Lisa Levesque & Belle Walker, Generation Innovation: Business, Family and the Journey to Success

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implied shall be extended to W four CY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin helen n believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com and now your host, Kevin Helena. Thank you for joining in again today. I am Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W four cy dot com. We're streaming live on talkfour tv dot com. We're also streaming on Facebook at Winning Business Radio, and of course we're available on podcasts after the live show on many other platforms including YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, pretty much wherever get wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, you'll find us. The mission of Winning Business Radio and TV, as regular listeners and viewers know, is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others, to learn best practices right the how

1:30 tos, the what toos, the what not tos, to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by the successes of others. Also. But you know, virtually every successful person I've ever had a chance to talk with has had some form of failure in their lives and or career. So while we all have to get our knees skinned once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it. Today, we have a special treat two friends, one of which is a returning guest. Bell Walker was on in July of twenty twenty. She's the founder and lead consultant of Bellevue Consulting and Lisa the Vec certified Master Business Coach. Together they are co authors of Generation, Innovation, Business Family, and The Journey to Success. Here are their bios. Lisa the Veck is a certified Master Business Coach and is owned a Focal Point business coaching and training franchise for over six years. As a focal Point coach, Lisa works directly with business owners, executives, corporate teams, and their professionals and other professionals excuse me to change their lives for the better. She has a passion for helping her clients achieve their full potential by developing their teams, improving their operations, and enhancing their profitability. As a coach, Lisa works with her clients to develop a plan personalized to their needs and introduces proven business concepts that, when implemented, help to generate a healthy return on investment.

2:50 Prior to Focal Point, Lisa spent over twenty five years at large corporation corporations where she held senior leadership roles in the areas of finance, marketing, risk, man management, service strategy, and distribution. Lisa's deep and varied corporate experience is an asset to her coaching clients as they leverage it to drive their own business success. Belle Walker is the founder and lead consultant of Bellevue Consulting. As the only organizational efficiency engineer she knows, the only one I know, Bell takes her clients from friction to function By aligning structures and processes with strategic goals. She's recaptured loss efficiency and engagement for clients in tech, nonprofits, professional services, cannabis, and more. To recapture loss efficiency and engagement, Bellevue consulting focuses primarily on operating models and process maps, both of which are key to unlocking effective growth. A proactively designed and clearly communicating, communicated operating model enables and empowers employees at all levels of an organization. Process mapping centers around clear documentation, which drives alignment, reveals opportunities for improvement, and smooths onboarding for new employees. With the right operating mode and effective processes, organizations can focus on expanding their product and service offerings, confident they're ready for scale. Prior to turning full time to consultant consulting excuse me, Bell spent her career building and optimizing teams that were responsible for everything from complex operations balancing safety and efficiency, to the cutting edge of AI and autonomous driving. Bell honed her skills at multimillion, multi billion dollar corporations such as Google, where

4:25 she managed the initial street view vehicle rollout and built a nationwide aerial photography operation and HERE Technologies, where she built a team responsible for both the operational creation and resulting quality of the HD maps created for use by autonomous vehicles, merging project managers, data scientists, software engineers, system engineers, and more. For HERE Technologies, Ample offered ample opportunity for Bill to hone and refine her organizational design and leadership skills. She also received a patent for the Quality Index, a mechanism that allows digital maps to be incorporated more effectively into ASI ponomous vehicle environmental models. Bell has also built product management and marketing teams for small, closely held organizations such as Future ADS and the Plan nine Group. With a mechanical engineering degree, a bachelor's degree from Harvard and a systems engineering master's degree from USC, Bell leverages the engineering problem. Solving the engineering problem solving process easy for me to say, to design and build the most complex systems possible those comprised of individuals together. In twenty twenty three, Lisa and Bell co wrote Generation Innovation, Business Family, and the Journey to Success. It's a business parable that introduces common challenges along with solutions to those challenges that small business owners encounter. The challenges are introduced to the story of a mother and daughter who owned very different businesses, yet find they can help each other to grow and achieve success. Well I did that quickly because I wanted to get here. Lisa and Bell, thank you and welcome, Welcome and welcome back to Winning Business Radio and TV. Thanks for being here. Thank you for

5:58 having us to be fun. I want to get a little background. You are both like me. For the listeners and viewers who don't know, we're members of Provisors, a powerful trusted advisor network across America. And my guess is that's how you met a great guest and COVID had an impact. I won't give that up yet. You can talk about it, Lisa. First, tell the audience about your business. Yeah. So yeah, I am a focal point business and executive coach. Like you said, so, my favorite people to work with are business owners who are good but want to be even better. So they know that they're doing a great job. They see opportunity for growth, but they kind of get stuck somewhere along the way, and it's usually at the time when they really need to let go of the reins a little bit and let their teams start taking over so that they can let the team develop and let the business and let their own personal time be spent on the strategy and moving the business forward. That is a great time to jump in and help them see how exciting it can be to be a leader and to develop the team underneath them for success of the entire business.

7:05 And tell us who your clients are? Give us some you know? Yeah? No, no, not who are your clients? You know what I mean? Sorry? Yeah, I usually work with businesses between two and twenty million in revenue, but I do have a very very specialized focus on dental practices. And it just so happens at Generation Innovation one of the two main characters is a dentist. And I know the answer, but tell the audience why you chose that. Well, it happened, just so happens that I'm married to a dentist and I've known him since undergrad. He was the boy across the hall, and I learned as soon as he bought his practice that they don't teach you anything about how to run a business in dental school.

7:50 And so he had me. But not every dentist has a spouse or significant other who has a business background that can help them. So I'm there to be that person them and I'm going to ask bell you the's saying questions, what problems in general do you solve? You just mentioned a big one, but what problems do you generally solve for them? Ah? Well, they could be it depends on what stage they're in, right, So if they're in a growth stage, we talk about how to create efficiencies, how to maximize the productivity of their staff and keep them happy because it's tough. There's not a lot of career growth afforded to these folks. So how do we do it if they're about to think about retiring. I like to talk about making sure that we have the right measures in place to show how profitable the business is so that they can maximize the return on that sale. Or it could be early on too, but those are the two major ones. Kind of growth or let's talk about selling great. This is a big question.

8:46 Give it about a minute, a case study, something recent, just kind of the where they were, the type of problems, and the work that you're doing with them. Yeah, so I'm working with a they do you want me to give it a minute. Really, you don't really want me toll in it a radio silent minute. So one dentist that I'm working with, super successful practice right, really did well. And then you know, and you find this with dentists and you'll understand what I mean in a minute, super successful COVID hit, you know, hit the dental industry. Thirteen weeks shut down across the industry. They all got their PPP loans, but they tried to keep their folks on and I took about a good year for people to trust going back to the dentist, because think about it in your mouth. We're all worried about the diseases and everything, and so they were a slow recovery. This dentist in particular, he's older, he's thinking about transitioning out, and so he brought me in to help him kind of how do I find the right people get the practice set up for sale. But what we found was the practice was not generating revenue at the same level as pre COVID, but he kept the same overhead and he wouldn't let go of it. And that is a key theme with these kinds of folks. They're so loyal to their employees, and in turn, their employees are so loyal to them, and you know, it's great and it's beautiful, but it's also a challenge when your business, all of a sudden, your overhead percentage

10:20 has gone up so dramatically that you can't necessarily keep up with it. So it was a great press to really kind of talk him through how can we maximize things, how can we keep as many people as possible, and how can we get that revenue back up to where it was pre COVID so that he can feel good about the next phase perhaps. So it's really it's it's pretty deep. We're going into every level this business, operational efficiency's expenses, employee issues, everything. It's been fun, well well done, good summary. Thank you, Belle. Tell us about your business. Yeah, So my business takes organizations from friction to function. So at the level I solve very similar problems to what at least it does RED. I work with organizations that are often growing, or in my case, they're often organizations that have grown. And the phrase that comes to mind for people is victims of their own success, and so what was working for them has stopped working. And so I come in and the organizations I work with, they know where they're trying to go, they have a strategy, they have a plan, and they have a great team. And those components are necessary but proving insufficient.

11:33 So I add the third ingredient, which is a little bit of structure, a little bit of connective tissue to that organization to keep people connected, working together, and all going in the same direction and similar clients. Similar question, who are your clients? So my clients are all over different industries, so I'm very industry agnostic, but they tend to be in the twenty to fifty person headcount range, because fifteen to twenty is when you first start to cross that threshold where just having great people stops being enough and by the time you hit fifty a colleague of mind put it really well, you pretty much can't hit fifty if you haven't gotten some of those structures and processes in place.

12:24 Very good, And the same question, what types of problems you just mentioned a couple give the audience a flavor. What other kinds of problems do you solve? Yeah, the kinds of problems I solve tend to be the who does what when problems. So when there's a major challenge and the leadership team is looking at each other and it's you know the question of who should be leading this and four people raise their hands. Okay, that's probably not correct, or nobody, wait, we have a committee, right. There is a difference between supporting each other there and you know, everyone thinking that this must be in my realm. And so whether it's you know, four or zero, if there's more than one, or any a number other than one, that's where you start to run into these real challenges. So those are some of the problems I tend to look at cool and can you do the same. Can you provide a one minute or so case study? Yeah, So I've a client I'm working with now. They're a social justice fund and they do incredible work and they have these amazing innovators. They are absolutely an example of great people make great things happen. And so they started out grant making, that's what they were put into existence to do. But they started seeing opportunities in different areas, and so they started branching out and running their own capacity building programs and they started they pioneered an entire model where they

13:58 were able to take government contracts and then subcontract the work to smaller community organizations that didn't have the same buffer that this larger fund could provide when the government takes a while. The pay on Cotch incredible work that they're doing, But because this happened organically, there was a lack of clarity around who was guiding any given piece of the business. And the leadership team had it pretty well organized. They knew who did what when. The challenge was their team members might be working on three programs, and for each of those programs, the executive team member who was owning the relationship for the funding was different, and the executive team member who was running the program was different, and the executive team member who they reported to might be different, and so it was causing all of this confusion around. Everyone had their own ways, They wanted to do things that had built from their own experience and best practices. They really needed to take a step back and say, all right, we do many amazing things. Now let's make sure we do each of them consistently and effectively.

15:09 Very good. Thank you. All right, believe it or not, we're going to take our first break right here. We'll be back in just about a minute with Belle Walker and Lisa Leveck be right back. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Heleneth on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the radio, Well, now it's your chance. Be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio station and promote you and your business for free. Yes you heard it, free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com. Call five six to one five zero six four zero three one now to get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six four zero three to one. Get you're free advertising now and now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenan presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helenet. We are back with Belle Walker and Lisa levec co authors of Generation, Innovation, Business Family, and the Journey to Success. Okay,

16:40 so where did the idea of collaboration on this project start? Lisa? Do you want to take this one? Sure? I'm happy to so. You mentioned we're all part of a national networking group, Provisors, and when COVID hit, Provisers didn't back down, and we actually became more powerful, and we opened up our borders right and so Bell's in California, I'm in Massachusetts. They allowed people because we went virtual, you could guess anywhere in the country. And so one day Belle guested at one of the meetings that I was in. We happened to get put into a smaller group that they called Troikas we met in Natroia, we kind of hit it off, and I think Belle reached out to me and said, Hey, did you want to kind of follow up and we started talking about, Hey, we kind of had a good vibe going, and you know, she's got some great skills that supplement me, and I've got some world experience ahead of her, maybe a few years here or there, and so together it was a nice combo. We started writing some articles together. We stepped into a groove and we started talking about we both kind of had the desire to write a book.

17:49 And I love the way Belle tells it because she's like, we didn't just want to write a book to write a book. We wanted the book to be a meaningful addition to what's already out there in the world business books. And we talked through and we both agreed that we prefer the storyline version of telling rather than the textbook version of telling. And so we talked about that we knew we wanted that, we knew we wanted to be different, and we talked about what we feel is a little bit of an underserved market when it comes to the like a more early stage business owner. You know, they're they're kind of running into some obstacles along the way and they have to kind of try to figure out how to deal with them. And five years, I'd say between five and ten is probably good, or even a startup, and what the intent is is that to show them that you're not alone. It happens, and in our book, it happens. We have a longstanding dental practice and we have a startup at based business. Those are the two types of businesses that are kind of compared throughout the book, and both of them are running into similar problems, just at a different level of maturity. And we kind of we took like fifty yeah, I think we have fifteen chapters, different topic for each chapter, so that we could talk about all these different issues that these people will will come upon and try to help them see how they can work through it. Well you want to add to that? Sorry, No, I think that was that's that's how we

19:19 got here. That's good. Good. So talk about the process of writing the book. You know, I've talked to a lot of interviewing and talked to a lot of authors. So it's like they bang it out in a month. I don't know how they do it, but others it takes a year, right, and they're doing it all by themselves. How did you guys decide how to carve it up and who would take what responsibility and how did you keep on track? Talk about that? Yeah, so we we had already been co writing articles for a little while, and so we had a little bit of a rhythm there where we would each draft an article and then kind of tweak each other's work. And so what we ended up doing was creating an outline, identify those topics that at Leasta mentioned, and then we just sort of went through the table of contents. In each week we'd each pick it, or every couple of weeks we'd each pick a chapter.

20:10 We'd each write that chapter and then we would swap and provide edits and insights, and we actually later on in the process did bring in an outside editor, which was highly recommend very helpful. He was great, but he sat at one point and he had no idea who had originally written any of the chapter. I tried to figure that out too, and I couldn't. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah, because we do. It was so funny because the first chapter that we each did, when we swapped it, I had no idea what I was going to see. Yes, we've been writing articles together, but this was a little different because I'm kind of like, I like to talk about the story, but I like the business part. But I like the story, and Bell likes the business part and it works. But I read her chapter and I literally thought, wait a minute, is this the one that I wrote? It? Was?

20:59 It literally felt like I wrote it, and so it was. It was amazing. Yeah, it was really fun. How much time did it take? And how did you, I'll say, find the time? Well, can we just let's let's make it clear. Yeah, it took a while. Bell decided at one point that I might just like have a baby during this, so she decided to do that, and I was fully in support of her. He's adorable. Yeah, so that's flown us up a bit. Yeah, but go ahead, bell and rightfully so, yeah. I mean, the writing itself was in many ways the easy part. So for my son just turned two and had a full draft written before he was born, and in fact, a full draft that we had given to a reader, gotten feedback on, and rewritten. And so what we found was that the writing was just a fairly small piece of the picture. So having that draft was great it and we think continue to tweak and iterat, but what we really needed at that point was to dig in on the editing and to dig in on the publication process. And so for us it probably took you know, two or three years, depending how you count the lead time to get it all done. But a surprising, for me, surprisingly small part of that time was the actual writing, right right, and you, because we're both kind of in our own way. Perfection is you could pick

22:30 up a chapter and think it's perfect, and then you know, three months later look at it and go, oh, wait a minute, and it's never done. And so one day we just called it, We just said it's done. That's it. We got the right amount of feedback, so did take longer, but again we both have full time jobs. She's got she decided, like I said to, you know, have a baby human along the way, which is amazing. And you know, my girls are older, so they weren't in the in the mix, but it just it was okay though it was our pace. It works for us, right though. Yeah, yeah, And that that does help answer the question else about how we found the time. Was we really looked at you know, we knew what we wanted to create. We had that goal in mind, and so we were able to kind of take take our time and say, you know, two or three weeks to draft each chapter, alternating with writing articles with the other work that we were doing. And so it was I would not say it was easy to find the time, but we did not put undue pressure on ourselves and we still got there. So that's I think the takeaway is you can get there with the slow and steady that that is a real thing. So the book again is generation, Innovation, Business, Family and the Journey to Success. You focused on at least one but the theme of family business, Why did you choose to do that? Did you want to take that though, sure, and I think well to some extent, it was natural fit given Lisa's experience with industries, as we already talked about,

24:04 But part of it was to have that nice comparison point between the tech startup and the you know, more traditional, if you will business. We were really looking for businesses that were about as different as we could make them. So businesses that might exist entirely virtually versus ones that rely on that brick and mortar, something that is looking to expand into a very large team versus a small family environment. Because we really believed and believed that a lot of the challenges and the basic concepts are consistent even in those wildly different settings. So it was a natural fit on the one hand, and it helped provide this anchor point for the comparison that shows the similarities ahead. I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that. I would just add too, like the family element kind of weaved in is also really an essential part of our theme about when you're an entrepreneur, your business is part of your life. It is not separate. When I worked in my corporate job, I could shut it off.

25:11 I do think of my business seven days a week. Now, I can shut it down, but it's different, and so integrating it in as them right, right, it's very common, and so we wanted to show the entrepreneur that don't think you're going to go into this and be able to shut it off. And so we wanted to show the impact to your personal life as well, and so the family element was really a nice way to bake that in there, whether it be the mother daughter or the relationships in their life besides their relationship with each other. Yeah, I like the relationship between mom and daughter, and we're going to get to them in just a minute. What are some of the bell you just alluded to this some of the challenges that are similar between a family run and in this case a tech startup, and those that are different in terms of dynamic Yeah, so the the fifteen chapters of relatively consistent challenges, but some of them are very basic elements, like the way that you approach accountability in your organization. Whether you have a small, right small family business or a large one without accountability, you start to have a little bit of chaos that likely does not serve the business. Some of it is more traditional business, you know, principles like sales or marketing, and how you're approaching those efficiency. The pareto eighty twenty rule can be applicable in a wide variety of contexts. That's a handful.

26:47 I've probably shared this with both of you at one point or another, but I've worked in two family businesses, my dad's and my father's father in laws. Working for my dad, I was very young, and you could see people in jobs they shouldn't be in because they were, you know, just kind of too close to everything, And the same with my father. Most is, the people problem was exaggerated because well, that's just what we're where. We're gonna put them, right, that's what we're gonna put her. That's that's what she's gonna do, versus matching the person and skills to the job. So that's what I've seen over the years. We have a chapter that does all about that, where Kate tries to hire a friend into a role that she's not ready for. Yeah, that does happen, you're right, Kevin, Sorry to cut you off. Oh no, no, that's good. That's good. Talk about what you guys perceive as the key inflection points within that growth of a business. So, for example, I think of the generational change as one key in a family business. I've worked with multiple family businesses as clients and as you said, as I heard hello, as you heard me say, worked in them as well, real key inflection point. What are some of the other inflection points you see? I mean, certainly when the leadership changes that that is always going to be a key inflection point in the early stages. I do think there is something to be said about headcount growth those fifteen fifty, one hundred hundred and fifty. There are certain markers that tend to shift the dynamic in an organization, at least

28:22 if you want to talk about some more. Yeah, no, I agree. I would say that we see that certainly on the daughter's startup and on the mother's side. I mean, she's like struggling the whole time with the fact that she doesn't want to admit that maybe she's mirroring retirement and she sees, you know, bringing on a partner or thinking about what is that key step that you take to set your business up to leave your legacy, you know, think about it. You spent your whole life building this and you want your legacy to stand. So how do you do it, finding the right person to represent it the right way. And in the book, the mother has the right person and hates him for it. Right. It takes a long time to finally realize that what he represented, but that was a huge point for her. So we have the daughter who's experiencing the growth and the people, and you see her mature, right, she's like a kid who's doing everything, just a very excited, very energetic, ready to rock and roll, right. Yeah, and then she becomes this mature business woman who I like, love it like she's my own daughter. Like I honestly feel like like Bell's my daughter honestly, and like we always like and it feels like it's our story in some way, you know what I mean.

29:34 But it's just beautiful to watch her grow and mature into this, you know, really strong and successful woman. And then the mother growing into this. Okay, finally accept I am going to move on, but I'm not retiring. I'm going to do something new and that's really exciting. It's never has to be over that thought. Yeah, it's the bottom of the hour. We're going to take another break. We'll be back in one more minute with Belle and Lisa you're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. The yp dot com website is your local search engine. If you're looking for a good restaurant, it can help you find the right one nearby with ratings and reviews.

30:30 Or if your car breaks down, you can use the YP app to find the closest repair shop. Or maybe you're just looking for something to do on a Friday night. While it has great local coupons for all sorts of things in your area, no matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something, YP local search can help you find it. So go to YP dot com or download the app to search local, find local, and save local. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helenett. We're back for the fourth and final hour. I always wanted to say that here at on Sports Radio, We're back with Belle Walker of Bellevue Consulting and Lisa levecka focal point coaching co authors of Generation, Innovation, Business, Family, and the Journey to Success. All right, I want you to introduce Kate and Nancy to the audience. Let's see. So Nancy is the mother. She's the dentist that we've talked about, and she has been working at this practice since she finished dental school and she's been the owner co owner for the vast majority of that time. She has two kids. Her daughter, Kate, is our other protagonist. And Kate has I always been interested in starting her own business,

32:01 and fairly the book begins when she is ready to actually take that leap. And so she this is not her first job. She has done some work to try and get a grounding, but she's and her mother wasn't completely thrilled with at least one of those jobs, right, No, No, And this did borrow a little bit from some of our real life experience where I had noticed, especially my time at Google, that I actually the administrative and executive assistants were It was a launch pad into some of the most successful positions in the business. And that's not traditionally. I think how many industries have approached those roles, and so we introduced a little bit of that kind of new school old school attention in pretty early on. But so so Kate has that experience, and so she decides to start a business that combines the people's need to move their physical goods in the world with the sort of on demand culture we've developed, and she starts company called move Mobile. And I don't recall did she introduce her mom to the gay economy or did her mom was for him? The mom will say she was familiar with it, yeah, although she really thought it was limited. But yes, yeah, I mean there's still it's so funny to watch their dynamic, you know, because the daughter's just like, you know, when she says, like a like a

33:31 a like a desktop computer is like stone age. Those aren't her words, but it even opens my eyes today. I'm like, really that, you know, because she's the daughter is just so far ahead technology thinking, and the mother's just she's trying to keep up and she does a decent job. But reality is, it's a different generation, and so that's why it's generation innovation, right. But they're both innovating, they're both learning as they go, you know. Let's see, so Kate is excited she's got a couple of challenges. Mom. Nancy has some challenges of her own, and early on her husband Kate's dad mentioned some news which complicates things somewhat. Tell us about that. Yeah, So literally, very early on he comes home me he finds out that they're doing a little bit of an early retirement offer at his company. And he's you know, early to mid fifties, and he's kind of like, he's a little bit you know, should I or should I not do it? But in some ways he you know, feels like a dinosaur at his company, believe it or not for his age, and so he's struggling and that, you know, so that his struggle, and then you know, Nancy starts to struggle, you know, because then she sees, well, I don't think I'm old, but he's not old, and what do we do now? So it's an interesting dynamic. But the

35:01 husband conquers it really quickly, like I've done. He's ready, he's ready to move on. Whereas Nancy, it's a pretty big decision for her to think about what's next moving on for dentistry. So talk about just for a minute why he found it easier and she did not that's a good question. I you know, I'm gonna just go some of a By the way, the relationship of the Nancy and her husband probably came from mine with my husband, and you know, he's the dentist. But it's just easier for him to make the decision like, Okay, time to move on. I'm excited about the next phase of my life. And remember he's in a corporate role.

35:45 It's easier to disc you know, you have your friends and you have all that. But he didn't. He doesn't own it. He didn't have as deep of a relationship or feeling of responsibility to his Cote Coote coworkers. Yeah. I think it's a very big difference. When you are the owner and you're responsible for all of these people and all of those patients and everything, it's a much bigger deal. Do you want to add anything, Bill, No, I think these are really articulated. At heart, he is retiring from a business. When Nancy is thinking about retiring, it would fundamentally change everything about that. But it's not she retires from a business. It's she retires and everything changes for right in a way, that's just not true when you're part of a larger machine. All right, talk about the dynamic between Kate and Nancy, both the pluses and the challenges. I won't even say minus is, I'll say challenges. Yeah, we decided pretty early on that we wanted them to have a generally good relationship and that it was a little unrealistic for the relationship to always been as strong as it is now.

37:04 And so as we were talking through more of the backstory, and there's, you know, elements that obviously never made it into the book, but we know because we really dug into their lives where they went through some really tough times, especially when Kate was in high school and coming to terms with her own identity, and they had to kind of look to how they were going to move together, and so they really started to fall back on what are things we have in common? And it turns out that both of them have been pretty passionate about business for a very long time. And so what we decided very early on is that this talk about business was as much a relational crutch as anything else, and that's why they have these deep conversations. And you can see through the book that you know, it starts with more love than that, but it really continues to grow as they watch each other go through this transition and they see how it's touching their whole life that you can see that relationship just strengthen and deepen. But it's really formed around this sort of anchor line they have of Okay, we're not going to argue about mom's migraines, we're not going to argue about you know, who's dating who.

38:15 We're just going to talk business because that's a safe place to be and let that be the foundation so that we can get into these trickier topics. LISTA want to add, Yeah, you know, I mean I love the complexity of their relationship because anyone who knows a mother daughter relationship, it is going to be super complex. And the thing about it is that they, you know, they do, as Belle said, use the businesses as a crutch, but nobody is going to be more qualified to tell each other what would be the best next thing for them to do than each other. They may not show it to each other, but they really have this deep reson respect for each other's abilities and need for each other's approval that I just think is a beautiful element of their relationship because they could be harsh as anything to each other or you know, but they're always on each other's side, and I think that is just a great description of, you know, a really strong mother daughter relationship period. All right, tell us a little bit about the partners that Kate decided to partner with in her business. In her business, correct, Yeah, so I Kate has a co founder that she has known since high school or sorry, since college, Sanjay, who has a very different background than Kate does. I believe he's an art history major, which

39:49 does come up at various points in the book. But they I took the art history one on one just because somebody said it was easy, and then it was all about memorizing dates and people and it wasn't the easiest. Sounded Yeah, I was gonna say the brief climpses I've had and I would not flag those classes as easy. But yeah, so they as they've talked through the years, they've been through a lot of moves. It's always terrible that, you know. Certainly for me drew a little bit on my own experience with moving, especially in those early years during and out of college. That's why I never bought a pickup truck, right, right, And everyone, and everyone wants your help. So they they've been toying with this idea since a class in undergrad they used the business model for competition, and they've been continuing to tweak it over time. And they make really good partners for each other because they have these different backgrounds and perspectives and they fall very naturally into a dynamic where Kate can be the CEO and Sandy provides this additional expertise.

41:01 That was one thing that you know, I think we did someone intentionally is we did not pick dueling CEO partners. I've seen that work. I've seen that not work. But of all the places we might foster drama in the book, we decided that particular partnership was one that we would have largely be very harmonious. And I think that even with that, there are plenty of challenges that the business faces. Like I well, so I'll skip ahead a little bit towards the end of the book, But even with them getting along very well and being very well aligned on how they want to show up for the company, they hit a point where they actually realized they're letting their team down because they have been really trying to step back and empower and enable these incredible executives that they have hired over the years, and they have a moment where they realize, maybe we've taken this a little too far right. We've given people areas of ownership and responsibility. I mentioned this is a moving company.

42:09 You can have situations where you have someone responsible for safety and you have someone responsible for efficiency, and those roles inherently need to be intention That is their jobs, right, Their jobs are to embody these elements of the business and someone else needs to be the tie breaker. And that's why they are not the role right, the roles, not the people. And this is part of the confusion in the in the book that they have to call out and address it in something I see in the businesses I work with I've been in these positions. We're distinguishing between that healthy organizational structural tension and two people who just like to argue with each other. It's crucial to making sure that you're getting to the right solutions for every everyone involved. And in those structural elements, you have to know, okay, well, then where where does the tiebreaker come in? Where is the decision made? And doesn't matter how well your your CEO, your founders get along if no one's making that decision.

43:14 Yeah, yeah. I also like their relationship early on, when you know, it was clear whose business it really is, right, it's Kate's business, and he's along for the ride, but not really. He does a great job. But the beauty of their relationships they kind of stay in their own lanes. You know, there's a scene that was really frustrating to us. It's really powerful, you know, the women in business scene when Kate goes to get funding and she's asked to introduce them to the man behind the technology, and she's the man behind the technology, and she's really frustrated. And it's funny because then she's loaded for bear And the next time she goes for funding and they ask where a partner is, and she's all like prickly, and they just want to talk about why an art history can like make an impact here. So it's kind of fun and interesting. But he never would have tried to step in her lane, and she doesn't try to step in his, and I think that's why it works well together. What are some of the most important lessons you're trying to get across through their story?

44:16 Well, one of the things that I had said to Bell from the very beginning. You know, business is changing, there's no question it's changing, but there are some fundamental concepts that will always matter, regardless of if your business is on a spaceship going to Mars. There's still some fundamental concepts, you know, communication, setting the right expectations, measuring your business for success, you know. And then and that's what we did. We sat down and we came up with, you know, fifteen chapters of things that they're really timeless. And that was something that we wanted to get across, is it doesn't matter if it's a new new fangle, a new type of business, or if it's a old business. There's still these concepts that will apply and people, right, you mentioned the bats of happy employees, right yeah, oh yes, yep, and happy yeah. I mean, and that was one of the that chapter that you're alluding to, Kevin, I think is a great embodiment of that lesson that list is talking about. Is these businesses end up taking very different approaches to recognition to benefits. And you see that across all different industries today. There are many different versions of what it means to have a great benefits package, but all of them leave the team members feeling valued and supported as members of the business. And you know, it doesn't matter how you do it. What matters is that you get at that fundamental element and that feeling that you're building up free extractions for life.

45:53 How's that for anefit? Who I hope? I hope you don't need to take advantage of that, that's for sure. But another theme, you know you were talking about what other themes, certainly the time tested business, right, and it is another one that we touched on earlier, and that is just that when you own a business, it is your life and you cannot separate it from your life. It dramatically impacts a relationship that Kate has and you know that's the norm, right, that is absolutely the norm and so recognizing and we said it earlier, how it's a fiber of who you are if you are an entrepreneur, and how do you manage that? That's good? All right? A couple of big questions and we have two minutes, believe it or not, that one fast. What's your best best advice.

46:40 I'll let you combine these. I'll give you both questions. Best advice to someone thinking about starting a business and best advice to someone currently running, and I'm going to add family business to that. That's a big one. Yeah, I know that. By the way, when you're done, you'll think you wish you had said something else, but it doesn't matter what just put to mind. So for someone is thinking of starting a business, make sure you're passionate about it because it is part of your life. You have to feel passion for it, right And then for someone who's already in a business, bell, do you want to take that or do you do you want me to there? So for someone who's already in a business, I would say that it is well worth your time and energy to pause every couple of months, take a step back, very good and think about how things are going. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day and to miss the incremental changes that creep in. So setting aside time on a regular cadence, but that's at least a couple months apart really does make a big difference in helping you gain perspective because you are living this every day all the time. Fantastic, really good answers. All right, we'll get a little easier. What do you each like to do when you're not working and leave kids out of it. Oh no, that's a big part of our lives. But leave kids out just for this one. Well, let's eeke in even though it's marche skiing snow skiing, right, all done?

48:09 Yeah me this weekend too, there's still snow, but we're close to the end of New England. And then read. I love to read. I will jump on the read as well. That that is definitely a key activity in the night. I actually run a fair amount so fun fact, I run a lot of the run Disney races. Cool run his bell? Does she run his bell? That's the point I do sometimes. If she doesn't, I think we'd all be disappointed, exactly, all right. Who in the listening audience listen and listening and viewing audiences should reach out to you guys? And why? For me, it's it's literally anyone who owns a business that is feeling good but wants to just take it to the next level and just you know, want someone to help them figure out the best way to get there. Nice. Yeah, for me, it's the people who know where they're trying to go and they know they've got a great team and they are scratching their heads about why aren't we as a great team getting there.

49:16 I love the chat fantastic all right, So I encourage listeners and viewers reach out if you have any of those types of questions. Guys, it's been so cool to have you here, Lisa and Bell. We love the fact that you took your time out for me and for the audience. So thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having us, Thank you, You're quite welcome, and thanks everybody for watching and listening. This is a show about business, business successes and business challenges. If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business Radio. You can drop me a note. One of my many email addresses is Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com. Our company is Winning Incorporated, part of Sandler Training. We develop sales teams at the high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors.

50:01 Hey, we're not right for everybody, but maybe we should have a conversation. Thank you to our producer and engineer one. Thank you one for another job well done. Be sure to join us next week. That's Monday, March twenty fifth. We're going to do it all over again with another exciting guest. Until then, this is Kevin Hallenan. You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helenan. If you missed any part of this episode. The podcast is available on Talk for Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on W four CY Radio w fourcy dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Halenan and Winning Business Radio