July 11, 2023 • 31 mins
What if you discovered a simple yet powerful metaphor that perfectly illustrated a common pattern of undervaluing and underpricing, particularly prevalent among women in business?
Meet Patty Block, our insightful guest for this episode, as she brings to life the 'Broken Cookie Effect,' a striking metaphor that resonates deeply with women business leaders who often settle for less.
To connect with Patty Block online, visit:
Website: https://theblockgroup.net/
Assessment: https://she-exits.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattyblock/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Pelè (00:00):
Hello happy people.
Welcome to the ProfitableHappiness Podcast.
Hello everyone, this is Dr Pelèwith the Profitable Happiness
Podcast.
Today, i have with me an experton helping leaders in
businesses, especially women,unlock their hidden advantage
(00:21):
and create business success.
Patty Block, how are you doingtoday?
Patty Block (00:25):
I'm great and I'm very happy to be here.
Dr. Pelè (00:28):
I'm so happy that you're here.
In fact, i'm looking forward tolearning more about your book,
which is called Your HiddenAdvantage.
I'm very interested in learningabout how you focus on women,
but, most important, i want toknow about these things you talk
about.
You say that women have morepower and more choices than they
actually realize when it comesto building their organizations
(00:50):
and creating success.
I'd love to get into all that,but before we start, patty, can
you tell us what is the corechallenge that you deal with
when you interact with women inbusiness, especially leaders in
organizations?
Patty Block (01:02):
Yes, probably the biggest issue is with pricing.
That is, that we tend toundervalue ourselves and we
underprice our services.
This concept is so pervasive.
Years ago I was reallystruggling to figure out how do
I talk about this?
How do I help women understandthat when they're a service
(01:25):
company and their pricing isartificially low, how limiting
that is, because I believeeverything flows from pricing
Who you can hire, when you canhire, how you can bring in
technology All of those thingsthat we think of as expenses are
really investments.
And yet you can't do thatunless you're a profitable
(01:49):
company.
And when I was growing up, mymom used to make these fabulous
cookies.
The whole house smelled good,it was warm, the cookies were
gooey And all my life I watchedmy mom eat the broken cookies,
but it wasn't until I was ateenager that I even thought to
ask her why do you only eat thebroken cookies?
(02:10):
Do they taste better.
And she laughed and said no, ieat the broken cookies, so you
can have the whole ones.
Wow, and that memory camerushing back to me several years
ago when I was reallystruggling to put words around
this pervasive pattern that Ihad seen in the decades that
I've worked with women businessowners And I realized that
(02:35):
spirit of self-sacrifice that wesaw in our role models, our
moms and our grandmothers.
We are bringing that right intoour business And that's what I
call the broken cookie effectAnd it's undervaluing ourselves.
We underpriced our services,then we end up over delivering
(02:55):
And even when our companies arevery successful maybe especially
then we are still saving thewhole cookie for everybody else
our families, our staff, ourclients Everybody gets the whole
cookie and we live on crumbs.
And that is something.
Now that I have found thatwording and I share that with my
(03:16):
audience, it resonates And whenI'm on a Zoom conference or I'm
talking to people, i see allthese women nodding because
we've all had that sharedexperience and we do bring it
into our businesses And thatalso affects who we hire and how
we hire.
Dr. Pelè (03:33):
Patty, i'm going to tell you right now I have
goosebumps because that metaphoris so powerful.
I'm sitting here going oh mygoodness, i remember my mother
always sacrificing.
I remember the maternal needand desire to always be last,
and it's like that really couldcome into the world of business
(03:57):
and it could take over And Icould see how that could
actually unfortunately sabotagethe goals of a growing business.
You've got to be able to.
Sure, sacrificing is good, butyou can get the bottom line to
grow.
That's really what you'resaying.
That's a powerful, powerfulmetaphor.
Thank you for sharing that,which leads me to something I'm
really interested in here andcurious about How did you become
(04:20):
the messenger of this powerfulmessage?
What's your story?
Patty Block (04:26):
Well, many, many years ago, in my first company,
i was a political consultant anda lobbyist.
I loved it.
It was fascinating and I'dnever do it again.
However, i learned a tremendousamount.
One of my big frustrations wasthat I was always on this
revenue roller coaster, ups anddowns all the time.
(04:46):
That was because my revenue wastied to the election cycle.
The time that I made money waswhen there was a campaign to
manage or there was somethinggoing on around elections.
That was super frustrating.
If there were resources to helpme grow my business and figure
(05:07):
out this conundrum, i didn'tknow how to find them and I
didn't know who to trust.
That motivated me to want to bethat resource for other women
business owners.
What ended up happening is Iadded the lobbying to my
business services becauselobbying is year-round.
I had been doing it informally,i added it formally and then I
(05:32):
started doing local, state andfederal.
I'm based in Texas, so I wouldcommute to our state capital and
lobby Again.
That would even out my revenue.
It was a good strategy, exceptthe trade-off was travel.
All of a sudden, i'm 35 yearsold, i have three little kids at
(05:53):
home, a thriving business and asurprise divorce.
Realize very quickly that I wasgoing to be the sole person
supporting my children as wellas raising them.
I needed to stop traveling.
I ended up taking a job.
After having my business forabout eight years, i closed my
(06:15):
business and I have to tell youI really grieved.
I was grieving over my family,my marriage, my business, my
ideals.
It was really a terrible timefor me.
I ultimately decided I need ajob because I need health
insurance.
At that time you couldn't justgo out and buy health insurance.
I took a job with aninternational school as director
(06:39):
of development and then becamedirector of operations.
That was my second motivator instarting this company, the
Block Group, in 2006.
That was taking my experiencein finance and operations and
bringing that to the smallbusiness market, started this
company and wanted to be thatresource for other women
(07:00):
business owners.
Over time became a pricingexpert and realized that I could
share this message of thebroken cookie effect and how to
beat that and how to be moresuccessful as a business owner
without your business feelinglike a burden.
Dr. Pelè (07:20):
Wow, wow.
What a story, what a livedexperience that has informed the
success that you'reexperiencing now.
I think there's this analogythat I have about how flowers
sometimes have to grow throughmud.
Really, that's where beautycomes from.
Sometimes is through pain.
(07:41):
Thank you for sharing that.
Let's take a look at exactlyhow you help organizations or
women leaders, especially inthese advanced businesses,
create success through theiremployees.
What methods did you talk about, for example, in your hidden
advantage of the book, or maybefrom the broken cookie
(08:05):
methodology that you could sharewith us right now?
Patty Block (08:09):
You bet.
Remember when I talked a fewminutes ago about how I believe
everything flows from pricing,especially for service companies
, but even for product-relatedcompanies, starting with your
pricing, in my view, is reallycritical.
The first thing we have to dois address how you think about
money, about pricing, about howyou're going to talk about that
(08:34):
with your prospects.
Especially for women, that is areally tricky issue because we
feel as though, if we're talkingabout ourselves, we're bragging
Again, because I'm based inTexas, we have a saying here
that it's not bragging if it'strue.
All of the women that I workwith are experts in their fields
and they absolutely know whatthey're talking about and have
(08:59):
all these achievements.
But we're raised not to talkabout that In your hidden
advantage.
I developed a system called theSNAP system.
Snap stands for Stop Believingthe Myths, narrow Your Focus,
assess Your Value and PracticeYour Power.
The Practice Your Power piecein particular is very important
(09:25):
because that is about how youcommunicate, and how you
communicate is based on what youbelieve.
That's the first part of theSNAP system is the S for Stop
Believing the Myths.
Perhaps, as we continue ourconversation, we can dive into
some of those beliefs and mythsthat do keep us stuck.
Dr. Pelè (09:48):
I want to talk about all of them.
I'm just captivated by this, infact.
if you could give us a littlebit more about each one.
So talk about stop, talk aboutnarrows, talk about assess and
then talk about practice.
Patty Block (10:03):
You bet.
Stop Believing the Myths is theS.
When we start our business, wehave certain beliefs, but so do
our prospects.
They have certain beliefs aboutthemselves, about you as the
expert and about their situation, helping them get clear and
(10:25):
that's usually in your salesprocess that you're helping them
get clear on exactly what theissue is.
or perhaps there's a cluster ofissues that need to be
addressed.
The prospect doesn't know howto do that, or they've tried
several things and they haven'tgotten the results they wanted.
(10:46):
They believe that you, as theexpert, can solve their problems
And you have the ability tobuild that perceived value right
.
But the only way to do that istalking about the achievements
of you and your team thequalifications, the expertise,
(11:07):
assuring that your prospect thatthey are in good hands, and
that is where communication isso critical.
So stop believing the myths.
that first piece of it isunderstanding what you believe,
why you believe that, and thenworking to change it if that
belief is working against you.
So I'll give you an example Forpeople that are advanced
(11:32):
business owners.
they've been in business atleast 15 years.
often they believe that theirjob is to keep their employees
happy and engaged.
Now, i would agree with that.
I think that is a reallyimportant element.
The problem is that that beliefleads them to also believe that
(11:53):
they shouldn't give their staffquote too much work, that they
need to be really careful.
And so the business owner oftentakes on more things and
doesn't delegate them becausethey don't wanna overload their
staff.
Now their staff is ready andwilling to help with whatever
the business owner needs, butbecause the business owner has
(12:16):
that belief that somehow it'sgonna make their employee
unhappy, they hold it tothemselves and they take on that
responsibility, so that weighsdown the whole organization.
And then you have all theseenthusiastic employees who are
ready and really appreciate thatresponsibility and trust, and
(12:39):
they're not given thatopportunity.
So that is a dynamic that I seevery frequently and it hurts
the whole organization.
Dr. Pelè (12:48):
Interesting.
Patty Block (12:50):
Did you wanna add to that?
Dr. Pelè (12:52):
Well, i find that really, really interesting
because it's a new spin onsomething I'm very intimately
connected with, which is happyemployees do produce happy
customers and it does help togrow your business when your
employees are happy.
But you're really identifyingthe fact that you can sort of
overdo it with this idea ofeverybody's gotta be happy, so
(13:15):
much so that I'm going to eatthe broken cookie and I'm going
to suffer it all and let you behappy And that's the wrong
approach.
I think you are very correct.
It also means that thoseleaders need to understand the
correct approach to creatinghappy employees, and I think
we'll talk about that some morecoming up, but go ahead.
That was why I was like, well,that's a new spin on it.
(13:36):
I love it.
Patty Block (13:38):
Absolutely, and you're right, it's the broken
cookie effect in action, yeah,and nobody benefits from that.
So, including the customers, noone benefits from that, and yet
I see it all the time, becauseit's that core belief that the
business owner has.
The second piece is narrow yourfocus.
(14:00):
The N And narrow your focus isabout finding and attracting
right fit buyers, and that meansa lot of times, especially for
small business owners, we tendto take whoever comes to us And
we may not have a verywell-developed outbound business
(14:22):
development effort.
We're really waiting for thephone to ring And, first of all,
that dynamic is a problem.
But secondly, if you believethat every buyer is an ideal
buyer, you're going to getburned, and you probably have
already been burned becausethat's just not true.
And yet if you think back towhen you were first dating maybe
(14:45):
in high school and every personwho showed interest in you you
thought they were quote the oneright, and that is what I call
the hope factor, and we bringthat into our business as well
And we think every prospect thatcomes to us is going to be an
ideal buyer And if they're not,we can turn them into one.
(15:07):
And it doesn't work that way,and then we get burned Or we end
up taking on a client or acustomer who is not profitable,
not making money from it, andthat's the whole point of having
a business.
So narrow your focus is areally important piece about
attracting and finding yourideal buyer.
Dr. Pelè (15:29):
Yeah, all of which are important skills for a leader
of an advanced company withemployees.
Patty Block (15:36):
Yes, and also being that role model for your
employees.
Because what happens when youtake someone who is not ideal
and let's say they're causing alot of grief for your company?
they'll cause a grief for youremployees And your employees
will feel stuck because theyknow they have to take care of
the customer And yet thatcustomer is very high
(16:00):
maintenance or is complainingall the time, or there's some
internal problem and theemployee is the one who's having
to deal with that.
So when you talk about keepingemployees happy, taking the
wrong clients is a huge problem,because then your employees are
stuck with dealing with it.
So that's the end for narrowyour focus.
(16:23):
A is assess your value, and thatis all about appropriate
pricing.
I'm not someone who sayseveryone needs to raise their
prices.
That's not realistic.
What I am saying is everyoneneeds a pricing structure
because if you have a pricingmodel, there's a rationale
behind that and it makes youmore confident in talking about
(16:46):
it, makes your employees moreconfident and it helps the buyer
understand why you price theway you price and the kind of
value that they're getting.
So assess your value is allabout pricing and building value
, and I mentioned a few minutesago about building perceived
(17:06):
value, the level to which thebuyer believes you can solve
their problem.
And you have that ability andthat power to build perceived
value when you know how to dothat correctly and you practice
that.
And then the last piece ispractice your power, which is
about communication.
And I will tell you that myexperience is, in the political
(17:29):
arena, informed a lot of what Iteach, because I taught
politicians the same techniquesthat I'm teaching women business
owners now, and all of thosetechniques and that internal
understanding of how powerfulwords are and how you can feel
(17:53):
more confident.
So every technique that I teachis about building your
confidence, because what happensis we go through our sales
process and we get to the pointof talking about compensation
and we, especially as women butI think guys struggle with this
too that we then start all thehead trash.
(18:14):
We start thinking about well,you know, i bet they have a
limited budget, or I wonder ifthis is really the person who
makes the decision, or if I'mgoing to have to work up the
food chain, or maybe I shouldoffer a discount because I
really, really want this clientAnd we start all the head trash
that comes out of our mouth aswhat I call invisible discounts,
(18:37):
where we're offering a discountWe're not even telling the
prospect, we're saying this isthe price.
Meanwhile we're cutting directlyinto our profit.
So that all the pieces that Iteach in communication are to
build your confidence, to doaway with the head trash.
(18:57):
And when you put all fourpieces together of the stamp
system, that is what happens.
It gives you choices, you feelmore powerful and empowered, you
feel more confident, and whenyou are then talking to your
prospect, they sense that theysee you as more professional,
(19:19):
more assured, and they are muchmore likely to buy from you.
So all of those pieces fittogether nicely to help women
position themselves and nolonger give everyone else the
whole cookie.
Dr. Pelè (19:36):
Are you seeing these snap together?
Patty Block (19:39):
They snap together I like that Excellent.
Dr. Pelè (19:44):
Let me just say that I really appreciate even though
I'm not obviously a woman, i cantell you that your message of
there being some kind of hiddenadvantage that maybe we or women
suppress because of culture andsocietal upbringing and
whatever, but the fact that theyhave more power and more
(20:06):
choices, i think is what you'vesaid than they realize.
I think that is such a powerfulmessage And I just can't wait to
hear how you keep on pushingthis into the world and helping
people with this.
Which brings me to what I liketo call the point where we talk
about the intersection of yourideas and profitable happiness
(20:27):
ideas.
In fact, as I learned from you,i'm finding that you're
actually more focused on theprofitable side than on the
happiness side of that equationof profitable happiness, and I'm
very happy about that becausemy whole message is that the two
are not mutually exclusive.
You can have a profitablecompany with happy employees and
(20:50):
happy culture.
It can all work together.
But tell us about how you seeyour hidden advantage approach
and snap system intersectingwith the idea of happy employees
.
Patty Block (21:05):
When the business owner or the CEO is self-assured
, self-confident, knows thatthey are meeting their mission.
That affects everyone in thecompany in such a positive way.
And the CEO needs to be aleader that inspires, that other
(21:29):
people are looking up to.
So if the employees see aleader in their company and of
course they would automaticallylook up to the CEO if they see
that person Wondering, feelingscared, feeling unsure of
themselves offering all thesehuge discounts, one of the
(21:54):
dynamics that I see frequentlyis that the person who's
handling sales, which is oftenthe business owner they're
promising the sun, the moon andthe stars, and then the
employees have to deliver onthat, regardless of
profitability.
Right, because employeestypically aren't responsible for
the pricing and theprofitability.
(22:15):
So now the business owner hasmade big promises, the employees
have to deliver on that, andthat causes a misalignment.
So when there is solidleadership and everyone is
communicating well, the leaderis helping the employees
(22:37):
understand how we price, who wework with, who is an ideal buyer
for us, and sticks with thosestructures, then there's more
confidence on the part of theemployees because they feel like
they're in good hands.
They feel like I am clear aboutwho I'm supposed to work with
(22:59):
what I'm supposed to do, how I'msupposed to deliver, the
boundaries that I can drawaround this.
A lot of times the employeesdon't really know their
boundaries And so they just keepdelivering, and that again can
undermine the profitability and,in fact, the effectiveness of
the company.
(23:19):
So there is a directcorrelation in my mind between
the pricing and profitabilityand happy employees, and before
we started recording, one of thethings you mentioned was happy
is not just about rah-rah.
Dr. Pelè (23:37):
Right.
Patty Block (23:38):
And you can't be happy every minute of every day
And no one strives to do that.
We know we're all humans and weknow we have good days and bad
days, and employees know thattoo.
But when you have an employeewho is very clear about what is
expected of them and understandsthat they can deliver that,
(24:00):
then they start to feelempowered and fulfilled And that
leads to happiness, becausewe're all looking for meaning
and we're all looking to achieveand to do a good job and to be
recognized for that.
And that's what, in my view, agood leader does is they empower
(24:22):
their employees through clarityand structure and systems and
boundaries, and they help theiremployees develop.
Dr. Pelè (24:32):
You know, patty, one of the things that I love about
the way you position yourself inthe marketplace is your use of
menomics.
I love it too.
like you know, snap, snap Ihave one for happy, you know,
happy.
It actually means somethingthat people can remember.
I love all that that you do.
I wonder, though, if you couldtell me on your LinkedIn page
(24:53):
you've got a cool little thinghere that says that you help
women experts build blockbusterbusinesses.
I was like, ok, wait a second.
I'm going to let you explainthat, because when I think of
blockbuster, i think of Netflixblockbuster.
I'm wondering if you're tyingsomething in there.
What does that mean for you?
Patty Block (25:15):
I am.
I am So think about my name isPatty Block, and Block lends
itself to all kinds of graphicsand plays on words, and so
blockbuster is a play on wordwith my name, but it is also,
you know, when you think of ablockbuster and what it used to
(25:36):
be.
Before blockbuster video camearound, it used to be those big
summer movies that would comeout and people would line up at
the movie theater and they wouldgo around the block to buy
their tickets to go into a movie.
That's what blockbuster used tomean That's right And so that is
.
that idea of a blockbustermovie was that summer movie
(26:00):
where people would line uparound the block And so, taking
that idea of the women that Iwork with are all high achievers
And that is part of our goal.
We want to build verysuccessful organizations And so
that the blockbuster idea playson that, The HER at the end
(26:22):
quickly identifies because Ionly work with women business
owners And, interestingly, thiscame about when I was trying to
figure out the name for myLinkedIn newsletter.
And if you've done any LinkedInnewsletter, you know that the
title has to be extremely shortand it has to say something
right.
It has to in order for peopleto subscribe.
(26:45):
It has to be somewhatinteresting.
So that's what I named mynewsletter is Blockbuster
Businesses And that has it'sreally worked well.
It communicates very much.
What I do in the world is Ihelp women build blockbuster
businesses and I help them buildreal value so that they can
(27:09):
exit someday when they're readyand they can build real business
value rather than justgenerating revenue that comes in
and goes out as quickly as theygenerate it.
So I work with a population ofwomen that typically they've
been in business at least 15years, and they're positioning
their company so that they canbe a little bit less chained.
(27:33):
I think of it as feeling chainedto their business by golden
handcuffs of their own making,that we want to be our own boss
and we create our companies andwe build it and end up, as I
mentioned earlier, where wedon't want to overload our staff
.
We want everyone to be happy,and so we eat the crumbs and
(27:57):
continue to do a lot of workthat we could delegate.
and as we're building ourorganization, we need to be
thinking about you're going tohave to exit your company
someday.
Dr. Pelè (28:10):
Yeah.
Patty Block (28:11):
Voluntarily or not Right.
And the older we get, the morewe start to worry about our
health And think about if you'veput this in terms of the broken
cookie, when we make sure thateveryone else gets the whole
cookie.
That includes our staff, andone of the things that I hear
(28:32):
over and over is I want to makesure my staff is taken care of,
so if I get sick or a familymember gets sick and I need to
step away from my company for aperiod of time, i want to know
that my company is in good handswith my employees.
I trust them, i've trained themand that they care, so they're
(28:53):
going to take good care of thecompany And if I need to step
away, everything isn't going tofall apart.
And so that's the work that Ido in my private consulting is
helping women position theircompany for their eventual exit
and make sure that everyone istaken care of, because that is
so important to them, along withlegacy, and making sure that
(29:17):
everything they've built isn't ahouse of cards.
Dr. Pelè (29:21):
What just powerful metaphors and systems that
you've built.
I really appreciate hearingabout these.
Tell us what you're excitedabout, what you're sharing with
the world and how people can getahold of you online right now.
Patty Block (29:36):
Wonderful.
Thank you again for having me.
You can reach me through mywebsite, theblockgroupnet.
And what I'd like to offer toyour audience is I have an
assessment called your exitreadiness index, and that helps
you determine what pieces youhave in place and what pieces
(29:58):
you might be missing inpositioning your company for
your eventual exit.
And when I work with women inorder to position their company
for exit, it usually takes aboutfive years, so there's a lot of
misunderstanding about what ittakes to build real business
value.
So this assessment can help youdetermine that, and you can
(30:20):
find the assessment atshe-exitscom, so sh-e-ex-itscom,
she-exits Perfect.
And then I love connecting withfolks on LinkedIn, and it's
Patty with a Y.
If you choose to connect withme, please mention this podcast
(30:43):
so I can make that mentalconnection.
Dr. Pelè (30:45):
Awesome, that's so awesome.
Well, i will also include theLinkedIn URL that you have on
LinkedIn, which is how we met,and make sure that's in the show
notes.
Patty, thank you so much forbeing a guest on the Profitable
Happiness Podcast.
Patty Block (31:01):
Thank you so much.
Hello happy people.
Welcome to the ProfitableHappiness Podcast.
Hello everyone, this is Dr Pelèwith the Profitable Happiness
Podcast.
Today, i have with me an experton helping leaders in
businesses, especially women,unlock their hidden advantage
(00:21):
and create business success.
Patty Block, how are you doingtoday?
Patty Block (00:25):
I'm great and I'm very happy to be here.
Dr. Pelè (00:28):
I'm so happy that you're here.
In fact, i'm looking forward tolearning more about your book,
which is called Your HiddenAdvantage.
I'm very interested in learningabout how you focus on women,
but, most important, i want toknow about these things you talk
about.
You say that women have morepower and more choices than they
actually realize when it comesto building their organizations
(00:50):
and creating success.
I'd love to get into all that,but before we start, patty, can
you tell us what is the corechallenge that you deal with
when you interact with women inbusiness, especially leaders in
organizations?
Patty Block (01:02):
Yes, probably the biggest issue is with pricing.
That is, that we tend toundervalue ourselves and we
underprice our services.
This concept is so pervasive.
Years ago I was reallystruggling to figure out how do
I talk about this?
How do I help women understandthat when they're a service
(01:25):
company and their pricing isartificially low, how limiting
that is, because I believeeverything flows from pricing
Who you can hire, when you canhire, how you can bring in
technology All of those thingsthat we think of as expenses are
really investments.
And yet you can't do thatunless you're a profitable
(01:49):
company.
And when I was growing up, mymom used to make these fabulous
cookies.
The whole house smelled good,it was warm, the cookies were
gooey And all my life I watchedmy mom eat the broken cookies,
but it wasn't until I was ateenager that I even thought to
ask her why do you only eat thebroken cookies?
(02:10):
Do they taste better.
And she laughed and said no, ieat the broken cookies, so you
can have the whole ones.
Wow, and that memory camerushing back to me several years
ago when I was reallystruggling to put words around
this pervasive pattern that Ihad seen in the decades that
I've worked with women businessowners And I realized that
(02:35):
spirit of self-sacrifice that wesaw in our role models, our
moms and our grandmothers.
We are bringing that right intoour business And that's what I
call the broken cookie effectAnd it's undervaluing ourselves.
We underpriced our services,then we end up over delivering
(02:55):
And even when our companies arevery successful maybe especially
then we are still saving thewhole cookie for everybody else
our families, our staff, ourclients Everybody gets the whole
cookie and we live on crumbs.
And that is something.
Now that I have found thatwording and I share that with my
(03:16):
audience, it resonates And whenI'm on a Zoom conference or I'm
talking to people, i see allthese women nodding because
we've all had that sharedexperience and we do bring it
into our businesses And thatalso affects who we hire and how
we hire.
Dr. Pelè (03:33):
Patty, i'm going to tell you right now I have
goosebumps because that metaphoris so powerful.
I'm sitting here going oh mygoodness, i remember my mother
always sacrificing.
I remember the maternal needand desire to always be last,
and it's like that really couldcome into the world of business
(03:57):
and it could take over And Icould see how that could
actually unfortunately sabotagethe goals of a growing business.
You've got to be able to.
Sure, sacrificing is good, butyou can get the bottom line to
grow.
That's really what you'resaying.
That's a powerful, powerfulmetaphor.
Thank you for sharing that,which leads me to something I'm
really interested in here andcurious about How did you become
(04:20):
the messenger of this powerfulmessage?
What's your story?
Patty Block (04:26):
Well, many, many years ago, in my first company,
i was a political consultant anda lobbyist.
I loved it.
It was fascinating and I'dnever do it again.
However, i learned a tremendousamount.
One of my big frustrations wasthat I was always on this
revenue roller coaster, ups anddowns all the time.
(04:46):
That was because my revenue wastied to the election cycle.
The time that I made money waswhen there was a campaign to
manage or there was somethinggoing on around elections.
That was super frustrating.
If there were resources to helpme grow my business and figure
(05:07):
out this conundrum, i didn'tknow how to find them and I
didn't know who to trust.
That motivated me to want to bethat resource for other women
business owners.
What ended up happening is Iadded the lobbying to my
business services becauselobbying is year-round.
I had been doing it informally,i added it formally and then I
(05:32):
started doing local, state andfederal.
I'm based in Texas, so I wouldcommute to our state capital and
lobby Again.
That would even out my revenue.
It was a good strategy, exceptthe trade-off was travel.
All of a sudden, i'm 35 yearsold, i have three little kids at
(05:53):
home, a thriving business and asurprise divorce.
Realize very quickly that I wasgoing to be the sole person
supporting my children as wellas raising them.
I needed to stop traveling.
I ended up taking a job.
After having my business forabout eight years, i closed my
(06:15):
business and I have to tell youI really grieved.
I was grieving over my family,my marriage, my business, my
ideals.
It was really a terrible timefor me.
I ultimately decided I need ajob because I need health
insurance.
At that time you couldn't justgo out and buy health insurance.
I took a job with aninternational school as director
(06:39):
of development and then becamedirector of operations.
That was my second motivator instarting this company, the
Block Group, in 2006.
That was taking my experiencein finance and operations and
bringing that to the smallbusiness market, started this
company and wanted to be thatresource for other women
(07:00):
business owners.
Over time became a pricingexpert and realized that I could
share this message of thebroken cookie effect and how to
beat that and how to be moresuccessful as a business owner
without your business feelinglike a burden.
Dr. Pelè (07:20):
Wow, wow.
What a story, what a livedexperience that has informed the
success that you'reexperiencing now.
I think there's this analogythat I have about how flowers
sometimes have to grow throughmud.
Really, that's where beautycomes from.
Sometimes is through pain.
(07:41):
Thank you for sharing that.
Let's take a look at exactlyhow you help organizations or
women leaders, especially inthese advanced businesses,
create success through theiremployees.
What methods did you talk about, for example, in your hidden
advantage of the book, or maybefrom the broken cookie
(08:05):
methodology that you could sharewith us right now?
Patty Block (08:09):
You bet.
Remember when I talked a fewminutes ago about how I believe
everything flows from pricing,especially for service companies
, but even for product-relatedcompanies, starting with your
pricing, in my view, is reallycritical.
The first thing we have to dois address how you think about
money, about pricing, about howyou're going to talk about that
(08:34):
with your prospects.
Especially for women, that is areally tricky issue because we
feel as though, if we're talkingabout ourselves, we're bragging
Again, because I'm based inTexas, we have a saying here
that it's not bragging if it'strue.
All of the women that I workwith are experts in their fields
and they absolutely know whatthey're talking about and have
(08:59):
all these achievements.
But we're raised not to talkabout that In your hidden
advantage.
I developed a system called theSNAP system.
Snap stands for Stop Believingthe Myths, narrow Your Focus,
assess Your Value and PracticeYour Power.
The Practice Your Power piecein particular is very important
(09:25):
because that is about how youcommunicate, and how you
communicate is based on what youbelieve.
That's the first part of theSNAP system is the S for Stop
Believing the Myths.
Perhaps, as we continue ourconversation, we can dive into
some of those beliefs and mythsthat do keep us stuck.
Dr. Pelè (09:48):
I want to talk about all of them.
I'm just captivated by this, infact.
if you could give us a littlebit more about each one.
So talk about stop, talk aboutnarrows, talk about assess and
then talk about practice.
Patty Block (10:03):
You bet.
Stop Believing the Myths is theS.
When we start our business, wehave certain beliefs, but so do
our prospects.
They have certain beliefs aboutthemselves, about you as the
expert and about their situation, helping them get clear and
(10:25):
that's usually in your salesprocess that you're helping them
get clear on exactly what theissue is.
or perhaps there's a cluster ofissues that need to be
addressed.
The prospect doesn't know howto do that, or they've tried
several things and they haven'tgotten the results they wanted.
(10:46):
They believe that you, as theexpert, can solve their problems
And you have the ability tobuild that perceived value right
.
But the only way to do that istalking about the achievements
of you and your team thequalifications, the expertise,
(11:07):
assuring that your prospect thatthey are in good hands, and
that is where communication isso critical.
So stop believing the myths.
that first piece of it isunderstanding what you believe,
why you believe that, and thenworking to change it if that
belief is working against you.
So I'll give you an example Forpeople that are advanced
(11:32):
business owners.
they've been in business atleast 15 years.
often they believe that theirjob is to keep their employees
happy and engaged.
Now, i would agree with that.
I think that is a reallyimportant element.
The problem is that that beliefleads them to also believe that
(11:53):
they shouldn't give their staffquote too much work, that they
need to be really careful.
And so the business owner oftentakes on more things and
doesn't delegate them becausethey don't wanna overload their
staff.
Now their staff is ready andwilling to help with whatever
the business owner needs, butbecause the business owner has
(12:16):
that belief that somehow it'sgonna make their employee
unhappy, they hold it tothemselves and they take on that
responsibility, so that weighsdown the whole organization.
And then you have all theseenthusiastic employees who are
ready and really appreciate thatresponsibility and trust, and
(12:39):
they're not given thatopportunity.
So that is a dynamic that I seevery frequently and it hurts
the whole organization.
Dr. Pelè (12:48):
Interesting.
Patty Block (12:50):
Did you wanna add to that?
Dr. Pelè (12:52):
Well, i find that really, really interesting
because it's a new spin onsomething I'm very intimately
connected with, which is happyemployees do produce happy
customers and it does help togrow your business when your
employees are happy.
But you're really identifyingthe fact that you can sort of
overdo it with this idea ofeverybody's gotta be happy, so
(13:15):
much so that I'm going to eatthe broken cookie and I'm going
to suffer it all and let you behappy And that's the wrong
approach.
I think you are very correct.
It also means that thoseleaders need to understand the
correct approach to creatinghappy employees, and I think
we'll talk about that some morecoming up, but go ahead.
That was why I was like, well,that's a new spin on it.
(13:36):
I love it.
Patty Block (13:38):
Absolutely, and you're right, it's the broken
cookie effect in action, yeah,and nobody benefits from that.
So, including the customers, noone benefits from that, and yet
I see it all the time, becauseit's that core belief that the
business owner has.
The second piece is narrow yourfocus.
(14:00):
The N And narrow your focus isabout finding and attracting
right fit buyers, and that meansa lot of times, especially for
small business owners, we tendto take whoever comes to us And
we may not have a verywell-developed outbound business
(14:22):
development effort.
We're really waiting for thephone to ring And, first of all,
that dynamic is a problem.
But secondly, if you believethat every buyer is an ideal
buyer, you're going to getburned, and you probably have
already been burned becausethat's just not true.
And yet if you think back towhen you were first dating maybe
(14:45):
in high school and every personwho showed interest in you you
thought they were quote the oneright, and that is what I call
the hope factor, and we bringthat into our business as well
And we think every prospect thatcomes to us is going to be an
ideal buyer And if they're not,we can turn them into one.
(15:07):
And it doesn't work that way,and then we get burned Or we end
up taking on a client or acustomer who is not profitable,
not making money from it, andthat's the whole point of having
a business.
So narrow your focus is areally important piece about
attracting and finding yourideal buyer.
Dr. Pelè (15:29):
Yeah, all of which are important skills for a leader
of an advanced company withemployees.
Patty Block (15:36):
Yes, and also being that role model for your
employees.
Because what happens when youtake someone who is not ideal
and let's say they're causing alot of grief for your company?
they'll cause a grief for youremployees And your employees
will feel stuck because theyknow they have to take care of
the customer And yet thatcustomer is very high
(16:00):
maintenance or is complainingall the time, or there's some
internal problem and theemployee is the one who's having
to deal with that.
So when you talk about keepingemployees happy, taking the
wrong clients is a huge problem,because then your employees are
stuck with dealing with it.
So that's the end for narrowyour focus.
(16:23):
A is assess your value, and thatis all about appropriate
pricing.
I'm not someone who sayseveryone needs to raise their
prices.
That's not realistic.
What I am saying is everyoneneeds a pricing structure
because if you have a pricingmodel, there's a rationale
behind that and it makes youmore confident in talking about
(16:46):
it, makes your employees moreconfident and it helps the buyer
understand why you price theway you price and the kind of
value that they're getting.
So assess your value is allabout pricing and building value
, and I mentioned a few minutesago about building perceived
(17:06):
value, the level to which thebuyer believes you can solve
their problem.
And you have that ability andthat power to build perceived
value when you know how to dothat correctly and you practice
that.
And then the last piece ispractice your power, which is
about communication.
And I will tell you that myexperience is, in the political
(17:29):
arena, informed a lot of what Iteach, because I taught
politicians the same techniquesthat I'm teaching women business
owners now, and all of thosetechniques and that internal
understanding of how powerfulwords are and how you can feel
(17:53):
more confident.
So every technique that I teachis about building your
confidence, because what happensis we go through our sales
process and we get to the pointof talking about compensation
and we, especially as women butI think guys struggle with this
too that we then start all thehead trash.
(18:14):
We start thinking about well,you know, i bet they have a
limited budget, or I wonder ifthis is really the person who
makes the decision, or if I'mgoing to have to work up the
food chain, or maybe I shouldoffer a discount because I
really, really want this clientAnd we start all the head trash
that comes out of our mouth aswhat I call invisible discounts,
(18:37):
where we're offering a discountWe're not even telling the
prospect, we're saying this isthe price.
Meanwhile we're cutting directlyinto our profit.
So that all the pieces that Iteach in communication are to
build your confidence, to doaway with the head trash.
(18:57):
And when you put all fourpieces together of the stamp
system, that is what happens.
It gives you choices, you feelmore powerful and empowered, you
feel more confident, and whenyou are then talking to your
prospect, they sense that theysee you as more professional,
(19:19):
more assured, and they are muchmore likely to buy from you.
So all of those pieces fittogether nicely to help women
position themselves and nolonger give everyone else the
whole cookie.
Dr. Pelè (19:36):
Are you seeing these snap together?
Patty Block (19:39):
They snap together I like that Excellent.
Dr. Pelè (19:44):
Let me just say that I really appreciate even though
I'm not obviously a woman, i cantell you that your message of
there being some kind of hiddenadvantage that maybe we or women
suppress because of culture andsocietal upbringing and
whatever, but the fact that theyhave more power and more
(20:06):
choices, i think is what you'vesaid than they realize.
I think that is such a powerfulmessage And I just can't wait to
hear how you keep on pushingthis into the world and helping
people with this.
Which brings me to what I liketo call the point where we talk
about the intersection of yourideas and profitable happiness
(20:27):
ideas.
In fact, as I learned from you,i'm finding that you're
actually more focused on theprofitable side than on the
happiness side of that equationof profitable happiness, and I'm
very happy about that becausemy whole message is that the two
are not mutually exclusive.
You can have a profitablecompany with happy employees and
(20:50):
happy culture.
It can all work together.
But tell us about how you seeyour hidden advantage approach
and snap system intersectingwith the idea of happy employees
.
Patty Block (21:05):
When the business owner or the CEO is self-assured
, self-confident, knows thatthey are meeting their mission.
That affects everyone in thecompany in such a positive way.
And the CEO needs to be aleader that inspires, that other
(21:29):
people are looking up to.
So if the employees see aleader in their company and of
course they would automaticallylook up to the CEO if they see
that person Wondering, feelingscared, feeling unsure of
themselves offering all thesehuge discounts, one of the
(21:54):
dynamics that I see frequentlyis that the person who's
handling sales, which is oftenthe business owner they're
promising the sun, the moon andthe stars, and then the
employees have to deliver onthat, regardless of
profitability.
Right, because employeestypically aren't responsible for
the pricing and theprofitability.
(22:15):
So now the business owner hasmade big promises, the employees
have to deliver on that, andthat causes a misalignment.
So when there is solidleadership and everyone is
communicating well, the leaderis helping the employees
(22:37):
understand how we price, who wework with, who is an ideal buyer
for us, and sticks with thosestructures, then there's more
confidence on the part of theemployees because they feel like
they're in good hands.
They feel like I am clear aboutwho I'm supposed to work with
(22:59):
what I'm supposed to do, how I'msupposed to deliver, the
boundaries that I can drawaround this.
A lot of times the employeesdon't really know their
boundaries And so they just keepdelivering, and that again can
undermine the profitability and,in fact, the effectiveness of
the company.
(23:19):
So there is a directcorrelation in my mind between
the pricing and profitabilityand happy employees, and before
we started recording, one of thethings you mentioned was happy
is not just about rah-rah.
Dr. Pelè (23:37):
Right.
Patty Block (23:38):
And you can't be happy every minute of every day
And no one strives to do that.
We know we're all humans and weknow we have good days and bad
days, and employees know thattoo.
But when you have an employeewho is very clear about what is
expected of them and understandsthat they can deliver that,
(24:00):
then they start to feelempowered and fulfilled And that
leads to happiness, becausewe're all looking for meaning
and we're all looking to achieveand to do a good job and to be
recognized for that.
And that's what, in my view, agood leader does is they empower
(24:22):
their employees through clarityand structure and systems and
boundaries, and they help theiremployees develop.
Dr. Pelè (24:32):
You know, patty, one of the things that I love about
the way you position yourself inthe marketplace is your use of
menomics.
I love it too.
like you know, snap, snap Ihave one for happy, you know,
happy.
It actually means somethingthat people can remember.
I love all that that you do.
I wonder, though, if you couldtell me on your LinkedIn page
(24:53):
you've got a cool little thinghere that says that you help
women experts build blockbusterbusinesses.
I was like, ok, wait a second.
I'm going to let you explainthat, because when I think of
blockbuster, i think of Netflixblockbuster.
I'm wondering if you're tyingsomething in there.
What does that mean for you?
Patty Block (25:15):
I am.
I am So think about my name isPatty Block, and Block lends
itself to all kinds of graphicsand plays on words, and so
blockbuster is a play on wordwith my name, but it is also,
you know, when you think of ablockbuster and what it used to
(25:36):
be.
Before blockbuster video camearound, it used to be those big
summer movies that would comeout and people would line up at
the movie theater and they wouldgo around the block to buy
their tickets to go into a movie.
That's what blockbuster used tomean That's right And so that is
.
that idea of a blockbustermovie was that summer movie
(26:00):
where people would line uparound the block And so, taking
that idea of the women that Iwork with are all high achievers
And that is part of our goal.
We want to build verysuccessful organizations And so
that the blockbuster idea playson that, The HER at the end
(26:22):
quickly identifies because Ionly work with women business
owners And, interestingly, thiscame about when I was trying to
figure out the name for myLinkedIn newsletter.
And if you've done any LinkedInnewsletter, you know that the
title has to be extremely shortand it has to say something
right.
It has to in order for peopleto subscribe.
(26:45):
It has to be somewhatinteresting.
So that's what I named mynewsletter is Blockbuster
Businesses And that has it'sreally worked well.
It communicates very much.
What I do in the world is Ihelp women build blockbuster
businesses and I help them buildreal value so that they can
(27:09):
exit someday when they're readyand they can build real business
value rather than justgenerating revenue that comes in
and goes out as quickly as theygenerate it.
So I work with a population ofwomen that typically they've
been in business at least 15years, and they're positioning
their company so that they canbe a little bit less chained.
(27:33):
I think of it as feeling chainedto their business by golden
handcuffs of their own making,that we want to be our own boss
and we create our companies andwe build it and end up, as I
mentioned earlier, where wedon't want to overload our staff
.
We want everyone to be happy,and so we eat the crumbs and
(27:57):
continue to do a lot of workthat we could delegate.
and as we're building ourorganization, we need to be
thinking about you're going tohave to exit your company
someday.
Dr. Pelè (28:10):
Yeah.
Patty Block (28:11):
Voluntarily or not Right.
And the older we get, the morewe start to worry about our
health And think about if you'veput this in terms of the broken
cookie, when we make sure thateveryone else gets the whole
cookie.
That includes our staff, andone of the things that I hear
(28:32):
over and over is I want to makesure my staff is taken care of,
so if I get sick or a familymember gets sick and I need to
step away from my company for aperiod of time, i want to know
that my company is in good handswith my employees.
I trust them, i've trained themand that they care, so they're
(28:53):
going to take good care of thecompany And if I need to step
away, everything isn't going tofall apart.
And so that's the work that Ido in my private consulting is
helping women position theircompany for their eventual exit
and make sure that everyone istaken care of, because that is
so important to them, along withlegacy, and making sure that
(29:17):
everything they've built isn't ahouse of cards.
Dr. Pelè (29:21):
What just powerful metaphors and systems that
you've built.
I really appreciate hearingabout these.
Tell us what you're excitedabout, what you're sharing with
the world and how people can getahold of you online right now.
Patty Block (29:36):
Wonderful.
Thank you again for having me.
You can reach me through mywebsite, theblockgroupnet.
And what I'd like to offer toyour audience is I have an
assessment called your exitreadiness index, and that helps
you determine what pieces youhave in place and what pieces
(29:58):
you might be missing inpositioning your company for
your eventual exit.
And when I work with women inorder to position their company
for exit, it usually takes aboutfive years, so there's a lot of
misunderstanding about what ittakes to build real business
value.
So this assessment can help youdetermine that, and you can
(30:20):
find the assessment atshe-exitscom, so sh-e-ex-itscom,
she-exits Perfect.
And then I love connecting withfolks on LinkedIn, and it's
Patty with a Y.
If you choose to connect withme, please mention this podcast
(30:43):
so I can make that mentalconnection.
Dr. Pelè (30:45):
Awesome, that's so awesome.
Well, i will also include theLinkedIn URL that you have on
LinkedIn, which is how we met,and make sure that's in the show
notes.
Patty, thank you so much forbeing a guest on the Profitable
Happiness Podcast.
Patty Block (31:01):
Thank you so much.
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