IAM1444 – CEO Provides Strategy and Solutions to Businesses

As the CEO and founder of Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting, LLC, I empower companies to dream bigger by fixing what isn't working so they can make room for larger and better things. It is gratifying as the go-to professional they come to for advice.

My company focuses on end-to-end business operations. We concentrate on the people, the processes, technology, and customer experience. I provide business advice, strategy, solutions, and solutions to scale your business.

• CEO Story: Early on in starting her business, she could have a greater impact than being in an in-house setting. More businesses can benefit from her firm and she takes pride in what she is doing.
• Business Service: Consulting. Finding solutions to business problems.
• Secret Sauce: Understanding the current state of the business problem. Capturing the larger story – process, technology, and third-party perspectives.
• CEO Hack: Get up very early and go to the gym. Calendar, booking app, and staying organized.
• CEO Nugget: Be careful about who you’re sharing your dreams with because their response has nothing to do with you.
• CEO Defined: To light the fire that works in the team. To listen and light the fire that is in them and help them grow.

Website: https://www.cpcchangeagent.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJVz6igx2RHdvDf4MsIPpuA

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cornerstoneparadigmconsultingllc/?viewAsMember=true

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Transcription

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00:21 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business? From successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs with our list to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness 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.

00:49- Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Amanda Russo of Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting LLC. Amanda Su, super excited to have you on the show.

01:00 – Amanda Russo

Thanks so much for having me. Gresh.

01:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, excited to have you on and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing. And of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Amanda so you can hear about some of those awesome things. As CEO and founder of Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting LLC, Amanda empowers companies to dream bigger by fixing what isn't working so that they can make room for larger and better things.

It is gratifying to her to be the go-to professional they come to for advice. Her company focuses on end-to-end business operations. They concentrate on the people, the processes, the technology, and the customer experience. She provides businesses with the device, strategy, solutions, and solutions to scale their business. Amanda, again, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:44 – Amanda Russo

I so am. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

01:46 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. No, I appreciate you. So let's definitely make that happen. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:56 – Amanda Russo

You know, I think early on in starting this business, I knew just from my career trajectory that I could have a greater impact on a lot more businesses than I could work in-house. For someone, you know, house you're a little bit more limited in what you can do and if there's budget and so on and so forth.

And so when I started this business, I knew that one, we could be agnostic as far as the industry goes and we could have such a greater impact on more businesses. And so I believe we just pride ourselves on doing exactly that. It's Just kind of preaching the message of, I know that this is how you do things today, but it doesn't have to be this way. And I feel like that's kind of our motto is like, it doesn't have to be this way. Yeah.

02:45 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that phrase. I love the word impact that you said because I think it really speaks to me. Sometimes we forget as organizations, businesses, CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, whatever title might be, be. It's all about what we're doing to make that impact. And, you know, the organizations, the people within the organization. So I really love that. And really, I feel like that might even be like a phrase from the pandemic of it doesn't have to be this way. Because I think so many times we've had to shift, we've had to adjust. We've even talked a little bit offline on how that needs to change, you know, for so many people in so many different ways.

03:18 – Amanda Russo

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I would say this, like, as a result of the pandemic, I think businesses were making really drastic decisions that they may not have had to make if they had engaged someone like myself and my team early on. You know, I think up until the pandemic, companies in general, and we work with larger companies, but any. This applies to any company, companies in general were kind of operating in that state of mind, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And they weren't investing in their business as far as, like, technology and process improvement and, you know, really investing and understanding the customer experience until I think, personally, it was too late.

And I think that's why my team and I have seen such a drastic increase in my business as the pandemic started to unfold, is because people really realized, holy smokes, like, we. We need to do something about this now. And arguably, I would say, not that I would say anytime is too late, because it's better late than never, but it's always a good idea.

Once you have some kind of indication that something in your business is frankly not working, is kind of backing you into a corner, that's when you should really start the conversation with someone like myself, with a business operations expert, and get to the root cause of it and fix it, because you don't have to cut headcount, and frankly, you might not even have to increase headcount, and you don't have to do a lot of the other drastic measures that I saw businesses doing, like, in the news and even private businesses as a result of the pandemic.

05:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. And I love that you said, you know, getting to the root, because I think so many times you'll hear people that will treat the symptoms, so to speak, and they're not thinking progressively. They're not ahead of the curve. And I think of, how can I run a better business. How can I make more impact? That word that we said rather than saying, oh, now this is broken, now we need to do it. And I feel like that, you know. You know, the pandemic time actually forced a lot of people to make those changes, even though they knew that they should, but they maybe kind of kicked the bucket, so to speak.

05:31 – Amanda Russo

Yeah. I mean, and what I find a lot is, you know, even today, which is very funny, I find a lot of businesses believe that their business is so complicated and so complex and they have this sort of niche market and, you know, whatever they're doing, this is just the way it's got to be done because they're so unusual. And I would say this to them, if we can get robots to help us perform brain surgery, we can find something. And it's not going to be potentially not one thing. It's going to be more than one thing. We'll stack it, obviously, and it'll communicate to one another, but we can find solutions that are going to work for you, for your business, for the team, and obviously deliver an exceptional customer and or patient experience.

So I would say for business leaders that believe that their business is so unusual, that this is the way it's got to be. It's not. It doesn't have to be this way. And I can assure you that my team and I are experts in helping you along with that journey. And frankly, whatever you invest in the company and invest in working with us and invest in the solution will pay for itself in a much shorter amount of time than you probably realize.

So typically, our clients will come back to us and say, like, whatever we paid you was silly. We've saved millions of dollars. And we don't. Obviously, we don't cost millions of dollars, but we've saved companies small, medium, and large. We typically spend $100 million in that space. Millions, tens of millions of dollars. And so when you. When you compare what you paid someone like us to fix the thing against the ROI, it's. It's silly. It becomes silly.

07:19 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

07:19 – Amanda Russo

I think that's why they keep us around. Right?

07:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

07:22 – Amanda Russo

We're a lot cheaper than the mistake.

07:24 – Gresham Harkless

Exactly. And that's why I was going to use the word, you know, that investment, because you're making that investment so that you don't have to pay much more costly, you know, mist or something that was ignored or wasn't intended to as much as it should have been. So I know you touched a little bit on how you work with your clients. So I wanted to see if there's anything additional that you want to mention and what you feel is kind of what I like to call either your personal or the organization's secret sauce, which you feel kind of sets it apart and makes it unique.

07:51 – Amanda Russo

Yes, I actually would say this, and it's become our secret sauce, I don't know why it's a secret, but frankly, the only way to solve business problems, and there is no other way. You're asking me and I am an expert and you can send me hate mail all you want. There is no other way to solve business problems unless you understand the current state, and I mean really fully in detail at a very almost elementary level. Understand the current state.

What my team and I do is capture the current state. We put it up on a process map. It is very, very granular. And that is deliberately done. Understanding the current state tells a much larger story. We're capturing the current state from a process perspective, a technology perspective. We're going to say a naughty word, which is the shadow of its perspective, which is a whole other topic. But we capture shadow it, which is just a fancy way of saying third-party applications. And then we have a larger conversation about how you want to proceed, fix it, and what are your choices.

So there's more than one way to skin a cat, for lack of a better way to say it, and we offer those choices. But it's very, very calculated and planned and it's very well thought out. It's not just, oh, this is wrong, let's pick this. It's very, very thought out. Change management starts from the inception of the project. So I do, I think that's why we are so successful. Process map and just our strategy and how we go about getting to the root cause, solving for change, creating an environment for adoption, and so on. Sorry, that was a little bit windy.

09:38 – Gresham Harkless

That was excellent. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:50 – Amanda Russo

One, I get up very, very early and I hit the gym. And when I say very early, I mean 4 am I'm up at 4 am almost every day I hit the gym, you know, do my workout. It's again, it's not an epic workout. I take my time on some of it because it's early, but I hit the gym. I hit the gym pretty early. Another hack that I don't know that I could ever function without it is my calendar. So we're a Microsoft shop. I would tell anyone else who is a Microsoft shop, to set up your bookings app, and get your calendar connected to it.

I personally live and die by my calendar, and without it, I feel like I'd be pretty lost. Those would be two hacks that I would say. And staying organized, I think is the third thing. Staying organized, my bookings app. So when I say, yes, grab an appointment on my calendar, do that, because I really do. I live and die by it and getting up early. So the consistency in that piece of it, I think is some of the hacks that I use.

10:59- Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that hack and just how impactful that is by making sure that you are paying attention to those quote-unquote, small things that become huge things if they're not tended to and taken care of very well. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:23 – Amanda Russo

You know, some of my favorites, I don't have any favorite children, but if I did, this is what I would and have said to them is, you know, a part of our motto is, and you said it earlier at the beginning of the show, is we help clients dream bigger and we just get them there, right? It's your dream. I just help you get there. I give you the steps. Most of the time, we roll it out for you. And so dreaming bigger is exciting for you because now, you know, it's possible. But I tell, and I have told clients in the past, to be careful who you share your dreams with.

And I say that because depending on who you're sharing that dream with or that aspiration, right, you want to get into a global market or you want to, you know, break into a market on another continent or, you know, whatever it is, right? Depending on who you're talking to, their response can be a result of their experiences in business and in life and so on and so forth. And so that's what I would say is just be careful who you share your dreams with because their response could have nothing to do with you. And for some, they may.

They may take that as sort of the. What am I trying to say? They may take that as like, that's the way it's going to be for them. But remember, they also don't have me, which is another thing that I said to a client that I'm thinking of is that they don't have me to show them how to get there in the right way. Right. And so just be careful is all I say. You know, take everything that you share with whoever with a grain of salt, and if you ever have questions, is it possible? Likely it is. And work with a professional who has actually done it before.

13:07 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely love that. So I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quotes and quote CEOs on this show. So, Amanda, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:20 – Amanda Russo

I would say it's not as easy as one might think or as glamorous as one might think. I think my role as a CEO is to light the fire that's in the folks who work for me. I don't know that I'm in this role to create mini-mes. And so I've hired and entrusted the folks that I've hired to do whatever it is that they are here to do.

And I think it's my role as their leader. To one, listen, of course, but to two, but also to light the fire that's in them and pull out their skills and help them grow as a person and as a professional. So that's what I think it means to me guiding others to kind of go on their own journey because it's going to be different than mine.

14:16 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. As we talked about, all the things that you sometimes have to worry about operationally, there are just so many things that you have to juggle, whether we're talking about emotional leadership or financial, there's just so much involved. So I truly appreciate you for sharing the true journey of the CEO.

14:33 – Amanda Russo

For sure.

14:34 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get a hold of you, and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on. Yeah.

14:47 – Amanda Russo

I would say for all the listeners, my advice to you is to do your homework. Don't be so quick to pick solutions or make quick decisions as to whether to hire a fire to invest this money. You know, I would encourage you to really listen to an expert, really, and make sure that they are, you know, doing your homework on them as well. And if you are looking for more information, we have a pretty robust blog as well and we have a live show as well every Tuesday PM Eastern Standard Time on YouTube and our CPCTV and a couple of other places.

You can head to our website www. CPCChangeAgent.com check out our blog. It's pretty robust. We also offer ebooks so there are lots of tools and resources there to help business leaders of any size. And if you're ever interested in having a conversation, you can contact us there. Hop on a call with one of myself or one of my team members and we're happy to chat with you.

15:57 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well Amanda, to make that even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes too so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:05 – Amanda Russo

Thank you. You too. Thanks so much. Speak soon. Thanks.

16:08 – Outro

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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