EPISODE SUMMARY
Building a business from the ground up takes the right people, proven processes, and of course, money. In today’s episode of the Transform Your Workplace podcast, Brandon Laws interviews Barbara Rea, an expert in leading and inspiring teams so that they can realize increased productivity. Barbara reflects on her years of experience, from the highs to the lows, and passes on all that she has learned to listeners.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Today’s podcast features an interview with Barbara Rea, an expert coach and advisor passionate about helping businesses develop leaders, tools, and processes so that they can really become more efficient and more profitable. Witha background in real estate and marketing, Barbara is an expert in optimizing operations and maximizing returns for her clients. Her key focus is to set businesses up for success.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, Sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
BUILDING A BUSINESS FROM SCRATCH
Those who build businesses from the ground up are no strangers to obstacles and challenges. The same can be said of Barbara Rea, a business advisor and coach with a reputation for helping corporations increase profitability in the real estate sphere. As the Chief Operating Officer of BKM Capital Partners, Barbara had to be a true innovator to effectively lead while balancing all of the moving parts.
“I came in before any capital was raised,” Barbara recalled. “And so the idea was to buy a bunch of real estate, manage it, improve it, and get some returns. But in order to buy real estate, you need money. We decided to go raise institutional capital because that’s how you really get to scale versus just friends and family. […] That was the concept, and the concept worked. So it was a lot of work kind of figuring out how to build out a company.”
Barbara knew that, to grow a successful company, you’ve got to have the right people in the right roles. She also knew that the right processes would make or break it. She referred to building BKM as an “interesting puzzle to put together.”
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Startup Payroll Challenges
“So do you have the sweetest perks? Not yet. So you have to have something else that is a magnet to draw them in and it happens. You have to give [employees] a purpose and sell that they’re part of the dream and that they’re coming along with you. And I think, you know, from that, I learned a lot about what inspires and motivates people.”
Jumping The Gun
“I learned a lot about what makes a good manager and why — why a lot of managers fail — and unfortunately, you learn the hard way that you put people in [management] positions because they’re good at their job. And then they end up not being a good manager. They never said they were [manager material], they just came in to do a great job. But you want to reward them because you don’t have a lot of ways to reward them yet.”
A Set-Up For Failure
“I think a lot of organizations fall into that same trap where you set people up for failure. And failure for the people means failure for the company. So if they’re struggling and failing in their role, all the people that work for them are too. People leave companies because they don’t like their manager, […] and the manager probably is not that happy either. They’re wondering, What am I doing? Where do I go? What are my resources?”
A Hiring Eye-Opener
“People aren’t just random resumes. These are people who are looking to fulfill their destiny. They are actually showing up to work as this is part of their career path, which may stop right there. Maybe that’s the only role that they’ll do for the rest of their life, but it could be just the starting point, and they could go on to become the CEO of some other company. If this could be the starting point, let’s make it a great one.”
A Blank Slate
“That’s what creating a culture is all about. You get to go with that blank slate and say, Who do we want to be? I want to be a company that focuses on developing leaders and providing education for leaders and development. And I want to have fun while doing it with a lot of extracurricular events and maybe charities. All right, great. Now you get to do all the marketing around that, but you have to make it true so that people inside have to make it true. Otherwise, it’s just words on a page. And there’s gotta be a champion that helps make it true. And that’s where I really think human resources and marketing come together pretty significantly to make that vision a reality.”
LEARN MORE
There’s so much more to learn from Barbara Rea. If you’re intrigued, listen to the full podcast episode, find Barbara on LinkedIn, or check out her website at reaadvisorygroup.com.