Episode Summary
”What do you want to be when you grow up?” is one of the most common questions kids are asked. But what about adults? Just because someone finished school, got a job, and succeeded doesn’t mean they are happy where they are. Maybe they still wonder what they want to do when they grow up. After all, growing up is a life-long process.
Of course, at some point, life kicks in; we have to pay the bills and earn a living.
Therefore, it is critical to set priorities, be realistic with your resources, and see what’s important to you and will make the lives of you and your loved ones better. So, don’t assume. Instead, seek to understand yourself and others.
In this episode of Taking the Lead, we have a fantastic guest — a woman who proves that determining what you don’t want to do is sometimes more important than knowing what you want to do. She is Margaret Weniger, once a successful sales leader, and now, an entrepreneur and a podcast host living her purpose.
Margaret and our host Christina Brady discuss the challenges and concerns of quitting the well-trodden career path and digging into the unknown. Margaret shares why she decided to step out of the sales leadership role and dedicate herself to creating a space for women to share their stories and become entrepreneurs. They also discuss what it takes to be a good leader and how celebrating and learning from small victories is the path to great success.
Guest Profile
- Name: Margaret Weniger
- What she does: Margaret is the founder of Rising Tide.
- Company: Rising Tide
- Noteworthy: Prior to starting her company, Margaret built a prolific career in sales, growing and running sales teams in various software companies, including startups. Today, she is an entrepreneur on a mission to ''transform the business world by bringing a balance of power between men and women to create environments that foster diversity of thought, collaboration, and evoke creativity.''
Key Insights
- Changes are complex but worth the effort. Margaret was a successful sales leader. But, at some point, after she started a podcast and a community dedicated to giving women a voice and the opportunity to share their stories, she realized that's her mission. The transition was exciting but challenging. ''It has been super hard. I want to be clear. It has been a very painful experience for several reasons. One is that I was very much and am still working through things like identity and title and being married. And so the first year, when people asked, 'What do you do?' I cringed. I hated getting asked that question because I felt lost. There was glamor around being able to say what I was when I was a sales leader, but now it was like, ‘I don't know what to tell you.’ And then people's reaction too. You've gotta deal with them being like, 'Oh, okay. I understand.' So that process has been helpful but painful.''
- Start, set expectations, learn from the attempts, and celebrate every success. People have all sorts of ideas, but most don't become a reality as they fear failure. But as Margaret says, you should give it a try if you believe in your vision. Of course, you must have a plan and a goal, but don't expect to succeed overnight. Instead of being hard on yourself when you don't meet some target, celebrate every accomplishment, even the small ones. ''You're gonna have revenue targets; there's gonna be pressure, but it's important to set the expectation. Part of what we're trying to figure out is what is going to be the best fit. Where do we see success? Not everything we do will be a huge success, but we can learn from everything we do. And [...] you may or may not hit the target, and that's okay.''
- Being a leader is a gift but also a responsibility. We often hear how a modern-day leader must also be a mentor and a coach. Although rewarding in many ways, a leadership role requires you to understand how much impact you can have on your team members. ''And so, you have this opportunity to develop and grow them. I think about people who I've had the opportunity to work with, and there's something so satisfying about seeing how they're doing, where they are, and what they've gone on to do. But [...] that doesn't mean you don't have to make hard choices. [...] Like during the pandemic, having to furlough and rift 65% of my team was gut-wrenching, but there's a way to do it where you can honor the individuals, acknowledge what they're going through, empathize with them, and treat them as a human being that's going through something painful.''
Episode Highlights
Despite My Success, I Realized I Was Not Meant to Be a Sales Leader
Margaret has a prolific leadership background that anyone aspiring to have a sales career can look up to. However, what differentiated her from many in a similar situation is the realization that despite being successful as a manager, her purpose was not directly related to being a sales leader.
”It took me a very long time to make peace with that. Again, I just spent a decade focused on building this career path. I was not willing to give that up, and yet my heart was being pulled in this other direction. And my purpose was somewhere else. […]
And so, I launched Rising Tide formally. There was the podcast in Rising Tide, which is focused on transforming the workplace to be built for human beings rather than ideal workers. And you’ll see me talk primarily about women because I believe that creating a balance of masculine and feminine energy in positions of power — that’s how we’re going to do it. So I talk a lot because the gap right now is in getting women elevated into those roles or starting companies.”
We Can Use Certain Sales Principles to Determine What’s Important in Our Everyday Life
”Measure what matters,” Margaret suggests. She reminds us about the fundamentals — for instance, in sales, defining an ICP (ideal customer profile). Once you have it, you can create marketing strategies and take other actions that lead to growth. She also says that you can do the same in your personal life.
”Who are we going after? How do we know who we need to say ‘No’ to? What is misaligned with where we’re ultimately trying to get, and how do we create alignment within our organization so that we are all rowing in the same direction and not doing activities that are counterproductive to one another? […]
And so, I see this where it’s quite true in our lives. So understanding who you are at this moment. What do I value? What are the strengths I have? So who am I? […]
So then, when faced with difficult situations and opportunities, you have qualification standards. Now you can say ‘No’ without feeling guilty […] because you have your criteria of what does or does not work for you.”
Instead of Assuming, Seek to Understand
More and more companies focus on creating an employee-first culture and encourage employees to speak freely about their ideas, concerns, and doubts. But such an approach requires resources, time, skills, and people to hear, understand, and provide a solution to any issues an employee might be facing in the workplace.
”As a manager, this is a good mantra to remind yourself of when you’re working with people on your team who behave in a way you did not expect. Your responsibility is to seek to understand and withhold judgment because, again, it’s rarely what you assume it is.
And assumptions, like in sales, can kill all deals and destroy relationships and trust. And so, I’m a big believer that when you catch yourself assuming, stop in your tracks immediately, and shift into seeking to understand. Especially when people don’t behave in a way you expect, it’s a really good time to pause and dig in to understand what’s going on. There’s usually something bigger there.”
