Becoming a Small Business Advisor… The Ellevated Outcomes Story
Surprise! It’s Madyson here. If it’s your first time, welcome! If it’s not, you know that I’m not the usual author of this blog. As Julie has graciously introduced over the last few months, I am the Creative Executive Assistant for Ellevated Outcomes. My role (and superpower!) is Client Delight. I also help in areas of marketing, internal delight, and various behind the scenes roles in both our Advisory Practice and Small Business MBA (Hey, cough cough, creative small business owners, we’ve created this free tool for you to make more money & get more dream clients! Go check it out!).
This week I interviewed Julie to get a better grasp on the full story of Ellevated Outcomes as a small business advisor. I wanted the bigger picture behind our mission, vision, and values, and to be able to tell our story as if it were my own. While we also prepare for the next launch of the online course in our Small Business MBA, conduct our search for our next world class colleague, and realign mid-year with our goals and progress, we wanted to share with the world in a sort of 3-part series… where we started, where we’ve come (and what’s changed!), and where we’re going. If you’ve wondered the birth story… here it is.
M: When you first had the idea of being a business advisor for small businesses, what was the passion and motivation behind it?
J: I had been working for the past 10 years in a corporation where I loved the technical, brainy work. But I wanted to be immersed around businesses I personally found really exciting and humans I just authentically liked. So 2 things come to mind specifically…
The humans… I just had dinner with a former colleague now friend, who’s still in that same world. Every time she talks about the clients she has to deal with, I remember having to work with people like that. The more senior I got, the more I had to try to make relationships work. Not because they were right or good for me (or our business for that matter). But because they were connected to some other senior person, politically. In contrast, now: every single person we work with, both internally and externally, are incredible people and such interesting businesses. I authentically like everyone I get to work with, which is such a privilege and not true for most people in a career.
Also, I’ve had this sort of principle.. idea.. aspiration inside of me for as long as I can remember: that you can make money and be successful in business. And be a regular, kind, creative human being. I feel very personally motivated to try to be a role model for that, and it’s at the core of what we do at Ellevated Outcomes.
M: Can you give a little background to your life and work in years leading up to starting Ellevated Outcomes?
J: From 2012 – 2014 I lived in Boston where I was an internal consultant for a global financial services business. My job was to look at new business opportunities around the world and figure out which ones would make sense, make money, and what it would look like to build them. In 2014 I had the opportunity to move from consultant to builder. I moved from making behind-the-scenes pretty PowerPoints to: “put your money where your mouth is and go build the business.”
So I moved to London to build this business that I created on paper, and I built every piece of it. My then-boss had this quippy phrase,
When you’re building a business, you have to be chief, cook, and bottle washer.
And that’s still the way I think about it. When you’re building a business, big or small, you have to be the chief – able to see the big picture and run the show. But you also have to be the bottle washer – answering customer service emails, building pricing algorithms, producing the thing you’re selling… all the nitty, gritty unglamourous stuff. So I did that and built the business over 3 years. But it got to a place roughly 2 years in where it was steady and I was pretty bored.
Meanwhile, I had always wanted to go to school in Paris. So I applied and got into to the top global business school, which happened to be in Paris. The business I had built was steady enough so that I could commute back and forth between London and Paris for those 18 months. Then in 2017, as my visa was expiring and I was finishing up grad school, I came to a crossroads moment. There was something in me for a while where I knew it was time to make a change, and surely I was scared, but I told myself – if you don’t do it now, you’re never going to do it.
That’s when we moved to Nashville. There was about 9 months between resigning from my former company and officially launching EO. This was really precious time for me to do my research, talk to people, build a proper business plan. And think about it before just jumping in. small business advisor
M: What made you choose Nashville to start Ellevated Outcomes?
J: My husband had said he didn’t want to move back to Boston (where we lived before London). Which surprised me and was out of character for him, but I was like okay! There must be a reason, so let’s not go back there. We looked all across the U.S. to find a dynamic city where we could buy a house but still be in a city. He wanted to transition into the healthcare industry, and I wanted more sunshine! (Which was a personal learning in London; I really needed more sunshine). So we narrowed the contender cities to Denver, Austin, and Nashville.
We spent time in all 3, and they were all nice and had a lot of similarities, especially compared to the Northeast. But I said to Dave, “I feel like Nashville has a little more runway in front of it.” Real estate and development wise. He agreed; and in hindsight, I was a little right ; )
So as with any decision in my life, it was a combination of facts and feelings. There was market research, logic, and reason; but there was some gut feel for it too.
M: What was your mission & vision when you first started Ellevated Outcomes?
J: Believe it or not, it was the same then as it is today. Certainly, a lot of specifics inside our business have changed, but when you asked this, I looked at my original business plan. And the original vision, values, and mission, of becoming the most sought after advisor for small business growing the economy with intention, still hold. small business advisor
M: We call ourselves the outsourced strategy department. How did you come up with the strategy we use for our engagement with small business owners? small business advisor
J: My half-cheeky, half-serious three word answer: by doing it.
I feel like a lot of consultants spend a lot of time analyzing and thinking. And of course you have to analyze and think! A lot! But too much time in theoretical land and little time in doing land doesn’t get you anywhere. You have to be a cook and bottle washer too. Roll up your sleeves and do it.
But the strategy framework we use comes from principles I’ve used in my career. For example: our entire profitability product & pricing curriculum (which we use in our Small Business MBA) comes from the portfolio work I used to do in financial services, applied to small businesses. I also still have the notes and PowerPoints from the curriculum of my executive MBA. I was teaching the marketing module from it earlier this week. PESO Model, anyone? : ) small business advisor
So I’ve taken the backdrop of these theories, practices, and other people’s principles (as you know, I have rows and rows of bookshelves FULL of highlighted and noted business books), and continued adapting and applying them to the work we do every day with small businesses. And to do that you can’t just stay in a strategy theory land. You can only do that by doing.
M: Join us next week to find out where we are now & what’s changed.
photos by Guillaume Lechat
