Colleen Vacelet

I attribute my success to the team around me - that's a big component of it. I have a super amazing team with really great support, and I try to find people that are better than me at what I do. I've been able to build that team that's almost like a family. But the other half of it is mindset. If you can't get your mind straight to push forward, then you're never gonna get there. Goal setting, visualization, and just strong willpower mindset - that's probably the other half of it. My husband also gave me a nice reminder once when I was upset about not growing fast enough. He told me to back up and look at what I'm providing for other people's livelihoods. Maybe I'm not at 50 people at the company, but I have 10, and they have livelihoods, they're able to buy a house because of something that I started. Small business is the backbone of America and the economy, and we're creating livelihoods for other people.

The best career advice I've ever received is to keep moving forward. I remember when I got what I considered my first big contract at my company, Intrigue, I called my father wanting a pat on the back and accolades. Instead of congratulating me, he said 'alright, go out and get the next one, talk to you later' and just hung up. I called him back asking why he didn't congratulate me, and he said 'business isn't just one contract, right? Over time, you have to keep it going.' He wasn't trying to be harsh, he was just trying to say, hey, this is awesome what you're doing, but you gotta be able to replicate and just keep moving it forward. That one's always stuck with me.

Make eye contact. I think working on soft skills is really important. We're behind computers a lot these days and a lot of things are virtual, so push and test your actual interaction skills - your people skills. While AI is great and helps make us more efficient, we still can't forget that communication and actual human interaction are just as important, and to not lose that behind a computer screen. For example, I find companies nowadays are doing virtual test interviews, so I'd say maybe even drop by their office to do an office visit, just get that more in-person, personal touch as much as you can.

I think the biggest challenge right now is finding the right people - just making sure we have the right people in the right seats. There's a lot of work out there right now, which is good. We're pretty good to go and definitely not suffering for work. But the challenge is that we don't want to take on too much and then not have the bodies to do it, and then we're letting clients down. We're not just being selective, but we want to make sure we have the right kind of fit because it's a family that we've curated, so just making sure we have the right people in the right seats.