I had the pleasure of interviewing Business Coaching Leader, and Rainmaker Martha Krejci, a high-vibin’ lover of life. She has helped inspire women to achieve their business goals as well as experience a work-life balance that most people can only dream of.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory”?
I worked for GoDaddy for a little over 5 years, where I was in a leadership position, so unfortunately, I would hear customers day after day talking about developers “hijacking” their websites, taking their stuff, or just plain not representing them well.
I remember one story in specific where a customer was in the middle of a shake down from their developer, and they had to pay $40k to get their website back! What?!?!
I was FED UP with it.
Just because we know these “online mysteries”, doesn’t mean we should use them in an abusive way, and it just grossed me out to see other “colleagues” treating people this way.
So, I decided to DISRUPT. To buck the system. To give the POWER back to the business owners.
What I do is teach business owners, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs everywhere HOW to grow and develop their business themselves.
Why did you found your company?
To give the POWER back to the business owners.
What is it about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
I’m disruptive because I’m a woman in a male-dominated industry pulling the curtain back on proven tactics and strategies that those guys seem to be trying to keep close to the chest.
We all need a little help along the journey — who have been some of your mentors?
Oh wow, I’ll never forget the first time an exec at a Fortune 100 company called me “brilliant” because of my idea to generate revenue for them in a way that had not yet been introduced. She became my first mentor without knowing it.
Other mentors would be Gary Vee, Russell Brunson and the likes of them.
I wish I could say I had more female mentors, but I didn’t…there wasn’t anyone out there that I was aware of anyway, that I could look at as someone to learn from. So, I became that.
I think the quote is, “Be who you needed when you were younger”. That’s what I’m doing.
How are you going to shake things up next?
Oh shoot, who knows, right?
I have a book in the works, but who doesn’t these days?
I’m going on tour with my Masterclass! My perfect world would be to live in a world where everyone around me is living out their own dream…the strategies I know and teach allow women to do just that.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey?
“Be the person you needed when you were younger” -Ayesha Siddiqi
As a woman in tech, there weren’t many women to look up to, follow their track of success and reverse engineer for yourself. They just weren’t available. At least, not in the way I feel like girls needed them to be. So, that’s what I’m doing now. I’m totally transparent in how I run my business, campaigns I’m running, the why’s the how’s and everything, so people can learn from it and start their own thing without the steep learning curve.
“We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change” -Sheryl Sandberg
When I realized that I knew things that women everywhere were searching for, I had no choice but to make it readily available to them. I learned my lesson through a lot of time, mistakes, wins and money spent…and that keeps a lot of people from sharing that knowledge. They want to keep it to themselves. Not this woman. I want to see women succeed, and if I can keep them from having to go through the things I went through, I will do it in a hot second.
“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me” Ayn Rand
This is a quote that fired me up right when I quit my corporate gig. It got me through the days of people saying no because I hadn’t yet learned how to communicate my worth. It got me through the days when I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake. And now, it still fires me up as I take action every day to be massively better than the day before. The fact remains that the marketing world is still a boys club, but I definitely took my seat at the table.
What’s a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Share a story with us.
Hands down, “Start With Why” -Simon Sinek
I picked that book up when I was still in my corporate gig, and my purpose for reading it was to be a better leader in all ways, and to pass down the knowledge to my team as they are supporting budding business owners every day.
What I got from it was a clear definition of my OWN why…which then drove me to start my own marketing agency to help others express theirs.
You really just can’t go wrong when you’re working from your heart. Where passion leads you, the money will follow.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂
I feel like it’s an obvious answer, but I’m going to say it anyway, Oprah.
She’s a role model that leads with her heart, but has built one heck of an empire as well. In my opinion, the more good-hearted people that are making millions, the better. I think that’s how we change our world. Because they’ll do good things with it…just like Oprah.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
https://www.instagram.com/martha.krejci.the.tribefinder
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-krejci-571695111/
https://www.facebook.com/thetribefinder/
Originally published at medium.com