It could limit who sees it, but that's okay if it limits it to the audience.
That makes sense.
So no worries on that.
So how's your, how's your new year been?
What's new?
You got a lot going on?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm kind of low on client load right now, so I've just been taking that
opportunity to work on my sales pipeline and like marketing materials, fixing
my lead magnet.
I just redid my website.
It looks so good.
Kind of those back office kind of things that often get put to the side when
you're working on client implementation, you know, catching up on all that stuff.
I don't, I don't see a, the, the client level of staying low for very long with
how awesome you are at what you do.
Like it's, it's so we, we, for those who are listening, we want to hire Kate as
well, like she's on our radar.
She's on my goal list of like, okay, we've got to make something happen with Kate.
Um, so that's coming along now.
So to prelude that I did, I did get lucky and here's my question for you.
Um, I shouldn't say lucky there's diligence behind it, but, um, if, if you
were able to find the exact replica of you at $400 a month, would you hire them?
At $400 a month.
Uh-huh.
For sure.
Right.
And so I did, they're not an exact replica of you.
Um, no, of course not.
Um, but I did find somebody finally to manage my inbox, my communications
and executive assistant, uh, out of the Philippines.
Um, she, she outreach to us and with an incredible strategy.
Um, I vetted for hours and hours and hours and we went through it and she's done amazing.
And here's what I want visionaries to understand because we live with an abundant
mindset and we recognize that there's more opportunity for growth.
This goes way beyond one person hated 100% steel, still on my radar.
And it's important because the additions she will make in addition to what, um, and
excuse me, I want to honor Ang in this.
Ang is my new executive assistant.
Um, there's so much to be done for this vision that we're going to need both and
then some anytime we can find somebody with your skillset and, and I'm going to
share one screenshot related to this, uh, not screenshot, but, but whether
you're a business owner or not, but website, I started paying attention to this
towards quarter four of last year that there's this metric average revenue per
employee that most small businesses, in fact, I've never heard a small business
talk about this, but I was thinking about it like, man, I wonder how much major,
major companies out there are willing to, uh, well, I wonder how close to the
break even mark a company's willing to be with a specific employee.
And I was like, wow, this chart right here was the energy industry and the oil
and gas industry, this chart right here represents millions.
So in the energy industry, the average company is making $1,790,000 per
employee that they have.
Did you know that?
I had no idea.
I had no idea either.
I was like, what?
Like that's absurd.
That's what capitalism, you know, that's, that's what capitalism is all about.
The, in the industrial industry, the smallest $320,000 on the year for
each employee that they have.
Right.
And you got employees that make different wages from executives who make millions
to, uh, you know, janitors and virtual assistants, et cetera, who, you know,
might make 30,000 on the year.
This metric is probably one of the most important metrics, metrics for
planning around if they're going to create sustainable business models.
Um, but when it comes back to looking at Ange versus Kate and, you know, oh man,
just cause I can find somebody for $400 a month does not negate the fact that
if Kate, if you're charging $10,000 a month, but you're producing revenues at
a hundred thousand dollars a month.
All day long, I'm paying that I'm paid 12.
I'm paying 15.
Um, you know, I want to make sure that I'm empowering the people who can
drive growth for our brand.
Uh, and as visionaries, when we began to start thinking that way, not how
little can I pay them?
That's not the goal with Ange either.
Ange wanted a lot less than 400 a month.
Um, and I wasn't going to do that.
I want to inspire her to want to work with me and realize that my goal is to
help put her on a fast track towards the goals that she hasn't even been willing
to admit that she has to people.
And as soon as I move into that, that mindset as a leader, it's amazing.
How fast people buy into the concepts of what you're up to and want to work with
you.
And again, I see you doing so many good things for people that I hope that
everybody's listening and understands that you are an absolute key to business
growth and, and the success of many of the visionaries out there that I see
struggling without somebody like you by their side.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Absolutely.
So I know I just dominated this conversation, um, but that's my, she's my
sponsor today as well.
Um, Kate Lingoni, and she's also going to be our guest expert.
We're going to dive into her vision right when we come back from the break and
we'll pick up where we left off.
All right.
Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are
building fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up?
Vision pros.
Welcome into another episode of vision pros live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of first-class business.
And I am beyond excited, probably too excited to have Kate Lingoni on the, on
the call today, um, as our guest expert.
She is somebody that has gone through interviews with first-class business to
represent myself not only as an executive assistant, but as a business
partner, as a business partner, as a business partner, as a business partner,
as a first-class business to represent myself not only as an executive
assistant, but somebody to take care of the operational support, much like a
chief operating officer, um, slash director of get things done, et cetera.
Um, she's got a super special skillset and being able to cut through the BS
and noise of business and dive in dynamically and help businesses with
growth.
I learned that not just through meeting her and then going through her process
information about my business, but by the conversations that we then had after, we had
a couple of mastermind sessions after that and looking at, okay, how do I maintain Kate
on my radar so that when the day comes where we can pull that trigger and pull her on board
as a startup that needs more growth capacity, that needs more people to help with growth,
but also is balancing revenues just like any other company and our different investment
opportunities.
How do I make sure that I put our brand in a position as soon as possible to be able
to work with Kate at a level that honors what she's capable of?
So she has my full endorsement as somebody who could be excellent for an operation.
And for the sake of her future and what she's up to for a vision, my challenge to you is
who's going to get to her first, me or you.
Moving into sponsors, The Wellness Shop 365 with Sean and Julián Lechuga.
I love their vision.
I love what they're up to.
They're in the process, we're in the process actually of overhauling their brand to simplify
their messaging and showcase the value that really struck me.
And it's right below what we're looking at right now, which is this 365 Harmony of Life
Wheel Assessment.
It's very rare to find, well, if you look for naturopaths and holistic health professionals,
they have more time than your traditional doctor to look at your wellbeing from a preventative
standpoint rather than from the standpoint of, oh crap, I have a symptom, please give
me a pill.
And so we need both types of individuals in the world, those who take care of us after
we're sick, but those who also teach us about our health.
I love that they incorporate joy, spirituality, finances, career, education, health, home
environment, home cooking, relationships, social life, all of these things, these factors
that most wellness professionals just don't dive into.
It makes me see like, wow, okay, there's a depth to this and appreciation for life as
a whole that they've created.
They live it.
I've really enjoyed getting to know them really well over the last six months.
We meet a couple of times per week about what's going on in their vision, what they want to
do with this.
Julienne's getting her master's degree right now.
And Sean actually helps us with our podcast at this point as well.
So I would definitely check out and see what they're up to because as you look at that
today versus six months from now versus two years, five years, 10 years and beyond, the
types of people who are going to do awesome things with this vision.
It'll be fun to look back in 10 years on where it all began and where we get to.
It's also fun to be the person who helps build the train track because then you get paid
to build the train track.
Whereas those who wait later can buy a ticket and get in line.
So then there's the lost spot with Melissa Gray.
Melissa Gray came on our show, did an excellent job.
I was actually a little bit petrified to bring her on the show because she's a lawyer and
attorney and those people tend to intimidate me.
I found somebody who is very nurturing and caring and not only expresses the fact that
law doesn't have to be complicated, but she's able to break it down in simple terms.
It's very inviting.
And so when I caught her vision of wanting to bridge the gap between the systems that
are out there that provide you free templates, believe you with liabilities in the event
that you need legal counsel and the super expensive legal counsel retainers that you
see in programs like Suits.
There's a middle ground that exists there.
What I see so many entrepreneurs doing, and I'll throw myself in this bucket as well,
is sometimes we don't delegate the scariest or the most pressing needs of security for
our business because we're focused on building the vision.
And the last thing we want to be doing is worrying about the finances or worrying about
the legal matters that come into play.
It's like, oh my gosh, stranger danger or the confused mind says no.
There's a lot of fear baked into those realities.
Then you end up in a situation where you have a demand letter or Apple's patented your software
like happened with us with Restaurant Connect or somebody tried to sell our name at Restaurant
Connect and we got in a trademark battle.
We spent $20,000 on that trademark battle.
I'm not saying we hired the wrong legal representation, but have we done more due diligence to find
who could represent us and we had to be not waited until the last minute to address that.
We probably could have won that same case on a $2,000 to $3,000 retainer or more importantly,
received the counsel that, guys, your startup needs the revenues right now.
Just change your name.
That could have been an option that I wish we would have considered at that time.
So those again are two resources that as visionaries, one regarding health, one regarding considering
who you have on retainer right now for legal.
I'd recommend checking those programs out if you have gaps or holes in those areas of
your life or brand.
Then there's the water project and the water project, I'll never miss an episode.
I'll never do an episode where we don't talk about a cause that we support.
The water project has dominated my attention for the last two years because it honestly
breaks my heart that there's millions of people who don't even have access to clean drinking
water when I have access to it everywhere that I go.
And the cool thing about the water project is they show you the project that you're able
to invest in.
You get to choose which one.
You get to see the outcome and the social proof they put together to showcase what they've
done for that community.
And there's a very strong sense of satisfaction that comes out of knowing that you were part
of helping these people get their basic life needs met.
If you're not in a position to give back financially, my request is that you share this.
Share the water project, share their links related to what they're up to.
You never know which of your friends or your friend's friends will end up being touched
by that and decide, you know what?
I'd like to help this community.
And getting people access to clean drinking water is one of the fastest ways to make generational
impacts as they no longer have to go search for water and then potentially consume water
that's dangerous for them.
So if you get a chance to give back, awesome.
If you have a cause that you'd love to see us talk about or support, there's lots of
things going on in the world right now.
It could be a family's crowdfunding campaign for health issue.
It could be something related to world hunger.
You know I don't.
But if you've got a cause like that that you'd like to see us talk about in the show, don't
hesitate to drop that in the comments because we've got 8 billion people in this world to
help and those of us with a microphone have an opportunity to do something about it.
And we do.
So with that said, I'm going to bring Kate on.
We're going to talk about her case studies.
Before I bring her on, we dive into her vision.
Again, I want to talk about how amazing some of her testimonials are.
You can go to her brand, bonbonsstrategic.com, and I'm going to save some of you some time
by diving into some of these case studies because seeing business owners who talk about
the peripheral support and their vision, it's not very common.
It's hard to say what you want to say about somebody who just does paperwork or who just
does the stuff that you don't want to do.
But these people, Zach from Ace Homes Contracting, HDF Law Firm, Couple Health, their testimonials
absolutely rave about what it is that Kate did for them.
And in addition to that, the stories that she's written out as she showcases the processes
of payroll, insurance, IT, HR, finding the right people, putting the right systems into
place, and this company having the best months it's ever had when working with her in 40
years and giving her credit that she drove that.
Property management, this person had 10 Airbnbs they're trying to manage.
Kate, my best friend, Spencer Hamilton, he might be interested in working with you.
He's got about the same amount.
Great guy and great at managing businesses he might be set, but he took this company
from 10 Airbnbs to over 60 and eliminated the stress and processes and from $100,000
to a million dollars.
And then reading about this distillery or this beverage, this alcoholic beverage company
and what you did with them to help them systematize their paperwork, managing third party logistics,
suppliers, distributors, engaging with their sales teams to help support those.
The amount of tasks and activities that get overlooked by visionaries that we often take
for granted and don't realize go into building our visions that you've tackled for these
brands is just beyond inspiring.
And so I'm excited to hear about your vision and welcome to Vision Pros Live, way to build
an amazing career.
Thank you.
I really appreciate that, Jackson.
Absolutely.
So, Kate, if you want to, I want to feel free to redefine for the audience too.
What is it that you do?
And how is it that you help businesses?
And then we'll dive into your vision for those that you serve right after that.
Okay, sure.
So I generally work with service-based small businesses that are still founder led, who
have either hit a growth ceiling where their current systems and processes and team aren't
enough for them to keep scaling or the founder themselves still has too many things on their
plate like they're still wearing too many hats.
They have their hands in too many pies.
So I like to come in and help them clean up that plate and get rid of stuff because a
lot of times they're doing things they don't really need to be doing, but they might have
a control or trust issues that they need to work through in order to let go of things
and delegate them to someone else.
Or maybe they don't have that person there yet.
Maybe they need someone to build up that trust and that relationship so that they feel comfortable
offloading those things.
So that's really where our focus is, is working one-to-one with the founder or CEO to streamline
their operations from a back office perspective.
So looking at their systems, processes, people, kind of just the holistic view of the whole
business as a whole.
It's like a body.
It's like what you talked about earlier about doctors who give pills instead of looking
at the symptoms or trying to put a band-aid on something without getting to the core issue.
So we really go deep into those different levels and aspects of their business to understand
what's actually working and what's not, what their priorities are right now.
Are they scaling?
Are they trying to get a better bottom line?
And then kind of directing all of our projects and effort in that direction.
I love that.
And you're one of the few people, I would say, that really represents well the fractional
space.
And the same thing applies to coaches.
The same thing can apply to musicians as well.
I'm not trying to say that people who can't play their instrument well shouldn't be playing
an instrument.
There's a learning process and a growth curve.
However, I can't just put the term doctor in front of my name and not go to jail or
have a repercussion of making a claim of authority that I don't actually have.
The same is not true of fractionals.
There's a lot of fractionals that are fracturing companies by saying, oh, you know what?
It sounds nice.
I'll be an FCO, but they've never been a COO in their life.
They don't know anything about being a chief.
They're typically a yes man who thought that title looks nice and I'll be able to get cheap,
easy clients and have more balance in my life.
But anyway, what I want to highlight for those visionaries out there, Kate again represents
the type of fractional that knows what she's doing.
And if you didn't hear it and the pain points that she just talked about, the realities
of what business owners are dealing with, then maybe go back and listen to that part
again.
And hear for yourself, like, okay, there's things that people say that help us realize
whether they're an expert at what they do or whether they're just kind of wishy washy.
Like, oh yeah, I could take over some paperwork.
And that's the depth that I hear every time you talk to me, Kate, about what's going on
behind the scenes with operations.
I'm like, dude, she's in the trenches all the time.
So what's your vision for those that you serve?
What does that outcome look like and feel like once they've got that person?
Sure.
So what I really focus on is relief, like getting them relief from the burden of running
their business by themselves.
A lot of people don't have that right hand man or someone in place that they trust enough
and who understands their business and like their why their passion of why they started
the business and what they're trying to do.
And that's something that we really get into.
Like when I work with a new client, I'm asking them 100 questions and getting to know their
business almost as well as they do.
So it's like, how can we realign their goals and priorities and their daily tasks with
that mission that they have and their vision for their business?
Because most of the time, people don't start a business to run the business.
You start a business because you want to serve people, you want to help people do something,
you want to sell a product that you think is great.
Running the business is not your first priority, but when you start a business, it becomes
your first priority because there's nobody else to do it.
So it's like being the person that they can offload all of those things to and like feel
good about letting it go.
Like it's a de-stress.
It's like going from all of this tension and pressure and overwhelm to release.
You can let go now.
You're not the only one who's making decisions or problem solving or troubleshooting.
You don't have to carry it all by yourself.
So that's definitely my goal for my clients.
It's helping them feel like things are better now when I'm around.
Absolutely.
I love that.
I love that relief.
When you've defined the outcome as a feeling that's distinct and that can resonate, it
makes it easy to know too.
Am I achieving what I need to achieve with the person that I've decided to work with
on this project?
It's an emotion that entrepreneurs with lots of experience can gravitate towards and say
like, oh, that'd be nice.
That would be good to feel.
I'll juxtaposition the reality that you described with the nightmare that I experienced, partially
my own fault in hiring and also a little bit of an insubordination reality.
Not to an extreme of I lost control of my company, but two years ago I hired somebody
to help me as an executive assistant.
And I had very specific ways I wanted my email inbox managed.
I came back in a couple of days later and they had overhauled my entire label system
for my emails according to what they wanted to do without asking my permission to do that.
I didn't react.
I did my best to keep my cool about it and I tried to learn.
I had to spend several hours trying to make room for that.
I could have just fired, bam, boom, done.
Maybe that would have been the right call.
But no.
At the end of the day, the system wasn't better and it didn't make more sense.
We needed to move it all back to the way that it was.
That wasn't my first rodeo in going to that experience of seeking relief, finding somebody
who fit the bill in terms of even attitude and the way they worked with us and how kind
they were, et cetera, and diligent.
But there was this, again, this sense of ordination, this unwillingness to be flexible in terms
of what we needed versus what they did that created a bit of a catastrophe.
How do you avoid scenarios like that with an entrepreneur that is fairly micromanaged
driven or OCD in how they do things?
What does that look like?
How do you create space for somebody like that?
Or do you not work with people as difficult as I am?
No, I focus on communication.
If you're really picky about how you like things or you just have preferences and standards,
it's your business.
You're allowed to do that.
It's really just asking you the right questions and making sure I fully understand what you're
trying to do.
If you already have a system in place and you just need someone to help you implement
that, then that's what we'll do.
If you don't have a system in place and you want to find out what the best system is,
you want to do some research, you want to try something on, we're going to do that.
We meet you where you're at to get you where you want to go.
It's not about me and what I like and what I want to use.
If you need a project management tool and you hate a sauna, then we're not going to
use a sauna.
It's like I have ideas about things and I have potential solutions in my back pocket,
but the things that we actually do for you and implement on your behalf are customized
and unique to your business problems and your personality and your personal strengths.
I think that is kind of what sets me apart from other fractional COOs who come out of
corporate or have an MBA or something.
I don't know the rules, so I don't follow the rules.
We can do whatever we want.
We can do what's best for you and what works for you and figure it out.
It's more of a ground up approach.
I use a silly but practical analogy on that.
Let's say for project management, I want you to write everything down, pen and paper, and
fax it to me and to my team members, but you know that you've got the solution that's 100
times better.
In that scenario, do you conform to the fax scenario or how do you go about presenting
your idea so that the person might move from the Stone Ages into a more productive 2024?
Actually, one of my clients is kind of like that.
He is very set in his ways and will sometimes propose things like, I don't know, using a
Google Sheet to track projects, tasks and workload for different people.
We already have a project management solution in place.
I'm like, no, everybody, we're not going to do that.
Here's what we're going to do.
For him, at least, technology is the limiting factor.
In that case, it's like, what does he need to feel comfortable using the technology we
already have in place?
For him, he doesn't want to touch it.
We have his executive assistant go in there on his behalf, update everything in the project
management software so that everyone else can see it, and then she communicates back
to him to keep him updated as far as where people are at with certain tasks or projects.
It's like figuring out what his limitations are, what his mental block is about whatever
it is we're trying to do, and then finding a way to address that that is more efficient
than the Stone Age way that he wants to do it and also kind of bridges the gap to the
way that everyone else is doing it on the team.
I love that.
That's a great example and implementation.
It reminds me of Dan Martell of SaaS Academy, a phenomenal coach, great in terms of guiding
entrepreneurs that are building software programs.
He talked about how he takes a lot of his meetings during... He works out while he
takes his meetings and getting to that level of efficiency where he can do that productively
for his clients.
He's got a phenomenal track record, too, of client retention and success stories.
I don't recommend that coaches who don't have a lot of experience begin with that model
of multitasking to that level.
However, when you've drilled down your system so well to where you know how to talk about
them clearly in order to articulate what's needed, then it becomes possible to start
doing things like that and becomes important to start delegating the management of systems
to people that can oversee that where you then get that higher level insight into what's
going on and the communication then serves as a relief.
So well said.
Let's see about your vision for you, Kate.
What do you see for yourself in the future?
My vision for myself is... Well, since I started this business, I initially started
like, okay, I need to go back to work, but I don't really want to go back to a nine to
five and have to actually go to work every day.
I wanted the flexibility and autonomy and freedom to be able to pursue other passions
and spend time with my son.
I have an eight-year-old and I'm co-parenting, so I'm not with him every day.
So the times that I am with him... Kids get out of school so early.
I don't want to have to work until five when my kid gets out at three.
I want to be able to take off the morning and go do an event at his school or whatever.
I want to be there for him and I want him to feel like I'm actively participating in
his life.
I'm not just parenting him when he's home and then only when it's convenient do we spend
time together.
I want him to feel like a priority and having my own business and making my own schedule
has really allowed me to do that for the past couple of years.
I think it's been really valuable, especially coming out of COVID and getting divorced and
dealing with that whole thing.
I've been able to be there for him in an emotionally supportive way that I don't think I would
have been able to do if I had a regular nine to five job.
You made me cry.
The way you're trying to mom, the way you're going about it, that's what my mom did.
I love that for you.
That's what I do too, 100%.
Best woman on earth.
My mom, a single mom of six, and I was the only child between... Her first husband died
in a plane crash.
They had five girls.
She met my dad at four.
When I was four, they got divorced.
She probably should have done that long before that.
Even though she ran her little store, she had a little gas station that she ran and
she had to work.
When we had to go to Sam's Club at five in the morning to wait in line, we were there
at the work until 10 PM at night, closing up shop, then driving home.
We lived about 30 minutes from where this location was.
Then we started the next day.
But somehow, she was at all my sporting... I played basketball.
I played football.
I played baseball.
She taught me how to play the piano.
I played soccer as well.
I played all the sports you could imagine.
She was at every game.
She was at every practice.
She was at every event.
She taught me the teenage guide to motley fools, teenage guide to investment at eight
years old.
She made sure that I was set up as much as possible.
I was there with her.
I can't tell you how many employees that she knew that were stealing from her from cash
register, but she wanted to be with her son.
She wanted to be with her family.
That is not a common occurrence in today's world.
The movie Storks talks about the opposite of that, of being realtor first, parent second,
and your child constantly being put on hold.
I love and want to honor your vision to the max.
I just hope you get the chance and the opportunity to stay true to that because your son, his
life will change forever because of what you've been willing to do for him.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Moving into a darker subject though.
What's the worst leadership experience that you've ever had?
Is this the worst thing I've done as a leader or the worst thing I've experienced from someone
else leading?
Your call.
It's not a trap either, by the way.
We learned from all of them.
Sometimes it can be a movie that you saw and you're like, man, it's that one, or you can
just call Hitler out and we can be done.
There's lots of bad leadership experiences out there.
That is true.
Okay, I'm going to go with a personal one, I guess.
I had one past client who was a huge learning experience for me and not a personality type
that I was really used to working with.
Most of my clients are pretty chill and they might be particular, but they're not high
strong or energetic.
I don't know, whatever.
I was working with this client on an initial engagement and he hired me as a fractional
COO, but we were doing a lot of implementation.
I lost control of the reins because he had such a strong personality.
I was not good at maintaining my boundaries and asserting my position in the role that
he hired me for.
I got steamrolled a couple of times and it ended up just not being a good experience.
From going through that, I learned about myself, where I tend to concede maybe when I shouldn't.
I learned where I could stand to be a little more communicative and assertive when I'm working
with clients because they did hire me for a reason.
It's not to keep doing things the way they've been doing or do things that they always do.
It's to do things differently because what they were doing up to this point wasn't working.
It's like remembering that I have to remind them of that, some of them more often than
others.
I want to remind them why they hired me and what their goals are for this engagement and
not let their energy run away with mine.
I think it's a great example.
One of the things that I love about your example is that you recognize your own ownership of
opportunity to grow in that situation where you talk about these boundaries and then recognizing
too that you conceded certain things, which continues to give you the power over the opportunity
to change and improve that reality versus just calling this guy out and saying, he was
evil.
He was awful.
It was all his fault.
That's something that as visionaries that we can look for.
It also reminds me of the relationship of the most... I read in a Reader's Digest in
middle school or high school about the number one turnover position for coaches in sports.
They said it's the golf caddy, the person who carries the golf clubs for the professional
golfer.
They are very much the support, the coach, the one who helps them decide which clubs
they're going to use.
They're great golfers themselves.
Due to one, the financial constraints that exist in golf and two, the reality that there's
so many ways you can mess things up in that sport.
If you're off by a centimeter, you can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There's a very intense relationship between caddies and their golfer that they work for.
Obviously there's a high turnover in those scenarios.
Some people love and thrive on that.
Some people like me, I'm like, no, man, I'm not going to be a caddy.
I don't want to be in a high strung relationship at all times.
I'm high strung enough myself to combine with certain types of personalities.
What's your best leadership experience look like?
You have some great stories behind your brand.
It seems like you got some good ones to choose from.
Those three that I shared on my website are probably my best ones.
All three of those clients are very hands off.
They're very trusting.
We got to know each other at a personal level.
It's not like an employee relationship, it's more like a peer level relationship.
They trust me to help them make decisions or to problem solve things on their behalf.
Particularly Howard, I love working with Howard.
He's one of my favorite clients.
Basically starting to work with him, I think in December of last year, we've made a lot
of progress with him and hired a bunch of people.
Just seeing the evolution of his business since I started working with him has been
really fun and cool to see how it evolves.
Getting him from the point where it was just basically him doing all of the business stuff
and then he had some associates doing the client facing work, but getting him to the
point where he is now where he's got an executive assistant and he has more associates and they've
gotten more clients.
Just talking him through to that point has been really helpful for me too, just from
a leadership perspective.
I never would have considered myself a leader, but I know that when I'm working one to one
with my clients, I am leading them whether I want to call it that or not.
Being the person that they turn to when shit hits the fan and they've got a client meeting
in 30 minutes and they don't have time to deal with it.
Just being that level of support for other people and helping them get to their goals
faster and easier, it's so good.
Not only is it success in my business, but helping them achieve success in their business,
it's like double dopamine.
I'm getting it both ways.
I love what I do and I love most of my clients.
I love all of my clients.
That's awesome.
You know what?
I came to realization because I was an awful leader for a long time.
I had really, really bad tendencies as a leader.
Whether it was taking people's work for granted, not the people, but the work or just not knowing
how to communicate my feelings or what I wanted to see or my strategies, I came to realization
that the best leaders are often the best followers as well.
That's what I hear when you're talking about this.
I think of some of the war stories I've seen where, yes, the commander that the movie's
about is important.
There's usually one or two wingmen that are not leaders by title, but had they not jumped
in and been there to follow, nobody else would have without that person there.
This particular testimonial really stood out to me.
You said last December, but you meant 2022, correct?
It's been 13 months?
Or did you start working with him a month ago?
No, 2022.
What is time?
I'll be on that.
I just want to make sure I add that story right.
What he says here is what struck me the most about this is your delight to work with and
my staff attorneys feel completely comfortable working with her.
I'm like, whoa.
Again, back to the attorney reality, it's not easy to impress an attorney.
They're so busy and they've got a lot of things going on.
They're not always the easiest people to work with and always the most conformative because
their role, their job in life is to argue.
It's a stand up for their beliefs and get what they want done.
Again, it really inspired me.
I'm like, man, that's some crazy good delivery skills and probably some diplomacy mixed in
there as well.
Howard definitely initially getting him on board.
He was not interested because he didn't feel like he was ready to get that kind of support.
I pushed him back because at that point he's already said, no, I don't have anything to
lose.
He's been in the conversation and being like, okay, well, what makes you think you're not
ready for this kind of engagement?
I think he had not worked like his whole team is remote, but he had never had this level
of support in his business before, even though he's been in business for like 40 years, which
is incredible to me.
Anyway, so he was skeptical.
He was skeptical and I think he had gotten burned by other service providers in different
situations.
That makes it even better when I did start working with him and overcoming that level
of skepticism just made it even stronger, made our relationship even stronger and made
the successes that he's seen working with me even better.
Absolutely.
Sometimes there are hurdles.
As entrepreneurs, most of us are alpha driven.
We're self-assured individuals too.
That's one of my top five strengths is I'm a futurist.
I'm a learner who's a futurist, who's strategic, who's also self-assured.
It's like, whoa, how much more confident or arrogant can one get?
Again, there's a double-edged sword on that, but we need people in our lives who are able
to pull the E-brake.
Even if we smack the hand or whatever, so to speak, metaphorically, we're flying here.
That's what we as providers also have to do, myself being an integrator as well.
No, I tell business owners, yeah, I can fly your rocket ship faster than most, but I'm
also an E-brake and you need that.
You're going to need times where in order not hit that star on the way to the Mars or
whatever you're doing, you need to learn how to control your power.
That's cool that you push back with them on that.
Let's say this was the last opportunity that you had to share a lesson with anybody on
Earth, rather with visionaries.
What would the powerful lesson be that they can learn from your experience?
I would say the most powerful lesson that I could share would be to intentionally cultivate
what you want your life to look like, and that includes your business.
It's so easy for us to get lost in the weeds when you're in a startup phase or a growth
phase and doing the same thing for myself that I do for my clients, remembering why
I'm doing this, helps me to stay aligned to my ultimate goal and to my vision for myself.
I would say that having people in your community that you can bounce ideas off of and who understand
what you're trying to do with your life, that can be useful to help you redirect to when
you can't see the forest for the trees.
Having someone there, like a close friend or a mentor or your therapist, who cares who
it is, but having someone there who's going to be honest with you and remind you of why
you're doing what you're doing so that you don't spend all of your time in daily operations
and your family tells you you work too much and you don't have any work-life balance and
you have freedom, but you're not really free, you're just in another, not a nine to five,
but you went from one restrictive career-oriented position to one that you created for yourself.
You don't have to be in that cage anymore and you're allowed to change the way you do
things when you gain new perspective or learn new information.
I like that.
Intentionally cultivating requires a degree of self-awareness and world awareness as well.
Some people would say, like, let's say that I'm 100 pounds overweight and my thought process
tells me, well, working out is hard.
True, but isn't being 100 pounds overweight hard too?
You're not going to escape what's hard.
You're just choosing one hard over another.
That's what I hear you talking about in terms of entrepreneurship.
You've got a different stat on your website that talks about 67% of businesses failing
over the course of 10 years.
It comes from a legitimate source.
The US Business Statistics Bureau, I believe it was.
I use a stat from Inc.
Magazine that comes from the smb.gov.
Another government association trying to understand where businesses fail, etc.
96% of businesses fail within 10 years.
Either way, I wouldn't send my child to a school with a 67% failure rate.
It ain't happening.
As entrepreneurs, we go to that school every day.
We continue to follow the traditional course of how business growth goes.
What I don't often talk about, and I haven't really looked up as well, from an equivalent
standpoint, what's the success rate of a career?
People could speculate, oh, well, all these people are having great careers.
Well, again, there's too many variables to look at.
What about depression rates?
What about people that are highly medicated?
They get nothing wrong with those.
They're all realities that exist.
What about people who never see their kids versus... and the time that we get with our
kids as well.
And that compared.
There's so many different variables that the only way we can really eye so in on what's
right for us is if we're doing what you said, intentionally cultivating.
What do I want my life to look like?
Not what others want it to look like.
Not what the world tells us our life should look like, but diving in, looking at our business,
looking at our life and saying, what do I want for me?
And that's what Vision Pros is all about.
That's why we do this podcast, because I believe that everybody is their own visionary out there.
You have the vision for your life.
It's your opportunity.
You can call it responsibility.
I call it opportunity to dig into your own heart, your own mind, figure out who you are,
what you want, what you're meant to accomplish, what purpose you have, et cetera.
And we do our best to inspire people with that.
And the greatest way that we go about trying to inspire people is bringing people like
you on the show and saying, here's somebody who's got a great vision for their life, hopefully
it inspires others to find their own vision.
So Kate, what else would you like to share?
I'd like to take just a couple extra minutes.
Is there any other topic you want to dive into related to what you do or your vision?
Well, in the spirit of helping people, I just finished an ebook that uses all the questions
that I ask my clients whenever I'm doing an initial business assessment.
And I'm in the process of getting out of my website right now.
It's called 50 Questions to...
What did I call it?
Gosh, no, I can't.
I'm having a really hard time.
I like where it's going though, because 50 questions, that's what will lead you to that
highly intentional...
Yes, yes.
It's like looking at all these different aspects of your business and asking yourself those
hard questions.
Because sometimes it's really easy to focus on the easy stuff or the simple things, but
we have to remember to look back at the complex ones too.
It's not just what do you want your annual revenue to be?
It's like, what do you want your work life balance to be?
What do you want your business days to look like?
Do you want to work nine to five?
Do you want to be on meetings all the time or do you hate Zoom?
It's just...
I love Zoom by the way.
I just had to say it.
I love Zoom.
I love meeting with my virtual friends.
That's one of my favorite things to do.
I would definitely rather meet on Zoom than in person.
Well, some of it has to do with the quality of my neighbors too.
I've tried and they just don't get entrepreneurship and the things I do.
Yes, my best friends typically are living in different places.
So Zoom is where I go.
Mine too, for the most part.
Absolutely.
Well said.
Sorry to interrupt you.
You got these great questions that people can go through on this e-book.
We'll make sure to include that then on the landing page.
That way people can access it.
Whether you're an expert at self-analysis and finding questions and journaling or you're
a beginner, I'd recommend...
One of the things that I do in these opportunities, I like to take those, download them and then
walk and read through the questions.
Even if I don't end up taking the time to journal, which I often do as well.
I'm a big fan of journaling.
But even if I don't take the time, it's amazing the effect that it can have when you've just
kind of read the question itself and your brain and your heart just starts to play with
it more than you even realize.
And next thing you know, you're implementing things that are helpful for success.
I miss...
I'm sure you're going to get to that critical thinking mode.
Yes, absolutely.
Critical thinking is super helpful.
And I said smb.gov.
I was wrong.
It's sba.gov, the Small Business Association or administration.
Oh my gosh, Small Business Administration.
You can tell I don't spend a lot of time on government.
Yes, let anyone imagine that sort of place in Statenville.
Let's not recommend that.
Yeah, no.
No Affiliate websites, but with that said.
Anyway, vision pros.
I hope that you take one or two takeaways, at least, or the maximum of what you can out
of this and take the opportunity to also connect with Kate on LinkedIn.
I believe that's where we met.
all visionaries do by the way.
There's no such thing as solopreneur.
Unless you're the very rare unicorn,
it just doesn't happen that way,
even if they tell you that's how it happens.
Then consider evaluating.
Who are you gonna work with?
Who can you bring in?
How can you bring in that person sooner than later?
Because the moment you do,
and you start to realize all the things
that are blocking you from success,
the faster you realize that,
the faster you'll get past your failures
so that you can get to the success path.
And Kate is, again, after hundreds of people
talking to thousands of potential executive assistants
over the years, she's easily in my top five.
And very possibly much closer to that number one slot
that I'm willing to admit,
given that we haven't fully worked together yet.
But you're amazing, Kate,
and thank you for joining us on Vision Pros one.
Thank you for having me.
Absolutely.
We'll see you guys on the next episode.
Take care, everybody.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your.