Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jessica Bronzert. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jessica, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
I’m not sure anyone is ever done scaling up, but there was a key point at which I needed to decide to intentionally pursue getting larger or intentionally pursue getting smaller. The business had been growing organically, and while I was thrilled, I wasn’t doing anything strategic to manage that growth. Add to that the fact that there is trough or desert in between being really small and being larger that is really difficult – your revenue goes up but your profit goes down when you start to scale. You have to move through that period to begin to capture efficiencies and regain footing in the business.
One of the key moments for me was realizing that I had enough skill in business development and sales to try to grow the business, and that I had to do that or learn how to say no to keep it small enough to handle. I realized I would rather try to grow and fall on my face than not have tried at all. And thus began my journey towards trying to scale.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m an executive coach, leadership development and change management consultant. I have my MBA and about a dozen years of Fortune 50 experience I leaned on when I left corporate America to start my business. I became interested in coaching and decided to pursue that as the central pillar of the business because I was coached and saw what a gift it can be.
At The Sparks Group we offer bespoke executive coaching and leadership development solutions based on vertical development, which is the idea that how you think is as much if not more important than what you know. Traditional leadership development, by contrast, has historically focused on skills and competencies. This focus on vertical development differentiates us from most other firms in the marketplace.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to renegotiate my relationship with money. Growing up, I prioritized safety, security, and being ready for a rainy day. Always a good saver and investor, this mindset was really challenging when it came to walking away from a corporate salary and taking the risk associated with starting a business.
The book “The Soul of Money” by Lynne Twist was helpful here, as was coaching. I realized the roots of my money story were holding me back, so I worked on reframing (relearning) how to think about money as a tool for living a good life and doing things that were important and meaningful – like starting a business. I also realized that I am a capable person, and that if money ever did become a real issue, I had plenty of tools at my disposal to remedy that situation.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
The biggest close call I’ve had was this past year when our new finance partner recommended paying a number of bills early to reduce our tax liability for the year. I enthusiastically said yes, thrilled to have someone watching this part of the business and making recommendations to improve our bottom line.
Unfortunately, I was still responsible for following up on past-due invoices, and had fallen behind during the busy end-of-year rush. When I finally did begin following up, we learned a number of large customers with long payment terms had not even received (or had misplaced) our invoices. Along with the holidays (holidaze?), this meant that we came into the new year with dangerously low cash on hand. We quickly had to pivot from spending everything we could to delaying any expenditures while I frantically chased down invoices to cover the amounts.
Lesson learned – cash is king! And when a business is growing, you have got to stay on top of your cash flow.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sparksgrp.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sparksgrp
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10256525/admin/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn64qiWZLIYUCrw80FBHQOA
- Other: https://www.jessicabronzert.com https://sparksgrp.com/vertical_development/
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