Entrepreneurship: Challenges and Triumphs | Nora Schlesinger

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Nora Schlesinger about her unique career journey, from being the first employee at a startup SEO agency to becoming its CEO and eventually buying out the founder. Nora shares insights into the challenges of running a business during tough economic times, the importance of negotiation in business transactions, and her future aspirations in entrepreneurship. The conversation highlights the complexities of business ownership, the dynamics of negotiation, and the personal growth that comes from navigating these experiences. In this conversation, Nora Schlesinger and Christian Brim explore the dynamics of creative play, the balance between chaos and structure in business, and the importance of trust and empathy in leadership. They discuss the implementation of the EOS framework for organizational growth and reflect on personal experiences that shape their management styles. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of understanding employee perspectives and fostering a supportive work environment.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.388)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Crofton, Maryland. I don't know where that is. The only place I've been in Maryland is Baltimore. And I didn't like it. Sorry, Baltimore. Joining me today, Nora Schlesinger. Welcome to the program,

Nora Schlesinger (00:29.457)
Thanks, Christian. I'm happy to be here. And nice job pronouncing my name.

Christian Brim (00:31.552)
I hope you're not in Maryland, are you, in Baltimore?

Nora Schlesinger (00:36.463)
I actually live in whatever that town was that you just mentioned. No, I'm in Chicago. Yes, Crofton. Yeah, my hometown is Crofton, Maryland. So I'm out. This interview's over. No, just kidding.

Christian Brim (00:40.088)
Crofton, yes? Okay.

Christian Brim (00:46.42)
Yeah, I, you know, I, I inadvertently, not intentionally inadvertently offend many. So

Nora Schlesinger (00:51.569)
You

That's okay. That's okay. I'm I'm deeply opinionated as well. So I have been known to say things that come out wrong.

Christian Brim (01:00.802)
Well, when I was younger, I actually tried to intend to offend people. But now I've, I've, yes, I was, my nickname was the spoon. I, cause I would just stir shit up. But not anymore. I really don't try to intend, intend to Nora. Tell the listeners who you are. Like

Nora Schlesinger (01:09.233)
Okay, everyone needs a hobby.

Nora Schlesinger (01:15.749)
Perfect.

Nora Schlesinger (01:24.059)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (01:30.176)
I, we, had this conversation, like what company do you want me to associate with? And you're like, it's complicated.

Nora Schlesinger (01:32.401)
Right. It's a it's a complicated answer. So I was born in a cold day. No, I'm just joking. I have had a we can we can get into my background and more depth, but I've had a wacky and kind of whirlwind career to this point. The most recent has been my tenure first.

joining this little startup that didn't have a website or like it could have been a scam. Like it easily could have been a scam, but it turned out to be Growth Machine, is, which was a content focused SEO agency. Or you could also say the inverse and SEO focused content agency. Both would apply. So I joined as an employee. was the first, the first employee in 2018. I

Christian Brim (02:18.83)
with work.

Nora Schlesinger (02:28.401)
kind of just ran everything internal while the founder ran sales and marketing. And then eventually as we grew and scaled and people, I hired people under me, I was the COO. And then 2020 happened. was a tough time. The founder was just kind of like, oh, just a few market blips, nothing big. So the founder kind of

Christian Brim (02:46.274)
What happened then?

Nora Schlesinger (02:57.169)
that the pressure of 2020 just kind of made the founder reassess what he wanted to be doing with his career. And he realized it was not this. And I really enjoy operations and running and growing businesses on a day to day basis. He was more of kind of an ideas guy and he had lots of ideas. And so he opted to leave. I was promoted to CEO. And then long story short, I eventually bought him out and became the owner.

and then eventually realized that I too did not want to be running this company. You know, it's, it was something where like, I really love running companies, but it was a really tough time to be running. It still is a really tough time to be running an agency, but it would have been worth it if this were my passion, but it wasn't. It was something I really like, I love my team. I liked what we were doing. I think we were doing phenomenal work.

Christian Brim (03:31.438)
You got on the other side of the desk, you're like, that's why he left.

Nora Schlesinger (03:54.949)
But I realized that we would be better off in almost every way if we could join a larger agency. Because what we did, you know, we were very hyper specialized, but what we did was very difficult to do and develop the way we had done and hone the craft the way we had honed it. So we had this asset to contribute to a larger agency who was good at a lot of other things.

we could kind of plug in and do the content really, really well. So that's what we did. I sold the agency at the beginning of this year to a company called MBE Group. They brought on our entire team. was a small team. And so I am now vice president at MBE Group. I now focus on day-to-day operations again. I do little bit of marketing. I do more than just operations, but that's my primary focus right now. So.

Christian Brim (04:52.246)
OK.

Nora Schlesinger (04:53.361)
I guess that's where you would say I work, but it's a long and winding tale.

Christian Brim (04:56.673)
Okay.

Um, couple of follow-up questions then, uh, let's talk about the decision to buy the founder out. What, what prompted you to want to raise your hand and say, I want that.

Nora Schlesinger (05:01.744)
I'm sure.

Nora Schlesinger (05:07.217)
Sure.

Nora Schlesinger (05:12.973)
It it's a yeah, it's it's the truth is because when he left, he still owned the vast majority of the equity. I was a minority stakeholder. And when he left, our agreement was basically that he and I would be like the board, you know, we'd be making a lot of the strategic decisions. He wouldn't be involved in the day to day, which was totally fine. But he would still have skin in the game.

Christian Brim (05:41.347)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (05:42.821)
He didn't end up wanting that and never came back in any capacity. We never met. He never gave input on decisions. that he did to his credit. He was he always answers phone when I called. But I just it wasn't it wasn't malicious in any way. Like there was no animosity. There was no malice. You know, he wasn't like, I'm a screw over, you know.

Christian Brim (05:51.352)
didn't answer his phone.

Christian Brim (05:58.328)
Okay.

Christian Brim (06:08.184)
No, he was just burnt out.

Nora Schlesinger (06:10.393)
He was burnout and he was following his passion, to be honest, and that led him somewhere totally different. He ended up trading crypto and then writing a book about his experience trading crypto. So really way, way, way in the other direction. and I fully respected that and supported that. But the reality was that it was very hard for me, to be running this business, which needed a lot of work.

And there were a lot of changes that needed to be made on top of the stress of running an agency through a very challenging market. This was 2021 through 24. Not a great time to running an agency or any small business really. And I just realized I'm doing all this work. Our exit strategy, or at least my exit strategy was always to sell. And I realized, you know, he wasn't contributing and I was doing

100 % of the work to grow the company and add value. And when it came time to cash in on that value, I was looking ahead to our eventual exit, he would get almost the entire windfall. That sucked. That's really what it came down to. That sucked. Yeah, yeah.

Christian Brim (07:26.23)
Yeah. Yeah, you were in a, you were in a precarious situation. Yes. So when you, when, no.

Nora Schlesinger (07:33.167)
I wasn't doing it out of the goodness of my heart. There were some very, very hard days and I kept thinking, why am I doing this? What's the payoff? And then I finally realized it was only worth it if I owned the equity. So I bought them out. Easy as that.

Christian Brim (07:46.73)
Well, yes. how did that go down when you approached him?

Nora Schlesinger (07:52.507)
very smoothly, actually. I think a lot of people hear this story and they think, you know, drama and there's zero conflict. I thought for a really long time about how I wanted to talk to him about this to make sure that it wouldn't ruin our relationship. We still have a very good relationship. We worked really well together.

I didn't hold it against him or like there was no animosity at all on either side. So I called him one day and I was like, hey, do you have a minute? I wanna pitch something to you. It's gonna come out of left field. It might shock you, but I appreciate you hearing me out, which he always would. Like we had, like I said, we had a very strong relationship, great communication. He's a very calm guy, like most of the time. And...

He heard me out and I said basically everything I just told you, that we had originally kind of when we talked about me taking over, he had kind of pitched it looking a certain way through a variety of circumstances that were no one's fault, just the way things panned out, it has turned out to look very different. And it's really hard for me to keep going and keep.

building the value of the equity when I won't really see the payoff. And I also stressed, and this was, you know, very, very big part of the consideration, but I also stressed that like, he had clearly moved in another direction. His interests were clearly elsewhere. It would benefit him to have a clean break, you know, and just be able to cleanly and smoothly move on to his next career endeavor.

and he was very receptive and we had a very open and honest and loving conversation about it. It's a weird word, but it was, it was, that's honestly how I remember it. Like it was, he was like, I want to do what's right for you. I want to do what's right for the company. And I was like, I want to do what's right for you too. And I really like feel like this would be a load off your shoulders. You don't have to worry about this asset. You know, I won't be coming to you asking for help that you can't or won't or don't want to give. It's just.

Nora Schlesinger (10:11.011)
It's just a lighter burden for both of us this way.

Christian Brim (10:13.774)
He didn't say why didn't you ask sooner? Okay. Did you have a, an agreement in writing, on, on your ownership, like a, a buy sell agreement or okay.

Nora Schlesinger (10:17.251)
No, he didn't ask.

Nora Schlesinger (10:28.293)
Yes, yeah, we worked with a great lawyer, a very non-lawyery lawyer who would like not go overboard on the legalese and was very receptive when I said like, we wanna keep this simple, we wanna keep it, you know, very, very clean and amicable and he worked with us. I really like, this is a weird thing to say, but I love that, I loved the lawyer, I worked on him also, I worked with him also on the acquisition.

It's honestly been such a pleasant experience, which I think a lot of people who have bought and sold companies may not be able to say. I've had really great experiences facilitating these transactions. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, yes. Most people think, mm-hmm. Yes, yes.

Christian Brim (11:07.616)
It is the minority. It is the minority. But, but I want to clarify, you, you had an agreement from the outset. It wasn't, you know, and, and that's, that's the way to do it. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't do that. They, they get married without a contract and assume that it'll be, you know, rainbow and roses. And then when it's not, you know,

Nora Schlesinger (11:24.656)
Right.

Right.

Nora Schlesinger (11:32.133)
Yeah, that's not, that's not a good idea. I think there's a happy medium where you are protected, but you don't inject so much legality in that it necessarily forces everybody to become, inspire conflict. You know what I mean? I think that that's a really tricky thing to do, but that's something we worked really hard to do, to just sort of have enough.

legal protections for everyone involved without passing that threshold where suddenly it instills conflict, fear, know, vilifies people unnecessarily. Perfect word for it. Yes, thank you. That's the word I should have used. Yeah.

Christian Brim (12:10.914)
Yeah. Adversarial. Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. That's, that's what I do. so, did you, did you have valuation built into this agreement?

Nora Schlesinger (12:27.759)
We, Nat, the founder and I agreed on evaluation that we both felt good about when it came to.

Christian Brim (12:35.064)
But that was not, the valuation mechanism was in the agreement upfront.

Nora Schlesinger (12:41.041)
I honestly can't remember, but I don't think so. It was just, we, we agreed to, kind of skipped the formal valuation process when Nat, we, I did eventually do evaluation, like a formal valuation when I sold the company. When I initially got equity, when I took over as CEO. And then again, when I bought out Nat's shares, we didn't go through the formal valuation process. just.

Christian Brim (12:44.514)
Okay.

Nora Schlesinger (13:11.697)
sort of implicitly did our own valuation by agreeing to a price.

Christian Brim (13:17.464)
So there wasn't a lot of disagreement on the valuation. Okay. And that's also one of the key elements I see missing from agreements is an exit valuation. The exit could be someone dies or they get divorced or whatever. And I think it's best practice to have that

Nora Schlesinger (13:21.765)
Right. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (13:31.686)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (13:37.947)
Sure, yeah.

Christian Brim (13:46.287)
in the document. I'm not a lawyer. I'm just speaking as a business owner. My brother was my partner for many years and then he quit working and he was still a minority shareholder. And I went through a process of negotiating his buyout. And, know, I mean,

Nora Schlesinger (13:58.928)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (14:08.486)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (14:14.082)
There were a couple of times I almost threw my hands up and walked away because I was like this. But the reality is if we'd had that in there, it would have simplified things. It probably would have worked out worse for me. I think I negotiated a good deal with him. I hope Nate's not listening to this. but, the re yeah, the reality was like to your point is that.

Nora Schlesinger (14:18.649)
Right.

Nora Schlesinger (14:27.834)
Of course.

Nora Schlesinger (14:32.497)
Earmuffs, Nate, earmuffs. So I my kids.

Christian Brim (14:44.308)
I was going to, I was going to be uber pissed if I was having to write him dividend checks and he's not there and he's not contributing anything like that. And, and that's what I, know, cause I basically was negotiating a deal between him and my wife. And, and that's what I told my wife. I'm like, I'm, I'm going to be pissed if, this doesn't get done. okay. So was this.

Nora Schlesinger (14:51.729)
You're right. Right.

Nora Schlesinger (15:07.697)
And I think that's sort of the key to like understanding what your priorities are and what's important to you in the negotiation. Because for me, wasn't maximizing or I guess for net, you know, for both of us, it wasn't like maximizing the valuation. It was really about a fair split because to him, it was basically free money. You know, it was found money. He didn't pay into this business. He just sort of started like a, it started as a consultancy. Then when I joined, we,

work together to build it into a real business. So to him it was like free money. To me it was, I know if I went out on the open market and tried to buy a company, I would be paying a ton more. So it it felt fair and equitable and sort of like acceptable to both of us. But that was very situation specific. I think that...

I like sharing my story for a couple of reasons. One, just to illustrate that not every transaction needs to be dramatic and acrimonious, like all this chaos that you hear about in the business news outlets. But also just to illustrate how different every transaction can be. Now having been through two of them and on both sides, it really so depends on the parties involved

Christian Brim (16:24.654)
Sure.

Nora Schlesinger (16:33.223)
And there's no rule. There's no like, you know, a sale has to look like this, a buyout has to look like this, whatever. It's so specific to what the priorities are. And I think what the relationship is of the parties involved. It would probably have looked a lot different if I were negotiating with my brother, for example. know, it was just, we work really well together. I mean, my brother and I do too. Like, that wasn't a knock on my brother. But.

Christian Brim (16:51.864)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (17:01.553)
I just think that it's so important that if you're not familiar with the world of &A, you hear stories of all the different ways that it can proceed. It doesn't have to look one certain way. It should just work in the way that works best for the parties involved.

Christian Brim (17:20.48)
Yeah, I can't remember her name. She's a professor there at Northwestern. At least she was, I don't know if she's still there. She, she, consults on, negotiation pricing and she was doing a workshop. I've been to the workshop actually twice and, it, it just blows me away, but she, she, she split this group and it was all entrepreneurs.

Nora Schlesinger (17:28.251)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (17:38.192)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (17:49.689)
So she split the group into buyers and sellers and she gave us each a package. So all the buyers got the same information. All the sellers got the same information and she's like, okay, now negotiate your best deal. And then afterwards she said, okay, you know, give me your numbers. And she put it up on, on the board. And what shocked me was the range.

Nora Schlesinger (17:50.193)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:17.326)
It was like a hundred X and you know how, and of course that's what she gets paid to do. Like she's like, okay, I can show you how to maximize the value of your exit. but I was shocked with the same information, how, how that, that group of business people could come to such varied and vastly different conclusions.

Nora Schlesinger (18:17.424)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (18:25.947)
Great.

Nora Schlesinger (18:35.749)
Right.

Nora Schlesinger (18:44.805)
Yeah. I think, you know, I think, like I said, it really just comes down to priorities. Some people are looking to retire. I never was. Some people are just looking to win, which I think that's the biggest fallacy in negotiations that I think is successful. I know that a successful negotiation means everybody wins. Everybody has to make a little bit of compromise, but everybody feels like they walk away with enough. There isn't an all or nothing outcome.

Christian Brim (18:45.934)
But.

Christian Brim (19:09.708)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (19:14.683)
But I think some people go into a negotiation thinking it's this competition and you have to win the negotiation. I think those people are bad negotiators, but that's just me. I did get an A in negotiations in business school, so I am kind of a decent source of information on this.

Christian Brim (19:27.854)
There you go. Yeah.

Did you go to Northwestern?

Nora Schlesinger (19:34.715)
went to Booth, I went to University of Chicago, so we make fun of Northwestern up the street. No, not really. A lot of my very good friends who are very smart people went to Northwestern. I have nothing against it. It's just a friendly rivalry. It's because they're literally on opposite ends of Michigan Avenue in Chicago. They're literally up and down the street from one another. So anyway, I think that...

Christian Brim (19:46.027)
Of course.

Nora Schlesinger (20:00.933)
That is the biggest, that's one of the best pieces of advice that I would impart to someone going into really any negotiation, but especially if you're talking about an acquisition or an exit, negotiation is not a zero sum game. You did it wrong, if it is. You're not gonna win the negotiation.

Christian Brim (20:14.924)
No, no it's not. It absolutely isn't.

Was that your first business ownership?

Nora Schlesinger (20:26.713)
no, but it was the most significant. I have owned and run a small online business. It's a, it's actually a recipe blog since yikes, 2014 or something like that. it's mostly just me. I had a few part-time contract employees. it's a content site, but it was monetized. and it's, you know, it's an LLC it's registered as a business, but this was.

Christian Brim (20:30.008)
Okay.

Christian Brim (20:52.812)
You're not the person behind Pantry Mama, are you?

Nora Schlesinger (20:57.611)
No, I have my sites called a clean bake. I don't I don't run it anymore, but it is still live online. So it's a it's a Whole Foods focused recipe site. That was my first business. Well, I actually as a as a

Christian Brim (21:08.291)
Okay.

Nora Schlesinger (21:16.305)
preteen I ran a nonprofit that I founded. entrepreneurship's been in my DNA for a really long time. My parents are both small business owners and entrepreneurs. So it goes way back. But this is the first business that I've owned that I would say is sort of consequential to more than just me. Because the businesses that I run before have mostly, you know, have been, let's say 90 % my work and effort and input. And then

Christian Brim (21:36.728)
Sure. Sure.

Nora Schlesinger (21:46.211)
I had a VA and I had a couple other content contributors at one point on the blog. But the reality is if I had suddenly decided to close down the business with a day's notice, they wouldn't have been super affected because they had tons and of other clients and I was just a small piece of their overall income pie.

This is the first time I've run a business with full-time employees, know, more entrenched contractors. This is like the first sort of consequential business that I've run and owned.

Christian Brim (22:20.046)
Okay. So how long before, so you, you acquired a a hundred percent ownership when

Nora Schlesinger (22:29.329)
2023.

Christian Brim (22:30.476)
Okay. And then you look to start selling it when.

Nora Schlesinger (22:38.789)
I acquired in something like August of 23, and I actually started selling less than a year later, didn't close for quite some time, but started talking to buyers in July of 24. And just to be clear, that was not ever my intention. My intention was not to flip the business. I did not have the...

I always intended to sell, but I had like a five to 10 year timeline in mind when I bought out my business partner. The market just sucked and running this business was just not, it wasn't all about the money. Running this business was pretty thankless because the market was so challenging and.

Christian Brim (23:14.798)
Hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (23:29.425)
There were some things about the business that should have been established early on to put us on stronger footing that were not. This predated me. And I could only do so much to fix it, but I was always playing catch up. And it put us in a really unfortunate position. So I really sort of sat with that for a long time and tried to figure out why, okay, I thought it was bothering me and making it.

more difficult than it needed to be because I was doing this work for someone else's gain. And then when I was doing it for my gain, it still didn't really feel better. And so I had to really, I had to really kind of dig deep and try to figure out what was going on because on paper it was great. You I was my own boss. I had, I work with a team that I love and respect and we're all friends and it's, all very positive. were doing work that

felt good and it was good quality work that I was proud of. I just couldn't figure out what it was. but it was that the company was just never, not never going to grow, but the growth trajectory was very, very difficult given, you know, all the things that had happened in the economy, plus the introduction of AI plus budgets being cut. It just, there was plus plus plus there were every time I would turn around, there was another internal or external hurdle that I

had to overcome and I just honestly got tired of hurdles. It's I'm not intimidated by challenges. I love a challenge. I love learning new things and seeing how far I can push myself. But

they weren't positive challenges. They didn't feel like learning opportunities. They felt like they were taking years off my life, to be totally honest. And they were taking time away from my family. And what's the point of being an entrepreneur if you're not doing something that you're truly passionate about and can't live without doing? And you don't have much control over your own schedule, you know?

Christian Brim (25:29.176)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (25:30.371)
I wasn't, it wasn't like I had tons of flexibility because I was always needed in the business, but I wasn't doing something I was passionate about and loved. I really liked it and I was passionate about making sure my team had a great place to work, but.

Christian Brim (25:37.281)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (25:47.929)
it just wasn't adding up. That's the only way I can really summarize it. So I realized that maybe it was time to just exit and I still wanted to work. I still wanted to do this work, which is why I stayed on. And that was always part of my intention going in terms of how I was envisioning the perfect buyer and deal.

I went into every conversation confident in my ability to say, yes, I do want to stay on. I do want to continue to support this business. I just thought that it just became really clear to me that our future was in a diversified offering. And that was not something that I wanted or frankly had the bandwidth to build. And so I figured we would just plug into another agency and it worked out.

Christian Brim (26:33.742)
Hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (26:44.155)
pretty much exactly as I envisioned.

Christian Brim (26:46.818)
So how long did you agree to work for the acquirer?

Nora Schlesinger (26:52.955)
There's no clause in my contract. So sort of indefinitely, but technically I can leave at any point, which was surprising to me, to be honest. I assumed that there would be like a 12 month contract, know, something like that. I think that this new parent company is very,

Christian Brim (26:53.826)
Okay.

Nora Schlesinger (27:22.095)
trust-based, you know, they're, they are, they rely a lot on the trust and loyalty of their employees. And I think that's where that mentality came from, that I do have a contract, but it's more just sort of the terms of my employment, not necessarily related. There's nothing in there about my tenure. It's more like, you know, non-compete stuff like that, but I'm not obligated to stay. I think that they were confident that they could provide a good work environment that

I would want to stay in and frankly, I prefer that too. And that's how I managed, you I never had terms with my employees and I mean, term, employment terms, like term limits or whatever.

I always just was committed to creating a workplace that they would want to stay in. And that's how you get, you know, good work and longevity out of your employees. So I was glad to go to a place that also subscribed to that mentality.

Christian Brim (28:16.215)
Absolutely.

Christian Brim (28:21.262)
Do you see yourself starting a business in the future or buying a business in the future?

Nora Schlesinger (28:26.961)
Probably. I don't know about buying. I'll be honest, I'm pretty particular about how I think a business should be run. I don't think I would buy, I won't say never, but my first instinct would be to build rather than buy.

Knowing me, yeah, I'll probably start something. I don't know what, I don't have any plans. I just know my brain. I love building, you know, I love like startups and getting, getting to be one of the people who gets to exercise the potential in an idea or, you know, a business really.

Christian Brim (28:55.074)
Right. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (29:20.113)
I love that transformation. You work really hard and then one day you get to look back and go, look how far we've come, look how much we've done and what we've endured and what we've accomplished. I get a lot of satisfaction out of that. So weirdly not really. However, I have...

Christian Brim (29:34.574)
Did you play with Legos as a child?

Nora Schlesinger (29:42.969)
two kids, eight and three, who are obsessed with Legos. So now I'm getting into Legos. Magnetiles also, I can't recommend those highly enough for...

Christian Brim (29:47.288)
Yes.

Christian Brim (29:52.576)
I haven't seen those. Okay.

Nora Schlesinger (29:54.285)
all ages, they're magnetic plastic top building tiles. and you can make all kinds of things out of that. mean, you can, you can build almost anything. My, my older kid, built an airport like with the terminal and the jet bridges and all, it was so creative. It was so cool. but I see lots of people build, you know, castles and, know, go for like the height, the height move. but

Christian Brim (29:58.137)
Okay.

Christian Brim (30:15.906)
Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (30:21.073)
Yeah, we're big. We're big into like creative play and building any of the, you know, magnatiles, like those duplos. That's, that's a big thing in my household. So maybe I have two aspiring entrepreneurs coming after me. I don't know. Or into either way, engineers probably would be, you know, I think engineering is a more stable profession to get into than entrepreneurship, but.

Christian Brim (30:37.11)
or engineers, never know. Yes.

Nora Schlesinger (30:51.089)
you know, it's sort of the family legacy at this point being small business owners. So we'll see.

Christian Brim (30:55.756)
Yeah, I think that building component is the dopamine rush for entrepreneurs.

Nora Schlesinger (31:03.097)
I think so too. Yeah, I really do. I think that's sort of,

possibly why the founder left. wanted to, he loves the, the rush of like starting something new. I'm more of the middle. Yeah. I'm, I'm more a fan of the middle, not like the very, I don't like the instability of like the first days of a business. I like when we're, you know, building the momentum and we're like, we can see the path in front of us. And I, I know what to do and how to do it. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of

Christian Brim (31:13.004)
Yeah, it's very common.

Christian Brim (31:23.992)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (31:38.745)
other. I find that really satisfying because like I said, you you keep putting one foot in front of the other and eventually you get to look back and see how far you've come. And that's really motivating to me to keep going and you know.

Christian Brim (31:50.103)
And entrepreneurs are, like most of them. I'm not all of them, but like it's almost, they'd prefer to be in chaos. and, and the, when, when it gets to the point where you're talking about building processes and teams and managing and, and, and it's like, most of them are like, I I'm done. Like I don't have any interest in that.

Nora Schlesinger (32:00.879)
Mm-hmm

Nora Schlesinger (32:16.421)
Yeah, right. And that was Nat. And that was partly how and why we worked so well together, because I'm the absolute inverse of that. I'm the everything needs a process. Everything needs to be organized. How do you work without organization? I literally cannot wrap my brain around the level of chaos that he could tolerate.

Christian Brim (32:25.966)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (32:40.053)
So we balance each other really well in the early days. But then I think eventually the company naturally gets to the point where you cannot function with that level of chaos. You must have organization and structure. You know what I mean? And that's where he was kind of like, I don't think I can do this. Like, this doesn't work for me anymore. And I was like, well, it works great for me.

Christian Brim (32:52.554)
absolutely. Absolutely. It's.

Christian Brim (33:01.504)
My quintessential example is Roy and Walt Disney, you know, and Roy being the Nora. And Walt, yeah, yeah. And I think the intersection of those two, usually not in one person, is where the magic... Yeah, is where the magic happens.

Nora Schlesinger (33:06.158)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (33:12.791)
Right. The systems guy. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (33:22.512)
Mm-hmm.

No, I don't know how that would that's called schizophrenia, honestly. Can't be the same person. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Christian Brim (33:31.662)
You know if you get that visionary and that operator that you know

Nora Schlesinger (33:37.775)
Yes. It sounds like you've studied EOS, the visionary and operator thing. Yes, I recognize that terminology. We're actually implementing EOS at MBE. So we're going through the whole, you know, the quarterly, we have a quarterly meeting in two weeks to set our goals for the next quarter and working on a new accountability chart and all that stuff.

Christian Brim (33:41.323)
I am a huge fan. Rocket, Rocket Fuel, I assume is what you're referencing that book.

Christian Brim (33:57.796)
Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (34:04.461)
Yeah, I really like it for that exact reason, because I think it's the right kind of structure, enough structure, the right kind of distinction for everybody's different roles and responsibilities. And it does it in a really digestible and I'm like, just to be clear, I'm like not being paid for this or anything. I'm, I just, I'm impressed by what I've seen so far, as I've gotten more familiar with the US. But anyway, I like how it.

It implements enough structure without being suffocating. And I think a lot of people are very easily suffocated by structure or are scared off by even the concept of structure because it feels like it will be suffocating. So I've been really impressed by that particular system. I'm sure there's lots of others out there that operate similarly.

But I think that's a great example, honestly, of like, you grow to a point where you will collapse under, you know, the company will collapse under its own weight if it doesn't have the right, I think of it as scaffolding. That's how I describe it. The scaffolding of the business is what keeps it upright as it grows. And that kind of thing is the systems, the organization, the hierarchy, you know, the order of it. And that's my expertise. Boy, that makes

Christian Brim (35:26.476)
Well, well, no, I'm a huge, I'm a huge fan of EOS and I, I talk about it in my book and the impact that it had on our business. And I would never run a business without EOS. because what happens my experience and what I've seen, but my personal experience is the business will grow to the level of the visionary.

Nora Schlesinger (35:28.327)
me sound cool.

Nora Schlesinger (35:38.897)
Mm.

Nora Schlesinger (35:43.184)
Right.

Christian Brim (35:56.347)
and whatever they can tolerate. Because again, they're not process people. And so whatever the limitations of that founder visionary, be it time or skill, they'll grow to that and then they'll stop because they can't go any further. And EOS is a structure, an operating system for your computer, an operating system for your business that allows

Nora Schlesinger (35:57.52)
Right.

Nora Schlesinger (36:03.311)
Right.

Nora Schlesinger (36:12.943)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (36:26.604)
the others to be able to move it past the visionary. And I think it's uber critical because what I found in my own business was we tried to implement EOS ourselves initially and we failed. And then a couple of years later,

Nora Schlesinger (36:34.298)
Right, right.

Christian Brim (36:56.536)
We tried it and we brought in an implementer, a paid implementer to help us.

Nora Schlesinger (37:01.877)
Mm, yeah. Yeah, we work with somebody as well. He's phenomenal. I really, really enjoy working with him. Yeah.

Christian Brim (37:04.736)
And it's, it's, think with existing companies, it's critical because you don't know what you don't know. And you don't like, I didn't understand why the implementation failed for like two years after we had been working with the, professional. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (37:19.792)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (37:26.411)
interesting. What triggered your understanding of it? What was the catalyst?

Christian Brim (37:31.471)
I'm not sure what the catalyst was, but the reason that it didn't work was because there was not any trust in the team. And I remember once I realized that kind of being blindsided by it, because if you had asked me if there was trust in the team, I would have said yes. But the way

Nora Schlesinger (37:38.736)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (37:43.696)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (37:50.298)
Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (37:57.691)
Well, sure, of course.

Christian Brim (38:00.654)
You know, defining trust is the important part. So I'm sure you're familiar with Patrick Calencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Have you read that book? Okay. it's a great book. But as a matter of fact, we've revisited it as a leadership team from time to time. The fundamental element, the first element in there is trust.

Nora Schlesinger (38:13.425)
Mm-hmm. I mean, I've seen, yeah, I've seen, I've read the summary of the book. I know the concept. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (38:25.379)
wow, that's great.

Christian Brim (38:28.494)
And so like I can trust you to, know, like if this were an in-person meeting to not jump across the table and stab me with a knife. Right. I mean, there's a certain level of trust that's inherent in society, right? But what we're talking about in the context of business is the level of trust that anybody in the organization can tell somebody something that is

Nora Schlesinger (38:29.893)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (38:40.561)
For sure. Yeah. No, of course. Yeah, of course.

Christian Brim (38:58.242)
potentially uncomfortable and there are not any repercussions. That's the level of trust.

Nora Schlesinger (39:01.51)
Right.

Right.

And I think that is one of the hardest things for a manager to do because it inherently violates their ego. You know, if you have to sit there, and I mean, I've had this experience, like I've been berated by employees, you know, I had to do layoffs in, gosh, what year was that? 22 or 23.

Christian Brim (39:15.309)
Guess.

Nora Schlesinger (39:32.345)
And obviously people were really upset about it and they had every right to be, but there was one employee who just sat there like berating me on the phone and around this. It was a zoom call. And I remember that was like a real turning point for me where I had to, I had to like.

very consciously say in my head, this is, she deserves this, she's entitled to this. Yes, it is hurting my feelings. No, I am not allowed to respond defensively. It really took a lot of, I don't know, I guess self-control was really what it was, but humility, absolutely. It was a very humbling day, I'll tell you that. But.

Christian Brim (40:05.794)
Humility.

Nora Schlesinger (40:14.999)
Every time since that my employees have come to me and told me things that I don't want to repeat here because they were extremely confidential and things that I have never in my life had a boss that I would ever even think about the possibility of telling them something like this.

It is, it's such a good day for me. Like even if it's a bad thing they're telling me, I am so genuinely honored that they trust me enough. And I try to reciprocate that trust and tell them everything I possibly can be as transparent as possible.

you know, sometimes to the just toeing the line of propriety, like, but I'd rather people know about what's going on in the business, what's going on with me. I mean, I don't tell them like deeply personal things, obviously, but if you know, if something's going on with me, and I'm maybe not working the way that I am, that they're used to me working or not responding the way that I'm that they're used to me responding, I will absolutely say something's going on. You know, I might not be able to respond the way that I that I

would otherwise or, you know, we had a bad quarter. I want you all to know exactly what the numbers look like and exactly what my plan is, rather than just being like, it's fine. Everything's fine. We had a bad quarter, but don't worry about it, which I think a lot of companies sweep a lot of management teams rather sweep so much under the rug or sugarcoat things. I

Not only does that not help anyone, it also is so patronizing and so deeply undermines any trust that you have established with your team. Totally, yes.

Christian Brim (41:53.213)
yeah, it blows trust up. and you know, for me, in the context of EOS, you know, we, you, you have your, your core values and, those are who you are, not aspirational, but like who you are as an organization. And to me, we actually have achieved it. I, had, I had said that.

Nora Schlesinger (42:03.899)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (42:07.824)
Right.

Right, yeah.

Christian Brim (42:22.604)
You know, this is when I know there's trust. but it took several years. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (42:28.633)
I love how you linked. I like how you linked that to like the core values are, it sounds like inherently linked to the trust piece in the organization. That's great.

Christian Brim (42:34.542)
100 % because if, if to me, the, the, the, the benchmark was someone can call me out when I am not exhibiting that value.

and and right and and when it it is

Nora Schlesinger (42:48.657)
And that's how it should be. No question. But that's so rare. I mean, in reality, I think almost every manager I guarantee will be like, my employees trust me and they're loyal to me and they will call me out, whatever their definition of it is. I guarantee you 99 % of those cases, that's not the employees feel very differently.

I think a lot of managers lack empathy, like true deep empathy. And that is, I think that's the key to good management.

I like my employees, I'm nice to my employees, but true empathy where you are able to selflessly and ego-lessly put yourself in your employees' shoes and understand what it feels like to be managed by you. And does that make you feel good? If not, you're doing something wrong.

Christian Brim (43:49.057)
Yeah, I had well in going in EOS, I don't know if you've gotten to this part yet, but that to me is the distinct distinction between management and leadership. And they're two separate things and they're both necessary, you know. But I think if it is important in both of them, like leadership leadership requires a different level of empathy and a different level of humility. But

Nora Schlesinger (44:03.109)
Fair point. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, absolutely.

Nora Schlesinger (44:09.637)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (44:18.478)
I remember long ago, took a, I personally, not the company, I personally took a contract CFO job for a startup that I thought had great potential. And the visionary was a psychopath, narcissists. It was, no, it wasn't. you know, like within six months I said,

Nora Schlesinger (44:19.601)
Absolutely.

Nora Schlesinger (44:41.553)
Sounds really like a very pleasant workplace. No, I know. Sounds really toxic.

Christian Brim (44:48.622)
I'm leaving, and lose my number. Like I don't, I do not want to hear from you ever again, but what it taught me being on the other side of it, I don't think that I was, I think he was an extreme example of the way I led and managed at times. But what it gave me was this perspective. And I'm like, this is what my team feels like.

Nora Schlesinger (44:52.443)
Yeah.

yeah.

Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (45:09.864)
Hmm, interesting.

Nora Schlesinger (45:15.376)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (45:17.666)
when I act this way.

Nora Schlesinger (45:18.383)
Yeah, I think that that is something that not a lot of people can recognize. Like that drawing those parallels, that's a hard thing to do, you know? And again, requires a level of humility and sort of stepping outside yourself and honestly evaluating yourself and your behavior and your impact on others. I have had a similar experience where...

I was, I worked in consulting, but for a very small consulting firm, prior to Growth Machine. And a lot of the sort of situations we found ourselves in were similar to some of the Growth Machine circumstances at times. And I could definitely remember.

Christian Brim (45:57.366)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (46:04.097)
what it felt like to be on the receiving end of certain management decisions. And this also, just coincidentally, they ended up, it was small consulting firm, they ended up selling to a larger consulting firm. And so I went through the acquisition process as an employee. And boy was that impactful. And boy did that inform how I handled really everything about the...

know, the acquisition process and even just sort of like interviewing potential buyers, things like that, that was always very top of mind what it felt like to be the employee being.

Christian Brim (46:37.389)
Yes.

Christian Brim (46:42.03)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (46:42.565)
brought over in an acquisition and how terrible it could be, quite honestly, if not handled really carefully. But prior to the acquisition, even just, like I said, communication style, management decisions, things that impact employees more than they impact the decision makers, yet the decision makers are the ones making the decision. You can either be one of these people who thinks, well, I survived

it so they will too. That's never the solution. Just sort of in my opinion, that's never the solution.

Christian Brim (47:16.11)
That's not optimal.

Nora Schlesinger (47:22.543)
And that's such a frankly kind of abusive kind of way to approach things. Cause you know how crappy it feels. Why would you impose that on someone else? So I try really hard to take the opposite approach, which is, know, if something, if something feels familiar, I'm like, that's because I've been through this on the other side of it. And so I, I worked really hard to make the decision or make the change or make the whatever that I would have wished my man.

manager at the time had made. And I think that that alone has made me such a better manager and has taught me so much.

just by again, like, you know, just by being empathetic, and just by honestly not forgetting where I came from, I wasn't born the CEO of a company. I've been the entry level guy, I've been the grunt work guy, I've been the just dumping on her desk, you know, she'll take care of it. I've been all of it, you know, I've come up through the ranks in my career, I've had a lot of strange jobs, know, strange relative to where I am now. And

Christian Brim (48:02.552)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (48:19.725)
Mm-hmm.

Nora Schlesinger (48:29.955)
It's all taught me something, but most of all, it's taught me what it's like to not be in charge and to not have control over your working conditions. And so it's taught me how to take care of the people that work for me because I remember being that person. And I think a lot of leaders forget what that feels like. Yeah, yeah. Sure.

Christian Brim (48:44.14)
I love that.

It's easy to forget. have one final question. Did you make money on the flip?

Nora Schlesinger (48:55.953)
yes, I did not. I mean, I'm not going to retire on this. but I, yes, I was profitable. so yeah, that helped. That helped justify a lot of late nights and, and sleepless nights and time, you know, time missed, with my kids and things like that over last few years. that wasn't my goal though. Go ahead.

Christian Brim (48:56.013)
Okay, good.

Christian Brim (49:01.762)
Good.

Christian Brim (49:07.339)
Absolutely.

Christian Brim (49:14.968)
So how do people can, well, no, mean, don't feel bad about that. That's what that's.

Nora Schlesinger (49:23.089)
Oh, I don't. just want to be clear that like I always intended to continue working. My primary goal was quality of life improvement and lowering my mental load. was the money part of it was like, if I'm profitable on this, I'll be happy. I am not.

Like I said, I'm not looking to retire. I'm not looking to buy a yacht. I'm not looking to, you know, move to whatever, you know, Mallorca or what? don't, I don't even know why I moved to Mallorca, but really the money was not the primary objective, but it doesn't suck. You know, it was, it was, it was, you know, it was nice to.

Christian Brim (49:50.572)
either.

Christian Brim (49:57.357)
No, but it can't ever, whether you're running or whether you're selling a business, it can't always be about the money. It can't.

Nora Schlesinger (50:06.733)
Right. It's not about the money. No, of course not. Yeah. Yeah, I want, you know, I want enough money to not have to worry about paying my mortgage and things like that. But I'm not, I'm not out there, you know, driving a Ferrari or anything. I drive a Honda.

Christian Brim (50:21.228)
Maybe you should. You'd look good in a Ferrari.

Nora Schlesinger (50:25.585)
Thank you. I have to remember how to drive manual, but my husband would be thrilled because he remembers how to drive manual. I can. I'm very small. I would have no problem.

Christian Brim (50:28.47)
I can't fit in Ferraris, so it's not even an issue.

Christian Brim (50:34.7)
They, there'd have to, there'd have to be some vegetable oil applied somewhere to get me into a Ferrari.

Nora Schlesinger (50:40.145)
Perfect. I bet if you buy a Ferrari, they could probably set you up if you're paying Ferrari money. Sure. Sure. I also don't have that problem, but I would prefer a convertible, you know. Actually, I think I'd rather drive a Porsche than a Ferrari. It's more my style since we're dreaming. Hey, I have a sunroof in my CRV, so I'm good. I drive a mom car.

Christian Brim (50:43.458)
Well, it'd have to be a convertible too, because my head would hit the ceiling.

Christian Brim (50:52.066)
Yes.

Christian Brim (51:07.96)
How do people connect with you, Nora, if they want to learn more about you?

Nora Schlesinger (51:14.809)
The best place would be on LinkedIn.

You can search my name. Good luck spelling it. It's right. It's right here. you can also, I have a website, norislessinger.com, which you can also just click through from LinkedIn. So, the most efficient way would be to go find me on LinkedIn, say hello, send me a connect request. I would just request that if you, if you do connect, write me a note saying, I heard you on the profitable creative, because otherwise I'll think it's some weird cold outreach. And I don't want, I don't like when people

Christian Brim (51:20.867)
Yes.

Christian Brim (51:43.98)
random dude. Yeah, because LinkedIn's bad. I mean, it's real bad. Yeah.

Nora Schlesinger (51:48.627)
sells. I yeah, there are pockets that are great. So I do spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, but the cold pitches on LinkedIn just make it feel really icky. So I actually wrote a post about this a while back on LinkedIn. I declined about 99 % of my

connect requests that I receive unless it's somebody that I know or somebody that writes me a note and you know if someone writes me a note and says I heard you on this podcast I'll definitely accept I really love connecting with people so please reach out if you're listening and like what you're here perfect thank you

Christian Brim (52:17.41)
Perfect. We'll have those links in the show notes. Listeners, you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a text and let us know what you want to hear and we'll get rid of Nora.

Nora Schlesinger (52:37.381)
I love it. I get that often. Should I be taking this personally? Every time on a podcast, people say don't have her back. No, I'm honestly not very easily offended. So work harder next time.

Christian Brim (52:38.996)
No, if you're not offended yet, you're not going to get.

Christian Brim (52:48.398)
Don't challenge me, please.

Don't tempt me.

Nora Schlesinger (52:55.173)
noted. I was going to say, is it a challenge or a temptation? Yeah, fair enough.

Christian Brim (52:57.998)
temptation listeners until then ta ta for now.

Nora Schlesinger (53:05.989)
Ha