Author Megan Preston Meyer: How To Take Your Company From Good To Great

An Interview With Jerome Knyszewski

Be authentic. We hear so much about impostor syndrome these days, and a ton of corporate culture comes from mimicry — if you aren’t 100% sure what you’re doing, you look to those around you to see what they’re doing and then copy them. It’s not a bad survival strategy, but it’s not the best one.

As part of my series about the “How To Take Your Company From Good To Great”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Megan Preston Meyer.

Megan is an author, as well as an insights and analytics expert that has analyzed piles of data for numerous companies across the globe to create informed and data-driven decisions that helped optimize supply chains, streamline processes, and unlock millions of dollars of value. However, though fruitful, Megan decided to leave her job of examining numbers, creating reports, and spending too much time with Excel, and tell the stories of these businesses in a different way. Megan now coaches and speaks about professional communication, and writes the Supply Jane and Fifo series — picture books for children about supply chain management. She hopes that by teaching kid’s business and entrepreneurship early in life in a fun and entertaining way, they will learn: problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, and many more skills.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Sure — and in fact, let’s go way back. During college, I managed two Subway restaurants. I was intrigued by the degree of standardization — no matter where you were in the world, you could get the exact same 6” Chipotle Steak & Cheese on Wheat, made in the exact same way, made by Sandwich Artists with vastly different skills, experiences, and background. The knowledge was in the process, not the person. This interest in processes and how they could be improved (along with a desire for a career that didn’t require an apron and a visor) led me to get an MBA focused on in Operations Management.

I ended up spending more than ten years in the corporate world, working in process improvement, supply chain, and analytics roles, doing everything from reducing grain loss in inbound barley supply chains to figuring out how to use by-products from beer brewing to demand forecasting and purchasing for super-perishable fresh food.

I was constantly digging through data to see what stories it told and how it could help me streamline things, make processes more efficient, and make better, more data-driven decisions.

But I realized one day that, while processes are interesting, people are even more interesting, and data never tells the whole story. So, I decided to focus more on communication — more specifically, how to make complex, ‘businessy’ messages simple, authentic, and fun — and how to help other people do so, too.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Tough question. I can’t really bring to mind any especially ‘hard’ times. That’s not to say that there haven’t been any, or that I’m superhumanly resilient or gritty…I think it’s just a matter of mindset. I walked away from a good job along a steadily ascending career path to start at the very bottom of an industry with a completely different set of rules, so I never had any illusions that it would be easy.

There are a lot of authors/speakers/consultants out there, which is intimidating. But one thing I’ve realized is that I don’t have to be better than all of them — I just need to find my own niche.

Plus, another advantage I have is the fact that my ‘back-up plan’ is to brush off my CV and go back to a corporate job. Now that I’ve had a taste of freedom, I’ve realized that I don’t ever again want to work for a boss that isn’t me. So, whenever things get tough, I work extra hard because I don’t want to have to lay myself off.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

I’m an optimist. Always have been. I try to temper it with realism, but where some people see a glass half empty, I see a cup that runneth over and start looking for a second glass. So, when I published my first kid’s book, Fifo Saves the Day, I assumed it would be a runaway success. I didn’t want to have to bother with reprinting once I sold out (as I was sure I would), plus I’m a sucker for batch-size-based price breaks, so I put in an order for what I thought was maybe a tiny bit optimistic but still totally reasonable first pressing: 2000 copies.

Fast forward a year later, and I find myself writing articles about the 1700 books still in my basement. Luckily, just like the canned food and camping supplies sharing shelf space, books don’t go bad — and, since I’m still an optimist, it’s comforting to know that they are there when I need them!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Well, there aren’t a ton of illustrated kid’s books about supply chain management out there. I think the subject matter automatically sticks out among the more traditional bedtime story offerings featuring binge-eating caterpillars and anthropomorphized vehicles.

More generally, though, I think the thing that makes the Adventures of Supply Jane & Fifo stand out is the thing that makes my writing, speaking, and consulting/facilitating stand out, as well — a strong focus on communicating simply, authentically, and enjoyably.

No matter how complicated or dry or serious your topic is, there are always ways to inject personality — and even humor. Especially in professional contexts, we tend to take ourselves too seriously. I love taking a light-hearted approach to big, business, buttoned-up subject matter. Supply Jane & Fifo are one example of this; another example is my Jargon of the Day series, where I make fun (lovingly) of all the managerial buzzwords that sneak into meetings and presentations because we think they make us sound more professional.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Talk to people. Go out for coffee. Connect.

This is a tip that can help people in both my current and previous industries… both authors and analytical types tend to be introverted, so they default into trying to do everything themselves. If you spend too much time in your own head, though, trying to brute-force your way through problems, you’ll miss out on super obvious solutions. Sometimes, the mere act of being forced to articulate a problem to another person is enough to help you work it out, and if not, getting an outside opinion can help you put it into perspective.

This seems like really obvious advice, but if you’re an introvert who is exhausted and frustrated and at risk of burning out, you just want to curl into a ball and hide. So actively seeking out human interaction seems counterintuitive, but it’s actually a great way to prevent burnout.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I’m grateful to a lot of people. I have met a ton of wonderful individuals who have inspired me, supported me, and encouraged me — a few of whom I’ve built longer-term relationships with, and many of whom I’ve had coffee or a Zoom call with once (I’ve found that people tend to be more generous with their advice and their time when you ask for just a tiny bit of it).

You also don’t have to look upward for help. Sometimes, looking to the side — to your peers or people at the same point on their path — is just as effective. A friend of mine, Yasi Zhang, started a podcast about the same time that I started writing and speaking. We met several times to bounce ideas off of each other and offer accountability, and that was really helpful.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. The title of this series is “How to take your company from good to great”. Let’s start with defining our terms. How would you define a “good” company, what does that look like? How would you define a “great” company, what does that look like?

• Good companies do their research. They have their finger on the pulse of their industry, they know what the other players in their space are working on and being successful with, and they invest a lot of time and resources in intelligence: market intelligence, competitive intelligence, business intelligence, etc.
• Great companies, on the other hand, don’t really care what good companies are doing. That’s not to say they don’t do their research, but they are usually so busy looking ahead that they aren’t as concerned about looking around.
• Great companies — big or small, multinational corporations or solopreneurs — are authentic. They do their own thing and do it well (ideally, to the benefit if someone).

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to lead a company from Good to Great? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Be authentic. We hear so much about impostor syndrome these days, and a ton of corporate culture comes from mimicry — if you aren’t 100% sure what you’re doing, you look to those around you to see what they’re doing and then copy them. It’s not a bad survival strategy, but it’s not the best one. Differentiating yourself from your competition, whether that means making your company or brand stand out within the industry or making yourself stand out among your peers, is always a better strategy. And being authentic, i.e., being you, is automatically a differentiator.
2. Make sure the unsexy things get done well. When you start a new company, big or small, there are tons of shiny, glittery, fun things to do. There are huge new ideas to think about and brand personalities to create and concepts to move from ethereal to tangible. Everyone loves marketing and strategy and visioning and innovation, but the things that aren’t as fun, like supply chain and accounts payable and the nuts and bolts of managing a million social media accounts, get de-prioritized. That doesn’t mean you have to do them all yourself; these are exactly the types of things you should be hiring someone else to do (even if you’re a tiny company, you can always find a freelancer). But making sure the unsexy things are done well can mean the difference between a cool idea and effective long-term execution.
3. Relationships matter. This one is not earth-shattering — everyone has heard it before — but it’s definitely worth repeating. No matter what you do, B2C or D2C or B2B or some other acronym, at the end of the day, humans do business with humans. This is why being authentic matters so much. We all want a connection, and most of us prefer repeated connection, i.e., a relationship, rather than a series of one-off transactions. Especially today, where we have so many choices for any single purchase decision, word-of-mouth and personal recommendation are becoming so much more important. Strong relationships are rewarding in their own right, but they also provide you access to more mouths that can offer those word-of-mouth recommendations!
4. Data shouldn’t drive. We love data these days — the bigger, the better. We’re always talking “algorithm-based” this and “AI-powered” that, and every single decision is “data-driven.” But too much data can be dangerous. For one thing, we assume that “data-driven” equals objective, which it doesn’t. Just because there are numbers involved doesn’t mean there’s a ‘right’ answer. The other danger with data is that it can be tempting to just throw all of your judgment, expertise, and common sense out the window and blindly follow the numbers. As I said before, humans do business with humans… and organizations that deal with humans need humans at the wheel. Data is still a useful tool, and it should still be in the front seat, but use data to navigate… and do the driving yourself.
5. Don’t take everything so seriously. Work doesn’t have to be work. Especially if you’re doing your own thing, or building your own company, or in the position where you get to make most of your own decisions, you can — and should — decide against drudgery. Again, this is tied in with being authentic. Don’t do things the same boring way as everybody else just because that’s what you think is expected of you. Don’t pepper your pitches with buzzwords and jargon because you think that’s what a start-up founder is supposed to sound like. Don’t use the same boring, corporate PowerPoint templates that everyone uses because you think the charcoal grey and navy looks businesslike. It’s fine to use pastels if you want to. Include memes and GIFS and emoji’s. If you’re funny and cheerful and quirky in real life, be funny and cheerful and quirky at work. Don’t take your job, or your tasks, or yourself too seriously.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Can you help articulate for our readers a few reasons why a business should consider becoming a purpose driven business, or consider having a social impact angle?

I don’t think companies should adopt a social impact angle just because research suggests it can make them more successful. That seems completely backward. If you’re considering adding a social impact angle to buy goodwill, either internally or externally, it’s probably not coming from a place of authenticity or a value that you actually hold, and that will show. At best, you’ll be distracted from your goal, because you’ll be forced to split your efforts between your actual operations and whatever social impact campaign you’ve adopted. At worst, it’s going to backfire — customers are pretty good at detecting when companies and people are using social impact disingenuously as a smokescreen for marketing.

Being purpose-driven, on the other hand, is not something to consider — every company is driven by a purpose already (Whether it’s a noble purpose or not is another story…). The trick is to articulate that purpose and the values from which is comes (i.e., the values your company wants to live) and to communicate that in a clear, authentic, engaging way so that your employees, customers, partners, and stakeholders really get it and can rally behind it.

What would you advise to a business leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth and “restart their engines”?

This is a tough question, because I’m just now starting my engines! The reason I’m on this journey in the first place is because I reached a standstill in my ‘first’ career; I was on a pretty good trajectory until I decided to swan-dive off the corporate ladder into a completely new thing, where I’m starting way at the bottom. If the growth in question is business growth or revenue growth or active user growth, then I don’t have much advice. If you’ve reached a standstill in your personal growth, especially as it relates to your company’s purpose or values, that’s another story.

Then, I’d stick with the metaphor and say that sometimes the best way to ‘restart your engines’ is by heading downhill. If your car’s battery is really dead and you can’t find someone to jump your car, there’s a technique called a ‘bump start’ in which you put your car in neutral and start rolling down a hill… then you pop the clutch and start the engine, using the momentum to bypass the electric starter.

Sometimes, if you’re running into problems, it’s because you’ve been heading straight uphill for a bit too long. Coast for a few miles, build up some momentum, and then get restarted.

Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?

It’s just like all those cute little home-décor signs say: Work Like You Don’t Need the Money. (You can also Dance Like No One is Watching, too — you do you!). If you’re going to go out on your own, especially in a difficult economy, make sure you have some runway.

Before I quit my corporate job, I created a Spreadsheet of Liberation, which sounds fancy, but was really just a breakdown of my savings divided by my monthly household expenses to show how long I could afford to make bring in absolutely 0 income without ending up on the streets. Worrying about money distracts you from making money; it’s a lot easier to concentrate on adding value when you aren’t worried about paying the bills. And focusing on adding value, not increasing revenue, is a much more sustainable strategy, no matter what the economy is like.

In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?

Marketing. When I launched my first book, I had never really marketed anything before, so I sort of believed in the Field of Dreams model: “If you build it, they will come.” My sole marketing plan was to make a couple of posts on Twitter and Instagram and, as became painfully obvious, it’s not that easy.

Marketing is one of those dangerous disciplines precisely because it seems easy. Especially if you’re a small company or a solopreneur, you tend to treat it as an afterthought — but it’s a full-time job. Luckily, there are people who do marketing as a full-time job so that writers can write, speakers can speak, consultants can consult, etc. Whether it’s a freelancer or an employee, I’d recommend leaving marketing to the professionals.

As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies a business should use to increase conversion rates?

Connection. No matter what you do — whether it’s communications consulting or writing books or selling gourmet vegan cinnamon rolls — there are a million competitors out there in the world, and they’re all just a couple of clicks away. That means any potential customer is going to have a million options.

This sounds scary, but actually, it means that connections and relationships are even more powerful. Sure, your customer could analyze and evaluate 27 different companies on 7 different factors to make the perfectly optimized purchase decision — but we all know that doesn’t happen. If someone knows you, though, or feels like they do, or gets a glowing recommendation from someone they know, it’s a completely different story.

Obviously, meeting every single potential client for coffee is time-consuming. It doesn’t scale. It’s the opposite of passive income. But that’s why it works — it’s costly signaling. In an age where everyone wants to create one ebook once and then sit back and collect their Gumroad payments, taking the time to form actual, personal, human connections is a huge differentiator.

Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that a business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?

My experience is more in personal branding, and from everything I’ve heard lately (which, granted, has come mainly from personal branding agencies so might be a tiny bit biased) is that personal brands are becoming as important as big corporate brands, if not more so.

Personal branding can be scary. When I first started, I tried to silo off my ‘brands’, one entire separate set of social media accounts, etc. for Supply Jane & Fifo, my kids’ book series, and then another entire separate set of social media accounts for my writing and speaking work under an abstract name/logo.

I learned quickly that it’s much harder to build up relationships if you’re nameless and faceless. The personal brands that I relate to most — and engage with most — are the ones where the humans behind them are visible. So, I brought all of my work under my own name, using my own picture. I’m no longer hiding behind cartoons or logos. It’s scary, it’s vulnerable, but it’s authentic, human, and (I hope) relatable.

Great customer service and great customer experience are essential to build a beloved brand and essential to be successful in general. In your experience what are a few of the most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience?

I don’t want to say that you should delight the customer in every interaction, because that sounds exhausting and inauthentic, but you should try to delight every customer every once in a while. In my case, most of my customers are readers (or listeners), so the best way that I’ve found to delight them is by, paradoxically, making them work for it.

In his book Alchemy (which is the best marketing book written in the last half-century and everyone should read it), Rory Sutherland recounts how Betty Crocker used this principle to sell instant cake mixes. When Betty Crocker first came out with instant cake mixes, they thought the market would love them. Baking cakes takes a lot of work — you have to measure a lot of stuff — so offering housewives the chance to pour a bag of powder into a bowl, add some water, and impress your husband seemed like a slam-dunk.

But it wasn’t. It was too easy. If you didn’t do any work, you couldn’t take any credit. Then Betty Crocker altered the recipe slightly so that the ‘baker’ had to add an egg. That tiny amount of effort seemed to be enough to feel like they had actually earned the lavish compliments that the Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge garnered, and sales skyrocketed. It turns out that consumers wanted convenience, but not too much.

I put that principle to work by purposefully not explaining everything. I let the readers make the connection on their own, so that they’re more engaged and get a sense of accomplishment. There is so much content out there that’s just spoon-fed, and I know the things that resonate most with me are those that make me feel smarter, not dumber, after I’ve read them. And making my own associations, connecting my own dots, seems to be the tiny amount of effort that allows me to feel like I’ve worked for what I’ve learned. I also love to sprinkle in little references that not everyone will get — Easter eggs, if you will — so that the people who do get them get an extra little hit of delight.

What are your thoughts about how a company should be engaged on Social Media? For example, the advisory firm EisnerAmper conducted 6 yearly surveys of United States corporate boards, and directors reported that one of their most pressing concerns was reputational risk as a result of social media. Do you share this concern? We’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

I do not share this concern. In fact, I am more concerned about the fact that corporate boards in the United States are worrying about Twitter trolls when it seems like there are a ton of issues that they actually should be concerning themselves with. Plus, when was the last time a brand actually did real damage to itself on social media? Search for ‘brand social media fails’ and you’ll find a ton of listicles showing ill-conceived posts and accidental screw-ups from big-name brands, none of which have gone bankrupt because of the backlash. There really is no bad publicity — in fact, especially on social media, a little controversy can actually be good for engagement.

Now, I’m not advocating that you go out and cause a scandal. You’re not Microsoft or Adidas or Mercedes — they’re Too Big to Fail. If you do something dumb, you’ll just get banned. But social media is a game, and being edgy is a proven strategy. It’s not one that I personally adhere to; even if I did, most of my content is centered around communication, so the most controversial opinion I express is my staunchly pro-Oxford comma stance. But, bottom line, there are a million other things to worry about with starting and building a business, so saying something slightly wrong on social media should not be at the top of that list.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

Giving up. Success is a long game — talent is far less correlated with success than persistence is.

No matter what you’re building, it’s going to take about 3x as long as you think it will (actually, that seems a little low — probably more like 9x). It doesn’t matter how good you are at it… you might be the best cheesecake baker in the world, or the best supply chain management children’s book author, or whatever it is that you do, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be an immediate success. It’s easy to get disillusioned and think, “Hey, I self-published my first book three days ago, and I’m not on the New York Times Bestsellers list… guess I’ll go back to my day job forever and never again try anything new.”

Building an audience, either physically or online, takes time — but it’s exponential. If you stick with it long enough, the rate of growth will keep increasing and increasing, and one day, seven years down the line, you’ll become an “overnight” success. (That idea has kept me going on several occasions: I can’t give up now, but cause what if tomorrow is the day I finally make it? It’s a healthy sort of FOMO.)

Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

It would probably need a catchier name, but the working title of my movement would be CSCTA: Common Sense, Critical Thinking, & Agency. Those are the most important values that we can be instilling — in kids, certainly, but even in adults.

One of the main reasons I’m excited about the Adventures of Supply Jane & Fifo is because they expose kids to some of the simple but powerful logic that makes the world around us work. My hope is that, once they realize that they are capable of understanding how things work, they can start thinking critically about whether things are working as well as they possibly can and will recognize their own agency and ability to do something about it if it’s not.

Whether you’re four or you’re forty, you have the right — and the responsibility — to call a fraud a fraud. It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes, when we see something that’s obviously wrong, but everyone else is ignoring it, we tend to assume that we’re the ones with the false perception. Sometimes we need to be that lonely voice in the crowd that starts the chant that gets the emperor to put on some pants, and we need common sense, critical thinking, and agency to do it.

How can our readers further follow you online?

Website: https://megan.preston-meyer.com

The Supply Jane & Fifo Adventures: www.supply-jane.com

Twitter: @mprestonmeyer

Instagram: @mprestonmeyer

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/meganprestonmeyer/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!