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5 Essential Habits for Sustainable Business Success: Lessons from our Corporate Careers
Episode 12 • 12th September 2024 • Growing a Deeply Rooted Business • Jessica Walther & Rachel Lopez | Rooted Business
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Ready to cultivate lasting success in your business? In this episode, we’re sharing 5 essential habits that have been key to our growth, inspired by years of experience in the corporate world. Discover how to implement strategies like effective time management, systems-driven operations, and long-term planning to create a business that thrives sustainably. Whether you’re an entrepreneur just starting out or looking to refine your approach, these habits will help you build a strong, resilient business. Join us as we dive deep into the practices that can help you stay rooted and grow with intention

In this episode, we cover…

00:31 Corporate lessons for small business success

03:20 Habit 1: Protecting your white space

06:37 Habit 2: Systems-dependent success V.S. person-dependent success

09:38 Habit 3: Reducing friction for better results

12:19 Habit 4: Why you should cultivate long-term thinking

15:25 Habit 5: How to deal with difficult personalities


Links and resources mentioned:


Meet Your Hosts


Jessica Walther is the founder and CEO of The Launch Collaborative and Sustainable Success Systems. As a launch strategist and systems consultant, Jess is dedicated to helping solo business owners and small-but-mighty teams build businesses that deliver both peace and profit. She specializes in creating sustainable growth strategies that align with her clients' values and lifestyles.


Rachel Lopez is the founder and CEO of Gal Marketing Agency, a boutique email marketing and strategy firm. With over a decade of experience, Rachel helps heart-driven entrepreneurs craft intentional marketing strategies that attract, nurture, and convert leads sustainably. Her human-first approach ensures that marketing efforts feel authentic and effective .


Together, Jess and Rachel blend systems, storytelling, and soulful strategy to help you grow a business that's deeply aligned with your life—not just your revenue goals.


Connect With Us:

Jess Website

Rachel's Website

Learn with Us

Get Jess's Sustainable Success Systems Starter Kit, a Notion Business Management Systems that takes your business from overwhelmed to organized with 4 foundational workflows. <<Learn More Here>>


Diagnose Common Launch Problems and Fix Them Fast! Get the Launch Cure Guide : https://www.thelaunchcollaborative.com/launch-cure

Get Rachel's Guide to a High-Converting Email list to learn 4 shifts to elevate your emails & embrace sustainability in your marketing. <<Get it Here>>

_________________

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Rachel's Instagram

Transcripts

Speaker:

rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: Hello,

and welcome back to another episode

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of the Deeply Rooted Podcast.

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I'm Rachel, your marketing mastermind,

and I'm here with Jess, our systems

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guru, external brain expert,

like all things, just efficiency.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905:

Smooth operator,

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: Yes.

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Okay.

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We need a theme song to include that

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: marketing

mastermind and smooth operator.

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: today.

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I think we're talking about something

that I think might give Jess and I a

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little bit of an edge in the online

space in this small business world

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is the fact that we've spent so much

time in corporate and a lot of times

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small business owners who maybe don't.

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Go that route of being like corporate

escapee, corporate burnout, and

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then transition into business owners

may not have these kind of like

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foundational I would say traumas, but

they can also be lessons that we've

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carried from the corporate world and.

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We're going to share some of like the

habits that we have kind of maintained

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in our business that we've kind of

developed in that corporate world that

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have made us better business owners.

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It really, really, there's so much overlap

when you treat your business kind of

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like the way that a corporation exists.

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It allows you to just operate

a little bit more efficiently

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and, intentionally as well.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: Yeah.

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I always see, recently on LinkedIn trying

to use that to leverage some business.

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And I always see these posts and

particularly about retail employees.

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And it's like, if you've worked in

like a retail store, like in retail

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management, you can work in any industry.

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And it really like did give me such a well

rounded, I guess development, professional

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development, especially working at Gap Inc

because they really put a lot of time and

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effort into like training their managers.

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Like we got like disc trained and we

got situational leadership trained.

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So they really did put some So much energy

and effort into their store managers.

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And I'm so grateful for that experience,

along with some of like the really good,

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like business mentors that I had And I

really do think about like draw upon that,

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foundational knowledge that they gave me

so many times a week or even like a day.

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And I don't think I would

have been as successful.

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as quick as I was if I hadn't

had that experience first.

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905:

Yeah, yeah, totally.

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I mean, I think, especially in

the, I don't know what to call it.

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Like the, office corporate life

versus retail corporate life.

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Like there's so many similarities

and so many, like, also differences

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to where, like, I think I spent

nearly, I escaped at eight and a half

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years in corporate and now I'm like.

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approaching 11 years total in marketing.

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And it's just like looking back and

reflecting on like how much I still use.

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A lot of that knowledge is wild to me

because when I left, I thought I was like,

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we're never doing this stuff ever again.

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And it slowly crept back in because there

are true best practices in maintaining.

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Whether it's like a department,

a team and all of that.

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So do you want to kick off habit

number one that we have pulled

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from our corporate past lives?

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: Yeah, so

this habit number one is directly

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from one of my old supervisors and

she was a white space champion.

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which is kind of unusual,

especially in the retail setting

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when you're a retail manager.

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Some of the kind of higher ups think

the best strategy is for you to be

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on the floor with your team, like

driving the sales the entire time.

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And this supervisor was different

where she really encouraged and

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kind of required us basically on

Mondays to have a block of work.

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White space time.

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And we would always hear from her,

protect your white space And if

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you've never heard of what white

space is, it's really just intentional

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time set aside from doing any task.

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And it's, to give yourself time and

space for deep thinking and planning.

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And this is something that as a

business owner, I've definitely

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carried over into and kind of champion

myself and for my clients is like

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creating this like protective space

where you're not doing anything.

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Where you're just allowing kind

of like your creativity and

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your innovation to come through.

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I have to be really careful about

not giving myself too much space

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because I'll get too innovative.

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But I think when I feel like I'm getting.

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stuck or confused or just

kind of like scared or uneasy

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about what the future holds.

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One of your like first reactions can

be to like jump in and start doing when

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really it'll probably be more beneficial

for you to kind of pull back and give

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yourself that space to like think.

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: Yeah, I

think this is so important when we

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talk about like time blocking and

like knowing your hours that you're

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spending in your business and on your

business and with your clients and

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having those key buckets, transparent

to yourself because at the end of the

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day, like you can be go, go, go, go, go.

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And you're just kind of an executor.

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But when either in corporate you're, if

you're a manager level or above, like

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you have to exist in a strategy as well.

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And when you're so bogged down by

the to do's and all of that, like

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it's so easy to miss out on that

other side of your job as well.

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So then bringing it into like business

owners like ship, you're not an

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employee in your client's business.

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and when you do not protect your

white space, you can easily get

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lost in that like endless clients,

to do's and like client work and,

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checking off your own to do's.

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And It like allows you to not be

as innovative and as intentional

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in your business as well.

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So I totally love that.

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I love also now that Google has, like

Google Calendar has focus windows that

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you can like structure into your calendar.

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There was one AI tool that was a

calendar tool called reclaim AI that

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I had used for a very long time.

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it structures your tasks in your free

space based off of your meetings and

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everything and like putting in that

protected zone in there is like a

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mandatory and it'll move it around

for you, depending on your meetings,

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I think it's just so impactful.

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Like, let the robots kind of

transition that stuff and everything.

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But yeah, love that.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: Right.

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So let's move on to

business habit number two.

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And it is shifting from a.

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individual person's dependent

success to systems dependent success.

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So a lot of times when we are first

starting out, I know Rachel talks

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about this, like we act more like

an employee where everything is kind

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of depending on us and our inputs

and we're not acting as the CEO.

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And in Corporate space.

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We really needed to make sure that the

success, especially in retail, because

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we have a lot of turnover, we'd have

a lot of like new employees that we

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could achieve the same great results,

no matter who was in the building.

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And no matter since the store was open

a lot of times when I was not there,

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like I had to make sure that the

business got consistent results, even

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if I wasn't physically present in the

building and that my team could make good

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decisions that would drive the business

forward without my constant input.

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So really learning how to create systems,

processes, organizations that allowed

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and like accountability loops that

allowed the business to be successful

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and my employees to perform and want

to perform and be motivated to perform

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even when I was not there was a definite

skill and strength that I developed,

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: This is also

one of those things that like is from

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a healthy work life balance perspective

in both business and in corporate.

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I know that when I was the only

person that could do the job

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because there was no other way.

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System built to support, there

was no workflow or process.

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It prohibited me from taking a

lot of vacation time or trusting

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that it was going to get done

the right way and outsourcing

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and delegating and all of that.

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And so when you do not have that,

and like, let's say you're a business

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owner who is a solopreneur and

you're kind of trying to branch out

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into that you know, maybe a VA or.

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Some type of thing you need those systems

in place so that that system can work

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to maintain success rather than like you

needing to be in the weeds of it all.

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So I think this is probably what I

would say is like the most important

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thing that I think business owners

don't start until probably year

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three, but you should be starting it.

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Way, way, way sooner, even before

you have the idea to hire and get

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away from being a solopreneur.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: Cause when

you're a solopreneur, you really just

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created another job for yourself and

that's okay if that's what you want.

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But I think the majority of us

got in here into this business for

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freedom, flexibility, and to exceed

the amount of income that we were

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generating in our corporate space.

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And You're not going to be able to

do that if everything relies on your

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brain and your input to make it happen.

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So so so important and also if you

just want to like take a vacation

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and not have to be worried about

What's going on or go have a baby.

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: Yeah, exactly.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: It's a lot

of work on rachel's systems to get

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her Ready to go habit number three,

because this is systems related too, is

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reducing friction to get better results.

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So this kind of goes in with like the

systems dependent, but I think one of the

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major things that I would always focus

on, I kind of had this reputation of

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being like the store fixer when I was in.

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corporate retail where I, they would throw

me into these like hot mess of a store and

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I'd have to do like cleanup and I'd always

always start with organization and like

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getting everything where it needed to be

first as a way of reducing friction one

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when things are organized and cleans like

the work environment just feels better.

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Like when everything's organized,

we can kind of flow through your

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work, there's less aggravation.

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So you're naturally going to be

like a nicer, more happier person.

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And that's going to flow

into your customer experience

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or your client experience.

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And so what I learned is the easier that

you make it for people to do their jobs,

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the better results you're going to see.

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So this would just mean me like removing

the obstacles that are slowing down

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like operations or that are interfering

with them being able to develop

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a high level of customer service.

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And really just staying curious

and like open to my employees to

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where if they had a bad day, I

wasn't like, Oh, you had a bad day.

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You, you must just suck kind of

thing where I went, went deeper.

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I think one of our, like our first

episodes, we talked about like finding the

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root cause of your issues where I really

use that skill of like going deeper beyond

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like surface level symptoms to see like

what was really causing the friction there

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and like what caused that bad experience.

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And then how can we like course

correct to make more flow in that area?

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: Yeah, in

my corporate experience, I was never

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the PM, never the person that was

doing this one, but as someone who,

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coexisted with good project managers,

bad project managers, like, this is so

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necessary because when you have friction,

even the best process can get broken.

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And When you have that like deadline

and those campaigns that have several

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layers to them trying to work out at

the same exact time, it could be so,

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so easy to disrupt that with, you know,

not everybody understanding what their

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tasks are, not everybody understanding

what their roles are and like just

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these unnecessary obstacles in there.

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It's.

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So I've been on the side where we

needed a jest, and I've been on the

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side where we had a jest and I will

always choose pick the jest side.

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Okay.

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Moving in to habit number four.

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This is something We will talk

about until we are blue in the

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face, which is long term thinking.

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And no, this is not just

saying, Oh, it's Q1.

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This is like three to five year planning.

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one to two year planning.

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This is long term thinking, proactive

planning, and really understanding that

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like the big picture that you're building.

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Is it?

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Then a crash and crumble because of

one launch or the next launch, but it's

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all going to cohesively build on top

of each other to be successful so that

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you can make these little milestones

and get closer and closer and closer.

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I think a lot of business owners who are

not long term planning and they're simply

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just kind of quarterly planning or just

getting started maybe with annual planning

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tend to Restrict a lot of their growth

because they're sitting there and they're

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thinking like, Oh, I got to hit all

these big milestones, but realistically

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one milestone, maybe the next year's big

task or the year after that's big task,

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like you can't do it all in one year.

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And so thinking in about that big

picture allows you to be more strategic

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and intentional with the milestones

that are prioritized at that time.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905:

I definitely agree.

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I think a real life example of

this is Rachel and I have a joint

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launching offer that we know we

want to launch probably in:

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But we started now creating the

content and kind of working through our

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systems and processes and testing it.

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It's not like we're like Rachel's

going to come back from maternity

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leave and we're going to like launch

this offer and have all of these

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people come in like we understand now.

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I think it took us like Probably took me

till about this year to like realize how

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long things actually kind of take and

how much I need to be leading up when

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I need to make a change in my business.

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Get my audience ready or find the

audience that we need and develop

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the systems, do all of that to

make those strategic shifts.

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But like I can have the vision now of what

I want this offer to be, or what shifts I

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need to make in my business for 2025 now.

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And I guess back to the first thing

that we talked about is like giving

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yourself the white space to think and

vision and meditate on, What's working,

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what's not and where you'd like to

go and how aligned everything is.

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So I think it's just such

an important habit to take.

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a lot of people will come to me and

I think you said it last episode

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where it's like, it's not just

like flipping a switch when we're

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implementing like your marketing

systems or my operational systems.

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You're probably not going to feel

better or feel relief the first month.

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It actually might get worse because

we're going to give you a lot of

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stuff to like fix and change it.

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But like three months in, definitely

six months in, you're going to

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be feeling the changes and seeing

the results in your business.

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: Totally.

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Yeah, I think this is one of those

things that like collaboratively with

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that white space, if you're not taking

it, you're leading yourself to like

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massive burnout because you're like,

Oh, I have these goals and I'm not

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reaching them and I can't do this.

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I can't do that.

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But it's like, Long term.

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all right.

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And then our last habit, I think this

one is true in all areas of life, all

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areas of the world is that you will

always have to deal with difficult

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personalities and understanding

collaboration from a team perspective,

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from a client perspective let's say your

client has two other people that also

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work on their team that you have to like.

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Make sure you're flowing with

this one is so, so, so important.

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I think I have always approached in my

business, I've always approached like

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being as flexible and collaborative

as possible with other people's

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contractors, with other people's

agencies, and like being as Fluid, right?

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Like one time I got a, an email

from someone that asked me for a

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report from an email perspective and

they were like the ads team or the

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social team or something like that.

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And they were like, I, I know

you may not want to share this.

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And like, you know, share what

you can, any information's great.

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I was like, this is all

for the same client.

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Like, wouldn't you want to have

the best, Cohesive, picture of what

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we're all doing from like a ecosystem

perspective, but they were terrified to

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ask because they had been shut down by

other email people that said, no, I'm

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not sharing that information with you.

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And I think that that is so wild,

so so wild, but just what's been

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your experience with collaboration

and just this whole team side?

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905:

Yeah, I have two thoughts.

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So one from like a coaching perspective,

like technically I'm not a coach,

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you're not a coach, but I think

we do sometimes have to fall into

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that coaching role for our clients.

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So I think one of the things we talked

about, situa situational leadership

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training that I got my disc like

learning how to give feedback in a

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way so it can be accepted And I think

one thing that I thought I was going

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to be able to escape is that I hated,

I'm an introvert, and I hate working.

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And I thought like, and that was

probably one of the, or like even

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just like talking to higher ups

and like putting myself out there.

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Like I hated Thankfully, like I had

a like bosses that would recognize

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my skills and I got pretty far

and high up in corporate without

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having to like do a lot of stuff.

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But like, that would always be the

coaching that they would give to me

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when we go to corporate events or

read, you know, have store visits.

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It's like, you know, you need

to kind of like work on this.

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And I thought, When I ventured

out on my own, like, it's not

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about connections anymore, like,

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: Oh, it is.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: I don't

Yeah, it's definitely about connections.

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And I think I was able to, like, escape it

for a while and just, like, do referrals.

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But I've been really making a point

of putting myself out there more.

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networking and collaborating and just

sharing my voice, getting more comfortable

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sharing my voice and has helped a lot.

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But yeah, that was something that I

thought would not affect me too much.

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And it's actually affects

you like way more.

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And basically it's like,

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if you want to stay in this

business, you've got to go do it.

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: it's

funny you mentioned like, I don't

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know for people who maybe don't have

a deep corporate experience, but

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like the corporations that really do

emphasize like personal development

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and professional development, like the

amount of classes I took about conflict

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resolution and situational awareness.

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And like, you said, the disc program,

one of my old, Companies that I

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worked with, we would actively have

to put our disc on our desks and then

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everybody would have the knowledge to

interpret what a high eye meant or what

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it like, like whatever that all was.

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they would know like, okay, I'm not going

to interrupt this person because that's

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not really how they operate kind of thing.

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And I think that that speaks so strongly

to like, the possibility of culture

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in corporate, but also you can bring

this same stuff into your business

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and having this level of awareness.

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I always, always, always try to

teach, like tell my clients like, Hey,

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Like, this is how I feel appreciated.

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That was something that we always had to

fill out like on our quarterly reviews.

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Like, how do you feel appreciated?

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Cause don't reward me with a pizza.

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Party cause I'm lactose intolerant

and that's going to be a, you know,

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a slap in the face kind of thing.

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give me the rest of the day off kind

of thing back when I was in corporate.

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And that translates so strongly into

how you build relationships with your

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clients, how you build relationships with

your team and all of those layers of it.

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And there's so much strength

in understanding yourself.

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your self awareness is key because you're

going to get give me some crazy people in

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this world and not being triggered and not

really, you know, knowing how to deal with

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the situation is, you know, important.

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: I feel

like I could come up with like

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10 more of these because as we're

talking, I want to keep going.

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But we like to keep our episodes

around the 25 ish minute mark.

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So we're there.

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Do you have any closing

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thoughts before I sign

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us off

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: I agree.

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I could, do a hundred more habits,

but, looking at how you can operate a

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little less like a solopreneur and a

little bit more in these kind of like

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foundational best practices can only do

wonders for your business at no point.

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:

If you ever to like, think about long term

planning or, Learn to start delegating.

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Is it going to like backfire on you?

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Like it's only to your benefit to kind

of like lean into some of these areas.

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But I think I feel pretty

good about what we shared.

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This was fun episode.

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I really liked this.

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What about

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you?

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905:

Yeah, no, I did.

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I really liked it.

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And like I said, I could, I'm sitting

here thinking about other things

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that I want to add, but I'm off.

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Maybe we'll do a, another episode.

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But yeah, so if you this episode,

make sure that you, uh, Like, follow,

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subscribe, share with the business bestie.

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Make sure you tune in next week.

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We're going to be recapping our summer

season and this is going to be possibly

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the last episode Rachel will be on until

she goes out leave, which is so exciting.

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And.

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Yeah, if you found this episode helpful,

make sure that leave us a review.

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Pretty, pretty please.

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We'd appreciate this as we come

up on our one year anniversary

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of the podcast, which is crazy.

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So we can actually talk about that.

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We could do a whole

year recap next episode.

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rachel_1_08-12-2024_130905: We're

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jess-_1_08-12-2024_130905: we're for

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