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00:00:00
00:00:01
Radhika Bansil
27 Plays2 hours ago
Thanks for listening to our episode with Radhika Bansil.
To keep up with or connect with Radhika:
✨Radhika’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radhika-bansil/
To stay in touch with Meredith and Medbury:
Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
Follow Medbury on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medbury_agency/
Subscribe to the Medbury newsletter: https://meredithfarley.substack.com/
Email Meredith: Meredith@MedburyAgency.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello. Hi. I say this every time, but I'm so excited to get to do this episode with you. Thank you for doing it with me. Oh my God, the feeling is mutual. So for folks who don't know you, can you say who you are and what you do? Hi, my name is Radhika Fonsel. I am a go-to-market strategist.
00:00:19
Speaker
And I want to give a shout out. You and I met through our mutual friend, Brianna, who's been on this podcast before, Brianna Dallaire, who's amazing. And of the many things I'm grateful for knowing her, one is the intro to you.
00:00:29
Speaker
Love
Coachella and Stagecoach Experiences
00:00:30
Speaker
Brianna. Hi, Brianna. So you just got back from stagecoach and you also went hard at work at Coachella too, right? Yeah, I sure did. Tell me everything. I've been in my little remote work world and here are big things happening in the real world out there. Oh my God. It was fantastic. We had a partnership with the organization that puts up an after party for both Coachella and Stagecoach. And we had an incredible activation there. And we also were the access app.
00:01:00
Speaker
So the company is Dorsia. It's a luxury lifestyle experiences platform. And We provide our membership with bespoke experiences all over the world. One of those experiences was access to this party after Coachella and Stagecoach. And because we were the access partner, we got a really cool view into the production of the whole thing and got to partner with some really incredible people across production agencies, people that booked talent, people that make these gigantic, beautiful stages.
00:01:31
Speaker
And then I got to manage the door as well, which is always a really fun time at festivals like this because you get to see people in all sorts of states. I was talking to our CTO, Dan Freed, one of the most fantastic people I've met and such a great mentor for me. But he and I were talking about dopamine releases and how dopamine is so cheap these days when it comes everything that you do. And this project that we'd been working on for Coachella and Stagecoach had been months long.
00:01:59
Speaker
And we got
Managing Event Doors and Interactions
00:02:00
Speaker
to really see it come to life. Everything seemed so vague when we were in all of these planning meetings and we couldn't really visualize what it would look like. And when we got there, we saw everything in action. There's few feelings in the world that feel as good as seeing everything like that come together. All of that work, all of the spreadsheets, the meetings, the super late nights, the frustrating conversations, and then seeing us being able to create an incredible experience for our guests was outstanding.
00:02:27
Speaker
I loved it. It sounds so fun. I know what you mean. Sometimes you're like in the thick of the planning and that is the work for a while. It's like the boring and the grind and you kind of sometimes forget for a project with some type of big IRL payoff that something cool is going to happen at the end of this. We're making something.
00:02:43
Speaker
Also, I love the idea of being at a work event and seeing people, not to presume, but I presume. and All sorts of wine dollars. you stay in all states? coming So what does working the door entail? I know you now have, we don't need to name drop, but you have a lot of celebrities' phone numbers
Vision of Technology and Real-Life App Interaction
00:02:59
Speaker
in your phone. I do now. Coordinating to get them in.
00:03:03
Speaker
It's such an interesting way to see... how people interact with the entrance to an occasion. For something as special as some of these events, there's a lot of excitement leading up to it. So a lot of people are dressed in really interesting ways. At Coachella and Stagecoach, I saw some of the most amazing outfits. and I definitely got some great inspo. That was always really fun. And then for the most part, people are really lovely and nice and have probably done a lot of drugs and are just excited to be there. They're like, I'm ready to party. Sometimes they're a little bit annoyed because maybe they didn't download the app or they didn't have a QR code pulled up or... Someone presumably will be like, I'm on a list and you have to love a little bit more information than that, babe. But I think it's such a wonderful experience. And then for us and for me specifically, I had the opportunity to be able to see the technology we were creating in real life. Dorcio's CEO, Mark Lautenberg, shout out, he's a fantastic visionary. He talks a lot about how technology is not built in the office.
00:03:58
Speaker
And it was really important this year that we sent a lot of our product teams and our engineering teams physically to go see the product in action and see how people were interacting with it. And so things
Fashion and Psychological Impacts
00:04:08
Speaker
again, that you'd seen in like a design review or listed in a Figma somewhere being really brought to life and seeing how people, especially people that have maybe had a long day in the sun and have had a lot of fun during the day trying to navigate the app store in the middle of the night. Seeing them interact with the product is just such a great way to get user feedback versus having someone sit in a room and and maybe fill out a form.
00:04:29
Speaker
All of that experience is just really invaluable. Man, very cool. How does one put together a work outfit for Coachella? This is something that we spend a lot of time talking about. Me and the girls, we were like, I want to look cute, but I want to be comfortable. This year, we had the benefit of all of our predecessors that had gone the year prior give us a lot of tips, which is we are in the desert. It is the nighttime, so it gets very cold. And there's a lot of wind, so there's dust just flying everywhere. And so the first night I was like, going to be cute. I wore like a tasteful length skirt and cowboy boots and like a cute top. And then the second day after standing on my feet for like 18 hours that day, I took my ass to Target and was like sneakers and comfiest, coziest jeans. And I don't care what I look like anymore. And that
Self-Presentation and Style Philosophy
00:05:21
Speaker
ended up being my outfit on repeat. I think just being able to be comfortable and walk around allowed me to also experience the event almost as an observer versus someone who was there. i felt like I could be behind the scenes. I had like my staff badge So no one took me as a participant. So I could walk around and observe the event from a really different perspective. There was another night where
00:05:43
Speaker
We ended up having to close the doors a little bit earlier so I could take off my credentials. and i just was like taking off my sweater and got to experience the music at 4.30 in the morning for 20 minutes. And that was a completely different experience too. And I was thinking about it at the time. It's like there's such an interesting psychological element to what you wear and how that changes your experience. like I was thinking a lot about what I wanted to wear on this podcast. And I was like, there might be video clips. Meredith is beautiful. How do I want to show up? like And I went back and forth. i was like, well, you're really only going to see a certain part of my body. How do I want to feel? And i tried on like a buttoned shirt earlier and I like put it under a sweater. i was like, maybe the color will pop out. That'll be cute. And I felt so uncomfortable in it.
00:06:27
Speaker
But two minutes ago, i was like, I just want to be comfortable because what's going allow me to have the best conversations. Like I have my feet up on this chair. I'm super cozy. I have my water. Yeah. And I'm not fidgeting and I'm not thinking about what I'm wearing as much, which I think allows me to be a lot more present. I'm curious how you think
Self-Perception and Influences
00:06:43
Speaker
about that, right? Because you're running a remote agency and you're mostly working with your clients remotely. How do you think about like how you show up on a screen?
00:06:51
Speaker
So interesting, not to be weird, but i feel like Brianna and I have talked at length about how ridiculously beautiful you are. and like ah I don't think you could show up looking anything but radiant. It's funny, Julia and I, our head of exec content, have been doing a lot more remote trainings. We do our cohort quarterly where it's three sessions with marketers and PR folks whose companies have paid for them to come learn about LinkedIn And this week we were ran one session for a sales team, one session for VPs at a PR org to just walk through how to leverage LinkedIn in a fairly succinct way. So i'm mindful to your point. I'm like, how are we showing up? We are remote. We're all zooming in from a screen.
00:07:31
Speaker
I've realized over time I do have a uniform and I really like simplicity and I feel costumey like when I'm wearing anything but the black basic crew neck and I think about, okay, what's the jewelry?
00:07:44
Speaker
I'm usually wearing Rudy pants or a Rudy skirt. Do you know Rudy? I'm told. What's Rudy? Yeah. They have these pants called on the loose work pants. They're like super cute. They're so comfortable. They look like a barrel, almost like a barrel, but a little less intense than that. yeah They're the material of a running pant almost, but you really could put a belt with them. And I could seriously go on a panel with these pants. but I love this question because I do think for me, simplicity and comfort, but feeling polished is really important. Yeah. And
00:08:17
Speaker
I have realized that sometimes I'll feel like, oh, if I need to take it up a notch, maybe same thing you did, I'll be like, oh, a collar under the shirt or something. But it just feels costumey and not comfortable and not me. And to me, being able to be cross-legged and walk fast is really important. Do you know Erin Walsh, the stylist?
00:08:34
Speaker
I don't. I've been learning a lot more about stylists, especially with following the Met Gala of like how they learn a lot more about it. But tell me more about Erin Walsh. She just wrote a book that came out that i actually pre-ordered and I think I get soon.
00:08:46
Speaker
I know of her because she was on the Mel Robbins podcast, but I kept getting served clips of her online. I was wondering if you were into her because she has the approach that's like when you get dressed in the morning, you ask yourself,
00:08:59
Speaker
how do I want to feel? and her point is that it sounds simple, but most of us might answer that from actually the perception of other people where our first answer is like, what do I want other people to think about me or how do I want them to perceive me? And she's like, you got to push that away and be like, no, how do I want to feel?
00:09:17
Speaker
yeah And let that guide your choices. And it's interesting. I'm so into this question because I have been thinking a lot about how we present ourselves and There are like no secrets. Anything we unconsciously feel about ourselves is going to come through in our appearance unless we're like very intentional about presenting ourselves in a way that's nurturing to ourselves. I think that shows up in
Multicultural Upbringing and Cultural Understanding
00:09:38
Speaker
everything that you do too, right? I obviously follow Medberry on LinkedIn and such a good balance of like your own thoughts and feelings. I think you called out the Utah moms a few months ago. yeah. That post and shouting out your clients and some of the success stories that you've seen, but you see a lot of
00:09:56
Speaker
crap on LinkedIn, honestly, of the I'm thrilled to share and just very templatized things. I know when it's a Medbury post because there's a story behind it and that story feels like simple, authentic, but gets the point across and that I think it's such an interesting art, but I was talking to someone about this earlier where we were saying, i think this is also from the Mel Robbins podcast and Mel Robbins had shouted out, is it Tyler Perry?
00:10:22
Speaker
And she had said there was an interview of his that she had listened to where he talked about how he was a janitor LA and he was trying to become an animator. and He was like really bummed that he had to kind of do this job to support himself and his family and he had a really young family at the time.
00:10:39
Speaker
And he just showed up and he just worked really hard. And he said, how you do one thing is how you do everything. Yeah. And that really stuck with me because like how you dress and how you present is probably also how you're going to present to other people. and That's going to be how you think about the work that you're doing. That's going to be how you show up in your relationships. And
Career Journey and Go-to-Market Strategies
00:10:55
Speaker
there's so many parallels across all of those elements. But what you said about Aaron Walsh talking about how we should focus on what you feel resonates. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Dr. Joe Dispenza.
00:11:07
Speaker
Like a little bit, but I'm interested. but Dr. Joe Dispenza has this book called How to Break the Habit of Being Yourself. I've recommended it to 15 people. And I go back to this book twice a year to start with it. He gets into the quantum physics and incredibly technical about those things, which I appreciate and respect, but those don't really stick with me. But his main thing, if I'm understanding correctly, is that the energy of wanting something and the energy of having something cannot exist on the same plane.
00:11:35
Speaker
And so you should think a lot about, and his meditations guide you through this, how you want to feel when you have the thing. So even if it is that you want people to like you or you want to show up in a certain way, how would that feel in your body? And he runs a lot of meditations about that. And I find that to be really helpful. I have a hard time putting words to...
00:11:56
Speaker
what I want a certain outcome to be, but i know how it's going to feel in my body intuitively. And so in the mornings, I'll wake up and I'll think, how do I want to feel at the end of today? yeah that might be I want to feel accomplished. I want to feel that I was productive. I don't want to feel lazy. I want the house to feel a certain way. I want my work to feel a certain way. I might not have specific outputs to attach to it. Like I've written five emails and sent out three decks and did really well in this meeting, but I know how all those things sit with me. And I like thinking about that. It's a good reminder for why I'm doing something. And I incorporate a lot of that into my work too. When we were preparing for this trip out west where we were going to be there like back and forth over the course of a month, there were some really like dark moments in there, right? i don't know going to be able to pull this off. What if it sucks? What if we mess up all of the what ifs going through your head?
00:12:47
Speaker
And Jesse, my partner, was like, what if it goes great? And i was like, what do you know? But I thought about that and I was like, what if? Like, that could be really cool. And I like felt that in my body of like, how would I feel walking out of this month, like all of April, having accomplished this? And you know what's crazy is like,
00:13:09
Speaker
I thought about what it would feel like and walking out of it, it felt a million times better. But having even that little inkling of like, if me feeling the way that I thought it would feel was enough, then this feeling that I have is so much greater. And that does nothing but fuel me for the next thing. And I think it really like influences...
00:13:29
Speaker
ambition and like the hunger that you have for accomplishment and feeling good about something.
Connecting with People and Personal Growth
00:13:34
Speaker
It brings us back to where we started, which is this like dopamine conversation and trying to be intentional about how and where you're getting it. But it's so easy to find releases throughout your day. Like you scroll a little bit on your phone or like the number of likes you got on a certain post. or like The engagement that you got in there, it's so easy to feel like I'm really pumped up or let down by those things, but working really hard towards something and then seeing that come to life and seeing the results of something that you had put in a lot of work for, i don't know, that's a drug you really can't place.
00:14:03
Speaker
You've just said so many interesting things. First of all, I think I've seen that book in bookstores and I'm now going to go buy it on my calendar. I'm send you a copy. i think you'll really like it. It sounds great. And in a second, I want to come back to like your go-to-market work and really dig into that. But before we do, like in line with what we're talking about, I have to say that I feel like if there is an art to magnetism, you have mastered it. You're craftsman. The way you present yourself, the way you speak and the way you listen, you have aura. What a lovely compliment. Thank you. Well, I truly mean it. I really admire that about you. And can you talk about that little bit? Are you like, oh, I didn't know that. Or are you like, yeah, okay, I can acknowledge that there's something there. Let me talk to you about how I've cultivated that. Ah, that's so kind. Thank you for saying that. I'm so fortunate. That is not the first time that I've gotten that compliment. And I think that's so wonderful and kind. I'm a really curious person and I like learning about people.
00:14:57
Speaker
i had the benefit of living in a lot of different countries growing up. I was born in India. I grew up in Japan. they moved to the U.S. as a teenager. And so I got to see a lot of different cultures, and a lot of different ways that people live and what's valued across different societies. Being a woman, I never really thought about what that meant until I got older. But so much of My upbringing, especially in India and Japan, was really focused on you're going to be someone's wife, you're going to be someone's mother, and you have to play these roles of service. And I was like, okay, that's going to be something that I have to think about. And then when I started working and I became a professional, and then especially as I started becoming a leader,
00:15:30
Speaker
I had to think about how I wanted to show up and so much of the books that I read and the education that I got was around, you have to profess these things, you have to teach people things. I was like, I don't know these things and I don't know what I should be doing and I don't know what right is and I don't know what good looks like. So I just started asking and I realized that people had a lot of really interesting answers.
00:15:52
Speaker
And just getting to pick and choose from what you liked out of those answers and then helping that to create your own answer was really cool. yeah I think about the personality that I've built and I'm super lucky because I've met such amazing people in my life like you and Brianna. I think about Bri so much. She got me into art history. It was always something that I was interested in. i thought about art a lot, but I didn't know how to enter it. And she sent some artists my way. When I went to a museum, I took a photo of something that I liked and I got to send it to her.
00:16:20
Speaker
And she just responded with what her thoughts were on it and helps me think through mine. My very long winded way of answering to your question is that I've surrounded myself with a lot of interesting people that I think are really cool and have very unique and different perspectives. And my whole personality is made up of bits and pieces of them that I loved. And that I got to borrow from.
00:16:41
Speaker
Thank you so much for saying that. But it's really a credit to like all of the people that I've come across in my life that have inspired a thought or inspired a way of being and that I get to emulate a collection of those things today.
00:16:51
Speaker
i love how you've expressed that because you've self determined a lot. You've been like, I'm going to choose how I am based on what resonates with me and how I see other people and everything. I love that. And also, i thought you were born in the States. I didn't even know that. This is why podcasts with people you know are so fun because you always uncover stuff. How old were you when you came to the States? I was 11. Oh, wow.
00:17:12
Speaker
actually moved on my 11th birthday. I remember it was a really big deal because I got to have two birthdays that day because of the time difference. It was very exciting. well That's cool, man. What city did you come to? We moved to the great old state of New Jersey, which is where my parents are still today. it was
Founding Bentley Consulting Group
00:17:26
Speaker
really wild because in Japan, i went to an all-girls Catholic school just because it was the only English-speaking school there at the time. And we're not Catholic. i I was raised Hindu. We moved to a Buddhist country and went to a Catholic school. and It was like a very strict Catholic school. We had mass every morning and like at the age of what, six. I didn't know there were other religions even. That concept didn't make sense to me because we lived in India in a very Hindu way. area. And it was so cool because similar to what I was saying earlier, I got to be exposed to a lot of different religions and ways of thinking. And as a naive six-year-old, I was like, oh that's actually really similar to this other thing in right over here. And
00:18:03
Speaker
started to see that religion really was a concept of how to become a moral compass. Right. And when you start to see some of those things that way, you can obviously separate it from the institutions that come with religion that have a lot more weight to them. But when I started to see those things as a moral compass, it was really cool to understand what does a good person look like here versus over there. And yeah, it's a lot of the same thing, right? Don't be an asshole. Try not to kill people and be nice when you can. And when you start to incorporate those into your thinking, it's not that complicated way to live your life.
00:18:34
Speaker
We haven't talked about this, but I grew up very Catholic. My family. Really? wouldn't say I'm practicing now, but that's still in my brain. It's like an upbringing, though. It's a framework in which you're thinking. I want to talk to you about that for three hours. I have so many questions, but all right go to market. You are the consummate go to market professional.
00:18:53
Speaker
Can you just tell me up till today, what has your career journey been? What are you focused on Tell me everything. So I started my career in consulting. so when we first moved to the States when I was 11, like I was just saying, My dad was in capital markets and finance, but he also liked to fly planes on the side and he just had a lot of varied interests. And i was starting to think about what do I want to be when I grow up?
00:19:15
Speaker
I remember being in my parents' bedroom in New Jersey in our little townhouse that we had and watching CNN. And at the time they were running a report on the best places to work in the U.S. The number one was Google. And I was like, I'm not going to be an engineer, so I can't work at Google. And the second was the Boston Consulting Group.
00:19:34
Speaker
And I remember being like, okay, I could do that. I could be a consultant. And when I was at school, I went to Bentley University. I created the Bentley Consulting Group there and founded that. And it was really fun. I copied the exact BCG logo and I made it the Bentley Consulting Group.
00:19:53
Speaker
didn't exist then. So I went through the whole process of creating a charter and getting funding and All of that from school. Bentley is purely a business school. So even the creation of a new group on campus has this whole bureaucratic process, which I really enjoyed that they do that because it preps you for corporate America. And it was really fun to build this whole document and build the structure of what this would look like. And then I was like, okay, now I need members. How do i get people to sign up for what this looks like? And i was a freshman in college. I wanted to go out. I would go to frat houses and I would talk about what I was doing while playing Pong. And I would talk about what I was doing while I was like out at bars and clubs. And it would be really fun. And that's how I recruited people. Hey, we're going to do something. It's not just another group that you show up to. We're going to help local businesses and we're going to just do free work for them just so that we can test things out. And that's how we get better at what we do. I had Boston Consulting Group's case in point book that I would read and they would talk through the interview process and how you have to do these case studies. And I was going to crush this case study. and How better to do a case study than to actually do some work for someone.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I remember internships were really competitive at the time. But long story short, I was having a really hard time getting internships. So i was like, I'm just going to create my own experience. I would go with Bentley Consulting Group and I would offer like bars and restaurants in Waltham, Massachusetts. Like, can we help you out with your marketing? Can we help you out with your accounting? Do you guys just need some help?
00:21:16
Speaker
and These are small businesses, so of course they'd be happy to take some free support wherever they can. and it was a
Role at Wayfair and Startup Transition
00:21:22
Speaker
really cool way to learn. But with that, it taught me a lot about how you can build a product that might be great, but bringing that to a group of people that would appreciate that product is just as important as the product itself.
00:21:34
Speaker
And that really fueled my interest in go to market. I didn't have the language for what that was or even that phrase at that age. But through that whole experience, I entered into a handful of case competitions, which is how I got my first consulting job right out of school, which is great. I did that for a couple of years. And then I worked at Wayfair for five years in their B2B division. That was where I met Brianna. And it was so much fun. We were just a teeny little organization trying to figure out how we create a program for businesses that might be buying furniture. Like I got that shelf at Wayfair. You have that pot behind you. That's how consumers will typically purchase from Wayfair. But
00:22:09
Speaker
not so far from now, Medbury is going to have massive offices and you're going to need a place to furnish and then figure out how that works. And that buying pattern is going to look pretty different for you than it does now. And so we wanted to create a system and a structure and a program for what that looks like. Brianna was like a killer on the sales side, right? She figured out how we talked to contractors versus interior designers versus office administrators. And we created a whole system that had different benefits and structures from that interior designer to someone that might be furnishing offices at a Fortune 500 company and what that could look like.
00:22:43
Speaker
We were a small umbrella under the larger Wayfair arms. It was really fun to be able to pretend like we were a startup. We moved really fast. It wasn't super bureaucratic. I had the benefit of working with some of the smartest people I've ever encountered. It was all a lot of ex-being BCG and Kinsey. And I just so grounded towards that because I was like, oh, this is the life that I wanted to live. And I got to learn from these people who have been so classically trained and how to create the mental frameworks, how to break down um a problem.
00:23:10
Speaker
into something that's much more manageable. i think consultants are so interesting because they might not have functional expertise over a certain area in the same way that like you would if you ran the company, but they're able to look at things objectively and break down a problem. They're successful in their role as usually really a really strong critical thinker. You're really able to break things down as an excellent communicator. yeah ah Some of the leaders that I had during that time, Chris Law is one of the best managers I've had to this day taught me how to think, taught me how to communicate, gave me some books that I still reference to this day.
00:23:41
Speaker
And more than anything, he taught me that like everything is figureoutable. So like no matter how big a problem is, if i just kind of give myself whiteboard and some space, I can probably figure out a solution. And that helped me a ton in my career. After that, I worked in in the startup space for a little while. went to Drift, was brought on to help facilitate and exit. We did, we sold Drift to SalesLoft, which is really exciting. was really cool to be able to see what an acquisition process looks like and we go there. and then most recently
Influential Books and Leadership Lessons
00:24:10
Speaker
i was at Dorsey, which is where I got to have that wonderful stagecoach and Coachella experience. Dorsey was a luxury lifestyle experience marketplace. It's absolutely fantastic. It was completely different from anything that I had done before, but I learned so much about
00:24:24
Speaker
the power of strong branding. I learned so much about the luxury space. learned a ton about how this industry still thinks and like how technology can influence hospitality and creating really unique and bespoke in-person experiences. yeah It's so cool to be able to see the tangible product of what you're creating. We would produce events and we would think about the in-app experience of what that looks like versus the in-person experience. And The tangibility of that workflow is really cool. What are some of the books that yourre former boss gave you that you're still referencing? And also, I didn't know that BCG had a book, but I'm like, I should read that. What was the BCG book It's called Case in Point. I'll send you a copy of that too. i have a handful of publications that I'll send you.
00:25:09
Speaker
It's in my shelf behind me. I think I have five or six copies because anytime that I have a new team member or someone join my team, I will give them this book because I'm like, you will understand how I communicate much better if you read this book and you can break down problems a lot easier once you read this book. It reads a lot like a textbook. But I think if you can get through one chapter, which is a case, Yeah. through A specific problem. Coca-Cola had this issue with manufacturing and here's what BCG came in and did for them, for example. Then you can think through how you would problem solve if you were in a similar situation. And I think it really helps you. It transcends your own critical thinking ability in a really interesting way. i would really recommend it.
00:25:47
Speaker
The one book that really changed how I speak and how I think is called The Pyramid Principle. And it was by the same woman who coined the phrase MISI, so mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive, which is a big consulting phrase that people create when you're like, have we thought through a problem? Have we thought through all of the outcomes? i was just a MISI outcome. Is it mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive in terms of all of the outcomes that you've thought through?
00:26:12
Speaker
So she coined that phrase and she wrote this book. It's maybe 100 pages, if that. Wow. Talks about how you speak and how you communicate and how to structure a response. And it changed my way of thinking because I like to think through what my ideal response would be.
00:26:27
Speaker
And i think it's changed the way that I structure my own thoughts because I tend to be a lot more organized where I'll say, okay, if I need to respond to something, what are three things that I'm trying to get across? in this paragraph right now. I'll think about what those three things are, it creates a mental outline for me, and then I can fill in the rest with whatever comes out of my mouth at that time. This book really taught me how to do that. And like I said, it's less than 100 pages, a really quick read.
00:26:50
Speaker
And she's super to the point. There's no fluff around like an autobiography about herself, which I appreciate though. Now I do want to learn a little bit more about her background. I know. I'm like, oh, that's Aura. Let's dig into this lady. That one was called, was it Pyramid Thinking? The Pyramid Principle. The Pyramid Principle. Okay. So we've got Case in Point, The Pyramid Principle. How to Break the Habit of Being Yourself. And then the other one that I recommend a lot is Start With Why by Simon Sinek.
00:27:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It's a really good book. You don't obviously have to read the whole book, though. I think it's absolutely worth it. But what I really recommend is a 10-minute YouTube video where it's like his TED Talk about the book. And he talks about these circles. You start with why, the what, and the how.
00:27:27
Speaker
And that's also really helpful for me when I'm like, why am I doing something? What am I doing then against that? And then how am I getting that done? Ultimately, I'm an operations professional. And when I think about the work that I'm doing, it's really helpful for me to understand what is the objective of what I'm doing, then fill in the rest of those elements. Because
Current Work and Future Plans
00:27:44
Speaker
then if I have that core objective in mind, i can get much more creative around the solution. I've had the benefit of having a lot of client work and a lot of fractional work in my career as well, which has been really fun. and I'm leaning into a lot more now. And I work with a lot of startup founders, but a lot of young founders or early stage founders and talking through like, why did you make what you made? I loved hearing your answer. and barry I'd love to hear it again and see if it's changed over the last couple of years. But the why there is really helpful because then I can help you figure out the how from there.
00:28:14
Speaker
I forget what I told you the first time around Medbury, but before we jump into that, just in case folks are listening, can you talk about the type of fractional work that maybe you're like feeling drawn to right now or feeling open to? I'm doing two kinds of work, which I think is really interesting, where I try to market myself as a lot more of that go-to-market strategy and operations, helping especially executive teams think through what their overall annual strategy and their annual planning should look like, with the things that they should be focused on. I'm really good at helping to devise what those plans should be and then breaking those down into goals that they can then disseminate into teams. I often find with startups, there's no maintenance phase yet, right? Because everything is growth when you're still exploring what new structures look like, new ways of working. So I do a lot of work to help founders and their executive teams do that.
00:28:59
Speaker
That has hilariously led into me doing a little bit of executive coaching. One of the clients that I'm working with, he's fantastic. What a great leader. And he is saying that he doesn't know how to communicate to his team right now. He feels like he says one thing and he doesn't know where the communication breaks down with his team. So what I literally do is I sit in on all of his meetings. and listen to what he says. And then I interview his team after and I see how the teams are working. And then I figure out where the communication gap is. And then I give the leadership team feedback on how they could be running those meetings better or where they could be operating a little bit better to support their teams, which has been really fun to leaders who take a little bit of feedback and are like willing to work on creating a great culture for their teams if they even do a little bit of work. It's massive impact. that they can have on the rest of the organization, right Because everyone's looking to them for that leadership and guidance. So that's been really impactful work. I've really loved it because it's been super fulfilling to see someone just take objective advice and take it and see how that infiltrates into their day-to-day and like how the culture of a company can change with just some small communication tweaks.
00:30:06
Speaker
I love that. That sounds interesting and so perfectly suited to you because feel like you have all the framework. You can do the go-to-market work and that consultancy, but you also have such interpersonal intelligence and finesse. I could see execs being like, can you also help me with me? yeah There's something about you, I feel it too, or I feel like people just want to be like, can you help me? it's really kind. Thanks. I appreciate you saying that.
00:30:28
Speaker
Thank you so much. I want to put your stuff in the show notes so that other folks are like me and they're like, how do I get to know this girl or work with her? They can. We'll put your LinkedIn profile.
00:30:39
Speaker
Anything else that we should put in there if people want to reach out to you? Again, i feel incredibly fortunate to say this, but all of my work has been through referral and I have not had to create a website as yet.
00:30:50
Speaker
So I don't have one, but I am working on one. So once I have one ready, I will absolutely share it with you. But for now, if anyone is interested, can find me on LinkedIn. talk about magnetic i feel like the most power move is the web websites and i know a few incredible women who run pr agencies and just the url and then in the really cool font it just says by referral only and it's like god damn us that is a power move i'm so happy that you did this thank you right back at you thanks so much for a great afternoon