Life and Work with Lisi Kempton

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisi Kempton.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lisi. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My career started 30 years ago in Silicon Valley, CA. I worked at a variety of companies: Fortune 500, medium-sized and then a handful of start-ups during the .com boom of the 90s. The start-ups are what set me up for success supporting entrepreneurs and to be an entrepreneur myself. To survive at a start-up you need to be able to work outside your “job description” and wear a lot of different hats. You are expected to “do what it takes to get the job done”. I held many different positions from sales to marketing to operations and program manager. During this time, I discovered that I really enjoyed making sense out of chaos by creating processes and procedure manuals. I also really liked using software applications (especially databases) analyzing the data and using it to make decisions from.

After moving to Boulder in 2001, I decided I was tired of corporate and my husband and I were thinking about starting a family. I knew I wanted to have the flexibility of working from home with my child so I left the corporate world. I immediately got networked into a group of entrepreneurs starting a new business. Over the next few years, I continued to work with entrepreneurs with different types of businesses, namely Coaches, Holistic Doctors, and Service Providers. Around 2008, I started working with a Solopreneur who was a Leadership Development/Team Building Coach. I would continue to work with him over the next six years. Working closely with him for so many years and during his first expansion, gave me intimate knowledge about what he needed to successfully transition from a Solopreneur to a Small Team Business. I also learned a lot about leadership development and team building.

When my work with him was complete, I spent the next five years working as a Fractional COO for a couple of Small Team Entrepreneurs. This experience provided me with what is now the 2nd part of my service offerings. What a Small Team Business needs to expand their reach and their profits as well as support a team, in a sustainable way.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Even though I have had, for the most part, the flexibility of working from home, maintaining a work-life balance has been very challenging for me. As an entrepreneur, it is hard to turn work off. My family has suffered the most because of it. There have been many times that I although I may have been home, I wasn’t really available for my son or my husband. I have found it difficult to set boundaries with my clients, as I have always felt a sense of responsibility for their success. Although I am healthy now, there were many years when I was not because I did not have healthy boundaries or make self-care a priority.

The other challenge I faced, up until recently, was not having a community of like-minded women I could turn to for support, collaboration and guidance. It has made such a difference in my business and in my mental health to have support from a community.

My advice to young women starting this journey is to:
1. Build a solid business foundation and systems to give your business the best chance of long-term success.
2. Make your self-care a priority. Establish healthy boundaries and create a self-care routine that you can stick to.
3. Find a community of like-minded women who have been there before and can guide you so you don’t have to waste time, energy and money on unnecessary trial and error.
4. Surround yourself with a support system that can lift you up when you are feeling down and encourage you to keep going when times get tough.
5. Be prepared to invest in your business every year. Some of the areas you will need to invest in are product development, operational infrastructure, training, coaching/mentoring, branding, and marketing. Don’t be afraid of business credit, if used strategically. It is not the same as personal credit. Get educated about the difference.
6. Make sure you are doing the work you are passionate about. Re-evaluate regularly to make sure this hasn’t accidentally shifted. Outsource the work that doesn’t light you up, as much as you can.
7. Don’t forget your why. Why did you start your business in the first place? Stay connected to your purpose.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with SoulTree Operations – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
I am a certified professional coach with an emphasis on social and emotional intelligence. I help heart-centered Early, Expanding and Mature-Stage Entrepreneurs build scalable and sustainable businesses which allows them to expand their reach, their profits and their teams – all while enjoying their lives. Because I have worked with entrepreneurs at each of those stages of business, I am able to guide them through each expansion as well, making the process much more efficient. I accomplish this through a systematic process I developed and execute through a combination of mentoring, training and consulting services.

I am known for the genuine care and concern I have for my clients and their success, my work ethic, my diverse skill set and my ability to assess the big picture and break complex business challenges into manageable action steps.

I am most proud of my training programs that provide much-needed support to female entrepreneurs. I offer an Essential Systems & Tools program for early-stage entrepreneurs that helps them identify the systems they have and the software tools they need to run their business, plus provides them with the training for how to use them. I also offer a small group training program designed for early-stage and expanding entrepreneurs interested in learning how to build a business designed for long-term success.

What sets me apart from others is the whole-person approach I take to my service offerings, the deep compassion I have for my clients and my wide range of experience and diverse skillset.

What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
The most important piece of advice I could give a young woman just starting their career is to make your self-care a priority and maintain a healthy work-life balance. It is also important to identify the job functions within your business that you are most passionate about and outsource the rest to a team member or strategic partner. This will help prevent resentment and burnout. And remember, we may only have this one life. Don’t spend it all inside working!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.soultreeops.com
• Email: hello@soultreeops.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soultreeops/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SoulTreeOps
• Other: https://calendly.com/lisikempton/45min

Image Credit:
Ty Schwarzer and Chloe Besson

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