BEN Welcome to the Idaho Leader Podcast, this is your host, Ben Davidson. The Idaho Leader Podcast is the place to meet and learn from Idaho’s best. You’ll be inspired and entertained as Idaho’s most interesting and influential business professionals share success stories, challenges, networking ideas and career tips.
Listen to a different interview each week by subscribing at idaholeader.com. Now, let’s get to the show. I am excited to bring our guest on today; her name is Allison Dunn.
Allison, from where in Idaho are you joining us?
ALLISON Hi Ben! I am joining you from Boise, Idaho and I actually happen to be at the Village in Meridian.
BEN Allison has invested 25 years of her professional life as an owner and executive of many different businesses, from manufacturing to architecture to engineering and online retail. This business experience coupled with practical strategy has helped her achieve successful results and brought much value to her clients.
Recently, she was awarded the prestigious Action Man Award in the 2015 Action Coach America’s Conference for her passion in mentoring business owners.
So, Allison, I’ve told just a little bit about you, but we want to get to know you better. So, please tell us more.
ALLISON I’m a native of New Hampshire, born and raised, and spent my college career out in the beautiful city of Colorado went to the University of Denver um… but Denver turned back to um…my hometown which happens to be Campton, New Hampshire.
I am a second child of the family with 5 children so I’m definitely an overachiever as most second children I think are, and um… happen to actually have the opportunity to say that I married my high school sweetheart after reconnecting after 20 years…between the two of us, we have 3 beautiful children. So, that’s a little bit about me.
BEN Very nice. And I read on your LinkedIn profile that you enjoy reading, hiking, biking, cooking and keeping fit.
ALLISON I absolutely do and because I’m a foodie, I have to do all those other things. It works out well.
BEN It’s true, they all go together. Please start us off with some words to live by that inspire you to greatness.
ALLISON So, one of my high favorite sayings, and it’s a lot of what I also practiced with, my coaching clients as well as for myself in my own business, so the quote is “Abundance cannot exist where there is complexity or drama.” My major vision for my business is to bring abundance to Idaho through business re-education, and often what I end up helping business owners do is to remove help them remove complexities from their business, showing them step by step, and also to help them remove the drama from their team.
BEN That…it reminds me of a book that I’m reading right now which is called Predictable Success by Les McKeown, and it talks a lot about as a business grows and becomes more complex, how to manage that complexity. Cause there are certainly are a lot of different stages in a business, really paints a nice picture and he has a good clear vision of taking businesses from the startup phase into what he calls the “white water,” where there is crazy growth, a lot of customer acquisition doing whatever you can to make the sale and then after that, white water hits and you have to figure out how systematize and be able to prioritize and not get caught off guard and hurt by your own growth.
And so then, he talks about how you can go into decline and what he calls “treadmill,” and how to hit that sweet spot and stay in it, that right mix of innovation and process that he calls “predictable success.”
So, I’m sure you have some fantastic stories about helping clients through this navigation of the business stages.
ALLISON So, I opened my practice here in Boise in November 2013, so I’m coming up on em…you know, just concluding my… almost my second year in business and love the Treasure Valley.
BEN What brought you to the Treasure Valley?
ALLISON My answer to that is always love, and it is because of the love of my husband’s children.
BEN Tell us of a great experience you’ve had in your business career.
ALLISON I moved into a leadership role with a small growing um… engineering firm I did… environmental, civil, and geotechnical-type engineering. The new opportunity that I had there was that this challenge to be able to grow the business, em… compounding growth because we were switching to an employee ownership type culture, and one of the talents that I realized…that I didn’t realize that I had was the ability to very effectively write Federal Government type proposals.
Now, I’d have to say that they’re not very creative and em…they are not very fun to do, but I was really, really, really good at it. Em…so when we first set out to embark on what we considered to be a gigantic 3-million-dollar proposal for my tiny little small engineering firm, em…it was about an 18-month process to write that one. And there was so much cultural success over us winning that, it just felt like you know, we’d…you know, we’d won the lottery, the you know…the million… you know, the million-dollar win. And so, in the preceding 10 years after that, I continued to write a number of incredibly successful Federal Proposals, that…they’re not starting at 3 million, but my last one being 210 million and realizing that although I’m very good at it, and we were incredibly successful at it um… my passion is for writing but it was not for doing proposals, so my takeaway for that is that I love to write, but I absolutely detest writing Federal Proposals…anymore.
BEN Wow, that’s great. Yeah, I can tell that you enjoy writing because I’ve read several of your articles on LinkedIn, that’s in fact…how we first met was eh… I commented on one of those, and was impressed.
ALLISON Thank you. That is my passion and I really truly do enjoy it, I finally enjoy it again so I lost that…that feeling for a long time, but it’s now back.
BEN Grant writing hadn’t completely sucked the life out of your writing.
ALLISON [chuckles] Well, it did for a few years, but now I actually…I really do enjoy writing a lot.
BEN Well good, em…this story makes me curious about…at what stage in the business lifecycle are most of your clients?
ALLISON I do work with businesses that are in startup. I also work with a ton of businesses that are in that 3-5 year, like they’ve done everything they know, and kind of are looking for some additional assistance em…and then I work with many businesses that have been here in this valley for 30+ years, so I think my…the key thing is that a business owner who really wants to accelerate em… the impact that they are having to our community and that’s where it becomes a very good synergy with me.
BEN Yeah, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that. I’ve been to some of those shark tank-like events in the Trail Head there in Boise, and when I listen to the business owners pitching their ideas to potential investors, I really get the feeling that they are really accessing not only the business, but that entrepreneur and how bought in they are and how passionate and how bad they want it.
ALLISON Absolutely, I think that those are critical skills for the long-term success of a business. It’s that passion behind it.
BEN Yeah. Share with us one thing that’s got you really excited right now.
ALLISON I may have just started formulating a launch for what I call “the Game Changer Getaway,” and em…my focus is em… current clients. Em…these are all female entrepreneurs, em… and the key is that we get so engrained in our business, and we often are just so focused on working in our businesses that it’s hard to get away.
So, my game…Game Changer Getaway is em… long weekends…quarterly, on a quarterly basis, where we identify the significant things that will change the position of where their company is today based on the efforts that they spend on that weekend, and then the actions that I help coach them to follow through with over the preceding weeks and months.
I’m very excited about it.
BEN Yeah, so it’s a mastermind group with some accountability built into it. Very cool.
ALLISON Yes, and I’m afraid to use “mastermind,” because it’s really going to be a very small intimate group but I’m envisioning this being fewer to no more than 6 individuals, and I’m looking forward to it.
BEN Let’s talk about networking stories now. Em…could you please share with us the best networking advice you’ve received or some advice on how to network effectively here in Idaho?
ALLISON So, I’m kind of a networking em… I’m a high-eye-on-the-desk-profile-scale, so I fill my cup by getting the chance to meet and learn about other people, and I would say not everyone is like me, so I do realize that. The Treasure Valley offers an amazing amount of opportunity to meet new people, em… so I was impressed by that. My key is to find the other person inside of the room who is feeling very uncomfortable, and to seek them out and strike up a conversation with them, and I have gained many followers that way. Em…and it also… it allows me to help someone break, you know, come out of their shell because I love to ask questions…I’m very inquisitive, I think that it sets the other person at ease, and I like doing that.
BEN Yeah, that’s a good…good service, not only to help you and to help your clients but to help other people, and I think that goes back to that abundance mentality that you first mentioned on the show…that all boats rise together and it’s not a zero-sum game…we can help one another, so that’s great.
What is a good habit or daily ritual that brings you success?
ALLISON It’s a variety of things, but I would say my most consistent habit is… is that I am a sponge for any type of new literature, so I spend time in the morning, I’m reading…and I also spend time at the end of my evening—and it could be a business book, it could be a personal development book em… but in often, it’s a book that I just kind of strolled through the bookstore, it calls to me and I am able to apply it em…in many different circumstances, typically very quickly after I’ve had a chance to read it. So, reading, for sure—my love for knowledge.
BEN What is your favorite place in Idaho to visit?
ALLISON Oh, we just returned from a beautiful long weekend vacation in McCall and em…from being at the top of the mountain to being on the lake, em…it offers the best of both worlds, so at this moment in time, it would be McCall.
BEN Nice! I like that too. One of my past guests, Derrick Boles, of Leadership First, he recommended McCall, and I’d never been there until about a month ago, and went and took the family there and did a lot of paddle boarding and stayed right on the lake and it was just gorgeous er… very beautiful place in Idaho I’d have to agree.
ALLISON I have not been up there as many times as I think I’ve been… that I would like to be, but em… so far, it’s definitely close and beautiful.
BEN Yeah, my son and I published a podcast from up there and so it was a lot of fun, took some pictures, and well…I’ll have to post those to the site at idaholeader.com.
What is a favorite book, app or internet resource you’d recommend to the Idaho leader community?
ALLISON I think that one of the tools, which is an app that I incorporate into my business, and it’s definitely helped me assist leverage my time is called timetrade.com.
And because a lot of my business practices are scheduling time with not only new people that I don’t know but also through coaching, time trade is…has saved me hours of coordination because when someone reaches out to me, I get to give them my calendar and have them choose a time that works best for them, so love that app!
BEN Time trade, okay… that’s available for both iPhone and Android, or is it more of a PC-based app?
ALLISON Well, PC as well as Apple and Android.
BEN Okay. Nice, I’ll have to check that out. Might help me schedule some podcasts that way.
ALLISON It’s very sleek.
BEN Here’s a fun but tricky hypothetical scenario that I’d like you to walk through for the Idaho Leader Community. Imagine you were to wake up tomorrow in a city in Idaho, just like Boise, but you knew no one. You retain all your skills and experience but are a stranger to everyone. What would you do to get connected to the Idaho Business Community, and grow your career within the next 30 days?
ALLISON So, this question makes me smile because em… that’s exactly how I arrived in Boise. I knew our daughters and that was it, so em… I would probably not change a thing, I immediately… so what I did when I arrived in 2013 was em…identify networking opportunities that would just expose me to new people.
Em… I am a long-time member of Rotary, so I started visiting the local Rotary clubs and eventually em… [inaudible] into the Metro Downtown Club em…because I’m also a business owner, em… I also visited and identified a business networking industry group to belong to, and I have always been a chamber member in all of my businesses, so I am a member of the Boise Chamber here. And I think that in combination of everything that the life offers down here is just being out and about and engaged, and I think the Treasure Valley offers enormous amount of ways to get connected very quickly, it’s just taking advantage of the ones, you know, as quickly as possible.
And that’s what I would recommend.
BEN Yeah, the Treasure Valley is such a hot bed for start-up businesses right now. It’s really an exciting place to be.
In Idaho, we are a hardworking and a grateful people, besides your family and health, what is one thing that you’re particularly grateful for?
ALLISON I’m grateful for people trusting me. As a business coach, trust is paramount and I just… I’m very grateful and honored that I get to help so many different businesses and their executive teams. Make the changes and see the successes and help…allow me to celebrate those successes with them, and it’s…it brings tears to my eyes and I just…I feel very blessed to be able to do what I do.
BEN Yeah, what do you enjoy most about business coaching?
ALLISON I am em… all about the hardwork, but it is celebrating, recognizing, setting the goals, celebrating the success, and em…seeing the confidence and the results of setting… dreaming big. And you know, it’s often…I don’t think people are pushed to dream big, and I get to help people dream big and then when they achieve those big goals, to celebrate.
BEN Yeah, that’s so important. One of our past guests, Andy Fugimoto, talked about how he does visioning regularly. He said it’s not something he’s naturally good at, but he will…always working out, he’ll fast forward in time say to 2025 and he’ll try to picture his business and his life during that year and what it would look like, and then he traces his steps backward to find out how to get there.
Em… so that’s so important for businesses to do that, and I’m sure that’s a great value to your clients.
ALLISON It’s a very powerful exercise.
BEN Yeah. You mentioned earlier that you are a high-eye-on- the-disc-profile, one of the things I love most about business is how we can harness our natural talents to be the best that we can be, and how talent management is so critical to a business.
I love like the Strengths’ Finder and the Myer’s Briggs. I’ve taken DISC before. Is that something that you use with your clients as well?
ALLISON So, I um…it’s interesting how…how many folks here in the industry have been exposed to it. In Action Coach, em…our number one go tool is the DISC profile, but I do love…if people know what their Strength Finders are um… I’ve done a lot of reading so that I can acclimate to a variety of them…is just DISC happens to be our toolbox tool.
But, to be able to figure out what motivates people is tremendously important, especially if you have a team.
BEN Yeah. One of the things that I’m working on is a website called Chief Executive Parent, and this is a pet project of my son and I have mentioned before on the show that he and I run this podcast because he’s interested in a career in Computer Science, and so he does a lot of the website editing and a lot of the technical side to learn that in a real environment. And one of the things that I have thought about as I was doing my visioning was how I can connect my passions which are family, of course, but also talent management. And I do a lot of hiring and a lot of training in my professional career, and how bringing that together is so critical.
Em… parenting is so tough and there is no manual to go with it, so the best thing that ever happened to me was when I started getting really frustrated and figured “why am I great at work at this, but not at home,” and then I realized, “Well… I’m not using the same tools at home that I use at work, they’re just right there and so I began using things like Strengths’ Finder and helping my kids explore their natural talents, and doing regular lunches with them, where we have one-on-one’s, if you will, like I do with my regular employees. And working on projects with them, communicating regularly through email, text and also face-to-face, and having courses that we work on together so we’re part of a team, some team building if you will.
And…so that’s been such a fun project and we are just getting it off the ground, it’s called Chief Executive Parent and it’s something that I look forward to and if anyone’s interested, they can check it out. We are giving away a lot of free content, and I’d be interested in any feedback anyone has.
ALLISON That’s fantastic. Good for you. That’s terrific.
BEN The Idaho Leader Podcast Community thanks you for telling your story, and sharing so generously.
Please give us some parting advice, and then share with us how we can connect with you and keep the dialogue going.
ALLISON The one thing in parting that I would share is that my goal is to help encourage anyone who’s thinking about starting a business. If they have an air…something that they are passionate about and you know, for me, I believe that the business side of everything is easy if you’re passionate about something. And so seek me out to do a free coaching session if you are even, you know, remotely considering about doing a start-up or if you are in a business and want some outside perspective about what may be going on inside of your business, I’d be happy to do that.
My website is allisondunn.com …em… I’m an avid LinkedIn user so em… I always communicate through that venue as well, so I’d love for us to be able to connect that way, and you’d find me in allison…under “allisondunn” in Boise, Idaho.
BEN There we have it, we’ll definitely take you up on that. I know, firsthand, that your LinkedIn articles are great, and so I’d encourage everybody to check out your website, and see how you can help.
So, thank you again for being so generous with your time and your talents. We salute you, we wish you the best, and look forward to seeing you out there in networking events in the Treasure Valley.
ALLISON Thank you very much Ben.