Women in the Arena
Women in the Arena is the celebration of everyday women living extraordinary lives in plain sight. We seek to inspire, encourage and challenge you to reach for the great heights you're made for.
Women in the Arena
From Iconic Brands to Values-Driven Leadership: Amy Anderson's Story
Rediscovering Humanity in Business with Amy Anderson
🌟 What can a turtle teach us about teamwork? Dive into this captivating conversation with Amy Anderson, co-founder of Wild Coffee Marketing, as she shares her transformative journey from working with iconic brands like Calvin Klein to building her own values-driven company. Amy’s story is a masterclass in resilience, leadership, and creating a thriving workplace culture that values people over profits.
🧠 Key Takeaways from Amy’s Insightful Leadership Journey:
- 🐢 Teamwork Lessons from a Turtle: Learn the surprising parallels between nature and team dynamics.
- 🛠️ Building Workplace Belonging: Discover how workplace satisfaction directly impacts personal fulfillment.
- 🤝 The Humanity Factor: Why understanding individual motivations is the key to fostering trust and collaboration.
💻 Mastering Remote Work: Amy’s Innovative Strategies
- 🎭 "Mullet Meetings" & On-Camera Culture: Injecting humor and adaptability into virtual team management.
- 🌟 Psychological Safety: How creating a supportive environment helps Gen Z thrive at work.
- 🗣️ Icebreakers & Real-Time Feedback: Tools to transform team dynamics and foster genuine connections.
🔑 Why You’ll Love This Episode:
Amy’s holistic approach to leadership and teamwork goes beyond traditional strategies. By recognizing the humanity in every team member and valuing diverse interests, she shows how to build connections that inspire loyalty, creativity, and growth.
🎧 Tune in now to unlock the magic of belonging in the workplace!
👉 Connect with Amy Anderson
Explore more about Amy and her values-driven marketing company, Wild Coffee Marketing. Let’s continue the conversation and elevate workplace culture together!
https://wildcoffeemarketing.com/
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week. This week, I am so excited for you to meet my guest and listen in on this amazing and incredibly timely topic. My guest this week is Amy Anderson, and she is the widely respected and creative industry leader with more than 25 years of experience at brands like Calvin Klein Seventeen and the New York Times Digital. She is the co-founder of Wild Coffee Marketing and she focuses on transforming businesses through a diverse set of disciplines and tailor-made teams. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Amy. Amy, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, audra. I am so excited for you to be here because we're going to talk about something that should be obvious but isn't.
Audra :It's something that I think we've lost and unfortunately, it's one of the things that we lost through the pandemic I think it was exasperated through the pandemic, which is we've lost our a little bit of our sense of humanity, and I think part of that is because we were separated for so long and you created an entire organization built on that foundation of supporting one another, seeing each other in our humanity and just remembering that we are all, at our core, human and we are important. You built an entire organization on that very principle, not only with your employees, but with all of your clients that you support. But what I want to talk about is why you built it and how you built it. So let's start there as to who's Amy and why you had to build Wild Coffee in the first place.
Amy :Well, thank you so much again for having me. I'm excited to talk to you about that. You know I often tell my children I have two sons now 17 and 20 years old that we don't learn from the things we do right and we don't learn from the good things always that happen around us. It's, you know, there's some growth through the struggle and actually my son in boarding school had to do a sermon two weeks ago as his final project and his sermon was called the Beauty in the Struggle and I'm so glad that I have these boys who sort of see the beauty in what has been hard for us and for me.
Amy :I started my marketing career in the early 90s. There was a recession back then. We had to sort of take what we could get at that point and there weren't a lot of options. And I had moved to New York City and was working at some big brands during a time when it wasn't the friendliest environment, especially for women. You know, sort of sensitivity, training, how we relate to each other in the workplace, rules that go around that really did not evolve. I don't remember doing that training until the early 2000s, 2003,. 2004 was the first time I was introduced to concepts about seeing people for what they bring into a work environment and relating to them in a way that works for them too.
Amy :So when I created, I'd spent 30, I've spent 30 years now in marketing, and most of those were in big corporations on the client side, and so I worked in in-house marketing departments and teams and it was really a challenge to relate to a lot of my peers and situations back then Coming up in my 20s not a lot of mentorship environments in New York City that were a little rough around the edges with my dynamics with other folks. So when it came to my getting a divorce in my mid-40s, reentering the workforce and knowing that in order to be with my sons, I really needed to create my own company and I was fortunate enough to have my parents as angel investors and said we will cover your basic living expenses for 12 months, go see what you can do. And I started a consulting practice in marketing.
Amy :While I was writing my business plan, there was a tree plant native to South Florida called Wild Coffee that was growing outside my window. That was super vibrant, had to keep cutting it back and I thought it was an incredible metaphor for what I was trying to create for both myself and for my clients. So Wild Coffee was born out of my wanting to have some flexibility for my children and also my wanting to deliver really, really good marketing strategy for clients. But to create that, you have to bring people on board and to scale that. And that is when I realized, well, how do you create an organization that's not built on some fundamental values? And that's where sort of this culture piece started, and I think I was fortunate that I started that from the beginning and have evolved it into something that I find powerful.
Audra :Isn't that interesting that, like all the great inventions in history, it was born out of necessity, and, as we are coming to find out, a lot of the great inventions that were born out of necessity were created by women. Yes, and it was built on these strong principles, these strong needs to create goodness in the world, respectability, and that you wanted to create a better environment for yourself, for your sons and for your clients that they could thrive in, because I think that that's what people are craving. People are hungry for it, people are lacking. That's that void that people are searching for. Now. They're like there's something missing. What, what?
Amy :belonging thing. Well, belonging is is very high on the hierarchy of needs. Yes, and I also see that people bring work home and so if you are coming and working at wild coffee, working with my business partner, solo and me, and you are going home unhappy, then then I saw that as impacting children, impacting spouses and partners, friends and neighbors, right. So when we're bringing work out into our lives, it's a ripple effect of how people are treated, and I don't think people on the turnover front, I don't think they leave jobs, I think they leave leaders and the philosophy and the way of being of a leader. I've seen it my entire career trickles down through an entire organization. So I think, as business leaders, we have to look and say what do we want to trickle down?
Amy :It's one thing to have a mission and vision right. It's another thing to have values and I think that values piece is very, very important because you can hire new team members, you can retain and reward and recognize team members and in some cases you may need to cycle a team member or transition them away from the organization because they are not a good fit. And if you can't bring kindness and compassion and seeing your team members, your colleagues, your leaders, as whole people, then I don't think it's going to be a great experience for anybody. I don't see them as employees. I don't see them as workers. Anyway, they are people who decided to take a chance on me and on this concept I created, and I value that quite a bit.
Audra :What are the values that are the non-negotiables that have made Wild Coffee what it is today, and it's been in existence now 15?
Amy :years we had toddlers when we met at a company, and now his two have graduated from college and minor in college. So the first one is we are one with our partners in each other, and that's you know. A lot of companies say that we're not just partners, we're in this together, and I think that got overplayed during COVID. Certainly right, we're in this together. It's the way I've always lived. That, because it's also an honor for me that a client comes to us with a problem that we need to solve. And so I actually had a partner we work quite a bit with in the private equity space. Say to me last week you are not a partner who is looking for your next invoice from us, which a lot of them do. You are looking to solve the problems and be accountable for them. And so that was really interesting perspective. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, it's working, this value of we truly are one together, solving problems, creating something great and scaling something. And I'm going to look after you and you are going to look after the business and our clients.
Amy :And I think if the spirit of business leadership is based on compassion, based on clarity, candor, with feedback, respect, then you model that. It's like parenting. I learned very young. My children went to a Reggio Emilia preschool and the director of that school in Miami, at La Tellier, said to me what do you think the experience is like as a toddler to just be whisked up by somebody, like your whole body gets lifted up in the air with no warning. That is not respectful to a small child, to just whisk them up like that. And I was thinking, oh so from the time my children were little, I've been trying to model respect and communication and I've gotten that back. And I think the same with the team. When I model that to them, they model it back and to each other, which is the important part.
Audra :And this isn't easy to do. I mean, your business is a marketing and communications business and, as consumers on the other side, we're used to being sold to, and you're doing this a completely different way. You're doing this in a model that is one that is based on honesty and communication. How do you manage this?
Amy :that you have right. We're growing at about 30, 35% per year and that means the company's doubling every two years. We made the Inc 5000 list last year. But how do you scale a company and add value to people without stressing the organization too much? Because if you stress the organization too much, it has impact on the people and then you can't deliver for clients. So I think the transparency it's that you know sort of we are one with our clients. It's that transparency and communication where we can't solve this or it's going to take us longer than we thought, and that trust that we establish upfront in this very consultative approach allows us that, and we really. But you have to act it every day, right. You can't just put values on the wall and then expect them to happen. You have to live it. And so when you're living this consultative approach in a sales cycle and then you start working with a client, that needs to stay consistent, right.
Audra :And this is I mean, what we're talking about is business, but this is translating into their lives too. This is business concepts, this is consultative concepts, but this is translating into their lives, into your employees' lives. You can't live this and separate the two. It just doesn't work. It has to translate into what they're doing personally too. It just they can't exist otherwise.
Amy :Well, and I think especially this Wild Coffee has been a remote company for the last six years. So when COVID hit, I said, hold my beer, I've got this. You know been doing this already for three years. But it requires a different approach and connectedness, not just for accountability purposes. Right, you can build business process in. You know we share what we did at the end of every day and part of our project management software.
Amy :I start my morning with my coffee and read what everybody has going on. There's information sharing. There's accountability. We track time. We're a consulting firm. That's what I sell. But on Fridays in our team meeting we actually do an icebreaker with 20 people.
Amy :What is your best business moment of the week? What is your best personal moment of the week? Because I want to know what lights you up about your work, what do you love, what are you proud of and I'm not surprised anymore I was at first how often it's about the collaboration. They love it. These guys like each other, they support each other. The right energy is going into the dynamic, so they love the collaboration between team members.
Amy :Then, personally, I want to know what are your plans this weekend. You know what happened in your life. What milestones did your family hit? What are you excited about? I know now that I have a new team member, recent college graduate, one year out of school, our most sort of unseasoned team member who shows a great deal of poise. She loves the Florida Panthers. How would I know that without asking? So I think that the connectedness that you intentionally find with the team members who have honored you by taking a chance on you, especially in a small company like mine and I'm taking a chance on them that connectedness has to be intentional because we don't have the benefit of the water cooler chat right.
Audra :So you actually are making an investment in knowing who they are.
Amy :Yes, because how do you lead people you don't know? Because you need to figure out, like what's your currency? Is it recognition and acknowledgement? Is it money? Is it responsibility? Is it learning? And I think we all in business need to ask ourselves you know even what our own currency is. Mine was always more responsibility. I wanted to be elevated in a corporate environment. You know, that felt really good to me because it meant that I did a good job. For some of my guys, it's vacation, it's BTO.
Audra :Oh, what a concept Get to know each other and find out what's important to each individual. Shocking, because what might be important to one person may be very different to what's important to the other person, because that's where you find out where their motivation is Right and that connection creates better work dynamic.
Amy :If you know, we don't ask why did this happen? Or if there's a mistake that comes up, we say, hey, what's going on? You know, is there something going on Like, do we need, like, how can I help you, how can I support you? It's understanding, causation, and not ever in a reprimand situation, because if there's a pattern of mistakes or something's happening, I'd like to know what I can do to mitigate that. But I really care.
Amy :You know I think you and I may have spoken about this in our pre-call that love and business I don't think are mutually exclusive. There have been team members who have worked side by side with me for five years. How do I not have those feelings? It's almost impossible, especially if you're building trust with that person, especially if you're remote. There's no way, because you have to work wrong with going and saying, hey, how's your weekend? Did you guys have a good one? How was your daughter's birthday celebration this weekend, or how did that go? They tell me things on Friday at our team meeting. I can check in on Monday and ask how it went. We have this joke that I'm always.
Amy :You know, the nurturing part of my leadership is asking people to take Ubers, right. So, especially since I have a high concentration of team members in Miami and they're going out and they're going to music festivals and there's always a hey guys, take an Uber, have a great weekend. Or saying thank you, you know, for all the great work this week. I am grateful for that. But I think you know there's a process of dehumanization going on in our culture. I mean, you mentioned the separation. It's politically motivated in some ways to dehumanize a group, to gain control over them or make people fear them. I also think the separation at work. You know what is the impact on us that we don't see each other face to face. I don't know that Zoom and Microsoft Teams create the same togetherness, you know. So what can we do in this sort of flat world to create a dynamic that means that when people go home to their families at night they feel good?
Audra :Ask them, about them, and get to know them a little bit, rather than these voices on the other side of the screen. Or, heaven forbid, if you get brave enough, turn on your cameras.
Amy :Oh so we're an on-camera culture, audra, isn't that interesting? So we explain to folks that it is important for us to feel connected and to be present when we are communicating with clients especially, and with each other. But we are an on-camera culture. But we are an on-camera culture. If you need to step away from your desk, please, by all means. You know things happen. Doorbell rings, dogs bark. You know you need to step away for a moment.
Amy :In my case, it's my 92nd cup of coffee. You may step away, of course, but we're on camera. I'm looking. You know, when we're talking to clients, when I'm in a team meeting, I'm looking to see people's body language, their facial expressions, what are they responding to. Plus, when I'm in a team meeting and there are six, seven people, 20 people in the case with my team, you know I can tell if somebody would like to say something or add, I can look at their body language and include them in a conversation. I mean, you have to read the room still, even though we're just seeing each other's shoulders and heads, you know.
Audra :So everybody is. I heard this expression. I just heard this expression Friday is a mullet meeting. I had never heard this expression before, which means that they're dressed up from the waist up and it's pajamas from the waist down. I'd never heard that before and I thought, okay, yeah, that's the way. Yeah, they're dressed for a mullet meeting, which you know, whichever way works works Exactly.
Amy :All the more reason to turn off your camera if you're going to step away for a second, you know for sure. But I think that even you know when we talk about seeing people as whole people, you know I still do expect presence in meetings with clients. So it's fine with me if you have never worn shoes in six years or you're in pajamas on the bottom, but we do need to bring something and I oftentimes, when I'm presenting branding projects, things like that, I wear certain colors. So I will often wear red just, or a really deep blue, because I'm trying to hold people's attention on a flat screen. You know when before I could go in and sort of evangelize and really sort of bring the energy into the room and stand. I'm still doing some of that work, for sure. Now I'm traveling and getting in front of clients. I was in front of 50 franchisees with a West Coast pizza chain two weeks ago, but it's harder. It's harder and I also think it's harder to connect with your remote team members.
Audra :So what is your intention behind it? What are you going to do? Because you can't. It's harder to read and feel body language when your screen's away. Yes, and it's also harder for your team members to know about accountability as a leader, and you explained something to me that has just stayed with me from the moment that we met, which was this concept of flip the turtle of Flip the Turtle, because it takes the accountability on you as the leader and does not put the blame on anybody else.
Amy :And do you mind explaining to everybody what Flip the Turtle means? Thinking about this concept of collaboration, cooperation and kindness? Everyone who joins our team our interns, just started last Tuesday. Wild coffee is a culture of kindness and everyone you encounter you're going to have a consistent experience because at a baseline, they will be kind to you. We are in real trouble when Gen Z is coming up and they don't feel psychologically safe and they're used to comparing everything on social media and they're terrified to innovate. And I do believe there's an article in the Wall Street Journal last year. I do think there will be some impacts from this. So it made the psychologically safe environment even more important to me. I need their brains, I need their ideas. I think they're brilliant, but they need to feel safe to do that.
Amy :So I had seen a video of a turtle on its back and had a little help from my friends, from Bob Seger was playing and all the other turtles go running up to this turtle on its back and work together to flip it back over, and I said, oh, this is it, this is what I'm trying to capture for these guys and how I believe they are. This is it. This is what I'm trying to capture for these guys and how I believe they are. So I'm in the meeting and I'm doing my evangelizing and sort of talking I think we were wrapping it up, actually at that point and I went to click the link in the video that I had tested, I promise, and it was in a Google slide and it didn't play. And I was so embarrassed because Audra, too, is a business leader Like I don't ever want, in this digital first world, to be seen as non-tech savvy. So I was horrified and they know this about me right and four people came running to the front of the room to help me, not even knowing what the video was.
Amy :And what they demonstrated was this flip the turtle concept which was in the video, which is what I was trying to show them. I tried not to get emotional about it in front of everyone, but they completely personified the spirit of a cooperation collaboration, no questions asked. You run to the turtle and you flip it, and so it has permeated, it resonated with them, it made sense and they got to see it live, which reinforced the point I was trying to make, but it has now permeated our vernacular. We'll be doing some planning sessions. We will assign three new clients in a week. We're scaling. When you grow at 30% a year, it is no small feat for the team that is there and they said you guys, we're going to have to really flip the turtle a lot next week, and so I know that they get it and it's something that I meet with new employees, new team members, their first day and we talk about Flip the Turtles. So from day one I share that with them.
Audra :It's just such this beautiful visualization for me that it's like I said, there is no finger pointing. You, as the leader, have taken accountability for this and you have said we are all in, it doesn't matter what went wrong, it doesn't matter who didn't flip the switch right, it does not matter, it doesn't matter which one of us is on their back, we all rush in, we all help put that person back on their feet, we fix it and we move on. Yep, that is an amazing culture, because there's learning opportunities for everybody. There is no failure, and it is. We learned from it. We're not pointing fingers, we're not blaming, we're fixing it and we're moving on, and nobody, especially the client, is the wiser Right. And there's no shame, there's no nothing.
Amy :You know how many mistakes I've made in my life. I mean, I see my life as a series of mistakes from which I learned and grew, and I have made mistakes in work. I look back on my career and try not to judge myself too harshly over just how unprepared I was at certain times. I had fear right. I didn't know how to internalize and problem solve very well. I was in environments where I felt wildly intimidated. You know when I talk about that period in New York, and so I think now you know there's no shame in anything.
Amy :It's like if you have a pattern of mistakes, let's address the underlying cause and how we can support that. If there and oftentimes a lot can be addressed in process, if you create some more predictable process of people to follow, it's not the Wild West. You know we use EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System to run our company, you know so you can get process and infrastructure in place. And then it's the people, dynamics of people rushing to help each other. And I see it every day Even the proof rating and QA system for work that goes to clients goes through a proofing channel and people can't wait to jump on it.
Amy :Hey, can somebody outside of my pod. It's sort of a coffee thing that we have, but we have consulting teams and pods and they'll be like I need somebody outside the pod to review this. I see them jump on it. You know people love to help each other and if that is just there because it's part of the fabric of a group of people, then it doesn't guarantee but it makes it very likely that people will have a really good experience working with you. And I feel like, as business leaders, owners, people who work with clients isn't that what we all want to create? So that it's just fun when you work with a group. That's just a blast and everyone's kind like works great.
Audra :We, as as gen xers because you are also a gen xer we have not. We have not done a great job of teaching work to be fun. We have not because we weren't taught that work was fun, work was work. We were not taught that work was fun and and I don't think that we instilled that too much in our kids I think that we did a better job of teaching them to chase things that set their souls on fire, but I don't think that we taught them how to incorporate fun and passion into what they do. That's why I think that these younger generations are doing a much better job at it than we are.
Audra :But to your point, these Gen Zers feel everything, yes, everything. I see this in my daughter, and she was in college in the middle of lockdown. I refer to it as Zoom University. She was upstairs in class on her computer and I see the effects. Now and now that she's in the working world, she's graduated from university and I see it. I see the effects. Every single comment, everything affects her so deeply and I worry, and I see the environment that you're creating. I'm thinking we need more of that.
Amy :Right, I don't think there's anything wrong with psychological safety in the workplace, right I?
Audra :don't think there's anything wrong with psychological safety in the workplace.
Amy :No, and what you're creating. We need to make and to be tied to something greater and meaningful, and I think that's amazing. I think we just automatically grinded and didn't really pay. I spent my entire 20s in New York City just sort of doing that. I think I don't believe in work-life balance as much as work-life harmony. I think balance is a pressure word. I don't even know what that means. Life is not a scale. There are going to be times that work sort of integrates into your life better than other times and the key as business leaders is to be able to flow with the business needs and the people needs and to balance all of those.
Amy :I know someone on my team recently went through a move and I'm watching because I know what a big deal that is. We had a baby born last August on the team. We had one born a year ago, January. We have a wedding in September. So there are people going through. There are people whose parents are not doing well health-wise. So the key is to know them so you can look at the needs of the business, look at the needs of the team and just be there, because we're not all firing at 100%, 80% all the time. It's like in a relationship when you say I've got 20 today, can you have the other 80? And just to be clear about that. So I think it's important to watch your team and to understand sort of where they are in their life cycle and what they're experiencing, Because sometimes they may need to back off a little bit to be well. So since we can't.
Audra :There's a lot of us that desire to have what you've created, but can't create something from scratch. But maybe we can influence something from the inside out. How would you give leaders guidance in order to do that, Because it only takes one person to make positivity contagious. How do we do that? And it doesn't have to be daunting.
Amy :No, I even think icebreakers in meetings. Why not? You know, why should I? Just, why not do an icebreaker and be like, okay, sometimes you will say best business, first concert or first album you ever owned, and I mean what we learn about people's music tastes, what concerts they've been to, what experiences they've had. I think that matters. So I think you can start with just a meeting format and figure out how to mix things up so that people feel seen and known and interested in you know, rather than saying okay, it's 302, blah, blah, blah, and just dive right in when you have the space to do that and the intention is I see you, I would like to know you, I would like to understand you so that we can work well together and your experience is good.
Amy :You know, I'm sorry, go ahead. So I think it's a small thing right. It doesn't mean you have to all of a sudden have new values for your company and put this structure in place and come up with a flip the turtle concept or anything like that. It's really just knowing them and making that intentional when you interact.
Audra :And what I was going to say is that I never thought about doing that internally for my team, but I think I might now. What I have done in the past when I would do presentations externally for potential clients is everybody, when everybody joins a virtual meeting, it's always this weird kind of uncomfortable, awkward chit chat and it always seems to be about the weather, which I hate. What I started to do is I would put a question, a really bizarre question, out on the screen and some of the questions would be like pie or cake. I would put questions out like that and then pie or cake, and why, and what's your favorite Stuff? Like that.
Audra :Just because I wanted to try and break up the monotony, because when you're trying to present to a client, no one thinks that you're going to ask them which one is your favorite pie or cake and which. Because you know you're respectable, you're trying to, you know, present serious material. But I just was tired of asking or talking about the weather, so I wanted to break it up. I never dawned on me to do the same for my team.
Amy :So this is brilliant. Oh, it's so interesting. Yeah, no, it's so interesting and really it gets, I think, on a client like external meeting. It gets people in the mindset of that you're listening to them Right. People in the mindset of that you're listening to them right and that the whole purpose.
Amy :You know we're often presenting client information but that exchange is really important and it's hey, I'm listening With your team. It's hey, I see you and I know you and I'd like to know more so that I can understand there and be there for you better. You know, when it's just about the work and this is like my style as a leader and these are my business objectives and you're here to meet my business objectives I feel like that's like 30% of the equation. There's this whole other right which is let's be in an environment where I can have, you can bring your best and you can be happy and then go interact with the world in a way that's a bit more positive and you can be happy and then go interact with the world in a way that's a bit more positive and it's easy.
Audra :And I love this, I love that it's so easy, and it still can be professional and fun at the same time. I just I love what you've created. I love that you've created something that we can emulate and it not be hard and not be, and not us feel any less ourselves, but still even be even more human.
Amy :Right. Well, I've been environments where I've had a boss, a hiring manager say to me do you play golf? Because that's where a lot of our business is done. And I was a tennis player, not a golfer, right. And there just have been so many times where I have felt excluded from this.
Amy :So you don't have to be naturally positive as I am I mean, I was just born this way. I think you could just be interested, right, you know, just to show interest in your team and people around you is very you know. I tell my children that all the time. Please, please, when you encounter people, make sure they feel better after they left your presence than they did when you entered it. And the way you can do that is asking questions. It makes a better dynamic, it shows that you're interested, it gives them something to talk about, it's disarming in a positive way. So if we ask those questions, hey, like, would love, like, what's been your best personal moment of the month? We do it for the quarter.
Amy :When we're doing business reviews quarterly, what was your best of the quarter? What do you think that you could have done differently, or what didn't go your way this quarter, you know, and then grade it on a scale of one to 10. How is this quarter for you? And we do that also in our team member reviews. Every 90 days, we review the team in a way that asks their energy level on a scale of one to 10. Where are you? Where are you? And we gauge from quarter to quarter. Did you go from an eight to a 10, a nine, and if you're not a 10, how can I help you? What do you need to get to a 10? What is your energy? And we show that we care. If you're at a six, I'm concerned. If you're at a 10 every quarter, either I've done something magically right together with you, or you're not telling me the truth, but I think that's important to ask them how's your energy this quarter?
Amy :How'd you do? What do you think Not? Hey, I'm going to give you feedback. Remember Audra annual performance reviews? Do you remember that world where you I'd sit there and be like wait? Did you, did you withhold that feedback from me for 12 months, when you could have told me in real time that I had an area to improve, an opportunity to improve? We give real-time feedback. That's the candor and the clarity that shows you care and you can do something when it happened Real-time Real-time.
Audra :You can't go back 12 months and fix something. Tell me now. I'm happy to fix it right now. Yes, I can't.
Amy :I don't have the time machine.
Amy :Yeah, exactly that honors people when you say, hey, I saw this happen and I think there's an opportunity for us. You're doing X, y and Z really well. I think there's an opportunity for this to be better. And let me just sort of give you some guidance and some advice on how I would do that or how I'd like to see it happen in real time. So then when you're checking in quarterly, you're setting goals for the quarter.
Amy :There's a section that says I want to do more of that. They fill in. I want to do less of things I love, things I don't love. Because I want to know and I know who doesn't like math and PowerPoints on my team. It's another way to get to know them right Is to ask what do you like doing? What do you not like doing? I think they should have a say it's okay to not like certain elements of your job because you don't feel good at that. It also shows an area to develop them, an area to focus on. But you have to ask. You know it comes back to those questions.
Audra :You know I love what you've built. I really love what you built Because I have said often on my show that corporate America was not built for women, because it wasn't built by women, because it didn't consider something other than what the environment was at the time, and it hasn't changed much. You built an environment that considered everybody, didn't necessarily assign a gender to it, it just considered the humanity of it, and I think that's what corporate America is missing. It's not necessarily missing remembering a gender, it's missing the humanity, and I think that that's what you remembered and got right. That's what you figured out.
Amy :Thank you for saying that and for that acknowledgement. We are just moving in the world in a way, that sort of is with the flow of life and not fighting against it, which is to create a set of rules to squeeze work and productivity out of human beings. It's really sort of being in something because we have to work and most of us do, right, audra I mean, we have to earn a living, we have to have jobs, we trade time for money, right, that's all a reality. But why not create something that just sort of sees people as whole? And I think that's where we're going, and I also think, as women leaders, we don't shy away from qualities that are innate to some of us, right, many of us. Nurturing is one of them. I am a hard, hard driving, scaling business leader who's also compassionate.
Audra :I mean those things can be exist at the same time, absolutely time and I've embraced that for myself, especially over the last couple of years, and realized that I get to be multiple things at the same time and it doesn't have to fit into a little tiny box, that I was fed a bill of goods for a very long time, that you have to be this one thing and it needs to fit into this box, and I realized that that was really wrong, and I think a lot of women have figured that out too.
Amy :Well, it's so interesting. The way you say I get to be, I get to has been a mantra for me for a long time. Right, I've raised my children on my own since 2017. For seven years I have been on my own in every aspect with them, but I got to be right. So I look at when you say I get to be multifaceted, I get to play all these roles, I get to be a chameleon. It is, in a lot of ways, a privilege and an honor to be able to navigate so many elements of society and the world and the workplace, because I think that we can be quite good at it, because there are so many different roles that we have to play. I do sometimes find that being a business leader goes against my nature. I'd love to be sort of getting ready for everybody and taking care of the family and all of that. That is not my path. But we embrace those different sort of elements in our approach and I just bring myself into my leadership style.
Audra :So the reality is is that had I not had to claw my way through my career, I would not be here. I would not be here with you, I would not get to be the ambassador of women's stories and get to talk to women like yourself and women all over the world. So other women get to hear them, and for that it is a gift.
Amy :That is the beauty in the struggle. Yes, Right Going back to my son Marshall's sermon about the beauty and the struggle that he has figured out at 17 years old, you know that I did not know. I did not know to look for the positive and create something out of it, until much later in life when I went into business leadership in this way and said, oh, I have an opportunity to create something that is about what I think and want and what I think is good for people.
Audra :So yeah, me too, I was 49.
Amy :I was 49. 46 here, so, but you know, I think that's when we hit our stride in a lot of ways too. Yes, absolutely. I used to hide my age and now I don't anymore. I have no you know issue that for 30 years 31 years I've been in this field because I've seen a lot of things and I have a lot to share. So being in an advisory role can be powerful.
Audra :I would agree. And, amy, I'm so glad that you took the time to spend some of your precious time with us. It has been not only educational for us, but it has been a gift for me. I'm so, so grateful that you've been here and that you've shared some of your wisdom with us, and that the audience gets to hear what you built. So thank you very much.
Amy :Thank you so much for that, Audra, and thanks for having me today.
Audra :If the audience would love to hear more about what you do, or reach out to you and hear about what your business does, where can they contact you?
Amy :Wildcoffeemarketingcom is our website and we actually do consultations with folks who are just looking for some guidance from a marketing perspective and we'll spend a little time there. I do that all the time with people and then also on LinkedIn. I love when people reach out on LinkedIn under Amy Anderson at Wild Coffee. Send me a message, Let me know if you have questions about some of what I talked about today or are looking for guidance or to want to collaborate or connect. I always love it.
Audra :And I will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. Make it, like life, easy for all of you to reach out to her. Make sure that you told her that you tell her that if you heard her here, let her know that I sent you. Once again, amy, thank you so much for being here and sharing your stories and your wisdom with us. I cannot thank you enough. Thank you, audra, and thanks to all of you again for listening, and we'll see you again next time.
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