I’m a leadership development expert and workplace culture consultant who helps committed, open-minded leaders create stronger cultures through leadership development and employee engagement experiences.
I support organizations that want to be high-performing, innovative, and a great place to work. By implementing a leadership development system and intentionally building a great culture through proven processes, I help these organizations see better business results and higher revenue.
Over the years, I heard stories from people in my network who dealt with leaders who made their lives miserable and organizations that weren’t giving them quality leadership development opportunities. I heard people talk about crying on their way to work, being bullied by coworkers and managers, and dealing with anxiety or depression that halted their normal, happy life. I also experienced a toxic workplace culture myself. I felt anxious because of the culture that the new leadership brought to our team.
I knew there had to be a better way to lead and cultivate a healthy workplace culture. Being action-oriented, I decided to do something about this problem. I decided to get my masters in Organizational Development. I wanted to help people stop hating their jobs and start loving their workplaces. Why should you care?
You get better business results out of happy, engaged employees in a positive workplace culture.
Whether you’re a CEO, department leader, or an entry level employee, we can work together.
From company-wide organizational development consulting to one-on-one leadership coaching I am an experienced and enthusiastic culture consultant.
Are you ready to create higher performing teams? Want to improve your company culture? Is it time to address the turnover rate at your organization?
Let’s do this!
Join my Facebook community: The Revolutionary Leadership Collective // https://www.facebook.com/groups/revolutionaryleadershipcollective
___________________________________________________________________________________
-Transcript-
Brad Burrow (00:01):
Welcome to In a World With Real Media. I’m your host, Brad Burrow. In this podcast, we’ll dive into the lives of the most successful people in business. We’ll learn how they overcame adversity, took advantage of opportunities and learned from their experiences. Learn from our experts. Get inspired, then go live your story. It’s in a world with real media. Hello and welcome to the In A World With Real Media Podcast. I’m Brad Burrow, and today we have Haley Gras with us on the podcast. And it’s really funny, I’m going to tell this quick little story. So we had a top gun event here with Nick and Giuliani, and it was so awesome having everybody in here, but you spoke up and say, I want to be on 12 podcasts this year. And I’m like, I have one. Yeah.
Haley Grayless (00:54):
So check. I think I said something.
Brad Burrow (00:56):
Yeah. So Haley’s passionate about helping leaders create a healthy culture, build team accountability and increase profitability, all things that we should be focusing on right In business. So thank you for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Oh,
Haley Grayless (01:12):
Thanks Brad. I’m so happy to be here.
Brad Burrow (01:14):
So I’ve got a lot of, you have an incredible background. I was looking through LinkedIn and so there’s a lot of things that you’ve done that have kind of built up your skillset and experience and stuff. One of the things that I really wanted to ask you about, well, a couple things, but Vessels International, I saw that and I was like, you were overseas for some time working with this organization.
Haley Grayless (01:42):
And I think middle school started learning through my youth group and stuff about oppression and poverty in India. And being an ambitious kid, I was like, oh, I mean, sounds like that’s something I could do to help the world. And so that was my goal after college, was to move to India and serve. And so I did. I raised support after I graduated from M Zoo and I lived there for a little over a year, probably like a year and a half in New Delhi and Wow. Yeah, I worked in shelter homes for kids and did some other work, just service work in the area. But I learned there that I was such an extrovert that it was a little harder to live there. I mean, I made friends, Western people and Indians and stuff, but it was so hard, mostly living by myself and working by myself, and it’s not what I had expected. So yeah, I went from I’m going to live here the rest of my life to, I think that this has been a good experience and I’m ready for
Brad Burrow (02:41):
So you went over there thinking you would stay?
Haley Grayless (02:43):
Oh yeah. I thought I was there the rest of my life. Wow.
Brad Burrow (02:46):
Wow. And how long were you there?
Haley Grayless (02:48):
A year and a half. And it was a wonderful experience and I got to travel all around the country, but I just realized I really needed more of a team or some sort of unit that was supportive on the ground with me, and it was a very challenging lonely time.
Brad Burrow (03:05):
Were you by yourself?
Haley Grayless (03:06):
Yeah, I lived the first few months with some other American women right out of college also, and that was great. And then their duration was up. They were with a different organization. And so then I lived by myself and it was really hard. I remember watching the movie Hope Floats on the 4th of July,
Brad Burrow (03:23):
Which
Haley Grayless (03:24):
Was my favorite holiday in another country. And I remember just crying. I was like, hope Floats was the wrong movie to watch alone. So it was hard, but it was a great experience and I look back on it with a lot of fondness and I learned a ton of things about myself and the world.
Brad Burrow (03:41):
What an amazing experience. I mean, just doing that by yourself. It seems amazing to me. I mean, that’s something, I’ve been on missions trips and things like that, and you always go with a group of people. You don’t go by yourself to something like that.
Haley Grayless (03:55):
Oh yeah. That’s not what I expected at all. So
Brad Burrow (03:57):
Yeah,
Haley Grayless (03:59):
It was hard, but work,
Brad Burrow (04:00):
Well, if you can do that, you can do anything. Right.
Haley Grayless (04:02):
That’s kind of my mindset. But when I was 23 and 24, I think I turned 25 there, I realized that wow, I mean, people didn’t expect this. Once I got there, the organization I thought I was going to be working with and what I thought I would be doing, they were like, we don’t really know what you’re talking about. We don’t know who my director was in my organization, but they were like, you can still live with our people. So I wasn’t doing work with them because I hadn’t gone through training with that organization and wasn’t that denomination and stuff. And so I had to just figure it out. So I remember emailing my supporters, everybody who was on my email list, and I was like, okay, here’s how things have changed. I thought I’d be working with kids rescued from sex trafficking and from the brothels. Their mothers were sex slaves in the Red Light District
Brad Burrow (04:51):
In India. Wow.
Haley Grayless (04:53):
But I thought I’d be doing that, and then that organization wouldn’t let me work with them because I wasn’t their denomination. And even though it’s
Brad Burrow (05:00):
Like a faith-based type thing,
Haley Grayless (05:02):
They were Pentecostal and I wasn’t.
Brad Burrow (05:04):
And
Haley Grayless (05:06):
So I ended up just having to literally Google non-government organizations in New Delhi that I could serve at. And it was great. I found some organizations that were run by Indian folks who were doing this NGO work, and it was a really, really amazing experience because they welcomed me so much and they were just happy to have my hands and feet to serve and help. And then it’s funny because we’re really jumping ahead, I think.
Brad Burrow (05:32):
No, that’s okay.
Haley Grayless (05:33):
I ended up doing a lot of work there with the team who was working at the main shelter home where I served at doing organizational development and team building and leadership training,
Brad Burrow (05:43):
The beginnings of what you’re doing.
Haley Grayless (05:44):
But I had no idea what it was at the time. I didn’t even know that you could really make a career in that I just have that natural talent and I can see the needs. And so I was like, oh, I feel like these folks maybe need some training. They hadn’t, well, a shelter home staff in India wasn’t able to obviously pay their people a high salary. So they were hiring people with a lower level of education, which makes sense. But so they hadn’t had the trainings that I had had in college and things like that. So I taught them more about appropriate ways to discipline kids and to redirect them and stuff like that. And then ended up doing training on how to be an effective team and how the leaders can be effective with accountability and setting expectations. And it’s so funny because now that’s what my company does, and I didn’t even think about it at the time that I could turn it into what I have now.
Brad Burrow (06:34):
Do you remember the feeling getting off the plane?
Haley Grayless (06:37):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (06:37):
Were you scared to death?
Haley Grayless (06:38):
I was really scared. I did have my director with me when I first went there, and somehow, I don’t know if I took melatonin or if the universe knocked me out or something, but I slept the almost entire 15 or 16 hours from Chicago to New Delhi on the plane. I don’t know, I think I was so nervous my body just shut down.
(06:57):
Not that I was regretting it, but it was just such a gigantic change. Oh gosh, it’s all my friends. And they were all, I dunno, partnering up and getting married and I was like, I’m moving to a developing country. And so yeah, I got out there and we figured it out. The first month I lived with a family that, so they were actually from Uganda and the mother of the house actually worked at the Ugandan embassy in New Delhi. So it was cool also to be in the capital city of a country because I got to always see Thes and the embassy schools. And it was a really cool way because I had never even been to DC at that point. So I lived in the capital of India before I’d even been to Washington DC in the us.
Brad Burrow (07:38):
That’s crazy.
Haley Grayless (07:39):
So it was very nice that they let me live with them because it was a connection. My director had lived in a spare room in luckily had my own bathroom and things like that. So I had my own little mini apartment, but then I ended up living with some other American volunteers,
Brad Burrow (07:55):
Food and stuff. Did that take a while to get used to?
Haley Grayless (07:57):
Well, I love Indian food, but it’s funny because Good thing, yes, but I was in charge of, I cooked my own meals for the most part unless I went out to restaurants. But it’s funny because in America at least, I don’t know, I guess people might be pickier, but I like to mix it up and have different cuisines all the time. Like Thai and Mexican and Italian, and I dunno, just a salad and just basic pancakes or whatever. But in India, if I was staying with friends or something, your breakfast would be Indian and it wouldn’t be like what I was used to. It wouldn’t be like cereal or sausage and pancakes or something like that. It would
Brad Burrow (08:34):
Be So what was it?
Haley Grayless (08:35):
I’m trying to remember names of things, but it’d be things that maybe had fennel in them and I’m like fennel in this, I dunno, breaded item. And so it was challenging. Sometimes it’s not that I didn’t like it, but it was like I’m a little over this palette
(08:50):
And
(08:50):
I need something, I don’t know, different or sweet or something like that. So yeah, the food, I mean it was great. And so I still try to support my favorite Indian restaurant in Westport.
Brad Burrow (09:01):
I
Haley Grayless (09:02):
At least usually once a month.
Brad Burrow (09:03):
That’s
Haley Grayless (09:03):
More than that.
Brad Burrow (09:04):
That’s awesome. So then you went to United Way after that?
Haley Grayless (09:07):
Yeah, so I was at United Way Greater Kansas City.
Brad Burrow (09:09):
So I bet the experience in India really helped probably what you’re doing at United Way.
Haley Grayless (09:15):
So I was doing fundraising and I was there for six and a half years and it really translated well. I had to raise all of my own income and support for India. So I think that’s why they hired me. I didn’t really have regular experience I guess because it was my first real job. But I mean fundraising just kind of came easy to me. Also, if you believe in something, as long as I believed in it and there was personal meaning, it was pretty easy to sell that idea.
Brad Burrow (09:46):
I could see that. I could see you being really good at that. No thanks. I know you just a little bit. So United Way, and one of the things I wrote down, well back up ela. So my son was a pitcher at ela. Oh, cool. And so we know a little bit about Avila. Nice. But you got your master’s degree? There is, yes.
Haley Grayless (10:05):
My master’s,
Brad Burrow (10:06):
Yeah,
Haley Grayless (10:06):
Undergrad from University of Missouri.
Brad Burrow (10:07):
Yeah. So why ala? I’m just curious why you picked that school.
Haley Grayless (10:12):
Really it was the program. They had their masters of science and organizational development. And so I had met somebody at a networking event. I think I went to some talk maybe through the chamber or some networking organization. And this lady who was a few years older than me was doing, I dunno, some professional development talk. And I was like, how cool is that she can do this for her job and
(10:35):
What qualifications does she have? Not like I was questioning her, but I was like, what do I need to do to be able to do that? And so I talked to her afterward. I was like, I’d love to take you to coffee or breakfast or something and pick your brain. So she was so amazingly supportive and I never thought I’d go back to school because while I love the social side and everything and I like learning, I didn’t want homework and tests and stuff. And she’s like, well, lucky for you. There’s only one class with tests. And it was statistics,
(11:00):
But that teacher made it really easy and you basically got to do the test as a group, which I’m all about, but everything else was papers, projects and presentations, the Triple P. And so she really sold it to me also. She was like, they really want you to be successful. They make it easy for people who have a full-time job because the classes are in the evenings 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM And so yeah, she got me interested and I applied and talked with them and I ended up doing it and it was a wonderful experience. I’m really glad I did it at that time. I think that their whole program’s online now and mine was in person, which was so wonderful.
Brad Burrow (11:35):
Was that pre Covid then?
Haley Grayless (11:37):
Yes.
Brad Burrow (11:37):
Yeah,
Haley Grayless (11:37):
I graduated in 2019 from it.
Brad Burrow (11:40):
Okay. Yeah. Well that’s awesome. The next thing I had written down is Predictive Index. Tell me what that is.
Haley Grayless (11:46):
Oh, predictive index is great. So it’s actually a psychologically validated tool and I love a lot of those personality assessments. I use Enneagram, I use Myers-Briggs. That was my first love I call it
Brad Burrow (11:58):
Within this world. So do you use this as part of when you engage with a company or
Haley Grayless (12:01):
Something? Yeah, I can. Currently, I’m not a predictive index partner, I’m considering being that, but I was a consultant under another partner and so I’m certified in it.
(12:08):
And it’s an amazing tool because it measures workplace behaviors. So all of those different personality assessments measure different things. So I kind of say it’s like when you go to the doctor, they don’t just take your weight, they have to also know your height and they look in your nose and your ears and your mouth and they measure all these different things, blood pressure, and we talk about pulse and things like that. And so PI measures four different workplace behaviors that you can see or behaviors that really drive the needs that you have based on what people can see. And so it measures your dominance level, extroversion, patience and formality. So it measures everything on a graph. Also when you get a report. And it’s cool because you can see very, the graph shows a midpoint of the average of the millions of people who’ve taken it since the 1950s. And then you can have a super low level of any of those drives or super high level you can see. So I have high dominance and a little higher extroversion, moderately low patients, and super low formality. So then those factor combinations based on how does your extroversion relate to your formality? Well, I have high extroversion, low formality, so I’m a very informal communicator.
(13:18):
It makes me fun, but sometimes I say things but people are like, oh my gosh, I have a filter. And it’s like people need to lighten up, but so then it could be flipped. If somebody is higher formality and lower extroversion, they’d be a very formal communicator.
Brad Burrow (13:32):
So I’ve done kolby
Haley Grayless (13:34):
And
Brad Burrow (13:34):
Ones like that before and it’s interesting what you learn about how you make decisions and
Haley Grayless (13:41):
Totally
Brad Burrow (13:42):
Vision and follow through and all that stuff. So it’s very interesting to know that. Definitely. And when you realize that you have certain things then where you need help, is that kind of part of, do you go into a company and evaluate, say, okay, everybody take this test and then we’re going to sit down and say, well maybe you’d be better in this area. Is it
Haley Grayless (14:02):
You can do that? They do have a job target assessment. So when they’re hiring for a position, they have a few people take that job target analysis. And so the probably hiring manager and then maybe high performers who are in that role, maybe somebody in hr. And you select different words that are things that position will have to frequently do to be successful. So not once in a while, but the things they’d have to frequently do. And then it literally creates a job target. So I’m a maverick on the predictive index, and so there are certain roles that a maverick would fit well in. Yeah, it might be sales and stuff that’s innovative and creative people leading
(14:41):
Where you get to present and be in front of people and take risks where I won’t get my hand slapped if I take a risk and it doesn’t work out. That kind of thing is good. You don’t want me in finance role, you don’t want me in anything where I’m going to have to be really, really precise. There are may be mavericks who could do that with the same type of personality, but they’d probably have a different value system or different because there’s other things that play into it, but my value is not precision and that’s okay.
Brad Burrow (15:09):
Yeah,
Haley Grayless (15:10):
That’s why the backup camera on my car has been a lifesaver.
Brad Burrow (15:15):
Yeah, it’s funny. That’s a funny thing. I have three boys and my youngest, when he learned to drive, had a backup camera on his, he used our cars and then he got a car and it didn’t have one. It’s like, dad, how am I supposed to back the car up?
Haley Grayless (15:28):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Brad Burrow (15:31):
I’m like, well, maybe you should use your rear view mirror and actually do it the way it’s supposed to be done. Pretty funny. But yeah, that’s funny that you mentioned that. So Axa, tell me about AXA Collective and one of the questions, I really appreciate you doing this, by the way, this is really great. Good. So it told me a lot about you. I’ve never had a podcast guest give me a printout of what you would like to talk about, which is really awesome. I think that’s cool. So great job on that. Thanks. But vsa, tell me about that. And then one of your questions was, what was the inspiration to leave the non-profit world?
Haley Grayless (16:10):
So VSA Collective is the name of my company. I launched full-time in 2018. I was doing some part-time stuff when I still was at my other full-time job and VSA is Swedish for to grow. So I was looking for a word that made people ask questions and made people curious, although sometimes now I’m like, maybe I should have made it more clear what my business does. But it’s fine. Maybe it’ll be a rebrand eventually. But my dad’s side is Swedish and so always, I dunno if people are familiar with the little Swedish horses and the Swedish designs. My grandma’s house had those all over.
(16:40):
And actually my cousin and I are planning to go to Sweden and Norway this year. Awesome. To visit the motherland. And so I wanted something that made people ask questions and made people curious. And what I focus on is helping people and companies grow in their culture and their leadership and those skills so that people aren’t miserable at work because you don’t have to be. And I once had a friend around my age say, but they call it work for a reason, but maybe that’s just my maverick mindset and Enneagram seven, Myers-Briggs, ESFP, I don’t want to be there if it’s not fun and human design, dunno if you’re into that. It’s related to astrology. I’m a generator in that. And where generators get their energy is by doing things they like
(17:20):
Not doing, the things they don’t. And it almost just feels like a cheat code for life. Like, wait, am I going to just not do those things mean within reason? But that’s not where you’re going to shine and it’s not where you’re going to serve the world in the best way. That’s kind of the connection there. So I started it because I had been in organizations previously and I had seen just so much toxicity when leadership changes happened and certain leaders were just checked out and maybe approaching either retirement or I don’t know, they had other stressors in their life and it really made the culture negative for everyone else. So I mean there was a period of time probably at least six or seven months end of 2015 where things got so bad that, I mean, I was dreading work and that is a flip.
(18:08):
I went from my friends teased me about how much I loved my job and how on the weekends or evenings sometimes I’d be like, well, I wish I was at work right now. I loved it so much and I think I was finding too much of my identity in my job, but being a single woman, no kids, I didn’t even have a dog at the point. So at that point, so I found a lot of my identity in who I am at work and being the superstar and that kind of stuff. And so when things went downhill and the culture really changed, it was shocking that I had so much anxiety. I had never experienced that before and my appetite went away. I had never experienced that before where I could barely eat. So speaking of Indian restaurants, I was at Corma Sutra now Moti Mahal in Westport,
(18:49):
And I was there with my dad. He came up for my birthday that year in 2015. And I took two bites of my chicken tiki masala and I was like, I’m sorry, I can’t, I cannot physically eat anything else. And so I bet for six months all I was, I maybe consumed 300 calories a day because I could have a Chobani single serve yogurt, maybe some cream in my coffee and could barely eat so anxious. And I just felt like they don’t trust us at work and we can’t trust them and they make this a miserable place to be. And so I just kept thinking there has to be a better way in that Gandhi quote of be the change you wish to see in the world always resonated with me. And so I just kept trying to be that change and change things. And I was literally told to stop trying to be a white knight.
(19:36):
I was
(19:36):
Like, is that a race thing? Oh my gosh. Or Nova, what can I connection? It was so I decided I’m going to, that’s when I kind of found that other person doing similar work. And I started my master’s program in 2017 and it was definitely a light at the end of the tunnel that could give me a shift in career where I could focus on helping other people also not be miserable because I wasn’t the only one who said that. That sense of doom was something that other people were telling me too, crying on their way to work, hair falling out because they had so much stress. Like that’s a stress response. Our body
Brad Burrow (20:13):
Now sad. I’m really stressed out.
Haley Grayless (20:14):
Could I know I’ve said this to a few people who have baldness and they mention the same kind of thing.
Brad Burrow (20:22):
It’s okay,
Haley Grayless (20:23):
But I mean it was awful. My hair was falling out in just bigger amounts than ever before. It was so stressful and I could barely sleep. There were nights where I’d wake up in a sweat or I couldn’t sleep at all. And that’s just completely unacceptable to me. If you are a leader, especially a C-suite executive, you got to be creating a great culture. I think Peter Drucker said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Yes, strategy is important, but culture should be part of your strategy, a major part because you want people to love where they work. And if it’s not a good fit, you can always have a conversation where you find an opportunity to help them in another place. It is not that you have to have everybody, you’ve never have any turnover. There’s always some of that, but people should not be dreading going into their jobs. They should be finding joy in that within reason. I always tell people it’s not like you have to prefer being at work than on a vacation, but if we’re spending around 40 hours a week at this place, it should be somewhere where we are finding personal fulfillment and we enjoy it and we’re at least not anxious and depressed. There shouldn’t be doom
(21:30):
Associated with your job.
Brad Burrow (21:31):
Yeah, no, I agree. One of the things that I wanted to get into is creating a healthy culture, building a team, building team, accountability, and then increased profitability. Well, that all kind of works together, but some of those things people resist a little bit. It’s like the accountability side of it. We’re a bunch of creatives and we love being creative, but the accountability side is something that we haven’t really focused on that we need. Can you talk about that? I mean the importance of that and the culture? Is that the first part of that, the culture and then the accountability and then profitability comes after that? I mean, how does that all work together?
Haley Grayless (22:17):
Yeah. Oh, great question mean, yes, of course it all works together. I take my clients through five pillars of successful leadership, which builds a great culture process. That framework is what I do trainings on, and we do team building activities around those things. And it all culminates together with the last pillar being practicing performance accountability. But the first thing that people have to understand as leaders is they have to model the accountability. And I see leaders all the time, I don’t know, it’s like language I don’t like where they will say, oh, that’s a problem employee, or that’s an entitled millennial, or Gen Z doesn’t want to work hard and things like
(22:54):
That.
(22:55):
And all of that’s a mindset thing that’s just trash and you have to get it out of your head. And I usually tell people, if you label, I mean I guess a good label is good, but labeling people is not only just mean to them, but it’s bad for our own minds. So I heard that so much in the last place that I worked at. Leaders would say, oh, that’s a problem employee. And it’s so wild. Like they’d say that in front of other people.
(23:18):
It was such a poisonous, toxic environment. So yeah, that’s the big thing where we talk about accountabilities. Here’s how you can hold people accountable. It has to start with obviously emotional intelligence. You have to then understand what drives people. You can use PI predictive index or use a personality assessment of sorts that everybody agrees on and can understand so that you can understand yourself and understand other people that’s going to help you support them. That’s the purpose of a leader or a manager is to manage well. And then the most important pillar of that is creating a culture of psychological safety. So that was a term coined by Dr. Amy Edmondson in 1999 where she did this amazing study. We can get into it if you want, but what she found is that psychological safety is what set all these surgical teams apart from the unsuccessful ones, because psychological safety meant they could take risks and appear vulnerable in front of each other, and they could speak up and question the surgeon as a nurse or a surgical tech or something without fear of retaliation, humiliation or opportunities being taken from them.
(24:21):
So if anybody’s seen or listened to the podcast, Dr. Death about Dr. Christopher Dun in the Dallas area, he did 38 surgeries within about a year and a half or something, and 35 of those resulted in people being maimed or killed because he was a neurosurgeon who focused too much on his PhD side of his education, the university where he was at instead of the MD side. He didn’t have enough time at all in the operating room when he was in school and residency. And so then he gets hired by Baylor Medical Center, I believe.
Brad Burrow (24:54):
Oh my gosh.
Haley Grayless (24:55):
So they had billboards all over Dallas saying, great new neurosurgeon. No, he was actually like a megalomaniac, a narcissist who if you watch these specials on him, oh my gosh, it was just crazy. He was intentionally being malicious and they just let him get away with it over and over again and just kept sweeping issues under the rug. Instead of paying attention to the psychological safety, they should have been integrating into the culture. So nurses were speaking up and other surgeons were speaking up, and they just kept acting like, well, we don’t want to get sued and we’re just going to act like nothing happened. And he can go find a job somewhere else, not be our problem. But even his best friend became a quadriplegic when he was operated on and ended up dying by the time I watched the documentary, so people should watch it, it’s on Peacock, and said, by the time that that went into production, he had passed away and it was because of complications. It is so sad. So that’s like the implications of a lack of psychological safety. It can be so detrimental to a team and people’s health and obviously people’s lives if that’s the type of
Brad Burrow (25:59):
Industry you’re in. So just the freedom to be able to ask, Hey, what about this? What about this?
Haley Grayless (26:03):
Yeah, without somebody snapping at you. He would yell at people, he’d show up with the same scrubs on from the day before, and they would know that and unwashed, because there’d be in the example that they showed in the show, there was a rip in the butt of his scrubs and they could tell that he’d been doing drugs the night before, and he would just scream at people if they said, oh, you’re operating on the vertebrae or the wrong side of the neck. Or he removed part of somebody’s esophagus because he thought that it was a tumor. At least that’s what he said. He destroyed another woman’s vocal chords. I mean, terrible things. And when they tried to speak up
Brad Burrow (26:41):
Sounds like a horror movie. It
Haley Grayless (26:43):
Literally does. But I think he’s the only doctor in the United States who’s been, and I’m not sure if this is exactly right, convicted of criminal intent, and he’s in prison now.
Brad Burrow (26:53):
Wow.
Haley Grayless (26:53):
Yeah, they got him on elder abuse.
Brad Burrow (26:55):
Wow. Unbelievable.
Haley Grayless (26:57):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (26:58):
Well, let’s switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about Top Gun.
Haley Grayless (27:02):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (27:02):
So tell me about your experience with Top Gun, the event that was here, we mentioned earlier it was really fun, the energy. You could feel the energy. Everybody was excited to be together. I’m like, this is really, I wish I could be in Top Gun. I think I’m too old. But anyway, I was really impressed with the group. And tell me about your experience with Top Gun.
Haley Grayless (27:24):
Oh yeah, it’s been wonderful. So I joined in 2020. I think I even had my interview on Zoom. It was right at the beginning of the shutdown of everything.
Brad Burrow (27:33):
So you have to be interviewed to be in Top Gun.
Haley Grayless (27:35):
Yeah. Yeah. I think they probably still do that. It’s been, I
Brad Burrow (27:38):
Think so too. It’s
Haley Grayless (27:38):
Been a while for me, but they asked really good questions. One of my favorite questions they asked, I think Scott Havens asked this was, if you had a million dollars to donate to one organization in Kansas City, one nonprofit, what would you donate to? And I thought that was such a cool question. It also makes kind of test the temperature of the person, of what do you truly care about and do you even know what services are around you? And so that was something that stood out to me. So it’s been a really fun and casual group where, yes, we do networking events and sometimes it involves a happy hour or something, but there’s always meaningful conversations. And it’s one of those networking groups, because I feel like the majority of the ones I’ve been in is not something where you feel like people actually hang out outside of it. But the good thing about Top Gun is people reach out to each other all the time, and they’re either hosting a dinner like Michael Keenan host dinners, and I just got lunch with Allison from the Children’s Place last week, and we’re going to plan a girls’ night, and
(28:37):
It’s wonderful. And then people end up doing business together, but there’s no pressure to do that kind of
Brad Burrow (28:42):
Stuff. Right.
Haley Grayless (28:42):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (28:43):
So what was the non-for-profit? You said you would give a,
Haley Grayless (28:45):
I said moa, so yeah, metropolitan Organization to prevent sexual abuse. What’s the C? I’m not sure. But yeah, they do amazing work for people. It’s mostly women who experience that. But I mean, it’s amazing. So if somebody ends up being sexually assaulted or raped and they’re in the emergency room, they send out a volunteer who brings a blanket and sweatshirt and things like that to sit with you in the emergency room or sit in the waiting room to support you. If you have nobody, I mean, that’s amazing. And then they provide free counseling after that. So yeah, I’ve just heard great things about that organization.
Brad Burrow (29:24):
That’s amazing. So they work with the hospitals or
Haley Grayless (29:27):
Whoever there’s, they know who to call. So I think that the emergency room, I dunno if I’m not sure how they orchestrate it, but there’s a SANE nurse, SANE stands for something. Exactly. And that nurse at the hospital is trained to care for people who’ve had that sexual assault. And then the volunteer will be there just to support and to give you any resources and things like that. So they’re amazing. But I do know that their one-on-one counseling is backed up a little bit, at least from when I know somebody who’s using it. And I feel like you probably need immediate therapy after something like that. There shouldn’t be a wait period, especially if somebody doesn’t want to do the group therapy, that’s great for some people. Some want one-on-one. And so I just feel like if they need more money, so people give money to Mox access if they can get more therapists so that people don’t have a wait time.
Brad Burrow (30:18):
Yeah. So one of the things I was very curious about, so you started Vasa before Covid, right?
Haley Grayless (30:25):
Yes.
Brad Burrow (30:25):
So how did covid affect your business?
Haley Grayless (30:28):
Wow.
Brad Burrow (30:30):
Loaded question. Probably, huh?
Haley Grayless (30:31):
I was so optimistic about 2020.
Brad Burrow (30:33):
My
Haley Grayless (30:33):
Word of the year was abundance, which is hilarious because I had abundance of alone time and a lot of nothing. So I launched my company in 2018, toward the end of the year is when I left my job and launched it. And so 2019 was okay, did some business, but I still had not figured out how to sell really yet. And I thought fundraising skills would transfer a little more seamlessly to sales, and they didn’t. And so 2019 was like, okay. But I was really like, okay, 2020 is going to be my year and it’s going to be great. And I had a bunch of stuff on the calendar and everything was canceled. Everybody just canceled everything for just perpetuity in 2020 when the shelter in place stuff happened.
(31:20):
So I mean, I remember collapsing on my bed crying because I got the news about another thing being canceled, and then there was so much grief of these were things I was looking forward to and I need to make money. And I mean, thank God I had a very cheap rent at the house I was at. Didn’t have a car payment. I mean, I don’t know how I did it, but 2020 was very challenging. But there was a coach I followed online who I really like how she reminded people, pivot, don’t pause, put your business stuff online. Do coaching online, do something where if you can’t do what you were originally doing, pivot, don’t pause. And I was like, I could go get a job somewhere. And I looked at a couple places where maybe I could work at World Market or Andy’s or something just in my neighborhood.
Brad Burrow (32:06):
Andy’s would be a good place to work.
Haley Grayless (32:07):
And honestly, they don’t pay too badly. But when I asked somebody at World Market what they made, I was like, I just dunno if that’s worth my time. I feel like I’d rather put my time and energy into still building my business. And I’m not somebody who can just go 60 hours a week or something. I like to have some self-care rest time. So I ended up, I’m so glad I did this that I just kept being persistent with building my business and networking. I remember I had 20 Zoom calls on my calendar a week because you had to. And I mean, I needed the human connection with people. So it was hard. I did get business. I did a lot of free stuff at the time, but it was good exposure, but exposure doesn’t pay the bills they say. But it was good at the time to be able to do that. And I made it through the wilderness and 2021 started picking up, which was good. I think I had a client in the Jeff City area I, and it was a really, really good contract. I got somehow through locked in a connection there, they connected me. So it was one full day session, a quarter. So that paid really well, and I was so, so thankful for it. So 2021 really picked up 2022 was getting more retainers, and I was just so thankful.
Brad Burrow (33:27):
Is the retainer model a big part of your business now?
Haley Grayless (33:30):
Yes. And that’s obviously helpful as it recurring revenue. Yes. That’s good. And it’s a nice security thing for me, but the reason I do it is because my biggest reason for even creating my business is not, I mean, yes, money is important, but because you have to support yourself, but I want to see the impact.
(33:50):
Yeah, I kind of like it, but I think it’s maybe my Christian and nonprofit background where I’m like, I have to have all these caveats about money. You can’t act like you need it or want it. But really the biggest thing is that I want to see impact and doing here and there workshops and one-on, I dunno, one coaching thing here and there, that’s just not going to move the needle. People need consistent work. You can’t just eat, if you’re thinking about health a salad once a week and then, I don’t know, pork chops and steak and cookies and ice cream all the time. Well, I had that one salad. Why aren’t things changing? It really has to be a consistent thing where it’s integrated stuff into the culture. So that’s why I like to work with companies on a longer term basis where I can help support them and help them really integrate the changes into their culture where it’s starting from the top down and things are modeled by the CEO and C-suite and other executives, and everybody is modeling it from the top, those behaviors that we’re working on within those five pillars that I talked about.
(34:52):
And then you actually see change happen. But culture is one of those, it’s a big ship and it takes a long time to turn a big ship.
Brad Burrow (35:00):
Yeah. So are you selling and then doing the work as well?
Haley Grayless (35:04):
Yeah.
Brad Burrow (35:05):
So I have a really interesting question for you that used to be, well still is kind of, but I call it the roller coaster of revenue because you sell something and you’re up here, and then you do the work and then you go down and then you go back up and the retainer helps kind of fix that a little bit. But how do you balance? I mean, really, if you’re doing a good job selling, you need to be selling all the time
Haley Grayless (35:31):
And prospecting all the time. Yeah. My friend who’s really good at sales, she works at PowerSchool, so they sell software to school districts. And she told me when I first really got serious about I have to figure this out and how do I sell better, she was like, I read the book Fanatical Prospecting by Jib Blunt, what a name. And it changed my whole business. So I recommended to anybody who is starting a business or in sales re and practice what he talks about in Fanatical Prospecting.
Brad Burrow (35:59):
So what’s the key takeaway from that book?
Haley Grayless (36:01):
You have to be, well, he is kind of t,
Brad Burrow (36:03):
Well, I know there’s probably a bunch of them,
Haley Grayless (36:05):
And he’s kind of a frat boy bro kind of vibe. So I tell people,
Brad Burrow (36:09):
I like your frat boy bro voice there, bro,
Haley Grayless (36:13):
Bro. And it’s okay, but he’ll say things in it. You have to do this stuff so that you’re not a loser. You don’t want to be a loser, do you? And it’s like, okay, Jeb, people’s value is not tied to what they produce, but he talks about how the fanatical piece is win, and I need to probably reread the book and get a little kick in the butt. But at the end of the day when you’re like, okay, well I’m tired and I don’t want to make any more calls or send any more emails or follow up on any more networking connections, he’s like, do three more and that’s what’s going to change your business or your pipeline versus other people.
Brad Burrow (36:53):
So now I’m totally convicted.
Haley Grayless (36:54):
I know. Well, same. I’m convicting myself. Yeah. So he says that, and he talks about the math around it too, of if you have 20 people in your pipeline and you get one, yes, I feel like he says, you don’t put, oh, because it’s so unlikely that all 20 will say yes. You don’t replace it with one more, you replace it with 20 more. I might be getting that wrong, but I remember listening to the
Brad Burrow (37:18):
Book, the idea,
Haley Grayless (37:18):
The idea is like, okay, you got one maybe not likely that all 19 other people are going to agree to work with you. It’s just the consistency and being so focused on it’s okay to get no, because that’s just going to get you to another. Yes. So it’s a really big mindset thing. And I love that. He also has a book called Sales eq, so the Emotional Intelligence of Sales, and he’s got one called Inked. So that’s like Closing the Deal, one called Objections. So I’ve read I think three or four of those.
Brad Burrow (37:52):
That’s awesome.
Haley Grayless (37:53):
And I mean, they probably need to be refreshed in my mind, so I actually probably should reread them, but,
Brad Burrow (37:57):
So I don’t want you to give away your secrets, but I’m really curious to know what your sales sales process looks like for me. This is something I think it changes so much with technology, LinkedIn, I don’t know if you’ve ever used ZoomInfo, Google Ads. I mean all the things that, there’s just so many things that you can be doing to generate leads.
Haley Grayless (38:22):
Oh, yeah.
Brad Burrow (38:22):
But what are you doing? What works for you?
Haley Grayless (38:25):
Well, when I started actually using the five or seven step sales process that we used to be colleagues, Amy Leslie, who uses Predictive Index, so she had taught me, I think a seven step process. And then I had also, I think Jeb Blunt in one of his books talks about a five step process. But once I started sticking to that and not deviating from it, that’s when I saw changes happen and I started selling more.
(38:49):
Really.
(38:50):
And because I’m not a super organized and process driven person, I’m not going to create it myself. But if I find a system that works, I can try to implement it. Kind of like if people are familiar with the Kaari method of how you fold the joy of tidying up and the throw it away if it doesn’t spark joy lady,
(39:08):
I think I know what you’re talking about.
(39:09):
Yeah. The way that she cleans your house and organizes her drawers and folds her clothes. When I watched the show on Netflix, I was like, oh my God, I can do that. And I did. And then for a month after that, I’d love to go look at my dish rag drawer. I was like, it’s so organized and pretty, but I would’ve never folded stuff like that.
Brad Burrow (39:26):
So it’s
Haley Grayless (39:26):
Kind of the same with my, so
Brad Burrow (39:27):
It made you feel good to look at that?
Haley Grayless (39:28):
Oh yeah, I, I’ve done even my t-shirts. It’s like, oh my God, they’re crisp and I know where they all are. And it’s not just like they’re shoved in there, but it’s the same with a business process. So the five-step process being having an opening, so having a meeting with somebody and getting to know them, asking questions, when my problem was before was I would have a discovery call with somebody and I would ask them like, oh, what are some of your struggles? Or what are your goals with your company? And they would share some issues. And I’d immediately be like, oh, okay, well here’s what I do to solve that. And that’s not what you’re supposed to do in a sales call. You keep your mouth shut and you say things like, okay, yeah, I mean that’s what I learned works. And you get all the information, I fill it all out in my little Google form and then I say, okay, this is great.
(40:16):
I’m going to put together a proposal of solutions that are based on the things you just said, and then I want to see them as soon as I can after that, because you want them to sit in the pain they say of, oh, they just talked about all these struggles. And they’re like, okay, well gosh, now I do really want to solve this problem. So if I’m meeting with them early in the week, if I can get my then sales call by the end of the week or early the next one, because the longer you wait, the less likely they’re going to want to do it.
(40:41):
So yeah, I usually try to get it by the end of the week if I can. And it doesn’t have to be a super long meeting, but that’s where I do, I create my slide deck and I present to them my solutions for the exact things they said. My other issue was I would always overly academia eyes things make things too academic where if they said are people just don’t dunno how to talk to each other and they get in fights, I’d be like, needs effective communication and conflict resolution. That’s not what they said. So if I’m using that terminology in my slide deck, they’re like, I think it becomes too vague. So you got to use their words if they said people are fighting or avoiding solution or whatever, or I just can’t get people to do what I want ’em to do. And it’s like needs to practice performance accountability. No, that’s not what they said. That’s what I can teach. But in my sales meeting different. And so I started using their exact words in my form and then on the document where I present to them, and then I have three options of packages usually that I added a fourth that’s more in depth. And
Brad Burrow (41:49):
Do you present a PowerPoint
Haley Grayless (41:51):
Then thing?
Brad Burrow (41:51):
And you build one for each sales call?
Haley Grayless (41:54):
And I don’t send it to them. And if they’re like, oh, just send it to me, not, they’re never going to close. At least in my experience, it’s so
Brad Burrow (42:04):
Unlikely. So the key is to get ’em on a Zoom call or whatever,
Haley Grayless (42:07):
Or in person I present it. And that way I can say, what hesitations do you have? I want to hear your objections. And usually they usually agree to it in that meeting, we decide on a package and I’m like, okay, I’m sending you the contract and we’re going to start with our onboarding and our kickoff meetings and things like that.
Brad Burrow (42:23):
Yeah, yeah.
Haley Grayless (42:24):
You just keep the momentum going.
Brad Burrow (42:26):
Yeah. That’s amazing. I think that’s one of the challenges in selling today. I didn’t know the podcast was going to go this direction, by the way, but I think it’s awesome. The way that we sell now is completely different than it used to be. We’ve been in business since 97, and it used to be we’d send out a demo to somebody and they’d get it in the mail, and then hopefully they looked at it, then we’d call ’em up and it’s like this whole process, nothing is like that now. And lead gen’s completely different than it ever has been. And I just think if you’re not staying on top of what’s happening in that world, you’re going to be left behind pretty quick. Yeah, pretty amazing. Alright, so a couple more things and we will wrap up here. What’s a major tip you can share with the audience today if they want to be a better leader?
Haley Grayless (43:21):
Oh my gosh. Well,
Brad Burrow (43:23):
That’s a loaded question, probably, huh?
Haley Grayless (43:24):
Yeah. I’m like, oh, I’m surprised by that. But it’s literally on my sheet. You
Brad Burrow (43:28):
Wrote that question.
Haley Grayless (43:28):
I’m like, questions you can ask. I’m like,
Brad Burrow (43:30):
I’m going to ask that question.
Haley Grayless (43:31):
Good. And this can be hard. I think that people at networking events will sometimes be like, what’s the best tip you can give me? Or what’s your hot take? And I say, I think that the most important factor or trait a leader should have is humility. And I think some people are like, no, it’s confidence. And it’s like nobody cares how confident you are if you’re an asshole. So humility doesn’t mean you are meek and quiet, and it doesn’t mean you think less of yourself. What’s that quote? Humbleness isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. And it’s about being teachable. It’s that psychological safety again of somebody can give you feedback or challenge your ideas and thoughts or processes and in a respectful way. And it’s not an attack on you, and it’s not something where you then need to retaliate against them. And so the humility is be teachable. I mean, what’s his Jim Collins in Good To Great that book, every business person’s read that pretty much. He talks about that level. Is it level five leaders or, I’m trying to remember all the levels and what set all those 11 CEOs apart were that they had this drive of professional or personal will and professional accountability. So he was giving quotes from these amazing CEOs that were like, I never stopped trying to be qualified for my job. And I always was asking for feedback, even from lower level people, because those are the people who have their boots on the ground and they’re more likely to know what are clients saying and what are the objections and what’s the perception and reputation of our organization out there?
(45:07):
Because
(45:07):
A lot of times high level leaders are so insulated from it. And there was a really cool article from The Atlantic a few years ago where it talked about almost brain damage. They see in high level leaders, either political or business who, if they’ve been in a high level of leadership for so long and they haven’t been intentionally seeking out feedback, and I dunno, performance reviews and things like that. Because if they’re high up and they’re only giving it, people sometimes get scared to tell them the truth and to give them any sort of insight on what they see.
(45:38):
And so Dr. Christopher Dun, she’s in prison now. I mean, that’s exactly his issue. He was not willing to hear anything from anybody else. And that’s why 35 people’s lives were pretty much ruined because of his neurosurgery. And so the way that we can combat that is with humility of literally seeking out feedback from other people, accepting, accepting that you are not always correct, and maybe your ideas aren’t the best. So we have to ask for divergent thinking. When you’re leading a team meeting, you may think this is going to be a great goal for us. Whoa. Pause and say like, okay, here’s what maybe I’m thinking, but I want divergent ideas. I want to hear from everybody. And then if the introverts aren’t speaking up, that could sometimes happen. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have amazing thoughts and goals.
(46:23):
It’s
(46:23):
Maybe that they are just observing and pondering and processing internally. I’m an external processor, so it’s hard for me to relate. I can’t tell that I know. But then if they haven’t spoken up, I usually say remember to ask them, Hey Sally, at the end, I’d love to hear from you. Have you been thinking this through? Do you have any thoughts? And it’s not to put somebody on the spot and put pressure on them, and so you have to really know the person. But part of being, I think in a team brainstorming meeting is contributing. So Sally shouldn’t be surprised.
(46:53):
And so then literally asking for that idea, so showing that you’re humble, it’s that part of role modeling as a leader. And that’s where curiosity comes into. So humility and curiosity are those tips that I would say really lean into the curiosity goes along with humility because it’s saying, I wonder why, and you’re not assuming the answer. And that could be anything from in nature. I wonder why and how. There are so many microplastics in the ocean. What could we do? That sense of wonder and then doing something about it, get curious and then solve the problem. And the more that you model that for your team, the more they’re going to be innovative. And innovation is yes, people are going to make mistakes. Maybe you’re going to have some failures along the way, but overall you’re going to have a much better and cooler product or service.
Brad Burrow (47:42):
Can you learn humility?
Haley Grayless (47:44):
I think so, yes. I think unless somebody has a personality disorder or mood disorder, so maybe not somebody who’s antisocial personality disorder. I don’t know if Ted Bundy, he may have appeared,
Brad Burrow (47:56):
But a narciss narcissist, that type of person, can they learn humility? I guess that would be the question.
Haley Grayless (48:02):
I’m not an actual psychologist, but I don’t think so. I’ve heard that I dated a psychoanalyst for a while and he was saying that he can only work with one narcissist client at a time. So draining. And it’s so hard to get them to change. I think the same kind of thing with borderline personality disorder, where I’m not sure, so I can’t totally exactly speak to that stuff.
Brad Burrow (48:26):
So I would think like a CEO is going to tend to be more towards that side of it, the narcissistic side, I’m going to do it, I’m going to make this happen. I’m me type where they need to be the opposite of that. But I don’t know. I’m just guessing.
Haley Grayless (48:41):
Yeah, that’s a good point. I think, and they say that there are more psychopaths in CEO levels than in the rest of society or whatever, but it doesn’t mean all psychopaths are murderers or trying to kill people. But yeah, they may have a little bit, what’s the Machiavellian mindset? That’s a Taylor Swift word from Mastermind, but yeah, the mod,
Brad Burrow (49:02):
Can you spell that
Haley Grayless (49:03):
Situation? Oh, good question. Not if I had a piece of paper. But yeah, that idea of they are probably appearing more confident. Yes, they’re assertive, they may be more dominant. Those are personality traits they have, but it doesn’t mean every single one of them is a true narcissist or a psychopath. And so I think that yes, most people can learn it, and I think they should. I also had a C-suite person at an organization I used to work at who we were talking about the StrengthsFinder assessment, which is really cool. And he was kind of bragging and joking about how empathy was his very last one, and it’s got to land somewhere, right? There’s what, 36 or something?
Brad Burrow (49:43):
Not something you want to brag about
Haley Grayless (49:45):
Having. No, especially as a high level leader to people who are on your team. I was like, this is not funny. And I love to joke around, remember, I’ve got the informal communication is my major thing, but that’s not funny. Empathy is so important. It’s literally trying to feel the feelings and have grace for somebody for dealing with something else and putting yourself in their shoes. And to say that it’s almost funny that you don’t have that, that’s not cool. I mean, yes, it’s got to land somewhere on there, but you can make those strengths. StrengthsFinder people say it is best to always try to improve on your top ones because you’re more likely to improve on the ones you’re already good. And I completely agree. Empathy is one of those things that because it’s a component of emotional intelligence, which helps leaders be more effective and more profitable, it’s worth investing in being more empathetic.
Brad Burrow (50:39):
So how could you have psychological safety without that?
Haley Grayless (50:42):
Exactly.
Brad Burrow (50:43):
Impossible,
Haley Grayless (50:43):
Right? No, it’s impossible. I, because if you’re not showing that you care about others and you’re putting yourself in their position, you’re probably going to just keep doing what serves you the most, and that’s probably going to destroy your business. Yeah.
Brad Burrow (50:55):
Yeah. Well I think we’ve covered a lot here. We’ve gone through all of my questions. So the last thing I want to have you do, I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the podcasts, but I always have everybody do a movie voice at the end. Okay. So it’s the in a world with real media. So if you would do that for me, so I just want you to go in a world with real media and we’ll see if you have a career as a voiceover artist,
Haley Grayless (51:19):
Gosh, that’d be amazing. Okay. In
Brad Burrow (51:22):
A world
Haley Grayless (51:22):
With real media, I dunno if my voice was deep enough, awesome, but when you first told me the name of it at the Top Gun event, I remember saying, oh, in a World, and you’re like, yep,
Brad Burrow (51:33):
Yep. That’s it. Yeah. It’s funny because it’s like, it’s kind of a shtick that I’ve always
Haley Grayless (51:39):
Done,
Brad Burrow (51:39):
And so it’s like, I’m going to name the podcast this.
Haley Grayless (51:42):
I love it.
Brad Burrow (51:42):
It’s funny, I have a lot of people doing that. On the podcast, we actually put together a little funny video, but Lisa Ginter, the CEO of Community America and people like that doing in a world, this is really funny. So cool. Anyway, well thank you Haley, for coming on. This has really been great. I’m sitting here thinking, wow, maybe we need to talk more about real media. So I thank you for coming on and appreciate it. And by the way, everybody, be sure to subscribe, share this podcast, follow us, all those things in a world Real media. It’s on all the podcast platforms and we look forward to seeing you next time. This has been in a World with Real Media. Thanks for joining us, and be sure to subscribe on iTunes and follow real media on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So you never miss an episode.