00:00:26Welcome to the third pedal, podcast recorded at the Vandal Lounge. In beautiful Southeast Portland, Oregon. Why the third paddle? Because even the most badass entrepreneurs get stuck up and Business Management. Consultant, Jennifer McFarland is your third paddle, helping you get unstuck.

00:01:40I would also love it if you reached out to me and let me know how things are going. Let me know what's keeping you up at night. And if I can't help, I'll find a guest to address. Those needs on the show. I'm here for you. The listener's above all else. Honestly. The easiest way to reach me is my scheduling a listener call on third paddle.com website, or if you're interested in being a guest. I have an application of four guests admissions. Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoy this week show.

00:03:02That doesn't mean that your truth is any less valuable than mine. Truth is actually a relationship and it has implications for everybody. We can speak our truth, but then there's also the concept of receiving truth and whether we receive truth in in anger, or enjoy or cast, blame, I think we need to acknowledge that truth is very fuzzy and it's become even more fuzzy as now, we are living. And what, even though it's so funny to me, even the Oxford English Dictionary is calling this, the post truth. You're a, it was the 2016 word of the Year, post truth. And that's not just in the political says, it just means that objectively facts are less influential in shaping public opinion, then appeals to emotional and personal belief.

00:05:02Appeals to people I think we also still live in a world where we want the the the quick answers. Otherwise the diet industry would have gone by the wayside years ago. Right? Sometimes the truth is painful. Sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes the truth is not what we want to hear. That still doesn't mean that you either way out is valid or truthful or meaningful been reading a few articles. I'm reading this article now about truth and how to actually get a competitive advantage and a post truth. And I'll post this article in the show notes on third paddle.com. The first point is to Define your standards for truth.

00:06:48Being a yes man really is not a good gig for me because I research and use data to help me make decisions and help me when I have worked in a management consulting situation to help guide somebody in finding a solution that will work given the parameters and some shells that were making. So think about how truth is part of the culture. Think about how truth has wiggle room, or does it have wiggle room, and how that flows through not only to employees and people on your team, but to your clients and to your overall culture and then figure out, you know, how how truth comes out and things like, messaging and how you define what truth is. And what truth isn't? This is all very crazy, right? I mean, how do you know? What's true? And what's not true? I I haven't exactly figured it out myself. I find that truth for me again is about

00:08:48But he says, but are we really doing it? Do we really know if we're putting our customers first? How can you get the information about them? How can you ensure that you are? In fact, one of your customers first, if that's a value of yours, or is it that when you say you put your customers first is not really true and I think that's a difficult conversation to have with yourself and your staff, but I think it's worth having another one. And I think it's really important is are you being truthful with yourself about your business? One of the things that I really encourage people to do is to look at the data because the data doesn't lie. We went through our growth hacking series and we have any book out there about measuring your growth hacking. Those measurements are ways that they're truth-tellers their ways that you can evaluate the truth with raw data.

00:10:48Course, because I am a nerd and because we just talked about the data which I get it. Most people aren't excited about the data. I'm not going to lie about that, but I will tell you that the truth of looking at the data, the truth of making decisions based on what you see sometimes and not just based on how you feel. That's what differentiates the winners from the losers. There was a survey conducted by beIN that said there are three particular findings that Stand Out Among companies that get good analytics. These are companies that look at the data and who look at what's happening and the importance of data and how that data helps them make better decisions about the truth of their company and how they can move forward. So the three findings are that companies that get good analytics are twice as likely to be in the top quartile of financial performance within their Industries twice.

00:12:48Products on different continents, but the truth that I have for you is it's your responsibility to track that stuff down and have it given to you in a consumable manner. And what that means is, find something like data box, or what a graph, or any of a number of these reporting products that are available to you, that let you know exactly what's happening with the information that you're putting out there. Those are truths that you can work with you. No, use your CRM and find out what's happening with your pipeline. Used your point-of-sale system and leverage that to see where people live, how many products are buying use data tracking software to find out what happens from the point that someone first interacts with you until they make a purchase. These are things that are all actionable to us. These are things that we can

00:14:48And taking that next level of authenticity and really being grounded in that and making sure that it aligns with your vision and your goals, the more fuzzy, kind of truth. I also think that's vitally important. At least it is for me, and I have a sense that it is for you.

00:15:59So that we understand that the images that we see and the news that we hear over and over again, isn't the entire picture. So I wanted to share a few things with you think I'm most disappointed in that this data is from 2012 to the small business administration's office of advocacy. I'm also going to post some statistics on the show. No, go into some of the projections that you'll find on places such as the National Association of women business owners. I'm not going to use those because they're basing their data on this 2012 data and it's, it's an assumption. It's a guess. So, what I would say is, I believe that this information is lower than actuality but the numbers alone from 2012 are pretty astounding.

00:17:05Pretty phenomenal. The downside is that almost all like 99.9% of women-owned businesses are considered small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. So even though they're generating 264 billion dollars in payroll. They only account for about 12% of all sales and 15% of all employment just because they're smaller but it doesn't include women. CEOs of Fortune, 500 companies that are much larger, those corporations, just start with a note. There are also men and they account for an additional $189 billion dollar in payroll for 6.5 million workers. So that means if it's a joint venture that are equally owned, those also have a large impact on the economy, as do a joint ventures with generate 2.5 trillion in sales. So the data is there even six years ago, but we

00:19:05Does Samantha Bee show when they did their first round of hiring for writers? What they did was, they just had submittals and they stripped it down. So they didn't know if it was a man or a woman and they found that the result of that hiring process meant that they had more women and more people of color higher diversity, diversity overall. Then had, they gone in more traditional route. What that tells me is that this is happening more and more. I can't remember all the places, I've read this but they're more more places that don't want to know. If you're a man or a woman and they don't want to see the names because the names can also reveal if you're from another country or potentially a person of color because oftentimes family names, really tell you a lot about the background. What I can tell you is that time and time and time again, we do things that will eliminate or greatly reduce our implicit bias.

00:20:33Whether it's the same gender or the same color, that it kind of perpetuate the cycle of male dominated areas, which is why you Google leadership and technology and imagery, doesn't look like me. And I finally statistics all the time and, and read these articles. I'll give you an example. There's an article in the Harvard Business Review July and August 2018 issue called the other diversity dividend by Paul Gompers. And silk Cavalli, and I posted this picture of this graphic on Twitter that only 8% of venture capitalist investors are women and fewer than 1% are black. So what they did in the study was they look at the impact of the business results in Des Moines area. I'm on venture capitalist and they realized that what was happening by a large Adventure capitalist or investing.

00:22:32We're able to start to diversify beyond the workplace, put a post a link to this article about diversity and about how what we're finding is. There's actually more success out there by taking a chance on a woman in terms of finding a business by taking a chance on hiring, people that look different from you that behave different from you. So, I was talked about in earlier episodes of the show is actually about how important it is to have a diverse team. And if you're really serious about having a diverse team meeting, not just in terms of how they relate to the world. Is there an introvert, or an extrovert or there, an analyst, or a leader, or really interested in power. If you're really looking for diverse ideas and a diverse approach, so you can really move your business forward. The date is out there.

00:23:39That's a wrap for this episode of the Third Kind of podcast. We covered a lot of ground today looking at how to approach truth in your business. Not only at the gut, check level and interactions, but also looking at the data to help you make data-driven decisions. So, you know the truth of your business and can act appropriately. We also took a brief look at the state of women-owned business. If you'd like to connect with the show, please go to third paddle.com where you can apply to be a guest on the show or schedule time with me to discuss your ideas and likes and dislikes about the third bottle. You can also find me on Twitter at Foster growth, PDX, or on Facebook at facebook.com Foster growth. Thank you so much for listening.