Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Executive Breakthroughs. I have a fantastic guest here, I’m really excited and we have a beautiful view, which I think you can see part of in the picture. I’m with Zac Sheffer. He is the CEO and Co-founder of Elsen, and we are going to get in some fascinating stories of his background, how he’s built this company, and what he’s up to now. So welcome Zac.

Zac: Awesome, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: Hey, well thanks for being here and thanks for providing us with this magnificent view in Boston. I’d just like to find a little bit about how you grew up, what happened, kind of just give me a little bit of the background of where you came from.

Zac: Yes. So, I grew up just outside of Boston and San Diego.

Speaker 1: Both.

Zac: It’s actually a beautiful day here in Boston, so not regretting why I actually moved now.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Zac: I guess the reason why I ended up moving to Boston … my older sister had moved out, so it was just me and my mom, and my mom, whenever I was supposed to pick my college, she was like, “So Zac, just as a quick heads up, I’m gonna be selling the house, so take whatever you want.” So I was like, “All right, well I better take this opportunity and go somewhere completely different.” I ended up only applying to schools in Boston and New York, fell in love with Northeastern when I was visiting and went here. I’ve been in Boston for the better part of about eight years now, spent some time in Chicago and some time in DC though.

Speaker 1: Growing up, did you have any mentors or people that really influenced you, before you got to school and made the trip cross country?

Zac: Yeah. I had a couple of teachers, professors, in high school that were pretty influential. One guy was this … one of our biology teachers, his name was Jay [inaudible 00:02:11]. Probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and it was great, because I sort of knew him as a teacher, and then we ended up going to Africa together twice, ended up actually building a really good personal relationship with him, and then he unfortunately got cancer a passed away, which was-

Speaker 1: Oh wow, that’s crazy.

Zac: It was pretty sad.

Speaker 1: Pretty intense. What did he teach you, or what did you take away from that experience that really kind of changed you in how you lived your life?

Zac: I think one of the things that was so interesting about him was, he had a PhD from Stanford, could have been a professor, pretty much done whatever he wanted and he spent his time teaching high school kids how they could change the world. We ended up going to Africa doing … setting up a DNA bar-coding laboratory at the College of Wildlife Management in Mweka. We ended up winning some national awards for bushmeat.

Speaker 1: Wow.

Zac: That was the thing that he taught me was, even high school kids can actually have a real impact. I think that was something that was really, really important for me as I grew up.

Speaker 1: And it was like your entrepreneurial start?

Zac: Yeah, that was definitely a big part of it. I think I was really lucky, I went to a charter school in San Diego called High Tech High, part of the nerdy name, but it was a really … I guess, fantastic experience for me. I think looking back on my life, how lucky I actually was, getting the opportunity to go there, because I studied engineering and we built ballistas, ended up building videos that won national awards, and actually did things that have now really changed what I want to do now in my life.

Speaker 1: You started really the technical aspects of what you’re doing now, pretty young then, being in that sort of educational environment, compared to what most people do.

Zac: High Tech High was a project based learning, so I think the most important thing that I learned was, you have no idea what you’re doing on any of these things when you first look at some of these projects, but you figure it out, you break down the steps and anyone can do them. It doesn’t really matter what problem you’re trying to solve, if you think about the steps that you’re going through, you break it down, you work with people around you. You can do it, you can do some pretty amazing things.

Speaker 1: You can figure it out in your own way.

Zac: Exactly.

Speaker 1: Then you came out here to school and what happened during college out here? Your formative years at that point.

Zac: I was studying mechanical engineering, which I absolutely love. If you want to talk about heat transfer and fluid mechanics, we can do that for the next couple of hours. No? All right.

Speaker 1: My dad’s an industrial engineer, sorry was, so he did all that stuff.

Zac: I went to Northeastern University, and Northeastern has their co-op program. So, basically I took six months off, three times, almost 20 months off of school to go and work at different jobs. So my first job, I was again, actually really lucky with the placement. I was working at American Power Conversion writing heat transfer and fluid mechanic programs for data center design. My first boss was again, one of the smartest people that I’ve ever met. Super hard working, really cared about his employees, and through that position I think we ended up getting four or five patents under some of the new stuff that we had developed.

Speaker 1: Wow.

Zac: So while in school, doing things that I hadn’t even finished in school, I was able to actually do some really impactful stuff, which was really, really exciting.

Speaker 1: And you have patents?

Zac: Yes. Yes, so we ended up-

Speaker 1: That’s big!

Zac: Well we filed some patents for that, we ended up filing another patent for some other work we had done in our senior year, and then Elsen has some patents as well. So, got a couple of things at this point.

Speaker 1: You finished college, and then you continued down this path in engineering, correct?

Zac: Sort of. I love engineering. I love actually building things, and I had worked at a company doing unmanned underwater vehicles for a little while, had … actually building real things, which was really cool, but it’s really slow building stuff. Then I kind of got into software development, and I really liked how the iteration time was a lot faster, and so I kind of got into the software and then one of my friends was really into trading. We kind of started talking about the stock market, and I don’t know what it was, but I just fell in love with that. I think all the math and physics and engineering that I was doing at work and at school, just so well applies to the financial markets, once I got stuck, I fell in love.

Speaker 1: You just wanted to figure out new things and how you can apply it. How’d you figure out the current business then? Because I know you have a couple co-founders, how did you get this all in your head about how all this could work?

Zac: Well it’s kind of evolved over a couple of … what’s the start-up term? Pivot?

Speaker 1: Yes, pivots.

Zac: Pivots, lots of pivots.  Because when we first got started we actually wanted to help retail investors, actually just help regular people make better investment decisions, and that’s … we were like, “Okay, let’s take technology that the most cutting edge hedge funds have, and actually deliver it to a regular person.” That was our initial thesis, but the problem with that is most individuals don’t have any money, and they don’t want to give us the money, which sucks as a business.

Speaker 1: That makes it difficult.

Zac: We were like, “Okay we got this really cool technology that we’ve been developing. We know that it’s actually ready for hedge funds, let’s give it to the hedge funds.” We started pivoting over to the institutional side, we kind of took some of the experience from … I had worked at [inaudible 00:08:04] for a little while, running financial models for them, and we’re able to figure out what we were up to.

Speaker 1: How’d you convince the hedge funds to use your stuff? I think it’s really important for people, to share how did you crack that first egg, or first nut to get them inside the door?

Zac: In all fairness, we kind of just made it up as we went along, I wish I had a better answer. I remember we had one hedge fund client that we were talking to, I was trying to sell to, for a little over six months. At the end of the day, they were like, “Okay, you guys have literally everything we want. This product is perfect, but we just need a bigger name behind it.” So, we went and started working with Thomson Reuters on a first commercial product, and that relationship took us over 18 months. The way we were able to get it was, every single day, talking to new people at Thomson Reuters, talking to … showing them new things that only we could build and over a long time of hitting our head against a wall, we got through it. We tried to bring on advisors that could help push things through, but it was just a lot of time.

Speaker 1: Helping people solve their pain in building relationships with the people at Thomson Reuters and a lot of them, is that kind of what …

Zac: Yeah. The biggest part of it was just time. At many points I think we were told from some of our investors and advisors, “Wow, you guys are spending a lot of time on this. Make sure that it’s actually gonna work out.” And kind of just have to trust your gut and make sure that it’s actually gonna go along.

Speaker 1: And the people that you’re working with in the company right now, I mean, you can trust them too and they have to trust you. It has to be really difficult in those moments where you were having to go in there and spend more time, and then you weren’t getting anything from it. Then to take the next couple steps afterwards, how … what kind of mindset, or what did you just have to do, or do you just have this belief in what you were doing, and optimism that just said, I’m just gonna keep going till it works?

Zac: I think that’s kind of part of it. I think you kind of have to almost lie to yourself a little bit, right? I kind of hate saying that, but you need to convince yourself that, if this is actually the correct path to go down, that it’s the correct path to go down. You have to put everything, no matter what, for as long as it’s going to take in order to make it successful. Whether … unfortunately, if you have to get rid of people, if people leave, if you run out of money, you still gotta do it.

Speaker 1: You still gotta go, but at least you had a co-founder at that point, you were working … at least you had that as support.

Zac: Oh, no, I don’t think I would have been able to get through it if it wasn’t for the people on our team, unless it wasn’t friends and family and advisors and investors, because at the end of the day, starting a company you’re trying to create something from nothing and you’re trying to convince the world that you’re the only person that can do this. You’re the only one who has this idea and you’re the only one who can create it, which is ultimately kind of a hard thing to figure out, so you’ve gotta convince yourself and rely on the people around you.

Speaker 1: What’s your philosophy on taking money versus boot strapping or when … talk about when you decided to take outside capital.

Zac: That’s a good one, I think … looking back on the funding … We’ve raised some money in the past. I think in some ways we didn’t take … We took money too early and then we didn’t take enough, so I’ve got an interesting experience where I think you should bootstrap as much as possible and in fact if you don’t ever have to raise money then don’t raise money because it changes the dynamic of what you’re doing and if you don’t have to you shouldn’t. But then when you do start raising money raise as much as possible, because being in the experience where you don’t have enough resources to do something is not a position you want to be in.

Speaker 1: Because then you have to go back and ask for more, and then tell people why you didn’t ask for more in the beginning.

Zac: I also think … specifically with Elsen, obviously, things circled out longer than we anticipated at certain points and no matter what your business is, it’s going to take longer. You should make sure that you have enough padding that you can actually do all those things, because once you start down that raising money side, you have to raise more, you have to keep on doing it. There’s not a stopping point. Make sure you have enough money to get through those next stages. I don’t know, I always go back and forth on whether I would raise money again, or would I raise a lot more.

Speaker 1: It’s probably going to have to be specific to the situation you’re in and what’s driving what at that point and the people around.

Zac: I think part of the rationale as to why we wanted to raise money for Elsen is we just wanted to grow the company faster. I think we could have continued down the bootstrapping route, but we wanted to actually build [inaudible 00:13:01] company [inaudible 00:13:02] company you need to put fuel in the fire at some point.

Speaker 1: Right and if you have the recipe to do it then getting … that’s when you need money, that’s when you raise money. How do you pick the people that you were going to work with as far as advisors and investors? What did you … what kind of process did you go through to find the people that were ultimately … you chose and thought would be best suited for you?

Zac: I think for me and Elsen we … well at least I know for me personally I spoke to literally everyone I possibly could, and then everyone that they would refer me to, and literally just talked to everyone. Unfortunately many of those people aren’t actually going to be helpful, but you eventually figure out the ones that will, and now we have a core group of really strong investors and really good advisors that we really do trust, that we can go to on any problem that we actually have or any high point. I feel like that’s the most important thing, is you need to have people that are there not just at the hight points, but when things aren’t going well, that you can actually talk through and get that real advice from, and that’s-

Speaker 1: Can you talk about one of the low points, because I think it’s helpful for people to really get inside your head and actually be in that moment when things felt like they were going to spin out of control or off … because a lot of times, again … we talked about before the interview … it’s easy to see where you’re at now and all the things that are going on, but we have to take a picture of what all happened to really appreciate that at that point, because an entrepreneur’s mind is really long and you remember those days especially. Is there a specific low point or time when it was really bad, or really [crosstalk 00:14:44]?

Zac: Yeah … sorry I didn’t mean to say yeah so quickly, but anyway, I’m sure I can think of a couple of moments, I think one was probably about a year ago. We were, I guess kind of gesturing to get ramping up with some of the stuff with Thomson Reuters, and we unfortunately realized that some of the folks on the team weren’t who we needed on the team at that point. We were only 6/7 people and we realized that we need get rid of 4 of them.

Speaker 1: Wow.

Zac: That was … we were basically … we gotta drop over half the team and some of it was for unfortunate reasons, like they just couldn’t keep up, or sometimes they just were doing things that they shouldn’t be doing, but having to get rid of folks on the team, especially people who we’d been working with for a little over a year since basically the very beginning was really, really tough. That one was, emotionally, I think pretty darn draining on everyone on the team.

Speaker 1: And then have to go back to start from square one and to hire all brand new people again. What did you learn through that process, about yourself, about hiring other people, about growing talent? What were some of the things that you-

Zac: I think the thing that I learned about myself is, I don’t like firing people. It’s not very fun thing.

Speaker 1: Confrontation is hard.

Zac: I don’t mind the confrontation part, I just feel like every employee that … one of the things that I learned from one of my first bosses was, he would always spend over half of his time just dealing with employees. Being available if they need to talk about stuff, working on their existing projects. I feel like he didn’t do a whole lot of work himself, but he made sure that everyone else on the team was that much more productive, and he had a vested interest in making sure that everyone was. I try to do that same thing, so all the people that we let go and everyone on the team, I really do care about them. Whether I personally like them or not, I still want them to be successful. Emotionally it was so draining getting rid of someone that I just don’t want to ever do that again, so now we’re really, really careful about who we hire and bring onto the team and do that really, really slowly, make sure that we are actually willing to spend the next 10 years of our life with that person.

Speaker 1: What are you doing differently now, specifically, are you asking different questions, are you doing different things with them, or what is it that’s changed?

Zac: I think there was … I think one part of it was we ended up bringing on some of those folks at a time before we actually needed them, we were like, “We’re probably going to need these people soon, let’s bring them on and get them up and ready to go,” and then as things pivoted, as things changed, that didn’t happen and then they were in a role that they weren’t fit for. Then I think the second part, in coming back to being an entrepreneur is you kind of have to trust your gut on some of these things and someone may look great on paper and might sort of provide the right answers but if you don’t have that … if you don’t have that feeling that it’s going to work out then you should trust that. Especially at a very early stage company where you’re in the trenches with them for a long period of time.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Zac: You’re going to be relying on these people a lot more hours than what’s written their offer letter, and everyone knows it, so make sure that you really want them to be that person that you’re willing to rely on.

Speaker 1: Spend a lot of time with [inaudible 00:18:31] business.

Zac: You spend more time with them than your significant other in many cases, which is kind of depressing, but [inaudible 00:18:38].

Speaker 1: It’s kind of like family then, in the early part of the business.

Zac: It absolutely is, which is definitely an interesting thing.

Speaker 1: Talk about co-founder communication and conflict resolution, because I think a lot of people who start businesses who are working with it, no matter what scale it is, that’s a challenging piece of it. How do you work through things? How do you communicate with people, collaborate, stay in sync over time? What’s your thoughts and what do you do, and what have you learned on [inaudible 00:19:13]?

Zac: I remember there was the most difficult conversation … I remember with Ryan Johnson, who’s the … one of the co-founders. It was at one of the very beginning … we were having a conversation just about how to split up the equity for Elsen, which is I think one of the most tense conversations I’ve every had about Elsen. You gotta turn in to it and be open about everything with your co-founders, and you need to make sure that there’s full transparency about everything, that everyone is completely on board with anything, and that you really do trust those people basically, I don’t know … I don’t want to say with your life, but …

Speaker 1: It’s close to it, essentially because you’re putting everything and your energy into this business. It’s all … it’s really all of you.

Zac: We ended up sitting down for four or five hours for that conversation and it was a hard conversation. We were loud and passionate during that time, and I think you’ve gotta find those people that you trust that you can have that frank open conversation with but still know that, hey, you love them at the end of the day.

Speaker 1: You’re okay after the end of five hours. It’s not like the relationship is in jeopardy teetering on the edge of …

Zac: Exactly, right, and it’s really hard I guess, building up that trust, building up that relationship, and it took a lot of time for us to get to where we could basically be yelling at each other, and then be completely okay with it five minutes later. That’s kind of where we’re at now, which is really important, I know that at any point I can go and talk to them and be … tell them about anything, and whether it be personal or work related, and everything will be fine.

Speaker 1: Talk about culture building and how you view that inside and building a start-up company, and how you view that now, right as you’re building this company bigger and bigger and then it’s actually stretching out externally to other people that you’re working with and clients and …

Zac: Coming back to part of the reason why we had to get rid of a couple of people is … part of it was because of the cultural fit. I think a big thing that we look at is, everyone works really, really hard. Everyone is a high performer, but that you still trust the people around you, right?

Speaker 1: Yes.

Zac: It’s high performance, just do what you need to do to be successful, those are I think a lot of the things we kind of look at when we look for people to add to the team.

Speaker 1: People that have skin in the game.

Zac: Definitely the skin in the game. I don’t know, I find a big part of it is … and we have really difficult conversations all the time, just because we have a lot of conflicting opinions about major decisions that we’re making every day, and you have to trust the other people … We’ve got a lot of people on our team that are all really good at everything that they do, and so whenever they make a decision they’re usually … they tend to be correct and so we’ve got other people that are also making conflicting decisions, and it’s making sure that you trust and respect the other people around you. That you’ve set clear guidelines around who is actually responsible for making decisions, who is helping inform decisions, but that … I think that kind of helps clarify things, but a big part of it is, you just have to respect the other people around you and continue making sure that everyone is pushing forward together.

Speaker 1: How do you coach the people in your business? As a leader of the business, how do you help them grow and get to the next step in what they need to do? Even in a start-up company too, it’s important to have, obviously, these conversations with them, to help them, because that helps the business obviously.

Zac: One thing that we like to do is … we have quarterly reviews for everyone, so we like to understand both how people should … on a very quantitative stand point, where the company wants people to improve, but also where they want to improve, and then as much as possible trying to push people into those different things. Whether it’s getting them involved in other types of meetings that they normally wouldn’t do, getting them to present in front of other people, getting them to actually take more responsibility in certain things. I think it’s just not being afraid to push people into those things, and I think … it’s kind of weird because I’m actually I think one of the youngest people on our team, not being afraid to push people into those things, and have those difficult conversations when someone isn’t doing what they need to do and you need to pull them in. You just gotta overcome that and do it.

Speaker 1: How do you surround yourself with people that will help you see your own blind spots and that will help you grow? Because a lot of times, people … that’s a tough thing for some people that are leading a company and some people navigate that well, some people don’t, how do you look at that and …

Zac: That’s a good question. I think I like to think that I know where my weak spots are, I don’t know, sometimes I think that I purposely don’t like to [inaudible 00:24:37] just out of being a pain in the butt sometimes. I think it comes back to talking to as many people as possible. Talking to everyone who you could possibly talk to and everyone who they’ll introduce you to and finding those people that you, again, trust, that you respect and then looping them in as much as possible.

That’s a big part of how we’ve been able to bring on two of the folks on our executive team is … One of them was a referral from one of our investors who we had known for about 18 months. One of them was actually an advisor for one of our investors, who I had known for about 18 months. It was through kind of luck of knowing these other people and talking to them for a long period of time and actually trusting and respecting them. I know that they have a ton of experience, a ton of expertise that I’ll, just because of my age, won’t be able to have and I hope that they’re giving me the good advice for that.

Speaker 1: It’s also the relationship building, because I think one of the things that you mentioned early on, which a lot of people do not do is get out there, meet people, build these relationships and then continually to do it over the life span. Because usually what I see is that, people will do it and then it drops way off, and then all of a sudden they don’t have anything, and then you re-start it and it’s really, really hard.

Zac: You can’t do that.

Speaker 1: You can’t do that. How do you-

Zac: You just keep going to them, and in all fairness I’m not a big fan of networking events.

Speaker 1: We know more now, I think networking in terms of relationship building is just meeting people in various formats, like going out and setting up dinners things with people, or going in smaller environments that are more conducive so you can actually just meet more people.

Zac: Well there … I mean I just I … I also just like talking to people. I just find it interesting talking to new people and smart people that have new ideas. One of the things that I like to do is, we contribute to a couple of different meeting groups, meetup groups, like TechSandBox, which is a thing that we’ve been part of for a number of years here in Boston.

Speaker 1: And you spoke there, so [crosstalk 00:26:43].

Zac: Oh, cool, so we continued to work with that group. We have presented at other things, we’ve organized events for them, so that’s an easy way that we’re always keeping up what are other cold start-ups doing. Who are the other interesting people in the community, other sponsors and stuff and that’s a really easy one that helps me do that. The other easy way, is rely on … I guess now that we’ve got a pretty good core team, they’re always going to things and just making sure that you’re talking to those folks. Again, now that we’ve got this really strong core group of employees and advisors and investors, always just going back to them, like hey, “Who’s that new person that you should talk to?” You’ve just gotta always be willing to do five of those meetings a day, and talk to people.

Speaker 1: And now, as the company’s gotten more cachet it’s … this community here in Boston has [inaudible 00:27:39] is very small and it’s easier to meet people. You have to take the time out, and that’s what a lot of people don’t do, is just continually take the effort and the time out of their schedule because they rationalize, I have to do something else, but at the end of the day, like what you said, you found multiple people in your business through other people. If you didn’t do that they wouldn’t be there in the business and the business would be significantly weaker because of it-

Zac: Exactly.

Speaker 1: Then where it is right now.

Zac: It’s definitely an incredibly important thing. I would say the first two years that we were doing Elsen, I was at every single event I could possibly go to talking to every single person I could possibly talk to. It’s a pain in the butt, but I think that’s part of the reason why we now actually are having a good reputation, a lot of people know about us and we have a pretty good network of people that we can go to. Obviously we are continuing to do that and continuing to grow, but I think that’s one of the really important things that I would highly recommend to anyone who is actually trying to do something.

Speaker 1: … is to get out there and network and also it’s doing things other people don’t want to do, right, you said you’re going to all these meetings, doing all these things, well a lot of people … most people wouldn’t … 99% of people wouldn’t do what you did, but that’s why you are where you are.

Zac: Something like that, the other thing I would say is also just make sure you’re actually talking to people at those things and … I know a lot people go to events and then don’t really actually talk to new people. Always make sure you’re building those relationships with those people. Some of the people that I’ve met, at some of the first things, two or three years ago, I’m actually now really good friends with and I know that those people will be friends that I’ll have for a long period of time or be really helpful to Elsen.

Speaker 1: Did you follow up with them at the event and suggest doing something outside of it, meeting up, doing something? How did you kind of take that initial meeting with them for the first time into something more than it is then?

Zac: I think probably for the first couple of years, I was drinking 8 or 10 cups of coffee a day.

Speaker 1: Oh, wow, that’s a lot of coffee.

Zac: It was a dangerous amount, but that’s what I did, was just drink coffee with everyone, just go and get a cup of coffee, and again, I feel like you … part of it is all of those people, they have a different way of looking at a problem and maybe they have a different perspective or some random person who they know that’s actually running the company that you want to talk to and you just have to be able to go and talk to those people. I always really enjoyed those things.

Speaker 1: What leadership qualities and traits do you think are most important for a CEO to have, and things that you may have seen in other people that you think are exemplary, and other things you think are things that are really challenging for a business if someone has those types of qualities or traits?

Zac: I think one of the most important one is being able to simplify a message. I find that that’s actually one of the traits that I find most impressive from a lot of the CEO’s that I respect is, they’re taking one of the most complex ideas, or most complex industries and actually being able to boil it down and translate that to everyone else. Because if you can do that, then you’ll be able to bring on people onto the team, you’ll be able to get funding, you’ll be able get cli … you’ll be able to do whatever you need. That I think, is also one of the most difficult things in the world to do is, make a complex idea simple.

Speaker 1: You really have to understand the idea and are passionate about it and driving on the bleeding edge in order to simplify it backwards and probably lead them in a vision that’s going to get people [inaudible 00:31:23].

Zac: You just have to practice so bloody much. That’s the hard part, is that you just have to also do it so many times to actually have that message be succinct to get other people to trust you behind it, because I guess if you’re the CEO, you’re trying to now convince other people that, hey, this is something that they should be putting years of their life behind. That somehow this idea, this message is the thing that will actually lead them to success. That’s I think definitely the most impressive one that I’ve found.

Speaker 1: What’s next for you in this business now? Where do you all want to go? Where’s next for you is … you think as a CEO on your progression path I’m interested in seeing kind of like what the future looks like.

Zac: Right now, Eslen is focused on two big things. One … sorry … getting over that cold.

Speaker 1: Nice.

Zac: Sorry about that. One part is we’re taking the underlying platform that we developed for basically over the past four years and starting to add on more partners, more data sets and get that platform better distributed globally. The second is we’ve got this first commercial application with Thomson Reuters, which is actually being distributed globally now. We need to ensure that that’s actually successful. Those are our two big priorities over the next 12 to 18 months. I think for me personally, I’m really focused on continuing to expand the team. I’d like to bring on some more resources so that way we can continue to actually achieve all those things.

I think the thing that I want to get better on is actually making sure that our message is being distributed to a larger group of people. It’s kind of easy when you’ve only got 6, 10 people, but as we actually grow to 10, 20, 30, 40 people making sure that the organization as a whole is continuing to have that culture that we want, is continuing to actually be quantitative, is continuing to be successful. I don’t really know … that’s what I need to figure out how to do.

Speaker 1: How do you manage your personal life and people on a team and have it stay afloat as you’re managing to do all the stuff inside the business, and prioritize it in a way? Have you figured out how to …

Zac: I have not figured it out no. Sorry, that was it. I’m definitely still trying to figure out the work/life balance thing.

Speaker 1: I don’t really think there’ll be balance, it’s just how do you keep them both in a good place and …

Zac: I think a big part of it is … and the part of the nice thing about being the CEO, is that you can bring people on that do the stuff that you don’t really want to do anymore. I do a lot of stuff that I … I love Elsen, it’s my favorite thing in the world, so i never really feel like a lot of the stuff that I’m doing actually is work and I always really enjoy it, which I think is really helpful. That’s I think a big part of it, continuing to bring on more people that I think can help us grow that vision, grow that company. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Zac: Okay.

Speaker 1: No, that’s fantastic. Well, I would like to thank you for spending some time with us today on another episode of Executive Breakthroughs, and Zac’s given us a lot of great information in taking along his trajectory in life with the business so far and be really excited to see how everything moves forward and continues to take off, like a hockey stick up, right?

Zac: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: Thanks all for tuning in and we will talk to you on the next episode.

Zac: Awesome, thank you.

Speaker 1: Thanks, I appreciate it. It was awesome. Loved it, it was a lot great stuff in here, so that’s fantastic to share with people and insights and stuff so it was great.

Jason : Okay. Welcome to another episode of Executive Breakthroughs, I have a
fantastic guest and my speaking coach, founder of Strategic Speaking, Tamsen
Webster. She is going to be talking all about her life, her career and giving you
some inside tips because she is also the woman behind the magic of TEDx
Cambridge, and we are in Boston, so that’s also a nice thing that we’re close by.

Tamsen Webster: It is a nice thing. It is.

Jason : Welcome. Welcome to the show.

Tamsen Webster: Thank you, it’s so nice to see you.

Jason : It’s nice to see you too. I like to give people a taste of where you grew up and a little bit about family and early influences. Why don’t you take us back to that moment when you were that high that was the table or lower, so …

Tamsen Webster: Table or lower. I’m a navy kid, so we moved around quite a bit before I settled in, and I think that had a lasting effect both on me and my sister, actually.

Jason : How so?

Tamsen Webster: Because what’s interesting is that both she and I have ended up in careers where we end up telling stories in a very small amount of time. She is a
screenwriter, she writes in L.A. and she … Most recent project, she was a writer
and a supervising producer on the Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, and writes for
movies, and etc. I’ve ended up in a career where I help people get big ideas
across in short amounts of time, too. They end up being about the same amount
of time between … movie is, in a lot of ways, equivalent to a keynote or a
workshop, and a TV pilot is about an hour long, and a sitcom is about a half
hour, which gets you to-

Jason : Do you attribute those to anything? To anything that like things that happened?

Tamsen Webster: I do actually, because I think that when you move around a lot, as a kid, you’re in a situation where you have to figure out, “How does this place work? How does this group work? How do I make a mark on this group if I want to? Or how
do I blend in? Or how do I be a part of it?”

I think, whether we realize it or not, it was really good training into very quickly
understanding what were the important moving parts in any place where we
were. Because as kids that moved around a fair amount, she ended up getting
moved a lot more than I did because she was older. You end up being very self-
sufficient. I think that you end up figuring out how to build your own stories, or
how to build your own narrative around how things are working around you. I
think that that has shown up in where each of us have ended up with our
careers.

Jason : You had to do that really quickly, because if you’re moving spot to spot, the
more time it takes you to get adjusted, the less time that you’re actually in the
flow and building relationships with people.

Tamsen Webster: Yes. It can happen early. We stopped moving when I was five, but still, when you move five times before you’re five, there still is this pick up, set down, pick up, set down, pick up, set down that happens. That experience is very different than when we finally settled in, which is Virginia Beach in Virginia … I know I look like a total beach girl. That experience is dramatically different from the vast majority of other people who were in the same schools and all, even
though there were a lot of Navy kids there, because Virginia Beach is a big Navy
town.

Jason : Yes.

Tamsen Webster: It’s still a different background than the majority of people who are born and raised in some place, and so you’re already different coming in. You have to
figure out how different do you want to be? “What’s the nature of my
difference? What’s the nature of this place? What does this group of people
value?” All of those things are pieces of information that I know now, looking
back on it, that I ended up having to pick up.

Jason : That you figured out?

Tamsen Webster: Yeah.
Jason : What made it that you stopped moving? Did your dad get out of the military?

Tamsen Webster: No, my father. No, he was in the Navy for about 21 years,
and my mother also worked as a civilian with the Navy. She worked with the
Navy Family Services Center, so it was basically a social services center for Navy
families because my mother was a PhD in anthropology, which was really
unusual for a woman in the 60s and early 70s to not only have a career, but get
a PhD.

Jason : Yeah, it is.

Tamsen Webster: She was an interesting role model, as well. He decided he didn’t want to be on active duty on ships, and so he ended up taking a desk job in the Navy. Even
then, he ended up being away a lot because the best way for him to do that was
to … for a number of years, was to work up in D.C., so he was in D.C. during the
week and home-

Jason : And on the weekend …

Tamsen Webster: … home on the weekends.
Jason : Even though you weren’t moving, you had a lot of moving parts all the time, in and out.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of moving parts all the time, but my mother, who was kind of a constant through all. I give my mother a huge amount of credit for all of that.

Jason : How did your mother manage that? I just wonder, I’m just curious.

Tamsen Webster: I still wonder that to this day because she’s … I mean it’s … I’ve got two kids, I don’t know how she did it. I really don’t, and yet sustained a career. She did all of the things that, I think, a lot of people would aspire to now and was doing it in a much more difficult environment then than we have now.

Jason : Definitely.

Tamsen Webster: She’s always been very strong in her convictions. She’s always been an observer, as well, and so as an anthropologist … As a child of an anthropologist, I think, a lot of our observational skills came from her. You don’t really realize what you pick up from your parents, but I can see it with my own kids is that I’m very
much into reading and stories and art and theater and was never very much into
sports and that’s the same with my kids. They do what they see.

Jason : Right, of course.

Tamsen Webster: I think the same thing was true with my mother, we observed her observing. She always is making comments and just noticing things.

Jason : And she was your constant.

Tamsen Webster: And she was our constant, and so I think my sister and I picked up that kind of anthropological observation. It just manifested in different ways based on what our own individual traits were, which is really interesting to see.

Jason : That’s interesting. Did you have any other role … obviously, your mom must
have been some level of role model growing up being in that environment, is
there anyone else who was like a role model or a significant influence?

Tamsen Webster: I think I was one of … It’s commonplace now, but growing up and given all of that, that situation with my dad being there and not, and my mom and all of that. I would say my biggest influence was a group of people that I grew up
with. I had a very close group of friends in middle school and high school that all
oriented around things that we were all interested in. I think, in a lot of ways, it
was a lot of peer mentoring that happened. I see that now with people who are
the age I was then, but it seemed like that was an early wave of it. I see it now
going forward into the careers where there’s a lot of, particularly women my
age, who look and because of the progress that women have made in the
workplace, there aren’t all that many women in a role that is 5, 10, 15, 20 years
ahead of us that provide mentorship back.
I’m part of, at least, three or four different groups of peer mentoring,
masterminds-

Jason : Interesting.

Tamsen Webster: … and coaching circles because that’s what’s there. If you don’t have somebody who’s been on the path before you, then you end up trying to figure out that path together. I think that’s what we did a lot in high school. As it turns out, a lot of the kids that I was friends with also were the children of military of one sort or another.

Jason : It makes sense.

Tamsen Webster: Or their parents were split up, or they had a parent that had a more active role and wasn’t around as much. Even though we had this affinity around the arts, or other things, there’s this other underlying consistency on this mindset that each of us had based on, “Well, we kinda have to figure this out on our own, so let’s
figure it out on our own together.”

Jason : Have to be very self-sufficient along-

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, self-sufficient, independent. I’m not sure how my parents feel about that
now, I think sometimes they regret that they raised two very emotionally
independent kids because we’re-

Jason : I know.

Tamsen Webster: … like the anti-millennials. We love our parents dearly, but neither my sister nor I are the kind that are constantly on the phone and always checking in.

Jason : Call them up, yeah.

Tamsen Webster: My parents are somewhere in the South China Sea right now having a great time, I’m sure.

Jason : See, they’re having good times-

Tamsen Webster: They’re having a great time, yeah. We’re really split up. My sister’s in L.A., I’m in Boston, they’re Pacific Northwest, so I don’t think we could be further apart, but that’s not really because we couldn’t be, it’s just-
J
ason : The way that it worked out.

Tamsen Webster: The way that it worked out.

Jason : What happened in the … you went to school, like-

Tamsen Webster: Yes, I came here to Boston for school and it was funny because at the time-

Jason : Why here?

Tamsen Webster: Why? That’s a good question. It ended up that I came here because a friend of mine thought that all the other places I applied would be absolutely not a good fit with my personality. Having a bit of an independent streak, I decided that I
wanted to go very nontraditional college, and so just about all the college I
applied to other than the … I only applied to Harvard and Amherst, just to see if
I can get in-

Jason : Sure.

Tamsen Webster: … were nontraditional. Evergreen State south of Seattle, Bennington,
Hampshire College out in the Berkshires here in Massachusetts, all places where
you essentially designed your own major, but all of them-

Jason : Interesting.

Tamsen Webster: … were rural. I had a good friend in high school who said, “You are gonna hate that,” even though Virginia Beach wasn’t exactly a city, he was like-

Jason : It’s still a lot different-

Tamsen Webster: It’s a-

Jason : … rural community.

Tamsen Webster: Exactly. He’s like, “You don’t want sheep in your front yard,” and I’m like, “You
know, that’s probably right.” I had gone to a summer program that Harvard runs
for high school students between their junior and senior year. I really loved
Boston and Cambridge and that summer that I was up here. He was like, “Well,
why don’t you just, you know, go to BU? Boston University?” I was like, “Okay,
let me apply there.” They ended up … that was the biggest financial aid package
I got, and it ended up being absolutely the best place, but not because of the
school itself, in a lot of ways. It was because it was the city, that was the best
experience for me here.

Jason : What about the city was …

Tamsen Webster: A number of things. One thing was to give BU credit, I was allowed and able to
essentially design my own major, but within a little bit more structure than I
would have had someplace else.

Jason : Right, [crosstalk 00:11:36]

Tamsen Webster: BU had what’s called a collaborative degree program. Since I had gone … In
Virginia, I had been in essentially a prep school, so had taken a lot of advanced
placement courses, started with a lot of credits. I had a college counselor that
was like, “You know, you’ve got enough credits so you could do a second degree
while you’re here.” I said, “Okay.” I had started in the management school,
studying marketing and market research, and then I added a liberal arts degree
on top of it in American Studies, which very much was a study of culture. I like
to say I don’t know whether it found me or I found it, because it was absolutely
a codifying of how I think about things.
American Studies is an approach to studying culture. It isn’t really about like,
“Go America!” It’s about picking a time period, or picking an idea and looking at
everything around that. I picked the intra war, between World War I and World
War II, and so my role in American Studies was to look at that time period from
every single … From art, from the economy, from politics, to just every … the
culture, political dynamics, I already said politics, but just interactions of
everything.

Jason : It’s kind of anthropological, too.

Tamsen Webster: It is anthropological, yes, absolutely.
Jason : It’s a tongue twister, but it’s like, yes, definitely you’re like mom, you can see
that.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, I can see that.

Jason : Now-

Tamsen Webster: My look at it was I was kind of bored with just marketing and business, and the
kids that were in the business school weren’t really my people. I was looking for
what would I pair with it? I said, “Well, if I’m gonna be in marketing, then I want
a better understanding of the culture to which I’m going to market.” I wanted
that ability.
Your question was about why the city. As it turns out, because my family was
not wealthy, I needed to work the whole time I was in school, just to have
pocket money and things like that. I ended up working in the night clubs on
Lansdowne Street here in Boston, which is really surprising to people. They’re
like, “What did you do, Tamsen?” As it turns out, I was the box office girl,
because as one of the managers told me, I was the only one they could truly
trust to A, be with the money and B, to count it correctly. I was the one that
took all the money at the door and divided it up and everything … sold tickets
and all of that. I was also the popcorn girl on Sunday nights for movie night, but
the …
What was interesting about that was it allowed me, at a time when I think a lot
of people set their world perspective on what people are like and what their in
groups are and who they want to be, it showed me a much bigger spread of
people than I would have seen in any other way. Actually, before I worked on
Lansdowne Street, I worked in this totally sketch nightclub that was in Kenmore
Square called Narcissus. Anyone who is from Boston would be like, “Oh my God,
you worked at Narcissus?” Yes, because Narcissus was actually where the locals
came. Lansdowne Street was where all the college kids went out at night, but
Narcissus was where the kids who lived on the north, like Revere and all these
places, your classic Boston accent people, they came into town and they worked
at Narcissus.
To see and become friends with those people, and then to get to see a different
group of people at the clubs on Lansdowne Street, it taught me a huge amount
of things, a huge amount. I mean, the first was that a college degree was not
necessary for someone to be a fascinating, fully-formed, interesting human. Yet
that, particularly coming out of a prep school, that’s the narrative that you’re
taught.

Jason : Of course.

Tamsen Webster: Like, “Go, do your work-”

Jason : They have to sell you that.

Tamsen Webster: They have to sell you on that. All of a sudden, I was like, “Well, a lot of the
people that I go to school with, I don’t like but these people that I work with,
many of whom barely, if they got out of high school at all, were amazing people,
really interesting, smart, just well-rounded, real people.” So many of my friends
from college are actually not from college, they’re people I became friends with
while I was in college. Even if they happened to have gone to BU, they weren’t
in my classes, it was because we worked in the clubs together, that’s why, and
it’s crazy, but yeah, little known fact.

Jason : Little known fact.

Tamsen Webster: Little known fact.

Jason : That dovetails with a lot of what you’re talking about in meeting people and the
stories and learning all about all these different people from all walks and
shapes and forms all over the place, and then sort of just being friends with
them outside of the mainstream because that’s now where you had come from,
at all.

Tamsen Webster: Right, right.

Jason : It just makes sense. Now looking back, it looks like okay, that makes real logical
sense that you’d be attracted and want to be doing that outside the norm. You
left school and what happened after that? What was the next-

Tamsen Webster: When I graduated college, was so really in the … This is all in the early 90s, and
this prior to the financial crash of 2008 was like the next most recent really bad
time to be graduating college-

Jason : Yes.

Tamsen Webster: … because it wasn’t good. That was one of the reasons why I went into business,
in the first place, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be, because I
was horrified that my sister, who went to Stanford, because eight other people,
and I’m not kidding about that, went to Stanford, I didn’t even apply because
I’m like, “I’m not going to Stanford, everybody else did.” I was just horrified, at
the time, that she went to Stanford for theater. I was like, “You go to Stanford
and you get a theater degree? What the heck are you gonna do with that?” Of
course now, I was like, “Okay, that was smart.”
It was not a good time to get a job and so I … and I love being in school, frankly.
I love learning. I haven’t stopped, obviously. It’s one of the reasons why I love
doing TEDx so much. I feel like I get little intense … Any time I work with a client,
or any speaker, I get an intense education in that particular topic and it’s fun.
I went straight on to grad school and I went to Dallas, actually. I went to
Southern Methodist. I went to SMU because they had a grad school program
that mimicked what I had done as an undergrad. SMU has a program for arts
administration and I wanted to be an art museum director, where you would
get a master’s in arts administration, so essentially a liberal arts master’s degree
and an MBA simultaneously.
It was two years, two summers and I’d get two master’s degrees out of it. I was
like, “All right, it happens to be in Texas, so I’ll go.” I was open to that. There was
a reason why I wanted to go away from home to go to college, I consciously
wanted a different environment for grad school because I felt like I knew the
West Coast because my parents were there, my sister ended up there. I’d been
in the south-ish with Virginia, New England I got and I’m like, “Here’s this giant
part of the country I don’t understand, like let’s-

Jason : Let’s go there.

Tamsen Webster: … let’s go there! And let’s go to Texas!” The food was good. It was awesome.
Texas and I didn’t really get along all that well, because I wasn’t any less
opinionated, or any less brunette in Texas, and particularly in the last 90s when
the economy started picking up again, neither of those things were terribly
popular, particularly in the business community coming out of SMU, at the time.
But it was another one of those things where I’m really glad that I did it, because
always having my feet in kind of two experiences allowed me to have a better
perspective on both. You think about it, there’s-

Jason : It makes sense.

Tamsen Webster: … a reason, we have two eyes, it gives you depth perception. It’s the thing that
allows you to get a better perspective on something. Being able to do that the
whole time allowed me to have that perspective. I ended up getting my MBA at
23, which is super unusual and it’s why I wish that MBA still had continuing
education because I’d love to go back. Once I’ve been out in the world, I’d love
to go back and be like, “Oh, that’s what this was all about.” It was a really
interesting experience because it was … I think we had 114 people in the class,
there were fewer than 20 women in that whole class, I was younger than
everybody else by at least six or seven years. It was, again, an interesting, kind
of fish out of water.

Jason : Mix of people.

Tamsen Webster: Mix of people. The marketing was what I did from undergrad, and so when I
went to SMU, what I really wanted to focus on was, “Well, if that’s external
communication, how does internal communication work?” What I focused on in
undergrad was organizational behavior and organizational structure and
management communications, how you get something to work internally?
Because I was already starting to figure out that a message was never going to
work externally, if it didn’t make internal sense first. That’s where that piece
came in.
I worked both at Banana Republic and got a job at a consulting firm in Dallas
while I was there, the former Pritchett & Associates, now Pritchett, Inc., Price
Pritchett. It’s that typical story of they just threw money at me and I said,
“Okay.” Like, “What art museum?”

Jason : It isn’t a bad thing.

Tamsen Webster: “All right, it’s fine.” After about a year, I was like, “You know, this isn’t what I
wanna do.” I was a change management consultant, that absolutely marked
forever the kind of work that I liked to do, but doing it in Dallas at a consulting
firm wasn’t the right match.

Jason : Wasn’t right.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah.

Jason : Where was next?

Tamsen Webster: Next was, I was like, “Well, to heck with that, I’m gonna go back to the museum
world.” I took a 50% pay cut, moved back to Boston and started to work at a
museum that’s north of here called the Peabody Essex Museum up in Salem,
Massachusetts of witch fame.

Jason : Yes.

Tamsen Webster: Yes. Originally started in what would now be called development
communications, which is the communication strategy behind fundraising. I sat
between essentially the marketing department and the development, the
fundraising department. That evolved into … more of a long story than we
probably have time for. It evolved into my taking over the planning of the
exhibition schedule for the museum.

Jason : Oh, wow.

Tamsen Webster: I put into place their first five-year rolling plan for that, helped manage their
bicentennial exhibition and helped bring it, at that time, the most popular
exhibition they had had to date, which is the story of Ernest Shackleton’s
journey across the Antarctic after his boat got crushed in the ice.

Jason : Oh yeah, I read about that.

Tamsen Webster: That was a fascinating time. That was next. I was there for about three years,
which is my normal tenure. I’m a three year girl.

Jason : Three years, a magical time.

Tamsen Webster: It’s a magical time. My next job was longer than that. It was four and a half
years, I think I had more to do. I learned later that it usually took me about
three years to build a system, and then after the system was built, if I didn’t
have an opportunity to build a new system in that same place, I tended to
move.
The next place I went was still in the arts, but the other, all the rest of them. I
went into … I became the head of marketing and communications for a local
college here called the Boston Conservatory, which is a performing arts college
and they have music, dance and theater. It’s now part of Berklee College of
Music, but at the time, it was still independent.
That was a really interesting … It built on a lot of what I had started to see when
I was at Peabody Essex Museum, which is an institution that wasn’t fully
comfortable being itself. The Peabody Essex Museum really fought against the
fact that it was in Salem. They had all of the papers and all of the artifacts from
the witch trials, but they didn’t want to put them on display because that was
somehow low culture. There’s this vision of we want to be the MFA of the north
shore. I just wanted them to be the Peabody Essex Museum. I thought there
was more strength and more value and more difference there in saying, “Yeah,
we’re actually all of this. We are the quintessential-”

Jason : Instead of trying to fight it off.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, this quintessentially New England museum, I mean what other museum
could possible extent from everything? From an imported Chinese house, all the
way to-

Jason : That’s actually hurting you, because that’s what you’re known for, why not
leverage that to get more money and funding to do a lot of the other things that
you want to do?

Tamsen Webster: They’ve come to that. I think it was an internal struggle of seeing what worked
and what didn’t over time. When I went to the Boston Conservatory, I started to
see a very similar thing, because Boston is lousy with A, colleges and B, with
conservatories and music schools. There’s a ton of them, not only built into the
universities that are here, but there’s another conservatory. There’s the New
England Conservatory, which is the one that most people actually know.
When I got there, the Boston Conservatory was doing everything it could to look
just like the New England Conservatory. It had a logo that looked like it. The way
it talked about itself was that, and yet the New England Conservatory is just
classical music and the Boston Conservatory was music, dance and musical
theater. There was just this … Any image you might have in your mind about
what dancers and musical theater kids would add to that mix, and you’re
completely right. It was not this staid, formal place.
In fact, when I started talking to the students there to try to get a better handle
on what would be a better way to represent the conservatory, the analogy that
they kept coming back to, and different groups of people would come back, is
they kept describing themselves as the island of misfit toys. This was the only
place that they had ever been where they felt not out of a group, but it was a
whole group of people who are outsiders like that. We just revamped
everything, so that it was much more focused on that energy and that
happened from this cross of all those different disciplines.

Jason : It sounds like they had a little bit of an identity crisis.

Tamsen Webster: Oh, absolutely.

Jason : It seemed like both of the places, a lot of the stuff, it seems like people, they’re
having a crisis about who they are and trying to pull it out, right?

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, and trying to figure out a way to talk about it that makes sense.

Jason : Makes sense to everyone.

Tamsen Webster: Yes. In fact, that the answer is … as I started to discover-
Jason : Which is the same thing you did in school, right? It all really goes back to the
American Studies, right?

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, it’s still what I do now.

Jason : Because it’s looking like you have to look around everything-

Tamsen Webster: And what’s the thing that makes-

Jason : … 360 and what’s the theme and all the different things that are going on, and
be able to pull all that out to really understand what’s going on.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah. If I do one thing, it’s I help people make things make sense. Retroactively,
proactively-

Jason : It makes sense.

Tamsen Webster: … internally, externally just, “What is it that you need to make sense? Okay,
we’re gonna figure that out.”

Jason : It goes back … even going back to mom because I mean that’s-

Tamsen Webster: Going back to mom.

Jason : … what an anthropologist does, right?

Tamsen Webster: That’s right.

Jason : They were able to look at stuff from the outside perspective and bring it all
together, without moving as much bias as possible in the process of doing it.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, exactly. It’s never been not that, but I didn’t necessarily see it that way, at
the time. At the time, I’m like, “I’m just gonna explain this is … ” Now it’s the rest
of the arts, because there was still this part of me that was like, “Well, I wanted
to be a museum director and I’m not, and so what’s going on there?”

Jason : Did you have a lot of resistance in there?

Tamsen Webster: I didn’t. It was funny because I broke every rule about how you’re supposed to
rebrand an institution. The whole thing you’re supposed to do is you’re
supposed to do the research first and come up with the strategy and come up
with all of that, and then you come up with the logo and all of that stuff.
Because I had no money, I mean my budget was nothing, it was-

Jason : You can’t do that then, and then it’s hard for people to argue with you because
there’s no money to do it.

Tamsen Webster: Absolutely. What I did was I reversed the process. I had a designer that I trusted
very much. I said, “Come up with three radically different directions, based on
my impression so far of what I thought was representative of the feeling
anyway.” Then, I took that to the students, I took it to the faculty, I took it to the
staff and I used that as the basis of the research and said, “Which one of these is
right? Why?”
It all circled in on really one that represented the energy of it, and energy of
everything else. As a product of doing that work, we were also happened to be
working on the organization’s mission statement, at the time, and that was an
enormously collaborative process. One of the things that doing the rebranding
and doing it visually back, rather than strategy forward, helped to crystallize it
much, much faster. It also helped us figure out, as a group, that the thing that
really made the Boston Conservatory different was its focus on working artists.
You might think, “Well, why is that important?” Well, this college costs a lot of
money to send somebody there. If you think about a parent and now we’re into
the first wave of millennials, given the time. This is the time when the
millennials were coming in, the oldest millennials were starting college at the
time I was there. This was also 2001, so there was September 11 happened
while I was there, there was all sorts of stuff.
These were parents that were much closer to their kids, traditionally, than
GenXers like me, or boomers. They’re about to spend a whole bunch of money
to send their kid to art school. Their concern is is this kid going to work?

Jason : Right.

Tamsen Webster: The kids are just … they have a dream and they’ve got enormous talent and
whatever, but the parents are like, “Are you going to work?”

Jason : “Are you going to have a job? [crosstalk 00:30:42] survive?”

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, exactly.

Jason : Especially if they’re going through the downturn.

Tamsen Webster: Right. What we really focused on was not that we were subsuming quality,
because my feeling was any time a college comes out with like, “We’ve got
diversity and we’re student-centered and we’ve got excellent faculty.” That’s
table stakes. You can’t distinguish based on that-

Jason : Everyone knows that.

Tamsen Webster: Everyone. If you don’t, what the heck are you doing in business?

Jason : Yeah.

Tamsen Webster: It wasn’t that the quality of the education wasn’t important, it was just we were
looking at it through the lens of how can you work, if the quality isn’t great?
How can you work, if you don’t replicate working conditions?
That’s where the presence of all three disciplines there was really helpful,
because students who came to be classical musicians were playing in the pit
orchestras of the dance and the musical theater productions-

Jason : Got it.

Tamsen Webster: … which is, by the way, where the vast majority of classical musicians end up
working is in pits of shows, not at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or
something like that. It ended up being a really powerful way to not only attract
the right students to the organization, but eventually a really powerful basis for
fundraising. You could say … Let me be clear, the conditions were not great. In
fact, when I first started there, they had a picture of some other institution’s
theater on the front of the materials that were sent to the students.

Jason : That’s funny.

Tamsen Webster: They were so … We don’t show it. It became the basis of a very successful
fundraising that happened that really saw its peak after I left, where they could
say, “If we can get this kind of quality with these conditions, imagine what we
could do if they were good.”
Now, they’ve become so successful, they’ve built two … they renovated a
building, they built another one, the acquired and renovated a third. Then, the
successful, so far, merger with Berklee. That’s been cool to see. I can’t take any
credit for that piece, but it was fun to see it at the beginning.

Jason : It could be a part of the evolution of everything that’s going on.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah.

Jason : You left there, that was a little bit longer and …

Tamsen Webster: It was, because it was meatier. The shift was, once we had the brand in place, it
started to be how now do we swing the strategy of the school? I got to be
involved a little bit more in that. How do we set the curriculum up differently, so
that we can achieve this aspiration we have of a truly interdisciplinary-

Jason : That’s a pretty complex problem, too.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah. Then, from a career standpoint, I was looking at and saying, “Well, what
am I ready to do?” I still loved the consultant aspect way back from Pritchett in
Dallas. I was like, “Well, do I want to be a consultant? Or do I want to go forward
in … still towards the path of nonprofit administration?”
Given the fact that my background was always in marketing, you don’t get very
far in nonprofits, unless you know how to raise money. Even though I helped
with both admissions communication strategy and fundraising communication
strategy at the Conservatory, it wasn’t my main job. I was like, “Well, I wanna
see how a great fundraising operation works and I want to cut my teeth on
that.”
The next place I ended up was at Harvard Medical School, at which point I
couldn’t claim any arts at all, but it was really a very calculated decision to figure
out how does this other piece of this work? I went to Harvard Medical School
and was in charge of the fundraising communication strategy. My job was to
figure out how to help the gift officers, the people who had to go ask people for
money, how to ask people for money for Harvard? Which, if you stop and think
about it, is not that easy of a job, because [we’re 00:34:31] Harvard a country,
its GDP … its endowment would be a GDP equal to like the 18th largest country
in the world. They’ve got money. Needing money really couldn’t have been the
message, so it was a fun puzzle to have to figure out of, “Well, how do we make
that case? Why would people give money?”
Jason : How can we make a compelling case for people to give us money, when we
can’t use the fact that we, you know-

Tamsen Webster: We can’t use the fact that, “Help us … ”

Jason : Help us.

Tamsen Webster: Like, “Help us keep the lights on,” which was part of the message for the
Conservatory, which was-

Jason : Which is most of the time for nonprofits.

Tamsen Webster: Right. It was a fascinating thing to see, and it got me into the scientific world,
because there’s this extra layer of difficulty, an extra layer of difficulty for the
medical school because, unlike every other medical school in the world, Harvard
doesn’t have its own hospital. It has 17 of them. There’s a bunch of hospitals
here in Boston, Brigham and Women’s, Mass General, all sorts of … that are all
teaching hospitals for Harvard, but it’s not like Johns Hopkins University has
Johns Hopkins Medical Center, which means that as Harvard Medical School we
couldn’t fundraise from the patients of those hospitals because they had their
own fundraising arm.

Jason : Got it.

Tamsen Webster: The people that we could talk to were people who were interested in science, in
medicine in Boston, but probably weren’t scientists, or clinicians, or doctors
themselves.

Jason : Interesting.

Tamsen Webster: The other thing we had to do-

Tamsen Webster: … is how to explain what the actual work of the medical school was? It’s
something that … it’s called basic science, which is not basic at all. The way I
would ended up describing it to most people was that fundamental science, we
were really interested in what are the fundamental questions of why do people
get sick? Why are they healthy? Why don’t we know the answers to these
questions yet?
It was really my first … the first time I started to codify, in any real way, that
there was certain fundamental questions that people needed to have answered
about something before they would act on it. I loved working there, because it
was … One of the projects that I did right almost off the bat, because we were
trying to develop all these new materials, was I interviewed close to a quarter of
the entire faculty of the medical school. Just to be able to talk to these world
class-

Jason : Yeah, that’s pretty amazing how much you can learn and …

Tamsen Webster: … academics, researchers, scientists about just everything from neuroscience,
to systems biology, to macro biology, to infectious diseases, to just all of this, all
of it, and just seeing what were the frustrations? And why were they doing it?
What were they passionate about? Trying to figure out how to take all of that
and weave a narrative together that would make it easy for someone to go and
have a chat with some business person who has no background in science, or
medicine and be able to really powerfully and effectively explain why investing
in a medical school was the path to that individual donor achieving their own
personal goals.

Jason : Got it.

Tamsen Webster: That was fun, flat out fun, it was great, I loved that.

Jason : The ride had to end?

Tamsen Webster: It did have to end because … personnel changes. It was a time of enormous
upheaval at Harvard, as well. In the time that I was there, there were three
presidents … I had three different presidents of Harvard, three different deans
of the medical school-

Jason : Wow.

Tamsen Webster: … and then three different bosses in my office over three years. Everything was
changing at every level, and eventually just got to a point, I was just like, “I need
something that doesn’t change, for just a little while.” That was also the time
where I had my first son and I was like, “Okay, there’s-

Jason : Too much.

Tamsen Webster: … there’s too much, I just need things to stop for a little while.”

Jason : You were at your three years, too.

Tamsen Webster: I was at my three years, and I had built that system thanks to the change, it
didn’t survive much after leaving, but those contacts are still really powerful.

Jason : That’s good.

Tamsen Webster: Other people in the … I still do work for people that I worked with there.

Jason : Okay.

Tamsen Webster: With TEDx, it’s interesting how much in two ways it comes back. A, a lot of the
sponsors and organizational partners for TEDx Cambridge are some of those
people we were asking money of 15, 20 years ago now, or 15 years ago now.
Second, my ability to speak science has come in very handy. That summer I
spent talking to scientists and understanding what they do, whenever I meet a
scientist now, it doesn’t take very long before they’re like, “What did you
study?” Because they’re trying to figure out how I understand-

Jason : How do you figure it all out.

Tamsen Webster: How do I understand what it is because-

Jason : What they’re doing.

Tamsen Webster: … they’re only used to other scientists being able to understand it. I’d like to say
now that I forgot to study science because I do, I adore science. I was coming
out of high school, as I said, I was worried about getting a job and being an art
museum director, and so science didn’t play a part. I’m glad it came back later.

Jason : What was next? What was …

Tamsen Webster: After that, I decided that now was the time that I wanted to head back into
consulting a bit. I wasn’t ready, at that time, to be an entrepreneur. I
contemplated it, but I’m glad I didn’t then. I went to work for a company that I
had hired while I was at the medical school that … We worked together to put
all the materials together, the ones that didn’t end up really getting used.
They’re a local brand strategy firm here in Boston called Sametz Blackstone,
they still do wonderful work. They tend to focus on cultural institutions, higher
education, companies and organizations with a mission, with a purpose, even
when they’re working for corporations, their best fit is for corporations that do
more.
I wore a lot of hats there. I was part brand strategist, based on the fact that I
had been, at that point, 15 years as a brand marketer. I was also business
development, to some extent, and this is now the late 2000s, so this is when
social started to pop up. I ended up being their first digital and content
strategist. Then, because I was one of the only people who had managed people
when there was a shift in responsibility for their IT group, I ended up taking over
and managing their web development team, as well.
I did that for three years, wearing those multiple hats, and really helping them
move their brand strategy thinking … I’d like to think I helped them move their
brand strategy thinking into what does it look like dispersed digitally? It helped
me understand what is it that an organization buys when they buy brand
strategy? Where does that work? Where does it break? Sametz does a
wonderful work with positioning, and they do great work in graphic identity,
and getting something that really captures an organization and what it’s for.
I could see how organizations would really struggle because they would ask us,
they were like, “What do we say day to day?” That wasn’t Sametz’s role, they
were always very clear on it, but there was a gap with what do you do day-to-
day with that? It can be a wonderful brand, a wonderful strategy, but what do
you do day-to-day?

Jason : Day-to-day, yeah.

Tamsen Webster: That became the next question I wanted to answer. “How do I make that make
sense? How do I make a big high level brand make sense day-to-day?”

Jason : Day-to-day.

Tamsen Webster: That was a place where having gotten in early in social ended up working out for
me very well because I was connected with other people here in town that were
also doing similar things. A friend of mine who was heading up the kind of an
experimental digital marketing division of a local advertising agency, a place
called Allen & Gerritsen said, “Hey, do you want to come be part of that? I need
somebody who understands … ” He saw me as someone who really understood
how influence networks worked because he’d seen me do it, he’d seen me
figure out who were the people-

Jason : And you’d been doing this in all these different ways.

Tamsen Webster: In all these different ways, I’d been figuring out how to do it, so he wanted me
to come in and do that. Over the course of three years-

Jason : Of course.

Tamsen Webster: … I ended up taking over that group and expanding it to a broader community
management, content, digital, social, and really figuring out, “Well, were was
the break in … ” Okay, now I could figure out this is what we need to be able to
produce day-to-day and how important it was to have a high level strategy that
made sense.
I could also start to see the seeds that there was still something missing in
between, which is there was this gap between day-to-day content and high level
brand, which turned out to be messaging, which was a big hole in offerings in
the marketplace in general.

Jason : Yes.

Tamsen Webster: We started to build that out a little bit. Then, as it often happens in
organizations, there was a change in-

Jason : Leadership.

Tamsen Webster: Yes, not so much at the highest level. In this case, what happened was the
agency acquired another agency and that changed all the internal-

Jason : Dynamics.

Tamsen Webster: … dynamics and things that were … Because they wanted to become a bigger
agency, it meant that the boxes around positions got more sharply drawn. I was
at a point in my career where I didn’t want that sharp of a box around me. I had
seen the sparkle of the next step because I had … there was a group that had
come in to do training for us, while I was at Allen & Gerritsen, on how to
develop messages for sales presentations or for pitches, which people in
advertising have to do all the time. I was very involved in almost all … I’d say a
significant proportion, a majority of the new business pitches because, at that
time, everybody wanted social to be tacked onto their creative strategy, and so
that was usually where it was. Because I had spent so much time presenting on
behalf of the organizations I had worked with before and always focusing on
communications, I ended up being, a lot of times, the very last presenter, and so
the person that was in the position of wrapping up the pitch.
When this company came in, it was a company called Oratium. It was a two-day
workshop. After the first day, I was like … I went up to the CEO of the company
and I said, “This is my dream job, how do I get it?” Six months later, I was
working for them, because I was like, “Now I wanna figure this piece out. How
do I figure out messaging? How do I do that?” That’s where I ended up next was
Oratium, which is a boutique messaging consultancy, is probably the best way
to describe it.
The Oratium training and consulting firm, I think, the training was very much
where most of the money and the profit and the revenue came in. Training,
again, around presentation skills that weren’t really about presentation skills, it
was much more about understanding how the brain works. The CEO was a big
fan of neuroscience, and so this is where I got my science thing fix back in, and
was a big fan of how do you match messaging to how people’s brains work?

Tamsen Webster: It was super interesting-

Jason : This started the entrepreneurial itch.

Tamsen Webster: It did. It did, because they were gracious enough, while I was there, to allow me
to be entrepreneurial while I was there, in certain ways. At this point, I had
learned enough about my career that I really like working individually with
people, and yet this was a company that [inaudible 00:46:49] training to large
groups of people. I had cut my teeth on training per se, and Weight Watchers,
which I know we haven’t even gotten to yet. I was very comfortable in that
environment, but I really loved just being able to sit down and figure out like,
“How do we do this thing?”

Jason : You also weren’t, at this point, sort of getting the big picture, getting in the
middle, and then you got yourself into a box, at this point, that there really …
there wasn’t anywhere else you could go other than on your own.

Tamsen Webster: Yes, because there wasn’t really anybody doing the things that I wanted to be
doing. While I was at Oratium, one of the normal and natural evolutions out of
training was that we would train people on how to build a better sales message,
and then they would want to do that. Or we would train them on a better way
to put a high stakes talk together, like a sales kickoff speech from the CEO. Then,
they would want help building that. I ended up being the one that helped do
most of that coaching, particularly the one-on-one with executive, because at
the same time I started at Oratium, was the same time I started at TEDx
Cambridge as the executive producer, where I was coaching those speakers on
how to put those talks together. I developed a coaching methodology with TEDx
Cambridge, which then I mapped over to our clients at Oratium, which I was-

Jason : It came full circle.

Tamsen Webster: … between the two of them, I was able to-
Jason : You basically were testing out your business before in a startup inside of the
business that you already had-

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, very much.

Jason : … and then you knew that you had something enough to go out and to do it.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, and it was a very amicable separation because it’s … coaching and
consulting on that level is not a scalable model for a business.

Jason : It’s not.

Tamsen Webster: No. I’m clear on that, as an entrepreneur. That’s been clear for me from the get-
go, I’m not trying to scale me, like if you hire me, you’re hiring me and I want to
set it up so that you get me and you feel like you’re getting me.

Jason : Yes.

Tamsen Webster: That made sense. I was like, “I really want to focus on coaching,” and I’m like, “I
get that doesn’t make you guys money.” They said, “Well, great, godspeed.” I
still, if you want to do larger scale training on great understanding of the better
way to build messages more broadly, or a sales pitch, Oratium is where you
should go. It’s great stuff, great stuff.

Jason : Before we get into what you’re doing now, get into the Weight Watchers story
because I think that’s pretty …

Tamsen Webster: It was like, “Pkoo!”

Jason : That’s pretty important story, so …

Tamsen Webster: It is a pretty important story so … which feeds into some of the Dallas stuff,
because it was in Dallas where I reached my highest weight. That’s all kind of
tied into it. When I came back from Dallas, I weighed-

Jason : It made you very self-conscious being in that environment?

Tamsen Webster: Oh my gosh, yeah, you just add to that. A, outspoken, B, brunette. I know I’m
making a bigger deal about the brunette thing, but I mean there were literally
times where I went into get my hair done and people were like, “Don’t you want
it to be blond?” I’m like, “Oh my god, no, I would look terrible with blond hair.”
Like, “Is it really that important for it to be blond?” New Englander, outspoken,
brunette, and add to that overweight, which was not friendly in the bubble that
is the villages of Southern-

Jason : No.

Tamsen Webster: … Methodist. You are expected to be-
Jason : And the warmer the climate, the more that it’s-

Tamsen Webster: Yes. The more smaller they expect you to be, right. Yeah.
Jason : The more people see you because you can’t … I mean you have to wear less
clothes because that’s all you can do.

Tamsen Webster: Yes, because it’s hot, yes-

Jason : It’s hot.

Tamsen Webster: Exactly. It was … My working there, so I didn’t notice it really while I was in
school. What started it all was my mother had come to help set up my new
apartment right before I started at Pritchett. The night before I was going to go
for my first day, I was just like, “Well, let me just test out the suit that I’m
planning on wearing,” and it literally didn’t close. I was just like, “What?”
Because I had spent the whole summer in stuff that was loose and form-fitting
because I had spent the summer back up in Boston, and not in Dallas, and stuff
was loose and form-fitting, I hadn’t worn anything tailored, and I literally could
not close the suit that I was supposed to wear the next day, so my mother-

Jason : How did that make you feel in that moment when that happened? Like what-

Tamsen Webster: I was just floored. I really was just so baffled by it. I can look back now and be
like, “Well, Tam, when you’re eating pizza and beer the whole time, what do you
expect?” I was so floored. It was panic because I was like, “What the hell am I
gonna do? How do I feel strong in this new place when something that I’ve
always felt very secure about suddenly … like how I look and how I dress and
always feeling put together … ” I always felt put together. I won’t say that I ever
felt anything more than that, but I always felt like, “I’m put together.” That, all
of a sudden, that was just like, “Whoosh!”

Jason : That was story was just completely crushed.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah, absolutely. I would tell this story later in my Weight Watcher meetings,
but my mom, she was like, “Alright, we’ll figure this out!” The only suit that did
fit, like didn’t have buttons on it, it was like one of those things I had bought and
just hadn’t gotten it. She was like, “Alright, we’re going!” She bundled me in her
car, we go to the only place that’s open at that time of night, which was
Walmart and Walmart, at least at that time, still had a sewing section. We
picked up buttons and we picked up a scale, which I stood on and cried because
it was like oh my god, I had never seen that number associated with me and …
We got it all put together and, in my mother’s inimitable way, it was like, “Oh,
we’re just gonna figure it out and we’ll figure it out.”
It started there, but even then, I had mentally changed my perspective of myself
that I was the average American woman because at the height that I am, 5’4,
which is the average American woman, that the weight that I had gotten to was
also the average American woman but the average American woman is
overweight. It had so sunk into my psyche that that’s what I was that it didn’t
even occur to me that I could be any different, even though all through high
school and college I was small. I actually weigh the same now as I did in high
school, college was more and then it just kind of kept going. It just didn’t occur
to me.
Then, I remember meeting … there was this woman, I believe her name was
Janet, or Janice at Pritchett, and she was just talking to me and some of my
girlfriends at work one day, and she was like, “Yeah, I used to be overweight.”
She’s like, “I used to weigh X,” and she named the number that I was. She’s like,
“And I’m only 5’4,” and I’m like, “That’s how tall I am.” Yet, this was this tiny
woman and I was just like, “Wait, what?” Like, “Hey, huh?”
It was really interesting, because she had lost her weight through Jazzercize,
such an early 90s thing, it’s awesome. I went to a Jazzercize thing and I’m like,
“Okay, Jazzercize is not for me.”

Jason : No, no.

Tamsen Webster: It was enough to set this little spark in my mind that there was something …
that it was possible. I’m like, “Wait, she did it.” I would never have guessed that
she was overweight. She was describing how she felt before she lost weight to a
T, she was sleepy and it would … and all this stuff.
Then, she was this super energetic, like beautiful, tiny woman and I was like,
“Huh!” It took me a couple of years before I was like, “Alright, I’m done,” and I
was back in Boston and homesick one day, and that was another thing that just
got me annoyed. I was sick all the time. I was watching Oprah, homesick. Oprah
had on Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, who at the time, was Weight
Watchers

Jason : Watchers, yeah,

Tamsen Webster: … spokesperson. This was this hysterical back and forth between the two of
them, supposedly trying to make chocolate chip cookies, when neither of them
clearly does any cooking for themselves at all. It was very funny, from that
perspective. I also remember Fergie talking about how she could still have wine
on Weight Watchers. I was like, “Well, alrighty then, I want to figure this out.”
That, plus the fact that my mother-in-law, at the time, had successfully lost
weight on Weight Watchers. The next Saturday, I went in and signed up. Over
the course of … From a total high point in Dallas, to where I am now, it was a
total of 50, 52 pounds, which I’ve sustained now since 1999 across two kids. I
gained weight with both of my kids, and lost both of that, so … which it’s funny,
because when I talk to anybody about that, but particularly doctors, they’re like,
“You know that that’s really unusual, right?”

Jason : To sustain it.

Tamsen Webster: To sustain it, yeah.

Jason : Not to have the up and down, what do you attribute that to?

Tamsen Webster: I think in the beginning, it was being a Weight Watchers leader, because I was
someone who was really … It’s had its dark moments for me as well, but it’s
really so tied into A, people’s expectations of me, but ultimately the way I’ve
grown into that is that it was really important for to be … the word I like to use
is consonant. It’s the opposite of dissonant. Congruence is another word you
could use for it, but it was really important for me to be consonant. I became a
Weight Watchers leader. I started working for Weight Watchers first as a
receptionist, which is what they call the people who weigh people. For a year
and a half I just did that, because I didn’t feel like I was the right person to be up
in front of the room.
That was great training, as well, because the person at the scale is the person
who has to deal in the moment with somebody’s reaction. That’s the person
who has absolutely one-on-one interaction with everybody that comes in. You
end up being the person that learns where people struggle, that starts to figure
out what are the concepts that people are getting and they’re not getting. What
are the things that I can tell people really quickly that it’s going to help turn it
around? I had enough people, both receptionists, fellow receptionists and
members alike, who were like, “Why aren’t you a leader?” I was just like, “I
don’t know.” I decided to get the training for to become a leader, and then
never really looked back, but I always maintained being a receptionist too.
I, at the high point … and I was always doing this in addition to my full-time job.
At the high point, there was about a five to seven-year stretch of the 13 years I
was the leader, where it was five meetings a week that I would lead, two on
Sunday, there was Wednesday night, Thursday morning, Saturday and then I
would also … was a receptionist at least one night a week, as well.
I think part of what helped me maintain, at the beginning, was that there was
no way I was going to get up in front of people and not do what I was asking
them to do. It was a form of self-accountability. It became so effective that, in
fact, eventually that was exactly the same reason why I stopped being a Weight
Watchers leader because it had become so second nature that I was no longer
able to really put myself in the moment where they were. I didn’t think that was
fair.

Jason : Yeah, because you had just … Like anything else, and to be honest, your whole
life had been three years and out so this is not …

Tamsen Webster: So 13! My longest running job was Weight Watchers and it was 15 years. For me
to have done anything for that long was …

Jason : That’s where, but when you … Three is a number that ran its course. I think it
ran its course when you were doing it because you thought it was just habit and
second nature anymore, and it’s like you going through. I think the important
thing is to know when the end is and then go on to the next thing.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah. That happened … It was another one of those things where a bunch of
things happened at the same time that made it clear that it was the right time. I
got divorced right around that time. Weight Watchers changed its program
again. The thing is that any time Weight Watchers changes its program, the
program is wonderful as it is. The programs are really geared towards losing
weight and not so much maintaining it. Because I had always been so successful
on Weight Watchers, I had nothing to lose. I couldn’t experience the new
program as somebody losing weight. I could only experience it as somebody
maintaining it. I just got to a point where I was just like I can’t-

Jason : It’s time to go.

Tamsen Webster: … I can’t make that up. I will not be anything but truthful and I don’t want to
represent that I’m still struggling with it when I’m not. I get that I can stand up
there and be a role model for people, but I know for me, it felt like I was most
effective when I could be right there in the trenches with them and go, “I get it.”

Jason : Of course, emotionally and when you can’t bridge the gap.

Tamsen Webster: Yep.

Jason : Let’s go where you are right now, doing a lot of great stuff, and we’ll put stuff in
the show notes about speaking and how can people reach out to you. What
advice would you have for someone who wants to create a great speech?
Because people always say, “I want to go create something great and fast track
it and not take the slow boat of doing it.” What are a few things that you would
tell someone to start doing in order to get down that road?

Tamsen Webster: It builds on that idea of consonance that I was saying. The best speeches and
the best messages, because really that’s ultimately … a speech is just a
crystallization of a message, come from that congruence, that consonance
between a couple of different things.
One is, and the most important piece is, is it consonant with you and who you
are? One of the biggest mistakes, or one of the biggest missteps, I think, I see a
lot of people do when they’re putting a speech together, particularly if they’ve
got like TEDx, or something on the bucket list, is they go looking for an idea that
they think will be popular, rather than one that is what they’ve been doing the
whole time.

Jason : Or internally motivated.

Tamsen Webster: Yeah. You can look at it as coming from either direction, but if you think even
though everything we’ve talked about today, always the strongest basis of
change is where you are right now. If you’re not happy with where you are, then
you can’t make that leap. The biggest leaps start on stable ground. That’s a thing
I learned at Weight Watchers. The people who would walk in, you could come
up with as many different things and rules of thumb for who would be
successful and who would not, but the only one that was consistent over time,
the only one that was consistent over time was somebody who was happy with
who they were, as a person, and they just felt like the outside didn’t match.
They weren’t waiting to be a better person when they lost weight, they were
already happy with where they were, as a person. That same thing is true-

Jason : They felt enough sort of ala BrenŽ Brown today, right?

Tamsen Webster: Yeah. That this is stable, that say, “You know what? I get that … ” The way I
always described it when people said, “Well, why did you lose weight?” I said, “I
lost weight because I wanted to reduce the traffic noise in my head.” Yes, there
was some vanity there, but I just wanted … There were too many other cool
things for me to focus on, rather than how much my hips were shaking when I
was walking down a street. That was distracting for me, and I’m like, “It’s
distracting me from things that I care about more, so I want that to go away
because I wanna be able to focus on the things I wanna be able to focus on.”
The people that I would see be successful from Weight Watchers, the brands I
would see, the companies I’d see that were most successful are the ones that
manage to capture and build on what they were already manifesting. What they
already were, rather than, “Here’s the thing I wanna be, what do I need to do to
build there?”
When you focus only on where you want to go, you’re focusing on that end goal
and the bridge and you’re completely ignoring that it’s not anchored to
anything. When it comes to a great speech, everybody is already living a really
powerful message, your job is to figure out what that message is. Not to go
manufacture it, to reveal the one that you’re already living.

Jason : Because if not, you’re going to keep struggling with it all the time.

Tamsen Webster: Always, you’re always. And-

Jason : Or you’re going to come up with a good speech, but not a great speech.

Tamsen Webster: Right. Can you make money on it? Can you have a good speaking career? Can
people invite you to speak with it? Yes, but I’ve discovered in this year that I’ve
been an entrepreneur and doing this work that I’m for people who want more
than that. I want people who really say, “I really wanna be great and I’m willing
to do that work. I’m willing to do the research, I’m willing to do that digging. I’m
willing to do that work to really figure out what that is. And I’m willing for that
to be surprised by what that is.”
I see that with my corporate clients, because I do the same process that I do for
speeches with companies as a pre-branding exercise. One of the things I learned
from being a brand strategist is it doesn’t matter how much money you spend
on a brand strategy, if you don’t actually understand what your company’s all
about first.
What I discovered is we can do the same thing. The same thing can help us get
to the core of an idea for a person, I can do in the same amount of a half day to
a day for a company and come to the same kind of clarity. If you start there,
everything is stronger. That’s the first thing, is that consonance with the
message, or the red thread, as I call it, that you’re already using.
Then, the other consonance that’s important from a speech standpoint is it
needs to be constant with what your goals are. What I mean by that is, if you
want to be a keynote speaker at conferences, but your message is a thing that
you totally love is like down and dirty workshops, then those are two things that
are not on the surface necessarily going to line up. That means you need to be
really clear about not that that’s not possible, but that’s, again, going to take
more thought and more work in order to make those things work with each
other, either. It means that you’re going to have a different … Are we over our
time? That’s possible.

Tamsen Webster: Where’s the best place to start? The other thing that we have to be consonant
about is between what that message is and what your goals are, because if your
goals are to be a keynote, like conference speaker, but the message that you
have is a really tactical, down and dirty how to, then that means that it’s not
that that goal is impossible, but it means that you’re going to have to be willing
to do some different things in order to get those two things to line up.
Now, different things. One of them can be well, why do you want to be a
keynote speaker? Is it an income thing because you could probably make just as
much money as a really effective trainer and get to it that way. Or you can say,
“Are you willing to bust the model of keynote speaking and make it much more
experiential?” That’s a way to do it, too. It may mean that you’re harder to
market, it may mean that it’s going to be slower for you to get to where you’re
going but, again, are you willing to do that?
Then the third thing that I think that needs to be consonant for a great speech is
that you need to be consonant with what the audience needs in the moment.
This is a place where I differ from some people, because there’s some people
who say, “Well, you should be … If you are a jeans wearing, cowboy boot
wearing person all the time, then never change it.” I’m of the mind and of the
opinion that the message is more important than anything else. If that means
for a particular audience, it makes more sense for you to shift a little bit. I’m not
saying to divest of your normal personal style, but shift a little bit. You can still
wear the cowboy boots. Can you wear them with a suit instead? Like you are,
Jason.

Jason : Yeah.

Tamsen Webster: Can you shift that, or your style because if you’re super, super casual but you’re
speaking to investment bankers, I think your message is going to be heard
better-

Jason : It’s going to detract.

Tamsen Webster: It’s going to detract, and so being able to be fluid in that way, I think, is where
the most power comes.

Jason : That’s fantastic. Thank you-

Tamsen Webster: You’re welcome.
Jason : … for being on another episode of Executive Breakthroughs. She’s a fantastic
speaking coach, [inaudible 01:09:11] give that out.

Tamsen Webster: Thank you.

Jason : Then we’ll give all the information, a lot of other tidbits in the show notes, so
you’ll be able to take your speech, whether you’re on a corporation, or an
individual, up to the highest level. Thank you, again, for being on the show.

Tamsen Webster: You’re welcome, thanks for having me.

Jason Treu:                         Well, this is Jason Treu. Welcome back to another episodes from Executive Breakthroughs. I have a fantastic guest today, Scott Baradell. He is the CEO of Idea Grove. They are a national PR and marketing firm working with some amazing clients. And Scott has got a fantastic story, worth 30 years of experience working as a journalist on the corporate side, also has his MBA, so he has pretty much all the things covered, and started this agency out from scratch. It was 12 years ago, so he is going to give you a wealth of knowledge where he’s come, a lot of insights that he has. So get ready for a fantastic show. Well, welcome, Scott.

Scott Baradell:                   Thank you for having me. I hope I can live up to that intro.

Jason Treu:                         I’m sure that you can. So, I would love to get a little bit of your back story to start off with, to let people know where you came from. You grew up in Virginia?

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. I was born in Pensacola, Florida, but moved as a small child to Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I grew up there. I went to the University of Virginia. My first journalism job was at a newspaper in Virginia, and then I came down to the Dallas Times Herald, back when that existed. That is what brought me to Dallas back in 1989, I think.

Jason Treu:                         Did you have a big family? Small family?

Scott Baradell:                   One older brother, he’s seven years older.

Jason Treu:                         And both your parents, lived with them?

Scott Baradell:                   Yes. We were your basic family living suburbs. I think about Virginia Beach and what it was like. It’s kind of a cool place because it’s a tourist town, a military town, fairly laid back, fairly blue collar. So coming to Dallas, it’s a little different. I think that … I grew up in a public school system where kids of every possible economic background were there. It didn’t matter to the great majority of people, at least my friends. None of that mattered to people, in terms of who your friends were, who you hung out with, and things like that.

And so, I think it helped me when I got to Dallas, to be a little immune to some of the obsession with status, which is the stereotype here. But I think any place that you’re at, it’s all about the people you surround yourselves with.

Jason Treu:                         Yeah. So how did you get in … I know your first foray was in journalism, so how did you get into that? Were you an avid reader growing up? Were you a writer? How did that sort of … I mean, were you on your school newspaper? How did that gen … What was the genesis of that?

Scott Baradell:                   As a small child, and I’m kind of reliving this through my daughter who’s nine now, because we have a lot in common in terms of what we were like at that age. She likes to draw a lot, and I was always sketching and drawing. And then at a certain point, maybe by junior high or middle school age, I just got more interested in writing. Reading, I was always more interested in current events, news. I was an early reader of the newspaper. I wasn’t a book reader, I never really got into fiction, but I really got into history, non-fiction, Time Magazine.

Jason Treu:                         Got it.

Scott Baradell:                   I was one of these kids that was reading Time Magazine every week when it came in the mail, and I just enjoyed writing. And so I guess those interests led to going in the direction of journalism. So I was editor of the high school yearbook, and captain of the debate team. Those kind of … It evolved to that. It came from being interested in what was going on in the world and enjoyed writing.

Jason Treu:                         Well, you didn’t get a journalism degree, did you?

Scott Baradell:                   Well, UVA does not have a Journalism major.

Jason Treu:                         Okay.

Scott Baradell:                   The journalism classes are all a part of the English Department, so you can get an English major. I actually got a History major. I was in the Honors History program at UVA, which was a very intensive two year program. I studied American Southern History, which is probably not many better places to study that.

Jason Treu:                         And amazingly, you moved to Dallas. So after studying, … In the south.

Scott Baradell:                   Well of course, my parents were both from Mississippi. And of course, Virginia was the capital of the confederacy and all of this. I grew up with all of this, going to confederate battle fields and all that. And so, honestly a lot of what drove me in history was trying to understand all this. Because my parents had views about race and other things that, to me, flew in the face of what felt right to me. And I think it probably led to me being a more of questioning person, which is I think what leads people into journalism a lot of times, questioning the conventional wisdom about things. So a lot of me focusing on southern history, was trying to understand what was making these people tick. Why were they making decisions that hurt other people. Things like that.

Jason Treu:                         It’s interesting to think of how your parents viewpoints shaped what you did and how you looked at some things, and look into this major that you ended up having. Because you could’ve focused on a lot of different areas, and it’s interesting that you chose that.

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. I mean, I think we’re all in one way or another, we react and respond to the generation before us. I mean, in most cases, people have the same religion as their parents. They have the same politics as their parents. I mean, this is statistically true.

Jason Treu:                         Yes.

Scott Baradell:                   It’s passed on. But in other cases it’s the opposite reaction. You reject. There are a lot of people that are very anti-catholic because they were raised in catholic schools. And then there are people who are very much adherence and their children pass along … But you can have a reaction. In my case, I just love my parents, but saw a lot of contradictions and things I disagreed with. And I think that when I went into journalism, I was just into investigative reporting, finding out the truth about things. But honestly, it started with my own family, but you have to come to terms with that. And it has also helped me look at things in a nuanced way, that everything is not pure, good and evil, black and white. People make bad choices for sometimes complex reasons. Anyway, I think overall, it’s led to me being fairly … I certainly have some strong political views about things, but in terms about how I treat people as individuals, is to be very accepting, I guess. And not to necessarily agree with people about things that I don’t think are correct, but to-

Jason Treu:                         You’re open to their viewpoints.

Scott Baradell:                   … to be open to listen.

Jason Treu:                         And to listen.

Scott Baradell:                   And so to see what’s happened, that’s one of the reasons why I went into … I’ve enjoyed communications. I think PR, which is where I went to when I went corporate, can and should be a very open, honest, and transparent way to create a dialogue. That’s what I try to do. That’s what I enjoy about it. I hate that we’ve reached a place that, particularly in the political sphere, there’s so much just thoughtless, as in not thinking before you talk, just back and forth where people are not respecting … you can vehemently disagree with someone and still not dehumanize them, which is what happens online today.

Jason Treu:                         Yes.

Scott Baradell:                   I think what’s so sad is, I was doing blogging and all this stuff in 2005 and not a lot of people were doing it, and I was part of all this group of people who were like, “This is gonna change things for the better in all these ways.” In other words, these media conglomerates are not the only one who are gonna be controlling the message or this or that. And you look around 12 years later, I think a lot of the negative things that have happened, at least exacerbated by online behavior and social media. I think a lot of instances were unanticipated.

There were a lot of idealists early on who just thought … If you go back to the early days, people are saying, “Well, this is gonna eliminate the need for advertising or all these things. CEOs, don’t get a ghost writer to blog for you because if you’re not blogging yourself and sitting down in front of a blog all day, when you have a billion dollar company to run, you’re not being authentic.” It kind of went from that extreme to where we’ve seen just this incredibly kind of cynical takeover of a lot of what’s happening on line, but there’s still … It’s just like with anything. You pick your places and people-

Jason Treu:                         There’s cycles and periods and chapters.

Scott Baradell:                   And also there’s always enough people out there to choose who you want to work with as clients, to choose who you want to work with as colleagues, who you want to hang out with.

Jason Treu:                         You’ve got to create that environment where you have choice by having abundance by working hard and doing all the things to be a leader in what you’re doing, otherwise you can live in a world of scarcity where then you don’t really have those choices or you don’t perceive you have those choices.

Scott Baradell:                   Exactly. You have to know what you want. A lot of people don’t. I think that’s reality.

Jason Treu:                         Because they have to ask the question, because usually people are asking the how question, instead of the why.

Scott Baradell:                   Right. And a lot of times people will think that they want to get to “C” and they don’t know what “A” and “B” is. “If I have this, then I’ll be happy.” “Well, not necessarily. You can go get that thing, but did it work?” A lot of times, people don’t know. “I know I want this.” Which ultimately, people want to be happy. They want fulfillment. They want to feel like their life has meaning but-

Jason Treu:                         But also they’re not chasing that. They’re actually not. They’re not chasing, but they’re not actually putting it out there. They’re looking at a material trajectory in order to [crosstalk 00:11:18]

Scott Baradell:                   Because they’re seeing a relationship between the two.

Jason Treu:                         Yes. So how did you pick Dallas out of all the places? Because obviously-

Scott Baradell:                   They gave me a job. That’s why.

Jason Treu:                         Okay. I guess they-

Scott Baradell:                   Well, I have a lot of family here. I have family in Dallas and Shreveport. And my parents passed away some time ago, and really almost all my family’s in this area. And a very diverse group, we’ve got some folks who … Some family in Shreveport that have been really prominent in public service in Louisiana and politics. And Dallas family members who are just big, extremely religious families, very conservative and just a big mix of people.

Jason Treu:                         A melting pot.

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. All of which I love dearly and like to be around them and stuff like that. I guess, politically I tend to be a liberal, but it’s never been a problem for me, and I’ve actually always preferred to be in the south in places that were more conservative, because I just like the interchange. I like to have a healthy dialogue. I like to be kept in check. So, I like Dallas a lot, I love it here. I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t, but-

Jason Treu:                         How’d you make the jump from journalism to going to corporate? Because that was the next big jump, so what was your mindset like? Did journalism just run out of steam for you? Did you just not see a path forward? And then, why corporate versus anything else at the time?

Scott Baradell:                   Well, the truth is I had some real highs in newspaper journalism and some stories that I was really proud of. I love coming up with story ideas, which is the main thing I still do today for clients, is coming up with a story that someone besides them is gonna care about. That could be validated in the media and then that stuff can be used in your marketing too. That’s called [inaudible 00:13:33] leadership. Right?

Jason Treu:                         Yeah.

Scott Baradell:                   That’s what we do. I was enjoying that probably from the high school yearbook on, and in journal I’ve loved being that. It didn’t matter to me that I started working night cops and listening to police scanners, because I was coming up with story ideas that were ending up on the front page. I remember one time, I had an idea for doing a story on spring break in South Padre Island. This is when I first got to Dallas. And they were like, “We’re not gonna pay for you to go to South Padre Island.” My friend and I wanted to go anyway, and I said, “Well, okay. That’s fine. I’ll just take this on vacation.”

I went down there and I wanted to do a story about … It was really kind of a mischievous kind of idea to begin with. I wanted to go to some of these areas of debauchery and to talk to people about religion, because part of my beat was I was covering religion for the Times Herald. And I wanted to talk to them about their religious views when they’re in this setting. I’m doing beer pongs and wet T-shirt contests, and everything else. When I first got there, I went to a wet T-shirt contest, and there was a band there. They were something Louie or something and I remember seeing the band there. So I was interviewing people, interviewed the winner of the contest. The whole thing was kind of funny.

And so I was doing it all in a kind of comical vein, and then so the next morning we went to … There was one church, Baptist church on South Padre. I believe it’s called Island Baptist Church. I’m remembering this from 30 years ago, when I was 25. My buddy and I, he seemed mad, “You’re taking me … We’re at South Padre and you’re taking me to church?” So we went to this Island Baptist Church, watched the service. You know what they do in Baptist churches? I was raised Methodist, but I’ve been to the Baptist services so I know. Is at the end of the service, they’ll call people forward if they’re ready to accept Christ. So I’m just sitting there and there’s this guy walking by me in his swimsuit, seriously, and it was the drummer from the band. The drummer from the band, I see him-

Jason Treu:                         Wow. That is funny.

Scott Baradell:                   So I interviewed him, and you know what we did? I had to go back because my vacation was over, and I found out that this guy … I had talked to the Pastor of this church, this guy was going to get baptized. They baptized him in the water. The ocean. The gulf. And so I went up there … I wrote the story on the way back. I got there and the city editor’s like, “Okay. First, we’ll pay for your trip.” So they retroactively paid for my vacation and then they paid to send a photographer down there to do a whole photo essay on the baptism in the water. Front page. Sunday paper. Taking up almost 3/4 above the fold. That was … Those moments were priceless. I mean, it felt like such an accomplishment. It was every aspect about it. The creativity. It felt like you were doing a public service. The feeling that you proved someone wrong. That something is interesting even though they thought it wasn’t. That’s what I loved about journalism.

And why I left journalism is that there weren’t enough of those moments ultimately, compared to other things. After the Times Herald closed, the truth is I ended up working for Belo, which owned the Dallas Morning News. They’re the ones that took a wrecker ball to the building of the Dallas Times Herald after they bought it. But the Dallas Morning News didn’t believe in that kind of journalism as the truth. Never has. The Dallas Times Herald took more chances. So what I just described, in a million years, couldn’t have happened at the Dallas Morning News.

And so, I didn’t want to work there. I just thought it was … They had had an editor named Burl Osborne, who was really accomplished, a great guy, but he was … I believed he had come from [inaudible 00:18:09] and was very much a “everything needs to be done a certain way” kind of-

Jason Treu:                         Got it.

Scott Baradell:                   And even to they had a strategy that they wanted all their columnists to not be these Mike Royko types that are just out there raging at the machine. They wanted people who were kind of milk toast. Let’s have someone who’s mildly interesting and amusing, but who’s not gonna make waves. That was the strategy. It’s not an offensive to … It’s not a criticism of the individual journalists and columnists because they were asked to do that job. So I didn’t want to work there, I liked Dallas. I didn’t really want to move somewhere else. At that point, this was the beginning of 1992, so I already kind of saw the writing on the wall in terms of where newspapers were going, so I went over to the Dallas Observer and I worked there for a few months. I just didn’t like it. It had been bought by New Times, which ultimately bought Village Voice they’d been the leader in terms of alternative publications but I just felt like nobody was reading it. You know?

Jason Treu:                         Yes.

Scott Baradell:                   And it was kind of … I was working really hard on these stories and I thought I had done a couple of my best stories for the Dallas Observer. I thought, the only people reading this are people looking for a restaurant or something to go to, or the people that are already have the same political views. So you’re preaching to the choir, which like I was saying before, that’s not of interest to me. That’s just not of interest to me. I tried to freelance for a little while and honestly ended up in my first corporate job out of needing to eat. So it wasn’t like a conscious transition to meet some higher level goals. It was like, “Gosh, I’m really struggling to enjoy or make enough money being a freelancer.” So I had a friend that had left a position at a financial services firm doing marketing and PR for them. When he left, he put in a good word for me and that’s how I started on the corporate side.

Jason Treu:                         And obviously you had a lot of skill sets going into that job. And so as you’re doing this job for a while, you get towards the end of it and you realize, “Okay, this isn’t the job for me either.” And what led you then to say, “I need to leave.”

Scott Baradell:                   To leave corporate altogether?

Jason Treu:                         Yeah.

Scott Baradell:                   Well, no. I was in corporate for a long time, so it wasn’t anything that happened in a short period of time. Honestly, the first year and a half at this financial services firm, I just really … I just … You go into journalism, everything that was going on in business, I had never taken a business course. I studied history. I mean I’m just looking at this and it all seemed very absurd. I had no idea why people were working in a corporate setting at all. I mean, I was looking at it like a Dilbert kind of thing. I just did not get it at all. So I had to say, “Do I want to go back to journalism or do I want to find my place here?”

And so after this financial services firm, I went to a company, B2B Tech, called PageNet. Back when there was a paging industry, wireless communications. And they did the infrastructure and that’s where I started to find a place for myself. They sent me to SMU for Business School, which really helped round me out and make me feel more comfortable and understand all the pit … Parts fit together in a business from IT to Accounting, and Finance and being able to speak everyone’s language to some degree. An MBA really helped with that. But after that I went to Belo and I was VP of Corporate Communications there. I worked there for three years. But I just realized that it was I had a chronic challenge with all the pieces coming together in these corporate jobs.

In other words, as I was telling you when we were talking before, I just felt like I just had this moment when I was looking at Belo to another role, all the things that would have to work out. You have to like the industry. You have to like the work you’re gonna do. You have to have a story to tell, in PR anyway, in writing for a company. You have to like your boss. You have to get along with your colleagues. It’s really hard to … it’s like a jigsaw puzzle, to make all of those pieces fit. That’s what I was finding.

Jason Treu:                         And even if they do fit together at one moment, –

Scott Baradell:                   They can change.

Jason Treu:                         They can change. And if one of those pieces changes, it can set everything in a different trajectory and how you view it, which is the challenge of working in a corporate setting.

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah, or just working for somebody else in general can be like that.

Jason Treu:                         That’s true.

Scott Baradell:                   And at PageNet, I was there for six years. They had three very different regimes during that six years, or three different CEOs. And the first CEO, I was enjoying it there. The second CEO, everything changed a lot. I was looking and ended up not taking anything. And then another CEO came in, he’s the one who sent me to get the MBA. It was totally changing, but ultimately yeah, in a sense, a lot of things are in someone else’s hands. And I think why a lot of people end up going out on their own and becoming an entrepreneur is that they want to have more control over those things.

Jason Treu:                         Did you have any mentors through this period of time in your life? From growing up til where you were at when you decided to leave the corporate setting, did you have any people? Someone that you went to, to get advice from or bounce ideas off of from or were modeling after or something?

Scott Baradell:                   I don’t think so. I mean, I had known some people that were contractors or freelancers, but no one who would had started an agency or anything. I knew that like, my dad was an architect, but he worked for a small architecture firm, and he would just come home just so exasperated about his boss and stuff. And he was always gonna be like, “I’m gonna buy it out.” I saw that, but he was never able to do that.

Jason Treu:                         Did that have any effect on you?

Scott Baradell:                   In retrospect, yeah. He was a very shy person, extremely introverted, painfully so. Very smart and talented as an architect, but he could never sell or some of the other things you need to do in business. So it probably made … I know I’m naturally introverted as well, but-

Jason Treu:                         You have extroverted tendencies then though, more or do you do it out of-

Scott Baradell:                   I do it because –

Jason Treu:                         You have to?

Scott Baradell:                   I learned to do it because it helped me to get things that I wanted in life, in terms of things that I enjoy doing. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And early on for example, in corporate jobs, I was a very good writer. I loved writing, but I realized that would only get you so far in a corporate job. You’re setting a low ceiling for yourself. You have to be able to persuade people.

Jason Treu:                         Do you have any advice for people that are introverted when it comes to things like that? Because a lot of times people that are introverted believe that asking for things, and taking on some extroverted tendencies at times, is really outside their comfort zone and something that they don’t want to do, don’t know how to do. What advice would you give to someone who’s in a situation like that? Who feels like their voice isn’t being heard or they’re not able to really express themselves.

Scott Baradell:                   Well, I think there’s a difference between being introverted, and being painfully shy or awkwardly shy. Because I’ve been both and I know the difference. The best definition I’ve heard of introvert versus extrovert is that an introvert is someone who, they go to a party or they go network or they go do this, and they can go and do a great job of doing what they’re trying to do in that setting, but when they leave, they’re exhausted. You know?

Jason Treu:                         Yes.

Scott Baradell:                   They’re completely exhausted. The extrovert does that and they come out and they’re like, “Well, what do we do next?” Because they were so pumped up, it gave them energy, whereas with an introvert, it takes your energy.

Jason Treu:                         Yes.

Scott Baradell:                   I understand that about myself, so I just need time to recharge. One thing that I do every day just about, is I go to lunch by myself, and just recharge. I’ve got four kids. Nine and under. So I’ve got family, business, people have needs, I’m talking to people, and I’m trying to help solve problems and things here. But if I don’t have that time to recharge, then I’m gonna be useless to everyone. I mean, I literally was always the type of person that could spend a whole weekend by myself and have a great time. Just go biking, watch a movie. I was completely fine with that. So to be … I’ve found myself in the situation, which I love, of having a family and this business and everything, I just have to remember that I will not be able to do it, if I don’t-

Jason Treu:                         The managing you’re time?

Scott Baradell:                   If I don’t carve out time with myself, –

Jason Treu:                         Is important. And carve out that time.

Scott Baradell:                   Like my wife needs to go out with her friends. I’m like, “You do that. I just need to be completely by myself for this period of time or I will have a meltdown.”

Jason Treu:                         And, it’s communicating with those around you, that you need that. Right?

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah.

Jason Treu:                         Not just doing it. It’s also telling people that it’s a requirement for me in my life in order to be successful and happen, is to carve out some time where I have to spend it by myself. Not because I don’t want to be around you, but that’s just who I am.

Scott Baradell:                   Right. So I would say in terms of being introverted, I would say that you’ve got an agency where most of the people are introverts. You don’t think about it with PR, but you’ve got a lot of people who are really smart and into B2B tech, and then most of our leaders, I would say, are introverts, but they’re not painfully shy. They learn to do what they need to do in business and communications to be effective. That’s a different challenge. So I would say that for someone who’s painfully shy … So I had tremendous fear of speaking where-

Jason Treu:                         How’d you move beyond that then?

Scott Baradell:                   First with medication. Seriously. No seriously, I literally … When I started getting asked to speak, back when … Well a little bit when I was at PageNet this wireless had taken off so much, but mostly when I started my blog, I would get asked to speak at events. And it was literally one of those things where your heart is coming out of your chest, you’ve got all of these physical symptoms. You can’t think about anything else. You cannot think straight because of this.

And so, my doctor told me about beta blockers, which are something, these little pills you can take. Propanolol. Tongue twister. It’s generic, it costs $10 at the pharmacy, and so I would just pop one before I spoke. It calms all those physical symptoms and allowed me to, not do great, but at lest be able to think straight so that I could go through it. I’d still be reading too much and all these things that bad speakers do, but at least I could get through it. And then from that point, I think it was repetition to where at a certain point, I didn’t need the beta blockers anymore. I had done it enough that I felt comfortable with it.

So I think ultimately where I’ve … The advice I’d give people, firstly, I’ve sent people to groups like Toastmasters and these kind of groups that will help you. Communispond is a group that I think is still around that I’ve done and had people do training with on speaking and communications and things, but ultimately for me, and why just for me personally, it’s much easier to start a business at this stage in my life rather than earlier, I’m someone who really needs to feel mastery over things before I can speak confidently about them. Not everyone’s like that. I’m not saying that’s ideal. I don’t think you should need that. That’s a pretty high bar. I’m also not saying that I know everything because I’m constantly learning and realizing things I need to learn, but over time, particularly things we do as an agency, I’ve learned a lot. I know a lot. And because of that, it’s been like, “You know a lot of this stuff. Why aren’t you sharing it?”

And particularly when you get out of this corporate setting where you’re going to make a recommendation to the CEO and you’re like, “Oh, is he gonna get mad and fire me or whatever?” I have the freedom, since I’m a consultant or I have an agency, it’s like, “You came to me for advice. And if the advice is what you’re doing is all wrong, and I think it’s a terrible idea what you want to do, and here’s what you need to do and here’s why.” Being in this environment gives me the freedom to do that. I always hated, when I was at corporate side, when I had to head these agencies, it was just like going to the psychologist. The person at the agency, I’d say, “What do you think about this?” They’d say, “What do you think?” It’s like, “What do you think we should do?” “Well, what do you think we should do?” It was always like, “Hmm I’m just gonna tell you what I think is gonna get us our retainer for one more month.” As opposed to, “You know what? I’m gonna tell you what I think is best for you and if you don’t like it, I’m gonna tell you why I think you’re wrong, and if you don’t like it, well, okay.”-

Jason Treu:                         Isn’t that the glue that builds great relationships-

Scott Baradell:                   It should be.

Jason Treu:                         Because it’s a trust. Right?

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah.

Jason Treu:                         Because it’s trust and authenticity. Because that’s what people want the most, otherwise, you’re not really giving someone counsel.

Scott Baradell:                   They say they want it, but some clients don’t want it.

Jason Treu:                         Well, it’s true.

Scott Baradell:                   And if clients don’t want it, I’ll do one of two things. We’ll just put some junior people on with the relationship and have them just do some tactical [inaudible 00:33:08] or we’ll cut ties altogether. Because what we do, and what we do as a group with the full breadth of everyone we have here, is we’ve assembled a lot of talented expertise that is being wasted if you’re looking for arms and legs. We charge too much to be arms and legs for anybody. So if you’re not gonna listen to our advice, and by the way, it doesn’t just come off the cuff. We have a methodology and we do lots of research with your buyers, methodology for research within your industry, and of your competitors and it works.

Jason Treu:                         That builds your clients as raving fans, which then is much easier to get more clients over time because they’re huge advocates for you, especially if someone decides to do a client reference. They’re getting people who are much more excited about you and telling a story, which is way different than someone who’s telling someone else what they want to hear. Right?

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. No. Exactly.

Jason Treu:                         A much more deep, passionate story about someone. And so that actually allows you to be way more successful, and the people here to be able to find their own purpose and their own passion and determination. Because working for people, where that’s something that matters.

Scott Baradell:                   Right. And if you don’t do it that way, insist on having that higher strategic value, you become a time and materials shop, and you’re putting a low ceiling on what your value is.

Jason Treu:                         Because you don’t have boundaries.

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. I think about what my dad could’ve achieved with all his talents and abilities if he hadn’t been hindered so much by his shyness and-

Jason Treu:                         Why do you think he didn’t take the steps that you ended up taking? I think that’s important for people because we’re trying to share mastery on here. And your dad was obviously a smart person and he was successful, but where you took shyness and then just took it head on and said, “I don’t want to do this, but I’m gonna do this because I need to.” He didn’t and, in a sense, that was wasted talent.

Scott Baradell:                   I don’t know. Maybe he just didn’t have … I think it was a different era. I think it’s easier now to self-diagnose an issue, and try to tackle it than it was back like in the 1970s. You didn’t have, I think, the sources of information. Even if –

Jason Treu:                         You mean a support system?

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. I don’t think he did. I think that today if you … Also, I think today, beyond his situation, today, increasingly, you have to have powers of persuasion to be successful at a level beyond what was the case back then. I’ll give you one example, which is one client I worked with early on, when I started, was a historic photography agency out of New York, called Black Star. They brought interesting digression is that Life Magazine, you may recall, was famous for its photojournalism from the 1930s and 1940s. What a lot of people don’t know is this great photojournalism, if you have any of these old Life Magazine coffee table books, there was nothing like that. I mean it was the golden era of photojournalism. Most of that or much of that photography was done by German Jews who had fled Germany. Because the first, the precursor to Life Magazine were some photojournalism magazines and publications that were coming up in Germany, produced by German Jews, and they fled.

They brought that to the U.S. but they couldn’t go to Life Magazine and ask for a job, because they couldn’t speak English. And so, Mike had a client that’s been around since 1935, called Black Star. And they translated, they literally had some businessmen who were Jewish, who could speak German and English, and they were an intermediary.

Jason Treu:                         Interesting.

Scott Baradell:                   They were the first big photo agency, and supplying Life Magazine and all the big news outlets back in the day with just great photography. Well, in any case, that has been family owned for decades and decades and decades. Obviously a lot has changed, they’ve gone through different modes, and different ways of just kind of recreating themselves. But back in 2006, I guess one of the execs there was reading my blog and contacted me, and wanted me to create a blog for them. We conceived it as a guest book where photographers would be solicited for write for it.

All of that brings me back to the original point, which was it was a time when all these newspaper photographers who had been in these comfy staff photographer positions, in a matter of two or three years, they all lost their jobs. I mean, newspapers and magazines, they … I mean, staff photographers, that became an endangered species in a very short period of time. All of these photographers are like, “Oh, I just like to take pictures. I don’t want to … I’m not a business person.” Well, suddenly they’re on the street and they’re like, “How do I make a living?” And there was no other job for them. So what this blog ended up being about, principally, was how to make it. In other words, you had to have these powers of persuasion. You had to be … Go become a wedding photographer. How to do that? How to go get business that way or whatever other paths it was gonna require you to not just wait for someone to say, “Here’s your assignment. Go take this picture,” because that model had exploded.

And I just think in general, if you look at sector, by sector, by sector of the economy, whether you’re a writer or whatever you are, you just can’t expect to go find a job somewhere and blend into the woodwork. You have to be an advocate for yourself and often you have to go out and get your own business.

Jason Treu:                         What would you recommend is like the maybe top couple of things when being persuasive that people would need to keep in mind, or try to master or learn?

Scott Baradell:                   Well, I think there’s different ways of going about it. I was watching The Founder last night. Have you seen that? The Ray Kroc story.

Jason Treu:                         Yes.

Scott Baradell:                   And that’s one way to go about it. Ray Kroc, for those who don’t know, he was very persuasive, right? He was a very dishonest business person. He screwed out –

Jason Treu:                         MacDonald’s, yeah.

Scott Baradell:                   He screwed over … Yeah. Ray Kroc was the person who found the original MacDonald’s restaurant, which was created by two brothers, Mack and Jim MacDonald. They came up with this conveyor belt system. None of that had existed before. He came in and took it and as a great salesperson of the time, blew it out. But he ultimately ended up swindling these guys and stealing MacDonald’s and even their name out from under them. They couldn’t even use their own name for the restaurant after that. So it was a story of a kind of a ruthless capitalist, ruthless business person, and he was obviously able to persuade but that doesn’t work for me.

I mean, I feel like you persuade with knowledge and honesty, transparency. I know there’s all kinds of different ways to persuade.

Jason Treu:                         What do you mean by knowledge? Do you mean you need to master-

Scott Baradell:                   I mean you need to know what you’re talking about, because people are pretty good about spotting when someone is full of it. Not always, as we’ve learned, but I think that being confident about what you know, honest about what you don’t and just being direct with people but not in a way that’s ever insulting or hurtful or condescending. I don’t know. It’s just kind of a … To me, I didn’t have a magic formula for it. It’s just something that I kind of learned over time. Because I started out in a reporting role where you had to get information out of people, and sometimes it was confrontational. And sometimes, because of the nature of the job, you felt a little manipulative. Those are some things I didn’t really like about being a newspaper reporter.

Anyways, over time, I just found a style that worked for me. But I would say that … What people have told me … Because I end up basically being the salesperson for Idea Grove most of the time. I’ve had help from folks here from time to time but never a full time person that just does that. And I’m not a naturally good salesperson because I’m kind of all over the map. But they sense a natural enthusiasm, so I think you need enthusiasm too. I think people can usually tell when it’s real as opposed to rehearsed or, “I’m just showing this enthusiasm because I’m enthusiastic about getting your money.” No, I’m enthusiastic just about what we’re doing and how it can help you.

Or in our case, since we work in B2B tech and a lot of these industries are very complex, and even people that work at these companies, a lot of times think they’re boring. A lot of times I’ll just start talking with a company and 80% of the conversation will be asking them about them, and I’ll find something in there, or someone else here on the team, finds something in there that is just fascinating to me, and I just start probing on that. And sometimes, it’s just something they just never even thought about. And they realize, “Oh, you’re already doing what you’re saying, you’re gonna do for us, which is to find those compelling stories and narratives and then go blow them out. Go tell people.” That’s just kind of the combination of things.

Jason Treu:                         Which is key, because being persuasive for you is having knowledge about it, really understanding it. Being able to be honest with people, and then being able to be enthusiastic about it. And all that, underlies, is building trust with someone, so you can really be direct and have a real conversation. I think that’s what they want in business. And I think the other part, which you mentioned is the listing part is so important. That’s what people don’t do because that builds a lot of likeability. And also, people don’t listen because they’re too busy talking and then you can’t really help people because you don’t understand them, where they’re coming from. You can’t show empathy. And in a situation like that, you can do both, because you can pull out the nuggets. That came from all of your history of storytelling, of putting all these stories together, of being inquisitive, so that’s like a natural strength. So if you can get in there and listen, I mean that’s when you shine the most. And you’ve been training your whole life at that point, when you get that level of interaction.

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. There’s that whole thing. They talk about people who are not listening, they’re just waiting for their chance to talk. And so, we all fall into that, I’m guilty of it sometimes, everybody is. But it’s something I try to help the kids with because kids naturally do that. A funny thing happened last night and my wife got so mad. Because my daughter, tell on her a little bit. We had our nanny who helps us was going through some stuff. Car trouble and different things. So Mary was going through the whole story with my daughter about this and the car, and then Juliette was listening to all this. She was listening and then she say’s, “Well, am I gonna get to dance practice tomorrow?” Wait a minute. You just got this whole story about all this stuff that nanny’s having to deal with and your response is, “Well, is she gonna take me to dance practice or not?” I think people are like that. You don’t have to be nine to make that mistake.

Jason Treu:                         Yes.

Scott Baradell:                   It happens all the time. “Am I getting to dance? What about me?”

Jason Treu:                         So I want to get back to talking about how you started this agency. Because it’s easy to see you now, big agency, really successful. But you started this basically out of your basement in your house. I mean, you didn’t have any clients to start with. How did this whole genesis come about? And also, it was being an entrepreneur, and how did you figure out that you wanted to do that? Because it didn’t really sound like before, not really been an entrepreneur. I guess in some sense it’s being a journalist. You’re having to investigate and get your foot on the ground but not, isn’t starting a business.

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. Honestly the truth is I just kind of fell into a little bit because having not ever worked in an agency, I didn’t know what to expect. What it was like, except for being on the corporate side and having agencies that I worked with. I had an agency in Dallas that was annual report vendor at Belo and did some other kind of work for us, called Eisenberg and Associates. Arthur Eisenberg and Rub Huckels, who later came to work with me at Idea Grove, Amy Miller, who we just brought on as our digital contractor, started off at Eisenberg.

When I left, they were my thread to get started. I didn’t really know how to get started. I just knew I wanted to try something else. I didn’t just want to go in for another corporate job. I decided to try not to look just into … Other things happen. The tail end at Belo, my mom got sick and passed away. So I was in Virginia for over a month just being with her. That’s one of those situations where you take stock, of course.

Jason Treu:                         Your mortality. You look at your own mortality in a new way.

Scott Baradell:                   What’s important.

Jason Treu:                         What’s important.

Scott Baradell:                   You think about a lot of things.

Jason Treu:                         What conclusions did you come to? All these things happening at once. Because often it’s a confluence of moments or hitting a rock bottom that starts us on a new trajectory, and a new path. What was going through your head, and what emotions were you feeling?

Scott Baradell:                   Well, anyone whose mother’s passed away, there’s nothing quite like that. We all go through it at some point. And I think, I guess, you are … It just puts you in a more … Not everyone reacts, obviously, in the same way to everything but it puts you in a more open place to not staying in the same patterns that you’re in or doing the same things you were doing. So, I also didn’t feel like I was ready to. I think when after that, I didn’t feel this urgency, “I have to get a bunch of clients.” Or all of that. Financially, that wasn’t great because I was going through savings.

But I just didn’t feel mentally or emotionally right. I kind of wanted to not be working or … at that point. So it kind of gave me space to think and to do that. I took my time with it a little bit. I let things come to me. That’s kind of been my story in a lot of ways, is letting things come to me. And so, Eisenberg, I told them, “Hey, I’m around.” They knew I did all the writing when we worked together, so they said, “Would you like to be a contract for us? Do some writing?” So, I just wrote for a couple of clients. One those clients, one of those clients, BancTec, which is still around, worked with us off and on for many years. It was bought recently by a company called SourceHOV. They’re a BPO company. They contacted me about doing PR for them because they really liked the … We hadn’t worked before at all, and I didn’t know anybody there, but they really liked the writing that I had done on this project I had done for Eisenberg. That led to my first PR retainer. PR and writing. I was doing PR. Most of my clients I was doing PR and writing-

Jason Treu:                         And you led with your strength at that time to being copywriting?

Scott Baradell:                   Right.

Jason Treu:                         Right. Because it was your strength, so that was actually, naturally a deal. Because you got to show who you were, and express yourself with what the talent you had mastered for a long time.

Scott Baradell:                   And I tied that to something greater, which was substance. Because one of the things that drove me crazy about agencies, is they didn’t ever learn your business well enough to write about it well. I hated that. I hated that literally every agency that I ever worked with, including some that I really liked and I have good friends from them, but they never were able with their business models or whatever, I always took the writing back myself. I was like, “You go pitch.” Because I didn’t think, it wasn’t up to what it needed to be. And so, the first stake in the ground in terms of what I wanted to do, was I wasn’t gonna take the client if I wasn’t doing their writing. So from BancTec from the beginning, I was doing their PR but I was writing their white papers. I was writing their sales kits. I was doing this for them because I saw how those things fit together. The storytelling, and what you take to the media.

And I think that, it’s never been my favorite thing to pitch to the media, but I always thought everyone talks and thinks, thought who you take to lunch and who you schmooze with. I thought it was about who you go to a story with. I had a lot of relationships in journalism because I was one. But the first time you go to a friend of yours and pitch him a crappy story, they’re gonna feel like you’re taking advantage of them. If you pitch a good story to someone who doesn’t know you, they’re gonna get to know you. That’s what, again, I just led with that, what I like doing.

And then, about that same time, in February 2005, right after I started, I started my blog. And literally within six months, I was getting leads. Business leads through the blog. It would be a little bit here and there. Early clients, I might be getting $2,000 a month from a plastic surgeon or this or that. But little by little, I got up to just a good living where I was making as much or more as my executive job at Belo. Very happy doing that.

I did that for five years. Just working, actually, we had a one and a half story house, and the top half story was my office, so I did that for five years. I just at a certain point decided, “Gosh darn it. I really have enjoyed this but I’m kind of maxed out. I’m spending as many hours as a day that I can doing this and because it’s just me, I’m having to do it all myself. And so, do I want to be doing this in another 10 years? It might get a little boring and I think I kind of topped out in terms of what I can charge for this.” Unless I wanted to take myself to a place of being just some high level consultant, I like doing the work though. I always like doing the work.

So I met with my friend Rob Huckels from Eisenberg days, and we basically partnered up. I brought him in to help me take Idea Grove to the next level where we could open an office and start to hire people and stuff. Because his expertise was in operations and new business development, managing people, and I wanted to focus on the work and the business model.

Jason Treu:                         Which is a great separation, because a lot of times when people partner, they partner for the wrong reasons and they don’t partner with someone with complimentary strengths. You found someone that actually had the strengths you didn’t have. And then you could focus on yours and he could focus on what he was doing, and then you could end up growing this business successfully. There’s always overlap at some level, but it seems like very little on where your core expertise is going to lie.

Scott Baradell:                   Right, it’s like those are opportunities that come up that you have to identify and grasp. I don’t know if I hadn’t recognized that … Because he had just gotten out of a job and he was thinking about going out on his own. So I said, “You know what?” As you said, “We’ve got complimentary skills.” I also saw just as I was doing PR and content together, and I’ve always done that, I saw the visual and web design integrated with that. And that was his background from Eisenberg, they were a design firm. That’s where for that integration started it from-

Jason Treu:                         But it goes with the relationship to. I think-

Scott Baradell:                   We trusted each other.

Jason Treu:                         … key piece of that is you’ve got to start building these relationships today because you never know where they’re gonna bear fruit. And it’s sort of like I tell people, “It’s like Johnny Appleseed. You’ve got to lay down a lot of seeds because you don’t know, which one is gonna sprout into a big tree. But at some point, it will.” And that’s what happened, if you hadn’t met him and spent the time with him, that opportunity and having him there wouldn’t have been. Because he wouldn’t have been around or trusted you enough to take that leap of faith in order to deal with you.

Scott Baradell:                   Right. That’s true. That’s kind of how we got started –

Jason Treu:                         Did you ever get, take any outside money or is this all bootstrapped?

Scott Baradell:                   No. I never did. To this day, we’ve never done any outbound marketing of any kind. So we’ve never spent a dollar on advertising or anything. So Idea Grove, you talk about eating our own dog food, every bit of business we’ve ever gotten, has been through referral or through people finding us online. Because we want search, online visibility.

Jason Treu:                         That’s been either through online marketing/PR however you want to … And non-paid?

Scott Baradell:                   Well, what happened just by accident, I’d love to say it was all planned. But there was a period of time in 2005-2006 when my blog was pretty popular. It was popular among other PR people and marketers who were blogging at the time, mostly. Just trying out this new thing and kind of feeling the potential of it. So I became really good friends with people like, Todd Defren, who had bought and really blew out Shift Communications that was recently bought last year. Very successful agency and he had come up with this thing that got him on the map about the social media press release, and just different things like that. It was all just kind of Petri dish kind of thing. It was fun but the blog got popular, and as a result, if you start searching for things like Dallas PR firms, Idea Grove just popped up at the top of the list over all the big agencies in town, and I started getting calls.

I knew enough to slap Title Tags on my home page that said, “Dallas PR Firm” but a lot of it just happened from producing content that was getting links. Because we were getting links from Gawker, Huffington Post, Time. I mean, literally, it was early days and the blog was popular.

Jason Treu:                         What do you think about blogging today?

Scott Baradell:                   Preferably not only extremely relevant, hyper-relevant. We tell all our clients to get as focused as possible on who you’re going after. You do not have to go with … If someone asked you what your target vertical is, do not say all of them. Pick one. Pick two. Don’t pick six. Because it’s just not gonna work unless you’re a really, really big company with a massive marketing budgeting. So pick your battles, pick where you’re gonna focus and then if you can do things like … It’s really easy to … There are organizations that … I’m not talking about Survey Monkey, I’m talking about organizations that you can do panel surveys to come up with stories that are databased, because there is so much content out there.

The biggest problem with blogging is a bunch of useless crap out there. There’s literally millions of articles and you don’t want to be a part of that. Six tips to blah, blah, blah. Or the three biggest mistakes and how to avoid them. How many times have people seen all these now. Dig into your subject matter in a level of detail where that small group of people, in many cases that’s the case to detect, that are interested in that, will come back. And if you will just invest a little bit in having some original data and some things, to give that content value beyond, “This is what I think.” Then you’ll get traction. I think blogging is very valuable. I would say it’s very difficult with the blog to do what you could do 10 years ago, just because it’s so heavily saturated. What everyone needs to be doing is looking at the next thing.

Jason Treu:                         And what is the next thing right now for people to do? Especially in B2B communications or technology, where is the next forefront that’s really opening up that people should start looking in, investing in, trying out?

Scott Baradell:                   Well, I think it’s different for different business. I’ll just give you an example or two. But so for us, overall, I would say that the biggest single change is we integrate visual into everything. When we design some … Whatever we do, our content folks and our creatives, it’s like Lennon/McCartney. It’s words and music and it really has to be collaborative. You really can’t just throw much of the stock images out there. You have to have meaningful imagery, animation, video, that, to connect. Because it’s falling away from words, your words have to be … You have to be very concise in your choice of words and purposeful in a way I don’t think you had to be before in the same way. And so, I think just this kind of embracing all of it to tell your story has been a huge trend.

But I was gonna say the same way that the blogging is saturated, you can say obviously the same thing about email marketing. To use that example, email open rates are not what they used to be. They’re not today on average what they were a year ago. And a year ago they aren’t what they were two years ago. So we have to look at that, that doesn’t mean you have to stop doing email marketing. You just have to realize that as an arrow in your quiver, it’s not as powerful as it was. More and more people are using messaging to communicate rather than email. So, whether that’s … I mean, take your pick from all the different messages from Snapchat to tools for better being used in business, the amount of communications that are happening in that way, versus through email, that’s the shift.

So I think right now, there’s huge opportunity for marketers to figure out how to get in there. Because if you can get in there early before everyone’s figured it out, you’re gonna have that first mover or early mover advantage. And so, I just think that every new thing that comes out, there’s so many. That’s the challenge. You can make a bad choice. That’s why everyone wants to stick to Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. But a lot of companies invested big in Google +, and now they’re thinking, “Why did I invest a lot in Google +” for example.

Well, that’s just part of the deal. I made lots of bad investments. I didn’t have a ton of money to invest, but when I was trying to figure out … I’ll just give you one example. I was very late to Twitter. Using myself, I say very late. I got on in 2008. But for me, I think that’s what it was. All the geeks that were in blogging with me in 2005, I know that most of them were on Twitter a year before I was. I just resisted. “I don’t need another thing.” I also didn’t really like Facebook, because Facebook started behind a wall. I was like, “Well it’s not even searchable. Why do I care about Facebook?” And then of course, as soon as they opened it up to search engines and opened it up to everybody, you’re like, “Wow.” It was instantly the most massive thing. And so there’s things like that, I guess. Compared to most agencies in Dallas we were early on, but I felt late on. Because the people that I was in contact with, were doing all these things.

But they also did, I had people invested a ton of time in things like Second Life. At the time, Second Life, this kind of virtual reality social network, and there were a lot of people. Big influence. So you were like, “This is gonna be the biggest thing.” Donald Trump will be sending his messages through Second Life. Well, it didn’t happen. That never happened. There have been a lot of those. I was a big fan of Digg, which of course went away and now it’s reddit. And at the same time there was another site that was hugely popular at the time. I’m friends with Drew Curtis, the founder, called FARK. It was this community that was male oriented, but this news sharing community. Drew actually ran for Governor of Kentucky, I don’t know, as an Independent. He didn’t do that well, but he was out there. He was a serious candidate. This was a fun site that had a ton of … Have you heard of FARK?

Jason Treu:                         I don’t think so.

Scott Baradell:                   It had huge traffic in like … It was a blog before there was a blog. But it was like a different kind of format for a Digg-like community. And as opposed to how a Digg or a reddit was formed … Actually it looked a little like reddit. It’s still out there. He hasn’t changed it much. It’s just in terms relative to what’s out there, he used to be an 800 pound gorilla in that space. So I decided, “you know what?” This was the same time that Twitter was coming up. “I’m going to create a FARK-like community for PR people and creatives and be sharing news of interest through this vehicle and start a community.” And I thought if I could build this community, that would have 10 times the impact that writing a blog was gonna have. Because I saw there were more and more people coming into blogging, and I saw with each blog I’m writing the relative impact was less, so I wanted to do that next thing.

So I invested, for me it was a lot. I invested probably $20,000 in to get this whole thing off the ground. I called it Spin Thicket at the time. It would just be this kind of quirky community but I was really trying to build some scale with it. I had some pretty influential folks who participated here and there. But I realized, “Gosh. It’s so hard to get to a scale with this.”  So I really, I tried to create my own social community. Invested a lot of time and effort in it. Abandoned, basically in a lot of ways, the blog, to do that. And it failed. It failed. I had fun with it but I never build scale with it. You’ve got to be willing to try that. I didn’t get down and out about it. I was like, “Crap. I wasted my money but I learned from it.” You can’t always know, so I guess the answer to your question is you have to keep trying stuff.

Jason Treu:                         It’s trial.

Scott Baradell:                   I got very involved in Google + and then when I saw, “Hmm. Not best use of my time. Not best use of my clients’ money.” I’ve gone back and forth on things like Cwora. Cwora is one that came on gangbusters. It’s a natural thought leadership platform in social. And at first, it was all gangbusters, but it’s all linked in answers but then the answers went away. And now Cwora’s been able to get very high profile interviews with doing Cwora. It’s emerged. I believe it’s in the top 100 sites in the country now in the terms of visits. It’s something that’s always evolving. I think you need to be fluid in figuring out … Particularly since I have to be a steward of our clients.

Jason Treu:                         So part of it is really understanding what to do but when to kill it. I was listening and I’ve been listening to entrepreneurs and they say it’s more important, angel investors and VCs, to be able to figure out when to kill something, when then to actually move forward with it. Because the opportunity cost is actually higher-

Scott Baradell:                   It is. It’s like holding onto a stock. I’ve done that. I’ve had a stock that I kept thinking that I bought it at a point and then it went all the way to zero. I had a stock that went all the way to zero from a pretty good amount.

Jason Treu:                         I want to switch gears for a second and ask you a last question on leadership. You work with a lot of successful CEOs and other influencers, and have been around a lot of people. What do you think constitutes a great leader versus a good leader? What did they do that really separates them out from the rest? Because I look at a lot of people and try to figure out, “Okay, how can I take … ” one aspect’s taking my leadership ability to the highest level. What things do I need to be thinking about and embodying when I’m doing that. I think you have a pretty unique insight because you’re working with all of these people across a lot of industries for a long period of time, that have been in influential situations. And you’ve seen good, bad and best, and how would you characterize that? What advice would you give? Or things that you see that really stick out from people that are …?

Scott Baradell:                   Yeah. I guess I would say that you … The best leaders. Well, I think there’s leaders and managers. There’s leadership in terms of being a visionary or being able to make things happen. Understanding how to build a successful business. But leadership in terms of the people side, comes down to inspiring people to want to be part of what you’re doing. And that comes down to having a story that you’re telling too. They want to be part of that narrative of what you’re trying to do and why. Where you came from, and where you’re trying to go. And why something-

Jason Treu:                         How do you get someone to be a part of that narrative?

Scott Baradell:                   There’s persuasion. I’m Barrack Obama and I can … I’m the best speaker on the planet, and I can move people to tears with my words and make them feel, “I want to be part of that.” Then there’s that level of persuasion that I think George W. Bush was known to have. He wasn’t a very good speaker but he was known for being really good with people one on one. Really projecting a sincerity and not putting on airs and just being a guy, even though he came from a very wealthy family, a very powerful family, he was that when he was one on one. So forget the politics, different politicians, but both of those skills are incredibly important.

The newspaper I worked at in Virginia was the Lynchburg paper, so I got to know Jerry Falwell a little bit. And Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist Christian leader, he started the whole religious rite during the Reagan era. Hugely. I did stories, sometimes very critical stories about his university, Liberty University, which a lot of kids from Texas who are religious or conservative Baptists will go to, and he was always so nice to me. It didn’t matter what I wrote. And not only that, but everyone I ever talked to or the students at his school … And he at the time had over 10,000 or 20,000 students. I don’t know how many it is now or how much it exactly was then. He remembered all their names. He was one of those people who meets you and then he remembers your name. That builds. That’s a leader. Not everyone has just the capability of doing that.

But if you can balance being able to inspire and connect with people across a group and then take that to the one on one level that carries it through. I’ve seen so many leaders that will say words but when they’re with you they don’t seem to care or take an interest.

Jason Treu:                         Right. They sit in their office and they don’t walk around and get to know the people so they’re just sitting with their door closed or walking past you and not knowing who the people in the building are really.

Scott Baradell:                   That’s so meaningful. And I’m terrible … I mean, I’m like someone who’s opposite of Jerry Falwell. I’m terrible with names. I just forget those things. But when I’m face to face with someone, I honestly want to know how they’re doing. I want to know that people are happy here. And so when I think of great leaders that I’ve worked with, I was really, really liked the founder and chairman of PageNet. That ended up being a $1 billion company before they were bought and the paging industry went away of course. That was all in the 1990s. His name was George Parent. He got a lot of … He didn’t want media coverage. We mainly got coverage for the executives and for the company, it’s products. But he mostly got unwanted coverage for building the biggest house in Dallas. He was in D Magazine, all these places, and he didn’t like any of that.

So very wealthy, but you would never know it from talking to him. The kinds of things he would do, that I always remember is here’s a chairman of a $1 billion company and he’ll just walk in the break room while you’re in there. Just ask, what you’re doing, what you’re working on and actually listen and care.

And then things that I did, I made mistakes when I was trying to … I got him a speaking gig one time that involved him. He had to go to Boston, something like that. Speaking at this industry event and he hadn’t done it before, as a company he hadn’t. And when he came back I bumped into him in the halls and asked him how it went. He was saying all kinds of nice things and then he just kind of mentioned or I found out, there’s only about 12 people showed up. In other words, I had booked him at crappy event. It was not the best use of his time. But when he talked to me about it, he didn’t say a word about that. He said, he focused on the fact that, what I was doing and why and the intent behind it, and that he got that. So I don’t know, that stuff goes a long way. You don’t forget that stuff.

When someone tries to micromanage you or is overly critical, I just don’t think those things have ever had a great impact, but I think especially today. You just can’t treat people like that. They won’t take it. They’ll go somewhere else. They’ll go do something else. And before I started Idea Grove, PageNet is longer than I stayed anywhere. I was there six years.

Jason Treu:                         So how do you give people critical feedback that they need and not be a jerk? What would you do if you saw someone here that was doing something that needed to be corrected or improved upon? How would you give that feedback to that person?

Scott Baradell:                   Well, I think you can be honest without being hurtful. And I think what it really comes down to, preparation. Mental preparation about how you’re gonna deliver the message in such a way that shows that you’re trying to be protective of their feelings. That you’re not trying to be overly abrupt or that you’re … I think a lot of times it’s the empathy of realizing how would you want to be … How would you want to handle this? I’ve been fired before. I’ve been in situations where I’ve gotten in trouble before, or I’ve … Things were not really going well at work, and I’ve really spent a lot of time thinking about those things. I don’t always do it the right way. Believe me, since I hadn’t managed people in this way before, I made lots of mistakes, and so learning from them has helped me too.

But the bottom line is, I think people should … and the best manners I’ve had, have been people that, I guess, started with the assumption that I had good intent, and that what you’re doing by way of criticism is a way of helping. And if you could take it as that, then it’s a positive for everybody.

Even when we’ve had to terminate people, what I tell people, which I really believe, is just because it’s not working out here does not mean you can’t knock it out of the park somewhere else. We articulate these are the reasons why this just doesn’t seem to be working. These are the things you seem to be really good at. These are the things you want to do. In terms of where we’re going, there’s not an alignment. We’ve talked about in the past, this is the path to get to this place, but it’s not what you want to do. It doesn’t play to your strengths and so it’s probably best to part ways. Or it’s … Or you know what, I know you want a promotion but you’re not ready for it. And it’s not doing you any favors promoting you to a level that you’re not ready for. Here are the things that you need to do.

So I think, empathy, being specific and actually caring about the person and being protective of their feelings, I mean, I don’t think that’s a pansy thing. I think that’s just being human and it’s what people want today in a way that … It didn’t used to be that way but I don’t think that’s … Millennials get a lot of bad breaks. I don’t think millennials want anything that anyone doesn’t want today. I just think that, that’s how the workplace has evolved overall.

And there’s nothing wrong … that’s like people talk about being politically correct. Oh, politically correct, obviously you take everything too far, but really you’re just talking about being sensitive to other people’s feelings. That’s it. It’s not a big thing. Other people don’t see things the way you see, so maybe be inclusive about how you talk about things. Say, “Happy Holidays” because not everybody is celebrating the same holiday. This is not … it shouldn’t be a big wedge political issue because we’re just talking about caring about other people, and caring what they think too. It doesn’t mean what you think doesn’t matter, it just means what they think, matters too.

Jason Treu:                         And caring is a big element of trust. It’s also when you show that you care, you’re building a deeper trust with someone else, because you show you’re invested inside of them.

Well that’s fantastic. I want to thank you for being on the show. We’ve shared a lot of great insights, a lot of wonderful information that people can take action on and learn from. So how can people connect with you, find more about what you’re doing? I want to send them there and check out all your great work.

Scott Baradell:                   Well, unfortunately I have a personal site that I haven’t updated in a while, so I’m not even gonna mention that one. But if you go to ideagrove.com, that’s our website. That’s where we’re kind of updating what where doing as an agency. I don’t have a personal platform that I’m using right now. I only have my friends on Facebook. That’s where I … Facebook, Instagram, places like that. But the website, you can always connect with me on LinkedIn. I am active on LinkedIn. Mostly reading, rather than posting.

Jason Treu:                         We’ll have all those links in the show now, so everyone will have those.

Scott Baradell:                   I maintain a lot of relationships through LinkedIn, so that’s a good way to connect.

Jason Treu:                         Wonderful. Well, thanks a lot for being on the show with us today and joining in this great conversation. You can learn more on more podcasts with Executive Breakthroughs. And you can go to my website jasontreu.com. It’s jason t-r-e-u.com/podcasts, and you can see more episodes. So thanks for joining us today.

Interviewer:                       Okay. We are onto another episode of executive breakthroughs, and I have a fantastic guest here today, Patrick at 128 Technology, and he’s the COO. And so we’re going to be working, talking a lot about questions and answers that you’re going to hear and a lot of insights. So welcome to the show.

Patrick:                                 Well, thank you very much.

Interviewer:                       So I want to find out a little bit where did you grow up, a little bit of your background? I read that you grew up in Pittsburgh and so why don’t you just tell us a little about family and …?

Patrick:                                 Yeah, I was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a rural area, with eight brothers and sisters so it was a big family.

Interviewer:                       Wow, you learnt to share and communicate and have to get a long?

Patrick:                                 Of course.

Interviewer:                       And what child were you out of the eight?

Patrick:                                 Third from the oldest.

Interviewer:                       Third from the oldest? I wonder what that says, usually there is youngest and oldest I know but I know in the middle.

Patrick:                                 I’m just in the middle, yeah.

Interviewer:                       Okay. So you figured how to get along … And your dad was an engineer too?

Patrick:                                 He was. My dad my engineer, worked at General motors and then of course got into the steel industry and that’s how we moved to Pittsburgh when I was very small.

Interviewer:                       Very small. So was dad like a driving force for you growing up or someone that you looked up to or was he just …?

Patrick:                                 Of course he was. Yeah, of course.

Interviewer:                       And that sounds like that’s led you on the path to going down the path that you’re on now getting really interested in technology and engineering. Although, back then I heard that it wasn’t just the technology part of it but just more of the engineering and you kind of fell onto that later on?

Patrick:                                 Well, when I was younger and going to school, I was good at math. And everybody said, well, if you’re good at math you should be an engineer. So I didn’t know much about engineering but I did okay at school, I wasn’t a great student but I did okay.

Interviewer:                       And then what was your first job outside of …?

Patrick:                                 I worked at the Timken Roller Bearing company in Columbus Ohio. I was a what they call a systems engineer there, trying to work on business methods and make things more efficient. And it was before computers really had … Personal computers had really been a part of how corporations made themselves efficient. It was just before they were coming in.

Interviewer:                       So how did you get into technology then from there? Was it the next job that you had or was it there?

Patrick:                                 Well, I did do some programming in college FORTRAN, and punch cards and a little bit of TTY stuff, but I didn’t take any computer science classes. That didn’t really exist at the university of Pittsburgh. So when I went to the Timken company, they had some mainframe computers and they still had some punch cards tabulators and all that. And they brought in IBM PCs, they were fresh brand new and they said, hey, college boy, come over here you do this. So they just sort of asked me to do it because I was young.

Interviewer:                       And you just figured that out on your own, or how did you …?

Patrick:                                 Yeah. There wasn’t much on those computers in those days. They had a 10 Megabyte hard drive, that’s all they had.

Interviewer:                       Well, that’s not much. So you just using them in the business and figured out like the applications for them? Did you get help?

Patrick:                                 Yeah. We did some projects, inventory projects and we did some … They did a lot of computations there manually and we replaced them with programs, or you could … That kind of thing.

Interviewer:                       Okay. And is that kind of the first time and you got really motivated to be in technology but sort of working on …?

Patrick:                                 Yes, yes. I might have learned by working. I didn’t learn much in college. I mean, I got … You know.

Interviewer:                       You had a taste of it.

Patrick:                                 In relation to high technology.

Interviewer:                       At this point, did you have any strong mentors or people that were in your life that were driving you or did you have anyone that …?

Patrick:                                 I mean, the guy that I worked for at the Timken company was also very interested in it. He was very helpful. He wanted to start a business. He didn’t while I was there, but he wanted to.

Interviewer:                       So when did you leave there and what led you to kind of on your next path?

Patrick:                                 Yeah. I came to Boston on … I was living in Columbus, Ohio at the time, and I came to Boston on Vacation. I had just leaned a language called C programming language, and I learned it on my own at night. And when I came to Boston, I got the Sunday Globe and I opened it up and … It’s hard for people to imagine this before the internet, but there were easily 300 pages of help wanted ads for C Unix programmers in the late 80s. And I said, wow, this is great. And it’s like I just went back to the Timken company, I resigned and I moved here, and started-

Interviewer:                       That first, you were just like I’m moving to Boston because-

Patrick:                                 Yeah. I had a relative here that let me stay with him for a while, so it helped out.

Interviewer:                       So what was that next job? What did you end up taking in …?

Patrick:                                 Well, oddly, I was looking at some really good high-tech jobs but I wanted to be in the city because I never lived in the city. I actually took a job doing systems engineering at the Harvard community health plan, which at the time was somewhat small and very, very fast-growing. So it was in its own way, it was the most … Compared to the Timken company, it was very entrepreneurial, very fast-growing, That was my first experience with companies that were growing fast.

Interviewer:                       So that was kind of your entrepreneurial folly, I guess working in that. What kind of led you down more of the path to starting your own thing? Like what kind of set of events?

Patrick:                                 Yep. So I continued to work on projects for about two or three years at the Harvard community health plan, finished my MBA. And the high-tech community in Boston was really starting to really get going. And I become interested in voicemail while I was working at the Harvard community plan, we were looking at systems from a converse network systems. And we were sizing them and pricing them and thinking about efficiencies and in the meantime I found out that there was a company here called Boston Technology that was making voicemail. And they had five engineers at the time, and they actually hired me and I was the fifth engineer actually. And that company was just get getting going, it was a lot of fun.

Interviewer:                       So you worked there for a while and you made some obviously some good connections and you started the [crosstalk 00:07:25]?

Patrick:                                 Well, that’s where I met Andy Ory, who’s been one of my … He and I have started a couple of businesses, or he did the first one and then we started Acme Packet together. And that’s where I met him. I also met Bob [Penfield 00:07:37], another engineer here, and Peter [Cumberford 00:07:41]. The company was run by younger people. They were younger than me that actually started the business. And they believed that business into being, they were just incredible. And they were great to watch, and it was fun.

Interviewer:                       And it actually gave you a lot of freedom, it sounds like?

Patrick:                                 Well, they worked really hard. These guys would sleep on the floor in their office. They were crazy and they worked really, really hard, but very, very inefficiently as well. But it was fun. It was fun, I have to say. It was a very good job. And most people when I left there, they had grown quite a bit. They had … I don’t know, 400, 500 employees by the time I left, which was about three years later. And when I left it was because I was going to start be part of an entrepreneur company.

Interviewer:                       And what did you take away from that experience? Was there any like big learning things that you took away from working?

Patrick:                                 At Boston Tech, they had a culture … They didn’t always … They weren’t 100% … Like they believed what they were doing so much, it wasn’t real. They believed in things that weren’t quite real. And I don’t want to say anything disparaging about the company, but they would do things like round up every chance they could. And I felt like they didn’t need to do that. I felt like the company and the products were good enough and they didn’t need to do that.

Interviewer:                       Got it. So you left there and then what did you do? What was the next step on the entrepreneurial journey?

Patrick:                                 Well, Andy Ory had already started a company called Priority call management. And I was helping him as a friend and as a consultant. I worked for beer or something. And he had started the company on a shoe-string. And was very excited and very … If you ever met our CEO, he is very … A fantastic leader. So he urged me to consider taking a job with him. And I was just newly married and I had a mortgage, and I just didn’t really feel like it made sense.

And he said, “Well, you should go and talk to your boss and see what he says anyway.” He thought that … And he was wise because I went and talked to my boss, he’s name Bill Claybrook and he said, he said, “You’ll be a fool not to go and try to start that company.” And this is the guy I worked for who really needed me to stay and do my job. He was urging me to go. And I was like, “Wow.” And he said, I’ll tell you what, I’ll take the risk away, you go and work with Andy, and if he runs out on money … He had three of four months of money in the bank, it’s all they had to run the business. He said, “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll hire you back.”

Interviewer:                       So why do you think he did that?

Patrick:                                 Because I think he was-

Interviewer:                       Because it’s a unique thing. I mean, I’ve had one person who did that for me, but that’s … It tells you have a unique relationship with that person.

Patrick:                                 Well, I mean, he liked me and I liked him. And he felt like it was something that I would regret if I didn’t do it. And he took away the reason why I wouldn’t do it, and so that was good and that was nice of him.

Interviewer:                       So then you jumped at the opportunity and went in to it and how did it … I mean, obviously, it’s worked out well over time?

Patrick:                                 Well, that business, you learn a lot about what not to do by making mistakes. And that business wasn’t really a good business in the beginning. We didn’t pick the right market, the technology was difficult and expensive. So we struggled for at least a year and a half, maybe going on two and then we found our way.

Interviewer:                       How did you find your way?

Patrick:                                 Well, as usual, our principle initial idea, a lot of startups wasn’t going to work. And so then you had to pivot or find some other way out or quite, right? Just say uncle. And what we did was we … It’s classic, but we had borrowed money from a lot of people in the form of advances of equipments. And one of the guys that advanced us a bunch of equipment, his name was Bob [Medona 00:12:18]. And he had given us, or advanced us equipment that we probably couldn’t pay for.

He didn’t want see us not pay for it, that’s not what he wanted. He was very interested in us also pivoting and finding a new … And he connected us with some people that wanted to do a particular feature called international calling card call back systems or whatever, which wasn’t what we were making. But we was close. We figured with a month of work or two we could get it working. And so that’s what we did. And actually we started making decent money for the first time shortly thereafter. And he funneled business to us and we were able to pay our bills and he was happier.

Interviewer:                       And then from there, so you had this business but it wasn’t the business that you wanted to, so how did you …?

Patrick:                                 Well, we pivoted one more time into pre-paid cellular systems and we did well much better, grew the business to … Andy would remember exactly the earnings and revenue growth. But it was a sizable business and we sold it to LHS group for roughly around $180 Million. And it was a good thing we sold it because that was a real tough business. And we never wanted to do that again. That was a tough business. And multiple pivots, complex sort of customer’s problems and … Not problems, but it was difficult, it was a hard business. For the dollars you earned it was hard work.

We were actually writing software and putting it on top of over people’s hardware, and the people that sold the hardware were making all the money. And the people that were buying the solution, valued the hardware not the software. That’s the way it was and we felt like we were adding most of the value but not getting a lot credit. So we decided never again would we be a system’s integrator slash software that re-markets other people’s hardware. We said we weren’t going to do that again.

Interviewer:                       Okay. So you sold the business. And did you all have to work in the business when [inaudible 00:14:39] a lot of time, people require you to do that at the next?

Patrick:                                 They didn’t require it, but I stayed on for about a year, a year and a half.

Interviewer:                       Did Andy too or did he …?

Patrick:                                 No, he left probably in about three months or so. But I stayed on and really wanted to make it work. And then the company that bought us, sold themselves. And when that happened all of the options we had vested right away and no one really believed that this company was well-run at that point, so everybody was starting to look for the doors. So I decided to leave and start Acme Packet. And I called Andy and he was very interested in helping me out, and we got it going.

Interviewer:                       Okay. So this time you actually were leading the way on this business, that’s interesting.

Patrick:                                 Yeah, not this one, but that was [crosstalk 00:15:31]

Interviewer:                       That one, yeah.

Patrick:                                 I mean, I had the idea and he was all for it. And we tried to … We had a couple of get-togethers with potential investors, everybody was excited. So that business we started it … It’s hard to believe it but it was in 1999, we were forming the business. And it was before the NASDAQ crash from 5,000 … Roughly where it is now, and before the airplanes hit the buildings and everything. And it was a pretty crazy time for the … Everyone was throwing money around willy nilly, so it was pretty crazy.

Interviewer:                       So talk about working with another founder because a lot of times these startups companies go south or things don’t work, it’s that people don’t have a way to compromise, arguments come up, divisions happened, it’s obvious since you two have been working together for a long time and a lot of different scenarios, that you found a way to communicate. Work together, find solutions, get on the same page. How have you done that? Like what needed to happen in order to …?

Patrick:                                 I mean, Andy is a great and easy person to work with. And I think we both just work together well, I guess that’s it. He has different strengths and I do. And we both respect each other. We’ve been working together for a very long time. When we started Acme Packet, we went to [inaudible 00:17:10] park adventures to raise money, and we only went in there as a courtesy call because we didn’t have a business plan pulled together. We just popped in to say hello and tell them we were starting a business and we’re going to come back in three, four months after we get our ducks in a row and we’re going to talk to you about raising money. And they wouldn’t let us leave that day without accepting an offer to invest. And we didn’t even have a plan.

And later on when we were asking them, why would you do that? And they said that the reason why businesses fail more than not is because people don’t get a long. They said, you guys get a long and we invested in your last company … They were an investor in the Priority call management. They said, we really, really like you guys, we think you guys are great. You learned a lot in your last business, your next business is going to be better. We don’t even care what you do, we’re in because the quality of the people and the integrity that we had. So they were in without really hearing the idea. And they made that judgment call based on well we got a long and how created teams.

Interviewer:                       So what did you learn as you started Acme Packet from working with Andy? What were some big Lessons that you learned that you put into that business?

Patrick:                                 We didn’t really chose a great market or even have a great idea on our first business. We did okay because we executed well, but the market was small, it wasn’t easy to understand, the product space changed, and we were lucky to sell the business when we did. With Acme Packet, we wanted to pick a bigger market. We wanted to look at the major trends and make sure we had a good thesis for a longterm value proposition. And so we were more thoughtful about that.

And if you looked at our original description of what we were going to do, then if you look the company when it was going public five years later, we hadn’t changed much. We didn’t have to pivot once. So the good news was, we at least made the right choice. And of course, things happened that we didn’t anticipate that resulted in selling the business to Oracle. But it was a great 13 year run, it was a great business. We made a lot of money. We sold billions of dollars of the product. So I think that we chose better the market and did a much better job.

Interviewer:                       Why did you end up selling the business? What led to you …?

Patrick:                                 Yeah, it’s a good question. It was hard to grow the business. The market for our product was 600 million and we had 300 million or 310 million or something. So we had 50 to 55% of the market, and there was probably 40 competitors, probably only three that were credible. But when you think about it, it’s pretty hard to take any market share when you have that big of a … So that was one reason. I think fundamentally, a second reason was the value of voice calls doesn’t matter where they are in the world, was plummeting. Just long-distance people didn’t stop paying for it, it was given away free by everybody. And people also stopped making phone calls, fax calls, phone calls all kinds of calls people stopped making them as much, they texted, they emailed, they found other ways to communicate.

And so what was happening is the market value of voice was declining. So we, our product, which was probably in 90% of the world’s network was facilitating voice going between IP networks. And we just decided that, gosh, with voice declining there is going to be less money for the business case therefore less dollars to spend and the $600 million market isn’t growing. And so without any market growth, there is no chance we were going to get to grow our business.

When you try to manage a business that isn’t growing, it’s hard because everybody wants a raise, everybody wants to hire more people, and not only do you have to say no, you actually have say, you have to do more with less if the business isn’t growing. And that’s a different kind of leadership than starting businesses and growing them when they can grow.

Interviewer:                       What advice would you give people on exiting the business and selling because obviously you’ve done this several times? What things have you learned that is being helpful when you go down that path?

Patrick:                                 I almost think you have an obligation to your customers and to your employees and to your investors to find a home for a business that you can’t grow because businesses have a life-cycle. And a business that isn’t growing that’s mid-sized or small that’s in a standalone environment isn’t going to thrive. I mean, it’s just not a good place for people that work there because they won’t have a career paths. It’s not a good place to try and convince investors that you’re going to be there, paying dividends or whatever it is, it’s just not good.

The life-cycle of these small businesses ultimately is to be acquired when they can’t sustain growth. And so you just got to face into it and say, all right, now it’s time.

Interviewer:                       And move on. Talk about your customer relationships that you build listening to the customers because if you gained that much of a market share … I mean, of course you’ve got great technology and services, but what … There’s obviously had to be some other stuff and how you’re building the relationship with these customers that separate yourself out from the other people that were in the industry and probably just in general technology to get that much of a market share in any market?

Patrick:                                 We had a very good reputation, and I think for a couple of reasons. I think one is, the product worked, and that’s important. We ran that business for 13 years, and we never really got dragged into any sort of legal issues around the product functionality not working, or meeting requirements or contracts. So we ran a good business. It was clean.

I think another reason why people had such loyalty to us is that, that whole market for voice over IP had a lot of really big players in it, CISCO, Avaya, Ericsson, Alcatel, Norton, I mean, over the years there were giant companies. And there was some small companies in the business, Sonus, Acme Packet, and a few others that had really credible products and people just loved the small businesses. It was almost an advantage for us. We could be responsive, we didn’t have bring out three inch stick contracts every time you wanted to have a discussion. So people liked that about us.

And I think for us, we were the last component that went into these solutions. And we were in the middle of the solution. And people had problems, and they’d come to us and say, gee, this doesn’t work, can you fix it? And they knew that no one else would fix it without being paid. And we frequently did fix it. So we had people liked us and-

Interviewer:                       And you solved their problem. You saw they were in pain … It’s like of Apple today, if I call Apple about something, they’re helping me and they’re going to do whatever they can even if the problem is not theirs. And that makes me want to be more of a loyal user because I know if something happens, I can call them and they will solve the problem. They won’t sit there and say, it’s going to cost you $59 to fix this, they will just stay on the phone and help me solve it.

Patrick:                                 Exactly. And you might say that it was the support and systems engineering hand-holding and problem solving that we did that-

Interviewer:                       But it’s the promise that you kept to people too. You said what you were going to do, you built it, you executed on it, and then you supported them around the edges and things that they needed to do.

Patrick:                                 These programs were very successful at these companies, so all of our customers at Acme Packet the people that ran those programs did very well. I mean, they had met all of their goals, they hit the mark on in terms of quality, in terms of return on investments, so they all did well. And so they had a good feeling about us.

Interviewer:                       So you sold the business, what happened before and then eventually you got here, so how did that iteration go? How did that pass go from some-

Patrick:                                 Yeah, after we sold the business, Andy left … There was no real place at Oracle for a CEO, so he left fairly quickly. And by the way, Oracle treated us really well, great company. Everyone talks about how bad they are, I think they’re actually pretty good.

Interviewer:                       Well, obviously, they did grow the business, they have to be otherwise in continuing forward and integrate all these other businesses and …

Patrick:                                 I mean, we tried to buy a couple of small companies at Acme Packet, well, we did buy three or four companies at Acme Packet. The way Oracle buys companies is amazing, really well-done. I learned an awful lot by watching-

Interviewer:                       But what do they do well that other people are not … Because I know that people probably would know like what’s their secret or [crosstalk 00:26:47]?

Patrick:                                 They have this rip the bandage approach that is phenomenal.

Interviewer:                       What’s that?

Patrick:                                 Well, when they buy you, there is always integration issues, multiple systems problems with old ways of doing business that they don’t want you to do. And rather than do a two-year project to build all of the new systems, run them in parallel and then cut over, they literally will just say, just do it. So people will say … I’ll just give you an example, so we were using salesforce.com at Acme Packet, which is an arch competitor of Oracle. So they buy us, and they say, okay, so you have to get off of that. And we were assuming that they’d give us two or three years to migrate off or find a way to transfer all of the data. And they said, we’re not going to transfer any of the data, we’re just going to shut it down, you guys have to type it all back in.

And so all of the sales guys, well, that means we’re going to stop selling because we have to go and type stuff in, and they said, that’s okay. And literally the sales ground to a halt, no sales were being made, the business ground to a halt for about six or eight weeks while everyone just got on to the new systems and then we were up and running.

They were smart because they also had very reasonable quotas for the sales guys. They knew that they were going to hurt us. They knew that was going to happen because they’d done it so many times and between reasonable quotas and between fair treatment of everybody, I think 85, 90% of the people felt they got treated very fairly. They were able to rip the bandage and get the business converted to their way of running-

Interviewer:                       A lot quicker than-

Patrick:                                 Very quickly. Oh, yeah, very quickly.

Interviewer:                       Which in their ROI I guess they thought would … Instead of two, three years of doing it, yes you’re not productive for eight weeks, but then we don’t have to sit there for a couple of years and work with the other system and have to [crosstalk 00:28:48]

Patrick:                                 And they buy 40 companies a year. I mean, how could you ever not … So they’re very good [crosstalk 00:28:54]

Interviewer:                       So how culturally, did they do anything that got people integrated better on a culture side, that you saw, or was it more of this process of getting everything integrated?

Patrick:                                 I think their culture … They don’t tell you what their culture is or they don’t describe it, but if I had to guess, everybody that introduces themselves at Oracle says by which acquisition they joined Oracle. Oh, I came in with this company, or I came in with this company. And maybe it’s because we were not their core sort of database business, we were in their peripherals, but it seemed to be the culture of the company was about being acquired and joining up and … Everyone said, if you stay here three years, you’ll stay forever, and I think that’s true. I think that they treat people fair and it’s a comfortable place to work.

Interviewer:                       So why did you end up leaving then? Because obviously you left.

Patrick:                                 Well, I did leave and they were treating me very well, so it needed to be a good reason to leave. Now I made a lot of money at Acme Packet, so I didn’t need to work, but I wanted to do something. I was too young to retire, so this five other founders in here that are engineers worked really had at Acme Packet, but weren’t independently wealthy. And they were constantly trying to start a business seeking my guidance. And they had terrible ideas. And they just didn’t think things through, and we would help them by introducing them to some venture people, and help them by getting meetings with potential customers to discuss their ideas, and they were just doing a really horrible job. And I thought, well, I need to help them out. We did come up with the idea for what we have-

Interviewer:                       Why did you feel like you needed to help them out?

Patrick:                                 Because they’re good guys. And besides I like … What am I going to do? I had to do something, I had to work. So we had a couple of meetings and we said, we agreed that we wanted to start a business then had to set about finding a market that we wanted to participate in.

Interviewer:                       So then what did all end up doing? What it this business here?

Patrick:                                 Yeah.

Interviewer:                       Okay. Oh, I didn’t know that … Okay, pivot right into here.

Patrick:                                 Yeah.

Interviewer:                       And then Andy joined up or he …?

Patrick:                                 Yeah. There was seven founders. Six of us sort of agreed to start the business, and then the six voted, let’s go see if Andy wants to participate. And we decided we wanted to have him as well. So he was the last one in. But I think it was by unanimous. We looked at each other and said, we need Andy.

Interviewer:                       So bring the band all back together on the way?

Patrick:                                 Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Interviewer:                       And so what’s your philosophy? Because obviously you’ve heard a lot of different things you’ve been doing, what’s like one core philosophy that you really hold up high?

Patrick:                                 I think you always have to do the right thing, and not just by the investors because obviously you have to do right by them, but by your employees and by your customers, you just do the right thing. Just treat people right, if you really screwed up at a customer, give them their money back. Whether you’re right or wrong, it doesn’t matter, if they are not happy, they’re not using the product. Just do the right thing, that’s really what we try to do. We always ask ourselves, is that the right thing to do? Then we try to do it. Sometimes it’s hard, but that’s we do.

Interviewer:                       What doe that come from? What philosophy doing the right thing, is it something you grew up with that you learned then, or is just something that you …?

Patrick:                                 I don’t know. I know we saw a lot of shenanigans in the late 90s and early 2000s at other companies, and maybe it’s a fall out of that. It’s just what we’ve always done. And it isn’t just me or Andy, it also with the CFOs we’ve had, we just always tried to do the right thing.

Interviewer:                       Got it. What separates a great leader from a good leader from your perspective?

Patrick:                                 Wow, I read that as one of your pre-questions and I was trying to think about a good answer-

Interviewer:                       Because I know people they’re watching and listening to this, they really want to know how do I take my leadership to the next level? And they maybe very successful now, but people are always looking on new ideas and nuances and things because often it’s a one or two degree change in what you’re doing can give you massive lift.

Patrick:                                 I think you’re right, and I think Andy our CEO is a great leader. I think he has … I’ll give you an example of a great leader. So when you hire people, really key people, you expect them because they’re leaders and they have leadership experience one would expect that they would be able to bring lots of people with them, follows, if you will. People that they could convince to come follow them and people that would want to follow them. And invariably, that’s the true test of how strong a leader is. Like you can use a retain search and bring in a top leader and pay him a lot of money, but if he doesn’t have 20 people that love him and want to be with him, then you’ve hired the wrong guy. And time and time again that’s happened.

We hired two very senior people at Acme Packet, I’m not going into too much detail because I don’t want to criticize them. But one of them came on board and brought literally 20 people that we didn’t know we needed and spent huge amounts of money and built a great organization and these people loved her and they followed her from multiple jobs. And we also hired someone to come in and run a bigger group of engineers and very senior level job, and he didn’t bring anybody. And so he didn’t anybody. And we said, hey, we’re looking to hire people, who do know? Nobody. So I think one was a great leader and the one was a good manager. And I think that’s the difference to me.

Interviewer:                       What’s your philosophy on hiring now? Because obviously you’ve been in a lot of different companies and a lot of different organizations. How do when you hire people what do you ask them, how do you think about these hirers, like what goes through your head like today if someone was going to come in for some position, how do you think through the hiring process? And how is that evolved and changed over time?

Patrick:                                 Well, that’s a very, very good question because we argue about that a lot internally here. This company, we’ve done the best hiring we’ve ever done. We made the least mistakes and have the greatest and best teams across the board. We’re now using and applying tests with all of our engineers, and finding that to be very helpful. I mean, it’s a three hour test, so if you want to work here, you got to take a three hour test. And that seems kind of … Right away, most people say forget it. I have kids, I’ve got a wife, I can’t spare three hours, yeah. It rules out people that don’t-

Interviewer:                       That’s an interesting thing that one little test it’s almost-

Patrick:                                 Well, it’s a three hour test.

Interviewer:                       Well, it’s three hours but three hours in a career that your going to spend time in seems pretty minimal. It’s just interesting to see that the bar for someone is that low that they’re not wanting to take a test.

Patrick:                                 Well, the test is also illuminating in a way because they can pick the language they want to use. They take the test and then it gives us something to dialogue with them as though it was real work. We get a chance to say, why did you do it this way, or you know. Just as though we were working. And that really helps give us a way to sort of role play what it would be like to work with person.

So the combination of people that won’t take the test and the improved interview process, we’ve hired very strongly our engineering team. And I think that’s the hardest function, to hire properly. I think it really is hard.

Interviewer:                       So the role playing actually sounds really interesting because then you’re really able to see what the make is the person, right? Not just how they’re solving the problem, but how they think, how they communicate, how they collaborate, how they’d solve a problem. I mean, you can probably get into people’s values, morals, ethics and everything else if they line up with sort of your thing of doing the right thing, or would they skip corners, or what they want to do?

Patrick:                                 Exactly. No, that’s exactly right. The test itself is very hard and almost no one does well on it-

Interviewer:                       Do you care as much how well they do on the test, or how they answer questions, or collaborate and talk to through this situation, or what’s …?

Patrick:                                 I think that the latter is the key, but if they don’t do well in the test, it’s unlikely. If they do really badly on the test, it’s unlikely that we would even waste time.

Interviewer:                       Okay, got it. How do you view, this point in your career, risk taking? Like how do you see …?

Patrick:                                 The other side of risk taking is what if you didn’t do something? I mean, it’s balanced. It’s between … People think, oh, wow, you’re an entrepreneur risk-taker. I don’t think any of us are better here.

I remember there was a young guy that was trying to start a business that worked for me at Oracle, and he said, gosh, he just isn’t sure about it. And I said, “Well, he’s trying to talk me into investing in his business.” And I said, “Why would I invest in your business if you won’t quit your job and do it.” Like if you’re that unsure, why would I do it? And he goes, “Well, gees.” And so I asked him, I said,” how much money do you have in the … And how long could you last without a paycheck?” He said, “I can probably go six months.” And I said, “Why don’t you just go do this business, and you’re either going to be successful or you’re not.” He goes, “That’s true.” And I said, “what’s the worst that could happen?” He said, “Well, I could fail.” I said, ” What would happen then?” “I have to get a job.

I said, “You probably have no trouble getting a job, right?” And he was pretty confident because he was a very senior guy, lots of good experience, that he could get a job. I said, “So really you have the capital to take a chance and if you won’t take a chance on yourself why would anyone invest in you” And so I said, “No one will invest in you if you don’t do it yourself.”

And I think that’s true, a lot of people run around trying to raise money but still have the job, and you’re like, well, gosh, you’re either all in or you’re not. And the risk of not doing it and staying in his case, staying at Oracle, would have been that he would have been miserable or not happy.

So he did quit, and he did go start the company. He had trouble raising money. Ran the business for a year and a half, sold it, probably broke even in terms of what he would have made had he stayed at Oracle. And now he’s got a really good job at a different company that’s a startup. He realized that he’s an entrepreneur himself, he realized that. But he’s at another small company and he’s doing quite well.

Interviewer:                       Last question for you is, when you look at other entrepreneurs, what do you think is the make of the people that end up being successful and those that don’t? And I know it’s a really broad generalization but obviously you’ve seen a lot of people in a lot of industries and spoken to people and has to be some things in your head that you see that really jump out?

Patrick:                                 Well, in our sector, in our high tech sector, and I don’t know anything about biotech or anything like that, but in our sector the people that focus and the science I think tend to fail more than the people that focus on the markets. California, that’s where everybody does all their consumer stuff, but over here in the Boston area, we’re more of a commercial, selling to enterprises startup area. The companies around here that’s kind of what we do. I think it’s actually quite interesting because the companies and the people that start businesses trying to take a patent or take a technical idea and say it’s better, don’t do well. The companies that really understand markets and really understand the customers and where products and technology how they impact customers, those guys-

Interviewer:                       [inaudible 00:41:49] that sounds like this psychology and emotions as well as … I mean, and the market itself may fit into that as well with the people?

Patrick:                                 Yeah. I think so. I think engineers tend to make lousy … Engineers who tend to make lousy entrepreneurs in general because they focus on … They think it’s logical and it’s not. And they also focus on technology instead of really what the true value proposition is to the rational buyer. The consumer is not a rational buyer but a business is. And so-

Interviewer:                       And solving the pain?

Patrick:                                 Yeah.

Interviewer:                       And the more the pain, the more they have to buy it.

Patrick:                                 Yeah.

Interviewer:                       And get on with that. Well, thanks a lot today for joining us on executive breakthroughs. It was fantastic having you on, you shared a lot of great insights and all these wonderful things that about build the company be successful, and the culture, and hiring. So thanks a lot for being on the show.

Patrick:                                 Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Interviewer:                       Well, thanks it was fantastic, great. A lot of great nuggets and information that’s like a lot of fantastic things. It was like it could have gone on for a while.

Patrick:                                 Enjoy your socks.

Interviewer:                       I will. I can always use another pair of socks. So they’re always a good thing to have on there. So it is, it’s wonderful.

[Star of Transcript]

Interviewer: Hello and welcome to another episode of Executive Breakthroughs  and I have a very exciting guest here Becky Powell Schwartz and she is going to lay a lot of insight on her career, her transitions and a lot of other things on leadership and building teams and so much wonderful information, you’re going to love it. So, thanks for coming on the show today.

Becky: I’m excited; it’s great to see you.

Interviewer: It’s great to see you too.

Becky: I’m excited to see your journey and all the success that you have.

Interviewer: Thank you, I appreciate it. So, I love to start to talk about you know where you grew up, and a little bit about your family and just define about your entrepreneurial journey. I always talked about people’s story so can people understand where they came from then a lot of it makes a lot more sense when we talk about what you’re doing in your career.

Becky: So, I grew up in …. and I am the oldest and both of my Parents were older in terms of, my Dad was in his middle 30s, my Brother and I were adopted when I was growing up, my Parents were a lot older than my friend’s but now they would be contemporaries.

Interviewer: when did you get adopted?

Becky: I was adopted at birth. Back then, it was a little different. And so, growing up, I had a lot of great things around me physically but emotionally was very difficult. My brother had a lot of emotional challenges, drugs, alcohol, from a very early age. So, I had to learn to be pretty independent and take care of myself emotionally. And so that is kind of one of my bedrocks and one of the foundations for me that’s helped me I think to be successful in a business. My father and ……enough was a Corporate Executive and at age 50, decided that he was going to leave the corporate world and he was going to start commercial and residential Real Estate; and so he did that for 25years until he died. That was his second career.

Interviewer: Why did he decide to quit corporate America?

Becky: I don’t know I was little; I was like 6 or 7.

Interviewer: It’s really fascinating because people just don’t get up and quit a job [right] and start something else like that at that age.

Becky: I don’t know but I was young. I do know that while he was doing his corporate job, he had a farmyard and He was also building houses with my uncle. So, he was always doing two things.

Interviewer: So, he was always Entrepreneurial, he probably got it from the salesman from his Dad’s right always doing sort of multiple things?

Becky: Exactly!

Interviewer: He was pretty busy; then it must have been when you were growing up? Was it hard for him to be present?

Becky: That was part of the challenge and so you know, I was just asking the C.E.Os that I work with, when you were growing up, who was the most like influential to you, as a leader? And it was really an interesting exercise; that I had to think about it myself and what I realized was that, there were different people, but it wasn’t anybody really in my family because my Dad, I was inspired that he was so busy but…

Interviewer:  He wasn’t around but he wasn’t really around, what about your Mum?

Becky:  My Mom was around kind of, but she was not a happy person. So, there was a lot of conflict in our family with my Brother. My Mother was a club champion as a golfer, she was she was an oil painter. She’s kind of not really a happy person. So, my opportunity was kind of; either dig in or dig out, but I just dig out.

Interviewer: Why do you think at that point reflecting back, you decided to dig out? Or step away, a lot of people don’t dig out. They implore or something else happens in their lives.

Becky: You know I learned early on that my faith was really my pedal and so I prayed a lot and I said you know I’ve got to figure out a way to have not get stuck in all those. It was very negative, very challenging not a happy place. I don’t care, I wanted to be happy.

Interviewer: Where did you find your refuge?

Becky: My Friends, my Church, not my school. I was an OK student. Looking back now, there was a lot of noise going on. So, I wasn’t really focused you know I wasn’t like in Clubs, you know I didn’t do that. I was working. So, my way to get out was to work. Either to Babysit or to take swim lessons, you know I was introduced to the Y.M.C.A. when I was in [not clear] by my French Teacher and so volunteer in which got me into all this work at the YMCA College you know I was doing [not clear] I did swim lessons and I always had a second job.

Interviewer: You’re kind of like your Dad; you followed the multiple job pattern.

Becky: I love to do something, I wanted to get out of the house, I wanted something, I want do something else.

Interviewer: So how did being adopted, I guess affect you is it interesting as you talk to people who had that experience. Some people just roll through life; some people accepted them in many different ways, they had to come to a different realization, some people went back and try to find their birth parents. How did all that sort of…?

Becky: So early on, my Parents said you know before you go to school, you know they tell your adopter that you were chosen. I took the high road. My Brother for his entire life could not deal with it. So, we have two people exactly in the same family. One who really was challenged by, one who said let’s just it. So, I that was me. And so I just kind of took the high road and I said OK I’m chosen, I use it you know talk about it. Probably when I was about in my pre-teens, I wonder who my parents were and I said by time I’m 16, I’m going to get the hospital get my birth certificate to figure that out. Well then, I became like 19 and years have gone by I never really thought about again. And so for me, it only became important for my health reasons because I wanted to know kind of what you know did I have any health risk and [sure] I’ll probably not till I was in my 40s did I actually tracked down my birth mother and Indiana was the closest of Texas was open, I was in Texas by then by then and so through, actually when my father but I found an organization that helped me find a door so I was able to connect not physically with my mother but through a bag of corn and so I found that all the information that I want to know and so for me, if you can imagine, you grew up in a home where you’re a little bit disconnected from your Parents you have a little bit of hope, right? And some of that also leads to a lack of confidence and as a Leader, you’ve got to be confident. Sometimes I think I get to my life. And see it that you have to get the evidence for yourself; and so for me that was like a big hole it closed. The mystery was over. I have the facts that I needed. I chose not to move forward and really me because her family didn’t know about it, her husband didn’t know about it, her children know about it, only her mother knew. [Wow] And so it was like you know you’re on and she was a janitor and I’m in a small town in Indiana, she was a jeopardy whatever they called, by the way did you have this Child? You can imagine the challenge that what the on the rest of the problems. So, I feel like I had a lot of grace that was a that the Parents that I had, even though there were challenges that you know that’s an opportunity for me which is kind of how I look at life but what I try to say everything is an opportunity to learn.

Interviewer: So, when growing up not having a loop,  were there confidence issues?

Becky: Yes.

Interviewer: How did you overcome? How did you overcome that because it is one of the things that the confidence conundrum for P.S.A. can’t get it and is because we don’t have confidence we don’t have the evidence in the competency of knowing  because the only way to take leaps of faith in order to get there to be more confident so

Becky: Two things; No1, I always had a lot of people who believed in me probably more than I believed in myself.

Interviewer: But it’s an important thing, to be around  people to have that believe strongly and saw an optimism in you.

Becky: They saw a lot, I did have one aunt but mostly my friends that I grew up with that I’m still friends with. I mean she was a safe haven for me and she still to this day I mean, we’ve been friends we’ve been like 9. She lives in Florida and my one of my college surety. She would say OK we’ll be going to get involved in something you know that I’m going with you to try this I’ve never done before but I’m going with you you’re still doing that. And so, those people, I’ve had several people in my life who believed in me. You know when I started the business, my Boss he was a seam out that point. She said you know we cut your position open and use are you coming or not it’s something. What do you do I don’t know but I’m done with the corporate life. Choose to start as a summary of your place, that was 1n 1998. And she always believed in me far more than I ever believed in myself and then of course then it you know then it takes over so that you have the evidence and you believe but I also put myself in a lot of new situations. So, I put myself in an uncomfortable situation. I’m kind of courageous in that way, and when I’m afraid to do it, I do it anyway because that’s how you build confidence you know starting the third career and you know working you know building C.E.O. groups you know all of that work with C.E.O. since 1981. But going out is a whole different thing, now a different approach.

Interviewer: A whole different capacity. So you went to college?

Becky: So, I went to Ball State University was OK Letterman’s Top hundred a site which

Interviewer: I went to Indiana University for undergrad so I know.

Becky: You did? Are you from Indiana?

Interviewer: Chicago

Becky: So I started, I was going to be a Physiotherapist, that’s what I always wanted to do, but I could not have science all that. So, I could follow the test and they figured that social work so I was in one of the very first classes that had a Bachelors Social work. So, I was going to save the world and so I stayed in Muncie which is where a Ball State is based and I was a school social worker and I worked with a learning disability and Emotionally disturbed and I was an intern, you know and I worked with a teenage mothers. And so, my first Husband was an Architect and so we decided to leave you know come to Texas because Dallas was at that point so when I came to Dallas I waited tables which was one of my other jobs that I did all through college and I had a chance to go to work for the YWCA and I was a Program Director which I was basically a Marketing Director I was in charge the operations of the building. Put off the lights, talk to be groundskeeper who was Hispanic, I did not speak Spanish. And I started a program for teenage mothers there so I’ve always been kind of a fire starter if you can say so created that program is generally funded and that program and up until a few years ago was still in the eyes stage. But in that role what I found was that as a healthy profession not that great I was more of a you know I didn’t know what the goal was, the object is you know I want to have a [not clear……] I want to have accountability can always do that when you’re working with you know and that social work. So, that’s kind of how I started.

Interviewer: How did you kind of….

Becky:  So what happened was, is that interesting I was kind of the challenge with the no accountability, no bottom line performance, and so I’ve just started talking to people, I connected with the like through my sorority alumni and her husband was the owner of what was then the Dallas Fort Worth Business Journal [OK]. so, I went there as a Marketing Director, I had no clue really what was marketing and I don’t really know what that was for, I was the only non-family member. [Oh Wow ] Yes, it was a great experience, I stayed there all of 3months. I came to live on. And in this course we had school once all that stuff I’m quitting my job! I’m quitting my job, I’m going to the wait tables and then figure it out and then also I’m going to start a business. So I quit, I went to wait tables and I started a consulting business where I went to non-profits and saw all the marketing plans.

Interviewer: How did you just go in and he said you just quit and I relate Yeah but again you just did this for me to talk to people about this and figure this out?

Becky: I just did. I just said I’m doing this.

Interviewer: So how do you how to take that leap. Like that’s because that’s something that people really big problem with. You know when I read something about the 5second rule were you know trying to decide in five seconds or not that a difference so how do you make a conscious decision to keep making leap, that’s a pretty aggressive leap of faith to go see a list or a business and figure it out and just do it.

Becky: So now, most people who know me would say that I probably did a lot of research. Because you know me think I done a lot of you know I’ve done a lot of research. So, I might not have done like traditional but in my head, I’m kind of figured I’m already feeling them and figuring out something a lot going right. So, I’m going to lead for whatever I get and I have these supporters who say hey you should go do this; so it wasn’t just me, it was people saying up to do this my letters out what that look like.

Interviewer: So, it’s a combination of yes you were having the capacity to do this probably having done in the past all right building the support because

Becky: I think that’s one thing I want to really pull out of really they don’t have the rights for people around the I love cheerleaders I might have outside of church a lot of other charities and I hope that I do the same for other people. But I also have people say by inspired me and say that’s what people really love to see

Interviewer: That’s a critical thing about deliberate. About having people that are telling you the truth right and able to see or don’t want to fight and point them, they can communicate to you because it means you’ve developed a relationship with them, they can communicate that with you.

Becky: That’s why I love what I do, really

Interviewer: That’s pretty We’re all people have the final sayings with inside of other groups of people that they have to join it’s not necessarily their friends or people around them are giving them that level of insight

Becky: Yeah I have people who’ve been they’ve all work so they all have great they all different kinds of experiences some of them have been entrepreneurs, some of the corporate people are just that have really different you know it’s very… So I guess my family I mean that kind of like, I jump even when I’m scared. I do it anyway you know I don’t let that fear. You know I guess and I personally don’t like to hide so I feel like they’re trying to figure…

Interviewer: You think there’s something in how you build your relationships that creates that in a way where people reciprocate that back you mean that support and also they’re telling you the truth because that again it must be something you’re doing in order to facilitate that because that’s just not a normal thing, I think most people will get that as much as you’re getting from other people around.

Becky: It’s a give and take, it can’t just be you know I don’t, I’m not a taker, I’m a giver. Yes for me that’s one of the things I love, I always want to say, how can I help you? Know and so and I’ve had relationships where people did say, I’m done. [Yes] I’m done, it’s not I’m done so that’s part of friendship I want, I’m going to be direct with you; you’re in the direct with me. I don’t want when the dressing and I want to come you know I want you to be direct that’s the best friend that you can be that tell me something I don’t want to hear and sometimes you know there’s a lot. We don’t want to hear

Interviewer: Yes, we don’t want to be direct with people, [right] tell them the things they don’t want hear in a way that’s tactful and respectful [right]

Becky: Sometimes I say well sometimes not though I guess I didn’t a person through some really bad I mean I have to say yes I work as I could be but something like that knock over the head sometimes I would say the way that I learned is that as I like put my hand on the stove life in my hands you know that’s our attention.

Interviewer: Interesting, and so, then you started this business?

Becky: And so, I started this business so the goal was I was going to wait tables and I was going to try to figure out what I was going to do when I grew up. And I was also going to have this little side business. And so, I made goal of every week that I had a certain number of touch points and I had to have at least 10interviews a week that we did all this other stuff right and I made a list of about 20 different careers that I thought I want. Do I want to go to Law school? Do I want to be in the hospitality industry? You know do I want to be in advertising P.R? And so I just plan was I would go and I would just start asking people do you know somebody here? Do you know somebody here? Every person I met with I would get two more people and I built this huge big list and through that, I figured out that probably the best place for me was Advertising and Public Relations. Because I was kind of doing it, so I sent out these direct mails. So I got you the yellow pages which I know it sounds like I’m 100years old and I just advertise and I just send out a whole bunch I love to go on holiday and vacation and I come back and I get a call from a lady who literally her office is maybe a mile from where we live, like literally down the road. She was the P.R. maven of Dallas, I went to talk to her I was with her 3days/week and I had my own business 2-days/week. It was for yellow star she still is but I learned so much from her.

Interviewer: Did you send her direct mail?

Becky: I sit I can all I saw these people advertising I just sent it to set these people and I would just start follow up if she called me and she thought me so I’m not really sure what to do but it was a real clear on that wasn’t real sure but I had this you know I need somebody that help me you know write releases whatever and I said OK I’ll come down we had this little office

Interviewer: And she just said do a few days a week and you made an agreement?

Becky:  Yes I did 2-days my own clients and 3-days and I did that for hours with her for 3-years and I’ve been transitioned out of my own find someone with her and so I’ll learnt a lot and worked on a lot of you know we open up we were a lot in the hospitality and Real Estate, so we did a lot of that and then I had a chance to go to work at division of Federated which now is known as Macy’s but used to be center of the Folies. And so, I went to become their Events Director. So, I was in charge of very card give away, store opening, cosmetics, fashion show whatever. And I had like 6-7 people reporting to me, so that was really my first and only kind of corporate job. So, I was there for 8years and I did that for 3years and then all the Eastern stores are moving into the marketplace and so that’s when we had multiple media outlets and the traditional media was important and we were kind of getting beat up and we had all of our competitors and I talked about you know all the great things I said to the president. Then, I say I’ll create a position, Director public relations and I’m the spokesperson. And so I did that for about 8years.

Interviewer: So they created this position because you told them there was a need obviously I must do briefs a lawyer who said I agree with the president so I did

Becky: So I dealt directly with the President and the C.E.O.

Interviewer: How did you sway down because that’s bloody influence they create a position that doesn’t exist, I mean that’s a that’s a hard thing to do in a company to get to do.

Becky: I didn’t try actually I thought I took all my friends and I said these are the people who could you know these are the people you should hire, I don’t think it was going to be me. I just said we should do this. Probably, there’s another conversation I’m not sure it’s all about me but I think probably my Boss at that point was also very visionary realized the need for this and I pranced all my friends then you know and then the President said, why did you take this job? But I’m not really good writer, I wasn’t trying we don’t care a great writer you really great X. we’re going to this. So that’s what I did and then I was on the… tame of my Mars so that was my first larger you know so that was quite interesting and exciting and that’s where I got my experience really in doing press communication based on my first day on the job. Got a call from the President, I would have a really famous Doctor for a shot of a parking lot over there now and I have no car so I’ll write it out live you know people coming here and what I do I don’t know so you can see I’ve learned a lot on the job I mean really a lot of miles I’m left with really great instinct you know and trying to do a lot of research trying to you know just not out there

Interviewer: So what do you say to the people who try to get it perfect because a lot of people, the reason they don’t take action [right] is because they feel like they have to have it all [right] figured out [right] and I love to see your perspective also on the perspective people that you work for on having imperfect action they are getting better over time right because we are worried about their well-being judged that OK I don’t have a perfect [right] my Boss or other people will go down on me because I failed [Rice] on whether or not.

Becky: That was always you know some people are… I’m always motivated by fear so I was motivated that well, I don’t know what to do, ideas I don’t really know I’ve had a lot of people I call this how do you get to do this? You know I’d ask and then I would go about doing that? And then I would see I would get success right? its success kind of breeds you know looked down me,

Interviewer: So it was a little bit network of people you could call and good advice from get ideas from [right] so that’s also really important for people to be a part of groups have mentors, coaches. I’ve already done that but facilitate and also your career significantly faster because you know one thing say that you’re for a bunch of people. You got to figure out what to do and it’s hard to do

Becky: I remember that, I’m aware of that first one because I was like the good thing was, we didn’t have a right to be talking so I had like 45minutes of quiet that I could actually figure out what I was going to do when I got over there. And so I thought well my job is to curse at the brand in the reputation of my organization right while being authentic so highlighted that nobody told me that I mean I just in my D.N.A.

Interviewer: Words have been since a little kid like and so what I thought what we did the police department thought first let them because they have that now we can have some common over here.

Becky: And so that is a strategy right when you have some situation where you have law enforcement you want to be able on a crisis situation to have them talk first and then you’re just in real life or sorry I mean you know. So that’s how Harley as I live is just you know just like raw talent I guess out there and I watch a lot you know I had in Dallas we had an amazing group of women called Women in communication these women have gone up to be great leaders in communication and marketing that was a group where I can we help each other you know like somebody was in the sector some of the sector so we go and say Hey I’d only do this? That was a really important group for me you know I had different people that I had there was or there was the number one radio bring it out for 25years and then a man Ron Chapmen. He became tired I worked with him early on and I could go to him and you know ask him you know what to do. So I just had some great people that I aligned with, I had you know the publisher of the downswing is still Jim Washington you know he was a great he’s African-American leader and he was really instrumental in an initiative that I led with the downstairs in the natural history called The Great large ship that ever all the United States that was a pretty much a $10million business that we created from nothing and that part of that million dollars of that for the seed money for the pro.

Interviewer: How do you talk to people then?

Becky: So the perfect thing I’m sorry your answer to the thing is that I always felt like I was trying to be perfect. But I realized that that you have to make you can you will miss opportunities which I had missed opportunities that I did not respond, and you got to go with that 80/20 [Yes] that’s what you got to realize but you don’t know that some of us are you know wired differently you know some people really perfection but you cannot lead or be perfectionist. You can pick where are you know you have to be focused and you got to pick certain things that are the most important and then there are certain things you just have to left go and that’s a really hard thing for I think a lot of leaders I mean our lot in control. You know he’s Projected Index and that are not you know that tool but it’s an amazing tool and around selective days, it’s an assessment tool and so I profile, use it in my company and so you see kind of what their natural behavior is our right so a lot of these leaders I mean they have gotten because of that troll right yes left and so then we get to companies like you know trust that the core culture that’s what I call get a separate lation Yes you know is trust us remember or yeah exactly down the line that is caring is the key yes let’s kind of that kind of hype and then hand some of this now you know

Interviewer: One of the interesting things you build all these relationships and one of the things that I find is entrepreneurs are much better at it than people and in corporate America right and I run across a lot of senior leaders saying well you know build relationships later whether they say or whether it’s their actions? But what would you say to those people who are not doing that right now to encourage them also me fear as a motivator it seems to me, having those relationships allow you to take a leap of faith in have a lot more confidence and evidence that you could do them because of the people that you have around that, without that there probably would hinder your ability to either do that or be successful but

Becky:  What I think incorporation the lease is now my sister was up for a fact that for many years and really isolated they’re so busy right they’re so busy they’re not there are joining as many organizations if you look at organizations like American markets as you are say all those at least have a lot of people but a lot of people don’t even do it anymore. Right so it’s not as hard as they come to it honestly because they don’t have a lot of extra time. So, where they can’t reach up to those extra relationships right if it’s not in a work environment they can get it in Church, they get their neighborhood, they get another college alumni groups, you know they can get it on the golf course, there’s lots of different places that you get it. But you have to put every. In there takes a lot yet it takes a while for I was really blessed because I was working for 22years and so, I had this enormous band that I could go out and I was only limited by my energy which I have one and so, Still and so the thing is that that was a gift that I had that was a gift that I was able to make those relationships I’ve now been married for 11years and so what I know is that I have kids and family and all that stuff that I’ve been really happy for is that it takes that takes time away so as a leader in a company, where I and I see the leaders that I know where you have limited time still how are you going to spend that time? And if you’re today working a lot less than hopefully with your family right that’s the first place right you want to spend it with your family and where does it go so I think you do have to make a conscious decision as you know like well, how can I be better? What can I learn better? If I have these kind of relationships and maybe these relationships don’t what exactly like me yes right maybe there’s different right maybe they’re different and so how does that stretch me and so who lives in a push on that is organization push to get out there you do it yourself you have to want to do what

Interviewer: I think is interesting because one of the things you did early on was you had to leave the house people

Becky: Yeah I did, right

Interviewer: And so, it’s probably interesting that you know that you were forced to do it and then it became habitual and now it’s we’re talking about as a long story arc and have that right I think it’s always funny and sometimes inside a tragedy yes out of all this hardship that was going on, great happen great things happen actually some of the strengths that you have and greatness that you have now in mastery and I actually came out of that really tough family environment that forced you to do these things really high on and of course then you didn’t really understand it but you did it as a habits and oh you’re doing all right

Becky: So one of the other interesting things that kind that when I listen to hear you say that so when I saw my mother died when I was 21 side suspended for a bit just then married. My dad died a few years later and I literally 2months after I got divorced. So, I found myself kind of by myself because my Brother was still having those kind of challenges so I decided hey I’m family so I have my heart. So, to your point I went out and created my own family.

Interviewer: So, what’s a heart family?

Becky: Heart family are people that are connected with your heart. So, I have two Mamas, one just turn 100, the other is 85 and I have heart 5sisters.

Interviewer: How do you do this and how do you think about what you just made it up?

Becky: I decided, I want my own family and so I was single I was like I don’t know

Interviewer: That is such a great thing, I mean it’s funny, I don’t even I’ve never heard anyone say it was going to create my own family because if we talk people talk about that you’re born with your family your friends that’s righteous I can put it right with the differences that he said OK I have the that’s true, but now, All right we need to change the meaning of family right yeah people told me what it meant society has been you know I’m going to change it around to prove what I want and build it out. That’s interesting

Interviewer: And those women have been there and their husbands have felt that that my family doesn’t. And my biggest cheerleaders and then my husband is my huge Cheerleader for me, support you know when I decided to change my business I was going to go do this didn’t you know start the C.E.O. groups and executive coach and all that stuff, it was hard. It was hard harder than starting my business. And my husband, and those women are my Mama still my momma you know all right you know she’s up she just turned a hundred 3weeks ago and she’ll say can you hear groups you know what are you contacting? She’s 100years old, she’s my biggest cheerleader. So, the other I guess the other message of that is, when you think about mentoring and you think about your responsibility to write it and life is that I feel like I haven’t yet that maybe my mother didn’t mention me many I didn’t have a but then I’ve got two women that have loved me, gave me confidence who are my biggest cheerleader so it’s my responsibility and also the past that on which I have done my life you know so amazing it’s you know what I see…

Interviewer: That’s fantastic so we get out of your days and me see the White House after that was a next?

Becky: So that I started the power grid so after the power of the 1989 my goal was to go in and really make a difference and that was make a difference in helping them in terms of building awareness about their products or services you know what does that look like primarily using public traditional public relations tools and so I started and I. Learned completely early on is that I needed a team that was up to the by myself so I got a great lady who came in and she wrote for me part time and kind of helped me organize and so I mostly worked on local candidates and then in my fourth year I had my first national count which was seven eleven and it’s kind of took off. So, the goal was that we were and we worked. Industry leaders and retail and manufacturing some people like Starbucks, blockbuster, 7-eleven you know overhead or Hansen those kind of people that that’s the path that we were guys like really agency I have this network of fifty farms across the country so we have people at Seven like there is always work with industry leaders and really helping them from either brand awareness and traditional kind of promotions be our or it Brand after, after, protection from the crisis side that’s really my passion.

Interviewer: What was your biggest mistake or learning lesson and your sad time during that time of growing the power?

Becky: Two things- was a confidence thing was really have confidence in myself because as a leader you’ve got to be visionary, you’ve got to have a vision and you’ve got to trust your vision even if no one else trust it. Great leaders have a vision and there’s a lot of noise and sometimes there’s a lot of that’s not going to happen so I miss the social media market that was my big mistake. So, I could see it coming and I was like that to do it and I had my be you I had a lot of confidence in you know younger than me so I love that’s not a big deal so I thought OK fine OK I would see that but that I missed it.

Interviewer: And you think that because you didn’t obviously the conference began what about that person did that all sort of about coaching, or hiring you feel like maybe that person in retrospect wasn’t the right person for the…

Becky: No, she’s the right person those things she was with me for 13years, she now has her own agency she was I thought she was going to be the successor you know it didn’t work out, she went to work with a client that we kept that she left that clients are she has a very successful marketing business I’m really proud of what she’s accomplished. No, I just think it was the timing, you know and I could’ve we could’ve hurried up and kind of got on but it was; There always you know I had a business to say there are some things have to happen and I don’t sell such things do not. So, it’s the right thing.

Interviewer: Right now, we get to the end of ….tell people where you are now. Tell people of the different things that you’re working on.

Becky: So what happened in this 20+years that I happened business I had several times offer to take to buy and to sell and I was having a lot of fun and I didn’t want to sell OK. And so, the purpose of building a business is obviously to have a great asset at the end, right? And so, sometimes, we lose sight of that because we’re having a good time right and so the timing is everything and so when it came time the last time which is in 2012, I had a chance to sell and I spent a lot of the diligence on it and I decided that number one I never got hit by the recession where rock’n’roll I back it like everybody else did so why finances were not right so my numbers, I wasn’t going to really be able to sell for what I felt was worth you know yes I would get a lot of money, but not as much based on the efforts I was going to put up it was a great pivotal point for me. Because what I realized was I’m tired of this business, I’m tired of town I’m tired of that really what is my what’s my love? My love is really helping companies and really working with senior leaders C.E.O.s on this what I call asset protection how to end part of that is how to be a better leader, how to be a better communicator, as a leader right how do you anticipate high stakes events right and so that So what happened was that a beginning at the end of 2012, I kind of I had about 5people then I just ended up that I was left with about 3people and I said I’ve been rebuilt or I can I pivot over here to that’s all and that’s what I did so in that I worked with a temp company that had 11crisis in 12months. That’s a lot as it was during Obamacare so, I was in the health care space and so I realized wow we just this is crazy right? And that was a time when I got recruited by this stage took 6months for me to say yes and I said to David boy yet he was up best practice your first visit I did interviews to 2009 and this did you get it out of this it is the best practice so proud of your advisory board around science databases. About 21,000 C.E.O.s, Presidents and owners that are across the globe and so one side of their mental Marcus other midcap So they’re anywhere from a billion down to about five for a C.E.O. groups and so our sweet spot is somewhere between about 15million-250million about the pants are really that person the leader sure. Anyway so, I was so I was asked he said I think this is what you need to do and I might not have the office social right you know 6months I kept trying to say well I want in January 2014 and I oh my gosh, You know I’m already doing that and this is a chance for me to kind of be preventive right to be able to get people around a table, to be able to see the runway, oh this could happen right, if I don’t do this, or if I ignore my problem or my blindspot problem I held accountable so I started and sell out in 2014, so I now have three groups I have two C.E.O.’s groups that I have one trusted advisor group, my role is s for the right people around the room, I facilitate a full day session with the C.E.O. So I program that with speakers, content, and actual sizes and then we process issues and we have a proprietary way around getting clarity, around issues and the like executive coach in between, and I see  some private client and then I still do a little bit of crisis that protection as well so easy to do is the.

Interviewer: So, what you see today is the biggest leadership issues the people have

Becky: Focus actually the size of focus and clarity. Is that as a leader today, as a C.E.O. you have to know a lot of things and that’s very quickly right and so, being able to have the information that you need quickly, to make a decision is one thing that’s the benefit of having a group, I think that thing is really is. It’s really clarity is that, when everybody gets so distracted into the day to day right; and so as a leader you got to get out to be able to work on the business not in the business and that’s really what I love about

Interviewer: How does one get out of the business? What is it that you have to put in place? Or change your thinking?

Becky: To put it. Yes So one of the things is that you probably have an annual strategic planning with your team right and so sometimes, that strategic plan there are people that are assigned to different parts of that right so you can. If you’re real organizing  and discipline then we have to do this every month right. So, that’s what typically happens but a lot of what happens to you is that people do plan tonight they get off they just get so it’s so easy to go down this path, to solve all these problems so that’s what any product your advisor, No matter whether you’re white or whatever all the brands are that we have the goal is. The benefit is that you get out, so you’re looking at issues like it was the most important issue that you have to be solving? Are these like parties like big are they going to trample on you kind of issues are they you know they’re going to slowly, kind of just eat. And so you have to identify what those issues are. We have kind of a process that we use and so I like that it’s kind of a process that I kind of use not knowing that it was a process of you know I mean, that fits into right so, I think it’s and that’s the deliberate in every single month. So, it’s once a month, take a full day you look at you know your plans, you look at what is kind of coming up based on the issues that are being processed and executive coaching, what are those things that you bring to the group to talk about. it at the end of the year look we’re at were all were and were almost. We have second quarter right? And so I ran on body what did you know how do you know the first quarter goals, right? even if you have a board, here’s the it’s still a lot of people have a group to be able to come in and say you know he said you’re going to do that legacy employees right now right it’s a big challenge. So, we just kind of keep our plan for life form because people are going so fast and these people that started with you right? Who they took a reduced salary sometimes these are your mentors. And how do you deal with them nobody’s holding you accountable then then they’re over here right?

Interviewer: we will spend a lot of time of the industry to transition of the company actually the people that the skill set jack of all trades verses right actions

Becky:  So it’s deliberate

Interviewer: So how do you do it is a discipline a delibrate hire legal rights to get out of the business in take a look at it right and have people hold you slime from another perspective inside the businesses

Becky: That have different with the Financial Review right and some people might look at your finances and they might have a different perspective I have different experience.

Interviewer: And they can help you see that.

Becky: See that So I think that’s where that was the top of that I had always said that it out there can’t work that work on it.

Interviewer: So what advice would you have for women? There are women who are watching the show and listening, what career advice would you have for them in today’s world? In order for them to be successful, in order for them to find the things that the love? The balance that they need. What piece of advice would you have or pieces because you must be doing mentoring for other women right now for a lot of different groups.

Becky: so I think 1 is balance. I don’t really I think the different about it is different and I’ve always said that I think so I think that you have to plan. Balance is we kind of segment things right and I think it’s a wonderful challenge but I think it also just pulls at people because they’re always I mean, most of the women and children they’re feeling yeah I see this with my daughter, I see this with my sister’s children, you know that you always are how do you plan? It’s really we have whether we like it or not technology has forced us to blend, right? That doesn’t mean you’re on yourself on all the time I have I have actually. One of my CEO is a guy, goes home and he’s like he don’t have anything and I can make go on like that night he just separates. First thing is how do you highly blend? That’s one thing for women I think that thing is passion. You have to look for something that really that you really truly love because we’re giving a lot of ourselves right we have two jobs. We give a lot of ourselves during the day or that we know we have another job, so we got it we have to do something that we really love because that gives you positive strength. I think the third thing from a career standpoint is that find opportunities to put yourself in situations that are different in terms of you know within a corporation, different types of assignments, you know of financial assignments, if you’re in the marketing side, trying to find things or get that other thing. One of the big topics in a in a not profit or a board one of the big hot topics right now for women in leadership is hate board seats and I just let a panel discussion on this for our visit women in leadership network we have a conference and I did this in February and I invited three very successful women and one to corporate and one entrepreneur on how they found these paid work seeds and so one of the things that they talked about and one of the things that you’ll see is that you just have to get different kinds of experience.

Interviewer: How would one get experience?

Becky: Well it is that it’s a campaign just like you find a job; it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work you have to figure out like, I mean I’ve been around I’ve loved it there’s a link she has kind of the roadmap and kind of a class Kellogg is getting ready to do their first course in November. To help women get on pay board but this is a this a hot topic especially among corporate women and that women who are entrepreneurs, who own companies and want women on their boards. So, that’s one of the things you know there’s just came out with a study that showed only one in four managers are women. And so, the challenge is that we are making progress, but it is just. I think if you. I think you know what is great but it’s but you just have to feel that way and you got it probably work harder, that’s just the way it is.  There’s a lot of women are entrepreneurs just came out with I think the saxes and orange theory and I would just be that she started out like she was in her 50s she started that business Technology down space I forget her last site but you know she started that company you know that’s a huge big technology company and so I think that for women, that you’re confident and that support system is really important, really, really important.

Interviewer: What do you think that men Leaders can learn from this? Because one of the things that I find is on the whole topic. And so, I love to get your thoughts on how men can take what women are doing and implement it to up their game. Because a lot of time, men don’t really think like that. That they could leverage those skills inside.

Becky: I think the whole emotional intelligence of vulnerability, is something that as men and these are generally……We’re not taught that, I it’s interesting because I see dynamics I see this with my members you know I see it so I have women in my groups right when those women are there, it’s different. Because sometimes the women bring out the emotional side right, the men are of that side there on the facts side their own facts and also when they have conflict, that conflict always happens like in that meetings and afterwards they’re OK Women hold on to that because of their feelings and I find I’ve seen this happen in my busy work where there was maybe one woman and now there’s a little women and a group of men and the dynamic totally changed their kinder gentler they’re not as you know they’re there their directness, they’re direct but they’re a little bit more kind because the women are kind of neutralizing some of that I think some of that but I think the whole emotional intelligence and being vulnerable is something that you’re not taught.

Interviewer:  What would you tell men who are leaders? How can you  be more vulnerable? In your position as being a leader

Becky: So it’s interesting so I like to know what men have women in their lives. Do they have daughters? Do they nieces? You know do they have what is it their relationship the girlfriend or their wife right and so, I think that one thing is that you just have to it’s like this is you know you have cars and  ride, and you just have to take one step, one step, one step, one step, sometimes you have to go back. That’s where I’ve done a lot of things right that this cars that it seems scary right and you’re probably going to feel like yourself are vulnerable but the reality is that it’s going to feel really uncomfortable but you’re not used to doing it. So part of it is. Just asking people like, how are you?  But I really heard one of the ones I was on and my career when I worked at Federated my C.E.O. at my C.M.O. did one to one. OK So that’s one hour full attention with me working on the business not in the business and caring about me as a person that was a great tool. Right to all I did it my entire career and I asked my C.E.O.

Interviewer: What questions were those one on one single pivotal ones that a lot of people miss or don’t ask about?

Becky: It’s not about checking the box what are all the things you have to do number one is, how are you? And being sincerely interested. And people that work with, just want to get the job done. I think that’s a lot to do first you got to be sincerely interested and then you got to listen. You know how are you? Sincerely, that’s a big thing.

Interviewer: Why these guys I just heard from your aspected So battle right now which it is it the fact that caring and you care about other people that they’re going to care more about their job and investment and that’s not on that plane be the isolated are they going to have people to talk to

Becky: it’s true I think that when you hear I’m not such a simple

Interviewer: It seems simple, like simplest things people miss right?

Becky: But I think if you care about other people it’s also likely two way street Yes right and so if you’re sincerely interested, that is one of the I’m always impressed with you know the leaders at Jackson’s vaulting here in Dallas and also the land, they truly care about all their people. They care and that makes a difference that caring that means there that I care about you know about the business you care about them so one thing is really how are you? I remember that was one of the first things we’d be in the middle of did all these things I. Would say to me what how are you I really. Got one of my very first E.-L. that worked for Jack and I thought you said he was the C.E.O. of I heard which was better at this hour and he had walked around the area and what I thought of wars he used to come in my office and said that I am. Something a lot of global So you can’t you know you can’t do that right but that’s the happy that’s huge, that huge Hearing about by your people so in that one to one person at how are you as a person right how is it for and then what are the what is the most important thing we should be talking about today, like what are the three most important Right OK So that’s the other thing. What’s the most important thing we should be talking about today? So that those are some of the critical things that you know about. Those are some of the things we should be talking about today.  Today, up to the next level you know what are the challenges that you know what do you see trying to get at what are the biggest challenges and what I do to help remove some of those challenges because that is part of your role as a leader as some of those challenges are getting the tools.

Interviewer: Talking about that, what is your stance on personal issues and as a manager working with employee and helping them because. I find in working with all executives that you have significant personal problems, it impacts in a very high degree, in the performance. You can’t really get to the business if you don’t help the person but that’s as an outside person but is an internal company in most companies a matter. That doesn’t really count as much I don’t really see that person in helping us in shambles or problematic How would you. Help people with that or do you think they should or should be.

Interviewer: So. I work a lot of people the that were. So I am an professional I just kind of both it all comes together so we can sometimes more time on the person because socially the leader of that get away from the corporate side we had a corporate life psychologist we could just go in there I thought that was my life that I was doing that’s right and so when you say that I was like well. Help people so I did so to me it’s like yes because what happens is that you have to figure out if like you said that person is impacting their performance. Which are not quite that way but. You know what no it’s no no no it’s I can compartmentalize some people do it and some people do

Interviewer: I think yeah I believe in some people but there’s a point when their pain crosses over in the right. Way sort of down right brain up so you know

Becky: we have a lot of that labor laws H.R. issues I can’t speak to that I just think as a person that they are it’s a bright find that you care and that you want to help that person but that person also has to help themselves. So, in a corporation what are you prepared to do to help that person how valuable is that person to you right and so figure out that you need outside counseling you know and when I do the coaching on top by working with people that are you know my C.E.O. that might have people they might have issues that that’s something we have to do and I have to want to get those resolved as well. So, it’s a two way street

Interviewer: It’s a two way street.

Interviewer: Thank you for always wonderful introduction.

Insights we’ve been new in the show so how can find you reach out to work in the best ways we just me only Dan

Interviewer: So that’s a Best Buy is a fine man not all of that information. So right as I would like them to find me and I’d be happy you know help them in any way I can so well things again thanks all of you for joining in for another show of executive breakthroughs and we will back in next week with another fantastic show and another great guy so make it a great day.

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