Franchise Secrets to Leading Effectively

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1:02Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Chance and my guest today is Tiffany Slowinski. She's an entrepreneur and co-owner of three successful franchises with her husband, Jake. As a mother of four, she draws inspiration from both her family and career. Through Team Spark Advisors, she uses data-driven insights to help businesses improve communication productivity and employee satisfaction. She holds a master's in psychology from Columbia University, enhancing her experience in leadership and team dynamics. So, Tiffany, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, John.

1:39So did I read somewhere? It says you have four kids. Do you have four girls? Yes. So do I. Oh, that like never happens. Mine are grown and having babies of their own now, but it was fun raising four girls, especially as a dad. You know, I would always get questions like, oh, is that really hard on you? And truthfully, they were way harder on their mother than me. People are always like, wow, your poor husband. I'm like, what do you want me to do about this right now? I got tired of it. But anyway, so you have and your husband have a lot of history in the franchise industry. In fact, you actually worked corporately for a franchise before getting.

2:22Tell me a little bit about your kind of franchise background. it seems like you're very drawn to that model. So you must, you must think it's a positive model. Yeah. Well, with franchises, it's like, just do what you're supposed to. And like, it takes some of the guesswork out of it. My like going into franchises was kind of the opposite of most people in that I opened our franchises with my husband, their magazines that we own. And most people leave corporate America to open a franchise. I opened my franchise and our franchisor asked me to come work for them. So I went like backwards. And that was during the pandemic.

3:05And we had just recently opened our first franchise that year. And we're having a lot of early success. We were rookies of the year. Fastest growing publication the company had seen up to that point. And so they wanted me to come to a corporate level and help do for everybody else what we've been able to do with ours, which unsurprisingly is not exactly how that works. You can't just get everybody else to do what you do. So the TeamSpark advisors is primarily, you primarily use the culture index survey to work with folks. You know, there are, I'm familiar with at least eight, there's probably a hundred of those types of surveys out there.

3:50I've taken StrengthFinders and Colby and, you know, some of the other ones that are out there. Is there something about Culture Index that you think makes it particularly effective for business? So my original background with it was in my time working for our corporate franchise, we were clients of Culture Index. So I was the end user and I had done all sorts of surveys. Like you mentioned, our CEO was really big on that. And I, psych background, I always found them somewhat interesting, but I was never so drawn to something as I was Culture Index. And for me, it was kind of for a few reasons.

4:29One, it just pegged me and everybody around me that I worked with so accurately. I'd never seen anything like it. Some of these other surveys we took, there'd be like half of us in the room. We'd be like, oh, we have the same letters or we're the same. But I'd be like, I don't understand. I don't see it. I don't think we're similar. But this paper is saying it. This with Culture Index had a lot more depth to it. There were a lot more possibilities. It wasn't just your details or your social. There was degrees of things and how those traits played together. The other piece is like really what's the differentiating factor?

5:04Because I talked to a lot of businesses, like you were like, I've done a million of these things until I start talking to them. And they're like, oh, that's different. I'm really a walk alongside you model. I'm a consultant. I'm not selling you a batch of surveys and saying, hey, here's information on your team. Good luck with that. I've trained you for like an hour. I'm there every step of the way because you've got to learn how to actually put it into practice. Otherwise, it's not worth anything. So I'll put you on the spot a little bit. Hopefully you have one that you can pull up quickly. But do you have a business, a case study that you've actually worked with a business and they've gone through the work and done the work and listened to you and it's completely changed the team dynamics?

5:44Yeah, it changes beyond even team dynamics. It changes their revenue. it changes a lot of things because when you don't have the right people in the right seats that can really drag down progress can drag down everything so when I work with a company first thing I'm doing is going in and getting a baseline on the current employees because a lot of times it's this whole like okay we think we're good over there just help us with the new people until you start working with them. And then it's, oh, maybe we're not as good here as we thought. And I wound up spending actually more time working with them on their existing teams than the new employees.

6:26They always think about the new employees is what they want. But the actuality is, it's really helping them define their existing teams. And I've seen, you know, this one company I'm working with, they moved people around a little bit. They made some changes that you would have thought, are people going to really accept what could feel like a demotion or yeah, when it's, when they're going to work, like basically exploding in their brain every day and it's not working. Nobody likes to go to work and fail. And that's what it feels like sometimes for people to be in the wrong seats. We've all, John, you know, the old adage, like you take your best salesperson and you make them sales manager.

7:04Right. And they fail. Yeah. And that happens a lot. We take our best person and we're like, okay, since they're really good at doing the work, let's make them the leader. And that is a completely different skillset. And you're taking a person who's really good at what they were doing, and now are they kind of setting them up to fail? Yeah, I often find that there are definitely people that are good at doing the work, so to speak. I have a marketing agency. So that do the execution really, in a lot of cases, don't like to lead people, don't like to delegate. They love of the doing. And then there are people that, you know, they want to delegate everything.

7:43They want to, you know, have a team, you know, doing the things. And sometimes it's very difficult because there's work to be done, right? It's like, no, you do this and you do this and you do that. So how do you, you know, is there any sort of, I don't know the right trait or term for this. Is there like, if somebody takes the culture index or one of these index type of tools, I mean, can you kind of start to say, oh, you're going to be better as a leader. You're going to be better as X? Or is that actually a mistake to maybe make those assumptions? It's not a mistake. It's helping putting people into the right roles.

8:19So I get it. You can't necessarily take a person with no work experience at all, their first job out of college and say, oh, you're going to be the CEO because you have the right traits, right? They still need experience. But if you're seeing early signs of we've got data here that supports, this person will be good. in leadership at some point, you can help identify that early. And it doesn't mean they get to skip all the steps, but it's letting them know, Hey, we see potential in you. Hang tight. Yes, you have to learn the role. And I know that might kill you a little bit in the meantime, but if you work with us and do a good job, we could fast track you.

8:57So showing them the possibility of what the future could look like. When you're out there pitching this sometimes, and I'm sure you run it up against some executives that are like, yeah, this is something we're supposed to do, but it's like the feel good stuff. Go ahead. What are some skeptical executives? I mean, how do you convince them the value of using a tool like this for both alignment and recruitment? So it's really about aligning with the right partners for me. There are visionary profiles, and that's kind of the fun of sometimes having the data on people before I talk to them in that I don't really have to pitch or convince them of anything.

9:36They realize there's a problem and they're proactive and they want to solve it. They know there's people issues. I've yet to come across a company that says we're 10 for 10 on every employee. It doesn't happen. We like to think we're good at this, but let's be honest. It's really hard because people present themselves a certain way in an interview process. Social people are four times more likely to be hired. Why? They interview well. They have those skills, right? Right. So, you know, a skeptic, I'm really not going to come into you. And then we're probably not a good fit because unfortunately a skeptic at the front line will sometimes continue to be a skeptic through the process.

10:15And it winds up hindering things we don't get anywhere unless you come in with an open mind. I ask leadership, come in and come in with an open mind that we're all going to hear things about ourselves. We don't like, there's no perfect person. I've had to swallow some of my own pills, right? About who I am. And when you can embrace that and say, I've got these gifts and I'm going to work to those rather than spending all my time worrying about like, oh, I'm low detail. I'm a disaster at organizing things. Like I knew that, right? So I can have an admin that does those things for me and not beat myself up with the fact that's not a strength of mine.

10:55All right. So let's throw the skeptical ones out because they're too hard to work with. But there probably are some misconceptions that leaders have. What are some of the common ones that you encounter where people are either not seeing how to use this or seeing it as less than? Talk about some of the misconceptions that you encounter. So sometimes there's a bit of an attitude of, I just want to pay for something to fix this. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to have human involvement. Just go deal with the HR director and let them do this. And it's not going to work. I could take your money, but I'm going to tell you right now, a year from now, you're going to say, that didn't work.

11:34And I'm not going to, you know, continue working with you. Because this is top down. If there's not buy-in at the leadership level, and there's some work to be done at the leadership level, and these are busy people who have other things they need to do. But if they invest a little bit of time up front, this starts to become something that's incorporated down. If we try to start this at a lower level, it'll never infiltrate up. It's too easy to go back to our ways. It's too easy to say, well, this person has this great resume. I like them. They came from our biggest competitor, just hire them and you will take my data and you will throw it in the garbage can because it doesn't say what you want it to say.

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13:39All right. Let's say an example internally. A team leader says, I'm going to have all my people take this. You know, even if they're not trying to solve a problem, they just feel like, hey, you know, I'd like to understand each personality better. How would somebody, and again, I know you're not looking at results, but how would somebody use the fact that they have that information now to adjust how they communicate, adjust how they lead, adjust how they, you know, delegate even? What have you seen people that really embrace this do? Yeah. So knowing who is working with them, that's why it's important to involve leadership of multiple levels, because the CEO is not necessarily spending any amount of time with certain people in the company, right?

14:25So I've got to work with different levels of leadership. but you know that somebody is less likely to take initiative or is going to move a little bit slower. You can set deadlines. You can send reminders. You can say, I am over my dead body going to set a reminder, but I'll have my admin do that or I'll have this other person do that because I know myself is not going to do that. Right. So in understanding how people work, you can modify yourself to a degree. if these are people that you value and that are doing a good job, there's a certain amount of modification to your behaviors that you're going to want to make.

15:05If this person is not doing a good job, is costing the company money, you're trying to turn yourself inside out to be able to work with them, maybe this is not the right spot for them to be in. Because you have to think about as a leader, how much can I change myself before going crazy as well to accommodate you? For the right person, it might be worth it. For the wrong person, you're not going to want to spend your time doing that. Simple things, communication styles, somebody who wants all the information and asks all the questions and can be very irritating to someone who's a little bit of a quicker move or lower detail, like good enough to move on.

15:42And those two people understanding that, okay, let me at least have some compassion when this person's bombarding me with questions and not flip out. And on the flip side, knowing that person's not going to take to this. So maybe I should just send like three bullet points in an email and they're going to be more likely to respond than trying to send them something that's like 17 pages long. How much do you advise people to use this data? So let's, for example, we have everybody, we happen to use StrengthFinders. And so we have everybody actually take it, but then we also have them share it with, you know, the entire team with the idea that, Hey, here's what really irritates me.

16:22Here's how I like to work. You know, that we get kind of some of that stuff off. How much do you think, how important do you think it is that, that people are, you know, consistently reinforcing and sharing the styles, you know, of how I like to work and, you know, really kind of making sure that every hopefully uses that in a positive way. But, you know, do you find that, you know, that by reinforcing it, bringing up all the time, sharing it actually makes it more useful? Or is it, do people feel more vulnerable doing that? So the important thing to note, there's no wrong people. Anything that could be a positive, your greatest strength could also be your biggest weakness, right?

17:02It's cliche, but it's true. So there's no person I've yet to come across him that has it all. They could be more equipped for certain roles that they're going to be very ideal, but there's no person who's literally good at everything. So I do think that communication and keeping this front of mind is important because again, if you look at it once, oh, that's so cool. John's just like this. We have this in common, but in this way we're different. You're going to forget about it. And where does this really come up is when there's a dispute or things aren't getting done or falling through the cracks, or you're bringing in a new person to train and you're realizing they're getting trained the wrong way.

17:42By constantly having this information out there and being reinforced and talking about it, there's different measures. Logic is one that I look at, and that could be really hard for somebody to say, I'm lower logic. Nobody wants to think that about them, but they're also some of the most passionate people who could be amazing presenters and cheerleaders in an organization. I mean, there's a lot of good that comes from being emotional like that. But if you've got a low logic and a high logic person in an argument, they could be basically speaking a different language. They can't relate to why are you so upset right now?

18:21And why are you so calm? That's suspect. What do you just not care? Right. And that can cause arguments. So you just even be able to understand their high logic. They're going to be a little bit colder. That's not a reflection on me. That says something about them, not me, you can reason with them better and have a more productive conversation. You are in a unique position where you work with your spouse, so spouse and coworker. And there's certainly a lot of folks out there that are in that. And there are also a lot of entrepreneurs where one is very entrepreneurial, one is not at all, maybe stay at home or work in a corporate job.

18:59How often do you find that actually having couples participate in using a tool like this generates some interesting insights. Just about every company I'm with, within a day of meeting me, they are surveying their spouse and their children. Because all of a sudden it's like, my wife, I really want to learn more about that. And my kids are driving me nuts. Let's see what's going on there. So it's so common that even if you don't necessarily work together, you do, You work through life together, right? And those roles can look a little different in a household than a business. But, you know, in my case with my husband, some of this was so obvious.

19:44I'm super social, off the charts social, like top 1 % of humans walking the earth. He is low social. This would come of no surprise to either of us. We both know this about each other. but now when I'm dragging him to the 19th event of the weekend he can look at me and he'll say Tiffany you know I'm low social and you know this is draining my battery right now and I can't just tell him to shut up anymore because the data says it he's right so it has helped me to be even though I always knew that I don't think I ever understood like the toll that me dragging him around would take. And so I've become much more cognizant of like, okay, like you can't skip Christmas, but there's certain things that maybe I don't really need you by my side.

20:33It's doing you no good. Let me let you sit this out because he'll be a much happier human and he'll be more productive at work on Monday. If I let him skip it out, skip out some barbecue on a Sunday afternoon that he doesn't feel like being on anyway. So sort of along those lines, do you ever find that people either try successfully or unsuccessfully. So they go through this and somebody's in a certain role and they're really great at the role, but there's an aspect of it that they're going to need in order to progress. And it's just not there. And the data shows it. Can you use a tool or would you even advise using a tool to help somebody improve in an area that is maybe not, you know, joyful to them, but important.

21:16Yeah. So it's not to say that we can't modify ourselves at all. We can. And so through training, education, experience, wisdom, self-awareness, when I have people who are self-aware, they can more easily say, okay, I'm not exactly showing leadership traits here in some ways. What can I do to work on that? I can see now exactly where that's needed. But if they can't acknowledge that in themselves, then you're just like kind of banging your head against a wall. So there's absolutely ways we can all improve. It just goes to ask how much, how far. I had a business owner recently hopped on a call with him and I was somewhat surprised.

22:07But he said to me, you know, Tiffany, do you think I should keep running my own business? And, you know, it's sort of unusual. I looked at his profile. I said, this scares the crap out of you every single day, doesn't it? It's like, yeah. I'm like, you don't like this. He's like, no. I'm like, yeah, you're a really risk averse person. This is really uncomfortable for you. So he's acknowledging that in himself. And if he's even asked me that, okay, he's so some people could take my information and go, oh, this just says like, I'm a bad leader. like not going to pay attention to that. Or they could look at that information and go, okay, now what can I do about it?

22:41Who else is he going to bring into his company? Are there people who can help co-lead with him to take some of that pressure off so he could do what he's good at, but still have other people there? You know, it's interesting. I have done, well, I've done thousands of interviews, but I have done hundreds that, you know, leadership is a big part of the conversation. And it's amazing how often the idea of self-awareness comes up as being really like you can't pass go and be a leader if you don't have some level of self-awareness. I'm sure you have discovered that as well. Yeah. It's integral, right?

23:18You can, again, have great traits, but if you don't realize how you come off to others, that can be really challenging. I'm an extraordinarily low patience person. And so understanding now that I think before I speak, I'm a quick mover, that there's times I can come across as angry. And I'm not really angry. I'm just being direct and trying to get something done. But realizing the experience of the person on the other side is she's mad at me. And it's like, oh, I've had employees say that to me, you're like, you're a little scary sometimes. I'm like, me, right? But with experiences come, wow, that could be perceived as scary.

24:05And I don't like hearing that about myself. And it's very easy again to just say, I'm not scary. You're crazy. But if people are telling me that, then I need to behave differently. Because my quest to get things done quickly can't come at the cost of other people feel like they can't keep up. And that's really what's at play there. I just move very fast and seeing this data points and realizing they're never going to move at my speed. Me expecting that is just, it's really, it's driving too hard. It's creating too much friction. I've got, so I purposely modify myself to become more patient. Am I always perfect at it?

24:41No, but it's only through awareness that I even try to put that at least. Absolutely. Well, Tiffany, I appreciate you stopping by the Ductate Marketing Podcast to share a little bit. Is there someplace you might want to invite people to connect with you and find out more about your work? Absolutely. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Tiffany Slowinski, or you could go to my website, teamsparkadvisors.com. Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.