August 16, 2024 • 38 mins
Caitlin Dodge drives the vision and growth of her agency as CEO of Argus. The balance? She's also a mom of two boys under the age of ten. Is there such a thing as the illusive Work/Life Balance? WEE certainly believe in a Work/Life Harmony and so does our guest, and she shares her learned wisdom with us on how she's accomplishing just that.
Connect with Caitlin & Argus:
Like the show? Be sure to Like, Subscribe, Review and Share! Interested in being a part of WEE? Reach out to our group liaison, Kelli@WomenExcellingEverywhere.com
Connect with Caitlin & Argus:
Like the show? Be sure to Like, Subscribe, Review and Share! Interested in being a part of WEE? Reach out to our group liaison, Kelli@WomenExcellingEverywhere.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. I am Julie Anderson,
and we are here on the Women Excelling Everywhere Podcast
video cast and I'm excited to be doing another wonderful interview.
I am really looking forward to our guest today because
marketing and all that kind of stuff is not my forte.
So I love to get all of the all of
(00:29):
the input, and her company looks like it is quite
quite extensive in everything that they do, so I'm very
much looking forward to getting to know Caitlin Dodge and
her company more So, welcome Caitlin to the Women Excelling
Everywhere Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Thank you so much. I'm so thrilled to be here
and to talk about our guests and hear more from you.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I love it. I love it. So I can't wait
to find out just how you got here and get
into some really meaty stuff. I love to have tap
into your wisdom and find out more about your journey.
But first for the audience, I'm just going to go
ahead and read your professional bio and then you might
(01:11):
let us know a little bit more as we go
through the conversation. But you are CEO of Argus, and
you are the one that drives the vision and growth
of the agency across operations, client relations, and strategic direction.
Your expertise are her expertise. Caitlin's expertise and council has
been highly prized by leaders and organizations across many sectors.
(01:36):
Under Caitlin's leadership, Argus has landed, has landed on the
Boston Business Journals Fast fifty for three years, INC Five hundreds,
Fastest Growing Private Companies in America and Or for the
past three years, and has captured numerous industry and marketing awards.
Caitlin since sits on the Create Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce,
(01:57):
Boston Interactive Media Association. It's aboutful right Boston and a
better city, and we're going to talk about cultivating fulfillment
in life and work with Caitlin Dodge today. Caitlin, once again,
welcome to the WE program.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Great, thank you again so much for having me. And
I'm really excited to jump in and talk about this.
And I love that this is a podcast focused on women.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, you know, it's it's kind of a little bit
of my passion. I just we've worked with this for
many years and had our ups and downs, but we
love focusing on the a little bit different challenges that
women face in the industry and especially as leaders in
the industry. When you read through your bio, it's very
impressive what you've accomplished, and we'd love to have that
(02:49):
inspiration bring on share with other individuals as well, so
we know what you're currently doing, but tell us a
little bit about about the other side, like what what
led you to developing a because I would you put
Argus as a marketing agency? Is that kind of how
(03:11):
you would describe it.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, we call it a marketing agency, but really we
focus on branding and behavior change and we only work
with clients that close gaps in health, wealth, climate, culture,
and education. So basically, our goal is to bring world
class talent to these world bettering organizations like nonprofits, public
sector foundations.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
The idea of being so.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Many of the best campaigns and thinking end up going
to organizations that can afford it, can afford really big agencies,
and can afford these amazing people. But that doesn't necessarily
mean that that best thinking is going to the organizations
that are putting good out there in the world. So
we're trying to flip that a little bit and bring
(03:54):
people with that kind of experience into an agency that
is the only focuses on nonprofits, public sector foundations, and
public health things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Beautiful beautiful. Now that's it's a big I mean, it's
obviously it's grown into quite a big company. Now when
you is that kind of what you thought of when
you graduated high school and went into college, like you
were thinking, Oh, I want to be a marketing professional
or tell us a little bit about the other side
of Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so I would say that, you know, my idea
around how people think and how they help people learn
how to think and believe what they believe started early on,
and so in college. Actually I was a religious studies major,
but not from the point of view of being necessarily
religious myself. But I had a class with my freshman
year that really looked at how people get to think
(04:43):
and believe what they think and believe, and that really
struck a chord with me because so often, I mean, nowadays,
this is a very hot topic, right, so many times
we look at people and think, how could you ever
think that way? You know, how could you believe that
what someone else is saying? But the truth is that
everyone has their reasonings. They've been brought up in a
certain way, they've had their own lived experience in a
(05:05):
certain way, their world and life has been shaped. And
if we don't understand how people get to think it
in a certain way, then we'll never understand or be
able to have, you know, good conversations about how to
come together. And so that's sort of where I came
from in my religious studies background, and then of course
graduated college and realize I actually had no idea what
(05:28):
I wanted to do with that or with my life,
and so but I but I always had that in
the back of my head. And so my first position
was actually not in marketing, but in that position realize
what marketing did in terms of applying how people think
to the actual day to day of what people see. Right, So,
(05:48):
if you're walking down the street, marketing is everywhere. Right,
It isn't just TV, it isn't just radio. You walk
down the street, you're driving, you're listening to a podcast,
whatever it is you're doing, there'ally some kind of marketing
that is helping to support it, which means it ends
up being almost a public education of sorts. Right, what
does the world think is important? That's what gets paid
(06:11):
for and that's what you see out there. So I
decided I wanted to go into marketing. My first marketing
position was at Smithsonian Enterprises. I was in the New
York office, focusing as a marketing manager, focusing on advertisers
and working with agencies on the publication, then the magazine,
the TV and the website. And through that I started
(06:32):
working with agencies. But what I loved about working at
Smithsonian was at the end of the day, all of
my effort was going to something good, Like I knew
that it was going towards the zoos and the educational programs,
and so I always said to myself, like, even when
I was having a really bad day, this this is
for the greater good. This is good, And that kind
of helped propel me, help propel me forward. And then
(06:54):
I wanted to check out what it was like to
work on an agency side. But it's really hard to
get into the agency world if you don't start there,
and so I really started to focus on how do
I break into the agency world through a smaller agency
where I can hopefully learn a bunch of different skills
at the same time, instead of going to a really
large agency where you kind of get funneled into one
(07:18):
sort of one pathway, and so I lent at an
agency in DC that really had different, really different sets
of clients. I had some nonprofit clients and hospital clients,
and then I also had clients that were selling cars
or political views that I didn't agree with. And so
(07:39):
it was at that moment that I had a particular
meeting and a particular situation where I realized that I
didn't necessarily agree with what I was selling. And I
think when you're younger, you're trying to get a job,
you're trying to manage your life, you're trying to save
some money, You're trying to do all these different things
and still kind of be and then there's a moment
(08:01):
that you realize your career is on a path and
it's going to keep going on that path unless you
sort of decide what you really want. And deciding that
I wanted to try to find an agency that really
focused on nonprofits and kind of work for good became
a little bit of a passion for me. And so
(08:23):
when I moved back to Boston, I really only applied
to ARGUS. Found Argus through a friend I really only
applied there and they didn't really have a job opening
for me, so I went and applied for a much
more junior position and then spent a full day trying
to convince the owners that I was in a more
senior position.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And it worked. Yeah, that's awesome. But it's the kudos
for your condumption, you know, being a you know, wanting
to do it and going for it. And I want
to step back to what you said about what your
religious studies did for you and understanding really the background
of people, because what we do, at your best mind,
(09:05):
that's one of the key things that we do, is
we help people understand how the imprint, their brain print,
as I like to call it, their brain DNA code
is so unique to them and it's this combination of
that DNA code and then culture and how they were
raised and you know, all of that, and it really
does it helps us so much better to understand other
(09:27):
individuals better, right, to get along with them more, to
take the tension off of situations. If they disagree with us,
or they have an opposing view, it doesn't necessarily mean
they're wrong and I'm right. Oftentimes it just means different perspectives.
You know the way you look at things are different
and that's that's okay a lot of times. So I
(09:48):
appreciate that that's kind of where you stemmed from. And
you're bringing this this in now with your wanting to
would I would guess I would use the term be
with a company that you aligned with mentally, like that
you was working with the clients and being I don't
(10:10):
know if I want to say brave enough, being confident
enough in your mind to go I can do this
and I want to do this. What would be your
little piece of advice to like, was there a thought
process you went through where you just because I know
there are a lot of women out there who are
probably in similar seats to where you were ten years
(10:32):
ago or whenever that time was, where they're unhappy in
their job, they're unhappy in the company, the company culture
doesn't fit the direction they want to go in their life.
What would you tell them about making that move?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think it's really important to try to figure out
your own personal values, whether that's there's exercises online, through books,
through just kind of spending time thinking and putting things
down on paper. And sometimes when we say values, people
feel like they need to make it so precious, right,
it's about justice or it's about you know, we have
to pick these words that make us feel really good
(11:09):
about what we chose. But there are other There are
values that truly drive who you are and what you
do that I think we need to recognize. So, for instance,
I knew that I wanted to be doing this kind
of work for companies that I believed in, where the
money was going right, that it wasn't just CEO and
board members and stakeholders getting rich, but actually that was
(11:31):
impacting the people that the marketing should impact. So a
lot of times when we do public health campaigns or
public service campaigns, we really need to focus on the
audience it themselves. And so I knew that was really
important to me. At the same time, I knew that
I couldn't that I didn't want to just work at
a nonprofit. I knew that the speed at which I worked,
the intensity with which I worked, I loved having a
(11:53):
lot of different projects at once, which is what an
agency allows. And I also knew that I had an
interest in running a business, and Argus is a for
profit business. We are trying to grow, We're trying to
really balance this do well and do good and and
how can we and can we make that happen? And
so I had to be honest with myself that I
(12:13):
wanted to do well by doing good, but I also
wasn't willing to give up some of the some of
the goals I had in terms of being in leadership
and kind of climbing the corporate ladder a little bit,
and so really thinking about what those two things meant.
And so when going through my kind of values, understanding
(12:37):
that responsibility and leadership, these are things that were really
important to me and that I wanted to start focusing on.
And so you can have one of your values be
I want to save enough money that I can be
taking two great vacations, you know, throughout the year because
I want to see the world. That's a very very
noble and good value to have. And so so maybe
(13:00):
it does make sense for you to, you know, have
a job where you can make more money. I remember
when I was leaving my first job, which was at
a real estate agency, a real estate company, and this
is where, you know, I knew I didn't want to
be in that industry. I knew it wasn't for me.
I knew I needed to learn just enough marketing to
get me to get a job where I wanted. And
my supervisor said to me, people either need to do
(13:23):
work to live or live to work. She said, I
want to do all these other things in my life.
I want to learn about wine, and I want to
learn about pilates, and I want to do all this
other stuff, and my work needs to support that lifestyle.
And as I kind of grew up a little bit more,
I realized that I need to love my work. That's
really important to me. I love to work. I love
hard work, and so I need to care about that
(13:44):
because that is part of my life that I want
to focus on.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, and you don't want to be in any kind
of a job or a career where you're there for,
you know, fifty sixty hours a week like when you
especially when you consider the commuting and all of that.
You don't you don't want that large of a chunk
of your life to be in someplace where you're not happy.
And there isn't anything wrong with I love. One of
the networking organizations that I belong to and I coach
(14:11):
for is talks about you know, she talks about don't
be as women. Sometimes we get this dollar embarrassment. We
have this issue over making a lot of money, and
it's like, how are you going to do good? How
are you going to be able to give money to
your your desired nonprofit or to your desired contributions, or
(14:31):
be able to share your wisdom and knowledge with the
world if you're not making any money. Like it they
not that we want to, you know, say, okay, all
you women go out there and become millionaires. Just that
there's nothing balan with that.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, I think it's about that balance about you know what,
there's going to be sacrifices. No matter what decision you make.
There's there's benefits and sacrifices to every single decision you make.
I knew when I was given there was an opening
for me to step into more leadership of this compan
about seven years ago. I also knew I wanted to
have a second child. Those things happen really at pretty
(15:06):
much the exact same time, and it was really tough,
and I had to make some sacrifices in terms of
maternity leave and how much time I was spending at home.
At the same time, I knew that the other sacrifice
was to give up this moment. And so you know,
there's always many benefits and sacrifices that you have to
make in terms of how much money you can make,
how much time you can spend with family, how much
(15:26):
you know, how many hobbies you can have outside of work,
and so it's just about making those decisions a little
bit more intentionally than just letting them happen.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
That's good. That's a very good point. Taking control of
your life and letting instead of letting your life control you. Yeah,
very very good points, very good points. So tell us
a little You kind of have touched on what Argus
is and as an organization, but give us a little
bit more a detail on what you do, who you serve,
(15:56):
and then how you do it. Like we know you
work with with companies that are going to make a difference,
so to speak, but how do you do all of
this work?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So Argus is a marketing agency. We do advertising, marketing, branding,
and for campaigns we focused on behavior change. So a
lot of that is within the public health space. So
we might do a campaign around safe sleep. How do
new moms learn about how to put their babies in
(16:25):
a safe sleeping environment, When to be honest, a safe
sleeping environment for a baby looks kind of bare and
it doesn't feel warm and fuzzy.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
They're supposed to be on their backs with nothing around them,
you know, not putting a lot of stuffed animals in.
And so depending on how you grew up with your
life and what you know, that might feel like you're
not giving your child what they need. And so we
have to think about how do we create a campaign
that can educate and make people aware, but also make
the barrier to it less right, make it feel like
(16:59):
a loving thing to do for your child instead of
just you know, finger wagging the right thing to do.
So those are the kinds of campaigns that we work
on or branding in healthcare or nonprofits. And August was
a ten person company, a ten to fifteen person company
for many many years. And when I started and started
(17:19):
to learn more about how Argusts worked, it became very
apparent to me that we could grow the company in
order to better serve our clients and to serve more clients.
I also love the idea of building a company that
people want to work at and that they can grow,
you know, And like you just said, I want to
have a space where people can come and grow and
make more money and learn more so that they can
(17:41):
then you know, feel good about their career trajectory. So
we August does have a full account management, a strategy team.
We do all of our creative and production in house
as well, so it's kind of these three different, three
to four different teams working together for every single client.
And our clients are really nonprofits. We do a lot
of work with state clients around public health or problem gambling,
(18:05):
around traffic safety, things like that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Very interesting, you know. It's so I tell people the time,
it's really interesting being in the in the work that
I do, different clients that have hired me to come
do trainings and keynotes and things like that. I've met
some of the most like companies that you didn't even
know existed, and I would have never like, as you're
(18:28):
explaining what you do, it's I guess I just always
in my mind looked at it as they probably have
their own in house people as opposed to having an
agency that works with them, that works for them well.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And what part of what we're trying to do is
prove the model that those kinds of companies should have
an agency, right, So just the same way big companies
like a Doritos or bud Light, they have agencies that
come up with a bunch of different ideas and figure
out how to put these commercials together. We want to
take that thinking and strategic background expertise it to companies
and organizations that are that are doing good. So that
(19:04):
is really our goal is and COVID frankly made people
really look at their lives and say, what am I doing?
Where am I putting my expertise? Am I enjoying myself?
Am I just working from home and not seeing other people?
And so we started to build the company right around
that time, and part of it was to say, hey,
you've had this experience, you have this expertise, and now
(19:26):
if you can apply that to these great organizations that
are putting good out there in the world, then we
can change the world a little bit. You know, want
people to have that optism that that's a little bit
of what we're trying to do. Knowing that marketing isn't
you know, creating vaccines or you know, people, but it
is something that is out there and so we might
(19:47):
as well try to shift it a little bit to
have that messages that are helping people a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, No, I think that's I think that's excellent because
there's so many I love the fact that you work
with nonprofits because a lot of nonprofits struggle, I think,
and I've noticed this because there's I interact with women
on the entrepreneur side who run nonprofits, and there some
of them are amazing, wonderful nonprofits, and they're the best
(20:14):
kept secret, like nobody knows knows about them, and they
struggle to just stay you know, stay afloat and market
I could see how, you know, an agency such as
yours would be so incredibly beneficial for them because it
would make their awareness so much better. As you you know,
in the public sector.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And I think people who run who work at nonprofits
and in public sector often care. I mean, they care
so much about what they're doing and the impact they're having.
But that means that often, you know, it becomes this
kind of inside baseball talk right where where they're so
focused on how they do something, and the truth is
is that you kind of need to be on the
out side to see how to simplify that. And and
(20:55):
you know, we also really work a lot with the
audiences that our clients are trying to serve and make
sure that we're hearing from them this co creation that
we're not coming in and saying, oh, we.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Know it's best.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You know, we don't know it's best. This goes back
to the conversation around lived realities and understanding people have
completely different lived realities and if you actually want to
make an impact, you have to learn from them and
with them and not just take your experience and say
this is how it should be done. And so a
lot of the work that we do is around being
and co creating and testing with the audiences that we're
(21:28):
trying to reach.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
That's awesome, And is that what you Part of what
you talk about is behavior change marketing, like actually changing
the behavior of an individual are you Are you talking
about changing the behavior from a like a buying point
of view, the buying behavior. We hear about that when
they do surveys and whatnot. But is it that or
(21:52):
is it more like marketing towards having someone change their
behavior gambling? You mentioned gambling earlier, Like is it more
along those types of lines where you're like, let's change
what could be very negative behavior for people and their
their their surrounding, you know, sphere of influence versus you know,
(22:14):
changing a buying behavior to make them buy Dorito's instead
of lace.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I don't know, right, exactly, no, So we we definitely
focus more on the actual behaviors like gambling for instance.
And our you know, our tagline used to be we
sell good not goods, so we really don't sell a
lot of products, right, So we really take marketing and
apply it to social issues more and so the behavior change.
(22:39):
For instance, we did a campaign around seat belt use,
and seatbelt use is really high except for this very
small subset of people, and that was men who drive
pickup trucks or men who drive trucks, and that was
a very very low percentage of those that group were
wearing their seatbelts. And so it's the law in Massachusetts
(23:00):
that wasn't changing anything. It's obviously safer, that wasn't changing anything.
And what we found was that they buckled up mostly
when their moms were in the car, not their wives,
not their girlfriends, but if their daughters or moms were
in the car, then they would buckle up. So we
created a campaign around love your Mom, buckle up and
actually worked with truck drivers in Massachusetts and kind of
(23:23):
paid people to put decals on their cars because it
was sort of like I'm doing this, now will you
do this? And it had a huge behavior change increase
in terms of the amount of seatbelts that were being
used during that time period. And so that's the kind
of behavior change or around you know, thinking about gambling
is everywhere now. People are sports are betting, you know,
(23:43):
sports betting all the time, and so trying to change
habits and trying to make it more normal to say
to your friend like, hey, are you sure you want
to bet on that? You know, are you sure that
you want to be doing that right now? And trying
to show people that gambling does have risks in addition
to the fact that it can be fun and social.
So we're talking about those kinds of behaviors mostly.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I like that it's and it's there. They're obviously more
important behaviors to change, and I can I'm getting a
really good and having this conversation with you, I am
definitely getting a really good feel of the work that
you do and the pride that the company takes. And
I can see why it's a fast growing company because
(24:28):
it's obviously a good the principles, the values that are
based that your company is based on, or the company
that you're CEO of. Now, obviously, for every woman who
has a has a career, every entrepreneurial woman who has
their own business, in order to reach a certain level
(24:51):
of success in that business or in that career, you
have to you have to, as you said earlier, you
have to have establish a balance, and there are some
things that you have to give up. There are some
changes that you have to make in your life. What
difficult decisions or challenges or obstacles have you had to
overcome in your path to running this organization that is
(25:17):
a you know, a passion of yours. I have two
little kids.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I have two boys, one is almost eight and the
others five and a half. And I've also been running
this company for the past five or six years. So
over the overlap of having small children and taking overrunning
the company was a was a strong overlap that then
Diagram had a strong overlap. And you know, I think
that there were there were a few things that really
(25:43):
helped me. One was I when I was very, very
pregnant with my first I happened to run into this
woman who I used to babysit for when I was little,
and I remember thinking, when I was, you know, a teenager, Oh,
she has such a cool job. I knew she had
an important job. I knew that she had a big job.
I didn't know what it was at the time. I
do now, but I didn't know what it was at
the time, but I remember, but I bumped into her
(26:06):
and I was clearly very pregnant, and she said, you
are going to need to time is going to be
your biggest the thing that you care about most, and
so you need to be careful with that time. You
need to outsource where you can, and you need to
outsource where you don't think it's important. And I came
from a family where everyone we all did our own chores,
(26:26):
you know, we it was chores were very important, and
I wanted to have that same kind of work ethic
with my children. And so it's figuring out, Okay, where
is it okay to outsource because the time together as
a family is more important, and where is it important
to do those things together to show we need to
keep our house together and we need to do you know,
we need to have that work ethic. And so but
I have found that being able to compartmentalize outsourcing certain
(26:50):
things has been crucial. And you do need help, you
do need need a village. I've really tried to work
hard to bring my family in, my parents and in
laws into my family, so that there's some joy in
it with them, but also we can ask for help.
And then the other So that's the part outsourcing and
being okay with that that you aren't gonna be able
(27:11):
to do everything and you have to just make those choices.
And then the other part was really thinking of this
as a changing situation. When I first had my children
and they were babies, I needed to be home much
earlier because they went to bed earlier and I was
often the source of their dinner, of their food, right,
and then I was able to start changing things a
(27:35):
little bit. Right, So now that my children are in school,
I try to leave work early two days a week,
get there for teams and sports, and be home for dinner.
And then two days a week or so I have
events to go late. And so really trying to think
of it as a consistently changing balance and that you
are prioritizing what is important to you in that moment,
(27:55):
because that can change, right, You don't need to make
these hard and fast rules. And that was really liberating
for me to start thinking about this as something more fluid.
Then I need to put up my boundaries, and this
is my boundary, because there were times where I'd say
to myself, I really want to go to this event.
I think it's really important, and I know I'm going
to missed time for the third time this week. Doesn't
feel great. At the same time, I know that next
(28:17):
week I can change that dynamic and be home more.
And so that was really helpful to me to think about,
is that this is fluid and you can change your mind.
You can change your mind all the time. You can
change your mind and say I want to be out
at events and I want to be pushing myself and
then say, actually I don't anymore. I want to pull back.
And being okay with that, I think is what the balance,
(28:37):
because the balance isn't fifty to fifty daily.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Right, Yeah, I agree, one hundred percent. I like using
the terms a work life integration and work life harmony,
you know, because sometimes there's high notes and sometimes there's
low notes, and you have to learn that kind of
the ebb and flow and sometimes the child gets sick,
or sometimes the child makes it to the play in
(29:01):
you know something and that that's going to take extra
or sometimes there's deadlines that you have to hit. You know,
a big client is coming in and so you have
to put a little bit more more work there. And
I like I like that you that piece of advice
that you that you give and that you got because
it helps because oftentimes women have this guilt that's over
(29:24):
their head, right. They want to be able to do everything.
They want to be able to fulfill every single aspect
of their career or their entrepreneur business, and they want
to be that mom, you know, the one that's the
pta mom that does the big cells, it does everything.
And I love what you said earlier about outsourcing and
you applied it to the family and the family extended
(29:48):
family unit, and you know, I love if there's if
there's silver linings to what we experienced in the you know,
through all of the lockdown and that transition, it was
like all of a sudden we realized, Hey, I don't
have to spend an hour walking through the grocery store.
I can spend fifteen minutes online place the order. Somebody
(30:09):
else can do that shopping, I give them a little
tip and I just saved myself forty five minutes. I
mean that those types of things that we learned out
of that experience, I think are wonderful and we can
do that and let go of the guilt of it. No,
I don't have to do that.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
The LinkedIn post I had that had the most engagement
was I was starting to realize my sister is younger
than me and her friends were starting to have kids,
and I started to realize that nobody actually talks about
what it takes to have a big job and to
have kids. And so I wrote a post and it
was based on an article i'd read. This is what
(30:45):
I do. And I was nervous to put it out
there because it does mean that I'm spending money on
childcare and I'm spending money on you know, groceries being delivered.
And I understand completely why women say childcare is so expensive.
I completely understand and why women say, well, it doesn't
make sense for me to continue in my role. And
I think there are so many options nowadays to pause
(31:07):
your career to be stay at home. There's so many
options out there, but there is also an option to say, yeah,
this doesn't make sense right now, but it makes sense
for my future. And that's for me. I knew in
that moment I am spending way too much on you know,
childcred outsourcing. But this is because I know what this
could look like in a few years, and that was
a choice. And there's so many I do think there
(31:29):
are more choices now out there for women to be
part time entrepreneur on their own, staying at home and helping.
There's so many different options, and so I love that
this is a conversation that's out there now.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, and I think some of the because it's an
open conversation, it allows women to feel more comfortable in
expressing their feelings around it and kind of taking It's
like the mental health mental wellness piece, you know, talking
about it more raises awareness to it and starts to
pull the stigma off of it. And it's the same
(32:04):
with you know, women and making their choices about their career, family,
all of that and taking that stigma off and opening
up that dialogue I think is incredibly incredibly powerful. Well
we are I'm looking at the clock going, wow, that
time went really fast. So it's been a wonderful conversation
(32:25):
as we wrap it up, Caitlin, what obviously being the
Women Excelling Everywhere program we podcast, we have primarily female
listeners who some of them are entrepreneurs. We're working more
with corporate women, women who are working in their careers
and who want to merge into that leadership role and
(32:47):
do so with and successfully and no guilty conscience around
what advice you talked a little bit about someone who
gave you advice in your life. What advice, what piece
that final piece of advice would you give to the
listeners today?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I think two things. If you want to be an entrepreneur,
understand the money piece of it too. Put yourself in
that position to figure that out. One of the first
things I did was during COVID, YouTube, books, podcasts, anything
I could do to understand how to read a P
and L statement, how that all works, how the money works,
because I knew I couldn't just do it based on
(33:25):
the work we were doing. But also how does this
what does the back end look like? I think understanding
money is something that women need to spend more time on.
And then the second thing is everything starts to change
for me when I decided there was somebody else who
had a similar role to me at this big meeting,
and he was few years older, and he was a man,
(33:45):
and he kept saying things, and every time he said it,
I thought, I thought that I should have said that,
I could have said that, And so I started to
play a little game with myself, which was, when you
have a thought, say it out loud, because so often
as women, we think so much about whether it's the
right thing to say, how we're going to say it,
And there's so much in just practice. There's so much
(34:06):
in just doing this idea of whether you're scared, you
can still do it. You know, it takes more. It's
more about courage than than confidence. And so this idea
that just kind of put yourself out there over and
over again because the first few times maybe may be clunky,
but you're going to learn a lot more from doing
it than you are from just sitting there thinking or
writing down what your ideas are. So just just kind
(34:29):
of put yourself out there's it's what's the worst is
going to happen?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, yep, yeah, I love that. I love that step
into it with confidence. What we want we want our
women to do, just like embrace who there are, their
natural gifts there, the beauty of their what I call
their brain personality connection and own it and bring it
to the world because we're not we're not benefiting anyone,
including ourselves, by keeping our mouth, you know, being quiet.
(34:59):
Be loud. Yeah, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Well.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
It has been a wonderful conversation, Caitlin. Thank you so
much for being on the program. Thank you for sharing
not just your what your company does, but also the
wisdom and experience that you've had that can help other
women to to move through their career. Entrepreneur, endeavor, whatever that,
whatever that looks like, parenthood, whatever that looks like. So
(35:27):
for those of you, I encouraged everyone to stay connected
with Caitlin. We are put it going to put You'll
see in the show notes or in the in the
comments below. All of her links to connect with her
on LinkedIn. She is and it's all pretty much think
argust a r g U S and it's LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook,
(35:49):
think think argust I think it's the company on LinkedIn, Yeah,
and then some Twitter and some some X I guess
is what it's called. And Instagram so wonderful her. The
website is Thinkarguss dot Calm some good information on there
(36:09):
to get to know more about the company that Caitlin
works for. So once again, thank you very much for
being on.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Loved doing this absolutely absolutely great conversation and for the listeners,
stay connected with us at Women are Excelling everywhere. That
is our that is what we want to do. We
want to help women to excel wherever they are at.
That's our passion. With the group that we are building here.
We do have a private membership group that is kind
of like your own little private Facebook with just a
(36:38):
few other members who are there to and no you know,
scrolling advertising pop ups, just a safe place to discuss
all different topics we discussed. Every month we go over
a different topic, everything from setting your business plan in place,
to dealing with difficult people, to dealing with stress, to
hitting goals. This month is all about women's health, so
(37:01):
that's the discussion that's on the table all month long.
So we'd love to have you join us within that
private Facebook group or that private it's not on Facebook sorry,
that private membership group, and then we'd also like you
to interact here with this conversation. If you have feelings
about it, you liked what was said, be sure to
leave us a comment on the YouTube channel, or go
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(37:25):
listen to your podcast, give us a thumbs up, share it,
share out the information if you thought it was a
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positive comment because all those things just help to get
this into more people's hands. We also have our wonderful
collaborative book entitled Women Excelling Everywhere. If you want more
information about that, be sure to reach out to us.
You can send us a and email at info at
(37:48):
women Excelling Everywhere dot com. And if you have a
great show, guest idea or topic idea, or you yourself
would love to be featured on the Women Excelling Everywhere probe,
please reach out us out to us on to at
that email as well, follow us on Instagram and our
website is Women Excelling Everywhere dot Thank you very much
(38:11):
for spending this time. We are honored that you took
it to be with us, and until next time, take
a nice deep breath, go out there and simply enjoy
every month
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. I am Julie Anderson,
and we are here on the Women Excelling Everywhere Podcast
video cast and I'm excited to be doing another wonderful interview.
I am really looking forward to our guest today because
marketing and all that kind of stuff is not my forte.
So I love to get all of the all of
(00:29):
the input, and her company looks like it is quite
quite extensive in everything that they do, so I'm very
much looking forward to getting to know Caitlin Dodge and
her company more So, welcome Caitlin to the Women Excelling
Everywhere Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Thank you so much. I'm so thrilled to be here
and to talk about our guests and hear more from you.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I love it. I love it. So I can't wait
to find out just how you got here and get
into some really meaty stuff. I love to have tap
into your wisdom and find out more about your journey.
But first for the audience, I'm just going to go
ahead and read your professional bio and then you might
(01:11):
let us know a little bit more as we go
through the conversation. But you are CEO of Argus, and
you are the one that drives the vision and growth
of the agency across operations, client relations, and strategic direction.
Your expertise are her expertise. Caitlin's expertise and council has
been highly prized by leaders and organizations across many sectors.
(01:36):
Under Caitlin's leadership, Argus has landed, has landed on the
Boston Business Journals Fast fifty for three years, INC Five hundreds,
Fastest Growing Private Companies in America and Or for the
past three years, and has captured numerous industry and marketing awards.
Caitlin since sits on the Create Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce,
(01:57):
Boston Interactive Media Association. It's aboutful right Boston and a
better city, and we're going to talk about cultivating fulfillment
in life and work with Caitlin Dodge today. Caitlin, once again,
welcome to the WE program.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Great, thank you again so much for having me. And
I'm really excited to jump in and talk about this.
And I love that this is a podcast focused on women.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, you know, it's it's kind of a little bit
of my passion. I just we've worked with this for
many years and had our ups and downs, but we
love focusing on the a little bit different challenges that
women face in the industry and especially as leaders in
the industry. When you read through your bio, it's very
impressive what you've accomplished, and we'd love to have that
(02:49):
inspiration bring on share with other individuals as well, so
we know what you're currently doing, but tell us a
little bit about about the other side, like what what
led you to developing a because I would you put
Argus as a marketing agency? Is that kind of how
(03:11):
you would describe it.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, we call it a marketing agency, but really we
focus on branding and behavior change and we only work
with clients that close gaps in health, wealth, climate, culture,
and education. So basically, our goal is to bring world
class talent to these world bettering organizations like nonprofits, public
sector foundations.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
The idea of being so.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Many of the best campaigns and thinking end up going
to organizations that can afford it, can afford really big agencies,
and can afford these amazing people. But that doesn't necessarily
mean that that best thinking is going to the organizations
that are putting good out there in the world. So
we're trying to flip that a little bit and bring
(03:54):
people with that kind of experience into an agency that
is the only focuses on nonprofits, public sector foundations, and
public health things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Beautiful beautiful. Now that's it's a big I mean, it's
obviously it's grown into quite a big company. Now when
you is that kind of what you thought of when
you graduated high school and went into college, like you
were thinking, Oh, I want to be a marketing professional
or tell us a little bit about the other side
of Caitlin.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, so I would say that, you know, my idea
around how people think and how they help people learn
how to think and believe what they believe started early on,
and so in college. Actually I was a religious studies major,
but not from the point of view of being necessarily
religious myself. But I had a class with my freshman
year that really looked at how people get to think
(04:43):
and believe what they think and believe, and that really
struck a chord with me because so often, I mean, nowadays,
this is a very hot topic, right, so many times
we look at people and think, how could you ever
think that way? You know, how could you believe that
what someone else is saying? But the truth is that
everyone has their reasonings. They've been brought up in a
certain way, they've had their own lived experience in a
(05:05):
certain way, their world and life has been shaped. And
if we don't understand how people get to think it
in a certain way, then we'll never understand or be
able to have, you know, good conversations about how to
come together. And so that's sort of where I came
from in my religious studies background, and then of course
graduated college and realize I actually had no idea what
(05:28):
I wanted to do with that or with my life,
and so but I but I always had that in
the back of my head. And so my first position
was actually not in marketing, but in that position realize
what marketing did in terms of applying how people think
to the actual day to day of what people see. Right, So,
(05:48):
if you're walking down the street, marketing is everywhere. Right,
It isn't just TV, it isn't just radio. You walk
down the street, you're driving, you're listening to a podcast,
whatever it is you're doing, there'ally some kind of marketing
that is helping to support it, which means it ends
up being almost a public education of sorts. Right, what
does the world think is important? That's what gets paid
(06:11):
for and that's what you see out there. So I
decided I wanted to go into marketing. My first marketing
position was at Smithsonian Enterprises. I was in the New
York office, focusing as a marketing manager, focusing on advertisers
and working with agencies on the publication, then the magazine,
the TV and the website. And through that I started
(06:32):
working with agencies. But what I loved about working at
Smithsonian was at the end of the day, all of
my effort was going to something good, Like I knew
that it was going towards the zoos and the educational programs,
and so I always said to myself, like, even when
I was having a really bad day, this this is
for the greater good. This is good, And that kind
of helped propel me, help propel me forward. And then
(06:54):
I wanted to check out what it was like to
work on an agency side. But it's really hard to
get into the agency world if you don't start there,
and so I really started to focus on how do
I break into the agency world through a smaller agency
where I can hopefully learn a bunch of different skills
at the same time, instead of going to a really
large agency where you kind of get funneled into one
(07:18):
sort of one pathway, and so I lent at an
agency in DC that really had different, really different sets
of clients. I had some nonprofit clients and hospital clients,
and then I also had clients that were selling cars
or political views that I didn't agree with. And so
(07:39):
it was at that moment that I had a particular
meeting and a particular situation where I realized that I
didn't necessarily agree with what I was selling. And I
think when you're younger, you're trying to get a job,
you're trying to manage your life, you're trying to save
some money, You're trying to do all these different things
and still kind of be and then there's a moment
(08:01):
that you realize your career is on a path and
it's going to keep going on that path unless you
sort of decide what you really want. And deciding that
I wanted to try to find an agency that really
focused on nonprofits and kind of work for good became
a little bit of a passion for me. And so
(08:23):
when I moved back to Boston, I really only applied
to ARGUS. Found Argus through a friend I really only
applied there and they didn't really have a job opening
for me, so I went and applied for a much
more junior position and then spent a full day trying
to convince the owners that I was in a more
senior position.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And it worked. Yeah, that's awesome. But it's the kudos
for your condumption, you know, being a you know, wanting
to do it and going for it. And I want
to step back to what you said about what your
religious studies did for you and understanding really the background
of people, because what we do, at your best mind,
(09:05):
that's one of the key things that we do, is
we help people understand how the imprint, their brain print,
as I like to call it, their brain DNA code
is so unique to them and it's this combination of
that DNA code and then culture and how they were
raised and you know, all of that, and it really
does it helps us so much better to understand other
(09:27):
individuals better, right, to get along with them more, to
take the tension off of situations. If they disagree with us,
or they have an opposing view, it doesn't necessarily mean
they're wrong and I'm right. Oftentimes it just means different perspectives.
You know the way you look at things are different
and that's that's okay a lot of times. So I
(09:48):
appreciate that that's kind of where you stemmed from. And
you're bringing this this in now with your wanting to
would I would guess I would use the term be
with a company that you aligned with mentally, like that
you was working with the clients and being I don't
(10:10):
know if I want to say brave enough, being confident
enough in your mind to go I can do this
and I want to do this. What would be your
little piece of advice to like, was there a thought
process you went through where you just because I know
there are a lot of women out there who are
probably in similar seats to where you were ten years
(10:32):
ago or whenever that time was, where they're unhappy in
their job, they're unhappy in the company, the company culture
doesn't fit the direction they want to go in their life.
What would you tell them about making that move?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think it's really important to try to figure out
your own personal values, whether that's there's exercises online, through books,
through just kind of spending time thinking and putting things
down on paper. And sometimes when we say values, people
feel like they need to make it so precious, right,
it's about justice or it's about you know, we have
to pick these words that make us feel really good
(11:09):
about what we chose. But there are other There are
values that truly drive who you are and what you
do that I think we need to recognize. So, for instance,
I knew that I wanted to be doing this kind
of work for companies that I believed in, where the
money was going right, that it wasn't just CEO and
board members and stakeholders getting rich, but actually that was
(11:31):
impacting the people that the marketing should impact. So a
lot of times when we do public health campaigns or
public service campaigns, we really need to focus on the
audience it themselves. And so I knew that was really
important to me. At the same time, I knew that
I couldn't that I didn't want to just work at
a nonprofit. I knew that the speed at which I worked,
the intensity with which I worked, I loved having a
(11:53):
lot of different projects at once, which is what an
agency allows. And I also knew that I had an
interest in running a business, and Argus is a for
profit business. We are trying to grow, We're trying to
really balance this do well and do good and and
how can we and can we make that happen? And
so I had to be honest with myself that I
(12:13):
wanted to do well by doing good, but I also
wasn't willing to give up some of the some of
the goals I had in terms of being in leadership
and kind of climbing the corporate ladder a little bit,
and so really thinking about what those two things meant.
And so when going through my kind of values, understanding
(12:37):
that responsibility and leadership, these are things that were really
important to me and that I wanted to start focusing on.
And so you can have one of your values be
I want to save enough money that I can be
taking two great vacations, you know, throughout the year because
I want to see the world. That's a very very
noble and good value to have. And so so maybe
(13:00):
it does make sense for you to, you know, have
a job where you can make more money. I remember
when I was leaving my first job, which was at
a real estate agency, a real estate company, and this
is where, you know, I knew I didn't want to
be in that industry. I knew it wasn't for me.
I knew I needed to learn just enough marketing to
get me to get a job where I wanted. And
my supervisor said to me, people either need to do
(13:23):
work to live or live to work. She said, I
want to do all these other things in my life.
I want to learn about wine, and I want to
learn about pilates, and I want to do all this
other stuff, and my work needs to support that lifestyle.
And as I kind of grew up a little bit more,
I realized that I need to love my work. That's
really important to me. I love to work. I love
hard work, and so I need to care about that
(13:44):
because that is part of my life that I want
to focus on.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, and you don't want to be in any kind
of a job or a career where you're there for,
you know, fifty sixty hours a week like when you
especially when you consider the commuting and all of that.
You don't you don't want that large of a chunk
of your life to be in someplace where you're not happy.
And there isn't anything wrong with I love. One of
the networking organizations that I belong to and I coach
(14:11):
for is talks about you know, she talks about don't
be as women. Sometimes we get this dollar embarrassment. We
have this issue over making a lot of money, and
it's like, how are you going to do good? How
are you going to be able to give money to
your your desired nonprofit or to your desired contributions, or
(14:31):
be able to share your wisdom and knowledge with the
world if you're not making any money. Like it they
not that we want to, you know, say, okay, all
you women go out there and become millionaires. Just that
there's nothing balan with that.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah, I think it's about that balance about you know what,
there's going to be sacrifices. No matter what decision you make.
There's there's benefits and sacrifices to every single decision you make.
I knew when I was given there was an opening
for me to step into more leadership of this compan
about seven years ago. I also knew I wanted to
have a second child. Those things happen really at pretty
(15:06):
much the exact same time, and it was really tough,
and I had to make some sacrifices in terms of
maternity leave and how much time I was spending at home.
At the same time, I knew that the other sacrifice
was to give up this moment. And so you know,
there's always many benefits and sacrifices that you have to
make in terms of how much money you can make,
how much time you can spend with family, how much
(15:26):
you know, how many hobbies you can have outside of work,
and so it's just about making those decisions a little
bit more intentionally than just letting them happen.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
That's good. That's a very good point. Taking control of
your life and letting instead of letting your life control you. Yeah,
very very good points, very good points. So tell us
a little You kind of have touched on what Argus
is and as an organization, but give us a little
bit more a detail on what you do, who you serve,
(15:56):
and then how you do it. Like we know you
work with with companies that are going to make a difference,
so to speak, but how do you do all of
this work?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So Argus is a marketing agency. We do advertising, marketing, branding,
and for campaigns we focused on behavior change. So a
lot of that is within the public health space. So
we might do a campaign around safe sleep. How do
new moms learn about how to put their babies in
(16:25):
a safe sleeping environment, When to be honest, a safe
sleeping environment for a baby looks kind of bare and
it doesn't feel warm and fuzzy.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
They're supposed to be on their backs with nothing around them,
you know, not putting a lot of stuffed animals in.
And so depending on how you grew up with your
life and what you know, that might feel like you're
not giving your child what they need. And so we
have to think about how do we create a campaign
that can educate and make people aware, but also make
the barrier to it less right, make it feel like
(16:59):
a loving thing to do for your child instead of
just you know, finger wagging the right thing to do.
So those are the kinds of campaigns that we work
on or branding in healthcare or nonprofits. And August was
a ten person company, a ten to fifteen person company
for many many years. And when I started and started
(17:19):
to learn more about how Argusts worked, it became very
apparent to me that we could grow the company in
order to better serve our clients and to serve more clients.
I also love the idea of building a company that
people want to work at and that they can grow,
you know, And like you just said, I want to
have a space where people can come and grow and
make more money and learn more so that they can
(17:41):
then you know, feel good about their career trajectory. So
we August does have a full account management, a strategy team.
We do all of our creative and production in house
as well, so it's kind of these three different, three
to four different teams working together for every single client.
And our clients are really nonprofits. We do a lot
of work with state clients around public health or problem gambling,
(18:05):
around traffic safety, things like that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Very interesting, you know. It's so I tell people the time,
it's really interesting being in the in the work that
I do, different clients that have hired me to come
do trainings and keynotes and things like that. I've met
some of the most like companies that you didn't even
know existed, and I would have never like, as you're
(18:28):
explaining what you do, it's I guess I just always
in my mind looked at it as they probably have
their own in house people as opposed to having an
agency that works with them, that works for them well.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And what part of what we're trying to do is
prove the model that those kinds of companies should have
an agency, right, So just the same way big companies
like a Doritos or bud Light, they have agencies that
come up with a bunch of different ideas and figure
out how to put these commercials together. We want to
take that thinking and strategic background expertise it to companies
and organizations that are that are doing good. So that
(19:04):
is really our goal is and COVID frankly made people
really look at their lives and say, what am I doing?
Where am I putting my expertise? Am I enjoying myself?
Am I just working from home and not seeing other people?
And so we started to build the company right around
that time, and part of it was to say, hey,
you've had this experience, you have this expertise, and now
(19:26):
if you can apply that to these great organizations that
are putting good out there in the world, then we
can change the world a little bit. You know, want
people to have that optism that that's a little bit
of what we're trying to do. Knowing that marketing isn't
you know, creating vaccines or you know, people, but it
is something that is out there and so we might
(19:47):
as well try to shift it a little bit to
have that messages that are helping people a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, No, I think that's I think that's excellent because
there's so many I love the fact that you work
with nonprofits because a lot of nonprofits struggle, I think,
and I've noticed this because there's I interact with women
on the entrepreneur side who run nonprofits, and there some
of them are amazing, wonderful nonprofits, and they're the best
(20:14):
kept secret, like nobody knows knows about them, and they
struggle to just stay you know, stay afloat and market
I could see how, you know, an agency such as
yours would be so incredibly beneficial for them because it
would make their awareness so much better. As you you know,
in the public sector.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And I think people who run who work at nonprofits
and in public sector often care. I mean, they care
so much about what they're doing and the impact they're having.
But that means that often, you know, it becomes this
kind of inside baseball talk right where where they're so
focused on how they do something, and the truth is
is that you kind of need to be on the
out side to see how to simplify that. And and
(20:55):
you know, we also really work a lot with the
audiences that our clients are trying to serve and make
sure that we're hearing from them this co creation that
we're not coming in and saying, oh, we.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Know it's best.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You know, we don't know it's best. This goes back
to the conversation around lived realities and understanding people have
completely different lived realities and if you actually want to
make an impact, you have to learn from them and
with them and not just take your experience and say
this is how it should be done. And so a
lot of the work that we do is around being
and co creating and testing with the audiences that we're
(21:28):
trying to reach.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
That's awesome, And is that what you Part of what
you talk about is behavior change marketing, like actually changing
the behavior of an individual are you Are you talking
about changing the behavior from a like a buying point
of view, the buying behavior. We hear about that when
they do surveys and whatnot. But is it that or
(21:52):
is it more like marketing towards having someone change their
behavior gambling? You mentioned gambling earlier, Like is it more
along those types of lines where you're like, let's change
what could be very negative behavior for people and their
their their surrounding, you know, sphere of influence versus you know,
(22:14):
changing a buying behavior to make them buy Dorito's instead
of lace.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I don't know, right, exactly, no, So we we definitely
focus more on the actual behaviors like gambling for instance.
And our you know, our tagline used to be we
sell good not goods, so we really don't sell a
lot of products, right, So we really take marketing and
apply it to social issues more and so the behavior change.
(22:39):
For instance, we did a campaign around seat belt use,
and seatbelt use is really high except for this very
small subset of people, and that was men who drive
pickup trucks or men who drive trucks, and that was
a very very low percentage of those that group were
wearing their seatbelts. And so it's the law in Massachusetts
(23:00):
that wasn't changing anything. It's obviously safer, that wasn't changing anything.
And what we found was that they buckled up mostly
when their moms were in the car, not their wives,
not their girlfriends, but if their daughters or moms were
in the car, then they would buckle up. So we
created a campaign around love your Mom, buckle up and
actually worked with truck drivers in Massachusetts and kind of
(23:23):
paid people to put decals on their cars because it
was sort of like I'm doing this, now will you
do this? And it had a huge behavior change increase
in terms of the amount of seatbelts that were being
used during that time period. And so that's the kind
of behavior change or around you know, thinking about gambling
is everywhere now. People are sports are betting, you know,
(23:43):
sports betting all the time, and so trying to change
habits and trying to make it more normal to say
to your friend like, hey, are you sure you want
to bet on that? You know, are you sure that
you want to be doing that right now? And trying
to show people that gambling does have risks in addition
to the fact that it can be fun and social.
So we're talking about those kinds of behaviors mostly.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
I like that it's and it's there. They're obviously more
important behaviors to change, and I can I'm getting a
really good and having this conversation with you, I am
definitely getting a really good feel of the work that
you do and the pride that the company takes. And
I can see why it's a fast growing company because
(24:28):
it's obviously a good the principles, the values that are
based that your company is based on, or the company
that you're CEO of. Now, obviously, for every woman who
has a has a career, every entrepreneurial woman who has
their own business, in order to reach a certain level
(24:51):
of success in that business or in that career, you
have to you have to, as you said earlier, you
have to have establish a balance, and there are some
things that you have to give up. There are some
changes that you have to make in your life. What
difficult decisions or challenges or obstacles have you had to
overcome in your path to running this organization that is
(25:17):
a you know, a passion of yours. I have two
little kids.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I have two boys, one is almost eight and the
others five and a half. And I've also been running
this company for the past five or six years. So
over the overlap of having small children and taking overrunning
the company was a was a strong overlap that then
Diagram had a strong overlap. And you know, I think
that there were there were a few things that really
(25:43):
helped me. One was I when I was very, very
pregnant with my first I happened to run into this
woman who I used to babysit for when I was little,
and I remember thinking, when I was, you know, a teenager, Oh,
she has such a cool job. I knew she had
an important job. I knew that she had a big job.
I didn't know what it was at the time. I
do now, but I didn't know what it was at
the time, but I remember, but I bumped into her
(26:06):
and I was clearly very pregnant, and she said, you
are going to need to time is going to be
your biggest the thing that you care about most, and
so you need to be careful with that time. You
need to outsource where you can, and you need to
outsource where you don't think it's important. And I came
from a family where everyone we all did our own chores,
(26:26):
you know, we it was chores were very important, and
I wanted to have that same kind of work ethic
with my children. And so it's figuring out, Okay, where
is it okay to outsource because the time together as
a family is more important, and where is it important
to do those things together to show we need to
keep our house together and we need to do you know,
we need to have that work ethic. And so but
I have found that being able to compartmentalize outsourcing certain
(26:50):
things has been crucial. And you do need help, you
do need need a village. I've really tried to work
hard to bring my family in, my parents and in
laws into my family, so that there's some joy in
it with them, but also we can ask for help.
And then the other So that's the part outsourcing and
being okay with that that you aren't gonna be able
(27:11):
to do everything and you have to just make those choices.
And then the other part was really thinking of this
as a changing situation. When I first had my children
and they were babies, I needed to be home much
earlier because they went to bed earlier and I was
often the source of their dinner, of their food, right,
and then I was able to start changing things a
(27:35):
little bit. Right, So now that my children are in school,
I try to leave work early two days a week,
get there for teams and sports, and be home for dinner.
And then two days a week or so I have
events to go late. And so really trying to think
of it as a consistently changing balance and that you
are prioritizing what is important to you in that moment,
(27:55):
because that can change, right, You don't need to make
these hard and fast rules. And that was really liberating
for me to start thinking about this as something more fluid.
Then I need to put up my boundaries, and this
is my boundary, because there were times where I'd say
to myself, I really want to go to this event.
I think it's really important, and I know I'm going
to missed time for the third time this week. Doesn't
feel great. At the same time, I know that next
(28:17):
week I can change that dynamic and be home more.
And so that was really helpful to me to think about,
is that this is fluid and you can change your mind.
You can change your mind all the time. You can
change your mind and say I want to be out
at events and I want to be pushing myself and
then say, actually I don't anymore. I want to pull back.
And being okay with that, I think is what the balance,
(28:37):
because the balance isn't fifty to fifty daily.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Right, Yeah, I agree, one hundred percent. I like using
the terms a work life integration and work life harmony,
you know, because sometimes there's high notes and sometimes there's
low notes, and you have to learn that kind of
the ebb and flow and sometimes the child gets sick,
or sometimes the child makes it to the play in
(29:01):
you know something and that that's going to take extra
or sometimes there's deadlines that you have to hit. You know,
a big client is coming in and so you have
to put a little bit more more work there. And
I like I like that you that piece of advice
that you that you give and that you got because
it helps because oftentimes women have this guilt that's over
(29:24):
their head, right. They want to be able to do everything.
They want to be able to fulfill every single aspect
of their career or their entrepreneur business, and they want
to be that mom, you know, the one that's the
pta mom that does the big cells, it does everything.
And I love what you said earlier about outsourcing and
you applied it to the family and the family extended
(29:48):
family unit, and you know, I love if there's if
there's silver linings to what we experienced in the you know,
through all of the lockdown and that transition, it was
like all of a sudden we realized, Hey, I don't
have to spend an hour walking through the grocery store.
I can spend fifteen minutes online place the order. Somebody
(30:09):
else can do that shopping, I give them a little
tip and I just saved myself forty five minutes. I
mean that those types of things that we learned out
of that experience, I think are wonderful and we can
do that and let go of the guilt of it. No,
I don't have to do that.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
The LinkedIn post I had that had the most engagement
was I was starting to realize my sister is younger
than me and her friends were starting to have kids,
and I started to realize that nobody actually talks about
what it takes to have a big job and to
have kids. And so I wrote a post and it
was based on an article i'd read. This is what
(30:45):
I do. And I was nervous to put it out
there because it does mean that I'm spending money on
childcare and I'm spending money on you know, groceries being delivered.
And I understand completely why women say childcare is so expensive.
I completely understand and why women say, well, it doesn't
make sense for me to continue in my role. And
I think there are so many options nowadays to pause
(31:07):
your career to be stay at home. There's so many
options out there, but there is also an option to say, yeah,
this doesn't make sense right now, but it makes sense
for my future. And that's for me. I knew in
that moment I am spending way too much on you know,
childcred outsourcing. But this is because I know what this
could look like in a few years, and that was
a choice. And there's so many I do think there
(31:29):
are more choices now out there for women to be
part time entrepreneur on their own, staying at home and helping.
There's so many different options, and so I love that
this is a conversation that's out there now.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, and I think some of the because it's an
open conversation, it allows women to feel more comfortable in
expressing their feelings around it and kind of taking It's
like the mental health mental wellness piece, you know, talking
about it more raises awareness to it and starts to
pull the stigma off of it. And it's the same
(32:04):
with you know, women and making their choices about their career, family,
all of that and taking that stigma off and opening
up that dialogue I think is incredibly incredibly powerful. Well
we are I'm looking at the clock going, wow, that
time went really fast. So it's been a wonderful conversation
(32:25):
as we wrap it up, Caitlin, what obviously being the
Women Excelling Everywhere program we podcast, we have primarily female
listeners who some of them are entrepreneurs. We're working more
with corporate women, women who are working in their careers
and who want to merge into that leadership role and
(32:47):
do so with and successfully and no guilty conscience around
what advice you talked a little bit about someone who
gave you advice in your life. What advice, what piece
that final piece of advice would you give to the
listeners today?
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I think two things. If you want to be an entrepreneur,
understand the money piece of it too. Put yourself in
that position to figure that out. One of the first
things I did was during COVID, YouTube, books, podcasts, anything
I could do to understand how to read a P
and L statement, how that all works, how the money works,
because I knew I couldn't just do it based on
(33:25):
the work we were doing. But also how does this
what does the back end look like? I think understanding
money is something that women need to spend more time on.
And then the second thing is everything starts to change
for me when I decided there was somebody else who
had a similar role to me at this big meeting,
and he was few years older, and he was a man,
(33:45):
and he kept saying things, and every time he said it,
I thought, I thought that I should have said that,
I could have said that, And so I started to
play a little game with myself, which was, when you
have a thought, say it out loud, because so often
as women, we think so much about whether it's the
right thing to say, how we're going to say it,
And there's so much in just practice. There's so much
(34:06):
in just doing this idea of whether you're scared, you
can still do it. You know, it takes more. It's
more about courage than than confidence. And so this idea
that just kind of put yourself out there over and
over again because the first few times maybe may be clunky,
but you're going to learn a lot more from doing
it than you are from just sitting there thinking or
writing down what your ideas are. So just just kind
(34:29):
of put yourself out there's it's what's the worst is
going to happen?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, yep, yeah, I love that. I love that step
into it with confidence. What we want we want our
women to do, just like embrace who there are, their
natural gifts there, the beauty of their what I call
their brain personality connection and own it and bring it
to the world because we're not we're not benefiting anyone,
including ourselves, by keeping our mouth, you know, being quiet.
(34:59):
Be loud. Yeah, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Well.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
It has been a wonderful conversation, Caitlin. Thank you so
much for being on the program. Thank you for sharing
not just your what your company does, but also the
wisdom and experience that you've had that can help other
women to to move through their career. Entrepreneur, endeavor, whatever that,
whatever that looks like, parenthood, whatever that looks like. So
(35:27):
for those of you, I encouraged everyone to stay connected
with Caitlin. We are put it going to put You'll
see in the show notes or in the in the
comments below. All of her links to connect with her
on LinkedIn. She is and it's all pretty much think
argust a r g U S and it's LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook,
(35:49):
think think argust I think it's the company on LinkedIn, Yeah,
and then some Twitter and some some X I guess
is what it's called. And Instagram so wonderful her. The
website is Thinkarguss dot Calm some good information on there
(36:09):
to get to know more about the company that Caitlin
works for. So once again, thank you very much for
being on.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
Loved doing this absolutely absolutely great conversation and for the listeners,
stay connected with us at Women are Excelling everywhere. That
is our that is what we want to do. We
want to help women to excel wherever they are at.
That's our passion. With the group that we are building here.
We do have a private membership group that is kind
of like your own little private Facebook with just a
(36:38):
few other members who are there to and no you know,
scrolling advertising pop ups, just a safe place to discuss
all different topics we discussed. Every month we go over
a different topic, everything from setting your business plan in place,
to dealing with difficult people, to dealing with stress, to
hitting goals. This month is all about women's health, so
(37:01):
that's the discussion that's on the table all month long.
So we'd love to have you join us within that
private Facebook group or that private it's not on Facebook sorry,
that private membership group, and then we'd also like you
to interact here with this conversation. If you have feelings
about it, you liked what was said, be sure to
leave us a comment on the YouTube channel, or go
into the Apple podcast or iHeart or Spotify wherever you
(37:25):
listen to your podcast, give us a thumbs up, share it,
share out the information if you thought it was a
great interview, and give us a positive quote because or
positive comment because all those things just help to get
this into more people's hands. We also have our wonderful
collaborative book entitled Women Excelling Everywhere. If you want more
information about that, be sure to reach out to us.
You can send us a and email at info at
(37:48):
women Excelling Everywhere dot com. And if you have a
great show, guest idea or topic idea, or you yourself
would love to be featured on the Women Excelling Everywhere probe,
please reach out us out to us on to at
that email as well, follow us on Instagram and our
website is Women Excelling Everywhere dot Thank you very much
(38:11):
for spending this time. We are honored that you took
it to be with us, and until next time, take
a nice deep breath, go out there and simply enjoy
every month
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