We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Olivia Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Olivia, appreciate you joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

My consulting and coaching is based on my experience of starting and building a multimillion dollar company. Through that journey I learned many important lessons. The main lesson I learned is that “knowing who you are” is one of the main keys to your success or failure as a leader.

Being a business owner can be a very lonely place. You have no one to talk to when you need to consider various options for decisions of great import. You need a sounding board with whom you can discuss how to make these decisions. I learned the value of reaching out to key advisors and that step was invaluable in the growth of my company. The business consultants I used were instrumental in driving the overhauling of my manufacturing processes and also helped me build a stronger foundation from which I could operate my company.

I now enjoy working with business owners whose path I have truly walked! My first step with all new clients is having them complete a DISC behavioral assessment which gives us a starting point in answering the question “who they are”. The assessment results are our starting point for discovering their strengths, and opportunities for growth as a leader within their company. We then turn our attention to assessing their team members and determining if we have the right people in the right seats on the bus. Goals are set, and a roadmap for success is developed.

Using the assessment results of the leader and key team members we begin to work on strategies to improve communication across all levels of the organization. As communication improves, employee satisfaction improves and trust is built within the organization. Turnover decreases which improves profitability and overall company culture.

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 graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1984 and started my career as a Registered Nurse working in trauma, transplant and emergency medicine. My next job was being a stay-at-home mom during which time I had the idea for my creative product. Based on my one product idea I founded a gift manufacturing company in 1995 and built it to a seven figure business with products in over 1500 stores across the country.

In 2014 I began volunteering at the Tennessee Prison for women and met an inmate names Stacey who would change my life. Stacey was in prison for a drug conviction and was going to be leaving prison soon. She wanted to start her life over in Nashville. She had no money and no place to go. Her story led me to found a nonprofit in Williamson County called Healing Housing. We opened our doors in 2017 to provide sober living transitional housing for 16 women at a time who are in recovery for alcohol and drug abuse.

After getting the nonprofit on solid footing I turned back to the corporate world. I wanted to find a way to use everything I had learned through all my years in business and share that knowledge with other entrepreneurs and leaders who are trying to make a difference. So Write A New Story was born.

Write A New Story is about helping other entrepreneurs and business leaders write their new story of leadership and impact through the work they are doing. I consult and coach from a place of experience in building successful companies. I’ve walked in the shoes of my clients! We start our work together with a focus on “who they are” as leaders and where they want to go. Each client has their own needs and their own path but we always start with diving in deeply to “who they are”. Understanding who directly impacts your bottom line so that’s our starting point for our work. Then we customize their plan by setting goals and building a roadmap of how they will accomplish those goals.

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

Making the work very personalized to each of my clients. Starting the work off with discovering who my clients are as people both naturally and in their work environment customizes the work to them!! They love diving in to learn more about themselves and about how “who they are” directly impacts their bottom line.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth. Happy clients are more than glad to pass your name along to others who need your services. I am blessed with my growth being driven by clients whose personal and business lives are being positively impacted by our work together, They are seeing the positive results and passing that along to others!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.writeanewstory.com
• Instagram: writeanewstory_llc
• Facebook: writeanewstory_llc
• Linkedin: Write A New Story, LLC