IAM1512 – Business Advisor Helps Businesses Drive Extraordinary Growth
Podcast Interview with Susan Katz
Susan Katz is known for helping businesses drive extraordinary growth. As a business growth advisor, Susan helps individuals and organizations align, focus on revenue-generating opportunities, and create the strategic changes necessary to achieve unlimited and lasting growth. Prior to starting her business, Susan was in executive management with two major publishing firms, where she was responsible for revenue and profit growth throughout most of her career. Susan is the author of Create Your Dream Job: Change Your Mindset Change Your Future where she shares her secrets and practical tips for creating a fulfilling and meaningful future. Susan’s key to success is in believing that everyone has unique strengths and talents and that anything is possible as long as you align with your strengths and believe in yourself.
- CEO Story: Started in social services, then moved into publishing, worked her way up, and about 30 years in executive management. In 2008 Susan shifted to where she is passionate about and that is helping small business owners and individuals to achieve long-lasting success and growth in their lives.
- Business Service: Helping business owners to work on the business, for strategic growth. Helping organizations to work with executives for communication, training, and growth.
- Secret Sauce: Alignment is a big focus – when you’re aligned you can do what you do and totally fulfilled. Coaching people who are catchable and love to take action.
- CEO Hack: Willing to be very direct with people. Helping people with habit change.
- CEO Nugget: 1. For anybody starting out, make sure you have a financial runway so you don’t wanna sell desperately. 2. Look at where your genius is. Delegate to others who are experts at.
- CEO Defined: Somebody who carries the vision for the future of the organization. Create vision, strategy, and direction, and coach, and guide the people who work for you.
Website: susankatzadvantage.com
Linkedin: susanbkatz
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Transcription
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00:55 – 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.
01:22 – 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 Susan Katz of Susan Katz Advantage. Susan, excited to have you on the show.
01:31 – Susan Katz
And I am very excited to be on your show, Gresh.
01:35 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, it should definitely be a great time. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Susan so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's working on. And Susan is known for helping businesses drive extraordinary growth. As a business growth advisor, Susan helps individuals and organizations align, focus on revenue-generating opportunities, and create the strategic changes necessary to achieve unlimited and lasting growth. Prior to starting her business, Susan was in executive management with 2 major publishing firms where she was responsible for revenue and profit growth throughout most of her career.
Susan is the author of Create Your Dream Job, Change Your Mindset, Change Your Future, where she shares her secrets and practical tips for creating a fulfilling and meaningful future. Susan's key to success is in believing that everyone has unique strengths and talents and that anything is possible as long as you are aligned with your strengths and believe in yourself. Susan, excited again to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
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02:33 – Susan Katz
I am ready.
02:35 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
02:43 – Susan Katz
Started, well, actually starts way back when I was in the social services many years ago and realized that that wasn't a fit for me. So I ended up kind of landing in publishing, starting in sales, working my way up the ladder, and spent 29 to 30 years in executive management. And then I was part of the early layoffs in 2008. And it was time, I had a great career in publishing and decided it was time to do what I was really passionate about, which was helping business owners and individuals to achieve long-lasting success and growth in their lives through their businesses and in some cases within organizations. So that's the short version of it and have been doing it since 2008 and I feel very blessed every day to have a business that I love.
03:32 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I love kind of how you said things kind of started with the social services when you realized that, you know, it wasn't the right path for you. Cause I think almost as great as it is to of course find the thing that you love and are passionate about. Sometimes the things that you don't and aren't passionate about actually direct you or lead you towards that opportunity.
03:53 – Susan Katz
Yeah, it's being able to recognize when you're not passionate about something or you've made a decision that's not quite the right fit because alignment is so important to do what you do well. I'm sure that's why you podcast because it's probably in great alignment with what you do.
04:09 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, it's actually absolutely something I love dearly and I often say if you run your own race you can't lose And I think it's so important to kind of keep that in mind when you are doing those things and trying to make sure that you get in alignment.
04:22 – Susan Katz
Yeah, absolutely.
04:23 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more about how you serve your clients. Could you take us through a little bit more on what that looks like and how your certain clients should work with it?
04:32 – Susan Katz
Sure. I work with business owners, executives, and teams. With business owners, what I do is I help them to get out of their own way, to help them work on the business, not in the business. Very often people start businesses, and then what they discover along the way is they're doing everything, which is natural at the very beginning, and they grow and then all of a sudden they hit a bottleneck because you can't possibly, there's only 24 hours in the day. So helping them to be really strategic about their growth, figure out what they need to, what their unique talents are in order to grow the business, and then how to find other people to, how to create jobs so that they can continue to grow the business.
So, a big part of what I do is working with business owners in a variety of capacities. And then very often I'll get called into an organization to work with some of the executives around communication or training or growth and working with teams as well. So Baltimore Ravens have been 1 of my longstanding clients. I work a lot. I've done teamwork with them on the business side, not the coaches and players. And I've also worked, generally every year, work with some of their leaders and managers doing some coaching just to help them navigate the environment and be more effective at what they do.
So that's, that's the end then I do I have a program called next generation leader for the up and coming leaders. For the up-and-coming leaders. And that's having spent many years in corporate life going off to a week away for 1 and done. This is a 15-month program that allows people to learn in small bits and pieces and really develop their leadership. Those next generation leaders that are up and coming, such an important group who very often they're not trained, they're just kind of thrown into management and not given any kind of training. So those are kind of the core, the main focus of what I do.
06:33 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I appreciate you and, you know, having each of those aspects and, you know, how you're serving the clients that you work with. And I almost feel like, and I don't know if you feel I have had this experience where leadership is something that people feel like, you know. You are born a leader. You don't necessarily aren't able to kind of learn how to be a leader, but I feel like that's definitely not the case. And I feel like that's part of like why you started the next generation leader. But I imagine that probably comes out in a lot of the conversations that you're having.
07:32 – Susan Katz
Yeah, people just assume that because you did well in the job that you were doing, you will make a great leader. And that's not everybody is meant. You can learn leadership skills. Some people are more inclined to learn those skills than other people. And they need training. Whether or not you're inclined, you still need to be given the opportunity, if you're put in a leadership position, to get training and learn the skills necessary to be an effective leader. And that willingness to reach out and get help.
So often people think it's a weakness to reach out and get help from all of those people that you mentioned. I think the more help, some of the most successful people I've seen are the ones who reach out to the most people. And it really can come from so many different directions. So I think success is really built on getting that kind of help and support.
08:24 – Gresham Harkless
And I definitely would echo that as well. So would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce, which is kind of what you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique? Is it that ability to kind of understand that? And also I think too, like, you know, as I touched on with your bio, being able to kind of understand how important alignment and leaning into your strengths are. Do you feel like those are the things that set you in your organization apart and make you unique?
08:46 – Susan Katz
Yeah, that's actually a really interesting question. I think 1 of the things, certainly alignment is a big focus because when you are in alignment with the work that you're doing, you will do it all day every day and you'll be totally fulfilled. When you're out of alignment, much like when your car is out of alignment and it rattles because it's out of alignment, that's what happens. You'll find ways to put things off and reinvent them or do them differently. Same thing for employees. Alignment is really critical that you have the right people in the right seat doing the right work. I would say the other part of the people who work with me if you if you're willing to be if you're coachable willing to be in action and be held accountable those are the people who work well with me.
I would say I am part coach, part consultant, so I ask a lot of questions, I listen, I help people come to their own decisions, and I will often, where it's appropriate, I'll offer advice. That's kind of the consulting part of it. The people who are willing to be in action and take whatever they've come up with or take advice, are the people who resonate in working with me. The people who don't want to take action or aren't very coachable were probably not a good fit. So breaking it down for people, getting them in action, and holding them accountable are probably the things that really set me apart.
10:21 – Gresham Harkless
Nice, I absolutely love that. Would you consider that to be like your main hack, the thing you feel makes you more effective in fish? Are there some other things that you feel might be, you know, apps or other books or habits that, you know, have really led you to be able to succeed?
10:35 – Susan Katz
Oh, boy, asking me about my main half. Yeah, I think I also think I think it is that and I think it is that I am willing to be very direct with people when I see something in a very respectful and supportive way. I will call somebody on it is probably not quite the way I will bring it up and put it in front of them to be able to see what, as I see certain habits and behaviors that they're engaging in that are making them less effective because very much what I do is helping people with habit change or behavior change.
You've got to change your behaviors, whether it's delegation how you communicate, or the words that you use to communicate. That's all, those are all very important in terms of moving forward. So it's those small things that I notice. I see a lot of it all the time. So I start to see patterns with people and then I point it out to them and shine a mirror and let them decide what they're gonna do about it.
11:42 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, that's huge, and being able to kind of recognize that and definitely help people out that. I love that, you know, as a hack. What would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this is a little bit more kind of word of wisdom or piece of advice. I usually say it might be something if you were to tell your favorite business client or if you were to happen to a time machine you might tell your younger business self.
12:03 – Susan Katz
Favorite nugget. Well 1 would be anybody starting out in a business would be to make sure you have enough of a financial runway so that you do not become desperate. Having had experience with that, I had some financial runway but not long enough. And so you never want to, everybody who's in business, sell their business, whether it's a product or a service, and you never want to sell desperately. So, you know, whether you start it while you're doing something else that's paying you or you save to make sure that you have enough of a cushion so that you can build the business comfortably without selling desperate. That would be 1 big nugget that I see when people ask me for advice about starting businesses.
Probably the second piece would be for the people who are in business. Look at where your genius is at your highest and best use. Focus on that and get other people to do the other work that doesn't need you. You can hire people for a lot less money than your time is worth to get them to do the work for you. Finding the right people and having trust in them is important. Really becoming familiar with what are you best at and what you need from other people who are experts.
For instance, thankfully my husband is in the back office of our business. If he weren't in the back office of our business, I would hire somebody to do bookkeeping and accounting because it would take me way many more hours than somebody who has that expertise. So really looking for those areas of what's consuming your time that is not a good use of your time.
14:00 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So, wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO or open a different quote-unquote CEO zone in the show. So Susan, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:11 – Susan Katz
I mean somebody who carries the vision for the future of the organization. They're the ones who are the vision people. That's why it becomes so important to hire other people as you evolve in your organization so that you can continue strategy, creating a vision or implementing the vision and strategizing around how to implement the vision. So a CEO really is, and a business owner, it's really about, your job is really to create vision, strategy, direction, and coach and guide the people who work for you. That's what a, and it's a hard transition for people sometimes because they're used to gauging their productivity based on doing the work rather than driving towards the future. So I think that's 1 of the hardest transitions for people, but that's my definition of CEO.
15:06 – Gresham Harkless
I love that. And I love how you said carrying the vision. And I think so many times when we, you know, you carry that vision, you strategize a lot of those things. You know, you spend more time, I imagine strategizing and not as much time doing. And you hear, I think the quote is, if I was to cut something and measure 7 times and cut once rather than cutting 8 times and doing it over Again, it really speaks to being able to kind of measure and continue to measure and continue to get it where it needs to be and hold that vision for yourself, but also the people that are dependent upon you within an organization.
15:42 – Susan Katz
That's how you keep the organization in alignment. Absolutely.
15:46 – Gresham Harkless
It's nice. Well, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, 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 out of you about about all the awesome things that you're working on?
16:02 – Susan Katz
Ah, well, the best way to get hold of me is via Susan at SusanCatAdvantage.com. I'm sure you'll provide in the show notes the information. And I'm always happy to do a 30-minute business breakthrough session for anybody who's a business owner, complimentary if they want to learn, you know, even if all we do is I help you in the we speak, just reach out to set something up.
16:35 – Gresham Harkless
Awes then makes that even easier information. The show no but I absolutely love taking time out today and the work that you're doing. It just helps out and has on the things that we do, whether it be our genius, but also on sometimes the things that we don't see. So I love that you help us lean into our genius, but also help us to maybe see what is not our genius and how we can kind of bring people on so at the end of the day we can be you know successful. So thank you so much for all you do Susan. Of course your time again today and I hope you have a phenomenal day.
17:09 – Susan Katz
Well, thank you for having me on your podcast. I'm super excited to have the opportunity. So thanks so much, Grisham.
17:15 – 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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