Leslie McIntyre-Tavella - Framing Success: 20 Essential Lessons for Achieving Entrepreneurial Greatness from a Self-Made Multimillionaire

Praise for

Framing Success

Leslie McIntyre-Tavellas story is as incredibly inspirational as it is instructive. This book is a powerful business-building blueprint, teaching us all how to do well by doing good.

ALEX GOLDFAYN,Wall Street Journal
bestselling author of 5-Minute Selling

This candid, practical, personal book captures the essence of the entrepreneurial life and how business leaders can thrive in a fast-changing world. Every aspiring and experienced entrepreneur can benefit from McIntyre-Tavellas hard-won wisdom.

MARK C. PERNA, speaker, CEO, and award-winning
author of the bestseller Answering Why: Unleashing Passion,
Purpose, and Performance in Younger Generations

Framing Success provides a powerful blueprint with inspiring examples, practical tools, and tested techniques for renovating your business. It will help you transform your business into one that reflects professionalism, character, and achievement. This is a perfect gift for the new business owner; a great refresher for a seasoned one.

CHIP R. BELL, author of Inside
Your Customers Imagination

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. Nothing herein shall create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing herein shall constitute legal advice or a solicitation to offer legal advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

An Inc. Original
New York, New York
www.anincoriginal.com

Copyright 2021 Leslie McIntyre-Tavella

All rights reserved.

Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

This work is being published under the An Inc. Original imprint by an exclusive arrangement with Inc. Magazine. Inc. Magazine and the Inc. logo are registered trademarks of Mansueto Ventures, LLC. The An Inc. Original logo is a wholly owned trademark of Mansueto Ventures, LLC.

Distributed by River Grove Books

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group
Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7360283-4-6

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-63909-000-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-7360283-5-3

First Edition

To my husband,
who followed my every
whim and filled every jar,
and to my darling daughter,
the cherry on top of it all.

Contents

Acknowledgments

O ur small but mighty family consists of my devoted husband, Ralph, the glitter of our family, and our daughter, McKenzie. Without their support, compassion, insistence, and humor, this book might not have come to fruition. McKenzie, you bring me my greatest sense of accomplishment and joy. Knowing that we raised a compassionate, kind, independent, strong-willed, pragmatic woman who will continue my mission of guiding others to become the best they can be fills me up every day. You are truly my legacy, my greatest achievement, and a constant source of joy.

To my husband, Ralph: my loving, kind, loyal, and trusted partner of thirty-two-plus years who tolerates my every whim, listens to every idea, fills every jar, and has run toe to toe with me for three decades, it wouldnt have been nearly as special without you by my side. I truly picked a winner when I chose you. And me, well, Ive been told that I am the glue always holding things together, completing our small but mighty family unit.

To my partner Tom, thank you immensely for filling in all of my gaps, for your fortitude and unwavering belief in our company, your encouragement, patience, and abundance of love and kindness. You will always and forever be my one and only work partner.

To my dearest friends, Todd, Lisa, Jennifer, Joann, Mark, Prisco, and Gina, and my dearest Diana, who has been with me through most of my life journeyI thank you for your love, sharing your families with ours, your humor, your knowledge, and everything that each of you has taught me. Each of your successes, failures, views, and values has added to our families and made us who we are today.

To my Renaissance Executive Forum family, I thank you for your tough love, honest feedback, brilliant insights, support, and kindnesses. Each of you are entrepreneurial heroes getting up every morning to fight another day, to sustain and grow your businesses to be the very best that you can be. I am eternally grateful for your friendship, love, and boundless support.

To my mentors: Marian and Phil McIntyre; Michael Mulcahy, past president of Trans-Lux Corporation; and Robert Pfann, each of whom inspired and encouraged me to be better by sharing their lessons in life and business. And finally, to Art Pappas, who over dinner one night asked me about my story and told me it was worth sharing. You have been inspirational and a role model, showing me how to be an incredible leader and treating me as though I was always your most important customer!

And to Al Trebing, my counsel and dear friend of twenty-five-plus years: You have been my guiding light, always available for me day and night, propping me up when I needed support, pushing me when I needed encouragement, and guiding me when I became lost and couldnt quite find my way. Without your guidance, patience, knowledge, and mentorship, this journey might not have ended as it has. Thank you for sometimes knowing me better than I know myself.

And finally, to my birth family and siblings: It was no easy journey, but the glimpse of a better life was available to me because of it. I am deeply grateful for the tough lessons afforded me when I was young so that I developed the grit, fortitude, and determination to choose a different and much better life for myself.

Special appreciation and gratitude to Anaka Mastrianni for being invaluable with her ideas, wit, and youth beyond years. You are truly an amazing young woman who came to me at a time when I needed you most!

Preface

R unning a small business for thirty-plus years afforded me a lot of learned lessons. Business starts and ends with the customeracknowledging, honoring, appreciating, and pleasing the customerin every single interaction. Ive spent a lot of time speaking to customers about their experiences and what they truly want in a business partner. In business today, being good is merely the entry fee. In order for your business to continue and thrive, you must be consistently exceptional. Everyone talks the same talkbut few walk the walk! Managers and C-level executives are busier than ever these days, being bombarded by meetings and chats, emails, text messages, social media, and so on. It is the duty of leaders to help them cut through the clutter and noise and deliver a superior experience and product repeatedly and consistently.

When I was twenty-two years old, I started my own business when all odds were stacked against me. You see, I did not finish high school or attend college. I have an eleventh-grade education. I had a very unsettled home life and was eager to start out on my own, knowing I could only depend on one personme.

At a young age, I had the unique opportunity to get a glimpsethat is, a glimpse of two lifestyles I could choose for myself. I lived in two extremely different household environments for many years, which allowed me to clearly see the long-term consequences of both. Bouncing back and forth between an abusive, unpredictable, and addiction-filled home and a loving, nurturing, and supportive one gave me a very clear illustration of what kind of life I could have when I set foot on my own path.