Latest / Exit Algorithms / From Deloitte to SaaS Operator: How Jennifer Doty Leads Through Change | (#57)

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From Deloitte to SaaS Operator: How Jennifer Doty Leads Through Change | (#57) · Exit Algorithms

• speaker-0: Welcome to exit algorithms, the podcast where we decode what it really takes to unlock growth, streamline operations, and prepare your business for a high value exit. I'm your host Pete Vera. And today Jennifer Doty joins the show. She's a CPA who started her career at Deloitte, climbed to VP level leadership at MetLife, Fortune 100 companies, their own consulting firm, helped build Three flow into a top benefits placement platform, all while running your own health and wellness business called Live Pure. So Jennifer, so excited to have you today. Welcome to the show. speaker-1: Thanks so much, Pete. So happy to be here. speaker-0: Yeah, I can't wait to get into this conversation. think, can we start off? Do you mind sharing a bit about your background? Maybe some of the ⁓ highs lows through your career and ⁓ ultimately what you ⁓ get the entrepreneurial track? ⁓ speaker-1: Absolutely. So I started my career in public accounting. I went to school to become an accountant. I'm a CPA by background. came from the era of the oldest of four daughters. And my parents said, can you please not come back when ⁓ graduate school? And so I picked something ⁓ that I was super passionate about, Pete, but that I was good at. Because at that time, it was really about go get a job that you can earn a decent living at. did accounting for a long time. was at Deloitte for almost four years. And then I did a couple different startups in the day. And that was a culture shock going from public accounting to startup life. And then ultimately got myself to MetLife over years ago. And I thought at the time it was a way to get myself back to New Jersey, because I had been all over the country before that and personally wanted to get back closer to home. And I thought I'd be there about a year or two. And so those were the days when a recruiter took your resume and shopped you around and got you interviews. They don't really do it that way anymore. so I started with MetLife and then that turned into almost a 20-year career. So I started in finance. ⁓ there, I was a chief of staff for a senior executive and eventually a leader that was part of the executive team. So that was a whole deep dive into leadership on... ⁓ what I wanted to lead like and what I didn't wanna lead like one day, I learned a lot. We used to call it when you fly that close to the flame, you learn a lot about Fortune 100 companies. And then ultimately I had my first role, I'll never forget the day they called me where they asked me to lead the IT integration for a large acquisition, MetLife acquired a large piece of AIG, which was their international business called Alaco. And they called me up and. I'll never forget I was in this room. was sitting in one of those chairs. It was a snowy day. And one of the IT leaders says, listen, we've got a job for you. We want you to take this role leading the integration team. And I said, are you kidding? I said, I can turn on my laptop and call the help desk. That's the extent of my IT knowledge. And he said, you don't understand. We've got personalities. We've got to get stuff done. We need people to row in the right direction. And we think you're the person for the job. And I was like, ⁓ dear Lord, help me. It was my first job where I led with zero expertise. And so I really appreciated the opportunity. I was surrounded by a lot of people who made sure I had the support I needed. I was definitely a fish out of the water, you know, going into an IT organization where I was trying to lead a team of people, all that were like a higher level than me, all who were older than me. And a lot of people saying, why is she here? She doesn't know the first thing about IT, right? And so. I led that integration for the better part of two years and I'll never forget the first time I sat in a meeting and I realized why I was there, why I really was there. And it was a finance HR discussion on the integration with the IT team. the HR leaders were trying to talk about a certain integration that they were working on. And the IT leaders had no idea what she was trying to explain. And it was like the peanut parents, right? you know, she would speak and then the IT guys would be like, wah, wah, wah, wah, and she's like, so she finally looks at me in the room and she says, do you understand what I mean? And I said, I think, go, let me try. And so I tried to translate her words from business into what they were talking about on the IT side and vice versa. And I'm like, this is why I'm here, Pete. I am here to be the translator, right? And so I really understood then that it was really about relationships and people. and how do you navigate all of those things in order to get work done. And so from there, there's never been a job or a role that I've shied away from. And I've had many, many roles where I've led with zero expertise. And I just figured out. You find out the people you need to know, the questions you need to ask, and you ask enough questions to be dangerous, right? And so that was a really pivotal point of my career. And then I spent the last 10 years in the group benefits space leading marketing, leading, rolling out new products, training the sales associates on what the new products were, and then ultimately ran all of the US operations for the group business. The last three years I was there, including COVID, which was definitely a culture shock. We went from 1,400 people in an office to ⁓ being sitting at home overnight over a weekend, right? After planning for weeks. about this rotational schedule and who was gonna go in the office when, and there was team A and team B, none of it mattered. It all shut down right after that weekend in March, right? And so how did you continue to keep an operational team motivated, focused on the right things, all while helping the business solve for really critical business components like no one was going to the dentist. So what were we going to do about that, right? And helping implement you know, some ⁓ reductions immediately for ⁓ and like credits that we offered back in market and we were a leader in that. And so like, that sounds all well and good. And then you've got to figure out how to operationalize it. Where are you taking the credit? How are you communicating it? What bill is it going on? Like all of these things that were like really hard, but for the good of the nation were really important, right? And so. amazing career at MetLife. And then in the summer of 2021, I got the phone call that I often had delivered for a decade or more. There had been a reorganization and this time, as I always say, it's like the love boat, the chairs on the Lido deck change, but you don't have one. And so it was my time to leave. And I think it was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it really offered me the opportunity to think about what I wanted for the first time. I had been steered and shuffled in all the right ways by a lot of people and didn't always choose things based on what I really, really wanted. I chose things based on what was best for my career, what was best for the organization, what was best for the people around me. But I had a lot of time to reflect on what I wanted out of the next chapter. And that ultimately led me to ThreeFlow because one of the things I boiled down and what I wanted was I wanted to do amazing work with really great people. And recruiters hated me for that. They're like, I don't know what to do with you. That is not a thing. I can't pitch you that way. And I say, well, I'll know it when I see it. Again, they didn't love that, right? But it got me through my network. Network is everything when you're looking for a new role. And I got to ThreeFlow, amazing group of people. We have a platform, a benefit placement system. that group carriers and brokers leverage to exchange data for quoting and rating. And it is a tremendous efficiency in the market. We encompass all products, medical, ancillary, stop loss. And I have been really grateful to be here for the last four years and then started with running carrier relationships, because that felt right given my background. And now I run all of the operations, because when you're a glutton for punishment, and you're really good at process, Pete. It's like, you always kind of get back to that. And so have an amazing team that's really driving efficiency and effectiveness in the customer experience and figuring every day how to leverage AI in a new way, which is great. And then in addition to that, on the side of my desk a year ago, I started a new business with Live Pure, which is nutrition and I personally have taken the products for nine years. I'm a product of the products. And it's really around the methodology of cleansing, balancing, and building your body from the inside out. But what is really exciting is the amount of money that you can make on the side of your desk. so it is, I mean, upwards of five figures in a big way, close to six figures, right? And so on the side of my desk in 15, 20, 30 minutes a day, give or take, it is incredible. ⁓ I'm blown away by the number of people who are either looking to solve their health. In a new way, right, as we age, there's a lot of things that are different, right, and that we work through or that our parents had or our grandparents had, right? And then the people who are interested in a second income stream is incredible to me. People I would never have imagined who were like, I was looking for something. And I'm like, well, maybe this is it, right? And so in addition to that, I've written two leadership books that ⁓ were super, super. cathartic part of my process as I've, I've, I've winded my way through my career. And then I've also started leaning into speaking engagements and workshops. that has been incredible to just share my experiences and background with other people and help them get unstuck. What would I tell the 30 year old me and, you know, teams of people on how to really drive outcomes in a new way and, and, ⁓ know, drive more success in their organization. speaker-0: Wow, I love your story. Man, thanks for sharing. There's so ⁓ ⁓ we could take this. I love what you first started off with is ⁓ dealing that kind of imposter syndrome of stepping a role that you're not sure you haven't done before and you just kind of proceed with confidence, I guess. Is there any advice that you could give to people that might be? dealing with that as they deal with that, even just growing your own business or starting a new venture or anything for the first time. I'd to hear your feedback on that. speaker-1: Yeah, it's a great question. think I always begin with thinking about you're here for a reason. I believe every stop along your journey is purposeful, right? And you are where you belong. Whether you believe it or not, you're there for a reason for a season to learn something until you're ready to do the next thing, right? And I would always start with, well, they wouldn't have put me in this job if I wasn't qualified to do this job, right? It wouldn't have been on my path, right? I'm a big believer in what's for you won't miss you. Don't worry about missing the job, the opportunity. It's not gonna miss you. If it's meant for you, it's going to happen. Somehow the universe is going to align itself. So that will be true, right? And so I would always start with, well, I'm here for a reason, right? And then I would look at the things that were evidence, right? Of why I was meant to be there, right? And so I do this all the time because there's plenty of times we all have thoughts through our heads. I did this with my daughter in college a couple of weeks ago, right? Like, All those negative thoughts pop up and how do you get out of that death spiral and fast, right? And I start with what are the evidence I first say, is that true? Well, that thought's probably not true, right? ⁓ then I think what would be a better thought? Well, I'm actually really qualified for what I'm doing and I'm here for a reason. And then I look for five things, five things that give me evidence that show me ⁓ in the last, I don't know, week, month, day. ⁓ things that show me that no, you're really supposed to be there, whether that's feedback from a peer, something that you accomplished, a moment where you're like, yep, I knew what to say in that moment to that person in that meeting, and I moved the conversation forward, however small it is, right? And then I write all things down, and it's big for me. You write it with a pen and a paper. You don't type it in your phone. You don't record it. There's something about writing. ⁓ Like actually writing it, physically writing it down and the brain connection to that, that's really important. And then I rewrite the thought, right? And I say, well, I'm actually really, really qualified to be where I am. I deserve what I have. I'm in the spot, I belong, and I'm really enjoying what I'm doing. And ⁓ I'm really grateful for it. So gratitude goes a long way. at helping you move forward and getting more of those thoughts, feelings, outcomes, more things come your way when you are grateful for the things you want and how you want to feel. speaker-0: Yeah, that's a great answer. Thank you for sharing some insight on that process, you know, to get there. I think that's definitely something people can apply. It sounds like you've probably worked with some coaches something kind of get your mindset right. speaker-1: Life coach, yes. You work on mindset. You work on creating. What do you want next? Right? And so it all boils down to starting with like, how do you want to feel? And I know that sounds like woo woo and like, no, no, no, let's just go with what my brain tells me. Right? And so if you can get really quiet and really think about and just reflect your heart, your gut, your soul will tell you what feels right, what feels good. and we'll give you answers to questions that your brain can't give you. speaker-0: ⁓ love that. And that can ultimately kind of help you guide your career. Yeah. And that leads into my next point. It's impressive how you've been able to do multiple things kind of ⁓ at same time, ⁓ multiple And how do you ⁓ stay focused make sure that the important things get done while you have multiple pots ⁓ under fire? speaker-1: Yeah, well, it's so funny. It reminds me a little bit of parenthood, right? I remember I've got two, I have two children, they're both in college now, so I'm fully an empty nester, right? And so I remember when I had children, I'm like, how am I going to get all this work done? How am I going to work and do all the things I need to do with them, right? And take care of the house and, you know, do all the things. One, you always figure it out. And B, you're really ⁓ with your time and your energy. And you really, I really put my energy and time into the things that matter most, right? So if you've got 12 hours to do a day job, you might fill 12 hours with your day job. But when you're focused on more than one thing, you gotta be really smart about where you're putting your time and energy, right? And so like, if I have to get, like last night I had a Live Pure meeting, an in-person meeting where we had a room full of people sharing about these products and this message in this business, and I had to be there by six. And I had to leave here by five. And I'm like, well, I got to get everything I need done by five. And whatever I don't get done is going to get done tomorrow, and that's going to be fine. And so you get really stingy with your energy and your focus. And I find that doing more than one thing makes me far better in my day job, because I'm a happier human, because I'm doing other things that I'm really passionate about. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. I love that. Picking the right, picking the, you know, the, you know, the revenue generating tasks are the most important things to get done first because you only have so many hours in the day. speaker-1: Yes. And in my side hustle, we call it income producing activities. What are the things that you can do that are going to drive the outcomes that you want? Sitting and staring at the report four more times about how much you're going to get paid this week isn't going to do that. But if you're following up with someone on the products or sending a video or inviting them to a conversation or checking in on a customer, that's an income producing activity, right? And so I even find in my day job, right? Are there things that I'm doing which are sort of like, that's more like busy work, not as necessary, right? As other things. And when you step back, you can really boil it down to out of these 20 things, maybe there's five to 10 that have to get done today. speaker-0: Nice. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's great. Yeah. There's a few, uh, you know, thought leaders on that, know, the SIG finding the signal versus the noise. Uh, there's the power list. Have you heard of that one where you, you you write down a maximum of five things that are like non-negotiable that you get done during the day. Um, but I love your, your perspective is exactly, you know, that's, makes sense. How's how you get, that's how you get a lot of stuff done. Yeah. also wanted to touch on, you you mentioned business transformation and taking a company ⁓ you know, through significant changes. think a lot of people deal with that, especially ⁓ depending on type business, but the changes in gas have a lot of different companies and their margins and things like that. How do you navigate change ⁓ in business life? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I've done it so many times over. did it, you know, we transformed so many times and I personally let it like three times over at MetLife. And we've done it a couple of times here in a small business at ThreeFlow. you it's reorganizations, it's leveraging, you know, new butts and new seats, like changing roles and then that has people impact, right? And I think it really starts ⁓ with with what's the most important outcome. that you're really trying to strive for and what's best for the business, right? And I always believe you start with what's best for the business and then you work through all the ways you're gonna get there and you put together the strategy with the right people in the room. And I'm a big believer if you can get that next level of leadership engaged, I did it with my team last year here at ThreeFlow, last October we got together in a room and we all agreed we were gonna outsource 100 % of our transactional work. I mean, this was long before like Claude is where it is today, right? Like we were starting to do AI in September, but we were not where we are right here at the start of 2026, right? And so we made the hard decision and it was like four leaders that report to me and myself and we all looked at each other and we were like, no, there's no reason why we can't. There's no reason why we can't. And so we started with that and then we worked backwards into like, what would that mean around roles and what impacts would that have? We put together a very robust plan. we all got aligned on what the messaging was and how we were gonna do it, right? And then, you know, and I'm big on a very detailed communication plan. Who's speaking to who, when, what is the message? When is the Slack message going out, announcing different things? Who do you have to get to first, second, third, in what order? All those things based on who's impacted and whose lives are gonna change, right? And even at a small company, it matters. Like that impacts your culture when you're making. those kind of changes, right? And then, you we got to January and we got to the day and we hit go. And we were like, no, we were following the plan. We're doing what we need to do. And it went off really, really well. I mean, it's always hard when people's lives and livelihood are impacted, right? But we knew in our hearts after spending months on it, it was the right answer. And my team executed brilliantly on this plan, right? And we... We had to make some people changes. We had to post a role and then have people apply. Like it wasn't, it wasn't like cut and dry. Like we're just moving people and that's it. No, we had to like, you know, work through making sure the right people were in the right positions. And that a minute, took a week, right? To get through. And that's a lot of chaos for people's brains. And you have to cover capacity while people are stressed about, got an interview this week and all that kind of thing. And so we worked through it and got to the other side had the right people in the right jobs. And I was very impressed with, a lot of my team, it was their first rodeo going through something like that. And so how do you help support people through that? How do you help support the rest of the organization through it when people's roles are impacted? And then getting to the other side of, now we're all here. And what does that look like? What do we need to do going forward to be successful? speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ that's great. Do you have any, ⁓ system for determining, you know, how do you build or when do you hire? When's the right time to hire and, how has, ⁓ how has AI impacted it impacted that you kind of opened the can of worms a little bit with the cloud, but now a lot of roles can be automated to some extent with, with agents and so forth. So yeah. How have you navigated that change? speaker-1: So I'm really grateful to be where I am because I think given the culture we have, you know, it's a very open, inviting environment. And so we made the decision as an executive team a couple months ago, everyone has a seat in Claude. Everyone has unlimited access. It's everybody's day job responsibility to figure out how you are going to leverage AI in your life, right? We don't care if you're doing it personally on the job, but figure out every day how you are going to do something in from an automation standpoint and then share it as a best practice. So we have a water cooler channel in Slack and that thing is popping. I'm like, we need to start organizing what's in there. Like by golly, it's like, you know, there's a lot of things that are shared. Look at what I was able to do. We added connectors and now I can pull in all this data and you know, but we're all through trial and error leveraging it, right? And I think, you know, it reminds me a lot. I remember, I mean, I'm dating myself but I remember when the internet came out. I remember being in college and having to go to the Career Center or the Center to get into my AOL account at the time, right? And I of AI very similarly. It will be here. Your grandparents will use it. Eventually, they figured out a cell phone. So like, it's going to be that common. And for companies, the question is, is how fast can you get bought in to where you can leverage it? from a business perspective. And for the companies that are waiting to see, you will get blown by by other people who have figured it out before you, right? And so there's a lot of amazing companies out there. There are a lot of people who, you know, we hired within my team, an AI strategist fall because we knew what we didn't know. And we're like, we need somebody who knows how to do this stuff. And he came from an entirely different industry, knows nothing about insurance, was never in the SaaS world. And he's like, I got this, I got a toolkit for this. I can figure this out. And it's almost good that he doesn't know insurance. Because sometimes your preconceived notions of what will work and what doesn't work. And so we dug into that hard. at this point, I believe when you think about operations and you think about managing your business and whatever your business is, really thinking long and hard about, know, if you're going to hire somebody, why not hire somebody who can help you leverage AI versus hiring one more person to process a widget for you. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, it was very similar to like a couple years ago when I took over this team. My question was, why are we not outsourcing that? Why are we not outsourcing that? It's a very same question. Why are we not putting that through an AI tool? Tell me why. I'm open to hearing about it, right? But I'm also a big believer in, and I'm really going to date myself because I remember when we rolled out robotics way back when, when robotics was a thing. AI is just a way whiz bag better. better option than robotics, right? But I remember the challenge we had, if you're gonna AI a bad process, it's still a bad process. For the process people out there and the operational people out there, make sure you are throwing away everything you think or know and really think about what's possible. Because if you AI something that doesn't feel good for the end user or your customer, it's still bad. It's just faster. speaker-0: Yeah, scale to chaos, right? speaker-1: Yes. speaker-0: I I stole that from Bill Gates, but yeah. you got to have the system, the process down first before you start to try to automate it. speaker-1: Yes. Yes. Now as AI improves, I'm sure AI will be able to tell you what's a better process than the one you have eventually, right? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, eventually. Yeah, now ⁓ open claw seems to be kind of the new thing taking over a clawed agent. It's everything, it's like changing week to week. It's crazy. speaker-1: That's the way I feel. Every week I'm learning something new. I'm like, oh, look, I did that. Right? mean, just this week I was working through prepping for a podcast. And I'm like, listen, let me put your link in there. Let me put my books in there and tell me what topics I should talk about. Well, I'll edit that a little bit, but that's pretty darn good. Right? it just, instead of, it just speeds up so many things. And it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean you can walk away and not put something in context. Right? Or, or really like review what it says and really say, well, that's okay, but this might be better, right? But it gets you started, which is so powerful. speaker-0: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think it's ⁓ incredible the way you're the AI wave, especially it's largely a platform, right, that you are running with 3flow. speaker-1: Yes, technology platform, yes. speaker-0: like knowledge, SaaS. So yeah, like, and that's the fear is like SaaS businesses are going, you know, going away. But if you can leverage AI and like exactly how you're doing, the wave, giving your employees seats, you know, to, to, to use it, that's, I think that's the way to, to not only, you know, not get left behind, but actually get ahead. speaker-1: Yes, because think about it, right? Like this isn't, this isn't the time to just let your engineers or product leverage it. You need every human you have to come up with a new way of doing the thing, whatever your thing is in your small business. And I think it's a really transformative time as a leader because not only do we need to figure out how to leverage AI as a business, we need to teach our people how to use it. And then we have to teach ourselves. because my own executive team every day is like, what did you do it? What did you do in Claude today? Well, I did this. Well, what are you doing? Like we are literally training ourselves as we go and then trying to train a team of people as well as figure out business processes in a new way. Like that's hard. You're teaching old dogs new tricks and then younger dogs tricks and then revamping a business process. it's a lot, but I do think for companies that are open to it, the more you can make it everybody's responsibility, you will just catapult your business that much faster. It's not just for a couple of smart engineers to work on. It's really not. Like nothing's gonna break. It's gonna be fine, right? speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then that solves the change management problem that a lot of companies are having. If they, if you have your employees actually kind of innovating in a way, implementing, finding a way to use it themselves, then they can see the value right away. You don't have to convince them to implement this new tool. speaker-1: Exactly. speaker-0: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, how do you see AI affecting your industry in general? Is there been roles within the industry that are ⁓ getting kind eliminated by AI or how has it impacted it from your perspective? speaker-1: Yeah, so we're a technology platform. We have been leveraging within the product and the platform itself. We've been building with it now for almost a year. We've been working through those phases of how to leverage it for uploading documentation. Because we used to do scrapers and readers. Think about it, you have an insurance, you have a quote and a proposal. Right. so somebody uploads that into the platform. The proposal's 40 pages, Pete, and you got to read through the whole gosh darn thing and pull out the rate and the attributes and the class and the plan design. Right. And so we had had scrapers and readers right from like when this company started 10 years ago that we've leveraged. Right. It was sort of like I call it like before AI. That's what we did. Right. And so Now we are upping our game and leveraging AI as part of that process versus having something review and scrape it and then a bunch of stuff spits out that's wrong and then you need a human to review it, right? Kind of thing. But we are leveraging it in so many capacities, whether it's in the platform or even on my team, where we do a lot of the quality checking, the auditing of things, because accuracy matters with insurance. You better get that rate right. You better get the plan design right. because otherwise the claims wrong, the bills wrong, somebody's grumpy on the other end of the spectrum, you know, like down the line, right? And so data quality is really important. So we pride ourselves on accuracy from a QA and an auditing standpoint. And so we are now leveraging AI as part of that. Like, why do you need a human to do the quality audit? Can't you teach AI to do the quality check, right? We still need the quality check until we've got a platform that's like, you know, 99.9 % accurate all the time with the AI that's leveraged within it, right? But can't we have AI be the person or the agent that is doing the review? And why not, right? Why not? What do we need to do to make that true? So that's a lot of the places where we are personally, my team is personally using it. speaker-0: Nice, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Always ask, we automate this task? think ⁓ the right question is the way ensure that you're ⁓ leveraging tool ⁓ to maximum. Yeah, and talked a little bit earlier, but I think it's really impressive you've been able to build this. you know, hustle, if you will, around health and wellness. Is that kind of a passion of yours or how did you decide to do that? speaker-1: Yeah, so my girlfriend from high school reached out to me nine years ago and asked me to look at this business and these products. And what she didn't know is I was newly divorced. I mean, I hadn't caught up with her in a while and I had young kids and I had a huge job in that life I wasn't feeling great. I a nap every afternoon and I didn't sleep through the night. I was up between two to four with the squirrels running through my head, right? Like every single night. ⁓ And so for me, I said, send me everything you have. There's a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. I'm like, I don't even know what this stuff is, but I'll try anything. And within two to three weeks, I sleep like a rock single night. My stress level has come down. My energy level is amazing all day long. Like I'm just had this much energy at four o'clock in the afternoon as I do at nine AM, right? And so ⁓ for it was dramatic change in my health. And I consume these products for nine years. Didn't tell Didn't tell anybody, but it's really about like real nutrition and the right nutrition can heal your body in so many miraculous ways, right? And then a little over 15 months ago, I started opening my mouth and sharing it with other people. And I had the courage to say, well, let's see if I can get my products paid for. It's $150 a month. that first month, Pete, I paid my mortgage payment in Northern New Jersey with this business. And I've done it every single month since. And real. It's real. I mean, you know, $5,000 a month, that's a lot of money. Like, that's a lot of money. And I've earned upwards of that, like, since I started, right? And so now I'm on a mission to help other people not only feel better with their health, but help build a side income stream that will pay you for the rest of your life. It's a willable, transferable income stream, right? ⁓ And incredible, the money that is possible. And so for me, it was locking arms with the right people and the right... the right company and the right product that I'm really passionate about. ⁓ ⁓ sharing that with other people. You never know what people are looking for. speaker-0: Yeah, ⁓ that's awesome. How long did it take you to kind of get it off the ground? Because I think a lot of people can get stuck. They'll find this thing online, this YouTube ad where it's a side hustle type deal, but then they try it for a few months and they're not getting any traction and they give up. speaker-1: So it's about, for me, what I've learned, it's about the leadership and it's about the training and support that you get, right? And so I partner with a couple of amazing leaders who do this full time. Garcia makes a million dollars residually every single year and she is hell bent to help people to build a business. ⁓ when I tell you there's not a day that goes by that I don't get a text message for her or an audio message, what are you doing? How can I help? What do need? ⁓ I mean, they lean in more to help me than, know, probably 90 % of the leaders I've worked with in my career, right? So this is like top five leadership. And then the support and the training is the other thing that I've, I've never done this type of business model before with ⁓ right? And so ⁓ ⁓ about what kind of training do you get, right? And so ⁓ amazing training. There's an app, it sits on your phone, it syncs with your contacts. They teach you word for word what to say to people. And I would offer that if this was hard, I would not be doing it. If it didn't duplicate, I would not be doing it. I don't have time to learn another job. I don't have time to invest four hours a day in a thing. I saw success immediately when I followed the instructions. When I followed the instructions, and if you can be consistent, anybody can do this because they've figured out what works ⁓ they train you on how to do that. So those are two powerful. like you gotta find something where you have that leadership and support backing up what you're doing. speaker-0: Yeah, that makes sense. And then you along your journey, you wrote two books as well. Yeah, do you mind sharing us a little bit? Feel free to plug your books. I'm really interested in. When did you start writing those? speaker-1: So the first one was really funny story. So the first one was just lead and I had started looking for a job and there was a recruiter that I was like talking to because of course here's me shell shock. It's not the same environment as it was 20 years ago when I was looking for the job last time there was no LinkedIn back in those days. Right. And so the recruiter looked up my profile and LinkedIn and he called me and he goes, like this is the thing. This isn't Facebook. You like things that is not going to That's not gonna get you traction and visibility on LinkedIn. And I'm like, what do you mean, Pete? He's like, you need to author something. And I'm like, ⁓ dear God. I'm like, what am I gonna write? What do people even care about what I have to say, right? And so I was very uncomfortable, but I got comfortable being uncomfortable. And I started authoring something that was like what they never told me about being a leader. And then I'd come up with like something I would say, right? And it's really about what your boss never told you, what a book could never teach you. And I would post. two, three times a week. And I had a dear friend from MetLife call me up a couple months in and say, you need to put that stuff in a book. And I'm like, why? He goes, people will buy that. He goes, you got like Jennifer Doty gems of information. Like, let's do it, right? And so I found, through my sister, I found a a great, you know, consultant, marketing consultant in Raleigh, North Carolina who knew how to lay out books, knew how to do Amazon publishing. ⁓ low amount of money, didn't cost me a lot. And he got, did a cover, put it all together and like out I went. ⁓ was really amazing. Cause it was really a culmination of all my LinkedIn posts that I had done. And it really reads like a coffee table book, right? You've got a picture ⁓ then a blurb and then another picture. So it's like a quick, easy read. It's really easy read. You can pick it up, open up any page and read something, right? And then the second book was nothing that had been pre-published anywhere before. And it's called, the Right Now Role. because I'm a big believer in the role you're in is just the role for right now. And then there's gonna be something else, whether you are running your own business, whether you are building your own business, whether you're exiting a business, it's where you are today. It's not probably where you're gonna be in 10 years, right? And so I went through the entire process from the moment that I got the phone call, which was, thank you so much, but like your job has been eliminated, right? all the way to probably 30 days into my next job. And I wrote about all the different things that no one teaches you, Pete. How do you exit a role graciously, right? How do you start a network on LinkedIn when you've never really had one, because you never needed one. Everybody was inside the walls of MetLife that I needed to talk to, right? How do you work on finding, how do you work on a day job that's finding a job? It is exhausting and overwhelming. And like, what are all the things that people go through? And some tips I learned, how do you manage your benefits? How do you figure out your taxes? Right? Like all that kind of stuff, no one talks about it. There's no book. The outsourcing company didn't give me much advice on some of it. Right? And so all those different feelings and experiences that you go through when you are looking for that next thing is really what it was all about. And so there's been many people who have been job eliminated or left a career and have reached out to me and they're like, I got your book and you're dead on with all of these things that like no one talks about. So that's what that one's about. speaker-0: Yeah, wow, awesome. Thank you for sharing. It's an incredible episode and we're coming up on time here. I'd love to just, last question, I was asked, yes, if you could leave listeners with one practical takeaway for scaling their business sustainably, what would that be? speaker-1: I would say, remember your mindset really matters, right? So whether you believe you can or you can't, it's true. Wasn't that Gerald Ford who said that, right? And so when you're thinking about scaling your business and growing your business and creating an exit strategy, it really all boils down to what you believe to be true. And so work on what stories you're telling yourself, work on what thoughts you have, what words you say. Words have a lot of power. And so if you're going to trash talk how hard it is, it'll just keep being hard. Promise you. But if you're going to talk about how easy this is, there's not a day that goes by where I write down my gratitudes every night or my plan for tomorrow. And I'm grateful for how easy my day feels. It always feels easy. And that is a real change in my mindset. And guess what? It feels easy because I intend it to feel easy. And so you can do the same thing with how you're growing your business. and how you're planning to expand or exit. It doesn't have to be hard. speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. Thank you. Wow. Well, yeah, if listeners found this talk as ⁓ interesting, inspiring as I have, they, where's the best place to reach you and learn more, find out about you ⁓ your content? speaker-1: Absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn or you can find me at jenniferdote.com too. You can reach out to me there. speaker-0: Awesome Jennifer, I'll leave that in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time today, it's been a pleasure talking to you. speaker-1: Thank you, Pete. Appreciate it.