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Frederick Royal III:
Business resiliency is always a priority, but as you’ve certainly seen, every CEO has their own take on what that means. How can a company ensure business resiliency through market instability?
Martha de la Torre:
The first thing you have to do is be customer centric. If the market is unstable, how can you ensure that your customers stay afloat, they survive, they succeed? And if you do that and get your team on board to make sure they’re taking care of their customers, then you are also going to be successful through a downturn. You do what you can to get through it together as a team, as a community, as a partnership.
Frederick Royal III:
Can you talk a bit about how COVID impacted your business? What big decisions did you have to make to both remain solvent and to continue to serve your customers?
Martha de la Torre:
Our first customers, our biggest customers, called and said, “We’re going to keep advertising, but we need to make accommodations.” Because we’re in a disruptive industry and because we’re accountants, we always have the worst case scenario plans. And if we had lost print completely, we already had a plan that we could survive just without ElCasificado.com with 12 employees. So having that in our mind, it was easier to adapt. So, we stayed on top of: what do we think the government is going to do for assistance? We met with all our employees in groups. We looked at the furlough opportunities, and then we were able to apply for the stimulus package. And by the end of April, we had our money in the bank. By the next working day, we brought most of our employees back. We got everything stabilized and then we focused on our customers.
Frederick Royal III:
What do you think makes a leader worth following?
Martha de la Torre:
Employees have different DNAs, and sometimes someone’s not successful at something, but it might be your communication. It might be that you’re not focused on their strength, you’re focused on their weaknesses. And a leader who can see the positives in those skills that you don’t even know you have, I think that’s a good leader. A leader should have a vision, should be able to adapt and pivot. A leader should always– to not accept the status quo. A leader should always be looking at better ways to do things and share knowledge. Not everyone is going to be a leader, but if they all adopt a couple of the skills that you influence them with and make them a better person, a happier person, then you’re going to have an incredible dream team.
Frederick Royal III:
Who do you consider a leadership role model and why?
Martha de la Torre:
I would say that’s my husband Joe. Came to work with us reluctantly because he didn’t see the viability initially and then once he had that aha moment of seeing like, wow, people want our product… People come tell us that their businesses survived, only using El Casificado. That really motivated him and where I was happy to be a $2 million company, a $10 million company, he goes, “No, we can do better. We could do more.” And when he commits himself to something, he’s so driven and very process oriented and very organized, and he makes everyone have fun while we’re working hard. So I’ve learned a lot from him and I think we’re a good balance with each other, and that’s why we’re in our sixties and still having fun coming to work. But then I also have to say the women in my family, my mother, my aunts, my grandmothers, they were all trailblazers and leaders in their small way. And my dad, my dad always expected the same out of me as he did of my brothers and I’m really glad that they never made me feel that I was not going to be able to accomplish what I wanted to do because I was a woman. So if it ever happened, I never noticed.
Frederick Royal III:
That’s truly wonderful. This has been such a great conversation, Martha. Thank you.
Martha de la Torre:
Thank you so much.
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