Denise Corcoran
Business Name: The Empowered Business ™
Website URL: http://www.EmpoweredBusiness.
Email Address: denise@empoweredbusiness.com
Year Founded: 1985
Number of Employees: 3
What does your company do?: I help growth-driven companies (typically in the $10 – 150 million range) develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive double and triple digit growth … by design.
My secret sauce is helping leaders and organizations develop the “X factor” – ie., the mindset, attitudes and creative spark — that pulls the company forward to that next level of growth.
My unique approach draws from a wide range of cutting edge neuro-related, mind science and peak performance disciplines, integrated with decades of business growth and strategic leadership experience, that allows my clients to achieve big, by expanding the game they were meant to play … and win.
Was there a specific turning point when you realized your business was moving to the next level?: There were many turning points that allowed my business to take multiple leaps over the almost 30 years I have been in business.
1. I know that my business only grows as quickly as I do. One of the first leaps within myself (which catapulted my business) was owning my worth on many levels. For the first 15+ years in my business, I molded myself to cater to the marketplace and my clients. Essentially I sold my soul to make a sale and to achieve ambitious goals. When I truly valued myself, own my worth regardless of what the outside world thought of me, when I could own my “authentic voice” and build my business in a way that fed my soul and bank account, not only did my biz take off. I felt more joy, ease and fulfillment in my work.
2. I found my “sweet spot” in the marketplace. I have worked with every size business there is (from soloist to multi-billion $ corp). I also have many unrelated parts of my background (like former mathematician, engineer, business strategist, former executive and now leadership and organizational change agent). It took many years with such a diverse background and experience for my “sweet spot” to find me. While I don’t do mathematics, strategy development, etc. as in early days, I recognized all of my background molded my thinking and were all a piece of what makes me distinct from others in my field and how I add value.
3. When I stopped selling services and started selling solutions that deliver very specific measurable results and impact to my clients. Also no longer charge on basis of time, rather on the basis of value. What I sell are value and results.
4. Building my business around the life I want, not my life around business. I was a former workaholic that used to fit my life around my business. Growing my business has gotten so much easier once I started putting my life as my core.
What processes or procedures have you implemented that have helped grow your company?:
1. Being clear on and only working with ideal client fit. In addition to the demographics, we serve only those clients whose values are similar or complementary to ours. We work with only those clients who are wanting to develop our relationship as a partnership (not a client vendor relationship). I make very clear in my website the key attributes of those whom we work with.
2. Having a much clearer, more well defined process from moving leads/prospects through the pipeline. I was a part of a year long marketing intensive where baseball was the metaphor used to define our marketing/sales process. Now I’m really clear, for example, when a prospect is on 1st base vs 2nd base or what does it take to move them to the nest base.
3. Finally, having a much more consistent online marketing process that integrates content marketing with social media and other avenues of increasing visibility and credibility.
What is most rewarding about running your business?: I love my work. I love my clients. I no longer get involved in either work or clients that I don’t love or in which I can’t do my best work.
There is nothing more gratifying than watching my clients achieve breakthroughs first within themselves and then within the company. To watch them unleash untapped areas of their potential. To help them achieve their own visions, big WHY and the desired financial and personal rewards they are seeking. Those are the priceless rewards in my business.
What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?: The single biggest challenge since the late 1980’s has been around my health. I became seriously ill then, forced to close my business and unable to work for over 5 years, attempt to survive on social security disability, had to liquidate all assets and went into serious debt to keep a roof over my head and pay hefty medical bills.
When you are stripped of everything that has defined you, your sense of worth, sense of success, etc., you don’t know who you are anymore. To rebuild my life and my business, I had to redefine myself and my worth on what was on the inside, not the externals.
I had to dramatically shift my workaholic behaviors and thinking and put my self-care above all else, including my business. While I still am dealing with a low level of health challenges, I no longer compromise myself or health for sake of my business.
Another challenge I had to overcome was the roller-coaster ride in revenues, profits and my pipeline by structuring my business, my offerings, my pricing, etc. in a way that focused on high end outcome based programs/solutions. It’s also what allows me to deliver much bigger results and impact to my clients.
A turning point was when a marketing coach asked me 10+ years ago what minimum size client engagement did I want. I got to see how it costed just as much in marketing time and $’s to close small deals as it did much bigger deals. Every year I set a higher minimum size engagement I am willing to take on. That has increased the average size engagement dramatically which translates to faster business growth.
If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?: One of my favorite quotes comes from Steve Jobs at the Stanford University Graduation/Commemoration when he talked about his 3 biggest life lessons. One of those life lessons was “you can’t connect the dots looking forward. you can only connect the dots looking back.”
As it relates to the question and Job’s quote in particular, I’ve learned that everything happens in perfection. All the things that happened in my business/life were for my own growth and evolution. So not sure if I would do anything differently. If I could have learned some of my most important life lessons sooner, that would have been great. I have no regrets in any steps I took in starting my business.
What advice do you have for other business owners?: 1. Know/take time to uncover and articulate the big WHY for your business. Your WHY is different than the mission statement. Nor does it address your services or label you give your business. It’s the grander purpose why your business exists.
2. Develop a business plan defining purpose statement, vision statement, values, your BHAG (big hairy audacious goal 10+ years from now), intermediate goals, strategies and critical success factors.
3. Develop a profile of your ideal customer/client. That will help you define your “sweet spot” which is the intersection of those niche markets where you can do your best work, are most passionate about and add greatest value. I can provide greatest value based on the pain areas, aspirations and challenges of those niche markets.
4. Combine success with significance … money with meaning … doing with being. It really is the journey that matters.
5. Develop an attitude of curiosity in everything you do in your business. It will help you expand your mind, your thinking, solutions to your most challenging business problems and even your marketing/sales success. When I am curious, I ask compelling questions that help my prospects go below the surface symptoms, identify the “real” problems and their deepest desires. When I uncover those deeper motivations, prospects sell themselves. I don’t need to sell or convince them.
Please list any favorite books, tools or resources (software, website, etc.) you would recommend for others: For my own personal growth or that of my own business: Books include: The Consulting Bible and Million Dollar Consulting (or any books by Alan Weiss); any books that deal with the brain/mind — such as Super Brain – Unleashing the Explosive Power of your Brain, E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality; E-Mth Revisited (still a classic); Starting with WHY: Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes, and many more.
Books that grow my expertise and value to my clients: Guiding Growth: How Vision Keeps Companies on Course; No Man’s Land: Where Growing Companies Fail; Small Giants; Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big; The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership and Life, and many more.
What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you?: I have been a dancer all my life outside my business. I was a competitive Irish dancer for 8 years when in grammar school. Have done ballroom and latin dancing for decades. Belly dancing, disco, modern, you name it. For me dancing truly is the expression of my soul.
