182 | Social Impact Business Growth Hormone with Júlio Maria Muhorro
Our guest today on the pod is Júlio Maria Muhorro. Júlio is an award-winning, mission driven entrepreneur. He is the founder of Sharing Knowledge International and in 2019 was recognized as one of the 100 most influential Young Africans - top 10 in Social Business and Philanthropy.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
THE IMPERFECT SHOW NOTES
To help make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who like to read rather than listen to podcasts, we’d love to offer polished show notes. However, Awarepreneurs is still a startup with limited resources. So we’re not there yet.
What we can offer now is these imperfect show notes via the Otter.ai service. The transcription is far from perfect. But hopefully it’s close enough - even with the errors - to give those who aren’t able or inclined to learn from audio interviews a way to participate.
Julio Maria Muhorro Awarepreneurs Interview
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Julio Maria Muhorro
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of The Awarepreneurs Podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview, the thought leader in this section, someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce our guests today and our topic, I have one request. If you could go over to iTunes or whatever app you're listening to the show on and do a rating and review. It helps tremendously. Thank you so much. Today, I'm thrilled to bring you Julia Marie mhada. And our topic today is social impact business growth hormone. Julio is an award winning mission driven entrepreneur. He's the founder of sharing knowledge International. And in 2019, was recognized as one of the top 100 most influential young Africans, top 10 for social business and philanthropy. Julia, welcome to the show. Hey, Paul, thank you very much for having me. We're pretty far apart as we're doing this here. Interview tell people where we're talking from? Yeah, sure. So I'm based in Mozambique, a beautiful country in southeast Africa. So literally across the ocean. Beautiful. Yeah. Close in hearts. But foreign miles. Yeah. So nice to have you here, Julia, we're so honored. We're called aware partnerships. And one of the things we like to do to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness or an awareness or some sort of practice that you use to bring your most resilient self to this important, but not always easy work, day after day, week after week. Sure. So I will definitely say reflection is one of the things that I've been using since I was a little kid. But it is the one thing that allowed me to connect the dots between everything that's going on in our lives in my life, particularly, because I found that especially today, we are always in autopilot looking for the next thing and the next thing, we almost never take time to really reflect on how things unfolded for us how we fell during the process, and what our next steps will be. So definitely schedule, five minutes, 10 minutes, ideally 30 minutes for just you to sit with yourself and reflect about your life. I did my seven minutes today, I do it almost every day right before we jumped on this interview, I couldn't agree more. This whole intersection of having positive impact, and particularly having positive impact in Africa, through the lens of social business, like when did that sort of come onto your radar? And you said, I want to do that.
Julio Maria Muhorro 02:43
So before that, I guess the first contact that I have was still in high school. And people were talking about the millennial development goals right before they've been called the SDGs. And I remember thinking, you know, that's fun and interesting. But this doesn't work in Africa, you know, we don't have the luxury to sort of focus on such higher causes, because you're literally focused in on surviving and thriving. But there was it was a father sort of like as a seed was planted in my mind. And then when I started my first business without realizing it was a whole sort of social online business because it was a professional training company, where we trained youth from underserved areas in Mozambique, and particularly the city of Shimazu and we will give them the hard skills for them to just have their first job or to start their own companies, plus a huge component on personal development skills in a very affordable price. So I was already sort of tapping into the social component, and even realizing it was when I joined a Mozambican company called IDEA Lab where they support entrepreneurs Don't be one on one. But moreover, ecosystem level, where I got to see how much impact revenue companies will make just by harnessing the power of social impact in using it as a social business or as as a growth hormone, as I like to call it. That was really the first point that I realized that Oh, you can make money and you can be doing some very good stuff in the road. And if you link them together, you can actually TEDx both your impact and your revenue. And such a huge portion of our audience. I was doing some research the other day, surely a huge portion of our audience are in that like exact space there between 18 and 24, or 25 to 34. That's more in terms of visits to our websites. For instance, listeners, that's more than 40%. About 43% of all the listeners to the web printer website are young people who want to do what you just said. So shout out in a wave we love our young listeners. Also know that social media
Paul Zelizer 05:00
Entrepreneurship is one of the fastest growing majors college campuses around the world. Why? Because you just answered the question. So you gave the answer. I want to give you the question, How do I earn a good living and make the world a better place? It's kind of a mess out there. And like, when people are looking around, they're like, Well, you know, NGOs are working for government. Yeah. But I don't know if I necessarily want to go that route. And that 10 X Factor bringing together a mission driven not like grabbing money for no reason kind of company with a really positive impact orientation for the communities that people care about. That is like one of the biggest questions in the world for people who are under 35. Right here right now. So I'm so thrilled to have you here. And I just wanted to give context to why I'm so excited.
Julio Maria Muhorro 05:52
Yeah, purple. And, yeah, if you just stop the look, and the statistics, everything is sort of backing you up, because it says that I believe 90% of the workforce, by the end of this year is going to be composed by millennials. And if you look isn't just in the workforce, they're also becoming we are also becoming the majority of the market for many other businesses. So that's a huge component. And if you also look for, you know, the social impact or social business industries, it says that there is about $500 billion available for funding for social businesses. So there is a huge market. For everyone listening, there is a huge market is a huge opportunity. And I always say that one thing about millennials is that because the junior the generations before us, made such a great job that we get the the privilege to look at higher causes, and think how we can make a living out of it. There's some nurses to clean up, aren't there? Yeah, they are there. But also they know that they are the masters, and they are the opportunities and we are very well positioned to recycle those masters, right. It's a very unique sort of environment that we find ourselves into this, in this decade, really. Si Si found you're like, you're a duck, you'd like water you got in water, you're swimming, you're happy, right? You found your sweet spot. And and you started to talk about it, this idea of social impact business growth hormone that, that having a social business can actually help you use 10 x both the positive impact you're having, and your ability to bring in revenue to that business. Talk to us a little bit about like, how does that even work? Yeah, sure. So like any armor, two main things that happen here is that one, you have a result you're trying to achieve, right in your case might be this amount of money, this amount of people impact, then you have a process that has to go through. And you have the sort of target, right, because the hormone has to go to specific organ in our body. So the specific sales type to really be effective when it comes down to your business using the social growth hormone. First of all, you have to identify what is the result you're trying to achieve. That's the number one rule, right, you have to get really clear, raw and real about the change, aka the impact you're trying to deliver to the road. Right, what's directly on that part, you can reverse engineering and see within the three main sort of social business growth hormone targets, which one is more relevant for you right now. And those targets are as follows. The first one are your employees, because again, millennials and Gen Zed, they end up making a good portion of the workforce. But even the older generation, they're much more aware of those causes. So make sure that you know what is important for your employees, I'll give you I'll be giving you guys a bit of some examples make things really go home. But then the second pile will be your sort of broaden community, including your clients, including you know, the government, including any sort of stakeholder that has a potential to make your business easier to cut your your your costs, or to just make it overall running business as usual, much more easier. And then the last part would be the shareholders. So you yourself as intrapreneur. And if you haven't sort of investors in your business, you also want to be aware of their needs and how you're going to deliver this hormone to them is going to reflect a specific change in your impact or a specific increase on the level of impact you're delivering to your business. And the process that you go through is by deciding as a business where you plane where you at the end of the day, excited Muslims in the road. They are sort of social aware, right? They know that it's nice to do some sort of support to the communities Most of them, they are actually doing some random stuff. So for instance, they might decide randomly at the end of the year, how much money they're going to donate or a cause, or, you know, there is the Black Lives Matter movement, and they just randomly decide to use the hashtag in their posts. Most of those businesses, even though they have good intentions, they're just doing random stuff, right? They're not fully aware of where they want to play, and how can they really deliver that their intention into fruition? Now, the second level of, of sort of playing with this with social input comes down when you're not only aware by we're actually friendly. So you are actually saying to have consistent activities, that no really show of how you are caring for the environment, how you're caring for other people, how you're caring for these social causes. And if you go deep down, you will find out the businesses that from scratch, their core businesses, or their core business is really the social impact for itself. So for instance, Chanel is international from the day one that I found that I knew I was all about economic growth and decent job creations. I mean, from day one, social impact is my core business. Right. And if you see how that sort of interacts with your revenue is that you can start making an impact after making your revenue. And that's where more businesses are playing at where you know, they sell. And after they sort of get your revenue, they decide how much you're going to contribute for a cause. The level next after that is when you are making money as you are impacting the road. A great example that comes to mind is the brand loci. So long story short, the founder said after he went father passed away, he does eimer, and you just selling bracelets without philosophy that you have to find balance in life. And so when you hit the high, stay humble, when to get a low, stay hopeful, and we will donate 10% or 20% of his profits for a course ended a time with assignment. But now they have every single course you can imagine. The beauty of that is that he doesn't have to wait to make the money to start impacting the role, right? He's already raising awareness out of those causes. And is immediately as you buy it, people receive it, right? And then the next level are really the business who their core business is the social impact. So even though let's say you start a business today, you have no clients, just for you showing up in raising awareness after a social course you are already impacting the environment, you already environment, whatever course you're trying to work on, either if it is child abuse, if it is woman violence, if it is access to education, access to water, whatever it is, because it is your core business, just you're showing up and being the marketplace, you are already creating some sort of impact.
Paul Zelizer 12:58
Well, you said so much. They're known my listeners, you know, I have my spiritual highlighter. So surely I'd like to pull out my spiritual highlighter and circle some things when a guest says something to help our listeners kind of make sure they are paying attention. So two things he said he could say 27 things but two things. The first one you said is to be clear, raw and real about your impact. Right. Listen to that listeners pay attention to what Julio just said, that was a truth bomb. Be clear, raw and real about your impact. I see a lot of people, I'm I'm pretty directly I see a lot of people put green lipstick on a pig. And they say this is my sustainable business like no, as long as the pig with green lipstick on it, right? No, no, no, it doesn't pass, it doesn't work. Or they're just very, very fuzzy. They're like, I want to do good in the world. And I have a business that does good in the world. And you try to like understand, well, that's great. Can you help me understand what the good in the world is that you do? And it just is a lot of words and their big concepts. But when you look like on the ground, how are you making a positive impact in real live humans real live communities, it gets really fuzzy, right? So I love what you said, Be clear, raw and real listeners and you're going to get more traction, you're going to get this, you know, growth hormone effect that Julie was telling us about. The second thing I wanted to highlight really is just those I love those different relationships with positive impact with social impact, whether you're just aware or you're friendly, or whether you baked it into the DNA of your business. And I would say in this particular if you go back 10 years ago, it wasn't always so helpful to me. It was it was harder, you know, it was easier to be in aware phase and get the benefits. I think the marketplace has shifted pretty dramatically in the past 10 years, to the fact that if you're just kind of, you know, putting on a nice ribbon or like you said We're gonna donate point 00 5% of our profits to pick whomever it's not very compelling in this marketplace. So the businesses that I'm seeing getting the most of this effect have baked this impact into everything they do, like you were describing earlier in that last relationship with impact. It's part of your core business to use your language. And again, I want to make sure listeners heard what you said there, because sometimes people come to me and say, I have an impact business ball, but I'm having a really hard time paying my bills. And as we unpack it, it's again, either really, really vague and fuzzy, or it's like, yeah, I'm gonna make a gazillion dollars. And once I make a gazillion dollars, then I'll give a little bit to help. It's not very compelling in today's market. Is that fair to say to them?
Julio Maria Muhorro 15:49
For sure it is. And again, statistics and data backs you up, I believe it was before 2016, less than 30% of American companies had a strong CSR system in place. And most of them were just using it to avoid taxes. But then, after 2016 80% of companies had a very strong justice system in place, that say just sales, how the world is shifting, in terms of really being taken social impact as a serious as a business aspect. And when you said about it, or why we will be discussing about it is essential, not only just for you being able to communicate your impact, but also that you know what you're doing, right, even when I say them all about economic empowerment and job creation, I'm very specific that you know, my focus our youth, my this is, I'm very clear about what I'm doing. I'm not trying to do everything. And because I can't do everything at the same time. So you have to prioritize. So that's for sure. 100% accurate.
Paul Zelizer 16:51
So you gave an example, loci talked about your business, can you give one more example of somebody you think has baked into the DNA is doing a great job of, you know, when they go to work every day, it's helping real world people, and that is creating this growth hormone social business, social impact as this business growth hormone. One more example?
Julio Maria Muhorro 17:15
Yeah, sure, I actually have two That will be fun to talk about. So the first one is one of my clients based in the US, actually. So this, he's around 45 years old. And he works on e commerce, most of his employees, they are around my age. So 2530 ish, 21. And the thing is, he's a genuine good guy, right? Even if like by talking to him, you could see, you could hear you can feel that he was really caring about his employees. And when we I would just sort of like was revising the benefits that he put together, they were all related to health care, you know, make it easy for the employees to get their face out, sort of more of benefits. But then, when I took a step back to look at his employees, most of them, they could actually afford a very pretty decent health care system. They weren't necessarily interested into buying owning a house, they were way more interested into traveling, either within the United States or abroad, they were super interested on making sure that their work matters, they really wanted to see any part of it or to be not just, you know, putting things in a box and shipping them to Amazon and that stuff. And something that I guess, not no one had sort of pinpoint before was that a lot of them. They were either immigrants or their parents, or they were generation of immigrants in the US, or their spouses were immigrants, or they were just such a great cause that was close to their hearts, because one of the friends are immigrants. And he wasn't doing anything with immigrants, right. And he was spending a lot of money paying for all those benefits that people were not really interested on. So just by revamping the benefit system in his company, he was able to increase the level of employee engagement up to 40%. And in six months, he was able to make almost double the money that he made in the previous year. And literally,
Paul Zelizer 19:15
within six months, listeners doubled this past six months, month, nice.
Julio Maria Muhorro 19:20
In six months, just because people were really more engaged, they really feel connected with the work they are doing. They could see right, for me was like, Well, if I show up at my maximum and work, I get to support this cause that I really love. And really just by doing that, so he didn't had to, you know, invest tons of money to change things. Just have to relocate a few things and make a very clear statement, a very clear message ovide his company was sending for and that allowed people to show up like never before effort having the results that he never really got before. Right. It was something very simple if you start to think about it, but most of the times we have those intentions or as an entrepreneur, so Question about case a. But our employees, if they don't feel connected, they won't show up, even though they might think that something beautiful you're working on. So for sure, social impact can really help your teammates show up on grade level, and thus increasing your profit. Because not just about revenue is about the profit that you're making the end of the day, right. I guess the other example was this electron was a nikken. brand, there have been a little bit obsessed with. So they have this beauty products, all natural base, or African based products, Mozambican based products, very high quality, they managed to, you know, get approved by all the regulation authorities and all that stuff. And they have a beautiful story where they source their products from female farmers in the north of Mozambique, which is one of the poorest regions in the country. That's a story that, you know, you will usually you will see that only on one of those flyers that no one reads, but they will never communicate in that in their social media, you will never communicating that with your stakeholders, right. And just by creating a proper communication mechanism within their business where, you know, they're not only communicate and render stuff, but they actually created a proper monitoring, evaluation and learning process. And then making sure that all the learnings and findings get to be shared with people who really care about that information. Really, their profit and theirs position increased drastically. And now they're really thinking about how we're going to take the business and international level. So some of the small tweaks, they will actually get to the final results in just a matter of you aligning your end goal, your vision to the actual process and communicating it with the right stakeholders. Basically,
Paul Zelizer 21:47
again, just another just jam a gold nugget, surely, not only is it important, I'm agreeing with you. Sounds like we agree that it that you bake your intentions into the DNA, the business, and make sure that every level you're looking at it. But we also have to tell people, we have to communicate and tell that story. so that people can people are looking for these kinds of brands, they want to spend money, and you're kind of brand listeners, but we got to tell them what we're doing. totally obvious, but it doesn't always happen. So anyway, I couldn't agree more. And I've seen some examples of people doing a fabulous job of like creating this incredible business, but they don't tell the story. And so then people just they only see the product, but they don't have a sense that the product has all these other levels beyond just the features of this particular makeup line or this particular consulting, or this particular food product, whatever. Okay, great. It's awesome that you sell these noodles, but you know, they're just like every other noodle at Whole Foods. Well, actually, this is somebody that we're going to interview on the show coming up. Mr. Lee's noodles, he's in all foods, but like, you know, he's got to tell the story of what he's doing differently and why he's doing it differently. Right. So yeah, great. So
Julio Maria Muhorro 23:10
something that I can add is that I found that when you say that we have to communicate in our business, especially small business owners, they get overwhelmed and like I'm already doing a lot, I don't know if I can do anything else. When it comes down to communicating with your clients, at least communicating your value. And the social impact that you're creating with your clients mostly think about three parts, right? They think about the production of the product or service, they think about the distribution, so how the product and service comes to their hands. And then they come they think about the consumption. So if if you're just starting out, just pick, whatever you think is going to really deliver the message you're trying to deliver an offer to your community, and focus in communicating that part first. And eventually you will grow to be able to communicate what's happening within that three stages of the process. But focusing to that, because right now clients are not just happy to notice that, oh, you actually offer me, you know, this product on an Ico package and all this stuff they want to know, how's the people feeling while they're working for your company? Are they happy with the app and why people are producing it? What is the carbon footprint for this thing to which my house? Right? And they also want to know, where did you source the materials, the raw materials from? Is it fair, and all that good stuff. So make sure you're communicating what really matters for your clients and not just for yourself.
Paul Zelizer 24:33
And one of the things I want to point out is that this storytelling in just as beautiful buckets that you outline, Julio sometimes, you know, impact oriented business owners, they might say, well, Paul, I hate like having to try to make it all instagrammable that now or are like I don't like to write and so like my newsletter, you know, like a month goes by and then two months go by and suddenly it's like four months since the last newsletter went out. Right? So, you know, I understand what you're saying that impact business. So not only are we doing all the things that every other business owner is doing the creative product and like maintaining good relationships with our employees, and taking care of the bookkeeping and the taxes and HR, gosh, there's a lot there. But on top of that, we're also supposed to be telling, you know, just to make it really easy listeners, what was really I was doing right now is he's on a podcast. It's not that hard to get on a pod, either create your own or jump on and you know, as a guest. So like, when people freak out, I'm like, just open your mouth and tell the stories, right? $200 worth of equipment, you sound like a world class podcast guest and yeah, but Julia leaves today. And I take care of everything, you know, in terms of getting it all polished up. And so anyway, I don't buy it that there's no way that's, you know, it can be really fun. It can be super relational. It doesn't all have to be, you know, 3000 word newsletters, or like making everything to the level of polish that Instagram looks for if you have a good story. And you can be relational and you know, do a circuit as a guest or start your own podcast, there are ways to do it that will fit and actually could be really fun and will increase your profits. So I don't buy it, listen, or you can find a way to do this without a lot of time. Or without it being stressful, it can actually be really fun. For sure, 100%. So let's do this. Let's take a quick break here from our sponsor me come back to me, I want to hear a little bit specifically about what's going on in Africa. Because that's not something we've talked a lot about on this podcast and a little bit more about how your business in particular were. Before we did that. If you have an impact business, and you wanted to grow, you want to help more people, and you would like to do it in a relational way, and you want to live a good life. While you're doing you want to make the income that you need to live well. One of the biggest deductions I can have, you can tell from my former rant is podcasting. Here's a little bit about why the average podcast episode is 42 minutes and 43 seconds long. Think about that for a minute. You have some time to unpack nuances, you have some ability to look at how things intersect. You can tell stories. It's relational. If it's an interview podcast, whether you're a guest, like Julio is today or host, I'm in that seat today. Either way, it's an incredibly relational deep dive format. That's what listeners want. They don't want the 13 word meme version of what you're doing. They want to know the nuances in the depth. podcast listeners are, in general, younger, more interested in innovative, they make more money. And they tend to be natural leaders that as people, their colleagues and their friends look to them for new ideas. And one of the places that they get those new ideas is by listening to podcasts. It's really quite amazing match between people who want to grow social business and people who are listening. We're printers has a podcast success team that whether you want to be a guest or host we're interested in both. We help people learn to do these things. Learn to do them. Well find podcasts sound good as a guest. Make a good pitch. So that people who you know have really established podcast want to have you on as a guest if you want to be host, you know, how do you like pay attention to your sound and all the things right will help you whether you want to be a guest host or both? Go check out the aware printers podcast success team adaware printers.com, forward slash podcast deaths, success. And thank you to everybody who helped sponsor this podcast by being a part of the team. So before they talk to us a little bit, let's wind back just a little bit. This whole thing of being, you know, one of the most influential young Africans, particularly in the social impact, social business space, like we have been, it was one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on we've been a little bit negligent, maybe a lot a bit negligent, we have not done a lot in Africa. We don't have a lot of listeners in Africa. We haven't had a lot of guests. So give us like help our audience kind of just widened back for a little bit and like what's happening in the realm of social business in Africa? And what are some of the things you're working on that caused this group of people to say, Julio is one of the guys who's moving things down here.
Julio Maria Muhorro 29:41
So surprisingly enough, even for me as an African because there is so much bias in the news is just part of the equation, right? There's so much poverty, so much heart and healing that has to happen. But there's also so much well as and beautiful things to do in Africa. In general, some of that, I guess, first things first, for everyone listening, Africa is a continent. So we have at least 53, or 52 countries in the continent. So there are a lot of countries. And even though it's a huge mass of land, we are completely different from each other. So that's First things first. Secondly, I found that within that crazy context, especially young people, they come to me most of the times trying to establish some sort of a social business or making sure that they have a social contribution, an example of a client, he is a lawyer. So he is a commercial lawyer working with other businesses, and business owners. And one of the things that he wanted to do was just offer sort of free lectures for people who works on local market, so they can at least the, the most formalized as possible as they can ensure be as a self employed person. So small things like that, that I found that people end up actually reaching out for me. And it's just something that's happening in Mozambique is happening really everywhere, as Africans, I believe is in within our court to make sure that we are aware of our social impact, because all we need, all we know how to do is by living in communities. So that's one. Now talking about the the award. So the funny story was, it was the year was 2018. And something I do with myself every quarter, is what I call the part of boot camps, where I really sit down and focus about you know, everything was going on, what went right, what went wrong, why was just a learning process, why should I be doing next and all that good stuff. And something that sort of came up out of that boot camp was that one, I was doing already a good job by wanting to play the next level. And two was that when I look back to the me business, it is I will attend to at the time I was I was still an employee. So what will happen is that my bosses or the partners that I work with, they will spend literally half of their speaking time showing people that I deserve to be in that room. You know, I'm African, I'm 25 years old, super young, back in the days, and I was like 23 years old. So people will really sort of like look at me and wondering what value I could bring to the table. So they will spend a lot of time thinking about that. And then even when it comes down to me, I have to spend a lot of time thinking about those things. And I was like, Well, if I have 10 minutes speaking time, I spent five minutes proving myself worthy to be here and then only five minutes. Speaking about the cost I really want speak about. That's right. And one of the such that I came up with was by reading the words, because if people will read my name and read my words, I didn't have to introduce myself and I will really focus on the values. And that's sort of like why kick started me winning three international awards in one year. And I guess the reason why I end up actually winning it was first of all, I applied for those awards, I found that many people not only in Africa, but in general, we are afraid to ask for what we want, and therefore we don't get it. And two is I had a track record. I had a consistent track record. Like I know how many people like trained I know how most of these people are doing, I know the change in the input that I created. And just having that track record ready and stored. Whatever those opportunities will come up, I was able to deliver. At least it was specific what happened with you know, this is a word of being one of the top 100 most efficient young Africa's top 10 for social business and philanthropy. When it comes down to the Dianna word that I want from the UK, it was literally one of the entrepreneurs I supported, who nominated me for this award. So again, it comes down to making sure that whatever you do, you are delivering the most value that you can deliver. I mean in this podcast is for free. I dropped some nuggets I dropped with my clients, right of course I go in a deeper level with them, but I'm not holding back value from you guys in this interview. When come down to the be nominated. The global goes mobile for United Nations by being the most senior delegate at the conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was literally by me being authentic and speaking my mind without considering why would people think how will I come across by being raw, real and honest. And I guess it's my third takeaway for you guys. Make sure that whatever you do in your shopping showing up as your most authentic self that's what I would need. You don't need copies
Paul Zelizer 34:34
beautiful great advice again Julia. Put on put on your entrepreneur glasses and if somebody wants to understand how your work like okay, we get the concepts we get how you help clients, but like what does it look like? What are some of the you know, offerings you have? What are some of the revenue streams? How do people find you, etc?
Julio Maria Muhorro 34:55
Yeah, sure. So, I run chemistry knowledge International. We have two main customer segments. The one in the b2c, so entrepreneurs, professionals we're trying to break through to the next level. And we work with you guys by offering you Business Advisory sessions, career crafting sessions and transformational coaching sessions to make sure that you have everything that you need in order to be the best version of yourself. What I love about what I do particular is that I don't just go off and work on the strategies, or I don't just go and sort of like focus on your vision and see what you can change it right now, I like to go into a deeper layer. So working with you, as a human being, we get to tap into your identity, your energy and your mindset to make sure that you are naturally creative in crafting the strategies that will allow you to change your context. And that's a beautiful thing to do. And for our second customer segments, which are which are organizations like corporations, government, NGOs, academia, we help them to harness the power of their people and the power of social impact, to grow their businesses, not only in terms of revenue, but also in terms of impact. And there's also been fun, we offer them trainings, knowledge consultancy, and speaking engagements. Something that I'm super proud about was mastermind mastermind that we launched a few weeks ago. So it's a two month program, we've got 10, beautiful intrapreneurs mission driven 100% committed with their own growth. And really, the whole point of it was to 10 next year results. So from zero to 10 k in few months. And it's a beautiful challenge. And I cannot wait to see how they're going to come after this. After this mastermind.
Paul Zelizer 36:40
And I just want to celebrate that's a beautiful dance to do have both b2c In other words, individual entrepreneurs, and also be working with companies and the needs and the language and even how you get paid. Everything is different. Everything right? I mean, there's some similarities, but there's a lot of differences between those two different audiences. And I can totally get just to have what you're sharing how you would provide a lot of value to both of them. So good work.
Julio Maria Muhorro 37:12
And thank you very much for
Paul Zelizer 37:14
so as you're looking ahead, you know, 20 2020, what a year like, Wow, what a powerful, not always easy teacher 2020 has been for so many of us around the world, and so many as you're kind of like we're recording this and November, mid ish, November of 2020. Like, as you're kind of digesting Whoa, what just happened there, and you got some good things going on. But like we've all seen some hard things. And you're starting to, you know, look ahead thinking of a new year and beyond that, like, as somebody who's got a front row seat to what's happening in Mozambique, and what's happening in Africa, what's happening in the social business space worldwide? Like what are you paying attention to going forward?
Julio Maria Muhorro 38:01
Like that guess one is the need that clients like both types of clients are having in terms of having a tailor made approach. And, and to I guess, it's just how much noise there is in the online environment, particularly, right? Like it's getting harder and harder and harder for us to fight fake news from real news, for the things that really matter to us for the things that are just random distractions. And third, I guess, is the level of commitment that one can have to their own growth. And it's something that I've been learning since forever, really, and I always find a different layer to it. But with those three things, something that I'm considering to do with my own business is actually separate into completely in two different completely companies. So what's probably going to happen is that we're going to have a knowledge international focus on our b2b clients, with you know, a dedicated communication, everything dedicated, and then having to do my international for our b2c is that way we can connect more in a more personal level and make sure that we still answer the demands and the needs of our clients.
Paul Zelizer 39:13
If you had one suggestion, Julio for those two audiences, right, I'm an entrepreneur I'm hungry to make a difference or increase the difference I'm having I'm looking to increase my income so I can live a more comfortable life and have more to share right? And I'm looking at wow 20 like you said, the online world so much noise and disinformation and ego right? I'm the best No, I'm the best My way is right? No, my nobody could ever possibly do it. Right. If they didn't do it, my all that noise, right. And here we are as a individual, mission driven entrepreneur with dreams of really moving the needle and having positive impact amidst all that chaos. All that up. all that noise, what would you say to somebody who's in that role for, you know, thinking about 2021, let's say,
Julio Maria Muhorro 40:09
honestly, I was trying to think of a better way to say it, but just pull the trigger. I found that even when me as I'm planning, you know, the next level of my business, it's so easy to get overwhelmed by everything that's going on. And having, you know, way too many options, really just pull the trigger. If you know what you want to do, if you don't know, at least you know how you can gain more clarity around that, go ahead and try to source that, that service, you know, go ahead and try to have the conversation most services in this room, you can you know, it's free to write an email and ask about some, you know, it's free to go on social media and ask the person about their product or service, pull the trigger, you know, make the move, reach out, make sure that you are taking a step towards your dream, I often say that as long as you are closing the gap between your current self and your future self, you are in the right path. So make sure that you are actually going through that path and not just sitting there open in waiting for some magical one to come in into into your life. I mean, if you'll be doing that you just be a victim of change and not actually leading the change. And that's what I would love for you to be leading the changes in your life. So that's definitely my advice for our B two C's right now.
Paul Zelizer 41:21
Beautiful, taking in the lean startup world. There's a saying if looking back, you're not embarrassed, you waited too long to launch. So for instance, when I look back on episode one, or Episode Seven, or Episode 20 of this podcast, I'm embarrassed, but I'm not I don't feel bad that I'm embarrassed. I say, Oh, good. I'm embarrassed. Because I've learned some things. I think we're in the 100 90s probably by the time this episode will go live. I've learned some things and publishing 180 episodes in three years. And, you know, lots of research like podcasting, I put my, you know, I doubled down on it in 2020. And went from one episode a week to two episodes a week I didn't you know, I tried to make lots of positive changes. And so anyway, that's a real world example from my, you know, business world, just go back to those early episode great gas, but the branding socked and the sound was an awesome. Like, it's like, well, I launched it here. And here I am. And, and I'm so grateful to be here, but you don't get to Episode 180 until you launch episode one. And I see so many people just you know, hand wringing and like, oh, the branding is not right. And the messaging is imperfect. And I don't have the sound awesome yet. And three years later, they still haven't launched that podcast. And here I am three years and I'm in 200, Episode 180 episodes and really getting traction and really moving the needle in ways that are aligned with my goals. So anyway, real world example. I couldn't agree with you more surely. What about for that the leader of a larger, you know, something that has more zeroes already coming in, there's a team already there, they have some brand recognition, and they're going into 2021. And beyond, what would you encourage that person to be thinking about in this moment? That
Julio Maria Muhorro 43:12
first of all, I completely relate to the fact that as you have built a reputation as you build your brand, they can risks becomes way less attracting than it is when you're starting out. Especially when you're working for a brand is not just yours, it's you know, there's other people owning the brand as well by we'd like to challenge you to do though, is to consider that. If you want to have what you've never had, you must be willing to do what you've never done. So the next level of organization will demand the next level of us a leader. So you will have to go from a competent leader to level five executive athletes. They will also
Paul Zelizer 43:57
and if somebody doesn't know what that is level five, what's he talking about?
Julio Maria Muhorro 44:04
So this, those determinations came from Jim Collins, he's the author of the book Good to Great, where basically, he looked at companies were able to achieve and sustain great results in the long run sort of 15 years or more in compared to companies who failed to even get there or the ones who got there but sort of lose lost their way. And so most executive right now was leaders, they are competent leaders, or even great executives, but they're not level five executives. I guess the main characteristic of a level five executive is that they combine their personal will with this notion and this commitment to the company. So they don't necessarily lead by being charismatic and charming and, you know, being sort of like the lion in the jungle, they're much more about getting results and really, it's not about them. It's about a company. They're building. That's why they're able to focus all of their energy to make sure that their business goes from good to great. And alongside a few sizes that allows them to actually achieve and sustain the results, especially in the long run. And really, again, it comes down again, for me challenging you as a leader, to really step out of your comfort zone. And really, just make sure that you are delivering your impact 100% for your business, and that is going to reflect back to you as a leader and as a person. So don't be afraid to try new things. There, you'll find you may found that everything you're looking for is and might be in the other side of the step.
Paul Zelizer 45:41
In 2009, I had the honor of going to Zappos world headquarters when they were Tony Shea has since retired. Amazon has since bought Zappos. It's a different company now. But back in the day, they were really doing some innovative things. And on the day that they were handing out t shirts to their employees saying thank you for making us a billion dollar a year company. I got to sit down with Tony Shea and the leadership team at Zappos and talk to they were innovating and like every employee got to talk to a coach every year about their happiness goals. They're using positive psychology, not like how do we sell more shoes, but really thinking about the culture and doing some incredible things. And, um, you know, I was pretty new. I was like, a year into my business. And it was only because I was on social media, talking about conscious business and positive impact in 2009 on Twitter, I got and I got an invite because there weren't that many people talking about this stuff back in the day. But I was like, a year into my business a coach and you know, northern New Mexico going to this guy know anything about the billion dollar your company's like literally, like, wow, how did I get here, I was pretty intimidated, and felt like totally out of place and so honored to be there. It's sitting down with Tony Shea and the leadership team. And I got to interview him and we did a tour and they were so thrilled to it was me and my friend Soren he started a conference called wisdom 2.0 and go look it up. And we were there. And Tony was so grateful and to have us because he wanted to talk about this stuff. And again, there weren't that many people talking about this stuff back in the day. And one of the things he kept talking about was this level five, leader, level five leader, how do you build a billion dollar company, he kept talking about it, you got to be a level five leader and the single most important book, they literally give out books back in the day when you walked into Zappos because they want like you didn't have to buy anything, they would give you certain business books and on the single most important book Tony was recommending was the one you just mentioned, Julie, was good to great by Jim Collins. And he said we need more type five business leaders. And basically type five leaders, as he told it to me is your you have a vision of something that's larger than yourself or larger than the company. In other words, it wasn't just Zappos to sell more shoes for Tony Shea to be the next bazillionaire he made a lot of money in business he retired very, but the vision of something larger than yourself, and and how that showed up. This is one of the most researched books in business about companies that do really well over the long haul that the world has ever seen. And they did not go in to prove that it was this grand vision and you know, having values run the company as opposed to chasing profits. That totally surprised them. Matter of fact, Jim Collins, and he sent his research team back and said, I think you guys got the numbers wrong, it couldn't be something so fuzzy, yeah, things like values and purpose, and then went back and crunch the numbers again, and again. And again. And this is the single biggest thing about companies that do all over the long haul. And Jim Collins is now sort of like a hero in the purpose driven business world. But he didn't know that. He actually thought his team got it wrong. And they were smart graduate students that here's the data. So if you are only going to take one book in 20 2021, and you haven't read that one yet go read Good to Great by Jim Collins. I'll put a link in the show notes it couldn't agree with you both Sure. was really I could hang on talk to you all day. But I wouldn't do that to you. And I wouldn't do that to our listeners if there was something you were hoping that we would get to in this interview. And we haven't talked about it yet. Or is there something you might want to leave our listeners with a concept of some encouragement, a particular tool or strategy as we bring this interview to a close? What would that be?
49:41
Just remember, guys,
Julio Maria Muhorro 49:42
you are way more powerful than you think you are. It's time for you to reconnect with that power. Step and own it unapologetically and allow others to do the same for power is not given or taken is just shared. And unfortunately, sometimes used by that's not you. Not right here right now not ever again.
Paul Zelizer 50:06
So they are welcome. I mean, thank you for being on the show is so appreciate having You're welcome. I want to start this conversation. Thank you for being on the show I so appreciate.
Julio Maria Muhorro 50:18
Thank you very much both was really a huge pleasure for me to be here.
Paul Zelizer 50:22
So we'll put a link in the show notes to all the different things that we talked about. Please go check out Julia's work, doing really powerful things, impactful things. That's all the time we have for today's show. I just want to remind you quickly before we go, we now drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday, early in the morning, Eastern time. And we love, love, love listener supported guests and topics. If you have something you'd like to see us talk about either guests, you think it'd be super interesting or a topic you're not sure who to talk about it. But we as a community really need to talk about blank, please go to the web printers website and go to our contact page and take a look at our guidelines, see what we're looking for. And if you feel like a fit, please send your idea in. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.