Episode Transcript

The Main Street CEO with Theresa Cantley

Episode: Why We Renamed the Podcast

Runtime: approximately 17 minutes

Accessibility note: This transcript is provided for deaf and hard-of-hearing listeners and anyone who prefers to read. It has been lightly edited for readability, removing repeated words and false starts. No meaning has been changed.

Speakers

Theresa Cantley, host, Business Advisor and Author

Transcript

Theresa Cantley (00:00:01)

Hello, and welcome back to the new, renamed podcast that you all know and love. We have changed the name of the podcast to The Main Street CEO. This is going to be a little bit of a shorter episode, but I wanted to just pop in here and tell you why we decided to change the name.

I’ve actually changed the name of my podcast; this is the fourth change, to be honest, to be fully transparent. It started off being Your Next Best Step, because I wanted to always be able to help people with their next step as they were building their business. And if I can back up for a second.

The one thing that I want to say is the one thing that is constant in life, and you’ve probably heard this before, but the one thing that is constant is change, right? And as we go through time, as we go through life, our business changes, we change, things change, and we just continue to grow, we continue to evolve.

We continue to learn new things. We continue to try new things. We might decide to make a complete pivot, which I’ve talked about pivoting many times over on this show. But the truth is, all of those things, whether or not something works or it doesn’t work, there is always a chance for possibilities, even when something doesn’t work.

It gives us a chance to learn from it. If something completely flops, and believe me, I’ve had lots of flops, it gives us a chance to learn from it. It gives us a chance to get a lesson. It gives us a chance to kind of look at things in a different way that we may not have even thought about to begin with. Right? So I know for myself, I have gone through a lot of iterations since I started my business. And

(00:02:19)

I just had this conversation with someone. I was talking to a connection of mine, someone who was referred to me, and we were talking about valuations in businesses. And he asked me, you know, “Theresa, what has your history been?” And I was talking to him about how I got started, how I left corporate, how when I started my business, when I started the consulting side of the business,

it was doing marketing for people. It was doing marketing. It was building out marketing plans. It was actually doing the implementation. Then I started going into implementation of systems, implementing new systems for people. And then it just kind of kept morphing from there, bringing all of my knowledge, bringing all of my experiences, bringing all of the things that I have learned over the years to kind of where I am today. And along the way,

those iterations of my business, and those transformations that kept happening, all came from mistakes that I’ve made, lessons that I’ve learned, experiences that I’ve had, things that I did, things that I tried, and maybe they worked, maybe they didn’t, you know, lots of stuff didn’t. And that’s just the way that it goes, right? But all of those things kept me transforming. And I look back.

And I recently did this exercise where I looked back, I looked at all the things that I had been through and I looked at all of the changes that I implemented, and I didn’t realize just how many things I’ve accomplished. So fast forward to how I started this conversation. The first name of this, and starting the podcast, it was like a thing that I wanted to do. And back when I started it, back in 2018, it was like:

if you want to be a thought leader, if you want to do something different, if you really want to get your message out there and have it last long after you actually hit the record button or post it, a podcast is the way to go. So I started my podcast. And I am almost at 400 episodes. We’re climbing up, we’re climbing up. And it has definitely been [Inaudible.] to sit here with you every week

(00:04:40)

and talk to you about business growth strategies and talk to you about personal development, talk to you about, you know, growing, and what it really takes to build a business from the inside out is a huge passion of mine, which is why I originally named it Your Next Best Step. Because that name came from when I left corporate America and we jumped into,

actually, when I first started my first business, it was even before I left corporate, but when we started the retail store, it was the thought that I always had of always trying to figure out what the next best step was. Which, again, is why I named my podcast Your Next Best Step. Because I wanted to, from my own experiences, because I might just be a couple steps ahead of you, I wanted to give people

the next best step based on what I had gone through myself. Because I didn’t have someone who was kind of helping guide my journey into entrepreneurship. And really, throughout my life, I really was guiding my own next best step from all of the crazy mistakes that I made, right? Like any kid. And

I wanted to, for the people who are listening, I wanted to give you next best steps that you can take, or that maybe you can even just think about as you’re building your business, as you’re building your dream, as you’re building your team, you know, whatever it looks like for you. I wanted to give you that based on what I went through myself. So then the name of the podcast, because people kept saying, “Well, you know, maybe you should change it. Maybe there’s a better name,” yada, yada, yada, because I really started to really get, and I’ve always been passionate about Main Street businesses.

But I was working with the podcast editor and they said, “Well, maybe we should name the podcast something a little bit more tangible that relates to the work that you do.” So then the next name was Locally Grown. And I am locally grown. I grew up in a very small town in Pennsylvania,

(00:07:02)

out in the country, and I mean, we had Amish that lived not far from us. My mom shopped at the Mennonite stands. So, and again, my passion has always been small businesses, Main Street businesses, businesses that are in a Main Street area. Okay. Main Street business does not necessarily say that your business is a micro business, a smaller business. So I was always passionate about that.

So we decided to move in the direction of Locally Grown, based on my background but also the work that I did. And then, okay, you can imagine, that did not last long. We decided, hmm, this doesn’t really fit. And the work that I had been doing, because I had been mentoring a lot of CEOs of small businesses, and I had been mentoring COOs, helping them identify their second in command, and then starting to mentor

COOs of small businesses, we decided to name the podcast The C-Suite Mentor. And it was The C-Suite Mentor for a very long time. And I actually liked the name of the podcast. I liked the name of, you know, it was a program that I had, like, everything kind of aligned with it. And along the way, I started to, because people thought that I worked with corporate America.

And I don’t. Not to say that I wouldn’t, because I have had conversations with executives in corporate companies. I’ve had conversations and have helped them navigate a lot of things in corporate companies. So it’s not like I never worked with corporations before. And it’s not like, I mean, like I said, I came from a corporation, two of them, to be exact.

But people were getting confused. And they thought, well, this podcast is only for C-suite people. And I was like, yeah, I was kind of fighting it for a long time. And I thought, no, that doesn’t matter, because I attract everybody. There’s so many people want to listen. You know, I get people that are leaders, I get people that are managers, I get people that are executives. But along the way, we decided, I think we need to change this up a bit.

(00:09:27)

Because I am, and I always have been, super passionate, as I said, about Main Street businesses. The name of my book that’s coming out is Main Street Rising. The name of my program is The Main Street CEO. You know, so it was from the standpoint of, maybe we need to change the name. Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time. Maybe I need to just suck it up and just change the name.

Because again, it’s not that I didn’t like the name The C-Suite Mentor. I did. I just, people kept saying, “Well, do you only talk about corporate information?” And it’s like, okay, well, business is business. It doesn’t matter if you’re small or if you’re big; business is business, the principles are the same, building a team is the same. But I was listening to what people were telling me, which is why we decided

to change the name to The Main Street CEO, which is what it is today. And who knows? I might change it again. I mean, I see so many people that have, you know, insert name and then “Show.” So, you know, you have the Kelly Roach Show, a podcast I listened to for a long time, the Jasmine Star Show. I mean, there’s people’s, it’s their first name and then “Show.” But I wanted to do something different, which is why I have The Main Street CEO with Theresa Cantley, because

if you know me, you know how passionate I am about saving businesses that are brick and mortar. Saving businesses where you actually have foot traffic in a Main Street area. So it could be in the middle of New York City. Somebody tried to argue with me and say, “Well, Main Street businesses aren’t in New York City.” Really? Really? Yes, they are. Because how I look at it is,

it’s just a Main Street area. It doesn’t necessarily denote that the business is only, they’re a solopreneur, it’s one person, maybe they have a helper with them. It just denotes where they’re located. And I am passionate about those areas because I have grown up in an area where those Main Street areas got impacted by a larger corporation closing, and it impacted the entire area and impacted the entire city. And I’ve seen what

(00:11:50)

happens when a community like that gets interrupted, when a community like that gets impacted because of bigger companies closing down, and what happens with the economy, and what happens when people don’t support those businesses. And I am passionate about it because when you walk by a Main Street business, and I’m going to leave you with this: when you walk by a Main Street business or you walk into a Main Street business,

you can’t help but have that creativity come through in your own mind. You can’t help but all of a sudden have sparks of ideas, of new things you want to try, and maybe even a memory of a dream that you had at one point. And you start to look around. And I had this conversation with a friend of mine where she was in a coffee shop, and she was looking around and she was like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I had a space like this and I could build something? I could build out my business.

I could have people have meetings here with people. I could,” and she started, her creativity started going. That’s what happens. That’s the magic of when you walk down an area like that and you walk into brick and mortar businesses. At Christmas time, when you walk inside a Main Street business, and I had this conversation with my team, and I said to them, with one of, two of the teams I lead, and I said,

“We’re not just serving food during the holidays. We’re not just selling people gifts. We’re making magic happen. We are bringing the holiday spirit to life in the form of Christmas gifts, holiday specials, holiday cocktails, simply greeting somebody at the door. We have the ability to make that impact in the life of somebody else simply by saying,

‘How are you this evening? Hello, my name’s Theresa. What’s your name?’ Or, ‘How can I help you? Is there something that you’re looking for?'” That is the magic of Main Street. It’s not just about going into a local coffee shop and buying their coffee because it’s delicious. And very, very well it might be. And all the coffee shops I’ve been into far surpassed Starbucks, no offense. But

(00:14:15)

it’s about supporting the community. It’s about supporting local charities. It’s about supporting, because Main Street business owners are well known. I know for myself, running four Main Street businesses, how many charities and organizations we support. It’s about paying it forward, because with the environment that you build inside that Main Street business,

those employees then go home and they’re happy. They feel fulfilled. And you have the ability to bring that fulfillment to your team because you’re there, or because you have this small business and you can talk to people. You can talk to all these individual people. You’re not a CEO of a large corporation where you have, you know, 20,000 employees.

You have the ability to make that impact, that one-to-one interaction and connection with your customers and with your team. That’s the power of Main Street. So all of these things is why we decided to change the name to The Main Street CEO. Because if I can help, and if you are a C-suite executive in a large corporation or a larger company, please feel free to listen, because the content isn’t going to change.

The content, I mean, we will talk a little bit more about what happens on Main Street, but it applies to everybody. But this is why I wanted to change it, because I wanted to give Main Street businesses, whether you’re a leader, a manager, an employee, and you’re listening, and like I said, whether or not you are a leader in a larger company, I wanted to give you the next best step that can help you to continue to grow, no matter what.

No matter what the heck impacts come our way in this world. No matter what happens with social media, no matter what happens with the economy, no matter what happens with tariffs or anything going on, I wanted to bring my experiences, my knowledge, my lessons that I’ve learned, my successes, the things that I have been able to achieve, and even, you know, all of the flops that I had. I wanted to bring that all to you so that your Main Street business

(00:16:37)

can rise. So thank you for being a loyal listener. Thank you for joining me every week. I look forward to seeing you here every week on The Main Street CEO. And all I have to say is welcome. Welcome. I am so happy that you’re here. I am so happy that you have been a listener. And I can’t wait for all that is ahead.

End of transcript

Theresa’s book, Main Street Rising, is coming soon. Subscribe to The Main Street CEO with Theresa Cantley wherever you listen to podcasts.