Liz Elting - CEO at Elizabeth Elting Foundation | Building a Billion Dollar Empire

Today, my guest is Liz Elting, a visionary entrepreneur, philanthropist and business leader who has built a global business empire from her passions for languages. She is the founder and former CEO of TransPerfect, the world's largest language solutions company which she started from her NYU dorm room in 1992 and grew to over $1.1 billion in revenue and over 100 offices worldwide. She is also the founder and CEO of the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports women's empowerment and equality causes around the world. She is a vocal advocate for women's rights and a frequent speaker on topics such as leadership, entrepreneurship and diversity. She is authored the best-selling book Dream Big and Win, translating passionate purpose and creating a billion dollar business which shares her inspiring story and offers practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. She has been recognized as one of Forbes's richest self-made women since 2016 and has received countless awards and honors for her outstanding achievements and social impact. She speaks five languages fluently, holds a BA in modern languages and literature from Trinity College and an MBA from NYU Stern. She is a trailblazer who continues to shape the business world with her vision and values. Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. They've been supporting this show for over two years now and when it comes to running an incredible business, HubSpots got your back. Now, if you're an entrepreneur you know that nothing matters more than generating revenue but sales people aren't just closing deals, they're tracking down leads, they're forecasting growth, whipping up reports, managing contacts, creating content, crunching numbers, the list of tasks goes on and on. With Q4 around the corner, there's a better way to win. It all starts with the new HubSpot sales hub. Now, with the HubSpot sales hub, your data, tools and teams are fully linked inside a smart and highly customizable platform that feels good to use. It's easy. Turn prospects into pipeline and close your deals all in one place plus sequences and smooth workflows help reps, streamline tasks and spend more time on what they do best connecting with customers. With sales hub, closing big deals is simple, try it for yourself at HubSpot.com slash sales. So, hi, Scott. It's so great to be here and a major inflection point in my life was when I was 14, I was spending a couple weeks in Vermont with my family and my cousin was visiting and my cousin aunt and I happened to be crossing the street in the town of Manchester, Vermont and the last thing I remember was walking out to the street where I was all of a sudden hit by a car, I flipped into the air, landed on my head and that's what I was told and I blacked out after that. I was rushed to the hospital actually in Albany, New York, the closest good hospital and my parents were also, they were told and they met me there and I remember nothing. I was unconscious. I ended up having a fractured skull and I was in a coma. At the same time, there was another boy who was in a similar accident, he was hit by a car, he was my age, he had a fractured skull and he was right next to me in the hospital and my parents and that boy's parents were there together praying, holding hands, just wishing their kids would be okay. My parents tell me stories of how they were saying things like, hopefully she'll just come out of this alive. Hopefully, she'll be able to talk and she won't have severe brain damage and it's okay if she's paralyzed, it's okay if she's a quadriplegic as long as those things happen, they were kind of making deals with God or whatever the powers to be. So anyway, I was the lucky one, three days after this happened on a Tuesday on Friday, I came out of the coma, speaking French, which I had started studying and loved and unfortunately the boy didn't make it. So I learned very quickly, I was the lucky one. I then ended up going back to Toronto after recovering for a month or two, having a very bad broken leg, the other leg was damaged, the leg ended up needing, needed to be rebroken and reset, went back to Toronto and started grade 10 at a new school. At that school, I didn't know a soul because I could barely walk and I had a major four-inch platform shoe and crutches, I was brought to school every day with the special needs bus and then it picked me up at the end of the day and it was it was a tough way to start at that school and I felt like, gosh, I don't like being new, I'm shy and I'm dealing with this broken leg and now I need to go up and down these stairs between classes. I was going to fall forward each time there were no elevators, there were no laws that elevators needed to be provided for people with what they would call disabilities or special needs back in 1980 and I was late for every class and there were these science classes that I used to take where all the kids were in pairs because that's how they were seated except I was the last one that was five or ten minutes like because there I was going up and down the stairs and I just couldn't keep up with those big crutches and the platform shoes and I was sitting but I sat by myself every class, terrible, spent lunches in the bathroom stall eating by myself and it was a very difficult time and I thought well I'm going to deal with this, I'm going to get through it and then I'm going to be grateful and I'm going to give life my all and this happened for a reason and I'm the lucky one I could have not made it so whatever problems I'm having there nothing there this is this is should be character building and I am so lucky so I ended up getting through that got a little better second semester as far as socially I made a friend but the big thing I did was I started throwing myself into a work and I realized I can be independent I should have a purpose I should pursue my passion my passion was work and then I was no learning that I loved languages that was where I started studying more languages by the time I graduated from high school I studied four languages and loved them that was my my thing I thought I'm going to try to do something important and great in this world because I'm just so lucky to be alive so that was an important moment I have no doubt and I think that what's really interesting is at a very young age you saw life in a entirely different way than most people ever have to see it I mean it's very precious and you don't take it for granted after something like that but I am curious why you thought the best way to take advantage of life was to throw yourself into work when most people who have these near death experiences it seems to be the opposite it seems like they don't want to work anymore because they see the beauty in life but you saw beauty in work which is interesting so walk me through why that was the outlet for your energy and why that was the outlet for how you thought this was the best way to accomplish life to achieve life it was to go into work and to double down and to and to push yourself yeah and I think you that's a great question because you're absolutely right Scott I mean I think it was a combination of my being young and I hadn't really accomplished much of anything in my life anyway I was 14 in in grade 10 or 10th grade and then also socially it had been very difficult because I looked like the you know I didn't know yeah yeah the odd one out no one wanted to talk to me I was shy I was uncomfortable I was self-conscious I thought but it worked I'm needed and at work I can make a difference so I thought well I like this um it gives me confidence it gives me independence which I knew I needed to have anyway that was always my plan I I did start working when I was young when I was 10 I started and I had jobs the whole way through high school but I thought you know it was easier than that social piece of high school anyway after how I started and it was important and I thought I can make a difference in the world with work but I didn't know exactly what I was going to do I just knew I enjoyed working gave me a purpose it gave me confidence and I loved languages and so those were really the beginning pieces of what I ended up doing talk to me about I heard this on a podcast that you did I thought it was a really interesting point for somebody trying to figure out their career you talk to me about passion versus pragmatism when you're trying to decide what to do because you follow passion and it led to a billion dollar company I think a lot of people follow passion and that's not really the end result so how did you manage the passion that you had plus building a pragmatically sound company yeah you're right and that also is a great question because I think what it was is I was fortunate I was lucky no question about it with my timing as I mentioned I had studied four languages I majored in languages in college and I just pursued my passion not knowing quite what I would do with it and I think a lot of people have a passion but it can be difficult to figure out a way to make money doing it and because of the timing because I graduated from college in the late eighties I was able to find a job at another translation company which at the time was the largest translation company and it was really it was only 90 people and you know it was a very fragmented industry a lot some moms and but globalization was starting so my my time I was lucky with my timing because I got three years of experience at that company and I thought wow I love this industry this industry is fun and exciting and there's a need but it can be done better I saw a real gap between what was necessary to clients and what was available in the industry and that's why I was fortunate to be able to to find that situation so I think I was lucky with the timing I was lucky to find a job in the industry I loved and and find a need a gap a hole that needed to be filled and and then you know what happened then I went back to business school and then you know what that eventually led to my starting trans perfect but again I think the timing was good and I figured out a gap a need and a way to make money doing it so that's really interesting that the largest company in this industry was only 90 people which is yeah incredibly small if you actually think about it that's so small so yeah right time right place you had the industry experience if you were going to if you were going to give just a small piece of advice for somebody that would look to emulate your success somebody's trying to build something what are the what's the checklist of startup items that you have to look for to emulate your success how do you identify if it's the right time how do you identify if there's a gap that is meaningful enough that you have to create a product to solve for that right and I do think it's really important to go out there and get the experience and you you can still be young when you start I mean you can get the experience starting when you're 10 years old and with all your part time jobs and your summer jobs and the jobs you have through college and after and try a lot of different things and see what out is out there and see what's missing see what is being done but could be done better or where there's a gap so I think seeing a situation like that is very important identifying it or just happen either through experience or literally through just observation and being curious and asking questions and then making it so that something you can see being a big need you know that a lot of different people or yeah could have you know either companies or individuals or both and then basically not waiting there's no right time and if anything I'm a big believer in people starting companies when they're young because that's what I was fortunate to do I was 26 I had just finished grad school I was used to living on no money and my $4 for a dollar rain and pride noodles and so it was perfect because I was giving up absolutely nothing and didn't have it wasn't married didn't have kids so I could work and a hundred hours a week and so I think it's wonderful when people do it when they're young before they have when they're used to living like a student I think that's a wonderful time to do it and then worst comes to worst it doesn't work out and then you move on to the next thing and you've learned a tremendous amount from what didn't go well as far as it act what needs to be done to actually make it work is I think it's all about having a plan and I don't mean a formal business plan that spent a lot of time on it used to then pitch to investors and get funding that's not what we did instead it's a plan in your head a vision for what you want in my case it was to create the world's premier language solutions company with offices in every major city around the world a real one stop shop for language solutions and then a plan on how to get there so and that involves goals with deadlines so in our case it was just basically being all in saying okay going to make 300 phone calls today going to send out 300 letters a day and doing it every single day and we made made a thousand phone calls and gotten one project you know I mean it's just giving it everything you have and not quitting and goals with deadlines and you know I we started out of an NYU business school dorm room it was not a nice office situation and this was back in the day when people were not working from home you did not want to be working remotely you certainly didn't want to be working for from an NYU business school dorm room it was not the ideal situation so said I said okay we can't do this for long this is not sustainable clients are not going to want to come to us so at the end of six months we must be able to pay for an office so it was all about being in tents on sales with the goal you know within six months to be able to and part of why that was so important I mean literally in the first the first couple jobs we got I remember them well the first one it was for a law firm I remember it well it was English and Slovak three-page job so excited when I hung up the phone and they said we have something for you I was like yes yeah I hung it up and I was like oh my god did this really happen yeah it validates everything you worked for it judge after thousands of letters and phone calls after thousands and I remember I was like sure absolutely we could do that like we could do it every day um but and it was the first and that was an important one and then the funny thing was they said great Liz okay we'll come and we'll stop by your office we'll pick it up we'll pick up the project oh god so I remember as you run down to the dorm room lobby and intercept them before they got to the dorm room and then after that the second project was something where the client literally showed up at the dorm room they bypassed the security and the dorm room lobby and showed up literally at the dorm room knocking on the door so that first office was very important but again the way we got there was saying okay after six months we must be able to pay for that office we're gonna put in you know 300 phone calls 300 letters to get there and have the revenue to pay for that office and I think that's all about the goals with deadlines and that's how people can be very successful now getting tough on themselves being all in and not having a lot of things going on at the same time because I think to really be successful you kind of need to be all in it can't for us it couldn't have been a part time saying and I think that's that's that's critical one of the things that I thought was very very smart that you spoken about and I want you to pass this lesson on to people that are in a job and want to build something but they're scared to take the next step because you overcame a lot of stress and guilt to to basically put everything in your life on hold and build trans perfect so there was a leap of faith so to speak even though you probably had a massive amount of confidence in yourself but there was a bit of a leap of faith why do you think people have such a hard time taking that leap what allowed you to take that leap to take the first step well the the job that I got right out of business school I quickly learned and you know I could tell tell you what happened in it I mean and I will very briefly I went in while you business school where 70 percent of people were majoring in finance that's what happened in 1992 at NYU Business School I thought I've got to try this out it's it's lucrative it's I guess it's sexy I got to try this out I got a job in the proprietary trading division of a French bank as soon as I got there I learned I was the only woman and whenever the phone rang they would yell wins phone and I thought oh gosh this this is because I'm a woman and this is not for me but so I didn't appreciate the environment but then the other piece of this and I think this is very important for people is I learned very quickly finance was not for me it was a lot of number crunching a lot of putting numbers in spreadsheets and dealing with formulas and filling out forms and basically fixing them and pushing paper pushing and not that it doesn't become more high level because of course it does I was still an entry level person even though I you know I had my MBA but I was entry level but I looked at what the boss was doing the CEO of the division and I thought that just not appeal to me so I quickly learned it was not my passion and I didn't like the environment so I I think it wasn't a hard decision I thought how can I stay in something where I don't like the culture and I'd like to create a better culture or be in a better culture and I'd like to find a better industry and then I thought but I know what industry I love and I know how it can be done better so why not take that risk right now and I think that is important to keep in mind because why not do it as I say if you're fortunate to be able to do it when you're young you're not giving up much it's a great time to do it but again I didn't think I was giving up much perhaps it's because no one else was hiring me at the time I mean it was kind of the end of a recession it wasn't a good time to find a job I knew I would have trouble but I also knew what I loved and I saw an opportunity so I thought where it comes to us doesn't work out but why not do it right then one one thing that I think is very very smart that you've spoken about several times the first million dollars in a business that's some of the the most difficult revenue the most harder and money you're going to make so why is the million the first million so difficult what what is the difference between the first million the first 10 million the scaling from 10 million to 500 million yeah it really is and that's exactly right it's because you have nothing you have no company with no reputation and no money to fund anything so you're really I mean if you're particularly if you're doing it without funding which is the way I recommend doing it if that's an option but getting those that that first million dollars in revenue is incredibly difficult because I said you're basically you're smiling and dialing selling your services saying this is what we have this is what we can do for you and people are people will say oh so who have you worked with before what types of projects have you done you know where are your offices how many people do you have and don't have much of anything and so that makes it very very difficult and once you get that first project and then the second project you know that first project can create multiple lead to multiple projects with that client and you know there's one of our early projects it was I remember it was a like one one and a half page job and we thought okay great we'll do it we'll do it you know it's not going to pay the bills but we'll do it that ended up being a very important English into Russian project about a joint venture in Russia that ended up being a test but get it and then it ended up ended up leading to multiple projects and a million dollar relationship with this mining company but the reason is because you don't have a company with a reputation you know as I so that's really why it's so important and the same thing happened when we open offices we would put someone in a city and they'd have nothing and of course to get to that first million in revenue in that city it was call after call without anything to really sell but then you bring in that first client that first client leads to multiple relationships ideally with that company and referrals and same thing with the second client and the third client and then these clients that start is you know one project client become multiple project clients become MSAs with those company like master services agreements with 4,500 companies but that's why it's so hard I love that um you also there's a couple things that I want to pull out of that some things that I think are so brilliant one of the things is that you don't like when people take on funding why was why was this the case with you outside of the fact that maybe it was difficult to get funding being your first venture I don't know I'd have no idea but but yes of course also true but why do you recommend stay away from funding well I think you know and I I think in our case we just did not want to deal with spending time writing that business plan and then spending time trying to get funding like that instead the time seemed to much better focusing on bringing in revenue and making that revenue profitable so we could pay the bills I when people are working with it first of all it's a lot of it's a big challenge to get that funding particularly when you don't have a track record you know as you say but and it's not the best use of your time because then even if you do getting the sales and the profit is the hard part and even if you're dealing with money it's the hard part I mean one example is we encounter to company that we acquired that had something like eighty two eighty three million dollars of funding when we acquired that company I believe it was one point two million dollars in revenue so you can have all the money in the world but that doesn't bring in the revenue and so there are putting your all your hours and time and efforts into getting funding when the time is much better spent getting revenue and making it profitable revenue the other reason is of course it's great if in the end if you are the sole owner wonderful situation you own the whole thing or if you have a partner if you're the sole two owners you maintain much more control over the situation and you don't spend your time answering to other people and worrying about short-term goals at the expense of long-term goals and long-term profit so there are a lot of reasons over time that it's very important and the fewer people you have involved in as owners can also be beneficial because I hear people who have issues with their yeah with their investors too and so for a lot of reasons but I love yeah no very very smart I also believe that people take on way too much money way too early on at shitty valuations and then they get I mean then you know you look at the entrepreneur 10 20 years down the road and all of a sudden they own barely nothing of their company and it looks good when they sell it at a high you know high multiple when there's a press release around it but ultimately they walk out with like almost pennies because they've diluted themselves so much right right and I couldn't agree with you more right you don't want you want to own 100% or 50 some percent or whatever so I think that's super important and you know I used to say revenue is vanity profit is sanity because people sometimes would focus on revenue but it wasn't profitable revenue and I remember that happened in the 90s and with when people were still getting revenue but now it's almost like funding is vanity and really what you need is that revenue and profit above all that's sanity and that's what you need to focus on so absolutely speak to me about your growth strategy because I've never heard of a growth strategy like yours outside of a franchise model I guess I don't know if that's the best way to describe it but you would air drop people into cities and they were successful so I want to understand how you grew this business because that is a wild strategy to me that you would put somebody on their own and they would actually do okay basically selling those services into a whole new market yes and you know initially in the early years I mean the very early years the first maybe three years were doing it all from New York and then without okay to become a global company we need to start having these satellite offices and also clients want that local presence so it's in their best interest too so I remember we started with San Francisco just to kind of give a tangible example and basically what we said to the person leading that office and we did the swift every offices okay you need to sell $50,000 a month for three consecutive months and then you can bring in a second person and then the two of you need to sell $120,000 for three consecutive months and then you can bring in a third person you need to sell 190,000 for three consecutive months and so on and that's how we paid for it and we did a very low cost model because as I said these were one person offices and they were in executive suite situations were which were the most cost effective way to go and as a result the rent was very low one or two person offices starting with one person but they had the revenue goals and they were very incentivized because they didn't want to work alone they wanted to have their own company under them it was an entrepreneurial situation and we paid them like entrepreneurs whereby when their revenue went up they they made a lot more so they had a low draw but a high upside so the goal was to pay as low a draw as they were comfortable with but then make it so they had a high upside and they would make more than they would anywhere else in the industry and they would really feel like an entrepreneur and we made it so they had a commission that didn't sunset if I mean if you I can elaborate on that if you want but no I think it's smart too the reason why I think it's really interesting to go into this model is because you speak a lot about the employees have to feel like owners but I feel that very few people accomplish that effectively I think there's a couple of issues that present themselves number one you're not paying them a lot so they don't care about the business number two if you're trying to do a low draw and high commission then you have to find the right people that are very self-sufficient self-motivated are confident in their own abilities and I feel like that's a very hard profile to find and obviously you've perfected how to find that person but the the strategy that you deployed I think a lot of business owners founders would love to deploy but it's the people problem that they have an issue with and they can never solve for it you're right and it is the hardest part that is the key to having a successful business right finding and hiring and developing and retaining the right people and often it's some of it's not developing it's just they are the right people when they come in and they they have what they they need they have the threshold level of qualities they need but related to what you're asking is I think it helps if you hire people who are young who don't who aren't married who don't have families that they need to support who are used to living higher risk they're okay with higher risk they'll take the risk they'll make less if they're not successful but they're looking to make more than they could ever make so they don't need the security they're willing to take the risk because they know they want to feel like entrepreneurs or be entrepreneurs within our company or within a company and that's the situation you can provide the other thing you can do over time is phantom stock or I guess they're you know employee I mean eSOPs but I mean phantom stock is another way to do it without actually giving away equity and basing that stock on the revenue and the profit of the company but I think for us the key was finding like-minded people who really wanted to build something big and create a hundred person office or a 200 person office and then be managing people outside of their office in other cities or countries in our company and that's precisely what we did a quote from you very entrepreneurial quote work today like no one else will so you can live and give tomorrow like no one else can what does that quote mean yes and I mean that's really and I putting in the hours and sacrifice saying and I you know it's not what people want to hear right a few people want to hear there's a way to be a mega success without doing that but everybody I can think of and I read about and I learn about who's created huge companies billion dollar companies and or or even you know successful companies that are not that large have put in a lot of hours and and given up some things in the early years to create the infrastructure that they want and the right sales team I mean I I've talked a lot about sales I think the right sales solution is critical because you can't do it alone at the entrepreneur cannot be that the salesperson for the company or even the most important salesperson or the headperson a salesperson I mean ultimately you have to have a well-oiled machine but in order to create that you have to put in the hours over over a sustained period of time but the today is not you know forever in that quote I mean I hear of entrepreneurs who sell incredibly successful companies after five years seven years ten years I mean I in my case I did it for 26 years but it got a lot better after those early years but it relates to the first million or the first five million is by far the toughest in the early years you have to give it more than anyone else you have to work out work anyone else you have to be available when no one else is and that really leads to a well-oiled machine and success at the highest level and it's exciting and interesting because if you choose the right path with the right passion a passion that can make money and you work with amazing people it can be fun and exciting for all of you so it's really a great way to go do you ever I mean I obviously you sacrifice throughout your career but when did you feel like you didn't have to sacrifice as much in terms of your time your energy your your life when was that point in your career journey when it was it was always hard work but it became something that was more sustainable long-term or has it has the entirety of it always been like balls to the wall like non-stop hustle hustle and I don't think that's the case but when was that point got easier right I mean it definitely you know the first years were 120 hours a week and then you know I would say about 10 years into it it got more like 80 hours a week I mean you know the answer is I think when it's your own and you're working with you know no funding and you're completely responsible and when you're the CEO even when you have funding even when it's a public company I think ultimately it's hard to let go but I think it got a lot better after eight or 10 years and then maybe it got even a lot better as far as hours after about 15 years but you know I think you never really let go until you you say goodbye and sell and that's okay because as I say it's very exciting but you know in the early years I mean I think the important thing is you can't you can't it's maybe multiple phases and I guess I mentioned what what they are and you know it's fun and exciting and interesting but hard work but it's only worth if you'd rather be doing something else yeah that's true I think I think that's one thing you know I've had this debate about hustle culture and I don't love hustle culture but I don't hate it either I think that it has a place but I think that the issue is people don't understand what they're getting into and they also don't have an end goal in mind so they start to build something and then it takes over their life and then it jeopardizes relationships and I do believe that for a period of any successful person's life there is an unorthodox amount of energy targeted towards one thing that they're trying to build but I also think that there has to be at one point it exit so that life if that is what the person wants life can be more holistic and you can spend more time with your spouse and your kids and whatnot but it does for a period a season of your life it does take this insane amount of energy and effort and I think people have to be okay with that but they have to be aware of it first because I don't think people are even aware of what that means when they build something from scratch yeah no you're absolutely right Scott and I agree and I think we all learn over time this is not sustainable we need a work-life balance we certainly learned with our employees we couldn't hire people and just pay them more and pay them more and expect them to work 80 hours a week that nobody wants that or certainly nobody wants it long term and I think you realize the same thing yourself as an entrepreneur and that's why yes it gets a lot better for us as I said it was after about eight or ten years and then I even a lot better than that after about 15 but there are people who go in with a five-year plan some people who get investors and then they're going to sell and they're able to accomplish a great deal in five years and they're giving it them giving it everything they have for five years and it pays off but depending on how big you want and what your goals are you know it could take longer too no I think that's very smart um you wrote the book dream big and win in its most simplest form what does that mean for somebody early on in their career what is the like the one major takeaway even from that title well I think from the title itself I think it's important to think about what you really want because a lot of people don't even know what their goals are they don't know what they want they're they're not dreaming they're just they they're being too practical and I can relate to that because believe me I was almost too practical and I almost didn't follow my passion a few times you know I thought I was going to be a lawyer and then I realized well that's not for me and then I thought I was going into finance really that's not for me so I think it's very important to figure out what you like and what you don't like and then dream about what you want and then if you're going to dream and try to do something you want which is what I think everyone should do then make it big shoot for the stars because then you're going to get a lot closer to that then if you don't think big and and and dream big and then carry out the actions to be big so I think that's the idea figure out what you want and then figure out how you can incorporate into your life and be and make it big because that's fun it's about competition it's about winning and I think we all enjoy that our most of us do anyway and I and that's who I'm trying to inspire people who who think that way and and just need a little push to try and do it as you all know the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network which has incredible podcasts for entrepreneurs business leaders people just wanting to upscale themselves one of my favorites that you need to go check out is my first million hosted by Sam Parr and Sean Perry they have incredible guests Alex Ramosi Sophia Amaruso Hassan Minhash all sharing their secrets how they made their first million and how to apply their learnings to capitalize on today's business trends and opportunity go listen to my first million wherever you get your podcast we get stuck in these we get stuck in these frames of reference with like our family or our friends and it's very hard to break out of those frames of reference and I think that you know you mentioned you're too practical you're too pragmatic I think I think that most people don't on their own look at life in a different lens significantly different lens than how their parents looked at life maybe a little bit but not not exponentially different so what's the exercise for somebody that's listening to this and they're like I all the all the all the people around me all the reference points think that this salary is good and that this life is good and this is the way we're supposed to be and this is the way we're how we're supposed to do things and this is I'm supposed to get this kind of nine to five job and nothing wrong with any of that but the person's listening to this or like I would love to dream big I just don't have a reference point that would allow me to do that properly I don't know where to conceptualize what big is how far can I go how can I build a billion dollar company that makes no sense to me yeah and it doesn't but you can be enormously happy and successful if you build you know it's something else right true it doesn't have to be a billion dollar it could be a hundred million dollar I'll take anything I'll take anything yeah yeah right you get to a certain level and yeah exactly and and it's not about that right so I think though I think you do have to I mean I hate to say not to listen to the people in your life but sometimes you have to know this people in your life I was fortunate because I had amazing role models in my parents they both worked they both were very ambitious and creative and goal-oriented and my dad was very entrepreneurial but I will say when I was about to start trans perfect when I told him I made a horrible mistake with this finance job I'm going to quit and I'm going to start a translation company he said well is that it sounds really fun but you're not going to make you know as much money as you would doing something else I just thought well we'll see I'll show you he gave me he was my mentor and my advisor and my coach over the years so I listened to him on almost everything but you also have to follow your heart and you know I thought I'm not feeling good about this other thing it's worth a try and I will just prove him wrong I'll prove anyone wrong and I think a lot of us enjoy doing that too so that can be a very good incentive to do it if people in your life are saying why would you do that you can't do that follow your own heart you know what you're talking about if I can do it if I can do this anybody can do it really that's the most important lesson of all because I think I learned that through all the things I did wrong in all the adversity and all the you know that situation in 10th grade if I can do this really anyone can do it um speak to me about why we should concentrate on verbs and actions what does that mean to you yeah well I think it's that a lot of people say things like oh I want to create a billion dollar company I want to create the the an amazing app it does this a world changing app or I'm going I have this idea for this technology or that technology but then they they don't think of exactly what they need to do to make it happen I think that's the concept of having goals with deadlines what are all the actions you need to make take to literally get there and you know as I was saying in our case it was okay get on the phone cold call I mean and then send out mass melis now do the work do the work basically do the work do the work and then you know when you're hiring people make sure you look for the right things but yes do put the work don't talk about it so much just do it and again to put aside your hobbies what's fun what's interesting maybe going out with your friends every night for drinks like no the actions to get you there are the key so you think that it's interesting because you wrote the book dream big which is part of the problem obviously people aren't dreaming big enough but then there is a follow-up right and obviously this is in the book as well it's not just about dreaming it's about doing the things and I think that there's actually an issue that I've noticed people are highly ambitious people are consuming non-stop professional personal development content listen to all the podcasts listen the podcasts like this one they listen to everybody on YouTube they read all all the books and then they don't do shit yeah just consume non-stop yes and and that's why what I think I have a phrase in the book where I see doing eclipses dreaming I mean yeah I may try to get people excited to dream because I think you have to dream you have to have the vision to do something great and to put in the time but then in the end it's about doing and you're absolutely right people listen to so many things and I think well how do you have to time for that if you're working if you're trying to build something so yes I couldn't agree with you Mars about doing doing eclipses dreaming um one of the things that I thought was was really there's a couple leadership lessons that you've spoken about in your own in your own career and in your own in your own building of of transfer if it's as well as in the book I want to go into these because I think they're very interesting and I want your perspective so we spoken about a few so we spoke about employee ownership uh we spoke about um obviously like aligning incentives uh but there's a few others so one of the keys to motivating people because obviously what you've done is you've motivated people and it's to an exceptional degree which has allowed them to execute and ultimately the people are what made trans perfect it's it's all the people that that basically did their job to an exceptional degree so let's talk about motivating and let's talk about working with different people in different temperaments and talents and convictions so you said the key to motivating employees is taking a personal a personal stake excuse me in that person's success so that sounds great on paper when you have a thousand employees how do you do that anymore right well I think you certainly do it with the people that are reporting directly to you and then you ask the people who are reporting directly to you to do with people reporting to them and the people and so on down the line so I think that is incredibly important it you can yeah you can't do it with a thousand employees but each let you you share the vision directly with your direct report stays here with their direct force but then you also have to find ways to share the vision with and motivate all of the employees and you cannot do that at when you have a a national sales conference and international sales conference you can you can motivate all the sales people at one time same when we had a global production conference same thing so you can get up there and speak and motivate people or you can do it on I guess the company wide webinar so they're all but you make yourself accessible you're making yourself successful what to absolutely so yes I think that's absolutely key and yeah it's the whole management managing by walking around right whether it's walking around an office traveling to the offices making it so people can call you anytime and that you will check on them anytime one of the lessons that's very important to me that I learned after making some mistakes was the importance of one-on-one meetings and you do that with your direct reports where you're really sitting down and saying you know ideally once a week if you can't once every two weeks can work to you and saying how are you doing and then they say fine say no how are you really doing and you really are interested in them and invested in them as people and you deal with personal issues and then as far as feedback as far as business you give them feedback and then you ask them for feedback about you and the company and what we the company the department or the company can be doing better you can also do skip level meetings to show people you care another thing that is very important to me is on questionnaires employee questionnaires and we got some of our very best ideas from employees whether it was new innovations or just problems to solve and my favorite question was always what would you do differently if you wanted the company or if you ran the company and it's a really great information that way exit interviews I feel the same way about I love reading exit interviews because I learned so much and that was helpful as well I mean there are a lot I'm big on awards and you know giving awards at every summer party every company wide conference every holiday party acknowledging people publicly that's very important but there's so many little things but there's they're very important absolutely and then you know I think I've also heard and I agree with this that sure people care to some degree about what they're being paid but it's more about how are they being treated are they being treated being treated with kindness and respect number one um are they learning are they growing number two and um you know their relationship with their direct supervisor so I think you know making sure those things are going as they should be um and and finally I guess low one other thing I would add to that is a purpose feeling like there's a purpose behind the work they're doing one of the you know you you really speak about communication quite a bit like with with the team with peers with employees with direct reports and I mean there's a variety of different ways to interpret this I mean you've read radical candor with Kim Scott very similar view towards communication and transparency but speak to me about um the the ability to give people the psychological safety to disagree with you in your own in your own company so where did this management style come from for you how did it impact you uh what are some ideas even that maybe in trans perfect wouldn't have happened if you didn't have this idea or this management philosophy oh so many ideas wouldn't have happened we had so many amazing people with amazing ideas uh first of all as far as what prompted me to feel that way is I know I'm definitely not the smartest person in the room and I was so much about hiring people who impressed me and were smarter than me and that wasn't hard believe me that was not hard so I think it's so important to hire people who are smarter than you who have ideas and then you know listen to what they have to say and incorporate it unless there's a good reason not to and often you know that is the case so I think it's just from my own feeling like I'm not you know there's so many things I'm not good at and you know whether I mean I could start listing them but I'm not sure I need to do that right now but you need people to really compliment me with their strengths and their knowledge so I think that's what makes me feel that way I needed people's ideas and you know a lot of people who have coach have coaches and mentors I rely a lot on our employees for their input and you know some examples were we had something like trans perfect linguist certification which was really the gold standard to certify linguist that was brought to us by one of our employees and she was a leader too but she brought us that idea wonderful idea to come up with our own certification rather that was the best in the industry that you know we weren't doing we were relying on others another was to become ISO certified that was very important to regulated industries like finance like life sciences that was brought to us by one of our employees who had that idea given to him by a client you know the employees are on the front line they're talking to clients so that was another one a good other good one another one was to step sorry to start litigation support services division and that was based on the idea of one of our employees and that ended up being a big division and because what our the guy who brought it to us said the salesperson he said we're dealing with the translations but we're also working with 100 law firms they all need the other parts of the job you know what happens before it comes to us for translation and what comes to us after and that's the litigation support services step part so you know that's another kind of idea that's really important just to talk about it's not just about being a translation company because we are a lot more what happen is we realized okay we've got fortune 1000 clients we've got all the global 200 law firms what other services do they need so that's why even if your idea at the beginning when you're starting a company seems small or that not that many different industries or companies need it if you have the right values and you have the motivation you can pivot you can add services you can add technologies you know if you have the right people to to make this happen and that's the beauty of being an entrepreneur it's not like the day you start that's what you you offer you can add and pivot and change along the way and I think that's critical to being a very successful being being a very wildly successful entrepreneur so you yeah so you have the so you have these like feedback loops basically that you've built into your company with all the people you work with which give you endless ideas and it just makes you much more um you kind of like disrupt yourself with these feedback loops to constantly keep making you better and better and then you also that that combined with no ego because if you had an ego then you wouldn't listen to anyone else you just think you're the smartest person in the room which is obviously you know and everyone is never the smartest person in the room and if you are first of all get out of that room but also that's not the reality for anyone right that's right that's right and so yeah it's about finding the right people who are curious who love to learn who have ideas and then make it so they are very incentivized to to bring in these ideas to you I mean we had innovation contests we had worlds where to be promoted you needed to bring in innovation bring a new idea for the company we you know we had a lot of different incentives to make people want to do that and I think that can be very valuable as well so obviously these feedback loops are important I thought this point was very interesting in the book because we've been speaking about innovation a lot innovation is a way to make sure that your business thrives is healthy stays relevant stay successful but you also speak about how innovation can be a crutch and it's an overrated route to success walk me through what that means well I just I feel like and I you know the idea of having some new idea right I mean a lot of us want to be wildly successful we love the idea of being entrepreneurs we love the idea of building our own dream rather than someone else's but we don't have some brand new idea I mean I certainly didn't and so I think it's the concept of what I was talking about earlier where seeing a need that things and things already being done but how can it be done better and in our case it's okay it needs to be more service oriented I mean it needs to be done faster at the turnaround time getting this work done needs to be faster and it needs to be a one-stop shop and it needs to be global you know as far as where the offices are so I think it's about doing what might be already being done but doing it better making sure you're really filling the needs that people have and I think that that's critical I love it so we all can be entrepreneurs we don't have to come up with something brand new I know I think people overcomplicated it's silly there's no reason for it I mean there's so many when you when you when you went into this industry there was already it was a 90 person company but a 90 person company is not huge but it's not nothing so you know you could try and figure out how to innovate and you could try and figure out a build an app or whatever or you could just do what they're doing even better and that can be also a way to build a company you don't always have to be a developer or an Elon Musk trying to get people on Mars whatever it is that's not what 99% of entrepreneurship is that's right and the other thing I mean I didn't say this but and this maybe could motivate people to be entrepreneurs but when we started the company in 1992 there were 10,000 other translation companies already out there I didn't mention that but they were small they were mom and pops they were two to five people primarily I mean there were some a little bigger and that so the idea was to be a pioneer in the industry and to grow something bigger so even if you are dealing with 10,000 competitors and a lot of people are or more you can you can create something different yeah spoil the client with service you know or all the other things to make it something better than what's out there so let's let's talk about the decision you made after 26 years you left a trans perfect so walk me through that decision why did you decide that 26 years this is good I'm starting something else well okay I mean I learned to tremendous amounts I really did I mean 26 years it was wonderful and I worked so many amazing people that I love they were a second family to me but my partner and I truthfully were having issues and that can happen after five or 10 years and you know we had our challenges along the way but it got difficult after about 20 and one of us really I mean we needed to make a change I mean different goals different aspirations just different there were differences I thought this has been great I've loved it but there's a lot more I want to do with my life you know and one would have been to end up you know in well just without getting too much specifics there's a lot more I can do that I haven't had time do I ended up selling without getting into the specifics of what happened because I looked at buying and I came very close to buying but without getting into the specifics of why I ultimately didn't end up owning the company I thought I will say goodbye to this because that was the result and do all the things I've always wanted to do that I haven't had time to do and that was such a blessing and I'm so thrilled that that happened I had been very interested in philanthropy and giving back as I said earlier I'm one of the lucky ones I talked about realizing that when I was 14 I was a lucky one for living with that brush with death and then I realized I was a lucky one for being able to own and ultimately sell this billion dollar company so I need to give back I was you know I was born into the right situation and then I met the right people and you know and that was what happened um so that was one thing I also had never gone on maternity leave I didn't get one day of maternity leave because of our situation and so I thought okay I'll get to spend a little more time with my kids that will be wonderful and then finally I thought I love talking about entrepreneurship and I've been doing that since I sold and I want to keep talking about entrepreneurship and I want to share my lessons in a book because now is the time if not now when I've loved this whole publishing process this whole being an author and talking to people like you oh my gosh I've met so many amazing people just over the last year or two through this I'm thrilled about it I'm you know loving every minute of it so it was ultimately a blessing even though at the time it was difficult to say goodbye 26 years it was my baby it was my idea I was very connected to it but it was time and life is amazing now so I'm so incredibly fortunate I this is going to be a question that a few people this will resonate with a lot of people it'll be confusing but stay with me so when and only because a lot of people have not exited a company that's really the only reason but I have some friends that have and every time I talk to them it's a very different story but a lot of people are so when they reach this pinnacle of success it's level of success it's hard for them to relax and to chill out and to do to do nothing and you're not doing nothing but you're not at the same capacity as as where you were at certain points in your last 26 years how how is life after after trans perfect is is are you content are you happy do you feel like you'll build something again as and I guess is is the entrepreneurial bug is that something that you can turn on or offers that's something that's going to be with you for the rest of your life well you know I love doing what I was doing and I'm definitely incredibly busy now and loving every minute of it but what I don't miss is needing to be in the office every day at 8 30 and needing to stay in that office until six or six thirty and then go out and do a company event at night or travel to another city for a company event not that I didn't enjoy those things well I was doing it but the stress and the pressure and the lack of freedom that you feel when you're all in on one thing for an extended period of time I don't miss and instead now you know I mentioned all the wonderful things I can do with the philanthropy and the boards that I'm on and really helping people who've been less fortunate and learning about all the different issues that are out there that need solving and then getting to focus on entrepreneurship still but doing it away that it's not just within our company but it's kind of in general to help people create better lives for themselves that's just incredibly rewarding and I think you can be just as busy but you can do it more on your terms like you know getting to run around and have this meeting and speak at this event and you're in charge of your time and I found that difficult even after 20 or 25 years because you need to be a role model for your employees you need to be there if you're asking them to work and stay the night at times or do whatever they needed to do not that they needed to do that over you know ultimately we found solutions so they didn't need to do that but I needed to be there too and I love the freedom in doing the things I love most and being able to let go of the things that I wasn't enjoying so much so I think it's wonderful once you sell even though you know it can be very emotional you can still be incredibly busy doing what you think is incredibly important and valuable work what would be if you're going to give one last lesson by actually before we do one last lesson is there anything that we didn't go into that that you wanted to speak about I I wanted to pull out all these lessons from the book I think we got those a lot of lessons from your 26 years of trans perfect anything else that I didn't touch on I think you did a phenomenal job touching on so many so many things you're really yes I love that thank you I appreciate well no it's a lot of fun I I enjoyed like studying like your your your life your history I enjoyed the book like very very good lessons so I'm happy we got to do this um but yes one last entrepreneurial lesson that after 26 year I know there's going to be a million humor me humor me with one last entrepreneurial lesson that you give over to the people that are listening well I just think it's so worth it to at least try to try being an entrepreneur or something that happens is it won't work out and then okay you go get another job or you go start another company and you learn what you did wrong and and you do it better or write the next time so I I think go out there try it if you have an idea if you don't have an idea try to come up with them come up with it and then of course keep being out there networking and looking for people to to partner with to hire um because you know I think in life um you know you can go and work at a company but as I said earlier then you're you're not building your own dream you're building someone else's there may be issues that you can't control that you want to change and maybe you don't love the work as well you know the tight the industry so go pursue that dream build it think big take the risk there's no time like now and and don't quit stay with it and then if it doesn't work out just move on but go for it because it really is so much fun and so incredibly rewarding I love that um where can people connect with you where can people get your book um where the the websites the socials anything you want to drop thank you well as far as connecting with me it's uh Liz Elting on Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Instagram um Liz Elting.com website my foundation is Elizabeth Elting Foundation.com and then um the book can be bought on Amazon. Liz Elting. Amazon Liz Elting. Dream big and win. So um yes thank you so incredibly much and I you know I really hope people like it I tried to make it a fun entertaining read with life and business lessons and I I just so love this conversation Scott has been fabulous. Thank you I appreciate I really appreciate that and also by the way like she you know you're you're you're not you're not even selling yourself so Scott Galloway, Ariana Huffington, Cheryl Sandberg they've all set this book is incredible so obviously these are some pretty heavy hitters so definitely check it out um if you were going to tell your 20-year-old self one piece of advice what would it be? Wow just you know um it's fine that you're afraid you know because people say you're people are you know and this maybe I know you've heard this people have heard this but leaders aren't and people who've been successful and business people it's not that they're fearless it's that they've got the fear and then they do it anyway and I guess I'd say to myself it's okay to be fearful it's okay to be scared just don't don't put your don't be so tough on yourself just feel that way and then do it anyway and you know fortunately I did have the opportunity to do it but I I was nervous about doing things and now I just kind of say yes to all things kinds of things I'm afraid of every day and I would tell myself back then that's what I should have been doing every day so yeah and then last last thing I have to ask you at this point in your life what does success mean to you okay well yeah at this point it's basically having wonderful relationships and and great with wonderful relationships with and with your friends and your family and finding something that you loved doing that has a purpose and giving back and if you have all of those things in your life I think you're just incredibly lucky and you should feel success that you've achieved success so that's success to me