2. Breaking the Ice: Nicole Mahoney's Bold Path to Business Growth
EPISODE 2
"Strategy is a marathon, not a sprint." This philosophy rings true in Julie's conversation with Nicole Mahoney, CEO of Break the Ice Media, as they delve into the long-term vision for her business.
In this conversation, Nicole discusses the significance of laying a robust foundation before embarking on major projects like a brand refresh. It's a reminder that strategic thinking and the ability to look beyond the day-to-day are what differentiate thriving businesses from the rest.
Catch the Conversation
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Nicole Mahoney is an entrepreneur, speaker, and podcast host with a passion for business. She’s the founder of Break the Ice Media, a PR and digital marketing agency specializing in the travel, tourism, and hospitality industry, and also serves as the CEO of Travel Alliance Partners. In her weekly podcast, Destination on the Left, launched in 2016, she interviews tourism professionals from all over the globe on creativity and collaboration.
She commissioned a first-of-its-kind research study in 2020 to examine what makes partnerships successful and explore the role collaboration is playing in helping the industry recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Those results, her recorded conversations with more than 300 podcast guests, and her personal experience formed the basis of her book, Stronger Together: Building World-Changing Business Collaborations. Nicole resides in Canandaigua, New York.
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Julie Ellis (00:00:04) - Welcome to Figure Eight, where we feature inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses to seven and eight figures revenue. If you are in the mix of growing a bigger business, these stories are for you. Join us as we explore where the tough spots are, how to overcome them, and how to prepare yourself for the next portion of the climb. I'm your host, Julie Ellis. I'm an author, entrepreneur, and a growth in leadership coach who co-founded, grew, and exited an eight figure business. This led me to exploring why some women achieve great things, and that led to my book, Big Gorgeous Goals. Let's explore the systems, processes, and people that help us grow our businesses to new heights. If you're interested in growing your business, this podcast will help. Now let's get going. Welcome to the Figure Eight podcast. Today I am interviewing Nicole Mahoney. She is an entrepreneur, a speaker, and a podcast host with a passion for business. She founded a company called Break the Ice Media, which is a PR and digital marketing agency, and she specializes in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry.
Julie Ellis (00:01:27) - She's also the CEO of Travel Alliance Partners and she is an amazing podcast host. She has had a podcast for almost eight years, and she interviews tourism professionals from all over the globe on creativity and collaboration. I am so excited to talk with her today about the growth of her business and what her trajectory looks like. Um, she recently also became an author when her book, Stronger Together: Building World-Changing Business Collaborations, launched last year. And she lives in Canandaigua, New York. Nicole, welcome to the podcast.
Nicole Mahoney (00:02:03) - Thank you Julie, I'm so excited to be here with you and to be on this side of the of the host. Guest, you know, scenario.
Julie Ellis (00:02:12) - Yes, because you have had so many episodes on your own podcast.
Nicole Mahoney (00:02:18) - I have. It's interesting because when I started the podcast, I never realized, or I didn't realize at the time how integral it would become, not only to my business, but also to who I am and what I do now. So it's a lot of fun.
Julie Ellis (00:02:34) - Yeah, well, it's really interesting. Yeah. To see that progression of the podcast to the speaking and the white papers and the ideas to then eventually the book coming out last year.
Nicole Mahoney (00:02:47) - Exactly. And and that's a great point because it all did really stem from the podcast and all the conversations I was having led me to come up with some different ideas and thoughts about my industry and about, you know, how people collaborate in particular within the industry that I work in. And then that led me to want to pursue speaking about it and led me to wanting to know more about it. So I did some research, and that led me to wanting to write a book. And it all kind of adds up, one on top of the other.
Julie Ellis (00:03:19) - It's amazing how that can happen.
Nicole Mahoney (00:03:21) - Mhm. Absolutely. Yeah.
Julie Ellis (00:03:23) - So tell me about Break the Ice and about what your journey has been like with the business.
Nicole Mahoney (00:03:29) - Yeah. So I have been self-employed since 1998. That's the year that my oldest daughter was born, and when I launched my first business, it was really a freelance work from home.
Nicole Mahoney (00:03:44) - I wanted the flexibility to be a mom. And over the years, I ended up finding, you know, different passions and areas where I could grow and grow my income and grow my business. And so in 2009 is the year that I launched Break the Ice Media. And the idea then was really I felt like I had gotten as far as I could get as a solopreneur, and I wanted to build something that would last beyond just me. And so I really set out from the beginning to build a business that could be more than me. And as I launched the first five years, well, 3 to 5 years between years three and five is when we really started to kind of find our footing in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. So when I first launched, the thought was I was going to launch a what I was calling an agency. I didn't really want to be called a marketing agency or an ad agency. So I would call myself the UN agency. But in reality, we're an agency, a marketing agency.
Nicole Mahoney (00:04:50) - But at the time, I thought I was going to help small businesses in general with public relations and social media and. I quickly or over time, figured out that I couldn't just help every small business, and I needed to have more of a focus and more of a niche. And so it was between the years three and five that we really started to focus in on travel, tourism and hospitality. And I'd say by year five we were all in on that industry. Of course, now we're in our 15th year, so a lot has happened since then. And Break the Ice Media is a tourism, uh, travel hospitality marketing agency, and we specialize in public relations, um, digital marketing as well as strategy and what we call travel trade marketing, which is this whole other sector of the tour and travel business where tour operators create travel product to sell, you know, through the channels. So that's kind of like the the real quick two minute version.
Julie Ellis (00:05:56) - The CliffsNotes for users. Interesting. Well, and I mean, certainly, you know, in the travel industry has seen its ups and its downs over the last number of years, you know, with people not traveling as much and now with it, you know, travel once again, sort of a-booming. What has that meant for your business?
Nicole Mahoney (00:06:18) - Yeah. Well, for sure, 2020 was a very difficult year. 2021 was actually more challenging for my business than 2020 was. Um, 2020 was challenging because all in one day, like most people, especially people in tour and travel, um, a lot of contracts went away overnight. But 2020, as the year went on, um, a number of clients already had budgets in place, already had funding in place that they needed to spend. So a lot of the contracts came back. But going into 2021, it was it was very soft, uh, for, you know, a service based business within the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. So 2021 was a lot more challenging. But one of the things that we did during that period of time is we really doubled down on our industry. We did not give up on it.
Nicole Mahoney (00:07:04) - We were in it. We were feeling the pain right alongside our clients. We were producing our, you know, thought leadership. I used the the podcast as one way of doing that. That's our first research study was published. During that period of time, we were hosting webinars and, uh, different online, you know, happy hours and online events where people could still connect and be connected within the industry. And we did a lot of pro-bono work during that period of time as well, trying to help the industry regain its footing. And through all of that, when when we come out of the pandemic, um, and those soft years, our business, my business in particular has just really found its footing and its traction and is really, uh, taken off in so many different ways. Our, our growth last year was just looking because here we are in January. So you're reviewing your numbers at the end of the year. And uh, last year we were 35% over our numbers for 2022.
Nicole Mahoney (00:08:05) - So 23 over 22, we were up 35%. And coming into 24, looking at the position that we're in now, we're already roughly 25%, uh, at the start of the year over where we ended 23, in terms of our signed contracts. Um, so we're projecting about a 40% year over year growth this year. So we're in this very high growth, kind of fast paced cycle right now. Yeah. Um, which is great. Much better than 2020 and 2021, that's for sure. Yes.
Julie Ellis (00:08:37) - And being in a high growth cycle is really what we all want is entrepreneurs isn't it. But it does come with challenges. Um, also, and I know we were talking about you've also made some changes in terms of how your team works and what you do on a day to day basis compared to before the pandemic.
Nicole Mahoney (00:08:59) - Yeah. We're always evolving. Actually, just last week, I had our Q1 leadership team strategy Day. And we were reflecting, you know, on the the year that we just ended and the year ahead. And one of my team members said one of the things she likes about the business is that we don't accept status quo, and we're always evolving and changing. Which I thought was really awesome that she said that. And I'm glad she likes that because that's what our business is all about. But I know there are people who don't necessarily like to be that way all the time, right? We're always, um, evolving in some way and changing and growing in some way. And one of those areas is really how I lead. And what I've been really trying to work hard on is to let my leadership team run the business plan so that I can work on all of the other things that, uh, go along with growth, um, focusing, you know, on relationship building on new revenue areas, on things that are going to take us to that next level and trying really hard to be out of the weeds. So I shared with my team just last week that my word of the year, if you will, it's actually kind of two, but the word is let go and I.
Nicole Mahoney (00:10:17) - You shared with them that I'm looking to them to really be able to execute on this business plan and to enable me to let go. So, um, it's a journey. It's not, you know, you don't just flip a switch and and it happens. But at this level, to sustain what we're trying to do and to realize the vision of where we're trying to go, it needs to happen. Otherwise, uh, growth will slow down or it won't even happen. It won't even come to fruition because I'll be in the way of it.
Julie Ellis (00:10:43) - Well, and it does sound like, though you're putting some of those foundational pieces in place of, you know, you have a business plan that the team has helped you build so they understand what's involved in it, and then that can allow you to create that culture of accountability for them to deliver against it.
Nicole Mahoney (00:11:01) - Yeah, exactly. Um, that's a really good point. That's another thing that we do a lot is we we invest time in the plan and in the planning. You know, I talked to business entrepreneur friends of mine and not, you know, it's not the norm, really, to take a full day with your leadership team one day every quarter and just work on the business, um, and do a full day like that. I had one, one business owner say to me, oh my gosh, I don't think my team would ever go for that. And I thought, well, I think they will actually, but you have to make sure that what you're doing is productive. And so they're bought into, you know, they're bought into the plan. They are bought into where we're going. They see they've seen results from the work that we've done in the time that we've invested. And so, um, when you're operating at this kind of a high level, you know, a full day is, first of all, if you miss it, you feel it like you need you need to have it.
Julie Ellis (00:12:03) - Yeah. I think it also gives you that opportunity for recalibration, which is something I'm really big on because you set these big goals and you start moving towards them. And inevitably there are obstacles in the way the goal changes a little bit. You're doing much better or much worse against where you hope to be, and you need to sit down and have that sort of recalibrating and figuring out where to go next with it.
Nicole Mahoney (00:12:30) - Mhm. Yeah, absolutely. And if you don't give yourself the space and time to do that, you just keep, you know, keep your head and your head down and you're in the weeds all the time. And you don't, you don't see it. You'll actually miss some things if you aren't looking at that.
Julie Ellis (00:12:43) - Yeah. And suddenly a year's gone down the road and a lot of people's time and energy and sort of the blood, sweat and tears has been kind of wasted on something that maybe isn't the right thing to to put the energy into.
Nicole Mahoney (00:12:55) - Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Completely agree. So we implemented, um, the entrepreneurial operating system traction. Yeah. We implemented that in at the end of 2018. We spent all of 2019 kind of getting all of the systems in place that traction, uh, you know, talks about.
Nicole Mahoney (00:13:16) - And that made a huge difference for us too. As we headed into the pandemic, we didn't know we were shoring things up for a pandemic. But, um, it really did make a difference. And we've been following it ever since. And so we were talking about that and reflecting on that as well. Those early meetings that we had when we were implementing iOS and traction were very bumpy and it wasn't clear. And we were like, what are we supposed to be doing in these meetings? And, you know, but we didn't give up. We kept, you know, pushing forward and trying it. And so when I talk to other business owners who tell me, oh, I tried that, but it didn't work, um, you know, my best advice to them. And I tell them, I'm like, just keep trying. You will get there. You will find the right rhythm for you and your company. And once you find that rhythm, it's just amazing. Like how you do more often than not hit those goals.
Nicole Mahoney (00:14:09) - You know, um, your vision is realized if you follow traction. They, they talk about how you update your, your vision every, every year. And you're not supposed to go back and look at the old ones because you're always just keeping your your eyes on the future. But we were reflecting on the old ones and, um, how we got there, you know, and we didn't, um, it's one of those things where it feels like it's all of a sudden or it happens all of a sudden, but it's actually like a gradual, uh, a gradual evolution, if you will.
Julie Ellis (00:14:43) - Yeah. It's the there's no such thing as an overnight success kind of an idea, right? Where nobody appears fully formed and fully successful. You just don't always see or remember in some cases, all the hardship that happened and all the work that happened to get you where you are.
Nicole Mahoney (00:15:02) - Absolutely. And that's so important, too. I mean, one of the things that we do in our strategy meetings is we talk about the best things that happened in the previous year.
Nicole Mahoney (00:15:12) - Um, we have to we have to actually give an example of one of the best things that happen both personally and professionally. And then we also talk about what, uh, the accomplishments from the previous year and then what enabled the accomplishments. So we try to focus on like what really worked, why were we able to accomplish these goals so that we can, you know, kind of understand what is working instead of always focused on, you know, we need to fix this. We need to fix that. We need to fix this. It's like, how can we get more of what's working? What can we do to continue to support that? Yep.
Julie Ellis (00:15:46) - And how does sort of the core values and the culture of the company help you with the achievements that you're getting right now?
Nicole Mahoney (00:15:55) - Oh, I would be nowhere without my company culture. Um, I, I would say one of the things that we had to reflect on recently was what enabled accomplishments, what enabled our company to get to where it is, is here we are in our 15th year, and one of the things that I said about myself personally was learning how to build a culture, uh, over building a company.
Nicole Mahoney (00:16:18) - So we are very focused on building the culture. And the culture actually encompasses what the company stands for and what the with the company is, you know, the, the broader vision of what our company does. So I introduced myself, as, you know, I own Break the Ice Media. We do public relations and digital for the travel tourism, hospitality industry. But really what our core kind of focus is, is that we help the communities that we serve make, uh, economic or be more economically vital or, um, make economic impact. Um, we're really helping economies because we're in the travel and tourism and hospitality industry. And so when we talk about it internally, we're always talking about a broader vision of how we're helping economies and communities. It's not that we're just running a campaign for this client or doing some earned media or media relations work for this other client. It's how we're actually supporting this broader vision. And because we have that broader vision that comes right into our core values in terms of how we show up and how we serve our clients.
Nicole Mahoney (00:17:26) - Um, and so to me, it really is the whole thing is driven by the company culture, and the company culture is what kind of dictates the work that we do.
Julie Ellis (00:17:35) - Right? Which is a really nice kind of circling effect that the two have in how they come together.
Nicole Mahoney (00:17:42) - Yeah, absolutely. I mean I would be nowhere without my team. And you know I started in 2009, I didn't really know exactly how I was going to get there with this business, but I knew I wanted to build something that could that could be beyond myself, that would live beyond myself. And so all of my decisions I've made all along have been around. What do I have to do to ensure that, you know, when I'm ready to exit, I can exit. If, God forbid, something happened to me, you know that that this company would still be there to support the the clients and the employees and, you know, and everybody who's already a part of it. Um, in a way, I feel like I've always been sort of punching against or above my weight class, if you will, because I've always been trying to work on those things that perhaps companies my size and when I was even smaller, might not have been thinking about at that time, because you're really trying to get, you know, kind of get your footing in terms of revenue and sales and all of those things.
Nicole Mahoney (00:18:41) - But it's always been kind of core to how I've been building. And earlier you actually said something about growth and how we all want growth. And I do want growth in our vision is to grow. But I've also been very strategic about how we grow.
Nicole Mahoney (00:18:56) - You know, I've seen, um, other businesses that were started around the same time as me that are digital agencies, and they have a different formula to how they do their business. And they've built much quicker in terms of revenue generation than we have. But I'm focused on a lot of other areas, not just the the top line revenue. I'm focused, you know, on the profitability, on the systems and the foundation that we're building. Um, I've spent a lot more time being strategic about those pieces, um, than maybe just focusing on how quickly can we fill the sales funnel, how quickly can we get to a higher top line revenue? Right.
Julie Ellis (00:19:32) - And that's interesting because how would you say now that that's going to, you know, is it going to benefit you as you're sort of now well positioned and you've kind of built the infrastructure and now you're ready and you're growing? I mean, 40% is a lot.
Nicole Mahoney (00:19:50) - Well, that's my gamble. I mean, right, if we're if you're an entrepreneur, you're always gambling on something. You're investing in what you believe in. Yeah. Um, and for me, that's that's kind of where I've been putting my my money or my bet, if you will, is on if I build it strong enough that when I am ready to exit, I'll have an asset of higher value, um, for my exit. Um, and that when we hit that growth stride, which we're experiencing right now, that we're in a place where we can level up much quicker because we've done the the hard work to make sure we have that foundation in place. So, um, I don't know. I'll let you know. I think so.
Julie Ellis (00:20:37) - Well, and that's also the where your strategy of giving the team more accountability and letting yourself get farther and farther, you know, like, let the weeds get farther and farther away from you as the months, the weeks, the months, the years go by.
Julie Ellis (00:20:51) - Um, because that will help you with a sale, too, right? I mean, any acquirer wants to know that you're not needed to run the business for the business to run itself successfully, that you aren't the, you know, person holding all the keys to the kingdom.
Nicole Mahoney (00:21:07) - Right. Yeah. Exactly.
Julie Ellis (00:21:11) - Um, and so tell me a little bit more like, what kind of pivot points have you hit? I mean, we've obviously talked about the pandemic as a pivot point, but what other pivot points, um, have been sort of like key in the journey that you've been on.
Nicole Mahoney (00:21:27) - Well, the most recent pivot point actually, is we landed in 2022, the largest contract that we've had to our, um, you know, since we, we were founded. A significant piece of business. And with that contract, I needed to make sure I had the right financing and the right banking relationship in place because it was, um, I mean, the one contract was the equivalent of that year's revenue, um, for us.
Nicole Mahoney (00:21:54) - So it didn't all come in that year. But just to give you like a scope and size, it was like worth one year's revenue at the size we were in that year. And um, so the this was a learning for me because I think I'm, you know, I know financials pretty well and I've managed many businesses and, but I did not realize that the banking relationship that I had was not serving me. I didn't know I had other choices. I had a banking relationship. I had a relationship manager that I had a good relationship with. Um, but they weren't coming to the table with the financing that I needed. And I felt like I thought I just had to accept that because I was just a small business. And, you know, I didn't have the right, you know, balance sheet that they wanted or whatever it was they were looking at. So. It was actually through a peer to peer network that this came to light for me, because I was talking about it at one of my, uh, peer to peer network meetings and somebody said, wait, you have to give quarterly reports to your bank to, like, either give quarterly.
Nicole Mahoney (00:23:00) - I'm a small company. I had to give these quarterly reports that showed, like pipeline revenue, all of these things. I had to jump through so many hoops for very, very small. I had a, uh, $40,000 line of credit in like a $100,000 loan maybe. I don't even know if it was 100. It was very small, and, um, I had to jump through all kinds of hoops, and I just thought, well, I'm in the here. I'm here in the States. So I was in there, the small business SBA loan program. And I just thought that's what you needed to do. They said, I don't think that's what you need to do. You should talk to a few other banks. And I was like, oh, I can go interview other banks. Like, okay. And I did and was the best thing I ever did. And I felt like so empowered. Suddenly, instead of feeling, um, like the small business that, you know, the bank didn't want, I was able to shop for a bank that actually did want my business.
Nicole Mahoney (00:23:52) - And with this new contract that we got was able to get the financing that I needed, or the line of credit that I needed to be able to manage that contract. Um, but that was a huge learning for me, was to know, okay, sometimes, I mean, so that banking relationship I had served me for a period of time. Yes. But then it was actually not helping my growth anymore. And I needed to go find a new relationship in order to get to the next level.
Julie Ellis (00:24:18) - And it's interesting how sometimes, you know, our loyalty will get in the way of that sort of no, I have options here. And I could actually create, you know, something of a bidding war for my business if I go about this in the right way.
Nicole Mahoney (00:24:34) - Yeah, absolutely. And I did I went into those meetings with the new banks and said I'm talking to three banks. I decided I mean I could have done more, but I just thought felt three was good and this is what I'm looking for.
Nicole Mahoney (00:24:47) - Here's my story. You know, this is where I've been. This is where I'm going. This is what I need. And, um, I'll, uh. Well, they were I talked to three banks. One of them was my current bank, and the current bank basically said it's not the right relationship for us. So that was fine. That was what I needed to know. And then the other two banks came back with, you know, what they could do? And I was able to select the one.
Nicole Mahoney (00:25:14) - That really I mean, it's made a huge, huge, huge difference to have the right kind of financing.
Julie Ellis (00:25:20) - Absolutely, It helps you grow, which yeah.
Nicole Mahoney (00:25:23) - For sure, and a lot less stressful. Yeah.
Julie Ellis (00:25:26) - Well exactly right. You know, you've got in place what you need in order to be able to just go do the work.
Nicole Mahoney (00:25:32) - Right, exactly.
Julie Ellis (00:25:35) - Yeah. What have been your biggest challenges to date?
Nicole Mahoney (00:25:38) - I would say the bottlenecks, um, that happen when you're, you know, CEO of a company. And, um, they first, in the early days, the bottlenecks related to getting the actual work done, because in the early days when you have not as many employees, you're, you know, you're doing everything and you're also doing the work. Um, that was a piece of it. Then once I got my leadership team in place and I wasn't in the day to day work as much anymore, um, there's still are bottlenecks, but they're not as obvious to me. So trying to find the bottlenecks is also, um, you know, a challenge, and. One just came to to light to me recently, and that is we were looking for a new strategic partner to help us with some of the digital executions we do in our company. My lead for digital came to me with a new strategic partner, an idea of a new partnership we could get into. And I loved it. I thought it was great. Excellent. Let's pursue this. But I didn't give the right direction to actually move it forward.
Nicole Mahoney (00:26:50) - But I didn't realize it didn't give it. So I waited about, you know, a month or so, and I hadn't heard anything back. And I thought, well, we're getting towards, you know, middle of Q4, like getting towards the end of the year. And I thought, well, we have to make this move happen if we're going to have this start in, uh, in 2024. And, um, hindsight, when I had the conversation with her. So what I ended up doing was starting to move it forward myself instead of waiting for her. She was on vacation and then things were happening. Um, but then we just recently had a conversation about it. And it ultimately she was like, I wasn't sure if I had it or if you had it. There wasn't like the clear clarity of are you taking this? Are you asking me to take this? And I thought that was really good feedback for myself, because to me, there was a bottleneck that happened. I didn't think I was the cause of it, but in hindsight, it was a lack of clear, you know, direction or communication in terms of I'm passing this ball to you.
Nicole Mahoney (00:27:54) - Um, so part of that is what's led me into, as I said this year, the whole let it go or let go and, you know, um, giving more of a directive you are executing on the business plan, these are the things, you know, this is who's in charge of which pieces of the plan. Here are the metrics we're going to measure against giving more, uh, more, um, transparency into the actual P&L. We look at numbers all the time, but a lot of my team members don't get to see, um, line by line, especially on the expense side of things where they might be responsible for that, but they're not seeing it. I'm only seeing it. So we're starting to put in place where we'll be able to give them reports on their pieces of the P&L that they're responsible for, so that they can be more on top of that. Um, yeah. So I call it bottleneck, but it's just like trying to find those places where, like, you might be in the way of your team actually being able to do the work that you, that you're relying on them to do.
Julie Ellis (00:28:53) - Yeah. Or realizing that, like, as the leader, people are waiting for you. So if you're not incredibly crystal clear about what you want them to do, they will wait. You know, and and some people will come back and say, hey, what's happening with that? But sometimes circumstances don't allow it or it will fall, you know, by the wayside. And then you realize down the road that it's not gone anywhere.
Nicole Mahoney (00:29:19) - Right, exactly.
Julie Ellis (00:29:22) - And it is one of those things I mean you just you've got a million balls you're trying to keep in the air and, and you know, you think everybody thinks something different.
Nicole Mahoney (00:29:29) - Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Julie Ellis (00:29:33) - Huh. Well and that's I mean it's a great lesson and it's also I think that piece of you know, the bigger the team gets, the more communication that needs to happen, the more frequently the more, um, repeating, you know, like how many different ways it takes for somebody to absorb information or that sort of thing.
Julie Ellis (00:29:53) - Right? Like, it just it changes as the team grows and you get out of that really small kind of group. Mhm.
Nicole Mahoney (00:30:01) - Yeah, absolutely.
Julie Ellis (00:30:03) - Yeah, yeah. And so what are you most excited about right now for the business?
Nicole Mahoney (00:30:09) - Well, I'm very excited because we are going through a actually a big evolution of our brand this year, and we have three brands that we kind of um. What's the word take care of, if you will, that are in our family of brands. Um, you mentioned Break the Ice media is my my main company, also Travel Alliance partners, you mentioned. And then of course the brand of the podcast, which is called Destination on the Left. So about 18 months ago, we hired a branding consultant to help us look at those three brands and kind of refine how we connect the dots for our our clients, our prospects, our members, the people who are in the communities that we serve through those brands so that they understand how they all work together and how they all can help serve them and, um, through that work.
Nicole Mahoney (00:31:04) - So, again, a lot of strategy and strategic thinking has gone into this. Um, through all of that work, we're actually going to be announcing in 2024 a new brand, uh, kind of a parent brand, if you will, for all of those, um, businesses. And what's so exciting about it is just that we've we have our brand platform, right, that that really talks about it's our internal documentation that talks about our vision, our focus, our brand promise, um, our target audiences, our unique value propositions by audience. Um, all our our culture, our values, all of that. And it ties it all together. And even though we've been using traction and we've had all these little pieces, now we have this just one kind of brand platform. It's all in one place. It's one booklet, actually, that all of my team has access to, both on our server and printed on their desks, and it just really makes everything a lot more cohesive in terms of how we talk about ourselves, what we put in our proposals, what's going to be on our website, how we're, you know, how we're going to do our email marketing, what goes out in social media.
Nicole Mahoney (00:32:14) - Just all of those pieces, um, are going to be a lot more cohesive. And then the other piece is when we launch this new brand, there will be more opportunity for new revenue streams and new relationships and new ways of working with strategic partners and things like that. So, um, we aren't announcing it officially until April, but, um, very excited about that and the work that we'll be doing this year to evolve the business and grow the business even more.
Julie Ellis (00:32:45) - That's really exciting and interesting to think that, you know, you can refresh your brand, bring these pieces together and utilize that as a business growth mechanism. Mhm.
Nicole Mahoney (00:32:57) - Yeah. A lot of people think about brand, um, you know, in terms of brand identity, logos, um, messaging, um, things like that. But a brand's done right is everything. It's really it is the business. If you think about, you know, some of the best brands that you follow Walt Disney World, Apple. I mean, you think about those brands and how it, it, um, reflects in everything that they do.
Nicole Mahoney (00:33:24) - You know, how they hire, how they treat their employees, um, how they how they interact with their customers. Um, and so it's like that whole experience of working with the, with the company. And that's what gets me really excited because we've got now this very clear way of understanding ourselves and how we, um, how we work with our clients. And it's just, um, that's the kind of stuff that gets me really, really excited.
Julie Ellis (00:33:51) - But it is it's sort of this interesting, like, you know, I think of a project like that, and I think how it could feel pretty intimidating to tackle because of the scope of it. But then you sort of go back to, okay, so we've got these foundational pieces, you know, we're running with EOS. We know how we're you know, we've got our business plan, we know where we're going now. We can layer the brand piece, you know, and just like how all of those things start to sort of build on each other and give you momentum.
Nicole Mahoney (00:34:20) - Exactly. Yeah. And that's a good point because, um, things become clearer, you know, the the more you do this type of work, the more that you're strategic and you're like building that foundation. Um, if we tried to do this branding project before we started the EOS, it wouldn't have worked because we didn't have enough of the foundation in in place yet. And our team, you know, wasn't operating at at that level where you could really, um, think more expansively about the work that we were doing. And, um, we're definitely at the stage where we can think beyond the work that we're doing, and most of the team can think that way, too. And the ones that, um, I mean, they all really can see the vision, but trying to, um, learn how to think strategically and how to be able to see gaps and opportunities and things like that. It's, um, a lot of my team can see can see that or it's an area that they're developing, but they're aware, you know, that that's a skill.
Nicole Mahoney (00:35:19) - And a lot of times folks think this is the job I have to do. Here are the tasks I have to get done. Um, and then when you ask them to think beyond that, it can be challenging. Um, so we're definitely at a level where we can think way beyond that.
Julie Ellis (00:35:34) - Yeah. And it's where everybody needs a good to do list. We all, we all have things we have to cross off them and get done. But that danger of getting caught there in the to do list and not sort of poking your head up and looking around at the bigger picture and what's happening, the risk of that is big.
Nicole Mahoney (00:35:50) - Yeah, exactly. Good.
Julie Ellis (00:35:52) - Well, I am very excited to see what 2024 is going to bring for you and break the ice media. And I'm looking forward to following along. We'll put all your contact information in the show notes. And, uh, I thank you very much for joining me today. It was a great conversation.
Nicole Mahoney (00:36:10) - Thank you so much, Julie.
Nicole Mahoney (00:36:11) - I love talking about my business and talking about not just my business, but just business in general. It's one of my favorite conversations. So thank you for inviting me to have it.
Julie Ellis (00:36:21) - Me too. I'm glad we were able to make it work. Thanks, Nicole.
Julie Ellis I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please remember to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. So you won't miss any episodes. Figure Eight isn't just a podcast, it's a way of seeing the big, gorgeous goals of women entrepreneurs coming to life. If you're interested in learning more, you can find my book, Big Gorgeous Goals on Amazon anywhere you might live. For more about my growth and leadership training programs, visit www.julieellis.ca to see how we might work together. Read my blog or sign up to get your free diagnostic. Are you ready for growth? Once again. That's julieellis.ca. When we work together, we all win. See you again soon for another episode of Figure Eight.