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

Shana, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Our name is our mission but even more than that, I came to the name because of my/our values. I walked away from my first business and founded Concinnate four years ago. I realized I had taken the first business as far as I wanted to, it was doing quite well, but I didn’t want to take it to the next level I wanted to make a significant shift.

I sat down and spent 18 months putting in to language what my values are and what I wanted the values of this new organization to be and I decided I would make them public from day one, they are available at Concinnate.world. I knew it was important that people who wanted to work with me understand just exactly who I am, who we are as an organization and decide if they align with those values before they hire me. Once I had my/our values down I went in to focused name search mode, reading dictionaries, searching for a variety of synonyms for words etc.

My friend Sheel sent me a screenshot of a word, we frequently shared interesting words we would encounter. Something about this word, concinnity struck me, the definition is powerful but it has to do more with sound and music and didn’t quite work for my purposes. So, I went on a deep dive and found Concinnate. The definition found via dictionary.com is: (v) to arrange or blend together skillfully, as parts or elements; put together in a harmonious, precisely appropriate, or elegant manner. I work with organizations and individuals empowering ethical leadership and relationship which fosters organizations as ecosystems and bubbles of life, driving innovation and profitability. It isn’t about perfection it’s about what is precisely appropriate for that person, culture, organization, or project. It is about intentionality and that is at the heart of all that we do and all that we empower with our clients.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I feel like the work I do now, researching, speaking on and empowering ethical relationship and leadership in order to drive innovation and profitability, was inevitable.

Almost everything comes back to relationship. Ecosystems are diverse relationships, relationships built on reciprocity, that empower ALL life on earth. When we apply this to our understanding of culture, innovation, and profitability as a result, wow do things shift powerfully.

I was born into an abusive household and raised inside a religious cult. When I left those environments at twenty-six I began to ask myself a series of questions, which led me to some realizations. Who did I want to be? What was possible for me? What purpose did I want my life to have? How was I going to identify healthy relationships? This led me to realize I had no real understanding of healthy relationship, I couldn’t define it. I could tell you what it wasn’t but I couldn’t say exactly what healthy relationships were and are. Likewise with leadership.

Somewhere along the way realized, if I couldn’t define how to show up in healthy relationship it was unlikely that I was showing up consistently, in ways that were healthy. Once I realized this, it started what has now become fourteen years of researching and learning. Along the way people began to seek me out to gain understanding for themselves and their leadership.

Eventually I finally found the language to define ethical relationship and leadership. I believe, truly powerful leadership is based on an ethical relationship with those we lead. All ethical relationship requires curiosity, respect and accountability, being applied consistently. If curiosity is removed there is not relationship there is proximity, people will feel unseen and because of that not valued and they will leave. If respect is removed there is no trust and the relationship will crumble before it ever really has a chance, this will effect the longevity of relationships with our clients, employees and partners alike. If there is no accountability, or if accountability is avoided even in part, the relationship metastasizes and becomes harmful this is when organizations put themselves in serious hot water.

Ethical relationships, leadership and successful organizations recognize that curiosity, respect and accountability are an ecosystem of ideas that work together to empower life, relationships, and as a result innovation and profitability because innovations is fundamentally a reimagining of relationship. So as we begin to empower powerful relationship within ourselves and our organization, innovation because inevitable.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

When I decided to walk away from my first business and take a huge risk and pivot to consulting and public speaking I knew it was going to take a serious amount of marketing for me as a person to become a brand. At the time I was only doing pro-bono speaking engagements and was writing my first scripted speech and associated workshop. A marketing person I was working with at the time suggested I would be perfect as a guest on podcasts and she told me about a platform I could use, that one suggestion changed everything for me.

That was some of the best advice I have ever gotten and worth every penny I spent with her. I have been on more than 135 podcasts in two and half years and not only did it significantly support me in becoming a recognizable brand but it also worked wonders in helping me to hone and refine the message of my work and focus in the language. I was testing out my work on new audiences sometimes 3-4 times a week just on podcasts. It’s like when someone wants to become a comedian. They have some strong ideas but that doesn’t mean in their current form they are truly funny and going to get the maximum laughs and appeal to the audiences they wish to cater to. It takes time to form your tight ten as they say through rigorous practice.

Being on podcasts became a significant part of my plan to play every gig I was offered until I was ready to be paid. I gave myself two years. My first paid speaking engagement was twenty-five hundred dollars and I had the confidence to ask for that and stand on my value because I had spent eighteen months honing my message and nine months writing my first speech.

Being on 135 podcasts hasn’t cost me much money, all in, it has cost me less than a thousand dollars. What it has afforded me are incredible interviews with me all over the internet that will live there forever AND there are backlinks to my website and my socials attached to every one of those interviews. It is honestly the best decision I have ever made and I will continue to be a guest on podcasts as long as they will have me.

Just a note for those who wish to be on podcasts, it is important that you are equally invested in the success of the podcasts you appear on as the hosts are in interviewing you and sharing that interview with their audience. I consistently share episodes throughout the year and the hosts who are above and beyond excellent. I say it that way because I have only come across a very few hosts where i felt they were not sufficiently prepared and the conversation went off the rails because of it. But, the interviews that really sing, they live on my website, are available on my linktr.ee and I post them throughout the year resharing and promoting the host and their podcast. You need to be invested in mutual effort this is how you become a coveted guest, which means, yes you have to cultivate your socials and build an email list your email list will be invaluable to your business.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to learn how to ask for help and know who to ask. I think the second part of that is trickier than the first. So many people want to help but are extraordinarily busy and will not follow through in ways that are truly beneficial for you. But, we also cannot go through the world navigating it from the place of tit for tat.

I do seek out relationships that are based in reciprocity and I do seek out others who spend time cultivating relationships around them. I learned early on that networking is actually and should always be, relationship building. This has served me well. But for a long time I hesitated to ask for help assuming that introducing people to other people was not a good enough return, that I needed to provide direct monetary value.

I learned this growing up in an abusive household. It didn’t matter that I cooked dinner every night, took my siblings to school and daycare, worked 20-30 hours a week, and was only 17. When I asked my father for $10 so I could buy gas to get to my college classes, yes I started college at 17, it was held over my head and I was expected to repay it in full or be made to pay for it by constantly being harassed about it. This was my father’s way.

It took me a long time to realize it was not only ok to ask for help, but that I would simply not succeed without it and to learn that who people know is transformative for their lives and businesses, I did not need to provide monetary value and anyone who would hold it over my head didn’t belong in my life in the first place because they had no understanding of relationship they valued control.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.concinnate.world/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/concinnate.world/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shana-francesca-36b79217
• Twitter: NO
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAFmDzdt3-CutdjGR8NNIxg

Image Credits

Jamie Dunek
Kseniya Berson