IAM118- Storyteller and CEO Helps Mission Driven Startups Make Money and a Difference

Danielle Kristine Toussaint, founder, and CEO of She Thinks Purple, is a storyteller, strategist, and social enterprise brand architect on a journey to help mission-driven start-ups make money and make a difference. She has been the writing pen behind op-eds and speeches for Huffington Post, Forbes.com, and TEDx. Danielle holds a B.A. in Political Science and African American Studies from Yale University and an M.S. Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education.

• CEO Hack: Elevate Network and Tide Risers
• CEO Nugget: You are enough & Good better best, never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best
• CEO Defined: Willingness to accept the responsibility

Website: https://www.shethinkspurple.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellekristinetoussaint/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/she_thinks_purple/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daniellekristinetoussaint
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shethinxpurple

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Danielle Kristine Toussaint from She Thinks Purple. Danielle, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 0:39

Thanks. I'm really excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

All right, the first thing that I wanted to do was introduce Danielle and hear about it so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Danielle is the founder and CEO of She Thinks Purple. She is a storyteller, strategist, and social enterprise brand architect on a journey to help mission-driven startups make money and make a difference. She has been writing op-eds and speeches for Huffington Post, Forbes.com, and TEDx. Danielle holds a B.A. in Political Science and African American Studies from Yale University and an MS in Education from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Danielle, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Danielle Kristine Toussaint 0:41

I am.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was just to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 0:54

I had to start my business because there wasn't a job out there for me, I was Managing Director for communications at a really fantastic organization called I Mentor. And I loved my work. I had worked for NGOs and national nonprofits for over a decade. And I just reached a point where I could just have kept going for the next communications job. But there were so many more creative things that I wanted to do. And the only way for me to achieve them was to just jump out on my own and become an entrepreneur and doing so let me sort of fall naturally into the most aligned thing I'd ever done. Because I knew I was a natural storyteller from the time I was very young, I cared about advocating and supporting people, I've always been just like an empath. And I really wanted to improve the human condition. And I was able to discover a way to do all the things while still using my creative gifts and supporting women, people of color, and the communities that I was a part of, in a way that felt really natural, I don't think I could have done this honestly any other way than to be a founder.

Gresham Harkless 2:38

I love that. And a lot of times sometimes when you're building and growing something and creating something, the innovation kind of comes in being able to kind of put pieces together and to kind of fulfill a mission by doing one thing and kind of knocking. So all these different things off the checklist, so to speak. And it kind of sounds like you were able to kind of think creatively about like what you wanted to do the impact that you wanted to have on the world and be able to create that organization or that quote-unquote, job around that.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 3:04

That's definitely what happened.

Gresham Harkless 3:05

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear exactly how you're doing and what you're doing with She Thinks Purple.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 3:11

At the core, I jokingly call myself a brand whisperer. I feel like this is especially for a lot of founders, and those who want to make money and make a difference. They start off very aware of their issue deeply aware, they know more about it than anyone else. They care more about it than anyone else. And they really struggle to translate the mission-driven aspect of their work into tangible marketing content brand copy in a brand strategy that people can connect with.

So they're either talking way over the heads of the people that they need to power their mission, or they're frustrated, right? Because they're like, why doesn't everybody get this? And the reason that they don't get it is that they're bombarding people with information, but they're not inspiring them. And storytelling is the only way that humans know how to convey information where it reaches the mind and the heart at the same time, In any other way of communication, you're missing those key connections that open people up and get them excited about your idea.

And I help founders bridge that gap. So at the core, it's a creative agency, I'm powered by a team of amazing freelancers, all women, and we do the work of helping to translate that initial idea into really inspirational branding, we elevate the stories of the founders themselves, and also the communities that they're serving. We tell the stories of their products, their services, and their companies, and it's all a lot of fun. But the things that I'm most excited about right now are the things that are yet to come.

So we're currently iterating on a web application that will eventually be available through mobile. But to start it's going to use machine learning and just create this virtual destination for creatives to connect with the companies that are telling the stories that will change the world. And we're really excited about launching Purple Rocket Lab in 2019 and we're doing it at Purple Con, which will be a two-day live experience that creates brand-to-brand connections for, again, the creative community, but also companies that are increasingly wanting not just sell products and services, but they want to sell people on their vision for the future and a better world that's powered through their companies.

So I feel like it's an exciting time for Purple this year. It was like the Pantone color of the year, but we're gonna bring Purple into 2019, too, because it's really a mindset, it's the creativity, it's the courage that we need at this time in our history, I think. And there's just so much opportunity when we change how we approach problem-solving.

Gresham Harkless 5:39

Yeah, definitely sounds like that. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or sets you or your organization apart.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 5:47

Secret Sauce is that I drink my own Kool-Aid, I think that there are those who are trying to sell people on something, they're not totally bought into it, they just sort of like go with the marketing ideas that are handed to them, because it sounds good. And I had to go through the process of building She Thinks Purple that I take founders through, I was my first client. And at every turn, I decided to believe that with courage and creativity and thinking differently about what I had to offer, the world could have a transformational impact.

And so I literally am my own baseline, right, like I am the first test case, and all of the things that I've done in terms of building the community, learning how to curate right, the information, and telling my own story. in more places with more people, each of these things has given me the information that I need to like prove the concept. And as I do this, now we're up to like a dozen founders in our initial network that we've taken through this process, it's really encouraging to see the results that they're achieving.

So the secret sauce is I do the stuff, I actually test the stuff and I authentically, then am able to convey it and present it. And I do so with a great deal of transparency around the fact that I very much apply that sort of lean startup model, I'm always iterating, I'm always changing things, and you're gonna go through a process with me, and you can almost guarantee that the next people will be a little different, you have to truly be unafraid.

And I think that that's what makes it different. Like we are the business that we're building, we are the women that are building it, we understand the mindset of social enterprise founders, it's really interesting, but 40% are women and up to 30% of social enterprise leaders are people of color. And when we look at the trends, that even just within the communities that are black women, there's they're enterprising, and building new businesses at six times the rate of their peers.

So if we really trying to talk about the future, where business is going in the future, who will be making decisions in the future, we've got to start now and being more inclusive, and how we, allow people access to the platforms to tell their story, Purple, is that right? So when I say She Thinks Purple, it's not like, it's just a cute name that people will ask me about, it means something, it talks about my philosophy, and it also gives you a cue into who I care about and why. And I think that that connects with people because it's transparent.

Gresham Harkless 8:11

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. And I think that I absolutely love the idea, especially when a lot of founders and people that start businesses start out by kind of scratching their own itch, so to speak, and you start to create something that you would want to buy that you will want to participate in. And the next thing you know, because you've been so authentic, because you've built a kind of from what you look for your turn around, and there are all these other people that also want the exact same thing, that exact same experience.

So it kind of sounds like that's what you've been able to go through with Purple. And I truly appreciate you for the kind of touching base and continuing on with their mission to kind of help out so many business owners. Awesome, awesome, awesome. So now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this is an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 8:56

Okay, so I talked about this just a few weeks ago on LinkedIn. And I was it came about because one of my colleagues who is a freelancer that I have a lot of collaboration with was having some trouble getting people to enroll for her webinars like her read courses. And I have learned that being very selective about the professional organizations that I join and joining organizations that I genuinely want to give to not organizations that have a bunch of people who I want to get access to, but organizations that get me excited about giving and sharing that is the hack to then being able to fully participate in community and build essentially like a pipeline. Right of work and support.

So elevate network is one of those and I say this one because it's a professional organization for women that's global, and it's backed by a woman founder who really believes and understands both in the money investment but also in the various forms of capital that we need to be successful but being a member and then either DC board has made a difference.

And tide Risers is another organization that I both like and was a founding member of. But in its ground route, we're already global. We've gotten out six chapters that are being led that are these year-long cohort experiences for women leaders to become deeply connected to strangers, like people who are outside of their industry and outside of their day-to-day network. Why am I using networking organizations as the hack, I think there are lots of tools, technologies, and ways that you can shortcut to make your day-to-day. But one of the leading challenges that were found in a study that was recently just done actually by Beacon DC, which is led by Dolores Wilson, was that, especially for female founders, we need clients, and we need customers, we need people paying right for our services. And one of the biggest challenges is to look around and you're like, who do I sell to? How do I find the people to sell to? Who can validate all of that's part of your business development?

Gresham Harkless 10:54

I definitely agree with that and appreciate that CEO hack. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you could jump into a time machine and talk to your younger business self, what would you say?

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 11:05

You are enough. I think that people who say things like that to me, and I didn't understand what they were talking about. So that's one and I'm going to give you a bonus. The other is good, better, or best. Never let it rest until your good is better. And your better is best. My mom used to wake me up with those words daily. And I didn't fully appreciate the gift in those words. But like there are moments when I feel like I'm failing.

And I think that's important because especially for those who are overachievers, a lot of founders, they've been successful, they've had other careers, and they've been at the top of those careers, and they're like, Oh, I'm so good at this thing, I should just go do it for myself. And then suddenly, you're not feeling as good at it anymore. It's not that you're not good anymore. It's that you are practicing things you have never done. Being a founder now means that you've got to learn all the parts of your business that you weren't responsible for in your last job.

And so that's where the good, better, best. It's like, be okay with naming that you're good at something today, you'll be better at it tomorrow. And eventually, mastery will come and it's a process. And every time you put yourself back into that process, it gets easier and easier because you're building confidence along the way. I don't think there are any new great words that I've gotten that have helped me it's been the fundamental things that people who loved me put into me very early in life, that now in this new experience, I find myself calling on over and over and over again.

Gresham Harkless 12:39

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on this show. So I wanted to ask you what being a CEO mean to you.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 12:50

It just means that at the end of the day, you're willing to accept the ultimate responsibility for the vision that you've set out. The executive part is that it just means that when no one else is willing to make a call, you've already raised your hand and said, I'm here to make the call when no one else wants to do that extra task, that last small thing, you've already raised your hand and said, like, I'm here to hold that.

And what you're basically doing is just making room for other people who want to do something exciting in the world. And maybe they're not in a place where they feel like they can be the ultimate holder, they don't have the energy or they don't have the resources. But you've identified something in yourself that says, I think that I can hold this space, and we can all build off of it.

And within it together. That's what it is to be the CEO. It's the least glamorous until everything goes well. But when everything goes wrong, it's absolutely not fun, right? So why are you doing it? I think you're doing it because there's something you want to give, and you're giving it generously because that's going to get other generosity. And hopefully, you're driven to do all of this for the right things.

And in the end, when you do build it. It's something that does more good in the world than harm. I think as a social enterprise CEO, I have made a commitment that what I do will be good for the world. But I think that that's a decision right that every CEO has to make for him or herself. But ultimately, yeah, you're like, you're just a responsible vision keeper.

Gresham Harkless 14:23

I love that. I love that. And that's definitely a great reminder for everybody that's, you know, building something and trying to chase their dreams and trying to lead a team that's in order to do that. So Danielle, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I want to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then how best people can get a hold of you.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 14:42

I'm pretty easy to find. My name is long, and I always write it the same way. So I would say the fastest and easiest way other than going to my website shethinkspurple.com is to just search for me on LinkedIn or Google Danielle Kristine Toussaint. I'm going to be there. She Thinks Purple is also pretty easy to find. And I think ultimately I want to say thank you to you, because it's platforms like this that put us in conversation with one another that let us find those other souls that are out there in the world that are on fire about the same things that we're on fire about and collectively, like, that's what I believe creates the big explosions that change the world.

So I say thank you. And I also say, for anyone who's really interested in how to leverage, branding, marketing, and creative services to make a difference in the world. Join us at Purple Con, it's going to be in New York City, February 7 to 8th, 2019. And we are open to collaborators. And we're open to just having great people in the room who want to give and get.

Gresham Harkless 15:42

Awesome awesome, awesome. Well thank you again, and I truly appreciate you for taking time out of your schedule today. But also all the awesome things that you're doing everything Purple that you have going on. I truly appreciate you again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Danielle Kristine Toussaint 15:54

Amazing.

Outro 15:56

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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