How do you launch your business on a greater scale?
Does this mean you need to spend a great deal of money?
But how do you do that?
Find out from Founder, Leader and the Launch podcast host Rebecca Bennett.
2:46 Rebecca’s background and money story
10:36 keeping an abundance mindset
37:22 on enticing someone to work for a start-up without the 6-figure income off the bat
More Rebecca:
The LAUNCH! – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-launch-podcast/id1331719953
Website – https://launchitspot.com/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccabennettpmp
My name is Megan Brame and this is Stop Sucking Your Business. Let’s go.
Hey guys Megan here. Welcome to the show. Super glad you’re here with me today because the guest whom I bought on is wow, She she to me, personifies me like a real entrepreneur. You know what I mean? Like, this is with Rebecca Bennett who I don’t even know where to start her. She’s so fascinating. She, starting the corporate world, decided that wasn’t for her, decided to go for her MBA, go six figures into debt to get this and build a business as well as do consulting all at the same time. Like, what did you do today? I didn’t do half of that Saddam. So she is incredibly inspiring and I love all of the tips that she gives about this. Just understanding how to utilize money is a tool learning to love it and building a business all while having so many outside factors happen. She’s so inspiring. And I hope you love this interview as much as I love doing it. Here’s my interview with Rebecca Bennett.
Hey everybody Megan here with Rebecca Bennett Thank you so much for joining me. This is super exciting.
Thanks for having me Megan.
So you know, this is my money month. This is the one where we’re really getting the hardcore into money. So I am so thrilled to talk to you about your story because I think that it’s going to resonate with a ton of people. But rather than me spoiling it, would you mind telling us your background and your money story?
Of course. So basically, I graduated college like any other person, and I jumped straight into a career. It was actually in corporate entertainment and I mean, at some point, when you first graduate from college, you’re like, I have this confidence. I have all this knowledge to go into the world and use it, and everything’s great and you’re just rising the ranks and in your career. But then at some point, and I feel like this happens to most everyone. At some point in your career, you start to feel a little stuck. You really can only get so far, uh, in specific industries. More so. But you can really only get so far with a bachelor’s degree and I started to feel like I had more potential than I was being provided an opportunity in my job and so I just started to learn on my own and explore ways to just become a better manager and a better leader at work. And so one day I had this co worker. She was new to the company and she was working on her M.B.A. and I was like cool and MBA, what’s that like? That sounds like a lot of hard work. And she was just so excited when she talked about it, and then she would show me how she was applying it at her job. And I was like, Oh my God, this is like life changing. This is going to change the company. It’s super advanced stuff. We’re not even doing anything close to this and then I started to wonder like, Why is it that no one else in our group has an MBA? This girl is shining. She’s bringing so many interesting ideas and concepts to the table, and yet she wasn’t being rewarded for it at our work. She wasn’t getting promoted. so that was, I think, that had more to do with being in a workplace where it’s hard to get promoted and a lot of people feel stuck. And that’s kind of where I felt myself where I was at. You come to this point where you feel stuck either in your job or your career, and you need to find, like, an exit plan and a way to move forward at the same time. You can’t just hop off the train without a new train to hop on to so just seeing the way that she really expanded my mind the way that she was thinking and I really felt that and she was so happy when she would talk about it like, Okay, I need a dose of this. I need a dose of smartness, a dose of happiness. I need to get out of this rut that I’m in. So actually, the whole process of deciding if I’m gonna apply for an MBA to actually getting into a program literally took a year. It was, and I had no idea of how long this timeline would be, but just getting to the point where you’re deciding like I want to actually go for this. I mean, it’s a big investment. So you have to really be sure this is what she want and that it’s gonna benefit you, so actually deciding, like, I want to do this to going through the entire application process, picking out the schools like learning and talking about yourself in your essay, telling them why you want to go on figuring out that why was an incredibly long process. But it was also, at the same time super cathartic and therapeutic, because when you feel stuck in, you go through this process of trying to figure out Okay, where’s my next step? They really only accept people who have, like, somewhat of a direction, they will know exactly why they want to get into the school. Then figuring that helping me to figure that out kind of naturally led me forward to the next step. With or without an MBA already I had a clear picture of where I wanted to go and how I was going to get there and so that’s how I ended up getting into the MBA program at University of Southern California and it was quite a ride and an experiment experience, which I’m happy to dig into further later, but kind of. That’s how that’s how I got into getting to where I am with an MBA today.
And so your entrepreneurial ventures. Did they start during your MBA or do you think that and you were in the corporate world? You’re just like this. This sucks. I have it together.
So my entrepreneurial adventures kind of grew out of feeling that stuck moment in my corporate career and so I was kind of taking two paths at the same time I actually started. Uh, I started a side business while I was working. This is previously before thoughts of an MBA event occurred and this was kind of like my way out is if I could just grow this big enough to the point to replace my salary or close enough then this will give me more freedom to explore what I want to do. Give me financial independence and so that’s how it all started and obviously, as many of us know, starting businesses takes time. They say the average is 2 to 3 years before you break. Even eso. Luckily, I was able To break even in that first year, but where I had problems with my first business with scaling, scaling it up to a certain level. That’s beyond yourself, because you could only give so much in a day in 24 hours of just your time and so. Scaling it to start to include other people was really difficult for me, especially when it’s a lifestyle business, which I figured out it was that really relies on you and your brand. And so that was like my first mistake. I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, but it was. It was, I think, a stepping stone that everyone kind of needs to go through, figuring out how you can maximize your skills and talents, which incorporates your brand, but may mean you can’t skill that necessarily, or it’s hard to do with other people. So that’s what kind of led me to realize well, this business is not going to scale. I could quit my job, and I actually did before I started that MBA program. But the MBA program just gave me a little bit more of a put to Help me figure out How can I actually scale this baby?
And I think that that is absolutely brilliant in the one you had no fear. I mean, I’m sure you did have fears, but you still like your faith was greater than your fear and so you decided, like, uh, this is the life that I want to have and you know it doesn’t involve this corporate setting. It also is going to involve this mountain of debt and MBA. But this is like, this is my journey, and this is my path. So when you’re going into your MBA program and this you’re this you’re an entrepreneur, then, right? Officially. Is that right? So how do you keep your mindset from self imploding of like, Okay, I see these loans. We’re going to start coming, and this is all on me now. This is not like me and my employer with, like, tuition reimbursement or any kind of first like this is all on me, and this is all coming up. So how do you keep your mind set in an abundance mindset, I guess and how do you get yourself to sleep at night?
Of course I think this is just from my experience with talking with other entrepreneurs. But I get the sense that to have that entrepreneurial mindset, which is something that can be cultivated, it’s not necessarily something that you’re born with. I mean, it could be, but to have that mindset automatically includes looking at the world as the glass half full, always finding that silver lining entrepreneurs are notorious for looking for those opportunities and latching onto that. Because what else can they do? You know, that’s what on that’s really what? Entrepreneurs. They find those opportunities and they go after them, no matter the challenges or the obstacles in the way and so I knew that getting into this program, especially this one from this specific university, was going to cost me a fortune. So I knew that going in it was gonna be a lot and I was overwhelmed and hard to think about. Well, how am I gonna afford this? and it was really a matter of a couple of things, it was planned in advance, meaning planning, like What do I have now? Looking at my assets. Now and. Then what? Do predicting or forecasting what money I will be bringing in during the program and then predicting the amount of money I will be bringing in after the program. So you kind of break it up into the three phases. so the first one when I was first looking at my assets, I didn’t have much. Let’s just say that and I don’t know if this is true or not. We have to look into it. But I think I had explored, like, the retirement account option, the 41 K and you’re only allowed to take out, like, 10 grand or something. Shipping so that’s limiting. That’s gonna pay. Maybe not even one semester. I was like, Okay, next, looking at my savings account always. Okay, I have a little cushion. That’ll work. But what was scary is I was looking at my assets, and I was like, It’s not going to get me through it. So what are my other options? So as an entrepreneur than I am, I’m looking out and exploring for those opportunities, so I was talking. Actually what I did is I brought in support from my family from my mom. Specifically, she had gotten an MBA. So I asked her, Well, how did you do? Which is always a great approach, asking the others before you the path that they took. And so she’s like she told me, Well, have you thought about school arms? And I was like, I’ve never taken out a school loan in my life. That sounds super scary. Well, they even give me the amount of money that I need. My concern was they wouldn’t give me enough to get through it, and then you’d have to kind of stop halfway or take one class at a time. And then next thing you know, you’re in a pro camera 10 years from now. But so what I did is I ended up applying. I had a 2 pronged approach. I ended up applying for school loans, and yes, they do give you enough to finish the program on time with the rest of your peers. So that’s the good news. And it’s a fairly easy process. It’s just a matter of filling out the FAFSA form online and then I think they give you about 20 grand increments or up to 25 for graduate level, per semester, which for most schools, I would think that’s enough. But then my second approach was so memorable I was planning to enter this program a year in advance and this was really key because I needed that full year to boost my credit score in order to apply for credit, because the second part of my approach was to use credit cards. And so at first, you and your listeners are probably Oh, my God, don’t do that like the interest rates. That sounds scary and it’s really not. There is a way to use credit cards to your advantage if you know how to do it right.
Hey guys, Megan here. Just a reminder. I have regular Q and A episodes coming out, so if you want your questions answered, head to Meganbrame.com/Ask a question on Woodward and you’ll be able to get your question posted, and if I feature it, you will get a copy. A free copy of my book Day one and Practical Guide to Launching Your Business so again. Head to megan brame.com/Ask a question and if your question gets featured, I’m sending you a free copy of my book as a thank you.
So what I did that entire year is I was just paying off bills right and left, consistently always paying that minimum payment, paying more where I could and applying for a lot of credit cards. So that way I could boost my credit. The idea is, you wanna have to show that you have a lot of credit, so credit cards are willing to lend you more money, because if credit card one lens gives you 30,000 then credit card to use like, Oh, she has 30,000 on credit credit report here and it’s not even used. Okay, let’s let her another 30,000.
I did credit card training for a long time and I have, like, 120,000 and credit available to be here, So I’m always terrified of that because I guess it’s good to know that I could almost buy a house somewhere ever too.
It’s nice to know. At least you have it. Don’t necessarily use it right a t least have it because this was also part of my backup plan to you always wanna with a big investment like an MBA. You always wanna have a backup plan, which I can go onto into next or later. But with this, I ended up building about exactly 100 of just over 220,000 worth of credits just sitting there, ready to tap into. For whatever reason, I couldn’t pay with the school loans or whatnot, but so the key to resolving this credit monster to your advantage is to get credit cards that offer 0%. Uh, they have various timelines between 12 months. Up to 24 months is pretty rare, but 18 is about average. And so, essentially, for, let’s say, 18 months, you don’t have to pay a cent, you have to maybe pay like a minimum payment, but it’s it would be so low, anyone could do it. And so what I did is every semester I would swipe that credit card and I would put it on the credit card, and I wouldn’t have to pay any money on it. Now, this works out better than your school law. Why? Because the special school loan is between 6 to 7% typically an interest. And I think, and that accumulates at a pretty fast rate. So the next thing I know, when I was looking at my school loans, I saw the interest rate was like over $3000 in just one semester. Thought they charged me and I was like, What? Oh, my God. But if you have this sitting on the 0% credit card, it’s 0% for 18 months. Now I know the questions. Everyone asking is what happens when the 0% term expires. Then you’re gonna have, like, a 20% interest rate. True but the trick is to create a planner of all your credit cards with 0% know exactly when that ex expiration datas and then about two things. If you’re still if you still need to add more credit cards to your credit package that you’re building your portfolio, I would say apply for a new one about a month in advance. No really, no later than that and then the second The second thing is about a week before it expires. You wanna do easier? You want to do a balance transfer over to that new credit card with. That’s your percent. Now, I know your listeners were saying well, but there’s gonna be a balanced transfer fee. Yes, there is. But it’s only, usually 3% which beats right 3% over a term of about 12 to 18 months. Now the interest rate on credit cards, I mean sorry. The interest rate on the federal student loans is 6 to 7% per 12 months, not 18 months for 12 months. So already that we already know we’re getting charged more on the federal loans than the actual credit cards. So essentially, what you want to do is just keep revolving this. Transferring the loan money as soon as it expires from 10% credit card to another one to another one. Now, why is this pretty genius? It gives you a little bit more financial flexibility to pay down when you want to, you’re only paying that 3% balance transfer fee, which is honestly, for 20,000. 20,000 loan. It was like it was lost for $1000, each time I did it pretty much it was like maybe 506 $100 each time for just one payment for the year, and that’s it and so, essentially you, you can pay it down as quickly or however, not as quickly as you want, but it gives you a little bit more flexibility and so this is how I’ve been paying for my school loans. Now let’s look at covid the covid economy. Look what’s happening now. If you had applied to student loans, you’re still stuck at that 67% rate, although temporarily they pause that to 0%. But that’s going to go back up again, sooner or later. Now, with the 0% credit cards there now giving forgiveness, forgiveness on late fees, they’re extending your 0% on bears. I feel like there’s a lot more benefits with credit cards and so. This has allowed me thio pay off the credit cards in a more financially feasible way and so this is This is what I’m talking about. I was talking about the three parts: the planning and advance building that credit. Now, I’m in the moment, I’m actually paying it. But the third part, which we didn’t talk about yet, is what am I gonna be making after I graduate? That’s a very important number two, because you’re gonna need that money to pay down your school loans. So if you look at the research of a MBA program, I’m trying to hold on. Let me look. Let me look at our books because I have it right here. Especially interesting number. So when the research is when you graduate from an MBA program, your income is expected to increase on average and this was a study, a survey taken across all the universities in the United States. On average, about 30% increase 30%. That’s huge. And so, going into this program, you have to have faith that you’re going to reach that because I think a lot of it is. If you don’t believe in it, I don’t think you’ll ever get to it. It’s like you have to believe in yourself because you keep telling yourself you can. I don’t think I can. Then you won’t.
The scarcity mindset of just like it won’t be enough or I won’t get it for some reason or what have you and then you’re just setting yourself up for failure.
Exactly so you have to believe that you can and how do you? How did I? It wasn’t just faith I didn’t have just faith in this. Like this is gonna happen. I like I’m entrepreneur. So I don’t just let things just up by chance, I actually have to, like, increase my probability of my likelihood. And so the way I made sure that that 30% increase happened and it did was it’s all about the university program that you pick. You want to pick a program that one has a really strong career center. University of Southern California is a great example of one. If you’re looking at universities and you want To, understand? What, is this good or is this not good? How do I know you can compare it to that university of a very strong program? and then the second thing is at this specific university, I joined the consulting club and you think, student club, like that’s extracurriculars it’s extra stuff. It’s not gonna get you your 30%. Actually, it was a consulting club that got me my job. So what happened is they have this program through the consulting club. They prepare you to become a consultant so I didn’t mention this before, but this was my plan B like if things don’t work out, which to an extent, they did. But my plan B ended up happening sooner than later. The opportunity was presented, so I’m not going to say no to it. So what happened is they put me through this program to train how to become a consultant, and they had this very carefully curated process of how to go about applying for jobs. And they brought all the employers in to help and just facilitated everything for us. All they literally have to do is dress up in a suit and print a resume. May and I was ready to go out. That’s all I had to do and show up. And I ended up getting a job out of that. That definitely was over that 30% income boost. So when planning for paying for such a huge investment of MBA, which in my case that ends up being like almost 150 g. I took extra classes. Don’t tell anyone. It’s really about pre planning, like planning in advance, being able to manage your finances during the program, making sure those credit cards don’t expire and then having faith increasing the probability that you’re going to get that 30% income boost.
That’s so fascinating and I’m glad that you’re talking about credit cards because I hate the stigma that oh, if I apply to some, it’s going to turn my credit score down or if I’m gonna like it just these old ways of thinking about credit as this, you put it, you put it in a drawer and you save it for emergencies and you don’t use it. But like you are treated so sacred only. But if you can use credit as a tool, then there’s no real hit. I I haven’t noticed a hit to my credit score because off, you know, turning for We used credit cards for the points and you know all the membership rewards things to get a first class trip to Japan so that was like I had, like, you know, the beautiful minds string theory going around trying to figure out all of the different credit cards and points I needed. I was afraid in the beginning of just the like, My God, if I keep applying to all of these credit cards so it’s gonna mess my credit report up for my score and it was completely the opposite because, like you said, my score kept going up because I kept getting more credit. So I love that you’re talking about that, but I want to talk about building your business in congruence with this MBA. You know, even focusing solely on the MBA I know, you have this entrepreneurial tinkering going on in the back of your head. Then you are also in addition to that you said that this consulting, which was kind of a plan B but became a hybrid plan a how are you managing all of this? Not not just financially, but just sanity wise like Well, what kind of support system are you setting up to do this and to grow your business incongruent with the MBA?
That’s a great question, real quick, just to mention just you mentioned you were using accumulating miles. That’s actually another great reason to use credit cards is because I chose one specifically where I would get miles or my tuition so if you can imagine I racked up so many miles or credit for plane tickets that I was able to fully pay and so I think most programs in the U.S.C. There is called a glow program where you travel thio abroad for a week and so I traveled to Tokyo and I ended up making a little trip of it. It was like our Asia trip on. I was able to pay for all of my plane tickets into seven countries and my family is my husband, my sons, all of their plane tickets with free miles and so on. It was the experience of a lifetime I will never forget. For just another reason why with Spritle student loans Sorry, there’s no perks. so and that trip was priceless. But in terms of how I’m managing, I guess your question is, how am I managing running a business while getting ready to start my new job in consulting. So that’s something that I mean, my job will be starting in a month, but it’s nothing that I’m not familiar with already. I’ve already done a Like I said before, when I was working my career, I had my side job already. And now it’s kind of like the rivers. I have my business. And now it’s like, Well, but I can’t necessarily make this job my side job. They’re gonna need me full time, if not more, but no, it will be an interesting experiment to figure out how to balance those two but what I can say is, as an entrepreneur, many of many entrepreneurs out there probably feel the same is you have so many ideas rumbling around in your head and you wanna do every single one. And it’s really not prioritizing and picking the select few that are gonna make the difference and so In this case, when it comes to managing two very big things that are gonna be your livelihood, it’s really gonna come down to prioritization. What is? And so I use a plan of how I manage my life in my work. And so what I do is one you create that vision, that overarching vision What is it that you want? What are your values? What is that you want in life? And for me, it’s, you know, ultimate happiness. Try to start to be happy on a daily basis. Obviously Wanna keep my health. That’s very important to me. So we wanna work out and all that and so from there. Then I whittle it down To Like the big dreams that I have that would go underneath that umbrella and so For me that would be thio be ableto grow a business, provide other people employment that’s a huge driver for me and to make an impact in the world to leave a legacy. And so my current business I’m working on now is an AI consulting in solutions firm where pioneering new technology in the conversational AI area. And so that’s super exciting to be driving technology forward to be a part of a solution in this world rather than a problem and so making sure just everything fits into your mission in your values and then from there trying to decide. What am I going to delegate out to your team members is gonna be huge and in this case, it’s gonna have to be a lot. And also building that trust before you delegate is a step that a lot of people miss. If you don’t build that trust first with your team members then it’s hard to delegate out and then you end up micromanaging, which you don’t want that to happen. Nobody likes that.
Let’s talk more about delegating and about how you were managing that, you know, you’re building this business, which sounds incredibly fascinating, like that big brain thinking that’s crazy. Interesting in clearly you’re aware that you have to bring people on to help you do this, especially if you’re going to take it with consulting role as well. But you still wanna grow this baby of yours. So how are you thinking about finding people to delegate that are going to be that are going to grow the business that you can sort of, you know, let them go and let them do their thing to grow the businessa and in addition, finding the money for that.
That’s a great question, so it’s really about building a talent pipeline and this is something that, just like the MBA program, it’s a long process. It’s in general, I think I read a statistic somewhere. It takes, like, six months on average for companies to find a talent to fill a role, which is a long time and I would agree with that statistic, so it’s about it. It’s not just once you find the talent, your one and done, it’s about continuing. That search is an ongoing process but during that search process, your recruiting you’re figuring out is you go. What are the best places to find talent and you want to reduce your search timeline essentially from six months. to is compact as you can get it. So you wanna wanna find the best places to find talent for the industry that you’re in and to you wanna come up with the interview process that matches your true needs for your companies. So finding the alignment is key. So I literally sat down and wrote my job description, not just like, oh, this sounds good, but really like thinking about myself and my new job. What would I need from this person? when I have my time, you know, taken away by something else. I really need this person to manage the business and so Taking time to do a proper job description is really important. One of the things one of my advisers mentioned to me is you have to actually spend quite a bit of time on the benefits. Like what are they going to get out of it? Not just what you need, but what were they going? What are they going to get out of it and so when it is put? When I put that together, I ended up getting more on, uh, candidates applying to those positions. Then when I just put like this is what I need. So it’s really important Thio mention what they’re going to get out of it and then so lets you done the job description you found on the sites. You’re going to get the talent from that. You feel it has top talent, you have your interview process down where you’re asking the right questions. like and not just the right questions, but the hard questions and putting people through scenarios of situations I believe is really important in these interviews. So asking like if I for some reason, if you didn’t hear from me in two weeks like what? What would you do? Or if there was a problem and I wasn’t able to help, how would you solve that problem? Like putting them in those situations to see how they would respond and react really helps out your talent, to see who is capable to work independently and doesn’t need to rely on you constantly if they’re able to think there was a problem or people who don’t and so on. That’s really one of the key things that I look for. I know that once I have them on the team, I have that confidence that I can delegate out to them.
Do you focus more on the high level positions that you wanna feel or do you start with the VA’s and like the tasks that get off your plate like where do you go, where do you recommend and where have you started? If that’s different.
So I always start with the overarching business strategy, meaning what are our strategic initiatives or our goals? So one of them is to drive the technology forward, an innovative way to put out a product that’s new and different that customers are excited about and then. Another one is obviously to make money to drive revenue, which our chief business development officer is. That’s what he’s doing right now. So I start with the overarching, uh, objective them from there. I delineate out what are the tasks required in order to achieve that goal? The task, the processes? What do what, uh, what do they need to do to get that goal done and then from there, once I have those lists of tasks, it’s really it’s all think it’s all about thinking at the task level then I look at what is it that I want to retain? That I feel like I need my hands on what I need to do versus what I just need to monitor or have a little bit of a hand in versus what Can I just totally take off my plate and I just check in here and there. So breaking down into those three categories helps me to determine what tasks are needed for the job and how I’m gonna manage that position.
We were talking before about benefits, and I’m curious, you know, hiring someone at a chief level of CDO that’s going to be pretty pretty nice. Compensation package. So for people who are bootstrapping or feel like they can’t find that kind of money But they want To bring somebody on. Do you have any tips for, like, employee perks? Benefits? Like how? How do you feel? People can entice someone to come into their startup and help them, but they can’t do six figures or something like that right off of that.
That’s a great question. So first of all, as a startup, your nine times out of 10, if you’re self funding, you’re not gonna be able to afford that six figure salary, which means you’re not gonna be able to get someone for 40 hours a week but think about what you can do if you can get someone for 20 hours, if you can get someone for 10 hours. If you can get someone for five hours in a week, I just think about what? You what? You can do and so obviously all our positions right now they’re not full time. They’re part time because we are still currently self funded so that’s one way to do it. But then the next question that you posed was How do you How do you even afford those five hours? so there’s a couple of ways to do it. So the roles when I put together roles when I first start a company, they’re all adviser roles, which means I’m just gonna have a little bit of their time every week as I need it and so the contracts that we write. We are, I guess, a little bit vague in that manner as needed. So what I do is all typically set, say, an hourly rate. There’s two. There’s two ways to write a contract. You can either send an hourly rate and then use them as needed with maybe giving them an expectation of average time needed a week or one of my advisers recommended to me is. Do it on a delivery able basis. Pay them on a general basis, which, especially if it’s a technical startup. It’s really important because there’s a lot of people out there that will just rack up hours and then they won’t deliver what she wanted or they just won’t deliver and so. At least having a delivery herbal based contract guarantees you that they’ll get that work done because it incentivizes them. If they get the work done, then they’ll get paid, so that’s really key as well.
Have you focused mostly on finding people locally to you? Or have you gone out and have just virtual advisers? That’s a really interesting question that has evolved for me and even even really recently. I’m so initially when I started, it was both my businesses. I started local. I think a lot of us start local because we feel comfortable with that, like you get you like you’re from Los Angeles. I’m from Los Angeles. But then I realized very quickly that was so limiting, you only have so much talent. I mean, even when I am in a huge business hub like Los Angeles there’s still like It’s hard to find talent, all all everything. How is it possible you can find all your talent in one place like Los Angeles wasn’t set up for your business? You need to set up your business for Los Angeles is really the other way around. But we live in such a cool time right now where I’ve been able to just have Google hangouts and zooms with people from everywhere, from India to Pakistan, To places in Europe, Bulgaria. It’s all over the place and I realized that to have a talent strategy is to really go global because one it feeds that need for diversity, which today is just We’re more aware of it than ever. Why do we want diversity? It helps feed the innovations and thoughts that go into building your product and that go into talking to your customers and now that the world is so much more aware of how important that is, you really need to make sure you have that diverse team, and so automatically looking on a global level will help you to do that and it’s they did a study that says, If you haven’t they said that having a diverse team increases significantly the performance improvement of your team when they’re diverse.
That makes sense. Especially the like, you’re repealing on a global level. So you might. It’s in your interest. You have a global staff of experiences and backgrounds and culture, the It’s so fascinating. And I would love to talk more about this, but I know we’re getting towards the end. So in addition to this company you’re building and consultancy, you also have a podcast. I want to talk about it?
Yes so the podcast, why it started before all of this and the reason why I started a podcast is so the launch is the name of is name of the company and the podcast and the reason why I started it initially way back when it was just to have a way to continue to stay engaged with my network used to go to all these conferences. I mean, all these cool people. But then how do you scale and stay connected with them? And I was like, Why can’t reach out every single one by email, like once a month? That’s just not gonna happen. I wouldn’t have a job. That would be my job. I wanted a way to skillfully provide value and stay Connected Thio the people who are important to me in my network. So, uh, creating a content pipeline or content funnel. Essentially, you start a blog or any kind of way to publish content. That’s a really great way to stay connected with your network and it started out with, like, a personal brand as a personal branding strategy. It was a process of, as I was writing these articles, figuring out what’s important to me that I want to talk about, but that I want to share with my audience with my network. And so the podcast they found was a really great way to do that, because you essentially get to connect with so many cool people that normally you would never get to me like before. The podcast. I wasn’t talking to C level Suite executives. I wasn’t talking to other entrepreneurs, but having the podcast doing the interview format forces you to do that and it’s more organic than just reaching out and asking someone. Hey, I need something like No one wants to work with someone who just always wants something from you. But with the podcast, there’s a lot of mutual benefits that happened. You’re learning from each other. You’re having a great time again in conversation, and then the rest of the world can hear it and learn from it and so you’re providing value together for the world as well, so that’s kind of how we got started.
That is so cool and I love it was just thinking when you’re saying like, I meet all these people at conferences and I’m the same way and I just feel like I can’t be one of those old timey women and at the the desk, just like Hello Rebecca, help your will with your family that you’re just, like, have a business to run to. I want to be connected to you.
You always want to go deeper than the high level, like Hi, how are you? Help your family’s Well?
Where can my listeners find out more about you?
So what I can do is I can share my Lincoln address with you, people can find me on Linked in. I have to look it up, actually, i don’t know my Linked in by heart. Maybe I should though but y’all Linked in would be the best. The best place to find me and connect with me. But people can also reach out to me on Launchitspot.com, which is my website. I’m just to chat about anything or if you’re interested in AI solutions or integrating AI into your business, it’s like a thing right now. If you haven’t heard yet and then in terms of my LinkedIn, it’s gonna be Linked in.com/in/RebeccaBennett, P.M.O stands for project management. Professional.
Perfect. Thank you so much Rebecca. I really appreciate you coming on.
Of course. Thanks Megan. It was a pleasure.
Hey, guys, one more thing before you go, could you do me a favor and leave a review of this episode? It would help me out so much and get the word out to other people. If you could just drop her review, I would really appreciate it.
