Podcasting Secrets

Laurie Delk Radecki has owned BMD Enterprises, a web and graphic design, branding, and marketing company, for more than 26 years. She's a best-selling author of two business books: Keep Those Clients and We All Have Choices. She's featured in two other best-selling books: Power of Human Connection, and Momentum Makers. She's been a speaker and trainer for more than 16 years. 

In today’s episode, we’re going to hear the story of Laurie Delk Radecki, the wife of a police officer who passed away, and how she became a highly successful entrepreneur to provide for her family. 

Laurie’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Here’s how Laurie got to where she is today.

BMD Enterprises

When Laurie was pregnant with her second child, she needed a job to help support her family. “At that time, my kids’ dad was a police officer, and that type of industry [didn’t provide enough for] a one-income household. So I was praying for something I could do from home to be able to help support our family so my husband didn't have to work 2, 3, [or] 4 jobs.”

It was 1993 and the internet was becoming more prevalent. Laurie and her husband got their first computer. “Back then there were hardly any businesses on the internet . . . but I decided, this is the perfect thing for every business to have a business card on the web, so to speak,” she said.

“So I created my web design company and figured out how to write code and create websites. . . . A lot of my clients didn't have logos even, or didn't know what to do with that, so then I went into graphic design. So, I did those hand in hand and built that company.” Within a few years, she hit six figures and tripled her husband’s income.

Send Out Cards

While Laurie was doing that business, she would send out thank you cards, saying, “Thank you for meeting with me,” or “Thank you for your business,” etc. She’d read a lot of sales training books that said people do business with those they know, like, and trust. However, Laurie says, “People do business with those they know, like, trust, and remember. If they don't remember you when it's time to do that business, then you're not going to get the business.”

Laurie found a way to streamline this process when she found a company called Send Out Cards. She joined the company because they were doing exactly what she was doing. It was a great way to help her balance work and family. 

Networking

Not long after joining Send Out Cards, Laurie started networking. She joined a few different networking groups and found things she liked and didn’t like about each of them. She decided to create her own, incorporating all the things she liked about the ones she’d joined.

Laurie was able to build and keep up many business connections. “That's one huge thing that I've been focused on . . . keeping track of people [and] having systems and tools to keep track of everybody and be able to keep in touch.”

Coaching

Laurie met with a real estate agent in her network. He asked her to sit down with him and teach him about what she did in her web and graphics company to get it to six figures. He wanted to apply some of the principles to his real estate company. 

When she’d finished teaching him, he told her that he wanted her to teach his group of about 150 agents with a PowerPoint. Laurie was a little baffled. She didn’t know how to use PowerPoint, and she’d just been talking with this agent, not planning out lessons or anything like that. One of her favorite speakers, Jim Rohn, always said, “Say yes and figure it out later.”

So Laurie said yes, went home, and started searching the internet for how to create a PowerPoint, and she figured it out from there. “[It] went really well, and of course some of the agents in there ended up referring me to different mortgage brokers and title agents and different people that they knew in their circle. I had more people calling me to do speaking engagements and corporate sales training and things like that, so [that] led me into researching more about how to teach and train. I found out that there was training out there on how to [train], so [I] took some courses and became certified in those different areas.”

Writing Her First Book

Lots of People started telling Laurie she should write a book. She thought, “I don’t write books.” She loved to read personal development and business books, but she never thought she could write a book. She thought she could never be on the same level as those authors and business people she looked up to.

Laurie took a course, and part of the homework for that course was to write a book. She thought, “Oh my goodness, I can't do this,” but she had to pass the course. “I'm like one of those [people] that is not only kind of competitive with other people, but I'm competitive with myself. So, if I say I'm going to do something, I'm like, ‘I've got to see it to the end.’”

So she wrote the book and learned how to become self-published. When she put it on Amazon, it hit bestseller status in the first couple of hours.

Wonderful Widowed Women

When Laurie’s husband died, she was looking for widow support groups. She found a few, but they weren’t quite what she was looking for. “I wanted something with positivity; I was last to be raised by a mom who is very positive and optimistic minded.” So she created her own nonprofit, Wonderful Widowed Women. 

She ended up speaking to different groups on this subject, which led her to write her second book, We All Have Choices, on how we react to things and how we look at things. “When I got the news of his wreck, of course, it was terrible, and [I] cried a lot. But I also knew if I was still here, still breathing, I needed to figure out my purpose and . . . why I'm still here. Plus, I had four kids at home that I had to be an example to, right, because they're going to look up to me and they're going to go through tragedies in life, and they need to know . . . how to respond to those things as well. So I knew I needed to, as we say in Tennessee, pull up your bootstraps and get busy.”

Greatest Home Run: Providing for Family

When I asked Laurie what the greatest home run she’s hit in her career is, she said, “I very quickly grew to six figures, being able to help take care of our family.” That was one of the biggest things she wanted to be able to do. Laurie never missed her kids’ games or events. She was able to host holidays and get-togethers. She was also able to keep up connections with people outside her family by having the flexibility to go to lunch with a friend.

With entrepreneurship, she’s had the flexibility to build strong relationships with her friends and family. Laurie’s family needed monetization, and she had the skills and talents to monetize so that she could take care of what mattered most to her. 

“Money is not everything, but it ranks right up there with oxygen.” - Zig Ziglar

Laurie’s Passion: Relationships

Laurie said the biggest passion that she’s had all her life is relationships. “I carry that into business. I think that's one of the huge things that has helped me to succeed in the business world, but even before that in my personal life I've just always been one of those relationships people,” she explained. 

Even from the time she was young, she had a focus on having lots of strong relationships with people. “Back when I was in grade school [and] in high school, I was the kid that fit into all the different groups and wanted everybody to just love each other and like each other and get along and be happy.”

She’s done the same thing in her family life. “I always wanted a big family. We had five children . . . and I was the one that always hosted Thanksgiving, Christmas, all the holidays [and] the family get-togethers. [I] always sent out pictures of our family for our Christmas cards. I've done that since I was little . . . and I just keep in touch with everybody,” she said. “Especially as the world progressed into social media and things. I think that's one of the best things in business, but it's also one of the best things to keep in touch with friends and family all around the world.” 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Laurie for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. People do business with those they know, like, trust, and remember.
2. Networking and networking groups are great ways to make business connections.
3. Sometimes we have to say yes and then figure it out.
4. Entrepreneurship allowed Laurie to provide for her family when they needed it, and it gave her the flexibility to be there for them too.
5. Technology and social media provide great opportunities to keep in touch with people and build strong relationships.

Connect with Laurie

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Laurie or connect with her, you can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriedelk/, check out her website at http://lauriedelk.me/, or you can watch, read, or listen to our next episode with Laurie.

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

How has entrepreneurship helped you create the life that you want? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/104-the-story-of-a-police-officers-widow-who-became-an-entrepreneur/ 

Welcome back to another episode of Monetization Nation with Andy Goldstrom. In the last episode, we discussed Andy’s entrepreneurial journey and lessons he learned about being a good leader, such as why leaders should always speak last. In this episode, we’re going to discuss four tectonic shifts Andy sees today and three actions leaders need to take to adapt to change, such as tectonic shifts. 

4 Tectonic Shifts in the Market

Tectonic shifts are trends and changes in the market. Andy explained four tectonic shifts that are happening right now that we should be aware of. 

Demographics

In the United States, there are two key demographics we should focus on.

“There are two rats going through a snake,” Andy explained. “They are the baby boomers, who are either retired or getting closer to retirement, and the millennials, who are going to make up more than a quarter of the workforce within a year or two.”

As baby boomers move into retirement, there is going to be a need for more retirement homes, financial services, health care, etc. As millennials move into the workforce, they are going to want to live in cities and want more convenience and accessibility. We need to know who we are catering to. “If you can point your arrow at either of those things, chances are you'll have some opportunity,” Andy said. 

Technology 

Technology is an obvious tectonic shift we have all seen.

As more and more technology is created, prices have dropped significantly, while the need for competency has gone up. “The changes in technology have allowed new businesses to pop up because the barriers to entry are lower, but also it's allowing all these businesses to scale,” Andy said. 

Technology makes it easier for businesses to connect with a community. From their home, they can reach millions of people from across the world—essentially anyone with a computer. Technology provides fast ways to communicate, deliver information, arrange payments and meetings, and more. 

Regulation 

With the increase in technology, regulation has become an increasing shift. 

“Because the competency [of technology] has gone up and the cost has gone down, the [next] trend is regulation,” Andy said. “With more technology, there's more ability to create fraud or create problems, and you've seen this well with all these scammers . . . So regulation from cybersecurity to monitoring technology is going to change quite a bit.” 

Recurring Revenue 

Finally, recurring revenue has become very important within businesses. Instead of relying on single payments from a product, subscriptions and recurring revenue give companies consistently and almost guaranteed income every month. 

“Subscriptions [are] the revenue amount that you can count on which allows you to invest more in your niche and determine where you're going to make your investments,” Andy explained. “What your company is going to be worth is so much higher when you have recurring revenues.”

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Adapting 

It is essential for leaders to adapt to these changes and tectonic shifts. McKinsey created a recent study that looked at what the new normal is. In this study, there were five key elements that stood out to Andy. 

1. Uncertainty is the new normal.
2. The winners are those who can adapt the fastest. 
3. Leaders need to envision new opportunities.
4. You need to leverage talent.
5. Companies need to operate more efficiently. 

With uncertainty as to the new normal, it is crucial for leaders to know how to adapt. Along with adapting, they must also be able to envision new opportunities as things change. These five takeaways from the study shows just how important it is to know how to accept and adapt to change. 

3 Actions Leaders Can Take to Adapt to Change 

Andy gave three things a leader needs to do in order to adapt to change. 

1. Develop A Changing Mindset

A strong leader needs to have a changing mindset. “It's [about] changing your mindset of the way you lead,” Andy said. “People are used to leading in the same way [they did] five years ago. It doesn't work the same.” 

We must have the mindset that change is inevitable and necessary. Change is often a good thing, not a bad thing. Once we recognize this, it will be easier to accept feedback and make the changes we need in order to grow our businesses. 

According to Andy, there are four different biases many leaders have: Quantification bias, adrenaline bias, sophistication bias, and opportunity bias. These biases often get in the way of a changing mindset and must be overcome. 

A quantification bias is disregarding good ideas or an opportunity because we can’t reliably calculate the return of investment (Source: Chief Executive). This often gets in the way of success as many great opportunities often require intuition and taking a risk. 

An adrenaline bias is a lack of patience. It is thinking we don't have enough time to accomplish everything we need to and defaulting to the method that works the fastest. 

Someone in this bias is “drawn to solutions that will have the most immediate impact, even if those solutions don’t address the underlying issues in the organization.” (Source: Chief Executive) Change often takes time. Once we escape the adrenaline bias and realize this, we will be able to make more effective changes in our businesses. 

A sophistication bias is favoring the more complicated solution over the simple one. Someone with this bias thinks that better solutions always take more time and investment, but this isn’t always the case.

An opportunity bias is pursuing an opportunity based on instinct or an opinion formed without enough information. Andy explained, “They choose opportunities based upon what somebody tells them—the shiny object or what I call gut instinct or conjecture—as opposed to actual opportunities that really lead to business fitness.” Opportunity isn’t only based on gut instinct; we also need to prepare scientifically. 

A changing mindset can’t get caught in these four biases. We need to always have an open mind and be willing to try new ways of doing things. There are limitless paths to success. Once we understand this, we will be much more open to change and new ideas. “A mind shift change can help leaders move forward,” Andy said. 

1. Prepare (Scientifically) 

As leaders adapt to change, they must prepare. “You have to prepare scientifically as opposed to based upon your gut instinct,” Andy said. This means we have to do our “homework” and research. 

While there is opportunity found in “gut instinct,” it always requires preparation and research. Taking a business risk doesn’t mean leaping off a cliff and hoping for the best. It means researching the best method to get down the cliff and trusting that it works. Taking a risk still requires research, time, and effort. 

“The best way to do your ‘homework’ is to talk to your existing customers,” Andy said. “Say, ‘I'm having to adapt my business’ or ‘I want to expand my business and you've been a great client. . . What's your feedback on it?’ That's the best way for new and prospective customers.”

While adapting to changes we can do primary and secondary research. Primary research means conducting our own research while secondary research involves looking at the research of others. Primary research often includes surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Secondary research often includes looking at research papers, academic journals, and other published works. 

Once we prepare and do the research, we will be much more ready to adapt to change successfully. 

1. Execute 

A good leader needs to be able to execute. 

“You have to be able to pull the trigger. You have to know when to move forward when to manage the risk appropriately, how to measure it, and you have to know how to say ‘no’ or how to . . . pull the plug on something that's just not working, rather than continue to fortify it,” Andy said. 

A good leader must be decisive as they make the final decision. After recognizing change and undergoing the preparation for change, it eventually comes down to a choice. Is it worth it? Will the change be profitable or will it fail? Adapting to change requires the ability to weigh the pros and cons when making the final decision. 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Andy for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. There are at least four tectonic shifts occurring today: demographics, technology, regulation, and recurring revenue.  
2. A good leader needs to be able to adapt to change as we live in a world where uncertainty is the new normal. 
3. In order to adapt to change, a leader must have a changing mindset. We must recognize that change is often a good thing. 
4. Adapting to change requires preparation and research. 
5. Ultimately, adapting to change comes down to a final decision. Will the change be beneficial? A leader must be able to execute the final decision.

Connect with Andy

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Andy, connect with him on his LinkedIn. If you want to learn more about his company, Midcourse Advisors, you can visit his website at midcourseadvisors.com. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

What are the most difficult changes you had to make? Was it a success or failure? Why? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/103-3-actions-leaders-need-to-take-to-adapt-to-change/ 

Andy Goldstrom is a business strategist, B2B growth expert, professor of entrepreneurship, and author. Over his career, he has built and sold fast-growing companies, including two that made it on the Inc. 500.

Today, Andy shares his entrepreneurial journey and what he has learned about being a good leader. Specifically, he’s going to teach us why leaders should always speak last. 

Andy’s Entrepreneurial Journey

After Andy finished his undergraduate degree in computer science, he started working at GTE, which is now Verizon, but eventually discovered it wasn’t the right for him.

“It just took a lot to make decisions and get things done and add value,” Andy explained. “There was a lot of reorganization going on outside of my span of control or purview at such a young age, and I realized early on that it wasn't the ultimate fit for me.” He eventually learned through experience that he would excel in leadership positions. 

Around the time he left GTE, companies were starting to outsource a lot more, especially in real estate. Andy saw a window of opportunity there and became the managing director and partner at USI, where they made a company’s real estate an asset as opposed to a cost center through strategic planning, transaction management, designing the construction, legal review, and database administration, and then sold it to the chief financial officer (CFO). 

Eric explained success is a lot about timing with an entrepreneurial venture. “The timing was perfect. We actually were able to get a few customers who had very good interest and wanted to sign up with us before we even launched. So we were able to break even within six months,” he said.  

As the company grew they were able to expand with their clients and work for companies such as Delta Airlines and United Technologies. However, once he saw changes in the marketplace as more companies wanted to go global and asked for more facility management, he decided to monetize the company and sold it to Johnson Controls.

“After Johnson Controls bought us, I became the executive in charge of a big region for Johnson Controls, including the facility management business, and I learned a lot . . . The number of people and the amount of revenue grew substantially in terms of what I oversaw and was $50 million worth of business,” Andy said. 

Eventually, Andy left the company and searched for another business to help grow. He took over as the founder of a waste recycling company and helped their revenue grow 30% and their profit grows 70% within two years. 

Andy helped both USI and the waste management company achieve Inc. 500 status. 

Through his extensive journey in leadership and management roles, Andy continues to help businesses grow and adapt their business models as things change over the years.

Becoming a Leader

Through Andy’s entrepreneurial journey, he learned a lot about what it takes to be a successful leader. When I asked him what his biggest home run was, he told me it was inspiring others. 

“It was an honor and a pleasant surprise when, more than once, people have said, ‘You're the type of leader I want to work for,’” Andy said. “If you're able to help others achieve their goals, and in turn, help yourself, there's no better achievement than that.”

One key factor that makes Andy such a great leader is understanding that a leader is only as good as their team.

“[I understood] that if I wanted to sell something, I was only as good as the people who were working with me and that I was a servant to them,” Andy said. “I'm not the smoothest talker, but I am very trustworthy and I deliver what I say I'm going to do.”

In order for a business to succeed and effectively monetize, the entire team needs to be working together with the same goal in mind. An effective leader helps his team learn and encourages them to share ideas. 

“If you're going to grow it, you have to have the right people who are incentivized and developed in the right way so that they can do the work, so you can grow and scale your company. I always tried to set a good example for that,” he said. 

Learning to Talk Last

A good leader should talk last. Let everyone share their point of view first, and then we can share ours. Not only does that allow us to listen before we talk, but it allows us to gather valuable feedback from our team members. It makes the feedback that we give much more effective when we fully listen to everyone’s ideas first. 

When I asked Andy what his biggest mistake was, he told me it was speaking too soon in a conference meeting. 

There was a time he was leading a senior team in a conference reviewing financials. During the conference, the CFO was presenting, and Andy felt like he knew what the right plan of action was based on the presentation. He ended up cutting off the CFO and didn’t give him the time he deserved for the work he had put into the presentation. This mistake impacted their relationship, and it took time to rebuild their trust. 

“You have to be the last person in the room to talk,” Andy said. “You have to let everybody else have their say. That doesn't mean that they're the ultimate decision-maker. But everybody needs to have a contribution because that's what allows a company to build. It was a tough lesson but a good lesson to learn.” 

One of the things I like best about speaking last is, if someone comes up with the idea you are going to say before you say it, you can give them credit for it. As a leader, this helps everyone on the team feel like a valuable player. The more comfortable and valuable everyone feels on our team, the more likely it will be that they will share other ideas in the future. A business should be run on collaboration, not a one-man-band. 

In Andy’s consulting business, he works with many great people and leaders on the teams he is a part of. They all give great answers because they know the industry, but often they may have their own bias they are worried about sharing. If we can create an environment where everyone’s ideas will come to the forefront, we are doing it right. 

“I find that transparency, the ability to understand the goals of the company and how everybody's contributing to it, and giving people [the opportunity] to bubble up ideas, creates innovation,” Andy said.

Once we create innovation and trust in our teams and businesses, we will have the confidence of knowing that when adversity hits, such as COVID-19, we don’t have to carry the weight of it by ourselves. We will have an incredible team to help us continue to operate in the toughest conditions. 

Another advantage to speaking last is that everyone will feel heard. Even when someone shares an idea we don’t agree with, at least we have shown them we are willing to hear their ideas. We can also take the opportunity of the disagreement and better explain to them why we are doing things the way we are. It's a lot easier to swallow feedback if you know the person at least listened to what you had to say before they made that contrary decision.

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Andy for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Success is a lot about timing and being prepared to seize the opportunity when the time comes.
2. Leaders need to know how to adapt to changes in the market, just as we are teaching with tectonic shifts.
3. Good leaders build trust by doing what they say they are going to do.
4. A leader is only as good as their team. 
5. A leader should talk last. Talking last builds trust, openness gives room for feedback and helps everyone feel heard. 

Connect with Andy

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Andy, listen to part two of this episode or connect with him on his LinkedIn. If you want to learn more about his company, Midcourse Advisors, you can visit his website at midcourseadvisors.com. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

What is your strategy for being a successful leader? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/102-leaders-talk-last/ 

This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I’m Nathan Gwilliam, your host. In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss an inspiring commencement speech Hugh B. Brown gave about coming to understand God’s method for helping us learn, grow and improve. All of us have challenges and trials. We each have times we feel cut down, and we need to remember that God is our gardener. He may cut us down, but he does so with the purpose of making us greater than we are now. 

We will also look at five successful people who were fired before becoming rich and famous and how they continued on despite their challenges. 

The Currant Bush

In 1968, Hugh B. Brown, an attorney, educator, and church leader, gave a commencement speech at BYU. He encouraged the graduating students to develop a personal relationship with God and to keep close to Him as they moved onto the next stages of their lives. As part of his message, he shared a story of a currant bush. 

While Brown was on a farm in Canada, he found a currant bush. The bush had grown over six feet tall and showed no signs of blossoms or fruit, so Brown grabbed his pruning shears and cut the bush down until there was nothing left but a clump of stumps. 

As he looked at what was left on the bush, he saw what looked like a tear. He asked, “What’s the matter, currant bush? What are you crying about?” And he thought he heard the bush speak. It seemed to say, “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as large as the fruit tree and the shade tree, and now you have cut me down. And all in the garden will look upon me with contempt and pity. How could you do it? I thought you were the gardener here.”

With that, he responded, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. But someday, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to think back and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”

Ten years later, Brown found himself in Europe as a field officer in the Canadian Army during World War I. One day there had been a casualty. The man standing between Brown and the rank of a general had been lost in war. The day after, Brown received a telegram from London from General Turner, requesting he be brought to his office the following morning. 

Brown polished his boots and buttons and prepared himself for the meeting, expecting to be appointed an army general. However, when he went to London, the general roughly told him to sit down. He said, “Brown, you are entitled to this promotion, but I cannot make it. You have qualified and passed the regulations, you have had the experience, and you are entitled to it in every way, but I cannot make this appointment.”

With that, he left the room. Brown leaned over the table and looked at his personal history sheet and saw a sentence written at the bottom that had his religious affiliation written with each letter capitalized. They had denied him the position because of his faith. 

On his way back to his tent, bitterness rose. He shook his fist at heaven and asked, “How could you do this to me, God? I’ve done everything that I knew how to do to uphold the standards of the Church. I was making such wonderful growth, and now you’ve cut me down. How could you do it?”

Then he heard a voice that sounded like his own. It said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. And someday, when you are ripened in life, you are going to shout back across the time and say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.’”

Years later, Brown realized that if he had taken the position of a senior commanding officer, he wouldn’t have experienced many of the blessings he had later on in life. Now, looking back, he is able to say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down.”

God is our gardener. He knows what’s best for us and sometimes we need to be cut down in order to grow. We may not understand it at first, but God knows where He needs us to be. We just need to trust Him. 

This same principle applies in business. As entrepreneurs with faith, we need to remember that God knows what is best for us. Sometimes our ventures may fail, or we may run into a dead-end where we have to pivot. We need to trust that God is in control and maybe using the failures to help us grow and lead us down a better path. 

5 Successful People Who Were Fired

Many successful entrepreneurs were fired before they made their big breakthroughs. God had to “cut them down” so they could find a path that would lead to something better. 

• Elon Musk

Before Elon Musk became the founder and CEO of SpaceX, became the CEO and product designer of Tesla, and gained a net worth of $166 billion, he was “cut down.”

In 1999, Elon Musk started X.com, an online financial services company. He invested a large amount of money into the company as he took on his venture. However, in 2000, when X.com merged with a competing company to become PayPal, Musk was fired from his role as CEO due to disagreements (Source: Business Insider). 

Only a couple of years later, in 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, a space exploration technology company that is now valued at about $74 billion (Source: Forbes). Then, in 2004, Musk joined Tesla and in 2008, he took over as CEO (Source: Interesting Engineering). 

If Musk hadn’t been fired from PayPal, there is a chance he would not be leading SpaceX and Tesla. Sometimes it takes failure to be pushed into something greater. 

• Walt Disney

Before Walt Disney created one of the largest media companies in the world, a company that is now worth more than $120 billion, his editor fired him from the newspaper because he “lacked creativity” (Source: Business Insider). 

This forced Disney to experiment with hand-drawn animation and eventually led him to start his first animation business, Laugh-O-Gram. When Laugh-O-Gram went bankrupt, it forced him to move to Hollywood and open his own studio. Then, when his distributor took the rights for his cartoon, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, it forced Disney to use his imagination and he created Mickey Mouse (Source: Walt Disney Archives). 

Disney experienced multiple setbacks within his career, however, he didn’t let it stop him from moving forward. Each setback led him to a greater opportunity. We need to remember that sometimes we are stopped on the path we are on because God has something greater in mind for us. 

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me,” Disney said. “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

• Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he co-founded. 

When Jobs was 21, he co-founded the Apple Computer, and by the time he was 23, he became a millionaire, but when he was 30, he was fired from his own company. Jobs and John Sculley had a power struggle, and in 1985, Apple’s board sided with Sculley (Source: ABC News).

However, this setback ended up being one of the best things that could have happened to him. While Jobs was away from Apple, he learned valuable lessons that helped him achieve his future success.  In 1996, Apple Computer asked Jobs to come back to the company. Jobs returned as Apple’s CEO and led the company in the creation of great innovations, such as the iPod and iPhone.

"I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter into one of the most creative periods of my life," Jobs said.

• J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling was fired from her secretary position because she spent too much time daydreaming at work. 

Business Insider reported that Rowling secretly wrote stories on her work computer while dreaming up the story of a teenage wizard named Harry Potter. However, this setback actually paved the way for Rowling to start her novel. Her severance check helped support her while she focused on her writing (Source: Bustle). Now, J.K Rowling is worth just over $1 billion and is the author of one of the most successful series ever written. 

More than 500 million copies of the Harry Potter books have been sold worldwide, with 180 million sold in the United States alone (Source: MediaRoom). The first Harry Potter movie made $974.71 million (Source: Forbes) and all together, the films made over $7 billion (Source: ShowBiz CheatSheet). 

However, it is safe to say that Rowling wouldn’t have been pushed to write the Harry Potter books if she wasn’t fired. 

• Oprah Winfrey 

Oprah Winfrey was fired from reporting the evening news for Baltimore’s WJZ-TV. Her producer told her she was “unfit for television news” since she showed too much emotion (Source: Inc.). 

However, this setback led Winfrey to work for a daytime television show, People Are Talking. The show became very popular and eventually led her to create her own show, the Oprah Winfrey Show. Her show has aired nationally for 25 seasons (Source: TVdb), and she’s currently worth about $3 billion (Source: Forbes). Being fired was one of the best things that could have happened to Winfrey. 

"Wherever you are in your journey, I hope you, too, will keep encountering challenges. It is a blessing to be able to survive them, to be able to keep putting one foot in front of the other—to be in a position to make the climb up life's mountain, knowing that the summit still lies ahead," Winfrey said. 

Trusting in God 

As we trust in God and his plan for us, recovering from our setbacks will become much easier. God is our gardener. He may cut us down at points in our lives, but it is because He loves us. While we may be prevented from going down one path, the next path could lead to much greater things. 

While Brown gave his speech to a group of graduates, we can apply this same lesson as we move forward onto new stages of our lives. As we come closer to God and understand His love for us, we will have the courage to continue on. 

Brown said:

“Now some of you as you go forward is going to meet with disappointment—perhaps many disappointments, some of them crucial. Sometimes you will wonder if God has forgotten you. Sometimes you may even wonder if He lives and where He has gone. But in these times when so many are saying God is dead and when so many are denying His existence, I think I could not leave with you a better message than this: God is aware of you individually. He knows who you are and what you are, and, furthermore, He knows what you are capable of becoming. Be not discouraged, then, if you do not get all the things you want just when you want them. Have the courage to go on and face your life . . .”

Key Takeaways

Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. God is our gardener. He knows what’s best for us and sometimes that means we need to be cut down in order to grow.
2. Sometimes our ventures may fail, or we may run into a dead-end. Instead of giving up, let’s learn and pivot.
3. Many successful entrepreneurs were fired before they made their big breakthrough. God may stop us from going down one path because He knows there is another path that will lead to greater success.
4. As we come closer to God and understand His love for us, we will have the courage to continue on His path for us.

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Would you like to use your marketing team and resources more effectively? That’s what this episode is all about. Welcome back to another episode of Monetization Nation with Andrea Fryrear, one of the leading agile marketing experts, and the author of Mastering Marketing Agility.  In the last episode, we discussed three core principles of agile marketing. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss 5 steps to implement agile marketing effectively. 

1. Create Execution Teams

Agile marketing is all about collaboration, so to successfully implement it, we need to create execution teams. 

“The execution teams are the people in the trenches. They're doing the work; they are responsible for delivering concrete stuff that makes up a marketing campaign. They're making emails, blog posts, landing pages, and social posts,” Andrea said. “They are ideally brought together with an important key purpose [and] reason to work together.” 

Each team needs to have a core reason to be in the group together. Often, these groups are determined by the stages in the marketing funnel. For example, one execution team could be focused on demand generation while another could be focused on customer retention. Whatever the case, each team has a specific purpose that drives all of their activity.   

All of the team members must learn how to work together efficiently. They should be setting goals together and making sure everyone in the group is on the same page. One way to do this is by constantly measuring their performance. Each team should have KPI measurement systems to help them stay on track with their goals. 

“The [teams] work together every single day,” Andrea explained. “They're a unit—a real team that's driving towards these goals, and ideally, they have everything they need to be contained in their executive team to get work done so they're not dependent on a bunch of other groups. They are the people that are staying together and working on these high-level goals.”

Within our teams, we need to distribute different roles. For example, there needs to be a team lead—someone taking all the meeting hits for the team. We have to trust that our team lead will represent our work and bring back what we need to know. It is not a hierarchy, it’s different roles. 

However, despite the different roles, it is very important to know what the bigger goals and objectives are, and focus on them. 

2. Organize Strategy Groups

“A lot of agile [marketing] takes place at the team level,” Andrea said. “But in marketing, everybody's really interconnected. So whether you move to cross-functional teams or not, the teams rely heavily on one another to complete any kind of complex campaign or initiative.”

A strategy group is made up of the leaders of the execution teams to make sure everyone is on the same page. They meet together up to five times a week to make sure their teams are aligned, consistent and moving in the same direction. The meeting makes sure there are no issues that go unresolved. They can also meet with other people such as stakeholders, people from sales, and clients who bring in a representation for their business to hear what’s going on. 

“[A strategy group] is not necessarily a solution or a feedback meeting. It's more of, ‘Are there any issues that everybody needs to be aware of? Are we about to do something that's going to derail everything you guys are working on?’ It's an alignment meeting that really helps a larger size marketing organization use agile better,” Andrea explained.

Agile marketing only works if there is clear communication within and amongst teams. Strategy groups are essential for aligning the different teams, while execution teams are essential for getting the hard work done. 

3. Be Committed and Persistent 

Within our teams, we need to be committed and persistent. 

When I asked Andrea to share the secret to high-performing execution teams, she told me it is to be persistent. “[We need to] give them that space [and] give them that time to come together, and don't break them up after three weeks. That's not a team, in my opinion, that's a working group,” she said. 

A study found that people need to work together consistently for six months before they can really build comfort levels and develop norms. Once a team feels comfortable with each other, efficiency, productivity, trust, and confidence go up (Source: ProSky). 

“We always try to have teams write a charter or working agreement so we can say this . . . is how we're going to behave as a team. And we all commit to having the courage to call one another out if we're not living up to that. And so, you create this psychological safety—it's okay to speak up. It's okay to have crazy ideas; it's okay to speak your mind in a kind of considerate way,” Andrea said. 

In Andrea’s book, Mastering Marketing Agility, she said a perfect agile environment puts emphasis on face-to-face interactions. While COVID-19 has changed things, a perfect environment still relies on the core purpose of what face-to-face interactions do: create connection. 

We should set aside times to chat and get to know the other team members. There needs to be communication within our teams. We need to figure out what the connection points are and make sure they are never broken. This is where persistence is key. We have to be persistent in getting to know our team members if we want to find success. 

Each team member needs to be 100% committed to their group. There shouldn’t ever be someone who is in multiple execution groups. No man can serve two masters. We need to prioritize people’s time on the most important things. We shouldn’t have people double prioritized—if people are sitting on multiple projects, they end up getting pulled in a million different directions. The whole point of these teams is to prioritize people's time and energy on the most important things, but when they're being double or triple prioritized, it destroys the whole focus. 

This is the reason we need to watch out for the perils of pilots. Often when people try to implement a pilot, they grab people with the necessary skill sets and put them into that project. They then have to put 10-30% of their time into a pilot program, instead of focusing on their main goals in their execution team. Agile marketing wasn’t meant to work this way. It will only set us up for failure. We have to be committed. 

“If you get the basics right, then [the teams] can become something amazing that you would have never anticipated,” Andrea said. 

4. Determine Priorities

It is extremely important to know what the bigger goals and objectives are. Once we know our main goal, we can effectively prioritize. 

In Andrea’s book, she explains that we need to have queues. Queues are often known as backlogs; however, Andrea wanted to rename it since backlog is often seen as a place where ideas go to die.

“The queue . . . is a prioritized to-do list for the team. It's not just a brain dump of everything. It's very strictly prioritized for the work that's going to deliver outcomes soonest—the things that are of the highest value and highest impact go to the top,” Andrea said. 

The queue helps us focus our energy on the most important things. There needs to be a top priority at all times for us to work on. Priority is never plural. If someone suggests we start working on another project, we look at our queue and decide what is more important and valuable. Having this list makes sure we are getting the most important things done first, and not overwhelming ourselves with too many tasks at a time. 

A really good way to help visualize the process of prioritization and workflow is using sticky notes. It is a simple visual process to help our teams get organized. There are also simple digital tools that work in a similar way such as Miro and Mural. They both allow you to play around with different ideas like we could with sticky notes or on a whiteboard. This process of planning makes it easy to move things around. Other effective tools are Trello, Monday.com, and Asana. 

5. Make Checkpoints

A team that is successful in meeting its goals, doesn’t simply write a goal down and never come back to it. They consistently come back to their goals and evaluate their progress. In our teams, we need to create checkpoints.

“As you're taking a cross-country road trip, you have to know where you're going. If you don't know that you're trying to get to New York City, and you take off from L.A., driving haphazardly in some sort of direction . . . you're in big trouble because now you've got to redirect and there's a lot of wasted motion there,” Andrea explained. “That's what the annual plan is meant to do. It's meant to say we are trying to get from L.A. to New York. That's our big goal for the year.”

Every year we should be creating an annual plan for our teams. We need to decide what we want to accomplish within the year and determine our main goal. This plan is there to make sure we know where we are going.

We should also have quarterly planning to make sure we are staying on the right track. These “checkups” help keep the team aligned. “[These plans help us] start from this shared vision, which makes sure that we are driving in the same direction and not having to make these swerves that actually delay our arrival of where we want to be,” Andrea said. 

In addition to the annual and quarterly plans, we need to have retrospectives. “Be very diligent about your retrospectives. Don't skip them; make sure somebody is running them and facilitating them well, and then act on what you learn,” Andrea said. 

We should implement retrospectives about every two weeks. Within these meetings, we need to let everybody talk and share their ideas for improvement, and then do something about it. We have to take action, if we don’t our process will stagnate quickly. After each meeting, we should have at least one action item we can start to work on to make the ideas and improvements a reality. 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Andrea for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Agile marketing is all about collaboration within and amongst teams. We should create and organize execution teams and strategy groups. 
2. We need to be persistent in communication with our teams. 
3. We should leverage agile project management software such as Asana or Monday.com.
4. We have to be committed to our teams and to achieving our main goals and objectives. 
5. We need to determine priorities and have a queue.
6. We need to make checkpoints to make sure our team stays aligned with our goals. 

Connect with Andrea

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Andrea, connect with her on LinkedIn or her websites, Fryrear.com and AgileSherpas.com.

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