"As a business owner, you deserve to achieve your dreams, have a team aligned with your vision, have suppliers be on board, and be able to make a great return on your investment. And, you certainly will need to know how to ride the waves of disruption in your business, when it inevitably occurs." - Dream Team Consulting
When Anthea Mumby launched Dream Team Consulting late last fall, she had no idea how timely her business would be.
"I created Dream Team Consulting to help business owners create a vision that keeps them moving forward, even during massive disruptions - like COVID," she says. In order to do so, Anthea says businesses need to learn how to ''ride the waves" - a concept she came up with when she went through a series of her own disruptions in 2016.
An entrepreneur with 30 years experience in her family's insurance brokerage, Mumby's daughter had left home to attend university, leading her to look inward and ask herself what the next chapter of her life would look like. At the same time, her business began to suffer serious disruptions as she went through what she refers to as a 'staffing tsunami.' "We were a small business with fewer than 10 staff," she explains, "and that year, one by one, they all suffered major personal traumas. I ended up having a complete turnover in my team in less than 10 months!" Not only was it difficult to see her team go through their tough times, it was also hard to maintain her business and provide her customers with the type of service they were accustomed to. She needed to find clarity, and one quote kept coming back to her: "When the Why is clear, the How is easy." She began a journey of self-discovery, and along the way she read Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning. Mumby's key takeaway from the book was this: if you lose everything in your life, the one power you have left is how you're going to respond to what happens. Her 'why' became to Ride the Waves - to learn how to navigate herself, and the people around her, through good times and bad, and to create a vision for her business that would help anchor her. Three years later, she launched Dream Team Consulting to help other business owners create a compelling vision for the future, one that would help keep them focused when life's waves came crashing.
"I help owners create a vision that's not just in their head," Mumby says. "They need to share their vision with anyone who is going to engage with that business and can help make the vision happen - their team, suppliers, clients, bankers - because that way it's more likely to happen." She takes that vision from the owner's mind and puts it down on paper by asking meaningful and impactful questions. "We go pretty deep!" she laughs. Mumby uses what she's learned to form a vision for the business. It's an exercise she calls a sigh of relief for owners, one that gives them confidence to keep moving forward, particularly during times like the current pandemic. The result? The business owner sleeps better at night, knowing their Vision is seen, heard, and understood.
"There can be a lot of uncertainty within a team if they feel the owners are not clear about their vision," Mumby says. "The owner doesn't have to have all the answers - particularly during COVID when things will probably continue to change and evolve - but there are certain key aspects they need to be clear about, and it's those things that will keep their team engaged, confident, and showing up."
She says creating a network of support is also important, and at Dream Team Consulting she’s creating a team of experts to assist business owners. Lawyers, accounting, human resources, and marketing professionals who are successful business owners and want to help fellow business owners to succeed.
"Entrepreneurship can be lonely; if you don't have a trusted community around you, it's going to be really hard," she says. "There's the fear - 'How am I going to pay my staff? How do I deal with these suppliers, or pay the rent - where is that money going to come from?' If we live in that headspace all the time and we're not reaching out to our entrepreneurial community, it's very, very hard." Mumby also says reading about other people's journeys can help to spark ideas for their own visions. She is proud to be one of 12 published authors in Gerry Visca's book I Know WHY, where she and the other writers share inspiring insights. Anyone interested in a copy of the book is welcome to contact Mumby.
During the pandemic, Mumby says it can be difficult to think about a longer term vision, so she suggests starting with a vision for the short term - an approach she's employing for her own business.
"Right now, I'm focusing on the next 3 months," she explains. "I've written my goals and review them daily, so that I remain clear about what success looks like. Success right now for me is about making sure my team is coping with the new challenges that unfold almost daily. It's about communicating more frequently with our clients, to give them the information, tools, and confidence they need right now. I'm making sure I continue to stay on track with my own personal healthy habits. And, I'm stepping up to the plate to help other business owners succeed by working with them one on one. I want to help keep them afloat, and help them find their lifeboats."
Dream Team Consulting
www.dreamteamconsulting.ca
