Helping founders and executive teams grow profit and people-focused impact with joy and ease at the center of the strategy. Renia (pronounced REE-nah) Carsillo is the founder of Realign Consulting. She believes her superpowers are pattern recognition and activating change. Since 2008, Renia and her team have helped more than 100 small and mid-sized companies build values-driven, people-first operating models, guided by two proprietary frameworks: Do Better Business™ and Values-Driven Marketing. Renia has worked side by side with impact-driven companies, multinational franchises, and B2B brands in some of the most traditional industries, from industrial manufacturing to government contracting. Her work sits at the intersection of people, systems, and habits. For a business to grow sustainably, these three must constantly realign, because alignment is an ongoing practice.
Values-Driven Business Lessons from a Cleveland Restaurant - [Small Stage, Big Impact Podcast]
E65: Cordelia Proves a 3x James Beard-Nominated Restaurant Can Also Be a Container for Community.When Craig and I visited Cordelia in Cleveland, the last thing I wanted was to take the server up on their offer to talk to the owner. Restaurant owners have long been some of my least favorite people to talk to. But Andrew Watts was a delight, and our whole evening turned into one of the best lessons on the values, beliefs, and community I've had in years. In this episode, I walk through what Cordelia's “3-Core” looks like in practice, from Midwest Nice to how they answer their 1-star reviews. The best restaurants are rooted in place.Last Thursday evening, Craig and I sat at the counter at Cordelia in Cleveland, Ohio, working our way through the "Belly Up," Cordelia's version of a tasting menu. A little over halfway through, our server mentioned that one of the owners was in that evening and would come over to say hello. I balked. Conversations with restaurant owners are some of my least favorite. About 12 years ago, I swore to Craig I would never work with another restaurant for the rest of my life. But over he came, and, like every other person I met at Cordelia, Andrew Watts was a delight. So yeah, now who's the asshole? (Definitely me.) In today's episode, I walk through what Cordelia taught me about the 3-Core of a values-driven business: core values, core beliefs, and core communities. |
Renia Carsillo
Helping founders and executive teams grow profit and people-focused impact with joy and ease at the center of the strategy. Renia (pronounced REE-nah) Carsillo is the founder of Realign Consulting. She believes her superpowers are pattern recognition and activating change. Since 2008, Renia and her team have helped more than 100 small and mid-sized companies build values-driven, people-first operating models, guided by two proprietary frameworks: Do Better Business™ and Values-Driven Marketing. Renia has worked side by side with impact-driven companies, multinational franchises, and B2B brands in some of the most traditional industries, from industrial manufacturing to government contracting. Her work sits at the intersection of people, systems, and habits. For a business to grow sustainably, these three must constantly realign, because alignment is an ongoing practice.
E67: 3 Founders, 3 Paths to Building a Business That Lasts Three women founders, three very different starts. I sat down with Lisa Council of Mrs. Grout, Stephanie Veraghen of Show Up Awesome, and Stephanie Melvin of Sol to trade the real stories: a layoff two weeks before Christmas, five-year plans for 10 industries, and a corporate exit over integrity. Then we get into funding, how long it took each of us to reach $250k, why we were slow to pay ourselves, and selling from genuine care. Scan...
E66: Values-Driven Marketing in Action with Mrs Grout Founder & CEO Lisa Council Lisa Council, founder of Mrs. Grout, is my longest-term client. We’ve been working together for more than a decade, and in this conversation we talk about how that trust was built, what we’ve learned from each other, and why her new website converts at 20%. Lisa walks through the review program her team runs, the low-cost touches that make customers feel appreciated, and her advice for women building businesses...
Happy Tuesday, Reader! I am writing you from the past. I pen every Two on Tuesdays email you receive from my heart, several weeks in advance of when you receive it. Which means I don't know exactly where things stand as you read this. But, writing from late September, the state of our world feels particularly perilous. So this week, I won’t be sharing any tips or strategies for building your business. Instead, I want to call each of you in. I am here today to ask you to do two very important...