NetWorks Small Business Profile on Knowetry Consulting and its founder, Stacy Parson

Name: Stacy Parson

Title: Principal

Company Name: Knowetry Consulting

Company Website: www.knowetryconsulting.com

Blog/Twitter/Facebook: http://www.twitter.com/knowetry

When did you start your company and what was your inspiration for starting it?
I established Knowetry Consulting in October 2009. My inspiration to start my own business was to spend most of my days doing work that I love.

What’s your Elevator Pitch?
The “Pitch”: I want people to leave every encounter with me knowing more about themselves and how they fit into the world. “Know your story. Live your story.”

What I Do: I use an approach of “grounded innovation” — the action-orientation of a consultant with the reflective, discovery-based methods of a coach — to help my clients increase their personal and professional influence.

The Knowetry(TM) Consulting vision mapping process is at the heart of my coaching practice and helps people visually chart the course from “Now to What’s Next.” By doing this, my clients create a vision that provides inspiration and lays the foundation for the new ways of thinking, communicating, and behaving required for future success. This simple, creative and practical starting point sets the stage for a coaching experience characterized by innovative methods of achieving real-world results.

What is your company’s Mission Statement?
I support people in making the shift from being High Achievers to becoming Happy High Achievers.

What is your favorite part of owning your own business?
My favorite part of owning my own business is getting to focus most of my day on doing exactly what I love to do — Having conversations that help people clarify what their dreams are, and how they want to impact the world.

Tell us about your career before you became your own boss.
Prior to moving into my coaching and facilitation practice full time, I was the Director of Employee Development at Yahoo! Inc. The highlight of my time at Yahoo! was leading the design and implementation of the first organization-wide career development framework, which included a foundational workshop that has been very well received — in the last six months I’ve been to Singapore, Bangalore, Munich, and London to certify trainers, and it is being delivered globally in 15 countries. Yahoo! expects to have about 2,000 employees complete the workshop by the end of 2011. In 6 months, the workshop and related resources contributed to a 7% increase in career engagement, as measured through their employee engagement pulse survey.

Prior to that I was at Deloitte Consulting for 10 years – 5.5 years as a Change Leadership consultant, 3.5 years as an internal career coach, 1 year as the leader for Professional Development for the Consulting practice.

Before that, 3 or 4 roles that seemed random at the time, but contributed to the set of skills that prepared me for my roles at Deloitte.

Were you previously involved in the sports industry?  If so, what capacity?
Stanford Women’s Basketball (1986 – 1990); Graduate Assistant Coach, University of Washington Women’s Basketball (1990 – 1992); 10 years coaching 8 yr – 12 yr girls in Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), North Coast Express Basketball, and National Junior Basketball (NJB).

What was your goal when starting the company?  Has that changed?  What is your long-term vision for your company?
My original goal was to find work that I loved so that I would not spend the next 30 years doing something I was capable of, but only mildly interested in. I wanted to combine my strengths, interests and leadership capability in ways that made a real difference in people’s lives. When I wasn’t finding exactly what I wanted to do in a structure/role that I wanted in Corporate America, I began thinking about how and when I would establish my own practice. My target client base for coaching has always been professionals in high demand professions (consulting, high tech/Internet, legal, finance). Recently, I have deepened both my interest and experience in working with professionals who have immigrated from India, and who want support in navigating their careers within American corporations. My long term vision is to maintain a sole-proprietorship, however, I do want to continue to increase my impact by partnering with others, and creating solutions that can be scaled to reach a broader audience. In 2005, I set a goal to help create 5,000 Happy High Achievers, and thanks to the platform provided at Yahoo!, that goal is likely to be reached within the next 18 months. So, it’s time for me to recast my vision…

What is it like running your own company?  Give us a “day in the life.”
I’ve intentionally defined my area of focus so that I can spend most of my time doing things I love. On most days, I’m doing some combination of the following: 1) Developing Relationships and New Business — talking with people about what’s most important to them or their organizations and how I can help them (developing/enhancing relationships and new business). 2) Coaching and Facilitating — working with coaching clients to clarify their vision for impact, design a plan forward, help them overcome challenges, and provide accountability and support; or facilitating groups of 10 to 200 during career development, leadership development, and coaching skills workshops. 3) Design and Development of Solutions — thinking of creative ways to help people take action toward their personal and professional dreams and designing those solutions to use in my coaching and facilitation, 4) Deepening my Expertise — reading about and exploring what makes people tick and how we can support each other in realizing our full potential. 5) Improving my Leadership — thinking about what my strengths are and how I can build and use them to make a difference. 6) Operations — Oh, and I do spend a bit of time on the operations side – scheduling, client engagement and practice administration, budgeting and invoicing, and an occasional visit to the Apple Genius Bar.

What are the greatest challenges of owning your own business?
I’m a person who has a lot of interests and likes to explore possibilities, so my biggest challenge is to stay focused on my niche and to make choices about how to spend my time that are going to return the most value. I’m continually checking in to make sure I’m doing the work I really want to do, and not creeping into the areas of work that I “can” do but that will ultimately lead me out of my “sweet spot”.

What has been the biggest surprise you’ve had in being an entrepreneur/business owner?
I’m enjoying the business development aspect much more than I expected that I would.

What are the greatest rewards of entrepreneurship & business ownership?
For me, the greatest reward of owning my own business is when people share with me how our work together has helped them to fulfill their dreams of success and satisfaction – buying a new home, getting a promotion, designing the family and relationships they want, establishing a new business, overcoming a fear, becoming more at ease with themselves and the impact they are having in the world, clarifying and living their purpose.

Is there a mentor (or mentors) that has helped you along the way?
I have been SO blessed with many mentors and supporters at every stage of my life. My family makes sure I understand that when you have people who will love you no matter what, it gives you courage to take risks in the world. My youth basketball coaches (Rey Lopez and Donis Bailey) helped me understand that I had options, helped me dream and believe that I could achieve things that not very many other people do. My high school coach (Craig Raub) taught me how to acknowledge my capabilities with humility. My college coach (Tara VanDerveer) taught me how to have intention, conviction, and develop the capacity for success on a large platform. My mentors at Deloitte (Eileen Fernandes and Eileen Raney) always asked me to step further toward my edges, but would never let me fail. Vance Caesar (whom I’ve never met) coined the term “Happy High Achiever”, which I have shaped my work around. One of the founders of Co-Active Coaching (Laura Whitworth) taught me how to listen for the conversations that want to happen, “assess and not vote”, and to “ask for 100 percent of what I want 100 percent of the time”. Susan Burnett at Yahoo! teaches me how to create outcomes that live on even after you move on. And, Natalia Gabrea at Hiruko Center teaches me how to be courageous on a daily basis.

I am ALWAYS looking for people to help show me the way.

Please share any advice for readers who are considering starting their own business.
My advice to anyone considering starting their own business (especially a service business) is to: 1) know what your “secret sauce” is, and when and how it is valuable to others 2) be really clear about the solution you are providing, and for whom; 3) focus on being more “interested in” vs “interested to” the people you meet (from Good to Great by Jim Collins) 4) ALWAYS support and be generative with your network because they will sustain you

Favorite Book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Favorite Movie: The Usual Suspects, but really liked the Adjustment Bureau too

Hobbies: Reading, listening to live music, wine tasting, creating playlists, discovering new bay area food spots

Favorite Place to Vacation: Right now…India

What’s playing on your iPod: Kinsmen by Rudresh Mahanthappa (and 26,000 other songs)

Android or iPhone: iPhone

Mac or PC: Mac and iPad

Favorite TV Show: Mad Men

Favorite Restaurant: A Cote in Oakland, CA

Favorite Quote: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

For more information on Stacy & Knowetry Consulting, log on to www.knowetryconsulting.com

Sign up for the NetWorks Sports “Changing the Game” Newsletter today!!

NetWorks Small Business Profile on Black Sheep Consulting and its Founder, Jay Mayes

Jay Mayes, President of Black Sheep Consulting

Name: Jay Mayes

Title: President

Company Name: Black Sheep Consulting

Company Website: www.thebettersheep.com

Blog/Twitter/Facebook: http://www.twitter.com/JaysBetter

When did you start your company and what was your inspiration for starting it?
I started Black Sheep Consulting in late 2010 after what I like to explain as my “Jerry Maguire Monument”. After over 7 years working on the business side of professional sports and moving across the country 3 times to work my way from a part-time intern with an NFL team to a Corporate Executive with a NBA franchise I suddenly, became underwhelmed with the direction of the professional sports industry and specifically with my role in professional sports. Over my years working in the sports industry, I had become pretty good at creating programs that helped my clients sell their “stuff” to fans and consumers. Many of the programs I created focused on ways to generate more revenue for my clients.

I woke up one day and decided, “I wanted to invest my time and skills in people”. Instead of creating those programs to just generate revenue I wanted to create programs that would help to generate change.

So I went in search of a role that allowed me to use my skill sets and experience in Sports and Entertainment, but also would allow my to help others. I would probably still be looking for that job if it wasn’t for a friend who suggested that I write out the description of my perfect job that might help me narrow my search, so, I did. I sat down one day and wrote exactly what I wanted in a role… Sports Marketing + Cause Marketing.

But instead of continuing my search, I decided to start a firm that did just that.

What’s your Elevator Pitch?
As more organizations begin to focus on Cause Marketing, it is our mission to create programs and partnerships that bring together what we call the “Big Three” causes/non-profits, companies and athletes into integrated programs that achieve real results and the create real change in the lives of the people they touch.

What’s the company’s Mission Statement?
We Aim to be industry innovators; we will continually work to challenge the “status quo” by building partnerships based on innovation, trust, and common goals. We will create uniquely customized programs, ideas, and partnerships that work to do GOOD and yield measurable and meaningful results for our clients.

What is your favorite part of owning your own business?
Here are my 7 favorite aspects of running Black Sheep Consulting:

1) Creating my own work schedule…. there’s nothing like it!
2) Doing conference calls in my PJ’s
3) Being able to do what I love all the time!
4) Working with GREAT people (I love my team) #teamblksheep
5) Watching the morning edition of Sports Center twice as I do my morning calls and emails
6) Not having to wear a suit everyday
7) Knowing that what I am doing is going to make a difference in someone’s life!!

Tell us about your career before you became your own boss.
My career before becoming my own boss was great, I had the opportunity to work with some amazing people across various levels of sports. I have been able to work with and learn from some of the best in the industry. I have also had the opportunity to travel the county, learn, and sell for an eclectic group of sports properties, and sports agencies. I have learned the importance of teamwork, communication, honesty, dedication, and passion in your life’s work. And I have also learned that if you love what you do, it never feels like work!

Were you previously involved in the sports industry?  If so, what capacity?
My career has given me experience both on the agency side and team side of professional sports, which has provided a great foundation and vision for Black Sheep Consulting. My experience includes NFL, NBA, WNBA, NLL, MLL, WPGA, Motorsports and Professional Horse Racing. While Mayes’s agency work includes a stint with A. Bright Idea Sports Marketing, and consulting relationships with Clutch Media, Hands On Sports & Entertainment, Networks Sports and TOAW Modern Marketing. I have learned many lessons of the course of my career that I believe have prepared me for this next career challenge.

What was your goal when starting the company?  Has that changed?  What is your long-term vision for your company?
From the outset, I wanted to start a company that I was proud of. I wanted to be able to wake up and do something that I loved every day. My goal was to use my gifts and talents to do good in the community, build meaningful Cause Marketing partnerships and programs that linked companies, causes, and athletics in a way that accomplishes specific goals and objectives for each. Our long term goals included becoming leaders in the cause marketing industry. To create innovative cause marketing + sports marketing programs and partnerships that work to help make real change in the lives of others.

What is it like running your own company?  Give us a “day in the life.”
It’s the most fun I have ever had, but it’s also the biggest challenge that I have had professionally. Every day is different, but I have learned over the last 10 months that building a structured day and week is critical in staying on task and making sure that projects are completed on time. My day typically begins early with emails, research and catching up on the “biz”, this includes reading articles on causes, athletes, and trends within the sports marketing + cause marketing industry. Many of my weeks are set around pushing particular projects forward, Sunday nights are my time to lay out my weekly plan around each project. From there I prioritize need actions and place them in the appropriate order. After my morning emails and research, I dive into each day’s plan, which might include, meetings, phone calls, program generation, presentations, and business development for the company. My late afternoon is reserved as “ME” time, this is my time to relax, workout, reconnect with friends or run some personal errands. I think it’s important to do something for yourself every day. I think sometimes we get some caught up in taking care of everything and everybody else that we forget to do what makes us happy. After dinner, I typically do a few more hours of proposal work or research on the couch or outside on the deck (weather permitting) before bed.

What are the greatest challenges of owning your own business?
One of the biggest challenges in owning your own business is realizing that you may not be able to do it all. I have learned that we all are good at something, but no one is good at everything. So I decided that I was going to stick to doing what I do best and surround myself with great talent in those other areas and that is what I have done. This has truly allowed me to work to move projects forward while letting my team do what they do best.

What has been the biggest surprise you’ve had in being an entrepreneur/business owner?
How a small team of dedicated people can pull off a great program and change peoples lives!

What are the greatest rewards of entrepreneurship & business ownership?
Doing great work with great people!

Is there a mentor (or mentors) who has helped you along the way?
I have many mentors.

Please share any advice for readers who are considering starting their own business.
My advice for anyone who is considering starting their own business is DO IT!

Create a great plan and stick with it!

Surround yourself with great people!

Don’t be afraid to ask for help!

Learn from the mistakes of others.

Favorite Book: Rules of the Red Rubber Ball – By Kevin Carroll

Favorite Movie: Love Actually

Hobbies: Lacrosse, Fishing, People Watching

What’s playing on your iPod: Drake, Little Wayne, Kanya, Kid Cudi, Wiz

Android or iPhone: Android

Mac or PC: Mac

Favorite TV Show: Always Sunny

Favorite Restaurant: I prefer to grill at home!

Favorite Quote: “While everyone is trying to make a dollar, we are trying to make a difference”

For more information on Jay Mayes & Black Sheep Consulting, log on to www.thebettersheep.com

To find out about other small businesses, sign up for the NetWorks Sports “Changing the Game” Newsletter today!!

Follow NetWorks Sports Consulting on Twitter at @NetWorks_Sports