Kathleen Griffith: Author of Build Like A Woman

Episode 566

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, Kathleen Griffith, Founder and CEO of Grayce & Co, and Author of Build Like A Woman, dives deep into her journey from a strategist to spearheading an initiative and writing a book aimed at empowering female entrepreneurs. She discusses the creation of Grayce & Co, a company that focuses on helping brands engage female consumers, and shares the story behind her initiative and book, both titled, Build Like A Woman. Kathleen explains her entrepreneurial philosophy and introduces us to her "Golden Tools"—practical strategies for overcoming common business challenges and maximizing success. One standout discussion includes the "Heart Test," a method Kathleen recommends for evaluating the emotional and passionate potential of a business idea. She also takes us through strategies for visibility and marketing in a crowded market and ways to handle setbacks while navigating the complexities of starting and growing a business. This episode is a treasure trove of advice for anyone looking to make their mark in the entrepreneurial world and I know that you are going to love it. Grab your notebook—you won’t want to miss a moment of this insightful discussion! Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone. And welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Super, super thrilled to have my next guest here. I’ve been fan girling her for a while. And then coincidentally, a friend, Scott McGregor, a mutual friend introduced us so we were super, super excited to have her here today to talk about her brand new book, which is Build Like a Woman I have it right here. It is so so good. But Kathleen, and the reason why a fan girl her for a while, is just an incredible, incredible, incredible human being but also incredible strategists for Fortune 100 companies into really guiding kind of the next generation of female entrepreneurs, but also helping companies who really want to focus on helping and getting to women. So she is just known for her great gifts that she’s been able to give to so many people on her intelligence and her insight and know how into how to actually reach this market. So I’ve, like I said, followed her for a while and really excited to see that she finally wrote a book about this, which has a powerful toolkit in it that I’m going to make Kathleen talk a lot more about. But Kathleen combines no nonsense advice with practical tools. Always. You may have seen her on a few different television episodes as well. We’ll get into that too. But without further ado, welcome Kathleen. So excited to have you here.

Kathleen Griffith 2:20
WellCare real recognizes real so the feeling could not be more mutual. And I love when the online world collides because you’ve been in my orbit for quite some time. And so this feels like Kismet that we get to spend a little bit of time together. Super,

Kara Goldin 2:36
super excited. So okay, so Build Like a Woman. How did this come about? I mean, maybe we should even start earlier. And you and I were talking you’re from the New York area, you sort of got your feet wet in New York before actually starting the entire platform or Build Like a Woman, you ended up founding a company called Grayce & Cmpany. But there’s a lot more about your experience that I think everyone needs to know and sort of how you got from A to Z. You’re not at z but a to M Right. You’re, you’re killing it and helping so many people. But if you can take us through that journey. Yeah,

Kathleen Griffith 3:21
I mean, I started out as someone who loved entrepreneurship, that was my form of game or playing. And I remember talking to Mark Randolph, who, you know, was one of the cofounders of Netflix. And he talked about candy arbitrage as an early indicator of success, and moving into entrepreneurship. And that’s what I did when I was in middle school, I had something called the snack attack pack. And I’d make these, you know, I found out that you could buy things and then sell them for more than you bought them for. I just thought it was the coolest game ever, and would wrap on the morning loudspeakers doing that. So that was kind of my first taste of the game of it all and how much fun it could be to create these things that you would imagine fast forward, come from a really risk averse family and no one in my tree. I’ve gone all the way back have ever been entrepreneurs. These are lifers who go and work for companies for 3040 50 years. And so it just didn’t feel like a realistic option for me. And so I went into corporate working at big ad agencies. I did that for over a decade. All the while though, having this kind of gnawing feeling inside that I was meant to do something else with my life. But it just again really didn’t feel like it was possible. I didn’t see it in my own family. And I didn’t really see it in the town I grew up in it was really Stepford, like most of the women worked inside the home. All the men worked outside the home. Everyone kind of was was a little bit repressed and had these you know, I think dreams that had gone on realized that it was you could feel under the surface that there were a lot of women in particular who were kind of jazzer sizing it out like had had, we’re sitting on these on these dreams that they hadn’t realized. And so I knew I wanted some of that power that I saw. I knew that and I knew that I didn’t want to be someone who sat on something that needed to be realized. And so eventually I made the leap. That’s,

Kara Goldin 5:42
that’s awesome. So you started, as you mentioned in advertising in New York, and then what led to I guess, Grayce & Cver you decided to go out on your own? And And really, what what was the moment when you decided to have this focus on women? Obviously, you are one but it had to be more than that.

Kathleen Griffith 6:04
Yeah, so I was I started out as an assistant to the assistant of the assistants in on in in advertising, did all the right things moved up. And I remember I was working 80 hour weeks, I think a lot of women who are listening can relate to this, or just people in general working 80 hour weeks, I had high heeled shoes that I kept in the file cabinet under that my desk drawer that I would throw on to impress clients or the big boss, if he was coming into town and saw more darkness than I think light for a very long time. I remember going in just like sleeping on a park bench around the corner of the office to try to just catch my breath without anyone noticing. I was so flat out running on fumes. And one such day I grabbed pizza, as you often do in New York City, it was called the Shroom town. So four different types of mushrooms on top. And I had this friend who was sitting across from me kind of taking it in I was like, drowning my sorrows and pizza. And she said to me, You look kind of dead. And I remember that night it just like haunted me in the worst possible way walked all the way home. The light was coming off the pavement in New York City. All these cabs were driving by, and this quote circulated in my head from tamma kyiv’s, who’s this incredible professor, Harvard grad. And it is, it was you if you are this successful, doing what you don’t love. Imagine how successful you’d be doing what you do love. And so that was it for me, I decided I was going to start my own company. It took me a year, I love the Daymond John School of entrepreneurship, where you don’t make the leap till you can really financially make the leap. But I remember just at night or on weekends, I’d be working on my website or buying a URL or, you know, starting the LLC trying to figure out the name, I couldn’t figure out a name. So I just thought, well, Grace is my grandmother’s name. So I’ll name it Grace. And I’ll imbue life into it. And so that’s really how it started. There was no master plan, I just could not take the life that I was living anymore because the job was so demanding. And my soul and heart was not in what I was doing, because it just wasn’t in my DNA. And so that was the beginning of the past 10 years of becoming an entrepreneur. How

Kara Goldin 8:40
would you describe your approach to entrepreneurship when you think about your own things that you built, but also how you help people? I mean, you talked about the Daymond John’s theory, I think that’s great. But would you tell people I mean, I often think people overthink things right? Before they’re, they actually go and try things that if you can figure out some cheap way to actually figure out if it’s gonna work. That’s sort of my theory along the way. But is there anything that you think if somebody said, Oh, that’s definitely Kathleen Griffith? Like, that’s what she would say about this? No, I love

Kathleen Griffith 9:19
that question. Yeah, I think there are different sorts of builders. So first of all, I don’t even really consider myself an entrepreneur, in a lot of the traditional sense, I wanted to define and I really think build is going to be the verb of the next century, like, building for me and being a builder is someone who has a vision, and then daily steps into realizing that vision. So you could be any sort of person and kind of the thing you create is almost irrelevant, right? Like and we’ve talked about this a little bit, it could be this widget or that widget, like, it kind of doesn’t matter, other than if it’s true to you. And so I think There are for this group of people like myself, we’re top down creators. And I think there are bottoms up creators who love to experiment and, you know, are very focused on, kind of they start with the thing, and then they see what works and have lots of trial balloons. I’m someone who starts really big picture. So what is the vision? If we couldn’t do it in five lifetimes? Like, what does that look like? Let’s define it, let’s make it juicy as hell to where we can touch, taste, feel, smell it practically, it should feel so on unrealistic. And then the how of it all kind of gets figured out as you go. And so that’s I think what people would say, I always start from that 30,000 foot place. And I do that when I’m consulting with brands as well, in addition to my own businesses, and I think that becomes a really interesting vantage point, because then also, you know, what the enemy is that you’re fighting against, and what you’re pushing up against in the world. And to me, if your vantage point is too small and narrow initially, you then don’t really have the courage to take something on, which is what ultimately allows you to go the distance.

Kara Goldin 11:20
Yeah, no, that’s such a good point. So Build Like a Woman, your first book, which I mentioned early on, is quite excellent, you should be so proud. And it’s like, I came out with a book a few years ago. And I remember, I didn’t think that I would be as excited as I was when it finally was all of these thoughts were finally put into a, you know, a book, right? You get the first box, and you unbox it. And I totally can only imagine, right? How exciting it was for, for you to actually have this. And you had started this platform around the concept of build, like a web and even before that, but now it’s going to be accessible to so many more people. And it’s, it’s super, super exciting. So how do you define the build, like a woman concept? Like, what do you think it is? That is? What what do you hope that people take away from it? And what is? What would people you know, need to know about this.

Kathleen Griffith 12:24
So what I found, at least in the business space, when I was when I was starting with no experience and no mentors and figuring it out, bubblegum scotch tape is there was a lot out there in skill building. And we’ve done you know, for most of us who are doing this, we have the skills, I think there’s an there’s there are things that you can constantly do to skill build. When I say that I’m talking about marketing, and sales, and pitching and financials and all that, that good stuff that’s really, really important. On the flip side, there was all this mindset work that I was doing. So I was working with personal growth coaches, peak performance coaches, wealth coaches. And what I started to find is that that became the X factor in my business. That is like when things really took off when you could combine mindset and equal parts with skill set, not as a servant to skill set, not as secondary to skill set, but like, get the mind right first, and then you’re equipped with all these ninja super skills that you have at your disposal. So I wrote the book with the intention of you know how I wished I learned it. So we start with mindset, and then we move on to skill set. And so it’s equal parts both. And I just found it to be a really effective combination. Most of the successful women that I know women, like you, you know, say much the same thing. I’d be curious. But it’s like, it comes down to so much of this comes down to mindset, right? So yeah, no,

Kara Goldin 14:00
absolutely. And in your book, you discuss golden tools for success. I’d love to those. Can you talk a little bit explain a little bit about those tools.

Kathleen Griffith 14:11
So we got to have some fun to write business shouldn’t be all serious all the time. And so these were my favorite tried and true kind of shortcuts that I found in the course of doing business help supercharge success. And so I decided to just make them fun. There’s there’s seven in all in the book, they’re kind of sprinkled throughout and they’re just wild like I’ve got something in there called the outrageous ask, which has so insanely impacted my business for the better. Like I cannot even put into words how powerful this tool has been. And so like, let’s share this one it comes down to like you figure out and ask that you want to make and so if anyone is sitting there right now listening who has something maybe it’s A brand partner you want to work with. It’s a woman you want to reach out to and know and network with. Could be anything, it doesn’t matter. It just matters if it if it matters to you. And then you make that to the 10th exponent. So you reach out to someone, you make this outrageous ask. And the key to it is that you’re willing to do whatever it takes willing to demonstrate this like, absolute crazy person on the other side of the line or of the email to where they may just maybe say yes, and what is so unbelievable is the explosive potential of these outrageous ask because one like that can change the trajectory of your business. And I so I’ve had a lot of fun with that 52 outrageous, ask the year, you’ve got a lot more possibility just kind of hanging in the ether than most do. Definitely.

Kara Goldin 15:53
You also talk about the heart test, which I couldn’t agree more. I mean, it’s definitely a key thing for I think anybody I read this, I always tell people, and I think this goes hand in hand. And when I was reading more about the heart tests, maybe start to think about this. Ideas are a dime a dozen, right? And I think of ideas all day long. But we’re all actually commit myself to something, I have to be in love with it. Right? It has to speak to me from the heart, otherwise, I’m not going to invest my time. And I’ll give away ideas all day long to people and and I think that this kind of goes hand in hand. But can you talk a little bit more about that, from your perspective?

Kathleen Griffith 16:35
Yeah, well, it means so much that you see bonafide Business Builders, there is we can create businesses with our hearts. So you know, it’s like I think that’s a fallacy that you can’t, you know, and it’s like, it all has to be so left brain and white space. And, you know, I’ve I’ve looked at the market and analyzed it seven ways to Sunday, it’s like there are other ways to create and to your point, something that breaks your heart, it’s something that lights your heart on fire or something that breaks your heart. I think that’s the other piece like, it could be something that just so enraged as you like you were just your hair’s on fire, you were so angry about this problem set that you want to just go run at it and solve it. So yeah, breaks your heart or lights, your heart on fire, that tends to be a really good place to run your business idea through once you have an idea. It’s it’s a great litmus test.

Kara Goldin 17:34
So what are some of the major challenges use you think entrepreneurs have to actually launch a business? And I mean, you it? I think it’s even more so for female entrepreneurs. We’ve heard a lot of people talk about this and some of the challenges around capital and but even more so than that, like, what do you see people kind of getting in their way.

Kathleen Griffith 18:04
One of the hardest things is when you start to build something that is unique and bespoke to you, like, a bespoke suit, right? Like when you start to design that business idea. And that life, you start to find that your life looks really unusual and different. And it reads very differently from most other people’s lives. Like I remember once I was really onto something with the company that I was creating. And I was so thrilled with it, right? Like, I’m finally creating what I had in my mind’s eye. And how cool is this to actually see it coming to fruition in life. And I was sitting on the porch of my best friend, we’ve been best friends since we were five years old. She’s in front of this gorgeous house, she is this handsome strapping husband, two boys, her business is doing well. And at the time, I was like the proud owner of a cube start smart storage locker that was like a nine by 13 storage locker. Single, no kids, you know, didn’t have a home at that point was trying to figure out where to move next. And I had this moment where I was like, for all intensive purposes, she’s successful. And I’m not right. Like she’s got the white picket fence and the and so the cultural conditioning was something I really had to unlearn that if it is true to me and feels good in my bones. That is enough. And the most incredible thing is that, in my experience, the people you are meant to meet who are like minded then eventually start to flow into your life. You know, you see you start to really have this very full and complete life. But there’s that period of time where what you’re creating is so unorthodox and so unusual that I think your life starts to look really different and that can feel lonely and, like, not good. Yeah. Until it feels.

Kara Goldin 20:07
Yeah. And so I think it is, I mean, you mentioned this before, it’s mindset, right, and getting out of our own way and making the decision that, you know, you can go and do something if you choose to do it, right. But it’s the, it’s the concept of actually choosing to do it, I think we’re capable of so much more and figuring out a way, and I think women do figure out ways how to do things more so than right and, and so that’s the other thing that I really loved about your book. So who has written to you that is said, I mean, you have so many examples of this over the years, especially because you had a platform even before writing the book, but any buddy stick out in your mind as really being helped by some of the tools that you have, as well as just the mindset of getting people focused in on building like a woman? Is there anybody who’s come to you and said, Oh, my God, like, Thank you,

Kathleen Griffith 21:04
I have to say, that has been the coolest part of writing a book that I was really not anticipating to eat, all of a sudden, you get this tidal wave, and de luz of messages from women, you have no idea who they are, you know, I just heard from a woman in Serbia, like you’re so you’re hearing from people from all around the world, people you otherwise would never have had contact with. And they’re sharing these very intimate details about their life, and how the book changed their life. And so I think that the common denominator that’s been so powerful is women saying that the book made them behave that much more outrageously gave them made them that much more brave. You know, one woman left her job decided to quit and move to another country like that, for me is so unbelievable. I mean, it makes just the one story, hearing one story like that makes it all worth it. But I would say, yeah, just in general, the the actual volume has been overwhelming, like that has really touched me, and was not expected. Maybe I should have known that. But I did it.

Kara Goldin 22:21
Do you see any trends in entrepreneurship today that are that you’re super excited about that? Maybe have not really, you know, been out there? Even five years ago, I feel like COVID has, I mean, COVID has changed us? All right, and so many, so many ways. But I think in entrepreneurship, you know, there’s obviously remote work. And and I think there’s people sort of, you know, thinking that, you know, they had to get off the train for a little while and sort of rethink things. And And now, they’re rethinking around entrepreneurship around, you know, doing things a little bit differently having heart and, and their businesses, but I’m so curious what you would say to that, like, what do you see out there right now that you’re super excited about that people are doing

Kathleen Griffith 23:13
it, for me, it would be the tidal wave of accidental entrepreneurs, so 50% of women, their number one goal in life is not to get married, or have a kid, it’s to leave their job and start and start a business. Because I think to your point, during COVID, it was just such a time of introspection and reflection. And everyone kind of emerged, and all of these hinted at promotions, and fair play, and all these things, the DNI programs that had been put in place prior, you know, women kind of said, Hmm, you know, took inventory, like, not a lot has changed. And so I’m just gonna go about the unglamorous work of like, building my own thing, not waiting for the systems and structures that were not designed for me to change. I’m just gonna go build the darn thing. And so that crop to me is really fun. Because, you know, when I started it was formal NBA formal training kind of your othered if you’re not, you don’t have the pedigree. And so this group that are wholly unskilled, you know, in the traditional sense, who are just like on a mission to do something, I I’m enjoying watching that unfold. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 24:33
no, I think it’s it’s a lot of fun. So if you could have readers take away one thing from this book, and maybe it’s a piece maybe it’s also combined with a piece of advice that you’ve gotten over the years along the way. I feel like people have probably said things to you to go do it. Make sure you’re loving what you’re doing all of those things, but I feel like there’s just a lot of inspiration in your book Build Like a Woman but I’d love to hear it from you. What? What is that one thing that you want people to take away from this book and sort of a moment with with you a moment of Motivation and Inspiration, what would it be? It would be the

Kathleen Griffith 25:15
idea that at any moment in time you’re building your own dream, or you’re building someone else’s, you’re not. You’re never building both. It’s one or the other. And so it would be the idea that if you have a dream, you go and create that regardless of whether it’s what Aunt Sally thinks you should do, or your husband or your kid or the neighbor down the street, like, go create what is unique to you chase down that dream, take up even more space in the world. And and really use this as a time to unleash whatever has been residing in your heart, that would be the intent for this work.

Kara Goldin 25:59
No, I love that. Well, Kathleen Griffith, thank you so much. The book is called Build Like a Woman. And it is absolutely awesome. And we’ll have all the info in the show notes to but thank you so much. And best of luck with everything. I’m very, very excited for everybody to get a taste of this and a taste of you because it is very personal and very motivating. And I love what you’re doing and how you’re I giving back and giving people your energy to go out and do you know really great things. So thank you again.

Kathleen Griffith 26:35
Well, thank you. And thank you for all the work you’re doing to elevate women and for you know, sharing this too. I just so appreciate it and love doing this with you.

Kara Goldin 26:45
Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.

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