How You Can Motivate Your Team and Create Work-Life Harmony w/ Laura Liotta

0:00They used to call it work-life balance. Now the new phrase is work-life harmony. What I fostered is a community of experts that come together and all bring a valuable contribution to the table. So it is intrapreneurship, really. Success. Laura Leota's had a bunch of it. You have to let go of the notion that you can have it all. You don't want it all. You have to figure out what your all is, which is usually different things in different areas. And then you measure your success against that. To me, that's the most important thing. And don't beat yourself up. Here she is, Laura Leota. Laura, I got to ask you first up, what is your view?

0:36What's your definition of success? Well, winning is my definition of success professionally for sure. But if I look at what's really important is creating the life that works for you. So for me, success has been winning professionally and building a business as an entrepreneur that's been successful, continues to grow, but doing it on my terms as a mother. So creating a network-based agency 25 years ago before remote work was even cool and allowing people really to have their big careers, but have more opportunity for family, not moving, working from home, all of those things. So success to me is really, I guess they used to call it work-life balance.

1:21Now the new phrase is work-life harmony. I remember when Ivan Meisner first introduced me to that term. He said, you know, I'm done with this whole balance thing. I just want harmony. Do you think your definition of success shifted at some point? Like, was it always this way or how did it evolve? It definitely shifts with age, for sure. Because I think, you know, I was always an overachiever, right? So all through high school, president of the student council, in college, I always wanted the best internships. I came out and started at big agencies, small agencies, and I just kept moving and taking risks and taking chances and nothing else mattered.

2:06I wanted that success, right? I wanted to be on the track to be the best healthcare public relations person out there, went to big companies and things like that, until one day you realize that you're hitting your wall in terms of now what is success. And at the age where you're thinking about getting married, having children, you realize purpose is more important, right? Now at my age today, I can define success completely on its head because health is the most important. So it's always health and wealth and love and family and purpose. So I do think it started really early for me, but definitely changed and evolved over time.

2:50Yeah. So you mentioned always high performer. Where do you think in your life you chose success? You know, did you, as a kid, was it in high school? Where did that happen? That's an interesting question. I came from a family where everyone were elementary and middle school teachers. And I just knew I did not want to do that. I wanted big, exciting business world, New York City, you know. So right away, I went into communications and business. And I interned at Campbell Soup Company, for example, because I just always knew that to me, my personal idea of success was succeeding in the big world of business.

3:32So I would say, I guess that hit me in high school. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how somewhere in our life we decide this is when it's going to be. And it's interesting, the number of people that have watched this podcast and said, you know, I didn't really choose success until you said, did you choose success? Is there a formula in your mind then for success? Like, is there a way that if you do these steps, it happens? Or is it, what are the ingredients you see? Well, I think success comes from being expert in something. I really think that you should specialize, become expert in something. And then that really gives you the confidence to go in and always continue to repeat that process, right?

4:17And to continue to do the right thing and to feel really strong because in my business, I'm a counselor, I'm a consultant in communications. So I better have a lot of experience to base that on when I'm giving advice and giving experience. But what I think is interesting is I never knew I was going to become an entrepreneur until I hit a wall and couldn't find a job that was going to match my model for success or my goals of what I really wanted to achieve in terms of building the life that I wanted. I realized I had to build that myself. so that was my that was my path and I think my advice to people is is you know you can be a generalist and I guess work your way up into a management position and feel that successful for me becoming expert just catapulted me because I could then come in with a level of confidence that would be you know you you couldn't hold me back yeah yeah I think so what in your mind then is the relationship between say failure and success?

5:20How do they relate to each other? Well, is there a better lesson than failure? I would say probably not. The question is, when I look at failure now, like say we are pitching a piece of business and we lose, I no longer look at that as failure. I look at that as there's a reason why everything happens, right? So the failure is going to give you the gift of learning from it. But then I feel like it's either going to say something wasn't right about that match. And so what can I do to turn that into something more positive, which is going after the right kind of client, the right kind of sales target that is the perfect match that you can't fail on?

6:06Yeah. So Laura, it seems to me that somewhere in there, your success dialogue became very internal rather than external. It wasn't about what other people were looking for. How did you make that transition? Was it always there or which way did you go? No, we're 25 years into me having my own business. So I think it probably comes out that way because I can tell you fear and anxiety was a big driver in the beginning. So I would go into pitching a big piece of business against very established, big public relations healthcare agencies. And so I would definitely have that external feeling of they've done more or they're bigger or they're better.

6:51And so that fear propelled me to doing better, doing more. So I would say it was always external for a long time, matched with this internal objectives, goals, and wants, right? And we all want to succeed in terms of getting the bigger job, more salary. You know, money is a measurement, but it's only one. So I would say it's absolutely a combination of both. But now, you know, coming on to this point in my career, I am so much more confident that I can make these decisions from an internal place of of confidence, knowledge, experience, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting how we shift to that internal frame.

7:36When you're coaching and working with people, you've obviously got to help them do that. How do you do that with others now that you've done it for yourself? So I am a media trainer for a lot of the C-suite of our clients that are in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. So I can tell you, I do really coach them on honing in on their expertise, honing in on what their special position is. And strategic communications is really not about increasing communications, as you know. It's about determining what your business goals are, who's the audience, what's the best channel, what is the right message, right, to really get them to their goals and their objectives.

8:15So I feel like all of this really does play together in terms of taking the success that I've achieved and being able to counsel people to say, you know this topic better than anyone else. The reporter doesn't know the question to ask you, to get you to your goals. So you need to take control of your communications. You need to turn the interview, the podcast, the social media posts all towards that. So to me, that's really where I think my success, my entrepreneur journey helps me do a better job today with the expertise I have to counsel people on strategic communications. Yeah. If someone's struggling to bring out their inner strength, what do you do?

9:00How do you get them to bring it out? I definitely think that you need to ask the right questions. So the person has to ask the right questions of themselves, but I ask them the right questions to get them there. And I challenge them. And what usually is the case is they're holding themselves back, right? Because they know this, or they're afraid if someone hears me say this, they might question it. So there's always that little bit of fear and insecurity that holds people back. And I just convince them that every message from every person is needed, is important because it is different for everyone.

9:41So what you're bringing is unique and special because no one has your perspective on it. Love it. You're on the Big Success Podcast. I'm Brad Sugars. We're going to be back in a moment. Make sure you click that subscribe button. It's a fact. You'll never get rich by just working for a living. The only sure way to achieve real wealth and that freedom advise is by letting your investments work for you. And as Brad Sugars proves in The Real Estate Coach, the quickest and safest route to that kind of passive income it takes to live the dream is real estate investment. All right, you're back. Big success.

10:11Laura, scaling a business. Now, you not only help others do that, but you've done it for yourself. Hands on, hands off. What's your theory or philosophy on doing that as you scale? I'm a little hands on. I always, I have to admit that I'm always trying to push the team and teach them something new, challenge them, question. So I would say I'm hands-on from a strategic and leadership standpoint, not actually tactically. But I do like to know what's going on in the business. And I think, you know, just because I'm looking at the business across all of the opportunities, I want to make sure we're cross-referencing.

10:54But I have an outstanding leadership team too. So it all works out. I think the secret to scale for, especially in my type of business, where you're a consultant, you can't scale at the risk of quality and service. So we provide a service, right? We're not necessarily selling a product. We can sell a website or sell social media. But when you're selling consulting and a service, I always got concerned about getting too big too fast and having the quality and the service suffer. So I think that's really the most important thing as we're all talking to people about helping them scale their own businesses.

11:31I want to go back with you 25 years. You started to grow a virtual business before virtual. I mean, now for the young people on my podcast, this is before the internet was really a thing. I mean, geez, Laura, I don't want to admit the fact that I had a numbered email account back then. What led you to creating a virtual company 25 years ago? Yeah. So we did have email and the internet, but we did not have video, which a lot of people I talk to now that post COVID, right? They're just like, how did you run a meeting without video? Well, we traveled more and we were on the phone and we just got the work done and email was amazing.

12:18So again, so the reason I started it is because I just didn't want to have talent from Philadelphia only where I am. I wanted talent across the country. And I had worked with a lot of agencies who were servicing with junior people. And it wasn't always the best team on the best piece of business. I wanted to create an agency that had senior people that can work in oncology or HIV or whatever therapeutic area we're working in across the country. And at the same time, I wanted for myself and others to have a life. So I created this model where I was giving everyone the ability to work from home wherever they were, and they had to come to it as like an expert, right?

13:04So they were almost these, these bringing together all of these entrepreneurs to build a business that turned out to be such a great formula for the clients, for the, for the team. They just, you know, they were working on great work they loved, but maybe some of them were 30 hours a week. Some were full-time, but wanted to stay in Mexico City or Colorado. So it just really was, the model was based on a need for what I saw clients should get for better quality and service and a need for me personally being a mother then of three children and not wanting to spend two hours a day commuting to the big cities.

13:44You had a 20-year head start on everyone when COVID hit and everyone had to go virtual. What are the top two or three things that you learned that you share with others now about how virtual business can work, how to manage your team, how to keep the team together, all that stuff? So I often say that I'm very cool with very high expectations. So if you need to leave in the middle of a day to go to a kindergarten play, I'm very cool, right, with that. But we all come together knowing that we're holding each other up as a team. So if we have goals to hit and we have objectives, all of that, to be successful in a remote business, you have to be very clear on the expectations, on what the goals are, what you're all trying to achieve.

14:33You know, we bill hourly, so there is tracking mechanisms for us. But all business, if you're going to work remote, you need to be able to track. You need to be able to trust. You need to hire the right people and respect them as professional to do their job. And if they don't, it all falls out, right, in the wash. But I think you can create an environment where everyone is very successful in a model like that. If the expectations, performance, and everything are clear, and if you're constantly, you know, being respectful. Hey, just a quick one. When I look in the back end of this, something that's quite surprising to me, I noticed that it says that 82 % of you who watch the channel regularly haven't hit the subscribe button yet.

15:20So it'd be a great favor if you could hit that subscribe button. Let me tell you why. See, over the lifetime of the channel, we scale the show and get better guests, better production, better everything by having the number of subscribers. So if you hit subscribe, it helps us plan better, do more, get better guests, and so on. Scaling production and making the show bigger is something we all want. We want more success for you. We want more success for the show. And we want to be able to get the best guests to give you the best information. So one favor, click that button. If you've watched this show before and enjoyed it, just please click that button to subscribe.

15:58hit the notifications bell and make sure you're a part of it. Because as the show gets better, your success gets better. Simple as that. I promise I'm willing to make you. Do we have a deal? If you do better and subscribe, I'll get better guests and make it a better show. Thanks for subscribing. You have a philosophy on intrapreneurship that I think is really unique. Share that with everyone because I think there's a lot to learn from you on that subject. Well, I think when someone decides that they're going to work from home, either be a consultant or join as an employee or a part-time employee or whatever it is, they are making the decision to leave the career track they were on and become their own entrepreneur.

16:42Even if they don't hire 50 people like I did and they're just, you know, an independent person, they really are an entrepreneur. And they've really come to us with a set of skills, whether it's media relations or digital and social or a writer. So this, what I fostered is a community almost, even though we're a team and many are employees, we foster like a community of experts that come together and all bring a valuable contribution to the table. So it is intrapreneurship really, because you're an entrepreneur, but you're coming into a network. And the one thing I'll say for many years, people have said to me is we love being a consultant and feeling that sense of independence and freedom, but we miss being on a big team and having a common goal.

17:32So this model really gave everyone all of that. Yeah. Now, a big part of your formula for success is retention of the team. What are the key factors to doing that in a more virtual world? Well, I think people want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want to contribute. I think that if you think they only care about the salary, you cannot assume that, right? I think compensation is important, fair, competitive, good compensation for good people. I think recognizing performance with increases. I am a very generous bonus person. We have a lot of, since we're not all together in one location, once a year, we go on a fabulous retreat and celebrate our anniversary and our successes.

18:22So I think there are many ways that you can keep everyone motivated, even in a network or remote model. Yeah. Now, a lot of that leads to, and another part of your scale and your success has been getting new business through word of mouth. And you've got some, again, some unique takes on how to do that. Give us your top few things on how we can get more word of mouth. I always tell my team that the number one new business strategy is to do a great job on the business you have. And when we are continuing to grow the business we have, doing a great job in our industry, a lot of our mid-sized clients are discovering pharmaceuticals that they're going to then be acquired by the bigger big pharma companies.

19:08So what happens is there is a lot of turnover in our industry. So word of mouth is really the number one way that we get business because our clients go to other locations. They either start fresh a new company with a new venture firm, go into another company, bring us with them is one way, or they tell other people about the work that they've achieved with Sam Brown. So that really has been the best advice. And I also think we need to use tools and be proactive, as you can imagine, as a sales expert like you are, that we need to, you know, cultivate those old relationships. We need to reach out to people we haven't talked to quite often and use conferences, pick up the phone, email and LinkedIn networks and things like that.

19:58Yeah, that's an interesting one because when I read your philosophy on that, I thought, you know, people just don't reach out to their old colleagues anywhere near enough. Do you have like a standard for your team or suggested how often they should do stuff like that? Because I just don't see it happen enough. We just recommend that you contact two people a week. We also reward on business being brought in and things like that. So there's always an incentive, as you can imagine, as with any sales. But no, we don't. I wouldn't say it's a formal process, but we have trackers when teams go to new businesses.

20:37And I think the nature of the business that we're in, which is strategic communications, counseling, C-suite issues, crises, going public, things like that, they're going to go work with someone they really trust. It is a trust-based kind of relationship. So that definitely does help. And again, if you have high quality, high service, that is your best marketing. Love it. You're on the Big Success Podcast. We're going to come back and we're going to look at scaling up. Laura Leota is the president and founder of Sam Brown Inc. Healthcare Communications, a fiercely independent midsize agency with deep expertise, helping a wide range of biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients communicate their value through all phases of development.

21:19To learn more about Laura Leota, please visit sambrown.com. And we're back. Hopefully you hit that subscribe button while we were gone, if you haven't already. Okay, Laura, Sam Brown Agency, you've worked with, put aside your company just for a second. You've worked with companies that do good and companies that do amazing. What do you see as the difference between a company that is good and a company that is great? The people. I mean, it's the people. So I think it starts with hiring. You have to hire the best people to have the best company. And that means strong leadership. And then you have to have a differentiated product or service.

22:01And in my business, some of the services are similar, but the quality of the service is not similar. So I think you have to find what really sings to your audience and make sure that you're honing in on it in terms of giving them a service or a product or a business that is highly competitive in a differentiated way. Yeah. Now you go into some companies and their goal is to be 10 % better than last year and other companies where their goal is to grow into a multi-billion dollar, you know, the latest unicorn type thing. Describe for me those leaders, the difference in characteristics of those leaders who are just going for 10 % versus those going for massive.

22:45I think they know how to motivate, drive a team towards a common goal and achieve against that goal. I don't know. This is a little tough one for me in my business because for me, my success model as we started from the beginning was really about other measurable things in your life, not just your career. If I were to look at my clients who are the most successful, they're the ones that take the biggest risks, drive everyone to have the same enthusiasm for that goal, and to keep everyone motivated. And you can't achieve that level of success without taking major risks. And you have to be okay with failure if you're going to take a big risk like that.

23:31And it has worked out really well. I've worked with some companies that have just been phenomenal in terms of taking 10 shots at a new medicine and knowing that eight might fail, but they believe in it. And then they've worked through their expertise, knowing when to leave the ones behind that are not successful and when to go all in on some of those. And then when you invest, your risk all starts to work out if you know how to invest on a scalable way to where you know you're taking your hits having your failures and then all of a sudden the two or three rise to me those are the companies that are going to do best on wall street right they're going to do best in terms of acquisition targets and things like that so i guess the summary is leadership yeah yeah love that love that so let's go backwards a couple of steps then for your business it wasn't always about scale.

24:27It was about harmony. Harmony is the new word, not balance. And when you look at it from that, you've managed to do both though. How do you manage the balance and the scale? Yeah. So I have been very fortunate to achieve a very good growth and success year over year. And I feel like I have to say again, that it goes back to delivering quality product and having really clear, good targets of that growth. So I'm so proud of the success of my team at Sam Brown. I'm so proud of what we've been able to do. We've worked on incredible, important medicines and worked with really influential people who are changing healthcare.

25:16So all of that is critically important. But at the same time, I've also launched three incredible children, you know, into college and off. And I felt like I was always here for them for considering I still had this big career. So I was able to do both. So to me, my success model, I have been able to check off the boxes and feel really good about all of it. So let's flip that then. I meet a lot of people as I travel and teach and stuff. And there's a lot of you can only have that or that. How did you develop the and mindset, the you can do both sort of thing? Well, first of all, you have to let go of the notion that you can have it all.

25:57You don't want it all. You can't do everything perfect, 100%. There's not enough hours in the day, right? You have to figure out what your all is, which is usually not all. It's different things in different areas. And then you measure your success against that. So to me, that's the most important thing. And don't beat yourself up, right? I think there's paths for everyone that are very different. And you have to determine what is success for you? How are you going to achieve that? And what are you sacrificed for? For me, you have a good team. You can step back sometimes on the business. You're no longer a single entrepreneur.

26:40And then you can spend more times on other things you love because you need to do things you love to be a good leader, right? All these life experiences, travel, meeting people, social events, going to the school and working on the PTO, all of that works together without you even realizing it. So it's not always two separate success tracks or four separate success tracks. They're all working together. and the secret is good time management. It's near impossible some days, but it works really well on others. Give yourself a break. Yeah, look, I just keep coming back to you. You can only do how much you can do.

27:20You can't do more than you can do. So take that thing. All right, I go into the fast topic now where I just shoot you a word and I want your one or two word answers to how you succeed at these things. So number one, how do you succeed at relationships? One or two word answer. Communication, my thing. So it's good. Helps when it's your thing. How do you succeed at goals? Write them down. How do you succeed at personal or self-development? Peers and peer groups. I like meeting with groups and like women leaders in other industries. I love peer-to-peer growth opportunities in that way. Fantastic.

28:07How do you succeed at health? I'm a good sleeper. I could always exercise more, but, you know, water, sleep, good food choices, and keep moving. And final one on that subject, then. How do you succeed at enjoying life? Spending time with people you love and laughing. I like it. So my final question is always this. What's the best quote you ever heard or the best advice you ever personally got on the subject of success? So I think just to keeping in the theme of what we talked about, my favorite quote is never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. I love it. I love it. Laura Leota, follow her, learn her stuff, follow her and do all the things.

28:55Hit the show notes. This is the Big Success Podcast. We'll be back next week with more for your success.