The No Drama Zone: Creating Healthy Work Cultures with Connie Miller

Topics discussed in this episode with time stamps

00:00 – 00:19 “There is so much correlation to business and poker. If you play every hand, if you try to serve every customer, if you try to do everything, you’re going to lose. You have limited resources, limited chips, and you need to be smart about how you spend those chips and when you’re going to gamble with them and when you’re not.” — Connie Miller

00:20 – 00:38 Welcome to Peppershock Media’s Marketing Expedition Podcast

00:39 – 01:46 Connie’s Background

01:47 – 17:02 Marketing Essentials Moment: Personal Branding for Business Owners and Professionals

17:03 – 20:29 Welcome to the show, Connie!

20:30 – 22:50 Understanding Personal Branding

22:51 – 25:39 Common Self-Sabotaging Behaviors

25:40 – 27:09 Curiosity in Leadership

27:10 – 31:25 Real-Life Examples of Career Sabotage

31:26 – 32:59 Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

33:00 – 35:42 Marketing Through Relationships

35:43 – 39:43 Creating a No Drama Zone

39:44 – 42:45 Establishing a No Pairing Zone

42:46 – 44:58 Building a Positive Workplace Culture

44:59 – 49:57 Word-of-Mouth Marketing

49:58 – 54:17 Sharing Expertise

54:18 – 54:54 Poderific, baby! Whether you’re looking for a podcast studio to rent or need help with the entire production and distribution of your podcast, we gotcha covered. 

54:55 – 1:02:58 Women in Poker

1:02:59 – 1:08:53 Mastermind Groups

1:08:54 – 1:12:11 Creating Supportive Networks

1:12:12 – 1:13:00 Reach out to Connie

1:13:01 – 1:16:50 Don’t Sabotage Your Career Book on Amazon

1:16:51 – 1:17:15 Thank you so much, Connie! Share this podcast, give us a review, and enjoy your marketing journey!

1:17:16 – 1:18:02 Join the Marketing Expedition Community today!

Like what you hear, but need more information?

Meet with Rhea Allen

Read the Full Transcript:

Connie Miller (00:00.046)

“There is so much correlation to business and poker. If you play every hand, if you try to serve every customer, if you try to do everything you’re going to lose, you have limited resources, limited chips. You need to be smart about how you spend those chips and when you’re going to gamble with them and when you’re not.”

Introduction to the Marketing Expedition Podcast (00:27.064)

Welcome to the Marketing Expedition Podcast, an auditory journey through the latest in marketing, branding, and advertising. Now, here’s your marketing expedition guide, Rhea Allen.

Rhea Allen

On this episode of the Marketing Expedition podcast, was my distinct pleasure to get to speak to one of my favorite mentors, Connie Miller. And as a veteran executive, Connie has developed strong skills, incredible communication, rooting and developing healthy results-driven cultures and maximizing achievement. She believes in integrity and taking the high road, eliminating drama and focusing on inspiring others to courageously reach their maximum potential.

Before Connie’s retirement in 2021, she served as the president CEO of Icon Credit Union and later regional president of Horizon Credit Union. Now she serves as the CEO of Credible Advantage, a leadership and board development consulting business. As a published author, Connie shares her insights in her book, Don’t Sabotage Your Career, on becoming a top professional and avoiding unintentional mistakes that may hold one’s career back and hurt their personal brand.

And you’re in for a treat. Connie is so full of wisdom and knowledge and just quotable moments, the Connie-isms that you’ll get to hear. I can’t wait for you to hear this episode. But first, it’s time now for your marketing essentials moment, the basics that you need to help you continue to build your brand and your bottom line. Today’s topic is the essentials of personal branding for business owners and professionals.

If you’re a business owner or a professional, you already have a personal brand, whether you like it or if you’ve built it intentionally or not. The real question is, is your brand attracting the right clients and opportunities or are you quietly repelling them? In this episode, I want to walk you through the essentials for personal branding and show you how you can show up with clarity, confidence, and consistency and ultimately grow your business.

Rhea Allen (02:31.596)

And sometimes we can repel those we don’t want to work with. So just a little caveat there. But anyway, for more than two decades, I’ve definitely helped business owners build their brand and their bottom lines and tell their stories on either a personal or professional or with their corporate entity. But business owners and professionals who work for the entity need to have brand alignment because they are their own brand and people buy from people that they know like and trust. So thinking through.

how you can help continue to build your brand intentionally as the business owner and or the face of the company and alignment with the brand that you represent, right? If it’s your business or not. So we can help tell brands through storytelling, utilizing strategy and video and design and content. And I think we are going to spend a little time here breaking down personal branding to simplify some actionable pieces that you can use right away.

to help you in creating your personal and professional brand with your company. So what is personal brand really? Just as a reminder for those of you that want to understand what personal branding is, it’s the perception of what people have of you. What they say about you when you’re not in the room. How they describe you to a friend if they’re gonna refer you. What they say about you, it’s made up of your reputation, your expertise, your personality.

your values and how you consistently show up with them and live them out. Your personal brand can attract or repel those ideal clients. So let’s think about what is being perceived by those potential new clients. It can influence pricing and power and trust. It can open doors to speaking partnerships and media opportunities. And your personal brand is not just your logo or your headshot. Those are assets of your brand.

Your brand is the feeling that people get when they interact with you. And why does personal branding matter? Because again, people buy from people they trust. In crowded markets, especially if you have a really competitive market, your face and your story can sometimes be the main differentiator and it shortens the life cycle of the sales cycle. When people already know who you are or have heard about you or know what you stand for.

Rhea Allen (04:55.09)

or if people say, yeah, they’re good people, then what you are good at, they come to you already pre-sold practically because they’ve heard about you and they have understood your reputation when somebody gives you a recommendation or refers you or refers referrals, recommendations, rankings, rewards, rewarding those people who talk.

It can protect you when things change. Markets shift, platforms change, business pivots, things happen, economies happen, recessions happen, COVID happens, whatever, right? But a strong personal brand moves with you across all of your roles, all of your offers, and even if you were to move companies or open a new company. And of course, it attracts the right opportunities.

I love getting invited to speaking engagements and that is definitely one way to help continue to build our brand for not just Peppershock, but for me as well and together, right? As a face of the company, speaking opportunities can really help showcase the subject matter content expertise that I have, right? And it helps attract those opportunities. And sometimes it is a long burn, right? People that I have spoken in front of and shared my expertise 10 years ago.

finally come out of the woodwork and say, hey, I saw you speak at this chamber event or this rotary event or this stage, or, you know, I saw you at on ad week, whatever. And so those people come around to say, hey, I know of you because I heard you speak about something. And of course it attracts other opportunities like podcast invites. I get invited to be on podcasts just as much as I get to share our podcasts with you. It helps with those referrals we were talking about.

And these of course flow to people with clear, visible personal brands. So if branding is that important, what are the actual essentials you need to focus on? Here we go. One, clarity. Know who you are and who you serve. One of the things I do with my students is they have to do a 30 second elevator pitch as if we were gonna go in an elevator and somebody asks, well, what do you do? Who are you? Right? And so you need to clearly define who you are, what you do, why you do what you do.

Rhea Allen (07:06.414)

and who you do it for and the main problems that you may solve or what you serve or what you offer. And then simple positioning, I help blank who get blank results through and how you do it. And then encourage them to choose Elaine even if you’re everything to everyone, you’re memorable to no one. Just remember that, if you’re everything to everyone, you’re memorable to no one. Because you can’t do all things well, right? We try.

Sometimes I’m a Jane of all trade and a master of some, right? But literally, if you are trying to be all things to all people, then you can be nothing to no one, right? So I want you to take this action item. Maybe you can pause the podcast for a second or come back to it if you’re driving. Don’t do anything while you’re driving, please. I want you to write one sentence that clearly states who you are, who you serve, why you do what you do.

And if it confuses a 10 year old, simplify it, simplify it. Number two, share the why behind your work. People connect with stories, not bullet points. The key story that you can outline the moment that you realize that this worked mattered to you. A challenge or a turning point in your journey or transformation that can help clients achieve your results that you can give to them. All right, so.

What is your backstory? You just need a true story. You don’t have to have a traumatic story. You just have the authenticity in your story and why you do what you do and how you help people and why you help them and all the things, right? So maybe jot down a client story where you made a real difference. It’s going to be a part of your personal brand story. And then visuals show up like a pro. Visual consistency will build recognition. Your headshots

need to actually look like you now, not from 20 years ago when you had bangs or not, or when you had different hair color, different hairstyle. You need a current headshot, right? A simple, consistent color palette that matches your skin tone that really resonates with you. And also the brand of the company that you’re representing. A lot of people will wear the brand of the color and hopefully it’s a good color that represents your skin tone well, right?

Rhea Allen (09:28.024)

but clean readable graphics on social media posts and presentations that you may give if you’re asked to speak somewhere. You don’t have to overproduce it to perfection, but with consistency, you can beat perfect with all of the things that you do consistently, right? So yeah, done and consistent beats perfect and invisible. You can…

utilize these tools, these assets through the video or photos or design to amplify your brand to make them more memorable and referable. So that way they’re portable so people can easily share about your brand that you have as assets. So if you created a video about yourself or your company, an overview of your brand story, then it can be shared with others, right?

And I also love it when we do customer testimonials where they’re talking about us and our brand and who we are and working with us, that then we can share and then they share with their audience as well. It’s kind of a residual side effect. And then your brand voice should reflect your personality. Are you warm, bold, analytical, playful, et cetera? Words that you want to own. And your values, is it educational? Are you empowering? Are you direct? Let’s learn a little bit more about you.

in the values that you share with your voice and your content that you produce and put out there, or even have other people produce for you, but it’s gotta be your brand voice.

And think about what you can do as a business owner to continuously share the visibility and expertise that you have. Can you teach? Can you share tips, frameworks, how tos? Can you show? Show behind the scenes, a process, a day in the life, do some live streamings. Prove. Do you have case studies, testimonials, before and afters? And can you humanize the values and community and causes that you care about? And if you’re tired of saying it,

Rhea Allen (11:29.836)

your audience is probably just starting to hear it. So the more you can put out there, the better you’ll get in being able to reach the people that maybe will hear you for the first time, right? And then consistency and presence, be findable and relatable. I reliable, be findable and reliable. Pick a couple of platforms at a time that you want, where you want your audience to actually learn from you or share from, or see what you’ve shared.

So, know, LinkedIn for business, or if you want to send an email newsletter, or you want to do a podcast like this, or YouTube, create a YouTube channel, or Instagram, or TikTok, whatever, a couple of platforms. Try not to do too many things to get overwhelmed and, you know, spread yourself so thin, because if you do that, it might be spread thin and you’re not going to consistently be able to build a couple of platforms at a time. So that’s my recommendation. Build one or two platforms at a time. Show up consistently. That might mean two to three times a week.

not actually 20, but at least two to three times a week, if not a little bit more. You got to find your rhythm and what works, right? And make sure you post to your website on a regular ongoing basis to help with SEO and now optimizing for artificial intelligence, right? And being able to utilize AI to show up in the search results for AI now in chat GPT or any of these other AI agents. You want to consistently have good content that answers questions and things like

And then on your social bios, when’s the last time you looked at your LinkedIn bio and updated it or any of your other social bios? In your email signature, there’s other places you can put information about you or link people to your LinkedIn page. And a speaker one sheet. Have a one sheet ready to go if people ask, know, hey, have you ever spoken or can you speak for this event? Put what topics you like to speak about. Your personal brand isn’t built

by just one viral post. It’s built by what people see from you over months and years. Think about that. Common personal branding mistakes to avoid? Trying to be someone you’re not. Keep it real. Yeah, you want authentic, but not polished fake news, right? We want your audience to see you as you are as your authentic self.

Rhea Allen (13:52.738)

Don’t be invisible online. If you have a profile with no photos or no posts or maybe outdated profiles, people will simply just move on. I know that if people try to follow me and they don’t have a profile photo in their socials, I’m not gonna accept it because I think it might be spam or just a brand new profile, who knows? Don’t have inconsistent messaging. Changing your title, niche, and offer every few weeks confuses your audience. Give it time.

Sometimes these are the first time that the people that you want to attract will see your stuff. And oh, please, for the love of God, don’t only just post sales pitches, right? If every post is buy from me, buy from me, buy from me, people will tune that out. You want to lead with value and expertise and showcase what you know. You don’t have to give away the farm, but you want to give enough to where people understand who you are and what you do and the value that you can bring to them.

And if you don’t ask for the next step in what you want, make your offers clear in a call to action. You know, reach out to me if I can help you in any way, right? Have strong personal branding with very clear offers and ways for people to connect with you and reminding them that they can connect with you. So yeah, a couple things to think about. Auditing your presence. Google your name. When’s last time you Googled your name? What came up, right?

Whenever I Google my name, there’s another person with the same name that I was wanted for a warrant for arrest. So I always have to make sure that my name and their name are not mixed together because that would be terrible, right? Look at your LinkedIn, look at your website bio, your top social profiles and ask, would my ideal client understand who I am and what I do in 10 seconds or less? And would a 10 year old understand it? Update your core message.

Write or refine your one sentence positioning statement or your brand essence statement or your elevator pitch. Update your bio and profiles to match so everything’s consistent. And make sure your photo and headline, again, are current and clear. And commit to a content rhythm. Take a little time to plan. You can use ChatGPT to create a content calendar, especially if you’ve taught your agent to learn about you and your voice and how you speak and what you do and…

Rhea Allen (16:13.73)

the things that you do. actually ask mine to look at my calendar and give me some updates on things that I’m about to do, or even things that I just did do. I do a shout outs news you can use and events not to miss as a live stream every month. And I use chat GPT while I use Cintra to help me review the things that I did do and the things that I’m about to do so that I can put those out there and share it with the world. And choose a couple of different content pillars or platforms.

and decide how often you can show up and batch some of those few posts. Your short videos you can repurpose and or email that educate or show or prove. And with that, those are some things that you can do to help you continue to build your brand and your bottom line. All right, let’s get into the interview.

Rhea Allen (17:09.089)

Welcome to the Marketing Expedition podcast. I’m your host, Rhea Allen. I’m the president and CEO of Pepper Shock Media and the founder of the Marketing Expedition community. And today we have one of my favorite mentors, Connie Miller from Credible Advantage. Welcome to the show,

Connie Miller

Thank you, thank you, I’m happy to be here.

Rhea Allen

I’m glad that you got to come to the Poderific Peppershock Studio and actually record with me in person. I that. let’s just start with a background and you have such a good background to tell from Girl Scouts to all the things that you’ve done. Let’s just give our viewers and listeners a kind of a brief background of who you are and what got you to where you are now.

Connie Miller

That’s awesome. So yeah, I got my education at Boise State and an accounting degree.

Rhea Allen

Yay! Go Broncos!

Connie Miller (17:55.66)

And then was looking for that accounting job. Wasn’t sure exactly what type of accounting I wanted, but I knew that I wanted to work for an organization that really stood for something and meant something. I love numbers, but I also love mission. And I was just blessed. The accounting position was open at the Girl Scouts. And so I went to work there and I thought, well, I’ll work a couple years and get the real world experience in accounting. And then I’ll branch into public accounting.

And 12 years later, I was still at Girl Scouts and I had really just decided it was time to kind of grow at that point. Loved that organization. And so that’s how I got in the credit union industry, took a position for an organization that was a VP of finance position and just fell in love once again with the credit unit industry, because it’s really all about people helping people. And I didn’t know anything about credit unions when I went to work there.

I did land in a position in an organization that really struggled with culture, didn’t have a lot of respect for each other. And I had come from this really nurturing, amazing environment in Girl Scouts. But I just remember thinking, you know what, I’m learning a lot about leadership that I didn’t learn in college by that organization. Was there just a couple years and then was very blessed to move into a different credit union.

where I spent about 25 years there and just, loved it. So that credit union was icon credit union. And I did about half of my career there and the accounting role, in a VP of finance role. And then I moved into the CEO role, the last half of my career there and, just loved it. It was, that industry is pretty amazing. So I was very blessed to have just an amazing career there. So.

Then I retired from the corporate world about four and a half years ago. My husband and I had always planned to try to retire when we felt like we were a little too young to retire. And so had an amazing financial advisor that helped us build the plan. so four and a half years ago, I retired from that position and started a consulting business. And I’ve just been

Connie Miller (20:23.872)

had an absolute blast in working with in my consulting business, leadership consulting.

Rhea Allen

Excellent. And I know that this show is all about going on a marketing journey. And one of the things that we discussed talking about on the show today is helping people understand their personal brand in business and leadership and how they show up and the things that you coach on. So why don’t we delve into more about that area of your expertise? Because you’ve been here and done this and now you can share your knowledge with other people.

Connie Miller

Right. there’s something, I don’t know what it was, but something that sparked an interest in me many, many years ago as I watched the culture in the workplaces that I worked in. And I just saw great leaders and I saw also not just the leadership, but the employees and the impact on how you show up personally. And the other thing that happened was when I became CEO and really started working on culture, I had

so many amazing employees that I had done everything right in their career regarding education and putting in the time and getting the expertise, but I couldn’t promote them into a leadership role because of so many things that they were doing to hurt their personal brand or professional brand. And so I kind of just started studying it and tried to really figure out what are those common things that people do that

sabotage themselves. Drama is one of the biggest that people do. Gossiping. And then there’s just all these other things that people don’t talk about. We read so much about leadership, but we don’t talk about the things people do to hurt their personal brand. And so that’s kind of what drove me to think about, I really need to publish a book about the…

other things that people do to really hurt their brand. so, 2018, sat down and wrote a book and you have to remember I’m an accountant, but it was super fun. I really enjoyed it. And I really just thought about all the things that people do that are blind spots or, or things that they do to really hurt their brand. And so all of those amazing tips are in that book.

Rhea Allen

Well, without giving away the farm, do you want to give a couple of those tips that come to mind when I say, okay, how can people sabotage their career?

Connie Miller

Yes, well first and foremost it’s how you carry yourself when you have a difference of opinion. drama is the number one culture killer and usually drama starts because people don’t know how to have crucial conversations and they avoid them and none of us like them but we can get good at them and they do build trust when you do it the right way.

So definitely learning about having crucial conversations is critically important and what you do when you have a difference of opinion. And it’s so important for people to realize that it’s okay if you disagree as long as you can find a way to support whatever it is. Because when I was at the credit union, had when I retired about 115 employees or so. And one of the things that I had to learn as CEO is that not everyone’s gonna agree with you all the time.

you can do all the research in the world to make the best decision in the world. And there is going to be people that are going to disagree with you. So I think learning how to professionally disagree and be OK if you forever disagree, but how do you support it if it’s the right decision that the leadership makes? So I think that’s by far a critical one. But other mistakes people do are, for example, fraternizing with employees outside of work.

Sometimes that creates distrust. Sometimes it creates clicks. People, it’ll break down communication at work if you have too close of relationships. And in that one employer that I worked for in the middle of my two largest stints in my career, that was one of the problems. A lot of nepotism, a lot of, and while you can have people work closely together that are close,

how they handle themselves is critically important and some environments it’s not good. And so I think that’s just one other tip. And then also I think understanding the mission of the organization and finding a way to support it. Getting in the mindset and really understand what’s the vision of your leadership and how do you get in there and make sure that everything you do is in alignment with that.

So you don’t try to go rogue on your own ideas or what you think. If it’s not your place, I am a big believer about we want to hear your ideas because I only have a portion of the ideas, right? I need to hear what you’re thinking because that’s why we have teams and lots of brains and lots of ideas. It’s just that you have to figure out when do you have a vote and when don’t you?

Rhea Allen

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, great minds can come together and be a lot more to give rather than just one individual with the ideas, right?

Connie Miller

Yeah, yes, it’s so fun. I get to do some executive one on one executive coaching today. And one of the things that I do that’s really valuable is to get in there and interview people that directly report to executives as well as some of their peers and to learn and discover how are they seen? How do they come across? What is their style that works for them versus against them? But one of the things that’s really difficult

for leaders to do is to get curious with when something either doesn’t go like they thought it would, or they see something being done a little bit differently than what they envisioned. Being a curious leader goes a long ways, but it’s really hard because it takes time, right? You have to pause, you have to be inquisitive. But yeah, that’s exactly what happens if you can get curious.

Rhea Allen

So Connie, in your career and in working with people, do you have some kind of stories without naming names that come to mind of examples of things that people might have done that maybe they could have taken a different direction had they thought about it or stopped or paused before they damaged their reputation in their career? Like, does something come to mind for you when I say, give me an example?

Connie Miller (27:37.09)

Yes. I have lots of examples. One that just kind of I thought of just now is I had a really great employee in the kind of the technical area and he was really struggling with how his boss was communicating with him and he let it get real emotional and really eat at him and but there was a blocking communication between the two.

I bet,

Whose ever fault that was, you know, sometimes there’s one that’s a little more at fault than the other, of course, they’re not being perceptive, they’re not listening. But he got pretty emotional one day, resigned quickly and left. And that’s an example where six months later he reaches back out and says, I really owe you an apology. How I resigned, how I went about that, I could have done it so much more professionally.

So I think I’ve helped employees over the years not make those quick, big decisions based on something that just happened yesterday or whatever. And sometimes what happens is people will, they’re passive aggressive because they hate these crucial conversations. So they’ll rock the boat poorly on the way out. And I always tell people that

in the heat of the moment. Yeah.

Connie Miller (28:34.456)

how you leave a situation is just as important as how you enter it. And when things don’t go well and you have conflict in difficult times, how you leave and leaving gracefully and not wanting to stick it to your employer or cause damage or gossip or talk negative on your way out is critically important because you never know when you’re going to be in the same room with that person again.

And actually that really happened to me. There was one situation in my career where a similar situation happened like that. When I think about my opportunity today that I get to help coach and mentor people, oftentimes it’s either because of a mistake I made or a mistake that someone else close to me made. There was one situation I can remember where there was an employee that felt really threatened for whatever reason. And sometimes that’s just a competitive frustration.

It’s like not understanding the landscape.

the story that they might be telling in their minds that me? It may not be true, right?

We spend a lot of time in our minds creating a story for ourselves instead of really taking a step back and breathing and thinking about the circumstances. The other thing is, one of my top four things that I lived in that allowed me to be in a high stress job without being stressed was always focus on people’s intentions. Because people are going to make mistakes, they’re going to let you down.

there you are going to have frustrating times. But if you can stay in the mindset of what do I think their intention was when either they left me off the email or made that mistake on an account or did they intend to cause harm and that if you can stay focused on that it will get you clarity and get you out of the story you create for yourself.

Rhea Allen (30:02.274)

That makes sense. And the stories you might create for others. mean, thinking about, you know, what they might be thinking and it may not be true.

Connie Miller

Yes, it’s very true and and I was guilty of that at times and I’m sure there’s times today I still do that because it’s really hard to stay out of that space But you really have to ask yourself constantly What do I know to be true about this because there’s so much hearsay that goes around in the world And and today I would say I see it more than ever even in my coaching some of my clients or is it experiencing that at a much more complex level than

I even had to experience in my own position. There’s just a lot of difficulty going on in the world today and people don’t know how to digest it all.

Rhea Allen (31:25.454)

Yeah. And you’re right. think even now with the way the economy is, the way that, you know, things politically, not to get political, but there’s just a lot of, you know, tension happening. And you’re right. A lot of conversations that could go the wrong way.

Connie Miller

Yes, you know, it’s interesting when I look at leaders today and I read a lot about what are the missing skills in senior leaders especially. And I always tell my mid-level managers and those even that aren’t even at that level now to pay attention to these things because if you can polish these skills, it’s pretty impressive how you can show up and you will be noticed by your leaders. But emotional intelligence is gaining a lot of steam.

These days, a lot of talk about it because people aren’t aware of how they’re coming across. And they are also, they aren’t aware of their impact when they’re in the middle of a conversation. And so that means things like how you receive feedback. Do you instantly become defensive or do you lean in and create a personal brand of welcoming feedback? Because that’s the best gift you can ever get. And a lot of people are afraid of it.

And they put defenses up and then it shuts down trust, it shuts down communication in that as well.

Rhea Allen

Yeah, feedback should be a gift. Yes. Whether you want it or not.

you receive feedback and the type of receive back that you do receive is very much dependent on how you respond when you get it.

Rhea Allen (32:42.718)

yeah. Don’t deny, defend or blame. Just say thank you. Right? That’s a wrong price quote. I don’t mean he probably got it from somebody else too, but yeah.

Connie Miller

Well, we all love you know, I learn a lot by reading a lot of leadership books and I have a whole mantra of

Rhea Allen

Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. So if you were to take on a new client right now, what do you look for from a marketing perspective? Like who’s your ideal soulmate client?

Connie Miller

Yeah, so I definitely look for clients that really want to grow and want to lean in. It’s never a good situation to take on a client that isn’t quite sure about wanting your services or seeing the value of your services. And so I love discovery meetings to talk about what they want, like in an ideal world asking really good questions such as at the end of our

three or six months together working diligently together what to success look like to you what do you hope to accomplish by this and and the the type of client especially my executive coaching clients that doesn’t make a good client or those who are their boss just said you gotta go get some leadership skills if they’re coming into that type of relationship hesitant and resistant and not welcoming that

they usually are resistant to feedback, it’s not gonna be a good experience. So I think in marketing, it’s always important to think about who your ideal client is, of course, and how can you provide those services to them, and can you? Like, are you the right person?

Yeah, you be a great fit because if you’re trying to coach somebody who’s resistant to everything that you have to say, it’s not fun. No one wants that. No one would want that.

I don’t think. No, I think you have to invest in that. And one of the things that I did when I retired, which was a wonderful exercise in, and this isn’t my idea, I got it from a wonderful friend, is I made a list of about 20 people that had worked for me, served on boards with me, people that knew my skills and knew me as a person. And I met with them and had coffee and said, if I do want to do some leadership and business consulting, because there’s so many consultants out there and so many different types of

coaches, if I do want to do that, what are those areas where they are the right fit for me? And what are the areas where I have expertise that I can help the world? But also the other thing, which is so important with marketing, is what’s the biggest need in the world too, right? And where can I blend those two and really show up? And so that helped me dial in my top four and five things that I do in my consulting business.

I have a lot of friends that start businesses and one of the mistakes is they don’t get their ideal client dialed in. And so they just kind of throw, you know, darts at things and then that spreads, you know, spreads the effectiveness.

Rhea Allen (35:42.134)

Yeah, for sure. So one of the things that I know that you’ve taught, you know, throughout the years of you doing what you do and speaking and coaching the no drama zone. Yeah. You you touched on it a little bit earlier, but I would love for you to share with our audience some of the tips that you gave us when we talked about no drama zone. Yeah.

Connie Miller (34:05.474)

Yeah, so there’s three parts to when drama is created. There’s three roles that people can play. And you just imagine a triangle. One of them is a rescuer role, which is a person that is well-intentioned, usually the biggest listener in the team or in the office. And they love to help. So they love to give advice and wisdom. And so as a result,

another role that people play in the drama triangle is the victim role. And the victim is the person that in general, hate solutions. They love phrases like, if it rains, it pours. Everyone is causing their misery, right? They don’t know how to own their own issues. They don’t know how to lean in and solve their own issues. And they really don’t know how sometimes. Sometimes it’s not a choice. They don’t know how.

And then the third role in the triangle is the persecutor, which is the person that just loves to command, tell people what to do, but oftentimes they’re mean-spirited. usually have a little bit of an aggressive personality and they like to control people. So you have the persecutor, the rescuer, and the victim.

The important part about drama to understand is that it is only created when two people on that triangle choose to intersect. In other words, if you get two of the same people, like two rescuers together, and they’re just all just sharing with each other all of the best advice in the world, drama doesn’t get created there. But if you get a victim and a rescuer together, and one’s just listening and the other just keeps complaining, that’s when drama happens.

the important part of the drama triangle, which a lot of people misunderstand, is that the person that creates the most drama is actually the rescuer, the well-intentioned person. Because they listen to all of this, and you have to remember that these victims don’t know how to solve their problems. And so they’ll give all the advice in the world, but they also many times don’t, they hate solutions, right? So that’s the…

if you’ve ever been in that situation where you’ve been that person that just keeps giving advice and you get frustrated because they aren’t taking your advice, that’s an example of what happens there. But there is a really good practical way to get out of it. And I have done this with many teams and I did it with my team and the culture and the employee satisfaction and retention went up significantly. And what it is is you need to start instead of giving advice if you’re playing that rescuer role.

you need to start asking questions instead of giving advice. And they must start with the word what. What is a word that triggers the brain to start solving problems and taking action? And it isn’t defensive. Like if you say why, people become instantly defensive, especially victims, especially victims. So if you say what, what can you do so?

then all of a sudden their brain starts thinking about, what could I do? Like practical application pieces. It must include the word you in it when you ask a question. You can say, but it’s not going to be effective, what can I do to help? Because now I still owns it, right? You want to say, what can you do so your supervisor better understands you? What have you done so far in order to? So when you

Yeah

have questions like that and you and I tell people think of them in advance if you know you’re going to go into a conversation you know someone repeatedly comes to you think of those in advance so that’s the important part is understand the drama triangle and that it is a choice you yeah I live a drama free life the second piece to this that is powerful and it requires leadership to be all in is establish what’s called a no pairing zone no pairing is an agreement that you all have

where you don’t pair off and talk about someone else unless they’re in the room. Like the parking lot discussion, the drinks after work, the little running in someone’s cubicle. And by the way, anytime in general, you hear whispering, usually some things like this. But here’s how it works where you allow people to get out of it when they get sucked into it.

meeting after the meeting.

speaker-2 (40:14.193)

know her.

Connie Miller (40:21.738)

is the minute someone mentions someone’s name. So let’s just say someone comes to me and then they say, I’m so frustrated with Bob, he did da da da da da. If you can stop the conversation and you can say, this feels like pairing, we’re kind of pairing off and we talked about this, we don’t wanna do this. Let’s reschedule this meeting where Bob can be in this meeting. And when you invite the people that are being talked about to the next conversation,

what happens is some pretty amazing dynamics. The people that are complaining often will say, no, no, no, let me at least go, let me go have the conversation first. So what it does is a really easy way to get people to start having conversations. You all have to be in agreement with this. You can’t just have half your team because you want to talk about it often. And when I implemented this in my work,

place, we had a lot of fun with it. We had these little crystal triangles and they were little pyramid things and they have the drama zone thing on the bottom. So it was kind of reminder, but they were a hot potato and you didn’t want it. anytime someone you caught someone kind of doing this, be playful with this and go, it’s yours now. And, and so people would would have fun and laugh about this at the same time that we’re working on really, really hard stuff.

get it

Rhea Allen (41:42.414)

Yeah, yeah. You mentioned things to remind you, we one year gave glue sticks because you’re the glue that holds us all together and we like add the little notes of what keeps us stuck together, right? Yeah.

Connie Miller

We had green rubber bands. Green was one of our colors. People wore green rubber bands. You could ask someone to snap them if they slipped. Because these things take practice. You’re not going to fix it immediately overnight. But it’s just a constant investment in it.

Rhea Allen

Yeah, and it helps make the workplace healthy and happy and culture is such a big thing. I mean, I always say that culture and branding go together. Really, your brand starts with your culture and inside out, right? mean, the culture, whether you want it to be there or not, it’s going to be. So if you can help guide it and mold it and grow it, great. And then your brand help represents the example when people would walk into your branch, right? To do, you know, whatever they’re going to do at the branch.

That’s the culture, that’s the experience, the environment, brand of the company.

Connie Miller

Your customers see it and they feel it and they can tell. For example, I hired a lot of tellers and they are usually this is often time their first professional job. And so we had work to do all the time in regards to helping people. Your customers can tell when they walk in if you have a good culture or not. They can see it. They can just feel it. The other cool thing about culture, because it is a word that’s often

often used and misunderstood because I’m a big believer that culture not just includes fun in the office and being nice to people. That’s part of it for sure. But it’s respect where you have the shared fate and you all want to succeed together. And so it’s accountability too. It’s not just how you feel and what fun you’re having. Is everyone showing up and making good decisions for the company?

When I invested in this, our organization was a great organization when I was blessed to be handed a wonderful organization when I became CEO. However, we did have a little bit of challenges with competitiveness and growth and some of those other things. So when we started investing in this, our growth took off. People were our efficiency ratios improved, just retention staff and retention improved, expertise improved.

because your employees are gonna recommend you to their people they know if you’ve got a great culture. People will talk about it.

Rhea Allen

Yeah, no, that’s it’s marketing. Yeah, it is. And from a branding and culture perspective, that definitely is known. And another thing that people always say to me, well, Rhea, I don’t need marketing because I get referrals. And guess what? Referrals are a form of marketing.

Yes.

Rhea Allen (44:30.799)

Absolutely.

So things that you can do to help accelerate word of mouth marketing. And I think you’ve done a great job by speaking and presenting and sharing and, sponsoring and showing up and talking to young people groups. I know you’ve done a number of those, but let’s talk about that a little bit. How do you accelerate? How have you feel like you have accelerated your word of mouth marketing? And let’s go on a journey. Share with me, maybe some of the clients that you got, how did you get them? Where did they come from?

Connie Miller (46:19.874)

So one of the areas that I work in is in the nonprofit world. So if I go way back to early in my career, someone told me many, many years ago, I mentor that get involved in some level in volunteer and servant leadership. Because the people that you will meet serving on a board, for example, are amazing humans. People that say yes that are willing to carve out some of their time and go sit with strangers.

and learn how to come together for a great cause are amazing humans in general. And so I did that and it was profound experience. sitting in a room with really smart people, people that had walked paths way beyond what I had walked so far. And so you’ve got that blessing and that privilege of just listening and watching strangers come together and solve hard problems.

So I became passionate about being a servant leader and throughout my career, I counted one day I’ve served on about 20 boards and board committees of some manner. the people that I’ve met through there have been profound. So fast forward when I retired, one of the things that many of the people that knew me said, you need to help boards. You need to help boards of directors on.

how to show up professionally. A lot of people have good intentions. They say yes to serving on board, but they don’t know what that means. And you need to help communication because CEOs and boards need to have great relationships too. Now I was blessed because I had served on these 20 committees and boards. And then I worked every job I ever worked in my entire career reported to a volunteer board of directors. So I got that experience either at Girl Scouts and or the…

credit unions have volunteer board of directors. So I have had the opportunity to be a volunteer, just a regular board member, be board chairs several times of nonprofits, be a CEO that reported to a board of So I’ve had that opportunity to see all of what works in

Yeah.

All sides of fence,

Connie Miller (47:15.246)

So now I am retired and I am a consultant and I get called often. Well, kind of.

Rhea Allen

Let’s be honest, you’re not really retired.

I get a pic and she’s like…

Connie Miller

I actually told someone one day that the consulting leadership consulting that you do today is pretty awesome because I do get a pick and choose but I’m doing all the same stuff I did before I just don’t have to run a big organization at the same time so

Let’s go.

Rhea Allen

And have 115 employees. mean, yeah.

Connie Miller

And worry about the economy and now I just get to help people with all of my experiences with that. Yeah. But all of the, almost all my clients today are all referral. So I will help an executive who needs a little help. They’re struggling. They’re either people are sharing with them, you you’re not showing up well or they just fill it or they get a new big job and they don’t want to mess it up.

And so and then I will work with them and then they will be sharing their story about what relief and how much more confident they feel to someone else. It’s just word of mouth. Yeah, and it just goes super fast if I wanted to be super super busy Then then I might you know do some additional things but You know giving is showing up in doing a presentation. Yeah, and that’s marketing

and sharing your expertise and people want part of that and so they will reach out.

Rhea Allen

Yeah. And that’s the thing is being visible, sharing what you know, not giving away everything because they need to hire you for that, but just giving them little nuggets of wisdom as you do and then being able to capitalize on the opportunity when it presents to you. And I know that you don’t like to sell, let’s say. Right. Yeah. But part of that is without you’re selling without having to sell. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Connie Miller (48:59.694)

I am not bashful or afraid whatsoever to give all the expertise I can give, even if it’s the same expertise I get in a paid consulting arrangement. If I can get in front of a group of people, and I do get invited often to come and do team meetings, culture trainings, culture reset trainings, all of that. But I also speak at a lot of association meetings where they’ll bring together a group of professionals and they’re looking for that.

Yeah.

speaker that wants to just share we’re all facing leadership here together, right? Yeah, and we all have competitive organizations, but we still all need to be leaders and I am happy to help in those types of organizations because You can’t give a lot of expertise in the end someone has to be committed to the plan to figure out how to actually implement Yeah, they need to know enough to know they need it. Yeah, you know or at least take enough time to think about

One minute.

you know, what can improve their world.

Rhea Allen (49:56.03)

And there’s something to be said about being able to share what you know with other people. Because if you bottle it up inside and no one ever gets to learn from you, that could be a really sad thing. Because if you can allow other people to open up and learn from you what they will, I mean, they’re going to take what they’re going to take. My students, I teach college and they’ll take from me whatever they want or what they put into it, right? But there is something to say like,

I have more to give. I have more expertise to give. And I see that with you when you are willing to share and share with, especially our young people who are about to, you know, some of them go into the workforce or maybe they’ve been there for a little bit, but just trying to navigate a new world for them and adulting like hashtag adulting, right? And giving them this knowledge and experience and expertise, whether they decide to take it or not, but it’s there to give. Yeah.

Connie Miller

Yeah, and you do this well, right, with your students. You get in there, you’re impacting that generation that just wants to learn. And some of my favorite speaking engagements that I’ve had are with college students. I absolutely love doing that. But another mentor told me one time that always get your advice from people that have walked the path before you or that are ahead of you. And sometimes we make a mistake and we get our advice from people beside us or behind us. In other words, that haven’t accomplished what

we have accomplished. And so I started looking for that early in my career. And that’s pretty amazing because they’ve made their mistakes. And they’re willing to give you advice to help you so you don’t either make a mistake or think of something incorrectly. Because our minds have to grow through leadership. don’t just automatically know everything.

Rhea Allen (51:33.474)

Yeah.

Well, you said it intention. mean, I recently got a referral to somebody that I thought was going to be amazing to work with and turns out not so much, but their intentions were good. The people that they referred to are good people, but can they do the job that we need them to do? you know, so yeah, you have to like really consider, not necessarily maybe who you’re getting the advice from or the referral from, but have they actually worked with that person? Have they done this? You know, have they been in the trenches with you? And and you’re right. I mean, I think that that

does go a long way. I think, you the other day we were having conversation like I’ve had referrals for, you know, positions, high level positions and it didn’t always work out.

Connie Miller

Recruitment and hiring is one of the toughest. Building a team that can do what your vision is and your organization is absolutely one of the toughest roles in a leader. It’s hard and I’ve made mistakes. I made mistakes in my career hiring at a high senior VP level and relied on either recommendations from friends or just looked for what I wanted to see. That’s something I had to learn.

was my mind goes to what I want to see.

Rhea Allen

Well, like you said, blind spots sometimes over things overpower other things and you just sort of dismiss something that should otherwise be a big red flag. Yeah.

Connie Miller (52:58.734)

I have some amazing friends that are in leadership roles out in the world that I would pull them into a third interview for example and say I just want your independent here’s what I’m looking for here’s what I need and there’s been a few times where there was some red flags that I just did not miss it. I also think you look for what you want and so there was more than once where the red flag was there but I was looking for other things.

Rhea Allen (53:30.036)

Yeah, The white flag

sort of just overshadowed the red flag.

Connie Miller

And the other thing is don’t beat yourself up. Just take action when that’s happened because some people are very charismatic and also can give you a resume that either is a true

tell you what they think you want to hear. And they’re really good at that.

Yes. And so I think you just learn from that because for every one of those you’re going to make five good ones and you you just kind of just you know you just don’t beat yourself up just take action people are people and sometimes you both misunderstood you know maybe they misunderstood what the job really was because they also did the same thing right which was look for what they wanted to hear and and then you run across you know a disconnect there.

Rhea Allen

Yeah, for sure. OK, a couple more things I wanted to talk about and then we’ll wrap it up. So I’m just going to share with all of you, Connie has made a wonderful, tremendous community of women poker players. I thought we would bring this up because I get to be a part of this. And the other thing, too, is the ladies mastermind groups that we have also been a part of for a really long time. I consider Connie a lifelong friend, but also mentor and, you know, colleague and all those things. But let’s let’s touch base on poker, women’s poker. You have been a

World Series poker player. Let’s talk a little bit about that and then share a little more about our group.

Connie Miller (54:46.156)

All right, so I got really interested in poker, literally just playing with friends, getting together on weekends and just playing. And I love the strategy around it. I love strategy and just thinking about mastering things. Sometimes too much probably, but. So really loved it. My husband really encouraged me to really sit down at a poker table in a casino, which I remember the very first time I did this, my hands were shaking. I was sitting on my hands.

I had to get my chip.

Rhea Allen

Predominantly men. All men.

Connie Miller

Yeah, all men.

I looked around the whole poker room and there was no females in the poker room. And I’m just sitting there thinking, this is not like a male brain thing. We both can do this.

Rhea Allen (55:35.278)

need to read people’s faces. understand what they’re doing and women can do that pretty well.

Connie Miller

Females make great poker players in general for that reason. And so I started to really think, you know what, how many other things in our world do women think I can’t be at the table at when they can? But also what are the practical things in order to get there? And so I literally shot, think you were one of our first ones, shot an email out to a bunch of friends and said, I would love to teach some of my friends poker.

Right before that, was blessed. went to Reno for a poker tournament. It was my first kind of big poker tournament that I had played in. Big meaning like more than 100 players. And I’ll never forget this. I sat down, I played in this little mini tournament that qualified you for the next level and I kept winning. And it was like, this is way cool. And then I won the next couple days, they had a big one which qualified you to play in the World Poker Tour.

And I won that one. They played the top three spots, you into this big tournament. And it was the big televised world poker tour. And it was like, my gosh, I can do this and I love it. And a big part of it is reading people and studying people. But the other thing about poker is there is so much correlation to business and poker. If you play every hand, if you try to serve every customer, if you try to do everything you’re going to lose, you have limited resources, limited chips.

Absolutely.

To be smart about how you spend those chips and when you’re gonna gamble with them and when you’re not so And then also just studying people watching people’s behaviors. What makes them happy? What what causes them to be nervous at the poker table you get to do all that? Yeah, and so I found and then the other biggie is just discipline because you should only be playing maybe one out of every 10 to 15 hands

Most poker players love to play every hand and they lose their money because of that business is the same you have to be Disciplined about when you want to lean in Why are you?

Rhea Allen

No one to fold them, no one to walk away.

Connie Miller (57:47.694)

Exactly.

And you got to study it a little so I got you you had the benefit of this really created a training For it teaching ladies best practices from the get-go on some odds and good hands and bad hands and betting and stuff and so that groups grown to Well, we have over a hundred ladies now that are really interested in we have about 40 that consistently love to just show up and play and now I hear from them all the time

Rhea Allen

By the way, we missed you the other night, but for good reason. You just had a new grandbaby. So I want to just pause for a second and say congratulations. Thank you. Very good reason for you not to show up to ladies poker

Connie Miller

I was actually tempted to sneak away.

Yeah.

But the cool thing is one of our awesome ladies that plays one the other night. And I think that’s our first time that she’s been playing. She’s like so close every time.

Rhea Allen (58:39.438)

Yeah. And I invited a new gal. So speaking of marketing, right? This is, it’s not like you’re there to play business card poker. You’re really to play poker, but she got an opportunity to introduce herself and she does something. I’ll just say ignited fitness. does kickboxing trainings. So then now she got an opportunity to kind of just say who she was and you know, meet with other women and, and, and it helps. It’s not necessarily there to do.

business with each other, but because you’re around each other and you get to know each other and we have some retired people, we have pretty much everybody from every walk of life, I will say.

Connie Miller

And they’re amazing ladies. One of the things that I did in the beginning was try to get just like I do in life and business. It’s like who’s my ideal friends at the poker table?

Rhea Allen

Yeah, who do you want to play poker with?

Connie Miller (59:51.436)

and came up with some of those guidelines. We don’t want a bunch of ladies that are drunk or skanky or no drama’s actually in the list. No cliques, no egos. so now when we bring people into the group, one of the most common things I hear is, are amazing ladies. And from all walks of life, all levels in their careers, some are stay at home moms and it’s awesome.

But there, so you talk about personal branding, because it’s just, I’m so passionate about, you are always in an interview, people are always studying you and watching you, even at the poker table. So how you show up matters at things like.

Rhea Allen

I will say, one of the best compliments I got from you is, right? I can never figure you out.

Connie Miller

It’s a really good compliment at the poker table.

Yeah, that’s that’s fun.

Connie Miller (01:00:29.358)

And I’ve met so many amazing people through that journey. So that’s just one of many. I encourage people to think of whatever that is that you enjoy and go build a group of great humans around it. It could be anything, whether it’s rock climbing or whatever, kickboxing, whatever it is. And so many of our ladies have become great friends and other,

Yeah.

Rhea Allen (01:00:43.118)

They do different things also. mean, it’s just a great group of people who come together once a month and, you know, just whoever wants to host, it’s kind of a fun thing to do. And the community just keeps growing and building and supporting. You know, we celebrate when people are new so that we can train them and teach them and not be intimidating to them. We welcome people who don’t know because maybe we’ll take their chips.

Connie Miller

Yeah, well here’s the fun part about it is in life we have so much competition. By the way, females can tend to be kind of a little bit competitive and jealous of each other at times. Success, I see that out there in the world and I imagine it happens everywhere. this is an opportunity where we are competing.

but we are all really competing for the strategy of it and learning and making each other better rather than just going home without the trophy or with the trophy.

Rhea Allen

What’s our next theme? Raising steaks and standards? What do we come up with? something like that. With shish kebab steaks anyway.

Connie Miller

Yeah, and now it’s grown where we, the last five years or six years, we have had a weekend away. And that is amazing. The ladies all go in the mountains. They drive their own RVs. It’s wonderful.

Rhea Allen (01:01:56.718)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s camping in the, in, well, I mean, it’s, it’s glamping. Yeah. Let’s just put it out there like it really is, but we have a good time. And, and then you’ve done dealer training. So I’ve got to learn to deal and then other people are learning to deal and, um, yeah, it takes, you know, take some, some ability to deal and play at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. It’s super fun. Okay. Let’s also talk about, so some of the things that we have been a part of is the ladies mastermind groups and

Connie Miller

Glamping.

Rhea Allen (01:02:26.606)

you and I both tried to figure out how in the world we actually met each other. Maybe Meridian Chamber, maybe I feel like we were judging some sort of youth, uh, entrepreneur competition. very first time I kind of maybe, I don’t know, we’ve been around for a long time and we’ve done a number of, uh, lady masterminds group. And I think that there’s such importance to share with our audience. If, if you are listening to this and you are not a part of some sort of group or mentorship or having some sort of

group that comes together to process issues. is, this is, I wanted to share about this. So you started one, I mean, you’ve done it a few times, but I was a part of one, I mean, early on when we very first met each other.

Connie Miller

When I was CEO, I remember someone said, you got to find a group of people that you share with that can be that confidential source for you. Because when you have challenges at work, you don’t really want to take them to your employees. You don’t want to really take them to your board. Your board counts on you solving things. You want to take some things to them. And you don’t really want to pack it all home.

Because my husband loves to help and if I pack at home, he’s solving the problem with me. And I spend more time trying to get him to understand the context. Because he just keeps wanting to help. So I had to pick and choose. So I reached out to four or five friends. Again, friends that were ahead of me. I tried to find those people that had been in business for a while and leadership for a while, a variety of people, and formed a small mastermind.

And then I think you ran out my second one. So one of the things I’ve learned about mastermind groups is they really are great for issue processing. There’s a couple tips. Number one, you all need to be committed to showing up. The second one is you need to have a clock, because it’s easy for especially women. We love to spend a lot of time on one issue. So have an o’clock. And then the other thing is after about a year, you’ve kind of processed all your biggest issues. So sometimes then it’s time to go.

We find another group of five or six people. I like about six people in general. And then the group then gets to decide if someone leaves the group, who wants to come back into the group. they’re just wonderful opportunities. You need to be careful who you pick and make sure you pick people that can be trusted advisors. I’ve also had incredible opportunity. My organization supported me being a member of Vistage, which is a high-level CEO mastermind group.

And that one also I had, if I don’t even know where I’d been on some of those really difficult times throughout my career without some of those mastermind groups, they just help you in a 15 minute conversation get grounded and give you clarity on, okay, wait a minute, now you might be seeing it this way, but there’s these other three options.

Rhea Allen

Yeah, I also belong to it’s called Agency Together. So I get to view peer group with a cohort of other agency owners across the nation, which we, I mean, could be competitors, but why? Right. Let’s work through issues together. We’re all in this together. We’re all kind of going through similar things that are happening with the economy and clients and employees. And, you know, and it’s so great to be around other people who you don’t feel alone because you’ve now

have trust in other people who are maybe walking similar patterns or paths, like you said, and just being able to have other people to talk to you. Cause it can be lonely when you’re on.

Connie Miller (01:06:20.204)

And so many people out there have bits and pieces of the solution. And so you’re not just talking about it. You’re getting this wonderful feedback. like, hey, I actually added this to my orientation process, or I added this to my recruitment, or I added this for my monthly employee reviews, things like that, so that you’re getting all this wonderful advice, too.

Rhea Allen

I love to pay it forward because you shared with me some coaching session questions and then I just got to share that with one of our group members too. I’m I got this great thing from Connie Miller. I’m like, do you mind if I share? She’s like, absolutely not. that was kind

Connie Miller

The other thing that’s wonderful to do if you don’t have a mastermind is create a book club and have it be about self-improvement books, leadership books, fantastic. That is another thing because just sharing perception on certain leadership topics and that is another great way. I’m a big believer in leadership books and participates.

Rhea Allen

I listen to audiobooks more than I can. I drive back and forth between Boise and Napa, which is like a 25-minute drive for those of you who are not in Idaho. Same thing. And I do double time. But the nice thing is I can pause it when I need to. But it helps because you’re right. And then having the collective conversation with other people who have also just read the book, it brings up things that you hadn’t thought about while you’re reading or listening to the book that are

insightful or you know other examples of things that they are going to implement because of it and yeah it’s great.

Connie Miller (01:07:37.39)

One of the things in my leadership book that I wrote is in the end of each chapter I have practical questions to ask, an assessment basically on that topic. Because you can read about a concept but you need a book club or you need assessment or you need someone to actually be thinking about what questions can you ask about this topic.

for you to see it a little bit differently. And so that’s been really fun is to hear the feedback of, I missed five of those, you I thought I was stellar in that area, but yeah, I did think about.

Rhea Allen

And think about that. you’re right. Like sometimes you get so many other perspectives of things that you hadn’t thought about before until you go through that. All right. Well, let’s I want you to give a moment kind of maybe some last parting thoughts of Connie wisdoms, Connie wisdoms. I don’t know. We’re going to Connie-isms. Let’s just call it Connie-isms. What would you like to share with the audience that’s going to listen to this today?

Connie Miller (01:09:23.084)

Boy, those are good ones. I go back to just some things that were pretty steady and I had kind of my go-tos during difficult days or when I was really trying to get through a difficult decision. not have even been a difficult day, just a big decision, right? Or when someone disappointed me or all that. So first, I mean, we’ve talked about a couple of them is create a brand of welcoming feedback.

and ask for it if you’re not getting it and think about how you respond every time that someone does give you feedback. Create the safe environment, I think it’s important. Assume positive intentions we’ve talked about is really important. The other one that works really well for me is to constantly stay focused on what can I learn from this experience. Because there is difficult things that happen that are of no fault of your own or maybe a little piece where you weren’t paying attention to something.

So constantly I would say, am I learning from this if I made a bad decision? Okay, let me go back and think about that. What did I learn from that? I think that’s important. And then the other one for me that was just kept me grounded was how can I be grateful in this moment? So there was times when I, and I had a gratitude journal at my desk and I recommend everyone have this because especially if you have a high stress job or a difficult, but even not, even if you are,

a stay at home mom and your kids are frustrated. Even that or a friend is frustrating you or you have a relationship issue. Just stay in very solid with what you’re grateful for today. And I wrote it down and when I retired, I remember I was cleaning my desk out and I had that journal and I just opened it up like, you know, way back.

today.

Connie Miller (01:10:15.374)

And I hadn’t written the situation at all in there. I just had lines of what I was grateful for. And there were so many entries in there about just thank you for giving me the opportunity to have this position that so many people would do anything to have. Thank you for landing me in this incredible industry and the credit union world. There’s so much you can be grateful for that all of a sudden it just gives you a bigger perspective in life. So I think that one is.

is important for me too. I just say, know who you are and don’t let the world consume you. Like figure out what it is that your vision is in life. What’s your legacy that you want to leave and is everything you’re doing contributing to that? Or is it, you know, is it just a wish because you don’t know how to take action? And then seek out people to help you.

So many people just need that other perspective. They need to know what their blind spots are. And you need other people to help you with that. Because a lot of times you just don’t know.

Rhea Allen

Right. Yeah. No, think knowing your blind spots and having people help you lead the way to your blind spots. think that’s great. Yeah. That’s great. Yes. Awesome. Okay, Connie, if people want to work with you with credible advantage, your coaching company, how can they reach out to you, get a hold of you, follow you, all that?

Connie Miller

Yes. So first of all, you could just visit my website, which is credibleadvantage.com. You can email me, which is Connie C-O-N-N-I-E@credibleadvantage.com. Um, I’m on LinkedIn, um, on Facebook, Instagram. So you can just reach out to any of those and, uh, and just, yeah, just let me know the situation. Feel free to mention this, uh, podcast and, uh, and I’ll connect. love just to connect. If I can just help, even if it’s just a,

a Zoom meeting, a quick Zoom meeting, and at least I might know someone that might be filling that one gap that you have, you know, need in your life.

Rhea Allen

Yeah, remember I just real quick. remember when you were trying to figure out the name of your company and we were texting back and forth. What do you think about this? What do think about that? I am really glad that you landed on credible advice. Yeah. Yeah.

Connie Miller

There was a common thing there in what I wanted to do, which has helped people create credibility in what they do. Because a lot of people have the expertise, they have the knowledge, but they may not be credible. And you and I both know this, right? It’s the same with marketing is do you have a credible brand? you have, do you consistently show up representing that? So that was kind of the, I’m really glad that I landed on it. And I find I use the word, you, you know, incredible leader and

you know that might be fine is one of the things I find in my coaching is people will come pretty stubborn about their style that’s just me that’s my personality and I always ask them well how’s it working for you to get you the goals that you want right and oftentimes they’ll say well clearly it’s not you know

Rhea Allen

How’s that working out for you?

Connie Miller (01:13:22.318)

Like how is that working for you to be credible like because everyone wants to have credibility Yeah, and but some and they have credibility. It’s just others don’t see it yet You have to change things you have to do certain things to do that and that’s why I’m loving the personal branding work I get to do so one of the things that I love is So I work with it with Professionals and they’ll give me a list and I will talk to people out in the world. How do you see this person?

I

Like, do you see them as a credible professional? Would you do business with them? Wouldn’t you? Why? It is amazing what I learn about people that were their blind spots. And it can be everything from them consistently late to meetings to when they’re in the conversation, they’re very controlling. It can be that they are gossippers, that they talk bad about other people in the community.

It can be that they talk too much about themselves. It could be all kinds of things that people do to hurt their own brand, personal brand. Well, how do you ever know that if you don’t get a third party to help you with that? So it’s been really, really fun to, one person, for example, learned that I learned about them that was such a blind spot to them is they are never generous themselves. They want everyone else to be generous to them.

But they never give, they never show up. isn’t. that would have, I don’t know that they would have ever figured that out, just trying to ask themselves that, right? It was such an eye-opener, is that they don’t give of themselves. And not financial, it’s just they always want other people to do for them and to be their guest and their, but they don’t show up in the same way.

huh. and so I think everyone.

treat others how you want to be treated.

Connie Miller (01:15:11.659)

Right, and some people are just not giving or they don’t realize they feel like if they are in it, but if it’s only to benefit their own business and not everything else that they expect of others. all kinds of things show up here. None of us are perfect. We all have something. And so that personal branding is super, super fun.

Rhea Allen

Yeah, no, I love that. I think that’s really good advice, Connie. Thank you for sharing it. Absolutely. We’re going to just call them Connie-isms.

Connie Miller

And then if you really want some great just general leadership, my book is on Amazon, you can just go out there. It’s called Don’t Sabotage Your Career. And you can just go get that. It’s a great book club for teams to work on and talk about.

Rhea Allen (01:15:59.31)

It is is a very quick read. You can get through it and it has some action items in it. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent.

Connie Miller

So fun visiting about this stuff. We’ve known each other.

long time.

Rhea Allen

I know, we don’t have to say how long. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Connie. Really appreciate having you.

Connie Miller

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Rhea Allen (01:16:19.254)

Excellent. And for those of you listening or watching, the best thing that you can do is share this with others that you know that need to hear what Connie had to say her Connie is. And I love that we’re going to stick with that. That’s right. And until next time, everybody enjoy your marketing journey. Bye.

Yeah, please do. Thank you.

Yeah.

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