EntreLeadership - #133: Transitioning Your Business

Episode Date: February 8, 2016

We’re hitting Main Street this week to talk to someone who’s getting it done in a big way. Kent Lapp, CEO of Woodtex Products, joins us to talk about leadership, transitioning a family business, and how to motivate a team. Also on this episode, Dave teaches how a detailed job description can help your team members win. And we wrap it up with our own Christy Wright speaking with Caren Merrick, founder and CEO of Pocket Mentor, on 10 things highly successful female leaders should never do. FREE webinar: EntreLeadership Defined FREE webinar: EntreLeadership Defined FREE webinar: EntreLeadership Defined InfusionSoft Leads Workbook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City, and we're so thankful for the download. Oh, my goodness, this episode is chalk full. Here we go. Here's the rundown, our feature interview. Really excited about this. We have a commitment to do more of this this year.

What is this? That is the feature conversation being with someone like you, the listener. Not the celebrity name, not the celebrity author, the CEO, the Big Shot, but somebody who is actually getting it done, who is the entree leader out there on Main Street. So we're really excited about these Main Street discussions. And it's with Kent Lap, who happens to be an alumni of everything we've done here at Entree Leadership, Master Series, and everything else. He's got a great story. I live here in the area. You're going to enjoy this. Also, it's got some family business stuff to it as well. So this really is a great perspective for you

in our feature conversation. Then, as a result of something that Kent shared with us in the conversation about what helped him from an Ontario Leadership Master's series, we're pulling some audio of Dave teaching about KRAs. That acronym stands for key result areas. Every person on the team here at Ramsey Solutions has a KRA. It clearly defines this is what you do, and this is how you do it. And then, Christy Wright, you know her so well. She's one of our Ramsey personalities and speaks at all of our Entree Leadership One.

days. She is the creative force, the heart, the head behind business boutique, which has become a phenomenon. More events coming. We'll tell you more about that as well. But we asked her to hop on the phone with Karen Merrick, who is a super entrepreneur, the founder of My Pocket Mentor. They talk about an article that Karen recently wrote on ink.com entitled 10 Things Highly Successful Female Leaders Should Never Do. And then we're going to give away free stuff. Everybody likes free stuff. But when Entry leadership gives out free stuff, well, it's free stuff that helps you. No strings attached. It just helps you. So stay tuned for that. Two big offerings that will help you in your business. Well, let's get right to our feature conversation.

Kent Lap has become somebody that I really, really respect. Sharp young businessman, you'll hear the story of how he inherited the leadership role in the family business. It's really unique stuff. And here's what's exciting. We have an exclusive giveaway from his company, Woodtex. We'll tell you all about it. We're going to have some fun with how you enter to win by sharing a story. You'll get all the details, plus just a lot of encouragement from this conversation.

Here is Kent Lap, the CEO of Woodtex. I'm excited to have you in the studio with this, Kent, because it's rare that we get folks who, routinely digest what we're putting out here in Entree leadership, who've been to our events. Your team is engaged. I love tweeting with these guys. You know, your team, some of them I've never met, but like we tweet back and forth, their Entree podcast listeners. I love these stories and we want to showcase more of these. So we're going to go way back, all right, because I want people to really get a sense for who you are, where you come from, because there's so many wonderful parallels to the folks that are listening. So you come from a Minanite Amish background, and I want to take you

to the moment where the family business all of a sudden has a lightning bolt moment. Your father, the founder, passes away. Take us that moment. How old are you? I'm 10. I've just turned 10. And my father had cancer for 70 years. He passed away at the age of 36.

And only recently did I do that math. And I said, if he passed away at 36 and had cancer for seven years, he got him when he was 29. Yeah. He passed away on a Friday. The funeral was on a Monday. And mom went to work on Tuesday. Right. Unbelievable.

Yeah. And she kept the family business going. It was small at the time, one location, five, six team members total, and then she kept it gone until I took over in 2004-05. Okay, so what is the business? What was it then? Yes, it has changed. Yeah, we're manufacturing company.

It's called Wood Tech's. We built prefab and modular buildings. Back then in 94, when Dad passed away, we were just doing storage buildings. And today, we've expanded the product lines to include garages and horse barns and modular cabins. All right. So how old were you when mom says, All right, Kent. It's your time. I'm passing the baton.

I would have been probably in the 19, 20, 21 year range. And the reason I give a range is because it was a bit of a process. Yes. And so how quickly, so you're 10 years old when your dad passes. And it's extraordinary story. Not only is she now a single mom. She's a single mom and a small business owner completely on her own. And you're the oldest son, correct? I'm the oldest son. I have younger brother and two older sisters. So there's four of us. So at what point are you already working in the business as a 10-year-old, just small stuff around the shop? Oh, absolutely, man. Are you kidding? No, I grew up doing that.

And I think I was probably more in the way than anything. But yeah, we thought we were working. Absolutely. Summers between school. That's where we were at. When do you get really serious? Because if you're taking over between 19, 2021, this was serious apprenticeship stuff. At what age are you really seriously getting involved in the running of the business?

Probably at the 18 to 19 year old age. I'm getting seriously involved. But you know what? I was taking it serious at 9. The summer before Dad passed away, we were going to work on a Saturday morning, and he's turning left into the shop. This was the summer before he passed away,

and he asked me what I would think if he sold the business. And so I'm 9, and I just thought that would be the worst thing ever. I had such a sense of ownership, even at that young age. But yeah, and then getting into the management and leadership at 18, 19, 20 years of age,

has its challenges too. So when you become, The top leader. Your mom's still very involved. I'm guessing. There's a transition there. What was it like? What was the dynamic like between you and your mom after she handed you the baton? In hindsight, it was much better than I thought it was at the time. And turns out she actually did have a plan and she was handling me very well. She'd never micromanaged me. And so she gave me a lot of rain. She allowed me to make some mistakes. And I think it worked well because of that. All right. So the company for years, so about 25 years you're at one location. That's right. And the profits up and down, right, just kind of trying to keep the thing going. Sure.

I want to give a little context here because now you guys are in four locations and growing, your eyes on other locations. So I want to go to the moment when you feel like, okay, the company's got enough of its sea legs to expand. What was happening there? How did you do it? It was 2009. We were in the middle of a recession. And, well, my dad's very first team members from 83 was visiting from South Carolina. And things were slow in the Greenville area, South Carolina because of the recession. So he and I basically said, well, hey, why don't we try to duplicate what we're doing in New York in the Greenville, South Carolina area? And that was our first branch location.

And then we've expanded into Tennessee and Texas from there. And again, more snapshot here, because this is great for folks that are listening in here. You're projecting 40% annual growth over the last few years. You're projecting 60% growth in 2016. What was the key or what were the keys to see in this type of growth after kind of just hanging out for so many years as a one shop operation? Totally. As you can imagine, it's a lot of things. But if I had to pin it down to a couple things, it's clarity.

it's goal setting. It's having the right people in key leadership positions, and it's having very clear expectations and holding people accountable. I love that. How old are you now? I am 31. 31 years old, still really, really young.

You take over in the 19, 2020, 21 range, right? Leadership bumps. What were those for you? For me, because I was coming into the family business, I always wanted to be there because I could do the role, not because I was the son. And not everyone saw that. So there's leadership bumps there. There's leadership bumps when you're the youngest in the group and you're the leader.

There is self-esteem and self-confidence issues when you're the youngest in the group that you have to get over. There is a lot of learnings on the importance of being humble and working alongside people to accomplish a goal. I'm curious about, because a big part of the growth, right, is, of course, we talk about this all the time. You've heard the Donald Miller podcast, you know, this idea of making your client the hero and you're the trusted guide. So we're talking about modular storage buildings and now, and you've done some sick barns. I want to brag on him, folks, because if you watch Fixer Up or on HDTV, which Stacy and I are obsessed with, you've done a beautiful barn for Chippa Joita. By the way, in the premier episode of this season, I saw it, saw the barn. They did a little surprise birthday party in there for Joanna.

Oh, it's absolutely gorgeous. We've done three or four buildings with Chip and Joe now, and Travis, our guy around in Texas Branch, his friends with them. And they're just phenomenal people. And what you see on the Fix Ruppers show, they truly are that. They're just amazing. We've been honored to do some work with them, and they have great taste, as you know, and their structures are beautiful.

Yeah. And I've seen some videos on your website where you literally build these, you know, whether it be a lake house or whatever it is, a horse barn. You literally bring that thing in with gigantic cranes and place it in. And that's really an interesting phenomenon. Do you see that space growing? Oh, absolutely. And you've touched on the genius.

The genius is you build these structures in the shop, either fully assembled or in modules, put on a truck and trailer and deliver it and put it together with a crane on site. So you're not in someone's backyard for months. You're not having your house reined on as it's being constructed for three to six months. So it's very efficient. It's in a controlled environment. Quality control was way better and efficiency. And so the price points are great too.

It's fantastic. So what's the narrative? And I'm put you on the spot here because we kind of set the scene here. I wanted to kind of get all that context. Because when you think sheds, how do you expand a business like that? You know, that's the million dollar question, and yet you are. So what's the narrative up to this point as we sit here today? You're kind of cutting through the clutter, if you will, with your competition.

And as a result, you're seeing growth. Well, we focus heavily on the company's story. And we found that can be a great trust building tool and a great. marketing tool, quite frankly. People like it. They like your background. They like that it's family owned. People love to relate to a story. And they have to be able to trust you. As you can imagine our industry, they have to trust you. They're spending anywhere from $2,200, $300,000 with you. They have to trust you. Yeah. So we focus heavily on the company's story, which builds trust, and we focus very heavily on the customer experience. And when you have a good product and you focus on those

two things, your story and the customer experience, then you can do whatever you want. I love it. What's the engagement like your sales team when they're talking to somebody, whether it be, again, a storage shed, all the way up to a smaller, modular home or cabin, what's the closing pitch? Well, they're in the zone, man. I mean, they represent the company well and they treat the customer right. I mean, I could just brag on them, you know, and for various things. But it's a process, and so it's not just a one-time, 15-minute sale.

You're working with them for several weeks. So during those several weeks or a couple of months, sometimes someone's wife dies, sometimes someone gets cancer, sometimes someone, you know, life continues to happen. And these salespeople, of their own fruition, are sending bocades or they're calling them, or sending the car, those types of things. So, you know, really coming alongside that customer in the sales process, and they do phenomenal with it. How would you articulate the influence of the Amish Mennonite culture on your business and how you lead? Oh, it's certainly an influence.

No doubt about it. That's where I come from. I think it has helped us with our work ethic. I think it has, we've learned a lot about honesty and keeping and games. people's trust. I think we've learned a lot about doing unto others what you'd have them doing to you. It's basic, but the Amish and the Mananites are really, really good with that. And I think we've learned a lot about community. They're great community people, great community builders. How important is community in your team?

Oh, it's hugely important. When you're in four different states doing business, you have to somehow spread that community out among the four different states. Otherwise, you're going to lose community, which affects their culture. How do you do that? So there has to be clear expectations and there has to be great leaders on site. There has to be great leaders on site. And then there has to be a lot of communication, video calls, conference calls, coming together a couple of times a year, those types of things. Is that where you're really hands-on with those key leaders in those four different locations? Very hands-on. I mean, I'm talking to all of them almost once a day. What do you see as the challenges of, because I think this is a

really interesting question for a lot of our audience. What are the big challenges when you go to multiple locations. Well, the big challenges are no one knows your brand name in that new location. And that can be a powerful thing when you have it and it can be extremely hard to fight against when you don't have it. Then there's the thing of just having clear expectations there and having the culture there and being able to duplicate what you have at another location there. And that takes having the right person in key positions.

Wow. I want to switch gears now to your personal growth. I've gotten to know you over time. We share a good friend, Bill Hampton, who's a former VP here at Ramsey Solutions. He's advising you and helping you. And I knew you before you got involved with him, but we kind of had these mutual relationships. And so I know you're a growth junkie. And I don't want to, you know, leave this conversation without you talking about your personal growth strategy.

Why do you engage with entree leadership? What are you doing as a young leader to continually be equipping yourself and your team? I like to get myself outside of my comfort zones, and that can be a variety of things. Sometimes it's introducing myself to a person that really stretches me, and it'd be easier not to. And that's quite frankly how Bill and I started our relationship together and helping our company. I read a lot, of course, and I think paying attention. I think paying attention is the most overlooked aspect to personal growth. I like that. Okay, let's dig in there. What do you Kent Lap pay attention to? Let's start on the business side. What are you trying to be intentional to pay attention to in your space?

Well, I'm paying attention to other leaders in other industries. What are they doing? Who are they hiring? How are they expanding? How do they work through conflict? Those types of things. What am I hearing about their culture? How do they maintain their culture? So you're just paying attention to even reading between the lines and trying to piece point A with point B and those types of things. really paying attention to what you can learn on a day-to-day basis, working around other people and other companies. All right, I'm going to flip it. What are you paying attention to in your personal life? I'm paying attention to getting up at the time that I need to get up, because that is the one thing. If I can get up at 5 a.m., my day falls into place. That's a struggle for me, and I'm embarrassed to say it.

Well, you don't need to be embarrassed. I mean, that's not easy for anybody. But that's the thing I'm paying attention to now, because if I can get up at 5 a.m. And if I can get up, I will go for run, I will read, and I will listen to a podcast. podcast episode of some sort, and I will start my day right. But that's the thing I'm paying attention to right now, is that just that simple thing of getting up at 5 a.m. Is that five days a week or seven? That is five days a week, and Saturdays and Sundays, I'll do whatever I like. That's good. I think that's important. I agree. That's huge. Okay, Entree leadership. You know, you've digested this.

This is not a commercial. I truly want to know. How are we and the Entree leadership tribe? How are we serving you? Well, you've served us tremendously, Ken, and I want to give a shout out to you and the Entry Leadership team and its leadership and Dave over the years. The biggest thing that we have learned through our learnings with Entry leadership has been the value of having a great company culture and the value of having key result areas with your team members. And it's so simple, but they have to know what's expected of them. Otherwise, you have confusion. Love that. By the way, we call those KRAs around here, key results. old areas. Everyone's got one in here. I've got one in the old personal file, whatever they keep on me

here. Who knows? But the fact is, it is a great definition of what you're supposed to be doing, and it really helps with clarity. So good stuff. All right, final question for you. And again, I love this. This is like a peer-to-peer conversation. So folks, I'm going to say this again. I hope you're receiving it this way. What would you say to the men and women who are small business owners or just somebody's going for it? They don't have to be a small business owner to listen to this podcast, but people are going for it. They want to make a difference. They're trying to live on purpose.

What would you say can't laugh from your head and heart today to encourage them? Well, first of all, I would say if you can hear Dave Ramsey's never quit speech in person live, hear it. Travel to where you need to travel to to hear it because I've come to the point of almost quitting three times in our company in Woodtex. And I heard Dave give his never quit speech during one of those times, and it prompted me to keep going, gave me the energy. To wrap it up, what I would say is you have to be an inspiration to your people. You have to have absolute candid communication cloaked in positivity, and you have to have grit. There's going to be bumps in the road. You have to have grit. That's good stuff. I can't add anything to that.

But here's what I can tell you. And I'm super, super pumped about this. I told you this. At the top of the podcast here, Kent wants to bless somebody who needs a world-class storage shed. All right? It's one of their basic products in the sense that it was the first thing they offered. It's world-class. I mean, it'll be the best-looking storage shed you've ever had in your entire life or ever seen.

So here's the catch, though. Ken's passionate about stories, the story of their business. He's passionate about the stories that we share on Entry Leadership. We love stories. So here's what we want you to do. Here's how you enter to win. It's not a random thing. You got to go to woodtext.com.

That's W-O-O-O-D-W-T-E-X, T-E-X, Wood-Tex.com. slash entre leadership. Woodtext.com slash entree leadership. Here's the deal. You've got to submit your story as to why you need it or maybe someone in your community needs it.

We just want the story. Make your case. You know what I'm saying? Not just, hey, I should get it because I'm a great guy and great personality. Am I right? We're looking for a compelling story because you want this shed

to be a part of a special story. Now, you nailed it. Go to woodtext.com slash entre leadership. We just need your name, your city and state, and we need your story because we love small business and we love story. Yeah. And look, maybe you don't have a business yet, but you plan to start one. Yeah.

What are you going to use this shed for with your new business? Or maybe your existing business. So you just put that right there in the story, and we really want to bless someone. I love that. And we're going to have some fun with this. Woodtext.com slash entree leadership. And let's talk about value here. Retail value.

Retail value. I mean, you're talking several thousand bucks. several thousand bucks here. And here's what I love about this. What's the shed going to be used for? This is the story that we're looking for. This is fun. And by the way, we're going to come back when all this is done. And I want to share some of the, you know, the winning story, of course. But I want to hear from you, the Entree Leadership Tribe. This is an opportunity. Hey, share your story. Don't be ashamed. Tell Kent and his team why you need the shed or why somebody you know needs the shed and how you're going to use it. I'd like this to get some real life. Wouldn't you, Kent, wouldn't it would be fun to kind of document this whole deal?

Absolutely. I mean, we're excited just sitting here thinking about this. You can't wait to read through the stories. I cannot wait at all. That's exactly right. This is so good. All right.

Very simple. Woodtex.com slash Entree leadership. Kent, thank you for being with us. This is so inspiring. And this is going to be fun. I cannot wait to see who wins the big shed. Thank you, Ken. It's an honor.

Well, I am really excited to see how this all plays out. It's going to be fun. We'll keep you posted. And maybe Eric, we put the winner on the phone and share the story and where the shed is going go. That'll be fun. So we'll keep you posted on that. Also, you know, we thought it would be fun to remind you that the EMS that we've talked about prior to the conversation, and you heard Kent talk about it where he learned about KRA's key result areas. Well, we are reformatting what was already a stellar event. I think it's going to even be better. The new look, EMS, Entree

Master Series, March 13 through 17, three days of teaching from Dave, Chris Hogan, Christy as you've come to expect. But on the fourth day, and I love this new format. This is where it changes. It's not teaching anymore. It's practical application. How do you take everything that you've just been flooded with over three days and then begin to apply it so that you can take it back into your world

and make it work so that you can win big? So it's going to be fun. March 13 through 17. You can sign up, get all the details that you want. Talk to our team. Entreleadership.com is where you start for all of that. We'd love to see you there. And moving on,

into an actual clip is what we want to do. We pulled Dave's teaching on KRAs. You hear us talk about clarity all the time in KRA's key result areas, which becomes a document that every person on the team at Ramsey Solutions gets before they sign up. This is what we see is your KRA, key result area. This is what you do and how you do it. Tremendous clarity from day one.

So here's Dave teaching on this very, very important tool. The best way to develop a job description, we call it a KRA, a key results area. Now, we keep it very, very, very simple. It's very clean, there's not much to it. There's several examples of some of ours at the end of your chapter, if you want to flip and look at them later. But it's just, it's like three Roman numerals. Roman numeral one, this is the general thing we want you to do with your job. Then Roman numeral two is this is a secondary, and Roman numeral three is this is the third.

and that's the order of priority, and you look at it, you understand it, we talk about it. In other words, this is how we define winning. A new team member with a new position, we often ask them to write their own KRA. Now, this is not someone joining, okay, if I've got a sales team, I've got 28 salespeople doing nothing but calling churches all day long, we don't need a new KRA for that if you become one of those people, a church advisor, we call them. If you're going to be one of those, that KRA's already written, you're going to accept the one that the other 28 people are on. But if it's a brand new position, we've never filled this position before, we've never done it before.

We don't, we want you to kind of act like you know what you're going to be doing and write it all out. And see how well we communicated in the interview process, in other words, of what we expect of you. What does winning look like? That's the answer we're trying to answer. The KRA lists areas of which results are expected, measured, and reported. Now, when that new team member writes out there on KRA, we don't just go with it. We sit down with them and then we get to adjust it and it's an opportunity for us to have a lot of clarity right as they start their job with us of exactly what winning looks like.

You do this, you're a rock star. To the extent you don't do this, we all got problems. Lots and lots of clarity. Now listen, 90% of you in here do not have. written job descriptions for your people. You've got to go home and do this. Immediately. You're killing them.

They don't know what the flip you want them to do. You think you've told them, and when you sit down to write this, you're going, God, they've been with me five years, and they still don't know what they're supposed to be doing. And you know whose fault that is? Yours. Yours.

Every single person on the team, no matter what they do, has to have a written key results area, job description. Every person. It's your biggest investment. Look at your P&L. Number one item on the P&L. Always. Payroll. Human resources cost almost every company more than anything else costs. And in most companies, it costs you twice what everything else costs. It's not only the biggest, it's the biggest times two of anything else in there. For goodness sakes, make sure you're getting a clear return on that investment because I promise you you're going to be amazed you thought that Joe he does

such a good job and when you sit down with Joe and you go okay Joe let's write out these KRAs I don't even know how to do it I've never done it before let's sit down here and work on it just together I learn this and I really want to try it I think it makes sense and he's going to be going this is what I do and you're going you've been here seven years no this is what you do you know no this is what I do and you're going to have this conversation you're going oh my God for seven years this is This guy's been, he's not, he's not 90 degrees off of where he's supposed to be, but he's a good seven or eight degrees off. And you're going, man, you know, no wonder we keep pulling it.

He's pulling that way. I'm pulling this way. No wonder we're not winning. It's going to blow you away. Nobody does this. And even the ones that do it, don't do it well, usually. We have found this one thing. Changes our hiring process, changes our firing process, changes our communication process

with team members. It's unbelievably powerful. All right, folks, I told you about free stuff. Two free offerings I want to tell you about right now. This is really fun. We need a free stuff piece of music. We need a free stuff song. We need something like this, Eric, in the future.

I need a little free stuff thing here. But right now, I'm just going to get right to it. This is good stuff. First things first. We've got a brand new free webinar. We've told you about this. I want to remind you. It's called Entree Leadership Defined.

Eight core principles that Dave Ramsey is used to run our company. still use this. This is a great next step. If you've been listening and engaging in this conversation and you say, okay, I want to make this come alive, this philosophy of Entree Leadership, which has worked so well for Ramsey Solutions, I want to make this come alive in my organization. Antre Leadership defined free webinar is a great place to start. February 17th, 1 p.m. Central. February 17th, 1 p.m. Central, did I mention enough that it's free? There you go. Now, because it's free, everybody's coming into this. thing, so there will be a cap on attendance. So here's how you register.

One, you can text the word entree leadership to 33-44-4. Text the word, Entree leadership to 33-44-4. Or you can click on the link in the show notes of this podcast episode, which you can find at Entreleadership.com slash podcast. So just go to Entreleadership.com slash podcast in this episode. You can click on the link,

register there. Now, if you're listening to this several weeks later, because we know this happens, it's an on-demand medium. Well, we do a webinar every month. So just to kind of get in the mix and find out what we're bringing to you, very easy. Text the word, Entree Leadership to 33444, and it will sync you up with the most current offering. So this is a great way to kind of just, hey, I just want to get in the mix so that I know what's coming down the pipe. Free item number two. We're really excited about this. We've been telling you, we've been skiing, teaming with Infusionsoft to bring you more value. Period. End of statement. So, you know, we talked about this in our last episode, Chad Kirby, and I talked about leads. They have figured out how to

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All right. All right, moving right along. Karen Merrick is a force of nature, and I believe that Christy Wright is our own very force of nature. And I say that, if you never heard that phrase before, I want to make very clear. This is a high compliment. These people that are forces of Asia, they just naturally are dynamic. They just get stuff done. They affect people in a positive way.

Christy Wright, my colleague, is certainly that. So I thought it would be fun to pair her up with a lady by the name of Karen Merrick. Now, I introduced you to her very briefly at the top of the podcast, but just in summary, one of our board members, Tony Bradshaw, saw an article from Karen Merrick, entitled, Ten Things Highly Successful Female Leaders Should Never Do. It was in Inc. Magazine. And so I thought, how fun would it be to get Christy Wright with Karen Merrick and talk about this great article? So here it is, our very own Christy Wright talking with Karen Merrick.

On 10 things, highly successful female leaders should never do. Karen, thank you so much for taking some time to chat with us. Thank you for having me. So I know for our listeners, you know, we all want to grow ourselves. We want to grow our teams. We want to grow our businesses. and one of the best ways to do that is to work on some personal qualities that can help you be a better leader. And so as we go through this article that you wrote on 10 things, highly successful female leaders should never do,

I want to look at a couple of these because I think you've given us some really good tips on things to avoid. It's very easy to sometimes look at, you know, here's ways to improve, but we may miss some things that we're doing that are actually holding us back. And so I'd love to just kind of walk through this, and you can give us your insight on some of these things and why they're important. Sounds great. Now, before we start, you've got 10 things here, so I would love to ask you, Karen, let's have an honest moment. How many of these things have you done in your career? Because I know your experience, you have an incredible resume.

Tell me from your experience, how many of these have you maybe struggled with? Well, actually, the reason I wrote this article is because I've struggled with all of them at one time or another, right? And I've discovered that, especially when I'm in the midst of a struggle, if I can go back to even one of these ideas, I will often get the self-discovery or the epiphany that I need to help me understand what's really going on and then fix it, move on and let it go. That's great. And I love that too because a lot of times in leadership and especially in small businesses, we are just trying to keep up, right?

And we're constantly putting out fires. And sometimes it's hard to go back and assess, you know, what went wrong in that situation or how could I have done that better or learn from that? So this is such a great outline for us to go through and look at here are 10 things that we should avoid at all costs. So we'll just kind of jump right in if it's okay with you. And the first one you list here is you never want to lead others before you lead yourself. Now, tell me what you mean by that. Well, it's interesting because you just really touched on that, Christy, by what you just said.

And one of the reasons this is so important is because people's skills are really the key to success in any kind of a business. And if you don't understand what makes you tick, it's going to make it a lot more difficult for you to understand what you are. team members, what makes them tick what your customers, partners, and suppliers are like, because you're dealing with people all day long. Once you start to understand your own strengths and weaknesses, the real benefit is that you're much more empathetic and compassionate towards other people. And you really need those types of virtues when you're in business. Absolutely. And I think you just said something really important that I want to go back to you really quickly. All of the opportunities you will ever have in life come through people. And so really tapping into

to that, that learning how to be good with people and understanding yourself and them is so important. And I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with this, but we actually teach the disc assessment. And that's one of the many strengths assessments that you can use. There's strengths finders. There's Myers-Briggs. There's tons of options out there. But what you're saying is it's just important to pick one of those, understand yourself so that you can be more successful and stay in your strengths. And that's such a great tip too, because you're going to be the most successful when you stay in your strengths.

Now your fourth one here is you never want to forget to prioritize your spiritual, mental, and physical health. And this is a big one, Karen. I'm excited that we're going to talk about this because I travel all over the country speaking on this idea of life balance and prioritizing your schedule and making time for parts of your life outside of the business, which is tough sometimes because we love our business. It's our baby in many cases. And so we love it, but it can become all consuming. And so talk to us a little bit about how you want to prioritize these other. areas of your life and why that's important. Oh, well, I'm a working mom. So I have two teenage sons and I've been married for 22 years to my husband and he's also an entrepreneur. And so there's a lot of energy in our household, a lot of people making plans for the future and trying to achieve our potential. That's a nice way to say it. There's a lot of energy in your household. Yes, two teenage sons. There is a lot of energy in the household. And one of the early businesses that

I started was before we had children. I started a business first, and then my husband and I started one together later. And so when you don't have children, you can really let your life get very out of balance. And I'm afraid that I did do that. I worked all the time because it was so energizing and exciting to have a business and to keep figuring out how to make it better, how to develop better products. And it's wonderful when you are doing work worth doing. And that's a really critical factor in being happy, working towards your potential. But I also, So, you know, as I've grown and I've sort of learned from my mistakes, I realize also that my physical health is really the key.

It's the key for me to achieve all of the other things that I want to do with my life as a mom, as a wife, as a member in the community who's making a difference. And so now I make a point of investing in my own physical health. And one of the things that I did is because I'm so busy, I'm always looking for ways to make it very convenient because studies show that you'll have healthy habits when you make them convenient for yourself. So I went out and I invested in a treadmill desk. And so now, like I'm on my treadmill desk now, I'm not walking. So you can't hear me huffing and puffing, but I do, I have done meetings with customers and others over, you know, while I'm on my treadmill desk. So, and I'll just

explain to them. I'm on my treadmill desk. And people appreciate knowing that you are, but also I can get in a three to five miles a day because I know that when I am healthy and when I'm exercising and I get those creativity boost, then everything else is going to be better. Right, exactly. And people talk about time like it's this thing that you can just get more of, but it's not. It's finite. We all have the exact same amount of hours in a day. And so it puts us all in an even playing field. So therefore, how we use our time becomes a major factor in our ability to be successful. And I work with people all over the country, specifically women. And you'll hear things where they say things. I was like, well, that would be nice if I had time. Well, if I had the time she has, well, it'd be nice to have that much time. I'm like, you don't have or not have time. We all have the exact same amount of hours. And most people really, if we're just going to be honest here, Karen. Most people don't have a time problem. They have a priority problem. Right. And so that's what you're talking about. You're talking about get those priorities in order and then you're not looking at the lack of time because you're doing the right thing. So I love that you emphasize that because that's definitely something I see when I'm traveling and speaking. Number six, you talk about showing gratitude and

successful people never forget to show gratitude. And there are so many benefits to gratitude that I think people miss. And so I love that you actually hit on this. Talk about in your experience why this is so important. So, you know, gratitude, I think, again, it starts with yourself. I do this every morning. I do a little gratitude walk and it really helps me regain my perspective. It renews my mind because there are always things to be grateful for. And I don't know if you've noticed when you say thank you to someone and you look them in the eye, you can see a visible change on their face. Some people are actually surprised, you know, like at the local grocery store or the Uber driver. And I always usually strike up a conversation with the Uber drivers, even if I have work to do, because everyone is

worthy of gratitude and that kind of respect that acknowledges them. Everyone in the organization needs that. And the more personal you can make it, the better. I like that too, because it's very interesting how gratitude I've found is the gateway to so many other qualities that we all want. And we miss gratitude. We forget that, like, oh, well, I'll stop and be thankful next time next week. You know, I'll slow down next time. But you really can't have a lot of things we want in life unless you're grateful. And so it's interesting to see how if you can really focus on this one habit you're talking about, if you can focus on intentionally having gratitude, being thankful, being grateful for every aspect of your life throughout the day, practicing this mindset, then it's the gateway to happiness. It's

the gateway to contentment. It's the gateway to humility. It actually makes people like you. People like grateful people. And so there's all these benefits to being grateful, but we miss that because we get so busy. Indeed, if I could just add one other one, is that it brings you clarity. It really brings you clarity because if you're feeling discouraged by something, if you take a look and say, okay, well, where are the points for me to be grateful in this situation? You will find them. And it's out of those bits of clarity that you often find the solution. So if you're not looking for those, you may be missing out on critical information. Plus, it does actually boost your spirits. It absolutely does. Now, before we wrap up, I want to hit on one more that I think is really important,

especially as we're talking about women specifically. And I'll coach women all over the country, and I know you work specifically with women as well. And so I think this one is very important because it's a struggle for us. And you said, successful women never fail to support other women. And I think this is a really important point for us to sit on for a minute because women have this idea that there is scarcity in the marketplace. If she's successful, it takes away from me. If I help her, then I'm going to get behind somehow. And there's this fear-based decision-making where we feel like we've got to struggle and fight and strive to get ahead, and there's no room for everyone. And so talk to me a little bit about how you're seeing this play out in the benefits

of women supporting other women. Oh, that's such a great question. Well, it is true that if you're beginning with a scarcity mentality, you might see the world like that, but nothing could be further from the truth. There are so many opportunities for women within every organization. I have been very fortunate and blessed that I did have a few women along the way who mentored me and who were very generous. And so they role-modeled that for me, and some men as well. And I've actually encountered other women who aren't like that. And it really grieves my heart because I think it's not necessarily a commentary on their character. It's a commentary on their perspective. This is a point, not only for women when you're working with each other, but for leaders who hire people. You want to

hire the smartest people you can. In some ways, they should be smarter than you. Right. Especially in ways where you maybe have a weakness, or that's not your strength, which is another reason why you should understand what your strengths are. But it's really true. You should always seek to associate with the best and the brightest. And that's a leadership can be very humbling and all of these are different different angles of humility because it can be humbling to do that. But you're right. If you want to be successful and if you want your business to be successful, it requires taking some of those actions. Now we've covered most of the examples you have in your list. But if you guys want to learn more or read more in detail, the article is on ink.com and it's 10 things. Highly successful

female leaders should never do. So it's great tips for all of us, but specifically women. And we have some good examples in there that you guys can look and read and learn from as you grow yourself, your team, and your business. Thank you so much for sharing with us, Karen. And I know this has been not only helpful for our listeners, but it's been helpful for me. So I've enjoyed hanging out with you for a little bit. Thank you so much again. Thank you.

Our thanks to Christy Wright for that conversation. If you want to learn more about Karen and what she's doing with Your Pocket Mentor, you can go to your pocketmentor.com. Your Pocket Mentor.com. And again, Karen's link to the article is in the show notes. So just go to our episode here on entreleadership.com slash podcast, and you can get that article if you'd like to do more with that. Coming up on our next episode, we're diving into a very niche topic, but I think it's going to really help so many of you. Family business.

You know, we have a unique distinction. We are a family business. And we know that this is a big topic and it's important. And we're going to dive deep and really help you out. Those of you that this hits right between the eyes, you don't want to miss our next episode. be some other great content as well, but wanted to tease that. Well, we want to thank Kent Laugh from Wood Tech. We want to thank Karen Merrick for being a part of the podcast.

Christy Wright for The Guest Conversation. Always love when she stops by the podcast. And as always, on behalf of Eric Anthony and the entire Entree leadership team, we want to thank you, our loyal listeners, for the listen. We appreciate you so much, and we'll talk with you again very soon.