► Susan Speaks at Sages & Scientists.
Susan has been a pioneer in the
STEAM movement nationwide. She has trained hundreds of teachers in
collaboration with National Grid and the Boston’s Children’s Museum, crafting
new STEAM apps for Peep in the Big Wide World for
the National Science Foundation, working with WGBH and Corporation for Pubic
Broadcasting to train parents and teachers on developmentally appropriate
screen time. Through the Massachusetts Department of Education, Susan has
trained leaders on the significance of STEAM with children, especially girls,
and has partnered with KinderLab Robotics to bring the first
Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K) robots to at-risk communities. Susan’s ability to
engage others has led to her being a popular speaker at a wide range of events,
including Inc. Leadership
Conferences, Inc.’s Spark Business, The Chopra
Foundation’s Sages & Scientists Symposium, COMPASS for Kids, High Scope International Conference, U.S.
Department of Education’s Early Reading First Conference, the International
Reading Association Conference, and the Ohio State Bowling Green Entrepreneur
Conference.
Companies
Founder
& Chief Transformation Officer
G3 builds integral online
and offline, customizable workplace training programs for organizations that
want to activate and elevate employees’ untapped leadership and productivity
capabilities and inspire them to enlarge their vision, enrich their
experiences, and maximize their lives.
Founder &
CEO
Through Peace, Love & Happiness Real Estate,
Susan and her team create commercial and residential experiences using
eco-friendly materials to enhance opportunities for increased Wellbeing. Each
property features the state-of-the art Pelican water filtration system,
LEED-certified heating and cooling systems, and green cleaning products.
Founder & CEO
An interactive children’s
discovery museum, located at the Riverwalk in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Imajine
That focuses on child and family engagement and also provides pop-up
programming in public schools and community centers.
Founder &
President
Inspirational Ones,
formerly The Leadership and Literacy Foundation, is a 501(c)(3) organization
originally established in 1998, by a group of educators whose goal has always
been clear—to make a difference in the lives of children, adults, the
community, and the workplace through literacy, effective communication, and
leadership skills.
Founder &
Past CEO
Little
Sprouts is a network of early education centers in and around Greater Boston
and Southern New Hampshire. The companies’ award-winning, nationally-recognized
schools offer a literacy-based, individualized, developmentally-appropriate
education for each child—far beyond just day care.
Balancing Margins Against
Mission : Sometimes entrepreneurs
hold on too long to relationships, businesses or employees when it's really
time to let go.
Video Transcript
00:09 Susan Leger Ferraro: Thanks so much for being here. Thanks to Inc for
having me. Very excited to be with a bunch of mad scientist entrepreneurs,
right? Kindred spirits. You're like, "They're all nuts like me, right?
It's not just my biological conditioning." It's very inspiring. So, before
I share my story with you and my three life's lessons, I'm gonna ask you for
two hall passes. If you can't tell by now, I am a Bostonian, so my first hall
pass is I don't say my R's and I don't want to distract you the whole time I'm
up here talking. So, park the car in Harvard yard, there it is; doesn't come
out. My mouth end doesn't actually move like that, you know? So, Bob LaPointe,
the president of Inc, is also from Boston, and my hall pass number two is he
told me that it was okay if I dropped a few curse words. So, I'm asking for
pre-forgiveness, just in case they come out, but he said it was okay. So, I'd
like you to do something with me for a minute that's gonna help me share with
you my life's lessons that I learned in this last year after 30 years of
running a business. I want you to take a deep breath in with me and hold it,
while I tell you a few things about myself and my story. And I'll tell you when
to let it go.
[laughter]
01:20 Ferraro: So, I started Little Sprouts when I was 17 years
old, and I have sold it twice, as Dan said at the beginning. And I sold it, and
merged in 2008, with a group of venture capitalists. Are you guys still holding
your breath? Okay. Hold your breath. Just like that. And I sold it in 2008 to a
venture capital group called American Education Group and I sold it again last
year for the second time. First time was my choice, second time wasn't so much
and I'm gonna get into a little bit of that story with you. So, release that
breath for me. Shh, just like that. And my lesson that I learned this year was,
it's not the letting go that hurts us, it's the holding on and that was a tough
one, right? Because just like we all do and I think it's an entrepreneurial
condition, you hold on sometimes too long to relationships, to your businesses,
to that employee that you know probably has served their time with you, but you
just don't know how to tell them it's time for them to go, 'cause they do a
couple things that's really good. So, when I realized that Sprouts was... That
I was probably holding on and after 30 years in the business, I decided I
needed to let go. So, I went... In 2008, as I said, for the first time to sell
the business, and I sold it for 5½ million dollars. And what I'll tell you is
if... This is the beginning when I actually first started doing... I was 17
years old at the time. This is a picture of us at Imagine That on the other
side.
02:52 Ferraro: If Inc actually wants to do a story on you, tell
them "Yes." I was in the middle of my negotiations in 2008, and this
2007 Inc Magazine came out about my elevator speech, and I am convinced that I
got an extra million dollars at the end of the day. Because these venture
capitalists were so like impressed that we made it to Inc Magazine, we were capitulating
over that last million dollars and I got it. And, you know, you got to think
about this, right? I was this small businesswoman, I started when I was 17, I
only had five schools at the time, and they had 40 million dollars to invest,
and they're like, "Can she do it?" And they looked at this Inc
Magazine and they're like, "Alright." They were from Chicago and
Washington State, and so they were kind of like, "Can she do it?"
And, honestly, in two weeks after this came out, they were kind of like,
"Let's close the deal, five and a half million dollars," and I was
like, "Yes! Dink, Dink!" So, if they tell you, yeah, say
"Yes."
03:45 Ferraro: And so, again,
what happened is in 2012, I had my own "Come to Jesus" speech with
myself. And I was just not feeling it anymore, and it really came down to
mission and margin, right, as it always does. And you know that when you're
working in an organization it will fundamentally come down to those two things.
Are you going to make your decisions by your mission at the end of the day or
by the margins? And these guys were venture capital boys, and I know that's
their job, right? They're about margin, and I was about mission and I was
really pissed at them for a long time, right? Really pissed at them, and I
won't drop those curse words right now, but I was really pissed. And I had to
kind of let go of it and say, "Susan, don't hate the players, hate the
game." And I went to the guys and I said, "Alright, boys, this is how
it goes. I'm having a good time, but not that much fun anymore, and so I'm
either gonna buy it back or I'm gonna leave."
04:42 Ferraro: So they all got together, as VCs do, and they
decided they were going to make a decision. They came back and they said,
"That's good Susan, but what we have decided is we're actually gonna sell,
but we're not selling to you and we think that we can get more on the
market." Because you know why? I was the founder, I was the entrepreneur.
I knew where all the cobwebs were, right? I knew the real valuation of the company,
and what I offered them, they actually did get. They got 25% more than what I
was willing to pay for it and they wanted me to help them sell the business.
And so when we were closing the deal, I was working with them, and you know how
it goes, right? They're thinking about slashing jobs during this conversation,
because that's how the business valuation gets brought up. And I went to the
chairman of the board and I said, "Look. You know what? I'm really
concerned about my people." And he said, "You know what? You've lost
that privilege, Susan, when you sold majority share."
05:33 Ferraro: And I thought, "Okay, I'm done." I
gave my notice and walked away from a million dollars in bonus and salary. I
had no job. My other businesses that we talked about at the time, you know,
they were hobbies, right? I had started them, like Gary did, because I was
bored and had nothing else to do. And so, they really weren't making enough
income that they were gonna be able to support me. So I woke up the next
morning, after going out and giving my notice with that decision hangover, You
ever have that? You're like, "What the bleep did I do? Holy God! 30 years
of my life's work, and I went, 'Sorry guys, have a good time, I'm out'."
And I did.
06:11 Ferraro: But in the end it was the right thing for me to
do. And now a year later I have all these kinds of really, other great
businesses right? I am the Chief Innovation Officer for Lupoli companies which
is the partner of mine, Sal Lupoli. And he owns a hospitality business, pizza
restaurants, real estate, 80 million dollars, 800 employees and I am helping
them with their transformation. I am the Chief Curiosity Officer for Imagine
That, which is an interactive children's museum that we have pop-up models and
we have grown a 110% this year. I'm the Chief Inspiration Officer for
Inspirational Ones, which is a grant writing business and a development and
design company that does training on all over the country, and we have written
$24 million dollars over since 1997 for four profit businesses. And so if
you're interested in learning about that, come see me afterwards because it's
amazing the amount of grant money out there that people don't know about.
07:04 Ferraro: So very exciting,
and what I realized was were I could stay stuck and holding on to that business
model, I would have never been able to do all these cool things that I'm doing
right now.
SUSAN LÉGER
LIGNÉE ANCESTRALE PATERNELLE
X Susan LÉGER
marié à Mark FERRARO, fils de Dominic FERRARO et de
DOROTHY DEVINE, le 16 juin 1985 à North
Andover (Massachusetts, États-Unis).
IX Robert LÉGER
marié à Janet FOURNIER, fille de Robert FOURNIER et de
Rita DUBÉ, le 6 juin 1959 à Lawrence (Massachusetts, États-Unis).
VIII Samuel LÉGER
marié à Yvonne DESROSIERS, fille d’Adélard DESROSIERS
et de LYDIA BOURQUE, le 28 décembre 1929 en l’église Saint-François-Xavier de
Fitchburg (Massachusetts, États-Unis).
VII Wenceslas LÉGER
marié à Séraphine CARRIÈRE, fille d'Amable CARRIÈRE et
d'Archange BEAUCHESNE, le 26 novembre 1900 en l'église St-Bernard de
Fournierville (Ontario).
VI Dosithée LÉGER
marié à Sophie DUPUIS, fille de Joseph DUPUIS et
d'Angèle CAZA, le 27 janvier 1874 en l'église St-Bernard de Fournierville
(Ontario).
V Augustin LÉGER
marié à Victoire SÉGUIN, fille de Louis SÉGUIN et de
Marie-Louise MALLET, le 5 octobre 1829 en l'église Ste-Madeleine de Rigaud
(Bas-Canada).
IV Joseph LÉGER
marié à Marguerite Amable BREBANT, fille de Augustin
BRABANT et de Eugénie ST-JULIEN, le 24 novembre 1800 en l'église St-Michel de
Vaudreuil (Bas-Canada).
III Thomas LÉGER
marié à Félicité CHOLETTE, fille de Jacques CHOLETTE
et de Marie-Antoine LEGAULT, le 8 janvier 1776 en l'église St-Joachim de
Pointe-Claire (Canada).
II Charles LÉGER
marié à Françoise LEDUC, fille de Pierre LEDUC et de
Marie-Catherine FORTIN, le 7 janvier 1738 à Ste-Anne-du-Bout-de-l'Ile
(Nouvelle-France).
I Pierre LÉGER dit
PARISIEN
marié à Jeanne BOISLARD, fille de Jean BOISLARD et de
Jeanne MARANDAS, le 15 mai 1706 en l'église Notre-Dame de Québec
(Nouvelle-France).
Pierre LÉGER dit LE
PRIEUR
marié à Marguerite DANDASE de St-Etienne-du-Mont,
Paris (Ile-de-France).
