For 35 years, Leslie Levy August held progressively more senior roles in insurance punctuated with co-founding an entertainment start-up in NYC and an international trade company in the UK. She is an affiliate of the Workplace Bullying Institute and her new venture addresses the cost of toxic workplaces due to bullying.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- Leslie’s Father
Also mentioned:
When business started difficulties overcame:
“the biggest difficulty is the pivot from a business and an industry that I was intimately familiar with and known for to something that some people might say is brand-new and why would you do that at this stage of your life. It’s the end of my career so to speak and all of a sudden, I’m doing this what looks like brand-new thing. And I think that’s hard to overcome initially when people see me in a certain light or in a certain way”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action Book by Simon SinekFavourite Quote:
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” Mary Schmich
Recommended Online Resources:
- Advance your Reach – The Stage is The Fastest Way ToGet Your Message Out To The World
- Funnel Gorgeous – transform your marketing into a beautiful, on brand, and profitable cash-flow machine
- Workplace Bullying Institute – All Things Workplace Bullying
Also mentioned:
- Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems Zoom Rooms is the original software based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done Zoom is a private company headquartered in San Jose, CA
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“before committing to an entrepreneurial path be strategic and creative about what you sell. Can you do what you want to do but put a twist on it so it’s different to what else is on the marketplace. Can you apply technology to offer a better solution? Think about what you can design that’s your secret sauce… To be able to clearly answer the questions. What is the problem you solve? And who do you serve? Who is your human? And if you align all of your marketing to those two questions you will just shortcut a lot of fluff that that you really don’t need. Customers don’t care anything about us they care about themselves. And we really need to think about who is that customer we serve and what problem are we solving for them? And align all of our marketing with that”…[Listen for More]
More About Leslie Levy August:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success.” Shiv Khera
Other Quotes From the Chat with Leslie Levy August:
- “Independence, self-reliance and a good work ethic”
- “go out there and do your own thing”
- “I really didn’t think there was a business to be had in this passion that I had or this feeling that I had after I went through this experience with the workplace bullying. And so I tried a number of different options. I looked at franchising, I had this real estate idea that I was really keen on and got pretty far down the road with just the initial concept. And I just wasn’t feeling that strong enough momentum forward. And I thought if I’m not really driven by this thing right now, I’m going to be in bad shape when I actually come up against real challenges. And this thing kept pulling at me and saying you know don’t let your experience go to waste”
- “try things and see what really grabs you”
- “the secret to success is mostly a servant leadership perspective. I think there’s a lot of pieces to success. But unless I’m feeling like I’m being of service in this process I think it’s hard to feel successful. I think it’s hard to weather the ups and downs if I feel like I’ve always got to be on the receiving side of everything. But if I feel like I’m not here just to take, I’m here to give, I’m here to be of service my business is designed to be of service to the community” or the customers that I serve. It could be the world if it’s that big of a business. I think that creates that feeling of success regardless”
- “without the foundation you can easily make missteps”
- “I’m willing to take a risk. And unless I take risks, I’m not going to be successful. I have to take risks. So do one thing every day that scares you”
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