0320 | Keziah Robinson

Hi, this is Kasia Robinson with CAsia Partners. That's www.cassia-partners.com. and you're listening to EA Interviews.

EA Interviews episode 320, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert Authority Effect interview. Have you ever wanted to scale up your business, but not sure what's holding you back? Maybe you want to get to that next level, but there's something going on with your team, your staff, whatever the case is. Or maybe that's what you think it is. Maybe the real problem's with you, but we're not going to mention that. You know, it's that Kermit meme with that drinking the iced tea. That's none of my business, is it? Well, it absolutely is because it's your business and you need to be on top of these things. And that's why I'm excited to have Kasia Robinson on today's episode. Holding degrees from Stanford and Wharton, she helps CEOs and small business owners take their business to the next level in a variety of ways. We're going to break this all down right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's EA Publishing method book.

Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Kasia Robinson. Kezia, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing good, Mario. How are you?

I'm having a great day. I'm excited to have you here and sharing with us because you are most impressive.

Thank you. You as well. This is episode what, 320 over 300.

Yeah, it's coming along well. And I can't wait to hear what you have to say because you have such an impress background and all the people you've helped, what, what do you see that really holds people back in their business more often than not.

Over our own worst enemies? So what I see mostly that people are holding themselves back is that they're really addicted to the idea of hard work. Right? We buy into these stories of no pain, no gain, you know, walking uphill in the snow to school, both ways. All of these sort of stories that.

We tell with or without boobs.

We are so exactly barefoot, you know, carrying like, you know, 20 pounds of books on your Back and your little sister. You know, let's go on to all the stories that we tell that are about entrepreneurship and about business ownership. And the biggest one for me is, you know, it's not about effort, it's about effectiveness. So that's the thing that we tend to do to ourselves in this world as business owners.

What would you say to a CEO that wants to get to that next level, doesn't even realize they're holding themselves back?

Well, if you don't realize at all, you probably aren't seeking out coaching. That's one of those things. So I find. Because if you come in telling me all the problems are outside of you and I get that, I get that, oh, my team is terrible. My clients are terrible. My this, my product is, you know, distributors are. If you, you're blaming everyone around you, you are not my ideal client. So one of the things that I do with my clients a lot is identify who you want to do business with. There's going to be that spark of introspection. But the thing that I tell people is you got to slow down to speed up. So one of the first things we do is actually carve out dedicated space and put in places where you're going to eliminate things from your schedule. So it really is a process of slowing you down, which is what's absolutely necessary in order to level up.

Have you ever sent someone a mirror.

Instead of a business book?

I haven't. It's an interesting idea. Maybe I will.

You could get some custom made ones like those little compacts, little custom made with your branding on, right?

No, it's not, it's not me, it's you, right? To say something, be like, no, it's really you. It's not you, it's you. But it is something that I think in coaching that when we do is we do mirror like we are in there. I'll, someone will say to me, oh well, you know, my team is terrible. And I'll go like, oh, so your team is terrible? And they'll go, no, my team isn't that bad. So there is a part of it which is to show people how they, they are behaving and like really bring it to them so that it's it. Actually, maybe it is a good idea to make that my holiday gift this year. I'll send everybody a compact mirror.

Now what about the flip side of that? If someone is so into self development, they never really have time to focus on the business, if you will.

I don't get that as much, but I do get people who are on it say like a self help junkies, they've read every book, right? They've watched every TED Talk, they're always quoting things. They went to the ashram, you know, they did. And one of the things with clients like that is they're looking for like a quick fix, right? Anyone who's super fixated on all themselves and all that is actually trying to do that to avoid focusing on the things that are important. So when I get a client like that, one of the things I do is say, well, hey, look, if you could read a book, if Brene Brown reading one book and watching her TED Talk is going to change your life in your business, go for it. That's the cheap. And that's effective, right? That's effective. However, if you've read 14 books and you took three seminars and you did this and you went to the ashram and you still haven't seen yourself progress to the place you're looking to get to, then maybe this is when you need to come in and have professional help. And so one of those things is to look at, are you even in the right business? Sometimes when people can't focus on the business, it's because they don't have any passion for the business. They never really wanted it in the first place. At which point we may be looking at a coaching program in order to help them. I say, you know, you want your business to be scalable or saleable. So sometimes, and usually both, but sometimes I come in and people are, we're talking about how to make the business saleable, right? So they can then go on to the next thing in their life, the next goal that they have.

Wow, do you work with more men or women?

It's split about even some. One of the things I've said is I work with people have kind of a balance of masculine and feminine energy. So most of my women, business owner clients, people think are a little tough. They're like, they're all business. And most of the men that I work with, someone will say they're a little sensitive, they're the same person, so it's just which angle you're coming at it from. But I look for people there who really are, they love business, they, they really are, are interested in making money. They want to create value, but they also care about bringing people along with them and about the community, not just, you know, lining their own pockets.

What if someone doesn't care about the community? They just want that they're just that transactional bottom line, you know, it's easier to get people in and you know, it's easier to fire and hire new people than actually keep people around and train them properly. Have you dealt with those.

In earlier in my career, yes. So one of the things that I think I mentioned before, I really focus, I have a whole curriculum and whole kind of set of tools around identifying who you really want to do business with, using that for your clients, partners, your employees. You can use it for personal relationships, especially like if you're in a family business and things like that. And one of the pieces of it is really getting at who do do. I want to do business with someone who's transactional. And for me, it doesn't make any sense. I'm going to be co piloting with you six months longer. I have clients who I've worked on and off over the years. I mean, I can't sit, ride shotgun on someone who's viewing everything in terms of how many dollars am I going to get today. However, there are a lot of places in our life where we are transactional. I mean, I don't go to Starbucks wanting to have a deep relationship with the barista. I go to Starbucks to get the thing that I want to buy. So I think that there's also ways to look at it with the client as what parts of the business are transactional and what parts of the business are relationship based. But fundamentally, if you're not interested in making the world a better place, I'm not interested in helping you get rich.

That is a great expert authority insight and I even got to take away from that because I'm all about the relationships as well. And since 2013, when I retooled some things, I've just been like, absolutely not, absolutely not. And you just said something there that because you're right, certain businesses have which part of the business is seen as transactional.

So maybe I could be nicer with people in that regard, but that's a great perspective. But yeah, if someone just wants to take people's money, I don't want to promote them either. And I'm glad you mentioned that because I think you can have that community and bring people up, rise them up and help them be a better leader to bring on more leaders, not just, oh, we can hire 10 of you just as quick as we can kick you out the door. That's like a horrible attitude just to treat people in general.

So expensive too. And I think that I always, you know, doing good and making money actually go hand in hand. If you execute it properly because you get paid for the value you create and you really get paid for the value you create above and beyond the next best alternative. And so that's something where when you look at it, you get, you know, if you're thinking of, you pay your employees, but they give you value, right? And so you're going to get more value for them the more you are. The quality of the work for them, the experience them is above and beyond their next best alternative. So I've definitely got some clients, I'm working with contractors. I've had clients in trades and sometimes they'll go, well, people would rather get unemployment than come to work. And I'm like, well, what kind of job are you offering them, right? And truth be told, if unemployment pays better than what you're going to do, and it's not a very good job, they're making a very smart decision not to come to work for you. Don't penalize them for running the math and being smart about it. So I definitely think that that's something we have to consider as we create this work. And then we're like, I don't want to do this work. Nobody wants to do this work. Oh, let's find that therefore it must be minimum wage work because it's grunt work. And then we're shocked when people don't want to do it. So a lot of it is about structuring, even for entry level going like, hey, where's the growth? And if you're investing in somebody from the growth, you might do something like offer English as a second language, right? It starts to make sense to put that in offering better health benefits. A lot of times people, they're like, oh, men, you know, I don't want to offer all these mental health benefits. And it's like, wouldn't you rather have employees that are happy? Right?

There's just like a lot of little things where it's cheap. When you run the math, it is so cheap versus turnover, which is extremely expensive.

Do you have any specific niches you try to focus on more than others?

I used to say B2B services, and then I started working with B2C services and then I got some product companies so that I'm a little bit of this. But I generally, I really do love service businesses. So I have realtors, trades, anything, architects, designers, anything where you're, you kind of build your skill by doing the job and then all of a sudden you're growing it and you've got like 15 employees and you're still and often, you know, realtors. Great example. We had a whole, it was a piece of work to get him to give up on being in all the sales calls because he was like, well, he wanted to maintain those relationships with the clients and it was about okay, well now you have this whole team and they're really competent and they're building these relationships with clients and they don't need you to close the deal.

What they need you to do is lead them as a business.

That one was a fun conversation.

Is there any differences if someone has 10 staff.

Or less than 10 staff or more than 20 in the procedures and processes that they should be doing?

Yeah. If you're fewer than 10, you have so two different ways you can kind of organize teams. There's 50,000 different ways you can organize a team. But this is the way I tend to think one is. I would say you're make kind of like a module, right? And there's going to be like a team leader and people have certain functions and it's not that the team doesn't like operate pretty well together, but all your teams look exactly the same and you're looking to replicate team by team by team. If you think almost like a franchise business, right. Every McDonald's functions basically the same way. So you're making these little teams as franchises underneath and they have certain function. The other way to do it is to make it a resilient team. It's more like an organic cellular structure which means each team will look a little bit different. You're going to get a higher productivity out of that, but you need to have more attention and care to the rules. Right. There aren't very many rules, but there needs to be. How do we make decisions? What are our priorities? What do we do if there's dissent? What do we do if someone leaves, as people will naturally do? The team is sort of more self healing. So when you're under 10, they can kind of fake like they're the same thing. Right. Like you can as the business owner, you may not really be able to tell the difference between which one you've got. When you get towards 2030 you start looking at having these teams, pods essentially. You do have to make a decision. And again, certain functions like customer service, you may run, actually choose to run. Very, very straightforward. Right. Here's our checklist, here's the questions you ask, here's how we do quality assurance, whatever. But sales, we want to run in this much more creative and dynamic manner. You need different people, you're going to tap into their talents differently and vice versa.

Like you were saying earlier, some, some of them you might be running more transactional and others are more relational and, you know, same like customer service. I was dealing with some recently and I'm like, yeah, I have no desire to have a long term relationship with any of them. But the sales, not only does it make more sense, it's just, I prefer it and it's nicer because it's like, why do you always want to be reinventing the wheel? And same thing. I think customer service should be relational because it's like if you have. Depending on the, I was gonna say depending on the product. But realistically, if they're a customer of yours, why wouldn't you want them as happy as possible the entire time? You know what I mean? We can go back to that Starbucks. It's like, yeah, you're not gonna be chatting them up for 45 minutes in that transaction right there. But you can build a relationship if you're going back to the same person. You know, especially coffee. You could be in there five to seven days a week or maybe 10 or 20, depending on who you are at some point. You're not a number anymore.

Yeah, well, that was, I think the main, the real driver for Starbucks, right. Is it was a place where everybody knows your name. It was that Cheers theme and that was. And, and it's not surprising that the company actually was very focused on employees and on the team and giving a lot of autonomy to the, to their employees and taking very good care of them. But that was, in fact, you know, there were lots of coffee shops and coffee chains that started around then. What, what made Starbucks really take off. So I, I think you tapped into a bunch of different things. And one of them too is like, you can be in a transactional business and have a very deep relationship based culture.

Like customer service is. If I'm working at a big customer service, you know, for Verizon or something. Yeah, I mean, the people aren't going to have a deep relationship with Verizon. Like, it's mostly they're calling because they're complaining about something and I'm in customer service and truth is, I have nothing to do. I cannot control the outcome. I have a script in front of me. Right. And yet I might. There are companies where you say, okay, but I'm in a team and we have the ability, instead of always having to go up to a manager, we have a certain amount of autonomy within our team to solve problems and to make decisions about how to solve problems for clients so that you can kind of. I think the biggest thing is that when you're really small, you can hawk everything together. And you're like, I don't know, it works, right? And then you're going to hit a limit where you have to start thinking about the business as its own entity. Right. And that it has needs. And this was you talked about before, about the people who are really fixated on themselves. And is that at some times with a client, I'll sit down and be like, that's wonderful for you, but what does that do for the business? This new product line sounds great. Fascinating. Okay. But does the business. Is this a good use of the business? I had a client, he was like, I think we should make doggy treats. And I was like.

You could do that? Could you sell me on this? Right? Explain to me why doggy treats are a good idea. Consumer product, you know, baked goods company that serves humans. And it was like, oh, but I love dogs. Great. So that's.

Well, that's actually, you know, that's somewhat akin if he already has a bake shop. I thought you were going to say he, like, runs an office or an auto body shop or something. I'm like.

But I get what you're saying. You know, I'm making a joke of it because it's like, you can still be in baked goods, which is the industry, but your niche would be. There's a big difference from human to canine.

Right. And when you're looking at your growth, I mean, a lot of times people think of product proliferation, they'll go, oh, we need more products. And I'm like, well, you know, there's only one kind of Oreos for a long time. Then they added like one more. And then when they topped out growth, then they added 14 different kinds of Oreos. That's a desperation play when you've already. When you hit the peak of the market, right. And there isn't a lot more growth.

The Christmas ones with the red in there.

Oh, yeah. So I was. I'm looking. When I'm working with a client, I'm like, you know, he could be 10 times the size. The business could be 10 times the size. And just increasing penetration of the existing market. That's not always so sexy, right? So one of the things that I'll work with people on and I customize to the client a lot is, okay, how do we find now that we've made this part of your job boring, which is what should be happening, right? Because you're delegating it to someone who finds it fascinating, but it's no longer of interest to you. We've made it systematized. Process, put process in place. Okay, how do we take that energy and bring it to the next step? So if you're a problem solver, you'll go creating problems. So I'll say, well, okay, what's the next challenge? Let's go figure out. It's not necessarily to start a new product line, but, hey, you want to sell this business? All right, well, you got to find private equity buyers and strategic buyers. So now you've got a whole new project.

Of going out and connecting with all these buyers. And they'll be negotiate. And I'll be like, oh. And they'll be negotiations, and they'll be low and valuation. I can make this. Spin this. So it's really exciting. All of a sudden, they're like, oh, I'm super excited for this thing. It's like, okay, well, if you're watching every production run, how are you going to do that? Oh, I'm not going to be. I better. I better have someone else watch the production run. So all of a sudden, they begin to be able to let go because they're so excited about the next phase. And part of my job is to help them frame that so they can get excited about the next phase and. And make peace with giving up whatever they've had in the past.

That's awesome. I'm glad you're there to help them through it, because a lot of people will hit walls. You know, I went from A to B, but now they're like, now what? And then they might spin their wheels trying to figure it out. And then once they figure it out, if they ever do, then they do another run, and it's like, run, stop. Run, stop. So I like what you're sharing a lot more. Tell me, who's your biggest transformation story of all the people you've helped?

Oh, God. Well, you think of just dollars, right? The fastest. Like, I had a client once, came in, she just started an insurance brokerage. She had been working at another firm, and she was. She had a couple of employees. And she calls me up and she goes, I need to hire more people. Like, she turned on lead flow. She was inundated, all of this stuff. And so I was like, okay, you know, came in, took a look, and. And I always like to tell the joke. It's like, yada, yada, yada. She let two people go and behave and increase productivity. So what she was doing is she was trying to serve everybody the same way. She done no client profiling, no client segmentation, no training of the team. And it was really very straightforward, right, to sit there and I just to like, go through how she was spending her time, who should be doing what function. It was a very straightforward. But the biggest psychological piece was the idea that she did not need to provide the white glove service to every lead that came in. That she was absolutely. What was appropriate was to tier people based on the profitability of them. You be kind to everyone. You don't let anyone. You don't make anyone feel bad. But there was a really different way that people needed to be served in order for them to get what the value and a very small percentage of them needed. Her white glove really like, hands on. Many, many more people were tracked. They were not ideal clients, and they just were tracked out of the lead pipeline so they could update that and make sure they weren't taking these calls in. And then a whole lot of people just needed some basic, you know, they. They had the same challenges, they needed the same product. And that was something that was. She was able to train. So that's pretty much, I would say in the first couple of weeks of working together, I mean, that was like a $75,000 like that annualized. So I don't like to make those promises to everybody, but that was one of the biggest business transformations.

That's. That's huge. Congratulations to the both of you on that. I got one more question before we go to the imperfect action round, and that is. And I'm not sure if you even saw it on the show float because it wasn't on the early.

Oh, you know what? I purposely left it off.

It's the wheel of whatever. Do you want yellow or black?

Yellow.

You know what? Everyone keeps picking yellow. That's interesting.

So my question for you is, if you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?

Oh, I don't know.

This. I don't have it. I don't have an exit strategy. Like, I don't have a plan B.

I guess I. Maybe I would go be.

That's good. Burn the ships. That's why you're successful at what you do.

I don't know. I. Maybe I would find a company that I wanted to be, you know, a startup that I wanted to be part of, you know, kind of a angel investing. But I. I don't know, I feel like I just end up coaching everybody no matter what I did.

Right, because you're good at it.

Except it might not be invited. Yeah, I'd love.

So let me ask you this then, because I actually thought you would lean towards, like, hobbies and what you like to do. I actually was gonna say, what do you like to do when you're not working?

Oh, I mean, well, I love to talk about my work. I really. You know, this is the sad thing. When you find a job that you love, like, you're. People are always like, God, you're always working. It's like, oh, no, no. But that was just me. Like, I had. I felt like calling that new. The Prospect. And we talked for three hours because their business is fascinating and, like, you know, But I. I love beauty, so I'm a big beauty enthusiast. I also love cooking. I love hiking, love sports. Going to see a Red Sox game this weekend. So lots of those are all my hobbies. So I'm looking forward to getting back to them as we. Things have been opening up so much more.

Do you ever see yourself having a cooking show or doing something like that?

I did about halfway through a cookbook at one point. And then what I realized was, I. Once I started, I was in a corporate job, right? And I was miserable. Tell. Most people end up working for themselves, right? You work for someone else and you're miserable, and then you're like, the only solution is to work for myself. So I. One of the things I had all these hobbies that I did when I was unhappy with my work, which were really just ways for me to, like, build joy into my life. And so at one point, I did. I got about halfway through a cookbook, and then I kind of realized that I wasn't really that interested in writing a cookbook. I mean, like, I'd share a recipe if somebody asked for it, but I didn't really care that much about this cookbook. I certainly didn't want to do any of the work to promote it. There's so many great recipes you can Google. Like, I didn't really see what I was doing. It was mostly that I needed some. An excuse to cook and to invite people over to my house.

You don't need an excuse to cook. It's a fun thing I enjoy, too. It's just, hey, it's time to cook again. It's been an hour, right?

But I was just starved for human interaction because I was in this finance job that was really destroying me and not the people that were lovely. I don't want to blame the job, Right. It was a bad fit. So that's something Where I did try a few of those. But you don't have to make money at everything. Like sometimes you just need to know why you're doing it. And if you're putting energy out, we're always trying to increase the return on our energy that we invest mental, emotional, physical energy. So if you do something, you can just do it because you like it, because it creates value and energy for you. What we get messed up is when we're like the dog treats. When we want to do something for ourselves, that's really just because we think it'd be cool. And then we're thinking someone else needs to pay for it and that doesn't work. The other people are like, yeah, I didn't ask for this, why am I going to pay you for it? That can be something. Just to keep in mind is these hobbies, you don't have to turn them into a business. Like you can just love a hobby. But if you want people to pay you, you need to think about what they need and how you create value for them, not just what you'd like to do.

Excellent. Well, thank you for sharing and elaborating on that. We're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori.

I went from having an idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published. Or Catherine, thank you for making my mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past, it didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. If you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation than to work with Mario Ficini.

He has been great for me. And right now, I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy, and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Kezia, are you ready to take imperfect action?

Yes.

I got three questions for you. 60 second or less answers. The first one is, what is the fastest path to the cash?

Slow down, get a good night's sleep.

Everything. It really does look different in the morning.

Okay. I like that a lot. Number two, what is the biggest thing your prospects do that they can improve and the fastest way for them to fix it?

People often think they're psychic. They don't realize it, but they think either they're psychic or all the people around them are psychic. So one of the best things I tell people do is write it down, send an email, send a summary. Take the extra time you put it on paper. You will. It'll force you some clarity and it will also force other people to really tell you, no, I did not say that. Or that is not what we agreed to in the meeting.

As another great expert authority insight, you just got all kinds of stuff. That one hit home. Number three.

Oh, customer lifetime value. What's the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

First thing is fire anybody who's negative. So that'll help you your average right away. So, and I always say, think about their value in terms of the energy, not just the time and money, but also your energy investment. So anyone who, when you get off the phone with them, you're like, I need a drink. I need to go complain about something. Anyone like that, you need to fire them. Right. And you can call me and we'll talk about how you go about that, but cut them right out. That is going to increase your customer lifetime value. And then there's people in the middle. You can renegotiate the terms of engagement. People often are like, well, I agreed to do it at this price. And it's like, okay, well, go back and tell them that's no longer the price. Wow. But why? Why? Well, because it's no longer the price. You're, you know.

Worst thing they say is, no, you're in the same place you are right now.

I like that. I like both of those. And I'm going to ask you, is that going to be your first episode of the new show for the cooking we're going to do a mixed drink episode.

Cooking. We could do mixed drinks and. Well, maybe. Yeah, if you want to cook. I'll talk business.

Okay.

Cover it all. We'll be all good.

I can talk business too.

This has been so much fun.

I'm not going to do any cooking.

This has been so much fun. Thank you for sharing everything you have. It's been a real pleasure.

Thanks so much for having me. You've got a great show here.

Thank you. I appreciate that. All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 24 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.Com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn. Lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you.