Moving from Corporate to Entrepreneur | Jennie Blumenthal | 445

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you are joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today my guest is Jenny Blumenthal. Jenny is the founder and CEO of Corporate Rehab, focusing on leadership coaching, speaking, and workshops for female executives. And companies on how to shift from surviving to thriving, retaining top talent, and build a human-centered culture. Jenny has focused her 20 years in corporate America consulting global C-suite execs. She was the, uh, previously led PwC's marketing, sales, and service team for consumer markets, and she's been published in The Journal, Condé Nast, Adweek, and we can go on and on, but it'd be more fun to just talk to her. So hey, welcome aboard, Jenny.

Thanks so much, Peter. I'm really happy to be here this morning.

Thank you. So how did Corporate Rehab get born?

Yes, it got born out of my own experience of leading in corporate America for 20 years, burning out in the process, although at that point it was 2020 and we didn't really have that language, so I didn't know I was in burnout. And I really, I wanted to figure out what made me stay in that situation as long as I did. I was leading a business unit of $300 million, managing 300 people. I've got— I had 2 kids in elementary school at the time, doing school at the kitchen table in the middle of the pandemic, and a husband in his own medical career. And so we had a lot going on. And I figured I would, you know, keep pointing my ambition towards my job and, and walking up that career ladder or running up it until it didn't work anymore. And, and we would just keep in the game as long as we could. And I think the pandemic really gave me a chance to pause and say, wait a minute, where is this ladder going to? And do I like the life that's at the end of it, or even the one that I'm living right now? And the answer for me personally was no. And, um, and I decided to step, to step off. And part of where Corporate Rehab came from was people were reaching out saying, well, wait a minute, you were poised to take this next big job and you had it together. What happened and what are you doing? And so I jokingly told people I'm putting myself through corporate rehab because I'm, I'm just detoxing from what I just went through and figuring out why I stayed in certain situations so long. There was so much that I loved about my job, but there were also a lot of things that really weren't that healthy for me that I either tolerated or probably participated in. Um, and so that became a joke and that's really where it started. And then it evolved to a company and a book and, and adding 300 other women's stories, you know, to the fold as I went.

Fantastic. So the transition is going from, you know, a good corporate citizen that's high-performing with like the stellar track at PwC and blah, blah, blah. So a lot of people would look at that from the outside and go, no one would give that up. That's the man. That's what I'm killing myself for. But I want to sort of pivot the conversation to the transition from being corporate to being an entrepreneur, right? Because a lot of our clients, authors, speakers, academics, et cetera, crush it on the corporate side, right? And they know how to navigate those waters, et cetera, et cetera. And they're really good and they know how to manage budgets and teams and whatever. And then they go out on their own and there's a whole bunch of other things they need to think about. Like, uh-oh, I'm in charge of IT. Uh-oh, where do customers come from? Like, so gimme a sense of what the first couple of uh-ohs were now that you're out on your own and not sort of shielded from certain things behind a big corporate logo?

Yes. So, um, great question. So much of what I do within Corporate Rehab is shift mindsets and behaviors for both people still in corporate America and for entrepreneurs. So you can basically, you know, play big and thrive as a leader. And to your point, the actual motions in your day and the day in the life might be, might be very different, but a lot of those mindsets and even some of the patterns that we get stuck in. Um, you're still you, whether you're a corporate person, whether you're a parent, and what— or whether you're an entrepreneur. And really just getting in touch with what were some of the mindsets that were keeping me playing small, and what were some of the things that I was doing that really did not help me as an entrepreneur, was one of the hardest things when I made that transition. Things like, you know, how quickly to scale. I used to advise $30 billion companies, so doing that with, you know, a group of women that were growing from $1 million to $3 million and then built— and starting my own business very different scale, very different perspective on how much you should lean into some of the risk, how much do you bet on the revenue coming, how much do you try to do yourself versus outsource.

But push forward. So let me, let me pause there for a second. So the mindset is a huge piece, but I think that oftentimes there are tremendous blind spots. I'm not suggesting this is you in actual skill sets.

Yes.

Right. That there's so many things that as a corporate person, people don't even need to think about. Oh, receivables. Oh, I mean, like, there's a long, long list of things that, like, I wouldn't even know how invoices get generated at PWC or receivables or, you know, like, whatever. So I think some of the things that folks struggle with is really being honest about that inventory of, here's the list of my mindsets are clearly some things that need to change there. Here's my skill set. What's the gap? Because you don't get a pass when you're solo. Like if you're not into finance, you don't get to just skip that whole invoicing thing. If you're not in, you know, if you're not good at contracting, you don't, there's no skipping. So how do, how do you advise or think about that for folks?

I think part of it comes to being ruthlessly honest with yourself, to your point of what are the things that you feel confident in? What are the areas that are growth for you that you know you can stretch and lean into with maybe some support? And then what are the parts that you just should outsource right away and not, you know, try to take on yourself? So much of it, to your point, becomes how do you actually use, you know, not only your time but your mind, because so much of the company is either riding on your personality, your contacts, your strategic thinking, your, you know, networking time, that it becomes— you don't have that leverage. And so it becomes much more about how do you think about the things that only you can do or that you can do better than anyone, and then how can you really outsource or hire in a way that is sustainable in that early growth phase, I think is the hardest part.

Yeah, no, and I think that, you know, we are living in a time where it's so easy and inexpensive and accessible to outsource a lot of the mundane. So could you learn to be a bookkeeper? Yeah, I guess you could. Could you know, here's a long list of things that you have the ability to learn. Yes, but at the expense of what? I think your point is dead on. It's okay. The things that you need to focus on are the things that you need to focus on.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about the role of the book, and then even, even pre-that, the role of thought leadership in your world, both on the corporate side and now as a, you know, more an independent, as an entrepreneur.

I think the, the thought leadership piece to me is so critical. Um, a lot of times at, on a coaching level, I'll talk about two leadership transitions that my coachees need to make and how to know when you're in one. The first is the agency stage where you're actually finding your voice. And the second is the impact where you're actually using it. And I find that people get stuck in either one of those and they can happen multiple times throughout your career. You might be in a situation where you're so heads down on things that you're not picking your head up and saying, what is my point of view on what's happening in the industry? How will the economy or politics or the issue of the day impact not only me, but my clients and the industry and my buyers and those types of things. So I think that piece is critical regardless of where you are at any level, whether you're in corporate, whether you're on your own, whether you're a quote business person or whether you're doing business in addition to writing and speaking and all of these things. I believed in it very much when I was at PwC and was media trained and had a lot of fun speaking to the press about all the things that we were building. I think I find it even more important on this side of the fence when you're an entrepreneur because so much of what you're doing, you don't have that brand behind you to your point. And you're really trying to convince, spread a message, enlist people, whatever it is that you're doing.

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Yeah, I like that positioning too, that you're thinking about not just how do I outspend, but, you know, maybe David and Goliath is a bad analogy here, but, you know, think about what your advantage is, right? Your advantage is, You don't have to support all of those people. You don't have to, you know, water down what you're thinking or saying because you're going to offend a client, which is a very real thing, especially in a regulated industry.

Well, and compliant, right? Well, there's compliance and then there's the politics of we can't say something bad about, you know, whatever, Monsanto or whatever, because we do business with them or all that. I think speed is also an issue. I mean, an individual or a smaller entity speed and agility are a huge advantage because even, you know, big organizations that move quick, it's a lowercase q. Oh yes, yes.

Very true. And I think just having that perspective that it really is an advantage and then being really honest with yourself about what your actual goals are. My goals aren't to grow back into a $30 billion company. That's not success for me. So if my goal is actually to scale to something sustainable, spread this message to as many executives who need to hear it, who have a chance to change their own leadership style, What types of things might I do that are revenue generating? What types of things might I do that are message spreading? And how do I think about what that looks like? And thought leadership plays a huge role in that because coming out and saying, here's what I think, and telling somebody on LinkedIn or in an article that I don't ever expect to buy something from me is actually a huge value relationship.

Sure, sure.

That you, again, you don't have the benefit of doing if you're trying to grow at 30 and 20% a year so that you can keep people employed. You might be in a different set of decisions. So I think that, that's—

Yeah. I also think there's another value prop to smaller organizations relative to thought leadership, and that's the relationship development, right? So if you put out work, there's a self-selection piece, which is really, really great, right? Like we, nobody really wants to be in the business of converting someone that like, you know, your whole work on mindset, if there are people or organizations or entities out there that just absolutely don't believe in that. That's awesome because you don't wanna waste your time talking to them. Like you're not gonna change their mind, let them be well, but whatever.

Right.

I think there is a strategic and deliberate way to use thought leadership to develop rapport and relationships. And it could be as simple as you're writing an article on the power of mindsets, whatever, right? And then you wanna reach out to folks that, oh, by the way, they might kind of look like people that could be your clients at some point. Right. But it's not, hey, it's Jenny, can I sell you some consulting?

That's right.

It's, Can I get your point of view on an issue that I know that is important to you and it's important to me, right? Why I'm writing this article. You know, we're talking on the podcast, we've had 450 guests. I've developed so many awesome relationships with amazing people based on the fact that we're, you know, they wanna be on the podcast, we have a common interest, blah, blah, blah. And it's a really nice way to show, show who you are and what you're about in a non— you take that salesiness out of the relationship building. Yeah.

Which is kind of cool. I agree. Well, to your point, you're just creating value, right? And you don't know whether that's going to get translated into monetary value or whether that's support for somebody else. But even the thought leadership, one thing to think about that I didn't anticipate that's been helpful is some of the items that I write, I have the freedom to put out there in terms of burnout or, you know, situations where there's, you know, toxic workplaces. And what people will message me is, I can't like your post because my boss will see.

Right, right.

Thank you for writing this because now I become somebody they can use to say, did you see that piece that that woman wrote on this? And it, instead of them saying, I don't feel safe, it starts a conversation and then they can have that conversation in a team setting using somebody else's perspective. And I think that's beautiful that it just opens up, you know, a chance to discuss burnout in a way that maybe someone feels uncomfortable bringing up to their boss. But if we're putting out articles and perspectives, then they can share something and actually create—

I think that whole— the whole people get obsessed with what I would call a lot of the vanity metrics on social. Ooh, look how many likes I got, look how many retweets I got, whatever. And I think sometimes those are important if you can actually connect and correlate them to the outcomes that you're looking for. Sometimes they're absolutely useless, of no value. Right. And I think there is a massive population, particularly on LinkedIn, which has become the de facto place for many of us to share our ideas, right? And I call them lurkers, right? So for whatever reason, they're not going to publicly like something, you know, they're not on LinkedIn as frequently. They don't want to comment because they're afraid— not afraid, but it, you know, it, it might not show well internally, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then when they, they come out, they're in, right? So they might reach out to you and say, hey Jenny, I've been following your stuff for a year and a half, and I like wouldn't be wise for me to like the article that you wrote on 10 reasons to, you know, 10 ways to manage your boss the jerk or whatever. But I need to talk to you and I'm ready to work with you. And it's almost like the sales cycle has been compressed because they're consuming in their way at their cadence because we, you know, professional services, we always have the supply. We don't know what that demand is, right? So I think there's something really interesting about nurturing a relationship that might seem invisible, And then over time realizing like, wow, they're— it feels like they're popping out of the woodwork.

Yes, that's right. Well, that's definitely been my experience. And I think to your point, it felt very natural to me. But I think what I didn't realize is I was teaching them how I will work with them. You know, if you've already been saying, here's all these tips on things, yeah, right. They get— I don't have to get on the phone and say, well, I post about helping leaders thrive and I like to be transparent.

Like, they know that already because one of the things I love is, you know, you're having a conversation with someone for the first time, a real conversation, and they're either quoting you back to you, maybe not verbatim, but they know your voice, right? They're like, they kind of have been in your head because they've read a few of your articles or your videos or whatever. And it makes it really nice, right? Because they, it's, it's this self-selection piece. You don't have to convince them that you're smart or that your mindset's aligned with theirs. Like that stuff's been done, which is the not fun part of sales is that convincing part.

Right.

Thought leadership could grease the skids of convincing that need to happen for people to feel comfortable with you. Cool. Any other thoughts, advice, recommendations on people that are out there that wanna leave corporate but won't like your stuff on LinkedIn? What's on the other side?

I think my two things I'll say on that is usually ask yourself why you wanna leave to really challenge, like, is it something within the corporate lifestyle? You know, or is it something within you? And really get some ruthless, honesty there because often we'll leave and we think the grass is greener. And to your point, there's a lot of the same challenges we either bring with us or we don't anticipate. And for those who feel like they, they know they wanna leave, but they just can't take the plunge, ask yourself, why not? Is there an actual financial piece that's holding you back and you've got, you need to get some clarity on? Is there that you don't know what you would do and what that message would look like? Start networking with some others and testing out some messaging and figuring out what your niche is. That gives you just that confidence to then, you know, take that, take that leap and step off onto the other side. And certainly if you, if you need coaching, you know where to find me.

Exactly. Well, this has been fantastic. I appreciate your time and sharing your story with us today, Jenny. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me, Peter.

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