44. Sticky Notes and Mindset Shifts: An Entrepreneur's Transformation with Lori Rogers
EPISODE 44
Lori Rogers, president and co-founder of Rogers Marketing, shares her journey of implementing positive practices to overcome overwhelm and transform her business approach.
Catch the Conversation
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Lori Rogers, president and co-founder of Rogers Marketing, shares her journey of implementing positive practices to overcome overwhelm and transform her business approach.
Lori is the president and co-founder of Rogers Marketing, a muilti-million-dollar woman-owned business. For 25 years, she and her team have cultivated customer relationships driving franchise-leading sales and recognized leadership in her industry. In 2011, Lori began implementing the practices of "Positive Activity" and witnessed exponential growth in business, life, and the lives of those around her. She helps audiences do the same, implementing simple daily activities and mindset shifts that attract a life-changing experience.
You can connect with Lori on her website, or Instagram.
You can also learn more about Rogers Marketing on their website or LinkedIn.
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10:55
Turning Away from Negativity
18:11
The Science of Positive Thinking
26:07
Balancing Two Business Missions
32:36
Navigating Change With Positivity
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Julie: 0:04
Welcome to Figure 8, where we feature inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses to seven and eight figures revenue. If you're 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 and 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.
Julie: 1:04
Hello and welcome to this episode of Figure 8. Today I am in conversation with Lori Rogers, and Lori is president and co-founder of Rogers Marketing, a very successful marketing and promotional firm, and they have really cultivated their client relationships and helped build leadership within the firms the companies that they work with. But around 2011, lori began really looking for something else and she began implementing the practices of positive activity in her life to help her get through a time that was kind of difficult and that business has taken on that mission, has taken on a life of its own as she has grown that and shared it with people and talked about why we all need more positivity in our lives. So welcome, Lori, I'm really excited to chat with you today.
Lori: 1:56
Thank you, Julie. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to blab it's not really blabbing, but converse with all this beautiful information I've learned. So thank you.
Julie: 2:07
Yeah Well, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so curious because you know you're a very successful entrepreneur with your marketing business and you hit a crossroads in life where you were stressed out, kind of overcooked and done, and you know you needed to find a way to change the path you were on. And I think that's a really. It really resonated with me because I think being an entrepreneur is hard and stressful and we don't take care of ourselves the way we need to, and so I'm really curious about how you decided to make such a change in your life.
Lori: 2:45
How you decided to make such a change in your life. In a nutshell, in a sentence I was tired of feeling the way I was feeling. I was tired of feeling the overwhelm, the worry, the doubt, the fear, the overwhelm. I was just tired of it. So I had hit a point in 2012 where, like, okay, I just went to a conference and learned all these kind of cool skills and I can lead you up to that point in a minute. Am I ready to make this change? If I'm creating my life, why don't I just do it on purpose beach and thinking, okay, I'm done. I'm so tired of feeling this way. If I can help myself alleviate some of this tightening around my heart and my gut, I'm going to anymore. I know now. You know I learned it 12 years ago, but now I know. 12 years ago I said to myself you know this now, so try it, try it, yeah, and what was it like to make that shift?
Julie: 3:56
It must have been. You know, we all have habits and we all fall into behaviors and ways of being. What was it like to try and really make changes in kind of all the corners of your life?
Lori: 4:09
I don't even remember initially doing it, but I remember buying a journal and starting my little sticky notes and buying a thing of 3M sticky notes, and any time a negative thought would come into my brain, such as oh my gosh, this recession is so bad. My clients are never going to, you know, buy from me again. I would write a note. There's plenty for everyone, including me. My clients respect and love me all as well, and I'd stick that up on my wall and focus on that. So what I was doing was saying, no, I'm not going to listen to this inner critic, this worrier, this ego in my brain that just wants to protect me. It's just doing its job. But I can tell it no, no, no, I'm good, I know this can be real, this can happen. Or, like you know, if I sent out a quote, that quote is never going to go through, it's never going to. I would nope. I would write the opposite on a little sticky note and stick it up on my wall. So, day by day, I got better and better. At that.
Lori: 5:20
I had to turn off the. I used to have a TV in my kitchen, so when I get up in the morning, there was my little friend on the shelf. Bad news, bad news, bad news, bad news. And it was. So I had to remove it and just not do that. I didn't stop listening to the news.
Lori: 5:38
I I think the one part that was most difficult was you hear it from the outside, right? So maybe you, maybe you are with a customer, or you're with a family member, or I'm with my husband or I'm with friends and people in the community and you hear the negative stories from them. That was probably the hardest lesson I had to learn was to sit in my peace and not let it penetrate me that I still have to. I'm still dealing with that today, where it's like some days I can't sleep because of something that may have happened the day before. That one's like, oh, and I have still using my tools to process it every day, process it and let that energy flow. So initially it was like climbing up the hill, climbing up the mountain, climbing up the mountain. But you keep going and you keep going and it gets easier. And then you hit a plateau and it gets easier, and it gets easier and easier.
Julie: 6:35
Yeah Well, and I think there's a piece too about like changing that self-talk in your head. Right, you do start to become more successful about it if you practice.
Lori: 6:46
Yes, and at that time, no, it was like. A few years later I read the book. Mel Robbins wrote a book, the Five Second Rule. I saw her speak on it years ago and I'm like, oh, I'm going to do that. So anytime you know, oh, these shirts are.
Lori: 7:03
I had an issue last week. Oh, these shirts are not going to ship on time. Oh, this client is going to be so mad at me. This is just going to be ridiculous. I can't believe. This is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Give yourself five seconds to nip it back. No, okay, let's think you call your factory. I called the screen printer, I called the supplier. I'm begging you, I need a favor here. This is what's happening. What do we got to do? Can you shift some of my other orders around? Like, so I, because I'm vibrationally higher, is like what I would like to call it, or live in a more positive manner. You're more open to creative ideas, to flow. So I thought, okay, I know we're going to make this work. They can ship some this day, some this day. At least, I can tell her they're starting to ship, because they're going all across the country there. So there were 500 t-shirts going to 500 different locations.
Julie: 7:59
Yeah, so you can, you take the farthest away, the longest shipping, and get those out the door.
Lori: 8:04
Right, right, so, um, but I bet you know if this was 12 years ago, I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe it. I can't believe she's 90. I ran, ran, ran, ran, ran. But I said no, no, okay, five, four, three, two, one, I'm going to figure this out. And okay and okay, and we did, we figured it out. So some shipped Thursday, some shipped Friday, the remainder, remainder shipped Monday. The ones that shipped Monday were the ones that were like a day away, right, yeah, so exactly what you just said. So it all worked out and I have chills talking about it now, but I just had to have faith that it would and not get mad and angry and blame, and just no wait for think about it. What can?
Lori: 8:51
we do differently.
Julie: 8:52
Yeah, and we fall into such habits, don't we? I mean the complaining, or the the negative, oh, this is just, it's all going wrong. Is is a habit that we fall into.
Lori: 9:05
Well, our little ego. It's so funny, cause I remember saying to a friend the other day do you think we'll ever evolve and not have an amygdala, that amygdala in our brain that wants to, like, block us from every you know? Just say negative morning, morning, morning morning. Oh Lori, you're never going to get that done. Oh Lori, you're not doing enough for your son, for Craig, our non-speaker. Oh Lori, like why? Why does it want to be so mean to us? But in its world it's not. It's trying to protect us because it thinks we're still cave people looking out for tigers. And we're not not anymore. We're evolved humans with all.
Lori: 9:47
So now all these other little stresses are acting like tigers, and so I think, realizing that we have control of that little little nook, and we can say, I can say you know, lori, why would you say that to yourself? Well, lori, oh my gosh, did your? These stresses are, say you know, lori, why would you say that to yourself? Well, lori, oh my gosh, did your? These dresses are not. And you know, okay, this is something so superficial, but I'm going to a wedding. Ah, these dresses are never going to fit, they're not going to look great on it. I'm like, why would I tell myself that? No, they're going to be awesome and amazing and one of them is going to work. You know, like that, our ego is trying to constantly protect us and I just say, okay, little ego, thank you for the suggestion, thank you for looking out for me, but I'm I'm good and I'm believing this.
Julie: 10:34
Yes, well, and you, you gave me, and you gave me that stat last time we chatted about you know that when your mind is in a positive state, you're actually 31% more productive. Yes, yes, which is a really amazing thing to think about, and I think we could probably all sit and imagine a time when we were so stuck because we were in a negative place, versus how things seem to follow and it's not that they're easy, necessarily, but they just. You can keep things moving if you feel like it's all going to work out.
Lori: 11:07
Yes, yes, because you don't have that like in your gut or in your around your heart and you're not like this all the time. If you're just at ease and all is well, all is well yeah.
Julie: 11:21
And how did you know you needed to take this work from a practice that helped you yourself to something where you wanted to see change in the world?
Lori: 11:47
courses and classes and workshops, other people right. And once I learned many of these practices that I started to do were scientifically based and scientifically proven, I went, oh my gosh, and they're free and you do them in your own home. How can I not teach this? How can I keep this from every other entrepreneur I know, or you know, woman in business, man in business, young 20-somethings that are just starting out. I just couldn't shut up about it. So like, okay, my family's getting tired of me, you know, going on and on all the time, so let's put together some. And I did these for free. I would go to, like, women's groups, and it was mainly women because they were just at the time. You know, we're talking a few years ago. Maybe five, six, seven years ago they were more open to it. Um, but I had men in my workshops too and talk, to talk to them about.
Lori: 12:40
Okay, here are the stats. When your mind is more optimistic and positive, holy mackerel, you know you sell on average 37% more. You're 31% more productive, you live longer, you're more open to creative. I'm like, okay, so don't you love all knowing all these things? So if you think these are all good things and there are actions and activities you can do every day that are free, in your own home. It's your time. Would you do them? Would you try? And that's when I knew and I can show them the research here. Go to this research, go to this one, this one, this one, this one, and read about it yourself. Or listen to this TED Talk. I always recommend people listening to Sean Acor, a-c-h-o-r. He talks about the research behind these things. I was like, oh my goodness, are you kidding me? So I just wanted everyone to know whether you do it or not.
Julie: 13:38
I think knowledge is power, and here it is, so yeah, yeah, I think so too, and I mean it helps you obviously continue to grow and not become stagnant when you are continually learning.
Lori: 13:55
Yes, I'm always reading. My daughter was laughing at me. She goes mom, is this your fifth book on the law of attraction?
Lori: 14:02
I'm like oh, but this one's really really good. You're like, you know she laughs at me. I'm like but everyone has a different perspective and I feel like I've learned another nuance or another thing from everyone, from all these experts. I'm not an expert, I, I just keep learning things and I want to teach it. It's funny because I remember as a kid I have three sisters. I'm the oldest, so we have two younger sisters. We would play school and I was always the teacher. My younger sister was the specialist, like the gym teacher or the art teacher, and my youngest sister was the student. I was like, oh yeah, see, I wanted to be a teacher from the beginning and now I am, now I can be, and these are really cool, important things that I want people to know.
Julie: 14:49
And so how have you fit together the sort of two different? You know, one of your entrepreneurial journeys is very, you know, knowledge-based and practical. You know, helping people grow their own businesses, and the other one is helping people grow themselves and it's really like a social impact and a mission for you. How do you fit those two roles together as an entrepreneur?
Lori: 15:15
Yes, I'm not sure I'm doing a great job of it right now.
Lori: 15:21
I'm getting there the challenge we all have is many of our clients have wellness events or sales team meetings or what, and I say, well, hey, read my bio, go to my website. Is this something you would like me to present? And when we first started doing it, um, and I say we because Neil does it as well, he does the more the business development aspect of this, where I do the mindset shifting, mindfulness piece and we would just go, we would just go and do it for the practice and so so a lot of our initial workshops and events were with our swag clients so we could help them, and it was just so. It was so much fun. So right now, that's how it's sort of meshing together and I teach them. You know, you send a thank you note for every order you get. You're going to be the only one in the room doing that, the only one in their sphere, probably doing that for your customer. So I teach them, like these little cool nuances, not just about changing your mindset, changing your perspective and your beliefs to have all these cool things and all these cool benefits, but also little tips and tricks to thank, to appreciate your clients. And so we use the concepts for our clients and then we teach the concepts to our clients to help their work with their prospects and their clients. So it meshes really well.
Lori: 16:57
I say I'm not doing a great job of it right now because I'm like there's so much to do on both sides. So it's like, okay, little by little, each day you get something done. And I have a weekly call with a woman that helps us with our website and posting my blogs and posting our podcasts up and stuff. I said you know what, teresa? I need to meet with you once a week to hold my feet to the fire to get these things done. So I count on other people to keep me accountable and I count on other people to delegate. So when there's a great order going out, okay, cj, I need you to track it. Tell my client when it arrives, like all these extraneous little gifty things that you give to your clients, they, someone else, is doing it and that's okay. Like delegation was a hard thing for me to learn.
Julie: 17:54
Yes, I think that's very common. For entrepreneurs, it's very common, okay. Good, you're not alone. For entrepreneurs, it's very common, okay good, you're not alone.
Lori: 18:02
So I feel like, no, I don't have to be the one sending the thank you gift, but I certainly can buy them, you know, and say, okay, carolee, here you go, here's my 10 thank yous for the week. Ship these out for me, things like that. You don't have to physically do it or track orders or let customers know when things arrive, sending the thank you notes, I might write them, but she'll put them together, stamp them, address them. You know all that other stuff. So delegation, I've learned to delegate to help mesh the two of them.
Julie: 18:40
Well, otherwise you become the roadblock to things getting done right, which is not what you want. Amen to that yeah totally yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a journey, because obviously you're growing. Both sides of this are bigger than they were when you began.
Lori: 19:01
Our swag business. I remember the first day we had zero. So I sat there at my desk my youngest child was three. I said, okay, I guess we'll start this business, what the hey. So I sat there and I'm like, okay, it's zero. So I was taught so back in the day. So what year would that have been? 97, 98. You could walk into a company and hand deliver the receptionist at the receptionist, you know, lobby a little gift for her or him and a gift for the person that headed up the marketing and sales in the company. Walking in, can you imagine? And she would be like so excited that she got something. And so, oh, yeah, sure, yeah, joan Smith handles that. I'll hand deliver this to her later. So that's how we started building it. That's how I started building it. It's just walking companies. So now we have to do it a different way. And it's, it's okay, because we send out a lot of lumpy mail. That's what we do. We get addresses, names, fun swag boxes, ship them out, ship them out.
Julie: 20:16
So Right, so yeah, so I mean in this almost 30 years, things have changed considerably and very much quickly in the last number of years, right when you know people are working more from home and more hybrid and that sort of thing. So it really must change kind of, yeah, how you need to approach and market and sell on that side. How has it changed the positive activity side?
Lori: 20:43
Well, it's probably increased it because, as we went through 2020 and 2021, I'm not going to say the word no, but more people needed help.
Julie: 20:57
Yeah right, more people needed help.
Lori: 20:59
They needed to reframe reframe their mind and how they were thinking for them and I would talk to them about the positive activities I do. I was doing, I had been doing for quite some time. So I like it's been eight years. I mean I started in 2012,. It's 2020. So eight years ago I had a good grasp on it and I would just do weekly Zooms with whoever came on, and so it increased that piece of it and helped them. I hope so. I hope it did and helped them. I hope so, I hope you did, and helped me too, because I needed the reminders. I needed the reminders.
Lori: 21:46
Oh my gosh, how are we going to sell to our clients? Oh my gosh, they're all at home. Oh my gosh, how are we going to reach them all? How are we going to send them anything? That those negative thoughts came back in. I was like, okay, all right, timeout. Five, four, three, two, one. Let's think about this, let's get good at this, let's think so. At that time I had time to rework our database, my database of clients emails, so I had all their emails. We went one by one, kneeled at his clients. I did, mineed them for could we have your home address to send you a swag box? If no, that's okay, but if yes, we'd like to do that. So we captured all of their home addresses because technically they were their business addresses now too, and we just sent in. Every few weeks we would send something to connect with them, to say hello, because we couldn't see Thinking about you here, you are at home.
Lori: 22:43
Yeah, just to meet with people a few times a week. Now it's maybe once a month, if that it's just different. So we started sending things and connecting that way. We got better with our email marketing. We made it through. We got better with our email marketing. We made it through. Luckily, we sold a ton of PPE masks, hand sanitizer you know all that. Remember all the plastic stuff? Oh boy, so you know, in our clients. Many of our clients were not really affected because they had products that were still needed during all of that time. So it was really a time for us to step back, get organized, clean out all these closets, you might say, and get it all together, create some good lists, think about what we want to send them. For those of us who like to meet with people and be in the presence of people, that was probably the hardest part, um, but those weekly Zooms did help Right.
Julie: 23:49
It gave you an outlet and a a gathering um of people to you know, work on Cause I. One of the things I think that would have been important about that is you were not gathering to commiserate, you were gathering to change your vibration and change how you were looking at the world at that point in time.
Lori: 24:12
Well, that's perfect, Julie.
Lori: 24:14
I was teaching people how to change their perspective. So instead of saying, oh God, I'm stuck at home, I'm not going to get to see any of my friends, this is so awful Instead can you say, wow, this is an opportunity for me to learn how to use Zoom. Remember, did you even know what Zoom was? Well, maybe you did in 2019. I did not.
Julie: 24:36
Marginally Not the way I do now, right For sure.
Lori: 24:40
Okay, this is giving you time. Can we just shift the perspective a little bit and say these are all the great things that came of this? I saw my son every day. I got to work out every day because I have a little more time, because I wasn't going to offices. I got to clean out the closets, clean out my files and everything got my marketing list together. So can we, can you, just write down three things right now, right here, right now, that are better, that you are getting done? Shift the perspective on this time, and that's what I would do.
Julie: 25:18
Yeah, and it's so interesting because one of the things I've been talking a lot about with clients right now just we're in another time of big change in the world and you know you get the. Your instinct is to kind of turtle over and protect right, protect what is. But there are opportunities coming in this, in these winds of change, and if we don't lean into the wind a little bit we will miss them.
Lori: 25:45
Yes, we um in our business. This is a beautiful thing. Too Many of the products, as you know, like these plastic pens or or the mouse pad or or a water bottle or whatever, come from overseas. So now I I said, okay, cool, let's find and our suppliers are great at this, because they keep emailing us every day it's like we've got found another one.
Lori: 26:12
We've got USA made, so I have a collection of USA made suppliers where you can get water bottles, tote bags, pens, anything plastic, Although you know I hate plastic. But okay, If you want a Frisbee or a plastic water bottle.
Julie: 26:29
Yeah, there's a place to find it now.
Lori: 26:31
Don't ask. They don't. Now they're going to ask. They've asked and they want to know where T-shirts, sweatshirts, apparel, like no you can get USA Made. No one's asked before, so we're doing a big push on that. That's mainly what our email marketing has been about lately is don't fret, it's okay, we're going to get through this together. We're going to get through this together and okay, if the pen from overseas goes from 69 cents to 89 cents, what are we going to do? You can do it or not, or buy the $1.09 USA made pen. So you have to think about I think companies and purchasers will become more aware. Aware, I think it's a good thing I do we're all becoming more aware?
Julie: 27:25
definitely, I think, and how does that then give you opportunity for positive activity?
Lori: 27:32
ah right, well, gives me an opportunity now because I'm using. You know when everything was announced and people are scared. Oh my gosh, are my jackets now going to be 30% more? We won't get that order. I said, okay, you know, five, four, three, two, one We've been through, I don't know. Count them in our years of in business seven. I can think of seven downfalls slash recession, slash downturns, slash whatever you want to call them.
Lori: 28:06
Uh, dips, that you know, valleys
Julie: 28:09
whether real or perceived at the time right.
Lori: 28:13
Yes, and we've always been okay.
Lori: 28:17
We've always been okay, we've always been okay. Things have turned around. We found a way to work through it. We will again. So I say to myself no, no, I'm not going to go down that path of worry and fear. And when I do lean that way, or when my ego takes me that way, I say no, no, all is well, we're going to figure this out too. We have other products to offer our clients and we, we just will. And and sometimes I think well, I don't watch the news, so I don't know what the news is saying, but maybe it's deeper and darker and exaggerated than what it's going to be, maybe I don't know
Julie: 28:59
Well, and how can you like the mindset that you're taking and that sort of you know shift to positivity, like, how does that help with growth? How does that help you when you sort of sit at times of uncertainty? What is it that you rely on from it, and how do you help others view things?
Lori: 29:21
Well, once I realized that 90% of our long-term happiness is predicted by how we perceive the world, not how it actually is. So, for instance, of your um real outside world, the car you drive, the house you live in, your bank account, your job, your boss, 10 of it um predicts your um long-term happiness. But 90 of your long-term happiness is based on how you perceive the world. So, with that much of it is based on how you perceive, then to me like, okay, if I, if I want to stay up and light and positive and well in my wellbeing, less stress, less anxiety, then I'm going to perceive it a different way. It's not like and I don't mean my head is in the sand and I don't know what's going on, or that I'm not or I'm blocking out other people's pain and worry and fear. That's not it at all. But I do believe that my contribution to my community, my world, the people around me, is for me to stay higher and more positive and a higher vibration, because I believe we're all connected energetically. So my wellbeing, my lightness is going to help everyone around me and everyone I'm connected to in the world and in my community and my family. So that's the way I look at it so I'm like, okay, I'm going to perceive this situation right now as a learning experience. We're going to learn about new suppliers. We're going to learn about USA Made. We are going to market the heck out of that which we hadn't before.
Lori: 31:12
I have a bag of these beautiful tote bags oh, we're going to do a video on them later. These gorgeous, they're made in New Jersey. They're beautiful tote bags. Oh, we're going to do a video on them later. These gorgeous, they're made in New Jersey. They're beautiful tote bags, like sewn, cut, the whole thing. I'm like, who knew? So, yeah, so I feel like I hope I answered your question, that it's helping my own wellbeing, just to stay in my peace and my calm, and hopefully it will help my clients too. I'm like don't worry, we'll find you the right product. We will stay in your budget, not to worry, you know? Yeah.
Julie: 31:46
And when you work with other companies on sort of like that culture piece and that you know and and you go in as an advisor, um, what kinds of things? How do you help them? What do you do?
Julie: 32:02
As an advisor? What kinds of things? How do you help them? What do you do?
Lori: 32:05
So the last group we did was a sales team and I helped them. Well, when you're in sales and you're in that sales department and you hear, oh, on average, if my mind is more positive and optimistic, I can sell on average 37% more. And I say, go to this TED Talk tonight and listen to this. It's 12 minutes, you're going to love it. There's research. So if you believe that and you want to do that and you want to make change for yourself, you know, and have less stress, less anxiety and sell more and in less time because you're more productive, then I take them through the practices and I take them to the practices I've learned that are that are scientifically based and it's it's an interactive workshop.
Lori: 32:49
Say, okay, here's the first thing, let's do it all together. You know, and we go through. I think there's 10 things. It started out with like four. Now I'm up to 10. Sorry, sorry, there's 10 now, but I they're all. Some of them take like two seconds, three minutes, you know. So, yeah, so we physically actually do it, yeah.
Julie: 33:10
Good. Well, I can't wait to see where you take positive activity next, because I think the world certainly needs more positivity and I think, as entrepreneurs, we need to get out of our stress-filled mindsets and our you know our sprint paces to figure out how to live life as an entrepreneur, and I think being more positive will help all of us. So I'm thankful that you were able to join me today and share your journey. Thank you.
Lori: 33:37
Julie, thank you for having me.
Julie: 33:39
You're welcome, all right. Take care.
Julie: 33:43
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