The Sticky Floors And Glass Ceilings Of Women In Business With Erica Rooney

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED [00:00:00] Hey. Hey, today's guest, Erica Rooney, is an executive coach and host of the From Now to Next podcast, she's on a mission to help women break free from the sticky floors that hold us back from busting through those glass ceilings. Hey, Erica, welcome to the show. Erica : Hey, I am super excited to be here. Diane. Thank you so much for having me. Diane: I can't wait to dive in, but let's start with a little intro to you and your business journey. Erica : Oh my goodness. Well, I'm Erica Rooney. I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I am the owner slash founder of From Now to Next, which is my executive coaching and consulting business. And what I like to tell everybody is by day I'm also a chief people officer, so I'm balancing the HR side of things during the day, and then I do all things executive coaching and consulting during the other hours of the day, which does include a podcast, which I have called from now to next. But I am all about empowering women to get seen, get heard, and get promoted. Diane: We all need that. So I know you talk about sticky floors and glass ceilings, and I feel like we've all heard about glass ceilings, but what is a sticky floor? Erica : Absolutely. So sticky floors are those limiting beliefs that we all experience. We all have that live inside of our head. That are holding us back. And I like to expand on it, that it is not just the limiting beliefs. It's not just imposter syndrome and perfectionism, but it's also the toxic behaviors and the toxic relationships. It is things that are within the span of our control that we are doing that hold us back. And I think it is so important to talk about these sticky floors because when you look at gender equality as a whole, the World Economic Forum, guesstimate that we will not reach equal pay for women for another 132 years. So I'm gonna be dead by then. My kids are gonna be gone by then. , Diane: we probably shouldn't hold our breath for that to be a Erica : don't hold your breath, Diane: soon. Erica : Absolutely. Now, that's not a free ticket to be like, well, there's nothing I can do [00:02:00] about it. Like we absolutely should do whatever we can to move the needle and to make and drive. But I want women, especially any other minorities as well, to stop and take a minute and examine what is it within our span of control that we can do to move the needle on those items, right? Whether that is within imposter syndrome or perfectionism, or maybe you have the terrible habit of procrastination that you really need to address and kick the bucket so that you can bust through the glass. Diane: So when we talk glass ceiling, so I come from a. Corporate banking background. I am very familiar with the glass ceiling. I'm very familiar with not seeing women at senior levels, et cetera. When someone's in business, what does that glass ceiling look like? If they're not resonating with that term, like maybe they haven't been in corporate, what would that look like for like somebody running their own business? Erica : Absolutely. So especially too, if you're a woman running your own business, men receive the bulk of venture capital funds. Right? There are a ton of female entrepreneurs, especially when covid hit, so many of us shifted out of corporate and into our own business world. Right? But we still face. So many setbacks and we look at equal pay in the corporate world. It's even worse when it comes to entrepreneurs and what they're doing in their own business. I think it's like 32 cents to the dollar is what a female makes in profit versus a man. So it's still very much exists outside of corporate Diane: And , I feel like when I look at corporate, I can see the past that has set up that glass ceiling. , I was an incredibly masculine. Business. So to me I can see like the history that's created, the inequality and the glass ceiling and, and all the things, you know, where women are told not to be emotional, but also to be more serious, but not to be so serious and to wear a bit of makeup. You know, I've [00:04:00] lived through that so I can, I can see that. Who is giving us that then 32 cents or that sticky floor slash glass ceiling in our business, because we've gone into business. Take back control to have this autonomy. So how are we still, like, we're underpaying ourselves. How is that happening? Erica : Well, and here's where it gets really tricky, right? And the answer that I'm gonna give you, you're gonna be like, what the hell am I supposed to do with that But the answer is society, right? And I know that is such like this big overarching term and you're like, again, what the hell am I supposed to do with that? But you go out into the street, and even probably for myself, if I'm being truly honest, if somebody just said really quickly, Erica, Imagine an entrepreneur. I'm gonna imagine a white man. It's just what pops into my head. It is an unconscious bias. I've been ingrained as a little child that white men run businesses, right? Even though I myself am the entrepreneur in my home, my husband is not , even though I am the breadwinner. But we are so ingrained that we automatically think that, and that happens across the spectrum, right? When I say surgeon, white male, when I say homemaker, female, right? Like there's just these automatic neural pathways that we have that are going to take decades to change. They can change, and I do believe that they will change, but they will take decades to change. But because that is our automatic trigger, we automatically think that white man is the entrepreneur. You know, a black female or anything else that when we are given two options to buy from one or the other, or to invest in one or the other, we subconsciously believe that that white man is more capable. Right? So we have to really work through a lot of those underlying, unconscious beliefs that we don't even truly know. They. Then it also comes to the [00:06:00] point of like, like, like likes, like, right? So women hire women, men hire men. We gravitate towards what we know because it's what we are familiar with and what we are comfortable with, which is why the bulk of men get the bulk of investment funds. When they are talking about running their own business, right? They have the money, they're the heads of the household, they control the funds, so they invest in things like them. So it's kind of like this, what comes first, the chicken or the egg, because the problem continues to exacerbate itself. So women really have to stick themselves out there and differentiate themselves in the market and draw attention to some of these things to really kind of raise their hand to say like, Hey, I'm a businesswoman. I know what I'm doing. I am awesome at this. And that's just one piece of the puzzle because the other piece of the puzzle is the belief in our own self. And I think like we, we think that we believe in ourselves, but we undervalue ourselves, right? When you look at a man will just go out there and be like, you know what? Yeah, you should pay me $150,000 for that, cuz I'm. and a woman's like, uh, well, you know, should I ask for that and should I, should I put that out there? You know, maybe I'll just ask for more like $75,000 because I don't wanna make waves and I don't wanna disrupt anything and I don't wanna make people feel uncomfortable. And so we do different small things that devalue our worth. They reduce our income, they reduce our profit margins, and it impacts us as a whole, but we don't even realize that it's. Diane: So I guess it's happening in two different ways from what you said. Number one, when we think of successful entrepreneur, we think white man, and therefore, if we're competing with a white man, we're potentially discounting ourselves to be. . Well, I'm probably not as valuable, so if he's charging 150,000, I should probably discount myself to try and get that same kind of [00:08:00] business. And then that knock on effect of if women buy from women and we only have 75,000 to spend instead of 150,000 to spend, we can't afford to pay the next woman 140,000. So she discounts to 70 and, and on and on we go. Erica : Yeah. It does exist in those two rounds. Yeah. I think you're spot on with that. And I think it, it, I think we need to take a minute to really examine more of how we can control that as women, because not only do we discount what we're actually worth, right. And we're like, you know, so we, we chuck down our prices, we give away things for free. but we're also ingrained to make things nice. And this starts as a very, very young child that girls are taught to be seen and not heard. They're taught to sit politely, to make people comfortable, you know, to just be pleasant. Where boys are taught to be rough and tumble, they're taught to compete, right? If you look at the difference between boys, little boys who play in competitive sports and little girls who more so play in team sports like dance and ballet. versus football or soccer and you know, martial arts, things like that. Women are taught to operate as a team. So if you are, you and I are on a team, I want us to both win and I want us to both profit and benefit. Whereas men are like, I'm gonna climb to the top and take you down and that's fine, and you know what, we're gonna grab a beer afterwards. So it's also this mentality of how we interact with. So women are more communal, more like, Hey, we're all gonna do this together. We're gonna make it nice. Whereas men are like, I'm out. I'm out for me. I'm gonna win. This is what I'm worth. I'm gonna charge more. I'm gonna do more. I'm gonna be better than you. And then we're gonna be friends after. Diane: how do we begin to tackle that? Because there's a big portion of this conversation that relates to like, Hey, men have to step up into this conversation. But I think [00:10:00] that's like waiting for the pay gap to close, right? At the end of the day, they've been taught to compete the same way we've been taught to collaborate, and it's, it's not gonna change overnight. So what do we as women do with these sticky floors and our own self-imposed glass ceilings? So rather than trying to fix society, which is another thing that women. Our vastly inclined to do is like, oh, we've got a societal problem. Let's take it to the masses. How do we, I don't wanna say selfishly because I don't think that's the right word, but how do we take control or have some autonomy over our own situation it's almost that, like how can we raise ourselves up so that we can pull some other woman up with us, but we have to pull ourselves up first? Erica : I've got two thoughts ping ponging around in my brain right now with that one . One of them is we have to be uncomf. We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And the reason for that is if I truly believe that if in charging you $150 an. Doesn't sit right with me. And my normal reaction is to be more like, well, I know, I know she'd rather pay a hundred, so I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna make it a hundred. That way it's done is to absolutely resist that and. Number one, though, you have to realize that you're doing that. So I have this three step method. This is what I work with, with my, my female clients who are struggling with these types of things that I say. Number one, you have to name it. What is that sticky floor that you are sitting in? Is it, are you afraid they're gonna reject you because of your price? Are you afraid they're gonna make you uncomfortable? Are you not comfortable with your price? Like, first of all, we have to name what that is. That's step one. Step two is then questioning that thought and questioning that belief. So if we go back to that original example of like, oh, I don't wanna charge her $150, I don't think she can afford it, number one, is that true? I don't know. I don't know your financial situation. Why am I making that assumption? Right? [00:12:00] Number two, is it helpful? Well, at the end of the day, no, that's not helpful for me because I really should be charging $150. Otherwise I could be losing profits. I'm not gonna hit my margins. I'm going to be upset with myself. And then the third step is shifting that mindset. Right? So I'm going to pitch my $150, and if she says no, it's just a no for right now. Right? It is. One more. No, that is closer to the next. So it's all about shifting your mindset, shifting the framework to understand that even if you do say, no, that's not a bad thing. I shouldn't lower my price because it's not for you right now. There are billions of people in this world, hundreds of thousands that would probably pay $150 if not more. You just have to go out there and find them. But you have to recognize that sticky floor, name it. You then have to question it, and then you need to shift your mindset. You need to stop being afraid to ask for the $150. You need to quit being afraid of the no, for example, in this one space. Right? So that's a big piece of it. And to kind of address your second piece of it, like, yeah, we can't. Wait for men to step up and close that gap for us, you know, because nobody in their right mind is going to go over to you and be like, yeah, I guess I'll lower my price too. Cuz it's only fair, you know, , that doesn't Diane: Or like, Hey, let me send you some business because you know you're more qualified than me. right? Erica : doesn't happen. That does not happen. So we have to be our biggest advocates in those places, and we have to recognize where we are selling our sh ourselves short, especially in business, right? That could be in price, it could be in, you know, Hey, am I qualified to speak on this stage? All sorts of. Diane: So coming to the qualified one, I find in my conversations with women, we tend to be, and this could be a wild exaggeration, and I have no research based on [00:14:00] it, so it's more of a question than a statement, but I find that women tend to be more identity based. And I'll give you an example. So when I left corporates, and this is the thing they don't tell you about leaving corporate is after the like excitement that you no longer have a job wears off. There's a massive identity crisis waiting for you because you have defined yourself as this person with this career who does this thing in this certain way. And it was interesting to me that I was like, this is just a me thing. And then one of my friends went through it and she came to me. She was like, why didn't you tell me? And I have had multiple conversations with women who have left or changed careers or, you know, become mothers and, and had that identity shift. I've never heard a guy tell me that he was struggling with his identity because of something like that having changed. And maybe they do and they just don't talk about it. But I wonder. , some of that sticky floor is this identity that doing the thing changes for us. Like it pulls us out of, this is my safe, comfortable, I am a generous business owner who charges a hundred dollars an hour because I know that that's what people can afford and it requires me to shift. An identity to unstick myself from that floor to say, actually I'm a valuable business owner who $150 for an hour of my time is the most insane deal you'll ever get in your life. Erica : I agree with the identity piece of it. I do think that that is a real. pain point, especially too, because if we're at a party, one of the very first questions, and I'm guilty of this, is like, Hey, what do you do? You know, so that if we are leading with that question, and so one of the, the things that I do with my clients is I try to separate what we do from who we are, right? So you used generous business owner. generous is a word that a lot of people gravitate towards and they [00:16:00] want to be generous. They want to donate to charities, they wanna donate their time. They want to be of service, right? So if you tell somebody that you need to shift your mindset from generous to valuable, they may not resonate with that, cuz they may truly be, but I am a generous person. Okay. Well, let's shift what generosity means for you in your. Yes. You know, how about you shift your mindset on that? How about you charge people double what you are charging people so that you can take on less clients to pay your bills and have on more free time to do pro bono work for women who can't afford it? Right? So it's about shifting that mindset of you can still be a generous person and charge three times what you used to be charging if you're giving your generosity away in a. Avenue. So I think it's very important to kind of understand and shift where we are placing the importance, right? Because in my mind, if you can charge, you know, 10 people double and then give away all these free products or sessions or whatever because you're making the money with people who can afford it, you are absolutely one of the most generous people. Diane: I like that kind of shift in, in what you're able to do. So one of the areas where I see some sticky floor glass ceiling stuff is, Where people have become more established business owners and they've built like a bit of a team. And I'm not talking like they've got like a part-time va. I mean they have like a couple of people who they are paying regularly, right? And. In Entrepreneur Land, you see this, this, you see it in corporate as well. We're the best person at whatever job becomes the leader of their team, whether they have any management skills whatsoever, whether they've ever wanted to manage someone. It's a massive problem in corporate, but we see it in entrepreneur land as well, because someone's built a successful business based on a skill that they. [00:18:00] that they can do better than the rest of the market. And now they've become so good at that skill, they've now got a team to help them do that skill. And now suddenly they're not doing that skill. They're doing all this kind of leadership and management. And that's where I see a lot of imposter syndrome crop up massively when they step into that leadership, compounded. I think by that pressure of I wanna support all of my team and that they'll sacrifice themselves, right? They won't take a salary. They'll work the extra hours. They'll do it themselves. They'll take on the burden where, you know, there was, there's a video of, um, oh, the guy from Shark Tank, and he did a video about quiet, quitting. And it is the most jarring video because he is all talking about like, I don't want those kind of people working for me and everything. Right? I expect you to be at your desk kind of vibes. Whereas a lot of female entrepreneurs, and granted much smaller businesses, they will be the one who do the 15 hour day so that their team only does the eight hour day. How do they, in that new leadership role, in that new leadership, How do they start to like unstick some of those imposter syndrome moments? Erica : Well, first of all, being leader is hard, like, let's just say that, right? Because Diane: everyone wants to do it until they actually have to do it. Erica : E. Exactly. And that is true across the board. Being a leader is hard work. And sometimes you do have to do those long days right. But that shouldn't be every day. And a piece of that is looking inward and understanding where your sticky floors are. Is it in trust? I don't trust my team to do the work at the level that I would do. is it a perfectionist thing? You know, they're not gonna do it in this exactly perfect way that it has to be done, that I've done since I created this business. Is it in a fear of asking more of [00:20:00] others? Right. Sometimes we employ people and we're not a hundred percent sure what their bandwidth is, so we don't wanna impose on them and we don't want to ask. So you really have to kind of dig down deep and ask why. Why am I doing these things that hold me back? Right? And I will. An example for me in my chief people role is there are a lot of times when I sit there and I'm like, oh, I know they're underwater. I don't want to put this on them. And I will dive all the way down into the weeds and do some BS that I shouldn't even be touching. And nine times outta 10, I mess it up for 'em. , you know, and they come back. Diane: made it worse. Erica : I've made it worse. And then they come back and they're like, why didn't you just tell me to do it? And I was like, well, you know, I didn't wanna bug you. And it is this whole like, I didn't wanna impose. And so sometimes I have to stop myself and be like, Erica, you are not, when you do not allow the person to try to do X and you take it on because you don't wanna impose, or you're not sure they know how to do it. you are failing as a leader because you are not giving them that opportunity to learn, right? So I have to shift it in my head constantly of like, I, my job as a leader is to be giving them opportunities to learn, opportunities to fail, opportunities to try and opportunities to show me a different way. . If I throw myself on in the middle of that, I am taking away all of that and I'm doing nobody any favors. So I think when you're in that leadership position and you're just taking on all of these responsibilities, especially when it's your own business, right, because then you truly have the weight of all of that around you. You're like, I have two employees, people, it's my responsibility. Everything falls on. but you have to be able to rise above that and see that when you are doing that, you are removing the opportunities from your team. Diane: And when, when you get to that level, how do you distinguish between, look, if [00:22:00] we suddenly were at a point in business where we're going, okay, I'm gonna run Facebook ads, you are gonna go and be like, I need a course or a coach. I need someone to teach me how to do Facebook ads. When we get into that leadership level, I think people are less inclined to raise their hand and be like, I don't think I'm doing a great job here. and like, that's okay because I don't have skills because I've never been taught them. You know, I always say to people, like in corporate, I managed one person and then three people, and then five people. I didn't wake up one day with a team of 14 as a brand new corporate person. So it's a much slower progression. How do we identify when we are going? , I'm unqualified because we're genuinely unqualified and we could do with, Hey, let me go read a book on leadership. You know, it doesn't have to be like you're going, you know, back to school or anything, versus this is my sticky floor telling me I'm unqualified to be a leader. Erica : I really believe in creating a space that failure is an expectation, and that is such a mindset shift from failure is bad to like, I expect you to fail because this is a new business. We don't know what we're doing. We are not marketers, we're not salespeople. Whatever it is. You as a business owner, you cannot be skilled in all of the areas that it takes to run a business. So you have to go at it with this expectation of failure, right? This expectation that we're not gonna knock it out of the park every single time. You can do your best to combat that by hiring coaches and hiring skilled people. But if you're not at that point and you're like, look, this team of five that we have, we're gonna really try to do our best here and, and. Who's run Facebook ads? Nobody. Okay. Who wants to take a stab at running Facebook ads? You know, somebody raises their hand. I wanna take a stab at it. Okay. What do you need? Oh, you need a full-time coach. We can't afford that, but we can't afford this course. So you go ahead, you take the [00:24:00] course, you start running the ads, we'll see how we do, right? And then you evaluate it. But it is going at it with that complete expectation that we don't know what we're doing. But we're gonna figure it out. And then maybe a bumpy ride. Diane: Yeah. And I think we give that grace to our team a lot of the time. Like, okay, you're gonna learn Facebook ads and you might fail, but we don't give ourselves that grace of like, Hey, I'm doing this new thing where I'm like leading a team, which I've never done before. So let me like, at least give myself a tiny amount of grace, just like a little bit on the side. So I think that's important. So if. only say one thing to a female business owner about sticky floors and glass ceilings. What would it be? What do you wish every single female business owner knew? Erica : That they're gonna need a hell of a lot of courage. You need , the courage to do the things you don't know how to do. You need the courage to stand up to people. You need the courage to fail. You need the courage to succeed gracefully too, and to carry it on, and you've got to trust that it will work. I would say the quickest thing that you can do today to help accelerate your business is network, network. Network and do not be afraid to ask people for help, and I don't mean help in your business, but like, Hey, who do you think I should talk to? Hey, can you send that connection email for me? Do not be afraid of networking because that is where so much power lies, especially for female entrepreneurs in creating connection and talking with each other. Like, you know what, Hey, I had coffee with somebody the other day. They absolutely were looking for someone like. But if you don't talk about your business, you can't sell your business. Nobody's gonna know about your business and nobody else can help you get there. But you're not gonna be able to do it by yourself. If you can get this army of women around you by [00:26:00] networking and talking about your business, you will be able to be successful. Diane: Amazing. And is there a resource that can help us showcase Erica : Absolutely, there is. So I'm a huge believer in the power of LinkedIn. and that LinkedIn as a social media presence has just drastically changed in the last couple of years. So I actually created a free resource. It's called Level Up Your LinkedIn, but it talks about my strategy, very much so on. How do you connect with the right people, not just random people out there on LinkedIn, but the right people to help you with your business or to help you land the next connection or job that you need. So you can find it directly on my LinkedIn page if you wanna go and head there and check it out. It is a quick 23 minute course that will take you through the exact steps on how to network with the right people. Diane: Amazing. Okay. To finish up, I always ask my guests the same two questions. First of all, what is your number one lifestyle boundary for your business? Erica : the number one outbound for my business. It's gotta be living through LinkedIn, honestly. That's where I make all of my connections and all of my sales. Diane: So that's your like quote unquote social media versus like trying to spread yourself across everything. You just laser focus. Erica : Yeah, I'm on other platforms, but, My people are in the LinkedIn world, and so I've really put all of my focus and efforts into LinkedIn with what I'm doing there, and that's where I generate the most, return. Diane: I think it's definitely transformed from like, it's really funny when I think of LinkedIn when I was in corporate where like you basically only went into LinkedIn so you could leave it open on your desk to freak your boss out that you were job hunting or like to check for messages from headhunters. Right? That was LinkedIn for me back in the day and coming back into it now has been such a, like a mindset shift for me because it is much more social. And it is much more kind of personal brandish, even with [00:28:00] people who are in jobs. So I'm starting to like dip my toe in there. Okay. Finally, what is the worst piece of cookie cutter advice you've been given as an entrepreneur? Erica : Oh God. The worst piece of advice that I have been given as an entrepreneur. you know, I've been very fortunate that I have been surrounded by a lot of people that support me, but I think. The worst piece of advice I've ever gotten was more so in the form of a comment, which was like, isn't what you're doing enough? No, it's not enough. I want more Diane: oh, that, that immediate like glass ceiling putting on Erica : yeah, it was almost this, yeah. This visceral reaction of like, why shouldn't you be happy with what you already. why do you need to do more? Right? And and it wasn't any kind of advice or comment that was said to, you know, hurt me or be negative. But that is exactly what I'm talking about from these glass ceilings is, yeah, I should be happy with where I am. I have a great life. I've got a great business and a job and you know, all these other things. But I know I meant for more. So no, that wasn't very helpful. Thank you. Diane: and it's curious as to whether or not, if it was a man in your exact situation, whether someone would've suggested that that, that they had already got enough or whether they would've been applauded Erica : Yeah, you hit it. Spot on. Diane: It's amazing how just like ingrained it is. Like even the comment I knew immediately that it was a woman who'd said it to you without knowing any context. Erica : Yep. Diane: Huh. This has been great. I mean, I, I see the challenge. I'm keen to try the three step framework, but I'm also very aware of how ginormous. it feels right, so I'm sure people are gonna want to keep talking to you and, and like, follow you and, and find out more. I'm gonna assume that the best place for that is then LinkedIn. Erica : LinkedIn is one of the [00:30:00] best places I would say if you are interested in my sticky floor concept. One of the things that has been really impactful for me has been listening to other women's stories, and it has brought awareness to my own sticky floors that I didn't even realize I was struggling with. So if you are keen on hearing more about sticky floors and other women's stories, you can listen to my podcast from now to next. I kid you not. I talk to all of these women and they tell me their stories and I'm like, me too. Oh my God, me too. And then I'm like, damn, I'm really messed up. You know? But once you recognize a sticky floor, I love to phrase it this way. You can't unring the bell, you can't unknow that information and it becomes aware to you and then you can make the change. So listen to the podcast. It's from now to next. It's wherever you listen to your podcast. This one too. Um, and then you can find me on LinkedIn is the best place if you wanna send me a message. I absolutely love responding to all of my messages. Just drop here that this is where you heard me and I will respond. Diane: Well, thank you so much for this. It has been a fabulous deep dive into. How we're holding ourselves back, which I think is so interesting versus my corporate vibe where it always felt like somebody else was setting the glass ceiling. I'd never considered that. Maybe I was setting my own. So thank you for that eye opening moment for me. Erica : Oh, thank you day. It was super fun to talk with you.