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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:


Connect With Us:

Jess Website

Rachel's Website

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Work with Us 1:1

Rachel's Services

Jess's Services

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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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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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