When it comes to friends, lovers and businesses, it’s easy to let emotions get in the way of rational decision making. Leaving behind my winery and starting something new, Luxury Market Branding (LMB), was not easy for me to do. Although hungering for new opportunities and challenges, so much of who I was and how others perceived me had become wrapped up with the winery. I had become Lauren the Young and Successful Winery Owner, and I was very emotionally invested in that role. So much so, I dreamed that each of my children would have the opportunity to be married there one day.
However, I did eventually realise that the winery was the first stop on my entrepreneurial journey and that I would have to reinvent myself if I hoped to make it to the next stop. Some entrepreneurs (I call them builders) stay with the business they founded as long as they possibly can, sometimes retiring after decades of building and operating their businesses. Sometimes they are forced out by a board of directors looking for younger blood and others (the initiators) get bored after they get their businesses up and running. They’re constantly looking to take on the next challenge and to create the next success. Reinventing yourself not only has the potential to put you on a new entrepreneurial path, but it can also open you up to entirely new networks of business and personal contacts. As an entrepreneur, it’s important for you to figure out if you’re a builder or an initiator because if you wind up in the wrong role, not only will you be unsatisfied with your situation, you will not give 110 percent of yourself 100 percent of the time.
As you have probably guessed by now, I’m an initiator. I am always looking for the next challenge, the next success. My second business, Luxury Market Branding, was a direct result of pushing myself to think differently about who I was and who I had become to my family, friends, and business colleagues. It came from thinking, “Okay, I’ve run this winery for nearly eight years, and it’s what my entire adult professional reputation has been founded on, but I’ve done everything I can do with the business. It’s time for new challenges.” I was ready to reinvent myself, to move on from my persona of Lauren the Young and Successful Winery Owner to someone new but I didn’t know who that someone was yet.
To help figure that out, I wrapped my head around what I enjoyed most about operating the winery and what my greatest accomplishments had been. At the same time, I was trying to get a handle on what it was I wanted to do next in my entrepreneurial life. Hopefully I would start something that I was going to enjoy and be good at. When I began the winery, I had very little knowledge about the industry but I was an inquisitive sponge, hungry to learn everything there was to learn to build a successful business. I sought out and tapped into the knowledge of some of the most experienced, successful, and well-respected people in the industry and I was never shy when it came to asking questions and listening to the advice I obtained. I didn’t always put the advice I received into practice in my own business but I definitely considered it and I was grateful to get it.
Wineries are among the most highly regulated businesses in our country and compliance with all the different Federal, State, and Local laws and regulations is a huge headache for business owners but it’s something I actually enjoyed and was good at. From this, I considered starting up a company that would take care of the back-end compliance issues for other wineries. What this meant was that we would charge a premium to take care of all the mundane and annoying administrative tasks that every winery owner has to deal with. I figured that it would be easy to sign up a bunch of clients for a business like that, which would enable winery owners to focus on making great wine and growing their businesses instead of dealing with all the time-wasting, government-required paperwork and red tape.
So although I was great at the compliance end of the business, I knew I was also good at the marketing and branding of our products, building brand loyalty, driving retail, wholesale, and online sales.
Not only that, but I seemed to have a real knack for building partnerships that drove revenue, such as those with the media and tourism agencies and by engaging with our consumers and driving sales to our online store. So I had to step back to see what that would look like and what I would do. With the help of one of my trusted friends, it became clear that branding and marketing is what my business network most needed. It was also the two core areas where my expertise could have the most meaningful and measurable impact. It was also clear that people don’t often have the opportunity to make money in the wine business, so there was a market that was ripe for someone to come in and help breathe life into other wine companies that had grown complacent over the years or that needed an injection of youth and excitement.
With that realisation in hand, I started LMB. My first client was Heritage Link Brands in Los Angeles, founded by Selena Cuffe. The company specialises in finding great African wines and importing and promoting them within the United States. I had met Selena four years earlier at one of my speaking engagements while she was an MBA student at Harvard (another example of networking turning an acquaintance into an opportunity.) My first project with Heritage Link was helping the company rebrand and market a very special line of South African wines. These wines had done very well in South Africa and had deep roots there, but our goal was to make them as successful in the United States. So I went to South Africa with Selena and her team and helped them do tasting trials of the wines that they wanted to bring into the United States.
I provided advice on how to best refine the wines for the market, given the price points they desired, and we talked about rebranding and packaging. We conducted focus groups, and I met with the brand’s founders to define what the non-negotiable values of their family name and history were, and what they did and did not want shared in the media. We talked about when and how we would ship the product to the United States, and the distribution strategy. We had to consider what airlines we wanted to carry it, whether it would be carried on domestic or international flights and how the product would be packaged, as well as, whether or not we should have it available for pre-sale. Heritage Link wanted to introduce a young, fresh, and approachable brand to the U.S. market and I advised them on how to establish brand equity and awareness.
We worked a lot with how we would accomplish these goals, from the advertising tagline to the story we told to the communication of how and why the family that owned the brand was involved and how we would get our mission across in a variety of different media. The launch was a great success and we met, and in some cases, exceeded every one of the goals we set for its rollout. While I was still involved with wine, I was no longer involved with making it. Instead, I was successfully branding and marketing it. I quickly came to the realisation that if I could do this successfully with wine, then there was no reason whatsoever that I couldn’t apply this same knowledge and expertise to other products and other businesses.
As I flung myself into my new business, LMB took on a variety of established and burgeoning brands as clients and quickly proved what we could do as a boutique firm that blended creative marketing insights with business development and partnerships. Not only had I reinvented my business but I had reinvented myself and I had reinvented (and reinvested in) my relationships, something I would do again and again in the years to come.
I am often asked this question about my own path in business: “How did you go from being a winery owner to a marketer and then from being a marketer to a venture capitalist?” My answer is actually quite simple: “I did it by innovating as an entrepreneur. It has been the evolution of me and my interests.” Our generation isn’t married to the past, we’re not stuck doing whatever that “major” is on our college degree and we’re not frozen by a fear that a potential employer will look at our eclectic and ever-changing resumes as an indicator of some sort of character or motivational defect. Smart businesspeople know that someone’s skills and the ability to look beyond the conventional wisdom and be innovative, is far more important than any degree or title or fancy business card.
Not only had I reinvented my business but I had reinvented myself and I had reinvented (and reinvested in) my relationships, something I would do again and again in the years to come.
So the most important question for someone who wants to be successful today and far into the future is this: How do you evolve? To be more specific, how do you explore your passions and your creativity and how do you figure out ways to continually develop or reinvent yourself and your businesses, both in a creative way and to have a creative edge?
Whatever evolution you make in business has to be creative in order for it to be interesting and catch other people’s attention, whether you’re working as an entrepreneur or in a corporate setting. The largest Fortune 500 companies today are including words like “creative,” “innovative” and “entrepreneurial” in their position descriptions and job postings. For these large companies, this is something new. In the past, corporations valued and rewarded people who would conform to their company cultures and stay within the strict boundaries that the companies defined for them. That’s no longer the case because now they want people who think like entrepreneurs, who are intrapreneurial. To me, versatility means that you do the following:
- Leave your job description and comfort zone and do whatever is needed to maximise value creation. The more you step outside your comfort zone, the more value you can potentially create. You can do this either by realising (1) a new passion, or (2) new capabilities. I have learned that when you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t get the option to say, “Well that’s not my job.” No, everything is your job, at least in the very beginning. If there’s nobody else to do it, then there goes your company.
- Be reliable. You will build trust and goodwill by doing what you say you are going to do—when you say you are going to do it. Reliability helps you create a firm foundation from which you can quickly pivot when necessary as conditions demand it.
- Be straightforward. Most people in business prefer their business partners and colleagues to be honest and candid with them, and not to beat around the bush. Being straight- forward enables you to get to the heart of issues quickly, and makes solving them much more efficient.
- Show that you’re self-motivated and naturally curious, and that you don’t need to be motivated externally to learn or assist in solving problems. Companies put a premium on people who are self-motivated, who will pick up the slack and treat a company like their own, and who will solve problems that they’re not asked specifically to solve. They are willing to pay a premium for people who are naturally curious and motivated to effectuate change or get a project right.
- Be highly motivated, skilled, and engaged. It takes these kinds of people to make a business successful, no matter how big or small it may be. You can work for Colgate-Palmolive, and when you walk into a meeting, you’re still John Doe who works for Colgate-Palmolive. However, when you leave, people may remember Colgate-Palmolive, but they’re going to really remember how John Doe conducted him- or herself—that’s where the greatest impression will be left. Your representation as an employee of a company is your placeholder, but you’re always representing yourself whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur.
Show that you can identify weaknesses and create solutions. Every company wants a doer or a creator. Know your value and get to work. I think one characteristic that’s made me successful is that I clearly say when I’m not good at something or if it’s not my area of expertise or if my time is better spent being productive on another task. I am the first one to raise my hand and say, “This is not my area of expertise.” And rather than being penalised for my inadequacies, I am respected for telling people where my strengths are and ensuring that they are being leveraged to the greatest degree possible.
Be a good and clear communicator. Quality communicators are transparent yet tactful, eloquent and non-condescending, which I think goes back to my belief that success is a result of being assertive and deliberate, but not being aggressive and abrasive. Get comfortable communicating what you want to do strategically to the people in your network who you feel can open doors or who are close to opportunities that you’d like to be considered for. This isn’t begging for work or looking desperate, it’s putting out feelers in your network.
A warm intro is better than a cold call when you have your sights set on a business opportunity and if you apply for a job where a friend or colleague works, who is highly regarded and you haven’t enlisted their assistance beforehand, it speaks volumes about how you explore and leverage opportunities as a businessperson, so don’t let pride get in the way. What does versatility mean to you? How can you be the kind of person that thinks like an entrepreneur, even if you’re in the heart of a conservative, one-hundred-year-old multinational corporation?
All of these intrepreneurial skills are transferrable to any position in any company. From start-ups to the Fortune 500. Almost every company today seems to want people who are entrepreneurial in their thoughts and actions. Employers want people who will step up and make things happen—not sit back and wait for things to happen to them. As management consultant Chris Smith recently wrote in a Harvard Business Review Blog Network post, these are the people who exude entrepreneurial spirit, the ones who want to learn, experiment, apply, share, and partner.
In an article for Fast Company magazine, I listed five actions that entrepreneurs should consider before they reinvent themselves. With a little bit of tweaking, these tips are as applicable for someone working within a large corporation as they are for a start-up entrepreneur. Be sure you consider these actions before you reinvent yourself, no matter what your job is or what company you work for.
Build a comprehensive support system. Surround yourself with a support system of peer mentors who understand you, your business, and where you are in life. Develop and maintain relationships with successful high-level proven businesspeople that you respect, admire, and aspire to be like professionally to help you navigate and execute your plan. Bring a trusted personal advisor on to be a sounding board. Hire a business coach or a life coach if necessary.
Evaluate your strengths and skills. List the business skills that were required in your last position and the successes that you achieved. Determine if your experience at your most recent company qualifies as hands-on education to help you launch your next venture. Many of your skills should carry over to your new venture, so be sure to identify any additional professional areas of expertise that may be needed and seek counsel. List your priorities. Be clear about what’s important to you and what you value most. Make sure that you can achieve your goals and objectives while maintaining work-life balance throughout your transition. (More about the myth and reality of work-life balance in Chapter 7.) Your business should work for you, and not against whatever equilibrium you create to ultimately make the transition manageable.
Clarify your vision. Create a mission statement for your business. Know your market’s demographics and how you will reach them. Immerse yourself in the industry you’ve set your sights on, soak up as much knowledge as you can, and form a professional network within that industry. Create your step-by-step action plan. Plan your work and work your plan. Also, have a personal mission statement that defines you and your moral foundation, and make sure that every major decision holds true to your personal mission statement. Again, remember that people are watching!
Know when to take the plunge. Timing is everything. Make sure that you plan (and accomplish) your exit strategy when transitioning. Keep in touch with your network and make sure that your transition is as seamless as possible. Make sure you understand the risk involved with changing jobs or creating a new business. Know the downside and be comfort- able taking the plunge without having all of the answers, but also be comfortable asking for help, the upside will outweigh your fears! When you reinvent yourself, it’s important that you always present your very best self to the world. In this way, the people you meet will be left with the best impression of who you are and what you can do.
The way I present myself to people, always showing the best of who I am, has made them believe in me and given them a better sense of who I am, what I’m about, the values that drive me, how curious and insightful I am and how persistent I am about my work ethic. These interactions have not only helped to shape people’s opinions about who I am, but also opened my eyes to new opportunities and challenged me as an entrepreneur to work in a different way or to move outside of my comfort zone. At the end of the day, my career so far has been an evolution of my passion and interest and I have always had the support of my network.
You can really have a fruitful, successful career, whether as an entrepreneur or someone working in corporate America, by following your passion. So long as you have the support of your network and the fundamental know-how and ability and core skills to get the right things done, you can succeed in most anything you put your mind to, whether that’s a project or a career. If you’ve got something going for you that will help you open a door, then by all means use it and walk through that door. There’s the perfect chance for you to get in faster than someone else and prove that you’re worth the hype that preceded you.
You will have the opportunity to become the new status quo and set the bar high for those who follow. Give the person who put his or her social capital on the line by backing you zero reasons to regret doing so, and a million reasons to take credit loudly and proudly for seeing your potential and affording you a platform on which to shine. This article is an excerpt from the book: The Path Redefined, by Lauren Maillian Bias. Get your copy of the book, here. Listen to our interview with the author, Lauren Maillian Bias, here.
