Meet Kelly O’donnell

 

We recently connected with Kelly O’donnell and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelly, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

Much of my confidence and self-esteem comes from my parents; they raised me to know that I was worth everything and could do anything. However, that doesn’t mean that your confidence never wavers throughout life. To protect my confidence, especially professionally, I make sure I am extremely well-prepared. I take a Clarity Break each quarter to reflect on how I can get 80% stronger in my expertise and practice, and what 20% of what I’m doing I need to leave behind this quarter to get that 80% jump.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m Kelly O’Donnell, and I implement EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) with clients with 10-250 employees around the U.S. By implementing EOS, I help entrepreneurs and their leadership teams get traction on a shared vision for the business and build a healthy, cohesive team.

I’ve worked with growth-stage entrepreneurial companies for my entire career, and I love entrepreneurs! For the last 15 years I’ve been an entrepreneur myself, as the owner of a fractional marketing agency working primarily with professional and financial service firms. I’m also an innovator at heart, inventing a children’s product and growing that B2C business to a presence in all 240 Meijer stores and toy stores around the country, before selling it in 2018.

I began implementing EOS with my clients when I realized that they were hiring me to develop a marketing strategy, but they were really missing many of the foundational steps needed to build a solid plan. I’ve seen the EOS tools provide the highest amount of value in the shortest amount of time for leadership teams, so I’m passionate about bringing this cultural and financial transformation to more entrepreneurial organizations.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Having high emotional intelligence, curiosity and empathy have helped me grow as a professional and serve me well today as I coach leadership teams in a variety of industries as they implement EOS in their businesses. I don’t always know the specifics of the vertical they are in, but my curiosity and empathy let’s me ask the right questions and help them see that the challenges they are facing are normal, human, and solvable together.

I think anyone can nurture these qualities by engaging with people who are different from them, with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Keep asking good questions and truly care about the clients and teams that you coach and lead!

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

The book “Traction” by Gino Wickman forms the basis of the EOS implementation work I do with teams, and it’s FULL of great nuggets for teams as they begin to use this complete set of tools and processes for scaling an entrepreneurial business. For owners and leadership teams who are ready to grow and willing to strengthen six key components of their business–Vision, People, Data, Issues, Process, and Traction–the book “Traction” provides a blueprint of how 26,000 similarly scaling businesses have successfully done it.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

None

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Portraits of Resilience

Sometimes just seeing resilience can change out mindset and unlock our own resilience. That’s our

Productivity
Perspectives on Staying Creative

We’re beyond fortunate to have built a community of some of the most creative artists,

Confidence
Kicking Imposter Syndrome to the Curb

This is the year to kick the pesky imposter syndrome to the curb and move