We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin Diehl. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.

Alright, Erin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

This is such an interesting question because I think about this a lot. I feel very OK with asking friends and family to support our business when it comes to things that are easy, like social media for example. I send a post that we create on Instagram to a group of about 10 people every single day asking them to like and comment because it just helps the algorithm show the post to more people. And the more likes and comments you get within the first hour of it being posted, the better it performs overall. So, things like that I am very comfortable asking friends and family to support.

I also invite family and friends to events like our book launch parties and public showcases. It’s rewarding to show them and have them be a part of the things that I work on when I’m away from them.

But I think most importantly, the underlying current to all of this is that I make it a point to surround myself with supportive people. And I give that love right back to them as well. If they have an idea or a major life event happen, I’m right there in the hypothetical front row clapping for them. They do this for me, too.

I think this is one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as I’ve grown older: if it isn’t a mutually supportive relationship, then there isn’t room for it in my life.

Nicole on my team has said, “I clap until it’s my turn. And then when it’s my turn, I keep clapping.” I try to operate by that as best I can, especially when it comes to asking for and giving support.

On the other hand, I draw the line when it comes to pushing our business on people. I will never ask a friend to bring us in to work with their organization. They have to want to bring us in. I want them to see the need and also how we can help solve their problems.

So I never directly ask for business, but I do ask for support when it comes to promoting our content and attending our public events.

I did ask my friends and family during the pandemic to promote us on social media and how we were pivoting to virtual because it was such a pivotal time in the business. We could not even support ourselves at that time because everything that we had was in person leading up to that point, so I really appreciated my friends and family going that extra mile and supporting us.

But truly–every like, comment, or share of our business’s social media by a friend or family member means the world. This is where I spend my time when I’m not with friends or family and I’m so passionate about the work that improve it! does.
I’m never going to ask a friend or a family member to purchase anything other than our book. I’m never going to push them so hard that it makes them want to block me.

But I will say I really saw so much support when I launched our book from my friends and family. It was surreal and so appreciated because it was the most vulnerable thing that I’d ever done in my life besides giving birth to the business and giving birth to my son.

I birthed a book that was about my vulnerabilities and feelings, and when we sold out on launch day and it became a top new release and number one in the Business, Health, and Stress category–I cried.

I was just overjoyed by my support system because it truly was the community of improve it, my friends and family, and the support of everyone around us that made that happen.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a Business Improv Edutainer, Failfluencer, and Keynote Speaker. Through a series of unrelated dares, I created improve it!: a unique professional development company that uses improvisational comedy and experiential learning to sharpen leaders and teams so they can thrive in ever-changing environments, and do it with a whole lot of laughs along the way.

I am a graduate from Clemson University, a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional, and a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theater.

Having spoken on global stages with companies, including Amazon, LinkedIn, McKesson, and the Obama Foundation, I have an energy and message to share with the world that creates lasting ripple effects for change. As a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program and member of The Chicago Innovation Awards Women’s Cohort, I am a living testament to the power of life-long learning, and how working to understand ourselves helps others to do so, too.

I am also the proud host of a Top 1% Global Podcast, The improve it! Podcast, which you can find anywhere you listen to pods! More recent, I am a first time author to the Amazon Best Seller & Top New Release book: I See You! A Leader’s Guide to Energizing Your Team Through Radical Empathy.

Among my many accolades, I am most proud of successfully coercing over 39,000 professionals to chicken dance.
When I’m not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys being outside and on the water with her husband, son, and eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG DIEHL.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

When I say that we have tried everything, I literally mean that in 10 years, we’ve tried everything. But what I know to be true is that our business is high-touch.

By that I mean we have to gain the trust of the client–most likely an HR leader or talent development leader in an organization first. And not only to trust us and our service, but also to have 50 to 100 of their team members stop productivity and spend two hours learning this soft skill that can develop them professionally. That transaction cannot happen just by a social media post.

Social media reminds them we exist, but it does not earn their trust. Our offerings are so high-touch that for us, growing our clientele can only happen through true relationship building, connecting with associations, coffee meet-ups, etc. The throughline is taking the time to understand the human behind the title and what their objectives and challenges are. It’s about becoming a pain killer for them, not just a vitamin. It’s about getting up close and personal with the problem and solving it together.

And after doing that time and time again, we understand that what has really worked in establishing these relationships is time, effort, and positive energy sent towards that human behind the title. I have so many clients whose phone numbers I have. We text and have become dear friends. It really comes down to time, effort, and positive energy.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think we have an approach that is different from a lot of professional development companies. We are improv-infused talent development that is changing the next generation of work.

We have a tried-and-true methodology for how we do every single interaction. We have a diagnostic consult call process, pre-work, post-work, and a live experience that is second to none.

Our live workshops, keynotes, laugh breaks, and book clubs are experiential– the focus is on the participant, not the facilitator. We use chicken dancing, that’s also a major differentiator. And no one likes a bragger, but we’ve successfully coerced over 39,000 participants to chicken dance.

But most of all what has built our reputation is the experience. It’s the energy that’s created when you’re in it with us that can’t be replicated. Our goal is always for participants to walk away feeling like a million bucks, and that they’ve accessed something that they normally wouldn’t on a typical day at work. And because they’ve paused and accessed this, it unleashes ripple effects that will affect each typical day of work that is to come.

One of the best parts, too, is that participants do this not only to benefit themselves, but also to benefit the people around them, their team, their colleagues–everyone they cross paths with.

I often quote this from Maya Angelou, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” Above all, we hope to leave an impression, not always with our words or actions, but by the energy we all created in that room. I think that has built our reputation time and time again.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.learntoimproveit.com
• Instagram: improveitco
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/erindiehl
• Other: Personal website + Instagram: www.itserindiehl.com and @itserindiehl

Image Credits

– Lauren McDuffie, Hungry Ghost Photography