framework to see your business in that way to see a business as made up of these
[00:24:36] component parts of the leadership piece of it and marketing and branding and sales and delivery all of these components can you describe you're an advertising you're a creative can you describe in some way how you saw your business before that, before you had that lens
[00:24:56] yeah it was a lot of moving parts that weren't in any particular order for me and I sort of can compare it when I think about it I can compare it to whatever people sort of to do processes I use a Tony Robyn RPM
[00:25:18] process which kind of gives me a place of what do I need to accomplish this week want to accomplish this week why do I need to do that and what are the elements that are going to get me there and so as the day goes on
[00:25:34] and I'm pulled in a million different directions and all kinds of situations arise it gives me something to come back to and say oh that's right I'm working on this and I'm working on this because this is important why and so it's really
[00:25:54] the equivalent of that but on a macro scale not a micro scale it's really it gives you kind of a home base there are all of these elements floating around and it's fairly chaotic and you know you need to be focusing on them
[00:26:14] because you're pulled and caught in the day to day you don't necessarily have a way to kind of hone in on even the visual of it you know even the visual of being something to reference something to kind of bring you back home sort of a home base
[00:26:34] it makes sense I mean when I think back to when I was running a business in the past and when I think about it it's like I was exploring in an ocean so I'm under the water and exploring swimming around I see new things
[00:26:54] I try new things they do they have a result or they don't you're going around and around and having some way of viewing the different parts of your business as these in this case through the seven dynamics it's for me it's like the equivalent of getting
[00:27:14] hoisted out of the water and now you're over it and you see oh I was in an ocean it's like oh this is what this looks like and that's what I was doing and here you know it's a really it's a different perspective
[00:27:28] it's a way off the hamster wheel in a way yeah I would completely agree with that but Cheryl I just want to sort of thank you for what you just said because you're an inspiration you know I've worked with you for nearly two years now but
[00:27:46] the way you show up as someone who has a clear focus and knows what they want to achieve in spite of the kind of chaos of your industry is inspiring and it's inspiring for the people that work for you now and it's so different to how
[00:28:08] how it was two years ago if it feels so different to me to how it was two years ago no it's completely different it's completely different how I show up and but again it comes back to that psychology of how do I think about myself
[00:28:26] and Nick I mean I'll credit you with a lot of that because there were times early on in our relationship where I would show up the way I used to which was scattered and not necessarily taking responsibility and not really showing up like a CEO and
[00:28:44] you would call me out on that and it was difficult but absolutely needed and it really made me step back and say okay is this how I want to show up is this who I want to be in this business and it's caused me again to really
[00:29:02] show up in the way that I want to and have learned how to to be in the business and you know it's been a tremendous shift I mean I don't know anybody that I work with or knows me personally who hasn't seen the transformation it's been
[00:29:22] very very significant wow it's inspiring and well the both of you seem like they like you were a good match for each other at the time I I know that eventually at one point you all reached the point of setting some goals Nick can you
[00:29:49] can you tell me was Cheryl a natural goal setter no no Cheryl I don't know you'll better speak to this than me Cheryl but it was a real struggle for us to try and establish some goals because we didn't even know really what our starting point was
[00:30:07] and we were very nervous about the financial stability of the company if we didn't we didn't know what we didn't really know where we stood financially income was kind of hit and miss and we weren't sure what our expenses were really and so it
[00:30:31] it felt like we didn't have a found a found a firm foundation for setting setting goals for what I guess that was 2013 2014 2014 yeah do you remember that yeah absolutely right it was the end of 2013 and now we didn't I didn't know what the baseline
[00:30:57] was so it was very difficult to imagine you know setting goals was really something I had always struggled with always knew I should do when it came time to do it because I didn't have basic information that you need to you know have an understanding
[00:31:19] of your starting point so you can set goals going forward I always really struggled with that and it wasn't until I did have an understanding of where we were and where we wanted to be that it became much easier and it was still a struggle
[00:31:37] I won't say it's a simple process especially for somebody like me and I was very resistant I mean Nick really had to push me pretty hard to complete the goal setting exercise I just kept coming back and saying I don't you know
[00:31:53] I don't just based on nothing I'm guessing here it was a process to kind of step back and say let's make an educated guess I think in terms of you know especially setting financial goals in a business that at the time was as volatile as ours just felt
[00:32:13] really daunting I'm sure there's some people listening to this that have businesses where in their opinion it's just plain not worth setting goals I spend the time making a spreadsheet and charting it all out when I could just be doing and whatever the results will be
[00:32:33] is what it'll be did you believe that at any point or now maybe where you are today is there anything you would say to people who are taking that perspective? Absolutely yes I was one of those people for sure you know because we had
[00:32:51] been in business for so long we had taken that tack and now absolutely firm believer in setting goals you know it gives you a roadmap and it gives you something to manage against and even if you don't necessarily hit your goals
[00:33:11] I can use this year as a great example and a conversation I had with my CFO about it because I had set very aggressive growth goals over the next year I did this exercise what NixO was 2014 and I had set three year revenue growth goals and profitability goals
[00:33:31] and full time employee goals and offices and all kinds of lofty ideas and thinking and Hey Cheryl just go let's actually talk through some of those those goals were lofty but you know new offices new locations the growth for employees was we started with eight we're going to
[00:33:57] be what 25 by the end of this year so that's in the company's grown what three fold and we'll be 30 by the end of January because we're hiring for New York so yes okay so in just over two years and the revenue goals as well not least of which
[00:34:21] the profitability so it wasn't just the revenue goals we were driving those upwards am I allowed to say what they are so I think we started at two and a half just under three and we're now at seven we are at six I think we're going to end
[00:34:39] the year at about six and a half seven was the goal and we and this leads me back to the conversation I had with our CFO because I said I was very disappointed that we weren't going to hit that seven million dollar number but it was he said
[00:34:59] you need that you need those goals we're on track we're actually exceeding our profitability so we're still quite profitable we've built a machine that can support that seven million in revenue but we're not necessarily you know it's not impacting our profitability in any way it's actually improved
[00:35:19] fairly significantly through a lot of the process we have here but it gives us something to manage to not only manage to but to strive toward so setting that number yes it was a lofty goal it was I think it was a 70% growth and last
[00:35:39] year we had 60% growth so it's a lot for a company to grow that much year over year but when I look at it through that lens of yes it's so important because it gave me something to strive for and again managed to not only in terms of
[00:36:05] what we're doing internally but what kind of revenue we're looking to bring in and the kinds of clients it's also really important to have those goals because then you can step back from those goals and even if they're not based on the soundest fundamentals you can look
[00:36:23] back at them and say okay how are we going to get there and in the first year we didn't necessarily do that we weren't in that place I set some goals and it almost felt like sheer force of will that we got there it wasn't, it's not true
[00:36:39] because there were a lot of things that were happening to support that behind the scenes in the way that we ran our business but in terms of increased revenue it felt almost sheer force of will this last year has felt far more intentional
[00:36:57] like it's the growth that's happened has been intentional and you know created by us because we had a strategic plan that made sense I want Martin to jump back in but I just want to give one example of that force of will that you show often you walked
[00:37:19] myself and Cliff round this empty office building which was huge and I imagined the eight employees that Pierre currently had at the stage just rattling around this huge building thinking how on earth is this going to happen and it felt so scary but that was you sequencing
[00:37:41] your goals you couldn't increase your revenue until you were in a position where you could increase the size of your team and you couldn't increase your team until you had a place for them to work yes absolutely that was setting your intention and sequencing your goals I know
[00:38:07] a lot of business owners that would be thrilled with 60 and 70% year on year growth and I'm most curious about that second year when the shift came and you felt like it was more intentional and less brute force and sure she or will power to
[00:38:23] get it done I know a lot of business owners who probably also know exactly what that's like what did you turn around what created a new way of top line revenue growth for pia you know it was first and foremost having a team that
[00:38:43] elevated the level of work that we were doing it was having a management team in place even though it was a small one in place to really support me moving that forward having a team in place that could implement systems and process where there really was none
[00:39:07] and having the space to not be working in the business all the time and I'm still pulling myself out a lot but it's nowhere near it's gotten progressively better and now honestly I'm at a place where I've got a team that's doing
[00:39:29] so much of the day to day that I'm really focusing on the vision of the business and how we're going to get where we want to go I'm very excited about next year because really I do have a management team in place that is
[00:39:45] going to change my life so yeah wow that sounds amazing yeah when let me ask this getting yourself out of your business especially when it's your own that you started is that scary at all to you does it make you nervous to remove yourself from the day today
[00:40:15] yes well it doesn't anymore but it did and that was part of I think Nick Nick and I had some serious work to do around that because he was encouraging me to bring on people that could take over certain elements of what I was doing and
[00:40:35] I was very resistant I was reluctant and it didn't make sense because a lot of the things I was doing I really hated doing but I was reluctant to go and put those people in place or go and get those people and I think
[00:40:51] that the place that we got to that was a real turning point was I realized that I wasn't sure if I wasn't doing all that day to day work I wasn't sure what my value was because I had never been had the space
[00:41:11] to not be working in it 24-7 I didn't know what that would look like and I think I was really afraid of that so it was a very it was scary it was a scary transition and I think once I recognized that and worked through that
[00:41:31] and brought my first person on that took so much of the work that had just weighed very heavily on me off I could see actually have a better vision of what my value was as opposed to thinking that it was tied to just this day-to-day activity and who
[00:41:53] who was that person that was bringing on a finance person that was bringing on a CFO who as he calls himself our financial navigator and it's probably my weakest area of expertise and something that was constantly overwhelming me constantly stressing me and taking a tremendous amount
[00:42:21] of my time and bringing that person on even on a part-time basis which we did bringing that person on was again life changing in that I had an ally to help support what we were trying to do I had somebody that could give us how I could talk
[00:42:43] through what our plans were and what resources we needed to do that where I didn't really have that capability I'm not a financial guru by any stretch and that's what he does, that's what he does for a living so really change the dynamic in the company so much
[00:43:03] huge first hire see CFOs aren't always cheap you could have just as easily kept that money in your pocket at the end of the year and kept that salary was it worth it is it worth it at the end of the day oh my gosh
[00:43:23] he's paid for himself a million times over absolutely I mean in profitability and having I have a very clear picture at any point in time of where we are and how we're performing that alone is hugely valuable but in peace of mind as well it's not all
[00:43:49] on me I had somebody else kind of sharing that load and I mean he had some sleepless nights I'm sure but I was sleeping like a baby during those times so it was so in terms of value I couldn't it's been immeasurable immeasurable
[00:44:11] and I just made a hire I just hired a general manager again I had some resistance I had Nick strongly encouraging me to bring that role on he has been for about six months and I had some resistance to it I felt that
[00:44:27] I just kind of hit my stride as a manager in the business because I wasn't necessarily an excellent manager and especially as we were growing I wanted to have a real hands on approach so I was doing all one to ones and really involved in every
[00:44:45] single step of everything that had to do with hiring and managing a team and it really kind of took it took some convincing for me to get the importance of having somebody that can do that day to day and I can focus in this coming year
[00:45:05] on growing the business in a really meaningful way in terms of going in expanded capabilities and diversifying our client base definitely there's something, there's a little pattern that's emerging to me that I want to see and then see if you think there's anything to it
[00:45:25] or if I'm just making this up but it seems like in the stories you're telling that the areas where you're having the biggest resistance to when you push through it you're actually unlocking some of the biggest changes in your company, do you think that's true or no? Absolutely
[00:45:41] true, yeah unquestionably true Why is that? You know why is that? I don't know why that is why the areas that I had the most resistance were the areas that really were things that were most transformative to the business and to me personally I don't know
[00:46:08] because you would think I'm really clear about why I had the resistance the first go around when it came down to hiring a financial person you would think that I would have gotten that and been really eager to bring someone else in I think I think again
[00:46:32] it comes back to that sense of value who am I in the organization? and at first I was everything I wore all hats I remember when Nick and I sat down in the beginning he said well who does this and I said me well who does that
[00:46:50] well me, well I mean we went down the list and I said okay so you know when you're looking at primary responsibility in these seven areas it's kind of me and on the one hand that's overwhelming and certainly impossible because you're not good at all of those things
[00:47:08] but it makes you feel like you have a value you know you're the one holding the ship together and I think it calls into question your value in an organization when that's your identity when your identity is locked up into being
[00:47:26] and then it's going to take all things to all people and letting that go again it changes that conversation and letting it go in the areas that are most that you feel you're bringing the most value is again it causes a tremendous shift when you can step back
[00:47:46] hand it over to somebody that's more than confident and infinitely better at you at doing this day to day thing or whatever it is and it opens up a whole new space for you to become something else to the organization and I think that most business
[00:48:06] owners get kind of caught up so deeply caught up in the day to day and their entire identity is tied up with them being an integral part of it that letting that go and handing over some of that responsibility and some of that I guess just the responsibility
[00:48:32] is difficult well is it just the responsibility or is it that identity too right? It's the responsibility and the identity it absolutely is and I'll tell you something else it also when you have to do that day to day you have that as a pretty
[00:48:58] handy excuse for not accomplishing some of the bigger loftier goals that you set out for yourself and that was also a tough one to really recognize and look at and let go you know when you're so busy when you're so down in the trenches there's certainly no time
[00:49:18] to accomplish the things that you really want to do or that you say you really want to do and you can't be held accountable I think that's a big one Yeah, I think that's true I think right it's a lot easier to be a task list checker offer
[00:49:40] then to put people in the places that are needed to accomplish those things and let your value take the time to imagine imagine maybe my biggest value maybe the single most important thing I can bring to my own business is knowing and seeing who those people are
[00:50:04] and maybe that's it but nobody wants to be that when they grow up you know nobody went to college and got a degree in that we think of entrepreneurship as such an active activity that we you pile the things on top of yourself
[00:50:26] so that you can check a lot of them off a lot of little things and like you said I think it easily gets in the way for a lot of people and there's for me there's something about what you've just been saying about bringing that
[00:50:40] team on who are covering the things that are not your natural skill set what you didn't let go of was how important it was to find the right people and to use a process that allowed you to hire on values I'm not saying we didn't make some mistakes
[00:51:04] along the way maybe those mistakes are really important because it taught us how important that process was and I think you've become an expert not in doing the jobs but in finding the right people that you want to bring into your team that allows
[00:51:22] peer to grow in this very values driven way Thanks Nick yeah I would say that that's true and it's been tremendous trial and error and it's been having confidence frankly a lot of it comes down to confidence for me I know in the beginning starting to look at
[00:51:48] hiring people that maybe had skill sets that I didn't have I think that there was some level of feeling threatened by that and there was a lot of trial and error and in the beginning because I didn't really think of myself as a leader
[00:52:06] the kinds of people that I was attracting were not necessarily people that were stronger at the areas that I needed help or needed the most support and that was obviously subconscious I wasn't consciously trying to hire people that weren't as good as they needed to be
[00:52:28] but there was some element of that and again at the time I didn't know that with respect I can see clearly what I was doing and I believe that as my confidence grew as a leader in the organization I became more comfortable with the idea
[00:52:46] of bringing in higher level players that could really contribute in a way that changed the company and I also became more skilled at identifying those people because well and again a lot of trial and error I think as business owners
[00:53:06] we all have to kind of go through that but I've gotten to a place now where I'm really quite confident in my ability to identify talent and nurture them and get them excited and sort of share the vision of what we have in mind
[00:53:22] so we're attracting a different caliber of talent now the conversation has changed just in the last year even completely and what you're describing makes so much sense and probably does to a lot of business owners out there where it can feel threatening
[00:53:44] let's say this even if it doesn't feel threatening you can just not even know how to manage somebody who might know more than you about the topic right so if you bring in a really sharp CFO who knows much more than you about finance
[00:54:00] what am I going to do to manage that person how am I going to know when they're doing the right thing or the wrong thing what is that like for you and what I guess okay what have you learned about managing others who have those strengths
[00:54:18] that you didn't know before you hired them yeah I mean that's absolutely true I think it was definitely a play for me in terms of hesitating to hire somebody who came in I mean there was really even an element of oh my gosh
[00:54:36] they're going to come in and they're going to judge me you know I really my books are not at all what they should be and the way we're running our business isn't the way it should be and I had to really move past that and
[00:54:50] I think part of the thing that allowed me to remember when I got past being embarrassed about it all together but I think in terms of understanding how to manage that person and know if they're doing a good job or a bad job was really
[00:55:06] coming back to understanding just basic fundamentals and making sure that I was getting regular reporting and again Nick when Nick played an integral part in that he was holding me accountable for holding Mark accountable to provide regular and consistent regular and consistent and redundant there
[00:55:28] some consistent reporting so I knew what was going on in the business and that's the way I got past it and it quickly became a non-issue because it became more of a partnership I didn't necessarily need to manage him he could talk his way around me easily but
[00:55:48] he respected the skills and the strengths that I brought and I respected the skills and strengths that he brought and it quickly became a partnership Nick what does that look like to hold Cheryl accountable most business owners when you're up at the top
[00:56:06] you're lonely at the top and you answer to nobody but yourself that's why a lot of people go into business for themselves but what does it look like when a coach steps in to hold somebody accountable I think that well I
[00:56:22] can tell my own story to this actually the story I tell people and it's true is the best thing I ever did as a business owner was become an employee because all of a sudden I had an experience again of being managed and that was something I forgot
[00:56:42] as a business owner I didn't know what accountability looked like because I was only accountable to myself and it gets really hard when you're only accountable to yourself to hold other people accountable so all of a sudden going back into that situation where I was
[00:56:58] accountable allowed me to I think it helped us in our relationship Cheryl because because I we could share what that was like from both sides and I knew what it was like how lonely it was for you and Cliff at the top of the business and
[00:57:22] how much responsibility you were carrying and at the same time I knew that that sometimes you couldn't afford to let yourself off the hook you had to follow through if you were to achieve your goals yeah absolutely I heard that your business recently encountered a
[00:57:48] bit of a bump in the road in terms of one of your clients and I'm wondering if this recent issue that you had to deal with has it had any kind of better or worse impact on your company than a similar thing might have happened in the past
[00:58:10] are you better prepared for it or not as prepared for it absolutely better prepared for it than we ever have been in the past I mean we could see it coming early on we had some warnings early on from the financial side of the equation
[00:58:32] that we were starting to feel it to see some red flags we had a team in place to support me in having a plan B should we need to cut our overhead or make some different decisions or help come up with a plan to kind of remedy
[00:58:56] the situation and so there was not a lot of panic even in our scariest moment there wasn't panic and in the past I would say that especially for Cliff and I there would have been a lot more panic so in this case I was actually had mapped out
[00:59:20] a hiring strategy for what we were going to do and made the decision to continue on that path and with the support of my CFO and kind of just him I continued on the path and we recovered and we recovered beautifully and we had the team in place
[00:59:44] to do the work that we needed to do to recover so it was a very very different experience it was not a panicky scary experience it was much more thought out and we knew that if something didn't change we needed to go either bring in additional revenue
[01:00:08] or be adjust expenses but whatever we were going to do we had plans in place for all of those scenarios and that makes it much calmer and easier to bear doesn't mean you don't worry but it definitely makes it much much less panicky
[01:00:26] I've noticed a couple of times in our relationship how like you're now the one that's holding the course and I'm the one that's panicking we definitely had that last time you know what, that's leadership yeah that was a real milestone for me honestly it really was
[01:00:50] a turning point because I was committed to I had a lot of conviction about what I was doing and I didn't have it wasn't blind conviction based on I think sound fundamentals I knew what I was doing and I don't necessarily think that there's been a time where
[01:01:10] I've felt been in a challenging situation business wise where I really felt confident that I knew what I was doing and that even if I was making a mistake, because I could have been wrong even if I was making a mistake that I had the skills
[01:01:26] and the team behind me to change course well Cheryl, your story as a leader in the story of your business is really a remarkable one and I really want to thank you for sharing that story with us and for answering these questions
[01:01:48] and it's been great getting to know more about you and Pia and learning how E-Meth played a part in the story of your business unfolding Thank you This has been a pleasure I think what Nick just said is it's lonely at the top
[01:02:06] and even if at the top means you and one other person in your company it's still really lonely and there's tremendous value in feeling like you've got somebody that's got your back that wants what's best for you that isn't a family member
[01:02:26] or an employee with a vested interest but and that also has some solutions some ways to approach your business that you might not be thinking about and that is just absolutely invaluable wherever you get your coaching I just think it's huge it's changed everything for me
[01:02:52] and going back to that accountability issue there's somebody to hold you accountable and we all need that Yeah I agree Thank you Cheryl It has been such a pleasure really and I hope we get to stay in touch and I wish you a lot of continued success
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