Deborah Coviello: Leadership Skills to Face Challenges with Confidence

More than 582 million entrepreneurs exist worldwide. In today’s crowded market, if you want to put your best foot forward and take your business to unbelievable heights, you need to suit up and tackle any/every challenge that comes your way.

As founders and CEOs, we face gazillions of challenges every single day. The secret to success isn’t to avoid these challenges; but to identify core problems and master your leadership skills, allowing you to not only smoothly tackle them but also to put your business in hyper-growth mode.

In today’s episode, Adam Force, the founder of Change Creator, spoke with Deb Coviello, founder of Illumination Partners, with over 25 years of experience supporting entrepreneurs and CEOs – helping them identify core problems and master their leadership skills.

More About Deb:

Deb Caviello is the founder of Illumination Partners, a consulting agency for CEOs navigating change. At the same time, she is a trusted advisor, podcast host, and author. Deb brings along with herself about 25 years of experience in Quality & Operational Excellence roles + 20 years in the Flavors & Fragrance Industry. Throughout her career, she has worked together with her clients to help them identify, assess and solve problems that are preventing them from taking their business to the next level.

Throughout the Episode, Adam & Deborah Discussed:

Deborah shares her experience and the services she offers.
Who is Deborah’s target audience? Where does Deborah’s true expertise lie?
Deborah shares her skillset.
Where and how did Deborah expand her skill set, allowing her to help entrepreneurs and CEOs become better leaders?
How important it is for entrepreneurs and CEOs to be confident wherever they go and in front of whoever they meet – whether they enter a room or head over to an event?
How important it is to be consistent in terms of how you look, what you speak, and how you act? How can it impact your business and help you leave an impression?
The importance of visual branding – whether it’s online or offline.
The importance of building relationships and presence.
How important is planning and how much time should you allocate towards planning?
There’s no point in spending thousands of dollars on ads or any other strategy without having a strategic plan in place. How important it is to laser-focus on planning?
The shift from the traditional business model to corporate
The importance of having the right documents in place, SOPs, and almost everything in place to ensure that your business keeps going.
The importance of discipline in business.
The importance of building your own platform – hosting your own podcast, having your own website, and more.
Any common pain point Deborah observed across multiple demographics?
How important it is to have the right processes and systems in place?
Focus on culture and people development

Conclusion

“As we look ahead into the next century,
leaders will be the ones that empower others.”
– Bill Gates

From having the right processes to consistency in terms of appearance, looks, and behavior, business owners and CEOs should laser-focus on putting their best foot forward. It’s a lot of hard work and obviously, you’ll come across many challenges.

But with discipline, consistency, and hard as well as smart work, you’ll be subject to outstanding results.

Schedule a strategy call with Adam at https://studio.changecreator.com

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Episode Transcript (unedited, will likely have typos):

Adam G. Force 0:00

How do social entrepreneurs and small businesses create an authentic brand people love so they can get the edge they need to stand out create Predictable Revenue and compete against the big guys that’s what we’re here to discuss. I’m Adam forest the founder of change creator and this is the authentic brand mastery Podcast?

Unknown Speaker 3:44

Okay show

Adam G. Force 3:45

me the heat. No. Hey, Deb, welcome to the authentic Grandmaster podcast. How are we doing today?

Deborah Coviello 3:54

Am I am doing amazing, the sun is shining, my dog here will hopefully be quiet and cooperate for us. I’m ready to dive right in and have an amazing conversation. So thank you again.

Adam G. Force 4:04

Perfect, perfect, let’s do it. Yeah, I’m excited to have you here and glad to get some good weather over there and you’re feeling good. It’s a little earlier in the morning than we usually do our interviews. So appreciate that. Um, so you know, we’re gonna get into the topic of leadership. We’re gonna get into navigating, you know, the business in the right mindset and things like that. So let’s just give people a little bit of background. I know you have an entire book written around these things. And we’re gonna get into some of these like takeaways and lessons and all that stuff. So just give a little bit of background in the nutshell about who you are and what you have going on today.

Deborah Coviello 4:40

So I’m a work in progress. But again, thank you for that. But right now where I am at is that yeah, I have a lot of experience just like you you’ve got marketing and branding experience. I happen to be an operations and quality excellence leader. I have been in manufacturing and operations for over 30 years. So along the way we use our tech nickel skills to help solve business problems. And so that is primarily the work that I do, I consult and I drop in to organisations that are going through some kind of business transformation. And they’re looking right and they’re looking left, they don’t have enough capacity or capability to do it. And they’re, I don’t know, raise their hand and finally, say, I need help. So those are the perfect leaders and CEOs that I can help them get unstuck and get back on track. But there is another demographic that I’ve come to love because it’s not just helping the business thrive, right? Sometimes entrepreneurs like the ones that you serve, as well as aspiring leaders, they’re rock stars, they’re so good at what they do. And then something happens either their mindset, the environment, a new boss, a difficult client, something changes for which, oh, my God, they lose their confidence. And I have found that over time, even though I elevated in my career to higher and higher roles in the corporate world, there’s a lot more smarter people than me. And I realised that my true gift was to be able to elevate them, remove the barriers, help them to message a little bit better for influence. And so I’ve developed a lot of these skills through the school of hard knocks, to be able to also help the aspiring C suite leader help the person who’s starting out on their business be able to for themselves to get back on track, because sometimes it’s just a little bit that’s getting in their way. And that’s also why I wrote the book, because I see common thread, amazing people

Adam G. Force 6:32

that get stuck. Interesting. Yeah. And what Where did you learn these skills that allow you to actually help people become better leaders?

Deborah Coviello 6:43

So I actually wrote the book, because it was basically a lot of stories about how did I figure it out, because I don’t know what it was. But either I had a can do attitude, I am going to muscle through and figure out why my boss isn’t giving me a raise, or when I give that presentation i.my I’s and cross my T’s, but it’s crickets at the end. So where’s the conversation? Did you buy what I was telling you? Yeah, or, you know, hey, here’s the data. And people are saying, let’s talk about it another time, and you go away, so frustrated. So it is a lot of these lessons along the way for which I didn’t have a mentor. And I didn’t have a coach. And so now all my I see the value of having such people in your life to guide you. So I decided to write the book again, I had a lot to say, hey, you can do this yourself, you’ve got the confidence. Let’s help you articulate your messages. I wrote the book because I wanted others to struggle less. And through my experience in my podcast, the drop in CEO, I bring forward those lessons and insights to help the next generation leader or entrepreneur, you don’t need to struggle, you can do this with a guide, or listen to these great resources.

And through your experience. So it sounds like great leaders aren’t just born they can be made is that I absolutely and again, I’m so jealous of those leaders that just kind of walk into a room and they exude confidence. I used to think that was the person I want it to be I’ve got a picture of a person in my mind to say I want to look and sound and be like them where people just walk up to them and shake their hand. Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. I think what’s more important is you showing up who you are, you’ve got your zone of genius, but being able to connect with people, whether it’s how you look, how you message, how your website, how everything shows up, because I learned it has to be in sync with each other. I remember a story somebody told me and I was a little embarrassed. I love bright colours. I love dressing up when I went to work. But somebody ultimately told me it’s you’re confusing people, you are trying to be a professional at a major organisation with strong messages to impact the direction of the business. And then you come in with all of these loud colours. It’s a little confusing, they don’t know who you are. Now you can still be your authentic self, have a little bling, have a little bit of flash guys wear colourful socks, you can still have your creative self when you show up at work that makes sure that whatever comes out of your mouth, and whatever you look like as well is consistent because people may not necessarily remember what you say. But it’s that consistency and that trust. How did I learn this? Oh, I did not learn it in corporate. But when I had to go out and be an entrepreneur, and be that sales and marketing for myself, I gently learned all of that matters, not just the service we provide, but how we show up so people can trust you. So learn through practice. I mean, that’s it a powerful I think little commentary that you made that a lot of people miss and you know Yes, being your authentic self and you know is really important and also understanding human behaviour to a point where you are

Adam G. Force 10:00

Understand, what’s the impact of the things you say, you know, you have verbal, and then the visual representation and those first impressions, and what is it? What’s the domino effect? Right? Are we are we bringing a a welcoming and trusting presence or a powerful presence? I mean, why do presidents wear the red tie and important presentations, right? It’s like, there is psychological reasoning behind these things. And I think the you’re talking about visual branding, in a sense, and imagery, and that’s something I love and I, I do as well with websites and digital properties. And so it’s very similar thought processes and and that stuff comes to life through kind of like thing, you have to at least stop and think about these things a little bit. Absolutely.

Deborah Coviello 10:47

You know, and it was interesting. And I, along the way, before we had the opportunity to meet each other, I found somebody that asked me a lot of questions, you know, who is your client? What is the demographics? What positions are they in? What do you want to be known for. And ultimately, like, on my website, you know, I was very clear, like my demographics could be in some areas from the consulting side, 60 to 70%. Now, because that just happens to be the demographics. It’s not about fairness, or diversity, that is what it is. And then, and then on the other side, a lot of my consulting or coaching can be female. And so the dichotomy of those tipheret different graphics, he has strong, bold colours, which my website eventually landed on that, because you want to build trust, and calm and things like that, and then decide where do you want to be a little bit more personable you want people to relate to you. And so I put out video that is makes it very personal, that could be more attractive to maybe a female audience, I never would have thought about this stuff. But as I was building my business, after corporate, it all mattered and made sense. And it works. It’s so work. So again, kudos to the work that you do, but also just whether you’re in corporate, or in your own business, it all adds up to building those relationships and that presence,

Adam G. Force 12:07

it does, it does, and you got to dig in. And I always say it’s 95% planning guys, like, take the time, like, even like when, when I was being mentored on, like just Facebook advertising something that’s simple, right? There, like 95% of your success in that space is off of Facebook, it’s it’s the planning and strategy where understanding the customers and the deep rooted, you know, mindsets of like how to really, you know, connect with them, and, and then all of a sudden, all your content, all your visuals, all the experiences you create, they stem from that data, right from that learning. And now your brand is really starting to take shape, which it sounds like exactly what you’re talking about, and some of the evolutions that you’re going through.

Deborah Coviello 12:51

I mean, I can so relate to this, I just got done with a client, we were talking to them about, you know, they’re a can do culture. But so often they run and do without thinking about is this the right work to solve a customer issue. You know, the training, we were doing problem solving training, it’s a plan do and then check it and make sure it has the right impact. And if not, you better change it up a little bit. And I say 60 to 70% of your time should be in the planning phase, what are you trying to achieve? What is the problem that you’re solving, and make sure you get everybody in a room to say we are now going to do this, and only do you act and run and respond and put up those ads? Maybe 20 or 10% of the time because you could be putting the wrong thing out there and your message just doesn’t connect. So I’m a strong advocate for spend a little bit more time and planning, you’ll save time in the end of what if it’s not working and money? Love what you do? Oh, yeah, money. When it’s your own money as an entrepreneur, it’s especially important to make the right decisions and plan for what you’re going to do.

Adam G. Force 13:52

Yeah, I mean, when you’re spending 1000s of dollars a day or week on ads and stuff and they’re not connecting, you start, you really start saying I better go back and start paying attention to those steps that everyone keeps telling me about,

Deborah Coviello 14:05

you know, and the same thing goes for business. So again, two audiences, we have similar but different audiences. If you’re in business, and you’re coming up through the ranks, I mean, I love aspiring C suite leaders, I’ve got my C suite Leadership Academy, they don’t talk about brand and image and presence presence can be the corporate side brand and imaging is on the marketing side. You have to show up, and when you speak, it has to convey a message you need to say here’s the issue. Is it good or bad? How do I how big is it if we don’t act on this thing? And how is it going to hit you in your pocket? Again, C suite leaders are so good at what they do. It could be operations, sales planning, purchasing, but whoever teaches them how to message. Yeah, so

Adam G. Force 14:49

am I fine now? Yeah, let’s define that for people just, you know, we have a range of people here, whether they’re running seven figure companies to you know, five and six For your companies, just so they’re clear, because I think there’s a lot of people who maybe are running businesses, but they haven’t been as much in the corporate world. So C suite may not mean much to them. So if you could just define that because they may be a C suite themselves, and not even know it. So if you could define that for people, that’d be good.

Deborah Coviello 15:22

So let’s put this in context C suite leader, the buck stops with you, your neck is wrong. If you can’t make the business goals, or honey, are we going to see a paycheck this week? Yeah, that’s where the buck stops. So you do have the burden of all that decision making. But what where it makes sense is that also you have the burden or the pleasure of setting the purpose of the work that you’re going to do, because I hope for every one of you, when you get beyond employee or contractor, one, two, or three, when you start getting into the four, or five and six people in your organisation, and businesses good, a leader has to set the purpose of the organisation and you as a leader need to be able to develop the people and say, here’s the purpose of why we’re doing. And then ask yourself the question when you bring in these apparently talented people, what if they can’t develop a strategy and you need somebody that can do strategy, you need to as a leader start saying, Well, how do I get the performance of my people to the level that I need. So I can go from that six to seven figure company, on the CEOs compass, my book, Your Guide to get back on track, close to the northernmost compass point, which is peace of mind, you, as business owner, want to have peace of mind, get your purpose out there, that should be easy. But then the people you have on your staff, to they have the skills and capability to perform one of the compass points, to be able to help you reach your goal. They may be wonderful people, wonderful, wonderful people, but you, as a C suite leader, have to make sure the aspiring C suites, the up and coming in your organisation have the skills to be able to impact what you’re trying to achieve. That’s how it translates from a business owner to corporate?

Adam G. Force 17:02

And how do how do they? What are some thoughts on how they can start thinking about that? Because the reality is a lot of teams like I know guys, like John Lee Dumas, they run, you know, a multi seven figure company, but they just have a team of like, I don’t know, six, seven VAs that do different things and operate this thing. So it’s not like traditional businesses all the time where we have, you know, full time hires and stuff like that. So I think that what you’re saying is still, it’s still the same philosophy that applies, right? Like they need to have the skills they need to be, and you have to look at them as part of the team. So how, how do people start thinking about this? And identifying if someone is is like, how do they execute what you’re saying?

Deborah Coviello 17:52

So before I actually answer with a solution, we flip this around, what if one of those VAs left? What if to it’ll be a slap because somebody next door has got the next greatest thing, and they want to be part of that team? Yeah, I’ve seen in the VA world, one of the critical things to do to make sure you get the same repeatable process over and over again, is to have work standards, or job aids, or a video of here’s how you always reach out to a client, or get that social media post out there. It’s job standards, it’s work standards, because you’re out there the face of the business, you don’t have time to look over their shoulder. And if a VA is out, and they insert another one in, in business, you need work standards, I had a client, amazingly talented product, sustainable second generation, they were amazing. However, everybody had been there forever. And if one person left the business, they wouldn’t be able to sustain it because they have all that knowledge. You want to be repeatable, reliable. And so I found with this client, we got in there, we wrote all the procedures, we said, Do you have cross training? No, we don’t have that either. Everybody just knows their job. I said, you need cross training, because you as a business owner need to think about risk. If one person leaves, they could disrupt the future, your business. So job standards, job aids, checklists, wherever you need post it notes, make sure whoever is on your staff as you grow, can produce the same result. That’s

Adam G. Force 19:14

business, no systems in place, meaning and a lot of times, you know, I feel like when you’re running the business from the start, these are systems that as a founder or with your co founder that you start establishing, but people don’t tend to document them to your point, right. And it takes a lot of time and effort to build out that kind of those SOPs, standard operating procedures, everybody, and really get these things set up in a way that they can run like a well oiled machine, right.

Deborah Coviello 19:45

Well, I’ll respond it that can be the reality. But if you set your timer, you get up at six, you put the dog out, you go to the gym, you come back, you check your email, you start doing your writing in the morning, because that’s when you do and it’s all laid out on your calendar. You are disciplined yourself? Because it’s just you. Why can’t you do that for yourself on a continual basis? Why can’t you set up a schedule on Monday you send out the social to you check this here, Wednesday is outreach, you can extend the discipline in yourself of being a successful six figure entrepreneur solopreneur. And extend that same thing to others. So you have it in you, it’s a matter of discipline to be able, if you’re serious about growing your business, then set up that same schedule for other people on your team. It doesn’t have to be difficult.

Adam G. Force 20:31

Yeah, I’m with you on that. I mean, I think the golden word there, everybody needs to latch on to is discipline. You know, without discipline, you’re just never going to get very far, because I think a lot of people will try to thrive off being motivated. But motivation will only take you so far without discipline.

Deborah Coviello 20:49

Oh, my gosh, I’m passionate about what I do when I have an opportunity to share my story with you. I am in my element. But do I have time to be posting all of my social media? Do I have time to write all of my copy? No, I have to depend on others. I have to structure my day. So I every day we month, reach my goals, whether it’s financial, it’s brand recognition, it is a lot of discipline. Again, I’m a work in progress, still trying to figure it out. But you know, it does start with you have the vision, be passionate, do the work you love. But you’ve got to have systems and standards to keep yourself going otherwise, somebody else is going to take away your business because they are a little bit more disciplined. Absolutely.

Adam G. Force 21:33

And I mean, you know, it’s interesting, you brought up like pumping out the content and guide. It’s such a big part of everybody’s process today. And it’s interesting, because there’s always a few out there that do things very differently, right. Like, there’s a guy, one of my mentors, he’s like, if I he does, I don’t know, maybe 40 $50 million a year. So pretty good chunk of change. And if you go to his Facebook or any other platform, it’s there’s nothing there. It’s just that he doesn’t he doesn’t put out any content.

Deborah Coviello 22:02

Tell me more, tell me more. Because literally just his profile picture

Adam G. Force 22:05

and he has like 100,000 followers with not never posting one thing like nothing on the page. It’s just a page so that he can actually run ads. All he does is he knows his customers so well. And he just runs ads, and that’s it and sells his products. But

Deborah Coviello 22:21

was it always that way?

Adam G. Force 22:23

Where did he start? That’s That’s what made him stand out in the market. So this I’m talking about Sam ovens, you can look them up. So Sam ovens. I used to see him all the time, like, who was this guy doing these really janky looking like programmes and stuff he’d never put time. He’s like, if you’re the founder that’s putting all your time into making things pretty yourself, then you’re not spending time learning how to sell to your customer. And that’s the only thing that really matters. And I was like, ah, like, and he’s walked the walk right? I’m like I he’s like, look at my stuff, even his website. Now here’s the guy that’s doing that kind of money. And you go to his website, it’s just a white page with two little buttons for his courses. And that’s it.

Deborah Coviello 23:05

Like, so there’s, there’s such power in that because again, yes, read, listen, look at what the gurus or people that apparently look like they’re what they’re doing hire consultants, or coaches or support staff. And yes, but ultimately, you got to figure out what works for yourself a story about me and my I would ever forget about the pronunciation of growing my business. I own the outcome. And I don’t want to be able to play well, I followed their course their three step process, I started putting ads, and it didn’t work, because then that’s destructive. What you have to do is look at what’s out there. Think about your customer, one thing I learned, I was doing all kinds of networking, looking for the ideal client, lots of social media, which I do believe in, because when I show up as the brand, I’m building trust, when people I meet say, Hey, I’m watching your stuff. It’s like, okay, good. I hope I looked okay. But here’s the thing. But here’s the thing, build your own platform. So rather than me trying to chase other people to go into their networking groups, and be in their communities, and pay for their course, and what have you, and mind you, those do help along the way. Of course, I built my own podcast. Now I get to pull people into my world, I get to interview people. And I’m telling you that by creating my own community, finding interesting people, it takes a while, but I’m now building those relationships that are starting to manifest in business development and sales. And so ultimately, as a business owner, leverage everybody’s input, but find a lane that works for you, your friend just run ads. For me. It’s that relationship, bringing people on the podcast, building a conversation, see what we can do together.

Adam G. Force 24:42

And that’s the thing everybody has their own way and that like and the way you brand yourself versus someone else is always going to be different and the way that you find your leads or actually create clients is going to be different, you know? So I think I appreciate what you’re saying. In the sense of, you know, you don’t just copycat somebody. And that kind of like point of simplicity from like Sam and stuff like that, that is his brand style. So that’s what he has become known for. It doesn’t mean it’s gonna work for you, you know what I mean? So it’s, it’s really taking, like the underlying educational principles that any coach or mentor can provide and doing it in your own way, reshaping it, you know,

Deborah Coviello 25:26

and, and I speak to that in the CEOs compass. Now, there are many, many books out there that talk about putting the right operating systems in your company, if you got nothing, you got it in place. But so many of the people that I speak to have already been talented, they’ve gone into organisation, setup companies and what have you, and they’ve already been successful. So who am I to come in and blow them up and say, No, follow my approach? No, you’ve already know how to run a business. But mine does. It’s almost like pick your own adventure. Where do you see yourself off track where you’re not seeing the results, and you’re constantly spending wasteful time in that area, maybe coaching or mentoring your people, you want to do more, you’ve got great talent, right? Whatever you pick and choose from the compass, you know what you might need to spend a little bit more in mentoring your people, mentoring the interactions between your team’s versus working in silos, work on those two. And as they start working towards your purpose, and their skills get better? You start feeling that business starting to run on all eight cylinders. Yeah, pick your own thing, fix a couple things. That may be all you need to get yourself back on track.

Adam G. Force 26:28

Yeah, and I mean, I guess to your point there, I’m curious if you know, as you work with more and more people, you kind of said, choose your own adventure, meaning everybody has a different pain point that they’re solving for. Have you have you found a common, a more common pain point that stands out to you that, like, is there a situation or a type of leader that’s like, and you start seeing, it’s this situation, again, like this pain point, like anything stand out to you,

Deborah Coviello 27:01

across multiple demographics, whether they’re a 25 person company, or a 6000 person company that I’ve had the pleasure of working with. When you start out, you have a close knit team, you care about people, you send them flowers, when maybe something happens bad in their personal life, you have that connection with people, you put your arm around them and help them through difficult times. The challenge I see as you grow as a business is losing the connectivity of the people, one to make sure the culture and the brand permeate everybody. So brand, and the culture and the values that can be diluted as you grow. So keeping that purpose and culture in place, that’s a common thread. The other thing is to have the capability and capacity to further develop your people. You’re developing as a leader as you’re showing up, but who’s doing that for your people. And so right now, I’ve got a client right now an amazing company, I love them. And they people they have are starting to be the businesses outgrowing them, and they don’t want to lose the people. So they’re asking me to come in and help develop their leadership skills, so they can continue to influence help make the impact are supposed to do. I’m seeing this as you grow, and you get more successful, that pain point is going to pull you down, you need to focus on it.

Adam G. Force 28:19

Yeah, I mean, that’s a really great example. And it’s tough because I work a lot with either six figure or early, like seven figure teams, on brand strategies and stuff like that. And to your point, there is a point, especially for the six figure entrepreneurs where we’re going through their brand strategy, and part of that is what I call an operating system. So it is going to be culture values and things like that. And I don’t know that they see the value of that yet, right? Because they don’t have the team, the culture and all that stuff. And it’s like, yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, this is how we’re gonna operate. But to your what now hearing what you’re saying, I’m like, oh, it’s like when you start to grow, if you don’t have that pin down, like, and it’s not really already threaded from the ground up. It’s a lot harder to act to implement later, when you’re already a thriving large business than if you started from the ground up. And it’s been part of your process the whole time. But you’re saying maybe they had it and it just kind of like disconnects over time.

Deborah Coviello 29:21

Yeah, when you go from like that 10 to 25. And then to 50, it starts breaking apart when the owner of the company starts saying, you know, I don’t know everybody’s name. Oh, no, I used to be able to do it. You know, I used to be able to get a Christmas gift for everybody, because then I’d know it. But now I’m not sure what their interests are. And then the silos start happening unless you bring everybody together. So that’s where I have the performance. compass point is that you need to know everybody and their ability to achieve your purpose. And if there’s a gap, they may be really really great at brainstorming ideas and bring creative ideas to you, but they don’t know how to put it in a mess. that they can share with the team and influence them. So yeah, let’s jump on that, let’s go, that’s a gap and that gap is going to get bigger and bigger. So a leader needs to say, what are the gaps for them to be now, they, if they’re a junior designer to be that senior designer, they need some skills, and it’s on you or to leverage a resource to help build that. Otherwise, it’s gonna keep you up at night later, and you might wind up firing amazing people, because you never develop their skills.

Adam G. Force 30:24

Hmm, that’s a great point, too, right? If you don’t have the right processes in place, and the right leaders, then employees may look bad, but it’s mostly because of the poor leadership and not because of them, and not

Deborah Coviello 30:36

setting you up for success or having conversation say, what do you need? You know, they might say, oh, yeah, I can do that thing in Canva? or what have you. And really, they’re still trying to figure it out, go out to YouTube videos, which is a great resource. But did you ever ask the question, how’s that going? How would he feel? I mean, yeah, and again, because we’re so pumped up, hey, how’s that client job going? You know, we just into the weeds and the results, because we’re passionate about it. And we run over the people, you got to stop a little bit and just say, yeah, how you doing? How you feel?

Adam G. Force 31:06

I can see that. Yeah, I mean, I’ve worked in corporate for a long time and did all that stuff. And I can see as you get to be larger, a larger company, that easily happens. And you really do need part of the culture to be about how are you making sure you’re giving people like caring for the team and giving them the tools to succeed, and that that is baked into a cultural mindset as well. So it’s like, because that’s your operate, that’s how you operate, right? So it’s either there, it’s not. So that’s a great point, I can see firing good people in those types of situations. So a really good example of how important strong culture is and how it and I guess a warning sign, right, as you’re growing, to make sure that it doesn’t start to disintegrate and get diluted over time, right? Because Absolutely, you’ll look back and next thing, you know, it’s like, oh, what’s going on right now, it’s not the same anymore.

Deborah Coviello 31:59

So again, the truly aware leader is always looking ahead, they’re always thinking ahead. But one of those things on your roadmap is the culture and or the people development.

Adam G. Force 32:09

Very important. I love it. So we’re about out of time, but I think we hit some pretty good key points for people just to, and it’s interesting, because you hear certain things, and I always tell people, I’m like, I like learning the same thing. Like there’s a lot of fresh perspective hear coming from you, which I appreciate. And you can learn the same core topics, we talk about business. So you’re going to talk about culture, leadership, right? But you can learn the same thing with a new perspective. 20 different times. And every time you’re you have you walk away with seeing it differently, you know, any mean? Meaning you improve the way you see it? How many times have you like learned something you go, I knew that but the way you just explained it now the light bulb really goes off, right?

Deborah Coviello 32:52

And having the opportunity to talk to you, I can count on it. I’ve never actually told this, these stories and these examples in exactly this way. So your platform has given me the opportunity to put out fresh content into the world.

Adam G. Force 33:04

There you go. I love it. So we have a lot of, you know, exciting entrepreneurs are listening in if they want to. And maybe they have a small team, and they’re looking for ways to make sure that their leadership is strong so they can grow effectively. How do they learn more about you or get more information from you? Like where do they go? What’s the easiest thing?

Deborah Coviello 33:26

So simplicity is king or queen at drop in ceo.com dropinc.com. One stop shopping for either my consulting services to strategically help in growing your business, especially in the manufacturing well, but also my coaching services developed to develop you or your leadership. I have my blog there, the CEOs compass, my book, my podcast, the drop in SEO, and launching again very soon the C suite Academy so I would love for somebody to drop in there. And let’s connect.

Adam G. Force 34:02

I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thank you again. Thanks for tuning in to the authentic brand mastery podcast. Don’t forget to stop by change creator.com For more information, fresh articles content and our services if you’re looking to build a brand that people love, and please stop by iTunes, leave us a five star review. We appreciate your support