Episode 033
Marissa Levin
How do you move from being a practitioner to a leader of a multi-million dollar empire? Join Alice Tang as she speaks with Marissa Levin, a four-time founder who has built and sold several successful companies. Marissa breaks down the “Million Dollar Resting Point” and explains why business owners must be willing to let go of the people, processes, and infrastructure that got them to their first milestone in order to reach the next. If you are feeling “too big to do it alone but too small to scale,” Marissa’s insights on mindset and infrastructure are essential.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
-The Evolution of Leadership: The necessary shift from Practitioner to Manager to Leader.
-Mindset as an Asset: Why embracing your small size allows you to be nimbler and more responsive than larger competitors.
-The Compassionate Coach: How to transition loyal staff when the company outgrows their current skillset.
-Values-Based Decision Making: Using core values as a North Star to materialize answers for high-stakes decisions.
"Everything in our life and in our business comes back to core values. What do you stand for? What's your north star? What's your moral compass? When we can bring it back to the core values, usually our answers will very quickly materialize."
(0:00) Welcome to Women’s Million Dollar Conversations with Alice Tang, where we share stories from (0:06) successful businesswomen who have saved, earned or sold over a million dollars and discuss how (0:13) they built their success and insights to help you achieve your goals. Now let’s join the conversation. (0:21) Hello everyone, I’m Alice Tang.
I am doing a recording with my wonderful new friend, (0:28) Marisa Levin, who is from the East Coast. And it’s all about learning from our guest, Marisa, (0:35) how she got to her million because we are in Women’s Million Dollar Conversations. So (0:41) Marisa, welcome.
I’d like you to share a few things about yourself so that the audience (0:47) know who you are and how great you are running a few businesses. And then now you’re into your (0:52) fourth venture. Thank you.
It’s so great to be here and thank you for providing this platform (1:00) and creating this community. It’s such a service to so many, Alice. I’m Marisa Levin, (1:05) and I’m a 30-year entrepreneur.
As you mentioned, I’m just launching my fourth venture. I built my (1:12) first venture to about $14 million with about 75 people. I exited that 13 years ago, which (1:19) is crazy.
It seems like it was just yesterday and also seems like a lifetime ago. (1:24) Then I launched a second business called Successful Culture, grew that and evolved (1:29) that with a partner to create Successful Culture International. And we sold that last summer.
(1:35) So that was a year-long process of going through the whole merger and acquisition process. (1:40) And I’ve now launched i5 Conscious Leadership, which is really the culmination of my 30-year (1:46) entrepreneurial journey integrated with my whole spiritual path. I had two sons, two adult sons who (1:53) are 26 and almost 23, and I live in Bethesda, Maryland.
Yay. Yay. And we want to do a shout (2:01) out of our common friend, Mr. Bill Case, who is a well-known referral coach in the financial (2:08) industry and beyond.
And he’s the connector between Marisa and me. So thank you, Bill. (2:14) So first question, what’s the value of money for you, Marisa? (2:18) What is the value of money? To me, I’ve never been defined by the material world or by materialism.
(2:26) At its core, money is a bartering tool. It is not connected to our identity. It’s not connected to (2:32) our self-worth.
For me, it’s a bartering tool. Now, it is something that is a gateway to be able to (2:38) help others, to be a philanthropist, to be able to lift and educate others, to be able to invest (2:44) in our businesses, invest in ourselves, to be able to save for our family. So it provides many (2:51) different vehicles to be able to improve life for others.
I try very hard not to associate my (2:58) identity and my worth with my monetary worth. Oh, this is so noble. I’m so grateful that you said (3:05) you’re not attached to it, yet the detachment actually brings freedom.
It does. Oh, yeah. Our (3:12) spiritual freedom, our psychological freedom definitely comes from non-attachment to things (3:19) that are outside of us.
And that includes the material world and the monetary world. (3:24) Great. So I’m going to ask you to take you back to maybe a decade, two decades or how many decades (3:29) ago, we don’t share age here, but I think everybody has a journey when they run starting a (3:35) company right here or starting saving, whatever that reason or platform is, we get to the million.
(3:43) Usually when we get there, the first million is the most difficult. Would you tell us a little
(3:48) bit about that and what are some of the bias? I love this question. And so I’ll talk about (3:53) building a multimillion dollar company.
And I’ve written about this. I was a columnist for Inc (3:58) Magazine for many years on leadership and corporate culture. And I have written about (4:02) the journey to that first million.
And it’s a wonderful number and it feels good coming off (4:08) the tongue and it feels very as if we’ve accomplished something. But being at that (4:13) million dollars when you are a business owner is by far the hardest place to be because you are too (4:19) big to do everything yourself and you’re too small to build an infrastructure and to build a team that (4:27) is really robust. When I used to mentor and coach other up and coming entrepreneurs and young (4:33) entrepreneurs, I always said to them that a million dollars is a wonderful goal for a business, (4:39) but it’s what I called a resting point.
It is not a place where you want to stay because it just (4:45) gets too hard. You really need an infrastructure to support a million dollars of revenue coming in. (4:51) But as I mentioned, it’s expensive to build an infrastructure.
And so if you’re at the million (4:57) dollar mark, a lot of the money that you’re bringing in is also going to be going right out (5:02) the door. And so when we can put a plan in place to go from, say, a million dollars to three million (5:07) to five million and be really mindful about that roadmap, that’s where we’re going to really be (5:12) able to start feeling the comfort of building a multimillion dollar business. A resting point, (5:17) a million dollar mark, what we got here.
So specifically, Marisa, if we were to take you
(5:23) back there, how long does it take for you to get to that million? I think that really depends on the (5:28) business model and it also depends on the mindset. So when I started my first company, like so many, (5:34) I started it because I wanted to follow my passion. I wanted to follow what I love doing.
(5:39) I wanted to monetize my purpose. That’s really what I wanted to do. I wanted to put profit behind (5:44) my passion.
And so I started the business as the practitioner. And as the business grows, (5:51) you then have to move from practitioner to manager and you bring in a few hires and then you’re not (5:57) doing all of the work, but you’re managing the work. And then you move from manager to leader (6:01) and you’ve promoted your manager.
And that’s like the building of the organization. The mindset part (6:08) is a lot of times when we start our first businesses, we are the small fish in the small (6:13) pond. We go after the small clients, the small jobs, the manageable types of work.
If we’re (6:20) going to grow, we have to be willing to go to be the large fish in the small pond and then the small (6:26) fish in the larger pond. And we have to start playing with the big boys and we’ve got to start (6:31) competing against the larger organizations. We need to have the mindset that we are just as (6:38) qualified and just as capable as the companies that have been there before us and that are (6:43) larger than us.
And we have to be able to lean into the story that because we’re smaller, (6:48) we can provide better service. We are nimbler. We can respond more quickly.
And we have to really (6:54) embrace our size, even when we’re small. So building a multimillion dollar business from (7:00) a million dollar business is really a mindset of believing that our size is an asset, that it’s (7:07) not a liability. And the time it will take us to get from half a million to 3 million to 5 million (7:14) to 10 million, it all depends on a lot of things.
It depends on the types of clients that we go for, (7:21) the size of the jobs, right? I was a government contractor. And when we went into the government, (7:25) we went from being a million dollar business overnight to a $7 million business because we (7:31) were winning very large contracts. We have to be willing, and this is really important, Alice, (7:37) to say no to the good, to make room for the great.
So that means saying no to things that (7:43) maybe worked for us in the past, but no longer work for us in the future. And one of the most (7:48) important books that I read when I was building my first company was by Marshall Goldsmith, (7:53) What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. And so we have to be willing to let go of everything that (8:00) may have gotten us to a million that may not get us to 5 million.
And that includes our people, (8:05) our processes, our infrastructure, our customers, our vendors. Everything changes when we go from (8:14) 1 million to 3 million to 5 million to 10 million. And we have to be willing to let go of everything (8:21) that got us to one point in order to go to the next.
Very good. So know where you’re at and be (8:28) able to take a look at the situation, leverage it as an asset instead of a liability, and being (8:35) able to let go of the good when you are wanting to get to the great, because time is probably the most (8:44) unreplenishable asset. And it’s very hard.
Like when I started my first company, I had people who (8:48) were with me from the very beginning, and they were so loyal. And what do we want to do as business (8:53) owners and leaders? We want to promote from within, we want to reward loyalty. A lot of times, people (9:00) who are in those positions, they may work really well for a million dollar company, they may not (9:05) work really well for a 3 million or 5 million dollar company.
And so it’s that emotional (9:12) entanglement that we get in of holding on to people because we feel loyal to them. But when we hold on (9:18) to people that no longer fit within our company, we’re not only doing ourselves a disservice, we’re (9:23) doing a disservice to them as well. So it’s understanding how to compassionately coach people (9:29) out of your organization when they no longer serve you.
Beautifully said, I have goosebumps when I hear (9:36) those great people, you feel loyal to them. Don’t we love people? We thank them for hanging in there (9:42) so that we can get to a certain milestone, put it this way. As simple as having coaches in my life, (9:49) I can say that sometimes I’ve known there is a place where I have outgrown what they can give me, (9:55) so it’s time to say goodbye.
So there is a song for that too, it’s time to say goodbye. (10:01) Yeah, again, that non-attachment, right? But still we’re grateful, put it this way, we’re grateful (10:07) for the journey that we have together. And as I mentioned, it’s the compassionate piece, right? (10:12) Like how we compassionately coach people out of our organizations when they’re no longer serving (10:18) us as best they can, which means they’re no longer serving themselves as best they can.
(10:22) Absolutely. When you are in a situation where you have to make a huge decision and the stakes are (10:29) really higher, what process do you use? Would you share with us? Sure, so that’s an easy answer for (10:36) me. We go back to the core values.
What do we stand for? Every decision in a business can be (10:44) traced back to the core values, whether you’re hiring someone, whether you’re firing someone, (10:50) whether you’re deciding to take on a client, whether you’re deciding to fire a client, (10:54) whatever big decisions are, everything in our life and in our business comes back to core values. (11:00) What do you stand for? What’s your North Star? What’s your moral compass? And when we can bring (11:04) it back to the core values, usually our answers will very quickly materialize. Know your core (11:11) values and always know when you are uncertain.
Very good. In the journey of building one, two, (11:18) three, now the fourth company, I’m sure there are times that where you say, gosh, this is so hard
(11:24) and I really want to quit. However, what kept you going? So what keeps me going and especially with (11:31) this new company, which I really do feel is the culmination of my 30 years of entrepreneurial (11:36) experience and then my spiritual path.
What really keeps me going is what I call a lifetime (11:41) legacy mission. And I made up that term and it’s to empower 1 billion people to live their most (11:47) joyful lives. So I feel that I’m on this planet and this lifetime to alleviate suffering.
And I do (11:54) that through the work that I do. And I’m grateful for my entrepreneurial journey and my communications (12:00) gifts and my strategic mind that I can bring all of that to the world through my organizations and (12:07) leaders in organizations are in a very auspicious and unique position where they have the opportunity (12:16) to elevate the consciousness of those that they work with. And so through my new company, (12:20) I5 Conscious Leadership, that’s what we do.
We train leaders how to become their most (12:27) conscious selves, how to become highly conscious leaders. And then in turn, they’re able to create (12:32) environments where employees feel seen and heard and relevant and safe and connected to something (12:38) larger than themselves. And so that’s what keeps me going.
It’s that mission every day when I wake (12:44) up and I remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. Beautiful. There is a lot of women who’s looking (12:51) for role models like yourself.
If you can leave them, because I know you have a lot of nuggets,
(12:57) one top piece of advice that is in your mind today, what would you give them? (13:02) So I live by a mantra that when we become part of the universe becomes part of us. And what that (13:08) translates into mentorship or helping other women would be ask for help, put yourself out there, (13:16) join different communities that are like minded where you can grow, embrace humility, (13:23) and always ask for assistance. There’s no shame ever in putting yourself out there saying, (13:29) I need help.
I’m struggling with this problem or my mindset is not in a great place. I have worked (13:37) with thousands of leaders in hundreds of organizations over the last 30 years. And Alice, (13:43) I will tell you that what I’ve learned through all of my coaching and training and facilitating (13:49) is that while every problem can be challenging, no problem is unique within a business.
And what (13:57) that does is it gives us comfort that we’re not alone. And it should give us comfort that (14:02) everything is what I call figureoutable. So while the challenge may feel really overwhelming at (14:09) times that we’re carrying and we may feel alone, we’re not alone.
There are other people that have (14:15) already experienced what we’ve experienced. They’ve solved the problem we’re trying to solve. (14:19) And when we put ourselves out in the universe and we ask for help, that’s when we can get the (14:24) answers.
So that’s the most important piece of advice that I would give anyone. When we are in (14:29) a situation, when we are challenged, we are not alone. So just have the courage to go out and (14:35) ask for help.
And sometimes it’s harder for women than men. There’s a book that I recall, I’m sure (14:41) you might have heard or even read it. It’s called The Gift of Asking.
So recently I have a book club (14:48) with a bunch of women and I call them Wolfpack. It’s really giving yourself the permission to ask. (14:54) Yes, give yourself permission to ask.
And receive. That’s the other thing, right? Women by nature are (14:59) givers. And sometimes we have difficulty receiving.
And when we can lean into the role of being the (15:07) receiver, not only do we benefit from what we are getting, but the person who is giving to us (15:13) also benefits because they want to help us. So it’s not just leaning into the ask, it’s leaning (15:20) into the receiving. Beautiful is that.
I’d just like to add something at the end, if I may. So when (15:27) somebody gave you help, you always go back to the person and tell them how the help has landed. (15:35) Because whether the help is helpful or not, they want to know.
They emotionally have invested.
(15:42) Last question, what are you grateful for? Oh my God, that’s the longest question. I wake up every (15:50) day grateful for my health.
I’m a melanoma survivor. I feel very grateful that I had great (15:55) medical care that caught my melanoma twice. And I’m here to live another day.
So I’m very grateful (16:00) for my health. I’m very grateful for my family, my two amazing sons, Jared and Jordan. They’re at (16:07) the top of the list.
I’m grateful for the health of everyone that I love. I’m grateful for the (16:11) gifts that I’ve been given, as well as those that I’ve cultivated with intention to be able to help (16:18) others. And I live from gratitude.
We are grateful for you, Marisa, for your time and your willingness (16:25) to give. And when the audience want to find you, where do they go? I would love for them to visit (16:33) our website. And there’s a white paper there that they can download that I wrote that is on the (16:37) connection between self-awareness and leadership.
And that’s all grounded in Harvard research. And (16:43) they can go to I5 Conscious Leadership. So that’s www.i, the letter I, the number five, (16:51) ConsciousLeadership.com. They can reach me there.
And then also follow me on LinkedIn. I’m on (16:56) a lot of the social media platforms, but LinkedIn is my social media home. And you can find me at (17:02) Marisa111.
So those are the two main ways. And then my speaking platform is Marisa International. (17:08) So those would be the three ways to get to me.
(17:11) That’s super great. Thank you so much for today. And we want to send our best regards to whatever (17:17) you’re going to do today.
Thank you, Alice. Thank you again for creating this space to (17:22) be able to have this conversation. Yeah, we love to have role models like you.
Marissa is a seasoned entrepreneur, bestselling author, and transformative leadership expert with a 30-year track record of building five successful companies. Her diverse journey—spanning corporate achievements, overcoming cancer, and serving as a hospice volunteer—informs her singular mission: awakening joy in others.
As an entrepreneur, speaker, and certified ICF Coach with a Master’s Degree in Organizational Development, Marissa blends strategic expertise with a soulful approach. She guides individuals, leaders, and organizations to confront growth obstacles and step into their highest potential, firmly believing that joy is accessible to everyone, even in the darkest moments.
Marissa’s commitment to lifelong evolution is evident in her extensive certifications, including Instructional Systems Design, emotional intelligence (EQi), the Enneagram, and Conscious Facilitation. She is dedicated to creating transformative experiences that lead her clients toward their most fulfilling and joyful lives.