Learn to Love & Embrace Your Trials

Meet Host, Mary Grothe

Mary Grothe is a former #1 MidMarket B2B Sales Rep who after selling millions and breaking multiple records, formed House of Revenue®, a Denver-based firm of fractional Revenue Leaders who currently lead the marketing, sales, customer success, and RevOps departments for 10 companies nationwide. In the past year, they've helped multiple 2nd stage growth companies between $5M - $20M, on average, double their MRR within 10 months, resulting in an average ROI of 1,454% and an average annual revenue growth eclipsing $3.2 million.

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Mary Grothe: Hey everyone, this is Mary Grothe - Founder and CEO - and you're listening to the Revenue Radio® podcast brought to you by House of Revenue®. Each week, we'll talk about common revenue challenges and how to get past them, share real-world experiences, and get a glimpse into my life as a CEO scaling my own business. If you're a struggling entrepreneur, or just an entrepreneur looking to be inspired, this podcast is for you. I'll give you honest, unfiltered, and practical insights into growing your business and getting past your revenue plateau.

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The last three episodes of Revenue Radio® have been very tactical, straightforward, and how-to execution advice. I walked you through go-to-market strategy, brand strategy, how to build a sales playbook out of that, pivot to what the market is looking for this year, and discussed our take on PLG. Last week with that, if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that I like to switch back and forth between tactical and then also speaking directly to the hearts of CEOs and executives who have a great responsibility of leading their people.

This year, being 2022, I had a gift given to me for Christmas. It's a devotional guide, and it's called "Unwavering Faith." I had heard that if you don't look at your phone in the morning, and you actually spend that time in meditation, reading, and journaling, you can wildly change the rest of your day. As somebody who deals with anxiety and can be triggered very easily, managing my anxiety is very top of mind and important.

I had heard this for a very long time. Don't look at your phone when you first wake up. I thought, "Yeah, well, they're not Mary Grothe." I have a big responsibility of managing a team and a handful of clients. I have things I need to do. I need that time. I wake up, usually naturally, sometime between 4:45 and 5:15. I'll roll over on my own. I'm able to head downstairs, get my coffee, clear out the emails. I have a power hour of administrative work, so I thought this was crazy. I can't dip into that time. I have the best power hour ever. I get so much done.

I was pretty convicted with a presentation I attended a couple of weeks ago. There's a man named Keith Roberts, who does a presentation. He is the author and creator of the "Oak Journal." He has a 10-10-10 journaling. Reading and journaling the meditation process he teaches in his presentation was compelling. I thought, "I'm just going give this thing a try." What's the worst that can happen? I'll give it a try for a couple of days. I won't look at my phone when I wake up. I'm just going to try the first 10 minutes. I won't even do the 10-10-10. The 30 minutes. Let me just try 10.

Well, for the last two weeks, I have committed to the 10 minutes every morning and what they say is so true. I can embrace calmness so much more throughout the day. It's very scientifically backed that when you wake up, especially if you're waking up in that hour of that 4 am to 5 am period, there's a state that you're in when you wake up, and I can't remember what it's called somebody look it up and tell me, it's like theta waves or something like your inner rested state. Cherish that state when you wake up and not interrupt it with your phone, blue light, stress, cortisol, and everything else. If you stay in that very calm, almost meditative state for the first 10 minutes upon waking up. You can extend that state throughout the day if you do that. Not at its fullest, but you can take elements from that state of calmness throughout the day. That can be through reading, meditation journaling. I've noticed it.

I had a couple of team members bring something urgent to me this past week. I could just feel the urgency radiating off of them like an energy vibration, and I'm just standing there like, "Okay, let's just solve the problem." No emotion, no trigger, complete calmness. That's definitely not like me. That's the first part of today's episode to encourage you. Don't look at your phone for the first 10, 20, or 30 minutes while you're awake if you have heard of this. I've only done the first 10 minutes, and it has been impactful in my day, so I recommend it.

I want to share the second part of today's episode with you from the book "Unwavering Faith" that I've been reading. Some scripture stood out to me, very purposeful for what we as CEOs, entrepreneurs, and executives endure during our tenure in this role. This is James 1:2-12 "Consider it a great joy my brothers and sisters whenever you experience various trials because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing." Let me read it one more time. "Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing."

Let's dig into this. It stood out to me because, being a CEO and entrepreneur, there's not a day of right that we don't endure trials. And this is so clearly saying, consider it a great joy. When was the last time you went through a trial, and you said, "Well, this is great." Interestingly enough, I can tie back every great trial I have gone through to a beautiful blessing. This outcome actually furthered everything in my life in a good way. It is unbelievable how we shift our perspective on the trials that we endure. We learn to embrace, cherish, welcome, and be obedient through them. Ask God what He's doing in our lives during that time. It's remarkable what can come out of the perception of that trial.

I've given you so many updates about our company. How was the revenue through the last year? I've told you quite a bit. In fact, for a while there, I started to feel like this show is just the behind-the-scenes of our company - what it takes to scale a service company. Last year, we had some tumultuous moments. We doubled in size, doubled in revenue, doubled in people. Being in the hot seat of the CEO is the first time I've ever led the charge on something like that. What's funny is that's what we do for our clients. We double the size of their companies. That's what we do but doing it ourselves and being in the driver's seat showed me a lot. Well, guess what? There's no shortage of trials, especially as we got into Q4. It got turbulent.

There was an amazing experience in the last part of the year. We were off. We closed the last week and a half, almost two weeks of the year. I had a lot of time for reflection and sitting. I also wasn't recording Revenue Radio®. I took some time off with my family. I was able to look back through what was a very turbulent Q4. I was able to map out every trial that we endured and map it to a blessing that we now had right in front of us.

I became so grateful during that time of reflection that and really, what I walked away with is we don't like pain as humans. We don't like trials. We just want it to be even keel. We want it to be puppies and sunshine. We want it to be good. We don't want to have bad days. You've heard all those cliches as the rainbow comes after the storm. Yes, but when you're in the storm, you're not thinking about the rainbow. When you're in childbirth, you're not thinking about how magically all of it's going to go away when you have the baby. You're in so much pain, it is stressful, and it's like you cannot get out of the moment.

It's very interesting to look back on the trials we faced and thank God for them because I can't, in my human nature. I don't want to purposefully do the hard things, like the really hard things to get the better outcomes because I often can't see it. I'm trying to say here that God is willing to do what I'm not. So Q4 was difficult. God weeded out the garden. He made things happen, things that I wasn't strong enough to do. Something I didn't even know I needed to do to have fill in the blank, the amazing blessing that was on the other side of it. Through trusting him in the process, we are coming out on the other end in a very, very strong place. Not without pain, without tears, not without loss. It was very hard to go through, but we're standing stronger than we were.

I am thankful that God is willing to do what I can't to give me what he believes I deserve, which is really unimaginable. For me, the number of blessings is far greater than the storm that we endured. For that, I remain faithful, and I am thankful. On that note, I think about what my coach told me a while back, just about increasing capacity. Every time you go through trials, every time you endure pain, strife, issues, challenges, you're building up the muscle, you're increasing your capacity, you're making room for more, inside of what you can, what you can handle, and what you can take on. If you think back and your business, think back to what your first year was like versus what your current year is like for us.

We're in our fifth year of business. We just celebrated four years in November. I look back at the first year, the pains, the trials, the challenges, what was endured, scared the crap out of me, if we're being honest. I didn't know how to do many things and be a CEO. Some of the basic things like getting payroll and accounting setup. Other stuff like converting people from contractors to employees. Having that burden, picking out office space, taking on overhead, learning how to say no to people who want to spend money with you and be a client even when you know they're not the right fit. Having tough conversations with employees and team members. So many aspects of the work that I just didn't know how to do.

I remember when we would have a client late paying their invoice. It was devastating to cash flow. I mean, I'm talking about a $5,000 invoice. It's like devastating to cash flow. Now, you know, we have clients, as we were pulling in over $400,000 a month. We were pulling in maybe 30 or $40,000 a month back then. Just putting it in perspective, the CEO that I was in the first year, I'm 100 times greater than that woman, and the reason that I am is that I've endured trials. Through those trials, I've learned, and I've expanded. I've learned to trust. I've learned how to navigate. I've built the repertoire. I've built the filing cabinet. I can run into it mentally and be like, "Oh, shoot, how do I solve this problem? Oh, yeah, it's like this one I dealt with two years ago."

I'm starting to build a playbook for navigating and going through these things. I'm increasing my capacity to handle more. It's so beautiful how that works inside us that we can genuinely increase that capacity. Trials are very difficult, but if you can shift your perspective and be thankful whether you pray to God or not, be grateful for that trial. If you do pray to God, just thank him and tell him that you trust him in what he's doing in your life and know that there is a blessing on the other side of that trial. It's amazing what happens when we shift our perspectives and welcome them.

The last part of our episode today has been on my heart: whatever changes you longed for, you have to do your part. Whatever changes you long for, you have to do your part. Some CEOs are very visionary, and they have a delegation team. They delegate. They put it off their plate. They just expect a team to deliver on it and do what they had in their mind. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic. It's not really how people operate. You need to lead through the expectation and the execution. To ensure that the outcome meets what you're expecting, whatever changes you longed for, you have to do your part that is very tactical base.

There are two sides to this. If you're looking at your organization, you're mapping out for 2022. What is it that we want as a company? Think about December 31, 2022, you look back on this whole year, what needs to have happened so that you can stand there on that day and say, "I am thankful for, and then fill in the blank." All the things you accomplished changed what occurred. Tell me about that. Write it out. Share it. What is that? Well, for the changes you longed for, you have to do your part.

I've seen a lot of CEOs that are very hands-off. Trust me, there's another kind of CEO that can't get out of the way. They're so hands-on. They drive people nuts. Don't be that CEO. There is a happy medium. This is a message towards the CEOs that seem to be a bit handoff. They're just kind of... what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know. They think because they said at one time that their team is just going to do it. That's not how it is. I've shared with you an example of the tactical execution component. You have a vision. You need to articulate that vision in a format that your team can galvanize around that vision, build a project plan, and see it through execution. You need to leap through that. You can't just delegate and be like, "Okay, it's probably done." Then be disappointed when it's not.

The other component of this that I want to share is whatever changes you long for; you have to do your part. That also goes with things like the culture inside your company. Let me tell you about some changes that I was longing for. I wanted my team to not work seven days a week or to think it's our culture here. But they weren't not going to think it unless I wasn't working seven days a week. Whatever changes you long for, you have to do your part. It wasn't fair for me to say, "Well, the culture I want is where the team really feels like they can unplug." Well, to do that, I have to do my part. My part of that was implementing a rule that there were no slack messages after 6 pm. Also, no slack messages on the weekend and no emails. Everything was going to be scheduled send.

Now, if you have a project that you're working on that you have to use evening or weekend hours that involve another team member, talk to them privately, gain permission, set boundaries around the expectation of the work that you're going to be putting forth outside of work hours. It was the only way to truly achieve the outcome that we wanted. Setting this precedence, we just work 24 hours a day to get the job done. Now the executive team House of Revenue®, that's kind of how we're wired. We're high drivers. This is how we go about our business. We work a lot, we're passionate about it, and quite honestly, we love it.

We were always online. We were always present. A lot of times, I was the one that was violating the policy the most. Well, pre-policy. I mean, we didn't have the policy yet. I didn't violate it afterward. I do a lot of admin work on weekends and catch up on things, so I would just be slacking in the evenings and on the weekends. I was the worst offender causing all this anxiety and triggering the team. I didn't even know I was doing that until it was brought to my attention, so we implemented these rules. Now we are stronger for it. Our team can actually unplug. We can separate work time from personal time. Be present with our families and our friends. Just unplug and do activities that really help us regenerate.

With that, whatever changes you long for, you have to do your part. I've worked with many executives who want something, but they don’t do anything to get the outcome. That's maddening. If you want it, then you need to do your part. Not just delegate it to speak it into existence once and then be disappointed when it doesn't happen. Well, that's it for today. Hopefully, you enjoyed the change of pace if we have any new listeners. Hope you enjoyed this. There's more where this came from.

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Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're interested in being on our show or want to learn more about how we can help you scale your company, connect with us at houseofrevenue.com or with me Mary Grothe spelled G-R-O-T-H-E on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram.

Connect with House of Revenue® on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

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