This is what it takes to be a LEADER! C-Level with Chris DeBlasio - Guest: Angela Raub CEO of Leadercast

The Chris DeBlasio Podcast

- Well, Angela, thank you for coming out. So I'm a huge, I like to hear people's journeys, and their stories, and where they started out, so tell me where you started and where you grew up.
- Oh, my gosh, all right, I will give you the scoop. So I'm a farm girl.
- [Chris] Okay.
- So my first job was selling eggs at four.
- [Chris] Okay.
- Older brother, so I have six steps, and then I have a biological older brother. So he would pull the wagon, I would push it, and I was a salesgirl, so.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
- So just on the back of the wagon, you just--
- Back of the wagon. So I would take the eggs up. We would go pull them out after the chickens would lay the eggs.
- [Chris] Yeah.
- And I was sent up to the neighbors because of the blonde, curly hair. And he's like, "Go up and sell it." So no one ever denied me.
- Awesome.
- So that's kind of how I started in life. And then I love my Midwest work ethic. So my first outside-of-the-home job was 13 working at Dairy Queen.
- [Chris] Okay.
- So I love when I get my Social Security Statement because it makes me really proud, like rock on, I've been contributing a long time.
- [Chris] Right.
- Although, I might not see any of it. But I'm a professional mutt. And I know you're probably cringing when someone says that. And I've learned the hard lesson about needing a PR representative, because once in "U.S. News & World Report," across my chest, it says, professional mutt, which is not what you want when you make that publication, right?
- Right. Yeah.
- But with that, a higher education, and then made my way into corporate America after I got my MBA. And I love the fact that I've done really nothing traditional in my life. I raised my daughter on my own since she's been three. And just done it differently. Moved away from home. Moved to Atlanta because I wanted a big city experience, and wanted my kid to grow up in a world that was diverse and just very different. So yeah, I'm always sort of an outlier, and that's come with challenges, but it's who I am.
- Do you feel that starting early on in sales has contributed to being the business professional that you are now and understanding business, and whatnot, leadership?
- Yeah, great question, because here's what I tell people, I've never been in sales a day in my life. To grow up in my dad's a farm kid, first generation college for his family, and he put himself through college and supported two 19-year-olds, my mom was pregnant before they were married, by working on a golf course. So his yard looks like Augusta. And then he became an executive in the auto industry. So my family is steeped in work ethic.
- Cool.
- And so when you asked about sales, I'm not in sales. I'm about relationships. And I look at my grandfather started farming with horses. And it was all about community and helping people out. So I love that, and I think it's just listening to people, what motivates them, and then how can you help them get to where they need to be.
- Yup, relationship sales. Yeah, I learned that early on, too, is people don't wanna be sold, number one.
- [Angela] No.
- And also the sustainability. Learning and listening to your customer, whoever that is, and focusing on what their needs are, and how your product can help them in their needs, not like just forcing something down somebody's throat that they don't need. 'Cause that's like that old school just--