Lessons in Resiliency
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Cultivate Advisors
Jaime Rowe has moved on to another position! Here is a reference she left behind for anyone who would like to speak to a business advisor: Nick Phelps (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickphelps)
Jaime Rowe
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In this episode:
Welcome to Episode 2 of Branding for the Rest of Us from Brand Wolfe! Today we are joined by business advisor Jaime Rowe, who discusses the importance of helping small businesses grow by providing both coaching and consulting skills to suit every need.
Much like owning a small business, Jaime has had to learn to be resilient with her clients to lead them down the correct path, for their company and for themselves. She helps you make the best decision for your business, by stepping in your shoes and acting as a non-equity partner.
Especially during this pandemic, how can we be resilient? How do we become adaptable? How do you keep your business afloat in the face of unexpected change? Tune in for some long-awaited answers!
“If you keep running the business the same, it is never going to work. Be the chameleon, be open to a new mindset.”
TOPICS DISCUSSED:
What is Business Coaching? (5:36)
Getting The Right Help (10:30)
Advice for Business Owners (20:20)
Celebrating Small Wins (23:55)
How to Support Host and Guest (31:00)
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Here at Brand Wolfe, we believe a business is the coolest thing that anyone can build. It's yours from the ground up. And there's a little piece of you in every last thing that your business touches and that's what makes your business and you, one of a kind welcome to Branding For The Rest Of Us, our new podcast from Brand Wolfe, where we also believe that every brand has a message and an intention that must be heard as we like to say, you can't read the label from inside the bottle, which simply means you have to get a different perspective to fully understand and appreciate your company. The conversation starts now. Here's Brand Wolfe founder and host of Branding For The Rest Of Us, Max Gerson
Max Gerson (00:41):
Today on Branding For The Rest Of Us, we're here with Jaime Rowe of Cultivate Advisors. Jaime is a business coach, a business advisor. She helps businesses stay in business and grow even during these hard times. And we promise to give you guys a big idea for your small business. And today we're gonna talk about how to be resilient about why that's important, about what are the things you can do today to make better decisions for your business. Even though we continue to be in free fall some days we're just in the business of staying in business. So today on Branding For The Rest Of Us, we're gonna talk about resiliency and we're gonna share some ideas, not only about why it's important, but what you can do today to be more resilient for your business, for your team, for your family. So, Jaime, welcome.
Jaime Rowe (01:39):
Thank you, Max.
Max Gerson (01:41):
So bring us up to speed. What is happening in the world today? We are recording this podcast on Monday, March 30th. This is kind of, , I think, are we in week three of quarantine?
Jaime Rowe (01:52):
Yes. This sounds about right, depending on what state that you're in, what a rollercoaster. So I feel like at first, you know, a couple weeks ago it's like, oh, there's this thing going on in China. And now it's in Italy and Iran and oh, wow. It's here. I think we're all just suggesting to this new normal in different ways. I feel like there's moments where there's really calm and then we get an announcement and then the panic goes back up and then we come back down. It's just quite the roller coaster right now. , interested to see there's a lot of speculation, how long this is gonna last, but most important is focusing on today, cuz that's all really what we can control.
Max Gerson (02:30):
What has been your experience? How has coronavirus impacted your business, your world, your life, your home?
Jaime Rowe (02:38):
Hmm. Business has been fantastic. , to be honest with you and picking up new clients, especially in industries that are still moving forward, which has helped a lot. , a lot of it is there's so much uncertainty right now and we can spin in our minds over and over, what's going to happen. And then we become paralyzed of with fear. And so having an opportunity to jump on a call with a business owner for an hour or two hours, just to break things down and be like, okay, what logically are our options? Let's look at a 30 day run of worst case scenarios. And I have to say the first week I was doing that with clients and we're like this pro I'm like it may or may not happen. We don't know, but then we ran it. And now that is the case right now the worst case for 30 days is the reality.
Jaime Rowe (03:30):
And it's, it's interesting to see, especially with the business owners, once they see how bad it could be, they're like, oh, I actually have five months of cash. You know, if it's the worst case and we don't get any loans and don't do any of that, that's really what's happening. So sometimes it takes someone else 's hand to reach out and say, Hey, let me sit down with you. Let's run these numbers. I know we're in panic. And we're really, really scared right now so much that we're having people having like literal panic attacks. And why don't we just slow things down and let me help you slow things down and walk you through it together. Personally, I've been in my house a lot, max <laugh> Like, we all have, I definitely, I enjoy getting outside and running in a state park locally. And , just being outside and avoiding people kind of like two positive magnets when you meet 'em up on the trail, right? You're like, whoa, whoa, like trying to get away as quickly as you can. , but yeah, for sure, if anything, I played monopoly with my kids on Saturday night. I hate monopoly by the way.
Max Gerson (04:35):
Who won? I guess Matt won.
Jaime Rowe (04:37):
Alex did, Alex won my 14 year old daughter.
Max Gerson (04:40):
Good for her.
Jaime Rowe (04:40):
He like cleaned it up, but spending more time with family has been awesome. Even like setting up, you know, a Google calendar for our family, with all the dinners and who does dishes and all that. Like doing those things I haven't worked on in the past, which I feel a lot of people are doing and spending more time with family. I think this is one of the best things that's gonna come out of this
Max Gerson (05:00):
For sure. Yeah. It's not all bad. Well, let's bring it back to business. Let's talk about what you do for a little bit. You're a business advisor for Cultivate Advisors, which is an amazing brand. What does a business advisor and a coach do? I think there's a lot of misconceptions. When you say I talk about you so proudly, I'm like, oh my God, Jaime this, Jaime that, my business coach. Do you have a business coach? No, I've got the best one. I really like to share what I've learned with other people and that's totally my energy, but I don't, I think most people don't know what it is that any business coach does.
Jaime Rowe (05:40):
You know, that's an interesting question. I get that all the time or you are a business coach, you have a business consultant or your business advisor. So the terminology we use at Cultivate Advisors is a business advisor. So what does that mean? It's a cross between a business coach and a business consultant. I've been a business consultant like through Arthur Anderson over the years. And then also a business coach. I was a sales coach for introverts. , I'm an ambivert myself, which is, if anyone looks that up, it's right in the middle. So we kind of do a cross between those two things. So if you think of a business coach, like what words kind of come to mind, Max,
Max Gerson (06:14):
When you say coach, you have someone, I, I see it more of a motivational emotional support type of role. Like you can do this. Let me kind of, let's talk about the plan and those types of things. Right?
Jaime Rowe (06:28):
Sure. Yeah. The motivation, , you know, talking with them, sound boarding, let's work this, you know, you're stuck on this particular problem. Let's break it down. Just like I was talking earlier about cash flow and that's exactly right. So we are that and the other flip side is look at consultants and consultants are more of actually roll up their sleeves and do the work. So for example, cash flow projections, I'll get into your QuickBooks, export it out month by month, and we'll start breaking down averages. And what could be the worst case scenario? What can we put off? This is rent. Okay. Can we push that off? If you know, this is payroll, can we furlough these employees? So really rolling up my sleeves, and working with the client. If I have to make a job description for them, if I have to do research for them.
Jaime Rowe (07:17):
So there's a wide variety of things. So it's kind of a cross between that coach and consultant. And that's why we call it an advisor. You know, every client is so incredibly different, what they need, you know, some clients, like I had one client, she said, Jaime's the best cheerleader coach and stern consultant we've ever worked with. I do cross between that a lot and I am very supportive to my clients. But, for example, last week I needed to be very firm with a client. I felt like they were going in the wrong direction with a financial decision. And so I voiced my opinion. We came to a conclusion, and decided to go the route that I had suggested, cause I knew it was the right thing. And also due to my past experience in businesses, that was the right direction to go for the long term for the finances.
Max Gerson (08:04):
Yeah. That's really interesting. You know, what I'm hearing is kind of something I already know, but I think a lot of other people don't, which is one of the things that Cultivate does differently, that Jaime does differently is not just working on the business with entrepreneurs. Right. But in the business as well. And you know, here's my personal experience with that. I've had amazing people work for Brand Wolfe, Des Katelyn, Alyssa, Stacy, love all you guys, but I've never been very good at hiring. I've never been very good at onboarding because it's like onboarding playbook. Yeah. You sure don't have that. Like let's just figure it out. Let's go, come on. And I was about to make a really big mistake. I was gonna hire someone and I thought the person I needed to hire was just like me. So the business coach and Jaime said, well, no , you're doing it wrong.
Max Gerson (09:07):
We're gonna leverage your personality, index your disc assessment. We're gonna understand who you are and what the business needs. And then we're gonna write the job description to that purpose. And that's like a business coach, right? The coach can help you do that, but you knew that I needed an admin. I did not have an admin. I did not have time for these things. So that's what you did. You wrote the job description, you put it out, you interviewed people and you kind of delivered, you know, these ideal candidates to me on a silver platter. So I think that's really important for people to understand about a business coach like Jaime, like Cultivate Advisors is they're working in the business and on the business and they're really agile and help you to do what the business needs in a better way. And when people talk to me about what it costs and, and what my ROIs have been, I always just tell them that this is like outsourcing your MBA. We're all really good at our thing. We're great at making bread or branding or cars or concrete flooring. But so often it's the business part of the business that beats us up and crushes us. And so you're not just getting coaching. You're not just getting consulting. I think with Jaime, you're really getting both.
Jaime Rowe (10:28):
That's very nice to say. I think two is, you know, just like you and everyone else, everyone has a different personality and working with that personality in terms of that fits your needs. So everyone who works with Cultivated Advisors, we do something called a predictive index. So you have a PI profile. And, so we take a look at those and I can see from the PI index, how I can help you best instead of guessing and taking three to six months to really get to know you as a person, let's just break this down so that I know what you need. And I can start focusing on those areas very quickly. Yeah. I, I remember when, we were looking at candidates and, yeah, that was really interesting. That was a lot of fun, but, that's the joy of it, right? I knew that's what you needed and we moved forward with it.
Max Gerson (11:16):
And today we have an amazingly talented and efficient admin. Who's actually made waves, positive waves with the business because not only is she the right person for the right seat, but as we've worked together, the focus has been on developing efficient structures and systems that just help operations.
Jaime Rowe (11:37):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. She's awesome.
Max Gerson (11:39):
How dare you honestly, what, what gives you the right to, to tell someone how to improve their business?
Max Gerson (11:49):
Right. Is it, is it just because Cultivate has these amazing tools and they've taught you how to do this? Is it because of their methodology? But I mean, how, how dare you ask me to pay you money to fix my business?
Jaime Rowe (12:04):
Honestly, I think coming from, so many failures, so many failures, I have the list. You know, I had a client the other day and she was like, oh, I just feel so horrible about myself. We were looking at her financials and she's like, I'm leaving. I'm like, you're not leaving. Sit down. If I could show you the list of things that I have screwed up, that I have made mistakes on and what I've learned from them, you would be like, okay, this chick's seen some stuff, II trust her. She's been there. Right. Been there and done that. And , what a great opportunity. I mean, I knew when I saw this job and my husband introduced me to someone here, his name is Patrick, nickname, Patty cake, sorry, Patrick. And I looked and saw and Colplay has some really cool tools, like really great shortcuts for business owners.
Jaime Rowe (12:59):
They have a whole learning center, like all these great. If you want, if you never went to business school, it's a great opportunity now, as a business owner. And so, I knew it was the right place. Cause I knew this was my time to give back, to help others. And I've been through some traumatic types of things, just like anyone in their life. And I love helping people through a crisis. I'm pretty cool as a cucumber. And I love to break things down analytically and help someone, especially when they're really hurting. And I have so much empathy and I have so much respect for business owners too, like I said, this is not the easy route. This is probably the one, one of the more difficult routes, especially when things like this happen. There's no safety net. There's no infrastructure for you to fall back on is what you've created and you can't do it alone. So why not have someone come help you? Someone who's done it in the past.
Max Gerson (13:53):
We're here with Jaime Rowe of Cultivate Advisors. And we've been learning a lot about what makes Jaime's work so remarkable. We've been learning about the fact that when Jaime shows up to work with you, it's truly a partnership. She's truly standing shoulder to shoulder with you in pursuit of a common goal. And the unique model that cultivate has is that she's not a coach. She's not a consultant, she's an advisor, which means she's both of those things. She's all of those things. And the beauty of the Cultivate brand is I think that it really is an ecosystem. You have teams of advisors and cities all over North America. They're international, they're in Canada, fancy, they're getting big and they've got great resources and a great model. And part of their model is I think just hiring really talented people to do this work. I'm friendly with most of the Denver office, Patty cakes,
Max Gerson (14:55):
Nick, Brad. And I know that they work in concert with one another and that's how the brand works as well. As you know, there's consistently having these quorums and learning and sharing and problem solving. It's a web, Jaime, I, I asked you the question, you know, how dare you. I was being playful. What I really wanted to know is what qualifies you to do this work? And I know a fair bit about Jaime. She let me interview her for our networking group, Colorado Thought Leaders forum. And Jaime's really good at solving problems. She's never been stumped, everything she says is figure-outable. When we first started working together, we kind of worked on the nuts and bolts, you know, the money, the revenue forecasting, the systems and the structures. And I'll be honest, I have a terrible emotional relationship to money.
Max Gerson (15:48):
And Jaime knows that. And honestly, if I didn't have someone who not only knew how to do the work, but how to make me do the thing that I didn't want to do in a delightful way, it would not work. And I would back away and I would make excuses. And I think that's another big part of what qualifies you is, you know, when to be stern and you know, when to be playful. And you know, when it's time for me to lie down on the couch and get into therapy, because a business is the coolest thing that anyone can build. I really believe that it's this living breathing thing. It's self-validation, it should be fun. It's how we provide, you know, not just for our family, but for our staff. These are really important things, but man, it does get lonely and it does get hard and you don't have to do it by yourself. So after I learned a little bit more about Jaime and what her skillset was, it's like, yeah, sure. Anyone can figure out, you know, contingency plans, how much money, monthly recurring revenue forecasting, but let's focus on product strategy. Let's do something incredibly difficult because that's your skillset. And that's really where a lot of our work has been in the last 60 to 90 days. And thank God for that, because now I feel like our product and our services are really well aligned to this new market reality almost as it happened.
Jaime Rowe (17:17):
Yeah. And the, I think the timing couldn't be better. There's so many different advisors at Cultivate Advisors. We all have different backgrounds and different skill sets. But overall I think we're really, really good at being attentive listeners. So just like you said, sometimes I need to work on rules and structure and need to work on this and that. Or I need to sit on the couch. I mean, so many times where on the agenda, it says, Hey, we're gonna be working on, , you know, our org chart, you know, org chart and roles and responsibilities. And they come to me and something major happened with an employee. So it's, you know, we work on zoom. I'm not sharing my screen with the document. We're just talking as humans like this hurts and I'm frustrated. And I just need someone to talk to about it. And I don't need solutions right now, but I need to just have someone listen to me because if you don't have a other leadership members in your company or you don't have a partner or anything like that, you are alone and family, you can only talk to family for so long until you're, they're like stop talking about work.
Jaime Rowe (18:21):
I dunno if you've ever had that, your wife's like, I, I don't wanna hear anything else. My husband and I used to work together and we even hired a therapist. So we could talk better about work in a way that's more fitting for both of us. So we would have to ask each other's permission. We got home from work. If someone wanna talk about work, you had to ask their permission and say, Hey, I'd like to talk about this. Is it okay to talk about it? And they could say no. Or they could say yes or they could say, how about in 10 minutes? So yeah, we are servants. And when I come into something that someone's stuck on and they need to make a decision, I always slow myself down and say, if I had equity in this business, what decision would I make?
Jaime Rowe (19:09):
Because we're non-equity owners basically, right? We're, we're not non-equity. We're non-equity partners. So we're partners in the business. And especially right now, everything that's going on is okay. If I had these 20 employees, what would be the right thing to do? You know? And right now, especially keep protecting, you know, working with employees and also protecting the core of the business. So the business is there when this is over, you know, long term type decisions like that, that's so important. They're not easy to make, you know, especially if your personality is more collaborative, which we can tell from the PI assessment is if you're more collaborative, you're gonna need to talk to someone about it, as opposed to people who are super independent, but some of those super independent people need to slow things down and ask for help and talk about it too.
Jaime Rowe (19:56):
And I'm finding what's really interesting right now, as the people who are ultra independent on that profile are calling me and wanting to talk things through. And they're the people that usually are just like, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this. And the next time I talk to 'em, it's done. I'm like, whoa, did we, can we press okay? It's done. But now they're slowing things down and wanting to talk it out. So I think that what's really important right now for business owners is to be very adaptable and be open to doing things differently than how you've done them before. Right? Because if you keep doing the same thing, now those skills aren't gonna work anymore. Just like a marketing message, right? So all these companies that you can help redo their marketing messages right now, they need it. Because if not, they're gonna sound tone deaf. So if you keep doing business the same as you have before with your same old marketing me message, it's not gonna work. So I think that's an important key component is being flexible, like being a chameleon in the tree right now, you're gonna have to adapt to some things to make this work
Max Gerson (21:06):
On Branding For The Rest Of Us. We've been here with Jaime Rowe, with Cultivate Advisors. We've been learning more about what Jaime does as being both a consultant and a coach on the second half of the show. I want to, I wanna switch gears and I want to talk about what your big idea for small business owners is today, right? We all understand maybe why we need a business coach generally, but, what is the specific idea that you want entrepreneurs who are having a hard time today?
Jaime Rowe (21:44):
I think with small business owners right now, because there's so much uncertainty and by the way, humans don't like uncertainty. You can tell by the panic of toilet paper buying that they need some certainty in having 50 gazillion rolls of toilet paper gives uncertainty that they will have toilet paper. , so we create these ways to create control in our life and to ease the unknowns. And there's a lot of big decisions that small business owners are gonna have to make in the upcoming days, weeks, months. And I think an important attribute that everyone needs to have is my big idea for small businesses, resilience. I mean, you didn't sign up to be an entrepreneur because it was easy.
Jaime Rowe (22:31):
This is not the easy route. So this is the roller coaster, and this is one of the down you're just falling. Hmm. Right. This is one of those parts of the roller coaster where you're holding on for your dear life. Your mouth is open. Your hair is pulled back. You can feel the GForce. You're like, oh my God, I'm free falling. What the hell is going on? Someone, please help me. So in order to have resilience, it doesn't just come from within, but also reaching out and getting support. So you can be resilient during this time asking for help, whether it be a business coach, business advisor, a friend, another peer, maybe even competitor. Right now I have someone reaching out to a competitor being like, what the heck is going on? Can you help me? So being in touch with what you need right now and celebrating any small wins, like any small wins whatsoever. I'm gonna tell you a funny underwear story. Just hang with me for a minute.
Max Gerson (23:29):
Oh boy.
Jaime Rowe (23:30):
So the other day I was pulling a shirt out of my closet and as I pulled it out, a pair of underwear fell and it was one of my favorite pairs of underwear. And I had not seen it for like a month because I had not worn it for a month. And I was so overjoyed. I don't know, static, clean. I know I probably need to use dryer sheets. I just hate them, the smell of them. But, so celebrating any small little wins that we have on a daily basis, you know, even if you're having meetings, if you're having meetings right now in a small business, start with, if you guys are familiar, , with level 10 meetings where you start with something good that happened in business and something good that happened personal. So really just kind of kick things off by saying positive, as much as possible because the list of things that are bad right now, or is pretty long potentially. So what can you do to stay positive? And even if you, you know, I've seen other people who start, they're starting masterminds right now. So other businesses coming together, masterminds, and they're doing email loops where they're saying, if anything good happens, they're celebrating with each other and sending it to the group. You can't talk about bad stuff,
Jaime Rowe (24:43):
You're there to get a phone call, you know, and support that. But finding that support, finding your way to be resilient in what's going on today is going, you are gonna be one of the winners at the end of this.
Max Gerson (24:55):
Things are hard right now. And no one's focusing on a 10 X growth plan, right? We are focusing on staying in the business of staying in business right now, supply shelves aren't empty because people are cooking. Banquets, supply shelves are empty because people are worried about surviving.
Jaime Rowe (25:17):
Yeah. It's 30 days. That's all I'm talking about with clients. Like all of our long term planning. I mean, I do projections out for the year, sometimes two or three years, depending on the type of business, it's all about 30 days. And sometimes for one of my clients, it was one week. How much money do we have next week? And what are we gonna do with that money?
Max Gerson (25:36):
Right. So I think what I'm hearing from you, Jaime, the, the idea I think that we want to share is that there are some, a couple things you can do while we're in free fall to help your business survive. One is just knowing that we don't know. And emotionally that's a problem as human beings. The second is that whether it's with Jaime or your accountant or your business partner or yourself, you have to do the hard thing and look at the numbers and look at your overhead and understand what possible scenarios you might be looking at. Right? I think it's really helpful to work with someone who can help you map this out because you might be right. You might be wrong. But I think the thing that's really helpful is you'll kind of know what to look for, right? You're not flying blind. You might not know exactly where this thing is going, but the type of strategy that you deliver to me and to all of your clients is just clarity for making good decisions with your business. Yes. , but when the money's not there, you don't want to do that. I don't have an instinct to do it. I mean, who, who wants to like, you know, this is a sad song you gotta write, this is not fun. Math.
Jaime Rowe (27:02):
That sad trombone noise, that's the noise when I'm doing cash projections with everyone at the beginning.
Max Gerson (27:13):
So that's one thing that you can do with Jaime, with your coach, with anybody is have realistic and hard discussions about what our options are or might be. We don't have to create a game plan, but it does help if we know what to look for. The second thing that I think just happens when people work with you in general is the anxiety and stress of being an entrepreneur. It was hard six months ago, right? Before any of this exists certainly way harder. I mean, everything is just turned up to 11 right now. And there's so much anxiety that we're all dealing with. This is something that honestly I try to do for my wife and for my friends and for people that are close to me, which is, I know you're having a lot of anxiety right now and I can't take that away from you, but, but maybe I can help reduce some of it with you. So when someone's upset, you don't have to agree with them. Right? Even if they're, you know, implicating you as part of the reason why you're upset, if someone's upset, just be the person, be the sponge, seek to know every bit about what's making them feel that way.
Max Gerson (28:35):
I know for me as a business owner, it's like, who do I get to complain to? Well, Jaime actually all the time. And what I've learned is that when it's in my head, when it's inside me, I'm holding onto this thing that I think is a huge problem. I'm paying interest on a bill that never comes due. But when you ask questions about it, when you talk to someone about it, you dump it all out and maybe it's not so scary anymore. And when that happens, you know, there's an emotional component to that, but there's also a very pragmatic component to it because Jaime is here to listen to what you have to say. And, and you're really looking for things you're listening to what the business needs, because there are a finite number of problems that exist in, in the universe, but they're an infinite number of solutions. And Jaime's always looking to combine those opportunities and challenges into the right solutions.
Jaime Rowe (29:36):
It's all about. And I couldn't agree more. It's all about slowing things down and asking questions. And you're right. Once, once you start talking about it, sometimes it's just not as scary and just breaking things down with a different perspective, because the worst thing you can do right now is be a business owner sitting at your desk. The phone's not ringing, you're not getting emails. And you're wondering how you're gonna pay your phone bill, your rent, your mortgage, even, and just spinning at your desk alone is reach out to someone, anyone to start breaking things down and getting the support that you need right now. We're not, we are in isolation. <laugh>, I mean, physically we're in isolation, but how amazing is it that for example, you and I are sitting on zoom right now and we're able to connect. I think that's so important right now, especially with business owners, even if you've been alone this whole time, there's people out there that are similar to you that just want help. So , yeah, I think that's one thing connecting more so than we ever have before is going to be something that changes forever and how we connect.
Max Gerson (30:48):
Thanks for sticking with us on Branding For The Rest Of Us, the Brand Wolfe podcast, where we promise to deliver big ideas for your small business. Today, we had Jaime Rowe on the show, a business advisor for cultivated advisors, and we talked about not only why resiliency is important, but how to be more resilient today. Jaime, where can people find you?
Jaime Rowe (31:13):
You can find me at my email address, Jaime cultivate advisors.com and also Jaime Roe, R as R O w E. And that's on LinkedIn.
Max Gerson (31:23):
And where can people learn more about Cultivate Advisors?
Jaime Rowe (31:26):
So cultivate advisors.com, our website has ton of blog posts. You'll learn more than you could ever desire about them. We have a lot of content out there.
Max Gerson (31:35):
Well, thanks so much for being on the show.
Jaime Rowe (31:37):
Thank you so much, Max.