#296: From 15-Year-Old Mom to Successful CEO & Entrepreneur with Mari Tautimes

Being a business owner and entrepreneur takes more than just a crazy work ethic. On today’s show, we have Mari Tautimes, who has confronted a lot of challenges that required a lot of grit and intensity. She became a mom at 15 and had to raise her child by herself. Then, in her early twenties, she was brought into her dad’s insurance brokerage that she helped grow and sell for $16M in 2020.

In this episode, Mari explains that she adopted the “work harder and you’ll become successful” mentality from a really young age. She talks about how she gave her life to her family business and how she learned that the importance of slowing down and being self-aware can actually reap really good results for your company and your employees. She also explains about the importance of leading by example and what humans really need in business and life (psychologically). This is an awesome entrepreneurial story about someone who really narrowed in on what they want out of their business and why.

WATCH THE INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE: Intentional Growth™ Podcast

What You Will Learn

How Mari faced the challenge of being a young parent and how it transferred to her drive in business
How Mari confronted objections from her dad and brother within her family business
How a business run by family members transcends into the company culture and employees
Why Mari wishes she took more breaks and time off from her business for the company culture
How Mari realized that she needed to “step off the gas” because of all the burnout she was experiencing
What the six human needs are and how they translate into satisfaction with your business
Why understanding psychology is so important when running a business
Why self-awareness is so valuable to your team
Why core focus is so important in the growth of your business
Why Mari stepped back from her family business before it was acquired

// USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment

Bio:

Mari Tautimes is an entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience. She has served as a Co-CEO of her family business with her twin brother. Together, they took the revenue from $350,000 to $10M in only 7 years. She is also a speaker, a coach, an author, and an EOS Implementer, with over 400 hours of leadership training and development under her belt. Her passion is inspiring and motivating others so they can reach their full potential. She is also a devoted wife and mother to four kids.

Interview Quotes:

09:36 - “I got a job a month after I had the baby because I wasn’t going to use cloth diapers.” - Mari Tautimes

09:53 - “The moment I found out that I was pregnant– there’s this really great story I heard from somebody once, which is the story about the bison. So a bison, when it’s facing a storm, will turn toward the storm and instinctively walk through it, knowing that if you do that, you’ll get to the other side faster.” - Mari Tautimes

10:19 - “Ever since I found out I was pregnant… Everything has just been like, ‘Just face it. Whatever it is, just turn around and face it. Because it’s just going to take too long to go the other way. And we’re going to get there anyway, so the faster route is just facing it.’” - Mari Tautimes

12:07 - “I’m a hard worker but I’m also lazy. So every time we would do something, I’d be like, ‘That’s too much effort.’ And so everything was about finding efficiency.” - Mari Tautimes

33:52 - “It’s not that other people are keeping us in that position, we’re keeping ourselves in that position.” - Mari Tautimes

35:25 - “Learn about yourself so that you know how to better communicate and have better language to communicate your needs.” - Mari Tautimes

41:11 - “One of the things we teach on EOS is core focus. Like, ‘What is the one thing that you can do better than anyone else?’ And that became our thing.” - Mari Tautimes

49:25 - “It shouldn’t matter what product or service we’re putting into it. We should be able to eek out pure gold out of the other side, if we really understand what we’re doing.” - Mari Tautimes

60:17 - “The number one issue with a visionary [partner] is translating their vision and bridging the gap.” - Mari Tautimes

61:10 - “It’s your perfect puzzle piece of a partner that can decipher all the exciting things that you’re so excited to talk about and figure out what are the three things that you’re bringing to me right now, that we can actually take down to the ground and execute as an organization?” - Mari Tautimes