Teresa Rand with Rand Consulting

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:14] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast founder of Rand Consulting and the Boss lady Community, Ms. Teresa Rand. How are you?

Teresa Rand: [00:00:37] I’m great. I love even the introduction Stone because, as you know, I’ll tell the listeners, I’m from Georgia, so it’s nice to be talking to somebody from home.

Stone Payton: [00:00:46] We can absolutely understand each other and even maybe some of the colloquialisms that you and I have encountered through the through the years. I got a thousand questions, Teresa. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I’m thinking a good place to start might be if you could articulate for me and our listening audience a mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Teresa Rand: [00:01:11] I can put it in one word. Well, two words. I’ll use two words enhance communication. Ever had a problem communicating with anybody?

Stone Payton: [00:01:22] I most certainly have. And I’ve run across a couple of others that have had a challenge with it. And maybe one of the keys to it is to be succinct and clear, like you just were.

Teresa Rand: [00:01:32] Exactly. Don’t don’t you don’t have to put all the flowery words around it. Although there are people that require more words to communicate. So it’s it’s everybody doesn’t communicate the way we want them to. We have to communicate the way they can hear us.

Stone Payton: [00:01:50] And so the expression of the word talk about the work a little bit because you’re writing, speaking, training, consulting facility, you’re doing all kind of cool stuff.

Teresa Rand: [00:01:58] Yeah, all kind of fun stuff. I’m loving life. Stone I have two separate businesses. One is is a consulting business. Theresa ran consulting and I use personality assessments to go into mostly companies and work with management teams on the topic of communication. And what I tell them is they need to know about themselves first and then they need to know about those people they work with. And then we can enhance communication, which we know if we enhance communication, that improves productivity. That’s been proven over and over. You know, if we’re not wasting our time arguing or not communicating or, you know, fill in the blank, we’re going to be busier actually working. The second thing I do is I do run a membership, a women’s membership organization called the Boss Lady Community, and that is a group of women that we get together and we do virtual education. Our tagline is to embrace, empower and educate all women. And we get together for virtual meetings, live meetings. I just came off a conference of 100 plus women where we had a two day conference at the beach and had some world class speakers come in and just talk about being a well-rounded human that happens to be a female.

Speaker3: [00:03:17] Well, I’d like.

Stone Payton: [00:03:18] To dive into both. Let’s start with the personality assessments. I’ll bet you have learned a ton about the assessments themselves and more importantly, how to leverage them to actually serve the constituencies you’re you’re trying to help?

Teresa Rand: [00:03:31] Absolutely. I use a variety of assessments depending on what the company needs or what the individual needs or goals are. I use Disc, which a lot of people have heard of, disc disc. I use Gallup strengths. A lot of people have heard of that one. I use another one called Codebreaker, which is a fairly new on the market last 20 years, but disc and strengths have been around since the 40s, so Codebreaker is fairly different and it’s an assessment that is really geared towards sales. So if you want to know how to sell to people that are different than you or similar to you, that’s a specific assessment. And there are a million assessments out there, as you probably know, starting with Myers-Briggs and Winslow. I mean, I can name a thousand of them. And what I tell people is just pick one. Just pick one and then get with somebody that is certified and really doing a deep dive because you can get the report and read it. But we don’t always, even in reading something, take in the information about who we really are. Unless an outsider helps us see some things we might not see.

Speaker3: [00:04:45] Mhm.

Stone Payton: [00:04:45] That makes a lot of sense. So do you find I’m sure the answer is yes, but I’d love for you to speak to it a little bit. Do you find that just taking the time to do the assessment and get some sort of report even, you know, regardless of how much someone might say, oh boy, that really nailed me or I disagree, but. Do you find that at least it creates a platform for some dialog, right? At least now we’ve got a point, you know, Hey, you know, this thing scored about here, you know. How do you feel about that? Has that been your experience? You know, or if you’re asking a coworker or spouse, is that true?

Teresa Rand: [00:05:20] Absolutely. I always tell people, look, if you don’t believe what your assessment says, take it to either a partner, a parent or a teenage child of yours. And those three people will tell you who you are, who you show up as. And it you know, we laugh and we make jokes. But the reality is we all come to work stoned with our, for lack of a better word, our baggage, our experience in life, whether it’s how we were raised or where we were raised, or the kind of bosses we’ve had, you know, fill in the blank. We all come with that level of experience that is unique to us. So we can’t expect everybody to communicate the way we do because we already have these preconceived notions of what you’re saying. And maybe we’re not even listening unless you’re speaking my language.

Stone Payton: [00:06:20] Yeah, okay. Let’s walk through a use case if we could, and you can pick it or like I can envision, you know, I’m a 40% equity owner in a pretty successful media company. I can see getting our studio partners, we call them people who run these studios around the country, getting them together, having us take that. You don’t have to apply it to us, but I’d like to kind of see how the work unfolds from introducing the concept, conducting the assessment, and then. Okay, now what?

Speaker3: [00:06:48] Yeah.

Teresa Rand: [00:06:48] So when I go in and work with a team, it’s usually a management team. Like I’m working with a group now, it’s a group of 12, so I give them all the assessment and then I meet with them individually before I go throw out their results to their team members. Okay. I want to be sure that they are okay with that. And there’s you know, they agree or don’t agree. I want to get a feel for that human. Actually, a good case study I’m going to use is one I did last year with a group of attorneys. There were six of them, and they had all been hired for an insurance firm to be the internal attorney firm, law firm. And they did not work in the same offices. They were remote all over the state, two states, all over two states. So getting them to communicate was a little bit of a challenge. Number one, they’re all pretty much type-A. They all know what they’re doing. They’re all detailed people. And what we found out, though, is that they were all so similar that nobody was actually taking charge. Now, that’s hard to believe with a group of attorneys. Yeah, but that’s what was happening. They all were kind of in their own little world doing their own thing, and they didn’t really know what direction they were going in because nobody was taking charge and nobody had that personality trait. So we had to maneuver around that and figure out, okay, this is how we better communicate. And we have to call for the question, if you will, if there’s a decision to be made, we have to say who’s going to make it and actually put it out there. And more often, they’re going to make it as a group because they don’t have that really strong, strong personality, but at least now they know it. So they’re not all just floundering out there waiting on somebody to make a decision.

Stone Payton: [00:08:53] What a marvelous mechanism for self awareness. But then if you’re willing to to embrace it, it sounds like let’s just hypothetically say that I knew someone that was a little quick to make some decisions, had a tendency to chase the new shiny ball. You know, on the positive side, I get a lot done and some sometimes it’s a home run. On the other side, I have a tendency to to steamroll ideas and people and everything else. And I don’t have much of a rearview mirror. And I only like the data that that that makes me look shiny.

Speaker3: [00:09:25] Exactly.

Stone Payton: [00:09:26] So but historically and I’ve been in the sales arena in the training consulting world, I have bristled with the idea that I have to that I might have to change who I am. But you really don’t, do you?

Teresa Rand: [00:09:41] I love, love, love. That question. And that question mostly comes from people with your personality. Right? And I can say that with all due respect, because I have the same one and I just make a decision. I don’t need to ask a million people. Just let’s just get this and move on. But I might leave some dead bodies behind me and people may follow me because I pay them. That’s really not why we want people to follow us. So we’re not changing who we are. We are changing how we respond based on what the other person needs. So instead of the saying, you know, treat people as I want to be treated, we want to treat people like they want to be treated. And when we do that, if we really just want to get what we want, that’s still the best way to do it. I’m not changing who I am.

Speaker3: [00:10:45] Yeah.

Teresa Rand: [00:10:46] But in my example, I’m just softening a little bit to someone that is not like me. That’s not a bull in a China shop.

Speaker3: [00:10:56] Well, I’m.

Teresa Rand: [00:10:57] Going to ask about the kids and I’m going to have a conversation and all of a sudden the person hears me better.

Stone Payton: [00:11:05] Yeah. And all of that is right and true and virtuous and just and help. It’ll help you win more friends and influence more people. But there’s really there’s a bottom line business value to to investing the time and energy to do this.

Speaker3: [00:11:21] Lutely Yeah.

Teresa Rand: [00:11:22] Absolutely. The more we communicate effectively, the less time it takes us to get stuff done. I mean, it just it makes sense if we’re all are talking where we hear each other and understand each other, we’re not wasting time getting mad because somebody hurt our feelings or somebody left me out of the meeting. When we go, oh, you know what? Teresa just goes forward and she forgets to include us. So I just need to go and say, Hey, did you forget to tell me what direction we’re.

Speaker3: [00:11:59] Going in and.

Teresa Rand: [00:12:01] When I know that that person wants to be involved, but they’re not going to raise their hand to be the leader. It’s a gentle reminder for me not to leave them behind or vice versa. You know, I can’t be so demanding all the time.

Stone Payton: [00:12:17] And there has to be tremendous application in the sales arena for this, right? Because you’ve got to meet them where they are. Right. If you’re going to influence. Okay. I got to go ahead.

Teresa Rand: [00:12:28] The other thing I just popped into my mind that I you know, we all are who we are and there’s no right or wrong. But when you’re leading a team, the more you know about yourself and the things you’re not good at, you hire somebody that’s good at those things.

Speaker3: [00:12:48] Amen.

Teresa Rand: [00:12:49] Because you just got to have, I call it diversity of thought. We need diversity of thought on our teams so we don’t all think the same.

Stone Payton: [00:12:59] Will said, okay, I got to know the backstory because the full backstory because I’m just interested and curious. How did you find yourself in this arena doing this kind of work for these kind of people? Was it a straight path, you know, and you just knew this is what you. I’m sensing no.

Teresa Rand: [00:13:19] Nothing’s a straight path, right? I actually worked for one organization for 30 years.

Speaker3: [00:13:24] Oh, my.

Teresa Rand: [00:13:25] It was a non profit. I ended up being the CEO of an association here in Florida. So I had 1000 employees. I moved 3 or 4 different times in states with my organization in various roles. But one of my very first CEOs used the Gallup or no. Yes, he used Gallup strengths on his management team, and there were six of us. And those six of us to this day are still friends. We learn. He took us on a three day retreat with a consultant, and we learned more than we wanted to know about each other. But we became we grew that organization by leaps and bounds under his leadership. But because we knew what made each other tick and we were all very different, actually 2 or 3 of us were too much alive, which was part of the problem. But so from that moment on, as I grew in my career and ultimately had my own association, I did personality assessments on every single executive I ever hired. So when I decided to leave that job after 30 years, I went and got certified in those three certifications districts and Codebreaker because I knew I wanted to share that knowledge. And that’s been five years now and things are going great. We still need to learn how to communicate. It hasn’t changed in all these years.

Speaker3: [00:14:52] Oh, so tell.

Stone Payton: [00:14:53] Me about this boss lady community. What compelled you to get that going? What are you out there trying to do with that.

Teresa Rand: [00:14:59] Boss lady was actually not in my business plan when I. When I started, Theresa ran consulting, but I kept having women come to me, you know, wanting advice, wanting, you know, I don’t have a good network. I don’t have this. I don’t have that. Women are I can say this, you can’t. Women are catty when women are petty. You know, all those things. So so I got about ten women together and I said, okay, what are you what are you looking for? You know, we’re all member of the chamber. We all go to networking. What are you looking for? And they were looking for a group of like minded women that were anxious and just helping each other succeed. So we’re different than a networking group in that, you know, we’ve got several lawyers, we’ve got several doctors, we’ve got real estate agents, we got therapists. We don’t believe in the scarcity concept. So there’s no rule in our group that there can only be one of a certain industry. We don’t care. We get together to educate each other on how to have a full, successful life personally and professionally. And we’ve grown. We just finished our third conference this year and we continue to grow and we’re in three different cities now. It’s a membership organization. We have small mastermind groups. I could talk about it forever, but it’s just women helping women.

Stone Payton: [00:16:17] So I’m I’m personally curious, but I think there’s some benefit here for our listening audience as well. Here in little old Woodstock, Georgia. You know, I’ve got a great media company. That business model is very well baked. We help professional services folks, usually seven figure firms, you know, writing six figure business. But at the other end of the continuum, when I moved to Woodstock, I really wanted to build a community partner program where we could serve the solopreneurs and the smaller businesses and all that. So I’m having fun with it, but I’m in the throes of building that community out. And so I guess I’ll ask you, was it tough to get this thing going or did you get a lot of steam really fast in getting a group together?

Teresa Rand: [00:17:00] When I had my first kickoff in my community, we had over 200 women show up. A lot of social media, a lot of phone calls. I’ve been in the community about 15 years, so I knew a lot of people. But then when you put out a. A price point, you find out who’s really serious. So out of those 200 plus, we had about 50 join and then Covid hit.

Speaker3: [00:17:31] Wow.

Teresa Rand: [00:17:32] We kicked off in August of 2019, and then Covid, of course, hit in March. So what we did is we just went all virtual. I had doctors. I had therapists. We did a makeover one night just to relax. We did all kind of educational seminars for a year and a half before we finally rolled out of that into the conference in 2021, late 2021. And since then, we’ve doubled in membership and we’ve we’ve moved into two different cities. So we’ve got a pretty good model. And I just was in a conference in Tennessee, Nashville, with another group, a woman that I met through a coaching program that runs the same kind of similar organization. Hers is called Women Connect and different chapters, different mastermind groups. But I do charge because I am a firm believer that we have to invest in ourselves.

Speaker3: [00:18:31] Yeah.

Teresa Rand: [00:18:31] And when everything’s free, you just don’t. It’s just not the same, you know? We owe it to invest in our own learning. So it’s been a great model and we continue to grow. And then I started the podcast from that, the Boss Lady podcast, the conference. And so, yeah, it’s helped my business. My business helps Boss lady. It all works together. So it’s a lot of fun.

Stone Payton: [00:18:54] Yeah, it’s probably marvelous compliments all of those efforts. And you’re, as my brother would say now you’re cooking with gas, you got masterminds, you got into a virtual stuff, real stuff you got to go on. Well, I will aspire to get my community here in Woodstock as as engaged as you clearly are with yours. So now that you’ve been at all of this a while, both both the boss lady and with the consulting work, with the communication, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it all for you?

Teresa Rand: [00:19:29] Wow, that’s a great question. You know, at the end of the day, the most fun is that I get to decide and that may go back to the personality assessment, but that I’m not I’m working just for me. I worked for somebody else for 30 years. I had a great career. I loved what I did. But this is just different. You know, I’m I’m in my home office right now. My dog’s sitting here. I get to pick and choose the things that I do. But I also feel that I’m making a difference when I go into a company and can help. I mean, I’m working with a company now with their young upcoming leaders, which is my favorite to work with, and when I can help them at 30 years old understand about themselves and what they’re capable of and how they can grow and how they can get along with other people in a more effective way. There’s just nothing like that. I wish I had had it, although like I said, my first CEO was smart enough to to do that and it was very beneficial throughout my career.

Speaker3: [00:20:38] So yeah, I.

Stone Payton: [00:20:39] Mean, I could tell I, I’d see in your eyes, I can hear it in your voice. I mean, you do you love your work. You light up when we start talking about, you know, how you, how you roll it, roll it out. So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a practice like yours? Like, do you need to or do you get out and shake the trees? Or does it kind of come to you now or is it a natural byproduct of these of these other efforts or it’s evolved.

Teresa Rand: [00:21:09] What I did to begin with, I first of all, I hired a coach before I left my job and said, here’s what I’m thinking. I worked with a coach for a year, developed a business plan, and finally turned in my resignation. And, you know, I had my company agreed to keep me on a year while I started my business. So that was a nice.

Speaker3: [00:21:28] Good for you.

Teresa Rand: [00:21:29] Bonus. But I asked for that. So, you know, you never know what you’re going to get if you don’t ask. And they did. They they were my first client. Once they hired a new CEO, they kept me on a retainer as my first client for almost a year, about eight months. So that was good. But because I was in the nonprofit Stone and I had raised a lot of money, I was really good at raising money. I knew the movers and shakers in my community. And so my first six months of business was I had a list of about 50 people that I called and I had coffee, breakfast, lunch, drinks, a walk on the beach, whatever they wanted so I could tell them what I was doing. And from there it became word of mouth. Now, as I’ve grown, I’ve had to do a lot more intentional marketing, although that was pretty intentional. And I’ve hired a social media expert because I don’t want to do that. I’d rather use my time working with clients. So and I’m I just get frustrated. That’s not my thing. I can do it. I can put my grandkids pictures on Facebook very.

Speaker3: [00:22:38] Easily, right?

Stone Payton: [00:22:38] Yeah, that’s easy enough.

Teresa Rand: [00:22:39] But I hire somebody to do all of my social media. I hired producer for my podcast. I learned early on to do what I was good at and hire out the other. And when you start, you always have the question, Well, can I afford to? You can’t afford not to. Yeah, you’re just wasting your time if you’re doing the things you don’t want to do, when you can be doing the things you need to be doing that will bring money in. Because at the end of the day, we’re all here to make a living.

Speaker3: [00:23:10] Sure.

Stone Payton: [00:23:11] I’m going to switch gears on you for a moment before we wrap it, if that’s all right. I’m interested I don’t know when you would find the time, but I am curious what hobbies, passions, pursuits, things you might nerd out about outside the scope of your work. Do you do like my listenership? They know I like to hunt, fish and travel. Like.

Speaker3: [00:23:31] Okay.

Teresa Rand: [00:23:32] All right. Well, I don’t hunt or fish. I do like to travel. Yeah, my husband still works too, but we are fortunate that we get to travel a little bit. We have seven grandkids, so that’s number one. We love to spend time with our kids and our family. But I am an avid, avid reader and I love love to work out. I’m a yoga instructor, so I love yoga. It used to be running. I’ve completed 11 marathons through the years, but now my knees and hips prefer yoga, so I love to work out and I love to read. Those are kind of dichotomies of things, but that’s where you can find me, either in a yoga class or on my couch with a good book.

Speaker3: [00:24:16] Wow.

Stone Payton: [00:24:17] I did not know. And it’s probably in my notes that you were a yoga instructor. Like I said, I don’t know where you find the time. That is fantastic.

Teresa Rand: [00:24:26] You know this because. When you find the time to work out, it doubles the amount of time you have in your day.

Stone Payton: [00:24:34] You know, I really do believe that. And I also and for me, walking out, working out is often walking in the woods or walking around Woodstock. Absolutely. But I do get out and move. And I do find that I also find that I need that I call it white space. I feel like I come back to the work more energized and sometimes some of my best ideas and some of my crazy.

Speaker3: [00:24:56] Ideas absolutely.

Stone Payton: [00:24:57] Are born in a tree stand.

Speaker3: [00:24:59] You’re more.

Teresa Rand: [00:25:00] Creative. You have more energy. You get more done, you know?

Stone Payton: [00:25:04] Right, Right. Okay. Well, let’s leave if we could, let’s leave our listeners with a couple of tips, maybe some things to read, something to begin reading. But some dudes, some donuts, maybe some some signals that maybe, you know, I should be considering doing some of this kind of work for my management team or for myself or just some. Some things. And look, guys, the number one tip is reach out and have a conversation with Theresa or somebody on her team. But maybe there’s a couple of actionable kind of pre steps we could take to just sort of learn more.

Speaker3: [00:25:37] Yeah. You know, a lot.

Teresa Rand: [00:25:38] Of people have taken a personality assessment. So if you’ve taken one, great really, though, get it out and study it or get someone that can help you look at it that that doesn’t really know you, that will be very honest and direct whether, you know, we get coaches to to golf better, we get coaches to play a sport we get. So why not get a coach to help you improve your or improve enhance change your career or your personal life, whatever the case may be. And then I can recommend a thousand good books, one that I had as a speaker at my conference recently. Not this past one, but the one before. It’s a young woman who’s written a book called Harness Your Inner CEO, Becca Powers is her name, one of the best business books I’ve read in a long, long time. And she’s on her second book. I can’t wait for it to come out, but Harness Your Inner CEO is a great book that I highly recommend. I actually just wrote a book and it’s a meditation book because I do yoga and meditation, but it’s got a little bit of a business twist to it, and it’s called Holy Leading. W h o l l y leading, and it’s more like a journal. So we give a narrative and I wrote it with a friend of mine, I give a narrative, and then we give a practice, a thought and a meditation and it’s personal and business related. It just came out like last month. Oh my. So excited about that. But I would advise, you know, we talked about working out if I had to give one tip that will enhance your life professionally and personally, find something that involves moving that you enjoy doing, I promise you everything else will fall into place, whether it’s walking the dog around the block or it’s walking in a trail to go hunting or fishing or hiking or playing with your grandkids, but incorporate it every day. And it will enhance your life.

Stone Payton: [00:27:41] What marvelous counsel. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to reach out, have a conversation with you, tap into your work, get a hold of this book that you described. Let’s leave them with some coordinates. Whatever you feel like is appropriate. I just want them to be able to tap into what you’re doing.

Speaker3: [00:27:56] Absolutely.

Teresa Rand: [00:27:56] It’s very easy. It’s Theresa ran. Theresa? No. Theresa Rand. Rand.com. That’s it. And everything I do is out there. Teresa rand.com. Including a new coaching program that we’re kicking off in January with one of my business partners. If you’re really interested in growing your business or growing your career, we’re doing a six month program that we’re really excited about called Elevate.

Stone Payton: [00:28:24] So fantastic. Well, Teresa, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show. Thank you for sharing your insight, your perspective. Keep up the good work, the kind of work you’re doing with that community and with these organizations and these individuals. It’s such important work. And we sure appreciate you.

Teresa Rand: [00:28:45] Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. I knew it would be my pleasure.

Stone Payton: [00:28:51] All right. Until next time, This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Teresa Rand with Rand Consulting and the boss lady community. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.