Brooke Lively is the Founder of Cathedral Capital, a team of CFO’s and Profitability Strategists who help entrepreneurs turn their businesses into profitable companies. With expertise in growth management, creative problem solving and profitability strategy, Brooke has been featured in international media including Forbes and CNBC.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
Brooke’s family… grandfather, father, mother, uncles, cousins, aunts,
When business started difficulties overcame:
“I think that it was really getting that critical mass of clients. I was very fortunate in that my father let me stay at his firm and continued to pay me a salary as I was gathering a critical mass of clients until I could leave him, until I could afford to go out on my own. And I think that is probably the biggest obstacle for almost everybody. It’s just getting the first people, the first few sold or on board or whatever you want to say, whatever you want to call them it’s getting first clients until you get to a point where you become a viable business”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
- Mike Michalowicz Books
- Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine Book by Mike Michalowicz
- Fix This Next: Make the Vital Change That Will Level Up Your Business Book by Mike Michalowicz
- The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field Book by Mike Michalowicz
- Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm Book by Verne Harnish
- Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business Book by Gino Wickman
Also mentioned
- What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful Book by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter
Favourite Quote:
” Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.” Marshall Goldsmith
Recommended Online Resources:
- Investopedia is the world’s leading source of financial content on the web, ranging from market news to retirement strategies, investing education to insights from advisors
Also mentioned
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization – The Entrepreneur Organization enables entrepreneurs to learn and grow from each other leading to greater business success and an enriched personal life
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“it’s really to know your value. That was probably the biggest problem that I had and it’s probably the biggest problem that most of our clients have when they come to us. In fact, virtually every sales call that I have we end up talking about the persons value of what they provide and most people leave having upped their hourly rates whether they hire us not. And it’s hard because what’s easy for you, you don’t place any value on. You don’t place a lot of value on your passion. The fact of the matter is other people need that skill set and it has an immense amount of value. And once you can reconcile that it makes all the difference in the world”…[Listen for More]
More About Brooke Lively:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“I may be over the top on this, but I just don’t want to like my competitors. I want my people to believe that whenever he and our other competitors succeed, we will be less able to do all the things we want to do.” Phil Knight, chairman of Nike
Other Quotes From the Chat with Brooke Lively:
- “I would have paid more attention to my clients, I would have got more feedback from them, I would have asked them if we were meeting their needs, I would have asked them what else they wanted. Here we were, we were the financial experts so we kept telling them what they needed. And when we start and really asked them what it was they wanted our profitability skyrocketed almost overnight. It was amazing paddy fields”
- “we are not big fans of gut feeling we really like data driven decisions. That being said I do listen to my gut a lot and then I go and find the data to back it up. Because I do think a lot of entrepreneurs are right about the gut feelings, they just know. But I don’t want to question it, I want to know that once I make that decision that it’s the right one so I don’t have to revisit it”
- “not being afraid to fail… You learn more through a failure then you do through a success. And realising that failure gives you the ability to improve more than success does is really amazing. And if you treat it as a learning opportunity your business will make great strides”
- “once you focus on others it makes such a difference”
- “I definitely believe in what’s called the inverted pyramid where the pyramid is upside down and the CEO is at the very bottom. It is my job to support my people, it’s my job to back them up, it’s my job to help them. If they are having a problem I role at my sleeves. That’s my position in the company.”
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