100: [Behind the Team] What makes a strong team? Questions with Chief Operations Officer Indira Dejtiar

Kate Kordsmeier 0:00

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Success with Soul podcast. I'm your host, Kate Kordsmeier. And I am so excited to share this brand new series that we are going to go through over the next seven weeks. It's called behind the team, and you're going to have a chance to meet the core members that make up my current team over at Team KK, we're going to be talking to some friends of mine and other entrepreneurs who have had their own team experiences. And y'all know, vulnerability and transparency are some of my top core values. And I have not been shy about my struggles with learning how to be a leader, and how to hire and onboard and train and retain and create a team culture and make sure we have all of our systems in place and SOPs and project management and communication tools, and how to delegate properly, and how to make sure that everybody is aligned with our core values, and even figuring out what are our core values. It's a lot. And here's what I'm going to say, figuring out how to build an amazing team that works well together that's aligned, that can get things done, that you can truly trust, and that have the same mission of wanting to serve whoever it is that you serve, it's really hard. It's really freaking hard. But it is also so worth it, we have been able to do things in my business that I never dreamed possible and that I never could have done alone because that's the other thing. You cannot do this alone, you cannot create a multiple six figure or seven figure business that impacts dozens or hundreds of people all by yourself. And so learning how to delegate and work with others and be a boss and be a leader. And all the things is so important. And it's such a big part of making your dreams a reality. And really serving your clients to the best of your ability providing them with the most value. If you're trying to do it alone, there's just so much less that you're going to be able to give your impact is just going to be smaller naturally. So let's go big. Let's get vulnerable up in here. It is a little bit scary for me to share this with you guys. But I have a team now that I hope is my team forever. They are amazing, incredibly brilliant, kind, compassionate, talented, thoughtful, skilled, just absolutely incredible people, and I can't wait for you to meet them and hear a little bit about what it's like behind the scenes over at Team KK. All right, here we go.

Intro 2:49

You're listening to the Success with Soul podcast with Kate Kordsmeier ex-journalist turned CEO of a multi six figure blog in online business. But it wasn't that long ago that Kate was a struggling entrepreneur who lacked confidence, clarity, and let's be honest money. But all those failures, experiments and lessons learned helped Kate create a thriving business that impacts 1000s and brings freedom, flexibility and fulfillment to her life. If you're ready to do the same and make something happen with holistic, soulful, step by step strategies from Kate and other experts, you're in the right place. Here's your host writer, educator, mom, recovering perfectionist, bookworm and sushi connoisseur Kate Kordsmeier

Rachel Silves 3:41

Welcome back to the Success with Soul podcast.I'm your guest host Rachel with Team KK and today we're doing another behind the Team Series with our COO Indira. Indira Dejtiar is the COO with Team K K and K its right hand woman she handles all the operations of the business support the team in every way possible. India is passionate about empowering women to create a life they love and utilizes her years of experience in operations, management and coaching to support the success of Team KK and all the amazing women that they serve. Indira is a certified online business manager OBM NLP practitioner Clinical Hypnotherapist success and life coach, EFT practitioner and is currently working towards becoming a certified Law of Attraction coach, an astrologer a feminist and proud member of the BI POC and LGBTQ plus communities. Indira is vehemently committed to social justice issues.She shares a home with her fiance their two kids, dog and recently adopted kitten. Indira we are so happy to have you here today. We just did the warm welcome for you. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what part of the world you are in?

Indira 4:54

Yes retail so excited to be on the other side of That's Success with Soul podcast. So as you mentioned, I'm Indira and I am currently in South Florida. And as of this recording, I'm actually going through the aftermath of hurricane Ian and my neighbors just two hours west of me. So that's been really sad. But you know, I love working remotely. And that has given me the ability to work out of a country and in the mountains and all sorts of amazing places.

Rachel Silves 5:37

Awesome. So then you just for our listeners, you are in West Florida. Is that right? Indira?

Indira 5:43

I'm actually in South Florida so many people would say like South Beach, Miami Beach. So I grew up here. So I'm actually back home, I came back home to South Florida.

Rachel Silves 5:54

Awesome, awesome. Well, can you tell us a little bit about your role in the company? What do you do on Team KK?

Indira 6:01

Yeah, so I am the COO. So I'm the chief operating officer for Team KK I like to say I am Kate's like, right hand woman, I handle all things operations and team. And my job is to just basically ensure that we are putting all the systems in place so that Team KK can grow and hopefully impact as many lives as possible in the process.

Rachel Silves 6:34

I love that Indira. So I want to hear a little bit about your experience before joining Team KK because I know in your bio, you have 1 million certification. So tell us a little bit about your experience before joining Team KK what's your favorite certification? And what's on the horizon for you next?

Indira 6:49

Yeah. So professional background, like I have been part of operations, I've worked as Director of Operations, I've worked in sales and marketing, I have worked in all kinds of different roles where I was supporting the business side and supporting the team side. And that's actually what I found that I love the most. And that is really working with the team supporting I like to say I'm here to support your success. So that has been really like my favorite thing of all the experiences that I've accumulated through the years through the different positions that I've had, I have a background, I know you mentioned certifications. I'm also like a licensed real estate broker, I, you know, worked in the real estate arena for over 15 years in both the operation side as well as like sales and marketing. And so I'm a licensed broker as well. And yeah, I have a handful of certifications. And a lot of that is because I love to learn. And I love to consistently gain tools that I can use to bring into the workplace. So one of the things that I love is leading from a place of coaching. I think that when you lead a team when you lead a business, and you frame it from a coaching angle, that everything just is smoother and flows better. And so I became certified as an NLP practitioner and life and success coach, EFT hypnotherapy all of it, because I really wanted to use those skills to help clients and also to communicate better and more effectively with our team and any team that I've been with. I was a former CEO, I had my own online, certified OPM as well. And I had actually my own, you know, successful service based online business for over four years before joining Team KK. And so it was definitely interesting to go from entrepreneur to intrapreneur. And I don't think I would have done that for anyone else besides Team KK for sure.

Rachel Silves 9:23

Well, thanks for sharing a little bit about your very wide and diverse background. I didn't know you were a real estate broker. So that's really exciting for me to learn something new. So tell us Indira, you've done so many different things. You have so much different experience. What do you consider your zone of genius

Indira 9:39

100% team. So one of the things that I love to do is hire and grow the team so you know that I did all of your interviews and went through the whole hiring process for you for Olivia and I have done that successfully for all the clients that I've worked for and the teams that I've been with. One of the things that I'm really proud of is that I can look back with people that I placed in a team. And four years later, they're still with that team. So I really love the level of retention that I've been able to produce for teams when hiring team members. And I would definitely say that's my zone of genius, interacting with people leading people building a team, being a cheerleader. I'm my sun sign is in Leo. And so I'm just like a natural born cheerleader that I'm like, yeah, come on, team. And like I mentioned before, that's where I adopted the phrase, I'm here to support your success, I genuinely come from a place of like, I just want us to succeed. Because I view for example, I see Team KK's success as my own success. So I'm like intimately connected to it.

Rachel Silves 11:04

I love that Indira. And I can totally feel that from being on the team and ensuring that you like embody the whole cheerleading vibe like that definitely comes out in your leadership style. And I've been super impressed. I worked in the field of employment for a long time and had my own service based business. And that's I was familiar with hiring. But team KKs hiring process is like top notch, and I have a feeling that is directly from some of the things that you've implemented Indira. So thank you so much for sharing a little bit more about that. The next question that I have is, which one of our team values do you embody the most, and I can run through our team values for our podcast listeners. So we are scrappy, growth oriented achievers, we actually care. We make mistakes, which is a big one for us. We're always learning which we already heard Indira talk a little bit about so there's maybe a spoiler alert for you. And then we're boundary pushing confident badass is who ask why not us? And we take care of ourselves, and we leave the world a better place. So which one of those do you feel like you embody the most Indira? So I just want to

Indira 12:04

say that I 100% align with everything. I remember when I was reading the job description for this role that I found myself saying yes, yes. Hell yeah. Like it was amazing. But if I had to choose just one, I would say we are scrappy, growth oriented achievers, because I really can relate that I love that we are constantly, you know, looking for out of the box solutions. Actually, I love that we're always looking for solutions, right? A problem rises up and right away, we all come together and like, okay, like, can we put our heads together? And can we find a solution? And I just love that about our team. I actually did that yesterday is like, Hey, everyone, can you please take a look at this loom? Let's put all our brains together. And we always come up with the solutions. And that's definitely my favorite team value.

Rachel Silves 13:00

Yeah, I love that about our team too. For sure. There's, there's always a way and when we work together, amazing things can happen. So yeah, I feel that also. Yeah. So when you look at our company culture as a whole, what is one thing that people might be surprised about working on Team KK or surprised about Kate? That

Indira 13:19

what we portray in terms of like, who you see on the website, what you hear on the podcast, we actually do what we say we're going to do, there are no like, you know, peeling back the curtain like, oh, and the team really doesn't look like the way they say, you would think I think that we are exactly like we're walking our talk. Exactly. And I and being in the online business for so many years and having different clients, oftentimes we look especially at like certain entrepreneurs and we see them and we think like, oh my god, their business must be amazing. And then you peel back the curtain and the back end is like a hot mess and you would never expect that. And I would say the complete opposite. I think that if people peeled back the curtain of Team K K and saw our amazing SOPs, our amazing project management like the way we run Team K K, I think is like the best I've ever seen in any business I've ever been a part of whether brick and mortar or in the online space for sure. Yeah, I

Rachel Silves 14:40

couldn't agree more. And that authenticity piece is something that I really feel like we embody as a team and K herself like you see what you get with K, that's for sure. And I love that about our team.

Kate Kordsmeier 14:55

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Rachel Silves 16:44

So Indira, your case right hand woman, what piece of advice would you give someone who's looking for their own right hand person? So someone hiring for a COO? What kind of advice would you have to give them about hiring?

Indira 16:56

Definitely, I would say their values. Like one of the things that I did when I applied for the position is I actually have all my values as part of my business website. And I actually included my values. Because I think it's so important to really, you know, when you're hiring for my position, you're the right hand person, right? So you need to be able to complement one another strengths and weaknesses. Part of that is definitely aligning with the values. And you'd be surprised how important the soft skills are. Sometimes even more so than the hard skills, right hard skills you can learn, you have SOPs, you can train someone to learn a certain tool, a certain project, you can do all of that you can train someone, but the soft skills, those are things that you accumulate through experience. And I definitely would say that when you're hiring for this position to really focus on how do you align with the person's values? And how do you match with the soft skills, everything else it can be taught. That's not to say that someone with no experience, obviously that doesn't make sense either. But I read somewhere statistically, men who have like 60% of the required, you know, when you look at the job description, if they have anywhere from 40 to 60% of you know what's listed, they'll apply. Women apply when they have 90% of what's listed. And so, I would definitely encourage people that when you're looking for this position that you actually put that statement out and that you stay like even if you only have 40 to 60% go ahead and apply because you'd be surprised that you can find like someone who is amazing and may not have checked everything off.

Rachel Silves 19:08

I love that Indira so tell us a fun fact about you get to know you better putting you on the spot a little bit here but tell us something that makes you unique.

Indira 19:18

Well I am obsessed with astrology as you know I have been since I was a little kid and I'm finally taking a course to like become a professional astrologer but more importantly like I want to learn how to read birth charts I'm so I'm I'm really excited about that. Yeah,

Rachel Silves 19:38

well we're really excited about it too as the beneficiaries of probably some of Indira's astrology work and yeah, so a little teaser to come for our listeners who may have Indira do some future astrology type things inside our incubator or even here on the podcast. So stay tuned for that. So Indira, we are going to go into my favorite the lightning round. So I've got some questions for you too. I'm kind of shout at you. And now we'll hear your lightning round answers. Are you ready to go? Yes. Okay, what's your favorite way to make time for self care?

Indira 20:09

Reading, reading and journaling? I like to just, I have a beautiful little area in my living room. Great Light on my books are there so love just reading and journaling?

Rachel Silves 20:24

Awesome. What is one tool or strategy that you use to help with time

Indira 20:28

management? Block Scheduling? I've been using that for years. But after interviewing several people and asking that question, one of the tools that I do want to start implementing for time management is something that our incubator client recommended, which was to do the tasks that require the most effort at the top of the hour when you're like, and then to Save the ones that you know, are least effort required towards the end of the day.

Rachel Silves 20:59

Oh, two for one tips from a viewer on the line management today. What is the most powerful business mindset or entrepreneurial book you've ever read the one that you reference over and over, and that's made the biggest difference in your life.

Indira 21:13

So anyone who knows Team KK you guys know that we're all ferocious readers on the team and I read on average, four to five books a month, read multiple books at the same time. So this is really hard for me. However, in the position that I've been in, I would say that dare to lead by Brene Brown has been a book that I have read and reread countless times because it's a wonderful reminder of what it takes to be a good and efficient leader so I love that plus I love you know, she's the one who says clear is kind unclear is unkind, which is something that I feel we follow in Team KK so I love that.

Rachel Silves 22:00

I agree. I love that too. And I love our team library. That's part of our kind of benefits package on Team KK that was super exciting to figure out when I first got hired. So yeah, I couldn't agree more about the dare to lead book. Okay, so mindset question, what's your favorite quote, or a mantra or affirmation when things get tough, and you feel like giving up,

Indira 22:18

fail early, fail often, but always fail forward by John Maxwell. One of the things that I learned when I became an NLP practitioner that was really drilled in was that failure is nothing more than feedback. And you need to fail your way to success. That I mean, hearing it now, right? That is like, of course, it makes common, it's common sense. But for years, the idea of failing was a complete reframe that I had to do to really embrace it and not see failure, as I am a failure, not identifying with the failure, just like oh, that's feedback. It didn't work. So let's try something different. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you.

Rachel Silves 23:07

And your one thing about our team that I really like just going back to our values is that we often we make mistakes, and we own up to our mistakes. And we use our mistakes as feedback so that we can move the business forward, we even have, like in our Slack channel, kind of a company culture where we like put in our mistakes for everyone to see even when we could hide them and keep them in the shadows. But that's one thing that's really important to our team is going back to kind of that authenticity and going back to that value around, we make mistakes, and we acknowledge our mistakes, we own them, and we use them as feedback to move forward. So I love that you share that quote with us. And then our last question in the lightning round is what does Success with Soul mean to you?

Indira 23:48

Yeah, Success with Soul means to me that you get to authentically do what you love, and make money doing so. Really, that's what it means like to authentically do what you love and then to be compensated for it. That's Success with

Rachel Silves 24:08

Soul. Boom, well, I think we're gonna end the podcast on that note today. Indira, thank you so much for your time and for sharing a little bit about your background and your zone of genius and yourself with our listeners today. We are so lucky to have you on Team KK. And we can't wait for all of the future things to come from your astrology certification and just all the changes that you are going to make in our business. So thank you so much. Indira, any parting last words for our listeners today?

Indira 24:34

Thank you so much, Rachel. This was awesome. And I would just say, parting last words. You get what you focus on. So you know, focus on expansion.

Rachel Silves 24:46

I love that. Thanks, Indira. Bye.

Kate Kordsmeier 24:52

I hope you've been inspired by this episode and feel ready to take action on your dreams and goals. If so, please hit subscribe. This makes it possible for me to continue to provide free helpful content and bring you amazing guests. Just go to iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe so that you know when we released a new episode, and you never miss a thing. Plus, we often put timely opportunities in our shows, so if you don't subscribe, you might miss something valuable

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