Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Taryn Davis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Taryn , thank you so much for joining us today. Let’s jump right into something we’re really interested in hearing about from you – being the only one in the room. So many of us find ourselves as the only woman in the room, the only immigrant or the only artist in the room, etc. Can you talk to us about how you have learned to be effective and successful in situations where you are the only one in the room like you?
I’m not going to lie – this can be really hard! I find that this is not an uncommon occurrence for me, and I think I was prepared for this from a young age. Growing up, I lived in a totally different part of town from everyone else at my school, which for some reason made me a perpetual outsider. This experience was really painful but fast forward to today – it developed courage and resilience in me to not ever expect to look like anyone else in the room.
When I have moments of feeling odd or left out or like I don’t belong somewhere, I remember that whatever is happening in that room is momentary, and what I’m working to create is bigger than that moment. The reality is that creation is about bringing something into the world that doesn’t exist yet, and you have to think different in order to be able to perceive the need for that thing, know how it should look, and then execute. I try to remember that no matter how apart I feel, I couldn’t do what I’m doing if I looked like everyone else.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I work with small businesses to make running the business easier. When you start a business, you rarely know what you’re doing, and as it grows, the lack of actual business management skills can become a real burden. My skillsets in Continuous Improvement and Change Management allow me to bring a needed framework to small businesses as they’re growing, and my empathy and care for founders in all stages of business helps me to support them in turning corners with their businesses and bridging the gap that can develop between founders and their teams as business evolves.
To support this, I recently launched The Entrepreneur’s Reflection Deck. It’s a resource for founders and entrepreneurs who struggle to take time to step out of the business to work on it. It’s 52 cards (one for each week of the year!), each with a business concept and an action point to help you work on the business and see genuine results.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The most important thing in my journey has always been and continues to be openness to what may happen. At each point, whether when I was getting my bachelor’s in Linguistics, living in France, doing my MLIS, working in food manufacturing – I had no idea how the skills I was learning might build on each other and equip me for what was next. I work to maintain that openness and willingness to learn with everything I’m doing. Along with these two things is attitude: how you approach something often has the power to make it positive or negative, completely apart from whatever the thing itself is.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal client is the small business founder who started her business to have more time and flexibility and knew she had something valuable to contribute to the industry and the world. Her business has reached a point where it’s growing, which is super exciting – but also a little difficult because those desires of time and flexibility are distant memories. She’s not sure what to do to manage the business well, and she knows she needs help but isn’t exactly sure what kind of help or how to find it. All of that is resulting in a lot of stress and chaos. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the environment in which I thrive: I love being able to serve this type of founder and business to make work workable for people and the business enjoyable for its founder.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tbd-strategies.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taryndavistbdstrategies/
