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

Alright, Tricia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I am a planner. I plan and I execute. Always have. My career is no different.

I planned the steps and did the things necessary to advance. And then, one day, I found myself restless. WIth 25 years of experience in healthcare leadership, a masters degree in healthcare administration, and a healthcare CFO title, I just didn’t see this anymore. My pleasure in someone else’s mission – albeit a good one – was waning.

First, I tried to find my way back to joy in my role. I liked the mission, the organization, my team and my colleagues, so I tried. But it didn’t work.

Then I started peeling back the the layers to determine what part of the role I did like. I quickly determined that helping other leaders advance was my favorite part. Much like gift giving, sometimes it’s just as rewarding when someone else is the recipient.

I enrolled in a course and got a coaching certificate, all along thinking I was just “investigating”. “I’m just checking this out,” I would tell myself. On the final day, when I got my coaching certificate, I told my husband, “This is my thing and these are my people.” And, I decided to go all in.

Over the holiday break, I worked on my business plan. I knew I didn’t want to hang out a shingle and coach anyone. I had previous experience working with women’s leadership development, so that seemend a natural angle. But as I explored a niche, and what I could uniquely bring to the world, it was my experience juggling career and motherhood. And the niche was wide open.

As I explored, I found that there were coaches for lawyer moms and engineer moms. There were burnout coaches and coaches for moms reentering the workforce. But I couldn’t find coaches that could bridge the genres of executive coaching, leadership coaching, and life coaching – all bundled together. I was also surprised to find that many coaches lacked significant leadership experience of their own. As you climb the ladder, the roles and the challenges change and I knew I had a unique perspective to offer – navigating the job AND doing it while raising two young children.

But then I went back to work. And it was comfortable. I knew the organization, I knew my role, I knew my team, I knew how to get things done with limited friction, and I knew how to deliver.

I started to question going all in. Was I really going to walk away from all of this? My husband would ask, “Ten years from now, when we’re sitting out on the deck, will you be sorry you didn’t follow this dream?” At first the answer was 60%. And then it grew, and grew, and when I got to 100%, I knew I had to go all in.

It was a long exit from my employer, tiding up all the things after many years there. But by the end, I was ready. I went all in. And I didn’t look back.

Everyday, I get to do work that I’m passionate about. When there’s a success, it’s mine. When there’s a mistake, it’s mine.

My clients, and their challenges and accomplishments, fuel me. I feel fulfilled on the daily. And it’s fun.

The mission of Mom Mastermind is to help businesses develop and retain talented working moms, to grow their leadership pipeline and create more executive women leaders. I’m all in.

Tricia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce your business to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Mom Mastermind helps businesses develop and retain talented working moms, to grow their leadership pipeline and create more executive women leaders.

We know company margins improve 31% when there’s gender diversity at the top. However:
-Women hold just 1 of 7 executive leadership positions in corporate America and they are outpaced 17:1 at the CEO position.
-1 in 3 women, at all leadership levels, are considering leaving or slowing their career.
-86% of women are mothers and 47% of them exit the workforce after the birth of a child.
There’s limited support for mothers throughout their life and career stages.

We help women achieve high performance at home and at work with our development cohorts and workshop options. Our programs are based on principles that have been scientifically tested and validated after studying 174,000 high performers in 190 countries. These principles are predictive of mutually beneficial long-term success, including: confidence, excellence, happiness, relationships, career advancement and income for leaders and increased retention, skill development, productivity and engagement for employers. A win-win.

We partner with business leaders, across a variety of industries, who are committed to ensuring women are well represented at various levels of leadership and want to take action to support them.

There’s more to be done to support high performers who want a career and motherhood. The tangible and intangible benefits of development are immense. Together, we empower future leaders.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My primary audience is on LinkedIn. I nurture this audience with content and spend time engaging here.

I maintain a facebook and instagram presence, which I routinely question. I do not spend a lot of time engaging here, just delivering content.

When I started my company, I joined a very expensive Marketing Mastermind and day one was told I needed to post mutliple times a day. This seemed absurd to me. I had no idea what I would say, even if I followed this advice.

LESSON ONE: Trust your gut. Only do what feels right.

LESSON TWO: Pick a cadence and be diligent about it.

Month one we posted daily, for 31 days, just to get a presence.

Then we went to three times a week.

With intention, I moved this down to twice a week.

Once established, I moved to one high-value post weekly. Any additional posts are based on an event or promotion..

LESSON THREE: Plan out a 90-day sequence.

Even if you don’t pound out the posts and schedule them, it gives you content, context and variety.

LESSON FOUR: Follow someone who’s job is to learn and share about the algorithm of your platform.

Update your practices regularly. Just like timing the financial markets, you won’t always get it right, but there’s nothing quite like seeing a lagging post that you spent oodles of time creating, do what you can to work the system.

LESSON FIVE: Be authentic.

I love this reminder from an expert I worked with, “Be social on media.” If you wouldn’t share the content or the format in a coffee shop, don’t do it on social media.

I’ve grown my LinkedIn audience significantly with these lessons, in a way that feels authentic and doable to me.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

My previous experience was in healthcare – high stakes, high impact, high regulation, high scrutiny, and high cost.

I was accustomed to delivering with Is dotted and Ts crossed.

When I started my business, I started creating much this same way.

And then I learned that the market will manipulate what you created.

Some products will fly, others will crash and burn.

I’ve learned to be more comfortable with marketing a concept (hard for a former CFO). It can’t be a stick figure drawing, but it need not be a full prototype or a finished product.

Be willing to get input in the concept, design and drafting steps. It will be more efficient and lead to a better product that’s saleable.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mommastermind.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/mom_mastermind/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/mommastermind
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/tricia-mason-dege/

Image Credits
Headshot: Brett Dorrian, Brett Dorrian Artistry Studios Images: Ember Berg, Dragonfly Visions