How Entrepreneurs Are Reinventing Themselves Through Crisis, Community, and Innovation

Rise25
35 min read

Michael HsuMichael Hsu is the Founder and CEO of MEASURE × HACK, a financial literacy and business performance company that helps entrepreneurs understand and manage their money through systems and metrics. He is also the Founder and CEO of DeepSky, a leading CFO consulting and outsourced accounting firm.

 

Lisa RileyLisa Riley is the Owner and President of multiple Tulsa-area Pinot’s Palette studios, part of a US paint‑and‑sip franchise offering guided canvas painting with wine and cocktails. Under her leadership, she expanded to three locations and built a reputation for creativity. Lisa also works as a professional food stylist.

 

Lorraine CorcoranLorraine Corcoran is the Co‑founder and CEO of Nyrah Beauty, a science‑driven, plant‑infused skincare company. A mechanical engineer with over 25 years of experience in product development, she led the formulation, manufacturing, and innovation of products in the cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries.

 

Marina ByezhanovaMarina Byezhanova is the CEO of Brand of a Leader, a global personal‑branding agency that helps entrepreneurs and executives build thought leadership voices. Born in Soviet-era Ukraine, she is a global speaker, university instructor, and has been featured in top-tier media like Inc., Forbes, Fast Company, and WSJ.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [1:27] Michael Hsu reveals how overlooking finances nearly sank his business and what pulled him out
  • [6:29] How a cancer diagnosis and a CNBC show helped reignite Lisa Riley’s franchise’s growth
  • [11:37] Lorraine Corcoran talks pivoting during COVID and producing 9 million hand sanitizers in record time
  • [20:03] Marina Byezhanova explains how AI forced a major team overhaul and led to faster growth and stronger content

In this episode…

Building a business is never a straight line. From personal health challenges to financial missteps, global disruptions, and emerging technologies, entrepreneurs are constantly faced with moments that demand reinvention. The ones who thrive are those who lean into community, stay adaptable, and turn setbacks into catalysts for growth.

For Michael Hsu, losing track of his company’s finances forced a wake-up call and a return to disciplined money management. Lisa Riley’s cancer diagnosis and appearance on a business reality show helped her reimagine her franchise and earn national recognition. Lorraine Corcoran shifted a manufacturing business during COVID and launched a skincare brand focused on hormonal health. Leveraging AI allowed Marina Byezhanova to restructure her agency and gave her a renewed focus on high-impact talent and innovation.

In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, recorded live at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Global Leadership Conference in Honolulu, you’ll hear how four founders embraced crisis, leaned on community, and came out stronger through clarity, creativity, and change.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

  • “I took my eyes off of my financials and I ran out of money, you know?”
  • “When you’re running a business, you’re in between totally killing it and going out of business tomorrow.”
  • “I was bear hugging things too much, and I was watching him go in and fix small businesses.”
  • “We did 9 million units of hand sanitizer. We were the largest supplier in the whole of Ireland.”
  • “Instead of essentially overnight, we got a competitor who was not as good as us but getting better.”

Action Steps:

  1. Revisit your financials daily and weekly: Maintaining close oversight helps prevent cash flow surprises and supports informed decision-making.
  2. Empower your team to lead: Letting go of control can unlock employee potential and drive business growth faster.
  3. Build a diverse support network: Surrounding yourself with experienced entrepreneurs provides insights and emotional resilience during tough business phases.
  4. Embrace AI tools intentionally: Leveraging automation for repetitive tasks boosts efficiency and frees up time for strategic thinking.
  5. Turn setbacks into learning opportunities: Sharing failures openly normalizes vulnerability and accelerates growth through honest reflection and course correction.

Sponsor for this episode…

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

John Corcoran: 00:12

Hey everybody, this is John Corcoran with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, and this episode is a little bit different. This is a live interview that we recorded at the Global Leadership Conference from Entrepreneurs’ Organization, where some of the best entrepreneurs from around the globe share ideas and to learn about entrepreneurship. And of course, this episode is brought to you by Rise25, where we help B2B businesses to give to and to connect to their Dream 100 relationships and partnerships, helping you to run a podcast so that it generates a referral pipeline and ROI.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:44

Yeah, I mean, John, after both of us have been podcasting for over a decade, the number one thing in our life is relationships, and we’re always looking at ways to give to our best relationships, and we found no better way to do that over the past decade than to profile the people and companies we admire and shout from the rooftops what they’re working on, and this interview is no different. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should go to rise25.com to learn more or email us at support@rise25.com.

John Corcoran: 01:11

Thanks everyone. Enjoy the interview.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 01:12

Enjoy.

Michael Hsu: 01:27

My name is Michael Hsu and who am I? I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a EO Las Vegas and EO Taipei member. And what we do is we do. We have a couple companies around financial literacy, teaching entrepreneurs about money and how to manage them.

A major hurdle that I have experienced during my time. There’s too many to count. I mean, I feel like. I feel like when you’re running a business, you’re you’re you’re in between. You’re in between the Palace of Lights where we’re totally killing it and we’re going out of business tomorrow, right?

And I’m thinking I’m trying to think of one. I think I can talk about the most embarrassing moment. Okay. The most embarrassing moment for me was when I took my eyes off of my financials and I ran out of money, you know? And that is embarrassing, because that’s literally my profession.

It’s like the plumber’s house always leaks, right? And and it’s not just so much. It’s not it’s not just so much that, you know, I obviously didn’t go out of business, but then it’s that idea of that embarrassment of how did I end up here? What have I done to fail? To have no money in the bank to make payroll.

Right. And it was it was that. It was, it was. I got overly excited. I got overly comfortable, and I took my eyes off of my business.

I took my eyes off. I just didn’t pay attention. And there’s so many entrepreneurs these days, and I share this with them all the time. A lot of times people don’t come to me when they’re having a good time, when business is good and killing it. You don’t look for you.

Don’t try to understand your financial literacy. There’s money in the bank. Life is good, right? Sales is going up. But it’s when they come to me.

So many entrepreneurs EO YPO. Otherwise they feel embarrassed, right? They’re supposed to be this successful entrepreneur and yet they have no money in the bank. And I always share this one thing and I say, look, even me, who’s got two degrees and a CPA license and a financial consulting company for 15 years, I mess up. We’re humans, we mess up.

Right? And the good thing is, entrepreneurs are incredibly talented, smart people that we can solve almost any problem as long as we can identify and know what that problem is. And so that’s that’s probably my most embarrassing story, but that’s probably the biggest hurdle that I have to go through myself, which was taking my eyes off the ball and running out of money. When you have to sit at the conference lobby where you just did a keynote presentation about financial literacy, to ask your forum mate to float you for your next payroll. It’s pretty humbling, right?

And, and and the good thing is, I have EO that’s always been my strongest support group for 15 years, and I have four mates who came through for me and the rest is easy. Like I said, this is what I do. Back to the problem, right? I know exactly what I got to do. I know what I did to get here, and I know what I need to do to get out of this hole, which was to pay attention.

So I rehired my team. Right. And then we just started from daily cash flow statements and then into weekly into monthly, just everything that we already know that we should be doing. And you just climb out of that hole. My favorite resources that I think other entrepreneurs should check out.

Man, I think, I think I think that’s a tough question. My favorite resource as an entrepreneur is EO. It’s the EO network, the global network. It doesn’t matter if it’s your local forum or it doesn’t matter if it’s a bridge forum or a regional event or GLC global event. I think other entrepreneurs have always been my best resources and not just for business.

It could be for personal, it could be for relationship. I think EO, we talk a lot about that and you have this right in EO, we call it intimacy, right? You get with somebody and you get past all the BS and you just you just share vulnerable real. And there are so many experience shares from other people, from other countries, from other industries, from other, you know, anything that you can apply into your industry, into your business that you would just totally kick ass. And and that’s why I that’s why I have friends from all around the world, something that is normal for a marketing agency in Europe, when applied to an accounting company in America, could be a game changer.

You can find me online and most of my handle is at W. Michael. Michael. Well, Michael. And then Hsu is Hsu.

And you can find me everywhere. Mostly on Instagram, on YouTube. And yeah. Talking about financial literacy. So that’s where you’ll find me.

John Corcoran: 06:05

All right, John Corcoran, we’re here at the Entrepreneurs Organization Global Leadership Conference in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii, 2025. I’m from San Francisco. I’m the Co-founder of Rise25, which helps B2B businesses to get clients and referrals and strategic partnerships with done for you podcasts and content marketing. And I’m here with Lisa Riley from EO Tulsa. And tell us a little bit about your company.

You have a couple of different companies, but your main company.

Lisa Riley: 06:29

So my main company that qualifies me for EO is a franchise. I have multiple franchises. I’m a multi-unit franchisee called Pinot’s Palette. It’s a paint and sip kind of entertainment franchise. And then my other stuff that I do is I’m a professional food stylist for national brands.

John Corcoran: 06:43

Wow. Very cool. Yeah, cool.

Lisa Riley: 06:45

Super random.

John Corcoran: 06:45

And this is such a beautiful event. Amazing venue. Here we see these world class speakers, and you actually got to meet the man who helped to save your business, Marcus Lemonis, who is speaking here. And you, just a few moments ago, bumped into him in the hallway and were able.

Lisa Riley: 07:00

To look like I’ve been crying because I got to meet my business idol unexpectedly.

John Corcoran: 07:04

And tell him that he helped save your business. So tell us the story.

Lisa Riley: 07:07

So, long story short, I started my franchises and you know, they took off and they did really well. And then it kind of plateaued. And I was opening my last store, and as I was opening it up, I realized my growth, my sales weren’t growing and things were kind of plateaued. And then I got diagnosed with cancer. And so while I was at home, sitting on the couch healing and kind of getting well from chemo and that kind of thing, I started, I stumbled across this TV show called The Profit.

Like money profit on CNBC or MSNBC. And it was with Marcus Lemonis. And he would go in and help failing businesses. And mine wasn’t failing, but it was just plateaued. So I watched the show while I was sitting on the couch healing, and I watched every episode like ten times, took feverish notes.

And then I as I was watching the show, I thought, Holy shit, I’m the problem. That’s I’m the problem. Why? My company is not growing. I was bear hugging things too much, and I was watching him go in and fix small businesses and teach them how to fix their businesses.

So obviously I couldn’t afford a coach or reach out to Marcus. And so I took all the things that I learned from his show, implemented them in my business, and within the next two years, I became my business, took off, I allowed my staff to shine, and my business jumped up 10% immediately. Once I stopped bear hugging everything and started doing that. But quickly. Then I became the small business person of the year for my city, then my state, and then the US through the US chamber.

So I got to tell him that story downstairs. I was walking out from lunch and he came walking in and I saw him, and I immediately burst into tears and was like, oh my God, I’ve waited my whole life to say thank you. And he was like, take a deep breath, hand me your plate of food. Let’s set it down on a table. And he goes, let me hug you.

And I was just like, oh my God, it was amazing.

John Corcoran: 08:59

So yeah, that’s such a cool story. And obviously we’re here at Entrepreneurs’ Organization. What has that been? How has that played a role for you being involved in EO?

Lisa Riley: 09:08

Well, you know, the thing that I love about EO and love coming to Global Leadership Conference or other conferences that EO puts on is you’re around like minded people, so you’re not doing the silly conversations with people that are not on your level, that are just fluff that you do at typical open conferences, you’re with like minded people who are here to grow, learn, want to figure out what they can do better, and they have that growth mindset or the mindset that they don’t have it all figured out, and that we can always evolve and be better and be better humans. And so I love being around like minded people because I always go home so energized and also with a whole bunch of little knowledge nuggets that I can implement in my business when I get back, or even just things that I can do to better myself.

John Corcoran: 09:51

Yeah, that’s great to hear. And what about GLC? This event here, other than obviously running into Marcus Lemonis, what have been your takeaways from the last couple of days of being here?

Lisa Riley: 10:03

Oh my goodness. There’s a lot of takeaways. You know. Oh my gosh there’s so many. You know one of the things I love about this one’s theme is the ohana of the sense of family and the sense of community.

It doesn’t mean just blood family. It means like business, family or people in my forum that I work with or, you know, and and do those types of things. But I really love this GLC because people I’ve gotten to meet people from 56 different countries, and I have learned more from some of them than I’ve never met before till today, that they have come in and told me about their businesses. And it’s a tech firm. It has nothing to do with paint and sip, which is what my businesses are.

But their lessons that they’ve shared, their experience shares resonated with me to make me go, oh, I should do that in my business or that with my employees. And so I always feel like when I leave GLC, I go home armed with all this stuff that I can do better with.

John Corcoran: 10:57

That’s great. Lisa, this has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you and your your companies?

Lisa Riley: 11:02

Well, I have a personal branded website. It’s called lisawriley.com and it’s really for my food styling or just that kind of thing. And then my franchises are called pinotspalette.com and they’re based in the US and in Canada.

[Continue to Page 2]

John Corcoran: 11:15

Cool. Very very good. Thanks so much. Yeah. John Corcoran I’m here at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Global Leadership Conference in beautiful Honolulu, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2025.

And I’m here with Lorraine Corcoran, John Corcoran, Lorraine Corcoran, we just met from the EO Ireland chapter. And tell me a little bit about what your your company is and what you guys do.

Lorraine Corcoran: 11:37

So Nyrah Beauty is our current startup. So it’s a bootstrap startup. So it’s our fourth business. So I’m a mechanical engineer by qualification. What have made a lot of products for a lot of other companies.

And now I’m making my own products skincare. So it’s all about hormonal skin health and feeling good and confident in your skin.

John Corcoran: 11:55

In your fourth company. What were the previous companies.

Lorraine Corcoran: 11:58

So we had an engineering consultancy firm with Pharmaceutical Industry. It’s still on the go. 14 years on, started out from scratch and then we moved on and we bought a R&D manufacturing contract facility in Mayo and we extended that to Cork. So we joined the Mayo and Cork crew there for a while. So that was an existing business and we expanded it and grew.

It had to pivot during Covid, obviously, and then had to pivot again post-Covid. And then this is where we started our own brands then, because we were doing it for so many others, and we did a little bit on serialization in pharma as well. So another business that did that. So it was like a whole track and trace thing for pharmaceuticals.

John Corcoran: 12:38

Okay. And if you could remember back to your first company. When you started it 14 years ago, you said.

Lorraine Corcoran: 12:43

Yeah. 2010.

John Corcoran: 12:44

Okay. What what was that like in the beginning? What were some of the challenges that you had to overcome in the early days?

Lorraine Corcoran: 12:49

I hadn’t a clue what we were doing. And I suppose it was we. Me and my husband have always worked together. So he’s a core Aidan Corcoran, and he and I always had engineering and working in big pharmaceuticals. And then we wanted to do something different.

So we were so used to big corporates and then figuring out, how do you do that on a small scale and just learn as you go. And it was just just a rough and ride. And it was 2010. Recession in Ireland had just hit. Oh, right.

So it was a very hard time to start a business. You couldn’t get loans you couldn’t get, you just had to lease a printer. It was that bad. So we grew that really quick. We grew that to like 3.54 million in like three years.

Wow.

John Corcoran: 13:30

That’s a lot of growth trajectory. And then that can present its own challenges.

Lorraine Corcoran: 13:33

Oh completely. Because with engineering it’s all about professional level staff and getting those people. And now it’s really hard to get really good, qualified engineers and to keep them to stick. And I suppose the pharma med device industry, thanks to the American corporates, Ireland is full of them. But I owe my career.

I started in Hewlett-Packard. So again, that Silicon Valley kind of mindset, entrepreneurship and Hewlett Packard were the founding of all that. So it was kind of inbred in us when we’re HP. So it’s kind of funny. We both ended up as entrepreneurs.

Yeah. But again, back then in Ireland you had to go to university, get your degree there. You know what I mean? Internet didn’t exist, so you couldn’t start an ecom business like you can now. So it’s much harder to become an entrepreneur in 2010 than it is now.

John Corcoran: 14:17

Yeah. And I was in I was in Ireland in 2002, and at the time there was a lot of challenges with the integration into the EU. That’s changed a lot of things for Ireland, which for a long time was, you know, was a country on an island and all of a sudden was part of this larger European Union. As that continuing to play out. What sort of changes has that made for you as a country and you as a company?

Lorraine Corcoran: 14:42

I was actually in New York in 2002, so I was working in New York. So I was I went the other way. But yeah. So I suppose Ireland is part of the EU, which has really helped Ireland and we’ve grown so much 80s 90s tech industry fintech has really strong E-com is Ireland is the biggest in Europe at it. But I suppose the whole Brexit thing with the UK because we’re the other side, so we more probably align with the US.

It just happens to be a big Atlantic Ocean in the way. And we probably our mindset, thought and process is more us. And probably that’s why so many of us have worked through corporates and spent time in the US versus Europe is kind of quite different than us. Their laws are quite different. So there’s a bit of a yin and yang depending on what industry you’re in.

In Ireland it’s pro. But again, you know, current political stuff that’s going on.

John Corcoran: 15:33

Yeah. You better watch out. It seems like we’re adding more territories. Don’t watch what you wish for. Right.

You become part of the United States. Yes. Any other big challenges like you mentioned? Like Covid, for example. What was that like going through Covid for your company?

Lorraine Corcoran: 15:49

So we had to completely pivot. So basically a lot of because we were making contract manufacturing for a lot of other brands and big retailers. So a lot of the componentry and different subcomponent parts for the products for the cosmetics were coming from Asia. So we knew in January there was a big logistical problem because China stopped producing. And so we knew in January.

So in February, we met as a board going, what are we going to do? Are we laying off people? What’s the story? So then we had a meeting with the HSC, which is the Irish version of the health service, and they knew they were going to be in dire need of hand sanitizer, which is a biocide products. So we literally.

John Corcoran: 16:27

Were able to produce that or you were able to find it.

Lorraine Corcoran: 16:30

Yes. We literally had the full R&D team. We knew how to source everything. So within literally three weeks we went from zero product to out the door in trucks. So fully formulated, fully tested, designed, registered in bottles out the door.

So we did 9 million units of hand sanitizer. We were the largest supplier in the whole of Ireland. So two. So for every one person Ireland got two bottles of hand sanitizer. So it was our first own brand as such.

So we were kind of forced into it.

John Corcoran: 17:01

Kind of like a trial marriage or something. Like suddenly like forced into it.

Lorraine Corcoran: 17:05

Yeah. And it was a completely different because my background was pharma, med device, electronics, cosmetics and biocides and other rag. It’s completely different. It’s Department of Agriculture in Ireland. So completely different requirements and all that.

But it was crazy. There was like I never worked so hard during Covid. I was not making sourdough bread or banana bread. And we literally had to split up as a husband and wife team. So my husband spent the first while on site in a campervan.

So. And then I was at home with the kids. So because we all thought something would. You know what I mean? If you got sick, how are you going to run the business?

At least one of us was there to do it. So it was just crazy time. You’d like ambulance guys, hospitals, police like guards in Ireland. They’re called coming, like, into the site. So as a manufacturing site, you’re not used to that level of.

So we literally had the guards. We called them in Ireland, the police patrolling because alcohol was more valuable than gold at the time.

John Corcoran: 17:59

Isn’t that always the case in Ireland, though?

Lorraine Corcoran: 18:02

There’s no gold, so that’s why nobody comes near. We’re a very peaceful island because there’s no oil and there’s no gold.

John Corcoran: 18:09

So. And how long have you been in EO for?

Lorraine Corcoran: 18:14

So I went as spouse in 2016 to Bangkok because my husband was incoming Irish president at the time. And then straight after I joined as a fully fledged EO member. So nine years now.

John Corcoran: 18:27

And what has that meant for you being a part of this EO community during that time, during these challenges.

Lorraine Corcoran: 18:32

Sorry. To be honest, it was the family that got us through the turbulent times of Covid. And like mentioned Steven Short, I was on his board during Covid when he was Irish President. I unfortunately got long Covid that second summer, so I had to unfortunately give up the learning chair on Steven and he was like, he was so supportive and he actually took over. And like even when we went through all the challenges with Covid and then coming out of the last business and selling it and moving on to a new business and going to Singapore last year is my first proper GLC.

I suppose just again, it’s that mindset of growth and that support is there with the old members. So whether you’re from America or Asia or Europe, you’re just with like minded people. So you surround yourself with like minded people. It brings you up so the rest of the turkeys can’t get you down when you’re back at home. So yeah.

So to be honest, it just gives you that energy to push forward and start again. And because we’re back in bootstrap start up section.

John Corcoran: 19:34

So this is a great where can people go to learn more about you or check out your company.

Lorraine Corcoran: 19:39

So I’m on LinkedIn obviously Lorraine Corcoran and Nyrah Beauty. nyrahbeauty.com is our website. Send me an email Lorraine at com and everybody coming to Dublin next year GLC is in Dublin.

John Corcoran: 19:52

Oh yeah exciting.

Lorraine Corcoran: 19:53

So we welcome everyone to come to Ireland and reach out to us on the chapter, and we’d love to hook up with anybody coming in before or after. Let us know.

John Corcoran: 20:02

Thanks so much.

Marina Byezhanova: 20:03

My name is Marina Byezhanova. I own a branding agency for CEOs and their executive teams called Brand of a Leader, and we’re based out of Montreal, Canada, but we work with clients in 12 countries. We’ve experienced many hurdles as, of course, any business owner does. You know, we often joke that as business owners, we go through those stages of I am incredible, I’m on top of the world. And then you’re like, no, I’m the worst.

I’m a failure. No. I’m amazing. And sometimes they all happen the same day. Sometimes in the exact same day.

One of the challenges to us and also started Brand of a Leader during the pandemic. Then the almost, you know, the technical recession then now with the political landscape, I just want a couple of years of great economy so that we can scale even faster, which thankfully we have been growing really rapidly. One of the biggest, biggest challenges has been AI, because a lot of what we do is we create content for our clients. So we write articles, we create LinkedIn content, and all of a sudden I came and for a couple of months I went into into denial mode, and I was one of the people who were saying, I will never be as good as humans, and we’re going to do better, better work. And then when I came out of denial, I said, how can we leverage those tools?

They’re not going to go away. And yes, some of the tools are not as great as humans yet, but it’s going in that direction. So instead of essentially overnight, we got a competitor who was not as good as us, but getting better. And it was free or 20 bucks a month. So that’s a challenge.

That’s not a competitor you want to get. And so instead, we completely embraced AI. That meant a lot of restructuring within my organization. That meant letting go of seven people, which for an organization of 24 is substantial. That meant hiring completely different type of talent and also really embracing the AI mindset within the company versus just integrating some tools.

And at one point, we brought in a fractional AI consultant, and then we realized, no, we don’t need a consultant. We need to continuously inspire our team members to each embrace AI, the AI mindset for their individual, you know, area in which they operate and function. And that has been transformational for us. We’ve cut a lot of costs. We’ve elevated our service.

We’ve been able to continue growing. So it was a massive hurdle, but thankfully we have turned it into a great opportunity. So we didn’t necessarily hire people who are AI focused. So for example, to be more specific, we let go of all of our writers. Which was which was a lot.

But then we’ve invested into really world class level of editors, which are just it’s an it’s an exceptionally expensive skill set to have on the team. But because we saved all of that cost with writers, we’ve been able to just invest in just top, top notch. So that’s what we’ve done versus when we hire people. Now we ask, do you use AI? What tools do you use?

If we see that people are in denial about it, they’re not going to be great. But if they’re open and interested, we’ll train them. We’ll give them access, we’ll give them, we’ll encourage them and give them. Give them the tools. How are we using it?

So oh my God, in so many different ways. So number one is I mentioned for creating content. We also use it for video editing. We’re then we still have our video editors. But video editors can focus then on high impact tasks.

Not all this boring of trying to figure out, you know, oh, did I cut out the first half of the sentence? That was ridiculous. That work is menial and it does not require creative human who has been trained on doing something top notch with that type of content. So that’s all done for them. So then our editors can work more on storytelling on, for example, we create speaker reels for our clients.

Well, for an editor, for a video editor or somebody who’s professional in this, it’s the story that’s interesting. How do you weave it in? How do you make sure that it all flows? Yeah, it’s not fantastic at that. And is it going to be?

I’m not so sure. But sitting with that minute editing and remove the filler words and remove the arms and remove that, that’s such boring work that now the tool can do. So we use it for anything that has to do with content. We use it for productivity because we work on personal branding of our clients, our CEOs, and it’s all rooted in thought leadership. We create.

They’re essentially thought leadership brains. I wouldn’t say they’re avatars. That’s not where we’re operating, but all of their content, any podcast interviews that we book them on, anything that we do, it goes into their thought leadership Vault, and then we’re able to mine a lot of data there, mine a lot of information. But everything we’re because we book our clients as guests on podcasts, we’re experimenting with podcast outreach tools, with PR outreach tools. We’re experimenting with many.

So really it’s becoming, of course, proposal generation, generating presentations. We’re using tools across the board. What we do. That’s a fantastic question because there’s a lot of confusion and conflation when we say personal branding. A lot of people think of influencers, people who are looking to monetize their name, you know, Kim Kardashians of the world.

That is not at all our world. That’s lifestyle influencers. That’s not what we do. We work exclusively with CEOs and their executives. And so our goal is for them to build their personal brands, not to be famous, not to have a million followers and not to monetize their names.

In fact, our clients would rather be behind the scenes building businesses than be in front of it. However, the the market and landscape has changed, and there is also just a societal expectation from the standpoint of our employees and all of our stakeholders for CEOs to have visibility. But how are they going to build visibility? Not in the same way as an influencer posting what they’re having for breakfast, lunch, dinner and, you know, posting what they just purchased and unboxing their boxes? No.

So how are they going to build that? Visibility is through their thought leadership and through their expertise. When they are showcasing their thought leadership and expertise, then that elevates the profile of their organization. The goal is not for them to become famous. The goal is for their company to be recognized as the number one organization in their industry.

That’s the goal. We just achieve it through the thought leadership and the visibility of the leaders of that organization. So number one, having worked with clients in 12 different countries when I was born, we were still behind the Iron Curtain. And as I was growing up, those few years, never did I think that I would see any other countries. We didn’t even see them on TV.

And so now for me to have a global organization where we’re serving clients in 12 countries is a huge, incredible milestone. We’ve had so many milestones. We’ve innovated, we’ve created incredible things. I mean, we grew the company so quickly to become an EO qualifying company, which was also an incredible milestone. And then because we’re virtually distributed team.

So now a team of 17 and we’re all over the world predominantly in Canada but but spread out across Canada last year we got to have a team building event in Toronto, Canada, a team building event in Montreal, Canada. We flew in one of our team members who at the time was living in either Poland or Portugal, now lives in Dubai. We’re able to fly her in. And so that moment of coming together, something that we used to take for granted, you know, most organizations weren’t virtual before. Now it’s such a milestone.

And now in a couple of months from now, we’ll have another big milestone again, bringing many of our team members to Montreal. We get to sponsor one of your regional events, and so the team is coming together, and it will be such a milestone again for us to gather together in one place. So I do a lot of public speaking, and every time I’m speaking, the person introducing me mispronounces my last name because it’s very, very complicated. A lot of letters, however, and so at one point I was even like, should I change my last name? What should I do?

However, I also learned that thanks to my complicated last name, I am the only Marina on LinkedIn. So if you’re looking to connect on LinkedIn where I’m very active, you punch in my name, which you will see under under the show. In the show notes, you’ll be able to punch it in and you’ll be able to find me. The name of my company is Brand of a Leader. And so brandofaleader.com.

You can find me there as well.

Outro: 28:04

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