Jeannette Bennett: Embrace the Plot Twists

Jeanette Bennett is a force for growth, innovation, and positivity. Her love of Utah Valley and the people she has served over the years is unmistakable. We are proud to kick off Women's History Month with an interview with her. From selling her first home to finance the first issue of her magazine to dealing with cancer and becoming the face of Colliers, Utah, Jeanette is a powerhouse in our state. 

In this episode, Jeanette recounts her journey, characterized by resilience and adaptability, shaping her career and the lives of those around her. Learn how personal narratives, when shared authentically, can inspire others while fostering an environment of acceptance and growth.

As we discuss the critical importance of collaboration and recognition within workplaces, Jeanette emphasizes actionable strategies for building inclusive cultures where women and men feel valued. Listen in and share your thoughts on how leadership dynamics can evolve with your engagement! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review!

https://jeanettebennett.com/
https://utahvalleymag.com/
https://businessqmag.com/


www.wliut.com
@utwomenleaders

www.wliut.com
@utwomenleaders

Transcript

Welcome to the Elevate Podcast

Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to the Elevate podcast. Well, linda Gates has said, when women are in leadership, the whole world benefits. Today's conversation showcases the truth of that statement. Hello and welcome to Elevate, a Women's Leadership Institute podcast. We talk about the intersection of gender leadership and the modern workplace. So excited to have Jeanette Bennett with us here today. I've heard her name and read about her in many places, but it was just until recently that she was able to come on the podcast and I'm so excited to have her here. Usually what we like to do, because you have so many titles, so many accomplishments that you've done. I would like you to introduce yourself. That's great and help us know a little bit about you from what you want to share.

Speaker 2 0:48

Great. Well, I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to spend time with you, whether we recorded this conversation or not. We need to hear all each other's stories, so I'm glad to be here. Thank you. So my current title I'm the Executive Managing Director and CEO of Collier's Utah. Okay, so I just took that career pivot nine months ago which we'll probably talk a little bit about.

Speaker 2 1:07

I'm still the CEO of Bennett Communications, which is a magazine publishing company. So we publish Utah Valley Magazine and Business Q Magazine, as well as Prairie to Homes magazines and lots of different titles that people either hire us to do or that we've done along the way. So that's been 25 years that I've been doing that and I'm involved in a lot of other things. I'm the vice chair of UVU's board of trustees, utah Valley University. I'm the chair of the United Way of Utah County. In fact, they're waiting for me to do a DocuSign signature. I've got it over here keeping my eye on that. So I juggle a lot of different things. I'm also on the board at Thanksgiving Point, which is near where we are right now, and, uh, I'm chief visionary officer.

Speaker 2 1:44

They're working on a science and tech center which is, which will be a few years in the making, but it's bringing together a lot of my relationships and ideas from being a journalist and being involved in the economic development of the state. So those are some of my titles. I'm also a mom of five and a grandma of one, really.

Speaker 1 2:01

Okay, your first grandma last last year right before I took this job actually. So 2024 had a lot of firsts for me. That's exciting. Um, okay, will you tell us two things. Will you tell us a little more about call yours? Yes, and maybe first would you share just a fun fact about us. Maybe you like to walk barefoot in the rain. Maybe you you love to do karaoke. Maybe you know something personal fun about you.

Speaker 2 2:26

I could walk eight hours a day. I just love walking. It's and I like to be alone. I'm kind of I live a very extroverted life but I like to walk. And when I'm a runner which is not currently, but I have been a half marathoner in the past I like to be alone. I like to process things. I sing to myself, I pray, I listen to podcasts. I do Marco Polo. Do you know that app? Yeah, I can hardly drive without pulling open Marco.

Speaker 2 2:49

Polo, I have a few friends I talk to every day on there, so it's really, really fun. So that's like your recharge time. It is. Yeah, it's everything to me. I miss it. I did a lot of it in COVID. I had more time for that and wasn't putting on high heels or makeup very often, so I spent a lot of time out on the trail. It was really, really beautiful.

Speaker 1 3:08

I love that.

Speaker 2 3:09

So I love that I hike Mount Timpanogos every year.

Speaker 1 3:11

This will be my 14th straight year, unlike a specific date or just you hiking during the year.

Speaker 2 3:15

No, just in the year. So July or August, sometimes September, early September. I have one friend, michelle Lewis, we do it together and other people often join us, so that's something I wouldn't do it more than once a year. It's quite a hike, but and leading up to it we're always like are we really going to do this again? Are we really going to do this again? And then we do it again, and then we do it again the next year.

Speaker 2 3:36

But I love that Mount Timbigno is a foundational piece of our community. Yeah, it is our community, and it's a lot of ways people can tell whether they're going East or West by looking at that mountain and other mountains like that, and so I like being at the top of it. It helps my perspective, it helps me, um, helps me breathe. And in fact, I went through a cancer journey the year of COVID-2020 and I called I w. I was very resistant to some of the treatments and plans that were being recommended, and one that year when I hiked Timpanogos, it was from the top of the mountain that I called Huntsman Cancer Center and was like okay let's schedule this.

Speaker 1 4:07

I can do this.

Speaker 2 4:08

Because I just had to clear my mind and accept some of the things that were happening to me. So the mountain has become really symbolic and significant to me.

Speaker 1 4:17

Yeah, what a beautiful metaphor. And like resilience too, you're like climb this mountain.

Speaker 2 4:24

I've done lots of things. I can do this I can do this, yeah, a mountain looks insurmountable from the bottom. But if you just keep moving your feet you can do it. And then if you're with people you love to be with, the time goes faster, absolutely. So there's lots of lessons to learn on the mountain.

Speaker 1 4:38

I love that. Someone once said how do you climb a mountain? One footstep at a time. That's the only way to do it. Yeah, so thank you for sharing that. That's beautiful. I want to go into. You mentioned that you publish many magazines and one of them is the UV50 to acknowledge companies in Utah County, and one of those that you one of the awards in there is the Triple Crown. Would you explain that to us and what that is and maybe who some of those players are?

Speaker 2 5:10

Yes, for sure. So I started Utah Valley Magazine in 2000.

Speaker 2 5:14

In 2003, I started Business Q Magazine. Q is for quarterly. One of my favorite magazines for years, even before I started my own magazine, is Inc Inc Magazine and the Inc 500 issue is candy to me. It is just so fun when that rolls off the press and I like to circle any companies that are in Utah or Idaho the two states that are my states and some of the companies I don't know. Many of them I do know and so I just love getting that addition.

Inspirational Quotes on Women in Leadership

Speaker 2 5:39

So when I started Business Q I kept thinking I want to do this for our community and originally I thought I'll do the UV 100. I'll name the top 100 businesses. Well, it's a very big task. So it became the UV 50 before it even went to print and the first year that I did it was 2008. And the idea was to name the top 50 businesses and under that umbrella 10 of them are startups, so that's less than four years operating history. And then we do 30 that are fastest growing same formula as Inc 500. And then we name 10 economic engines, basically the companies. Maybe they're not growing as fast, but they are the top employers.

Speaker 2 6:12

So these are the people we have to thank, that we have jobs and that we have a tax base and they're doing something right. They're doing something right and so we identified those 50. And I was so excited that first year 2008, I did not realize how hard it would be. The very first year we did it in our spring issue. So the year ends and we're like, okay, by February 15th we want all your financials, we want to rank your companies, and we actually accomplished it, but it killed us. So it then moved to summer and it's now fall. Our fall issue every year is UV 50. And so we still recognize companies in those three categories. And then, over over time, we started seeing how cool it was that there were companies that had been startups to watch and then, and then, once they're past their four years operating history, they have the math potentially to make the list where we do the percentage growth over the over the four years.

Speaker 2 7:01

So we have had companies that had been startups and then fastest growing, and then some of them were becoming what we were considering these economic engines and so a few years in a beautiful pipeline right Beautiful to tell the story of a of of an entrepreneur in an entrepreneurial state, exactly so we decided to call that the triple crown award, meaning they had they had been on all three lists.

Speaker 1 7:20

I love that name.

Speaker 2 7:21

Yeah, and that was exciting. What, what we realized is not every year do we have a Triple Crown winner. It's someone that has now hit three, so we not yet. Yes, I love that word. So on years we don't have a Triple Crown winner, we do a Lifetime Achievement Award. So every year someone enters what we call our Hall of Fame, either by being a Triple Crown winner, which is really hard to do, or being, you know, award winner, which we've done.

Speaker 2 7:44

Gail Miller, we've done Blake Roney, we've done people that the listeners would have heard of and that have been really fun. Fraser Bullock was one early on, so that's been great. Two Triple Crown winners that have been fun to follow. Savory Fund, andrew Smith so he has started and helped build these restaurants, and those have been some startups to watch Very fast is growing every year. Some of his brands are on that list. And then we consider Savory, which is the overall company that has Swig Mobetta's R&R V313, to be one of our economic engines. They've been one of the big real estate players in the state and employers.

Speaker 1 8:23

Finding places for all the restaurants.

Speaker 2 8:25

Yes, exactly, and employing our high school and college age and beyond and people, and so they've been a triple crown winner. Domo was also one. So when one of the ways we pick our startups is if the founder has a track record, they've done other companies. And then when they start their new thing we're like well, of course we're going to bet on this person.

Speaker 2 8:46

So we bet on Josh James coming out of MyComputercom, which became Omniture, which sold to Adobe, and we followed that whole story through the years in Business Q. So when he started Domo we named it a startup to watch it then over time, hit our fastest growing and has been on our economic engine list as well. So that was another triple crown winner and we like to when we have those. So that particular year when we honored Josh, he loves BYU. So we had Cosmo come, we had the dunk team come, we even had Josh come out in the Cosmo uniform and nobody knew it was him.

Speaker 1 9:20

Did he dance? Did he do something?

Speaker 2 9:22

So we did. We had real Cosmo out there dunking and then we did a little switcheroo where Josh came out and he was Cosmo and then when he took off the head people thought oh, he had been dunking.

Speaker 2 9:31

So, it was a little little tricky thing, and Andrew is a car collector, so we had him come out on stage in a like a miniature car with his long legs sticking out, and so we try and tailor things to the people that we're honoring. So it's really fun. It's been amazing for me to create special moments for these people. One of the more memorable Lifetime Achievement Award moments was with Warren Osborne, who ended up losing his battle to ALS a month later. So he had actually been on my list of people to honor but because his outcome was uncertain, I hadn't reached out.

Speaker 2 10:06

And then this is a crazy story the night before UV 50, I had this feeling Warren was still alive and doing, you know, well-ish, and I texted him and said I know this is so last minute, but could we honor you tomorrow? We were. We were also honoring Gail Miller, so this was an additional thing and he came and he was able to speak just a few words. Basically, I love Utah Valley and his family shared some other remarks from him, got a standing ovation from people who had watched him grow multiple businesses, and I feel like we created a special moment for him, for his family and for the community a way to say thank you and goodbye, and so, knowing that I've created these moments where people meet each other, they learn each other's stories, I think, get inspired by each other. That really lights me up.

The Importance of Women's Leadership

Speaker 1 10:53

Yes, that's really fulfilling for me, there is so much power in storytelling. As you know, just at Sundance a couple of weeks ago, they honored a couple who had been one of the first investors in Sundance oh wow, and they were both able to stand up and say a few words and to be acknowledged and it was just like what a legacy to shape this state right and I love that they were there together and they both had things to say and it was just really beautiful. So thank you for doing that for people who have contributed.

Speaker 2 11:26

One of the things that I like to say is I think behavior that gets acknowledged gets repeated. So when we acknowledge the good, more good happens. I think the reverse can be true If we acknowledge how hard things are, how bad someone is or whatever, then that can create more of the same. So I've tried to add things to the community and to the business world that, when I add this, if we have more of this, that's a good thing, right, and so I feel like when we've acknowledged these entrepreneurs, that that hopefully incentivizes them, motivates them, gets them up the next morning Like people are seeing me, even though this is hard.

Speaker 1 12:00

People are seeing me and acknowledging the wins.

Speaker 2 12:05

So it's been an honor to be part of the community in that way.

Speaker 1 12:09

Well, from the perspective of the Women's Leadership Institute, we often say that most of the time, women and even, you know, men, all of us leave because we don't feel valued. Our contributions are not valued, they're overseen, they're not recognized valued. Our contributions are not valued, they're overseen, they're not recognized. These companies that you tell their stories and interact with their leaders what are they doing right in terms of that retention piece, in terms of engaging their teams, because really it's your teams that will drive you right.

Speaker 2 12:39

It is true, and every entrepreneur, every CEO that I've interviewed, they want to talk about their team, do they? And I love it. It's hard as a writer sometimes to be like how can I make it sound different this time?

Speaker 1 12:50

Because they're like. The team deserves all the credit.

Speaker 2 12:54

But it's really true and I love it when a leader knows that and will lift up their team. A lot of times when we go to interview a CEO and we want to photograph and interview him or her and they're like can I please have 30 people in the?

Speaker 2 13:06

photo and you're like yeah, it makes the photo less interesting, but I love the sentiment. I love the sentiment. So a lot of times we take it both ways. Let's do it both ways. Let's take one with you, one with the team and, if we can, we like to use both photos so that we can showcase what they want to showcase and also have, like a stellar, meaningful photo of a founder. But I think the ones that really survive and thrive, they do create that culture, they create that, that team that wants to be there. So I love it at our at our UV 50 and our 40 under 40 events. Those are the two big business events that we do each year, when people don't just come, they don't just buy one ticket for the CEO to go, but they like bring the team and they make it a, they make it really cool.

Speaker 2 13:45

Yeah, mixers they were named the fastest growing company, yeah, so they topped that part of our UV50 list. They, that night, had bought a Mixers pink Jeep and had it in the parking lot. No one knew about it, and they bought three tables for their team. They had told their team, you know, they didn't know how they were going to rank. Right, jess knew, she knew she was going to be number one, but no one else knew. And so they were all there for this big moment. And then they celebrated by showing them the Jeep afterwards, which they've all used and it's a team gift and I thought, wow, that was a way to really capitalize on a moment yeah, you know, and really have this very highly photographed moment where they could celebrate and say this was all of us.

Speaker 2 14:26

I think that helps with retention. You know, if you're in a team photo and you're on the website and you're part of the story and you're part of the press release, it's harder to walk out the next day to the other job for you know, a thousand more dollars because you're a little more committed to that. So I think teams that include everyone in the story and in the PR. That's a retention tool.

Speaker 1 14:47

It's also a thank you tool.

Speaker 2 14:48

Yeah, you know it's a positive win. So whether that's done on social media or traditional press releases or media kits, or however you do it, the more you can get your team involved. I think it buys them some loyalty In a sincere way. I'm not saying it would be insincere In a sincere way, it wouldn't work if it was insincere, no, it wouldn't.

Speaker 1 15:05

Yeah, it wouldn't. It's like the term that came to mind when you were talking about that is emotional PR.

Speaker 2 15:11

Absolutely Right, absolutely.

Speaker 1 15:16

Spinning it for connection in all the best ways. Yeah, Something you were talking about. I laugh because Pat is the same way on our team. You know, people want a picture of her, and she's like no, Patty and Nicole like they need to be in it. This is our team. We do this together, which is a beautiful sentiment, Absolutely. A couple of our cohorts that we teach, though, are individual contributors or women coming up in the pipeline who need the ability to showcase the value they bring, and sometimes it's hard to do when you're always like the group did it. There's some pieces of that. You have to say no, no, I did the most of this, Right. So how have you learned to manage that?

Speaker 1 15:54

Because it needs to be both right there has to be a way to do both and do both graciously, yes.

Speaker 2 16:01

So I actually think we as women could get better at this, because I think we are we don't want to take all the credit and all this, but sometimes that can come across as a lack of confidence and you don't want that. You do want to showcase confidence. I've actually been thinking a lot about confidence lately. I judged Miss Utah a year and a half ago and it was fascinating. I also, governor Cox, appointed me to the fourth district judicial commission, so everyone who wants to become a judge in the 4th District has to go through my small committee. Wow.

Speaker 1 16:29

And we interview them. So I'm talking like beauty pageant 22-year-olds, lawyers and judges wanting to be on the bench.

Speaker 2 16:36

And I have a LinkedIn post swirling up here about this. Okay, stay tuned, we'll put it in the show notes. Okay, confidence in in the first few seconds you walk in a room or you have an interaction with someone, you do want to exude confidence. Now, that's not arrogance and that's not narcissism.

Speaker 2 16:55

I think my favorite people have a combination of confidence and humility and and they're not mutually exclusive the combination of the two of them is a beautiful thing, but I think at times, as women, we'd need to own our stories a little bit more and check our intentions right. So, if we're trying to include the team, that's great, but are we doing it as a way to hide or are we truly doing it for them? And we shouldn't be hiding? We shouldn't be hiding at all. We need to be exhibiting our stories and owning our stories. And, honestly, one reason and not to change the subject right away but one of the reasons that I took this job at Collier's, after agonizing for seven months and driving everyone around me crazy trying to decide, was that I thought I think this is good for women because this is a very male dominated industry.

Speaker 2 17:42

And it's a state where women aren't always in those top roles. You know, we haven't had a female governor, we haven't had a female senator. We have anyway. There's lots of roles women have not had and the visibility women have not had, and so one reason that I eventually said yes to this was for my daughters and was for the women I mentor and the women I write about, to just say you know what? Yeah, this is a male industry, but I can do this. I can do this and I actually have found I'm here's how I'm going to do it and I'm going to. I'm going to be open about that.

Speaker 2 18:18

I haven't posted as much as I'd like to lately because I've been so busy, but I I'm going to get going again because I have a lot of stories I want to share and things that I'm learning. I've been kind of in a learning hibernation mode and I'm really excited to share a lot of things that I've been learning at our Collier's community in Utah. We have four, four offices in Utah and a mix of brokers who are commission based and and do retail or office or industrial or land or a mix, and then office staff that produce the marketing and the mapping and accounting and all of those wonderful roles. Out of our top 25 agents, only one is a woman and and you know there hasn't been a woman in in in this type of role and and um, but I find that men, I think, find me easy to talk to and so do women.

Speaker 2 19:16

I actually think that my journalism background is part of it, that, as my, my, um, my teammates come in and have things they need to talk through or decisions they're going through with, I'm someone that they can talk to. They can express emotion, happy or sad, and I actually think that women make great leaders. For that reason, when I finally did come to terms with Colliers, which is a global company, a global publicly traded company, and I'm in the Utah version, so I have a boss in LA who everyone in my role reports to him in the Western US and when he, you know he's not from Utah and he and I only met each other through this process. But we did get to know each other fairly well over those months as he came here and I went there and lots of different conversations. And right at the end, when I agreed to come and we were agreeing on terms, he said you know what I think really prepared you for this? It's that you're a mom.

Speaker 1 20:13

And I thought OK, I know, I know there is so much to unpack, because I'm like should I be offended?

Speaker 2 20:20

right now he literally said that and I'm like, okay, but I have like degrees and I've run a company and I was named top woman entrepreneur in media and I Silicon Slopes Hall of Fame and like I'm a mom, like. But then, you know, as I thought about it, I thought, well, I can choose how to react to this. Yeah, you know, I can choose. Yeah, and I think he meant it positively and I have found it to be true Like, when I am working with my team, I find a lot of my motherhood skills actually do come out.

Speaker 1 20:50

Of course my business skills do, too, bring out your mom voice.

Speaker 2 20:53

Well, at times there's, you know, siblings that have a little disagreement and we're working through that, or things that didn't quite get done, that should have gotten done and that, as I've shared that experience with other women, I get lots of different reactions of anger and also, well, that was nice that he acknowledged that there is some some value. Eric quotes in motherhood Well, absolutely, there is Right, it's leadership.

Speaker 1 21:16

Depending on how you took his, took what he said. It could be diminutive right, like right From being a mom, yeah, or like wow, you learned this from being a mom. Of course, you can do this.

Speaker 2 21:25

Right, right, and so I've, I've chosen to see the positives in it. But, um, and I do think you know, when I have friends of mine, who, who, who didn't work on their career as they were raising their families, and then they are ready to transition out, and we have I've had this conversation with many of them as they're trying to decide what to do, I tell them no, you can do this.

Speaker 1 21:47

Look what you've been doing you can do this.

Introducing Jeanette Bennett

Speaker 2 21:49

You've been running a family budget. You have been now, you know, negotiating with school counselors. You have been, you know you've been running the PR for your job, so there actually really are a lot of skills that women utilize at home that translate to the business world. So, and I and I don't say that in any sort of demeaning way, and I don't think my boss meant it that way either it's actually true, you know. So let's, let's own that and be proud of that.

Speaker 1 22:12

Yeah, oh, thank you so much for bringing that up. Right before we started, we kind of talked about how we don't want to compartmentalize, right, the moms. We don't want to compartmentalize right the mom's here and the leader's here, right, all the same person.

Speaker 2 22:24

It's all the same person and when I see my life, my life has been a mix and because I'm an entrepreneur and I owned my company, I was able to mix that.

Speaker 2 22:33

I took kids to work and I brought work from home Before there was remote work. I was doing all of that because I could, and it was honestly the only way I could have raised. You know cause I chose to have five kids and and also wanted a career, so it was the way for me is to to mix it all. Um, one of my kids got asked does your mom work full time? And they were like, huh, they hadn't. They weren't really familiar with that term because that's not how we think of it. It's just sort of like, well, she does a lot of stuff, but it's like that idea of are you full-time or part-time.

Speaker 2 23:04

They just saw it as a mix, which I really enjoyed, because that's how I see it too. This is my life, these are the pieces of it, and the pieces have grown and shrunk over time and every year I had a baby, I backed off a little bit from work and and then would ramp back up and then have an. You know it's it's been a different looking pie every year of my life and, um, but I but I own that, you know, and I I think I could have and I'm at, I'm at peace with this, but I think I could have built a bigger business if I hadn't wanted to also be home after school on most days, or if I, you know, hadn't wanted to have five children or something, but it was a conscious choice, to be like.

Speaker 2 23:42

I'm going to. I'm going to maintain this business, grow what I can, but I'm not going to do it at the at the peril of this, these other goals I have. So it it's been a balance. It's been a juggle for sure.

Speaker 1 23:53

I actually heard you say that an interview is. You know, part of defining success is not only what you want to make, but the size of company you want to run, how many people on your team right your output, and I really appreciated that because that's true, those are all part of it, those are all metrics of success, all metrics that you have to decide and be very thoughtful and intentional, because nobody wants to get to the end and be like, oh, that is not what I wanted, why did I do that?

Speaker 2 24:23

So we have to own our stories and those metrics are different, and they're different often for men and women.

Speaker 1 24:27

They don't have to be the same.

Speaker 2 24:28

And they've been different for me every stage of life. Yeah, so it's not like you decide your metrics one time. No, you redecide them over time, absolutely.

Speaker 1 24:38

So a couple things. I want to pick up Collier's in a minute, but I want to stop here at this 2000,. You started your magazine. I was 25. Yep, and you had graduated and you sold your house to pay for the first issue. Yes, and the impetus to that? Well, one of them was that you were pregnant and you were going to have a child and you wanted some of that flexibility. So I have two questions around that. A, you were with Deseret News before. Did you ever go to them and have the conversation of can this be flexible? I want part of this, but do you really do that? So that's my first question. And the second question is I've noticed that lots of women, after having children, become entrepreneurs and build their own businesses because the structures are so rigid. Even still, we're getting better, but even still. So specific for your situation. And then kind of overall Right.

Speaker 2 25:36

So the Deseret News I loved that job. Yeah, I really did, and I felt like I had a promising future there. I was expecting my first child. I started as an intern and then stayed on, so it'd been about a year and a half and so not even that long of a time. Okay, yeah, really wasn't that long. Well, at the time I thought, oh, this is so long. And I looked back and I was like that was a blink, blink of an eye.

Speaker 2 25:58

But, um, and when I went to have him I mean, I worked until I went into labor and I was like I'll be back in six weeks. I had three days of paid maternity. That was all.

Speaker 1 26:08

But but I would you know they were going to let my job back as soon as you're out of the hospital. You got to come back.

Speaker 2 26:15

But they would hold my job. You know, I needed to come back in six weeks, but and I told them that I would. But the thing was, there was no remote work. No, it wasn't a thing. You had to be there on site and at this time. You know, the Desert News was an afternoon paper. We were working during the days and then on the weekends we'd work. The paper came out Saturday morning.

Speaker 1 26:38

Sunday morning, so there was a.

Speaker 2 26:39

Friday night shift and a Saturday night shift, which I thought was fun, actually to kind of shake up the work week. But, um, as I just looked at this, I looked at this brand new baby that I loved and I was nursing him and I just thought like, no, nobody can do this but me. And, um, I just can't do it. I didn't like childcare was such an insurmountable obstacle to me at the time. I hadn't had working women modeled for me from my mom and aunts and neighbors and honestly, I just couldn't see how it could work. And so I just was like I guess I guess this is an either or. Oh, interesting, the me of today, who is better at advocating for myself, would have asked a few more questions, you know. But the options that were presented to me that I didn't really fight back on were come back full time in person or you're gone. Well, and sometimes you don't know what you don't know. I know, yeah, it's really true. And so I didn't go back and that was. That was a hard decision, in that I loved the job, but it also felt like the obvious decision. So it wasn't like I agonized over whether I'd made the right decision, because I felt like I did, felt like the obvious decision. So it wasn't like I agonized over whether I'd made the right decision, because I felt like I did.

Speaker 2 27:45

And but it was shortly after that, very shortly after that, that I was like well, what can I do? Cause I had a fresh, you know, bachelor's and master's degree experience and I like to work and you know the baby sleeps several hours a day and I don't really like to cook. I'm definitely not going to sew, you know like what else am I going to do? And that's when my entrepreneurial brain kicked in. I had done a minor in business at BYU as part of my bachelor's degree, but it's because I thought I'd write about business. I still like writing about business, but that was my reason. It wasn't because I thought I would start a business. That didn't click on for me until I became a mom, and then it was like bright lights, like obvious. But it wasn't obvious to me until that moment when my new metric was flexibility.

Speaker 1 28:25

That was everything I love that.

Speaker 2 28:26

Okay, new metric, and then the resilience back to that being able to choose a new path and still continue on. Yeah, and I had my, my positivity slash naivety. Sometimes they're good that I was like, of course this is going to work. Of course it is. You know, and there were there are a few iterations that I maybe won't go into of just newsletters and different projects that I did before Utah Valley Magazine launched with my husband, his brother and that brother's wife. There were the four of us that worked on that first issue. The other two sold ads and my husband was designing things a graphic designer and I was writing things and running the money. Oh, okay, it's a good team and, um, and yeah, and I mean it was going to work it w.

Speaker 1 29:05

there was no other option in my head.

Speaker 2 29:06

Other people around me were like uh, do you?

Speaker 1 29:08

know the percentages of businesses that fail. I can't hear you.

Speaker 2 29:15

I really had just um blinders on in a good way of no, this is going to work. Plus, I knew the metrics of what it would take for us to live as a family. We had been poor college students, both my husband and I, our parents, our dads, our school teachers. We had never gotten used to anything nice, so it was like well, we can live on nothing.

Speaker 1 29:33

I know how to do that.

Speaker 2 29:34

What a good time to start it, but I did have. I had two kids by the time the first issue of Utah Valley Magazine came out. So you know, kids do cost money and I was a little unrealistic on life. But it all worked out. It really worked out.

Speaker 2 29:49

I mean, those first few years were tough. We didn't have employees, we didn't have an office at first and then, as those things started to happen, you know, the metrics changed and we needed to add more magazines and we needed to beat our goals and increase our revenue, which we figured out ways to do. But every, every step of the way it was like what's the need? What's the need? We'll figure out the solution.

Speaker 2 30:09

You know, and always driven by that, never took on an investor which I which is amazing Never had a bank loan until we built our office and then we had a, you know, a loan on the building. But and that was intentional, intentional, and now that's paid off and you know it's different things, but I was very glad not to have to answer to investors. It kept it kept things flexible. I think investors at times when I was having babies and kind of like let's just do status quo this year they would have been like no, no, q4 needs to be 25% larger than last year, and I didn't. I didn't want or need that pressure, so that was nice.

Speaker 1 30:52

Nice. Where did that ability come from? Is that you know, showcasing your mother and your father? Was that like a best friend growing up? Because not everyone has that ability to say I want to do this my way. Right, I'm going to be really intentional about this, but I'm really positive. I don't need to know the how, I'm just going to jump into this.

Speaker 2 31:06

That's a great question. You know, we we don't come from entrepreneurial families, and so I don't feel like I had this perfect model that I was just following step by step. Sure, I loved reading when I was little, and I loved reading about strong women and, and I think all of that kind of got added up in me where I was like, no, there are strong women, there's the ability to do that. Also, I think I'm just naturally a little bit stubborn, a little bit different. I don't know when I was like I'm going to figure this out and I had a lot of teachers that were wonderful from elementary school, high school, college that would say things like oh, you could do anything, they would build me up.

Speaker 2 31:49

They would build me up and make me feel like I could do anything.

Speaker 1 31:52

Back to that value piece we were talking about, for sure.

Speaker 2 31:57

And I really relied on some of their ideas at times. Some of their ideas at times. I had a bishop, a religious leader, who in high school I was sitting there in church and hadn't started yet, and he walked over and he handed me a women in business magazine. Okay, so I was probably 15 or 16. Oh, okay, and and I probably looked at him like what's this weird guy doing, giving me a magazine?

Speaker 1 32:20

I probably didn't. I didn't know how to react.

Speaker 2 32:23

But, like, I read the magazine and it did two things for me. First of all, the content of. I'm like what's this weird guy doing giving me a magazine? I probably didn't. What do you want to do with this? I didn't know how to react but, like, I read the magazine and it did two things for me. First of all, the content of the magazine was inspiring. Second of all, I thought he thinks he believes in me. He believes enough in me to think she needs to read this and she's of value. She's, she's the type of woman that's written about in this, or could be the type of woman written about in this. And both pieces of that the actual content and the act of him choosing to show me that much respect and and a belief I've never forgotten. That, you know, and that's now been however many 35 years or something, and he's passed on and he, you know. But and that moment was the lifetime, my lifetime has several of those little moments where it's like, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 33:02

I'm going to keep my eyes open because I think maybe there's something ahead for me that could be cool. I love those moments.

Speaker 2 33:09

So I've tried to be that person for others. I know I could do better, can't we all? It's sometimes overwhelming the high school and college students that want to be mentored and that send you LinkedIn messages. I'm like I desire to do all of this. I desire to, but sometimes I don't always have all the time to do everything I'd like. But I think we can all lift other people up and to our nieces and nephews or whoever we come in contact with to shine a light on what could be for them and honestly I mean I talk about how I don't have time, but honestly, it only really takes 15 seconds to do something small, to tell someone I love the way you think, or just something like that. Absolutely Give them something to chew on. That matters.

Speaker 1 33:49

Yeah, I really love that piece. I think it's so important and I think those are things that it's hard for us to see in ourselves.

Speaker 1 33:59

So, it's so gracious of someone else to do them and then you can build on it. So, so it was so gracious of someone else to do them and then you can build on it. So thanks for bringing that up. So let's fast forward to right now, from right from the selling of the house, the bishop giving you the magazine, building, building, building and this you know, months-long deliberation to take over ceo and managing director. And tell us, did you go in the bathroom and do like you know? Did you have imposter syndrome? Did you do your power pose? Or, by the time you took it, you're like I'm ready, I'm ready to do this.

Speaker 2 34:33

So Brandon Fugel, who's the biggest name in commercial real estate here in Utah. He and I've been friends a long time. We have crossed paths and sat on boards and and I've written about him, done cover stories on him. He has supported my events and bought ads in my magazines and we've had kids similar ages and things like that, and we co-chair the science and tech center that will be built at Thanksgiving Point. So we were having a meeting about that and then it was like a light bulb went on in his head and he said know what you should run Collier's? I need a new leader.

Speaker 2 35:07

And I think I did laugh and was kind of like oh yeah, thanks, really and honestly I thought he'll forget about this by tomorrow. Like this is kind of crazy idea. I know, you know, I know he has respect for me and we've done different things, but I'm not in real estate and I already I own a company. But I'm not in real estate and I already I own a company, like I'm already busy. So, um, I thought that would probably be just kind of a fun conversation. That died and um, and it didn't he. He brought it up again and reached out. I'm like, well, okay, let me just let me think about it, let me talk, talk to you some more. And Lou Kramer, who was the CEO who would be leaving, I met with him and I met with several people and I just didn't want to go in eyes half closed at all. And also, brandon's a really good salesman and I didn't want him to sell me. I was like no, no, no.

Jeanette’s Career Journey

Speaker 2 35:56

You're not going to sell me, I'm going to decide there's a severed but worked well for you this time.

Speaker 2 36:01

Yeah, because this is a big shift and I knew it would be a big PR moment and I have this company that I still own and what would it mean for that. So it just wasn't a decision I was going to make overnight or anything like that. And I dragged my feet and at times I leaned no and at times I leaned yes, but maybe not now, and they were patient. They were patient with me. And then it was one weekend when I was again making a pro con list. I mean I seriously drove everyone crazy to decide I can be very analytical and I was being very analytical about this and what are the pros, what are the cons and what could I learn?

Speaker 1 36:35

And what if I?

Speaker 2 36:36

what if I say no, I could see both sides and and all of that. And then it was one weekend when I just kind of thought I would be so stupid to turn this down. They came to me and want me to take this position in this field of economic development that works with the governor's office, that works with the LDS church, that works with the academic institutions, and I started to think, no, this is brilliant. I can't believe I'm not. It all of a sudden became obvious, kind of a no-brainer to me, and so I decided to jump in and from that moment on I haven't looked back, I haven't thought should I, should I? I spent plenty of time analyzing the decision. There have definitely been moments where I'm like, wow, am I in over my head? Like this is a lot.

Speaker 2 37:28

There's external parts of the job representing colliers on boards and panels and speaking and working in those public, facing things which I felt the most prepared to do. Sure, the internal workings, managing the people and managing the budget and making those decisions and approving expenditures and working on hiring, working on retention, and all of that. That's a very large job. And then the third piece of the job is aligning with Collier's, which with the global brand, so making sure that we're in alignment with their processes and helping. I've spoken at some of their events that are regional or national and and so being part of that ecosystem and sharing best practices with other people in my role. So I see my colliers position as having those three categories, and they're all important and they all compete for my time and my mental bandwidth.

Speaker 2 38:19

But the juggle is I've always been a juggler, I guess, and so I've added this to it, and I haven't been writing as much for the magazine. I've done some of the cover story interviews, but then had my staff do some of the ghostwriting for me, and so we've we've found some equilibrium equilibrium in this new setup and I feel really grateful. I feel stretched. I turned 50 last year and and I just feel like wow, to take on something new at this stage of life. It's invigorating. I find myself pulling off business books off my shelf because I care about them again. I'm like, okay, now how did you build a culture again? Because I began my other company 25 years ago. So to come in new, I care about all these things.

Speaker 1 39:02

Once again, You're hungry again in a different way.

Speaker 2 39:04

I would love to go back to school. I have no time probably won't, but I would love to go take more finance classes, and it was just. I just feel so thirsty for knowledge again, and so I. I love that it's reinvigorated me.

Speaker 1 39:15

I love that you said stretch, because oftentimes we get in a comfort zone and we just put our heads down and we do what we do and we do it well. And at a certain point there's a risk there too, right. What if you do it and you fail? Because all growth is risk, because you've never done it before.

Speaker 2 39:32

But I don't really believe in failure.

Speaker 1 39:34

I believe in, like growth.

Speaker 2 39:36

And if we want to grow we've got to push through it.

Speaker 1 39:38

So I you even your eye, like you had a sparkle in your eye when you're talking about the books and pulling them down from the shelf. And what a beautiful place that you've allowed for yourself.

Speaker 2 39:48

I did a cover story on Stephen Covey 2009. And of course, he's written beautiful things and much of our interview were things he's had in his books. But one of the things that stuck out to me in our interview was he said there's a difference between having one year of experience let's see A difference between having 20 years of experience or one year of experience 20 times. Oh, and in some ways, the, the magazine started to feel just a touch like that, because I was doing a lot of the same things. The finance financial metrics looked pretty much the same year after year the size of the staff was it was stable, and much the same year after year the size of the staff was it was stable, and, and so I was starting to feel like these aren't new years anymore, and even though I love it and it's opened the door to everything.

Speaker 2 40:33

It wasn't, it wasn't stretching me, I wasn't growing in some of the same ways, and so I. This past year has not been same old, same old. It's been very new and I've met and I work with all new people that new people that are now my best friends, that I didn't know a year ago, and I'm using acronyms and language and understanding things that I didn't know before. And that feels pretty good. It feels really good Potential.

Speaker 1 41:01

I love it. Thank you for sharing that and also for considering all the women in the state and around who can see you in that leadership role in a pretty male dominated industry. Right, yeah, thank you for that. I want to move on to the power of storytelling. We've touched on it. We've told some different stories. I believe that storytelling and communication creates reality. I agree how you spin it, right, like Emily Dickinson said, tell the truth, but tell it with slant, and everybody's slant is a little different. So true, right. So what is the story? You started out with the story of your own family crafting that, starting the magazine, and then Utah County, and then the economic drivers of our state, and now with Colliers, which is a global brand. What has been the story of our state and what do you want the story of our state to be as far as economics and leadership?

Juggling Roles: Mindset of a Leader

Speaker 2 41:59

Wow, utah has a beautiful story. Yes, it does, and you know if you travel to Europe and other places in the world. There are centuries of stories and Utah's story is relatively short, which?

Speaker 2 42:11

is, which is incredible when you think about it that it's not even been 200 years since the pioneers settled. I mean, I know there were, there were people here already, but our story is fairly short and it's still being written and we have some exciting chapters ahead of us. Our story is largely one of starting with nothing, and that's what makes us good entrepreneurs is we're like, huh, we're not just going to sit around and wait for someone to solve this for us, let's figure it out. Let's figure it out. And I think that's a beautiful story. And there's, there's different pieces of the story. That it's, you know, even in Utah County.

Speaker 2 42:50

You have Geneva steel, you have word perfect, you have uh, and then you have families that have that have their own stories, that have added to the, the um, the fabric. So the Millers and the Eccles, and you know now the Ashtons and the Smiths, ryan and Scott Smith and Jared Smith, and these families all have their own stories, but their stories are actually quite similar. They all started from a very non-memorable place in a lot of cases and then just keeping at it and keeping at it. I also think part of our story is I call it either karma or the secret of the law of restoration, whatever you want to call it, but it's.

Speaker 2 43:32

it's when, when you give, when you, when you put things out, then things return to you. And so I've written about so many companies and individuals who part of their story is they started this little nonprofit or they donate X amount of proceeds, and I really think that's part of the story of success for a couple of reasons. I think that there is some energetic law of when you give you're blessed Sure.

Speaker 2 43:58

It also helps you when you don't keep everything you have. You give some of it away. I think it keeps money in a good perspective because you realize this isn't just about the accumulation, it's about the impact, and so that mindset, I think, is really a beautiful thing and it's perpetuating because the more you experience that high of impact there's more of it. So I think that's part of Utah's story as well. Really well, say a high of that. Yeah, there's more of it.

Speaker 1 44:26

So I think that's part of Utah's story as well.

Speaker 2 44:27

Really well said, I like that and I think we're evolving and we're in a really exciting time. You know, we have these two counties, our two most populous counties, salt Lake and Utah County. That used to have a very big divide.

Speaker 2 44:38

The point of the mountain is a cultural, physical, geographic boundary and that has changed as both counties have shifted their growth to the north of Utah County and the southern tip of Salt Lake County, that's where we are right now Right and and population has shifted that way economic based jobs and and so I think that that's part of our story too is taking previous barriers and saying how could we actually work together and we're better together, and setting down any preconceived notions or, you know, barriers of any kind, and seeing the beauty of coming together and the point which is the prison site that's now being reimagined Like the actual point.

Speaker 1 45:19

I know it's confusing.

Speaker 2 45:20

We use a lot of the same words, but the point the previous prison site and Collier's is part of that. We're developing the office sector and the office buildings that will be there, which is going to be really exciting. So that's a perfect example of everyone coming together and the state's been wise in selecting a lot of input from a lot of people and, because we don't want to get this wrong, this is a once in a.

Speaker 2 45:43

This is more than a once in a lifetime probably. This is a never opportunity to take the perfect land in the middle of the population base to start over.

Speaker 2 45:53

It's absolutely beautiful. So I think that's going to be that in and of itself, that project. Of course, I'm in a real estate mindset right now, but I think that project is going to tell Utah's story all by itself. You know, people coming together together and there's going to be academics and there's going to be residential and there's going to be beautiful art, installations, collaboration of it all, the collaboration of it all and the possibilities Anything's possible right now and so that's been really cool to be part of those conversations. I was up at the state Capitol when it was just getting started and I helped testify, which ended up leading to a $50 million allocation from the state for Convergence Hall at the point. So it's it's fun to see some of these little moments turn into something that that's going to be coming to fruition.

Speaker 2 46:39

So Utah has a lot ahead of us.

Speaker 2 46:41

You know we have the Olympics coming back in nine years and um and there's a lot of preparation and talk about that. I think as a state we have that common goal which feels far away, but it's really not that far away and there's a lot of things. We're short on power in the state, so that's the thing that we're going to need to come together and figure out. It's going to hamper our economic development if we can't figure out sources of power. So that's going to have to be a come together. This can't just be a win for someone. We've got to figure out a win for everyone on that.

Speaker 2 47:12

So I'm really proud of Utah. I've loved telling its stories and I love being part of the story. Now I feel like what I'm doing now is largely economic development, but it all comes down to people. It all comes down to stories, like you're saying, and we're all the sum of our individual stories and then the state is the sum of all of our stories and it's really really cool to see that, and I particularly love women's stories because they often have many chapters and overlapping chapters. But I think you know, I think I thought as a young person that a lot of decisions were only going to be made once what's my career going to be, where am I going to live, and then to realize, oh, there's a lot of chapters and there's a lot of decisions. That's fun though, you know, overwhelming sometimes.

Speaker 1 48:03

Sometimes, yes, but also such a possibility Right.

Speaker 2 48:06

And to embrace that.

Speaker 1 48:08

I love what you said about the bridge building. As an out someone who didn't grow up in the state, it was really interesting to watch those two counties Right and the divide. Sometimes it might happen.

Speaker 2 48:24

The divide I think actually helped our magazines to get off the ground because at the time Salt Lake had two strong newspapers, which I'd worked at one of them, and many TV stations and some magazines, and Utah County, which was the little sister down the road that people weren't paying that much attention to it. It had a newspaper but no TV station.

Speaker 1 48:44

Yeah, you saw a real niche and it was like well, salt Lake's ignoring. Yeah, you saw a real niche there and it was like well, Salt Lake's ignoring us.

Speaker 2 48:47

They think we're not that interesting, so we're going to show them. I'm going to wrap my arms around this county and we purposely didn't try to write about or cover or feature people in Salt Lake, because we're like they have enough. We're just going to stay here and we're going to try and stay true to this county, and so that really was a boon to our publishing company. But now that the the divides are coming down and we're melding more, that's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 49:13

It's not like I fought that, or?

Speaker 2 49:15

anything like that. I see that as a beautiful thing. And then as far as our magazines there, we've had to adjust some of our own rules of whether we write about people in only Utah. County or not, because if someone moves to Bluffdale they're like can I still be?

Speaker 1 49:28

in your 40 under 40?.

Speaker 2 49:31

That's a good problem to have. Yeah, we're a little vague-ish on our audience now, just because we've adopted parts of the Wasatch Front.

Speaker 1 49:40

Like you said, another opportunity for growth. Exactly All the things, All the changes. Oh well, it has been a delight. Thank you so much for joining us as we close. Is there any question? I'm sure that as you go about and do different things, people often ask you similar questions. If you were to talk to a 15-year-old girl now, the kind who was like that your bishop gave a magazine to, what would you want her to know Both? Hey, watch out for this, because most people don't talk about it and it's going to be so exciting. Look out for this.

Speaker 2 50:16

So I would. I would definitely focus on the exciting parts of things. I think I would tell a young person open doors, don't close them. Open doors so. So that means you know at when you're in high school, get good grades, meet people when you're at a friend's house, talk to their parents, ask them what they do yes, and those people might end up being your clients or might end up being somebody that could be part of your, your journey, and you might be part of theirs. So I just think, opening doors, don't be afraid of opening them all. You don't have to know which door you're going to ultimately walk through and walk 1,000 miles in that direction, but open them. I also think just any experience is a good experience. This is what I also tell moms that are wanting to reenter the workforce.

Speaker 2 51:02

So, volunteering with a nonprofit amazing. You're helping to set up an event. So serving in a not volunteering with a nonprofit Amazing. You're helping to set up an event. You're running a 5k that is awesome. Not only are you going to get experience, we're going to meet people there that might have opportunities that are interesting to you. So, and high schoolers that are working at Del Taco or whatever.

Speaker 1 51:19

That is leadership, I mean that is like the ultimate leadership. You can get other teenagers to work. Well, good on you.

Speaker 2 51:24

Yeah, exactly, and then you're dealing with a customer who's unhappy, or you're managing expectations of people and you're looking people in the eye. Every experience that you get is a good one. So, even if it's not the perfect one right at this moment, you're going to learn something and you're going to meet someone and it all adds up. You know, I look back at the people that I thought I might only know a little bit in high school and college and then I crossed paths with them again and I'm like, oh, I didn't know life would be like this. I didn't know it would all weave together so beautifully. So, keeping those doors open, treating people kindly and opening your mouth, asking questions of people, we can learn a lot from each other, but sometimes we have to take that initiative.

Speaker 2 52:05

Yeah, I often think about getting on an airplane which I'm going to get on one tomorrow and you know, if you sit down and don't make eye contact or talk to the person next to you, it's very hard three hours later to be like so what do you do for a living? You know what I mean. Like it's hard to to change that. So I say, just if you can like, look people in the eye from the beginning and open that door. Open that door so that if, if you want to or need to, that it's open for you to have that conversation or to have that experience that might be important to you.

Speaker 1 52:34

I love it. Full circle, full circle to you doing a new opportunity now to anyone starting out in the pipeline explore, open your mouth, look for the positive and don't worry about the how. That is a great summary, Okay.

Speaker 2 52:49

Well done. Thank you so much today for all you do. It was fun to visit with you.