The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
Welcome to The Third Growth Option, where we're not just talking about growth—we're making it our mission.
At TGO, we understand that success isn't a fixed destination; it's an ongoing journey with twists, turns, and unexpected detours that take us to new places. Those moments are our Third Growth Options, where we throw away binary choices to create our own path.
Hosted by Benno Duenkelsbuehler, O.G #GrowthNerd, we're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside of business, one episode at a time. From humble beginnings to Fortune 500 companies, our stories are not just about business—it's about the relentless pursuit of greatness in every aspect of life.
With each episode, we don’t just want to share insights—we want to empower business owners across all frontiers to carve their own path to success, their way.
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The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
Feel the Fear and Launch Anyway: Two Business Owners Get Real
Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ?
Dawn Grooters and Benno Duenkelsbuehler explore the challenges and strategies of marketing your own business as two business owners who help companies grow, yet struggle with their own messaging.
• Authenticity in business requires balancing personal vulnerability with professional messaging
• Your message may feel repetitive to you, but most of your audience is hearing it for the first time
• Focus on your "smallest viable audience" rather than trying to appeal to everyone
• Taking imperfect action beats waiting for perfection - Dawn launched her podcast without knowing all the technical details
• Feel the fear and do it anyway - every successful business owner pushes through uncertainty
Connect with Dawn at brokenvesselsales.com or find her on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook as Dawn Groters.
Always growing.
Benno Duenkelsbuehler
CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN
Hey, welcome to the Third Growth Officer podcast, where we talk about all things growth, yes, even and especially those hard parts where you shed some skin and pick yourself up by the bootstraps. Hey, I'm Benno Dunkelspüler, growth Sherpa and OG hashtag growth nerd. We're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside the business, one TGO episode at a time.
Speaker 2:I am Dawn Groters from Broken Vessel Sales, the CEO and founder of that company, and I live in Ames, Iowa. You have to think about that one. That was a trick question. I did, yes.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm Benno, your host of the Third Growth Option podcast today, recording from Mexico City. And Dawn, you and I met a couple of months ago actually for the second time, but we had a nice conversation at a trade association conference in charleston, south carolina. Uh, you are, you were before founding your own business in 2020. You were a buyer, you were a sales rep.
Speaker 1:You were a sales director and then you found a broken vessel in 2020. So I I want this podcast to just kind of be a conversation between two business owners who, both of us, help companies grow. We do it in different ways and methodologies and we're not marketing agencies right, we're not the sort of messaging, marketing, branding folks but we certainly have opinions about it and we do it for our own business right.
Speaker 1:So, and I will say from my perspective, certainly marketing and branding my own business is more difficult than helping other companies do it, because it's sort of the brain surgeon should not do brain surgery.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. So how do you focus the message of Broken Vessel without? How do you focus it without straight, jacketing it right, Without like choking?
Speaker 2:it. Yeah, yeah. I think the way that has helped me to do it is when I first started the business, I wrote down in a notebook, like the things I wanted my business to be about. What were the things that, if you asked me about the business, or you even just started hearing about it, what were the things that were going to be the focus? And so that's where I started and it was like simple words, like I wanted to wanted people to connect with more customers.
Speaker 2:I wanted it to be about inside sales, because that's where I had a lot of experience. I wanted it to be about being authentic. I wanted it to be about relationships, because that's so important. So I wanted those like keywords to be in my messaging, to be as part of my brand, and those were things that I just kept going after in all of the communications, in all of the things, conversations that I would have with people. Those were the things that I wanted to highlight because that was what was important for my business, and so I didn't want it to just like drowned out everything, but I wanted it to be. Those were the focus of what my brand and messaging was.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of the elevator pitch, right, that we are all taught to think of, you know, be it conversations or your website, or you also do a podcast. But I run the risk sometimes of so I've done the same in my business, right? So I've done the same in my business, right? Um? But then I run the risk of overusing those words, sort of like to a hammer Everything looks like a nail. Does that happen to you?
Speaker 2:You know, maybe you're you're probably I don't know that I'm better at it Cause I don't have them.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like that's a strong point of mine is marketing my own business because in my head I want I know what I want everything to look at, but I'm also so close to it that sometimes I have a hard time separating what I know intellectually about my business and what we do and then explaining it to somebody who doesn't understand all of that of the knowledge that I have in my head that it's hard to sometimes for that person to understand without using all those keywords.
Speaker 2:So I, you know, I, as I tried to develop this business and I've listened to a lot of different people, a lot of different podcasts, read books, things like that, and they keep saying like you have to keep that message consistent, and so those are the words that I want to always use, because if, at you know, 20 years down the road, I want them to look at Broken Vessel Sales as a relationship-based business, I want it to be about inside sales, and so I have to keep using it, and the more and more people that are interested in the business, they're hearing it new for the first time. So I try not to think about it as well. They've heard it a hundred times, but there's one person out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have Because they have. You're right, that's a good point, that's. That's a really that actually I hadn't thought about the fact that, um, when I, when I criticize myself for maybe, beating the drum over and over and over again, right to talk about third growth option and sherpas.
Speaker 1:And innovation meets execution. You know all of whatever the words that are in my business or in your business or in one of the listeners businesses. Um, I think what you're saying is don't worry about repeating yourself, because to us it seems like repetition, but to the listener they've never heard it before. Maybe they've heard you say it once before and that's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah because they're not seeing every single piece of content that you're putting out, whether it's across social medias, whether it's across all of your podcasts, your conversations they're not in every one of them. We are in all of those things, right, but they are not, so they might get bits and pieces, and so the bits and pieces that they get, I want it to be consistent messaging and them to know about what broken vessel sales is what broken vessel sales is.
Speaker 1:And then how? How do you think about so authenticity is? It's unfortunately becoming a buzzword and and business, but I think authenticity is so important to just kind of be ourselves. And you know, before we hit the record button, I was telling you the funny story of how I screwed up Bangladesh and India.
Speaker 1:With somebody who has an office in Bangladesh I referred to it as India, but at least you know I would never edit out something like that because it's like, yeah, I screwed up my geography one on one. I failed. But so I think authenticity is so important.
Speaker 2:Um, but we have to make sure we don't confuse the audience by being, you know, so authentic that you know we're, we're, we're talking about stuff that they don't care about, right, yeah, yeah, well, and I think, you know, like, I think there's a part of authenticity of we are real people, so we run businesses, we have, you know, personal lives, whether, like I'm a mom and a wife, and have interests outside of, like the business world, and so I think I do I do, I, do, I do.
Speaker 2:But I think like those things are part of what make our business what it is, because it's part of that, but so it's showing a little bit of that, but it doesn't have to be every single thing. You know I've there's people on social media that I follow, good and bad, in ways where they share you know, overshare or not. I'm typically a very private person with a lot of things and I want that. You know those are just parts of me that I don't want to share with everybody in the world. My close friends and family know that.
Speaker 2:But I want to be authentic in who I am. So who I am in my personal life is the same person I am in my business life and I want that to be evident and I want that to be for people. Whoever you know whether it was my friends or a colleague would be like she's my, she's the same person. I want that to be authentic. But I also don't want it to be where being authentic means you know every single detail about my life that I don't want to be, where being authentic means you know every single detail about my life that I don't want.
Speaker 1:that's not part of it either can you think of some examples where you felt that your your your messaging on social media or your podcast? Or your website or or even in a in a sales presentation face to face, right when it's worked really well, or where it sort of fell flat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and I I don't share so part of my story and my and the reason I got into inside sales is because I had lost a child and I wouldn't be here without that circumstance happening and I never want that for anybody and it was one of the hardest thing that I have had to go through. But it's part of my story of how I got into inside sales and so usually when I'm doing a training, whether it's in front of a bunch of people or not, I share that part of my story because it wasn't something. Being part of inside sales was not something that was in my plan. It wasn't like where I was headed, but I got put into that position as a way to help my family and go through a very difficult time, and so I share that part of my story.
Speaker 2:When I do presentations, when you know I'm explaining a little bit about who I am, and when I share that part of the story, I I always recognize that, especially if it's in a group of people that they, someone else, has probably experienced a significant loss in their life, whether it's a loss of a child or something like that, and this spring I was doing a presentation like that and as I'm sharing my story and say, you know, I say something like that.
Speaker 2:You know, I realize in a group this size you may have, you are experienced.
Speaker 2:Someone in this audience has probably experienced something like this. And this lady, I look out and she's just weeping and I was like is just weeping and I was like she, she understands, and so I um later found out that her daughter was um experiencing like terminal cancer, and so those are things that sharing part of my story is a way to show people that, um, you can face significant loss, you can face horrible circumstances and tragic circumstances, but it doesn't mean the end of who you are, it doesn't define you, it doesn't end who you. It doesn't mean you can't have joy in your life. You can't have different things later on in your life when you have to go through those things, and so that's part of different things later on in your life when you have to go through those things, and so that's part of something that helps me to connect with other people in a way that I don't think, if I didn't share that part of my story, I would be able to connect with people.
Speaker 1:And for you, I think it's a very special kind of authenticity vulnerability. Yeah Right, when you're being so authentic that you're making yourself you're putting yourself out there. And you're saying here I am, this thing happened, this happened to me, and that helps you connect on a level that you wouldn't otherwise be able to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't think, you know, not everybody is going to connect with that, and I hope not everybody does, because you don't want that. But I do think it shares and shows people a little bit more of whatever challenge you face. We all have challenges in our life. They just all look different. So maybe it's you know, it could be you know a divorce, or it could be you know the loss of a variety of different things, not just people in your life. But we all go through difficult things and so you can come out on the other side of difficult things and still have a wonderful life.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be perfect, because it never is, but you can still have a wonderful life even after going through a really difficult thing, and so-. So that's part of my story and I. It's not easy to share, but it is something I share because I want that to be hopeful for other people.
Speaker 1:Interesting and you know once. Well, actually, first of all, hats off to you, because I don't think that I have in my business and in my sort of messaging and you know about Realign and my business, I don't think I have found a story like that to share. Uh, what one one thing I have. Uh, I hit the chair in the wrong place.
Speaker 2:I saw you go down okay I think, I'm back.
Speaker 1:I have done social media posts at different times that were controversial, yeah, and one controversial post I remember was after I had a very difficult conversation, a very difficult series of conversations, with a colleague that ended in us going separate ways, um, and I wrote a post about it, uh, that basically, uh, talked about you know that you, you you never know what's going through somebody else's head and heart, uh, but, but, but you do have to deal with, um, conflict and disagreement in a way that you know, just faces the music.
Speaker 1:But I was still sort of raw when I was writing the post and it got. It blew up. It blew up right, oh goodness, it blew up right. It had like thousands of views and dozens and dozens of likes and comments and people were really into like asking about it and commenting on it. So you know, I mean that's the one. I mean that's one of the few times when I sort of took a risk instead of just you know, there's a lot of safe subjects in business, but that was not a safe subject and what you're sharing is not a safe subject.
Speaker 2:No, no, and I have to. Putting yourself out there is not easy. We're bound to fail. That's the reality of it. We're bound to fail and we put ourselves out there and it's more and more people can see that. Um, but I believe in the message. I believe in what I'm doing enough and who I am, enough that it's okay If, if I fail, it's okay If not everybody agrees with me. It's okay If somebody does things differently. It's okay If you know I I respect if somebody has a different opinion than me. It's okay If we can still be kind to one another but not agree. And I'm getting better and better at that. I would say when I first started I probably wasn't good at that, but I think I'm. I'm getting better and better at just keeping focused on what I'm doing and helping the people that align well with me in the way we do business and then letting go the ones that don't, and it's okay. There's someone else for them out there that would align better for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, seth Godin marketing genius. Purple Cow, I think was the concept of the Purple Cow is in the title of one of his bestselling books and he talks about the smallest viable audience. And smallest viable audience is something that when I came across that term many years ago, it really connected with me because I'm like you know what Benno Realign and the third growth option is not for everybody, what you're doing, your broken vessel, inside sales and hybrid sales is not for everybody, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:Be a magnet that attracts those people for whom it is, for whom we are, for whom we are right, for whom we can provide value and be okay with the magnet also repelling people. That couldn't give you know, whatever the word is, that I'm allowed to say on a podcast that couldn't give a dang about what I do or what you do. It's okay to repel them, so just focus on the smallest viable audience, and I think that's what both your business and my business is about right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's the good thing about it is, if it's that small, viable audience, they're the ones we're most engaged with. We understand their problems the best, we can help them the most, and so I think that's where it really does make a difference for our clients. It's because we understand them so well and we get more involved in it. And we're not trying to serve everybody. We're trying to serve them and we have the skills and expertise to do it, but we're doing it for those people that align well with us on the concept of brand, because I feel brand, the word brand and branding is so misunderstood.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, I always say your logo is not your brand. A brand is not just your logo, right, but brand is one of those things where you ask you know 10 people and you'll get 12 answers around what is brand and you'll get 12 answers around what is brand.
Speaker 2:How would you describe the broken?
Speaker 1:vessel brand, and maybe it's those keywords that you used at the beginning of the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I do want it to be about those keywords. When I think about brands, so if I said Pepsi or I said Nike, like, automatically, like knowledge comes to my mind of what they do and how they solve problems. So, like Nike, for example, when I think of that, I think of like running shoes, athletic wear, like those are the two things that if I'm going to say that brand or my you know, my daughter's like I want these Nike shoes. I know exactly what she's looking at.
Speaker 2:Um, and so when I think of brand, I do want my brand to be about those things, those keywords. I want it to be about relationship-based sales. I want it to be about inside sales. I want, um, our brand to be built with integrity. So when people hear that, hear that brand, or hear the name broken vessel sales, they're like oh they're, they have integrity, um. So I want to continue to have um build a brand that's focused on that and align with um projects and services and solutions that all align within those, that brand. And so that is very strategic, because that means you say no to certain things, you say no to certain ways to help people that maybe don't align.
Speaker 2:That is your promise yeah, and then you can say yes to things that do align in it, and so that's. You know, every time a opportunity comes up, it's like, well, does this align with us? And and sometimes I'm like, well, but not right now, but it could in the future, and if we, you know, we expand and grow, it could do those things. Um, and the brand is continually evolving, but I still want it focused on those kinds of those keywords as well, and so that's kind of what I think. Brand is what, what do you, what? What would you say? Align, realign is for your branding.
Speaker 1:Uh, I mean the promise, our, our brand promise certainly is that we help solve revenue problems, right, that we help companies, um, you know, midsize manufacturers and distributors that run into some sort of revenue ceiling, right, to break through that revenue ceiling. And so to me, the definition I mean I've actually have this, I think, kind of clever three-word definition of brand I'll just throw into this podcast. It's because they say a brand is a promise and it's not actually as important. What I think the promises of real line it's really what's important is how my clients think. You know what my clients think the brand promise of real line is, but so it's. It starts with a promise, right. And if that promise so my three word definition is compelling, promise delivered. If the promise is not compelling, it's not going to break through the clutter, right. And if you don't deliver that promise, that compelling promise, then who cares why?
Speaker 1:we're talking about it right, then it's just a slogan that's a lie, slogan that's a lie, but but compelling promise delivered to me is sort of. Those three words really helped me get my arms around what is my brand? What is your brand? What is coca-cola's brand? And the, the color red or the script uh, the font of coca-cola is not one of those three words, yeah, yeah right I love that three-word definition, I.
Speaker 2:I think that is really good. Um, yeah, it's like have a compelling promise and you deliver the results, because that's where you can and that promise may be different for different clients. But, um, whatever that promise is and you deliver it, that's where you receive results. That's the plan Dawn. I love it, I love it yeah.
Speaker 1:Are there other thoughts that you have on this topic around messaging and marketing our own business that could help other business owners? Because I think you and I talking about branding and marketing and messaging is very different from. We're more users of that concept than practitioners of it. Right, we're not the marketing agency. People Are there other marketing and messaging thoughts that are on your mind that we could maybe share. Yeah, Maybe talk about your podcast a little bit. What have you learned in your podcast and has that maybe changed? The messaging of your brand.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say it kind of goes with kind of like thoughts about branding and marketing and messaging for businesses, and the podcast too. Because I think me starting the Inside Gifted Home podcast, that was a leap of faith again in the fact that I didn't really know what I was doing. I was going to gain some knowledge. I obviously figured out how to do it, but it was not perfect. It was. I'm going to try this, I'm going to see how this goes it.
Speaker 2:Um, I didn't know how to edit, I didn't know how to do a lot of different things when it came to the podcast, but I was going to try and it could have fallen flat on its face and it could have also done really good. And so my whole goal in a lot of things that I do is if it just helps one person. So if it, if one person will listen and one person and the tips I share or the topics I'm talking about helps one person, then it's worth it and I'll keep doing it. And so the podcast is a prime example of that. Of just I didn't have to do it perfectly, I didn't, it didn't have to. Of just I didn't have to do it perfectly, I didn't. It didn't have to be. I didn't have all the episodes, all hundred episodes, planned out. I didn't have any of that, but I was just going to.
Speaker 1:Just the first two right, and so I had a whole list of ideas.
Speaker 2:I just didn't know what those were going to be, and so it was taking imperfect action and getting it out there and then getting people to, um, give me feedback. And you know what did you think of it? How should I change things? And that's what I've done this whole time with it is getting feedback and just taking that imperfect action and it's just getting it out there, and it's okay if it's real and raw and not perfect.
Speaker 1:I love that, I love that, and you know I mean, I started this podcast in the early days of lockdown, spring of 2020, because my wife and two daughters and I were, you know, all looking at each other for after weeks and weeks and weeks of being together and not seeing a soul, and I was like I love you guys dearly, but you can't be the only three people that I will ever talk to again. So it was actually a family thing where we they came up with the idea hey, dad, why don't you do a podcast? And and and the and. The only thing I really did was come up with sort of a frame right like a sandbox.
Speaker 1:The sandbox is growth stories, growth approaches. Um, we'll do it by business leaders for business leaders. Hey, we'll. We'll just have conversations around growth stories and growth approaches and then I'll steal the name from my day job called Third Growth Option, and off we go and you know what it's become. I mean, you know, in the beginning it was just an audio only podcast and then, like after, I think last summer, summer of 2024, we switched over to video. Um, and I've learned so much from the 140 or 50 uh guests that I've had on on this podcast. I consider myself kind of a like I know a thing or two about growth and then I talk to other business owners and business leaders and they know stuff about growth that I have no idea about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I think, you and I just I think, as business owners, we have to put ourselves out there within sort of the you know sandbox that we want to play in. You know, I'm not going to do a podcast on medicinal herbs because I don't know much or anything about it. Yeah, because I don't know much or anything about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think, marketing agencies sometimes I think this is actually true for any expert. Any expert can intimidate the rest of us. Yes, right, if there's a branding expert or Beno as a growth expert or Don as an inside sales expert. It can be intimidating to other people. People, and stay true to you. Know those five or 10 handful of values that you hold dear and near to your heart and just go create some damage.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, no, I think that's that's so true. You have to, you have to put yourself out there and be who you are and, uh, not let and I think that's another point not let the the noise or comments or you know, cause there you're always going to get some negativity. I think, no matter what you do because someone doesn't agree with you, but don't let that stop you, because I think that's where um like fear and can, fear will try to stop you a lot of the times, and so it's don't let those kinds of things stop you from being who you are and what you're about.
Speaker 1:And always there. There there's a book that uh is titled I. I've read the book. I love the book. I think it's titled Feel the Fear and. Do it Anyway.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, right, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Did you not feel fear the first 10 podcasts? You did, yeah, I did.
Speaker 2:Well, if you go back and listen, I think you could probably hear my voice trembling as I'm doing them, because it is and even I would say five years ago me standing up in front of an audience talking about even inside sales. That's not something I would have normally done and so, but I have to do it scared, and every time I get up there I'm scared, but I do it anyway because I know it can impact one person. If it just impacts one person and it helps them with their sales, or it helps one person feel confident to move forward on something or take some kind of action, then it's worth it for me to feel that fear and do it anyway.
Speaker 1:There you go, Dawn. If folks wanted to reach out to you and find you one-on-one, what's the best place? Feel free to give your website address or how to find you on linkedin or yes so, uh, my website is brokenvesselsalescom and that has a lot of that has.
Speaker 2:you can listen to the podcast there. It has all the information on all the inside sales services we do. I'm on linkedin it's just dawn groaters, you can look me up there, and then I'm also have Instagram. So Dawn Groters on Instagram and then on Facebook it's Dawn Groters and then dash. Broken vessel sales is my business page there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, perfect Lots of ways to root out.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you for jumping on this episode and sharing uh uh tricks of the trade uh and your thoughts on uh uh marketing our own business, um. So thank you so much for doing yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:It was great to be part of your podcast, and much success to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same to you, don. Thank you for listening to this episode of TGO podcast. You can find all episodes on our podcast page at wwwrealignforresultscom. You can find me, benno, host of TGO podcast, there as well. Just email Benno B-E-N-N-O at realignforresultscom. Let's keep growing, thank you.
