Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal and business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Tara Lee Goerlitz, Founder, and CEO of NexLevel, located in Calgary, AB, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

NexLevel is in the business of building healthy organizations where employees are fulfilled, leaders are inspired, and teams are productive.

Organizational Health is more than just the bottom line, culture, or employee engagement. It's the organization's ability to align around a common vision, execute against that vision effectively, and renew itself, over time, through innovation and creative thinking.

Healthy companies drastically outperform their competitors. In fact, shareholder returns for healthy companies are approximately three times those of unhealthy ones. Those that are working on their company's health can see tangible performance improvements in as little as 6 to 12 months.

A HEALTHY ORGANIZATION:

✅ Has a cohesive leadership team who has clarity & alignment on six critical questions.
✅ Has teams built on a foundation of vulnerability-based trust?
✅ Has employees who are engaged, fulfilled, and satisfied in their work...every day!

We understand the challenges of today's businesses: Burnout, Overwhelm, Turnover, Politics, and Low Morale. As a family business, we understand how difficult it can sometimes be to maintain cohesive & aligned teams. If we can do it, so can you!

WE HELP EXECUTIVE TEAMS:

✅ Create alignment to guide effective decision-making.
✅ Address the natural human tendencies that derail teams.
✅ Dismantle the root causes of frustration & anguish at work.

WHY NEXLEVEL?

✅ We are working toward a future where healthy, successful companies outnumber those that aren't.
✅ Everything we do is practical, relevant, and fast. You'll never get anything cheesy from us.
✅ Our unique combination of relevant expertise, reputable tools, and results-focused processes are guaranteed to fuel business growth.

Tell us about yourself

NexLevel began with the goal of helping teams work together better. In 2004, as a family, we experienced a profound personal development retreat. From this intensive and life-changing experience, the inspiration to build our own facility was born. Six years later, we built the Red Lodge Ropes Course, and our journey began. Initially, we focused on building teams through fun & engaging experiences. We quickly realized that was not enough. The work world was fraught with dysfunction, disconnection, and unhappiness. People often spend more time at work than at home, and we wanted to make that time the best it could possibly be! More than a decade later, we have supported hundreds of teams and expanded our knowledge and expertise in not only building strong teams but in making organizations healthier and employees more fulfilled.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest accomplishment as a business owner is achieving the positive impact we have on the people, teams, and organizations we work with. Everyone wants to be happy and productive at work. They want to be free to contribute in ways that leave them feeling satisfied & fulfilled. And for the organization, that means significantly improved results. It is not just about profit – it is about combining profit with having a positive impact on the world. Working with me, clients get very clear about how they are contributing to their organization's success and how they will achieve even more impactful results through deepening self-awareness, improving team cohesion & alignment, driving impactful behavior change, and strategic utilization of their unique strengths.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

Working in a family business has provided me the opportunity to wrestle with the same challenges most leaders face every day building trust, engaging in healthy conflict, and developing a practice of accountability. If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time. Unfortunately, all teams are potentially dysfunctional, being made up of fallible, imperfect human beings. Throw a family dynamic into your business, and teamwork becomes even more challenging.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Build a healthy organization: Organizational Health is the multiplier of an organization's intelligence and perhaps the last remaining domain of sustainable competitive advantage. Most organizations invest in being smart, but too few invest in being healthy. A healthy organization uses its strengths, seizes opportunities, attracts & retains the best people, manages uncertainty, and achieves its goals. If your company isn't healthy, it can't tap into its intelligence.
  2. Solve an important problem you are passionate about: Said best by Dropbox co-founder Drew Houston, "The happiest and most successful people I know don't just love what they do, they're obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them." Be careful not just to start another business – make sure you are solving a real problem people actually have – and a problem you can really get behind. You'll need this grit when the times get tough.
  3. Fail Forward: Keep making mistakes and learning from them. Deliberately use failure to find success. Let go of the need to be perfect and live life perfectly imperfect. This will unlock your ability to grow beyond your comfort zone and achieve far more than you can by playing it safe.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://nexlevelteams.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NexLevelTeams/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taraleegoerlitz/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Turn your craft into recurring revenue with Subkit. Start your subscription offering in minutes and supercharge it with growth levers. Get early access here.