Jeremy Weisz 13:00
This is one story.
Katrina German 13:01
It was called one story, yeah. And so we created that platform where, basically it was a way for communications people to crowdsource video, essentially, and get people’s opinions about things from anywhere. And so we worked with a lot of change organizations, some of the best communications people in the world, like United Nations women, we got men standing up for women’s rights in Albania using our platform. So it was a really incredible experience.
But I was in an area where there wasn’t a lot of support for tech founders, and so I did a lot of traveling to connect to different markets and understand how to build things. I learned my marketing skills from some of the best in the world, which are technology founders and some of the other communications people for these large groups. So when that company unfortunately didn’t make it, but it was an excellent experience. Still advise women to start a tech company. We need you. But basically, I started working with, I worked with a local government agency to get other technology companies to commercialization. So I worked with about 70 different groups and got them to the point where they could sell their tech product. And the biggest thing I noticed is that people had a really cool idea, but they weren’t sure how to find their market, like where people were, or they maybe had the wrong idea about which market wanted them, and didn’t really know how to test and find the best place in an inexpensive way that people might be wanting to pick them up.
So I actually wrote a book called Action Tracking: Master Digital Marketing in Under 30 Days, and I really just intended it to be a resource for people, because it is a kind of compilation of some of the things that I’d learned for some of these technology companies. But what I ended up finding said I got swamped with requests of people who wanted to work and have me implement some of the systems. So over COVID, actually we started the agency just before COVID started, and I had four people we were ramping up. We had a great list of clients and who we were working with and who were coming in. And then within that first month, we lost half of our clients.
Our leads list dried right up. It was crickets, and this was a new business. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to weather the storm in, as an entrepreneur, or if I wanted to go find somewhere safe and go and work for somebody else for a period of time. So I laid off most of my staff. I had two of us that were just kind of wrapping things up, and then things got busy. We went from two people to 18 people over COVID, as everybody realized they needed to be online. So it was a very intense growth period, and it was very exciting. But as I mentioned, I started watching what was happening online over COVID. I was just like, oh no. Like, am I contributing to something that is going to be harmful for people? I’m a social impact entrepreneur overall. And I just was like, I was concerned.
And so we started doing these studies. And honestly, it took a bit of courage for me to, it took a bit of time for me to get to the position where I was willing to put myself out there as a social impact entrepreneur that we were going to be working on these things that made people’s lives better. I was worried that we’re going to lose our base of marketing people. We were going to work with potential leads, all that kind of stuff. The biggest thing I learned, though, was that actually people started coming to us that we really wanted to be working with too, because our brand really, like attracted like. So it took some courage to change the name to ethical digital, to move into this space and really start leaning into some of our beliefs.
And like I said, the biggest surprise that I’ve found coming out of this is how many other people are seeing the internet in the same way we are, as I’m putting it out there publicly and wanting to join and be a part of the community who’s coming up with solutions going forward.
Jeremy Weisz 16:54
It’s really interesting. Katrina, thanks for sharing that sometimes we have our biggest learnings and breakthroughs from things that don’t work. And what do you think it was about one story that what was learning from there? Were you too early? Like, what do you think it was that didn’t work?
Katrina German 17:18
Yeah, I do think you’re right. It was a timing thing. A lot of our work at that point was convincing people that authentic video, just talking heads, would capture people’s attentions. And it was just, yeah, just an early time in technology, they say it’s risky, right? A lot of startups fail, but you pour your heart and soul into it, and most of the research out there about why some tech startups succeed and others don’t. It basically boils down to timing. There’s a great TED talk, I can’t remember the author of it, but it’s really about timing. And I’m like, How am I supposed to plan for that?
In the meantime, even though it didn’t work out, I really strongly encourage other people, if you see an issue that’s happening over and over that is not only something you need to solve for yourself, but you see other people in your industry who probably could benefit from that solution, create a technology product, see if you can get it out there. It’s a great new product stream, but we need a lot of different voices creating that future of the internet. And so this is sort of a call for underrepresented groups to start thinking about, how can I solve this problem? Or, geez, there’s no software that exists to do this. And I do this every day, and I really need to fix this.
Technology is a perfect way to do that. And so, I really look at technology as a way to solve problems. And so, want to be conscious about what we’re creating. But in the meantime, it’s a really important thing that we can do to diversify your business and also, just, include more solutions online that can help people who are just like you.
Jeremy Weisz 18:54
What did you learn from one story that you now took into the next company, maybe somebody did the same, maybe something you did differently.
Katrina German 19:05
I think the biggest thing is building partnerships, I think, is probably one of the largest things in both companies. We never would have gotten to the heights that we did achieve. Even for me right now, I work in a small city in the middle of Canada, and I’m able to work with people around the world who are very big names, because other people are doing introductions they believe in what you’re doing. So a little bit of start with why.
People need to understand your intentions and what you’re trying to accomplish, and if they buy in, they’re going to do what they can to help you elevate that idea. And so we get a ton of our business and just our, just general media and different pieces around that, because, to your point, at the beginning, dealing equitably and having really strong partnerships with people and just really trying to lift others constantly as part of our corporate culture is probably one of the best things that you can do for any business.
Jeremy Weisz 20:07
Talk about the decision to become a B Corp, right? Maybe you could talk about some of the criteria, but it is. It’s extensive to do that, and when you’re busy, you’re starting a business. Why? And it’s probably time consuming. It costs a lot of money. What’s the criteria? And then talk about why?
Katrina German 20:30
Yeah. So basically, the idea behind B Corp is that it’s not just a business that’s there just for profit. You’re also thinking about people and planet. And so it’s a certification in Canada, but it’s also in the States as well, and I think around the world that it took us actually a year to be certified, and there was an expense, and it was time consuming to do. And to be honest…
Jeremy Weisz 20:52
And you have to do you have to keep it up. It’s not like you do it once and you’re like, oh, we’re good to go for the rest of our lives. Like you have to keep up with that.
Katrina German 21:01
Yes, and I’m a strong believer that business, like it, doesn’t have to be just profit. I believe you can do good in the world and use business as your vehicle it should be and profit. And so, we’re demonstrating that right now, that you can have a good business and do good in the world at the same time. And so this was sort of an indicator of our intention, and we wanted to work with some of the larger corporations who also value a B Corp status. So there was some economic reasons to do it as well. And I’ll tell you, it’s actually brought us some really great advantages over time.
So not only does it signal our intention that we’re here to do good in the world as well for our employee retention, like, man, I get people weekly coming to wants to work for us. It also is really great for signaling to our partners and people who want to work with us. It actually for those big organizations, even if they’re maybe not there completely on the social good side, they still need to check some boxes around TSG and making sure that they’re being more diverse. So we wanted to make give ourselves a competitive advantage as well. But ultimately, it’s really come with some interesting things.
So we actually just are an agency who just received access to Google 360 which is the highest level of ads that you can be offering. There is sort of the best software, I believe, in the world for doing ads. So if you’re doing ads anyway, you might as well use something that’s going to get you the best return you possibly can. And this is a very expensive software. It’s not something that we could achieve, like, it’s almost half a million dollars just for the license.
Never mind, any ad spend on top of that, this is not something that we could achieve as our small business and as a startup. And so because we’re a B Corp, we’re doing good in the world, though, we were able to get access to that. And so now that gives us Google gets a market channel partner, our businesses that we work with, the people we work with, get the very best ads they possibly can in the world. And then us as an agency, get to get the word out there, there even further. So those are just some of, like, the tangible things that have come through with being a part of that community.
And yeah, so it was really important for us to signal, hey, we’re not just here. We’re here for the cash, like we’re building a business here, where we’re building something big, but we’re also as we’re doing it, we’re building right in to everything that we’re doing. We want to make sure that things are good for humans and good for the planet.
Jeremy Weisz 23:24
Yeah, so I mean, it’s a lot of work. I looked, I looked in and someone was talking about it, I looked into some of the criteria, like, it’s not just a one time thing. It’s like, whoa. It’s a lot. So, kudos to you for going through it, and hopefully you get a lot of benefits out of it, not just that, but through partnerships or people like really understanding your values and then other benefits just from doing that. So let’s talk about, one of the things that you help with is corporate training. And what are the fan favorite, popular topics that you have on the corporate training side?
Katrina German 24:04
So of course, we do custom trainings, like a lot of people do. So I actually just did a AI in business for Chamber of Commerce group. We had 250 people in that room, which was fantastic. I’m actually doing a keynote about my career and how social media affects mental health. We have 1,800 people signed up for that on Monday, which is really exciting. And so there’s a lot of kind of neat things that we can do, custom wise. But really, the ones that are taking off are really, I think, are interesting.
So we have one just basically around digital literacy, so just understanding how the internet works, how that affects you as a person, yeah, and how it affects potentially mental health. We’ve also got ones that are just on productivity as well, so on sleep, how we’re actually communicating with each other. But the biggest one that’s been quite interesting, that has really taken off is around hybrid workplaces. I actually don’t even know if it’s on here, because I’m on the website…
Jeremy Weisz 24:58
By the way, if you’re listening to the audio, there is a video component. So you can check this out. We have been sharing some of the ethicaldigital.ca and you can see we’re on the ethicaldigital.ca and then they have a training page. So you can check it out if you want to hear but you can see some of the topics.
Katrina German 25:20
Yeah. So my apologies for breaking the fourth wall for those who are just listening rather than watching the video, but yeah, the one is around the hybrid workplace. So again, one of the research that we did around our social media and how we’re communicating with each other is very applicable to all of these groups who really moved a major part of their communication to teams and Slack and so very similar things of just understanding how to develop an internal culture when most of your communication is being done online.
So small things right, like don’t use all caps when you’re typing, emojis actually mean very different things to very different generations, even other things, like for me, for example, when I’m writing a text, I’ll often put a period at the end. When my son gets that, who’s 18, he’s like, Mom, are you mad at me? Because I’m like, no, I’m just using good punctuation. It’s very different, there’s very subtle things in the intergenerational workforce, in some people being, speaking and actually being in the room while others are zooming in. There’s a lot of pieces around those communications pieces that can really, just need to be talked about. Need to be nuanced.
Really, the idea of establishing a culture where you assume good intent from the person who’s sending information, even if it may come across a bit sharp or something through that communication, how can you then follow up to make sure there’s no emotions behind it, things like that? So it’s really had a very strong uptake. And I was presenting for a large Insurance Group. And it was the second day of their team meetings. I was the very last presentation between three and five. I was between all the people and dinner and the bar, and I thought, oh, they’re gonna want me out of here quick. Opposite, they actually kept me half an hour late because they just had so many questions.
And that felt really good, because you know that there’s a really strong interest for people, for themselves as humans to understand and help work in their families and for themselves personally, but also how you can be developing a culture where you’re still communicating online, but you’re doing it in a way that everybody feels connected and lifted by that type of work. So yeah, so it’s kind of a strange niche, but honestly, it’s been really powerful, and actually had some significant changes for those organizations. So exciting.
Jeremy Weisz 27:50
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Yeah. I think a lot of things can be misinterpreted via sometimes text based communication, and I have found that as well. And like if it was just being had a simple conversation, it would have been avoided. So totally agree on that. I’ve experienced that before many times. So sometimes it just makes sense to pick up the phone, but I would love to talk about the hiring side, right? Obviously you grew a team with one story, and now with Ethical Digital and you grew fast from two to 18. Talk about what’s worked for you in the hiring process.
Katrina German 28:36
Yeah, it’s been interesting. I’ve actually even since reduced the team a little bit to just be more manageable, but the hiring process is interesting. Again, it’s been helpful for us to really, kind of lead with our values and really look for people who are inspired by that, which also tends to bring us a lot of younger people. They’re very aware of cause based type things, and so that’s been kind of a nice option that’s really come out of these pieces. But I think it’s that old adage of higher slow, fire fast. And I have to admit, I’m always, not always the best at kind of seeing an issue in time.
Sometimes it takes me a couple of months to learn a lesson, but it is one of those things where, once you have a really strong team, there’s just nothing more powerful. And right now, my team is so tight, it’s just wonderful, even though we’re all virtual, like we have a completely virtual office. I have people across Canada but yet, you know, a lot of people are doing tasks for others before they even get a chance to, it’s really, kind of moves like a really nice machine, really strong communication between everybody, not to say there’s not issues, you know, it’s a bunch of people working together. There’s always going to be something.
But once you have that team kind of melded together, and it’s sort of, in our case, again, values-based everybody believes in what we’re doing. And we have a fair, fairly high level of transparency too, in terms of, I share probably a lot more than a lot of other business owners do, in terms of, like, here’s where we’re at. But also we’re a startup. I just want people to understand what you know, how every action that we take actually impacts the overall success of the business. So if we have a client who’s unhappy, that’s a problem. If you know that kind of stuff, and now everybody understands those values, and we do everything we can to ensure that that’s not going to be the case going forward. And it’s really become a really strong, cohesive group.
And I feel quite lucky to have the people that I have. But again, it does take some time and we’re also really lucky too. I actually, in a weird way, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take this conversation to the idea of letting people go. And I was actually just featured in Steve Cadigan had a TikTok, and he was a farmer HR person for LinkedIn when LinkedIn had their big growth. He’s also a mentor of mine. And he was actually talking because I had an executive assistant, she’s fantastic, but I was only able to keep her on half time instead of whole time full time. And so instead of it kind of being a strange thing where she had to sneak around and maybe find another job or anything, we just kept open communication through the entire thing.
And I actually started recruiting for her, asking into my communities like, hey, do you have room for half time for her, that sort of thing? Because I want her to have a successful life. I still want her to be involved with me. Is there a way that we could set that up. Now, she has another position. She’s very happy in it. She’s still connected with our business, and probably has one, probably one of our strongest advocates. And we still find that a majority of the people who leave our organization, they still come back, they still drop us notes like, how’s it going? Love what you’re doing, and they’ve become advocates for us.
And there are other worlds that they go into to build and so I think, in a weird way, letting people go, like, if you know, if you’re in a business and you know the things you’re just not able to employ the number that you need, that sort of thing. I actually, I don’t know if they’d write this in the books, but I actually found just having that really open conversation and being like, I’m here with you. Let’s walk through this together, maybe a little bit extra of what I’m doing. It’s not a layoff, it’s not a you’re fired or anything like that. It’s just, here’s what I can see coming. I’d like to work with you to get us both to the position that we need to be. It’s been the most powerful thing that I can do, actually, and so I weirdly have pride in the way that a majority of people have left the company.
Jeremy Weisz 32:33
No thanks for sharing that. What else from that? You mentioned your mentor. What else have you learned from them?
Katrina German 32:40
Yeah, yeah. I’ve been actually very fortunate to have some incredible mentors in my life. Will Bunker, he was a founder of match.com, every time I call him, he just drops these pearls of knowledge. I’m just like, what? Thank you. Neil Dempsey is actually, he’s the managing partner of Bay Partners, and he was actually one of the early investors in Starbucks, and has since gone on to invest in many, many other companies, especially women-led companies and so I’m very lucky that I get to communicate with him very regularly. I also have a lot of organizations that we’re a part of that really, really take us that much further rate.
In our city, we have like innovation Saskatchewan and collider, which is a space. We have investment groups like Startup TNT in the firehood. We’ve got all sorts of entrepreneurial groups from West the women entrepreneurs group to Boundless, which is out of Ontario, who’ve taken us on as clients. And so we’ve been really lucky. And partners, we have the diversity Institute out of Toronto, NACO, which is the National Angel Association here in the province, in Canada. And honestly, I could go on, we literally have, we literally work with about 100 different partnerships a year.
Because again, even from that level of just checking in, how are things going, sharing something in an event that they’re doing to the next level, we’re actually doing projects together and making really big things happen.
Jeremy Weisz 34:15
Thanks for sharing that, and you mentioned it earlier too, about how important partnerships are. And some people may have the opposite approach, to be like, well, I’m so busy I don’t have time. So talk about why it’s so important to be involved in these groups.
Katrina German 34:31
It is time-consuming to build relationships. There’s no question. But I often find that right now, I’m in the position where if I have a question for my business, I can usually think about three or four people that I can go to help elevate that. And so it’s not necessarily that I need a one specific person. I actually am working with an amazing coach right now. Her name is Claudia Folga. We’re working on money mindset, and it has been an exceptional experience working with her. But it’s also the idea that, yeah, you can get guidance to do your work better.
But again, it’s sort of creating a small army, I guess, of other people who are also doing referrals, and just believe in what you’re doing. And you don’t know the kind of magic that’ll come out of that. And like, we get a lot of strange I have no idea where they’ve come from. I was just nominated for a Woman of the Year Award for Canadian Technology Group. And I have no idea how I got nominated. I don’t know where it came from, somebody somewhere saw my name and put it forward. And I really appreciate those types of things. And so, those are kind of the advantages of it, where it really having a strong group of people that you’re working with just elevates everything that you do.
Jeremy Weisz 35:43
I’m the same as you, Katrina. People say, oh, what groups are you in? And I’ll start listing them. I’m like, whoa. I’m in like, seven or nine groups. That’s like, a lot of time, but I agree. It’s like, there’s nothing that shortcuts things better than, like, a great relationship or a partnership and someone that may have taken a ton of time, energy and money, can shortcut that for me, or I can shortcut that for them, hopefully, too. Talk about the money mindset for a second, and what have you learned around that has helped you?
Katrina German 36:15
This has been such an interesting amount of work that I’ve been going through. And again, Claudia is incredible. She’s built several, she’s from the Valley area, and she’s built from the HR perspective, four different groups from 10 to hundreds of people. So she really has some really strong skills in scaling. And one of the big things that I’ve really taken away from it is, we all have beliefs around money. It’s just how it is. And a lot of it comes from childhood experiences, from overall experiences. And I had a company go under that provides some money trauma when you’re going through those types of experiences.
And so really taking the time to explore your mindset around it. What are some of your beliefs that may be blocking you? So for example, for me, I have some questions about, am I worthy, right? You know, should I be making money, all that kind of stuff. And these are really personal questions. Everybody’s gonna have a different experience with it, but ultimately, taking that time to actually explore. And we’ve actually been doing some inner child work, which is really interesting to me. I’ve done a lot of spiritual work, but never done a lot of inner child work. And so, basically, I’ll give you the high, high level, just in case someone else can walk away and be like, oh, interesting.
I want to try that. Essentially, if something goes on, like, let’s just say, I get triggered about something. I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to hire, or something like that. And I actually feel it in my heart that minute, that I feel it. I can do this exercise right then, or I can kind of table it and do it that night. I basically go back and ask my question, when was the first time you felt that way? And it’s been interesting, because I’ve even done presentations on my experience as a woman entrepreneur and my money mindset.
So I sort of have a money story that I can share with the high levels of and all that kind of stuff. But all the things that have been coming up are very subtle. So I remember not being able to get the same jackets that all the other girls from my classes in grade six, all had, which is such a small thing, not a thing.
Jeremy Weisz 38:20
I’m scarring my kids right now, is what you’re saying, Katrina.
Katrina German 38:25
Small things that probably have no implement, anything on.
Jeremy Weisz 38:30
I have no doubt I’m scarring though.
Katrina German 38:32
Yeah, just actually going back and like, feeling it. And then what you do is very gently parent yourself and be like, hey, grade six, Katrina, this sucks. Like that feels really, that doesn’t feel close. You know, you’re not feeling connected to your community. You’re feeling like an outsider already, because you’re at that age and all that kind of stuff, and really just being gentle with yourself. And I really found I didn’t realize I was carrying all these mindset boulders and hauling them around. And then once I kind of explore them, neutralize the feeling, make my inner child feel heard. It’s been amazing, actually, how light I’ve been feeling, and it’s a really excellent exercise. So yeah, there’s a big shout-out to my coach right now. She’ll love that.
Jeremy Weisz 39:12
I love it. There’s a TV show. I don’t know if you’ve seen it or heard of it. It’s called Being Erica. And it takes this person goes back to those times in their past and either changes them or doesn’t. So it’s a super interesting show, but it reminds me of what you’re saying. My wife and I binge-watched that together. Last question and Katrina just thanks for sharing your journey, your story, your lessons, and I want to encourage everyone to check out ethicaldigital.ca to learn more. Last question is just more. I know you have a lot of groups, a lot of mentors have helped you. Are there any other like books or resources that you recommend, that you’ve looked at in your business career, obviously, besides Action Tracking, which is your book, and people can check that out too, any favorite business or leadership books for you.
Katrina German 40:12
I literally have hundreds of books. If you can see the video, I’m behind me. I’m an avid reader. I really enjoy lifting myself. I use books like drugs. To be honest, when I need to calm down, I read some fiction when I need to amp up, get some motivation. I get into business books to help me get there. I think one of my favorites that has had the most impact in the recent times has been Atomic Habits. And I know it’s a very popular business book, but I actually, I implemented that. I have an app that I check every day of just the different habits I want to do. And I just want to say, at the age of mid 40s, I am now a bedmaker. I did not make my bed before.
That’s embarrassing to say, but I thought I was being extra efficient by not even dealing with it. There’s some of those small things, like just things that who do I want to be? So I know this sounds hilarious, but I want to be an older woman with great arms, so I do 10 push-ups a day. No big deal. I know. I know. But the idea with the Atomic Habits is not that you’re going to do a big push where you’re just going to have, like a big push into making a change. It’s that you make incremental changes in your daily life to reach a long-term goal. And so I’ve really found it effective, just for my physical health, my mental health, my relationships with people. Just a reminder, hey, send a text to your mom things like that.
Jeremy Weisz 41:32
I love it. Thank you, Katrina, for sharing everything. Everyone check out ethicaldigital.ca check out more episodes of the podcast, and we’ll see everyone next time. Katrina, thanks so much.
Katrina German 41:43
Thank you.
