RealTalk Podcast with Maureen Borzacchiello Maureen Borzacchiello

RealTalk Podcast:  Episode 17
Guest: Alicia Marie
Personal growth and development is critical to effective leadership. There is a huge misconception…Leaders are NOT born, they are trained, coached and developed to become great leaders. 
Leadership is relational, not transactional and has nothing to do with big personalities, charm or being persuasive. Those attributes are useful in interpersonal relationships, in sales but have nothing to do with what determines a great leader. Maureen’s guest is Alicia Marie, an expert in the field of leadership development. She has expertise and education and psycholinguistics, humanities, marketing leadership and management.
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Introduction: 
Alicia Marie is a national leader in the field of leadership development. She founded People Biz, Inc. in 2000 with the intention of providing TOTAL personal and professional development solutions for individuals, teams, and organizations. She specializes in creating customized Leadership and Management programs based on desired outcomes. She has been a professional trainer for more than twenty years AND a professional coach with more than 20,000 paid coaching hours over the last 21 years. She possesses a UNIQUE education in Psycho-Linguistics, Humanities, Business, and Marketing. 
Key Takeaways:
In this episode, you’re going to gain valuable insights and learn about:
Emotional intelligence and its correlation to leadership. Transactional management vs developmental leadership. The power in developing language around emotion and how we live life from experience to experience. Executive Function and engagement. Stages of creation. The power of words (neurolinguistics). Energy for engagement and courageous action. Resilience and how it is a function of ego!!  (ego drive and ego resilience…this was fascinating!) Imposter Syndrome and perfectionism.  
Best advice Alicia Marie ever received:  Be yourself.  Always.
REALTALK: The best leaders are the ones who work on themselves all the time - they are the people who invest in learning, growing and self-discovery.  
 
Resources:
Leading Change Program 
Coaching Skills for Leaders
Coaching Services
 
Guest:
Alicia Marie
 
Company:
People Biz, Inc. 
https://peoplebizinc.com
 
Social: 
@peoplebizinc - Facebook
@aliciamariepeoplebiz - Instagram
@PeopleBiz  - Twitter
Alicia Marie - People Biz, Inc. - Youtube
People Biz, Inc - LinkedIn
 
Listen and Subscribe on: iTunes  |  Stitcher  |  Google Play  |  Spotify 
 
We'd love to hear from you!  If there are topics or burning issues that you'd love to hear about, or if you would like to be considered as a guest on the RealTalk Podcast with Maureen Borzacchiello, just shoot us a note:  podcast@maureenborza.com or complete this short questionnaire:    https://programs.maureenborza.com/ 
Want to learn more and connect with like-minded women? Click here to join our RealTalk Community
 
SEE TRANSCRIPTION BELOW
Maureen Borzacchiello: (00:00)
Alicia Marie is a national leader in the field of leadership development. She founded people biz Inc in 2000 with the intention of providing total personal and professional development solutions for individuals, teams, and organizations, she specializes in creating customized leadership and management programs based on desired outcomes. She has been a professional trainer for more than 20 years and a professional coach with more than 20,000 paid coaching hours. Over the last 21 years, she possesses a unique education in psycholinguistics, humanities business, and marketing. Alicia is a mother of three adult children and a grandmother of two. She is a yoga enthusiast and runner and the newlyweds, her sweet and adoring soulmate. Having spent most of her life in Texas. She currently resides in the Austin Metro area and works with clients globally. I am not only blessed to have worked with Alicia Ma

RealTalk Podcast:  Episode 16
Guest: Gail Davis
It’s so fascinating how one experience can be a turning point that shapes one's career, life, decisions!  Hear how the movie Alive became a catalyst for Gail Davis, corporate professional in the meetings and events space, to start her own company GDA Speakers.
 
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Gail Davis is the founder of Gail Davis and Associates, a leading Speaker Bureau Agency.  She is the past President of the International Association of Speakers Bureaus and has served as IASB's governor, where she developed new education programs for members worldwide and through increased investment in the industry.  Gail has won numerous awards, including Dallas's top 25 Women in Business. She is an accomplished corporate marketing and events professional turned entrepreneur who has dedicated decades to her craft before becoming an entrepreneur and creating Gail Davis and Associates. 
Key Takeaways:
Considerations for becoming a Public Speaker:
Understanding the realities of being a speaker Are you willing to invest the time to pay your dues to build a name for yourself? Invest in doing it well to be an amazing speaker - Hire a speaking coach Hiring and Managing People:
Frustration is nothing more than unmet expectations Don’t be afraid to pay for talent Be very clear about expectations Building a team is an opportunity to grow as a leader... to understand the nuances of how people learn and how you can communicate Personal Growth:
Moments of self-doubt can be overcome by time and personal growth - which leads to confidence.   Recognize opportunities for growth and give yourself grace to learn and evolve. Key to Gail’s success:  Gail is super passionate about being a connector and helping people learn. Resiliency is the second biggest key to her success.
REALTALK:  It can be EXHAUSTING surrounding yourself with people just like YOU!!!  Surround yourself with people with different strengths and acknowledge them...often!  
Resources:
The Wealthy Speaker 2.0: The Proven Formula for Building Your Successful Speaking Business 
by Jane E. Atkinson (Author)
The Three Ring Circus Bootcamp:  https://3ringcircus.com/bootcamp/
Guest:
Gail Davis
Company:
GDA Speakers
https://www.gdaspeakers.com/
 
Social: 
@GDAspeakers - Facebook
@gdaspeakers - Instagram
@GDASpeakers - Twitter
GDA Speakers - Youtube
GDA Speakers - LinkedIn
Listen and Subscribe on: iTunes  |  Stitcher  |  Google Play  |  Spotify 
 
We'd love to hear from you!  If there are topics or burning issues that you'd love to hear about, or if you would like to be considered as a guest on the RealTalk Podcast with Maureen Borzacchiello, just shoot us a note:  podcast@maureenborza.com or complete this short questionnaire:    https://programs.maureenborza.com/ 
Want to learn more and connect with like-minded women? Click here to join our RealTalk Community
 
SEE TRANSCRIPTION BELOW
Maureen Borzacchiello: (00:00)
Gail Davis is an accomplished corporate marketing and events professional turned entrepreneur. She dedicated decades to her craft before becoming an entrepreneur and creating Gail Davis and Associates, a leading speakers Bureau and agency. Gail set out to do things a little bit differently than the norm. And her company is not only a service provider, but a true trusted partner with their clients. Almost two decades later, GDA has built a database of world-renowned thought leaders and expert in her field. Gail is a past president of the international association of speakers bureaus. Prior to that, she served as IASB's governor, where she developed new education programs for members worldwide and through increased investment in the industry. Overall, Gail has won numerous awards, including Dallas's top 25 women in business. Gail. We are so excited to have you here today. Welcome.
Gail Davis: (01:00)
Thank you, Maureen. I've been l

RealTalk Podcast:  Episode 15
Guest: Francine Glick
Francine Glick, founder of Echo Strategic Consultants and Water Journey, a personal care product company. Francine has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a BA in computer science from Barnard College at Columbia University. 
She is a perfect example of the crossroads where super-intelligent meets the super creative problem solver. Her background as an expert in Mergers and Acquisitions, specializing in the technology space enabled her to leverage her skills as she transitioned to entrepreneur and innovator when she created the category of alcohol-free hand sanitizers, and she received two patents.
Key Takeaways, Tips and RealTalk:
Just because you think you have something that's patentable doesn't mean that it is. A patent is expensive. Use caution about jumping into soon and really think about whether it's important to patent your product. Patent pros:  Gives you a marketing advantage If you want to sell your company to a larger company, the larger companies are very interested in patents. When dealing with the retail marketplace, they want more SKUs. They don't want one product. They want more!  Once you have the traction and the numbers are kicking in - roll out your next product.  Don’t bring too many products to market too soon but at the same time, get prepared for “what’s next” once the primary product is thriving. When working with Big Box Retailers:  You need to be the expert in your space to explain to them how this is going to increase their sales and who’s going to buy it.  You have to be able to articulate who that ideal client is that buys your product so that collectively you can collaborate and market to them Big Box Retail is not always the best route. Really analyze whether your product is a good fit for that particular Big Box: Is there alignment with core values or does it just happens to be a product that everyone wants or needs in some capacity?  Relationships are important. Cultivate great relationships with your buyers and suppliers and MOST importantly, your banker (especially before you need your bank and more money).   Growth and Scaling: When you think about growth, don’t forget about the cash flow. When you're in a product business, you need to plan ahead and think through what growth will look like. It’s not just about increased sales revenue, it’s about funding more product as you grow and scale and expanding logistics and operational efficiencies.      
Guest:
Francine Glick 
 
Companies:
 
Water Journey
https://www.waterjourney.com/
 
Echo Strategic Consultants
www.echo-strategic.com
 
Social: 
Hands2GO Alcohol-free Hand Sanitizer - Facebook @save_our_hands - Twitter @hands2go - Instagram Hands2GO - Amazon
We'd love to hear from you!  If there are topics or burning issues that you'd love to hear about, or if you would like to be considered as a guest on the RealTalk Podcast with Maureen Borzacchiello, just shoot us a note:  podcast@maureenborza.com or complete this short questionnaire:    https://programs.maureenborza.com/

RealTalk Podcast:  Episode 14
Guest:  Lisa Song Sutton
About Lisa:
Successful serial entrepreneur Real estate investor Former Miss Nevada - United States Former Congressional Candidate for Nevada’s 4th District. Former attorney who started her business career working in a top Las Vegas law firm, specializing in business litigation.  Started her first business, Sin City Cupcakes in 2012.  
Companies:
Sin City Cupcakes
Ship Las Vegas
Elite Homes - Christie’s International Real Estate 
Liquid and Lace Swimwear
Lisa often publishes articles for periodicals like Forbes, Inc Magazine, and Business Insider on all things, business, and entrepreneurship. She's passionate about sharing her message of leadership and empowerment as well as action...encouraging people, especially women to take a seat at the table and make their voices heard. 
Key Takeaways and show notes from Lisa Song Sutton:
Partnerships and Business Models:  
No company stays the same forever so, your paperwork then also has to change along with the company Have a discussion with your partner and make sure you guys are on the same page because if one of you wants to have a legacy business and the other wants to eventually sell it, in 60 months, that's the misalignment.  A business is going to go through life cycles. If it's a legacy business or lifestyle business, that's one thing….But when you're ramping up and getting strategic and positioning it to sell, it's a very different animal, and you really need to take a different approach as to how you run it. (i.e. how lean, how systemized, a little more frugal, etc). Work-life Balance has to be your own definition of it. It's not going to be 50/50. There are going to be some days where it's less than more. When you're in the beginning stages of your company expect to be in the trenches, don't expect to take your weekends off. Don't expect to take days off.   If you do,  you're setting yourself up for failure. You need to go in with blinders on and just say, okay, am I willing to not take a vacation for the next two years? You have to be intense if you're serious about getting your business to a place of stability. Systems and Operations:
Document everything - all processes and procedures.   It's so helpful for training new employees because the documents already exist. It's easier than as you make tweaks to your processes and systems just to update them. It's also great insurance. If a key person leaves your company and they were the one that responsible for a lot of tactical day-to-day things because someone else can pick up where they left off Support and Mindset:
When you go through a rough time, you can't let it discourage you to the point where you're like, I'm just not going to do this at all. I think it's really important just to not let yourself get to that point. Cause you've worked so hard to build this. Surround yourself with good supportive people. You're going to them for support and confidence because your confidence has now been shocked and hit because of the situation. So you have to surround yourself with people who believe in you. Most  women who are overachievers tend to suffer from occasional bouts of imposter syndrome I think imposter syndrome, is such a human thing. It can be a blessing in the sense that it keeps you humble, at least for me. I never get too big for my britches regardless of what the facade is or what the social media facade is. I never get too big for my britches. I remember where I come from. And I think somewhere that little bit of self-doubt that I'll carry or that will pop up from time to time. That's my reality check to keep grinding.  You never know everything. So I think they can be a blessing. So instead of looking at imposter syndrome as we have to eliminate those, that, every day is superwoman. That's not true. The cape has to go in the wash sometimes.  When I feel discouraged or in control, I'll grab a notepad and I'll start ma

RealTalk Podcast:  Episode 13
Tori Ganahl and Heidi Ganahl
The mother-daughter, founders of Shefactor, an online platform for young women looking to create a life they love.  Heidi Ganahl is a serial entrepreneur. She gave up a successful, but slightly unfulfilling career in pharmaceutical sales while turning a personal tragedy of being widowed, super young in life into an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of people and their pets. As the founder of camp bow wow, the largest pet care franchise in the US which grossed over $100 million. She sold that company and is living the dream.   Tori Ganahl. Her daughter was raised by this amazing human being and benefited from having such a bad-ass mom. Tori while in college demonstrated her leadership and people skills by becoming a sophomore president of the largest sorority on campus at the University of Oregon. When she graduated, she realized she was stuck in a corporate job that just wasn't fulfilling in the real world.  Tori and her mom tackled this issue head-on and ended up creating the Shefactor platform to help other young women navigate the journey of becoming confident, successful leaders of their lives and creating the life that they loved. They've reached over 1 million women in one year, and boy, they are just getting started. Key Takeaways:
Business is like a baby. You got to get it there. If you can really align what you're doing with your career, with your life, with what you're passionate about, what you care about, it just makes all the difference in your success, in how your attitude and the people that you're around with. It's just so much more fun. When you have partners, there's that extra dynamic because you both have different points of view. start with figuring out what you're good at and your strengths, and then relying on other people to do the things that you might not be as good at, but they are. And that's also a leadership moment. Cause if you're not giving them that freedom to do what they are great at, then you're depriving them of that too. You have to build relationships with your customers, and our customers need fun, lighthearted, little bits of inspiration every day. We're slowly building this community of growth-oriented young women who really get how important it is to take a second out of the day to read a little bit of inspiration, laugh, smile, or just take a tidbit of advice and move on with your day. when it comes to content, it's about just speaking directly to the customer and in me creating this content. And more recently we've completely boiled it down to just me doing it all because the thing is, people, connect with a person and that's how they connect with the brand.  You have to create memorable moments and things happening in your company and your brand that they want to hear about and they want to report about. Always look for opportunities to do things a little bit different or edgy to grab their attention so that they would want to have a relationship with us and report about what we were doing. one of the core things we built Shefactor on was this statistic that young women only stay at their jobs right now for an average of 18 months. Now, how do you build women into the C-suite and women onto the board of directors if they won't stay at the company, when they're 25 years old for longer than 18 months, it just doesn't work? You can't just walk in with the same old, same old, you need to know your audience, you need to know your data and you need to give them something that's really intriguing and interesting. I feel like we ask for this because we need affirmation that what we're doing is good and what we're doing was great. And you know, we're in the right spot, but you have to be your own cheerleader. Like you have to tell yourself that those things were great. So it starts with how you talk to yourself and then the more you've got, you're like, yeah, I can own that. You have to be selfish to reson

RealTalk Podcast:  Episode 12
Guest: Wendy Pease 
Wendy Pease is on a mission: to unite people across languages and cultures.  In this episode of the RealTalk podcast, Wendy shares insights, tips and strategies to help entrepreneurs evaluate and consider marketing globally, as well as the benefits of investing in proper, high quality translation to market in different languages.
Key Takeaways:
Exporting Advise:  Consider leveraging grants from the Federal Government to grow and scale through exporting
Marketing Globally:  
90% of people would rather spend time on a site that is in their native language and more than 50% said they would pay more English is NOT the global language - people want to converse in their native language, so although they may be capable of speaking English, they prefer to interact in their naitive tongue. The United States does not have an official language! ROI: sales, brand recognition, engagement Many companies start by marketing to other English speaking countries - but you could be going into an extremely competitive market instead of spending a small amount on translation RealTalk Tip:  When considering exporting to another country:  Figure out what the biggest markets for your products or service (look at your google analytics + market research)
Advice:  Pick one country and master that and then move on to pursuing other countries/languages Be careful about free translations like Google Translate for things like quality/in-depth translations. AI (Artificial Intelligence) translation is good for words, more than phrases… particularly generational or dual meanings, geographic use of words, dialect… so to ensure that you are paying for quality Determine if you need to globalize your marketing  or localize (b to b will tend to lean globalized and b to c will tend to lean localized) Localization:  is marketing to a local region - especially if you are a consumer product Cultural:  think about the cultural traditions, positions, standards for doing business so that you understand expectations when traveling abroad The second largest Spanish Speaking country in the world is the US!  So think about the benefits of converting your marketing even if you are not planning to export. When thinking about going global, some things to consider are:
What is your buyer or consumer’s journey? What’s their and what can solve my problem What solutions are out there Easy way to buy So if you look at your website, what does your site offer to walk prospects through that journey, is your site clear? Which pages would you then want/need to convert/translate to a micro site, in the additional language Consider converting your FAQ or Chat Bot into the additional language? Recommendations:
STEP funding for Federal Grants:  https://www.rapporttranslations.com/blog/us-small-business-association-step-grant-initiative
Understanding and Managing Cash Flow:
Learn what your breakeven numbers look like Put systems in place to ensure that you understand your numbers Have a line of credit in place - an emergency fund Develop a relationship with your banker - BEFORE you need it Understand the difference between good debt and bad debt Networking Tips:
You never know where your business is going to come from
Going into networking from the perspective of getting to know people and find ways to give/help/connect.  “Givers Gain”
Build relationships
Book:  You, You, Me, You by Jayne Mattson
LinkedIn is the same as physical networking: 
Find common ground Chime in to discussions Set a goal to connect and get followers based on Giving/Sharing content that helps people (and relates to your product/service/industry in some capacity) Create a content calendar regarding what you want to post to bring value Engage:  answer questions, comment on other people’s content Build time to do the engagement part so that you are not a phantom Mentions: 
Leading Change Course from People