Episode 88 - Rita Cincotta on Deliberate Leadership and Building a Consulting Practice
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Rita Cincotta spent two decades in corporate HR before she made the leap into running her own consulting practice. Along the way, she led people teams across technology, healthcare, financial services, aged care, media, FMCG, and higher education, and now serves as a facilitator, speaker, coach, author, and non-executive director, including several board positions at Peninsula Health.
Her latest book, You Are How You Lead, centres on a concept she calls "deliberate leadership." In this conversation on The Jane Anderson Show, Rita unpacked what that phrase actually means, how she built self-trust while growing her own practice, and why so many leaders end up in roles they never consciously chose.
This article pulls out the practical lessons from that conversation for anyone leading a team, building a consulting business, or deciding whether leadership is even the right path for them.
Who Is Rita Cincotta?
Rita Cincotta built her career inside large organisations before starting her own practice roughly five and a half years ago. Her corporate HR roles spanned industries as varied as technology, healthcare, financial services, not-for-profit, aged care, advertising, media, FMCG, and higher education.
Today, she holds several non-executive positions at Peninsula Health, the major public health service for Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula, including chair of the People and Safety and Well-being Committee, and non-executive director roles on the Quality and Clinical Governance Committee and the Client Advisory Committee. She has spoken at national and international events on team performance, cultural transformation, change management, resilience, and workplace methodologies, and is the author of two books, most recently You Are How You Lead.
From HR Executive to Independent Consultant
Rita describes her entrepreneurial streak as something inherited from her father, a migrant from Italy who built a landscape gardening business from scratch while working other jobs to support the family. That same drive eventually pushed her to leave a demanding executive HR role, one she describes as working 60 to 70 hour weeks under constant visibility, to start her own practice when her youngest child was still a toddler.
"If I don't jump off now and do my own thing, I'm probably never going to do it," she recalled thinking at the time.
Running her own practice hasn't necessarily meant working fewer hours. But it has given her more control over when and how she works, along with a different kind of motivation behind the effort.
Non-Executive Roles at Peninsula Health
Alongside her consulting work, Rita holds three non-executive roles at Peninsula Health, spanning people and well-being, clinical governance, and client advisory functions. These board-level positions, combined with her consulting client base in higher education and healthcare, reflect where she says she spends the majority of her professional time: sectors she describes as complex, diverse, and personally meaningful to her.
What Is Deliberate Leadership?
Deliberate leadership is Rita's framework for how leaders should approach the role with intention, not by accident. The word "deliberate" became central to her practice after a period of what she calls "challenging soul searching" while trying to define her positioning as a coach.
Why Leaders Are Often "Seduced" Into the Role
One of Rita's core observations is that many leaders never actually choose to lead. Instead, they're recognised for being strong technical experts, and leadership is offered as a kind of reward, often with a salary bump or promotion attached.
The problem, she explains, is that very few people stop to ask whether they actually want to lead before accepting that offer. Leadership isn't simply a technical job with some management responsibilities layered on top; it comes with a different set of demands entirely.
Choosing to Lead vs. Being Promoted Into It
Rita works with leaders who are, in her words, miserable in the role, not because they're incapable, but because they never made a deliberate choice to be there. Her coaching often starts with helping someone either recommit consciously to leadership or recognise that the path isn't right for them after all.
This distinction matters because leaders who consciously choose the role tend to bring more resilience and clarity to it, rather than treating it as an obligation that came with a job title.
Building Self-Trust as a Consultant
Growing a consulting practice involves a lot of uncertainty: inconsistent income, unclear next steps, and decisions with no obvious right answer. Rita points to self-trust, or what she calls conviction, as the quality that lets her navigate that uncertainty without becoming paralysed by it.
The Role of Conviction in Uncertain Times
Rita traces her sense of conviction back to her upbringing, describing a deep, almost unconditional belief that things will work out, not because every plan succeeds as expected, but because she trusts she'll find another way to the outcome if the original plan falls through.
This isn't about assuming everything will go smoothly. It's a mindset that treats setbacks as redirections rather than failures, which she says makes her more adaptable in both her thinking and her approach to problems.
"Blind Optimism" and Staying Adaptable
Rita mentions taking the Harrison Assessments diagnostic tool at a client's request and coming out as what the tool categorises as a "blind optimist", someone who scores positively on optimism even when there are visible challenges or roadblocks ahead.
She reframes this trait as an asset rather than a blind spot. Her internal question is never "can I" or "should I": it's "how do I." That reframing shifts her energy towards solutions instead of getting stuck on whether something is possible in the first place.
She also credit Marcus Buckingham's strengths-based framework as a major influence, particularly the idea that leaning into your strengths strengthens you, while over-focusing on weaknesses can weaken you. Rather than trying to "fix" her own impatience, for example, Rita has built a team around her that compensates for it, reducing its impact without spending energy trying to eliminate a trait that's simply part of who she is.
Positioning and Niching Your Practice
When Rita first launched her practice, referrals came quickly: former colleagues who knew her from her corporate HR career reached out with work. But that initial wave didn't last.
Why Generalists Struggle to Get Repeat Clients
About six months in, the phone stopped ringing. Rita realised the issue: in a corporate role, being a generalist works because you're leading specialists underneath you. In an independent practice, that same generalist positioning confuses the market: people don't know exactly what to call you for.
She describes this as a positioning problem. Clients remember you for a specific identity you've created; without a deliberate, clear positioning, that identity gets muddled, and referrals dry up.
Leaning Into Higher Education and Healthcare
While Rita has worked across a broad mix of industries over the years, she has concentrated most of her time in higher education and healthcare. She's drawn to the complexity within these sectors, professional and administrative staff, clinical and non-clinical roles, academic and non-academic functions, along with their mix of public and private funding structures.
Rita is candid that niching down doesn't mean abandoning variety altogether. It means being intentional about where the bulk of your expertise and energy goes, so the market has a clear reason to call you.
Pricing With Confidence
Pricing consulting services is one of the more common struggles Rita sees, particularly among women building their own practices. Her advice centres on matching value to the market rather than simply lowering rates to win work.
Why New Clients Are the Time to Set Your Rate
Rita compares raising your rate with an existing client to trying to negotiate a raise in your current job. It's possible, but it's far easier to set a new benchmark with a new client than to renegotiate an existing relationship.
Her recommendation: if you want to charge more, start at that higher rate with new business relationships rather than trying to inch up existing ones over time.
Adding Value Instead of Discounting
Rather than lowering a quote when a client hesitates on price, Rita focuses on increasing the perceived and real value of the offer. That might mean adding an extra coaching session, a bonus master class, or additional resources that don't cost significant extra time but meaningfully increase what the client receives.
She also notes the difficulty of saying no to work, something she links partly to her upbringing, but argues that turning down work that doesn't fit your niche actually reinforces your expertise. Clients come to understand your pricing because they understand exactly what you specialise in.
Building a Support Team
Rita is clear that she doesn't run her practice alone. Her support structure includes a business manager, a couple of virtual assistants, a graphic designer, a bookkeeper, and an accountant, roughly five or six people in her core team.
Hiring a Business Manager to Manage You
When hiring her business manager, Rita specifically asked whether the person would be comfortable managing her, not just supporting her. She describes herself as someone who jumps between ideas, and says she needed someone with strong attention to detail to keep her grounded, since detail isn't her own strength.
Delegating Outside Your Strengths
Rita's approach to delegation is straightforward: bring in people who are strong where you're not. She points to design work as an example: rather than spending hours in Canva herself, she works with a graphic designer, freeing her time for the parts of the business only she can do.
Balancing a Consulting Practice and Family Life
Running a practice alongside a family isn't something Rita treats as a solved problem. She describes it as ongoing trial and error, built around a small set of non-negotiables.
Non-Negotiables: Exercise, Nutrition, Family Meals
Rita trains four mornings a week and includes a strength session with her teenage daughter once or twice a week. Family meals are treated as a fixed point in the day, even when travel or late client work makes it harder to maintain. She's also direct about the connection between her routines and how she shows up for clients: when exercise, food, or sleep slip, she says the rest of her performance suffers too.
Running the Household Like a Team
Rita and her husband, Darren, both run their own businesses and manage the household as a shared operation, including their children in age-appropriate responsibilities. They aim for a weekly planning conversation to coordinate school events and commitments, acknowledging they can't attend everything but try to divide responsibilities fairly between them.
What Rita Would Do Differently
Asked what she'd change if she were starting her practice over again, Rita didn't point to a single decision. She pointed to pace.
Slowing Down to Build Sustainable Systems
Rita says she would have intentionally slowed down in the early stages to build proper systems, rather than pushing through every task herself. She acknowledges this feels counterintuitive while you're trying to grow a business, but argues that skipping systems in favour of speed often costs more time later.
Managing Energy, Not Just Time
Rita distinguishes between time, which is finite, and energy, which she says can be deliberately managed. Pushing at maximum effort indefinitely, she warns, leads to burnout, and potentially resentment towards the very practice you built. Building systems might mean a goal takes an extra six or twelve months to reach, but it gets you there in a way that's sustainable rather than accidental.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is deliberate leadership?
Deliberate leadership, as defined by Rita Cincotta, is the practice of consciously choosing to lead rather than accepting leadership as an automatic reward for technical skill. It involves ongoing intentionality about how and why you lead.
How do you know if you actually want to be a leader?
Rita suggests leaders should regularly ask themselves whether they've genuinely chosen to lead, or whether they slipped into the role because it came with a promotion or salary increase. If the role feels like an obligation rather than a choice, it may be worth reassessing.
How can consultants price their services with confidence?
Rita recommends setting your intended rate with new clients rather than trying to raise prices with existing ones, and focusing on adding value (extra sessions, resources, or bonuses) instead of discounting when a client hesitates.
Why is niching important for a consulting practice?
Without a clear niche, potential clients don't know exactly what to call you for, which can cause referrals to dry up after an initial wave of goodwill-based work.
How does Rita Cincotta balance running a business and family life?
Rita protects a small set of non-negotiables (regular exercise, family meals, and shared household responsibilities with her husband) while acknowledging that balance is an ongoing, imperfect process rather than something fully solved.
What industries does Rita Cincotta specialise in?
While Rita has worked across many sectors, she spends most of her time in higher education and healthcare, drawn to the complexity and diversity within those industries.
Conclusion
Rita Cincotta's story isn't a straight line from corporate HR executive to confident consultant. It's a practice built through trial and error, around positioning, pricing, self-trust, and a deliberate approach to leadership that she continues to refine. For anyone leading a team or building their own consulting business, her experience offers a practical reminder: intention, not just effort, is what makes leadership and entrepreneurship sustainable.
To hear the full conversation, including more on Rita's career path and her book You Are How You Lead, listen to the complete episode above, or on Spotify or YouTube.
Work With Jane Anderson
Want more stories like this from women building world-class consulting practices? Explore how Jeanette Cremor built real project leadership impact, how Samantha Rush uses psychological safety to shape decision-making, or how Kylee Leota built her thought leadership practice.
Ready to position your own practice with the same clarity Rita describes? Explore Jane Anderson's 1:1 coaching for consultants and thought leaders, or find out more about Women with Influence.
Key Takeaways from Today’s Episode:
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The episode starts with Jane Anderson introducing the "Jane Anderson Brand New Show," a podcast aimed at experts looking to enhance their impact, influence, and income. She emphasizes the importance of personal connection in business transactions. She introduces Rita Chincotta as a guest, highlighting her extensive experience in leadership development, HR, and various industries.
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Rita shares her journey to establishing a consulting practice, citing her entrepreneurial spirit inherited from her father, who was a business owner. Despite starting in a small training organization, she gradually moved into HR roles in large corporations. Rita explains her decision to transition to her own practice about five to six years ago, driven by a desire for more autonomy and purpose in her work. She discusses her focus on deliberate leadership and helping leaders make intentional choices about their roles.
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Rita elaborates on her key message of deliberate leadership, emphasizing the importance of continuously evolving one's impact statement. She describes her clientele, which spans diverse industries but focuses primarily on higher education and health sectors. Rita appreciates the complexity and diversity within these industries and aligns her expertise with their unique challenges and needs.
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Jane inquires about Rita's strategies for balancing her consulting practice with her personal life, considering her roles as a wife and mother. Rita acknowledges the trial-and-error process involved in managing multiple responsibilities. She emphasizes the importance of non-negotiables, such as regular exercise, in maintaining balance. Rita shares her commitment to her work and the analogy of being on the dance floor and needing to dance, indicating her passion and dedication to her profession despite the challenges.
Overall, the segment provides insights into Rita Chincotta's journey into consulting, her focus on deliberate leadership, target markets, and strategies for balancing work and personal life.
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Rita discusses her strategies for balancing work and personal life, highlighting the importance of non-negotiables like regular exercise and family meals. She emphasizes the significance of maintaining healthy habits, such as cooking, exercising, and eating well, for overall well-being and effectiveness in her roles. Rita reflects on her journey of writing a book, acknowledging the challenges and moments of doubt but remaining determined to achieve her goal. She attributes her persistence to a sense of blind optimism and trust in herself, which enables her to navigate uncertainties and setbacks effectively.
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Jane commends Rita's persistence and optimism in managing her busy schedule while pursuing ambitious goals like writing a book. Rita shares her belief in always recovering quickly from setbacks and maintaining hope for the future. She discusses the concept of conviction and trust in oneself, emphasizing the importance of focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses. Rita suggests that cultivating trust in oneself involves connecting with one's strengths and staying in one's expertise, which fosters confidence and adaptability in facing challenges.
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Rita elaborates on the importance of recognizing and leveraging one's strengths in building trust in oneself. She emphasizes the value of staying within one's expertise and niche, avoiding the temptation to become a generalist in a consulting practice. Rita shares her approach to building a support team, including a business manager, virtual assistants, graphic designer, bookkeeper, and accountant, to complement her skills and manage her practice effectively. She emphasizes the need for attention to detail and different perspectives in her team to counterbalance her own tendencies.
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Rita acknowledges the support she receives from her family and the collaborative effort involved in managing both her consulting practice and household responsibilities. She highlights the role of her business manager in managing her ideas and maintaining attention to detail, complementing her strengths. Rita emphasizes the value of surrounding oneself with people who bring different skills and perspectives to the table, both in business and personal life. She discusses the collaborative approach she and her husband take in managing their family and businesses, including regular meetings to plan and coordinate schedules.
The segment provides insights into Rita's strategies for maintaining balance, her persistence and optimism, the importance of trusting in one's strengths, and the collaborative effort involved in managing a consulting practice and personal life.
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Rita discusses the importance of balancing family commitments with professional responsibilities and highlights the collaborative approach she and her husband take in managing their businesses and supporting each other. She reflects on her journey in building her consulting practice, acknowledging the challenges she faced and the lessons learned. Rita advises listeners to intentionally slow down and focus on building the right systems to sustainably grow their practices, emphasizing the importance of energy management and avoiding burnout.
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The conversation shifts to the challenges of pricing services and valuing one's expertise in consulting practice. Rita emphasizes the importance of meeting the market where it's at while also focusing on the value that one brings to clients. She shares strategies for incrementally increasing rates by emphasizing value and offering additional services or benefits to clients. Rita advises against underpricing services, as it not only undermines the consultant but also sets a lower standard in the market.
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Jane and Rita delve into the importance of specialization, saying no to certain opportunities, and positioning oneself effectively in the market. Rita highlights the role of sacrifice in positioning and the necessity of trusting oneself in navigating the challenges of consulting practice. She emphasizes the value of teamwork, intentional positioning, and strategic decision-making in building a successful consulting practice. Rita concludes by inviting listeners to connect with her on her website and social media platforms.
The final segment offers insights into balancing family and work commitments, reflections on practice growth, pricing strategies, valuing expertise, embracing specialization, trusting oneself, and strategic positioning in the consulting industry. Rita's advice emphasizes the importance of intentionality, collaboration, and self-confidence in building a successful consulting practice.
Full Show Transcript:
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Hi there, my name is Jane Anderson and this is the Jane Anderson Brand New Show. It's the podcast for experts who want to have greater impact, influence and income for their businesses and careers. As experts, we know that people buy from people and work with people who they know, who they like and who they trust.
So I'm so glad you're here because it's that time again now to really amplify how you show up in the world. Hi there and welcome to the Jane Anderson Show. I'm so thrilled that you are here and to be able to share with you our very special interview today.
So the purpose of this podcast is to help you to hear the stories about women who have consulting practices, particularly world-class thought leaders and experts in their field and who are really on that journey to positioning themselves as the best at what they do and truly being exceptional. Today we have a very special guest and our guest is a seasoned professional in leadership development. She serves as a facilitator, a speaker, coach, an author and a non-executive director.
She's got over two decades of experience in her career where she's led HR teams, held executive positions in HR across a broad range of industries such as technology, healthcare, financial services, not-for-profit, aged care, advertising, media, FMCG, e-commerce and higher education. There's a whole remit there. She holds a number of non-executive positions, particularly the chair of people and safety and wellbeing committee and the non-executive director of the quality and clinical governance committee and the non-executive director of the client advisory committee all at Peninsula Health.
She's spoken at national and international stages as a keynote speaker and she addresses topics such as team performance, cultural transformation, change management, resilience and innovative work methodologies. She's also the author of two books, including her latest, You Are How You Lead. Please join me in welcoming Rita Chincotta.
Rita, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so thrilled you are here.
[Speaker 1]
Thanks for your time. Oh, Jane, thank you. It's a pleasure and an honour too.
I'm usually on the other side, so it's really nice to be on this side for a minute.
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Rita, you have had an incredible career and your practice and where you're taking it. You're just coming off the book, you know, we talk about as well. So tell us, how did you end up having a consulting practice?
What's been your career and how did you get to this point?
[Speaker 1]
I want to say it was accidental, but I think the entrepreneurial spirit has always been within me. So my dad was a business owner for about 40 years. Dad came out as a migrant from Italy in the late 70s and set up, I was a little kid, he set up a landscape gardening business.
And back then, you know, he was working that, so growing his business whilst washing dishes in a restaurant, whilst doing factory work. Like it was that era where you did what you had to do to support your family and get your family moving along. So mum was a homemaker for many years until my brother and I went off to school.
And so dad had a real entrepreneurial spirit and that has flown through my brother and I. So whilst my brother and I both, you know, became university, you know, professional qualifications, university educated, which my family never, you know, my parents are not that, they come from very working class background. We still have both in different ways played with side hustles and now moved into businesses.
So I think it's always been there. I remember being, I don't know, 18, 19. And I remember being very much allured by big companies.
And I remember it because I got a rejection letter that stung like anything, but it was I wanted to work at Qantas to have some big corporate flashy career. I don't know why at the time I thought that would be really super, of course, now different. And poor Qantas, they've been through a tough patch at the moment.
But I always was drawn to kind of big buildings and big organizations. And so that university career then led me into some big businesses, didn't start off in big business, actually started in a small registered training organization of all things as the marketing grad. And then they got me into training.
And so that kind of movement into training then got me exposed into HR, ended up studying it as my major at university. And then the rest is history from there, ended up in corporate HR roles. But about now, five and a half, six years ago, when my youngest was a toddler, I thought if I don't jump off now and do my own thing, I'm probably never going to do it.
Because I knew it was a turning point. I knew that if I kept going in corporate, I knew I'd go on to do some good things. I had the ambition and the drive and ability to build good relationships with people, which I think is super important in any executive leadership role.
But I just had this burning desire to do my own thing. I was getting pretty tired at the time. So I was working kind of 60, 70 hour weeks in an executive role, which the visibility in those roles is like nothing else.
I often describe it like a searing light, which you are always underneath. So it's a spotlight. Moving into my own business has not really, it hasn't given me more flexibility.
However, it's a different level of flexibility. So I can't, you know, I'm much more in control of when I work, how I work. I'm not necessarily working less, but I feel that in your own practice, when you're putting those hours in and there's a different purpose and a different motivation and drive and a different enthusiasm.
So that certainly means that I continue to keep going. I'm not shy of hard work. That work ethic is always there.
[Speaker 2]
And so take us to today in terms of the work that you do now. You talk about we've done some repositioning work and things like that that you talk about. So tell us about your key message.
How did you get to it? And who do you work with mostly now?
[Speaker 1]
So my key message, Jane, one of the things I've talked to people that work with me a lot is about their impact statement. A key message for me is my impact statement. And so we have a structure around how we create an impact statement.
And it's usually, you know, I insert verb so that I can support, insert group so that they, and then the value is at the end. And so I very much adopt that process for myself. And even in the last five and a half years, that impact statement has evolved.
I think it's important that it continues to evolve because if we stand still and we're not really thinking about what am I offering, who needs support, what kind of support do they need, the support, who is it going to impact later on in terms of the communities that they serve? So it has changed. And that once upon a time, I would have been really uncomfortable with that.
I would have thought, oh, no, I've got to have it sorted and it's got to be right and it's got to have this longitudinal nature to it. And I think it does because you can't be, you know, following bouncing, shining balls all the time. But I think it's important that businesses evolve.
So along with deliberate leadership, so deliberate is my big word and my newest book is all about deliberate leadership. For me, deliberate was a natural path because I am deliberate by nature. So when I do things, I'm not half-hearted about them.
I mean, I apply always maximum effort, but with maximum impact in mind, too. And when that word landed, I was trying to really find my angle. And I had yourself and others kind of going, what's the angle, what are you going to master in terms of that leadership development category after some pretty challenging soul-searching, but good soul-searching, that word emerged.
And now it's like, like I often will say, it's like when you put on a jacket, this feels really good versus, oh, this is a bit tight around the shoulders or not my colour or whatever it might be. So deliberate really fits for me. And these days I support leaders to be more deliberate.
So leaders, often I work with them and they're miserable. They have not made the choice to lead. They've been almost seduced into leadership because they're really good technical experts.
And yeah, like someone sees something in them and goes, oh, you're good at what you do. How about we give you a team? And at the time, it's almost seen as a reward.
You get a bit of a bump up in salary. A promotion might come with it. But I don't think enough leaders ask themselves, well, do I really want to lead?
Do I want to be a deliberate leader? Because there's a lot involved. It's not just about doing your technical job with a bit of leadership management on the side.
And I think a lot of leaders go into it for that reason. So these days, I help leaders to be more deliberate. And sometimes it's that choice.
They've really got to think about recommitting to the choice to lead. And sometimes it's about deciding, you know what, this leadership path is actually not for me.
[Speaker 2]
And other particular industries that you work with, Rita, have you narrowed into particular markets at all? Or are you sort of doing a bit of a broad brushstroke across a lot of industries?
[Speaker 1]
How does that work? Yeah, over the last five and a half, six years, it has been a broad brushstroke across diverse industries. I have really enjoyed that because my stints in corporate life were long.
So nine years, five years, another eight years in different organisations. So I never kind of did the one and a half, two years and I'm out. And so when I was able to set up my own practice, I really loved the fact that I could immerse myself in different businesses.
Felt like I was doing a lot of dating, but not coming into a long term relationship. Oh, the one night stands. Yeah, exactly right.
And I really loved it. I loved kind of being able to learn new industries and playing with industries and different people. I love the diversity of that.
However, my heart is in higher education and health. So I spend most of my time in those two industries. It's not to say that I don't love the other industries that I work with.
I absolutely do. But I really get academics and professional staff in higher education and I really get clinical practitioners, particularly across hospitals and different health sectors and networks. So that's where I spend the majority of my time.
I think both of those industries offer a lot of complexity and a lot of diversity. So within them, you've got a professional cohort of staff, very technical, but then you've also got the administrators and the leaders, you know, administrators and leaders. You've got clinical, non-clinical, you've got academic, non-academic.
And I think that gives me a lot of diversity within those groups. Culturally, they have their own strengths and challenges, as do all industries, of course. And they are industries that are also complex in their funding nature because they're not state and federally funded here in Australia, but also some of them are private.
So there's enough private providers in that space, too. So I really love the diversity that that gives me. Yeah.
[Speaker 2]
And how do you, as most women who are running consulting practices, you know, they've got other things happening around you. You mentioned your husband and you've got kids as well. What sort of routines do you have to be able to do all that?
Because you talked about how you have more choice and flexibility to be able to, when you're working across multiple markets, you're trying to sort of keep everybody in mind and think about reducing a bit of friction in your practice sometimes when you're starting to drill down into those markets. How have you had to sort of manage your household around all that as well?
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, there's a lot of trial and error, Jane, around that. Surprisingly, in the last couple of years, I get asked that a lot. So I get asked by different, particularly with the book publishing this year.
A lot of a lot of people said, my gosh, when did you have time to write a book? And it's I never take for granted when I get that question. Sometimes I struggle to respond to that because the basic answer is I have chosen to swim and therefore I swim.
And I'm not a swimmer, by the way, so poor choice of analogy. But actually, my mum has a great analogy and I love this one. And it's in her Italian dialect.
But for the purposes of this conversation, the translation is if you are on the dance floor, you must dance. Right. I'm on the dance floor and I love dancing.
Right. I do love my work. However, it comes with a lot of trial and tribulations.
There are some things that are non-negotiables. So exercise for me is a big non-negotiable. So I drag my butt out of bed for mornings a week and I go into a HIIT class because I really love HIIT.
I do a strength class. I do it with my daughter. So my daughter is now a teenager.
We go off to our personal trainer and we do a strength class with her once or twice a week. We always have a family meal together. And I'm usually the one to cook that family meal by choice, because for me, cooking actually is something I do for my soul.
So I love at the end of the day, I'll pop some music on and I'll cook. The kids can come and chat to me while I'm in the kitchen. But that doesn't always happen.
A lot of the time I'm travelling or there will be a late delivery commitment. I'll finish facilitation late in the day. But we tend to still come together as a family.
You know, they're non-negotiables. As the kids get older, they have to contribute to the household. So our youngest is now eight.
But he also understands there are jobs and tasks to do. So I kind of run and with Darren, my husband, we run the house like a team. So everybody's got their contribution they need to make.
And that's the perfect world, because on some occasions it doesn't happen like that. And I just have to remind people that there are no servants. We all contribute and they get that.
But the biggest thing has probably been the exercise for me. Just eating really well. Nutrition has been a really big part, because I find that if you can keep those things steady, then the rest of it works.
But when your exercise routine goes out, when your food, you know, you're making choices that aren't great, not feeding your body with great stuff, even not sleeping enough, then I find that I'm crap for everybody. I end up feeling pretty rubbish and I'm not turning up the best I can for everybody. So I just keep those basic principles in place.
And the other thing, as I said, I dance and I don't, you know, not physically dance, but I'm on the dance floor. So you must dance. And I think the less we think about what we need to do, the more you just do it.
So when I was writing the book and you've been with me on that journey. Right. So January the book started.
It was published in October of this year. So it was a 10 month process. There were lots of trials and tribulations.
There were lots of periods in that time where I just went, oh, not doing this. I hate it. You were with me along those crisis points.
But I at the time I had my eye on a prize and that was I will have a book in my hand this year. And it was all focused on that. So there's a determination, I think, that comes with it.
Sometimes I think on Harrison, so Harrison is a diagnostic tool. One of my clients use it. And so they said, Rita, you're working with us.
Can you do the Harrison too? And I come out as a blind optimist on the Harrison is positive, but not because sometimes there might be challenges and roadblocks that you may see that may be there that you choose not to see. But I think that blind optimism for me is a real blessing because I don't really take no for an answer.
And it's not a stubbornness or a competitiveness, but it's more so even with myself, if I'm having a bit of a conversation about do I, don't I? It's not usually that the question I usually say is, how do I? So it's never a question of can I or should I not?
It's more how am I going to go about doing it?
[Speaker 2]
OK, yeah, you've really got that persistence to just keep seeing it through and the determination when you're already running a really busy and successful practice and a household and all the things and trying to look after yourself at the same time, trying to put a book in the middle of it as well is hard. You can only do so much. But the thing that we see, I guess, from yourself is that it's not always perfect, but what you do well is you always recover quickly.
So, you know, even if it's OK, this week's not gone that great, but your optimism is you're like, yeah, it'll be fine. It'll be right next week. And it is, you know, so I think that it's an interesting comment around that blind optimism and just having the ability to still have that hope and just focus that it'll be and belief that it'll be it's fine.
We'll be right. We've got everything else in place. Is that how it works for you or what's your mind?
[Speaker 1]
Definitely. So when I started really delving into the practice model, I came across that concept of conviction, which is spoken about a lot. And I understood at that point that that trust in self, that's what helps drive my conviction.
I know and I don't know where this comes from. I suspect it's upbringing, but I always know that I will be fine and I have that deep sense of trust. I know I will always be fine.
So that does not mean that things will always happen in the way in which I think they are going to occur. But I think what that does is it helps me be adaptable in my thinking and my approach. So if something falls off the bandwagon, if something does not go as it should, then there will always be another way to get to the outcome.
The outcome might not be as I thought it was going to be. But I also have a belief that that's OK. That's probably then not the outcome that was meant to occur anyway.
Wow.
[Speaker 2]
That's a big thing for trusting yourself, particularly in this process, because you're doing a lot of things perhaps you've never done before. You know, there's a lot of uncertainty. Now, where am I going to get my next client from or am I going to hit my targets of what I'm trying to achieve?
What do you think cultivates a sense of trust in yourself as you grow in your practice? What sorts of things do you think if someone was trying to cultivate that for themselves, what would you tell them to do?
[Speaker 1]
I think it's connecting in with what you know to be your strengths. Right. So in the last couple of years, I've been using a lot of Marcus Buckingham's work on strengths.
And his view is your strengths strengthen you and your weaknesses weaken you. So they will feel like you weaken. So particularly in the world of leadership, I have worked with lots and lots of leaders that will look at their gaps and their, you know, what they will perceive to be their deficiencies.
And it's a waste of time because by a certain stage and age in life, our personality is absolutely there. We can become aware of things and therefore adapt. But either way, we become aware of things like maybe, you know, we're not we're not always the best communicators or for me, it's impatience.
Right. I'm aware that I'm impatient and but it takes a lot of energy for me to really dial that down. So rather than dialing it down, I think about what's the impact of my impatience.
Sometimes it means I put unrealistic timeframes on others. Sometimes it means that I can be a bit harsh on myself, you know, if something doesn't go to plan. So what I've done is just through even bringing on different people in my practice and working with different people, I use them to kind of almost hack the impact of me being impatient.
So it means it takes away the sting of what might be perceived as a derailer or a deficiency. I'm really in tune, I think, with what I do offer and what I do well. And I tend to stay in that lane.
And I think that's super important in a practice. You've got to really think about what is the niche thing that I offer. And I struggled with that at the beginning.
I really struggled with it because I went from being a generalist in my area. So I was an executive in a corporate role in the area of human resources and I was a generalist. I was leading teams underneath me that held the specialist or the specialty portfolios.
But then I went into my own practice. And you can't get away with being a generalist in your own practice because you confuse the market. The market do not know then what to ring you for.
I remember going out on my own. And within the first six months, the phone kept on ringing because people were contacting me because they knew I'd left a corporate job. So they're like, Rita, can you come and help us out on this?
Can you come and help us out on that? And I thought, this is great. What's this business development stuff all about?
This is wonderful. And then after the first six months, all of a sudden the phone stopped ringing. I was like, hang on a minute, what's going on here?
And what I realised is that people forget. So they know you because of an identity that you create. And in our world, we call it positioning.
Right. So they know you because of that positioning. But the minute you are not deliberate about your positioning, you run the risk of confusing yourself and others.
So niching in is really important and working out, well, what do I offer? Who can I help? And how am I going to help them?
And that's the bit around strengths. And I guess, you know, to go back to the point on trust, that is what helps to solidify the trust, because then it's almost self-perpetuating. It feeds it.
And so the more you stay in that lane, it's not to say you can't develop into other things and do other things. But the more you kind of get better at what you already prefer and what you're good at, the more it returns for you, I think.
[Speaker 2]
Yeah, you're so spot on. And that constant battle of trying to stay in your strengths, particularly around what you've got to deliver in the practice around that strength. So you've still got to be able to think and then to be able to sell and to deliver.
But what you're saying is, is you don't have to be trying to become an expert in all these other things. You stay in your expertise and your space. Being deliberate about it and intentional and strategic so that you've got that purpose behind it to where you're going, which then leads me to support and your team.
So people like you make it look so easy, Rita. We go, oh, look at her. She's done a book and she's doing all these things.
But do you do this all by yourself? This is the question everybody asks. How is she doing that?
Yeah, exactly.
[Speaker 1]
Does you have any team or support around you? Yeah, I definitely do. So I have a business manager that works with me.
We've just increased hours. We're always looking at how to do things differently as the practice has grown. I've required more support.
I've also got a couple of VAs that also support. So I have a graphic designer that comes on. So she'll come on when we need different bits and pieces.
I have a bookkeeper, I have an accountant and they're not all full time resources, but I probably have a really good, the inner team is probably five or six and we're pretty tight and we have to work and we do, we work together. You know, the business manager, I was just on the phone to someone before and I said, oh, can I copy in your business manager? And I said, yeah, because I actually employed them.
So they manage me. When I employed my business manager, I am as part of the interviewing process. I said, are you going to be happy to manage me?
And I said, what do you mean? And I said, I'm hiring someone that can actually manage me because I can jump from idea to idea. And so I need someone to kind of counterbalance that sometimes erratic, you know, the erratic ideas and the processes and, oh, we can do this and we can do this.
And that blind optimism comes in. So it's like we can do anything we want. The reality is we cannot.
And so the business manager, that role is critically important. It's got to keep you, for someone like me, it's got to keep my feet on the ground and really be high attention to detail because attention to detail is not my strength. So I will get an Ikea box delivered and I will not look at the instructions.
I'll be like, I'll be able to put that together myself. I don't need the instructions. So that's an insight.
So the attention to detail is super important in my practice. And so and as I say to other leaders, surround yourself with people that can bring something to the table that you are not good at. Yeah, because if you're just hiring like you, then they're probably going to end up annoying you at some point.
You know, it's so true. Yeah, I don't do it on my own. And then on the home front, no, I don't do it on my own.
We've always had good family support and we are very fortunate. I feel very lucky that on both sides, our parents have been able to help us with the kids, particularly when the kids were little. Now, as the kids get older, I've got a couple of teenagers.
They're pretty self-sufficient. Darren and I work as a team. Darren's also running his own business.
So we've got a family with two businesses. And so often we try and have a Sunday meeting, which we don't do consistently. When we do it, I find our weeks work better.
And that is the Sunday meeting is what's coming up in the next two weeks and who needs to attend what. Because there's school activities. And so yesterday I went to the kids were doing a they've done a piece on cultural diversity.
So I went along to that. Darren's going to go to the Strings concert tomorrow because I'm traveling and I can't. So we kind of go, right, who can do things?
And sometimes we can't go and we've got to have the discussion with the kids around. I'm sorry, mate. I'd love to be there, but I can't because of whatever reason.
So, yeah, we're not at everything, but we try and get to most things and we try and have a balanced approach so we can both honour each other's businesses. Because at the end of the day, they're not just businesses for us. They're our passion.
Offering that level of support to each other is super important and it shows a deeper level of understanding for that person and what lights them up besides family and relationships and all that kind of stuff.
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So Rita, the journey that you've had and the work that you've done, the family, all these things, if someone was listening to this, because most of the ladies who listen to this have had their practices for either a little while or they're generally in that first couple of years when they've started out, they've been trying a few things. They've, like you said, I think your point about, you know, your clients for the first six months, they were like, oh, yeah, we can get you to do this. And then they've gone.
I think we've all been through that. It's so true. What would you do if you were in your practice all over again?
What would you do differently?
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the beauty about hindsight is a wonderful thing. Isn't that what they say? I would intentionally slow myself down, which is completely counterintuitive to that phase as you're building your practice.
You're like, yeah, go, go, go. I'm trying to hit that next level. I'm trying to bring that sailing.
You're hustling, you're thinking, you're working, you're doing all of it, you're delivering. But what I would do if I had my time again, and it's not to say that it can't be done now. We're always actively doing this, actually.
It's putting together the right systems. I am so well aware that as practices grow and develop, your systems have to grow and develop with you. But I would have probably spent more time really thinking about what do I need right now?
And that's bringing in the systems thinking. Now, I reckon thinking about this out loud, I would probably not be the best person to advise myself on that. So I would have, and I don't like would have, should have, could have.
But, you know, bringing someone in that can help. So where you see a gap rather than pushing through, like God knows how many hours I've spent designing stuff on Canva. I know I've got a great graphic designer, you do that, you know, that's your wheelhouse.
Even though I could, my energy level is like, yeah, I could stay up until whatever time and do this, but it's not a good use of my time. So it's bringing in systems and understanding what to spend your time on. I think time is critically important.
And in fact, it's not just time, it's energy. I say that to a lot of the groups I work with. Time is finite.
We run around the clock in 24 hours. But our energy, we have an opportunity to dial that up and dial it down, depending on what is required of us. And so really thinking about energy in that first couple of years of the practice, because you can burn out, like you could apply 100 percent maximum effort, 200 percent and completely burn out.
You will hate your practice at the end of it. You might even not like yourself very much in terms of the person you become. So putting in systems, which means that that target you want to hit that might take an extra six months or 12 months.
But when you get there, you'll go, oh, yeah, I learned some different things along the way. And that was a good way and a systemic way to get there, a sustainable way even, as opposed to just trying to blindly hit the target, which I was doing a lot.
[Speaker 2]
And one of the biggest challenges that comes up around is self-worth and pricing your services and around valuing yourself. What advice would you have for women who are trying to break through some of those barriers where they're coming from $2,000 a day, $3,000 a day, $4,000 a day, trying to move through? Do you have any advice for those who are trying to get their head around how to value themselves and the expertise that they bring?
[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I think you've got to meet your market where your market is at. That's the first thing. So I remember Matt Church saying this many, many years ago, and he was like, don't underprice because you're actually doing all of us a disservice when you go in.
He was saying it on a group call. And I remember thinking that's so true because when you're going in and selling your services at $2,000 a day, but others are going in selling at $8,000 or $9,000, you're not looking better because, well, number one, you might get the job, but you're actually doing the rest of, you know, everybody else a disservice too. And so meet the market where the value is at.
Some industries will not pay, like, you know, some areas will go, well, we cap out at that and this is our budget for learning and development or for coaching, whatever it may be. What I have been taught along the last five and a half years is to really focus on the value that you bring. And so when you are trying to inch up, you know, the hourly or the daily rate or the project rate, because I think you end up kind of moving away and looking at project bundles in some cases, really emphasise the value.
And so now a proposal, when I'm putting in a figure that I think, oh, I don't know if they'll go for that, rather than reducing the figure, I go into the value section, I look at, well, how can I be pumping up the value? So is there anything else I can offer that maybe is not going to cost me a lot more in time, but it's a huge perception of value to the client and a realistic value. So if I'm doing a keynote, would I offer an additional masterclass with that?
If I'm offering a program, can I offer participants beyond those that are coming along, some books, will I offer some coaching, some one-on-one coaching to accompany a program that I'm running? So there are all those kinds of things that the client absolutely can see and perceive that value. And sure enough, then you end up inching up that day rate.
I find it harder to do it with clients that have been with me for a long time. So when you've got an established client that's been with you two or three years and you're trying to make that jump up, they are not used to that with you. So it's like the old adage of if you want to get a salary increase, it's easier to do that when you go and get a new job as opposed to doing it in your current job.
So with new clients, start where you intend to be. And so if you're wanting to increase above $500, $1,000 a day, then do that. And then with your current clients, again, just focus on the value.
What are you bringing them? You know, what are you sending them outside of your engagements with them? So are you sending them an article?
Are you sending them a book? One thing I love doing for my clients is hosting events for my clients. So we hosted the book launch and we put on a really, really fantastic event.
And that was also a way to say thank you. You know, thank you for your support. It was very warm in the room.
You know, the feedback from people that came to the book launch was it's such a warm event because, you know, they spend time together. So I do bring my clients together a lot. And what I love most is when one of my clients would say, oh, I gave this person a call the other day because they've met at either a breakfast or a lunch or something, a masterclass that I've run.
Because you know that then you've created that connection, which is value. You know, that is invaluable for the client.
[Speaker 2]
Yeah. I love what you say about, particularly with your pricing for trying to, when it comes to particularly a new client and that's your time to be able to make that move, because it's really hard if you're trying to get those moves with an existing client and, but if you can do that with new ones and it's often something that people will sometimes say, oh, I'll just come in at this price just so I can get in the door. But you make it so much harder for yourself in the longterm, because now that's set the standard of the price and to go, they're not going to go up from there. You know, that's a hard slog to be able to move if you've come in and gone really low price to be able to say, well, just get me in the door and then I can worry about it later.
[Speaker 1]
And I think the other thing with that is I find it very difficult to say no to work. It always feels a bit sinful. And that's probably good old Catholic guilt.
I'm the hard work ethic too. But I have found that it becomes easier, but also to focus in on what your niche is and to get really specialised and to match your positioning at different times, you will need to say no. And when you say no, I think it reinforces your expertise in a particular area.
So then next time someone's having a conversation, you say, well, it's this much for a keynote or this much for a program. They understand why. Because you might be turning down little bits and bobs work that kind of keeps things going and keeps the cash flow going.
And we at different times, we need that. Yes. The more you can specialise, the more people actually value that because you become a deep thinker and have specialist expertise in an area, you know, that is absolutely valued.
[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Al Rees says that in one of his book, which is called Positioning. And he says positioning is all about sacrifice.
And it's not about what you're saying yes to, it's all what you say no to. And you're spot on. Rita, you've got an incredible journey that you've shared with us.
If I think about the things you've talked about, I'm taking away the things that you make, how you get it all to work, particularly outside of running a practice is teamwork I'm hearing between yourself, your husband and particularly your family. You're not finding ways to not have to carry the load yourself. The other key point I'm taking away today and others, perhaps you've heard this is around trusting yourself.
I think that's really key today. And you touched on positioning quite a bit today, particularly around knowing where you stand and not confusing yourself. And once you're clear in yourself, then, you know, blind optimism really kicks in because you can trust that it'll be OK.
And being intentional with those markets, intentional with your positioning and what you're trying to say to your clients and love this one around this sort of almost slowing down to speed up, you know, because you can have this flurry of activity and there's so much that needs to be done and trying to get new clients, like you said, but being able to find a way to be able to systemize, slow down, get everything in place. And so then people can help you and keep you in your genius as well.
So that's been so valuable today, Rita. If people want to follow you, reach out to you, where would you like them to go?
[Speaker 1]
Yes. Website probably is the first point of call. So ritacincotta.com, but I'm on all the socials where all the cool kids hang out, Jane. Maybe not too cool because I haven't hit Snapchat or TikTok yet. I don't want to. My teenagers are there.
But LinkedIn, I publish a lot on LinkedIn and a little bit on Facebook, but more so Instagram and LinkedIn.
[Speaker 2]
All right. Terrific. Thanks again for joining us.
We can't wait to have you back. We'll see the next book before you know it. No pressure.
Thank you so much for having me on. My pleasure.
Most of the guests interviewed are current or alumni members of the Women With Influence community. Click here to find out more
