762 Danielle Levy:

Entrepreneurial burnout is widespread and not just because we trick ourselves into thinking we have to do it all, and do it all perfectly, to succeed. If you listened to episode 761 with Denise Gosnell you’ll know why this isn’t true. And sometimes the bigger problem is to know who to ask and how to ask for help, and my guest today Danielle Levy is on a mission to help entrepreneurs find the resources and talent they need to grow their businesses.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who has made it her mission to help entrepreneurs with her little black book of trusted industry professionals to help them implement and scale their businesses.

Danielle Levy is the CEO and Founder of The Boardroom League. A sought-after executive who has helped six and seven-figure businesses expand with clarity and efficiency, Danielle has amassed a team of experts across metrics, design, copywriting, strategic pricing, funnels, social media, and more – with a formula to help entrepreneurs get better at asking for help and knowing who to ask.

It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur. Never before has there been so many resources to learn from people who’ve been there and built that, whether on podcasts like this, a plethora of trainings, masterminds and e-courses, and easy ways to connect with trusted advisors and mentors.

So there really is no excuse to reinvent the wheel, yet it can be difficult and overwhelming for new entrepreneurs to know what they need, who they need and when they need those resources.

That’s why Danielle Levy founded The Boardroom League. A sought-after executive who helped six and seven-figure businesses expand with clarity and efficiency, Danielle’s Boardroom League provides entrepreneurs a little black book of trusted industry professionals to help them implement and scale their businesses.

Danielle’s vision came to life when she realized that she was taking this team of experts with her from project to project, and recognized that other entrepreneurs could benefit from her trusted team as well.  Danielle believes in helping business owners build a trustworthy ecosystem of professional resources, so that they can focus on their zone of genius, instead of being distracted by day-to-day business obligations.

So let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Danielle Levy and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Danielle, welcome to Wings.

Danielle Levy:

Thank you for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

I want to understand what you do for all the businesses that you help. You’re focused on six and seven-figure online businesses. What are the biggest mistakes that you see them making, and where do you come in and make it all better?

Danielle Levy:

If I had to summarize what I do kind of in a sentence or two, it’s helping CEOs to step into their true CEO seat. Easier said than done.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs go into business so that they can work for themselves, but very quickly figure out they’ve gotten to a point where they have plateaued in their business and don’t know how to take it that next step, or have built the business… They’ve entangled themselves in the business. So for those great fantasies of, “I’m just going to take a vacation, or spend more time with my family, or get to the gym,” or whatever the thing is, they actually can’t because they are just part of the business now, as opposed to being a CEO of the business. So what I do is go into businesses and sort do all of this detective work to figure out where the bottlenecks are, where the blind spots are, how can businesses truly be set up with really strong business foundations so that really anyone on the team could step aside for whatever reason, and the business can run reasonably well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Danielle, it’s so funny how many wannapreneurs or people launching a business, when you ask them why do they want to go into business for themselves, invariably they say, “Because I don’t want a boss.” And then you quickly realize that you have a lot of bosses.

Danielle Levy:

Exactly, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Do you think there’s a gap between what people think entrepreneurship is and what it actually is?

Danielle Levy:

I do think so. I think people get into business because they’re so passionate about the thing that they’re passionate about.

I’ll give you a really small example, but my dad is a dentist. He did really well in his undergrad. He did really well in one of the best dental schools in the country. He’s a fabulous dentist and he could tell you anything there is to know about gums and cavities and teeth and other things that dentists talk about, right? But put him in charge of running cashflow for the business or setting up his waiting area or picking the color paint for the lobby or any of those things… He spent years and years and years in dental school, and all of a sudden, he’s being asked where to order office supplies at the best rate. So it just doesn’t equate. You know what I’m saying?

So I think it’s wonderful that people have these passions, because where would we be without them? Right? And I think people put too much pressure on themselves, like, “I should have known how to run that part of the business,” or, “I should know how to hire people,” or, “I should know.” Well, not really, because their gift is the thing that they’ve brought to market that is really making the impact, and you just need business professionals that can support the rest of the growth.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s so funny. In the book, The E-Myth, there was the example of the woman who bakes pies, and her pies are so good that everybody says, “Go into business to make your pies.” And before long, she’s not doing the things she loved, she’s doing everything but that. And after a while, she hates making pies.

Danielle Levy:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

So do you work with founders and these online entrepreneurs and business owners to help them get kind of into alignment with do what you do best and hire the rest? Or how does that all unfold in terms of when you look at a business?

Danielle Levy:

I do a lot of hiring and shifting of roles and responsibilities and sometimes off-boarding, and I think it’s not only about the founders do what they do best, everyone needs to do what they do best. So, I think as long as there are clear lanes for responsibilities and who is an authorized decision-maker in certain instances and who is not, and expertise in place, I think that applies for every member of the team.

Melinda Wittstock:

But it can be hard to know. I mean, women in particular can fall into a pattern where they think they have to do it all in order to have it all. So they’re scrambling, burning out, trying to do everything, and worse, trying to do everything perfectly. Do you see a lot of people stuck there?

Danielle Levy:

I do. And I think also in this age of working wherever you want to work and oftentimes running households and things, certainly there’s something to be said for separate your personal and your business, but oftentimes I look at mine collectively. If I’m going to take on this client, if I’m going to take on this project, what does that mean that I need additional help within my business and that I have a family? So what does that mean that I need help with my family or maintaining my home? Because there’s only so much time that I have, right? So I just think it’s a tremendous amount of pressure for women and everyone to have on their shoulders.

Melinda Wittstock:

It really is. So what do you think is the reason so many women fall into that pattern in entrepreneurship?

Danielle Levy:

What is the reason? I mean, I know that we’re discussing entrepreneurship. I think it’s a much bigger issue than that. I think people are moving quickly in a hustle culture. I think oftentimes businesses and individuals aren’t totally operating in alignment with their own values and how they want to show up, and they’re there more to kind of serve the Joneses. I think there’s plenty of… And not to turn this into a political debate or anything, but can you have it all or can you not have it all? Right? I just think it’s a longstanding story about what is actually possible before there’s burnout, before there’s relationship breakdowns, before things really start to fall apart.

Melinda Wittstock:

So are we all doomed to learning it the hard way? When you’re advising somebody and you can see the pattern, this happens to so many women, and at the early stages when you’re advising your clients, are you like, “Okay, don’t do this.”? Is it hard for them to understand or see that they’re about to fall into that trap? Can you avert it in any way?

Danielle Levy:

Actually, for the most part, I don’t find that they struggle with seeing it. They are more hard-pressed to understand there are people that can help, that they can trust, that can show up in their businesses the way that they would want them to. So it’s literally, for the most case, a situation where my clients or the entrepreneurs are seeing exactly what’s happening, how they’re entwined in the business, how they’re burning out, how they’re working too many hours, how they’re the only ones on their team that has the answer, and they just don’t know what to do about it.

Melinda Wittstock:

What are some of the other things? So when you’re looking at a business, and especially in the online world where so much of it is about getting your marketing right, talk to me a little bit about that piece. Because there’s so many products, so many services, so little time, so much that you have to get right on the marketing, even with the best product or service you’re selling online, even if it’s the best in the world. If no one knows about it, pretty hard to succeed in business. So what are some of the things there where people are going wrong or how do you help them with that?

Danielle Levy:

Yeah, sure. I mean, certainly, like you said, if nobody knows about it, then it’s not going to get purchased. So there’s no doubt that marketing plays a key piece in this. But I think the key piece to all of this is really for entrepreneurs and CEOs and leaders to understand what their core values are and what their company’s core values are. And when you run a business and create a product and manage a team and hire a team and fulfillment and operations and all of those things that go into a business that are in alignment with what those values are, and that also, obviously, extends into your marketing strategy and your sales strategy and all of the pieces of a business, it’s less about, “Did we get everything just right?” Which, of course, is the ideal. But it’s much easier to draw on what’s organic and natural, and it empowers the team and brings a sense of consistency and efficiency that just brings everything together, rather than kind of doing it in a less organic kind of way, a less natural way.

Melinda Wittstock:

So at The Boardroom League, Danielle, essentially you’re assessing the company and what they need, and then you’re bringing talent and the right people to the table. Are these hires for the company, or are they fractional or a mix of both?

Danielle Levy:

The Boardroom League is set up as a collective group of VIP days in its truest sense. However, I so strongly believe in the individuals that I’m working with on The Boardroom League and the work that they’re doing, the clients. Should a relationship form beyond that and a client wants to say, “Hey, I’ve got these extra projects,” or, “We have this long-term need,” I mean, that is something for the parties involved to deal with separately. But The Boardroom League in its truest sense is taking sort of that piece of the health diagnostic where maybe your KPIs are not right, or you don’t have your sales strategy, or you need a PR invisibility strategy, and solving those immediate problems and removing those blocks for entrepreneurs.

Melinda Wittstock:

I see. So it works like a VIP day for individuals or a group?

Danielle Levy:

Yes. Yes, for individuals. It’s one-on-one coaching. Each Boardroom League session includes a full client session and a takeaway standalone deliverable. I think that’s really important, whether or not you choose to work in the future with your Boardroom League expert, to have that deliverable to say, “Okay, I’ve learned the thing that I need to do,” or, “I’ve had my dashboard set up for me or this funnel built for me,” or whatever the thing is, I feel really confident now that I can move forward.

Melinda Wittstock:

So there’s sort of an actionable result. So do people come back for more and more of these, or is it usually just a one-off and they get a result and next? Tell me how all that works.

Danielle Levy:

Yeah, so there’s two reasons that people come back, and most people do come back. One is The Boardroom League was set up very specifically with very different types of experts, and they collaboratively work together.

For example, you’re probably just not going to need a copywriter, you’re probably also going to need a funnel builder, or you’re going to need a metrics person that’s going to work on your website, right? So there’s sort of a natural pairing that’s involved in there, which keeps people coming back for, “Well, now I need to work on this part of my business, or I need to work on that part of my business.”

But the other piece of it is I find that once people get using these systems or whatever it is that the deliverable is, it gets to a point where they sort of outgrow it, right? Once you start tracking your metrics, you’re like, “Well, I want to be able to measure this and I want to be able to measure that.” Or you build your first funnel, “Well, this funnel’s doing really, really well, and now I want to create this piece of my program that goes along with it, or I need to create this downsell.” So people are continually coming back because of the quality of work and the expertise of the Boardroom members.

Melinda Wittstock:

So how many people have gone through The Boardroom League since you started it? You’ve been doing it for a little over two years now, yes?

Danielle Levy:

Yeah, we work with a small group of people, probably a handful a month.

Melinda Wittstock:

So what made you start it?

Danielle Levy:

Yeah, so I guess, I mean, this goes back to my origin story. I had a very successful career in digital marketing and corporate communications, design agencies here in the Boston area, truly working with the best of the best. And I took a milestone birthday. I went on a retreat and I met someone who… I didn’t know what the online space was, I didn’t know who all these influencers were, but she was the director of operations for one of the biggest influencers in the space and immediately handed me my first client. It wasn’t something I was looking for, it wasn’t something that I asked for, but I was like, “Well, this might be interesting.”

So I quickly went from this very, very confident professional, who knew how to get things done, that knew how to show up in the boardrooms or walk into the CSO’s office or whatever needed to be done, because I understood how agencies worked. And all of a sudden, I was like this kid in this new playground and I was very insecure, “What is going on?” And the thing that helped me to bridge over between part one of my career and part two of my career was my network. And I just felt like these were the people that kept showing up in my business, that kept showing up for my clients, that was helping me to understand how to do things.

And over time, now I’ve got a whole education in how all of these things work. But I was like, “Doesn’t everyone need that right-hand person, that trusted resource that they can go to?” There’s so many places that you can find individuals that know all the things. Until you invest all your money and you figure out that they didn’t actually know the thing that you needed them to know, or they didn’t really know the thing at all, right? So that’s kind of what The Boardroom League was born from, was my own experience and my need for this really great community of individuals that really supported me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Often the impetus to go out on our own as entrepreneurs isn’t necessarily something like you’re a kid and you’re like, “I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur,” or whatever. It sort of presents itself. And that sounds like it’s kind of like your story as well. Was there anything that surprised you about running your own business that you weren’t anticipating?

Danielle Levy:

I really was naive in what I was stepping into. I would say what I am most proud of is that milestone trip was so out of my comfort zone. I didn’t know anyone. I thought I knew how I wanted to celebrate that birthday, and it was such a life-changing moment, a life-changing experience for me. So I mean, I think that, for me, is the takeaway for most entrepreneurs is when you least expect it, when you clear your head, the opportunities just sort of unfold.

And for me, it wasn’t about let me go be a consultant or run The Boardroom League or anything else, it was, “Oh my gosh, the money’s coming in. Well, I better make sure that I protect myself and let me hire a lawyer, and I guess I need a website now,” and it was, “I need this and then I need that.” And it was all done while I had other things going on, while I was in graduate school, while I was raising my children. It was never like, “Let me go start a business.” I just kept taking one more step, one more step, doing as much as I could do to keep the rest of my life in order, and here we are.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s funny how that happens, because as entrepreneurs, we’re always building the plane as we fly it, and no two entrepreneurial journeys are the same. What were some of the challenges that you faced in that process of doing other things, getting out of your comfort zone, all that kind of stuff? And with all the digital marketing, all the expertise that you had in the past, was there any heart-stopping moment along that journey? Because there often is. It’s a hero’s journey. There’s like, “Okay, how hard could this be?” And then there’s something always out of left field. Were there any moments like that for you in growing your own business?

Danielle Levy:

I’m not a terribly woo kind of person, but I would say the biggest challenge for me was my own mindset. It was really struggling with, “I’m not an employee anymore, but I am a service provider.” Like I said, I went directly from my corporate career to working with the biggest names, and I still pinch myself. How on earth did I do that? Right? With that comes such a complex of, “How do I show up for them? They want to do this launch, but we don’t have enough time.” Owning my ground and owning my expertise, knowing in the back of my mind that I was still learning every day and that I was sort of scrambling to try to figure things out and what my secret sauce would be. And I’m certainly a people pleaser, so the last thing I ever wanted to do was show up for anything less than what I thought my truest self could be.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. I mean, everybody on the entrepreneurial journey, a lot of people don’t start out kind of woo, but they end up that way because you start to realize that external events start to challenge you and you start to see these kind of mindset things like… Or just upper limits or what we perceive our own value to be. I’m on my fifth business as an adult, I guess, now. And through all the women that I’ve mentored over the years and all the people I’ve interviewed. Invariably, everybody has some sort of limitation on what they perceive their value to be. And I see it manifesting in, “Are we underpricing? Are we overdelivering? Are we thinking we have to do it all, or toiling in perfectionism?” Have you noticed things like that where you just start to kind of dream a little bit bigger the more confidence you get, the longer you run your business?

Danielle Levy:

Yeah, for sure. I was listening to myself sort of talk about the scrambling or the not knowing or the lack of confidence and the things that I didn’t know, and what I’ve come to appreciate most about being an entrepreneur is that at every level of my business, it’s that same feeling. No matter how prepared I am, no matter how much research I do, no matter how many times I’ve been in any kind of experience, it’s never the same way twice. So it’s more now about how I’m presenting myself, how I’m sharing the information, the confidence that it’s okay not to know everything, but that most things can be figured out. And that confidence in knowing and just having that behind me has gone a long way.

I’ll give you an example. I was on a call with a client yesterday, and she was just really emotional. And I could tell from the second that I got on the call with her, I mean, she was literally sobbing and she had a lot going on in her personal life, and I felt very attacked in the call. And she was more just being emotional about the business and some things that were going on. And by the end of the call, we were laughing and we’ve been boxing all day today and everything is great and we’re joking. But I feel like me 7 or 10 years ago would’ve taken that really personally and absorbed it, and that could have been the turning point in a relationship that I had with a client, rather than, I think, how I tried to control the conversation and I showed up and we’ll figure this out and here’s the plan for that. That’s just that confidence talking. It’s that experience to say, “You know what? We don’t know, but here’s what we’re going to do,” and showing up in partnership with her.

Melinda Wittstock:

Because the more you’re living and breathing this, obviously, the more value you’re passing on to your clients who are going through the same thing maybe a couple steps behind you. I think that’s one of the reasons I launched this podcast, because I think as women especially, we’re all stronger if we’re all showing up and helping each other at different times. The teacher appears when the student’s ready.

Danielle Levy:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

So it goes. So what’s your dream for your business? Where do you see it going? What’s the big vision?

Danielle Levy:

Yeah. You know what? I’m really content with the business right now. I have thought long and hard about what’s my high ticket offer or where’s it going or how can I serve more people. I think the season that I’m at right now is I am working with a group of clients that their values and their approach to doing business is really, really above board and really the kind of people that I love to have nerdy conversations with and joke about and can share my stories about my kids and all of those great things. It’s that real understanding of in myself, of not only who my ideal client avatar is with a marketing lens, but also personally, who are the actual people that I want to be working with.

And I’ve also realized that’s not any one particular industry. I’m a very, very relationship-driven person, and if I can hang out all day doing some really cool projects and think about really nerdy, geeky things and figure out how to help other people have their greatest impact and smile at the end of the day, then, to me, that’s just the best.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s wonderful. So what is the best way, Danielle, to find you and work with you and connect with you on social media or any of the other ways?

Danielle Levy:

Yeah, sure. I’m on Instagram, @danielle_c_levy.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Danielle Levy:

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.