The Visionary Files

Identifying, Pitching, and Training a COO or Business Partner to Grow with More Ease with Susan Terzakis: Visionary / Integrator Series 1 of 3

Adriane Galea, Susan Terzakis Episode 103

Susan Terzakis, CEO and founder of Terzakis and Associates, spends her days advocating for woman- and family-owned small businesses as an advisory specialist.

Essentially, she is a micro-small business champion, and someone you’ll have the pleasure of learning from, simply by listening to her think through her ideas.

When I tell you this episode – part 1, speaking to the “visionary” half of a dynamic mother/daughter duo –  is chock full of business lesson after business lesson after business lesson...

Well, be forewarned to keep your listening ears ON and your backtrack thumb at the ready!

There is just so much wisdom in what she has to say and how she says it. 


Quick overview of what we cover:

  • Why Susan believes (so passionately!) that having a healthy small business community means... you have a healthy community (i.e. - one cannot survive without the other)
  • The turning point when she decided she was done representing others and really wanted her own voice to be heard
  • Why she describes the first couple years in business as the time when she effectively created “A really nice job, one where I only got paid when I worked” – and how she evolved into the CEO she is today
  • Why she feels that small business is an essential pathway for women to achieve financial independence and agency
  • How she was able to break her daughter’s “W2 habits,” and what happened for her to say, “I knew in that moment, I had a full partner…” **chills**
  • Her strategy to counteract the “costly and dangerous” groupthink behavior she sees so often in family-owned businesses
  • Why emotional intelligence is so important to have when successfully running a family business, including knowing deeply, “I am not my business.”


RESOURCES: 


LET’S CONNECT: 


CONNECT WITH SUSAN: 


ABOUT SUSAN:
Susan Terzakis has experienced an exceptionally successful career in public service and private organizational development, strategy, and senior leadership over the last +27 years. In 2014, Susan founded Terzakis & Associates, a small business advising firm, which is an advocate for micro-small businesses, she is a Women Owned Small Businesses (WOSB) champion, Veteran and family owned small business advisory specialist. 

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