Transcription of Episode
Intro/Outro 0:04
Welcome to Investing Across Borders with Lauren Cohen. Every week she will share valuable information that you need to know in order to successfully invest in real estate and other business endeavors in North America. We believe in helping clients invest, live, work, and play across borders. And now, your host, Lauren Cohen.
Lauren Cohen 0:26
Good morning everybody. I am Lauren Cohen, international, legal and real estate expert and recently coined the Cross Border Catalyst. I am also known as the Canadian whisper. And I am the host of this lovely podcast Investing Across Borders to which I’m very happy you’re listening today, I am here with my guest, my friend, Tricia Benn, who happens to be from Canada and looked at my background and was pretty excited because it has a Canadian and American flag with the Canadian flag a little dominant. And Tricia and I met, about three years ago, And I don’t even remember how we met. But we instantly as most Canadian girls do, instantly bonded and just kept chatting. Now it’s taken us a half hour since we signed into zoom to actually start doing this podcast because we just had to do a little catch up. And we just need to tag that tendency. We’re both extremely driven to help others. And that’s part of what I love about Tricia. Tricia runs C-suite network, which is an amazing organization that helps C level entrepreneurs, run their businesses, grow their businesses, collaborate with others, learn, grow and everything along those lines. Tricia, please say hello, and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tricia Benn 1:45
Good morning, Lauren. I’m so thrilled to be here. And I don’t know even the way you introduced me. I don’t know if I need to say very much. But I’m I’m very honored to be both a Canadian and American citizen.
Lauren Cohen 1:56
And you only became American a few months ago. Right?
Tricia Benn 1:59
Right. Right after COVID started. So almost a year okay, I have to look at when my one year anniversary is coming up. So I’m very honored to be a citizen of both countries, as you know, Lauren, and to see how we can create opportunities across the borders and appreciate the two cultures and really help people navigate. Because it’s interesting, the differences and then of course, the similarities.
Lauren Cohen 2:25
Yeah, the differences and the similarities are really incredible, because people think you’ll know this, people think, oh, you’re from Canada, no big deal, or because we’re not a noticeable immigrant. Or because we don’t say that many words that are different other than sorry, which you still say the Canadian way, or process or project, which I can’t even say anymore because it’s been drilled out of me. So when I go home, which I haven’t done in 17 months, not that I’m counting right?
Tricia Benn 2:56
Isn’t that strange? This is the longest. I’m turning 50 this year, and it’s the longest I’ve ever been away from home.
Lauren Cohen 3:04
Same deal, and I’m a little older than you. But either way, the fact is that it’s just as you said the other day, it sucks. And it definitely has had a huge impact this whole COVID on my business, on our business, on the way we do business. I mean, you have to do a complete about-face. So what I’d love you to do, since I only gave it a little bit of introduction, tell us a brief summary of what is C-suite? What is your role with C-suite? And what did C-suite do to pivot?
Tricia Benn 3:37
So there’s a lot there. C-suite network, I think the simplest way to think about it is essentially just a platform that’s focused on executives, business owners, investors and influencers. And really just the brand promise is we’re going to accelerate your success. So what does an executive business owner, influencer, investor need to succeed? Well, they need networking and connection, they need community, they need all the tools, you know, products and services in their business lines to make them successful. And they need a way to be able to distribute that content out into decision makers and so on. So, the C-suite network, we are a media group, we’re a networking group, we’re a professional services group. And most of all, I’d say we’re a group that’s very much a values led organization. So Lauren, every single community meeting we have, I’ll always share you know relevancy, reach, reciprocity, and with the last year I’ve added the fourth our respect, relevancy, we’re focused on how do we create really meaningful connections with each other. Not just throwing, you know, I’ve got this service by it. But literally, how do we help each other. The reach is about you know, great people come from great people. I can’t remember how we met either but it was some great person, without doubt, because that’s how you meet people where you form that meaningful connection, you know, and then reciprocity, obviously, there’s always an ask and acting like there shouldn’t be as ridiculous, right? We all have asked, we’re working through business challenges and when you’re working through them as quickly as you possibly can, last year is a great example where none of us could move quickly enough. There’s always got to be and the ask is going to be there no question. But there’s always got to be a gift, right? So what is your give, and that makes a really vibrant, great community if you don’t just come in and take, you also give, and that means there’s tons to give. And then the respect, I added that one in because it was implicit with us, but with all the issues we had over the last year respect, and really giving voice to it, as a critical principle became important. And respect is about who we are. And you give respect. Trust is something you earn. So being very principle driven. So anyway, so with all of that kind of overlay, we do have, you know, the largest business Radio Podcast platform, and you know that and then TV, and we have our digital content, and then we’re in constant, you know, upgrading and all kinds of things happening with our website, and more traffic and search engine optimization, all of that. We have our professional services for marketing, sales, conversion, all the things that we’ve learned about how to sell into the executive or decision making audiences, we have that in our professional services. And then of course, we run now over 300 digital meetings a year. So last year was just a tremendous year. And I’m happy to go into more detail about how we really transformed our business and how exciting that has been and where we’re going now, in terms of me, my responsibilities. I am a true Canadian, American in terms of my career, you know, I’ve always been part of enterprise sized organizations, always building new businesses or integrating businesses and just love it. I love focusing on building great teams with individuals that understand how important they are and everybody aligned in terms of the mission of what we want to achieve together. And so, you know, I’ve been very honored to be across the border, I should say, you know, with Ipsos, which was a company that was founded by Angus Reed, and one of the most famous names in Canada, of course, and that became Ipsos and I went down to Washington, DC, you know, after being in Toronto and Ottawa as vice president public affairs.
Lauren Cohen 7:26
Where did you grow up, in Toronto or Ottawa? I forget.
Tricia Benn 7:29
I grew up in Guelph.
Lauren Cohen 7:34
Oh, yeah. Guelph, of course, well, Guelph is about an hour outside of Toronto. And it’s a smaller town, but what It’s famous for is it’s probably the biggest veterinary University in Canada. And used to be that people would go to Guelph to get away from the prices in Toronto. Now the prices in Guelph are like the prices in Toronto used to be for a really long time. It’s crazy. And Hamilton and sarnia like everywhere, the prices have gone literally Durham Region out of control. So the whole GTA and basically the whole of Ontario is insane. So Tricia is not a big city girl like me, although I kind of grew up in the suburbs. She’s a small town girl. But now you’re out just outside of Pittsburgh, right?
Tricia Benn 8:24
I am. Yes.
Lauren Cohen 8:25
It’s like a twin, a Twin City almost right, because it’s Midwest mentality. Community oriented people look after each other, which is naturally who you are. So I think that I remember when we originally talked about all kinds of different things that were going on at C-suite. And I was not at the time ready to make the move over I wanted to, there was so much going on when you pivoted for COVID and adjusted the business model, and made it so open and available to everybody kind of really embracing everybody and bringing them into the fold. I think that opened the doors and made for me and many others that I found moving into your network at the same time. Just much more available.
Tricia Benn 9:14
Yes. It was so incredible. I mean, March 13, March 16. We went from being a very high touch, very high level cost and engagement membership model. And we had other pieces that were pretty early days, some of our councils are euro club, our thought Council, our podcast network, you know, but the primary driver of our revenue and our business model was our high level memberships. And you know, we were on the road hosting events all over the US. I was on the road at least for some part of 40 weeks a year. So you know, and then March 16, not anymore. And you know Lauren, we were talking about celebrates and that whole thing that we do on Friday evenings at five o’clock eastern, that actually was the very first step toward completely opening up. On March 16, we had the immediate, okay. My business partners, Jeffrey hayzlett, former CMO of Eastman Kodak, founder of C-suite network, and he said, Okay, we’re going to drive and thrive. That’s our mandate, no matter what, we’re going to drive and thrive. We’re not first responders from a healthcare perspective. But we are definitely first responders. And we’ve got all these incredible leaders that are looking to us to say, how do we manage this? How do we navigate what’s happening?
Lauren Cohen 10:37
It’s been tough. Everybody, at every level from small business, sometimes the smaller the business, the easier the adjustment, to big business, like cruise lines, and huge mega businesses that have been so impacted by this. And events, like events just changed. And, you know, I mentioned to you that I’m in the process of becoming more of a paid speaker. And part of that process is, you can be paid to speak on a virtual stage just as much as you can, on a physical stage. Now, for me, as a single mom, this actually opened doors so that I’m speaking on stages, generally once a week, at least, if not more, and I couldn’t do that if I had to travel for 40 weeks a year, because I wouldn’t be able to travel 40 weeks a year, just it’s not physically possible for me.
Tricia Benn 11:27
Yes, you know, I think so much opportunity has been created.
Lauren Cohen 11:30
If they are open to a Tricia. If you were open to it, because a lot of people shut down and said, I’m done. This is it. I’m defeated. I’m done. If you had an open mind, it’s all about mindset, right? And if your mindset was giving, because you have to be a giver, and givers create relationships, and this to me, the whole thing about COVID and even cross border, it’s like, are you a giver, Canadians and Americans are different, and Americans kind of had more of a closed mind. But now they’ve opened a little because they realize the world is small, and we have to be more accepting.
Tricia Benn 12:11
Well, and I think also, we’ve seen really that and it’s so interesting, the differences. And then also, of course, the perception of differences when you’ve lived in the US, you know, I’ve been here now for a few years. So, you know, it’s different when you’re living in the country versus when you’re part of the country. So you know, that kind of cultural approach of protecting everyone versus my own individual rights, that was definitely a thing. But the interesting thing in the C-suite network is what I see is tremendous leaders who care so much about their constituencies, whatever their communities are, their employees, their families, you know, the larger community that they live in, and that they serve. And you know, when you’re able to galvanize like minded people together, oh, my goodness, the strength in that, you know, so we’re gonna drive and thrive. Okay, how do we help each other, and we set up? So our immediate thing was, we’re going to keep everything. So we didn’t cancel anything? No, we just moved everything online. So we had a huge event coming up in April. And you know, that was March 16. We had a huge in person event, Virginia Beach, we had a ship, we all kinds of things we were supposed to do in person, you know. And so what we did was we moved that all virtual, we had tremendous feedback, experience engagement, it was amazing. And so the whole thing has been how do we learn as quickly as possible with celebrates it was, oh, my goodness, we have $10,000 plus memberships. And COVID just happened, nobody’s looking to spend an extra $10,000. Nobody knows what’s happening right now. And everybody’s clamping down on, you know, spending. So what do we what do we need to do? And so you know, I lead our sales team. My challenge to them was to say, okay, we’ve gone and we’ve done a very intense one to one really, highly engaged membership grouping and sale process. Yeah. How do we now go to one to many, so this is what I did, Laura. And I said, Okay, it’s Monday morning, whoever you’re talking to, I don’t care who it is. Ask them if they can join us on Wednesday night at eight o’clock. And I don’t care if we have two people, 10 people, I mean, whatever we have, let’s run through what would we do? What is it that we can now deliver now that we’re digital? And so we did this meeting on Wednesday night, we had two people, and it was terrible, Lauren.
Lauren Cohen 14:37
I was not one of the two.
Tricia Benn 14:38
You were not one of the two because I can guarantee that because those two still have not joined the C-suite. And I share this story now because what happened was, this is a really critical model that I share with my team, almost every day, we are scaling and if you can’t see my hands right now, I have my Two palms together, and I’m going in a direct upward angle, right? We have to scale fast growth. There’s just no way to work around that, and especially with what happened in terms of our business model. So how do we do that, the only way you can do that is to have your innovation. So your bottom hand, you need to have that pulling up, you need the innovation coming in. And you need your infrastructure, which is the second hand filling in what works, right and let the other stuff drop. And so everybody gets into this mindset. And it’s not just through the COVID era, it’s in all business. You get in this mindset, heaven forbid, we make a mistake and large size organizations. Oh, my goodness, it’s almost crippling, that sentiment is just horrendous. That’s one. I can’t stand that. And it leads to inaction, which is the worst. So you innovate what you what works, you keep what doesn’t work, you drop immediately. It’s not some big failure. It’s not some big mistake. It’s information and you keep moving on. And if you can, arm your team around that create the culture that supports that attitude. It is extraordinary. So what ended up happening was, we regrouped immediately after that session. And we formed celebrates. Now, Lauren, just to give some perspective, that Friday evening event for us is the biggest galvanizers of our community. It’s the biggest delivery of connectivity across the whole entire platform of all the different ones.
Lauren Cohen 16:22
I’m going to stop you for a moment, because I’d like to share what it is. So at 5pm, every Friday, the C-suite network has basically, what’s called celebrate. And it’s basically to appreciate your week, most people come with a glass of wine. Tricia loves wine, by the way, just saying. She always has red, I’ve never seen her without red, except for this morning, because 9am would be a little early. But anyway, I’m sorry, wine is important. I don’t drink wine. There you go coffee, probably right. I need coffee, I don’t drink wine. Unfortunately, I get migraines. But if I drank wine, believe me, I would be right there with you. But it’s great. Because the week is over, and you go and you share, you share your wins, you share your successes, you get to break out into little networking sessions, there’s no extra cost, it’s part of your membership, you come you go as you please, there’s no formal agenda, they introduce some new members each time so that you can get to know them. And it’s a great opportunity to get to know some people,
Tricia Benn 17:28
It really is. And just initial, we now just call it celebrates to short form it, the initial title of it was permission to push pause. And it was just that whole notion of if we could just push a pause button, as decision makers, as people who are running our businesses and going through whatever crises and there’s always something COVID obviously, we all went through it at the same time. But there’s always something when you’re building, there’s always some like teams and someone always. So the pause button, you know, when you can arm yourself with great people and be positive, we all got tough decisions, park it. We’re going to focus on all the great things. And then, Ironically, the fact of the matter is when somebody is feeling down, or they’ve had a week where they’ve been beat up for whatever reason, personally or professionally, my promise on Friday nights is to stay until everyone’s been heard.
Lauren Cohen 18:14
And what’s the latest you’ve stayed?
Tricia Benn 18:18
I think the latest I’ve stayed is probably eight o’clock ish. And it’s because something really meaningful was happening for someone we had. We’ve had everything, and it’s to have an environment where there’s enough trust and support where it’s not an artificial connection. It’s a real connection. And that’s the other thing is Lauren, you know, everybody’s videos on because I want to see everyone and I tease them like I know their voices now because you can’t see all everyone’s picture at the same time. So you know, like, if you’re speaking I know that it’s you.
Lauren Cohen 18:53
You know it’s me, there’s no question.
Tricia Benn 18:54
I’m able to pick on you, you know, real full engagement in that kind of embrace of like, Look, this syllabus, the great things, what do we have to come up with, and then this weekend, make sure you’re taking care of yourself. And there’s a community here that cares about you, and celebrating those things. And so, you know, fast forward, we went from what could have been like, Well, that was horrendous, to the best event we’ve ever had in all of our history, whether it’s digital or a live event.
Lauren Cohen 19:22
That’s amazing, and it didn’t cost 1000s and 1000s of dollars and have people traveling and all this logistics. That’s the beauty of this, is that as much as I am zoomed out, there’s no question we all are. My eyes are exhausted by the end of the day. Last night, it was on zoom until after 10. And finally I said because I was on with Hawaii in Vancouver. I finally said, I’m sorry, I’m done. Whatever needs to happen can happen another day. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. And I was not even on the video because I just couldn’t do it anymore. But the reality is for a lot of event planning oriented companies, a lot of people that do trade shows or run those events. I think that at first, it was super hard, no question because that’s where the money came from. But now, you have that kind of shift, where if you did open yourself up, and you know, C-suite is about this and I’m certainly about joint ventures and collaboration, and collaborating. If you are a collaborator, rather than a competitor, you will come out of this thing. All the better because you’ve made relationships when nobody was able to meet in person and touch elbows and bellies and all of this. So the relationships I think, that we’ve built over this time, I mean, I feel like an isolationist, which I’m not you’re not either you’re, you know, I’m an extrovert, no question. But I’m much more introverted now. But it’s okay. Like, my friend, a colleague, a lawyer here said, Can you have lunch in person? And you know, Florida is open. So I’m like, okay, I’ll have lunch in person, you know, and it’s kind of strange. We’re all a little nervous.
Tricia Benn 21:10
Yeah. You do have to be careful. You have to use caution. But the connectivity, I cannot agree with you more, Lauren, as you know, I mean, when you collaborate, and this is where I can’t understand the mentality. Now. I was a competitive figure skater, I get competing.
Lauren Cohen 21:26
We’re gonna see videos of that.
Tricia Benn 21:29
I trained at the Olympic Training Center in Canada, you know. So, yeah, I understand competition. But the fact of the matter is, that competition and what people don’t understand it’s not about beating the other person. It’s truly about how you perform at your best, right. And then strategically, can you come out ahead in that, you know, depending on which sport it is, but when you look at business and the collaborative power, it’s like, okay, so you’re going to fight with one competitor over this piece of pie? Why on earth, wouldn’t you make it this piece of pie, like, I just I can’t fathom not wanting to make things bigger, better, more profitable and more beneficial, more impactful? And, that’s another thing that’s just inherent in our culture. You know, we have people where, you’d look at them, and you’d say, well, don’t they compete? Well, actually, in our group, they collaborate, they help each other, they share what they’re doing, what’s working, what’s not working. It’s extraordinary. And therefore, it just means that every single person that comes in, there’s that whole appreciation, that just adds more. You can’t do work with every single person in the world that you’ve gone. Right. But collaborating with somebody where it’s like, oh, that’s your expertise. Perfect. You know? Absolutely. Or, you know, this morning, we were just talking about a new council, we’re going to be launching in the content in the financials/real estate space. Because they’re going to be people there that we’re going to be amazing collaborative partners, like Claudia Harvey and Craig Dunkley, like that. All right things again, great people. And by the way, great Canadians also operate.
Lauren Cohen 23:09
Let’s talk a little about that. So we’ll go back to that. And by the way, I wanted to ask you, do you know, Nancy Matthews has been a guest on my podcast, she’s a dear friend. Nancy Matthews, which, as you would know, Nancy Matthews, she goes by fancy Nancy, she’s known as the visionary with guts. And if you do not know Nancy Matthews, she wrote a book called The One and The One Philosophy and she now has a sequel to The One Philosophy and you will agree with this so much, is all about and I love women’s prosperity network. I helped them get their first trademark, I’ve been around with them forever. Though the one philosophy is all about. You just never know who that one might be. It could be the janitor, it could be the barista at Starbucks. It could be whomever you have to treat everybody as if they’re the one and come from a place of giving. And Nancy is just incredible at that she she collaborates with a women network. Sandra can remember her last name quite often. And Nancy also one of the things that they do at women’s prosperity network is they talk about Co Op petition rather than competition. And I love that word and about bringing other women up with them. It’s funny because yesterday I was talking about my ideal avatar for my business and and the guy was like, Well, is it a woman or a man as well? I have a lot of female and a lot of male goes but you have to choose and go well, obviously it’s a woman because I’m going to resonate with them and I’m going to help them you know, this woman I’m talking to from Montreal, it’s her I’m helping Yes, her partner I’m going to help by virtue of doing the but women helping women is so important. And that’s another thing. You have a lot of women driven stuff and events and programs and education going on because at the end of the day Women are more collaborative by nature. It’s just our nature to be that way, I think. And I wanted to ask you, when you and I don’t know the answer to this, so forgive me. You got married and then got a green card? And that’s it, or did you come in with a visa?
Tricia Benn 25:16
So I did both. I came in as an expert. So when I was 32, with made a vice president, North America for Ipsos, and I went to Washington, DC. And that was my first experience with fully integrating a new business and completely rebuilding it and all of its infrastructure and processes. So, that I came in as an expert, individual, and I wasn’t married at that time. So I came in that way for that job. Then I went back to Canada. I was a senior director at Rogers and built a whole new location. So Rogers Communications is well over a $20 billion company and owns, as you well know, Lauren, their own real estate and their own bank.
Lauren Cohen 26:06
It’s like Comcast, but in Canada.
Tricia Benn 26:08
Yeah. And I sat within the media company. So I worked with all of the media leaders, publishers, editors, sales, and all of the leaders of the business units and built in multimillion dollar insights practice. So I had my first two years after starting that business. And it was really one of those things of starting something completely from scratch and at first there was no one in Canada that was monetizing against audiences on the client side. So I came from the traditional market research supplier side, right. And I created a revenue generating stream internally to Rogers media, which, as I said, at that time, that was so out of the norm. Now, of course, selling data, selling insights, creating any awareness around that and all kinds of different products and services is is very much the norm, but back then that was not done.
Lauren Cohen 27:08
You’re a trailblazer.
Tricia Benn 27:10
Yes, absolutely. And then I took on, oh my goodness, Lauren, you know, Miles Nadal?
Lauren Cohen 27:17
I do. Yes, yes.
Tricia Benn 27:19
Yes. So Miles Nadal is a great Canadian business leader that most don’t know, which is shocking to me, because he built well over a $3 billion conglomerate agencies within the MDC partners holding company. And he came out of Toronto, and we had offices also in New York. So I took on a global Chief Marketing and strategy officer role within MDC partners, and I have p&l responsibilities for one of our New York locations.
Lauren Cohen 27:43
This woman is a little bit like experienced and a little bit of an expert in many things. And she’s got a pedigree, I mean, what a resume. There’s nobody that would say no to you for any position anywhere, like, look at all these just dropping names, like, you know, whatever, no big deal.
Tricia Benn 28:03
It’s funny, when you look back. So when you say that I’m like, Oh, that was before. I always point to the top corner of my office, the furthest corner in my office, because it’s like, that’s where I’m going now. And I’m so focused on that. So right with this, I use a lot of really simple frameworks like that for the team, and also obviously a share in our community. Because a lot of times concepts are so complicated for people that is like, you know, what, you need a doctorate to understand what we’re trying to achieve. No, we you know, and, and, you know, we did our strap planning this year, every single person on my team knows what the top three goals are for our whole organization. And then they know every objective that’s delivered below that, who’s responsible for it, who’s on the team, and what the timeline is for it? Yeah, just keep things simple clarity, and bring everybody on that journey. So anyway, so when I came back, the second time, I did get married when I was in Canada, my husband was in Canada with me for several years. So he became a Canadian citizen, as well. And then when we came back to the US in that role with MDC partners, I then applied for the Green Card through my marital status, just because that was the simplest way to do always the easiest. Yes. So I did the professional, I did actually do the professional visa to come into the country. But then I started the marital Green Card process.
Lauren Cohen 29:26
So one of the things I quickly want to address because our time is, of course up because we could talk for three hours. But all of the amazing things that Tricia has done and will continue to do and that we will do together. And the beauty of this is that it actually brings us closer together as well by doing this podcast and really getting to know my guests on a different level, some of whom I’m closer with than others, but all of whom I deeply respect is I wanted to talk a little bit about what your thoughts are, and I know we talked about this at the very beginning about this, this visa. And the process and the beauty of having a visa in your back pocket, especially when we’re facing all of the lockdown that all of our Canadian people, all of our Canadian family and friends have been, especially in Ontario suffering through for this whole time. I mean, I think Toronto was on day 300. And I don’t even know, of locked down. And they just extended it yet again. And the rest I mean, the restaurants have been closed, like, how do people survive the mental health, it’s terrible. And so one of the things that’s happened in my business, and it’s happened in yours, as well, as you know, you work with a lot of international clients is the realization that we need options. And the thing that money buys is never going to be happiness, but it’s going to be options, and then options and flexibility, in turn, can buy happiness, not buy, but it helps you achieve happiness. It’s it’s like financial freedom and flexibility is freedom. So just tell me a little bit about your experience. And I wanted to talk briefly about value. Because value, not values a lot of people are still focused on price and price does not equal value ever. And so I just briefly would love to touch on those things.
Tricia Benn 31:24
Absolutely. So first, as we know, our family and friends and community in Canada, it has been incredibly challenging. And I am 100% with you, Lauren, that, you know, if you can create flexibility, if you can create options, opportunities, it’s so important. So to have that visa in your pocket, you know, for you and I, we haven’t been back to Canada for so long. But the fact of the matter is, if we really wanted to go because we have our passports, we can go.
Lauren Cohen 31:54
Right, it’s challenging, but we can go.
Tricia Benn 31:57
Exactly.It’s not the way it was, and we’d have to make a lot of allowances in terms of quarantining and all that kind of stuff. But we could technically go and there’s a lot to be said for that. So I know, I have calm I know you do. Like if something really bad happened with my family, I can get there. And, that’s actually that really spurred me on for my American citizenship, because my children are Canadian, and American, of course. Having them here. My initial thinking about getting my green card was I do not ever want to be stuck somewhere where I can’t get to my children, right. And it’s the same thing with our businesses. It’s the same thing with our friends and our communities we serve, you know, across borders. So that flexibility to me is just, you know, absolutely no question. And so being able to work with someone like you, Lauren, because even though I’ve been through the process three times in various ways, I am no expert. So being able to work with someone like you to make that happen, and understand what needs to happen, when it needs to happen and not be worried about it. And that’s a huge thing in scaling our businesses, anything that you can, you know, ascribe to somebody who actually has that expertise. Right, and then simply network, that trusted network. That’s a big part of it. We know, everyone is right. So that that’s a huge thing to know who you’re going to So Lauren, no question, right? In terms of value, I couldn’t agree more. And this notion, that old school approach of this is business, nothing personal, is nonsense. The fact of the matter is, when you’re making that connective tissue with each other, when you really are building meaningful relationships in terms of the value you’re adding, whether that’s in from the perspective of actually caring that the person is healthy, like, like in today’s day and age, you know, when you haven’t heard from someone for a little while, you don’t say, hey, why haven’t you spoken to me?
Lauren Cohen 33:51
You say,Are you okay? And you mean it? Are you okay?
Tricia Benn 33:55
Exactly, because, oh, my goodness, look what’s happened, you know, people go quiet when they’re dealing with some really tough stuff going on in their lives. And a lot of people have been dealing with tough things with COVID, with their businesses, with their communities in the personal life. So so you know, that’s a little thing, but it can be so powerful, so meaningful to give people that grace to give them that level of empathy, you know, and carry out. Exactly, exactly. And when we look at how we build really great effective teams and effective team culture, there is absolutely caring there. It’s not about one person being the star and feeding the rest of the team, or being the only ones that are successful and celebrated. Absolutely not. And, you know, we had this discussion with our team recently where it came up, well, this person doesn’t understand because they’re not on the sales team. And I said, Wait a second. Let’s be clear here in C suite. We are all part of the sales team, the operations team and the customer service team.
Lauren Cohen 34:57
Now, you know, that’s Michael Gerber. That’s the story. Worry, knowing everybody and being able to collaborate and help each other.
Tricia Benn 35:04
Absolutely. And when you do that and genuinely care about where that’s going to land for people, and you’re thinking to how to help them get there faster, that’s the magic of the exponential potential
Lauren Cohen 35:21
And that brings me to how do people join this wonderful organization that you run?
Tricia Benn 35:28
Well, my email addresses is: tricia@c-suitenetwork.com so more than welcome to reach out to me anytime I love that. And then also our C-suitenetwork.com website. There you’ll see join, and you could certainly we also have our celebrates event. So if you’re a vice president or above an influencer speaker, author, consultant, coach, investor, you’re more than welcome to join us and just see what this whole big, crazy community and family is all about.
Lauren Cohen 36:03
Yeah, and that’s on Fridays at five Eastern and if you didn’t grab that will be in the show notes. You can also reach out to me because I’m part of this network. And I’m going to be there tomorrow, although this is not going to air by then. But maybe by the tomorrow that it does air. I’ll be there to hopefully, Tricia, thank you for joining us today at investing across borders, it’s great to have people that have actually been through the process, maybe not of investing, but certainly of crossing borders of being a dual citizen of having that visa initially. And you know, getting a green card, not in maybe the traditional way that I work with investors, because I’m working with mostly people that are getting their visas through investment. But that initially was Patricia’s visa, she had a business visa and work for a company. And so just always remember that professional services cannot be underscored enough. And value is at the end of the day, the most critical feature that you can have somebody to hold your hand through the process like me. And on that note, I’m Lauren Cohen, host of investing across borders international legal and real estate expert and yes, I’m still licensed in my home province of Ontario. I will never give that up. I worked way too hard to get it and I would love to help you navigate your path to invest, live, work and play across borders. Please subscribe to the podcast investing across borders. And I look forward to seeing you and your future endeavors. Tricia, I will see you very soon. Thank you.
Intro/Outro 37:37
Thanks for listening to Investing Across Borders with Lauren Cohen. Make sure to check the show notes for any links and for guests contact information. If you have questions for Lauren, please reach out to her at FOUNDER@ecouncilglobal.com. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, rate, review, and share the podcast with a friend.
