Entrepreneurship requires skills that many jobs do not, including risk taking, advanced problem solving, negotiation, and strategic planning. Successful business owners develop an entrepreneurial mindset that helps them move through issues and challenges. But, what is an entrepreneurial mindset?
Our host and CEO Porschia, along with our guest, David Shriner-Cahn, share their useful insight on how entrepreneurs and business owners can overcome obstacles using an entrepreneurial mindset. They discuss how focusing on profit generating metrics sets you apart and the difference between the employee and entrepreneurial mindset.
Our guest, David Shriner-Cahn is the podcast host and community builder behind Smashing the Plateau, for professionals making the leap from corporate to entrepreneurial business ownership. Smashing the Plateau is David’s solution to the problems that keep entrepreneurs up at night.
What you’ll learn:
- How to adjust to life outside of the “corporate cocoon”
- Why you should sell a product or service first, and then build it second
- Some of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make with their mindset
- How having clarity can set you up for success
As a thank you for listening to this episode of the Career 101 Podcast, we are sharing our FREE master class – Career 911: Solving the Top 5 Challenges Executives and Professionals Have! It’s a training based on solving the common problems our clients have experienced to reach their goals. You can get access to the master class here!
Episode Transcript
Porschia: [00:00:00] Hello, I’m Portia Parker Griffin, and I want to welcome you to the Career 101 Podcast, a place for ambitious professionals and seasoned executives who want an edge in their career. We’re talking about all of the things you were never taught or told when it comes to career growth, development, and change.
Now let’s get into it.
Today, we are talking about developing and Entrepreneurial mindset with David Shriner. Con David Shriner. Con’s weekly advice program has been named by Forbes as a podcast to power up your ultra lean business. David has also been recognized as an entrepreneur that will change the way you communicate. By Inc.
Magazine. David is the podcast host and community builder behind Smashing the Plateau, an online [00:01:00] platform offering resources, accountability, and camaraderie to high performing professionals who are making a leap from a corporate career track To entrepreneurial business ownership. Starting your own business is hard enough without having to go at all alone.
Smashing the plateau is David’s solution to the problems that keep entrepreneurs up at night. As he likes to say, with the help of people, just like you and our community, you’ll be able to do more of what you love and get paid what you’re worth. Hi, David. How are you
David: today? Hi, Portia. It’s so great to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Porschia: Absolutely. Well, I’m excited to have you with us to discuss developing an entrepreneurial mindset. But first we want to know a little more about you. So tell me about seven year old
David: David. So seven year old David, first of all, I grew up in a small [00:02:00] town. On the Jersey Shore, and seven year old David was pretty independent, and I used to go places on my own.
I think a lot more than kids do nowadays, and it’s been a streak that has carried forward. I’m sure we’re going to talk more about it. All right,
Porschia: that independent streak. So, what did you want to be when you grew up, David?
David: I honestly didn’t know, Portia. I, I did better in high school in math and science than in the humanities, and it seemed…
Like a fairly linear progression to study engineering, which is what I did in college and grad school. So I have a master’s in chemical engineering from Cornell and did my undergraduate at Lafayette. And then, uh, went to work as an engineer. Wow.
Porschia: That is exciting. That is exciting. I have noticed David that a lot of people I’ve met in business actually have engineering backgrounds.
[00:03:00] And I think that maybe it’s the systems approach or. That’s something that transfers over to business. What do you think?
David: Yeah. The systems thinking is something that is very ingrained in sort of the engineering mindset and what we’re taught as engineers. So, so yeah, I’m, I’m somebody who is pretty process focused, which is very helpful as an entrepreneur.
Great.
Porschia: So tell us about some highlights or pivotal moments in your career before you started your business. Thank
David: Sure. So there, there, there were a couple of, of big ones. Um, the first one was, so I had two different jobs as an engineer. And in my second job, just after my second annual performance review, which was a very positive review and I had, I received a nice raise a month later, my boss calls me into his office and he says, David, I have good news and bad news.
Good news is you’re doing a great job. Bad [00:04:00] news is you don’t have a job here anymore. And I’m like, what? So. I was focused on doing a good job as an engineer, which was, you know, focusing on the technology. And I was not really tuned into what was going on in business and the, and the business of my employer.
I worked for a, I don’t know, like small to midsize consulting company. There were probably 150 engineers or so on staff and business. Had a sudden downturn and they had to lay off like half the staff, including me. So that was, that was quite a shock. And I did some soul searching and decided that the sort of traditional engineering corporate career track was not really what I wanted.
And I ended up going into the nonprofit sector, which is where I spent the next 23 years. And I was in. [00:05:00] Executive roles the entire time. That’s where I built my, my management and leadership expertise. And then the next major pivot came in 2006. I’d been in the same organization for 18 years when I left and I had reached a plateau in my career in that organization.
I couldn’t go any higher. Because it was an education organization. I didn’t have the education credentials to be the CEO. And as, um, you know, in a number two position, I pretty much had gone as far as I could. And the linear move would have been to become a CEO of a similar kind of organization where.
Having the education credentials wouldn’t have been an issue, or to take on a similar role to what I had, but in a much bigger organization, which obviously would have meant a salary increase. I took the road less traveled. The, the independent streak was something [00:06:00] that was in the back of my mind the entire time that The whole 23 years I was I was in the nonprofit sector thinking that I really wanted to be more in control over my career destiny and I saw what happened to two people who.
Suddenly became unemployed. I, it happened to me once earlier on, and I knew it could happen again. And in fact, the trigger was that there was a new CEO who came in after I had been with, with the organization for all these years, and we had some overlap in skills and it was a matter of time before I probably wasn’t going to have a job there anymore.
It wasn’t the same kind of dramatic exit that happened earlier, but it was still an exit that wasn’t my choice, but it gave me a little bit of runway and it gave me the time to launch a consulting business. Wow. Wow.
Porschia: And thank you for sharing that David, because as you know, I mean, it seems like [00:07:00] every week we’re hearing about different companies and corporations that are laying people off.
And for a lot of people out there, they’re really kind of wondering like what those next steps are, and they might feel, you know, very alone or, or stressed out by the whole situation. So. Thank you for sharing about those, those periods in your life and your career. So it sounds like, you know, the independent streak definitely was part of your motivation to start a business, but what else was it for you that really made you want to start your
David: own business?
I wanted control over my schedule, um, which as an entrepreneur, You need structure to be able to succeed as an entrepreneur, but you are the one that dictates what that structure looks like. And for me, having somebody else create the structure, I could, I could conform to somebody else’s structure, but only up to a point, and there was, there would usually be a place [00:08:00] where there was some friction, not that I necessarily voice anything to anybody, but I just felt it.
I felt like, you know, this, this didn’t, you know, this doesn’t make sense. You know, for example, like now, since, uh. Since the onset of COVID, we’ve all learned about the fact that you can actually have a lot more flexibility in your work environment than we thought. And still. And I remember so many years of, uh, commuting and trying to conform to a nine to five structure and trying to also deal with family issues at the same time.
It was always complicated and right. And so if you have the flexibility to deal with, to do a better job integrating family, personal and work activities, it’s just much healthier. But certainly. As an entrepreneur, you have a lot more flexibility when it comes to those things.
Porschia: I agree. So how did you decide to focus your [00:09:00] business on entrepreneurship and that
David: topic?
Partly by design and partly by circumstance. The marketplace Gives you signals and what’s important is you need to be open to those signals and listen to them. So one example is, you know, I started off in 2006 as a nonprofit management consultant, because that was sort of, that was what I knew. That was what my network was.
And that. Worked well up to a point and at the same time through business networking, small business owners started asking me for help. And at first I was the first time a small business owner asked me if I would help with with some business issues. I was a little reluctant, not sure that I had the capability to do it.
Then I realized There really isn’t a whole lot of difference between running a non profit organization and running a for profit organization. The big difference is, non [00:10:00] profit is tax exempt, but you still need to meet payroll, and you deal with team issues, and you have to serve your clients, and you know, all the rest of it.
So, you know, so I started picking up more and more privately held business clients, and over time, There was an increase in the number of solopreneur consultants and coaches that were seeking my help. In part, it was a path that I had managed successfully. Um, so it was natural that I think people would seek advice and guidance from me.
At the same time, I was also personally very drawn to help folks who were trying to escape the corporate rat race like I did. And, um, it’s not an easy transition to make, but you can do it successfully. And if that is your, if that’s the path that you want to pursue, I think you can be a lot happier in everything that you’re doing in your life if you can, if you can make it work successfully.
So I, I’ve [00:11:00] felt as I said, very drawn to serving corporate refugees. And, and in particular, another pivot that happened. in my business was in 2015, I had a client who did a single session with me and said, David, I really would like to keep working with you, but I don’t want to work on my own. I want to work in a group.
And I had never thought about doing group work before that. And I said, I said to this person, Oh, that’s an interesting idea. I’m open to that. If either you find two more people or I find two more people, I’ll start a group with three, you know, it could grow from there, but that’s enough to get started.
And, um, and that’s actually how I started working with groups. And then I had seen what happens when you have collaborative peers in a caring environment. And I was really, I really felt compelled to be able to have greater impact and serve more people. And I personally only have so much bandwidth to work [00:12:00] in small groups with people.
And that was kind of what led to the. Opening the Smashing the Plateau community, which is a model that can serve many more people. So that was like, like the next pivot is how do I create greater impact in a similar kind of model? So
Porschia: why do you think entrepreneurial mindset is important?
David: I think mindset is, it’s not everything, but it is a big piece.
And in particular, I’ll describe the scenario of what happens when somebody leaves the corporate cocoon. Um, particularly if you’re, you know, somewhere between 20 and 40 years of experience. So you’ve, you know, you’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s a big chunk of your career. And if you’re a high achiever, you are probably, you probably have left the job where you had a full calendar, overflowing inbox.
Team of people around you who took care of all the stuff you weren’t responsible for, there’s this built in social structure, and then [00:13:00] you go out on your own, and initially you have an empty calendar or, um, you know, even if you start off with, with a client or, or maybe a couple of clients, your calendar is, there’s a lot of empty space in your calendar, you have not a whole lot of stuff in your inbox, your.
Friends from work are probably ghosting you because you are, you, you have flown the coop or, or in many cases like mine, you have been pushed out and then you also have no team. So you’re like, you’re responsible for everything. And in the beginning, when there isn’t a lot of income, you’re reluctant to spend a lot of money on team.
So it’s pretty daunting. Then you have to get up. And market and sell something you’ve never had to sell before, namely yourself. And even if you’ve come out of a marketing and sales role in a corporate position, it’s very different selling the corporation that gives you a paycheck and trying to sell yourself.
And so, you know, one of the mistakes I see people make [00:14:00] is they think that they need to charge less than they probably should. Um, and that has to do with mindset. So, um, you, you need, and it’s very hard to sell something that you don’t have the track record selling and delivering in this new environment called your own business.
So even if you’ve done something very similar, working for a big company, when you try to do it on your own, if you don’t, if you can’t say I have done exactly this, and here are the results that I, that I’ve. Achieved with this, you know, with clients like you, it can be very hard to sell it. So mindset is, is really critical.
I agree.
Porschia: I mean, you said a lot of good information there. I mean, well, one, I love the phrase corporate cocoon because that’s really what it is. It’s a corporate cocoon. And I think you are absolutely right with thinking about the schedule and the difference in the schedule once you leave the [00:15:00] cocoon and you go out on your own.
And then. I also think it was really interesting how you pointed out, you know, entrepreneurs and sometimes they have those same challenges, even if they have a sales and marketing background from corporate. So that was my story. I was in sales and I was a director of business development for a consulting firm and then started my own business.
And then yes, I had to fill the calendar. And I think that. And this is a pattern I’ve noticed. I’ll be interesting to hear your thoughts. Sometimes I think people with that sales background specifically have a little more resilience getting started when they’re starting their own business. I see from my perspective, a lot of the business clients we’ve had that did not have that sales background.
There was a little more around mindset and rejection and all of that, that they had to learn, uh, to kind of get started. But what are your
David: thoughts? [00:16:00] Yeah, I think that people that have a sales background have an easier time. They, they have the basic sales skills. They just don’t have the, the mindset that comes along with selling yourself.
Yeah, I came out of. Corporate with no sales background. So for me, that was my biggest challenge was, um, you know, how to sell. I knew how to do things like negotiate, which is part of sales, but, but not when I was selling myself in my own business. The
Porschia: career one on one podcast is brought to you by fly high coaching, where we help our clients soar to their full potential more and more professionals and executives are setting out to achieve their career goals, but without the right support, it can be difficult, if not impossible, whether you need career coaching, interview coaching, or a professional resume, we’re here to help.
Check us [00:17:00] out on our website, fly highcoaching. com. So in your opinion, David, what are the essential aspects of entrepreneurial mindset?
David: There are a few things you, I think you need to be, to have an abundant mindset, particularly if you’re a consultant or a coach, and so you’re in a service business, even if you Are in direct competition with somebody else serving the same kind of clients, providing the same kinds of services.
Everybody does it a little differently. And you, if, if you have the mindset that there is enough business in this world for everybody. You will do better being open with people who seem to be competitors. There may be opportunities to refer clients to one another. There may be opportunities to [00:18:00] collaborate on projects together.
You never know. So I think having a mindset of abundance is really important. And I think you also need to have the mindset that you can build your own business. But you don’t need to do it alone. In fact, I believe that you should not do it alone. There’s a, I think there’s somewhat of a myth in America that entrepreneurs are kind of the lone ranger and that people achieve this tremendous success on their own.
I have yet to come across anybody who has achieved tremendous success on his or her own. They’re actually, there are, there are teams and communities that support them. So you can, you know, you can hire people, um, either as employees or as contractors. To, um, to support your business and you can collaborate with people in a community setting, which is what I find is, is so powerful, you know, particularly when you have left corporate, having that mindset [00:19:00] of, I’m going to interact with others like me on a consistent, frequent basis, um, and.
I will be, oh, I will be helpful to others in the community without the expectation of anything in return. And I will also be vulnerable and share where I’m challenged that I can get some help. That is really powerful, and I’ve seen so many examples when, when people do both of those things, that the return on their time investment and the financial investment, if it’s a paid community, it’s really powerful.
I’ve seen that the return is, can be really immense. Yeah, yeah,
Porschia: I agree. Um, so you started touching on challenges before. Um, you mentioned one, you know, mistake that people think they, they might undercharge, [00:20:00] you know, for their services when they’re just getting started. But, um, from your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve seen executives and professionals have with developing their entrepreneurial
David: mindset?
There are a couple. One is when you’re an employee, you will often, um, if you’re not right more than 90% of the time, you will often hear about it. There’ll be negative repercussions. As an entrepreneur, it’s the exact opposite. You need to try many different things and be willing to fall flat on your face.
10% of the time as an entrepreneur, you’re often doing really well. And one of the things that I see is this sense of perfectionism. offer something to the public in the hopes of gaining a new client, I want to make sure that whatever I’m offering is really perfect. [00:21:00] And the reality is, whatever your hypothesis is about a need in the marketplace, until somebody actually pays you money for it, it’s just a hypothesis.
There’s no confirmation. And you will do much better if you have a vague notion of something that you think is needed and that you can deliver on. And sell it first, build it second, because you, you know, if you have the 20 to 40 years of corporate experience in your field, I guarantee you, you can build it, the harder part is selling it.
So that, that’s one. And the second one that I think, um, where I see people have a lot of challenges is not focusing on profit generating metrics. So they will spend time working on their website, working on their LinkedIn profile, doing things relating to creating this perfect offering. They’ll spend, they may [00:22:00] spend time networking, but they’re not networking with the right people.
I was recently in a conversation with somebody talking about. You know, business networking groups, there are a lot of business networking groups that are a lot of broke people trying to sell to other broke people. Um, we we’ve all experienced our share of those You you need to be networking In the right place where where there are people who actually have the capability to make good referrals or where you have potential clients in the room, so Having, having very clear metrics about how you spend your time and how you spend your money and how that relates to the bottom line in your business.
Not just revenue, but the bottom line revenue minus expenses. Um, that’s really important. And I see consultants and coaches not being metric driven enough.
Porschia: Yeah, I love everything that you said. I love everything that you said. I have kind of a whole [00:23:00] area of a course I created where I talk about the employee mindset versus the entrepreneurial mindset.
So I’m glad that you touched on that because I think that is so important for people to really consider, um, when it comes to failure and trying new things. And yeah, I mean, the profit generating metrics, I think sometimes people don’t really know what those are, especially when they’re first starting a business.
They think it’s what they see in marketing, right? They think it’s the likes on, you know, a LinkedIn post or a Facebook post or re shares. And while, you know, those things can lead to profit, a lot of times, I think those can be more vanity metrics, you know, that people are thinking are important, but aren’t actually as important.
What do you think about that,
David: David? You know, you and I are both podcasters. I’ve had this conversation with so many podcasters that people ask me, David, what are your downloads like? And I’m like, [00:24:00] who cares? The downloads don’t pay my bills. Agreed. Agreed. It’s a vanity metric. Yeah.
Porschia: And I agree. And it’s, to me, it’s way more powerful for someone to say, Oh, I heard your podcast, or I heard you on someone else’s podcast.
And you know, based on what you said, I really had to, to call you. I love it.
David: I had to call, I had to call you. I really want to work with you. Tell me about how we can make it happen. Right. And if, if you get. One person like that out of one episode, that’s fabulous. Who cares about all the other downloads that don’t result in business?
I agree, David.
Porschia: So what are some tips that you’d give an executive or a professional if they want to learn more about entrepreneurial mindset?
David: Spend time with other entrepreneurs. Ask them questions. And, and be willing to step outside your comfort zone, because when you stay in your comfort zone, it’s a sign that you’re not growing.
When you’re [00:25:00] uncomfortable, it’s a sign that you’re growing. Be willing to, to be uncomfortable. Yes. It may not feel so great, but go there anyway and just keep taking steps and analyze the results. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. So,
Porschia: what should someone do if they encounter a plateau in their growth or some other area of starting a
David: business?
I, I think it goes back to some of the things we’ve talked about. One, one thing that is very helpful is talking to other people about the plateau that you’ve experienced. And I mentioned what happens when you are, when you share a challenge, where you share a vulnerability. I’ll give you an example. We have a member of our community who.
Came to a live session that we were having where the, the topic of the, of discussion was business development. And they shared, they were at a plateau in, in their [00:26:00] business because there was one major client whose contract was about to end. It didn’t look like it was going to be renewed and there wasn’t a similar kind of client in the pipeline.
There were, um, there, there were a lot of. strategies and tips that were offered by other members of the community during this live session. Three months later, this same member who shared what was going on in their pipeline announced that they had just landed a new client at their top rate. They had several other deals they were working on that were in their pipeline and that the quarter looked.
Better than anything that had happened before in, in that person’s business. What they did was they, they took note of all of those suggestions that came along during that session and spent, and I had a discussion with a, with a person about it, they spent [00:27:00] at least three days every single week taking at least one action related to the advice they heard for three months.
And it panned out. So when you hit a plateau, I think it’s really important to be in a place where you can be with like minded people, where you can let your hair down, where it is a caring, collaborative culture, so that you can hear what other people may have done in a similar situation, and then you need to get You need to be disciplined about following through on what you believe is going to work and you need to track the results.
What
Porschia: I’m hearing from what you mentioned, David, is something that you said earlier in the episode about needing structure to succeed as an entrepreneur, right? That based on, you know, that entrepreneur that you mentioned. To continue doing those three things from those conversations, you know, consistently they have that structure to, to follow through [00:28:00] on it.
So that’s great. Great advice. Uh, so tell us more about Smashing the Plateau.
David: Uh, so we have an online community, as you mentioned in the introduction, Portia. Um, it is a platform where we serve primarily corporate refugees to people that are consultants, coaches. They’re generally solo or in very small businesses.
Businesses with a, with a huge team. And it’s a place where there, where you can have, you can attend live events. So you can have these kinds of what, what our members call serendipitous conversations that, that lead to breakthrough results. We have trainings, we have members. offering, sometimes the trainings are from, from, uh, specialists that are not members of the community.
Um, often it’s members of the community offering to lead sessions in their area of expertise. We also have the, the platform for communication and a growing library of resources. Plus we have [00:29:00] a great accountability program where you can do a much deeper dive with a small cohort of people, um, focusing on one primary.
Objective per month with metrics. And again, this, this whole, like a lot of the things that I shared about being clear on what your objectives are, being clear on what the success metrics are, having a clear plan to execute and having a place where you can talk about the challenges that come up. Great. So
Porschia: we’ll be providing a link to your website and other social channels in our show notes so that people can find you online.
Uh, but what is the best way for someone to get in touch with you,
David: David? Um, you can go to smashingtheplateau. com and there’s a contact. Form there, there you can actually call a phone number and reach a live person nine to five Eastern time, Monday through Friday, 2 1 2 and book an appointment with me. Um, you can also reach out to me [00:30:00] on LinkedIn.
I’m pretty active there. Those are the best ways. That’s great.
Porschia: David has a phone number where people will answer live. That is so rare nowadays. That’s great. Um, so in closing, David, I want to ask you, how do you think executives or professionals can get a positive edge in their career or their business?
David: It starts with being really clear on what you want out of life and out of work, and setting some very clear and specific goals. But the way I describe goals, they’re specific enough so you know when you’re working toward them, but they’re not… measurable, so that you will never be done. And so, for example, I talked about how I want to have greater impact serving corporate refugees.
I know when I’m working towards that, but there’s a huge need, and it seems like right now [00:31:00] the need is growing. Day by day. So I don’t think I’ll ever be done. Love it. I
Porschia: love it. That’s a really interesting take with kind of deemphasizing the, the metrics on that point. Right. And just looking at the bigger picture.
So it’s very interesting.
David: Yeah. I mean, I, I can have metrics as I’m working towards those goals. I know what I want to achieve this year, this month, this week, et cetera. Those can be measurable, but yeah, serving the overall need. I. Think should, should be, the app should not be metric bound. So David,
Porschia: you’ve shared a lot of really deep insights with us today, and I’m sure that our listeners can use it to be more confident, uh, in their entrepreneurial endeavors.
Uh, we appreciate you
David: being with us. Thank you so much, Portia.
Porschia: This episode was brought to you by the Brave Bird Career [00:32:00] Alliance, the go-to membership designed for seasoned executives and ambitious professionals with everything you need for career planning, strategy, training, and support. Thank you again for listening to the Career 1 0 1 podcast. I hope you have at least one key takeaway that you could use in your own career.
If you enjoyed hanging out with us, please rate, subscribe, and share this podcast. Until next time, here’s to your success.
