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How to Become a Better Leader and Drive Growth for Your Staging Business with Steph Tuss

About Today’s Episode with Steph Tuss

How to Become a Better Leader and Drive Growth for Your Staging Business with Steph Tuss. The Home Staging Show podcast episode 172 with Cindy Lin at Staged4more School of Home Staging

In this podcast, Steph Tuss, CEO of multimillion-dollar global consulting company Life Is Now, Inc., talks about how important it is to have the best people on your team and how dangerous it can be to settle for mediocre ones. She also advises on how to handle conflicts productively in your staging business and talks about becoming a better leader who can empower and motivate your team. Steph introduces four leadership archetypes and explains how to recognize and work with each archetype effectively.

Steph emphasizes the significance of having a clear vision for your business and breaking down the steps needed to achieve it. She explains the difference between a vision statement, a mission statement, and a purpose statement and guides you through the process of creating a 3D vision for your staging business.

Steph also talks about the issue of mom guilt and the stigma around women who are business leaders and also leaders at home. She advises setting clear boundaries and creating structures to be able to perform well both at work and at home. Steph also encourages business owners to eliminate limiting beliefs, especially those related to the guilt of asking for help.

 

Stageflow is the StagerCon 2022 Sponsor. Data Insights for Residential Staging

This Episode is Brought to You by Stageflow, Our 2022 StagerCon Sponsor

Data Insights for Residential Staging

As an experienced home staging business under the name of Lemon and Lime Interiors, we know that data is an essential marketing tool for every staging business.

Founder and mathematician, Elaine Penhaul developed the app following her passion for data and her need to provide evidence of return on investment for clients. Elaine is confident that Stageflow provides a straightforward and simple way for every home stager to use their own data to win more business.

find out more about stageflow here

This Week on The Home Staging Show Podcast

 

 

  • [00:11:29] Steph introduces herself and her role as the CEO of Life Is Now Inc.

  • [00:12:08] How Steph get started and how she started her business

  • [00:17:04] Her primary focus when she first started her business

  • [00:18:19] Common limiting beliefs and how do those hinder us from growing our businesses? 

  • [00:20:13] How to successfully eliminate mom guilt

  • [00:23:27] Steph shares what she learned about what it takes to grow and scale a business from building her multimillion-dollar business and coaching numerous small business owners

  • [00:24:04] How to create a vision for your life and business

  • [00:29:12] The difference between a vision statement, a mission statement, and a purpose statement

  • [00:30:34] How do we plan for growth despite uncertainties? 

  • [00:31:49] Where Steph sees business owners often get stuck and how that keeps them from growing and moving forward with their businesses

  • [00:33:28] How can we find the right team member? What are some of the things that we should be looking for?

  • [00:34:01] Three characteristics of an ideal team player (your A Player)

  • [00:35:32] What does the B Player look like? 

  • [00:36:26] When business owners tolerate an adequate team, how is that dangerous for business growth? 

  • [00:39:29] How can we hold team players accountable without alienating our team members or making them feel bad?

  • [00:42:34] How conflict can be productive in your business

  • [00:43:58] How to engage in conflict to allow the best idea to win and to advance the company forward

  • [00:46:19] Four archetypes of leaders

  • [00:50:34] How do our family dynamics show up in our leadership style and how do we work with this?

  • [00:51:40] How we can become better leaders of our companies 

  • [00:53:29] Steph’s biggest tips on becoming better leaders in our staging businesses

  • [00:54:11] Lead, instead of micromanage

About Steph Tuss

Steph Tuss is the CEO of multimillion-dollar global consulting company Life Is Now, Inc., and frequent stand-in cohost of Business Daily News’ top-ranked podcast – The Successful Mind. Steph discovered her love for teaching at a young age, beginning her career as an educator. It was during this time that her firstborn child was facing health difficulties, and she decided to completely overhaul their diets to figure out the root cause. She went back to school to pursue a Master’s Degree in Holistic Nutrition and went on to open a practice to help families who faced similar challenges.

Fast forward a few years, Steph hired David Neagle and his team at Life Is Now, Inc., as her health practice’s business coach. As she continued to scale her business, her love for entrepreneurship and growing businesses shined through. She sold her business at the age of 33 and joined Life Is Now, Inc. as the Director of Sales in 2009 before taking on the CEO role less than a decade later in 2016. In her six years at the helm of the company, Steph has become the primary driver behind all of Life Is Now’s marketing, business development, and brilliant team culture.

As a recent empty-nester, she lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband and cattle dog, Jack. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling the country in her Airstream.

Connect With Steph

Links & Resources Mentioned On Today’s Show

Some Helpful Action Items for You in This Episode

  • Create a 3D world vision for your business and yourself three years from now

  • Reverse engineer from your vision to create an actionable plan

  • Share your vision with family and team members and embrace being vulnerable

  • Establish clear boundaries to eliminate mom guilt

  • Hire help and delegate tasks as your staging business grows by hiring A players

  • Let go of control to allow for growth and expansion

Transcript from Today’s Podcast

Please note that the transcript is auto-generated by AI. Please excuse any typos.
(Feel free to let us know so we can correct any typos!)

 

 

[00:00:00] Cindy: Welcome to the Home Staging Show podcast, the show where we deep dive into the world home staging and how to build a viable home staging business. I’m your host Cindy Lin, and in each episode we explore the latest trends, strategies, and also art of building a vibrant and thriving home staging business. This is episode 172.

[00:00:23] Before we start the show today, here is a message from our sponsor: 

[00:00:29] Elaine: We all need powerful statistics to convince potential clients of the benefits of home staging. Stageflow takes away the pain of having to filter spreadsheets or doing calculations. You enter what you know about every sale of the homes that you’ve staged, and lets stage flow. Do the rest. Easy, real-time statistics for the home staging market.

[00:00:53] Cindy: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the home staging show. You may have noticed the intro today is slightly different this time. I just feel like it’s time to really hone in on what we do a bit better at the podcast. It only took me 172 episodes of figured out. Right. Anyway, you have noticed also that this month, we have had an unexpected delay in getting the episode out this month. 

[00:01:18] Our podcast editor, Steve, whom we’ve been working with for the past two years or so. He and his wife, Alison had been absolutely amazing. Steve edits our episodes. And then Alison does the show notes. Unfortunately, Steve’s gotten a serious health issue. So he decided to stop working and they want to focus on Steve’s health. 

[00:01:38] So let’s wish Steve a very speedy recovery and hopefully they can be back working on the show soon. We are working on a major overhaul for our backend systems. So if you recently have enrolled in some short courses, you might’ve noticed that is on a different platform. We are in the process of doing all the backend system overhaul. 

[00:01:59] So one of the things, when I started the school, I mean, it’s also a journey, right? I’m building a new business, even though I know home staging industry very well, but to run a school is a bit different than running a staging business. Basically, it’s just learning how to start a business all over again. 

[00:02:15] So, of course in the beginning, I duct tape all the different systems together. And as you know, I like to test and experiment with different technology. Truly make sure that we’re delivering the right and good experience for you as a student or as a community member. So one of the things I decided this year, now that we are about four or five years in. 

[00:02:36] I just want to stop duct taping everything together. So we’re going through a website overhaul, same thing with our course platform. I think one of the issues we have with our current course platform is not very intuitive to onboard. And then also is a bit difficult to engage as well. 

[00:02:53] So we actually hired a community designer. She’s going to help us to revamp a lot of backend issues and also transition into a new community platform. We’re also working really hard on the back end to improve student experience as well. So, if you have any feedback or you have any suggestions, please feel free to dm me. You can find me on Instagram at @staged4more. 

[00:03:16] I also have a couple of really exciting news, I would say. Last year, we became an Accredited Education Provider for Real Estate Staging Association here in the States. And this year we have gotten some nominations for the industry award. 

[00:03:30] I was very pleasantly surprised. I was nominated for the Kathy Nielsen Spirits Award. I want to talk about this, because for most of you who are listening, you probably don’t know who Kathy Nielsen is. But when I started out as a baby stager back in early 2000 or 2006, so mid 2000s. Kathy was really instrumental in the starting of the association and consequently obviously changed the trajectory of this staging industry. She was very generous in giving advice and support other stagers she’s never met before. And unfortunately she passed away very suddenly. So RESA started the Spirits Award in the name of Kathy Nielsen. 

[00:04:10] It recognizes individuals will have put in leadership and mentorship in the staging industry. So I was very, very shocked and surprised when I opened my email this weekend and found out that I been nominated for the award. Uh, you might heard me talk about this before. I still really think that nobody listens to my podcast. 

[00:04:31] Because podcast is a very individual experience. I feel like I’m talking in the room by myself or zoom with someone else interviewing an expert. And it’s a very quiet experience, which actually works really well for me because deep down I’m actually introverted person. It’s uncomfortable for me to be extroverted, but I just channel my inner Beyonce because, you know, Beyonce has an alter ego. So when I’m out there working, I am extroverted. It’s my alternate ego kicking in essentially. But for me, I also feel like I’m always kind of like the person who beats to the sound of her own drums. You know, I run the business the way I feel is right. Even though it might not fit the mold of what every everyone else is doing. I’m also a bit of a late bloomer as well. So I have a slower speed in pulling things together. 

[00:05:23] So for me to be recognized on this level, I just cannot put that into words properly. So for those of you who are listening. And who have been supporting the school from the very beginning or midway through or listening to a podcast in the very beginning. I just want to thank you so much. I really cannot do it without the community. 

[00:05:44] You know, running a school is difficult. No one else, no one else really has done it. And if they have done it, they are not wanting to share, sometimes there’s some really dark side of the industry in terms of politics. And unpleasantries, egos and things like that. So for me, I just feel like I’m always in my little corner and doing something that I feel is right to do, even though it might not be popular. 

[00:06:10] So I am incredibly grateful and humbled by just simply being nominated. Our podcast is also nominated for the Most Innovative Product of the Year by Real Estate Staging Association. 

[00:06:23] That’s really amazing, I just want to take the time to acknowledge that I really appreciate you just simply by listening and downloading the podcast, and I really appreciate those of you who take the time to give us constructive feedback. 

[00:06:37] So thank you. Thank you. Thank you again, for those of you who have nominated me again, it’s incredibly, I’m incredibly honored and flattered, and I just cannot say thank you enough. 

[00:06:48] All right. That’s enough of that. So let’s move on to today’s announcement and also introducing our episode. We got a really solid episode for you, especially I think for those of you who are struggling with team members and hiring, and also being a better leader in your staging business, you will really benefit from the episode today. 

[00:07:07] Before we get into that
, I do want to remind you that if you’re interested in becoming a speaker at StagerCon this year, this year’s theme is about building multiple straems of income. So, if you are a home stager who’s been successfully adding additional stream of revenue into your staging business, I love to hear from you. So please do apply to be a speaker this year at StagerCon. You can find the speaker application on the home page of stagercon.com. 

[00:07:34] And also just a quick reminder, if you’re interested in submitting to this year’s International Home Stager Awards, the early bird submission is opening on April 1st. So this weekend. 

[00:07:45] It’s going to go for the entire month of April. So make sure if you want to enter now is a great time. In the past few years has been a bit tricky because you pay on our site and then you’re taken to the submission form. 

[00:07:58] And this year, it’s all in one place. You will fill your submission and then pay directly on the form. So I think that process makes it a little bit more streamlined, a little bit easier as well. 

[00:08:09] We also have a new mini masterclass coming up with Daniel Coffman, who is the owner and stager at Staged Spaces LA. If you follow Daniel, you will know that he’s really great with reels and social media content. And he also taught a workflow workshop last year for us at the school, which is now a short course on our website. One of the great things about Daniel is that he is really big on workflow and he has incorporated his marketing process into his everyday staging workflow. So I think this is a really good class to take if you’ve been struggling with how to create engaging content for your social media. 

[00:08:45] Doing it on your staging job site is actually gonna make your life so much easier. So if you haven’t done so, sign up because there’s only a few spots left on the mini masterclass. If you’re interested, definitely sign up right now. And lastly, don’t forget our international stagers’ retreat is this September in Italy. So this is a great opportunity for you to work with me directly one-on-one and also Elaine as well. 

[00:09:10] You’ve heard her on our podcast twice already. She has an amazing business in the UK, where she’s able to service the entire country. She has a team of movers, a large warehouse, and also a sales team and stagers. So we represent two very different staging business models. 

[00:09:27] And I think is going to give you a lot of great insights for your own staging business. Our focus for the retreat is really about helping you building a successful exit strategy, even though you’re not ready to exit yet. But everything you do to implement that, for example, creatings SOPs, and systems and workflows for your home staging business. All these can become great assets, not only to make your life easier now, in terms of training your team, working with your team and also setting the right client expectation. It’s also going to become intellectual property and assets that you can sell when you decide to exit your staging business. 

[00:10:05] So our goal for the retreat is really to help you figure out your longterm vision for your home staging business. And then work backwards to see what we can do to strategize for the next 12 months so that you can build consistent action towards your longterm vision that is really aligning with your vision and your goals and your personal values for your home staging business. 

[00:10:27] So if you’re interested in joining, just go to staged4more.com/retreat. If you’re not sure if the retreat experience is right for you, you can also book a discovery call with me. We can meet on zoom to chat about your staging business and to see if the retreat experience right for you. All right. 

[00:10:43] So onto today’s show Steph Tuss is the CEO of multimillion-dollar global consulting company, Life Is Now Inc., and frequent stand in cohost of Business Daily News’ top ranked podcast. 

[00:10:54] She sold her business at the age of 33 and joined Life Is Now Inc. as a director of sales in 2009 before taking on the CEO role, less than a decade later in 2016. In her six years at the helm of the company, Steph had to become the primary driver behind marketing, business development and brilliant team culture. As a recent empty-nester, she lives in Charlotte with her husband and cattle dog, Jack. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling the country in her Airstream. All right. Let’s start the show. 

[00:11:29] Hi Steph, welcome to the show. Before we get started today, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your business? 

[00:11:35] Steph: So my name is Steph Tuss. I am CEO For Life Is Now Inc. We are a global coaching and consulting company for small business owners. My main responsibilities as CEO are tenfold: people management, task management, decision management. So I’m the person that makes sure everything gets done and also sees toward the future. 

[00:11:59] Cindy: I love that. You had a pretty interesting journey before you get to today. So can you tell us a little bit, how did you get started and how did you start your business now?

[00:12:08] Steph: Yes. So I am not from a family of entrepreneurs. I am not formally educated in business. I’ve actually never taken a business course. I actually started out as an elementary school teacher. Four years into teaching, four or five years into teaching, my husband and I gave birth to our first child and she was born very sick.

[00:12:31] Failure to thrive, cried all night. It was more than colic. There was something really wrong, and we took her to specialists and doctors, and the diagnosis was, we don’t know what’s wrong, but in order for us to figure out what’s wrong, we have to do invasive surgery. And by this time, she was three weeks old.

[00:12:47] I, I just couldn’t, I, I just had a feeling that there was something missing, that they were overlooking something or they didn’t know something and, and I was young. I, I was 25 at the time, so, my whole childhood, I was never brought up to question authority. It was, this is a doctor, you can listen to what the doctor says.

[00:13:06] But before I waved the go flag on surgery, I wanted to do a bunch of research myself. So I threw a broad net. I talked to Chinese herbalists. I talked to infant massage therapists. I talked to anyone that I could, that I thought to talk to that could give me information about what could possibly be wrong with her.

[00:13:24] And I came across a lactation consultant who asked me to change my diet. Because I was nursing at the time and I changed my diet. And all of her symptoms went away. So it turned out that she was having severe food sensitivity. She’d been born early. So her digestive system hadn’t been fully developed, which I didn’t realize.

[00:13:44] And she was having an allergic reaction to some of the foods that I was eating, which was causing her to get very, very sick. As soon as I changed my diet. All this, all of her symptoms went away. She began to thrive. The crying stopped. It was like, it was the most incredible experience. Because I’d been praying and praying an
d praying for answers.

[00:14:03] And what it did was, at the time I was a teacher, I’ve always identified as a teacher. And at the time I thought, “oh my God, how many other parents are dealing with this?” but their small child or children, you know, have surgery and still, without any answers. I’m a teacher, this is what I need to teach.

[00:14:20] And so I went back to school while I was still teaching. Got my master’s degree in holistic nutrition, and then I left teaching and opened up a small holistic nutrition practice in southern Wisconsin. And it thrived. I built my business very quickly. I was working with elite collegiate baseball teams on their nutrition.

[00:14:42] I was working with professional female athletes on their nutrition. I had a full docket of clients just in my local town in Wisconsin. And I hit a plateau like most small business owners do, especially ones with control issues. I hit a plateau and so I hired a coach to help me, and that coach happened to be David Neagle and he coached me to grow my business.

[00:15:03] And in that process I really learned that I was more in love with how people think and why they do and don’t do things, and the actual business of business than I was in nutrition, because it’s really easy to teach someone how to be healthy. It’s a whole another thing to understand why they don’t do that, those things for themselves.

[00:15:22] Right? So I decided that I was gonna go deep into both mindset and business. I sold my nutrition practice, I think I was 33 at the time when I sold it, and I contacted David and said, “I wanna come and work for you. I think I can help you build your business.” And I started at the very bottom. So I started at just managing some of his clients and then I worked myself into sales.

[00:15:45] I was director of sales for many years. Sold millions of dollars in consulting programs. At that same time I had a background in curriculum. So I was also designing curriculum for him. Then six years ago I stepped into the CEO slash COO role because they’re really combined for us.

[00:16:01] And that’s how I came to be. It was just through a series of, you know, not staying with the status quo and saying yes to the opportunities that I was faced with. 

[00:16:12] Cindy: That’s amazing. What a journey. I find that really inspiring and I think it says a lot about motherhood. You know, I’m not a mother myself, so I’m always very ab like, like I look at my own mother for example.

[00:16:24] The things that she had gone through and struggled against with all these prejudice, I think a lot of times against women. We grew up in a traditional Asian household and it was kind of frowned upon when my mom gave birth to me and my sister that she still kept working.

[00:16:40] But she needed it. She needed that for her own personal fulfillment. I think that is really important and she stuck it through. That actually set a great example for me. I’m sure you do for your daughter as well. So congratulations on an amazing business. I think it’s very inspiring to hear that, and I think it’s really interesting too, because I think most people, when they started their business.

[00:17:00] They didn’t really think about becoming a multimillion-dollar business. 

[00:17:04] Steph: No, when I started my business, my sole focus was to just replace my teacher income, which at the time was like $2,500 a month. That was my goal. I just gotta, I need to leave teaching, I need to do this. I felt such a strong calling to start this business, and because I didn’t have any experience in business, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So I didn’t have anyone in my family telling me that I couldn’t do those things necessarily because they didn’t know if I could or if I couldn’t. They all thought I was a little bit crazy for leaving teaching because it was a very secure position. 

[00:17:34] But I just hustled. I didn’t have any limiting beliefs about what being a business owner was that a lot of people do when they think about going into business for themselves.

[00:17:42] I just was focused on, I just have to replace my teacher income. And then I did that, and then the next opportunity showed up and then the next opportunity showed up and then the next opportunity showed up. And here I am. And my youngest daughter, by the way, is 22 years old now. So this has been over a long period of time.

[00:18:00] She’s perfectly healthy. Yeah, it’s been quite a journey. It has been quite a journey. 

[00:18:05] Cindy: That’s amazing. So I think there are a lot of juicy things about what you just said. So first of all, limiting beliefs and you are a mindset coach. I definitely wanna take advantage of that because I do think a lot of female small business owners especially, encounter a lot of limiting beliefs.

[00:18:19] Can we talk about some of those limited beliefs and how do those hinder us from growing our businesses? 

[00:18:24] Steph: So I think one of the big ones, especially with women that have children. I think one of the biggest limiting beliefs is mom guilt. I’m sure your mom had her fair share of mom guilt for wanting to go back to work cuz she has everybody’s voice in her head telling her she’s a bad person and she’s a bad mom and she’s gonna screw her kids up.

[00:18:41] And I think there’s still a real stigma around women who are leaders in business and whether or not they can also be leaders in their family and leaders at home. There is a lot of women that we work with that have a lot of guilt about asking for help. So what happens is they take all the burden on themselves.

[00:19:03] They’re the primary person that cooks in the house. They’re the primary person that cleans in the house. They’re the primary person that, that organizes all the things that it takes to run a house. They’re the primary child nurturer, and then they go to work and they’re the primary decision maker, the primary business owner.

[00:19:19] They assume all the risk. And, you know, there’s lots of studies out there that explain why women leave the workplace. And it’s just because they can’t, they physically and emotionally can’t handle it all, nor, nor should they be expected to be. But there’s such shame and guilt over actually saying, I need help with this.

[00:19:36] I need a personal assistant to help me at work, which a lot of female business owners are very resistant to hiring a personal assistant. There’s no shame in saying, I wanna hire a private chef to cook in my home, or I wanna hire someone to do the yard. Or I wanna hire a childcare provider to drop my kids off and pick them up.

[00:19:54] There’s a lot of shame around that. Because they feel like if they’re not doing those things, they’re not being a good mom, they’re not being a good wife, they’re not being a good daughter, and it’s just not based in anything that’s truth at all. When I work with women, I always talk to them first about how they can eliminate that mom guilt.

[00:20:13
] And it starts with boundaries. Having really clear boundaries about where is the highest value of your time spent, and then creating structures and framework around that so that you can be free to be you at work and do your best at work. And you can be free to be you at home and be the best mom that you can be.

[00:20:30] Where things get really gray is when that becomes a problem. 

[00:20:33] Cindy: Yeah, I agree. And I also think when you first start your business, you are used to doing everything right? Because you have to, you don’t have the income to support an assistant yet. 

[00:20:42] Steph: Right. 

[00:20:43] Cindy: But as you grow your business, you now do earn those income.

[00:20:47] Then you should be replaced from doing things like, you know, creating Canva graphics for your social media or scheduling or even invoicing your client, or emailing clients to schedule, things like that. You should start focusing on the more high level things like developing clients who’s gonna generate you a lot of projects.

[00:21:05] So yeah, I totally agree. And this is what I say to people who feel mom guilt, because my mom worked a lot. She had to juggle a family. And we also grew up in a traditional household where she was expected to do all the housework even though she had a full day of work and taking care of kids like, you know, me and my sister.

[00:21:25] I really didn’t see the bad part of it, because I felt like watching my mom work gave me a good foundation of who I am today. Because I saw how fearless she is of creating that space for herself. She got a lot of flack from my grandmother, from her mother-in-law, and from my father as well.

[00:21:46] She got a lot of flack and then she worked through it. She insisted on working because it’s something that fulfilled her. So I think that’s really important to think about. The natural thing for us is think about the negative side of how that impact our children.

[00:22:01] But I, I think as a child with a working mom, I actually really enjoy that experience. Actually, I think it broadened my horizon as well because I actually babysat for her, cuz patients come with kids. I babysat them, I played with them, I hung out with them. I was sometimes receptionist. I had to answer phone calls and things like that.

[00:22:21] It really gave me more skillset than what I would have compared to people who didn’t work. So. 

[00:22:27] Steph: Yeah. 

[00:22:28] I mean, my children, both of my girls. I have two, at a very young age, worked seminars for us. Like they would actually work registration and they would help with handing out things and help with organization and getting materials ready for events.

[00:22:41] So we incorporated them into our work at a very early age, and even today, my youngest, who is a marketing student in college, she’s a sophomore. She manages my social media for me. So my hope is that I’ve been a good example for them. What I didn’t ever wanna do is make my kids an excuse. I think that’s incredibly unfair to them.

[00:23:04] So if your mom would’ve said, oh, “I really wanna go to work, but I can’t because I have these kids.” That’s making you responsible for her lack of happiness, that’s totally unfair to children, right? So I vowed that I was not gonna do that. I was not gonna make my kids responsible for my lack of achievement or desire or, or happiness.

[00:23:24] And I found a way to make it work for us and with us. 

[00:23:27] Cindy: I love that. And from your experience in building your successful multimillion dollar business, what does it take to grow and scale the business? 

[00:23:35] Steph: Oh, what does it take? How long do you have? This is a big question. So I think the key thing is, is that you have to have a vision. That’s the first thing. 

[00:23:45] And I think it’s one of the most overlooked things because it takes time and people just think that they know what their vision is and there’s a lot of misconception around vision. When I ask a business owner what their vision is, sometimes I’ll get their mission statement or their purpose statement, or sometimes they’ll give me a financial goal.

[00:24:02] None of those things are a vision. 

[00:24:04] In my mind, a vision is, in Cameron Herold and his book Vivid Vision, which is a really good resource if you actually wanna do this activity, talks about creating a 3D world. So a vision is actually a 3D world of where you see yourself and your business in three years time. 

[00:24:22] And you create it as if it’s happening in present day, and you take a look at all the areas of your business: sales, marketing, leadership, operations, media, how you give back, what clients are saying about you, the things that you’re selling, and you just allow yourself to dream about: “what do I want this to feel like?

[00:24:42] What do I want this to look?” in three years time. 

[00:24:46] And then you put that out in a mind map. So it’s just like thoughts, emotions, feelings, like images that you get in your mind as you’re going through this activity. And then you condense that into paragraphs and you add imagery into it so that when you read it, you actually get a visual representation of where you wanna be in three years.

[00:25:06] And the bonus to that is that allows you to share it with your family so they know why you’re doing what you’re doing. And it also allows you to share it with your team so they know how they can help you achieve that vision. 

[00:25:18] Number one thing, think about starting off on a road trip and you have a map in front of you, but you have no idea where you’re going.

[00:25:26] It doesn’t work, right? If all you’re doing is just hitting the next mile, you could end up anywhere. And most business owners start their business just hitting the next mile. I didn’t have a vision when I started my business. I just needed to replace my teacher income. That was as far as I could see.

[00:25:42] And then as I grew into it, my vision began to expand and I brought on more team members. But if you don’t have that vision, you don’t know where you’re going. You can’t set goals to get you where you’re going, and you can’t allow other people to help you get where you’re going. So that’s item number one.

[00:26:01] After you’ve got your vision established, then you need to begin to reverse engineer from that vision. So if you know the vision is three years out, you need to take a look at, “okay, what are some things that I could be doing right now that will lead me eventually to this vision in three years?” And you begin to map backwards.

[00:26:19
] I call it “you reverse engineer from your vision.” And then all of a sudden, it’s like all these pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that were floating around, you can see snapping into place. And then you begin to create a plan on how to get to that vision. You know at what point you need to hire help, you know at what point you need to expand something in your business, whether it’s your level of exposure, maybe it’s speaking on stages, maybe it’s doing podcasts.

[00:26:44] Your vision dictates your actions. Does that make sense? 

[00:26:49] Cindy: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. 

[00:26:50] Steph: That’s the absolute foundation of scaling a business and there’s a great story. Um, I don’t know if you know who Brian Scudamore is. Have you ever heard of Brian Scudamore? He founded 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

[00:27:03] He created this business. It took him eight years to get to a million in revenue. Eight years to get to a million in revenue. He’d uncovered this vision process and put himself through it.

[00:27:13] And his business exploded within three years and he landed himself on the Oprah Winfrey Show. So it’s amazing what happens when you put your mind in one direction and then you begin to build a plan right back from that vision, kind of like. Your vision is the destination and the plan is the tracks. You are the train and you’re leading the train on the tracks directly to your final destination of your vision. 

[00:27:39] Cindy: I love that. And I think one of the key things that you said is you’re actually sharing it with other people, like people within your support network, like your family and your team. 

[00:27:47] Steph: And it’s the hardest thing.

[00:27:48] It is the hardest thing to share your vision. People don’t realize this. I take our clients through this activity and I’ve learned the hard way that they don’t get to leave until their vision’s written, because they’ll procrastinate on just even writing out the vision because they know once the vision’s written, the next step is to share it.

[00:28:06] I’ll explain it like this: Your vision is a reflection of you. It’s things that are important to you. You are emotionally attached to your vision, so when you share it, you need to be vulnerable. And if you have an issue being vulnerable, you’ll resist sharing this with everyone because you’re worried that they won’t like it, or they’ll reject it, or they’ll question you or they’ll push back.

[00:28:26] The truth is that doesn’t matter and generally it doesn’t happen. The idea is that you give yourself permission to be vulnerable and share this vision so that others can really be excited about it and align with it and see how they can help you with that vision. But just be aware that if you do this activity, resistance is gonna come up because it is vulnerable.

[00:28:46] It is. I mean, since we were kids, we were told that we can’t have what we want. Right? Like you’re not allowed to ask for what you want. And especially women. Women have been shut down completely about what they want, because why bother wanting if you can’t have it? So this is really awakening that desire inside yourself to allow yourself to fantasize and dream about what you actually could create within the next three years, which isn’t that far away.

[00:29:12] Cindy: Yeah, I love that. And you mentioned earlier a lot of business owners are confused in terms of what exactly a vision statement is. They’ve confused it with a mission statement and purpose statement. Can you talk a little bit about the differences between the three? 

[00:29:24] Steph: Yes. So you’ve got vision, right?

[00:29:27] Vision is your 3D world, three years. Some people do five. I like to do three because so much happens in three years even. So your vision is that 3D world that’s projected three years into the future. Your mission statement is really why you do what you do. Like what’s our mission? Like why? Why do we do what we do?

[00:29:43] Not what do we see ourselves doing out here in the future? And then your purpose, your business should have a purpose. And you should have a purpose. Like your purpose, innately, inside. My purpose is learn, lead, and teach. That simple. My purpose is to learn everything that I can learn to lead people and to teach people. Plain and simple.

[00:30:05] Our company purpose is to help entrepreneurs, business owners, really see the possibility within themselves once they can get outta their own way. That’s very different than our vision of where we see every single piece of our company and what we want it to feel like and what we want it to look like and what we want, want to have created three years out into the future.

[00:30:27] Cindy: I love that. And you mentioned earlier, three years, a lot can happen, right? We’ve seen that with the pandemic, obviously. 

[00:30:34] Steph: Yeah. 

[00:30:34] Cindy: So how do we plan for growth despite that uncertainty? 

[00:30:38] Steph: So there will always be uncertainty. There’s never not uncertainty. Uncertainty shows up everywhere.

[00:30:46] It’s just uncertainty is change. Change is unknown. So the idea is that you put, and I like to think of like a horse and a race, right? A horse and a race has blinders on, so they only can focus on what’s in front of them. And the idea with your vision is that you block out all the negative rhetoric. You block out all the what ifs, and you focus on planning and implementing and strategy to take you to that end result knowing that you can trust yourself to respond in case something does happen. 

[00:31:16] Nobody could have predicted a stay at home order. Nobody could have predicted a pandemic like we went through with Covid 19. But the business owners that succeeded, never lost track of what their end vision was.

[00:31:30] They were just able to pivot within that to stay the course. So you saw businesses go from in-person to online. You saw restaurants go from in-house to take out and delivery. So they never lost sight of what their end goal was, but they were flexible enough to be able to pivot within inside that vision. 

[00:31:49] Cindy: Yeah, I think pivoting is very important. And when you’re coaching, where do you see business owners often get stuck and that keeps them from growing and moving forward with their businesses? 

[00:31:59] Steph: The biggest place that we see them get stuck is when they need to start letting go of control. So, it’s interesting because most business owners, most entrepreneurs go into business because they like doing the thing of the business.

[00:32:12] So attorneys go into business because they like being an attorney. Home s
tagers go into business because they love home staging, right? They don’t go into business because they wanna manage people. That’s generally not the case, right? They just love the thing that they’re going into business doing.

[00:32:27] But then when you, you get to the point where you wanna grow, you realize that you can’t do it alone. And your focus then becomes not necessarily the thing that you’re doing, but investing in growing people. And that brings up all kinds of issues. It brings up hidden trust issues. It brings up control issues cuz your business is a reflection of you.

[00:32:50] What if you bring someone in and they hurt your reputation? Or what if you bring someone in and they, you know, are rude to a client and you get a bad review on Google, or what if you bring someone in and they see something, that you are not proud of and then slander you? So I’ve heard every excuse in the book from entrepreneurs that are resistant to delegating and hiring, and that’s usually the biggest and first place that they have massive hangups around growing and scaling their business is they have a real need to control.

[00:33:20] Cuz being in control makes them feel safe. In order to grow, you have to let go of that control. You have to allow yourself to get help. 

[00:33:28] Cindy: And I think especially for stagers, staging really is a team sport. I mean, you can’t lift a sofa by yourself. I mean, some people can, but that’s very rare. I can’t , I, I mean, I dropped sofa on my foot before and, and that’s with a couple people, right? So if we had to find team members, and also the other thing, I think with service-based businesses, we are really trading money with our time. So in order to have more income in the business, we need more time. So the only way to do that is to expand and find team member, and how can we find the right team member?

[00:33:59] What are some of the things that we should be looking for? 

[00:34:01] Steph: So my mantra is that you hire for culture first. You wanna hire A players, and again, here’s another resource for you. Pat Lencioni has a fantastic book called The Ideal Team Player, where he breaks down three characteristics of any ideal player.

[00:34:19] One is the person is hungry, the other is the person is humble, and the other is the person is smart. So if someone is hungry, that means that they’re willing to go above and beyond. They’re not just there to collect a paycheck. They actually find value and going the extra mile that might not look like working harder.

[00:34:38] That might look like bringing in ideas that help other people in different areas of their business, or bringing in referrals or doing something extra to help the business grow. Humble means they give and receive apologies easily. They give and receive accolades easily, right? So they’re not putting themselves first. They’re putting the team and the company first. They’re very humble. Um, and then the third is that they’re smart and this kind of smart doesn’t refer to intelligence. This smart refers to emotional intelligence, meaning they’re aware of how they affect the other people around them.

[00:35:14] So they have a high level of empathy. They know when, like they know their own issues and when they can be irritating. They know when someone needs help and they can step in and they know when not to do that. So if you’ve got a team player, and they tick all those three boxes, you’ve got someone that you could really train in any skill.

[00:35:32] Cindy: I love that. So this is the A player. What does B player look like? 

[00:35:35] Steph: Everything A player is not . B player will, will show up and, and smile and put on a good face, but we’ll only do the bare minimum. Won’t be thinking outside the box. They’ll probably be needy in terms of appreciation, so they’ll turn, make everything about them, and they’ll be clueless as to how they affect the other people that they’re working with. So those kinds of people might be inconsiderate, and not take responsibility for their mistakes. So B players blame others for things that happen rather than take responsibility for it and say, “yeah, I made that mistake and this is what I’m gonna change going forward to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

[00:36:14] A B player will hide the mistake or blame someone else for the mistake. 

[00:36:18] Cindy: Yeah. And I think most business owners feel frustrated because their teams are filled with B players and they’re not finding the right A player for their team. 

[00:36:26] Steph: Correct. 

[00:36:26] Cindy: So they’re tolerating an adequate team. And how is that dangerous for business growth? 

[00:36:31] Steph: You won’t grow if you were tolerating an adequate team. It just, you just simply, you just simply won’t grow. 

[00:36:38] The idea behind having a team is that you are training them on how to grow the business for you. If you’ve got a team of adequate people who are just showing up to do a task, your business will maybe maintain, you might be able to grow tiny percentage incrementally over a long period of time, but you don’t have a team of people saying, “how can we win?”

[00:37:00] how can we win? So a great comparison to this is a sports team. I am not, I’m not a sports person. My husband is, which is why I think I always err to these sports analogies. But when you think of, let’s say a soccer team, right? The coach’s job is to make sure he’s got the best player in every single one of those roles.

[00:37:22] Because if one person is not playing at their best, that soccer team’s not gonna win the championship. And everybody on the team knows that it’s the coach’s job to make sure that the best player is in each of those roles. So what do each of those players do? They’re continually looking to better their best.

[00:37:39] They’re continually pushing themselves to be, to be better in their role, which then equals a championship team. If they have a team and the players just show up and they go to practice and you know, it’s, it’s fine that that soccer team never goes anywhere. It either stays the same or it drops down. They just have continual losing seasons.

[00:37:59] So it’s really important, and I think one of the primary roles of being a CEO is to make sure you have the right people in each of those roles. And if not, train up to see if you can pull out the best in people or replace. Those are really your two options. Train up or replace. 

[00:38:17] Cindy: Yeah, I’m not a sports person either, but I just watched this golf docu-series on Netflix and I, what’s very surprising.

[00:38:23] Steph: The LIV one, the LIV golf series? I love it.

[00:38:26] Cindy: It was actually really interesting. This also like I, you know, I really always thought a caddy, just someone who carries golf clubs around. And I’m l
ike, why does someone need a caddy? Like, You know, a robot can replace that. But then when I was watching one, I forgot which player it was, but he, um, he and his caddy had a really strong bond where if he’s deflated, he’s frustrated on the golf course, his caddy knows exactly what to say to really encourage him to get him going again.

[00:38:56] And I find that very, very special. And I think that is the thing with sports, it really is a team sport. Whatever position you play, even a caddy, you think, oh that’s someone just carry the clubs and whatever. But actually no, that everyone has a role to play. And it’s the same way with us running a business.

[00:39:14] Steph: Exactly. 

[00:39:15] Cindy: And I think a lot of times, especially with female business owners, we feel bad about giving feedback because we feel like, well, it’s gonna create conflict with our business. But how can we hold people accountable if we’re afraid of creating conflicts, right? 

[00:39:29] Steph: Yeah. 

[00:39:29] Cindy: So is there a way we can do that without alienating our team members or making them feel quote unquote bad?

[00:39:36] Steph: Yes. So what we do with our team is something called measures of success. So in most companies, expectations are handed down to employees, like these are your expectations. The employee never gets a chance to have a conversation about it, ask questions about it, express concerns about it. It’s basically like this has been placed upon you.

[00:39:56] You are now, this is how we are measuring whether or not your success in your role. I think that’s archaic. I don’t think that it’s helpful. And I’ve seen my personal experience working with hundreds of business owners that it doesn’t work. So it’s more about catching someone doing the wrong thing than helping them be better in their role.

[00:40:15] So we do something called measures of success. With each role, with each team member, I have a meeting with them and I say, “okay. I want you to think about the five to seven things that you do consistently in your role that you think are of highest value to the company.”

[00:40:30] So I’m asking them to really like think about their role and the value that they bring and pick five to seven of those things. And then I say, and I’m gonna come to the meeting with five to seven things that I think you do that are highest value to the company if you do consistently. And then we’re gonna meet and we’re gonna discuss it and we’re gonna agree upon five to seven.

[00:40:48] And then that becomes their measure of success. So here’s where this gets amazing. It’s an agreement. We’re talking about it. We’re thinking about is this really, does this set you up for success? Where do you see difficulty with this? Where do you think you may not be able to, to hit this measure of success? And we have this conversation. At the end of the conversation, it’s an agreement. 

[00:41:09] We agree that these are your five to seven measures of success. So then weeks going on and something happens and that measures of success isn’t hit. I can then go to that person and say, without conflict, “Hey, I’m noticing that you’re not hitting this measure of success. How can I help you make sure that you hit that? What do you need?” 

[00:41:30] So I’m not coming at them saying, you’re not doing what you said you were gonna, or what, what you’ve agreed to do. I’m coming at them as a support because my role is to build my team and to grow my team and to make them the best that they can be so that the company grows. Not to consistently tell them what they’re doing wrong.

[00:41:47] So if I can come at it from, “I’m a support.” 

[00:41:50] A. I’ve never considered myself an authoritarian. I don’t feel like I’m a superior over any of my team members. I actually feel like I work for them. It’s my job to build them, and I can’t do that when I don’t have agreements. 

[00:42:03] We haven’t had discussions and I can’t come in from the side and say, “Hey, how can I help? You and I have agreed that this is super important for your role. What needs to happen? So that you can be successful here.” And then if I have that conversation, we make adjustments, have that conversation, we make adjustments and things still aren’t changing, then I know I need to either train up or replace.

[00:42:23] Cindy: I love that because I think that’s one of the difficult things is we are afraid of conflict, right? I think a lot of business owners, especially I think with females too, are very conflict avoidant. 

[00:42:33] Steph: A hundred percent. 

[00:42:34] Cindy: But that can also be detrimental for our businesses. So is there a way conflict can be productive?

[00:42:41] Steph: Sure. Train your team how to deal with conflict. I put our entire team, through a conflict training, where I taught them how to both give and receive feedback. So that we have a common language when it comes to when things go wrong. Part of the problem with conflict is that even as children, we were never taught how to deal with it.

[00:42:58] We were never taught how to give feedback. We were never taught how to receive feedback. And so we’re all coming to this team, and we all have different ideas about what accountability means, about what feedback means, and about what conflict means. Nobody wants to rock the boat. Nobody wants to not be liked.

[00:43:14] So if you can provide a framework for that and then give people, build psychological safety in your organization that causes people to feel safe enough to give and receive feedback. That’s when conflict just doesn’t exist. . 

[00:43:29] Cindy: And conflicts come up pretty much everywhere in our businesses, even with clients as well. This client might come by and say, “I don’t really like the staging, I don’t like that chair,” or whatever it is. We have to figure out a way to resolve that. And also, a lot of times you might not be there as a business owner, your team members may be. So I love the idea of actually going through a conflict training to teach everyone in terms of “this is a language you want to use as a company.”

[00:43:53] Steph: Yes. It’s, it’s all about common language and communication with conflict. 

[00:43:58] Cindy: Is there a way to engage in conflict to allow the best idea to win and to advance the company forward? 

[00:44:04] Steph: Yes. So in our training on conflict, we distinguished debate from conflict. So when you look at coming to a meeting and everyone’s got an idea.

[00:44:15] The outcome should be that the best idea wins. So that’s meritocracy. The best idea wins. It’s not the person who’s the loudest. It’s not the person who
talked the most. It’s the best idea. So it’s also in training your team how to debate and then involving them in the conversation, which means setting them up for success prior to a meeting.

[00:44:34] So let’s say for example, you know that you need help brainstorming an idea, and you’d like to have a debate. You preframe this with your team ahead of time. So you send an agenda. You say that the outcome is that a decision is made about this one thing. You provide them with background information and then you ask them to come prepared to debate what they think is the right thing to do based on their role and their perspective, so they have time to gather their thinking and their opinions and their evidence. And then they present it. And it’s a debate. It’s not conflict. And then everyone has a conversation. And it’s agreed to what the best idea is out of all the ideas brought. 

[00:45:13] Cindy: Kind of like in high school when we are doing debates, like mock trials, right?

[00:45:17] And it’s factual. It’s based on your point of view, because even as a business owner, the way we see things are a little bit different than someone who’s in charge of warehouse, who is coming straight from a operational point of view, or someone who’s doing marketing, who’s coming in from a client lens.

[00:45:31] So everyone has a different consideration, but if everyone can bring their point of view to the table in a factual way, that is much more productive than just be like, I’m the one that’s right. Blah, blah, blah, blah. So. 

[00:45:43] Steph: Right. And where I think business owners let their team down the most is they don’t give them time to think.

[00:45:50] They have them show up at a meeting. They like put forth an idea and people think in different ways, right? Some people want to actually do some research and take some time and really think through before they answer. This gives everyone that time, that buffer before they’re asked to share their ideas.

[00:46:05] Cindy: Yeah, cuz not everyone can think on the spot. I certainly cannot. I need preparation. 

[00:46:10] Steph: Yes, exactly. 

[00:46:12] Cindy: And in your work you have four leadership archetypes. Can you talk a little bit about this and what are the four leadership archetypes? 

[00:46:19] Steph: Yes. So in working with hundreds of business owners, we began to recognize four archetypes of leaders. So there’s the Catalyst Leader, the Charismatic Leader, the Limitless Leader and the Legacy Leader. 

[00:46:33] In each one of them, have different strengths and weaknesses. They overlap a little. But just to provide an example, the catalyst leader, their strength is in developing people. So they really love to get in and develop people and create a movement of people.

[00:46:49] Their weaknesses are weak boundaries and guilt, so, catalysts are those people that just love to work with people. They like to coach, they like to mentor, they like to leave a legacy of change from people. But they can easily be sabotaged when they don’t have clear boundaries. And when they are manipulated by guilt.

[00:47:10] Then you have the charismatic leader. And here’s the great thing about the charismatic leader, is the charismatic leader actually shouldn’t be a people manager. And what we see is that we have a lot of charismatic leaders that come and work for us, and they feel like they have to be the people leader.

[00:47:26] They feel like they have to be the people manager and the people developer. And really that’s not within their genius. Their genius is in being the visionary and in speaking their vision to the world, kind of in a movement type way of a leader. So they stand for something and their weakness is when they try to manage people, they get frustrated.

[00:47:47] They get impatient. They say things that they wish they wouldn’t have said. And really all they need to do is hire that in between person that COO, or that personal assistant or that integrator that can translate their vision and apply it to the team and then build the team around it. 

[00:48:05] So each one of these archetypes has strengths and has weaknesses, and they’re all different. The other one that should not be a leader, that should not be a people manager is the limitless leader. Again, they’re a visionary type. They should not be managing people. In fact, when charismatic and limitless leaders try to manage people, they create massive problems and massive chaos in their business.

[00:48:32] This is an assessment that we created that people take this assessment, ask a series of questions, usually takes like five to seven minutes, and then you get a report about what type of leader you are, and it gives you what your strengths are, so you know what zone you should be working in, but it also gives you what your weaknesses are.

[00:48:49] So you can either delegate those weaknesses or you can train up those weaknesses and become better at those weaknesses. A lot of people just think a leader is a leader and they have to be doing all these things, and they’re actually causing their business harm because they’re not aware of the different types of leaders.

[00:49:05] Cindy: Yeah. I mean, we’re all humans. It’s impossible to be able to do everything, right?

[00:49:10] Steph: Yes. 

[00:49:11] Cindy: But I don’t know why. Once you own a business, there’s that expectation that you must know everything about your business and how to do it well, it’s impossible. 

[00:49:19] Steph: Well, I think, you know, there’s lots of studies that have been done that have proven that most entrepreneurs had a pretty chaotic childhood.

[00:49:27] In one way or another, something happened that created a chaotic childhood. So when you grow up in a chaotic childhood, and I did, not everybody does, but I did. When you grow up in a chaotic childhood, you like control so that you can feel safe. You become very resourceful cuz you can’t count on someone to pick you up from, from baseball practice and or where your next meal is coming from in some cases, and you become problem solvers.

[00:49:53] You figure out a way to make things happen and get things done so that you can be successful. Those are key traits in business owners and entrepreneurs, right? So you’re used to being the one in control and doing all the things because that’s how you survived your childhood. But at a point, you don’t need those things anymore because your childhood is over, and now you need an identity upgrade into who you actually need to be to have the business that you want.

[00:50:18] Cindy: I think when I first started my business, I was reading this book about how to start your business and I read the stat saying that most entrepreneurs hav
e overbearing mothers and emotionally unavailable fathers. Now I start laughing cause I was like, interesting. Cause that’s exactly how my parents are.

[00:50:34] So it does sound like a lot of our family dynamics show up in our leadership style. So can this be a strength or a weakness? And how do we recognize that when they show up? 

[00:50:44] Steph: Look, the truth is, is that you are completely shaped by what happens to you prior to the age of seven, right? You don’t have the ability to reject anything that you experience or that you hear prior to the age of seven.

[00:50:57] By the age of seven, your conscious mind begins to develop, and then you have the opportunity to reject. So most of the patterns that you’ve developed, you developed before the age of seven, and you’re still operating based on those. So if you were the child that was the savior, that’s gonna be reflected in your business.

[00:51:12] If you are the child that was the rebel that’s gonna be reflected in your business. If you are the child that was the A student, that’s gonna be reflected in your business. So you’ll replay those patterns over and over until you start asking a different question. And that different question is what do I need to change within me to become who I need to be to have the business that I want?

[00:51:34] But yeah, it’s all tracked back to your childhood. The people who had a hand in raising you. 

[00:51:40] Cindy: Yeah. And how can we become better leaders in our companies? 

[00:51:44] Steph: So I would say the best thing you could do is be someone worth following. If anything else, to be a better leader, be somebody worth following.

[00:51:55] And what does that mean? That means being your word. When you say you’re going to do something, you do it. When your team members see that they can trust you, everything else is built from that trust. If you’re continually saying you’re gonna get something done and you don’t do it, and you don’t call attention to it, when you’re continually showing up to meetings late, even though you are the one that set the time of the meeting when you’re continually committing to something and then changing your mind at the last minute, that shows your team that you are not trustworthy.

[00:52:25] And actually it tells yourself that you don’t trust yourself. So I think the number one thing in being a good leader first is being someone worth following, being a trustworthy person that people can feel that they want to follow because they know that you’re gonna do what you say you’re gonna do.

[00:52:42] Cindy: We talked about earlier it’s impossible to be good at every single thing in our businesses. 

[00:52:46] Steph: Yeah. 

[00:52:47] Cindy: Let’s say charismatic leaders, they’re not great with people managing. So is the solution really just basically find someone that is good at managing people to bring that into their business?

[00:52:56] Steph: Yes. And that can look like a high level executive assistant. That could look like a chief of staff. That could look like a chief operating officer. That could look like an integrator. That person takes many different names, but they need to have that buffer. That’s someone that can actually translate their vision where they see themselves going into the doing, and then manage the team around getting those things done.

[00:53:21] Cindy: We’re coming up to the last question. So what is the number one tip you will give to home stagers when it comes to becoming a better leader for their home staging businesses? 

[00:53:29] Steph: I think the number one tip would be, to be open and honest with your team.

[00:53:33] There’s a lot to be said about psychological safety in terms of how you treat people. I’ve spoken to many business owners who have had amazing results with their team just because their team trusts them. They’ve built a community where their team isn’t afraid to make mistakes. They’re not afraid to bring new ideas.

[00:53:52] They’re not afraid to try something and have it fail. That’s where real innovation happens. If you have to be the smartest person in the room, then your business is not gonna grow. You have to step back and empower other people and allow them to have ownership over the other things in your business that you’re asking them to do.

[00:54:11] Cindy: I love that. And also I think it’s not necessary about micromanaging people. Cause I’ve read things in Facebook groups, for example. I remember one business owner was very frustrated. She felt like a lot of her team members are taking advantage of time by playing on their phone during work hours, even though they have a policy not to do so.

[00:54:31] So once they start banning having phone during work hours, people start doing it during bathroom breaks. So she felt very frustrated. She wanted to police that. So what is the solution really to becoming a better leader?

[00:54:42] Steph: That’s where vision and measures of success come into play. Because you can say, Hey guys, I’ve noticed that as a team, you’re spending a lot of work time on your phone. We’re not gonna get our get to our vision if we’re not more focused with our workday. So how can I help you become more focused during the workday?

[00:55:00] Is it that you don’t feel like you’ve got enough work to fill your plate? Is it that you’re unsure of what to do during the time that you’re on your phone? So instead of making someone wrong for doing those things, calling back to the vision, explaining why that’s important, and then ask how you can help them be more productive with their time.

[00:55:17] Cindy: I love that. That’s a really great way to reframe it and make it very empowering for the employees as well. 

[00:55:23] Steph: Yes, yes. 

[00:55:24] Cindy: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for today. It was amazing. It was really a mini masterclass in terms of how to work with people and how to lead in our home staging businesses. 

[00:55:34] Steph: Thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun.

[00:55:36] Cindy: So that’s it for today’s show. Thank you so much for listening. If you wanna help and support the show, you can leave a review and rating on iTunes. You can share the show on social media. If you haven’t left a review on iTunes, please do so. This will help us grow the show and book more guests. If you have any questions, feedback and suggestions, you can comment on the show notes. You can find the show notes by going to staged4more.com/podcast. That’s it.

[00:56:03] Have a fantastic week and happy staging. 

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