Leadership Tea
The Leadership Tea podcast is where powerful leaders share their journeys, insights, and triumphs through informal conversations about what it takes to reach the executive level. Join us every other Wednesday to be inspired by the unvarnished stories of amazing executives who know what it's like to be "the only" at the table and who have succeeded regardless. They have proven leadership experience in their respective fields, from international affairs to the private sector to academia, and want to help others create their own success stories.
Leadership Tea
Strategic Blend: Being a Center of Influence and Crafting Your Brand
Join us for an inspiring conversation with entrepreneur and coach Heather A. Kollar as we unlock the secrets to building strong and meaningful business relationships. Heather shares her incredible journey, highlighting the crucial roles of integrity, character, and skill in successful partnerships. We explore her strategies for over-delivering to clients and maintaining a quality-driven mindset while also stepping out of her comfort zone to become a center of influence. Discover how Heather’s startup mindset and strategic leadership emphasize understanding client needs and the transformative power of clear communication.
Together, we dive into the entrepreneurial mindset, where salesmanship is not just an essential skill but a pivotal component of leadership. Personal experiences and anecdotes shed light on the significance of human relationships and servant leadership in achieving business success. We reflect on the resilience required in entrepreneurship, drawing from life lessons learned in small business and marketing. These experiences have been instrumental in shaping our career paths, demonstrating the importance of visibility and networking, which often lead to unexpected opportunities and personal growth.
In this episode, we also celebrate voices like Daron K. Roberts and Tiffany "The Budgetnista" Aliche, whose insights on character, integrity, and financial wisdom are nothing short of inspiring. The freedom of extended travel and the aspiration to visit dream destinations like Dubai and South Africa are also on the table as we discuss leadership as a lifestyle. Heather leaves us with valuable lessons on creating value in business, emphasizing the importance of leaving every interaction enriching and satisfying for others. Don't miss this episode packed with wisdom and motivation, and connect with us for more enlightening discussions.
For more information on Heather, check out her sites:
www.heatherakollar.com
www.h2ocleanse.com
http://linkedin.com/in/heatherakollar
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We publish new episodes every other Wednesday.
Follow us on Instagram @Leadership_Tea for more inspiration and insights.
Learn more about us and the podcast at www.stirringsuccess.com
What you essentially want to be is top of mind for people's readiness. So when people are ready to engage with you or realize that they have a need for what you offer, you've done your part to establish a relationship so that you're top of mind.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, this is Shelby. This is a special episode because Belinda and I are sipping wisdom with someone dear to me that I met 35 years ago. She is such a good friend and, dare I admit, my first girl crush. We went to boarding school and grew up together, away from our families. She is an entrepreneur with multiple businesses, a coach and an incredible human being. She is Heather A Kolar.
Speaker 2:We will include information about Heather's credentials in the show notes, but believe me when I say she is everything.
Speaker 2:She was the perfect person to explore the topic of knowing your market and your ideal client.
Speaker 2:As we continue to learn from our guests this season on the theme of strategic leadership with a startup mindset, and as you, our listeners, close out 2024 and get ready for 2025, think about who is in your circle, who do you want to be in business with and in partnership with, what value are you bringing to the table and what do you expect of others who are at your table?
Speaker 2:Heather talks about all of these themes and more, and how she over delivers for her clients and in everything that she is passionate about. I absolutely love her leave it all on the table mindset and her commitment to surrounding herself with people who share her values. She speaks about quality outputs and building relationships, being in relationship with others, which are similar threads that we've heard in other episodes this season and in our prior season. I especially admire Heather's mantra of becoming a center of influence and her quote that growth does not come in our comfort zone. She is so centered, clear and confident in the value she brings to everything that she does, and we could have talked to her for hours, but I'll stop here and let you hear for yourself from the extraordinary Heather A Kolar.
Speaker 3:So, Heather, thank you so much for joining us today. We're really excited to have you on the podcast. I think I want to open things up really by better understanding your value set. So my first question is what are the core values that you seek in others when you are considering your business partnerships?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really great question, belinda, and thank you for having me. Integrity, character, skill is huge. As a business owner, you need people who are going to do what they have to do to get the job done, and you want to always over deliver to people. So we need to have people who are. You know, I recently brought on, actually, my former boss. I was so proud that she chose to work with me my last big, you know, fortune 100 company. We recently started working together about a year ago, and I knew she was the perfect type of person.
Speaker 1:We all have to make money, right? That's the premise of starting a business is that you're going to be profitable. But to be profitable, you have to make people always feel like they're getting more than what they paid for, and so I like people who have a leave it on the table. You know we're going to give everything that we can possibly give you know for the whatever we're working on. But those are really important qualities to me that you know when you talk about your value system, your value set. The value set is making people feel like they don't want to go anywhere else because they're getting the biggest bang for their buck. So it's deliverables, it's doing more than what you may originally be paid to do, definitely having you know the skill set that it takes to get the job done. But all of that really adds up to satisfying your customers, which is incredibly important, as you can imagine which is incredibly important, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2:I think that's so true. What you said about putting it all on the table and delivering a quality product that's a theme that we've discussed throughout this season. You know, whether you're an entrepreneur or working in government, right Like you want to make sure that people walk away with something quality.
Speaker 1:Upmost, utmost. That's like my brand. You know, when you think of, when people think of whether they're thinking of me as a person. They're thinking of the Heather A Call our agency. They're thinking of H2O Cleanse. Whatever they're thinking about, they need to know that they're going to receive the highest quality service, product, product experience and they're going to walk away way better than how they showed up.
Speaker 2:So when you talk about making sure people walk away with a quality experience, that's a good segue to the next question. As an entrepreneur, your brand is everything. An entrepreneur, your brand is everything, and so when you are pitching yourself your products, your companies.
Speaker 1:What are people getting when they get Heather? They're going to get someone. When. When I engage with people from the very beginning right, I like to look at and I share this with my fellow business owners when we engage with people, it's a production from the point that we say hello. So from the very onset of our communications, of our relationships, people need to understand that they're gonna get. They're gonna get understanding. If they don't have understanding, we're gonna pull it out of them. Because we found that a lot of people they know what they're doing but they don't know who they're serving or who they can serve best. So there's actually a lot of consulting that goes into all of our processes to make sure that people really understand what they're particularly good at. We need to understand our clients, so it's a mutually beneficial conversation and process and then they need to make sure of what they want. So once they're clear what they want, on what they want, and then we're confident that we can deliver it, then we're kind of in tandem.
Speaker 1:You know, communication upfront is so key and I like to tell people you know when you're thinking from the point of going after clients right and engaging and building a business and bringing business into your company. You should know the entire process. Things won't always go as planned, but you should know most people are not ready to buy when you meet them right, no, very few people. Some will be. It does happen. Some people will engage with you right away, but most people are not and you have to be very clear about that. If you're a business owner, it's just part of our indoctrination process into buying something. What you essentially want to be is top of mind for people's readiness. So when people are ready to engage with you, you're the first or engage with something like you or realize that they have a need for what you offer. You've done your part to establish a relationship so that you're top of mind. And there's a lot of ways to establish relationship depending on what you're offering. If you're offering lotions and potions, we'll just say it doesn't make sense to go and develop a personal relationship with each and every person because it's fairly an initial low ticketed item. The good thing about something like that is that it's repurchased right. People are going to, if they like what you have, that you can become a lifelong client and then the lifelong value of that relationship is increased If you do what you have to do, they're happy. They'll become loyal to you. But how you can build relationship is going live. You know building an email campaign, sending people coupons and birthday cards, inviting them to send in their questions. You know there's different ways you can build relationships For more higher ticketed services.
Speaker 1:Where you're talking about working B2B. Right, most of my work is in the business to business space. You want to engage people. You want to create an environment where you can introduce them to other people who can be beneficial to them. Right, you want to become a true center of influence for people so that whatever they think about, they want to think about you. Now, that's hard work, because if I'm working in a particular section, a segment of business and you know, for instance, if we take our you know H2O cleanse work, where a lot of our work is with schools, you know you're talking about plumbers you're talking about, you know, architects you're talking about people in that kind of physical buildings kind of world.
Speaker 1:If I want to be a resource for these people, then I need to have an established network with real relationships with all of these other people, right, and so for me, when you ask the question, what do people get. I'm a type of all in, I want to improve your life. After you've met me, right, something's going to change. That's going to be better. You're going to walk away with something from me that's going to be helpful, that's going to be memorable and and I think I've said this earlier when we charge, we charge. Right, we're not a low ticketed item, but I don't like to charge for everything, because we live in a digital age where people can research anything they want to research, and so part of the way you need to differentiate yourself which is a foundational element of business is differentiation is you have to give to people. You have to give Period people, you have to give period.
Speaker 1:And what I have found if we go to either of my businesses the marketing and consulting agency or my water filtration and consulting agency when you give people a lot of information, if you're talking to your right person, you're talking to your right person. For me, my right client, on either spectrum, either company is too busy to do what I tell them to do. They want the information, but they're not. It doesn't make sense for them to implement what I'm teaching them to do, so they'll take it, it'll make sense, and then they'll come and hire me, right? So it's like, if you can do it, do it. But I know they can't, they shouldn't be able to. If you're really spending the time going after the right clients, right, they shouldn't. They should know that they want it. They should have budget for it. That's a big thing, right, you want to make sure that your clients actually have budget and you know, give them what you, what you, what you can.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's really. That reminds me of a story Someone recently told me about, like a contractor who you know. People would say I'm not paying, that I can build my own deck. I can. You know, I just I'm just gonna go buy some wood and do it. And he would say well, here, for a fee, I can give you the plans and the material and tell you what materials you need. And people would get that I can't do this. This is crazy, this is really intricate and say no, now you can pay me to do it.
Speaker 1:Right, Like yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that's exactly it. No, that really resonates with me. So that actually makes me think about. You've said a lot of things that require you to really be innovative about how you think about your relationship with clients or how you think about positioning your company, and so I'm interested in how do you balance that spirit of innovation with lean thinking?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an excellent question. You know, we live in a world where we have human relationships, which to me, are the core of business and will always be and then we have technology that can make a lot of things happen Not everything, but they can make technology can make. Technology makes a lot of things happen quicker, faster, more efficiently, Right, that's why it's called technology, and so for me, means bringing on more people. When you bring on people, you're bringing on people who can generate business. This is very key, right, and for people who for processes that don't necessarily require, that don't necessarily lead to business generation, revenue streams, that's when you start to look at technology. Right, Because you might need somebody to manage the technology right, or to feed the technology. But for the most part, there's a lot of technology out there. There's a lot of companies, quite frankly, where now you're getting the technology and the management of the technology together in one for very nominal rates and that way you're growing and keeping the right costs down, if that makes sense. Costs down, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:You know, being a salesperson is one of the most profitable things and every business owner is a salesperson. If you are running a business and you think you're not a salesperson, you must, you know. You got to look at that differently Because you're going to be selling the idea, even if you're not out there selling to customers. You're selling to your team, right? So, being a salesperson, getting people to take action on what you're saying, what you know, what you're dishing out, what you're selling, what you're cooking up, you know, is very powerful. It's a very powerful thing to get people to act. And those are, you know, to me, that's the balance. To me, that's the balance.
Speaker 2:You spend money where the money's going to be made. You dropped a lot of nuggets that are so applicable, whether you're talking entrepreneurship or diplomacy, in terms of, you know, being a salesperson, both to your customers and to your team most often it's to your team, right? It's like trying to rally people to row in the same direction. You know in in terms of trying to accomplish your goals, but also you know the human relationship part that you mentioned. That's that is central to everything that Belinda and I have done. You know, when it comes to diplomacy and your point about becoming a center of influence, I also I love that. That's going to be on my weekly post-it note for this week, because it's so applicable across the board.
Speaker 1:I have tried so many different ways and, shelby, you've known me forever, so I've you know. I've always I think I've always been a giving person. But when you're in business unless somebody proves that they don't deserve your time and your energy which that can happen too but unless they do that, then you really have to give it all you can, because it's part of the servant leadership which I think is the best way to lead. It's been proven to me when you stop counting the pennies and you just focus on the big goals, there's someone who's going to come along and help you that you can't help. And those people show up when you've spent all that you have and they see how you're working, because you know you don't want to fall into the. It's like a well where you think you know oh, this person, I helped this person and they can't help me back, and it's like duh that's usually the way it goes Exactly.
Speaker 2:There are people who have helped you that you couldn't do anything for Couldn't do anything for. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know I'm saying this now all from a position of surviving, you know, to my third and fourth company, and in between I went back to work. You know, in corporate America it's being an entrepreneur is very challenging it to. For me it takes everything that you have, but the model, the opportunity is so worth it, it's so worth it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've said a couple of times that you know entrepreneurship is not easy and it's not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1:I feel you must be tested. I feel there's something about it. It's like you've got to be broken. You will not. Very few people, you know. I know people who had nothing, made it, lost it, lost it all, had to get it back. It's just something about being an entrepreneur, you know, it's something about it.
Speaker 3:I love that. It's inspiring. So what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 1:then say your 35-year-old self on having this startup mindset towards all the things that you've built. I think I did have it by then. I was working in and I actually that is how I got it, because I actually got. I was closing down my hair salon, right, shelby, I was closing down my hair salon, um, and I went to a Fordham alumni event. So I learned a long time ago, right, and I think I shared this. We probably have some synergies here, belinda.
Speaker 1:You know, with marketing, I learned a long time ago when I first started getting pulled into entrepreneurialism, which was honestly through my grandmother and my mother. Right, my grandmother was an Avon lady and then my mom is still an entrepreneur, but she was like you know, we're living in the South Bronx, she's a single mom. You know, education was obviously like you are going to be educated one way or another. Even your friends are going to be educated if they step in this house. Right, this is what goes on here. But she was always very committed to making it Right, and so I just grew up, you know, learning about business. It was very small business, but you have something, you sell it, you get money, you get more. There's a profit involved in that and I learned by going through like the SBDC and the SBA and all these things and as a teenager really, that um, you can have the best thing on the planet, the best thing on the planet, but if nobody knows about it it's not going to help you and it's not going to help them. And so I began to understand you know marketing very early. So, fast forward to about 35, I'm closing down my hair, so that's not done yet, but I'm closing it down.
Speaker 1:And I go to a Fordham event and did my undergraduate at Fordham and me and this guy just start talking and talking and come to find out he is. And I had said to myself mentally, spiritually, I was like, yeah, I probably should go into marketing now. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was like probably going to market. So we start talking and we're just, we're just talking life. And he's like, have you ever done marketing? And I was like, well, I've always done it for myself, we've done pretty good at it for the companies. And he's like I think I want to hire you, with my ex at the time, literally like 20 minutes from where I ended up living, and so all of that fortuitously just worked out and I made that company a lot of money actually.
Speaker 1:You know, there's things when you talk about being having the entrepreneurial mindset in companies and I've worked in that, was been very blessed to work in very good companies and there is a point where being an employee is a great thing, you know you don't have to pay for the pens or the computers, but there's a lot more to it than that. But sometimes the processes are so heavy. It's like what do we want to do? Like where's okay, this is where we want to go, let's just get to the solution. Because as an entrepreneur, it's like I need people in my business buying stuff, like now, and so you might not be selling anything.
Speaker 1:And in that role I was. I was helping the salespeople in the financial services team to sell their products to people. But it wasn't about flyers, right, it wasn't about graphic design, I mean all that stuff we needed, but it was like how are you going to get in front of these people? And so we were able to create some, some events for them that actually led to quite a lot of revenue for them. So you have to, you know, and I think that really changed the way that they looked at marketing, because to them it was always just a call center. You have to be able to get to the solution and own it. I think that's the issue that I had my first job. I took a year off right after Exeter Shelby and I just thought I was too good for my britches this is in the early 90s. I was making like $ my britches this is in the early 90s. I was making like 20 something dollars an hour, right Working in a medical billing department of a major hospital in New York. And everybody was, and please.
Speaker 2:I remember that.
Speaker 1:You remember that? Yeah, this was right after our internship. So, Belinda, I actually interned with Shelby down in DC when I was in Senator Lautenberg's office. That's another perfect example of this. You, just you got to own it. You got to get it done. You know, I've never used that phrase. It's above my pay grade, Even if it is. Go find out whose pay grade it is and update them. Pass it off, be the quarterback to something you know.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it. You got to just own it. There's so many people who are like that's not in my job description or they're just trying to push it off their desk without thinking about anything. It's like okay, you actually have the intellectual capacity to do this thing. Why are you just focused on shifting things away from yourself just to I don't know?
Speaker 1:Or at least package it up and get it to the person Right, so that they don't have to go do the research or figure out the problem or like. Package it up and get it to the right person Right. Yes, package it up, because growth does not come in our comfort zone. It just does not. That's an oxymoron.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, that's a whole word.
Speaker 1:That is a whole word.
Speaker 2:That is a whole word and grow now. You ladies know that. So we're gonna shift to a more light-hearted part of the conversation, um, and go to our lightning round questions. Uh, so I'm going to ask you a question about football. I don't even remember if you watch football, but it's football season, american football. So pick a team the Jets, the Giants or the Bills.
Speaker 1:I got to go with the Giants. Of course I got to go with the Giants. Okay, I got to go with the Giants. Okay, I got to go with the Giants. But I'm Yankees all day. Yankees, bonds, bombers, all day.
Speaker 2:I knew that was coming. I was wondering if we were going to have a New York Metro subway what do we call it?
Speaker 1:World Series, world Series yeah, that would have been great. I just need them to win. Let's go, yankees yes, love it.
Speaker 2:I'm a big baseball fan okay, okay, you voted for the yankees?
Speaker 1:oh no, that sounds like a no, that's a no.
Speaker 3:It's a no for me. I'm a cubs fan, but that's it's all good okay, oh no, c girl, you die hard. Die hard, die hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I want to tap into your LinkedIn expertise. What's one of your favorite LinkedIn voices?
Speaker 1:So I have two I really like. I've been following this guy named Darren K Roberts for a while. He is he is I believe he went to Harvard Law, but he's definitely went to Harvard. Then he went to the NFL as a coach and then he became a keynote speaker. But I've watched him progress over years and he's he has this, this theme, Right. It's kind of like almost his podcast. He has a top voice and it's called this Is Not About Sports and but they're all sports clips. Right, they're all sports clips, but it's not about sports, because it's always about the character, the integrity, the relationship, the spirit. Like it's all about these intangible qualities that make sports great, that makes people great. And I've just been like wow, it's been so amazing. I've watched his career grow. He's reachable, very responsive so that's always good, you know and interactive, which is great. And the other one is a woman I've known for a long time. She's been incredible Tiffany, um, the budget, Nista, Alishay, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes so she's actually from right around Newark.
Speaker 1:She actually came up to the hair salon one time, to one or two times, um, but she's. She had explosive growth. She experienced just incredible tragedy and I was watching her today, um talk about how having a budget is like having a mama, cause a mama will say you'll say ma, can I do this? And she'll say yes, after you do that you know, mama, can I do this?
Speaker 1:Yes, when you do this Right. And so creating that discipline around your budget, your budget should, your money should be there to serve you after you do certain things right. So it was just really good. So those two I would.
Speaker 3:I would vote for those two yeah, I've definitely followed her for years and her podcast uh-huh from the Netflix show she was in, I think a year or so ago oh, I didn't even know about that one nice yeah yeah, there's an. I have to pull up the name. I'll. I I'll probably put it in the show notes, but it was really good. Yeah, she's been through a lot.
Speaker 1:Yes, she has been, Thanks.
Speaker 2:So what's a trip destination on your bucket list?
Speaker 1:Well, we talked about Morocco and y'all made it seem, you know, so attainable and glorious. So the New Yorker in me, I would say, my girlfriend just came back, I want to go to Dubai and get all this gold. So apparently you can get really nice gold and you know I'm a yellow gold girl. You know you said you can, belinda, and I know that we'll definitely appreciate. And besides that, I've just heard fabulous things about Dubai. So probably Dubai, if it wasn't Dubai, say South Africa, which I haven't been to either.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, south Africa is on my bucket list, for sure.
Speaker 3:Maybe we go together, Shelby.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love it all those options are great, yeah, and they could all be put into one trip, like there's flights well, this is the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is that when I do take a trip like that, I um, I'm probably gonna go for at least a month, right, three weeks to a month, because it just doesn't make sense to do anything else. I was very spoiled. I think my first international trip was intentionally to Africa. I didn't care where I was going, but I ended up in Ghana and I was there for five months. So now I'm just like I need to be somewhere for a very long time. You know, you two ladies diplomats have spent significant periods of time and it's just different, you know in foreign countries.
Speaker 1:So, but that's what's possible. Being an entrepreneur especially, I learned through the hair salon I am not to be tied to a brick and mortar. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we don't have to be, so yeah.
Speaker 3:That's wonderful. So we like to end by asking you to fill in the blank to this question or this comment.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Leadership is.
Speaker 1:Leadership is a way of life.
Speaker 2:That's a mic drop.
Speaker 3:That makes sense. That gives us a lot to think about.
Speaker 1:Leadership is a way of life. You're not supposed to be the leader in everything. Obviously, sometimes you need to be led, but for me it's leadership is a way in everything. Obviously, sometimes you need to be led, but for me, leadership is a way of life and simply to me that means you show up and you do everything you can in this situation. Sometimes, I might mean finding the right person, if it's not you.
Speaker 3:I love it. You brought the New York energy to that question. I love it. You brought the New York energy to that question. How so? How so? Right, it was just there. Leadership is a way of life. Like the situation and you see where you can fit in. You can get in, fit in and be of use and be of value, and sometimes your value is not leading Right. I love it.
Speaker 2:Those are facts, facts well, um heather.
Speaker 3:Let me be the first to say thank you so much for joining us thank you, ladies, so much.
Speaker 3:Hey everyone, this is Belinda. I wanted to share a few of my thoughts from that really amazing episode that we just had with Heather, and just I wanted to share with you a few of the words that just struck me as she was speaking, the first of which is leadership is a way of life. Speaking the first of which is leadership is a way of life. I think that is something that we need to remember that the way that we carry ourselves, what we want to see from the leaders around us and from our teams, these things have to happen all the time. We have to believe in the leadership values that we have and live them every day. She said at one point growth does not come in our comfort zone, and again, that is something that it seems like we should know that, but when you're living it, it's very difficult. I think that it's something to keep in mind that if we just continue the same patterns over and over and over again, there's no growth in that. There's no change in that we need to continue to push and stretch ourselves.
Speaker 3:I was personally struck when she noted that you should stop counting pennies and just focus on your big goals. It's always important to just come back to fundamentals. So much of what she said is about knowing your values, knowing what you stand for, really standing in that and coming back to that over and over and over again and ignoring distractions. And then something that I'm learning as an entrepreneur that she really brought home for me is that to be profitable, you have to make people feel like they're getting more than what they paid for.
Speaker 3:I know that I'm the kind of person who I really want to show value. I really want to do my best wherever I am. I want you to walk away from any experience with me feeling that you were enriched somehow by that interaction, and so I think, as I think about building and scaling my own business, it's really important to not count the pennies, to stay rooted in my goals and to always remember that my fundamental effort is about really helping people and having an impact. Well, look, that concludes today's episode. You can always find us at StirringSuccesscom or on Instagram at Leadership, underscore T. We'll be back soon with more episodes, but I want to thank you again for joining us. See you soon, thanks, bye.
