Top Leadership Challenges for Female Entrepreneurs & Executive Leaders | E124

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I have a surprise for you. I'm super excited. So let's go ahead and get started. Here we go.

Well, hi. Welcome to this week of the Leadership is Feminine podcast. This is Chris Plackey. I'm thrilled to have you here. And I have a special fabulous guest today. And that special fabulous guest is Dr. Yes, but she doesn't let me say very often, but I like to say it. Dr. Michelle A rant. Hi, Michelle. Hi.

How is everybody?

Isn't this fun?

Yes. I love this part.

I know. I think we should do these more. Let's. Okay. This could be fun. It's good. So today we're going to talk about. So we just had our initial advanced release of lead, which was super, super fun. So we're super excited. And we start officially with our new clients. What, September 5th? Ish. Something like that. Right?

That's the. That we. First week, right?

Yeah, the first week after Labor Day.

Yep.

It's still open for registration. Our advanced release has closed, but registration is still open. So you can always just go to the visionary CEO Lead. If you haven't taken a look at it yet, go check it out. We would love to work with you. And what we wanted to do today was talk to you about why we've established the three different groups that we have. We have advisory call set up specifically for clients who are running six figure businesses, clients who are running seven and eight figure businesses, and clients who are executive and senior leaders within an organization. And there's a reason why we did that. And so we wanted to color that a little bit with this podcast and also give you some hopefully validating insight that will help you just regardless of which one you are, it will make sense to you. We wanted to sort of speak some truth into what we see in our clients. So that's what we're going to talk about today is what are sort of those unique challenges that six figure business owners, seven and eight figure business owners, and executive women working within organizations are facing and how does the work that we do solve that? And what do we know that you can do even right now to help yourself? So sound good, Michelle?

Let's do it.

Okay, let's go. So let's talk about our six figure clients. So six figure clients can be anyone from who just hit their first hundred K. Right? Maybe you sell beautiful pictures on Etsy or you are a knitting person. Like there's so many people who do so many things. I'm always marvel at what businesses people have all the way up to the 800,000, 900,000. Right. That's six. Six figure mark. That's such a big step to move through. And they often say the first hundred thousand dollars in your own business is the hardest to earn. So if that's you, congratulations on where you are so far. But what, what would you say? Michelle, I know when we first started doing how to CEO several years ago. Right. You worked specifically with our six figure clients as well.

I did.

So what do you think are some of the key points? We should sort of help them.

What I see most of all is the shift in your mind that has to happen. Instead of thinking about it as this is my business, this is my, my gig. Right. Like this is what I've been doing and it's pretty much been me, maybe just me or me with a couple of contractors helping me post to social media or get something designed or whatever it is to. Okay now this is a thing like it's, it's like a true business. It's no longer my hobby that I get paid for. It's no longer just something that I love and I've been good at doing. It's getting bigger. I noticed that women have to separate the business and themselves as being the business. I actually love to watch that light bulb come on and we focus on that and the more we talk about that because it opens up a whole new way of doing things. And that, that's the big, the big thing that I notice the most. And then I think the other thing is all around hiring.

Just.

Do I have to.

Like, please, somebody please come help me. Like I'm drowning over here. I haven't had a vacation where I actually don't work. Right. Even, even if I've hired a contractor to help me do some graphic design or post some stuff on my website, I still am checking in all the time and like I need, I need some help here. But where do I even really start? I want to find the right person. I want to find what I love is I want to find the person who's going to start with me now and they're going to be with me for the next 50 years.

Yes. Well, that's what you're going to do with me, right?

Of course.

You're never going to go away. I'm never totally relate to that. I'm like, please don't ever.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah. And is it even time to like, is this when I'm supposed to hire. Let's say your business is making $150,000 a year, 200,000. 300,000. That's a, that's, that's nice money, but you're not earning that. Right. The business is generating that, but you're not earning that. So there's all that fear around how much money. Like, what if I can't keep paying them? What if I can't keep making this money? So I agree with you, especially our.

Professionals, like doctors, lawyers, accountants, like, the money seems to be pretty good. And when you look at the revenue side and you look at what's coming in, but then you look at, okay, well, how much am I really making of that and how much is the cost to go into this clinic? And, you know, all of it. So can I really bring on somebody and afford to pay them forever? Because then it's a whole lot more responsibility. So you have that moment of freak out.

Yeah. And I think it's really important. One of the things that we've said to a lot of our clients, right. Is because if you, if you go to hire someone, let's say your first hire, which a lot of times our recommendation is your first hire is an assistant, someone who can come in and really help you kind of start organizing yourself. And let's say you pay that person $30 an hour and you need them for 15 hours a week or something like that. I know the fear is like, oh, my gosh. But that's gonna be like, I don't know, like $40,000 over the course of a year. I don't even know if that's right. I don't do that.

I don't even know the math either.

No. I don't know.

We don't have to worry.

Freaks you out, right? Freaks people out. I don't. I can't pay them 40. No, you're going to pay them for 15 hours this week, and then you're going to pay them for 15 hours next week, and then you're going to pay them for. That's the whole point, is you're paying them, then you can generate more revenue. So we have to remember that part.

And I think that's key. I think, I think that's the key is because women are so used to really, like, you don't know anything else other than I do the majority of it myself. And I've been doing the majority of it for however many years that I've been doing it. And it, it. You just have to make yourself stop and think for a minute, wait, this is going to free me up to do Other things. And like you said, you're not, you're not paying somebody the 40 grand in salary, the first hour out of the pocket.

Yeah. It's not happening. Even though I know in your mind. And, and then we start to take on the responsibility of, well, I can't hire them if I'm not going to keep them. And like, but listen, that's, that's, that's what it means to hire contractors. We don't promise that people are going to work with us forever. That's kind of how that, that's kind of how that works. Like, we have to get through that. But women are such supporters of one another that they worry if they make that commitment to them. But we're, we're not, we're making a commitment to support the business and the business will grow. I think when you started working with me, I think this business was generating about 350 or $400,000 a year. Right. I wasn't making a ton of money, but I needed support. I needed more and more support. And it was through doing that, right. Then the business then gets to over seven figures. It's hard to see when you're in it, but you have to rely on the support of other people in order to grow the business. There's no way you're going to get there. And I do think that's one of the biggest second issues is letting go is inviting people in to support the business and you. And realizing they don't always do it exactly like you did, but that's okay. But a lot of women have a lot of control concerns and so they can't let go. So then they end up paying a person to do stuff and then they go in and they fix it. So now they've paid for somebody twice because they're paying. You have to pay yourself. Right. And that's a big issue. Working through letting go. That's one of the modules in the new lead program. Right. Is letting go so you can grow. That is a very real issue. And there's nothing wrong with you if you struggle with that, if you struggle with other people making mistakes, if you struggle with people not understanding. There's a lot of assumptions that get made in our six figure clients because they think people think like they do.

Well, news flash.

Right? Chris and I, we're giggling because we, you know, we have these conversations so much just because Chris and I are so different.

Yeah.

In the sides of our brain that we use every day, that just becomes something you have to work through and you have to have support with is what is that role that I need? And then the who is that person and what characteristics do they have to have and all of that so that they bring their expertise in to do the things that you need them to do so you can step out and do your thing. But we were giggling with each other because it's, it is, it can be so very different. That's one of the things I love about what we do, is helping business owners understand. And not just, it's not just business owners, it's executive women too, in terms of thinking about, okay, these, this is what I need. This is the position on the team. And then what is the, I guess the, the attitude or the personality or the skill sets that, that someone would come in who could do really well.

At this to complement that. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Because there's a lot of things that I know when I was doing most of my business by myself, I wasn't actually very good at. Even though I had my own way of doing it, I wasn't very good at it. Right. And so I like that what you said is true. Like I think this, the six figure journey is going from that solopreneur paid expert consultant or really in that product development. So if that's what you do, you know, you're just beginning your service, you're just beginning your product. That's that first, the first place. And there's a lot of insecurity there, there's a lot of feeling guilty there, there's a lot of feeling inadequate here. That's very normal. Especially if you didn't lead or manage people in a different job before you started your company, which I would say this. The majority of our clients, majority of our clients have never managed anyone. They had an idea, they decided to do it and now they're here doing it. And so it's very, very understandable that if you're running a six figure business and you're feeling all of those feelings, you're right on time. And that's honestly why we host the calls specifically for you, because we want you to be on a call getting advisory support from us, listening to the questions that other women are asking that you're going to totally relate to because it's so much more meaningful if you came to a call and you're running a $400,000 business and you're on a call with a woman running a three million dollar business. Sure, there's similarity, but the three million dollar problems aren't better or worse. They're just different and it'll feel like for the, for the $400,000 running business like that. Well, that's good to know. But that's like, you got a ways to go to get there. So that's, that's really such an important reason why we've made this decision to do it this way. So. All right, let's talk about our seven and eight figure clients. And I know when you and I were debriefing on this, I said that. I see. And this is where I spend the majority of my clients because all of my sage clients are multiple million dollar business runners.

I see two segments even within this segment. Right. So there's the clients who have just crossed over a million and they're simultaneously elated and also completely deflated.

Because that's a good way to put it.

Right. There's no parade. It's like you've wanted to achieve this goal for so long and then you achieve it and you're like, wait, it's, I don't feel any different. Right.

Or you're, you're so exhausted, you're just so exhausted, you don't want to put any energy into celebrating because it has.

Well, and I don't want to do that again.

Exactly.

I don't want to have to work that hard to, to make what I made to do that again. Right. And so there's either this, this parallel belief system of was that just luck or is that only because I hustled to the point of exhaustion? Either one is not sustainable. So what we have to do is look at what really worked. And nobody generates $1 million business by accident.

Well, of course. No, no.

There's magic in there and we have to find it, whatever your special magic was. So my clients, who are just at about a million, looks like, okay, what worked? Where were the gaps and all of the key relationships? You guys, for those of you are longtime listeners, knows. No, I talk about that. You have five key relationships. As a leader who runs a business, you have a relationship with your money, your time, yourself, your business and your team. And when we start getting into seven figures and more, if any of those relationships don't have a lot of good foundation, they start to show up. Issues with money will start to show up. If you haven't clarified, just like Michelle said, that the difference between me and my business, there's my business's money and then there's my money. If those two things aren't separated, then we get to this point where the business is generating a lot of revenue. It can get Very messy. If you haven't learned how to take care of yourself and running a business, if you haven't learned how to develop people and have a great team, it shows up in your business. If you haven't built the systems and the practices, the business can run without you, it shows up in your business. Right. And if you haven't figured out really how to leverage time, including your own. So I see that first million as a real test, and then for the women who move through that and get to the 3 to 5 million, now we're doing big. Like, do I have the right team? So to Michelle's point, the 600,000 is like, should I hire? The 3 to 5 million are like, wait, do I have the right people?

I did hire and I did like.

Wait, wait, I have to hire more. Yeah.

And, and what we talk about is, it's hard to hear, but I think we have to keep saying it is there are people who are going to get you through your scaling and through your growth to up to the seven figures. And you know, they can do they. A lot of people can hold their own, 7, 8, 9. But at some point you, you're going to need someone different.

Than the people who started with you when you were making 300k. And of course, there's all these relationships that you have and you know everything about them and they know everything about you and the business and they've been so loyal to you. And now all of a sudden you see that there, there needs to be more strategy as an example. Like, this person needs to come up with the ideas and present them to you and all of it. And they have not been used to doing that. They haven't had to use that muscle as much as you would like for them to now. And then, then you just, it's like, oh, my gosh, do I have the right people? And am I going to have to let these people go? And. And then we start seeing people, okay, well, I'll keep them and then I'll just hire more. And then their team just gets so big and unmanageable, we don't know who.

Any of them are. Yeah, yeah, it's such a great point. Because when we're used to the first part of our business, or in a small business, even if you're at an executive level, we hire people to do work. We hire people to do productivity work. And then as the business grows, we need more strategic thinkers. But that is a whole other skill set and the other gap. And so that's why, right. With the clients that we have that are at 3, 4, 5 plus million, they've been really leveraging the manager formula that Michelle teaches because now they have to develop their managers. Right. The questions that those women are asking isn't to maybe I need to hire at a tactical level, it's I need to add managers into my company. How do I even know who to, Should I promote this person? Is this the right person? What kind of management roles do I need? So the questions become different and then your role as the leader of your business changes so much because it's less about triggering the activities that are going to happen every day and more about looking at the strategy to develop the people who are going to make those activities happen every day. And that's so different. Right. I know in the lead program we redesigned org charts and we teach an org chart completely differently.

That's correct.

Than I think any of you will have ever seen it. Because org charts in traditional environments are set up, top down and we have designed it to be lateral and it's hard to explain without the visual, but the reason we did that is that you're leadership, once you're at that 5 million and you've got a manager, a 2 or 3, it's that group of people that have to pull the tactics into the front line, not you. But as a leader of who's used to doing all that, it's very hard to know what even your role is. So we spend a lot of time with our seven and eight figure clients designing your job description, what's your position going to be.

And I also think that what you said about the key relationships that you have with yourself in terms of your like the relationship with money and team and like all of those things, whatever you find when you're a six figure business owner keeps rearing its ugly head and challenging you.

Yes.

In terms of control or perfection. Yeah. Yes. And you know, get mad at everybody because they don't do it exactly the way that you thought it should be done. Or you know what, impatience with the pace, all of those little, those little things that keep nagging at you, those things scale bigger, just like your business scales. So it, it really is a great opportunity for you to start as soon as you can working through those types of things so that when you do hit the seven figure, eight figure mark, then they're not as multiplied like you've got, you've got some of those things handled. I think they're always going to be there. Like I love to joke with Chris and she'll she'll say, you know, beware of the swoop.

Like, yes, my swooper.

Yep, you're a swooper. Like you're always going to have a tendency to do that, I think. But, but if the more you work on yourself and to help you trust more and not become the swooper, then, or I guess the more you swoop less then the easier it is to elevate yourself, the more revenue you make.

Yeah, well, in this, it's funny you should say that because this summer, right, we've had a few of our clients who've now are in multiple millions who we've worked with for several years, right? And this year, one of them took the whole month of June off. Another one took three weeks off in July and went to Rome in the Maldives. Another one I just heard from, she's in Europe. She lives in Europe. She just took two two week back to back vacations with one day in the office in between. And that's exactly what we're talking about, right? That I know there's a reason why at some point you thought, I'm gonna start a business so I can have more freedom.

Isn't that what we like, what we all want is more freedom?

Yes, but it doesn't start off that way. And even after you hire a couple people and you first try and abdicate to them and you think, oh, they know what to do better than I do, so you just let them run your launch or you let them figure out your customer service policies and then you realize, oh, that doesn't work either because they're not doing it the way that I want. So what's that middle ground? Right? That middle ground is what's called leadership. And it's okay if you don't know how, but the reason we do what we do is so that you can learn it because it creates the long tail of this is a more voluminously successful business. More revenue if that's what you want. More profit if that's what you want. More time off if that's what you want. There's gotta be a reason that you decided to do this. And I want to make sure that's our goal. Always is. Like it doesn't. Your goal is what matters. It's not about everybody else. We just know that you're going to trip on these few speed bumps. And we are very clear because we've watched them happen over and over and over again in all of these different segments of our clients. So let's finish and talk about Executive clients.

Yes, that's my background. So of course I love them.

I love them. Right. We're going back to our roots. Yes, Tennessee. Although you guys don't say roots, do you?

Are you kidding? We say roots.

We say roots.

I think roots is. Where's roots? Is that Texas? I know there's somewhere where they say.

I know, I know.

Anyway, I don't.

They say it wrong, so I'm not sure.

So. Yes, you and I are intimately aware of the challenges of the executive woman because we both have been one at the, at the senior executive level. And so there's this dance that we all are very adept at and also quite exhausted with. So what are some of those elements that you know are true for you, Michelle, in the way that you've heard? Because we actually do have quite a few women in our program now who are executive leaders, so. And I just. And a lot of them come to Hawaii with me. So anyway, what are you. What have you noticed? Love?

Probably the, the biggest one, what I've, what I lived and also what I hear from other people is the pressure of. And the differences in the CEO, the boss, however you want to, you know, refer to that position as they have their own ways that they want things done. They have. They've already set the vision for the company. Good ones will have established the values of the people they really want working there in their company. And then you have to align with and adopt those same visions or same. The vision and then the values. And sometimes those can get out of alignment. And when they do, there's some questioning and some, some pressure on. It feels like, on you to keep going, to keep pushing, to keep everybody rowing in the same direction. Because the women that we'll be working with are those who. They're not new managers, but they're people who manage managers. So your C suites and executive levels, VPs, because titles are sometimes kind of hard because you never, sometimes, you never know.

They're very different. Yeah.

But it just, it's just this sense of pressure. That's all.

That's all.

I can't, like, I like, you can't see me, but I immediately like, like hunker down like I'm in a vice grip where it, it just feels like from the top it's coming. And then you're having to adjust a lot of times, you and yourself and your own beliefs a lot of times to make sure that things that everybody else under you is doing what needs to be done. And it's, it's hard.

It's it's legit. It's like a real legit obstacle and ongoing issue. I can speak for myself. It's why I became an entrepreneur, because I was done doing that. And the reason that the company that we changed the name of the company is to the visionary CEO is because we, we work with visionary women, but we recognize that visionary women work all over. And I call myself a visionary woman, but I would have called, I would have called myself that when I was 30, when I was leading a team inside a big company. So visionary is, I think a woman who is a visionary who works in an executive role has her own unique challenge because you can see what you want to create. You can see how this could be better, different, more unique, more interesting, more successful. But you have to work through the layers of the bureaucracy of your business in order to achieve that. And I do believe you can. But I also think those are, that's a very different road because you don't have the authority and the autonomy that an entrepreneur will have now. You also don't have the same risk that an entrepreneur will have. So there's this dance, right? Because that's why so many senior leaders stay in the Meijer is because of the money and the security, quote, unquote. I put in air quotes the benefits, the pieces, right? All the parts that you love, you stay and you tolerate. But I, I've had clients very recently, you and I actually didn't talk about this in our pre discussion, Michelle, but this is the other big one for me. I think that executive women and the reason this program is rooted in the leadership is feminine model, which is what we teach in the very first module, is that regardless of whether you run your own business or whether you work within an organization, if you are a woman, you are still working with through against next to antiquated leadership models that have a derogative or a negative impact on you as a woman that are pre programmed to challenge you to be more silent, to be less aggressive, to be less yourself in lots of different ways. And then the other element is if you work in a corporate environment, most people who work in leadership roles don't know what the hell they're doing. And so if you take the initiative to be informed and become a better leader, you could be working for someone who's an income poop, let's just be honest. And you have to figure out how to negotiate relationships. It's political acumen, it's influence, not authority. There's so many other parts of leading in as an executive woman And I think it can be done. I've watched people do it masterfully, but I think it's a very conscious choice. And if you keep yourself in a position of being helpless, like, oh, I can't ever leave. I have to make the money, that's where you stay trapped and you tolerate some serious stuff that you should not be tolerating.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's. And that's one thing that I think was so valuable for those of you who don't know mine. Chris's history. Chris was my executive coach when I was promoted to chief operating officer. And I did not align with my boss in terms of how I wanted, how I wanted to. To do it, and so how I wanted to lead my team. And that was one of the thing. I could not see outside, and I couldn't see any other way to do it other than what he was telling me that I had to do. And Chris was so masterful at helping me understand. No, no, no. You. This is your team.

It. You.

You get to decide how you want to show up every day and how you want to lead these people. You may not always like the policies or the things that you have to say, but you get to decide who you are and who you want to be in that. And you get to choose the people who manage under you. And you do have control over who you promote. If they don't have the values that align with the team that you want, and if they're not really encouraging and helping foster the culture that you want, then you do have control over that. First of all, it helps to be in a room, whether it's a zoom room or a physical room, with other people who are going through the same thing that you're going through. But to hear that those struggles are the same and to. To finally find your people who, who understand what that pressure is like and.

Who want to do something about it.

And who don't want to feel helpless.

Yes. That's. That's really critical. And I want to emphasize to those of you listening, because I think there's a lot of environments out there that people get involved in, and then all they're doing is listening to other people complain. That isn't what we do. Right. So here's the. Like. If you were to come to me as this executive client or even as a leader, as a seven and eight figure business, whoever you are, you running this business, this team, and you've got an issue, the first thing we have to be clear about is you chose it. You. You decided you decided to run and start a company. You decided to make this company bigger, and you decided to walk through the door of that company that you are still reporting to every day. So those are, those are still things you have authority and control over. So now let's tell that truth. Okay? You still may not like it. That's not what we're here to talk about. What we're here to decide is, do you want to do something about it? And if the answer is yes, then you're our people. If the answer is no, I just want someone to complain with me and vent with me about how horrible this all is. Nobody wants to listen to that.

We will not be the best home for you.

But if you're like, listen, I don't. I've tried everything. I feel like I've tried everything. Let's, let's, let's explore what else is available to you. But mostly right at the end of the day, there are too many women on this planet who are so, so talented and so successful and so capable and so smart and so resilient and have so much to offer the world who are not believing enough in themselves. Regardless of what seat you're sitting in, you're the person we want to help because we have the tools to help you negotiate all of these challenges. That's not even like, you'll be with us for a few weeks and you're going to feel like rebirth. That's the best news. Like, there's so many ways to solve the challenges that you're facing, to approach the new goals that you have to dig into the aspiration and the inspiration that you have. All of that is really doable. I know that we need to teach women how to think differently about how they lead and stop thinking about leading like women who are trying to think like men leading. Does that make sense? That's most of what we have most. Leadership, examples and training and content was all created by men for men, so lead is created by women for women. Makes sense.

What works, what, what really does work? I mean, there's all kinds of empirical evidence, right, that what works is a more feminine approach in terms of collaboration. And I love, I love this, all of the stuff that, that, that the training you're gonna, you'll, you all will say when you get the content, is that like she said, co creating together and everybody. I love to think about it, like, get in. Get in this boat with me and let's row to the same place. Like, we all want to be going the same place and we all want to be feeling like we're, we matter and we're, we're contributing and we're doing something about it and whatever problem it is out in the world that you're trying to make better and those, those types of things have been shown to actually work. So if you're in an organization or if you've been to trainings and all you see are in here are people telling you that that's not the way it works. The power and control and you know, you know, all of those things are the only way. It's not true. And that's why it feels so. I think it just feels so counterintuitive. And women burn out so quickly because they're going against what feels so real and authentic to them. And so if that's well said, if that's you, then you found your people.

Right?

Because this is the kind of stuff that we do and talk about and, and help you do more of.

I love it. Yeah, leave as you are. It's just a good thing. And we know that you can. I hope that what you have heard through this podcast is we really do recognize the unique challenges that in spaces that you're in and they are different and that's okay. Like it isn't a one stop shop. We have to dig into the uniqueness of you and where you are. So that's what we aim to do. So hopefully we've laid out some additional insight for you and this is going to drop on Monday, Tuesday, August 29th at 11:30 Pacific. I'm going to lead a workshop called how to get yout Spark Back or have youe Lost yout Spark? We haven't nailed down the title yet, but what we want you to do is just go to the Visionary CEO Spark and all the details will be there. So go to Visionary ceospark and you can register for the webinar. It's going to be about an hour long and it'll be a great opportunity for you, if you haven't worked with us in the past, to just get some exposure to Michelle and I and also feed your spirit. Find a way to put yourself back in a position of being excited about what you do, not just sort of begrudgingly committed.

And I think that's true for a lot of parts of our lives, not just our businesses, but maybe our personal lives or maybe our relationships with friends. There's just a lot of movement. People are making a lot of change. And that might be my circle, but I think I'm hearing it from a lot of people. So we thought this might be a nice give back webinar to all of you. So the visionary CEO spark Tuesday, August 29th at 1130 Pacific but you have to register to get the link. Yes.

Thanks for having me. It's been fun.

It has been fun. Thank you love.

Bye.

Lead for Women is now open for registration. If you're a woman and you are also a visionary, somebody who sees the world differently than it is, and you are eager to achieve that through your work and by leveraging the hearts and minds of others, then I invite you to go to the Visionary CEO Lead and learn everything you can about our LEAD program. While it's not for everyone, it really is for you. If you are a woman who is ready to learn how to think better so you can lead better and you can live better, you have a legacy to leave here and I want to help you leave it by enhancing and improving how you show up as a woman who leads. Join us there.