How to Achieve Total World Domination - Linda Ruffenach

Hello and welcome to the Shock youk Potential podcast. I am your host, Michael Sherlock. Each one of us holds great potential and tapping into that potential is my passion and my mission. Shock youk Potential is a global leadership training company dedicated to creating positive, productive and profitable workplaces. We develop, nurture, train, and guide leaders at all levels and at all points in their career. Through this podcast, I get to interview amazing leaders who are shocking their own potential and the potential of those around them. Learn more about us today@shockyourpotential.com and shockyourpotentialpodcast.com and don't forget to check out my two best selling books. Tell me more how to ask the right questions and get the most out of your employees and save sales mixology. Why the most potent sales and customer experiences follow a recipe for success. Join us now as we meet another great guest. And don't forget, subscribe, rate and like us today.

Hello and welcome again to another episode of Shock youk Potential. And we are continuing with our coaching series where I'm bringing together people who coach individuals and businesses in a variety of ways. But my guest, I can't wait to talk about a number of things because her bio alone just makes me happy and smile. So I'm going to try not to screw up your last name. Linda, but Linda Rufenac. Did I do it?

She said thumbs up.

Now I don't always read people's bios, but I just thought this was great because you say you're an entrepreneur committed to helping business owners achieve their vision of to total world domination. Dun dun dun. Your history is amazing. We'll get into that a little bit. But I'm also going to want to discuss this other little project that you have called Whiskey Chicks this business. And I definitely want to talk to you about your book, how to Be a Bourbon Badass, because I am a bourbon fan and I think we're going to have so many different things to talk about. We're going to have a ball. So first of all, Linda, thank you for joining me and tell us a little bit about yourself and your business.

Well, great. Well first of all, thank you for having me on here. I really do appreciate it. It's always fun to talk to a fellow entrepreneur and someone with so much energy and passion. It's great. I watched some of your earlier podcasts and you can tell you're really passionate about what you do. So I spent 19 years with a startup company which eventually grew to an international business where we we ended up getting up to a hundred over $100 million. We had 11 locations in four different countries, and it was a wild rollercoaster ride. But through those 19 years, you know, I started out, ironically, as a programmer. I was a developer. And then 19 years later, I was actually CEO of the company. And through that time frame, I went through every crazy experience that you could, everything from rapid growth to quick decline, like, to, oh, my God, are we going to be able to keep the doors open to reinventing ourselves? And eventually we ended up selling the business. And when I decided to leave there, I didn't know what I wanted to do. But I also realized my network was kind of all related to that job. And a lot of my relationships were, and I wanted to meet other women who had nothing to do with my work, my spouse or kids. And that's kind of where whiskey chicks came from and where that came from. And then I also wanted to pay it forward because of the experiences that I had. And I recognized being a CEO was really hard, and it was sometimes very lonely where you didn't know where to go to get your help. You know, you had. In my case, I had a fantastic executive team working with me, and I also had a fantastic managing partner up at our parent company. But sometimes I just couldn't talk to them about the things I needed to talk about because it involved how I was going to talk to them. And so when I left, that's kind of what I kind of committed my life to being, is to being that person for business owners and CEOs, and having somebody who gets it that's been there, done that, and can help guide you through those situations that, you know, there's no training for. You know, there's, you know, it's kind of. It goes in those category of you can't make this stuff up, and sometimes you just need to figure out how to deal with those. You can't make the step up moments.

Yeah. And, you know, you're so right. I used to tell my team when I was with a company where we were going through really incredible transition. And, you know, at one point, I had 32 sales managers reporting to me. Thought I was going to lose my mind. Pretty much did a few times. But, you know, I used to tell them as I was trying to help them move from kind of a small company mindset to being a part of a really massive global company, that it's lonely at the top. And, you know, there are things that, as a leader, you do have to do to have separation from your team, because there are going to be times when you have to guide them, you have to give them, you know, performance discussions. You have to terminate them. You have to, you know, you have to have those moments where you can't be their friend. And when you can't be their friend, that also means you can't go to them for advice and that it can feel lonely. And you're absolutely right. As we're talking, I'm like, I'm going to ask you 10,000 questions while we're here, because I'm at that point with my company where we're actually growing to a level where it's going to move pretty rapidly to the next level. And by the way, we're starting another company alongside. Thank you. And I said to my husband, I go, here's the thing. I can't talk to you. I mean, I can talk to you about certain things, but other of these things I can't because you're going to talk to me like I'm your wife. I need to have somebody that I can have these discussions with and say, I need somebody who's been farther than I am to help me take, you know, some of those steps and not hit the landmine. So, you know, with. By you doing this, I can see that, that your knowledge and your experience probably is very welcome by your clients. In other words, they probably gravitate towards it and soak it all up.

Well, I hope so. You know, it's, it's, you know, once again, it kind of goes back to you, you know, for a lot of startups and a lot of businesses, and a lot of, I work with businesses have kind of gotten beyond that startup stage. You know, they're, you know, generally it's at $5 million or more in revenue and, and they're kind of starting to grow and they're not sure what do they do from here. Because a lot of them started because they were. Had a passion for a particular industry, they had a trade that they really cared about. They maybe bought a franchise, but a lot of them have not had classic business training and they just don't know what they don't know. And to actually try to break it down in simple ways and to say, here's some of the steps you can take and you don't have to solve everything at one time. You know, sometimes being a business owner, you get overwhelmed. And it can be related to growth. It could be related to challenging moments with your biggest client. It could be like right now, big challenges with talent and resources and how do you protect them and so all of those things you can anticipate. So having somebody to kind of guide you through those can be helpful. And, you know, I just like to add value where I can add value. You know, when I left working full time for a big company, I knew what I wanted and I knew what I didn't want. And part of that was that if I can't add value, then I don't want to do the work. And so it's real important that, you know, when I'm working with my clients, I probably interview them as much as they interview me because I want it to be a win win relationship for everybody. And that comes from actually spending time together and, you know, being receptive to that change, being receptive to hearing what it is you might want to do.

Well, I was thinking as you were talking to, you know, you were describing your clients as mostly being 5 million and up. And, you know, when people hear those numbers, sometimes they think, oh, well, you know, 5 million, what a, terrible, you know, situation. But it's actually, I think, harder to move between 5 to 10 million than it was to get to the first 5 million. So as you, you know, not that I have that in my business right now, but I've managed businesses at those levels. And you're almost giddy when you get to those really big first dollar marks and you're like, oh, look, our business is successful, but what gets you to those first landmark points is nothing that will get you to the next huge landmark point or get you to a hundred million, because the business has to operate differently and leadership has to think differently to get past those. What, you know, and that, that's a challenge when you work with businesses like this. You know, what are, if you had to narrow it down a little bit, what are the top few, you know, three to five challenges that they really face that you can help them with, that you help them to overcome?

Well, one of the things is kind of dispelling the myth that more revenue is the best thing for your business. You know, that a lot of people think that they're so focused on that revenue number and they're satisfied, and I'll call it satisfied with that bottom line profit number. But they get so focused in on, oh, I need to get this up to 5 million. I got to get it up to 7 million to get it, because I get to say I have this $7 million business. But it's far easier to run a $5 million business that's making $200,000 than it is to run a seven and a half million dollar business that's only bringing in $150,000. And there are so many companies that get so wrapped up into that that they, they don't realize that they're working harder, not smarter about what they're doing. So that's probably the first thing is really trying to figure out what's in your financials and where are you driving your profits, not just your revenues. You know, I'm one that says that, you know, not all revenue is good revenue and you need to understand the differences. The second piece is really understanding where you're making your money. A lot of customers, or a lot of clients of mine don't know which customers make them the most money, or they don't know what product line or service or offering makes them them the most money. And they gravitate towards those things that are kind of fun and sexy and. But at the end of the day they step back and if you really broke it down, they may be losing money on that. Actually had one client was exactly that, that their comfort level and the direction they were taking their business and investing in their sales was all on one side of the business. But they had this other side of the business that, that was basically printing what I call cash. I mean, it was like throwing off so much cash on it. But all the efforts were going to grow this other side. But really when you step back, that side of the business was losing a million dollars a year and it was being masked by the success of the other side. And so what we had to do is we had to step back and I really had to work with the CEO to get her mind around the fact that I know this is where you started the business and I know this is the core DNA of the business. We're not taking that away. We're just going to enhance and focus on this other side that you do really, really well. And by doing that, and it took a while to get there, we rebuilt her leadership team, we rebuilt some of the processes. We actually put budgets in place and a lot of companies have no budgets. And so through that, and it's funny because she called me last week and it's two years since we started the process and I have haven't worked with her for probably about six months, but she called me and said, linda, it's starting to work. We actually did this, this and this. And we have, you know, it was a customer care place, which is where I have a lot of background and we're building a new call center and we're doing this and it's actually going and I've got the best team in place. And it was really cool to have one of your clients call you up and thank you and say that you really did make a difference.

Well, and especially if you don't always see it immediately because a lot of the things you're putting in place really are long term strategies that have long term repercussions for a business. But if you don't do it, you won't have that. But it doesn't always immediately show up where people are recognizing saying, oh, now look, we have this, now we have more money right here today, or now we have a better team right here today. Every one of these steps takes time to do it right and to come to fruition.

Exactly. And probably the most important thing when it comes to a lot of clients I work with, which is recognizing that you can't completely segment your life. And that's where the total world domination comes into play. Which is, you know, total world domination doesn't mean you have to be a 20 million, 40 million, 50 million, $100 million company. It may mean that you're happy with being if, you know, a million dollars a year or you may even just be happy with, if I can turn off $100,000 cash on my business, then I'm happy as heck. And that's where I want to be. And that my lifestyle, this is what I want out of it in order for me to maintain my lifestyle. And everyone's lifestyle is different and the things you like are going to be different. And so some people get so overwhelmed with, I have to be here or I need to achieve this, otherwise I'm not successful. But sometimes it's okay to be where you're at and you don't have to necessarily grow. You have to be successful, still be relevant, and still be thinking about what your industry needs or your clients needs. You can't be apathetic about that. But you don't have to be aggressively growing your business if you're happy where you're at. Just make sure you're taking care of the customers you have, still keep it fresh by bringing a few in every once in a while. But you don't have to aggressively go after it if that's not where you want to be. And taking into account it's not just you. And you referenced your husband earlier. And you know, I've been very fortunate because I have a husband who's incredibly supportive and I go back to my career. The best advice I ever received Was in life, you can choose to take passengers or hostages, and passengers are a lot more fun to travel with. And so it's made a huge difference because there's moments that I'm ready to jump because I'm like, when I decide I want to do something, I'm ready to go. My husband's probably one of those one that stops, and he's thoughtful and he thinks about it. He's definitely my yang for my Yang, but, you know, I have to be mindful of stopping and saying I can't move forward until I make sure the people around me are on board. Otherwise, it doesn't work out.

Yeah, that is exactly the same situation. I am. My husband's very analytical. I am intuitive. And, you know, and so. And I'm, you know, out there going, going, going. And he's like, okay, wait, could we just, like, stop for a minute? I'm like, yeah, remember I told you about that, like, three weeks ago over a beer. And that counter sounds so familiar. So, yeah. So in. In the spirit of taking him as a passenger and not a hostage, I made him CFO because he knows I hate to do the financials anyway. However, then part of that process is he has to talk to me about the money, and I'm like, oh, that's no fun.

That's awesome.

Continue to magically appear. What are you talking about?

All those details. Those details, you know, but it was funny because when I was at the company was at for so many years, you know, there were days that I came home that were just horrible days and times that, you know, I would just basically throw up on my husband. Like, you wouldn't believe what happened to this and this and this. And, you know, I didn't make the decision to leave there until one time I came home and he looked at me and says, it's time for you to go. And at that moment, it was such a freeing moment for me that it's like, okay, I can do this, and I can go out on my own, and I do have the capability to earn money for myself, and it doesn't have to be all tied to this one thing that I felt like I was married to. And frankly, when I made that change, it was far easier than I expected it to be. You know, that once I was like, oh, my gosh, I thought my life was going to fall apart because I'd been there for so long that, you know, once I broke free, I never looked back.

Yeah, I had a very similar moment as well when I came home and said, all right, it's time for me to continue writing some more books. I want to speak. I want to train. And he's like, thank God. You've been driving me crazy.

Yeah, it's funny. I tried starting some of the speaking stuff earlier this year. My timing was a little off.

Good timing right now. Yeah, good timing. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting to see how businesses are coping and adapting, you know, during, you know, having such a massive change. And, you know, I just see it as so much opportunity to rethink how we do business at all, which is why I'm starting a whole other business. It just came out of, you know, kind of all of this, and I started really stopping myself. And, you know, I always have. I don't know where my notebook is, but I have a notebook that I'm constantly writing ideas in. And there were a lot of times when I'd say, okay, well, that's nice, but you've got this one path. Let's keep on the one path. Stay on the one path. And one day I was like, no, I need to trust my instincts on things more. Realize that there are times when I should be running. Now, it doesn't mean I should always run, and it doesn't mean I shouldn't run without communication, but it's about realizing when there's something there to go for, and it's fun. And I think, you know, as I've been talking with different coaches, it really is exciting to me to know when people were starting to get certified as coaches. And I'm going to say back in. You know, I'm thinking about maybe in the 90s when I started being aware of people with this. You know, I remember the first people that I knew that became certified coaches, I would have never trusted to coach me through anything. Lovely people. Lovely people. But had no. Should never have been doing that. And now I really see the evolution of people doing what you're doing and as coming from such incredible backgrounds and with so much experience and so many different visions of business and life that it seems like just the right time for people to realize that you can tap into other resources of what you can achieve by helping someone see the things you can't see yourself.

Yeah. Well, I've discovered that for many of my clients, they see it, but they don't have the confidence to push forward and to recognize that their gut is something worth listening to and that your intuition is far better than where you think it is. And that if you begin to gain confidence in your ability to listen to your instincts. It's what got you to where you are. And a lot of times it's reminding them that you got where you are because you listen to your gut, you worked hard, and you put in the work, and you know that sometimes you have to step back. And it also helps, I mean, go back to what I needed when I was CEO is it also helps to vet out those directions that you want to take and really start to talk them out, talk them through. And I like to call it peeling back the onion, right? Because you got to keep going one layer and then another layer and another layer. Because every decision has ripple effects. And, you know, obviously you gotta look at three things when you're making a decision within your business. You have to look at the impact to the client, you have to look at the impact to the employee, and you gotta look at the impact to the financials. And each one of those have, you know, additional ripple effects that you have to pay attention to. But I find that if you take a moment and think about those three things, and your decisions have a far greater chance of success than just kind of going with it. And trust me, I'm an activator, and so I'm very. I can be like, okay, get ready, let's go. But I've really disciplined myself to really think about those three things, because it's really what's needed to grow a business. I mean, we were. We had 3,000 employees, and so we had to make the employee experience the first and foremost thing in our business. And, you know, especially now with all this Covid stuff going on, they're your most important asset. And, you know, and I've seen so many businesses do it right, and I've seen so many businesses do it wrong. You know, they get so focused in on the financials and they knee jerk a little bit and like, oh, I got to lay them off, I got to furlough them. But basically what you've done is you've. You've taken away some of that trust that they can't necessarily rely on you. And if you do it without communicating the why behind it, then it's really bad. And so, you know, once again, being a leader is not an easy thing. But, you know, you've got that role, so you gotta. You gotta embrace and have to take it on.

I love that. I wrote that down. As you were saying, the impact to the client, the impact to the employee, and impact on the financials. And you're right. They. If you're only focused on one, you won't keep the balance. Because even if you make a knee jerk reaction, you know, and say we're gonna lay off, and then you know that that's going to have a negative impact on the employees, you may lose sight of what impact that could have on your clients. And if you have a reduction in your clients, you're even worse off. So it has to. It's like a teeter totter with all of them.

Yeah. Actually, one of my favorite questions to ask when I was interviewing leaders for our locations is I would ask them, you know, in, you know, I'm going to give you things in no particular order, but I want you to prioritize them, which is the customer experience, the employee experience, short term profits and long term profits. And I always said there was no right or wrong answer. But at the same time, the thing I was looking for is where in that equation did they put the employees and how did they look at the employees? My philosophy, particularly we were in people business, was you have to create that employee experience and you have to focus in on that and then the client experience will get even better and then that will lead to the financials.

Very good when you look back on your career and very interesting that you had such a space of time with one company and moved throughout and all the way up. But when you look back, you know, what's the most important professional lesson that you learned along the way that helped you to shock your own potential?

I think that the, probably the biggest thing that I learned well was probably about that employee experience. And part of it goes back to, you know, I thought I knew it all. You know, I was young, enthusiastic, energetic, and I knew had, I had all the answers right. I understood people, I knew everything. But, you know, we were in the customer care business and at one point our turnover was in excess of 200% a year. Now, in the outsourcing world, it wasn't unheard of, but we knew that if we didn't get it under control, we may not have a business. At the end of the day, you know, it was costing literally the business millions and millions of dollars a year. And we really had to step back and look at the employee experience. And what we realized was, you know, the demographic that we were working with, they came from a different background than we did, and we need to understand that background. We realized that some of our facilities weren't in the best shape and that really did make a difference. We didn't necessarily have the right leaders in place to really manage and lead the people the way that they needed to be led. We went back to Maslow's hierarchy of need, if you could believe that. That's where we started. We went back to first safety and security and then meeting the basic needs. And by doing that, we changed just some subtle things that had such a huge impact. You know, for instance, that when it came to when we would serve meals, I'm always, my big philosophy is attention, food and money in that order. And it's the best way to motivate people. But, you know, we went back to when we would serve lunches or bring in pizza. We moved them from whenever to a couple days before their paycheck because for a lot of these people, they didn't necessarily have everything they needed for food. And having that food there a couple days before their paycheck meant that they were going to get a hot meal. And then we also. I had this debate with several of my GMs, who. I was very tight on the financials, but at the same time, I balanced on the people side. I'm like, order extra pizza, let them take it home if they want to take it home, because that may be the meal that their kids need before they get their next paycheck. But it was things like that. And we were successful. We cut our turnover down to 80% 18 months later because we changed what our philosophy was and really focused in on the people. And in turn, our performance got significantly better for our clients.

Yeah.

Which in turn meant more profits, which was a good thing.

Yeah. And that's. I mean, that's really taking the bigger picture view and not making rash decisions because there's a moment of panic or, you know, by looking at the numbers and thinking the numbers tell the only picture. So that's. I love that. It's a great lesson to learn. I also like the fact that you said, you know, made me laugh because it made me think of me younger in my career where I thought I knew everything. And then there was a point where I'm like, I know nothing. And then I was like, you know what? I know some stuff, and I'm still going to make stupid mistakes. So, you know, let's just go with it.

You know, it's ironic you say that because I think in the last few years, owning this, I really realized I can't do it alone, and probably more so than I ever have in my career. You know, you think, okay, you're older, you're mature, you can. You have all the answers. You know, I should have them by now. But you realize the best Way to do business is to do it collaboratively and to reach out and get help in the areas you're not good at. You're never going to be good at everything. No one is. It's about knowing what it is you are good with, good where you are good, and then finding the other people who can help you in those other areas.

Amen. I think I finally figured that out myself, just with this business. You know, it's easy enough, and I say, quote, unquote, easy enough when you're, you know, responsible for 500 people. I know you had 3,000, but, you know, to say, okay, I've got all these people, but, you know, most of them you didn't pick. Some of them you'd pick again. Some of you wouldn't pick again. But when there's already a big machine going, there's this kind of a sense of just keeping the mean going and not really realizing that all the time you have the choice to make sure you have the right people in the right positions doing the right things. It's kind of fun for where I am now to be building it from scratch and finding, you know, making my own mistakes in a different way, but really keeping the focus on. I know I can't do it unless I have the right people in the right positions doing the right thing, so I better not screw it up now.

And, you know, it's funny you say that, because it is, you know, I've got a smaller organization, I got a few people on my team, and, you know, it. It is different, and it's a lot more personal and really important that, especially when you're building a new company, is making sure you are bringing on the right players and the people that work well with you. But if you do find the ones that you think work well for you but aren't, you got to move them out quickly. You can't get and, you know, not so dependent upon an individual to run your business because there are things that could happen to them, but then also they may not be working out for you. And you got to make that decision. And it's not easy, especially when you got a small group when you're like, okay, maybe you're one of four, and you got to eliminate one of the four. That can be hard to do sometimes.

Linda, I could talk to you forever. Thank you so much for sharing everything. And we're gonna. We're almost done here, but we'll have all of your contact information on our show notes. But in case somebody wants to find you right now, because they're too eager to look you up, what's the best way for them to find you?

Well, first of all, my email address is Linda security.com and it's e xecuite.com and that's also the website is exequity.com if you go out there, you can actually set an appointment with me or send me a note and I'll respond immediately. We also have a free assessment that businesses can take. A lot of business owners have no idea what their business is worth. And so a lot of times that's where we start, is getting them an estimation of value and that's complimentary to anyone who wants to take it. And then after that, we'll set up a quick phone call just to see walk through the results and see where they rate not just from a value of their business, but how they rate on some of the big key drivers that will help you increase the value of your business.

Fantastic.

They can also feel free if they really want to talk to me right away, they can try me at 502-386-5504. I may not pick up because you might look like spam. But I promise you, if you leave me a voicemail, I'll give you a call back.

But please at least say this is not spam. Wonderful. Well, Linda, do you have any last words of wisdom or pearls of advice for my listeners and viewers?

You know, I think it's the same thing that we were talking about earlier, which is, you know, as you're making decisions, realize that there's ripple effects to every decision you make. It's going to impact your clients, it's going to impact your employees, it's going to impact your financials, and more importantly, it's going to impact what's going on outside of your business. So just when you're making those decisions, just look around you and make sure you've had a moment to check in to see what the effects are going to be there.

I love it. Thank you so much for sharing all this with you and I'm very glad that we are connected. I look forward to continuing to learn more from what you do.

I am, too. I love your energy and I think we could talk for a long time. So thank you for having me. I really do appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us on another episode of Shock youk Potential. Please remember to subscribe, rate and like our podcast. And for more information, find us at shockyourpotential. Com and shockyourpotentialpodcast. Com.