Episode 107: How you as a Business Owner can Think Big & Act Small with Rebecca Brizi

Mike O'Neill: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Get Unstuck and On Target podcast. I'm Mike O'Neill with Bench Builders and as a coach, I work with leaders to help them solve the problems they're slowing their company's growth. The most common are people problems, but companies also tend to struggle with process and planning problem. Joining me today is Rebecca Brizi. She's a management consultant with a great bio. Let me share a bit of that. If you ask 12 Italian grandmothers for their tomato sauce recipe, you will get 13 different answers. They will all use tomatoes, olive oil, basil, but the quantities will vary as will. The one special ingredient that everyone. She goes on. Every business has to have loyal customers, dedicated employees, and proper business goals. [00:01:00] But the specific recipe is unique to each entity. Rebecca examines each business to discover what their special, unique recipe is and helps builds a plan for all those separate ingredients to function well together so that the business owner can focus on what they do best. That is their craft. Welcome, Rebecca. 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: Thank you, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here. I look forward to this conversation. 

Mike O'Neill: Well, I do too, Rebecca, and I don't normally read bios, but I love your bio because there's really more to you that I had not shared, namely that you come to this role, after spending time in the software industry, and I would love to kinda learn a little bit more about how you helped a software company grow. Because the natural aspect is, is from that learnings. How do you use that in helping, your current clients? And by means of introduction, we decided that the [00:02:00] topic for this episode is going to be around this notion of how can you, as a business owner, how can you think big and act. . So we'll come back to the topic, but let's share a little bit about your background and what kind of led you to your current role as a management consultant.

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: The, the experience in the software business, shaped, most in fact of what I do now. I joined it very much at the startup phase. It was a brand new business. I was, non founding, the first non founding employee. And the, and, and to be fair, it was a new business, very small. I was new to the. They took a bet on me. I took a bet on them, and the bet paid off. It worked, and I stayed with that business for 12 years. What happened? One, one joins a business of three people. One does many, many things and so whatever needed to be done, we just sort of divvied up between us, and I would take on parts that of the business that [00:03:00] that, you know, required attention. Within a couple years, I was very strongly trying to examine what exactly I was doing in the sense that I knew what I was doing every single day, of course. And I knew that I was bringing value to this business. What I was struggling with was defining my craft, what was my role. Now with such a small business job, titles don't really mean anything.

You know, that doesn't define a silo of work. And I have to credit my brother cause I was talking to him about this and. The dynamics of the business. And he suggested that I read the EMyth and he said, I think what you are describing is the EMyth and it'll help you give definition to this. And it did. Mm-hmm. . So for those, who are not familiar with the EMyth in very simple terms, it talks about the need for three different people in a business. And I will get the terminology wrong, but it's a visionary, manager and a technic. . So these three functions that have to exist in every business, even if the business is just one [00:04:00] person, right? They're sort of three separate hats. That really did help me start to define what my role was there and the value that I was bringing. And I realized that, the founder and eventually my business partner was the visionary person. He would come in with the grand ideas, he could see la far, far into the future, and bring all these things together. My skill that I was bringing to the table was taking those ideas and making them an applicable reality, something that we could work on day in, day out. And over those 12 years with that business, what I realized was that I was creating a system for managing a business and running a small business that. Was applicable beyond just that business. And that's really what then brought me to consulting was having developed the system, having seen it work within the business, that I was co-running at that point. This desire to say, I think I've created something now. I want to bring something to market. I have a product now that, that I [00:05:00] want to share and kind of prove the model. And, and that's what brought me to consulting. 

Mike O'Neill: Rebecca. One of the reasons I wanted to have you as a podcast guest is that we both share interest in working with entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm. , why? Because we're entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm. , but we enjoy working with entrepreneurs of companies that are growing. Mm-hmm. , and when you have growing pains, it opens up a whole new set of issues. And we had discussed well, of all the things we could talk about, why don't. Zero in on how can you think big. Yeah. While also acting small. Yeah. And so the way I would kind of describe that might be different than the way you would, what do you mean by thinking big and acting small? , 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: I can bring this right back to the experience that I just told [00:06:00] you about. I, for many years thought I could never have a business. I can never be an entrepreneur because I don't have the idea, right? Because I'm not a visionary. So what was already a big development, in my own approach to start to see what I did as a business idea, as a craft, and realized that that was something resellable the, the thinking big. It can take on many different forms. There's no right single right way, shall we say, to do it. There's no specific formula. But to start a business and to run a business, one must continuously think big one must have goals, one must want to carry this forward beyond the next two months, and six months and 12 months even so there is a thought towards longevity. There is a thought towards growth, towards ideas that haven't realized themselves yet. There's that long-term thinking and the big idea. But big ideas do not happen on their own. These are not things that one can [00:07:00] just do. These are not light switch items. So to achieve those big ideas, one must also act small. We wake up in the morning and we have eight, 12, however many hours you spend working to do a series of. And we're limited to what we can do in that time, and we have to do them in the correct sequence in order to achieve the results we want. That is acting small. That's the recognition that when we're doing the things, we can really only do the next thing that we can do in the pursuit of this.

Thinking big of this big idea. So both of those things need to coexist. People tend to be better at one than the other, and it's very hard for anybody to do both of those things at the same time because they're very different ways of thinking. 

Mike O'Neill: Now you mentioned, as, a entrepreneur yourself. Mm-hmm. The, these two concepts kind of have to work together, [00:08:00] but you mentioned that. Are probably hardwired to be a little bit better at one versus the other. Mm-hmm. , I know that you work with, with, you prefer small to mid-size businesses. Mm-hmm. , and you're working maybe with, with founders. Do you find these fi these founders, are the ones the most typically, who are the big pitcher folks? Or do you find that because they've brought you in, they may have gotten caught up in the weeds? 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: That those two things are not mutually exclusive . So, so there's that for one thing, in a majority of the cases, yes, they are the big thinkers and that's why they're bringing me in is cuz I then can compliment that and, and bring in the, the act, small part of it, and give them that plan. But, the forest and the trees really do begin to blur at a certain point. Mm-hmm. . And that is the problem with that discrepancy between thinking big and acting small, is that we look at these very big [00:09:00] ideas and want to do them as if they were an action. And so we then perform. Small actions that don't actually fulfill the big idea. So let me give you an example. I worked recently with a client who's, who's, the aspiration. The big idea was to make her business a great place to work. She had this goal, she said, within 12 months, I want this to be the place where my employees want to bring their friends to work. Hmm, fantastic goal, extremely admirable.

How does she then do that? She would go into work every day asking herself that question, how do I make this a great place to work? So she's asking about the forest, and then all she's doing is planting trees with no system. I can bring in pizza for everybody today at lunchtime. That's great. People love pizza. It doesn't make this a great place to work. Mm-hmm. . So there was this huge discrepancy between the big idea, but then the. There nothing had happened in between to connect these two. [00:10:00] And that's where you can get this mix of, of having a big idea and still being lost in the weed. So she was doing small individual things that she could do in the moment that might spark joy for the moment. People will enjoy having free pizza, but doesn't actually affect the corporate environment that she is building, not in any sustainable or long term way. So that's the, that's the the gap that we need to fill to make sure. Bringing in pizza is great, but is part of a much larger plan and is a very minuscule part of that. So build in the whole plan and work towards achieving the situation where this is a great place to work. It's an aspiration, it's not an action. And these are the two things that have to work together. 

Mike O'Neill: You explain that so well. If, if a leader has an aspiration mm-hmm. , what you're saying is, Actions that need to take place, need to be part of a plan, a [00:11:00] program, a process, if you will. Mm-hmm. . As you look at all the possibilities, let's use the example you just gave. She aspired to be an employer of choice. Mm-hmm. . And she, it sounds as if she began thinking, well, what could I do that would. , yes. You used the pizza example, but when you have lots of these ideas out there, how do you help a client take all of these ideas and put 'em into a plan mm-hmm. that is designed to help them achieve that aspiration. 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: It's a seemingly simple approach, but a little more challenging in execution. We're not very good at analyzing ourselves in our own situations, but the approach is very simply to start with the aspiration, and then I do two things. I first work all the way backwards and then work all the way forwards again. So starting at that end, the first question I always ask a business owner or founder who's in that situation is, well, what does this look like? [00:12:00] If this is a great place to work, how do you recognize that? What will you have to see and hear and experience for you to be able to say, Check that off the list. This we have achieved great place to work. So we start to get specific already. There's some specific things that we're seeing, hearing that are happening, and we keep breaking that down and we really work backwards from that aspiration into minutiae, into very specific things. Not concepts, not people are happy, right? We have to be able to say, how do you know that people are happy? And that's different for each individual. So what are those universal things we can identify? We get to a list of minu. And then we can start to work forward again. How do we create the conditions where this very, very recognizable thing is happening? How do we make that happen? Not once but consistently, and that then puts together the plan of this is what we need to achieve, these are the milestones. Those things that we will see are how we will be able to say we're on the right track, [00:13:00] and then we're putting in place the mini activities that are required to get us to that aspiration. So we worked all the way backwards to break it down into extremely specific and elemental pieces, and then we put those together into a plan that's implemented to work us back to the aspiration. 

Mike O'Neill: Your words are very descriptive, and as I'm listening to you describe the way you work with your clients. It mirrors what I understand is perhaps the best approach, and that is if you're going to aspire for a certain outcome, you really have to be very, very clear. What does that look like? Yes. What behaviors, what processes, what metrics need to be in place. Mm-hmm. , and you mentioned, did you, but if. , take the time to take it all the way back to the minutia. You'll never get there. You're back to throwing pizza parties because it seemed like a good idea. I know that's just one example of [00:14:00] how you might, would work with, with clients, but I think I'm getting a better sense. It sounds as if you're able to use one of your natural gifts, and that is to understand the importance of sweating those details.

Mm-hmm. , but don't lose sight of why you have those details in place. , and you're so articulate, I, I suspect you're very good at helping them gain real clarity on, on aspirations, what those steps look like and how those get communicated to the organization. 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: Yes. And, and you've brought in the most important part of the whole exercise, which is then sharing that the, especially with the goal of that sort. But I would argue in a small business, any major goals, an aspiration means something is going to change. So any, any change that happens in a business, getting the involvement of the people is the most important part, and being able to break it down into those elemental. Also serves that purpose of being able to speak to a room full of [00:15:00] employees, whether it's three or 30, and share a message that everybody understands in the same way, as well as collect feedback that then can influence that message. So it is a conversation. A healthy work environment is one where there is a. Continuous dialogue between employees and employer. And so yes, that's a, that's a really important part. And again, why being able to be specific and describe very tangible outcomes is necessary. Because that way the owner knows that when they're speaking to their team, they are all picturing the same thing.

Mike O'Neill: You know, we've kind of keyed in on, it's a good plan, but it's not a good plan if it can't be executed. Mm-hmm. , and it can't be an effective plan if the folks who are impacted by that plan don't really understand it and don't know how, whatever they're doing contributes to that plan. So we, yes, you sound like you in working with your clients, put quite a bit of emphasis on that whole communication. What is the communication look like? How do you know [00:16:00] it's working? To what extent is it reinforcing these aspirations?

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: I try to make sure that nothing is ever finalized in a business without the say so of the employees. Mm-hmm. So whether it's designing a new mission statement, I will work with the owners to write that, but it is not, we do not sign off on it until it is presented to the employees. There has been a discussion, and only then do we say, now we have a mission statement. The other thing that, especially in a small business I'm a very big fan of is having everybody write their own job description. Hmm. So again, especially in a moment of major change, being able to go in with each employee and say, we know what's expected of you. Right. That's the pre-work that I've done with the owner. , how are you going to achieve this? What are you bringing to the table to this business? And again, that's the dialogue. The employee has to be able to say, this is what I will do to add value to the business. And so this is what I need from the business in order to work in this way to be able to do these [00:17:00] things.

And so having them actually be able to say, this is what this job actually entails. This is what I'm good at, and therefore this is how I will accomplish this. That the employer has has shared with me. So it all has to tie in together and when we facilitate a dialogue of that sort between the team members and between the hierarchies and the reporting lines, then a lot of great information ensues. There is always something that somebody up the reporting line is not aware of or had not thought of, and vice versa as. So important for employees to understand the exact expectations that are set on their shoulders that the their employers have of them and of their performance. Yeah. 

Mike O'Neill: I love the fact that you brought up something that might sound kind of administrative and that is the job descriptions, right? But by involving the employees and them saying, okay, for this to happen, I need to be doing this, this, and this. One of these is different than I have been doing, but that [00:18:00] really kind of helps buy in because they, they basically are saying, all right, these are the things I need to be able to do. Mm-hmm. I love that suggestion. Great suggestion. 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: Thank you. I talk, I do that within the context of building organizational charts. And if I had a dollar for every time somebody has said, I thought organizational charts are so 20th century, you know, they're so passe. And perhaps an old form of doing them is passe, but instead they're so essential to, to a well-functioning business.

Mike O'Neill: Hmm. You know, Rebecca, as you kind of think about examples, it may be mm-hmm. in your life. working with clients where you or the client got stuck? Mm-hmm. , can you share an example where you or a client got stuck and what did it take to get unstuck? 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: Well, a lot of this I learned by doing so going right back to my early experience in a small business with that did not have any standard operating procedures or formal training, of course, because it was brand new and, and we were just coming in every day not [00:19:00] quite surviving. We were fine, but you know, what has to happen next? How do we turn this into a strongly sustainable business? So there was no formal training for me there. And what we would talk about as a group were, were the expectations of what we needed to achieve. And then I had to go back to my desk and make that happen. And I realized with time with trying to do that, You know, I can only do a thing, you know, I get back to my desk and sit down and say, well, I can pick up the phone and make one phone call, or I can, get online, go onto our website and make one update or, you know, those sorts of micro activities. So a lot of it was just by being thrown into that situation, forced to say, well, I have to work for eight hours today and make something happen. And with very few guidelines other than, you know, brand standard. And what we want to achieve. And so how do I decide what has to happen next and working it into those micro things? And that's part of, of how I then learned to do that and how I realized [00:20:00] that that was a natural skill of mine, of taking something and. Breaking it down and, and sort of saying, okay, but what do we mean exactly? And that is something that I find myself thinking in, in work and in everyday life. I like to understand the, the fundamental elements and really the micro elements of the things that surround me. 

Mike O'Neill: You know, you introduce this notion of microsteps. And it reminds me of a, of a book, I'm sure you read Atomic Habits. Yes. I really do recommend Atomic Habits. My understanding of the concept is that to make lasting change, you had to be prepared to make very small but progressive changes. It seems as if you've got kind of a natural gift for understanding of how to. A big goal in breaking down to smaller goals and further breaking it down to those micro steps. Am I oversimplifying or is that. App description of one of your skills. 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: It is an app [00:21:00] description and it's, and it's not oversimplifying. I think it's the exact description of, of what it is, and, and something I do and atomic habits. I agree. The, it has some very strong concepts in there, that being one of them and the other one being the. That or one other, one being that those, those habits, micro as they are, have to be enjoyable, right? A person has to want to do their, have to be incentives. It has to be easy, it has to be fun. So going back to the business, that's another big part of, it's not enough to have a good idea. There has to be a motivation behind it. It has to be something that you're happy to work on. Those micro things, some of which you will enjoy, and some of which you won't. It doesn't mean that you'll hate them. We have to understand, I always think of it as brushing my teeth. I brush my teeth three times a day. I floss, water pick. This is not something I'm passionate about or that I do for fun, but it's much better than the alternative. So there is always that element in work as well, in being able to say, we have to do these little things. We have to make these [00:22:00] changes. They're very specific, but we know exactly why we're doing it, and it's connected to a good outcome. Then the whole plan together when we do sort of step back again and take a look at it, that is a positive change. And that feeds into that, that, that, concept of atomic habits, of give yourself the incentive to do the thing because change is not easy, even when it is a positive change. 

Mike O'Neill: Now you've already guilted me cuz I think you said that you, you brush three times a day an floss and water pick I'm, I'm only down to two and so if my dentist is listening, I'll try to do a better job. You know, a as you kind of reflect on this concept of think big and act small, what might be some other things that you haven't mentioned? Do you wanna make sure that we kind of talk about. 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: The approach is quite universal and the important thing is to use it in every part of your [00:23:00] business. It's, we talked a lot about internal change. We were using an example of make this a great place to work, just as important with external facing work. One, one thinks about one's value proposition, ideal clients, how to communicate. Again, breaking it right down, moving it down into those small parts. What do clients need? What do they expect? I was just having this conversation this morning, earlier today about jargon and the removal of jargon in communicating, and it's an exercise I love to do with my clients, is to have them describe in long form what they do, why they do it, how they do it. Without allowing them to use jargon. Hmm. The fact is I'm very strict on what I consider jargon within that context. And so it does force them to be very specific. And again, think about when a client is purchasing their service or their product. It's about much more than that. And so we need to understand everything that happens before all, everything that leads up to the need. We have to understand. All, [00:24:00] everything that happens after they have received the benefit, what does it allow in their life after the fact? So in all parts of business, to really be able to get into that minutiae, into that description of the specifics, things that are tangible, working backwards, and then working back forwards will put us in that, that frame of mind where once again, we're painting a picture that everybody is seeing, everybody's seeing the same picture. It makes communicating whether it's with our. With our clients, with our investors, anybody that we're working with, it makes that communication much simpler. 

Mike O'Neill: So I'll make sure I understood what you just said, and that is, we were talking about communication, and then we also talk about jargon and how jargon can erode communication. Is that Yes. Why you ask them to look at everything they do or say, I guess I should say, or write. And is the goal to, in eliminating jargon is. gain clarity. Tell me a little bit [00:25:00] more about why elimination of jargon can be helpful to a business? 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: It is to gain clarity, and specifically it is to, let's talk about, marketing messaging, for example. So external communication, clients of a business aren't using the same language as the business itself because they're not in the business, even if they're in the same industry or adjacent to that business. When they are sitting in their office, they're using a different language, but what's more is when they're sitting at the dinner table, they're using an even more different language. If we can connect to the language that clients are using when they're at home, then we are really having a very simple and straightforward conversation. And the point is we're not asking the clients to have to perform any sort of translation. They do not have to translate from their everyday language into our jargon and to our industry language, the language we use at work or at the office. To the point that I [00:26:00] was doing this exercise once, once with a financial planner, and one of the words that I highlighted as jargon was savings account. And she said, that's ridiculous. Everybody knows what a savings account is, and they use the term savings account at everyday language. They either have one or they don't. But the point being that when they are thinking about what matters in their. Savings account is at the end of that conversation. But if they're building backwards to why they have a savings account, what are the advantages? How should they use that differently from a checking account or something else? Once we remove the jargon, that's what we're speaking to. An account in which our place where one can place money that one does not need to touch regularly so that that money can grow and. . That's a very different conversation already from just sitting down with somebody and saying, let's talk about your savings account, and it's going to create, again, a dialogue rather than just, you need a savings account. Yes. Thank you. Goodbye. 

Mike O'Neill: Rebecca, you're introducing me something that it's new to me and that is, I know [00:27:00] that marketing experts say you need to be crystal clear on who your clients are. Mm-hmm. , to really understand them and what motivates them and what. The things that they aspire to, what might be some of their fears so that you can better meet their needs. Mm-hmm. But you've introduced something that I've never heard said, and that is, but in communicating with that client, if you aspire, if I use that term again, if the goal is to make communication so clear mm-hmm. , that it could be shared around a dinner table that really, it is taken to the next level.

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: It does, and it affects the business itself because then when the business owners and the leaders in the business start thinking in that way, not just to then build a marketing strategy with their Strat, with their marketer, which is somebody different, not me, but that's an important part of it. But when they are actually thinking that way in every day life at their [00:28:00] office, now they're thinking about how they're going to develop their service or product in a way that really connects with that client. They're gonna be thinking about how. serve that client, how to solve the client's problems, all of that, every interaction they have and every piece of product development is going to be so much more targeted.

Mike O'Neill: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because this is something that has not come up, in the past on any of the previous podcasts. This is excellent, thank you. As you kind of reflect on what we've discussed mm-hmm. , and you say, you know, gosh, I wanna make sure that our viewers and listeners get certain things, what might be those takeaways you wanna make sure that we?

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: I like food analogies, as you will have noticed from my bio. And when talking about this specific fact of getting unstuck by not confusing the aspiration with the activity. I like to use the analogy of cooking specifically tiramisu simply because it's my favorite food, but it applies to anything. When we say I want to make tiramisu, that is not something that we can do. [00:29:00] That's not a single action. It is a series of activities. Mm. So I start at the end, I want to make tiramisu. I then think about, well, in order to do that, and I work backwards, I need to have the ingredients, I need to have the equipment, and I need to have the time and the place in space in my kitchen, and then I work back forwards. All right? Now I'm going to start by separating my eggs, and then I'm going to beat the yolks with the sugar and so on and so forth until I have a tiramisu. , that's the, that's the analogy that everybody can relate to because everybody cooks to some extent, even if it's just toast, we have to make a decision to make toast and then possibly butter the toast. There's always steps involved and so that's one way to think about it and a way to remember the aspiration is something you can achieve, but then it has to be built up by activities, which are the things you can actually do. 

Mike O'Neill: Very well said. You know, as people are listening and they're saying, gosh, I'd like to learn more about Rebecca. I'd like to reach out [00:30:00] and and connect with Rebecca. What's the best way for them to do that? , 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: First of all, I welcome all of that and I welcome comments, questions or your experience on anything you've heard in my discussion here with Mike. LinkedIn is a good starting place. So Rebecca Gehart Brei on LinkedIn, links will be shared I'm sure I'm on Twitter as well and quite active on Twitter at rg brei RG and my surname. And of course I have a website, which is rj brey.com and people. Contact me directly through there. The other one that I will mention is my book called Phrases for Business Success. And that's, a link to the Amazon page is available on my website, but the reason I mention it is because every, it's, it's a series of phrases, to be applied in business. Every single phrase comes with an exercise for the reader to perform with regards to their own business. So it's actually. A functional workbook, really more than a book itself. And it's a good introduction to how I work with businesses. So if the sorts of things that you heard in [00:31:00] this conversation seem like they could be useful tips, then you'll find a lot of that in that book.

Mike O'Neill: Excellent. And yes, in the show notes, we will include links to your website, to your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter handle, and I'll try to make sure we include a link to the. As well. So, Rebecca, I've as expected, I enjoyed our time together. You have a gift for taking what could be complicated and it make it sound much more understandable. And, and I'm glad you're able to use that gift and share that gift with others. Thank you for doing that with us and on this podcast today. 

Rebecca Gebhardt Brizi: Thank you, Mike. This has been great fun. I appreciate it. 

Mike O'Neill: I also wanna thank our listeners for joining us today. This is episode 1 0 7, so if you want to access all the podcasts, go to our website, bench-builders.com. And while you're there, you can subscribe to our weekly blog [00:32:00] called The Bottom Line. This weekly newsletter is a quick read and it will offer you even more practical management. So my question for our listeners, are you trying to grow your business and you wanna make sure you got the right people, process and planning systems in place to grow smoothly? If yes, let's talk head over to bench builders.com and schedule a non-sales call. We're gonna talk about your growth goals and explore practical steps that you can take now to make sure that that growth in fact, So I wanna thank you for joining us, and I hope you have picked up on some tips from Rebecca. They'll help you get unstuck and on target. Until next time.