Jason (00:45)
Hi, Kathryn how are you?

Kathryn Janicek (00:47)
I'm great. Thanks for having me, Jason.

Jason (00:49)
it's my pleasure. Thanks for making time for the Wise in Five as you know, and people who are watching and listening know, I'm not in my normal element. I'm at Indiana University. teach a class here every week on entrepreneurship. And so I don't have my hat, the hats back there. I'm wearing a sport coat. So I look a little bit more polished, but I know we're going to have a great conversation, probably even better because all of this smart wise juices are flowing here at the university.

Kathryn Janicek (01:15)
You look very collegiate today.

Jason (01:16)
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, people will think I'm a fifth year senior, so.

Kathryn Janicek (01:20)
Exactly. We call them a super senior in college.

Jason (01:23)
I'm

a super senior, which I'm called anyway, you when I walked down the street, right? That's a super senior, these old... I did, I did. It's a whole nother story, whole nother podcast. Before we dive into the wise in five questions, would you mind sharing a bit about your journey? I know the people who are watching and listening would love to hear more about you.

Kathryn Janicek (01:31)
Are you the discount already? No, you're too young. You're too young.

Great. I love hearing people's stories, right? I started out in television. I was in TV for 20 years. I led television programs. I was the VP of News at a network. And then ⁓ 12 years ago, I started the company. Honestly, this is a good founder story. I was laid off. A network was going down, and I was laid off from my job.

Jason (02:02)
Thank

Kathryn Janicek (02:09)
And I started a company because I found myself saying, you know what, how can I, I loved, I loved what I, what I saw that was good in the media when it came to people in their messaging, et cetera. But I also saw a lot of CEOs, spokespeople, people who manage brands, right? Do it not so great on television. So I started the company with media training. We help people with whether they're going to be on 60 minutes.

MSNBC, Bloomberg News, give the messaging of their company. Sell more stuff, right? Attract people to their company, whatever it is. And then a lot of CEOs said, I really need you to train our entire executive team, our sales team, all of our branch managers across the country to be better at making a bigger impact with anybody that they're speaking to. Make sure that they have that executive presence. Make sure that they captivate audiences, be more magnetic, inspirational. So I took that from TV background because

Honestly, I coached anchors and reporters how to captivate an audience for 30 seconds more, another minute, keep them through the commercial break. And that's what I teach Fortune 500 leaders to do now. Have more impact every time they show up.

Jason (03:16)
That's fantastic. Well, and obviously 12 years, right? You've built a great business. And so you're fantastic at what you do. And I'm thrilled that you're an advisor on The Wisory and that we're going to dive into these questions together. So the first question I have, which I ask everyone who comes on is where do you find inspiration just in daily life?

Kathryn Janicek (03:35)
I'm really fortunate that I get to talk to some of the smartest people on a daily basis. I'm sitting here on Zoom or I fly into companies and I get to sit down with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, their executive teams, the CFOs, the head of HR, the COOs, their sales teams, whoever it is. And also I advise a lot of companies who are at the 30 million mark or a hundred million mark,

founders. I'm inspired. mean, Jason, there is no lack of inspiration. I get to sit there and when I'm sitting there and I'm preparing them to be on a conference panel or ⁓ give a keynote and they're giving their story, their journey of how they took a company from 10 million to 300 million or how they are creating a new product inside of a fortune 500 company. And they're acting really entrepreneurial or whatever it is, or they're trying to get the word out to

because maybe they're laying off people and they're talking about where they got there. And then I'm trying to help them, know, weave the story and keep the attention and not lose, you the stock market, all that stuff, right? Like hearing their stories and advising them, I'm inspired by them on a daily basis. So I'm very lucky. I, I, I'm, I'll say something personal too. I'm an older mom. I'm going to be 50 next year and I have a six year old.

And I'm realizing I have a brand new source of inspiration. I am driving to ballet class sometimes and I have a couple six-year-olds in the back and I hear the confidence that they have. And it is a big, sometimes wake up call because I go in and I help, like I said, Fortune 500 leaders where sometimes they're not so confident to deliver their message.

And they have got that inner critic and inner dialogue, you know, is telling them that they maybe they're going to blow it. Right. So I see the confidence on both ends right now. I'm seeing it from the six year olds and I'm seeing it from 60 year olds. And I realize, you know, my job is to help boost the confidence of these folks who are in these very large, you know, positions and make sure that they do the thing that they need to do very successfully. And then I'm also seeing, wow, we've

we've somehow lose our confidence, right? So it's really neat. I'm trying to keep the confidence in a six-year-old and see how long I can keep her confident. And also I am the consultant, the one-on-one coach for a lot of people to help get their confidence back. So it's really interesting. I'm being inspired recently by my six-year-old to keep my confidence and help others keep their confidence or build their confidence.

Jason (06:07)
Mm-hmm.

That is terrific. Well, I am confident you're gonna keep your daughter's confidence because you are a force of nature. So I know that's gonna happen. I have no doubt about that. So thank you for sharing. Right, right. So second question I have, given what you do and helping these CEOs and tenure level people kind of create their message and communicate it in a clear way, what strategies do you use to help these business leaders develop executive presence?

Kathryn Janicek (06:27)
I'm driven for her too.

Jason (06:43)
and communicate with impact in these high-stakes situations.

Kathryn Janicek (06:47)
Our strategy is, it sounds really simple, but it's something that people aren't doing inside of companies. We do a lot of practice. well, first is our strategy is the awareness, right? What are we not doing that people are just not even aware that they're not doing? I get a lot of, no one ever told me this. I'll have a CEO who'll say, my gosh, you told me that I don't have good eye contact, that I...

when I talk, I'm all over the place or that I wiggle my legs and it maybe says this about myself or I have a lot of filler words and it maybe makes it sound like I'm unprepared. So one is I create that self-awareness. We do in our firm, we have lots of coaches and we create that self-awareness. We then practice, right? There's a lot of practice to put it into action. And then they get feedback. They get feedback immediately. I always tell people, you're gonna get feedback.

after spending an hour with us. And they are like, no, no, no. They have these lightning moments, like lightning bolt moments where they say, I had no idea I was doing this. So part of the strategy is honestly, they get the feedback internally inside their companies immediately after we coach them. And so it's honestly like this circle, then they come back and they're like, give me more feedback, right? Or who else can you, you know, coach? So it's putting into being self-aware.

putting it into practice and then getting that feedback, hearing the results, so knowing, this is working, you know, it's reflection back to them. They also reflect, they go, wow, you know, I could have been working on this years ago too. But that's really the strategy is, know, awareness, practice, and then getting that feedback and then keep doing it, right? It's a circle.

Jason (08:27)
Yep, that makes

total sense. it's that, I would think it's a challenge or just self-awareness for a lot of people, not knowing what that roadmap is that you helped.

Kathryn Janicek (08:34)
Yeah, yeah. They just don't know. And then once they see it, we put everybody on camera, whether or not they're being coached on Zoom or Teams or in person when we come in with our team, they get to see it. And then that's immediate. Like they're like, wow, you I wish someone would have recorded me. No one ever says, I wish someone has been following me around with a camera. Let me tell you, nobody says

Jason (08:47)
Thank you.

Everyone

has a phone, right? So people are following you around all the time with the camera.

Kathryn Janicek (09:01)
Right,

that's why we should be more self-aware.

Jason (09:04)
Exactly. So you mentioned that you came out of media and the newsroom. What lessons, from that journalistic background and crisis communications career inform how you coach leaders to both manage teams and foster trust?

Kathryn Janicek (09:17)
The lessons I saw, know, I ran these television shows and I would have CEOs on my show all the time. And I saw just common mistakes of like, they're not preparing. Everybody thinks that they can wing it. They think, you know what, I talk about these things all the time when I'm speaking to our company or I'm speaking to the board or when I'm landing a big customer and they're not preparing for.

the media, they're not preparing for a speech. Like there's a very specific way, there's a specific way we speak in a sound bite for the media. There's a specific way we captivate the attention of an audience. Every one of these different audiences, whether it's live or taped or a podcast or it's a panel, it's a very different way we answer questions and our body language is different, our vocal delivery is very different. And so it's people just not preparing.

They're not, winging it. They have a little bit of extra confidence that they, you know, they just, they're confident in other places and then they see it and they blow it and they're like, well, gosh, I didn't know. You know, it's a lot of just not knowing. The worst thing that happens is people feeling like they, their audience is feeling like they weren't worth preparing for. So a CEO will...

Jason (10:29)
you

Kathryn Janicek (10:36)
be told you need to give remarks or kick off our Q4 or Q2 or tell people what they need to do for Q4, show up at the town hall meeting, right? You're gonna start the town hall meeting or give a couple comments. And when a CEO or someone else doesn't look like they prepared for it, the whole audience, it could be 100 employees, it could be 2000 employees, it could be a TV audience. You feel when someone just didn't give it the time to prepare. And so then you feel like I wasn't worth it.

So imagine as an employee, know, boy, I wasn't worth him or her preparing a couple of remarks, you know, going through what they should say. So that's an awful feeling to have when you're, you

Jason (11:04)
Right.

That

is such a fantastic perspective because I think, maybe I'll say it about myself, sometimes I'll feel like I did a really good job communicating because I got out what I wanted to get out, but it may not have been what people felt like they needed to hear, right? And so I think that's a really great point for people to hold on to.

Kathryn Janicek (11:33)
I, when we prepare someone to speak to one person or many, say, who's the audience? Where, what are they dealing with on that day? You know, even to the like, what time is it? What day are you delivering it? And what do they need to hear from you? You know, where are they going through? What are they expecting? What's the elephant in the room? What are they here? What are, what's the rumor mill? Right? We address that right away. We don't wait till the end. We don't wait for questions. You know, you just get that right out.

but you've got to focus on the audience first instead of what you just want to talk about. Yeah.

Jason (12:04)
I think that's

terrific. So, and this next question, we may have answered it, but I'm gonna ask it. what common mistakes do business executives make when communicating in public? And what are your tips for avoiding them? So I think what we just talked about is really good. Are there any other tips that you'd suggest that business executives think about?

Kathryn Janicek (12:23)
We have to be proactive. We got to have a plan. There's going to be a crisis. It could be a layoff. could be somebody, gosh, could be a shooting. It could be a lot of things. coach universities. We coach lot of school shootings, right? A crisis is going to happen. Whether it's small or large on the grand scale of things, it is.

Jason (12:42)
I'm at the

university now. That kind of concerned me. Okay, thank you.

Kathryn Janicek (12:45)
It's not going to happen where you are. ⁓

But you know, a crisis is going to happen inside of a company and someone has to be trained to talk. And then the entire organization needs to know what the plan is. Like, what do we say? What do we don't say? What is the exact messaging? When I, in my life before starting a company, I was the spokesperson for a major law enforcement agency and there was a major crisis. The 35W

bridge collapse in the Mississippi River. And I saw it firsthand where they weren't ready. You know, was brand new on the job. was three months in and there was no spokesperson was not trained. There was no backup communications person. when, you know, there was me, right? There was no plan B, plan C. The sheriff wasn't trained and ready for that to communicate with the media, to communicate with the community and let them know that everybody was safe, that this wasn't, this wasn't.

terrorism, this was infrastructure, like how do we, how often do we communicate? So we just need a plan. There has to be a plan and somebody has to be ready to answer the tough questions and the easy questions and how we're going to answer them to make sure that people get the messaging that we want out, right? Not what they're just going to grab onto.

Jason (13:57)
That's right.

Yeah, terrific. We are actually at the last question, Kathryn I mean, you're doing an amazing job, no surprise.

So what's the most important lesson you've learned from handling crisis situations that business leaders should know today?

Kathryn Janicek (14:13)
The biggest one is from handling crisis situations is that you need to have a plan, like plan for the worst, right? Plan for the worst. You, I know you want to make an impact. want to make a big, every single leader wants to make a very large impact in the world. And we're so focused on the day to day and, growing our, growing our revenue, growing whatever it is, even all of this stuff, right? But just make sure you plan also for.

crisis or plan for the worse. Make sure you know, you have your ducks in the row and you know, because you want to make sure to keep your top performers there. And you know, when crisis happens, sometimes people leave, right? We want to make sure we keep that. We keep investors happy. We keep the stock market going well. You you keep your stock prices. We've got to keep all that great. So the more you can prepare and plan, the better for these kinds of things for good and bad, right? Got to prepare.

Jason (15:07)
Right, absolutely.

Right, you don't want potentially a small issue to become a huge issue because you let other people fill in the gaps of what's happening versus you're taking control of

Kathryn Janicek (15:16)
Yeah. And you know what I'm seeing, Jason, and you see this too, is a lot of people are really excited about things like their town hall meetings and just basic things, right? And creating videos for their employees. And then they just throw their team out there, but they don't get them ready for delivering on this, right? Delivering to a team on video. They are very good. And I'm seeing videos of really great CEOs, really great salespeople, and they're awesome in person.

but they're not preparing them for delivering with a microphone and delivering, sitting down with a CEO and having one of those like fireside chats. They're not preparing for something that seems basic to someone like me, to someone like you, Jason, but it is not easy for the majority of leaders. And we're hearing a lot of people go like, if they're in leadership, they should already know how to do that. And I'm going to tell you right now,

That is not something a lot of companies prepare leaders for, to perform like this, like a spokesperson. And so we should not assume that your leadership is ready to be a great spokesperson. And that is something that the best companies are preparing their leaders for. This is not something you're born doing well.

Jason (16:32)
Right?

And it makes total sense because, you know, some may look at it as a cost, but it's really investment. And I bet you can draw a straight line from people who can deliver a message well and what it does to their stock price, what it does to their growth, what it does to their employee retention. People want to work at the company versus people who don't do a good job.

Kathryn Janicek (16:53)
Presentation skills is now the number one skill that CEOs need to have. And everybody knows that. That is absolutely the number one.

Jason (17:00)
I love it. Great. Well, that was our last question, but I do have a bonus question. And Kathryn, no surprise you passed with flying colors. The bonus question, what questions or advice should our business leaders ask you as they engage with you on The Wisory?

Kathryn Janicek (17:14)
Great question. And I'm excited to engage with more people on The Wisory. I'm excited. one is, you know, I know every leader that comes to us who comes to us wants to make a bigger impact. So how do you do that? Right. How do you stand out with your messaging? How do you stand out on LinkedIn? Those are things that we can easily solve. can easily solve messaging. How should you be talking about your company? What's going to sound right to the media to at a conference, you know, an industry panel, or if you're out there,

talking to a brand new, the biggest client you've ever listened, you know, talked to, what is going to make you sound like, you know, what is going to make you differentiated? How to also mentor and coach your executive team and your sales team on how to communicate to land more business. There are words that we teach that are costing you business, that are, that are making your company sound like the prices should be lower, right? And you don't even know that, like a lot of people don't know that. And just...

how to captivate, come to me to talk about like how to captivate any audience and how to make sure that you dominate any media interview. I can't wait to help pour into these business leaders. I'm excited. I'm excited to be a part of The Wisory.

Jason (18:22)
Well, thank you. And I'm excited too. And I believe what you do, you can, like I mentioned before, you can draw a straight line. There's an immediate impact that you can show by just spending a little bit of time with you to help coach on those words, on the platform you create, on the way you communicate to make sure that the message truly lands the way you want it to land.

Kathryn Janicek (18:41)
That's what we've been told by $20 billion companies and $60 billion companies. There is a direct line. Absolutely, Jason. Yes. Yes.

Jason (18:43)
Hahaha

Well,

Kathryn I can't thank you enough for making the time for the Wise in Five for being an amazing advisor on The Wisory I'm just honored to have you as part of it. So thank you.

Kathryn Janicek (19:00)
I'm excited to be a part of it. I'm excited to know you. You're a great person. So this is.

Jason (19:04)
Well,

I truly appreciate that. Back at you. So thank you. Have a wonderful rest of the day.

Kathryn Janicek (19:09)
Thank you, you too.