Deborah Farone of Farone Advisors presents at Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom, Dec. 13, 2018.
Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom Inaugural Event
What an exciting week this has been. The highlights of my week included breakfast at the beautiful Lowe’s hotel with the more beautiful, Deborah Farone. We enjoyed conversation, connection, laughter and genuine camaraderie as we talked of the Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom events, life in legal marketing, people we know, love and trust, issues women face in the industry and in life, in general — good and bad. She talked about her book, due out next month, “Best Practices in Law Firm Business Development and Marketing,” which resulted from more than 60 interviews with law firm chairs, CMOs, general counsel and other leading innovators in the US and in Europe. We shared laughs and pictures of our younger selves and our handsome husbands — who actually look alike. It was among the best parts of my week, I will say.
Deborah Farone has authored numerous articles and white papers and speaks regularly on the topic of professional services management and branding. Deborah’s new book is titled, “Best Practices: Business Development and Marketing for Law Firms” published by PLI Books, and includes the perspectives of law firm leaders, GCs, CMOs and other area experts on topics related to increasing revenue through business development techniques.
Another highlight was picking up my genius women in business friends for life, Linda Hazelton, Kimberly Rice and Pamela Cone from the San Francisco International Airport. Those women certainly proved to be my sisters in this, helping me to haul equipment and furniture, set up the space, track attendees and arrange what would ultimately be a near-perfect event — in my opinion. I believe others who spoke and attended may share these sentiments, as well.
On the evening of December 13, 2028, we have successfully inaugurated, Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom and a great time was had by all. The feedback we received was wonderful and people did not want the evening to end. We featured the fabulous Deborah Farone as our speaker and had the wonderful Laraine McKinnon to introduce Deborah. Here is a look at what you missed if you could not attend:
At about 5:20 PM, people started trickling in the San Francisco Wine School (in South San Francisco), right across the street from the two most beautiful buildings in the City, City Hall and the Grand Avenue Library. Both are Carnegie buildings on the historical register and afford visitors to the city a sense of history and charm all at once.
South San Francisco City Hall as seen from the San Francisco Wine School.
Artwork by Melissa Mahoney.
Yours truly stood and thanked Kristin Campbell, the COO/CFO of the San Francisco Wine School for hosting us at her beautiful facility with its magnificent arched windows and high ceilings. Kristin said a few words about the wine school and how it got started. Founded in 2011, the San Francisco Wine School was a new kind of school—one that allowed students to achieve the highest level of wine certification through an accessible, modular path of study. This modular path allows each student to create a unique educational experience to meet their goals. The San Francisco Wine School opens up the world of wine to serious wine students everywhere. They help people of all levels break into the wine industry, advance their careers, or simply pursue their passions. Founded by Master Sommelier David Glancy, they are the largest wine school in the country offering the most thorough approach to wine study.
I mentioned friend and artist Melissa Mahoney of MahoneyArtWork.com. Melissa’s latest painting series is titled, “Vortices,” a few of which were on display at the wine school. She says Vortices draw all that surround them into their powerful currents. She's interested in these masses of energy and how they can contain and then transfer their energy. Melissa believes — and I do too — in Ikigai. According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai—a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happier and longer life. Having a strong sense of ikigai—the place where passion, mission, vocation, and profession intersect—means that each day is infused with meaning. It’s the reason we get up in the morning. It’s also the reason many Japanese never really retire (in fact there’s no word in Japanese that means to retire in the sense it does in English): They remain active and work at what they enjoy, because they’ve found a real purpose in life—the happiness of always being busy.
I then introduced the amazing Laraine McKinnon. Laraine is an advisor to Emtrain, and an unconscious bias expert. Laraine is a passionate supporter of diversity in the workplace; she focuses on blending behavioral science (managing unconscious bias, organizational behavior), big data and practical implementations to transform workplace cultures. Laraine has led high-performance customer success and sales teams at BlackRock and Barclays Global Investors, and founded strategic consulting firm LMC17.
Laraine McKinnon of Emtrain
Laraine introduced her role in The Women’s CLUB of Silicon Valley and how excited she is to welcome other CLUB members to the event. There were many — and for that I am truly grateful. These women in business drove in from Palo Alto where the CLUB meets and we host our mentoring circle monthly.
Laraine introduced Deborah Farone who has had the unique opportunity to play a role in developing the best practices in professional services marketing by working with the most respected and demanding professionals in the world.
Deborah Farone of Farone Advisors, LLC
Over the past two decades, Deborah has carved out a niche by distinguishing herself as the chief marketing officer of two of the country’s most successful law firms and the founder of both firms' business development and communications departments. But before entering into the legal marketing profession, she sharpened her communications and business development skills by working at a global management consulting firm. When she applied for her first position out of college, she didn’t take no for an answer when applying to the PR firm she had her eye set on for her first job. After receiving numerous letters stating the firm was not hiring, the third letter she submitted to the firm along with a press kit demonstrating her experience did the trick. She was hired as a coordinator in the firm’s new business department.
Most recently, Deborah was the CMO at the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. On the business development side, she worked with colleagues to create a business and industry intelligence unit to help generate business opportunities, craft practice development plans and prepare partners for all forms of presentations. She also spent a large part of each day working with individual lawyers on their own business development plans. On the communications side, she dealt with crisis communications, as well as strategic public relations, social media, the Firm’s website and all marketing communications. Prior to joining Cravath, she was the chief marketing officer at Debevoise & Plimpton. Working with professionals at these extraordinary firms, with their talented lawyers and staff, and focusing on innovative practices, has allowed her rare experience into how to craft effective marketing programs geared toward growing business.
Deborah joined Debevoise & Plimpton from Towers Perrin (now Willis Towers Watson), where she coordinated national press relations and marketing efforts. Prior to joining Towers, she worked at Ketchum Communications (now Ketchum, Inc.). While she started in the new business department at Ketchum, she was quickly promoted to work on accounts for both investor and public relations clients. Her clients included publicly-held and private companies in the financial, professional services and consumer product sectors.
Part of marketing involves educating and coaching and Deborah has enjoyed doing this in the academic arena as well as professionally. She has served as an adjunct Assistant Professor on the faculty of New York University and has taught several courses, including “Effective Marketing and Public Relations for Professional Service Companies” and “Marketing and Public Relations for Law Firms,” the first courses of their kind offered by a major university.
Deborah is a founder of the CMO and CIO Roundtable, an invitation-only group of the leading law firms that meets annually to discuss best practices and stay abreast of trends in the legal profession and in marketing. She is a past President of the Legal Marketing Association’s New York Chapter and past Chair of the New York City Bar Association's inaugural marketing communications committee. She is also a charter member of the Luxury Marketing Council and a member of Ellevate.
Deborah serves as an Advisor to the Chair of the Lawyers for the Library Committee of The New York Public Library. She has also served as an appointed member of the International Trademark Association’s public relations task force, as Chair of the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America’s “Meet the Media” committee and an officer of PRSA’s professional service committee. Deborah also serves as an Advisor to the Chair of the Lawyers for the Library Committee of The New York Public Library.
As a recent recipient of the Legal Marketing Association's Legacy Award, in recognition of making a distinguishable mark on the profession as a whole, Deborah feels strongly about helping others achieve their success. She has been honored at the YWCA’s Women Leader Luncheon and serves as a member of the organization’s Academy of Women Leaders. For many years, Deborah had served on the Board of Directors of The Girl Scouts Council of Greater New York.
We were all delighted to hear Deborah speak on lessons learned in childhood that carried her through to current-day successes. She makes it clear that we write our own story. As Susan Kostal wrote, “Heard Deborah Farone last night at Susan C. Freeman's Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom. My quick takeaway: one's professional development is contingent upon one's continued personal development. Such great advice, with numerous actionable examples.”
Deborah Farone’s talk was captivating.
While Deborah’s talks generally focus on the business issues that face professional service firms, this talk was much more personal in nature. She began by asking us to think back to when we were children close our eyes for a moment and imagine it. Once we opened them, Deborah continued to walk us through a wonderfully colorful and meaningful talk full of stories and life lessons, leaving us with actionable tools that, if used, would change our lives for the better. She encouraged us to think about life in terms of writing our own stories and finishing our own paths. She described four tools to help get us there, as well as useful findings and encouragement:
Tool one:
Accept yourself, knowing you have strengths and weaknesses, and that if you want, you can master the weaknesses and accomplish great things.
Tool two:
Know in your heart of hearts, even with the limitations, you should not to settle. You can create the life you deserve.
Tool Three:
Use the art of planning to write your plans and place them into small, manageable steps.
Tool Four:
Treat yourself well and take care of the three Bs – Body, Being and Brain.
Deborah’s words were so very well received. She captivated us with advice, humility and humor. And yes, she is really funny! It was such a welcome message. She is a gifted storyteller. We, in that room — and across this country — need to hear and to heed her words of wisdom.
The Realities for Women in Business in the United States
For years, we women have kept our heads down and played by the rules. We’ve been certain that with enough hard work, our natural talents would be recognized and rewarded. We’ve made undeniable progress. In the United States, women now earn more college and graduate degrees than men do. We make up half the workforce, and we are closing the gap in middle management. Half a dozen global studies have found that companies employing women in large numbers outperform their competitors on every measure of profitability. Our competence has never been more obvious. Those who closely follow society’s shifting values see the world moving in a female direction.
And yet, as we’ve worked, ever diligent, the men around us have continued to get promoted faster and be paid more. Motherhood, especially, triggers assumptions that women are less competent and less committed to their careers. People often assume that women can’t be all-in at work -- and all-in as mothers as well. This assumption has a staggering impact on women’s careers. In one study women with children were 79 percent less likely to be hired, only half as likely to be promoted, offered an average of $11,000 less in salary, and held to higher performance and punctuality standards than identical women without children. Women GCs earn a staggering $125,000 less than their male counterparts.
The statistics are well known: at the top, especially, women are nearly absent, and our numbers are barely increasing. Half a century since women first forced open the boardroom doors, our career trajectories still look very different from men’s.
Lead Daringly
In this blog, I share with you, the reader, this powerful excerpt from Teddy Roosevelt and I wonder how many of you have heard this excerpt from his speech, “Man in the Arena”? For those who haven’t, here it is and for those who have, I know you’ll love to read it again.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
First, I asked that the audience write down their #1 core value that they hold most sacred. There were pens and index cards at the tables. People wrote down the answers.
What are your core values?
I asked them to choose a core value—a belief that is very important to them, that helps guide them, that gives them a feeling of purpose…where they might ask, “Is this who I am at my core”?Then I asked, “Do you translate this core value from an ideal to a behavior? If so, how? Think about a time when your behavior was a direct result of this core value.”
I shared the fact that for me, one of my core values is grit, which means: Courage, Moxie, Mettle, Spirit, Tenacity, and Perseverance, for a few examples.
One behavior that results from this core value is the courage to stand up and speak out on behalf of what I believe is good, fair and right. Those who follow me on social media know what I mean. When my behavior is aligned with my values, I feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually connected with my Self and others. I asked that the audience discuss their core values and discover if there is another person there who shares that same value. I then asked that one volunteer from each table to offer to share their core value and what behaviors align and result from that core behavior.
I asked the audience, “What is a behavior that supports your #1 core value? What’s an example of a time when you were fully living into this value? Courageous women throughout the room stood to share their core values. One that struck me in particular that struck me was Judy Dang (CEO of Avid at Work) who shared about her mantra, “I am adequate to my life.” I love this. I too believe, “I am enough.”
I remarked that Loraine made an incredible contribution unknowingly when she shared about her work directly with key clients who are trying to create positive and productive environments where people can do their best work and be recognized for it. She is leading the way on tough workplace issues like sexual harassment and unconscious bias, helping resolve problems and change behaviors. Her behaviors are clearly aligned with her core values. This is quite meaningful.
If you behave in a way that is aligned with your core values, you are never silent about hard things. For example, do we have lessons to learn about gender? What about race? Absolutely. We have to think about factors like race, age, gender, class, sexual orientation.
We mustn’t talk about these issues. We must listen about them. As uncomfortable as that may be, to opt out of conversations about these issues is the epitome of privilege.
As Brene’ Brown says, “Silence is not brave leadership, and silence is not a component of brave cultures. A brave leader is not someone who is armed with all the answers. A brave leader is not someone who can facilitate a flawless discussion on hard topics. A brave leader is someone who says, ‘I see you. I hear you. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m going to keep listening and asking questions.’ We all have the capacity to do that. We all have the ability to foster empathy.”
As I facilitated the exercise mentioned above, Heather Morse called out about LinkedIn’s new capability allowing people nearby to connect through the mobile app by sharing with you (once enabled) who is nearby and simply connected on the spot. It was well received by all.
In an attempt to unplug and connect in a meaningful beyond what business cards and technology do for (or some might argue to) us, I would like you to consider this exercise:
If you were an attendee at the Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom kickoff event, I ask that you share your contact information with two other attendees you did not know before you arrived. I ask that the three of you meet for coffee, tea or lunch to learn more about each other, personally and professionally.
You can ask 1) what it each trying to achieve in their business setting, 2) what is each trying to achieve in their personal lives, and 3) what referrals can they make to the two others and perhaps invite as guests to the next month’s Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom event. If you need guidance on great questions to ask, just email me at Susan@FreemanMeansBusiness.com and I will help.
After your coffee, tea or lunch, I would like you to email me what you learned about the other people and whether there is any meaningful connection you have made where you would feel comfortable referring them to another person or other people unknown to them.
While there, I know that four of the women connected in such a meaningful way, business relationships have already resulted. I know that Deborah Farone has already been asked to speak again, this time in Chicago.
San Francisco Wine School, 415 Grand Avenue, South San Francisco, CA
Later in the event, Master Sommelier David Glancy wowed the audience with a Champagne sabering (sabrage). Sabrage is a technique for opening a champagne bottle with a saber, used for ceremonial occasions. The wielder slides the saber along the body of the bottle to break the top of the neck away, leaving the neck of the bottle open and ready to pour. David is one of only twelve people in the world to hold both the revered Master Sommelier diploma and a Certified Wine Educator credential. A certified French Wine Scholar, Italian Wine Professional, and Certified Specialist of Spirits, Glancy has earned the credential for every program he teaches, and more.
David Glancy educating us on the food and wine pairings.
We then headed to the wine pairings and gourmet food for a little wine education. The audience truly enjoyed the wine pairings (and for those who do not drink alcohol, we had sparkling water in keeping with the “Bubbles” theme.) The menu included sparkling wines from around the world, caviar, lamb, duck, assorted cheeses and the ever-popular See’s Candies chocolates (headquartered and manufactured in South San Francisco). On the tables were remarkable floral arrangements by Flowers by Sonia.
Please join us throughout the year for this remarkable series of women who dare to lead with authenticity and vulnerability. The next event will be at the San Francisco Wine School on January 10, 2019 featuring Vivian Hood, CEO of Jaffe.
For more information on the Bubbles, Bites & Bits of Wisdom 2019 SPEAKER SERIES, visit: