On this bonus episode of The Walk Of Life podcast, Cheryl Thibault is joined by Ragne Sinikas, a global marketer whose focus is on helping brands to perform profit. The pair talk about her chapter in the book ‘Visionary Women Leaders’ on sustainable empathic leadership as well as her career.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• As entrepreneurs, start-ups or small business owners, we think  we have presence, but it doesn’t really correspond that we also have profit. We do things that we love, we put so much effort into it, many of us work 24/7, but no one tells you how you should be doing it. We start to gain attraction which is seen as a certain type of success but then we hit a block and for some reason our company cannot grow any more. You need to do some work on finding out who your ideal clients are and getting to know them better than they know themselves. What are their habits, what do they like, what are they watching on TV, what are they reading? All of these cues will take you to success.
• A lot of business owners try to hire people in to grow their business but they can’t find people that work as hard as they want. When you’re hiring and you don’t have clarity around what you want the results will be vague as well because the people you hire don’t understand what you want so your expectations will never be met.
• Coming from an ex-Soviet Union country where everybody walked and talked that same and kids didn’t have a voice, it created a lot of limits in my mind. When the borders opened I started to work with international companies and I saw the other side of things. Really fast it became my mission that once we believe in ourselves, our skill set and really look inside and see who we are under all our doubts and fears and the way society wants us to be. It’s time to stop waiting for someone else to fix our lives. Women and girls have been told that a prince on a white horse will come and all your troubles will be taken away. We need to stop those stereotypes and thinking that way and looking for outside happiness – that someone else will make us happy. It’s the same with empowerment, once we feel that and you are able to help someone else to feel that, you are enough, you have such potential, you can do this, you do have a voice. That’s what empowerment is from my point of view and it’s what I always try to help girls and women around me to understand who they really are and what they’re capable of. 
• We’re working with indigenous communities in Mexico and it’s been a fantastic journey getting to know them and see how little they have and how little we really need to be happy. We have been working with them to teach a sustainable way to manage their lives, specifically their income. Their mindset is that if I sell one thing I don’t have to work until I have no money again, which creates a lot of problems. I lived with them for 5 days and nights and I felt their pain. There’s no water to have a shower, or wash your clothes and dishes, so they create a lot of trash because they can’t wash things. So, we cleaned up the environment they are living in. A few months later around 50% of them went back to their old way of living because they didn’t see an incentive for them to, but the other 50% had carried on cleaning their surroundings because they wanted a better life. Now we’re trying to create opportunities to work with their skill set so that they can sell that in a sustainable way. 

BEST MOMENTS
‘The most important investment you can ever make is to invest in yourself and your personal growth. Once you do that everything else will follow. It reflects in your leadership and everything else that you touch.’
‘Your presence is really, really important because you never know you are going to hear about your story which can change someone else’s life.’
‘Women have allowed society or circumstances to define us. Life happens, now you get to choose whether it happens to you or for you. Once you get the mindset that life happens for you, your life is going to be totally different.’
‘We have lost a connection to ourselves and the meaning of life in a world where we’re so focussed on chasing the money and success. Why are we here?’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Ragne Sinikas is a social entrepreneur, philanthropist, an advanced online marketer, founder of World Women Empowerment, World Women Conference & Awards, Starpreneurs.tv. Real Estate Developer, an International speaker, coach of the Change Makers, global award winner with her Dominate the Decade Podcast. Co-author of various books that help entrepreneurs to start, grow and scale their business. She is an advisor that helps real estate and financial service companies develop a position of competitive advantage and use it to drive business strategy, marketing, and sales.
Ragne is a highly-skilled professional in the fields of Real Estate Advisory Services, sales and marketing. Her sharp analytical skills, paired with the latest technology, allow her to give her clients clarity—not just answers—in all areas of business. Ragne helps to deliver clarity to her clients’ most complex governance, risk, and transparency challenges. She equips entrepreneurs with tools, strategies and systems to completely transform their businesses.
Ragne has 15 years of sales leadership consisting in developing and implementing sales and business plans throughout Europe, Mexico, Russia in several industry sectors.
She is a seasoned entrepreneur that possesses extensive experience at the executive level in operations, business development, fund-raising, strategy, sales and marketing. Ragne is an advanced marketer who helps brands go from presence to profit.
At the start of her professional career she was managing 4 countries with 10 new business centres in Baltic Countries for IWG plc, formerly Regus, the industry leading multinational corporation that provides global workplace solutions. Ragne has built high performance sales teams from the ground up to win significant engagements with Tier 1 networking. As leader she embraces diverse backgrounds and global perspectives, and she cultivates diversity by respecting, including, and valuing one another. She contributes to a supportive and collaborative work environment that empowers each individual to excel.
Ragne founded and grew a boutique management consultancy specialising in strategy implementation and performance improvement. In Los Cabos she opened the first Coworking Space that brings together national and international entrepreneurs with a drive to contribute to the local community and to its ecosystem. Ragne’s network includes global experts from the field of real estate, tourism, sales, marketing etc. She brings the entrepreneurs together to network, collaborate and foster the community.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldwomenconference
Instagram: @ragnesinikas
LinkedIn: https://ee.linkedin.com/in/ragne-sinikas-6b52ab10
Website: https://starpreneurs.tv/
VALUABLE RESOURCES
Be a guest!  - https://misscheryl.com/podcast/podcast-guest-form/
FREE E-BOOK - http://promos.misscheryl.com/
CHECK OUT MY BOOKS - https://misscheryl.com/features/book-launch-career-in-the-beauty-industry/
ABOUT THE HOST
Cheryl Thibault is a visionary, entrepreneur, multi-business owner, educator, influencer, and game changer in the beauty industry. A student of life, who will never stop growing and learning. She is assertive and an uncompromising beauty professional, and has been for over 40 years.  As a long time founder/owner of beauty spas and education centres since 1981,
An Author, Co-Author and currently penning a series of books dedicated to telling her life story, overcoming struggles, and gaining life and career success. She is a true trail blazer and actively integrates love, understanding and compassion into all areas of her life as she influences thousands around the world to carry that forward.
CONTACT METHODS
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cheryltbo/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cherylthibault1/
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylthibault/
Podcast website:  www.thewalkoflifestories.com