How to Know it's Time to Move on with 8-figure Entrepreneur, Angela Proffitt
Welcome to another episode of “Dream Job with Danielle Cobo”!
Today, I am blessed to be joined by Angela Proffitt.
Angela Proffitt is an award-winning 8-figure entrepreneur and CEO of GSD Creative. She is no stranger to the spotlight and is currently the host of the Business Unveiled podcast. As a consultant with several books as well as an in-demand speaker, Angela has appeared on ABC, CMT, TLC, E! as well as other national networks.
With a degree in psychology and proven expertise in productivity strategies that scale your business, her work has been featured in publications such as INC, Success, US Weekly & People magazine. When she is not speaking, writing, or creating content, Angela can be found working with other CEO’s, Executives, Entrepreneurs and/or Solopreneurs to implement and master processes that can turn any business, into a profitable business.
“It doesn't really feel like a job, if you love what you're doing everyday" – Angela Proffitt
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Highlights
💫 1:56 A little about Angela's career journey
💫 6:43 How Angela identifies who will be a good fit at her organization
💫 14:55 Who should you be getting advice from?
💫 21:00 The four different personality types
💫 28:10 An outward mindset vs. an inward mindset
💫 30:40 How well do you know your team?
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A Career Change Story That Can Inspire You
My career journey is definitely a journey. And we're still on the journey two decades later. Because if you're an entrepreneur, you never stop yet, or your brain never turns off. But I didn't start out like that. I started out by really understanding who I was as a person. I love helping people. And so I started out in nursing school, going to college, just like my parents told me I should. And then I learned very quickly in doing my clinicals that I did not like inflicting pain on people like giving shots and things. So I quickly changed to psychology, and then ended up graduating with a degree in psychology. I worked in mental health for several years working in a mental hospital and an AIDS clinic morgue. So I worked around a lot of people. And I thought that I can make a difference. If I was just a good listener, and I studied all these different psychology methodologies of how to connect with people. I could fix the world. And I could change everyone. But what you study and what actually happens aren't really the same thing. Right? So getting into it, I was in healthcare for about 10 years. And I'm so glad because it gave me the foundation of really understanding people. But you can't always fix everybody's problems, especially when they have – unfortunately if they're born with some type of illness, such as bipolar, schizophrenia, or depression, how do you handle those things? And it takes a special person, and I was not that person.
And so I moved out of healthcare and started a wedding planning event business, it's kind of by accident, I got started through my church and just doing it for fun and decorating. This is way before Pinterest and way before social media. It was just being a good communicator, really understanding people, and communicating with people the way they needed to be communicated with. And I learned all that working in the mental health hospital. And so fast forward a few years and in 2010, our town flooded. And a lot of my vendors lost everything. And I kept telling them, you've got to back your stuff up, put your stuff in the cloud. And thankfully, in healthcare like if you go to the doctor, in today's time, you typically are filling out EMR which has electronic medical records, and your records are being shared in the cloud. And I learned that very early on and saw how powerful that was. And so really bringing that to my business and making sure that I kept a paperless business, but it took a tragedy for the vendors to actually change. But that sparked the production company of teaching people how to sync all of their stuff in the cloud, how to get all their devices to talk and this is about the time that social media was like really born and video YouTube started to become a thing and I was always on the forefront of technology like surrounding myself with people that really were doing the next thing.
And then in 2011, I joined a group called EO the entrepreneur organization and that's really when my career started. Because it was great with all the stuff in the background, but surrounding myself with the like-minded people who and I like to say they're potty trained. I'm like a potty train-like entrepreneur all over the place, but you've got to know how to focus. And so over the past 10 years really building out the productivity side and the content creation side. But at the core of it, it's all about people. You can have automation, you can have the technology, and you can have as many platforms and systems as you want. But at the heart of it, there will always be people, because computers don't have feelings. And you've got to be able to learn how to best communicate with people at the core of it.
Wow, that is an interesting journey with a lot of pivots. Yeah, I can really relate to what you're saying. Well, I started off with a psychology major and switched to communications. I wanted to get a degree in Psychology because I thought I'd be able to make an impact and really understand my mom who suffered from bipolar disorder. And so I wanted to understand why and how to interact with different people with different personalities. But it's such a great degree to have, because whether you are in the mental health industry, or whether you're a people leader, or customer service, whatever it is, it's such a valuable degree because you get to understand people and how to communicate.
Prior to jumping on here, we talked a little bit about understanding people and how to hire the right people, because you've obviously had a lot of success throughout your career, and you've hired people, you've built companies, you are very successful. So tell us a little bit about how do you identify if somebody is a good fit for your organization.
Understanding and Maximizing People’s Strengths
Well, and going back to when working in a mental health hospital, we would do all these psychology tests – which who wants to take a test, when you've just suffered a tragedy, or you're being put into a mental like a psych ward and then you definitely don't want to talk to the caretakers, and the therapists and the nurses? But there was one specific psychology methodology that really opened the door.
Now. I mean, I was kind of a kid too. You know, they're looking at me like, you're 19 or 20 years old, I'm not gonna talk to you. But there was a specific one, that really, it was just easy. You look at pictures, and it has to do with pictures and colors, you don't have to read a whole lot to really comprehend and understand things. And when people are suffering from an unknown tragedy, or they weren't expecting it, or they just have a horrible episode that was unexpected for the family – your brain is working so differently when you're processing your everyday life than when you are suffering from a tragedy. And so really understanding how I can best communicate with those patients – and I really didn't realize how amazing that tool was until I started to travel and do destination weddings and events all over the world. And people think it's like, Can I climb into your suitcase and go to this private island, I didn't even know private islands existed, but they do. And so we had a client that wanted to go there. And on this little island, there was so much planning ahead, because there's no Amazon Prime, there's no Hobby Lobby, or Michaels, or Walmart, or Target or any of that stuff. Like you really have to plan ahead, put things on a barge, and pray it gets there. And then if it doesn't get there, you constantly have to problem solve and come up with a solution without the client knowing. So I really realized this on this island, because people were like, how are your people? How is your team so happy? I'm like, Well, I use the psychology methodology. And we pre-qualify everyone based on the way their brain is wired. I don't really care about their experience, I don't really care about what they've done in the past, I care about what are they naturally good at. And then 90% of the time, they're operating in those types of situations.
Now listen, we all do stuff we don't want to do, like hold people's hair back when they're puking, you know, in the commode and clean the commode. We all do stuff we don't want to do in these given situations; but 90% of the time, if you can hire people based on their strengths, and keep them in that area and stay in their lane, you're going to have people that are going to be much more productive and much more excited to do that work for you and with you.
You're so right. I mean, though, I know that a lot of companies will look at experience, experience experience. And while experience is great – there's obviously benefits to it because it shortens the onboarding process – the reality is, as a hiring manager, I always look for those intangible characteristics. What are their strengths? How can we elevate them? And you know, how are they showing up not only at work, but in life? Are they representing themselves? Because you can hire somebody with experience, but you can't teach somebody to wake up every single morning to be a motivated, driven, passionate, solution-oriented problem solver, just somebody that's quite frankly getting shit done. And so yeah, I will take those intangible characteristics over experience any day of the week.
We started doing internships and that's what really started to help grow the team in the right direction. And you can usually tell if someone's like, right brain, left brain, are people proactive, can you teach proactiveness, and then you've got the focus thing too. But when you have, and you said the keyword, when you have the passion, and you're excited about doing what you're doing even as an intern, that's how we prevent our team members. In fact, now everyone that works with us, they've all been an intern at some point, in different capacities before we're going to onboard them just because we are so driven by the psychology.
Facing the Realities in the Business World
And if someone's not a good fit in the culture, there's a saying, you know, if you have one bad rotten egg, it like spoils the whole carton or something like that. It's true. So company culture is very, very important. Now, I do want to say, I didn't start off like that. I hired my sister who was great until she had four kids. And then, but it's like my family, I mean, we would never let each other down; my brother owns a business, my grandfather in the business of alcohol. But I started also hiring my friends just because I needed hands. Like on the weekends, they worked at the hospital with me. And that was like, not the right thing. Because as I grew, they weren't really excited for me, because they saw me moving in a different direction and shifting, and they weren't shifting in their life, and it was very hurtful. And I had to hire a business manager, and he said, Honey, you're gonna have to get rid of all of those people, and you're gonna have to really hire people. And I'm like, I can't get rid of 12 people, and they're my friends. And, I mean, they were kind of mean and bullied. And, you know, I was providing opportunities for them. And, you know, I was so young and didn't really understand how to really run a real business. But those were the wake-up moments that I needed to be able to actually grow as a real business owner.
And although like, you know, I'm not friends with those people anymore, and it sucks. But what's great is like, God puts the right people around you. But that doesn't happen by accident, you know, you have to be intentional. And you start to surround yourself with the right people. And my business manager said, we really need to start an intern program. And girls were emailing me and asking, like, can I shadow you? And like, why did these people care? I didn't grow up with TV, I didn't watch TV. But that's when like, all these wedding shows were on like TLC, and HGTV. And what they thought and what these TV shows sold, and then what the reality was, were the two completely different things. But that's really how I had to go through those hard kinds of depressing times, like losing my friends. But you know that I made new ones that were definitely the right fit in my life, people are going to come and go in your life. And that's okay, as humans, we take it personally. But psychology has allowed me to separate that and understand that people are going to come and go, and that's okay.
Finding the Right Tribe to Help You Thrive
You know, you brought up such a great point about surrounding yourself, like I always say, surround yourself with a tribe of people that hold you high and lift you up. And whether that is at work, you're 100% right, you can have one person be the cancer in the team, and that one person that shows up to work negatively can influence other people by dragging them down. So if you have somebody on that team, it's so important to acknowledge it and understand why are they feeling like they're not happy. And whether it's at work or in life, you know, try to address the right away. And then understand that it may not be that the person is not a good fit for the company; it may just be that they're in the wrong role. So it's, you know, it's a variety of things. First, understanding why they're unhappy, are they the right person for that particular role? Are there other opportunities within the organization? Or if they're just not really happy in the company, we can still support them through looking somewhere else, to our own connections and relationships. And that same thing applies to life, like you said, surround yourself with people that are positive that hold you high, who are like-minded. And I say like-minded in the sense where they're both passionate and driven, obviously, there's value in having people that have different perspectives on things so we could be well-rounded as well.
Yeah, one of the things that sometimes when I do a lot of mentoring and at our entrepreneurs center – and when I say young entrepreneurs, I don't mean like young like, Oh, you're in your 20s. There are people in their 50s and 60s that have had a whole blown career. And they're retired and they have an idea and they want to start something. And so they'll say to Me, you know, ask my neighbor and my friend and the women at church and, you know, it was for younger, like in their 20s entrepreneurs. Are people coming out of school? Or should I go to college? Or should I do that? And I'm like, well, first off, the people that you should be asking are the people that have actually done it, and have a result that you want.
Something that I had to really learn early on is my parents when I told them, I'm quitting the hospital, I'm resigning because I'm not a quitter, right? I'm like an overachiever. I'm like, I'm gonna resign, and I'm gonna do this entrepreneur event thing. And my dad's like, Are you on drugs? Like, did you fall and hit your head? What is wrong with you, you have benefits and bonuses and 401, k's, and what is wrong with you? I really had to learn and it was the people around me that said, you don't have to trade those. Like, it's not that I was unhappy in healthcare, you know, the politics sucks it is everywhere. But when you own your business, you can choose to be part of that or not be part of that, and how and where you can make an impact based on facts, not based on emotions. And it's just cattiness, and I just knew that there was always something more out there. And I had to stop listening to the people who haven't done what I was trying to do, which, at the time, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I just knew I didn't want to stay in healthcare for the rest of my life. So you got to try new things. You know, if you're not happy doing something, it's okay to try new things. And I think the older generation, like my parents' generation, they were taught to work for the same company for 30 years, there's this pension and security and all this stuff, then you're gonna get to travel the world, and they paint this bullshit picture, which is I don't even know if that stuff will exist when I'm in retirement age. And so we really have to look at the differences in the gaps and how technology has changed everything. And then embrace those changes and educate ourselves and learn how we can be the best we can be, and actually be happy doing what we're doing. Otherwise, you don't want to GSD – you don't want to get shit done, be more productive.
Finding and Keeping the Things that Spark Joy
That's so true. I mean, and I know my listeners have heard me say this 1000 of times. I do say you spend more time at work than you do at home, gut check yourself. Are you happy? I actually didn't realize I had worked for an organization for seven years. And I thought that it was happy. There are a lot of aspects about that job that I really enjoyed. And oh my gosh, what I've learned and the experience I gained through working with this company was extraordinary and exceptional. It really supported me and where I'm at today. I didn't realize that I actually wasn't as happy as I thought I was and when I started to really take inventory of my life and what brought me the most joy. And this kind of goes into what you're speaking of. I love supporting people with developing their career plans. Hiring people was a lot of fun, because I really got to uncover that spark deep down inside that, you know, they didn't have industry experience but they were rock stars. And it's just a matter of getting them the opportunity or supporting people on my team and getting promoted. Where I really had a challenge was with people that said they wanted to do it, but didn't actually put action in place and didn't get the shit done to do it, like you said, GSD.
And so now, I get to work with people who want to put action in place, who want to develop their careers, and who want to take that next step. And I get to do it every single day. I love my job, I love it. And you don't even really feel like it's a job if you love what you're doing every day. But if you're listening in, and you’re hiring people, especially people that are in HR – I was fortunate because the company in healthcare, all the different companies that I worked for, they really put a lot of effort multiple times a year – now it was optional – to go get continuing education, to see us “keep your license and therapist.”
The Psychology Makeup of People and How It Affects the Success of the Company
And so I would go to these workshops and learn all these different things about how I could better understand. And also like, there are little things that you can just tell about people like based on their whole psychology makeup. And so it's like, take Myers Briggs, which is great. But you answer a bunch of questions, it spits out answers, and it's between you and the computer, basically. But the one that I love is true colors,and it's the one with pictures and colors. And there's like the four different personalities. And so you can really tell based on someone's interaction to just through email, I can look at someone's Pinterest board and know what kind of color they are in the psychology makeup. And we all have all four traits. But you typically have – they don't call it a strength, a weakness, a high low – they call it a bright and a pale.
And so someone that's like really bright gold, they're going to be like the Taipei's, the organization, they're going to email you and their emails are going to be a little bit more formal, they are going to be early, they're the ones that are GSD. And that's just their natural capacity at whatever they're doing. They are overachievers, if they clock in from nine to five, they will go clock out at five and then they'll go back to work because they want to finish it their way, even if someone offers help because their way is the right way. And so golds are awesome leaders, but they're not huge risk takers. So they're not going to go and drop 100 grand on investing in a business because that's way too risky.
And then the blues, they're the ones that in their emails, they're gonna have smiley faces, and they're way more emotion-driven. And they're the ones that if they feel that you have a great interview, they're probably going to, prior to the pandemic, they're just going to hug you they're not going to ask. And nowadays, it's like, Can I hug you or are you vaccinated? That's the world we live in right now. But they're the ones that are all driven upon, how are you making me feel, and that's how they are going to make their decisions. And then performance-wise, if you don't recognize the things that you're doing, they will feel undervalued and not appreciated, even if you have said it out loud in a staff meeting. But if they weren't paying attention, or they didn't hear it, or you didn't give them the recognition the way they wanted it, it's useless.
And the greens, they're driven by analytics and research. They're not huggers. And they're very straight to the point. And there are periods in the emails, and they usually are driven by all the facts. They're not going to make a decision or do anything off on emotions. They're the ones that will go through your website and tell you how many misspelled words you have. And they will also ask you about the percentage that's on the homepage, your website, it didn't have where that came from. So how do you know that statistics? Like these are the people that just push you. And I didn't have greens on my team for a long time because frankly, they kind of got on my nerves. But now it's like I've completely reframed years ago, when I learned from my accountant, that we weren't really making a profit. Like we're doing 250 plus events a year and he's like, but you're still not really profitable. And I'm like, I don't understand. And I had to hire a few greens to really put around me to challenge me and ask where, how, and how many hours we need to track our hours. “Why is this…” – being their favorite word – is why they're going to challenge you. Which if you're in human resources or you're a leader in your department, and people ask you these things and people get better, are you defensive? Like, why are you questioning me, I'm interviewing you. And it's like, I challenge you to like reframe that mindset. And really think about, wow, this person actually cares. And they're asking, and maybe they know something that I don't know, that could actually make me better as a leader and make the company better. And so just reframing that thought, that's really important.
And then your oranges, a lot of oranges are very entrepreneurial. They're the ones that will go cliff jumping and skydiving up in two seconds, like, I have a lot to lose here, I probably shouldn't do it. Sometimes were labeled as a little irresponsible. And you know, you should think through this before you do this. And it's like why or I don't honestly think about it like I want to do it. But oranges are just risk takers. But if they're working with you, those are the ones that need to be in creativity and marketing. And they're the ones saying, oh my gosh, I was driving down the interstate, there's a billboard. And like we saw the soup, right? So we could have steam. Which Panera did a campaign a few years ago and on the ground, like, oh my god, there's steam coming out of that billboard up there. Like that's genius. And then their soup sales went up for butternut squash because they were introducing a new soup. Starbucks does this lot too.
So it’s just like, knowing where to place the people to where they're going to thrive is just – it's everything.
I want to acknowledge you for something because oftentimes, we can kind of hire similar people, because we know that typically, the opposite of us do some of these personality tests, I also do a lot of personality tests, or my coaching and workshops and things like that, it can get under our skin, they're opposite than us. We don't understand them. And style flexing for communication, but also taking it a step further, like you said, where there's value and having different personalities, because what may be my strengths may not be theirs. But also where my opportunities are maybe analyzing the numbers and things like that wasn't your strength, but that's theirs. And so you get to let them flourish and shine and do the things that you don't want to do and hold you accountable for it. So there's value in having different personalities on our teams, as long as you know what their strengths are and you acknowledge them.
And that's the key. It's all about how you customize the message the way the other person needs to hear it. And there's another tool that I recently went through, it's the Harbinger Institute, and they really promote how to have an outward mindset rather than an inward mindset. And if you're leading people or leading teams, or if you want to be in leadership, understanding how to get two people in conflict in the moderator is just absolutely hilarious, because everything he was saying he was like making up situations. And he's like, this shit really happens in like, huge companies and corporations that are billion-plus dollar companies, and the leaders within the company, they don't know how to fix it. And so they'll go through this, how to have an outward mindset.
And the number one thing is, you have to see people as a person, an individual person first. And in corporate America, we've been trained for so long, like how much output can you give me? And how much work can you get done? And how productive can you be? But if your kids don't have cancer at home, or your dog, which happened to me, a year ago, it's like, nothing really matters right? Now you got to go through a little depression state, you got to grieve, you got to take time. But if you don't, if you're a leader, and you're leading someone, and you don't know that about them, because you never even asked. And if you ask a green, they're probably not going to tell you because they keep their shit to themselves. But at least you asked, but a blue person will tell you all about it. And at least you're aware because life is life. And we all go through hard times we all go through challenges. And like, what's the song “What doesn't kill us makes us stronger,” and it is true. But sometimes a little bit of empathy goes a really long way with you and your employees and your team members.
Yeah, I mean, that's so true. I distinctly remember when my husband was leaving for his deployment, he served a year overseas and it was in 2019. My twins were a year and a half and it was I just remember this moment when I had just dropped them off as his base. And I'm driving home and I'm looking around and I'm going no one has any idea that I just dropped my husband off to leave this country. And I don't know if he's coming back. Yep. And it was at that moment when I said, “Wow. Every day, everybody's working through something. Everybody, no matter what, we all have challenges in our life, there's something going on. And it's up to us to ask the questions, to get to know our team so that we can better understand, support, be empathetic, and connect with them. I can pinpoint that moment in my life when I really hit home.
Simple Ways to Achieve Small Wins in Your Current Job
Make sure that you're looking at the person – hiring the right people and surrounding yourself with the right people.
There's a lot of leaders that I work with inside companies, and they're like, I don't know the business I can't. But you're the type of person that can go to a senior leader or partner talking about change. And so don't stay quiet, and don't perceive yourself as being in trouble. It's people like you that are paving the future, and actually making a difference, and making an impact. And if they're not gonna listen to you, maybe it's not the right company. So I encourage you to make sure that you surround yourself and you hire the right people.
Go big with processes.
I watch my mom do it all the time, she grabs a post-it note with a pin, and I'm like, Mom, tell Siri to remind you. And let's give you a deadline. I love post-it notes for specific things. And I love the big post notes for like strategy days because visually, I need to see things. But when you're growing a team, how are you going to delegate and outsource if it's just around your computer with post-it notes? So come up with some type of a process. Even if your company that you work with is not paperless, then start to try to do it yourself to, just in your personal life, use digital coupons instead of clipping them out, which my mother still does, I'm picking on her. But she loves that paper. But I also come from a place where I've had patients where their houses burned down, their companies burned down, and they were suicidal because they lost everything. So just don't wait for a tragedy to come to where you actually are taking pictures of all your pieces of paper and like backup your stuff in the cloud.
Don't be afraid of technology, and don't be afraid of automation.
A lot of people that we work with, usually they're Mac users, they have Apple products, or they have an iPhone; and if it's not working or they can't find something like a contact, they go I hate my phone. 100% of the time it's user error because you don't take the time to either go to the free Apple classes or watch the videos on YouTube. Just slow down, slow down and take five minutes to go to YouTube, search the problem, find the solution, and then you can help other people. But if you'll just take the five or 10 minutes to slow down the time, it's going to save you long-term from understanding how your technology can work for you and will be a complete game changer.
