Veronica and Jillian's freestyle episode covered topics ranging from leadership, self-care, and the dynamics of multiculturalism, touching on the interplay between spontaneity and planning in various cultural contexts, while also sharing personal insights as business owners operating outside of their home countries.
In this freestyle podcast episode, Veronica and Jillian dive into leadership, self-care, and multiculturalism in business. They candidly discuss the realities of navigating diverse environments, offering practical insights on effective communication, empathy, and the value of asking foundational questions to foster understanding and unity.
Whether you're curious about building a successful business amidst cultural differences or simply seeking inspiration for personal growth, this episode promises valuable perspectives and strategies from two experienced entrepreneurs committed to exploring and embracing diversity in all its forms.
About Veronica Guguian:
About Jillian Vorce:
Credits
Veronica Guguian: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 39. Can you believe it? 39 from creative collaborations and conversations with Veronica and Gillian. Hello, Gillian. How are you?
Jillian Vorce: Hi, there. Hello. I am. Well, still. Well, I'm still me and 3939. Yep.
Veronica Guguian: I do remember when I turned 39, and I was getting scared. But I have to say, when. When you're recording an episode, it is actually. That sounds better.
Jillian Vorce: Yes.
Veronica Guguian: So here, complete honesty with our listeners. We always sit down before we record episodes, actually one week or two weeks before, and we make a plan. What should we discuss? We had a free episode a couple of weeks ago. I don't even remember when. And we actually had so much fun, and we said one again. So here it is, us with a new freestyle episode in which I do have my coffee. Do you have your coffee?
Jillian Vorce: I don't. I'm on water now because I'm trying to better understand the volume of coffee that I'm consuming.
Veronica Guguian: Should do. I'm still with my morning coffee.
Jillian Vorce: I'm doing pretty well with the water situation, the water consumption. I got a large one. I don't know what we call that. Yeah, a large bottle. It's not a jug. It's a large bottle. Yeah, I'm trying to.
Veronica Guguian: A different one. Yeah.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah. So, Yeah, so it's a freestyle episode. And for me, what it makes me think of immediately, and I probably talk about this all the time, is when we first met for coffee, that time at the little shop, coffee, and coconuts in Amsterdam, and we just sat down and talked and just kind of compared notes and just chatted, like, you know, talk shop and got to know each other, and I. And so when you asked me to do a podcast, it seemed like that was one of the things we talked about, is, like, what a great opportunity for us to continue to get to know each other and to continue having these types of conversations. And here we are, 39 episodes into this, and most just about every episode, we had a predetermined topic and had a structured conversation.
Jillian Vorce: So it's kind of nice to be able to come full circle in a way and have just a very organic conversation. Granted, it's like we're doing it this way, just like we're in a coffee shop, but now, like, more people are listening as opposed to the coffee shop where, you know, maybe they are, maybe they're not. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Veronica Guguian: But I do want to thank you for being flexible because I do know that's a little bit out of your comfort zone. You do. You are, you're a very organized instructor, and I love that. And that makes it very easy to work with you because you know exactly what to expect and when and, like, what's the procedure, right. Was the process. So, thank you for being flexible because I am a little bit more like this when it comes to stuff like recording and talking. Yeah, and especially now that we are in the summer or that summer, you have one week of summer and yes, this summer and one week of autumn and then maybe half a day of summer.
Jillian Vorce: I know, I know.
Veronica Guguian: And everyone is thinking, or everyone is on holiday, or like, half of the people I know are on holiday, and half of the people I know are sick, and you're like, yeah, no.
Jillian Vorce: I actually love you talking about the flexibility versus the structure because, for me, it's kind of a nod to, yeah, my wife, actually, who's very spontaneous, and her culture is much more spontaneous than. I don't know if it's my culture or just me personally. So it's been an ongoing conversation for ten years about the spontaneity piece and how I tend to be very structured and organized and methodical about things and whatnot. And so, trying to be a little bit. Yeah, she would say more fun, but I would say more flexible. So I feel like, look at me. Yeah, look at me being flexible, you know?
Veronica Guguian: But it's a very good point because everybody knows I'm Romanian. Or, if you don't know by now, yes, I'm Romanian. So we are quite spontaneous, of course, business-wise, you do structured things, and you have planning. But as a culture, as culture, we are quite spontaneous, and was a shock here, for example, with the agendas and planning, and I do like planning, so now I'm much more relaxed, actually, funny enough, but back home, I was the one always with the plan and backup plan, you know?
Jillian Vorce: Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: And then you. That doesn't mean you can't have flexibility and spontaneity. And for me, that will be like picking up the phone and calling a friend. Hey, how about we go for a pizza tonight because it's nice weather and what you can really do here in the Netherlands with a lot of people if they are not internationals, but also international. That's not true, actually. It's not true because you can do it with some Dutch people, but as a culture, as a rule, you don't really. Yeah, you are much more structured and planned, and you have an agenda, and you are very mature, let's say. But that actually makes me wonder now: have you seen that reflected? Actually, I did. Me, personally, I did see that. But I'm curious about your experience.
Veronica Guguian: Did you see that reflect it in the business in terms of how people do business, the decision making process, until the moment you start having a chat about working with them and sending a proposal, having a follow up call, closing and actually start working with them. How is that here compared to the states, for example?
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, it's a great question. Wow. Oh boy. So a few things come to mind and I'm going to do my best to actually answer your question as well. Okay. So, all right, so just to knock the top one off the list quickly, because it's like the biggest one is, I do, there are many differences that I notice and experience between the kind of American, like culture, business culture, versus here. There are just many ways things work. And one example that I. Yeah, it's still, my sample size is not equal because I have almost 25 years of business experience in the US and just, you know, call it two years of business experience here in the Netherlands. So it's certainly not, and I'm not like a cultural expert or any of these things, just what I have observed.
Jillian Vorce: So it seems like, or at least I have seen. Yeah, I'm trying to be very diplomatic here, but let me just come out with it that there seems to be less commitment to things or less. The way commitment is demonstrated here is a bit different than what I'm accustomed to. And another way of perhaps looking at that or explaining that is that, again, the culture of work in the US is like, you work until the job is done. No, you work until it's the best. Nope. You work until you're number one. It's like this insatiable quest, like a true hamster on the wheel thing. Like, it's just never enough. Yeah. And it's just how it is. Whereas here, it's a lot more tempered or subdued.
Jillian Vorce: It's still there, and it's not to say people aren't ambitious or anything like that, but it also seems like, yeah, if they just cancel an event or just cancel something or, yeah, whatever, it's not a big deal. It's just, yeah, that's it. I mean, oh, it's sunny out or like whatever. So it's a bit different. It feels a little bit less secure to me here than what I'm accustomed to. So I'm just trying to, so I think it's, to me, like, oh, look at this, there's another growth opportunity here. Can learn to be even more flexible. Yeah. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that's just one. But there are many other examples of it. So there's some of that.
Jillian Vorce: And then another thing that came to mind, and again, I might be losing the thread of your actual question, but it came to mind, and I feel like it's related to this conversation, is the way working with us clients, you know, over the past decade-plus, the way I would handle or treat flexibility was in a very proactive way. In a very, I would treat flexibility in a structured way. How do you like that? So, on the way. Yeah, right.
Jillian Vorce: The way I would do it is by, this is part of the reason that we built a retainer model because I would say to clients always, we've got this, like, you know, here's stable of things we're going to provide, but we're going to create some space because business and life happen in real-time, and there are going to be things that you expect are going to happen that are not going to materialize. And conversely, there are going to be opportunities that fall into your lap or that emerge that you were not expecting. And so having a retainer model, will allow us to be very nimble and flexible and to adjust on the fly without having to stop and go back and create a new proposal, change order, and go through that whole thing all over again.
Jillian Vorce: So we're very deliberate about incorporating some space for flexibility to happen inside of a long term structured contract.
Veronica Guguian: Makes perfect sense, actually. I can hear you saying that. What came to my mind is Washington in Europe; they will expect that but not pay a retainer necessarily. So they will try. And especially in my culture, I did work with a lot of nationalities, they will. Is that? Let me so I'm not talking about Dutch people here, but that will apply to a specific level to them as well, will be to try to get the most out of your contract. And even a little bit extra on top of it. And I would actually try to deliver that as well. So we'll be kind of expected in one way. But you do need to see until when? What was that balance? Where do I stop? But the retainer makes perfect sense for that.
Veronica Guguian: And were talking, was it the last episode or when we were talking about the marketing accelerator, and you asked me how it started, and I said we started with the service called Marketing Buddy, where I said, you have access to me non stop. And how do you define that? Because that's when I say that I don't actually literally expect you to reach out to me nonstop. But some people do.
Jillian Vorce: Right.
Veronica Guguian: How do you do that? And you're thinking about it, we're going to apply common sense, but actually you can't.
Jillian Vorce: No, you need to know the rules of engaging.
Veronica Guguian: Exactly. That was a big mistake from my side and a big learning curve because I was applying everything. Through my filter.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: You know, so that's very, this why the retainer thing speaks to me and makes perfect sense because we do have clients paying monthly retainer but with very clear activities in that monthly retainer. So it's not.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah. You know. Yeah, it's. It's tricky to figure out how to structure it so that there's room to breathe and also make sure there isn't scope creep as well. So, make sure the client is getting their value. And so a couple of things. So one way that I would handle that is to tell them when, you know, opportunity X emerged and there's like something that we could do, depending on what else was going on, I could then communicate to them, this is really great. If we jump on this now, we might need to reshuffle some of the other things. So, for Project V over here, we're just going to have to push that further out. We'll go to the next quarter. Does that sound fine? So we can allocate resources here. And so it usually is like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
Jillian Vorce: And to be honest, most of the time, they had no awareness about all these things because we're managing the process for these things. So it's an added part. So that's it. Yeah, so that's part. It would just be very transparent and communicative about that and let them know what this meant and allow them to make the decision, yes, let's do that. Or, you know what? Let's not. Or this is actually more important, or, you know, whatever.
Veronica Guguian: So we just communicate about it. Yeah, yeah.
Jillian Vorce: But that also reminds me of another conversation I've been having recently; I have the sustainable growth program, and there are some business owners in this program, and they're having very similar experiences, believe it or not, because, yeah, it's like this is what it is, having a business and trying to grow a business. But specifically, in terms of the retainer, both of them have retainers, but the conversation I've been having with them is to really encourage them to reevaluate. It's like looking at what they think the retainer is and then look at what the client thinks it is and what the client values and then look for, which is the part that I've helped with, the things that they're actually delivering or providing that are not on their list.
Veronica Guguian: That's a good point. That's a very good point.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah.
Veronica Guguian: We are always delivering more or different things.
Jillian Vorce: Yes.
Veronica Guguian: Actually they bring a lot of value and we are not even aware. Yes, a very good point.
Jillian Vorce: So we've been doing that, and just by doing that, it begins to shift the perspective slightly on what they're actually doing and then being able to service, actually correct and including the client communications and the strategy and all of that kind of stuff and then aligning that better with what did the client actually ask for initially or what did they need, what are they getting value from? So looking at that kind of stack and then aligning those two pieces and usually then this, in my experience with them, they then realize or feel more comfortable that they can, in fact, double their prices. And so that's what we've been doing. Because if you just say, oh, double your prices, they're like, but it's this. Yeah, whatever, but it makes perfect sense.
Veronica Guguian: I would be the same. When you hear that, why would I do that? But if you're structuring how you're delivering and what you're delivering.
Jillian Vorce: So I think that's an example of flexibility within structure, kind of another example.
Veronica Guguian: Well, I would define that actually not as creativity and providing a different perspective. This one is actually very important sometimes. And we both did it for ourselves actually, too, to get someone from outside. And I'm not trying to pitch any companies here, I'm just pointing out something because we are so stuck in what we are doing. Yes, very hard to, how is that saying? It's very hard to see the forest from the trees.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, through the trees. Yeah, yeah.
Veronica Guguian: It's just impossible.
Jillian Vorce: Through the trees. From the trees. From the trees, through the trees.
Veronica Guguian: How is it now? I want to google it.
Jillian Vorce: I think it's through the trees. I, yeah, I think so. Yeah. Who knows? We can just say, see the forest, and then we will know what it means.
Veronica Guguian: Even though somebody, please send us a message, save us.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, yeah.
Veronica Guguian: That being said, I have to say I do enjoy it can be a pain sometimes working with different nationalities and, especially from the expectation point of view. And if you don't really understand the culture or you're new or, and it's one more thing because we are talking about culture. But a Spanish person who lives in the Netherlands is different from a Spanish person living in Spain. An American living here is different from an American in the States. Romanian is the same. Because we're changing, we keep on talking about that. So, we are a hybrid. We are something in between. Because you can't really eliminate your culture. It's, yeah. Drained in your blood, in your way of thinking and then you adapt it, and you took what resonated with you from the new culture, and you created something.
Jillian Vorce: Yes.
Veronica Guguian: Actually, it makes it even harder because I.
Jillian Vorce: Think so you are like person to person, you know, company to company. There's, yeah. How communication happens, what the expectations are, what's reasonable, what's the right way, what's successful, what's like all of these. Yeah, exactly. It's me, like landmines, almost like, oh, I didn't mean to, I didn't know. It's really tricky. But I think it, as this happens more and there are more and more people that are multicultural themselves and multicultural. Yeah. Households, environments, companies, etcetera. I think it really elevates the need for, yeah. Like humility and transparency, empathy and self-awareness, and all of these things that are soft skills that were like, oh, that sounds really nice and kind of woo. But I think it becomes quite paramount if you want to have a successful, sustainable company now.
Jillian Vorce: I really think it's important to be, you know, have awareness of this stuff because it's unavoidable.
Veronica Guguian: Now, how I treat it is actually asking questions. And I do know asking sometimes stupid questions or a very obvious question, people are like, why are you asking this? I look stupid. But actually, the basic questions you are asking, for example, what do you understand, what do you mean by that particular thing that can mean anything? Or it's a very simple question like I'm targeting scale-ups or startups. For example, when we did the conference, I was asking every single person I met, what do you understand about your startup?
Jillian Vorce: In a scale-up, right?
Veronica Guguian: Everyone will understand different things, and everyone, I'm like, what do you mean? Of course, I know. But actually people are using terms; they have an idea of what it means, but they have no clue what it really means. Or they have their own understanding.
Jillian Vorce: Yes.
Veronica Guguian: How I treat all this situation is actually by asking basic questions and making sure. Are we discussing the same things and do we have the same understanding of what we are discussing? It's basically setting up the framework and the environment we are making sure we are discussing. We can speak the same language if you want.
Jillian Vorce: Right.
Veronica Guguian: And then it makes it easier to create the rules or procedure or how, whatever you want to create, or however you want to call them because we have an understanding. And what the fact, being an expert or international, however you want to call it, taught me is actually to not to be afraid to ask questions. Something that, honestly, back home, you wouldn't really ask because of people. What do you mean? You don't know what.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Veronica Guguian: Now, looking back, he's like, that's so busy. Ask questions. Why are we so afraid?
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, it's an excellent point. That's a really excellent point, I think. Yeah. It made me think of the culture piece as the language piece.
Veronica Guguian: Yes.
Jillian Vorce: And so that for me has been pretty significant. Yeah. Reckoning or very humbling and also very frustrating because generally speaking globally, people know Americans speak English, you know. And so now, being here, I am so aware. I just had a conversation with a gentleman recently; he's based in Germany. And then I realized when we first got on the call that he said hello, and I just thanked him. Like, I appreciate his willingness and ability to have our meeting in English because my German sucks. And it's just. Yeah, this awareness piece is about. Yeah. The different cultures, the cultures, and then the languages and realizing that for a lot of people, English is their 2nd, 3rd, 4th language. So now you're trying to communicate, and it's really interesting. So it's. And it's similar to at home. My.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, my wife is always telling me to. It's like, what did you just say? Can you say that differently? Can you say that in English? She says it's like, can you use a different word for that? And so it helps me to realize that it's just, it's like the purpose of language. This is going to sound, this might sound bad, but here it goes. It reminds me, or it makes me feel like in the US, my education was such that your language vocabulary, your diction really influenced the way people perceived you and how they would judge you and all of these things, your social positioning. Yeah, for sure. Whereas now, in a place that's very multicultural, language really serves a different purpose. It's actually to communicate.
Veronica Guguian: Yeah. So actually you need to forget all your high words or very business oriented words and go to basic words to make sure. Understood.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, that's what she's always telling me. Can you say that in a different way? Like, oh, yeah. So now this is happening more as I'm speaking more and more to people who have, you know, English as a second, 3rd or fourth language. It's making me really think about the way I speak and the analogies I use, the idioms that I use, and the speed with which I speak. And then one other part of the American experience and the self-awareness, I think that happens. Being an international is… I learned this in culture training. So when we moved here, I had 8 hours, an eight-hour course of culture training. And this is one of the things that they talked about.
Jillian Vorce: But when I first took the course, I hadn't yet seen it or experienced it or anything, but now, yeah, I've become very aware of it. How in any type of group scenario or even in a one-on-one conversation, the, and this is a generalization based on culture and all of this data and whatnot through this platform that I use, what have you, but says that Americans tend to fill up the space, so they'll just come in and just go and not really typically have awareness about things like culture or language and whatnot, and therefore not creating enough space or pause for other people who may have different cultures or different languages or whatever need to think through to then feel like they're able to reply and so have a tendency just to keep going.
Jillian Vorce: And that creates this bigger disconnect and like, everybody, you know, feels like, oh, we're all on the same page. But really, these people have no idea why I haven't been able to. So I'm too fast. So that's another interesting piece that I've become. I probably took it too far, but I became very aware of it, and so therefore, I would not speak because I was so aware, like, let me not do that. And so I've been trying to find my way in the happy medium, but then often in, you know, organizations or with companies, they'll say, oh, you're American, tell us what you think and go ahead and add your perspective. So I like it, but I don't want to overdo it. So I'm trying to find my balance with this.
Veronica Guguian: I think it's quite simple to understand because the moment you are invited, like the example you just gave, then yes, you have to, you should. That's your moment. Yeah, maybe it's just about sharing and listening in the same amount. So, ask questions and listen and ask questions again to make sure. Or at least this is how I apply it, just to make sure. Did I get that right or not? But honestly, I don't think, as we just said, there are so many factors. It's not only that. I'm told it will be very simple if, okay, I'm Romanian, you're American, and we come to this culture, and we just need to adapt to the Dutch culture, but they are also adapting to our culture, and they have other nationalities that they are not only their own nationality but adapted. So it's. I don't think so.
Veronica Guguian: I think that for me, the rule is, like I said, defining what we are discussing about. And do we understand the same thing? And then just let's be open, and let's. Let's really listen because otherwise, if we start to put too many blockages, we kind of cancel, we cancel ourselves, and we end up at the same place that we wanted to avoid, but coming from a good place with good intentions. So the result is the same because we are, but not with bad intentions. I don't think there's a rule, and everyone is so different. And maybe you can have a Dutch person that you expect to plan in advance, but they are super last moments, everything open, or you can have an American that will be the opposite and everything.
Jillian Vorce: Right.
Veronica Guguian: You know, so, yeah, you never know. So this way, I think the important thing is just to be present in that discussion and just follow your gut feeling and you. You navigate it from there. Yeah, it's.
Jillian Vorce: Yeah, yeah. I love the part about questions because I'm asking questions all the time and also trying to kind of assimilate here. I'm, yeah. Constantly asking questions about why they do what they do so that I can try to understand the thought process and see what, you know, sometimes just individual people, but sometimes it's like, oh, and oftentimes when you ask questions, I don't know if you probably have this experience, too. It's like when somebody asks you a question, it makes you think about, yeah, why? Why do we do this? I don't know why we do this. We just do it this way so it really can push you to start to even question things, which is sometimes jarring, but it's actually quite great. So this. I know anybody who's in. Yeah. A multicultural-like relationship. You know, this. This bit.
Jillian Vorce: Because this happens. Like, you do what? It's like the stories, like, is that real? Like, what? Why do you do that? So this is what I'm doing here as well. Trying to ask, you know, is there a reason or how did you feel? You know, I'm trying to ascertain what's going on before just, like, jumping in and saying things. So I really think that there's a lot of, you know, to put a lot of stock in that bit about asking questions and genuinely being curious. Right. So it's like. I think that actually starts. It's like a curious mindset. If you're open and curious, you're generally going to ask questions.
Veronica Guguian: Exactly. And don't make assumptions. That's the. Don't make assumptions. It's funny, when we started, like, we had no idea. We're going to talk about it. And we ended up.
Jillian Vorce: We freestyled. Look at us. Yeah, I know. Super.
Veronica Guguian: I think we can call it. We can call an end to this episode.
Jillian Vorce: Let's do it.
Veronica Guguian: Let's do that. Yeah.
Jillian Vorce: It's the end. 39, over and out.
Veronica Guguian: Thank you for listening. Bye.