IAM1446 – CEO Helps Organizations Overcome Technology & Customer Churn Challenges to Succeed

Nicole Maaguo is the Founder & CEO of Cultivate Ink, LLC a boutique tech firm that helps organizations overcome technology and customer churn challenges to reach new levels of success. Cultivate Ink accomplishes this by elevating strategic priorities and goal setting to help customers align investment with desired outcomes.

Over the course of her career, Nicole has served non-profits, associations, software start-ups, and Fortune 100 companies. Nicole is also the creator of #ProjectBox, a subscription box of curated professional development for aspiring leaders. In her spare time, Nicole advances customer success and women in tech movements as the Co-President of PulseLocal DC and as a contributor for MsTech.

• CEO Story: Kids for Saving the Earth club was the first entrepreneurial venture Nicole started in the third grade and then went on to build several clubs. After graduating from college, Nicole was so passionate about microfinance, but it didn’t turn out well for her which led her to make software and build her own tech firm.
• Business Service: Help businesses or organizations overcome technology challenges – software or multi-system websites.
• Secret Sauce: Customer success mentality. Setting goals, meeting the client’s vision, and getting realized.
• CEO Hack: Evaluate your PROTI – Personal Return on Time Invested / Protect the time you have
• CEO Nugget: Practicing everyday generosity
• CEO Defined: Visionary and helping to make the path for those around you, modeling your company values and Chief customer advocate

Website: www.cultivateink.com/projectbox

Instagram: cultivateink_projectbox
Facebook: cultivateink
LinkedIn: nicolemaaguo
PulseLocal DC: www.linkedin.com/groups/8282977
MsTech Blog: https://ms-tech.co/blog/

Episode Link: https://iamceo.co/2018/10/24/iam092-ceo-helps-organizations-overcome-technology-customer-churn-challenges-to-succeed/

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Transcription

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00:30 – Intro

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 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.

00:55 – Gresham Harkless

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 Nicole Maaguo of Cultivate, Inc. Llc. Nicole, it's awesome to have you on the show.

01:06 – Nicole Maaguo

Thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it.

01:08 – Gresham Harkless

No problem. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Nicole so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's been able to do and accomplish. Nicole is the founder and CEO of Cultivate, Inc. Llc, a boutique tech firm that helps organizations overcome technology and customer churn challenges to reach new levels of success. Cultivate Inc. Accomplishes this by elevating strategic priorities and goal setting to help customers align investment with desired outcomes.

Over the course of her career, Nicole has served nonprofits, associations, software startups, and Fortune 100 companies. Nicole is also the creator of Project Box, a subscription box of curated professional development for aspiring leaders. In her spare time, Nicole advances customer success and women in tech movements. As the co-president of Paul Local DC and as a contributor for Ms. Tech. Nicole, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:06 – Nicole Maaguo

Bring it on. I'm excited.

02:07 – Gresham Harkless

All right, let's do it. So the first question I had is if you could tell us a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

02:14 – Nicole Maaguo

Absolutely. I think part of me always had the entrepreneurial bug. I actually founded my first organization in third grade. It was a Kids for Saving the Earth Club, which was sponsored by Target at the time, and over the course of that, you know, throughout my life I went on to found several other clubs in high school and then eventually meetups and other types of organizations. So that bug was always there within me. But I actually started out leaving college. I studied econ and international affairs and I studied abroad in Uganda. I became super passionate about microfinance and I worked in microfinance after graduating until I hit a ceiling.

Even though my thesis had been on microfinance and I had done all this field-based research in Uganda, I was told I needed investment banking experience in the US before I could move over into managing microfinance investments. So I moved to San Francisco like any enterprising person would and I tried to, you know, get that experience on my resume. I hit a lot of roadblocks, especially applying for jobs in that field. I started to feel like maybe I should change my name to Cole instead of going by Nicole because I was feeling a little bit of gender discrimination in the hiring process.

I finally got a couple of job offers going into Christmas, but when we came back from the holidays in January, the formal written offer never came through and low unbeknownst to me. But there were bigger things in the environment churning at that time. I went ahead and married my fiance who had moved to San Francisco with me. We found out we were expecting, and decided to move back to the Midwest. Within a couple of months actually of getting back to the Midwest, this was around the summer of 2007, we found out, as did the rest of the nation, that Bear Stearns was in really bad financial trouble.

And the reason my job offers had dissipated was because the financial industry was starting to collapse in on itself. So that turned out to be. It was devastating at the time, but it turned out to be an amazing thing for me because by not going into investment banking I was open to go into software development. And I took a job at Rotary International, which was kind of back into my microfinance space, thinking I would eventually get into grant-making, but ended up in software development at Rotary International doing a lot of their custom builds.

And I just loved it. It really blended creativity and problem-solving for me in a way that other things hadn't. And so that kind of became my career path going forward. It led me to the software startups that I worked at later on. And it really let me do things in ways I never would have thought possible. The last software company I was at, I was recruited into when I was eight months pregnant and immediately jumped on a plane to fly to London for training before I was Too far along in the pregnancy and couldn't fly anymore.

And those are things that are just not really open to women a lot of times. But because of the software industry, that was an opportunity for me. So my last software company, it was purchased, it was acquired and I decided, you know, this is it. This is the time I've always known I wanted to eventually go do something on my own. And this is a great opportunity to do that.

05:11 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, that's obviously, you know, that definitely sounds like a roller coaster. So I'm sorry to hear that. You know, you went through all of that, but it seems like you were kind of pushed in the right direction. Is that correct to say?

05:23 – Nicole Maaguo

Absolutely. Anytime things look like they're going wrong at the moment, it's just because you can't see the bigger picture of what's meant for you. And I totally feel like that's what happened with my career and my life.

05:33 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And that's a good reminder for everybody who might be going through the downs that there is always light at the end of the tunnel and just might be redirecting you towards something that's even better. So I appreciate you sharing that with us and I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear a little bit more about what you're doing with Cultivate Inc. And how you're helping out these tech companies.

05:52 – Nicole Maaguo

Yeah, absolutely. Well, how we help our clients really depends on which type of client I'm working with. Because right now we have two main types of clients. So the first is businesses or other organizations that are looking for help overcoming technology challenges, specifically in regards to software or multi-system websites. So a lot of times these clients have outgrown their current solutions or their needs have evolved and they're looking for a partner to come in and help them.

That might mean helping them transform the challenge into an opportunity, such as overseeing the development of a new software product or app. Or it could mean helping enhance a current product or a website to better serve their goals. For our other clientele, which is largely aspiring female leaders, we have that monthly subscription box and it delivers curated leadership lessons to help ambitious women unlock the leader within themselves and help overcome any imposter syndrome they might be feeling and self-doubt. Each lesson includes a must-read book for them, a skill mastery workbook to help them really internalize the lesson, and then some additional gifts designed to enhance habit development and help keep them motivated and inspired.

06:51 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And obviously getting the opportunity to get that every single month. I'm sure. Definitely helps out as far as building that confidence. Not just to go and do what you're kind of destined to do and hoping to do as leaders, but also kind of understanding exactly how to do it.

07:06 – Nicole Maagu

Absolutely. And it helps them kind of take their personal development and personal growth and just put it on autopilot because they know every month a new great lesson is going to appear in the mail.

07:15 – Gresham Harkless

There you go. There you go. I love that. So now I wanted to ask you for your secret sauce. And it might be just for you or it might be both of your organization, but what do you feel like kind of separates you or differentiates you?

07:26 – Nicole Maaguo

I think what really sets Cultivate Inc. Aside is the customer success mentality. It really permeates every aspect of the company and the services that we offer. A lot of companies will make sure that the software they deliver meets the basic requirements needed to complete the project. But we'll come alongside our clients and start truly understanding their strategic priorities.

And then we use those priorities to inform the project from day one all the way through day one to make sure we're setting goals and we're meeting the client's vision. It's getting realized, and it's not just another item getting checked off a list. There are really no silver bullets in software development, but there are companies out there like Cultivate Inc. That puts you at the heart of the technology solution that's delivered.

08:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And that's kind of like the most important thing to kind of, like you said, be at the heart because it helps make sure that you're reaching your goals as an organization. Because at the end of the day, when you peel back the onion, that's what these organizations are trying to do, and try to leverage as much of those platforms in order to do that. But having organizations to lean on like yourself, you, and your organization, definitely, I'm sure, helps out with that.

08:23 – Nicole Maaguo

Yeah, definitely. And people sometimes forget that the technology is supposed to serve them, not the other way around. So we make sure that those prioritizations are clear.

08:31 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, well, thank you for that reminder too, because sometimes I feel that way as well. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be a resource like an app, a book, or a habit that you have that makes you more effective and efficient as a CEO.

08:46 – Nicole Maaguo

Yeah, I know CEOs are always looking for ROI, but I think one important thing is to start developing your pro Ti. And I call that your personal return on time invested. It's easy to look at other people's work and see opportunities for business process improvement, but when you look at your own work, it's so close to yours. It's hard to see those areas where you could be improving. So anytime you do something repeatedly, maybe more than three or four times a month, I like to try to scrutinize the process that I'm using and see if there are ways that I can automate it.

I can streamline it, or I could offload it to others completely. I feel like as a CEO, my time is the most valuable thing I have and if I don't use it carefully, I'm not going to get any more of it. So I try to invest in activities today that will help me free up time in the future. And I don't stop at work. I try to apply the same process to household management at home. So we recently got an EUFY Robovac and now it cleans the house, and the floors for us twice a day. That's one less thing that anybody in my house has to do. I think it's really important to protect the time you have so that you can spend it with your family on your personal development, on your mindset. And the only way you're going to do that is by saving time in other aspects of your work and home life.

09:50 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that. And I love that perspective because you never really, like you said, like the UV vac, all those little minutes kind of add up and they're not only just minutes, but it's things that you have to worry about. Oh, I didn't vacuum or I didn't do X, Y, and Z. But like you said, if you're doing it three or four times a week or a month or a day or whatever, those might be things that you can kind of automate and kind of take off your plate, so to speak. So you can focus on higher, I guess, level things.

10:15 – Nicole Maaguo

Exactly. Or even just having the time to go for a run in the afternoon, if that's something you enjoy.

10:20 – Gresham Harkless

Exactly. Awesome. Now, I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This might be a word of wisdom or piece of advice or something that you might tell your younger business self.

10:30 – Nicole Maaguo

Yeah. So I think that for me, and this is really a core value of our company as well, it comes down to practicing everyday generosity. As a CEO, you have a fiduciary responsibility to set high-value contracts. And I'm not talking about abandoning the need to get your company a good deal I'm really talking about targeted random acts of kindness and directing those towards your employees, your partners, and your clients. Corporate gifting and corporate compassion, I think need to make a bit of a revival.

People focus on sending out branded trinkets to clients during the holiday, but instead, they should really be focusing on sending a pair of baby booties to the client who just had their first kid, or sending a partner a handwritten note to let them know how much you appreciate the partnership.

You can be generous with your team by throwing them a party if they hit a major milestone, or just be approachable if one of your employees needs to talk. I think that generosity is really important to help you stay humble. It'll help you stay grateful. It can prevent analysis paralysis, and it will enable you to serve those around you until they reach success. Because it really is the little things that matter.

11:27 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And people start to pay attention to those little things. And I always mess up the quote, but people don't know how much you care until they show them how much you care. I always mess that up. But it's just at the end of the day, those little small things that people do that extend beyond like you said, just the trinket, the branded trinkets that go so much farther, that lets you remind you, your organization, the people within your organization and also, or your clients that you do actually care.

11:49 – Nicole Maaguo

Exactly. And it's one of those things that sometimes being generous with your time can be the most generous thing you have to offer because we are all pressed for it. So it doesn't always have to cost a lot of money. It's really the thought that matters.

12:01 – Gresham Harkless

Very true. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of being a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quotes, unquote CEOs on this show. So I wanted to ask you specifically, what does being a CEO mean to you.

12:15 – Nicole Maaguo

I think first and foremost, the CEO needs to be the company's visionary in defining the road ahead. I've been at software startups where the CEO had kind of brought the company out but then started to let other people drive the vision. And it doesn't really work very well after a certain point in time. So as the CEO, I think you really have to be forcing yourself to stay on that visionary road and help to illuminate the path for everyone around you. I think you need to be the one that's defining and modeling the company values.

It's great to say that you encourage employees to take vacation but if they never see you taking vacation, they're not going to feel like they're capable of following that. And I think most importantly, the CEO always has to be the chief customer advocate. Again, where the bottom line is concerned. If employees don't see you doing what's in the customer's best interest, they're not going to model that behavior.

13:04 – Gresham Harkless

Exactly. Make sure that you're being a leader and you're practicing what you preach. And whether you know it or not, everyone's paying attention. Especially if you have that quote-unquote CEO title or that leadership role, you are kind of manifesting whatever it is that you say. So whatever people are going to be listening to and paying attention to. So I think that's a phenomenal definition.

13:22 – Nicole Maaguo

Thank you.

13:23 – Gresham Harkless

No problem. And Nicole, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there was anything additional you wanted to let our readers and our listeners know about you and your business. And also, of course, how to subscribe to Project Box.

13:37 – Nicole Maaguo

Yeah, I would just say, you know, for anyone out there, you're going to hit roadblocks. It's not about the roadblock. It's about how you persevere and you overcome it. Life is always going to throw those in your way. And the people that really succeed in business and in life, in general, are the ones that are able to take those and try to find the perspective out of them so that they can keep moving forward.

If you want to get in touch with me, the easiest way to do that is through Instagram. Our Instagram is cultivating. That's in the project box. Or you can find us online at www.cultivateincagain.com. and if you're in the D.C. area, we would always love to have you at one of our Pulse local events and you can find information about that on our website.

14:24 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Nicole. I appreciate everything that you're doing and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

14:30 – Nicole Maaguo

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

14:33 – 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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