The Mosaic Life with Laura W.

Entrepreneurial Leadership Support: A New Approach

July 29, 2024 • Laura Wagenknecht / Linda Ruhland

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Can you imagine transforming your business through the power of authentic connections? Join us as we sit down with the brilliant Linda Ruhland, the visionary founder behind Success Authorities and Positively Asheville. Discover how Linda's entrepreneurial journey, deeply rooted in a family of business creatives, inspired her to create Positively Asheville—a revolutionary electronic media platform and peer-to-peer network designed to nurture local business leaders. In our conversation, Linda unveils how Asheville's unique culture fosters rapid trust and mutual respect, making it easier for entrepreneurs to build a supportive community that boosts efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

We also dig into how the business landscape is evolving, shifting from cutthroat competition to genuine relationship-building. Linda and I discuss the profound impact of embracing authenticity, transparency, and a spirit of abundance in forging meaningful connections. Learn about the concept of a "business neighborhood," where entrepreneurs can freely share resources, advice, and emotional support, ultimately driving professional growth and resilience during tough times. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to create a network that champions collaboration and collective success.

Website: https://successauthorities.com/

Success Authorities

Linda Ruhland

 Positively Asheville

A Mosaic is a bunch of pieces, put together, to make up the whole in a beautiful way. Here at Mosaic Business Consulting we discuss the various pieces of a business throughout the course of its life, and throughout all industries, and how these pieces, when put together, can help develop a better, more efficient, and effective running of YOUR business.
Find our more or register for a course today: Mosaic Business Consulting

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Laura:

Good morning. I'm your host, laura Wagner-Kanesh, owner of Mosaic Business Consulting, and you're listening to the Mosaic Life with Laura W. A mosaic is a bunch of pieces that, when put together, make up the whole in a really beautiful way, and this show plans to discuss the various pieces of a business throughout different industries and how these pieces, when put together, can help develop a better, more efficient and effective running of your business. To reach me, contact bizradious. Today.

Laura:

My guest is a fabulous one, linda Ruland, and Linda is an experienced marketing strategist, works with business and organizational leaders to overcome obstacles, navigate change and ultimately achieve more clarity, greater cooperation, improved results, etc. Ruland is the founder of Success Authorities, an advisory firm for improving business and leadership success, and Positively Asheville, a peer-to-peer network where leaders support one another in goal achievement. She is also an accomplished speaker on the topics of leadership conversation and cooperative team building and is founder of the Western North Carolina chapter of the National Speakers Association. And what I love about her story is that she really grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. Both her mother and her father were successful business owners, and the family seemed to frequently engage in business conversation around the kitchen table, so consequently, she gained a special admiration for entrepreneurs, their passion, their perseverance, and she has channeled this love she has for entrepreneurial leadership into a vision that, with the right people, processes and systems, businesses and organizations may experience scalable and sustainable success. So please welcome Linda to the show. Linda, it is so good to have you here.

Linda:

Well, thank you, Laura. It's a pleasure and an honor.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, I'm so glad you decided to join us and thank you, laura, it's a pleasure and an honor. Yeah, yeah, I'm so glad you decided to join us. And you know, I was wondering about the whole entrepreneurial journey and thinking about how we tend to, as leaders, find ourselves struggling at times, and I'm curious to know a little bit more about this peer-to-peer support you mentioned with Positively Asheville.

Linda:

Well, Positively, Asheville is, in of itself, a journey.

Linda:

It is something that I moved to Asheville not knowing I would create.

Linda:

It was inspired by the people here, especially the business community.

Linda:

After talking to many of you over the course of about a year a little more than a year I learned what people were looking for and I learned what I'd like to think, what I have in common that I wanted to see more of happening and what the people the business people, the leaders around me would want to see more of happening happening and what the people, the business people, the leaders around me would want to see more of happening.

Linda:

And about a year, a little more than a year ago I think my URL is just a year old I launched PositivelyAshevillecom with the idea that would be an electronic media platform that would provide insights and information for business leaders, and I understood at the get-go that our small businesses and organizations struggle with the same thing when it comes to recruiting, gaining awareness out there, and with regard to promoting any kinds of events or special achievements that they are let's say, new product or service launch that they are engaging in. So that was the impetus, and a few months ago, I added to my team, an advisory group, and they helped me kind of explode it bigger and so we made it not only electronic but live, and now we meet monthly and we also hold quarterly learning sessions.

Linda:

We call them brunches.

Laura:

Oh, wow.

Linda:

Cool, yeah, that. That is the journey that that has been inspired by is the fact that we as leaders are sometimes a little isolated and each of us are going that distance in our own way and in our own timing, and it can get lonely and sometimes a little bit frightening, and other times it just would feel better to have somebody to bounce ideas up, and so that's the idea of the peer to peer networking that you had mentioned.

Laura:

Well, and I like your idea about bouncing ideas off of one another, but I also like this idea of you know, having collegial support from people who get it, people who are those leaders themselves and struggling or have struggled with those same challenges that you're encountering at the moment. Let's say right, yes, exactly.

Linda:

I like to say that the answers are in the room, if we have the right people and we have the understanding and trust and confidence in one another. There is just so much more that we can accomplish, and both efficiently and, you know, cost effectively. That's a big deal too, especially when you are working on a tight budget, which, in terms of entrepreneurs and local organizations, clubs who isn't yeah?

Laura:

exactly Well, and you know I'm wondering how is it that you're able to build that trust to? You know, make that a space where people get that they're there to support one another. It's not competitive. It's intended specifically to be supportive and to help one another.

Linda:

There's a lot to be said about culture. There's a lot to be said about culture and it is that invisible presence of, let's say, shared beliefs, definitely shared values, and a consistency thereof. That is Asheville. There is an openness about it. I don't know if, from a northerner's perspective, if you'd call it Southern hospitality, but I think it's more. It's part of being that Asheville resident that we understand that we are part of a kind of a family of sorts, a community, and that if we embrace that and we treat one another with that kind of respect at least the kind of respect that I've grown to appreciate in a very big way that there there can be a rapid development of that trust, as long as we play consistently and make our intentions clear.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, and I do think that that's such a key element, because you go to these networking meetings and you have 60 seconds to sort of spew out your spiel and tell people what you do and why you're there, basically, and I just feel like in so many regards it's a bit fake, a bit false, and it's only the before and after those networking meetings that you have the opportunity to really express who you are and to have those longer conversations about what you do and how you might be able to help other people. Right, and I feel like this organization this this positively Asheville you're talking about is is different right.

Linda:

Yes, beyond the elevator pitch, let's call it.

Linda:

Yeah yeah, you know we all need that elevator pitch and it helps us gain clarity, but at some point we all need to let our guard down. And again, that's important to make sure that, if you're going to let your guard down, you're letting it down in a place that's safe and supportive. Obviously, that's a big deal for all of us, whether it's at work or at home or, you know, among family and friends. But it's also important, if you're going to grow, to gain that mutual feedback. I want to say that for each of us, whether we're leading an organization or a business, that there's a sweet spot for us, and that sweet spot is where our interests mesh with the interests and needs of whoever our clientele or constituents are. And how are you going to find that sweet spot unless you open up, ask questions, push yourself out there a little bit more than what you would normally do with a classic elevator pitch?

Laura:

Yeah, and even among the networking colleagues that you have in these other networking meetings, even among the networking colleagues that you have in these other networking meetings, it's like that sense of vulnerability is almost in many respects and not all groups are like this, but some groups where being vulnerable is not either allowed or is seemingly discouraged, right, and you're saying in Positively, asheville, let's lift these voices, let's be vulnerable, be open. And what will people get from this? What is your hope that people get from this?

Linda:

Well, my hope from this is that as we progress into you know now it's AI, and before that we talked about the digital revolution. You know now it's AI, and before that we talked about the digital revolution. But more and more and more, as we move forward in life and in our technological universe whatever you want to call it that the products and services and traditions that we had around competing are no longer relevant because people can get what they want where they want it, when they want it, and if you have a price that's competitive today, it won't be tomorrow. All of that kind of turns into minutia. It turns into the things that are essentially commoditized at a very rapid pace. So then, if you wipe all that away, what do you have? And that is you, and you know what you cannot.

Linda:

If you try find somebody to compete with you, there is no competition at that level. It's purely unique. So then the only way people can get to know you and appreciate you and want to engage with you for whatever it is that you specialize in, is to be out there, to be open and to be transparent, to coin an overused word these days. But that's really the difference that I mean come on. Every time you open up a link or hear something on, I mean, come on, every time you open up a link or hear something on the air or on television, you can tell the difference between somebody you know being honest and open with you versus being very, let's just say, plastic and pre-recorded. Yeah, salesy.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, salesy, yeah, you know, and more and more you keep hearing about how genuineness and authenticity are such a critical element of sales, because sales is about building relationships. It's not about sales, right, it's relationships.

Laura:

It is, it is, and so really what you're doing is building a network of relationships. It sounds like that is truly built on this genuine and authentic belief that we can all support and gain from each other, and that you're trying to build that environment for people to do just that right. And will this model that you developed, will it, somehow help businesses?

Linda:

grow Absolutely. One of the things is I don't want to take credit for developing. I want to just say I'm trying to facilitate what's happening organically. One of the reasons I got involved with the I mentioned a business forum that I was part of a while ago that did some of this work. The interest that I had in that business forum was that they focused on the fact that there is abundance right, there is an abundance of both opportunity and wealth to be had.

Linda:

if you look for and pursue things in an honest and consistent way.

Linda:

If we look at competing with one another, then things start to get small and the world gets small.

Linda:

We feel like we're actually having to, you know, take a slice of the pie or not have a slice of the pie, that we're competing for that same amount of business but, in contrast, in a perspective of abundance, means that there's more than enough for everybody to go around. And you know, it's just a philosophy that changes the way you see opportunity. It changes the way you see one another. And what I referenced, you know, rather than to sound philosophical about this, when you think about the fact that when somebody is out looking for something let's just say it's something like a piece of furniture or an article of clothing are they going to go to that one place that's isolated out amongst everything else but that item that they're looking for, or are they going to go where there's a lot of those items available and they can pick and choose from it? So when you look at your competition as somebody who's actually amplifying what you and they do now, you're attracting more of what you're seeking. You're not competing for it.

Laura:

You are actually working cooperatively to bring more business for you as a group, as an industry as whatever affiliation you have with one another, but you essentially have a strategic alliance, if you want to use a business term, and yeah, you look at things Well, and I'm just wondering, when you were saying that, you know, it almost felt like what you're building is a business neighborhood. Yeah, you know what I mean. It felt like you know how they have that um application or website next door, right, so you can, yes, have these neighbors that you can reach out to, hey, hey, have you seen my dog? Or hey, be on the lookout, there's a bear in the area or something like that. Right that there's this connectedness that we feel to one another and we share and we can, you know, make sure we're looking out for each other.

Linda:

And it means so much.

Laura:

Yes, yes, yeah, and I loved how you said you know, when you're leading an entrepreneurial group, we're so often by ourselves and feeling lonely, et cetera, and lonely at the top, if you will and that this approach you're using to sort of evolve the networking experience into something that is meaningful but impactful. Right, it's not just about me, me, me, take, take, take.

Linda:

One of the things I really love about leaders when leaders are leaders, because that's how they're wired is that they're lifelong learners. They're always looking for something new, something better, something to share, something to contribute, and when you have a network of people who are doing that and reaching out, it's like having unlimited resources.

Linda:

And what's really nice about it is they're also very accessible resources. Very accessible resources. You don't have to break the bank to go find that next piece of whatever it is that you need, or knowledge base that you need. Or think of it this way If you needed some expertise because suddenly you lost a key player in your organization and you needed somebody to either help you in the interim or give you some advice to replace that key individual, how nice would it be to have a group of peers at your side, at your fingertips, to assist you in that unexpected instance.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah and yeah. It is so critical, right when you're feeling down and you've had a rough day as an entrepreneur, it is so critical, I think, to be able to reach out to someone who gets it number one and can then maybe be supportive and help you know, yes, yes, and that's nice.

Linda:

And on the other side of the coin too, it's also good to have somebody who will kind of set you straight every once in a while, put you in the chair and say you know, look at it this way. You've got to get real or you know.

Laura:

So you mean that accountability thing.

Linda:

Say again you mean that accountability thing, that accountability thing, or just you know, get in touch with where you are and you know, stick to the plan.

Linda:

And sometimes it just gets rough and you want to give up. And you know sometimes somebody there to say, hey, you promised that's a big deal and it could be that it could be. Whatever it evolves into it will depend upon the culture that emerges as a result of this. But I think that there's enough. Let's just call it, you know, love of one another and understanding of one another that this could be something really tremendous for our groups and for our leaders.

Laura:

Yeah, and I see this not staying local, but growing dramatically. What are your thoughts?

Linda:

Well, my thoughts are if this works in this community, it can work in another community. I can see that different communities could evolve as a result of this. Let's just say, today it's positively Asheville, but maybe tomorrow there would be a positively Asheville and or a positively Hendersonville and or a positively Minneapolis. I'm not sure where that will evolve, but at the moment we are focused on positively Asheville, because that's where we are and that's what's blossoming at the moment. That's the seed planted.

Laura:

Yeah, it's great, and if people wanted to get in touch with you and learn a bit more about Positively Asheville, how can they contact?

Linda:

you If they go to the website positivelyashevillecom. There are ways to number one, just inquire and contact me, or you can take a look at the events. There's an event calendar on the homepage and you can plug into the events that we are promoting and those events have a registration page so you can see when they are and they all, by the way, all of our monthly meetings happen at Sun Tzu Martial Arts on the first Tuesday of the month at 10 am, so that's a really great way to get in touch and get a good feel for who we are and what we do.

Laura:

Excellent, excellent. Well, linda, it is so great to have you on the show and I can't thank you enough for all that you shared with our group and the people.

Linda:

Fantastic, I appreciate you, Laura, and everything that you do. You are definitely a shining star for people who can and need guidance going forward.

Laura:

Thank you very much. I really appreciate that and I want to thank you, the audience, for listening to the mosaic life with Laura W. You can listen to this episode again and get this great content, or listen to other great hosts and their shows by going to bizradious and click on shows. Thanks so much for listening and have a great rest of your day.