Latest / Amplify Your Marketing Message with Christine Campbell Rapin / 172- The Inner Circle Advantage: 5 Roles That Will Transform Your Business

Transcript

172- The Inner Circle Advantage: 5 Roles That Will Transform Your Business · Amplify Your Marketing Message with Christine Campbell Rapin

• 0:02
  I don't know a single business owner who built in a vacuum
• 0:08
  where everything is rainbows, unicorns, perfect, without
• 0:13
  adversity. We don't talk about that
• 0:17
  adversity yet. And how do we actually navigate
• 0:20
  it? Well, I want to take you behind
• 0:22
  the scenes in a success formula that has been so important for
• 0:29
  me in my business and to show you what I teach clients to
• 0:34
  create and the role, in fact or role, shall I say, that I play
• 0:39
  for my clients. Because whether you're building
• 0:43
  your first 100K, your next 100K, or that is 10X at the $1,000,000
• 0:50
  level, there's going to be adversity.
• 0:54
  And we hear it all the time from people at every level of
• 0:59
  leadership. It's lonely at the top.
• 1:04
  I don't believe that's true. Shocking, right?
• 1:08
  Like I really don't believe it's true.
• 1:11
  Loneliness is a choice because you have chosen to isolate and
• 1:17
  to not share the journey and invite others on the journey and
• 1:22
  to bring your humanness to the equation.
• 1:27
  And when I'm coaching clients, whether it's in our 30 day
• 1:30
  programs or six month programs or our year long program, I will
• 1:34
  always remind them that life is life thing for somebody in this
• 1:38
  room. It could be you, it could be a
• 1:40
  peer, it could be a colleague, it could be me, it could be
• 1:44
  someone in our supporting team, cast members.
• 1:48
  But there is always life lifing for somebody, so we're never
• 1:53
  really alone unless we choose it.
• 1:56
  And so for me, in my journey, I would not use the words ever to
• 2:01
  describe it as lonely. Lonely in the journey or lonely
• 2:05
  at the top? Because this is my success
• 2:08
  formula. Having the right support in your
• 2:12
  business isn't a luxury, it's necessity.
• 2:19
  It isn't accidental. It is carefully crafted,
• 2:24
  curated, edited and advised. And what I want you to know is
• 2:32
  you must be intentional about creating this from day one.
• 2:38
  And so if you're listening to this podcast here on Amplify
• 2:41
  your marketing message and you have not crafted your dream
• 2:45
  dream team, you have not crafted an inner circle, wake up.
• 2:50
  Today's the day you start because I think so often
• 2:54
  solopreneurs, small business owners, mom and pops, and the
• 2:59
  small businesses that have only a handful of contractors are
• 3:02
  completely missing the boat by not leveraging what is
• 3:07
  established in the world of bigger business.
• 3:11
  In the world of bigger business, there is a C-Suite, multiple
• 3:17
  people at a leadership level that is equal.
• 3:20
  If you're a publicly traded company, you are required to
• 3:25
  have a board of directors, and so you should take this lesson.
• 3:32
  Today. I'm going to show you the five
• 3:34
  seats I think you need or the five rolls of seats.
• 3:38
  It could be more than one person who hold these for you.
• 3:41
  That will help you be a Better Business owner, help you feel
• 3:46
  less lonely in the journey, and truthfully shore up
• 3:51
  significantly the odds that you will make it, enjoy the journey
• 3:56
  and create a better legacy for everyone who interacts with your
• 4:00
  business, be they people you hire, people you contract,
• 4:03
  people you serve, or people you are peer-to-peer with.
• 4:07
  You will change the dynamic of this bad conversation that's out
• 4:11
  there that says I have to go solo because truthfully, you
• 4:15
  don't. You don't, I didn't.
• 4:18
  And I don't see that in my clients either because I don't
• 4:23
  let this be a someday conversation.
• 4:26
  We start building dream teams. We start building our inner
• 4:29
  circle right away because the day you hire me or you hire our
• 4:34
  business, Clear Acceleration, you have started to fill a seat
• 4:38
  at that table. And this seat that I carry can
• 4:43
  often be one of these five hats, and sometimes all of them to
• 4:47
  start with, because each of these five roles play a critical
• 4:54
  part to helping you be a Better Business owner.
• 4:58
  And that ultimately has such a big ripple that it is important
• 5:04
  that today you decide to start thinking, implementing, asking,
• 5:09
  and making this your experience in lived reality.
• 5:16
  So the first piece of this puzzle, the first seat at a
• 5:20
  board of directors table that I think is critical and I
• 5:23
  prioritize this in my business, is to have a sounding board,
• 5:29
  somebody who comes into your space, holding space for you to
• 5:33
  be a work in progress, who comes with compassion and 0 judgment.
• 5:41
  They are there as a thinking partner.
• 5:44
  They're your natural brainstorm, a person who will bring presence
• 5:52
  to you, who sees you, who questions without judgment, to
• 6:00
  help you round out, expand, and to integrate all the moving
• 6:07
  parts, all the parameters, all the possibilities.
• 6:11
  This person holds a knowledge seat that is about you getting
• 6:17
  clear by vocalizing and exchanging of ideas.
• 6:24
  You'll often hear language for many of my clients because I use
• 6:28
  it. In my world, my number one job
• 6:31
  is a thinking partner. I'm a mentor, not a coach.
• 6:34
  They're different. You hired me for an opinion.
• 6:37
  I'm going to have one. My role is to help you make
• 6:40
  better decision making by being your thinking partner.
• 6:44
  I have a million ways that there are to go to go to business and
• 6:46
  I've seen it because I've supported 400 companies and
• 6:48
  plus, but I'm here to help you think about what's the way you
• 6:52
  want to do it, what to think about, what to consider.
• 6:57
  And I'm not here to judge how you want to play the game
• 7:00
  because I can't do the work for you and I won't.
• 7:04
  That's not the role I play. I'm not an employee of you.
• 7:08
  I am a contractor who plays a seat at your table.
• 7:12
  And I'm here as your founding board, your thinking partner.
• 7:16
  I'm here with compassion for the journey.
• 7:18
  But no judgment is part of this equation.
• 7:22
  I only come to the table as a mirror to reflect back, to help
• 7:29
  you get clear, and that is the purpose of this first seat at
• 7:33
  the table. The second seat that's really
• 7:37
  important is the dream seat, the visionary seat.
• 7:42
  You need somebody who can catch your vision and see it.
• 7:49
  Their job is to keep the light on because what I say to people
• 7:53
  all the time, and you may have heard this expression here on
• 7:55
  this podcast, when it comes to me making an offer for somebody
• 8:01
  to consider being a client, the number one question I ask is
• 8:06
  tell me your spark is lit and tell me what that vision is.
• 8:13
  Because it is up to you to light the fire.
• 8:15
  It is up to you to care for and fan that flame and myself.
• 8:22
  The role you're asking me to sit at your table to fill is simply
• 8:26
  to be a fuel source on the vision, to amplify, to add
• 8:33
  oxygen, but not to light. And so the second seat is the
• 8:38
  visionary, somebody who says I've got your wild idea.
• 8:42
  I get it fast, I see it clear, and I have one responsibility to
• 8:49
  hold the vision when you wobble. That's it.
• 8:55
  To hold the vision when you wobble.
• 8:58
  To believe in the possibility with infinite patience, infinite
• 9:03
  clarity, infinite. It's possible because they're
• 9:10
  going to be tough days, and when the days are tough, the most
• 9:13
  important call you make is to your visionary.
• 9:15
  That said, I took some lumps today, got a black eye scrape,
• 9:18
  my knees fell into a nice burg and I'm battered.
• 9:23
  I'm doubtful. And the visionary there is to
• 9:26
  ask you this question. Will I see you tomorrow?
• 9:32
  Because the visionary holds the fact that, well, today was
• 9:35
  rough. Not every day will be rough, but
• 9:37
  there will be days. In those days when you need to
• 9:40
  borrow faith on the vision, you call the visionary.
• 9:45
  When you need somebody to help you figure out all the options,
• 9:49
  you call the person who's the sounding board, the third person
• 9:55
  you need at your inner table. I call them the ask kicker or
• 10:00
  the truth teller. You need somebody who has a very
• 10:05
  low tolerance to the BS that you will spout prolifically on your
• 10:12
  journey that while I could have done this, I didn't do this.
• 10:16
  And while I thought about it a lot, I didn't take any action.
• 10:21
  You're true North has a seat at the table and you need to pass
• 10:27
  this responsibility to the truth teller and say I need you to
• 10:31
  keep me honest. I need you to call me on my BS.
• 10:35
  I need to hear not what I want to hear, but what I need to hear
• 10:38
  because you yes, hear my vision. Yes, you're here to be a
• 10:42
  sounding board, but you're also here to be ruthless and
• 10:48
  compassionate on reminding me why it's worth it and that the
• 10:56
  work I'm avoiding is where the magic happens.
• 11:00
  This truth teller never comes at it to be mean.
• 11:04
  They never come at it to manipulate.
• 11:07
  They are asked to hold you to a standard that you have
• 11:12
  communicated. And so when you bring this
• 11:15
  person into your table, you need to get honest.
• 11:19
  Talk about the big why. Talk about what makes this
• 11:23
  non-negotiable. Share where you're likely to
• 11:27
  sabotage and say I'm going to ask you to hold me to account,
• 11:31
  which simply means to measure peeps.
• 11:34
  Accountability is not a negative word.
• 11:36
  It is simply hold me to my standard.
• 11:40
  Tell me the truth because here's what's happening in the world of
• 11:43
  truth. Me right now being your truth
• 11:46
  teller. As you grow and as your business
• 11:51
  starts to rocket, you will find yourself with more and more and
• 11:56
  more yes people. People who want to say yeah go
• 12:00
  do that and take me with you. People who will write your crow
• 12:03
  tails. People who will false advertise
• 12:06
  and overstate and be going Mia when it comes to get the real
• 12:13
  work done. It happens and it's there for a
• 12:17
  lesson. It's not lonely.
• 12:19
  It's important for you to recognize this breaks so you
• 12:24
  know what to fix. But your third seat is the
• 12:27
  person who holds the North Star, who gets honest, keeps you
• 12:33
  honest and keeps you in a bias towards action.
• 12:38
  And sometimes we often think of this truth teller as playing a
• 12:42
  contrarian role. They're not there to judge
• 12:47
  whether their decision and their opinion is better or worse than
• 12:50
  yours. Your opinions are equal, but
• 12:52
  they are there to bring contrary perspective, to help you round
• 12:57
  out ideas, and to see fresh perspectives.
• 13:01
  So let's be honest, truth tellers can bring a high lens of
• 13:07
  unease to your life. You would not be a Better
• 13:12
  Business owner if they didn't and you wouldn't evolve as a
• 13:16
  business owner without the seat at the table.
• 13:19
  So what's important, and I know I hear it time and time again
• 13:23
  when I'm invited to speak in communities of entrepreneurs,
• 13:25
  people often ask me to speak because I am a truth teller.
• 13:30
  And people will often say, Christine, this was a kick in
• 13:32
  the ask, a kick in the butt. I needed to hear this.
• 13:37
  And they often will follow that up with it's a lovable ouchi.
• 13:42
  I'm never coming at this place to be mean.
• 13:45
  I'm coming at it because you asked me to hold the standard.
• 13:48
  If you come into my space, it's because you want to be a great
• 13:51
  entrepreneur. And my friend, you're dogging
• 13:54
  it. You're doing half the work.
• 13:56
  You're not taking risks equal to the revenue you want to create.
• 13:59
  And I am calling you out. But I here's the important
• 14:04
  thing. Your truth teller has to buy
• 14:07
  into this truth. We sit at the same side of the
• 14:12
  table. So your truth, Terry, even
• 14:14
  though I said they're contrarian in nature, they don't sit
• 14:18
  adversarially from you. They don't sit across the table
• 14:21
  at you in judgment of you. They sit beside you and say
• 14:24
  what's possible if we made this better and I'm holding you to a
• 14:30
  standard. And as a truth teller, I see a
• 14:33
  standard that's possible beyond maybe our current and they will
• 14:38
  invite challenge you to grapple with.
• 14:43
  Can we step it up? The fourth person I think you
• 14:47
  need at your inner circle in order to make it through
• 14:52
  navigating tough times is a teacher or educator, somebody
• 14:58
  who brings to you knowledge you haven't yet acquired.
• 15:02
  So this could be absolutely somebody who is in your
• 15:06
  industry, however it does not need to be a parallel for it to
• 15:11
  be valued. And in fact, I would even
• 15:14
  challenge you to say that having somebody who brings knowledge in
• 15:17
  a different industry will help you more because you'll have to
• 15:22
  use your brainpower to connect the dots.
• 15:25
  And anytime we can sharpen our ability to critically think, it
• 15:28
  serves us in exponential ways. So this person comes with
• 15:35
  expertise and knowledge you have not yet required to learn and
• 15:42
  need on the journey to the next level.
• 15:45
  So what I think is important to this in a knowledge seat at the
• 15:49
  table is that it is lived experience, not theoretical.
• 15:54
  It is somebody who will talk equally truthful about the
• 15:59
  positive wins to show you what's possible and the truth about how
• 16:04
  awful some of the missteps have been, how expensive they have
• 16:08
  been, how big the consequences have been, and who lives a life
• 16:14
  that you aspire to. Because it's not a great idea to
• 16:17
  have somebody who's great at knowledge if they got there in a
• 16:21
  way that you don't subscribe to. And we see this all the time.
• 16:24
  I follow and receive seeing people, you know, get really
• 16:28
  caught up into the life of a guru, but that gurus on his
• 16:32
  fourth marriage has a tough home life and doesn't have the same
• 16:36
  dynamic in the family circle as maybe you want.
• 16:40
  Or you're having somebody who just doesn't understand this
• 16:43
  season of your life, which could be with family, could be with
• 16:47
  your health, it could be with any number of criteria.
• 16:51
  Your teacher educator needs lived experience, and here's
• 16:56
  what's important beyond having the life as a whole that you
• 17:01
  seek. They need to be able to teach.
• 17:05
  OK, this is something I think is so important.
• 17:07
  So many people get caught here thinking, yeah, but they know
• 17:10
  how to do it. I said yeah but knowing how and
• 17:12
  telling how and breaking down the how are not equal so you
• 17:18
  should be checking. Can they teach, not just share?
• 17:28
  Because truthfully, when you don't know what questions to
• 17:31
  ask, having expertise that is further along the journey,
• 17:34
  whether that's one chapter or 20, is going to be a fast track.
• 17:41
  And the final piece that I think is important is to have a proud
• 17:46
  elder, this one sometimes controversial to people because
• 17:51
  we don't like to feel old. First off, let's just be candid.
• 17:59
  And secondly, sometimes we struggle to say to people, I'm
• 18:02
  proud of you without it feeling weird.
• 18:06
  And yet I will tell you when I say to clients, I am so proud of
• 18:11
  you. You should see the smiles.
• 18:15
  They don't hear it, and maybe they've never heard it.
• 18:19
  And it's important that I affirm and notice and bear witness to
• 18:26
  their evolution. And an elder is somebody who is
• 18:31
  supporting the emotions and as the courage to communicate.
• 18:38
  I see you, I celebrate you, I measure your progress in a way
• 18:45
  that you can't see yourself. And so I tell you, my friends, I
• 18:50
  think sometimes small business owners miss this.
• 18:55
  We don't take the lesson that is so blatantly happening in big
• 19:00
  corporate, which is to be great. It's not about going alone.
• 19:06
  To be great, we need a great inner circle and we must choose
• 19:11
  people. We must ask people.
• 19:14
  We must engage in this formal conversation because it is so
• 19:19
  beneficial. So let me recap what they are
• 19:24
  When business feels heavy, the right support is everything.
• 19:28
  You need somebody who's a sounding board.
• 19:30
  You need somebody who holds your vision.
• 19:33
  You need somebody who's a truth teller, who is the educator, and
• 19:38
  you need somebody who is the proud elder.
• 19:45
  These are separate roles and when you start your journey you
• 19:51
  may be blessed to find somebody who carries multiple hats, but
• 19:56
  as your business grows, you do want different people to carry
• 20:01
  these roles separately. When clients hire us, I will
• 20:05
  tell you, especially for our private clients that come in
• 20:08
  under the Business Skill Accelerator, I carry all 5
• 20:12
  roles. And we build over the course of
• 20:16
  the year other people. And I say to people all the
• 20:19
  time, you must keep your eye out for your next strategic hire and
• 20:24
  you must keep your eyes out for your next dream team member.
• 20:29
  Because here's what is true as well.
• 20:33
  The people you start your journey with may not be with you
• 20:36
  in every season. That's OK.
• 20:39
  Sometimes people will evolve into your business because it's
• 20:42
  what you need right now. And sometimes people will evolve
• 20:46
  out of your business because you're moving in a different
• 20:49
  place. Let that happen.
• 20:52
  But nothing happens if you wait to do this, and nothing happens
• 20:57
  if you're not intentional with this.
• 21:00
  I believe firmly that the reason my business has catapulted year
• 21:05
  after year in growth is because I never go alone.
• 21:09
  I am clear on the spark for my vision.
• 21:12
  My business doesn't move without me, but I never ever go solo
• 21:18
  because I have chosen 5 fuel sources to go with me at minimum
• 21:23
  and in any given day I know exactly who to phone for what I
• 21:27
  need right now. Do I need somebody to flush out
• 21:31
  an idea? Do I need somebody to remind me
• 21:33
  to hold my vision because it's been rocky and I've got a black
• 21:36
  eye so I need somebody to tell me.
• 21:38
  Frick Christine, if you could have, you would have.
• 21:40
  If you didn't go do the damn work and stop complaining about
• 21:43
  the results you're not getting is the work hasn't been done.
• 21:47
  And I go to people that says how do I get to the next level?
• 21:49
  What's the systems we're using? How do I plan for that with my
• 21:52
  next thing to be thinking about legally all of it.
• 21:55
  And I really, really truthfully love and I smile in return when
• 22:00
  someone says, God, Christine, it's so cool to see where you've
• 22:03
  gone. I'm proud of you.
• 22:04
  I'm proud of you for fighting for what you wanted.
• 22:06
  And I'm proud for how you show up.
• 22:08
  And I'm proud for you to make impact to other people.
• 22:13
  This is what we create here. If you're new to our community,
• 22:16
  welcome. I am Christine Campbell Rappin.
• 22:19
  I am your host here on amplifier marketing message and I'm a
• 22:23
  professional ass kicker. So if you want to take your
• 22:25
  business to the next level, Christine Campbell, wrapping.com
• 22:29
  is my invitation to come find me.
• 22:33
  I'll help you carry the heavy and I'll celebrate the big wins.
• 22:37
  I'll see you on the inside.