ATLANTA, Ga. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — She’s worked with clients like Coca Cola, UPS and Porsche. But this successful business owner says she’s had her share of mistakes while growing her multi-million dollar company. Now she’s passing on lessons learned.
Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin, CEO, and executive creative director of Tribe, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, has always had a mind for business. As a child, she collected old soup cans.
“Filled them with weeds essentially put them in the cans and I would sell the plants door to door,” Baskin told Ivanhoe.
Now she is the founder of her own company called Tribe, Inc..
“We do internal communications for large companies, so we’re like an ad agency but for an employee audience,” explained Baskin.
Baskin founded tribe in 2002 and quickly grew it into a five million dollar company. But she says it hasn’t been a walk down easy street.
Baskin detailed, “We would eat ramen noodles for lunch and we borrowed furniture.”
When it comes to seeking out loans and investors, she says female business owners could be more aggressive.
“I do think women are slower to finance things, slower to get money from the bank,” said Baskin.
On hiring employees, they may shine on paper, but rely on your intuition.
“I really did once hire a girl because she had on really cute shoes and she lasted one week,” detailed Baskin.
Brittany Walker works at Tribe, Inc. as an account supervisor and said the biggest lesson she’s learned from her boss is to always be transparent.
Walker said, “Be honest and forthcoming. If there’s an issue, try to find a way to solve it before it’s a problem.”
Baskin learned that lesson early when she put out her first product manual.
“The 800 number we put happened to not be their customer service number but a sex line,” detailed Baskin.
She immediately owned the error and her client continued working with her for years.
Baskin said she named her company Tribe because it’s about understanding the culture of their client companies. They need to know what makes the employee population hang together as a ‘tribe’. For more information about Baskin and her company please visit www.tribeinc.com.
Contributors to this news report include: Janna Ross, Producer; Roque Correa, Videographer; Dave Harrison, Editor.
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