Speaker 1: 0:00

it is easier to see only the next 90 days right Than to see three or five years out especially. I mean, think about what's happened in our world in the last four or five years. It has been unprecedented in times after unprecedented times. Like we're all kind of tired of things changing so much. But that's out of our control in a lot of respects. What isn't in our control is how we decide to show up every day. So I have my clients all start with a vision for what you want your life to look like and we actually go through a whole process to create their vision for the next three to five years.

Speaker 3: 0:55

You're listening to America's.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Healthiest City on Mike King Biz Radio Network, on ESPN Richmond 106.1 and Choice 105.3. Good morning, welcome back to America's Healthiest City on ESPN Richmond 106.1, part of the Mike King Biz Media Network. I'm Will Melton, I'm your host and if you're tuning in for the very first time, please check out americashealthiestcitycom to learn about our 10-year community partnership to make all of Richmond, the entire region, the healthiest in America by 2033. We cannot do it if we don't all move together in the same direction. So go check out our ideas board, see what it takes to become an ambassador and subscribe to our channel so you can listen to this show, short clips and other features that we have Today.

Speaker 2: 1:27

In the studio I have Rachel Cook, the CEO and founder of the CEO Collective. I'm excited about this conversation because Rachel is a planner something I'm not and we're going to have a lot of fun talking about the importance of planning and how it can shape your life and just a lot of other things about empowerment of women and lots of other stuff. So let's get into it, rachel. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited about this conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Thanks so much for having me. It was exciting to get the request to come on and I've always loved being able to connect with people locally here in Richmond.

Speaker 2: 1:58

We have a habit of interviewing helpers, and one of our previous guests, casey Jordan, was gracious enough to drop your name on the show, and so we took her advice, and I will say that our listeners will not be disappointed. You talk about a lot of things solopreneur to CEO, a life-first business, prioritizing sustainable business growth. There's a lot of stuff. I have just so many things that you say in your podcast and on your website that resonates with me and I think it's going to resonate with our audience. But before we get into that, I wanted to ask maybe a semi-personal question Are you a native to this area or did you move here and, if so, what brought you?

Speaker 1: 2:37

So I actually grew up in Gloucester, not too far away, about an hour and a half away my parents, my grandma all still there, too far away, about an hour and a half away, my parents, my grandma, all still there. So born and raised in Gloucester and then came back to Richmond after college and finishing my MBA and actually my husband and I were living in Atlanta where I started my career in consulting and, to be honest, I was not a fan of living in Atlanta. It was just I was always fighting traffic, my husband was teaching in Atlanta and it was just not the right fit for us. So we ended up coming back to Richmond and just fell in love with it. And it's perfect because my parents need some extra help and I'm close enough that I can go down and help. My mom has full-time nursing care at home, so I still manage all of her day-to-day care from here, but if I'm ever needed literally an hour drive away, it's great from here, but if I'm ever needed literally an hour drive away, it's great.

Speaker 2: 3:27

So just a brief comment there. Chamber RVA took a group to Atlanta last year for the inner city visit and we got to check out the Beltline and one of the things that's super exciting about that and while I agree with you that Richmond's a much better place to live, we have the Fall Line Trail coming here, which is going to be very similar to the Beltline, and we've talked to some other folks on the show about the development and all the excitement that's going to happen around that development. But yeah, I think that it's nice to be able to take the best things from other places and bring them here.

Speaker 2: 3:54

Yeah, absolutely Get to stay here in this a little bit more close-knit community.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Yeah, I just it's a great city, if you like for me wanted to come here, raise a family, be close enough to my parents, but also close to everything, and, as a small business owner who travels a lot and speaks a lot like I, can get anywhere from here very, very easily, which is a huge perk for me.

Speaker 2: 4:19

Yeah, and I saw a meme the other day. That's like you know, no matter what time you show up to the airport, you're always going to be early, especially here, yeah, especially here at the Richmond airport.

Speaker 1: 4:24

You're totally fine, and when my clients come in town they're always like I love flying in here. This is the calmest, easiest to get through airport and like yes, it is. That's why we host our events here.

Speaker 2: 4:34

Yeah, and they're going to be making some changes over there that make it even calmer and even easier. So, before we get into the CEO collective, talk a little bit about your background and what led you to this path. I know you've been doing this for a number of years of helping other people realize their dreams. What was your path to realizing your own dream, to doing this, and how did you fall into this space?

Speaker 1: 4:54

Yeah, I mean it literally was falling into it. So I finished both of my degrees my undergrad and my MBA in entrepreneurship and small business from East Carolina University, go Pirates, and I went directly into the world of consulting and anybody who does that whole MBA to the consulting world. It is intense. You're basically going through the next few years of working 80 hours a week and living out of a suitcase and I ended up really sick. I ended up getting diagnosed with chronic fatigue and chronic pain. That made me really question like, is this the life that I want? And at that point I was looking around at all the other people in this consulting firm in Atlanta and started asking myself is the life they're living right now the life I actually want for myself?

Speaker 3: 5:39

And it wasn't.

Speaker 1: 5:40

I was watching them and they were still 20, 30 years into their career, working these incredible hours and they didn't see their family and they didn't really have a life. It was just work all the time. So we decided to relocate to Richmond. I ended up crying on a yoga mat while I was trying to figure out my health which you know, that's what happens and I met an amazing woman who has since passed Arlene Bjork and she owned Grace Yoga right off Fushi downtown and had a great yoga studio down there. And she came to me and she said okay, rach, I know you don't want to go back into that consulting world, but my business needs help. I don't know what I'm going to do here. And so her support was the thing that kickstarted me launching my own consulting and coaching company, because I realized a lot of small owner operated businesses don't have the real support and strategy that is going to truly help them. A lot of the information out there about growing and running a small business really isn't for owner operated, like one woman shows, and so that was kind of.

Speaker 1: 6:42

The first step for me was realizing there's these amazing business owners doing great work that I really believe in. They're investing back into their local communities. They're building communities and they needed support. They needed someone like me who thinks in spreadsheets, because that's not how their brain works. They needed someone like me who's like, let's put together a standards of operations here, like, let's put it together. Put together a standards of operations here, like let's put it together. And so that kind of started it 15 years ago and since then I've just continued to work with women who own all sorts of different kinds of businesses. But I really, really have a passion for helping women business owners because I truly think entrepreneurship is the next women's movement. It is one of the best ways. If you are a woman who wants to create success on your terms, it's one of the best ways to be able to do that.

Speaker 2: 7:30

That's all great. I want to dive deeper into that conversation, but I need to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk more about the CEO Collective and the things, the tools that we need to be successful.

Speaker 3: 7:40

When we asked ourselves what could we do to stop the tide of plastic bottled water. We never thought we'd start a water brand, but an idea grew and Richmond Water was born. Now we're replacing single-use plastic on the shelf with collectible, refillable aluminum bottles of water and we're installing refill stations throughout RVA, launching a movement to refill. It's your turn to make a splash. Find your bottle of Richmond Water or add refill stations to your next event at drinkrichmondwatercom. That's kind of cool.

Speaker 2: 8:11

Welcome back to America's Healthiest City. On ESPN, I'm your host, Will Melton, and today we have Rachel Cook, the CEO and founder of the CEO Collective, in the studio, and we're talking about women's success and what it takes to be successful as a woman, and this advice applies to absolutely everybody out there. So if you're a man, please stay tuned in. I wanted you said something in your latest podcast we don't rise to our goals, we fall to our systems. Can you talk? A little bit more about that for me, please.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Oh my gosh, this is one of my favorite things to talk about. So when it comes to planning, which is my favorite thing to do, I love some colored pens and some post-its and some organized planning. It needs to be all color-coded. But the reality is, a lot of times we plan as if everything is going to work perfectly, and what we don't plan for is the things that are going to throw us off track. We don't plan for life. We don't plan to lose a parent, or to get a diagnosis, or for your kids to suddenly be sick or any of the millions of things that can go wrong. Right, and so if our goals are only going to work if things are perfect, if the situations are always perfect, then they're not realistic, because life isn't perfect. Life is chaotic in a lot of ways, so we fall to the level of our systems and our habits. That is our default. So if you really want to achieve goals long term, I always tell my clients that the biggest thing to focus on is what is the process, that if you can stay focused on that process and you commit to the process, the outcome is inevitable. But now you've made it a habit to get there, so an easy way to think of this is health, because a lot of people can understand this. If you want to improve your health and your fitness overall, you can't just throw a goal out there like I want to run a marathon and then have no process behind how you're going to get there.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Anyone who's run a long race and not me, by the way, I am not a runner. I am a enthusiastic cheerleader on the sideline. But if you were to run a marathon, you have to put together a plan. You have to put together something, a system you're going to follow to train and to get to that level, and you have to fall in love with that process. You have to be excited about that process, because training for a marathon is really hard. Right, it's really hard, it's not going to be fun, it could even be painful at times, but if you stay focused on the process, the outcome is you'll probably finish a marathon. So it's the same thing can be applied to literally anything in your life. You have to let go of the goal so tightly and just focus on what are the habits and the processes that are going to get me there, and that outcome will suddenly become an eventuality instead of a maybe it will happen.

Speaker 2: 10:57

One of the things you talked about is understanding the products that you sell and packaging and pricing them and promoting them appropriately so that you can make money. On the other end, if you're underpricing or if you're just kind of putting some stuff together as people come along, maybe you're not accounting for those costs later on that you didn't anticipate because you didn't do the plan.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Yeah, the plan. I mean, having a plan is essential, especially if you are trying to create anything that is going to be bigger than you, right? So if you're going to do something and it's just only going to impact you, maybe you can wing it, maybe you can make it up as you go along, but the minute you start involving and engaging other people is where the plan becomes crucial, and there's two sides to that. As a business owner, as a community leader, as anybody doing something of impact, you have different people who are involved. You have your clients, the people you're serving, and if you just don't have a process to take incredible care of them, then guess what? Those clients are going to stick along very long. They're going to disappear, they're going to fall off.

Speaker 1: 11:56

So having those clear processes that make that more systematic, that make it more consistent, so that each client gets the same experience, is huge, and that makes your business easier to run.

Speaker 1: 12:07

On the other side of that, there's also all these other people who are involved in small business and any organization. It's a team effort, right? Teamwork makes the dream work, is really true. So you have to make sure that there's a plan that your team can follow, or else you become the bottleneck all the time. So for a lot of small businesses they start hiring their first people on their team, but then they start feeling really overwhelmed because they thought, oh, I'm delegating all my stuff to them, but now they're managing all these people on the team and management is a whole nother world to get into. So you have to make sure you have a clear plan so that team can run itself instead of needing to come to you all the time to fix things and to clear the way. If you have a clear plan and a clear process, then your clients get a better experience and better results and your team can actually do their job and you can get out of their way.

Speaker 2: 12:57

So one of the things that I love about your latest series of podcasts is about 2025 planning.

Speaker 3: 13:03

We're in.

Speaker 2: 13:04

October of 2024. So it's obviously not too early to be thinking about that. One of the things that's happened to me in the last couple of years is and preceding this show, you know, I said to myself what do successful people do differently than me? You know, what do I need to be doing to fulfill the life I want to live in the next 10 years? You know Bill Gates says you can do less in a year than you think you can and more in 10 years than you think you can. How do you work with your clients to help them think about that longer term, you know, sort of vision for their life, not just necessarily the next year?

Speaker 1: 13:36

Yeah, it's a little bit of you know give and take here, because it is easier to see only the next 90 days right Then to see three or five years out especially. I mean, think about what's happened in our world in the last four or five years. It has been unprecedented times after unprecedented times, like we're all kind of tired of things changing so much. But that's out of our control in a lot of respects. What isn't in our control is how we decide to show up every day. So I have my clients all start with a vision for what you want your life to look like and we actually go through a whole process to create their vision for the next three to five years.

Speaker 1: 14:12

Three to five years to me is a great window, especially for women, because a lot of the women I work with are different stages of life and as a mom, I can tell you the window I'm in right now of having kids in high school, getting ready to go to college, is very different from the stage of life when I had littles at home, you know, and trying to navigate preschool. So we think about, like, what's important in this season of life for you, what matters to you. So as a as a mom. Right now, I want to be the mom that my kids want to come home to. That's really important to me. So I'm spending a lot of time, even though everybody told me and they get older they don't need you as much. Yes, I do, they do need you. They just don't need you until 10 o'clock at night, when you're already ready for bed, and that's when they want to come tell you about their day, and that's fine.

Speaker 1: 14:58

So to me it's like how do I set myself up for success in this season that I'm in? And it means being really flexible. It means having time where I'm able to have one-on-one time with my kids. It means, yes, I'm traveling still, but I'm also balancing that. So if I'm traveling for work or I'm going to speak at an event, then I'm going to make sure I'm blocking off the same amount of time to spend with my family when I return.

Speaker 1: 15:23

So it's making sure that I'm really thinking about that season of life that I'm in right now, knowing that the next season is empty, nested when they're out of the house, and that's going to look completely different, and how that impacts my business and what I say yes to is going to change in that season. So I think, by thinking of it that way, it really helps me, because my family centers a lot of what I decide to say yes to. Overall and for a lot of women, whether you have children about 38% of women entrepreneurs do have school-aged children. Another about 40% of us are caregiving elder adults, whether it's full-time or part-time, helping your parents or any other older person. These are very real things that are going to take up a significant amount of our time, and so we need to be considering that as part of our vision in the season that we're currently in, in the next three to five years of our life.

Speaker 2: 16:16

So thinking more about CEOs, newcomers, ceos, folks that want to rise to that role. You know, being a CEO is kind of like being somebody for the world. You know, you kind of have this public persona a little bit, or you have to step out there if you want to succeed. I can imagine because I personally deal with this that the folks that you deal with struggle to see themselves as somebody and accept that other people are going to judge them either as somebody or maybe, in a more critical way, be like oh, they're faking it or something. You know, like those thoughts that go through our head. How do you coach people through that challenge?

Speaker 1: 16:54

Well, just like you brought up the thing that men will apply to a job where they're only 60% qualified but women won't until they're 100%, same thing. A lot of women tend to discount their experience and expertise. They like downplay it Again. It's back to this whole good girl, be quiet, don't cause too much of a fuss. So when I actually rebranded my whole business six years ago to the CEO Collective, it was very intentional because not a lot of women who are business owners see themselves as CEOs and I wanted to work with women who realize that their business is something bigger than just them.

Speaker 1: 17:31

And claiming that for yourself, claiming that title, is pretty powerful when you actually start putting it, like on your business card, in your bio, on your website, because it really is saying like yes, I am a leader in this field and I work with so many women. I mean, when it comes to women entrepreneurs, they're overeducated. We tend to have more degrees by far, tend to have a lot more education and experience. The average woman starting a business right now is 44. So these are women coming in with decades of experience under their belt, but they'll still hold back from calling themselves a founder or a CEO of their own business and I'm like no one. There's no fairy that's going to come around and like, anoint you with that title. You have to claim it for yourself. No fairy that's going to come around and like, anoint you with that title. You have to claim it for yourself.

Speaker 1: 18:17

And the magical part of that for me is when you start asking yourself what, what, what would I do as the CEO? What would the CEO of this business that I'm dreaming of, how would they show up? What kind of support would they have? What kind of habits would they have? Like that really changes everything, because suddenly you realize that if you are going to be the CEO, you have to show up like the CEO. You have to make your habits a lot stronger, you have to get the right support system around you and the biggest part of it is you have to know it's no longer just you, because a CEO has a team. A CEO has people behind the scenes making things happen. A CEO has a home team people making their life easier, and that's a big leap for a lot of people if they've never really recognized that they are in that leadership role in their life and business.

Speaker 2: 19:03

And I think that you also have to be comfortable speaking favorably about yourself, because that's marketing.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Yep, exactly, it's a visibility thing and, again, like, a lot of women really struggle with visibility and there's a lot of research behind this, but it really, you know, in my experience women get afraid of visibility because historically, being an outspoken, opinionated woman has been kind of a scary thing to do Right, and it could physically put us in dangerous situations or expose us to things that could hurt us. So it is a big act of bravery and courage to be a woman who shows up and shares their thoughts and their opinions, because historically that has not been a safe way for us to make a difference in the world. Historically it's been easier if we're just quietly doing things behind the scenes, but now there are so many women who are up to incredible things, and especially here in Richmond. Did you know Richmond had a 60% increase in women business owners between 2022 and?

Speaker 2: 20:02

2023? I had no idea. 60% is huge 60%.

Speaker 1: 20:05

We're the fourth fastest growing group of women entrepreneurs in the country, the fourth fastest city in the country, and it's led by black women. They're the biggest group that is starting small businesses, and it's because they're finding ways to get creative and figure out how can we help people, how can we provide solutions to the problems that we're seeing. And that is what is amazing about women is women get out in their community. They get out in the world and they see things that could work better. They see opportunities to improve things and they will roll up their sleeves and make it happen. And I think that's the magic of women in entrepreneurship. It's very much about the community. It's very much about giving back. It's not as much about you know my title being the CEO as much as I'm here to make an impact in my community.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Well, that's a great segue to our next segment, so we're gonna take a quick break. We'll talk a little bit more about Richmond when we come back. Thank you for listening to America's Healthiest City on Mike King Biz Radio Network. Welcome back to America's Healthiest City on ESPN Richmond 106.1. If you don't already, please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, follow us on LinkedIn, on Instagram, any place you get your podcasts. Go check out America's Healthiest City so you can listen to the full episodes of this show. We are on episode 76 with Rachel Cook, the founder and CEO of the CEO Collective. So let's talk about Richmond. So Richmond's this wonderful entrepreneurial place. It's not just black women. It's not just black women. It's not just women.

Speaker 1: 21:37

It is just in general arts and food.

Speaker 2: 21:40

I mean, I love reading about these very creative restaurant groups that are crushing it here despite the tax situation that we deal with in the city. I want to talk more about your thoughts about the future of Richmond. You have single-handedly recruited four families to the region. You told me this. I know it's true. Why would you do such a thing? And you know, what do you see as the future for those folks and other people who choose to move here?

Speaker 1: 22:09

You know it's so funny because on my podcast, Promote Yourself to CEO, I do talk a lot about what my day-to-day life looks like, what running a business looks like, and so I ended up talking about Richmond. I had an office for four years. It was across the street from Stella's and Pearlie's Deli, and so all of my clients knew about Stella's Market, even if they were from around the country, and they could not wait to come to Richmond so they could walk across to Stella's Market and go get their lunch, could not wait to come to Richmond so they could walk across to Stella's Market and go get their lunch. And I just it's been such a great city just because there's so many creative people here. There's so much to do. It doesn't matter what your scene is, there is something. So I tend to love the art scene, the food scene, the music scene.

Speaker 1: 22:49

My husband is big into the outdoors and hiking, like he's out, hiking along the James River park system all of the time and taking our kids out to Belle Isle and everything, and so people are always surprised Like all of that is in one place. You have a city where you can go hiking all day. Yes, we do. It's pretty amazing Like we have all of these different things. Doesn't matter what your interests are, there's something here for you.

Speaker 1: 23:14

And so when I've had several clients now, it's so funny. They come here to work with me, they come here to attend one of my events and they stay for a long weekend and then after they, because I have a quarterly event that I host, so my clients will come every quarter to work with me. So they start to get to know the city and they start to find their own favorite restaurants and they start to get excited about, you know, returning to the same places and it's just different, I feel like because of the size of the city and the number of small businesses, there's just so many places you can go and experience everything you could possibly imagine. So I think a lot of people, just once they get here and they spend time here, they realize this is just a great town to be a part of.

Speaker 2: 23:57

Yeah, yeah, so there's. For most of us, I think that is the case, but unfortunately there's some folks who are living on the margins and they haven't made it yet, and there are a lot of people who are working to try to solve these problems, but there's a history that's a little tough for Richmond. With that in mind, what ideas might we drop on our ideas board for ways that, maybe not individually we could be healthier, but as a community, how can we think about ways to be healthier, moving toward becoming the healthiest city?

Speaker 1: 24:28

I mean, I think one of the things I love about Richmond is just how involved people are. There are so many great organizations that are trying to do amazing things here in Richmond, whether it's the small business community. We have so many different groups in Richmond offering support, offering education, offering training for free or for reduced cost. There's startup incubators you can be a part of, where you can get access to things that you might not be able to otherwise. So I think if you're a small business owner, find the small business group that fits for you and it might be a little like dating.

Speaker 1: 25:01

You might have to go try a couple of them, but they all have like doesn't matter if it's the Chamber, if it's the Metropolitan Business League, if it's NABO, the National Association of Women Business Owners Like there's a lot of different organizations working with small businesses and trying to help give them more resources, and I think that's a huge place for any small business owner to get involved in. Being a part of NABO has been a huge part of my journey the last few years. I just finished my board term with NABO.

Speaker 2: 25:28

National Association of Women Business Owners.

Speaker 1: 25:30

Yes, and that is the biggest national organization for women business owners that has an advocacy arm in DC. So we, once a year, go to DC to speak with Congress and to speak with our legislators to try to get more things passed that will support small businesses. So for me, that's really important, because women are chronically underfunded. They don't have access to capital and there's other things that could make or break the ability for you to keep a business running as a woman, like access to affordable childcare. Those types of things are really important. So I love that I found these groups to be a part of, because not only do I get to network with them and spend time with people who are all up to really amazing things in their businesses, but we all are trying to work to get more entrepreneurship off the ground and to help the people who are here thrive.

Speaker 2: 26:21

So so many good nuggets in this conversation. I wish I could talk for another half an hour. We're going to run out of time, but I do want to give you an opportunity to tell folks where they can learn more about you the CEO Collective, the CEO Retreat but before you do that, if you would, there are other folks out in the community that are doing good work, and we found you via Casey Jordan. Thanks, casey.

Speaker 2: 26:43

Is there somebody that comes to mind for you that we should be reaching out to, to learn what their ideas are and the impact they've had on this.

Speaker 1: 26:50

Absolutely. Well, I'm going to give you two people. So Jackie DePauw Schlosser is the current president of NABO Richmond and she has been really, really trying to get the women's business community to become even more active and involved. We have great scholarship programs, we have great give back programs to help women entrepreneurs, so I would absolutely connect with her. The other person who I think is up to great things is Michelle Mercurio, and she is one of the people that leads Creative Mornings Richmond. Have you been to a Creative Mornings?

Speaker 2: 27:21

I have and I like Michelle and. I love her videos on Instagram. She's so raw and I just she connects.

Speaker 1: 27:30

She's amazing, and Creative Mornings, like this again, is a national organization, but Richmond's Creative Mornings chapter is actually one of the best of all of the hundreds of chapters around the world. The content they bring, the speakers they bring, the level of community that they've built is really, really remarkable. So she's one of my favorite community builders that is able to really reach across you know, it doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or you're an employee or you're from whatever world.

Speaker 1: 27:58

If you are interested in just creative people doing amazing things in the community, she's a great person to connect with.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Well, thank you for that. I have interviewed many people on this show after they have been guests at Creative. Morning, so it's a good place to find guests, so tell folks where they can find out about you and the CEO Collective.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Well, the best place to find me is theceocollectivecom. I have a ton of resources, including a free challenge that is currently available called Plan your Best Year Ever. As I shared, I'm a planning nerd. I have a very clear process for it. No surprise and it's absolutely free. It's a free planning challenge to create your 12-month action plan for 2025. And if you're in a podcast, I have my podcast Promote Yourself to CEO. It goes out every Thursday and that is where we talk about all things growing your business sustainably, without hustle and burnout, and the lessons learned along the way of this 16 year entrepreneurship journey.

Speaker 2: 28:50

I've been in Well, Rachel Cook, thanks so much for joining us on the show today. It's been a great conversation and I look forward to doing this again.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 28:59

I'm sure there's going to be some development that we want to tell folks about.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Perfect, thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:03

This was America's Healthiest City on ESPN Richmond 106.1. Catch us each Thursday at 6 am here on the network. You can also catch us live on LinkedIn, on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. We drop the show right at six o'clock on Thursday mornings. Catch us next week.