On this episode of Love Your Sales, Eva, a business growth strategist, discusses her journey of merging her strong business background with her passion for creative and sustainable practices in the leather industry. She emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence, empathy, and authenticity in fostering long-term business growth and aligning personal values with business strategies. Eva talks about the challenges and importance of consistency and discipline for creatives transitioning to business roles. She also highlights the need for entrepreneurs to define their own success and build meaningful connections beyond monetary gains.
Contact Eva -
Email - evabarbara@theworldinleather.com
Website - www.theworldinleather.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/evabarbarabongard/
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Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined by Eva, Barbara Bonard. Eva is a business growth strategist who helps entrepreneurs and leaders boost sales through emotional intelligence and purpose-driven strategies. She's passionate about showing how empathy and authentic connections not only build trust, but also drive sustainable long-term business growth. What she does through her coaching programs and workshop. [00:02:00] Like from heart to impact Building meaningful businesses is help entrepreneurs align their personal value with their business strategies, whether it's integrating sustainable practices, fostering empathy in leadership, or supporting emotional health in the workplace.
Her goal is to help people build businesses that thrive from the inside out. I absolutely love that Eva. So you are, um, not only, you know, a obviously a, a coach, um, a, a consultant. You also are a business owner yourself with, um, you know, a, a creative business, correct? Yes.
Eva Barbara: Yeah, yeah. I created a tool and, uh, it comes as a result of my 25 years of experience in the leather industry.
So I created the brand and I went for the, just the creative side of, uh. Something to life, physical product. [00:03:00]
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. So welcome to the show, and I'm really excited about this conversation because you and I were just having, you know, before we hit the record button, we were talking about, um, you know, the difference between a creative versus a, a real true salesperson.
And so I, I kind of wanna revive this conversation that we were having. Because there are certain traits that a salesperson has to have and certain traits that a creative has, and I'd love to talk about the differences in those two things, um, that you've experienced and. How each one of those, you know, leans into those and, you know, finds their, their true passion and purpose, but how each one of those different things can hinder them when they try to cross lanes.
Eva Barbara: So, thank you. Thank you for, thank you for the.[00:04:00]
To chair. So my, the, my story comes in with, uh, I created twi. I come with a very strong background in business development, business, uh, international negotiations and all that. So, but I had a 25 years of experience in the industry on the leather industry, and I saw also. That's where my passion comes for sustainability because there was this, this, uh, movement against the leather that, that, that was happening because of the animals and all that.
And, uh, we, people were losing focus of what? It's leather and it's just a recycle. I mean, it's, uh, using the byproduct of the food industry. So that's where my sustainability enters. And, and I'm just going a little bit on, on the steps that I, that why I am so passionate about all these. And, um, so I enter in the sustainable, uh, sustainable practices, uh, just, uh, as the leather industry has been doing it together with a, the issue is that you [00:05:00] gotta have a good communication.
To approach that. So, um, as I was create, as I was doing that, I wanted to create something unique, and that's where I enter into the creative part of, uh, uh, eh, and I wanted to create something different, not just a simple letter. I mean, it's not as simple. It's quite difficult. It's not simple at all, but not another leather accessories.
And I wanted to go to. What is going on in the walls? Because for me, um, I love to see the walls and calls also because here's where my, my empathy enters and my sensitivity because when, whenever I enter to a place, if it invites me or not, invites me to even have a business with them. So that's where I wanted to bring these creative part of, uh, bring the leather, which is a sustainable.
Into the creative part, and that's where I enter into the world. So I found myself as a very driven, uh, business [00:06:00] person, negotiation international into a complete different world that it's a creative. So I have to, in five years that I did it, I have to kind of. Get myself used to the, the world of creating, of, of being a creator, uh, of physical products.
So, um, it is two different stories and I have to even train myself into be more creative, um, right. But I see how, uh, when, uh, you are creator, there's a, a. A challenge to be able to bring together with the business side. Mm-hmm. And I had, I had the opposite because for me it's all driven and it's all, boom, boom, boom, boom.
But as I was creating the products and as I in that, so I have to re. Um, train my mind. So, and the truth is that after all this [00:07:00] exercise of being a, from a business, being a creator, my business ground is calling me back. And I just love to make the sales, I love the fast pace of that is needed in, in that world.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: And, and to your point, it's, it's, it's hard. It's really hard. You know, I, I'm somebody who, I, I love art. I love to be able to sit down and, and I'm not great at it. Let me, let me just promise this by saying, you know, like I'll sit down and I paint with my seven year olds. So I'm not saying that I'm, I'm a, a true art, like true artist.
I'm talking about like, I. I'll sit down and I like to, you know, dabble in stuff and you can lose yourself in that, right? You can, you can lose yourself in the design, the creation of something that can just kinda wipe away the world, like you really just can. One hour can seem like. A minute and all of a sudden [00:08:00] you're there for five hours doing something and you're like, what?
Wait, what do you mean? Five hours has gone by? Because those true creative minds just really can get hyper-focused and time will pass without even they, they won't even realize it. Right. Whereas a sales minded person. There and, and again, I've lived and breathed in, in the world of business development, of sales, of relationship building, of, that's, that's where I, that's my professional life.
That's where I've, you know, spend the majority of my time, right. We spend the majority of our time at work, um, and it's a fast pace. Everything is moving quickly. Everything is speeding past you all of the time where you're not sitting in this serene. Quiet, calming, creative space. You're sitting in this like everything [00:09:00] is racing past you.
And if somebody, if somebody calls you and says, Hey, I wanna buy your product, it's not a I'll get back to you when I get back to you. It's a, you need to get back to that person right now, or they're gonna move on to the next, the next person and say, Hey, I wanna buy your product because we live in an instant gratification world.
Eva Barbara: Yes. And one of the things, you know, what I find is why we get lost as creator, because I can talk to you as a business person and I can talk to you as a creator and maker or however you or cra uh, however you wanna call it. It's because, uh. And this is where my emotional intelligence enters, and that's what I've been learning in all these five, six years.
And anxiety. The antidote for anxiety is to create something so.
When we are emotion very sensitive [00:10:00] or when we are very attuned to what is going on empathic to what is going on in the world, we get overwhelmed with everything. So, and until that for us is to create and we get. You can get lost. Yes. Five hours, seven hours in my store. Is it creating one thing and from one I wanna create something else.
So that's where it's hard to combine both. But, um, but I, I like the, uh, the emotional and, uh, and it was until I learned that. The antidote for anxiety for everything was creative. Create being, create something, make something. Mm-hmm. I said, oh, it's not, I wanna justify myself, but, but it does, you get lost in that.
Right? And that's how creators are so hyper-focused. Hyperfocused in one thing.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's, but now let's bring this down to a practical level, because there are a lot of people who are [00:11:00] creatives who start businesses. You started a business. Yes. But you, you have, you've taught yourself to have the ability, well,
you had both. You know, you kind of explained that, that you were, you know, a business driven person that also was a creator. That's, that's not typically, that's not a typical person or a typical ability, right? Yes. Most people are either on the creative side or on the logic side. Yes, there's, those usually are two completely different people and that's where we pose.
Or that's where the problem comes in, right? So I am person A, the creator. I start a business and I wanna make, or I want to be a marketing agency that just does, creates [00:12:00] pretty little designs for my clients. But how do I figure out how to sell that when. We were talking about this, um, sense of urgencies or the, um, that tenacity to go out and sell is just not a discipline that I'm typically used to.
Eva Barbara: You know, it all comes to awareness. You gotta be o you gotta be very conscious of what is happening with yourself and as you decide to become a business. So there's so many parts, and that's where you gotta, you gotta train yourself. You gotta be open. Because if we are not open and it's, it's much more than a mindset.
It is, it is a, a way of, uh, seeing things that you gotta.
Because I was part of a group where I'm communist because I was able to see, I was part of this [00:13:00] group where we were maybe like eight, and they were artists. And I did not consider myself an artist in the sense of, because maybe I did not go for, for school or I don't have 20 years unexperienced. But, but the truth is that I, I learned that I am, I am a creator because I came with an idea of making.
Leather art in frames, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Things that people have never seen many times, you know? So, and that's where I enter in this group. And it was that the, the, the coach, the person that I was teaching was teaching them to think very business driven. Where for me it was, I wanna get the, the, I wanna get their minds in the sense of being an artist.
It was right. I enter, I enter in a different situation than everybody else enters because we must, if you are a business owner, you must, sales is [00:14:00] fast driven. Mm-hmm. You gotta move fast and in the moment that somebody that can be a lead. Even Bris. It's not that you are overwhelming them, but you, you gotta n you gotta nurture, you gotta feed that relationship, right?
So that's where, that's where, uh, my, I enter in this world. And that's where I learned also to apply my, the emotional intelligence. Because see, we don't apply the empathy. I mean, uh, the, if we don't apply the, the tender. We must, you know what I mean? Uh, if we are not in that, in that, uh, state of saying things as they are and accepting them, receiving them and giving them, we can get in trouble.
Right. It's,
Leighann Lovely: we can have more
Eva Barbara: challenges.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. AB absolutely. And, you know, and it's. It's one thing to say, Hey, I'm gonna go to school and I'm gonna learn. Uh, and I keep going back to, you know, marketing. Um, but it, it's not just marketing. It's one [00:15:00] thing to just go to school and say, Hey, I'm gonna be in marketing, um, and work at a company.
You can stay as a creator and, and, you know, stay in that creation. I'm just gonna do this. But if you decide that you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you at that point have to learn to. Put on all of those hats. And I can tell you that when I'm, when I'm outside of my lane, when I am doing accounting, let's, I always go back to accounting because lemme tell you, when I have to go and reconcile my accounts, I'm like, Ugh, this is, you know, every minute feels like it's an hour.
'cause I'm like, I don't know how, what I'm doing. Um, it, it's, it's draining. It's absolute draining. So what I tell the people that I'm, that I'm working with is that get into a flow of, of doing [00:16:00] the activity eventually it will become easier and it'll become more natural so that it's not as hard. And then once your, your muscle movement becomes more natural. It'll become easier because we can teach ourselves to do things, but, and then at that point you're able to actually tweak that to be better.
Make yourself better at that. But sometimes it's about just the discipline of teaching yourself how to do something. So for those creatives who are like, oh, this is horrible. I don't wanna make these cold calls. I don't wanna have to do this. Sometimes it's just about the discipline of doing it, then tweaking it to do it well.
Eva Barbara: It's like everything, you know what I mean? Also, to become an artist, what do you have to do? I mean, [00:17:00] an artist becomes so unique and so, because they have done it so many times, right. You know, it's a, the repetitive task that makes the even better. So it's like that. And it is the same. It is the same situation in everything.
It's the consistency too. And I applied also right now to myself, the consistency of, uh, all those creators that are outside right now. Right now it's a world of creators, you know, uh, because of social media and what they do. Some of them are very successful because they were consistent. They were doing it every single day or whatever time they decided, and I think it's the biggest challenge for, for creators.
I, for, for me, has been one of the biggest challenge, just the consistency of, um, of doing the, the task, yeah. Is the discipline. It, it all comes to a discipline.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. And so when you work with your clients, and we're gonna kind of shift back [00:18:00] here for a second, when you work with your clients, um, on, on teaching them from, from heart to impact, building me meaningful businesses, um, and, and helping those entrepreneurs really align, you know, their, their personal value, their, um, you know, with their business strategy, where do you step in and start to assist them?
Eva Barbara: It's num number one. One because how many times have you heard someone that it's already making millions, but there's no happiness? You know, it happens. It does happen quite often. So because we are so driven, we were thought that in order, that's the normal, I'm talking that to, in order to be successful, you gotta have money or wealth, or you have to have power.
It doesn't mean that for me and I can talk personally for me, I learned what was success when I, until I lived [00:19:00] it and which was completely d very different. But it was because of my, my story as with of my family. My daughter comes, had a lot of medical issues that I've been sharing, um, uh, in my social media.
And uh, I learned that for me success was, is right now that she lives medicine free. You know, uh, so it becomes, but it's because I had 17 years of a kid that was struggling medically not knowing what was happening. You know what I mean? So that's where we have to start. Where, where is where you, what is.
What is for you success and where do you wanna see yourself? And, and it's not, and because I so business driven and that's where I enter because I, I also, my experience, um, is with, um, with, uh, international business and, and I bringing it up. I'm mentioning right now because in order to become a purpose business, you can apply emotional [00:20:00] intelligence and with my experience with all these international cultures, because you work with so many different ways, diverse.
Ways of thinkings, the history behind each country really matters when you're making business. Mm-hmm. So that were the, it helped me to dive into the emotional intelligence of the emotional of the, of the business. And once you get your emotional intelligence in a certain way, that's when you can say, okay, this is where I wanna go with my life.
This is where I wanna go with my business. Making money. Everyone wants to make money. We all wanna be wel wealthier. But,
Leighann Lovely: but you made a, a really profound comment is that everybody thinks that once I make X amount of money, I'm gonna be happy. Mm-hmm. And that's. That, that is completely un untrue. And I think that's [00:21:00] the carrot that everybody chases is, oh, as soon as I make this, it's gonna fix everything.
And you're like, wait, wait. Is that, is that the carrot you're chasing? Because you really need to sit down and ground yourself here. And really, you know, think about that is that if the, the pot of gold at the end is just a hundred percent focused on the money. Then you have a problem.
Eva Barbara: But you know, if it's money, it is okay.
But, but you have to see, once you get that goal, where are you going? You know? Okay. Right. Because that's what happens. You get the 10 million mark or whatever, million or whatever you amount you want. Now what? And so that's why you see many entrepreneurs right now helping others because they, they, their business, their money, it okay.
Makes them. Okay. They check. So,
but it doesn't make the [00:22:00] whole purpose or that they would like to have, and that's why I lean a lot in emotional intelligence because, uh, the awareness and the, the, the, we need so much to be empathic with ourselves. Let's start with, I don't even say with others. If we don't, every thing starts with ourself, right?
We cannot apply to others. Right. So it has to be with you
Leighann Lovely: and, and you made another valid point. A lot of entrepreneurs are helping others at this point because we had the rise of entrepreneurship. A couple years ago when nobody had jobs and everybody was like, well, what do I do? And they're like, well, I'm just gonna, I guess, work for myself.
And where, what can I offer to other people that other people, you know, the exchange of goods, the exchange of money for services? What, what right now will people pay me to do to help them along? And then you had all these little businesses popping up and now all of these little businesses that popped up we're so grateful that they were able to [00:23:00] survive a time when nobody.
Nobody was really working unless you were deemed an essential business. You know, and obviously I'm talking about the, you know, the whole pandemic. And, and so all of these little businesses in these communities of people are going, well, how can I help somebody else level up? And at the same time, myself, level up in a community of people who care about each other.
And that's where the empathy, that's where the, you know, end. In so many cases, they're, they're not just simply chasing again that pot of golds. They're actually just a community of small business people growing together. Yes. And at the end of that, we're not talking about being millionaires. We're talking about having a true, you know, community of people who care about each other.[00:24:00]
Lifelong friendships that were built for a purpose, and that purpose has to be defined, obviously, individually by each person. But I will tell you that a million dollars will not make me happy. A million dollars may wipe out all my debt, but at the end of the day, a million dollars is not going to make me happy if nobody has joined me on that journey.
It's simply just a lonely journey to a million dollars. And
Eva Barbara: yeah, that, and that's where, um, I, and overall, right now,
, we are in a moment that we gotta bring all of our expertise and also what is coming with ai. You know, uh, I mean, it's not the same that if myself, I interact with AI and I bring with some, with some information that it, it's [00:25:00] good for business development growth strategies, that if I'm creator and artist.
An artist, a painter comes and puts a something into the, that's where they say the prompting is so important. No, is the expertise of the people bringing it. Mm-hmm. You know, it's not about the prompt, it's about who is behind it. Right. Because I, or if I wanna create a, a piece of, and I saw it because I had early access to Dali Boo three years ago, and I was dealing with these incredible creators.
Unbelievable. The ones that are even supporting meta or supporting the Snapchat. Uh, and I was bringing something for an a, a draw a drawing. Mine was so awful, so bad, and they were bringing this. Out of your mind things. And that's where, that's where AI comes, you know what I mean? Right. So it's so important.
[00:26:00] And the only thing that the, and this is where I lean again, in emotional intelligence. The only thing that makes us unique in front of all those machines is our humanity. We gotta be more human than ever. And if we are not emotional intelligence, we will be about human telling, the, the machine what to do.
And so that's mm-hmm.
Leighann Lovely: I, I totally agree. I I absolutely agree on that and I would love to continue this conversation, but we are coming to time and you get your 32nd shameless pitch at this point. So if you want to promote yourself or somebody else, you are, um, go ahead and get your, um, get your, your 30 seconds in there.
Eva Barbara: Well, thank you so much for this and, uh, as I said, I am Eva, Barbara Bogart, and I love to, I help businesses to, to grow in international, international negotiations. I have that [00:27:00] experience and, uh, using purpose, uh, uh, emotional intelligence, uh, to get better negotiations and to get your purpose life.
Leighann Lovely: That's amazing.
Uh, thank you so much, Eva, for joining me today. Um, this has been an amazing conversation. Um, you truly are a, um, just a, a breath of fresh air. Um, you, you know, the way that you, you know, bring those two disciplines together. It's awesome. I loved talking with you today, so thank you so much.
