🎙 64. From Entrepreneurship to Corporate Career: 6 Lessons to Shape Your Perspective at Work or in Business

the spiritual 9-5 podcast transcript

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Episode Published on Feb 20, 2024

Transcript:

Intro music 🎶

Welcome to The Spiritual 9-5 Podcast. We are here to support you in your day today, to help you see and know yourself a little bit deeper, and to inspire you to show up in what you are here to do, whether that be your 9-5, or entrepreneurship, or art, or philanthropy, or watching Netflix on your couch, or a combination of all of those and more. I'm your host, Marie Groover. 

Like you, I'm as multi-passionate as they come. I'm the founder of two businesses that are here to bring the soul back into the office. I, too, work a 9-5 in corporate tech. 

I'm also a surfer, a writer, a philosopher-artist, if you will, and I'm so excited to bring you this episode today. If you haven't, please leave the show a five-star rating, and if this episode resonates, consider saving it and sharing it with someone you think it would resonate with, too. 

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There was Marie in her 9-5 before entrepreneurship, and now there's Marie in her 9-5 after entrepreneurship. 

These are two very different instances of Marie, based on lessons I learned from working for myself, and in having other people work for me in my business, versus having been a people manager before entrepreneurship. 

This is just my experience and what I have learned, and how these have shifted my perspective and the way that I choose to show up now, again working for someone else. 

Before I dive into the nitty-gritty, let me sum up some of my learnings from entrepreneurship that I'm definitely taking with me into my work at CS. 

Number one, hiring and onboarding matters. If you hire the wrong person or don't create a clear path to a new hire success, it can be a poor use of everyone's time, energy, effort, and money. Seems obvious, but the learnings were really deep here. 

Number two, process and policy are great, but getting the job done is even better. 

Number three, if it creates more work with little reward, I'm no longer interested and I will not entertain it. 

Four, measuring matters, but understanding how what you're measuring impacts the bottom line matters most. 

Number five, time is money, yes, but so is effort, attention, and energy. Priorities and quality matter. 

And number six, it's not about hours worked or amount accomplished, it's about what moves the needle. 

Before I owned my own business, I was a high performer. I have always been strategic in my career. I've always worked really hard. I always considered myself to be, like, somewhat of a star performer. Now, I'm not saying I was the best, which by the way, now I understand why I couldn't have been, but I was always easy to work with. I did my job well. I cared. I had boundaries. I was respected. I performed. And as a manager, I was people first 100%. 

And to be fair, most of the people I worked with at Microsoft were super smart, super motivated, understood their jobs, didn't need to be micromanaged, and could be trusted, like made management really, really easy. 

So as a manager, I didn't really have to manage people, or manage them into performance, or to work, or to do their jobs, or even their workloads, but rather, I saw myself as a support system for them. And I was the kind of manager that was always people first. I had business awareness, but my style was to do right by the people, or so I thought. 

I've since learned that managing people is not about managing their workload, or simply supporting them in their lives and with their work, but it's inspiring them, and reminding them why their work matters. It's growing them. It's bringing people back to the focal points when they go astray. 

It's creating clarity. It's removing blockers. It's contributing to their expansion as people, and in their work. 

It's so much more than just giving people work, and trusting them to do it. 

And I'm sharing these tidbits because when I became an entrepreneur, and specifically when I had to hire my first human, and subsequent humans, my perspective about work, and business, and people management changed completely. 

Why? Well I think it's because nothing breeds business awareness like running your own business. 

Suddenly paying someone wasn't from some money cloud in the sky, or some giant tech conglomerate budget, but it was from my money. Well technically it was from my business's money. The money that I made or brought in for my business. 

And mind you, I hired and paid other people before I ever paid myself. 

Why? Because I was bootstrapping. Shit, I'm still bootstrapping. 

Let me be really clear. Most of the money that comes in, even today, goes right back into my business, but most especially in my first two years, I didn't actually pay myself a living wage. In my first year I didn't pay myself at all, not even once. 

I remember sharing on Instagram, back when I was on Instagram, our first $15k month, and I was so proud that TCP was billing that much money, and we were such a small tiny team. But to be clear, I didn't pay myself any of that $15k. 

I paid everyone else first. I paid the bills for the business, I invested back into the business where I could, and I saved money for the future for the business. 

And so when you're bootstrapping and growing a business and you hire help so that you can scale yourself and your work and grow your business, you don't really have time or money to fuck around. Or I'll speak from the “I” for a second. 

I didn't have time or money to fuck around. 

Because looking back, I could have waited to hire my first person for sure, but having hired quickly to scale myself, it meant that I was highly aware of dollars spent by way of paying someone else. And I was highly aware and sensitive to the impact of that on the business, like if it was helping or hurting. 

And after some real-life experimentation and experience, I realized that I needed to be able to justify every dollar that I spent. I understood COGS and ROI from my Microsoft days, but I really got to understand COGS and ROI and how they drive business decisions once I got into the decision-making set and the money was my own. 

So COGS are cost of goods sold. Things like materials and labor that are required to make a product. If you are a service-based business, you still have COGS. Say if you are a tattoo artist, your COGS are the cost of your supplies, so like needles, ink, your book of art, the stuff that you use to draw your art with, all of it. 

COGS are also the cost of your trainings, certifications, your chair fee, or space rental, your labor, whatever you do and spend money on so that you can provide your service. And I would say whatever you do and spend money on so that you can provide the best service. And so your booked-out prices need to pay for your COGS and then some if you want to be profitable, right? They can't just pay for your COGS and they certainly can't not pay for your COGS. 

ROI is return on investment. For every dollar that you spend, what do you get in return? ROI is profit minus cost. So if you invest $2,000 on an advertising campaign and you make $10,000 from that campaign, your ROI is 0.8 or 80%, which means you have profited $8,000 from that effort out of $10,000. 

You have not made $10k. I'm saying this right now because I know a lot of people who boast big money months but are not actually talking profit and are instead talking revenue. Those numbers are different. 

I used to do this too. I would be like, I made 15k this month thinking that I really did but not factoring in what I was spending in order to do that. Now if you're a service provider and you hire, say, a virtual assistant, ideally that VA is freeing up your time so that you have more time to be in the work, which ideally is work that brings in money. 

So let's say before you hire a VA, you're working 60 hours a week but only 30 of those hours are billable. Let's say you bill $150 an hour for your work, so weekly you're bringing in $4,500 before taxes. Not saying that you want to be working 60 hours a week, but let's just go for it for a second to keep a clear example. 

If you hire a VA and pay them $45 an hour for 30 hours a week, that's $1,350 a week that you pay them, $1,350. If they take on all the non-billable work to support your work and you work an additional 30 hours a week – again I know not everyone wants to do this but for the sake of this example – you will double what you bring in. So now you're bringing $9,000 a week in and you're paying someone $1,350 so that you can stay in your genius zone or your billable zone. 

That is $7,650 profit for the same amount of time worked before and after your VA. 

If everything goes smoothly and if you don't have other expenses, the reality of what this actually looks like is a ramp period, where for the first maybe even month you're working 60 hours a week still with only 30 hours billable still, and paying someone else to be working 30 hours a week, too.

And slowly as they get the hang of their job, as you trust them more, as they are more empowered, you can increase your billable time which means you'll spend less time training them or helping them or supporting them or being with them, and more time in your genius zone or in your billable zone. 

But at first you're still going to be at $4,500 a week and paying someone $1,350 a week and training them so you're still gonna be working even more and taking home even less when you first bring someone on. So hiring is a long game. It's not something that just you hire someone and boom everything's golden. 

And, I mentioned a second ago, that the amount you make minus what you pay your VA is profit. But if you have other costs associated with providing your service like training, coaching, consulting fees, printer fees, supplies, office space, software, whatever, you have to factor that in too. 

Before I owned my business, I did not think about the cost of hiring someone in this way. I just hired someone and then I found out. 

I understand now why it's so important to take your time hiring, to hire the right fit, to hire the right skill set that you're seeking, to create the most clarity for your hire, and to spend time designing an onboarding process that will make them successful. And that will make you successful because their success is actually your success. 

Their success, their efficiency, their understanding of their work, their feeling good about their work, their productivity is all tied to your bottom line, to your take home. 

Because the more you have to be in their work with them, the less you can be in your genius zone, which doesn't just mean less money incoming, but it also means less profit from that incoming money because you're paying someone else and you're paying yourself. 

Hiring someone is not just an investment of money, but it's a massive investment of energy and time in terms of training, in terms of support, in terms of clarity, everything.

It's building a relationship from scratch and trust rarely happens overnight, especially when your business is your baby and you're handing over a part of it. So it's like growing a garden, or again, building a brand new relationship to trust and productivity and fruitfulness. It takes time. 

Hiring, even if you're hiring a vendor, even if you're hiring a contractor, it's the long game. 

This is why it's equally important to fire quickly when it's not working. 

So my first learning was that hiring and onboarding matters. 

If you don't want to put the effort in that is required, it's best to just not do it at all. And I would add to that, again, fire quickly. Taking this learning to my nine to five, and especially in an onboarding period, which I'm in right now, I'm doing everything I can to create clarity for myself and for others and to lean in to action and productivity. ASAP. 

No more dilly-dallying and checking off boxes for me, no more doing something for the sake of doing it, but truly trying to suss out the work that matters and to do everything I can to get myself up to speed on what will be meaningful for the business and for my manager. That's my top priority. 

Because in corporate, businesses factor in three or even six month ramp times, like time to productivity, you know? And according to Parkinson's law, a task will expand to take up the amount of time that you give it. That is, if you think you don't have to be productive for the first however many months because you're onboarding, you won't be. If you have three months, it will take three months. 

But if you try to contribute meaningfully on day one, week one, month one, whatever, if you give yourself shorter deadlines, you will make them. And coming from the entrepreneur's perspective, I understand now why it matters. And I respect other people's time and energy and effort and visions enough to not fuck around and to show up fully right away. 

I do have to add the caveat that like we don't have to bend over backwards for other people's businesses, by the way. As an entrepreneur, as a business owner, that's the last thing I want is for anyone to be bending over backwards, working really hard, not billing time that they should be billing. Like, I want anyone who works for me to feel nourished and supported. 

And I also think it's, you know, me going into a job again, it's my responsibility to nourish and support myself. And I don't think we need to break our backs to be productive, right? I think we can give ourselves a lot of grace, but still show up 100%. And I think that's really important. 

Okay, second learning. Process and policy is great. But getting the job done is even better. 

It took me four hires to figure this out. The first person I hired, I hired to repurpose content across platforms for me, because that was eating up such a huge chunk of my time that I could have been spending directly with clients. And then I hired someone to create content. 

And then I hired a business manager. And I'm going to fully own this, this is entirely on me 150%. Because I did not map out exactly what I needed, aka, what I was doing before I hired someone to replace the work that I was doing. I didn't map out my processes, my steps, my flow, I didn't map out exactly what it was that I needed, exactly the things that these people would be taking over. I just had like, a list in my mind. 

So when I brought people on, every single person saw a void where process could exist, and saw a void where just any documentation could exist, and decided that that's what they needed to work on. And that that was the most important thing. And I will say this, that is important. Designing process is great is super important, makes things really efficient in the future. And again, we're playing the long game. So it makes sense to do that. 

But, actually doing the job itself allows the process to emerge. 

And then all that is required once the process emerges, is to document it, to iterate on it, to tweak it, to make it better. 

Designing a process around a job that you haven't done, or don't know well, or aren't totally clear on, is a waste of time and effort. And that process will either be abandoned, or perpetually tweaked in a purgatory of busy work that doesn't move the needle. 

But that's a whole other learning. And I'll even take this back to the solopreneur that spends time planning and designing processes for clients they don't have yet. So they think they know what it's going to look like, until they get their first client, and then they don't, right? Until they sell their first service, and then they don't. 

And I would say, the time is better spent in landing that first client, and letting the process reveal itself to you, and then making it better, being committed to documenting it and making it better. Process is great, but getting the job done is what matters. And personally, going into my new role at CS, my title is actually business strategy. And part of my job description is process and policy and measurement, which are some of my favorite things. And I totally understand that process is only as good as it supports the actual work being done. 

I think that process is like nature. It will reveal itself to you.

So my advice based on my learnings would be to start by understanding the work, getting the work done, identifying those blockers or sticky areas, those opportunity areas. Try to move the needle, see what you find, and let the process come to you. 

Process is great, but don't let it distract you from the work at hand. Don't let it stop you from the work at hand. 

Third learning, if it creates more work, but breeds little reward, I'm no longer interested, and I will not entertain it. 

I say “no longer” because I used to think that it was perfectly acceptable to create more work for oneself or one's team, if the work seemed even remotely of value. This was when I was in the corporate space. And again, I was aware of, but I was completely disconnected from, both the money source and the bottom line. 

I think by the way that this is something we do, create more work. I think we do this unconsciously to feel more valuable or necessary for the business or to our boss. But nothing is more valuable to the business or your boss than doing your exact job and doing it well, seriously. 

Like, don't go looking for work to do if you already have work to do. Or if you aren't sure what your work is, make that your first priority. Find out. 

Don't make stuff up as you go. Let go of the fluff. We don't need more fluff. 

Get really clear on what your work is and how it impacts the business, like why it's important, why it's mission critical, and double down. 

Having a vision for your job or your role or the work that you bring to the table is great. But if your vision creates more work for yourself or for others, if it requires resourcing like funding to support the work or more headcount, more help or more support, you need a business justification. 

Not because corporate or your boss wants to squash your dreams and take away your autonomy, but because it's not your money that you're fucking with. I used to not understand this when I was a freshie at Microsoft. I remember having this huge vision for a program that would be so impactful. 

And fortunately, I did create a business case and I presented this business case and I remember sharing it with my boss and he was so, so, so gracious in redirecting me. But I still remember being crushed and depleted and not feeling valued and not being seen and feeling like I needed to stay in the lines and like that wasn't for me and like no one was taking me seriously and no one understood why this was important. And now I get it.

Work for work's sake. No matter how shiny or cool or exciting the work seems, no matter how fulfilling you think it will be for you, it's not about you. And I really hate to say this and I think that there are so many ways that a job can be so fulfilling and enriching and nourishing, but I understand now some of the underpinnings of business decision-making and a lot of it revolves around the money. 

Where's the money coming from? What's available? How much money do we have? What's the ROI? Is this critical? Is this going to bring more money in? Why? 

And….and, and, and, this is a personal rant, but if you are hired for a job, you are hired for a job and you are not a consultant that creates more work for your boss or for other people, unless you are hired to be a consultant. And even then I would say be weary of the bottom line. 

How does what you're suggesting impact the business and impact the people and impact the resources? 

When I hire someone, it's because I want to scale myself and I scale myself by having someone else do other aspects of my job for me, like keep core and important things running so that my focus can be elsewhere. 

If I become a bottleneck because my employee has created more work for me to do in order for them to do their job, that's an issue. It's an indicator that they are no longer doing the job I need, but that they're doing the job they think that I need, which is usually consulting or coordination. Like they think that I need strategy when actually I need social media posts, or they think that I need to shift my business model when actually I just need a template. 

Those are very random examples and not real-life examples, by the way. I call this employee scope creep. When an employee slowly stops doing their job or slowly starts adding to their job to again become more valuable and from again a totally good and pure intention in place. 

So, all of that to say, is one thing that I will not be doing as I've stepped back into corporate and as I have a manager to report to at CS, is to create more unnecessary work for our team and most especially for my manager because I value everyone's time and energy and I understand that I'm here ideally to consolidate and create less work, actually, since my job is business strategy, which includes process and measurement, which is the next thing on my list. 

Learning four: Measuring matters, but understanding how what you're measuring impacts the bottom line is the gold standard. 

And by the bottom line, I do of course mean the actual bottom line like revenue, but I also mean the bottom line like the big why behind what you've set out to do, which arguably can be more important than revenue. 

For example, if you hire a social media manager and your goal is to reach more people, what does that mean? Is it follower count? Is it engagement? Is it more people in your DMs? Is it qualified leads? Is it community? What does community mean? What does engagement look like? What is a qualified lead? And why do you want those things? 

If you think that having more followers equals more sales without understanding what type of follower converts to a sale, or where a follower is in their life journey when they reach to you and when they find you and when they want to work with you, then you've got it wrong. More followers doesn't mean more money. 

We get caught up sometimes in vanity metrics, just like numbers for numbers sake, and we lose touch with the story, with the why, with the meaning, with how whatever number contributes to and affects the business. 

If you hire a social media manager, how do you want to measure this person's work? How can you connect that with the purpose for hiring them in the first place? 

If you don't know, you are literally throwing spaghetti at the wall and then reporting back with numbers that don't really matter. Throwing spaghetti at the wall is not a bad thing if you have the funds and the resources to support it. 

Throwing spaghetti is totally a necessary phase in business development and transitionary periods, and at so many different times, but when it comes to measurement, you kind of want to be sharp, as sharp as you can be. 

And if you're not making it clear how your social media manager can be successful working for you, or what they are marching toward, or what they're ultimately delivering on, it's probably pointless to have them unless you see some really big tangible change in your bottom line as a result of their work. And, by the way, no one is going to be happy working for you if they don't know what they're marching to, if they don't know how to measure if they're successful or not, if they're not sure that they're successful. 

It's so important to understand why you are doing what you're doing, what contributes to that, how to connect all the dots, and how to know when you get to where you're trying to go. That's what measurement is all about. And it's relatively easy when it comes to, say, general cogs or even hiring someone that fits in the cost of goods sold, like a VA. 

But it's not so easy when you start hiring for roles that do work, that should be increasing your sales numbers. 

What is the ROI on your marketing campaign? What about your sales efforts? What is productive?

Let me just say this: Productivity is not the same thing as being busy or doing “the job.” What does it mean to be productive in various elements or segments of your business? Where is the needle moving?

Taking time to understand these things really matters and honestly, I would say, not just in business, but in life. How much of what we do is directionless AND not easy to measure so we just don’t even try? Like, what if you are an inch away from everything that you desire, but you just don’t know that because you don’t know where you are in space and you don’t know how your location in space relates to where everything you desire is located also in space? 

Understand how everything affects the bottom line. It makes a huge difference.

Learning five – time is money, but so is energy, attention, and effort. This one is just to say that it’s so important to remain focused and clear and present. 

If you set out to do 15 things, you may do them all, but you probably won’t do them well. 

If you set out to 3 things or less, you may not have done everything, but you will have done those 3 things really well. 

Direction matters. Priorities matter. The quality of time and effort and attention and energy, it will be higher when you have less on your big list. Do less, but do it well. 

This one is hard to take into corporate where, especially cyber security, where everything all the time is top priority and really important. But I will say that as a business owner, you also feel that everything all the time is top priority and really important. 

It isn’t. Find what is. Focus on that. It’s not just time that is money, but what you give your attention to, and the quality for which you show up in it. 

Learning six – I feel like everything that I’ve said so far is really just an ode to this: which is, It’s not about hours worked or amount accomplished. It’s about what moves the needle.

There is work that moves the needle and there is work that doesn’t move the needle. Do work that moves the needle. It’s worth the time and the effort and the questioning to find out what work moves the needle in your job, your career, for your boss, for your company, in your business. 

Find that work and do that work. 

Now, I’m going to record an entire podcast episode on this one topic – needle moving activities – because I have a lot to say. And I have a lot to say because I think we get confused on what needle moving activities are. And needle moving activities are different for everyone. 

What I will say here is that they are not always what you think they are. Needle moving activities are not always what you think they are. And they are really important. So, do work that moves the needle, not work that you think you have to do. Or that other people are doing. Or that “makes sense.”

This is a lesson that took me 2 full years of like supporting myself in entrepreneurship, of not having routine or structure, to learn. I think through school, maybe, like 12 plus 4 years of conditioning to sit still for 8-10 hours a day, keeping busy and then doing homework. We learned how to fill our time and be busy and seem productive, and seem like we are doing things that are meaningful. And we were actually taught a certain feeling that we associate with being productive. And therefore, we believe that we are doing productive, meaningful things, when we are actually checking boxes, or filling our time, or doing something that maybe isn’t so meaningful, but that feels good. 

We have to erase that. 

Life is not school. Business is not school. Business is not busy work. Your career shouldn’t be either. 

OK. That was a lot. This was a lot. It’s a little different than my usual epis. I’ve been reflecting a lot on how my perspective has shifted since leaving corporate and being a full time entrepreneur and then going back into corporate, but continuing entrepreneurship. 

And I’m definitely going back into corporate with a new and different, and I think much more holistic perspective for my career, and the work that I’ll be doing. 

In so many ways, I have become empathetic with the employer (or rather, the founder, or the boss, the manager, the human behind the business), because I now know what it feels like to be the human behind the business. 

And I know that not all of you, a lot of you aren’t going to love that. This new-found empathy for “The Man.” To be honest, it surprised me. And I should reframe that. It’s not that I have new-found empathy for “The Man,” but again, after running my own business and caring about my work enough to hire people to help me, and to help me grow the work and the message, and to show up with me and for me. I’ve felt so many, like, conflicting feelings, and I’ve experienced so many perspective shifts, and big changes, and emotional big-ness and complexity.

And I have to say, going back into corporate, I do have empathy now for the work itself and for the people behind the work. And for the founder, the leader, because I understand what it’s like to be there.

But, and, I have so much more to share about how my perspective has shifted, outside of purely “business practices.” And outside of the way that I want to show up when it comes to what I’ve learned here at least.

For example, some other things that I’ve been meditating on are – Can I show up in feminine leadership, in a male-dominated industry, where historically I have leaned deep into my masculine? Is that possible? What will it look like?

There’s also the question that I ask myself which is – Can I practice what I’ve been preaching when it comes to Essential Teams and conscious leadership development and human connection and nourishment, and what I talk about here on The Spiritual 9 to 5?

And, of course there’s the question of – Who am I, who will I be, on the other side of all of this? 

There’s some big questions. So, stay tuned for what’s to come. 

And before we sign off, I’ll just give one last recap of my learnings from entrepreneurship to going back into corporate tech: 

1. Hiring and onboarding matters. If you hire the wrong person or don’t create a clear path to their success, if you don’t fire quickly – it can be a serious drain and even detriment to your biz and your bottom line. 

2. Process & policy is great, but getting the job done is even better. Do the work. The process will emerge. Process is like nature. It will reveal itself to you. 

3. If it creates more work with little reward, just don’t. And don’t take it personally when other people don’t support your vision for their money. 

4. Numbers matter, but understanding what they mean, understanding how what you’re measuring impacts the bottom line is the gold standard. Measure wisely. 

5. Time is money, but so is effort, attention, and energy. Priorities & quality matter. Less is more. 

6. It’s not about hours worked or amount accomplished. It’s about what moves the needle. Find what moves the needle. Do what moves the needle. And stay tuned for a future episode on needle moving activities. 

Again this is just my experience, but I do hope that at least some of it is helpful for you, wherever you are in your journey. 

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Thank you so much for listening to The Spiritual 9 to 5 Podcast. I'm your host Marie Groover and I am beyond honored that you are here. Please follow, save, and rate the show and if you can, share your favorite episode with a friend.

It makes the world of a difference. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you what you think about the show or my work, so don't be shy.

And I'm always here to connect and support you or your business through coaching, team building, and leadership development. You can find my work in the show notes. 

Until next time, Big Love.

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Shownotes:

When we have the chance to reflect on where we’ve been, we can find guidance for where we’re going. In this episode, Marie shares 6 lessons she has learned as a business owner, and discusses how they contribute to her outlook on work and how she plans to carry them with her into her new corporate role. 

Episode themes: Entrepreneurship | Business Lessons | Professional Development | Personal Development | Management | Work | Lessons Learned

Links:

The Corporate Psychic Resources + Pod Transcripts: https://www.thecorppsychic.com/resources-index

Essential Teams: https://www.youressentialteam.com/

Connect with Marie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmariegroover/

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The production of this episode was in collaboration with Lyndsee Nielson. Check out her website here: ⁠www.lyndseeloves.com

Connect with Lyndsee on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndseenielson/