How to Combat Judgment and Perception in the Workplace

42% of current core skills will actually be outdated by 2022. And those emotional intelligence aspects, you know, the ability to be a leader, to have that social influence that we're talking about, we're going to see an outsized increase in demand.

And I don't think this is a conversation either about, you know, female-founded companies are better than male-founded. It's more the idea that we are extremely capable, extremely smart, and have the ability just as much as men to lead business and be in the workplace. And it just combats those stereotypes that are still pretty strong.

In this podcast, we share how we grew a 7-figure food business out of our 2-bedroom apartment in Chicago, all during the height of a global pandemic, and bring in expert entrepreneurs to share their stories and wealth of knowledge in business strategy and innovation. I'm Annie Slovatsky.

And I'm Morgan Lerner. Hello, everyone. Morgan Lerner here, everyone. On today's episode, Combating Judgment and Perception in the Professional World, we are talking about the stereotypes around hard versus soft skills, gender, and how to use those negative perceptions to fuel your business. And as a women-owned business ourselves, a big part of our mission is empowering other women and small businesses. So safe to say we are especially passionate about this topic. So without further ado, let's bite into business. And starting off, I think there's a lot of stereotypes around soft-skilled jobs, and a lot of people think or view this thing as kind of foo-foo, valuing people's emotions, positivity in the workplace overall, but also more specifically, that can translate to professions like marketing, social media, getting a rep as being not as hard. And so I think we face this a lot, and it's interesting because the main part of our business, especially at this time, and how we grew to be is our online business, is the social media. It's vastly important to our business.

Absolutely. I think a huge part of that is soft skills are so much harder to measure, right? You know, when you're measuring someone's ability to type words on Microsoft or their ability to use Microsoft Excel, you know, those are much more comprehensive, measurable skills, and marketing can be so subjective. And a lot of those jobs are also newer. Like, if we take an influencer, right? A lot of people look down on the profession of being an influencer because, you know, they're seeing a lot of women take photos of themselves or make recipes and put them on the internet. And it's crazy to me that there are so many people who think that those jobs are easy, not difficult, because they're creative.

I mean, also just take the fact that we're not influencers. Not everyone's an influencer. Like, if it was easy, everyone would be one, but it's clearly not. And these people make a living from it, which is not easy to do, again, or everyone would be doing it. I also think it's interesting that you said the softer skills are harder to measure, and I would agree. I I think one way the world is progressing is making those more measurable. I think now a lot of those activities have so much data and we can use it to improve it, but that didn't always, you know, be the case. So I think maybe it's moving in a direction of being more measurable and, and numbers-focused, but it still has that stereotype around being a softer skill when really it, it is something that can definitely be monetized.

I mean, definitely can be monetized. There are influencers making millions of dollars, and it's because they have actual influence. You know, the, the name is right there, and curating something like that is not easy to do.

Totally. And I think even in our business, you know, I would say 80 to 90% of our business comes from online and comes from social media. And so yeah, when we're on it a lot of the day, that's our business. So, you know, call it whatever you want, it's a business driver and it's making a lot of money. So that's kind of the evidence against that. And I also think, kind of speaking a little bit more broadly here beyond just the professions of marketing and the areas of social media, I think these negative stereotypes apply to kind of emotional intelligence and valuing people's emotions in the workplace overall. I think a lot of people view this as not important and not effective, but But really, it has real, real evidence and impact on people in the workplace and creating an effective organization and business.

Yeah, I mean, I remember reading something on the World Economic Forum about how 42% of current core skills will actually be outdated by 2022. And those emotional intelligence aspects, you know, the ability to be a leader, to have that social influence that we're talking about, we're going to see an outsized increase in demand. So you can definitely see that shift there.

I love that. I love that these skills are getting more awareness, and I think they're even getting a lot more press these days despite the stereotypes still being there. So I think we're making progress, and it's something you and I really value day to day. We do something called POS, Positive Business Practices, and it's our time every day to not only review the things we need help with and just help each other, but also express gratitudes of the day and of the week. We do Strength Spotting once a week where we highlight the strengths in each other. And I know we can confidently say that that's helped us not only be aware of our strengths and lean into that and become better leaders, but just boost overall positivity and happiness. And we do love what we do, and it definitely helps, especially being small business owners and dealing with all the challenges. So I know it's worked for us so well and definitely influenced our well-being in our workplace. And people see this on a larger scale. I think there's so much data out there now to show the importance of employee well-being. So for example, there was a Gallup poll that showed that, you know, when employees are thriving and have well-being in the workplace, there— I thought this was interesting from a health perspective— 41% less likely to miss work due to health, and 36— excuse me— more likely to recover fully after illness. So more people showing up, less people being sick. That's a straight-up health statistic, but also twice as likely to say that they will adapt to change. So more adaptable and healthy, not only happy employees, makes a huge impact. And I think these are things that employees can't really ignore anymore.

I mean, it makes sense, right? Like, if you're happier and your overall well-being is better, you are going to perform better. And when you read such staggering data like this, it's hard to comprehend that there are so many big businesses that don't value these things and that think doing exercises like daily gratitudes or strength spotting are a waste of time when the proof is in the pudding and there are real numbers to— there are financial incentives to do these things. And it's something that you and I face. I love that you brought up our daily pause, our exercises of strength spotting and gratitude. I get made fun of from, you know, people who are working at home or in coffee shops hearing me, and they're like, what the hell are you two talking about? Like, this is how you spend your time, like talking about how you love each other and what you're grateful for? But it's like, yeah, it makes the business run.

Oh my God, yeah, it totally does. I think it's just a more progressive idea. I think positive business practices as a field of knowledge is newer. So I think with anything, it's gonna take time, but you said it yourself, the proof is in the pudding. So we're gonna keep doing it. I hope everyone realizes the impact it can have, and not only in social media and marketing and the importance of those kinds of professions to make businesses run, especially in today's digital age, but also these softer skills of valuing people in the workplace, expressing positivity, even work-life balance. There's a lot that can go into that, and and those have real impact. I also think it's interesting that typically women are the ones valuing these aspects and are even looked down upon or deemed too emotional for doing so. And I know we've faced some of these stereotypes in our position, and it's unfortunate that there's this stereotype that females are taken less seriously as a result and that they're less suited for the workplace because of these things. I think it's unfortunate.

1,000%. I mean, it still feels like business is a man's world. And, you know, if we look back in history, not very long ago, women were known as the cooks and the bakers and the ones who took care of the home and provided for that family. And only recently have, you know, women with children continued to work and have taken serious roles. And that's something that I feel like we feel so deeply in our business because as female entrepreneurs, especially ones with a baking mix company, when we tell someone, oh yeah, you know, we have a banana bread business, 100% of the time, like 100% of the time, the next sentence is, ah, that is so cute, cute, right? Do you make it in your kitchen? And we have to be like, no, we make it in a manufacturing facility and it's a 7 your business.

I know, I feel like we have to go on and on kind of establishing the credibility and throwing out the statistics for people to be like, wow, that's impressive.

It is frustrating because, you know, if we were men and we had a concept for a business, I can almost guarantee you that that idea would be taken more seriously than when we tell people we have a legitimate business, but they see two women, women with a baking mix company, and it's like, oh cute, that's fun.

The image that literally pops into their head is this, the old tried and true stereotype of us in the kitchen. So I do think it just shows too how strong the stereotypes can be and how pervasive they can be over the years. I think people forget that when they see, you know, more women and female figures in the news in prominent positions, but the reality is these stereotypes are still really strong, and we still have a long way to go. But women have really made a name for themselves and do really, really well in business.

Actually, there is some crazy data around this. First Round Capital, a venture capital group, dug into the businesses that they had funded, and they actually found that the ones that were founded by women were 63% better in terms of their performance than all male-founded companies. I mean, that's crazy, crazy. And there was another study we saw by the Kauffman Fellows report that found that women-led teams generate a 35% higher return on investment than all-male. Mic drop.

Crazy, crazy. Seriously, that's not a small percentage. Those are huge numbers. And I just want to do a little clap because that's, that's pretty awesome.

It's just interesting, right? Like, women are looked down upon in the workplace, deemed not suitable for certain things. You know, pregnancy is its whole thing where people are nervous people are going to get pregnant and not come back to work. And that explains why only 2.8% of venture funding went to women-led startups in the last few years. And how it doesn't make sense when you think about the fact that those women-led companies are going to, according to the data, perform way better than the, the male-founded ones.

Right. And I don't think this is a conversation either about, you know, female female-founded companies are better than male-founded. It's more the idea that we are extremely capable, extremely smart, and have the ability just as much as men to lead business and be in the workplace. And it just combats those stereotypes that are still pretty strong. And I think there's some amazing examples. You and I have a lot of role models in this space of women crushing it, and ones who have faced turmoil and struggles in the workplace and proven them wrong and gone out to create billion-dollar businesses.

I think about Whitney Wolfe, uh, for those of you who don't know, she is the founder of Bumble. And to give you a little bit of backstory on her, she actually started her career with Tinder. She was the genius behind their name. She was the one who brought Tinder to college campuses to sort of fuel that initial popularity. And when she talks about her experience at Tinder, she talks about this sort of toxic work environment and how her ideas weren't taken seriously, and it was very challenging for her. There was a whole lawsuit that we're not going to get into. You can look into it on your own if you're interested. It's a fascinating story. But anyway, she went on to create Bumble, an app where women run the show, where women do the outreach, and there's a safer space for dating. And obviously they're one of the dating apps on the market now. And, you know, we think, what could Tinder have looked like had they taken this powerhouse, this woman and her ideas, more seriously, right?

And I think that also is a beautiful transition into our kind of final point here of using all those things as fuel in your business. I think she's a great example of that. She turned around and used that exact idea that they were doubting to turn Bumble into a billion-dollar business. But I think we also use those things to differentiate ourselves. We put them front and center when we're telling our stories. That's how we've blown up on TikTok, just from sharing our story of being young friends who met in college, who created this baking business as young females and built a 7-figure company. So, and that's what people are drawn to. They love the underdog story, the surprise, the rising above and defying those stereotypes. And that's what inspires people and gets people to join in on our story, which we love. So we continuously put it front and center and lean into that because we know it's actually a differentiator and a strength for us in the end.

I back that so much, the idea that you need to use, you know, the, the parts of you or your business or your ideas that people have a negative stereotype about and lean into those because As you know, Morgan just said, that's such a huge part of our success. All of the videos that we've ever had, you know, blow up to hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok are about our story. And right, the best reactions we get in pitches is when we have the time to tell our story about how we started this business when we were younger and how we are two young females. And, you know, we don't need to go on and on about all the people who said, well, you know, maybe you should have more work experience before you do this, or you know, what do you really know about business? You know, we lean into that to say we're open to learning and to growing and to adapting to the environment around us. And that's why we have so many people and so many women especially who relate so much and are inspired by GoNanas.

Right. I also think it makes us more real and kind of human. At the end of the day, the world we live in is super diverse and super different. And while society may portray a ideal, the end of the day, us sharing our story is something people can relate to. Maybe they're young, maybe they're a female, maybe whatever it may be, and that inspires them that they can do that. Because the reality is they can, and look at the data we just shared. You can, and you will, and you can do it very well. So I think at the end of the day, people love a real story. They want to see who you really are, not necessarily this ideal that a lot of people can't relate to. So leaning into those can make you more relatable, can differentiate you, like you said. And I think I think it's also really empowering at the end of the day. I think I'm also, you know, a short person, for example, in addition to these other things. When I walk into a room, there can be that initial first impression, and I like defying that. I think it's empowering to surprise people and say, no, I'm not what you expect. I'm actually this fiery businesswoman, whatever it may be, who's doing XYZ that surprises people and maybe inspires them. So I think it's actually more empowering in the end.

I agree with everything you just That's it.

Well, I love that. And on that note, thank you guys for joining this episode. It's stuff that is really, really important to us, and we're especially passionate about it. And I think while realizing systemic and societal change in these areas will take time to change, I hope this episode gave you a greater understanding that these perceptions exist, but inspired you to use them as fuel and motivation in whatever you're doing. And we encourage you to view them as advantages rather than barriers and embrace defying the norms. And that is all for this episode of Bite Into Business. We hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day, and we will catch you guys in 2 weeks to talk about creating a product that sells. Yes, this is a good one, all about marketing and sales. Thank you guys for tuning in. And for our Sweet Tooth friends out there, if you're like, what is this banana bread? I need to try it. I'm so glad I discovered this podcast. You can find us on the gram at @eatgonanas. You'll get all the fun updates, behind the scenes, new flavor updates, all that jazz. And you can also find us online at eatgonanas.com. That's E-A-T-G-O-N-A-N-A-S dot com. And if you want to try our banana bread for free, we're just starting out. And so we are building our reviews. You can help us grow. It means so much. So if you're on Apple Podcasts, rate and review, or for Spotify or something that doesn't use reviews, share your favorite part of the podcast on Facebook and Instagram and tag us. We will see you, we will enter you into this, and we will be picking winners to give away free banana bread every month. So you'll be contacted, we'll be on the lookout, and they just make our day, if anything else. And the link to subscribe to our emails and the podcast itself so you never miss a bite of business will be in our show notes as well. So check those out, there's a lot of good links there. And And see you guys next time!

Bye!