Creating a Compelling Vision with Rosabel Tao, Founder and CEO of Fire & Bridge

About this episode:

Rosabel Tao is a vision strategist, a master narrative builder, a solver of audacious challenges, and an ambassador of curiosity. She is the founder of Fire & Bridge, an advisory firm that specializes in vision strategy, brand transformation, corporate positioning, and reputation management. She works with change-makers - fire starters and bridge builders - who are purpose-driven leaders with bold ideas to transform their organizations, industries, or our society.

Topics Discussed:

• How Rosabel helps companies clearly articulate and communicate their vision

• Why she considers her curiosity a superpower

• Her thoughts on the importance of having clarity and purpose in your business 

• Why Rosabel believes keeping it simple is best when it comes to branding

About Rosabel:

Rosabel Tao is the founder and CEO of Fire & Bridge, an advisory firm that specializes in vision strategy, brand transformation, corporate positioning, and reputation management. She works with change-makers - fire starters and bridge builders - who are purpose-driven leaders with audacious ideas to transform their organizations, industries, or our society.

Rosabel is passionately focused on making bold ideas take root. Her approach stems from an innate curiosity in how people think, what motivates them to take action, and how a current market condition or cultural landscape influences them. This interest allows me to go into a business situation, analyze it and recognize patterns. The result of what I see can be a new corporate positioning, a creative approach to communicating a business strategy or building a thought leadership platform. No matter the project, her approach is to make sense of chaos by mining and uncovering the layers and then honing in on the gem in the business's story or strategy to solve complex problems.

Over the last three decades, She’s held numerous corporate and agency leadership positions, built teams from the ground up, and worked with a broad portfolio of companies -- from global brands to early start-ups -- in a wide variety of industries. I've held numerous executive-level positions, including the head of Communications for CBS Interactive, MySpace, PopSugar, SF Chronicle, and Spot Runner.

Before starting Fire & Bridge, Rosabel served as a Principal of Cunningham Collective, a strategic marketing firm that helps companies through traction, transformation, and turnaround challenges. During her tenure, she lead the brand transformation for BlackBerry's pivot from a smartphone manufacturer to a leader in enterprise security software.

Read a raw, unedited transcript of this episode:

Thank you so much for joining us today, Rosabel. Please share with us more about who you are and what you do.

It's so much fun to be here. I have an advisory business called Fire and Bridge, I work with leaders and companies on vision strategy, corporate positioning. I do brand transformation work, and it really sort of lies in the intersection of communications. Business strategy, change management it's a very unique business that not very many people do this kind of work.

So I love the name of your company because as long as I have known you, you have had two to three cell phones always working to put out fires for your clients and to help them overcome obstacles. So, I'm not sure if this was the intention of your company name, but as long as I've known you, you have been building bridges to get through the fire.

It's so hilarious. You said that because I now only carry one cell phone, thankfully, but fire and bridge, it actually is the reference to change makers. So the focus I'm working on with the change makers who tend to fall into two camps; they're either fire starters or bridge builders. However, it's so funny that you mention that because definitely in my previous life or previous iterations of my career, I've done so much crisis work that makes a lot of sense.

Can you tell us a little bit about the fires that you put out in your previous career and how you helped companies overcome obstacles? I was head of communications for quite a number of companies, and before that I was working for some of the biggest global PR agencies. It seemed like a lot of times, especially when you're in a house, that you are constantly fighting some fire. Some of them self-inflicted wounds, but nevertheless, it really is about protecting the brand reputation of the company. I have been bombarded with so many crises over the years that I can't even download, and all of them, it would take us probably a week.

How long do we have to talk? Not a week. You like to work with change makers, fire starters and bridge builders who are purpose driven leaders with audacious ideas. Why do you think that is? And how can your company help them articulate and communicate their vision? That's a great question. I really love bringing big ideas to life and solving complex challenges and have been very conscious about doing good in the world. And I feel like by working through these change makers, I'm applying my super skills to help them do good. So in some ways I am doing good through them. I also work with CEOs, and have a vague idea of a vision. It's not very well formed or well articulated. Or sometimes they have way too many ideas. And so I have to help them focus. What I do is they help clarify and co-create a compelling vision statement It becomes their authentic North Star. And what's fun is that oftentimes I go into and I have this big dream for them and then maybe their dream is a little smaller, or sometimes their dream is huge. So we meet in the middle, sometimes it's really about helping them focus and also find something that is a little bit more realistic or credible. Or sometimes I want to push them a little bit further and make it have a bigger dream. And so it's a really fun navigation and partnership that we go through this collaboration process of co-creation.

It's great that you can see what the client needs, that you can see the big picture and you can see that they need help either narrowing it down or even like you said, to be pushed because sometimes we need that.

Mhm. Yeah, it's been interesting. I mean, I remember I worked with a client. His name is David Collins, and he's the creator and producer of Queer Eye. And if you really look at the history of Queer Eye, how we started it, the impact that it's had on the world and it, I came into it wanting him to be this big, huge bridge builder. This global thing. And I realized through conversation with him that his dream is really actually helping one person at a time. And so that was a case where I came up with the bigger dream. But his dream, which is to help one person at a time, is a big dream. But he just does it to millions of people at a time, but he is helping one person. So that was a situation where he kind of met in the middle. We brought him a little bit higher and I came a little lower and we know. But he was a fantastic story.

It seems that helping one person sometimes can be that Firestarter. Anecdotally, that is

Oh, absolutely one thousand percent. So he taught me a lesson, actually that one person at a time is a changemaker. Mm-Hmm. You are passionately focused on making bold ideas, take root. I love that this stems from your innate curiosity and how people think. How do you think your curiosity helps clients and assist you as a leader? I honestly consider my curiosity as a superpower. (UM) It's what compels me to really dig in with clients and people and below the surface, I really understand what are they thinking? What's in their psyche? What are their dreams or their fears? That takes a lot of open communication to do that. I really, want understand who they are as people and what motivates them. That certainly is a big part of why curiosity is so important to what I do.

You have to go into it in a very non-judgmental way, in order to do this, you really have to be open minded. You have to not bring any baggage to the table, any of preconceived notions. And I do think as a leader, we have to do the same thing. We have to understand the people that we're leading and not bring these preconceived judgments and notions and agendas to the table.

And curiosity, it seems that fuels your passion for what you do because continuous learning inspires us.

Everything they do in terms of that, scratches my itch of curiosity can be everything from, oh goodness, sometimes I just get in a rat hole reading where I read one article and then that makes me want to read another article. And next thing I know two hours have passed by. And what I realized is that two hours of reading random articles is not doing nothing. Actually, it is number one feeling my curiosity, but also giving me data and information and touch points, because along with that curiosity comes very good skill of pattern recognition and pattern recognition is a situation where you can bring you recognize patterns in a situation or similar to something else. Maybe you and I have a conversation now and then a week later, I'll have a conversation, a client, and it sparks something that reminds me something you and I talked about. And I'll bring that to the table or watching silly TV shows or reading totally random stories. So I come to realize none of these things are actually a waste of time. They're all these things that help fuel my creativity and bring this pattern recognition skills to life.

And I would think taking in all of that media can only help in what you do in communication.

Oh, absolutely. One of my longtime clients is a company called Ekua Office. They're one of the largest commercial real estate companies in the US. And I've been working with them for a while on their business strategy. And I was asked to lead a half day session for a management retreat, and the objective was to how do we bring this business strategy? How do we teach them business strategy? And how do we apply it to their day to day job? So that was the premise that we started with, and I started thinking how I could do that in a way that was interactive and fun and not like me standing at a podium lecturing to them, right? So I started thinking, it's really about office space and office experience, about alchemy. It's really bringing different elements to create the most inspiring workplace for people. So I thought, OK, what else is alchemy? And so I started just being free brainstorming, and I started thinking about game shows or reality shows. And then I started thinking, Well, what? What else is alchemy? I said, Oh, cooking is alchemy. What about a cooking show? And I thought, OK, what? What else? I said, baking OK. Baking is alchemy. So I started thinking, How could I bring this to life? So I took this concept of the Great British Baking Show, married it with Shark Tank and created a gamified learning experience for them. So we created a situation where they had challenges. We had like a panel of judges and we gave them each a Brookman teams. The teams had to work with people they don't normally work with and thankfully this one was in person because you cannot do this virtually. And I then I was reminded by a lot of my friends having to do home practice for their kids. So I ordered a bunch of crafts materials like, popsicle sticks, cardboard people cut out stickers, all sorts of stuff. And then they were supposed to apply that strategy to a building that they were assigned to. And that was hysterical. Something happened, which is they started creating these 3D models of buildings, and then they turned it all into this little narrative. And then they had to go before the judges and present their challenge. And it was so much fun and it really did help bring the idea to life so you think, OK, well, that's so silly to watch reality shows. But actually, that was what sparked this interest or curiosity of how I could bring that to a work situation

I'm sure they were so happy to to be doing something interactive and you even brought people within the offices together that might not normally talk to each other.

Yeah, and that was one of the best parts of their thought about it. Judging was taken very seriously, though, They did such a great job. They were so creative about it.

It sounds really fun. What makes you and your business good at solving complex problems? And can you share a customer client success story?

I think curiosity is a very significant part of that and pattern recognition, which we touched on. I'm very practically strategic is something that one of my clients referred to me as because I have been a client before and I've always hated it when agencies brought me these big ideas that were totally impractical and not really relevant to my business. And so I really, really try hard when I do this kind of work with clients that it is it is strategic and creative, but also practical that it actually has practical implications for their business because it has to connect to their business strategy. It just can't be this free floating idea. It's great that you've been on both sides because you do see the importance of being able to show and provide the path forward, not just the idea.

Absolutely, being on all sides has helped tremendously because I've been in their shoes, I've been on the executive teams and I fully understand the priorities and the pains and budget issues, et cetera. So I've been in those shoes that I know exactly and understand exactly what kinds of things that they're dealing with. And that also helps me, I think, be a very good adviser to them.

Yeah, you're able to solve those questions for your clients, probably ahead of time knowing that those things are going to come out.

I think the thing also too, is not being part of the company allows me to be more objective. Sometimes when you're inside the company, you have a lot of tunnel vision. It's really, really hard to think of big picture stuff because you're dealing with fires all the time. You know, as we talked about before, it's it's so true. Sometimes you're in the weeds, even at times with She Built It. I think, OK, what if this was someone else's company? How would I look at this and what would I advise them to do? Yeah, yeah. So it's so good to have that outside objective.

Yeah, it really helps a lot. There's really, really hard to have objectivity when you're talking about your own company or yourself. And I think in terms of a really interesting example is a project that I did when I was working with a marketing strategy firm called Canyon Collective, but we were tasked with helping BlackBerry turn their story around. So what we did is we repositioned them from a smartphone manufacturer to an enterprise security software leader. And so that is literally one hundred and eighty degree turn around. And so if at the time when we came in there, they were just getting battered, left and right by the media over their failing smartphone strategy and it was a business they were starting to get out of and really moving away from that and moving into an enterprise customer base, which is a totally different customer also. And so what we did is we really tried to understand deeply what was in their core DNA that could be translated to a future strategy. And what we understood was that no matter whether it was the phone or not, it was it was the software that actually was the core of it. It was the secure software of BlackBerry's phones have never been hacked. And that's why they're carried by world leaders, government institutions and whatnot just because of the security. So what we were able to do is take the the the heritage of their security and bring that forth a new strategy, and then we repositioned them and changed their category. That was probably one of the largest messaging projects I've ever had to deal with.

That's really smart, though, because security is important to everyone. Yeah. And you picked a transition that would resonate with everyone.

Yeah. And that was part of the process where we researched to understand what the white space was. But we understood. I mean, it's just that strategy's become ever more important with the more hacks you hear about on a global level that's, taken down entire hospital systems or entire city grids that that need for security at the very real level has become more important in our world than ever as we have more and more devices. So we were able to really leverage those kinds of trends for their story.

And also their audience shifted. And I think that's another lesson, too, is that to be really clear about your target audience is that I think a lot of companies want to they're so afraid of not leaving out any potential customer that their story gets so muddled because they want to throw everything in the kitchen sink. So having clarity about your purpose in your target market is really, really important. So true. And sometimes that takes a little patience.

It takes a lot of patience.

It’s very hard to get to simplicity. It really is. It seems like it should not be hard, I would say amount of work, but also, heartbreaking conversations it takes to say, OK, now we're really going to just focus on this part of the story. Doesn't mean other parts don't matter. But this is the part we're going to focus on because as you your best and most compelling chance to sell your story, But yeah, it's really, really hard.

So true. And I think, at times we have to get comfortable with letting go of some customers in order to make sure that we have the right ones.

Completely true. That's also another conversation I have with clients is really about honing in on who the buyer is and who influences that buyer. Yeah.

If a company is crafting their brand message or their brand message isn't quite clear, what advice can you give for how to start to figure that out and how to begin to communicate it?

Well, the number one advice is keep it simple. It's very, very hard to actually keep it simple. Many companies are too broad. They want to throw everything in the kitchen sink. I think they're fearful of even customers out. But the more you throw in, the more confusing your message gets. It requires really strategically prioritizing which messages to put forth. One idea, corporate position and I have a very specific methodology that I use, and I learned it at my last company, Cunningham Collective. And there's a whole book, by the way, dedicated this topic for listeners who are interested. The book is called Get to Aha! If you're trying to figure this out, interviewing customers or employees, investors, et cetera, is a very powerful way of starting the process because you really want to get an unvarnished view of the perception of the company. And so again, we talked before about really having tunnel vision, right? So it helps to get a really objective viewpoint as to where you're starting from. And so I think that's a great exercise to start at work. And by the way, I also recommend that you not do those interviews yourself, Because you can't be objective and be people may not necessarily want to be super honest with you. So it is worth having someone else do these interviews for you. I would say, getting very, very clear about why you exist. What is your North Star? Why are you here and who do you exist for? So if you could get clarity on those kinds of things, that's definitely a great start.

You're so right because you're even reminding me how difficult it can be, sometimes to be simple to take absolutely down to that. one statement? Yeah, that the world needs to know and remember.

Yeah, I read somewhere that the attention span of humans now is six seconds, which is akin to goldfish.

I think about that, what I'm posting to social media, you have You write five to six seconds to get someone interested in what you have to say.

Yeah. it's also really challenging to do this with companies that are very technical or you're talking to scientists or something. They always want to be extremely specific. But in reality, when you get it down that level, a lot of people don't listen anywhere because they don't really understand what you're saying or they've already lost their attention

So the more simple that you can make it, the better.

You mentioned that you started your business almost by accident and you were the only person that I know who in the past with clients would say, Huh? I got another client. And the wonderful thing is you have not had to really go, look for them because you're so good at what you do. Your clients have found you. And I think it's so important. You know, you say you started almost by accident.

Sometimes you made the leap and just launched. Sometimes overthinking can hold us back. And you didn't let that stop you. So can you share with us how your business came to life?

Yes. And actually, I wouldn't say almost by accident. It was just by accident. But yes, I started fire and bridge in 2018. At that time, I had just left Cunningham Collective. And since it was close to the end of the year, my plan was that I was going to revamp my resume kind of take stock and figure out what I wanted to do. I was either going to start a business around brand transformation, which will challenge you just because it's so specific or I was interested in potentially going back in house. I think I ended up having two weeks off before a former client called me and said, Well, now since you're on, we'd love it if you came over and helped us execute on the strategy you created. And so I said, as honest as I know, 100 percent how long and consulting for and they're like, No, no problem. Just, you know, we really want you to work with us. So I just started working with them and this was in October. And then soon after somebody else Colby's had 00:25:25 [0.0s] our CEO really needs help with refining his message, Can you help us? And then another call came in with another request almost exactly similar. Our board member says that we need some help. And then after a while and then after three or four of these, I started thinking, Wait a minute, I think I can actually make a business out of this. And so it's interesting because as I mentioned before, this is kind of an unusual business. It's not really something that's really that easily understood or common. I started realizing, this is a great lesson in the market, told me what it wanted. So I think with support, we recognize that [1.6s] [00:26:06]the universe is talking to us and that we should just say yes. And so I just kept on doing it. And then next thing, I know it was business, especially now. unless you're creating a physical product, the barrier to entry, creating a business is much lower than it used to be so much.

And you're right, you can't continue to say yes, which continue to lead to other opportunities. I mean, sometimes we don't even do that and we can hold ourselves back at times.

Yeah, you overthink it. A little too general and I prepared to do this or am I set up to do this, etc. and then I just found myself so motivated and inspired by their stories. And we talked earlier about these change makers and they're just outlined to disrupt the status quo or bring something new or make connections. And I was just so inspired by their heart and their passion and their stories that it really made me think, Gosh, and I really want to continue doing this, and I want to continue working with these kinds of people.

And you can completely hear that you're living your passion, too, and it's probably fun to work with multiple different people doing different things.

It really is. And the great thing about having your own business is that you can structure it however you want to structure it. And for me, I love taking deep dives and going on this journey with clients and being extremely collaborative and almost all of them always become really, really good friends just because we know we really bond over, their story. And also, I'm such a huge fan of theirs that I really want them to succeed so much. And so that becomes a big part of my motivation as well.

I asked this question at the end of every episode, because I believe finding joy in what we do and in our everyday lives is so important. Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy. What is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy?

A big theme of our conversation that day has been about curiosity, and I would go back to that which has been my joy in that when I feel like I'm satisfying some parts of my curiosity, I get so happy. I mean, whether it's traveling, discovering a new food, really getting to understand another culture that I'm not familiar with or getting really geeky on topics I might be interested in. I was just watching, a master class. The teacher was Chris Voss, who used to be an FBI hostage negotiator, and the class was a negotiation. And I started watching it, and the next thing I know it's like three hours later, but it was so good. I was so happy afterwards. I thought, Oh my gosh, that was so good. I learned something. And so just really being of a scratch, that curiosity, which I think is really fun for me.

And you were probably taking in the negotiation skills that you will later use in your business and your client and for your client?

Yeah, he plays some of these. He wrote, plays one where it's a father having a conversation with his teenage daughter. And I talk about everyday life, right? So I thought, Well, this is I am definitely going to incorporate some of his lessons.

Another thing that I've heard from our conversation is you're open, you're open to travel and you're open to trying new foods and you're open to new experiences. And I just think that's a great lesson because sometimes we aren't always as open and we don't always say yes as much as we should.

But I think that's true. The other thing, I think it's really about being open minded, but also non-judgmental, right? And so I do often think that as women, we get so trapped by shoulds, right? We should do this. We should, as a business owner, we should want to scale as a, if if you're not married, you should be married. If you don't have children, you should be you should have children. I mean, whatever it is, right? I feel like society and media and peers and everything are constantly telling us things that we should do. And so for me, I really think it's really taking stock of what do I want to do and how do I want to run this business and what's important to me, not what should be?

Hmm. So true and such good advice. Thank you so much for joining me today. Rosabel, you have built an incredible niche in business, and I absolutely love the name of your company. Can you please share with our listeners how and where they can find you?

You can find me at my website, FireandBridge Dot Com or LinkedIn under Rosabel.