An Interview With Cynthia Corsetti
Does our team need anything?
I say this at the end of every single daily meeting with every team member I meet with. I trust them to do their best work and my job is to enable them to do that. I never want to be the manager who isn’t going above and beyond for my team.
When it comes to business leadership, challenges are omnipresent. From rapidly changing market dynamics to technological disruptions, executives today grapple with multifaceted issues that directly impact their decision-making and strategic orientations. What really keeps the leaders of today’s corporate world awake at night? How do they navigate through these turbulent times to ensure the growth and stability of their organizations? As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Minick of ZeroBounce.
Brian Minick is the Chief Operating Officer at ZeroBounce, an email validation, deliverability, and email finding platform. With more than 15 years of experience in tech and marketing, Minick oversees a remote team of 70+ email experts spread across the U.S. and Europe. He is an email industry thought leader and has been featured in publications such as Inc. and Entrepreneur.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about communication, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I’ve been fascinated by computers and technology my entire life. However, I didn’t start my career there. I only did tech for fun and as a bit of a hobby.
I started in the restaurant business as a waiter. It was perfect for my schedule as I was still in college and could use the nights and weekends to earn income. I love mentioning this part because I never lost track of the customer service skills and relationship-building skills I acquired in the restaurant business.
As I was wrapping up college (Computer Science degree), I was guided by one of my professors that I should build websites for people as everyone will eventually need a website. This was in 2006 or so. I got hired very quickly at a small marketing agency and was in charge of building the websites that came into the business.
This taught me a ton of things that I never learned in college. This role took me very far. I started building platforms to scale website technology and helped pioneer a technology revolution in a very outdated industry: the flooring industry for mom-and-pop retailers.
From there, I was approached to come join a larger company that needed help with systems and processes. Something I didn’t realize I was pretty good at until I was interviewing with them. They simply wanted to hire me because of my ability to perform, and that’s where they slotted me in.
I’ve always been a person who can do just about anything. I will figure it out and do a good job.
In Operations, I learned a lot about scale, efficiency, KPIs, tracking, etc. In this role, I was moved away from writing code and in the long run, I’m thankful for that. Coding was very stressful and was more behind the scenes.
In Operations, I realized I liked being involved on the business side and also having involvement with customers. Systems came so easily to me because I would write software, so naturally, I found it very easy to configure things and be clever about it.
From there, I was poached out to come to ZeroBounce and join the Operations team here. We were very young — a startup I really liked. I knew I could make a big impact. I believed in the product idea and have done my best to transform every operational aspect of ZeroBounce.
From the support experience, to how we sell, and how we treat our customers and staff. It’s been an amazing journey and I’m thankful for all the ‘poaching’ along the way to get me here.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I think the three traits that are instrumental to my success are the following:
Empathy
It was not until later into my career that I realized the value and understanding of empathy and how it could affect the people around me.
When I was coming up in my career (I’m still very young at 39), I didn’t have compassion for people in the workplace. I thought a lot of people were lazy, to be honest. As I got older, I realized there’s more to life than just work.
What was a major game-changer for me was having kids of my own. I really started to feel for the struggles that employees have while trying to maintain balance. There are so many different things that come up in people’s lives — sickness, personal issues, etc.
So I’m much more compassionate and try my best not to jump to conclusions. Instead, I ask more about how people are genuinely doing and if they need help. It changed who I am and how I think about people around me.
Determination
I get this trait from my father, and he is my ultimate hero.
I remember as a kid watching my Dad never give up, no matter the challenge. If he was going to fail, he was going to fail giving it everything he had. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but as I got older, I realized it and admired this trait. He could see something sinking and jump in to help, and he’d often be successful.
My father was an entrepreneur as well and ran many large printing companies. I remember asking him why he would put in the extra hours, and why he did certain things. And his response was “Everyone is counting on me.” Such a simple response, but if you think deeply about it, I get it now. It wasn’t just his family that counted on him; every single person in that company counted on him to continue.
I’ve taken this and built it into my core. When I’m giving something all that I’ve got, it’s not just about me, I’m thinking of all the other people it will affect, including customers. If everyone around me is successful, I know I will be as well.
Curiosity
This trait is the reason I am where I am today.
Most people just do what they are told in the workplace, and I often did as well. But I always had these lingering questions in my head that sometimes got responses like “because that’s how we do it.”
I’m notorious for questioning things. I don’t believe just because that’s how you did something doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. Curiosity taught me how to build websites because I couldn’t afford to pay someone else to build one for me. Curiosity taught me half of my technical knowledge, if not more. I simply wanted to know how things worked.
To this day I look at this in awe, but then actually go figure out why or how. This trait is probably my favorite, but also gets me into some black holes. 🙂 You have to learn how to manage and channel this into things that can be productive.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.
This comes up quite a bit as a leader.
You have to make decisions — after all, that’s why you are in charge. Earlier in my career, I would get stuck in paralysis of analysis. I would overthink every single thing and would struggle to make a decision. Sometimes, never making a decision at all because of this.
Through mentoring, I learned that I needed to get past this hump. I learned to do all that I could to gather all the facts, on both sides, the good and the bad. I’d always ask myself: what’s the worst thing that could happen in either scenario?
I still find myself sometimes getting stuck in decision-making. But I’ve been able to always remind myself: you have to make a choice. And even if it’s the wrong one, that’s okay and be prepared to pivot.
This is why I’m so excited about change. It doesn’t bother me to make the wrong decision. I think it’s natural and each decision you make (good or bad) will overall improve your decision-making skills in the long run. I notice this more when I talk with our younger managers. I’ve thought about the scenarios much deeper than they might have. I’ll share my wisdom and together we will get to an answer.
It’s okay to be wrong. But it’s not okay to be wrong and still convince yourself you were right. Make adjustments and move on. No one is perfect.
What do you believe are the top five concerns currently preoccupying the minds of C-suite executives, and why?
Our C-suite team meets every Friday and we discuss many topics. However, to summarize, I think the ones below are the ones we constantly talk about:
1. Are we doing enough for our customers?
Are there reasons people would choose a competitor over us? If so, why? And what can we do to turn that around? Even if we are a leader in our space, we think there’s always more we can do.
2. What’s next? How are we innovating?
We constantly say “So what’s next” and I love how loose we keep it. We don’t feel nervous or scared to talk about topics, even if it ends up being a bad idea. We don’t judge each other and instead, just talk out loud. We trust that we’re all there because we’ve made great suggestions, and also many that failed. We just never know how the idea will go. What we strive to do is have new products all the time and keep satisfying our ultimate mission: get our customers into the inbox.
3. How do we continue to grow?
We think and talk about this a lot. How do we take the business to the next level?
When I first started, we had around 12 employees. Now we have 70+. Growth isn’t just about team size, it’s about many other factors. Should we acquire a company, should we sell the company? Should we merge with a powerhouse? These are all things we talk about all the time.
4. Did we go too fast, or too slow, on something?
There are many times that we move too fast on something, or even worse, too slow. I’ll take too fast rather than too slow any day, but both come with challenges. Too fast means cleaning up. I don’t mind helping with the clean-up work.
5. Does our team need anything?
I say this at the end of every single daily meeting with every team member I meet with. I trust them to do their best work and my job is to enable them to do that. I never want to be the manager who isn’t going above and beyond for my team.
In the face of rapid technological advancements and market shifts, do you find that you need to constantly recalibrate your strategies to ensure sustained growth?
Growth and rapid technology advancements are not necessarily coupled together so tightly.
New tech can come out and that doesn’t always mean you should use it, or it’s a good fit for your business. It’s important to test and adjust as needed. But I don’t think your overall strategy changes just because of the introduction of a tool or some new tech. Certainly, keep an open mind and see how these new tools can help get you there faster, or more efficiently. But I don’t let it distract me from the overarching goal.
I think about this a bit like new cars. There’s always a new car, new features, new technology they are adding. But ultimately, a car from 20 years ago still had the same mission: get you from point A to point B. Some even were built better 20 years ago than they were today. That’s my biggest fear with tech advancements lately. You can see an improvement in one area, but there’s sometimes big losses in other areas. Test small and fail fast when trying new things.
With the emergence of AI, blockchain, and other transformative technologies, how do you
determine which tech trends are worth investing in?
You have to look at your big picture. You can implement AI for example, but it might drive your operational costs through the roof. You then have to ask yourself something: is my customer base willing to pay higher prices to enjoy this also?
Many times the answer is actually, no they will not. They either want it for free or will go find a cheaper solution without all the bells and whistles. So I think this is situationally based on your business and your customers. If it’s for internal purposes, it’s a simple cost/benefit analysis to see if it makes sense.
With increasing digital threats, how are you prioritizing cybersecurity, and what measures are you taking to protect your organization’s assets?
I’ve never been in a company that takes security more seriously than ZeroBounce. We handle mainly email addresses, which is considered PII. Part of the reason the company was created was because we did not trust sending our email data to other validation companies, based on their poor handling of the data and security.
We’ve been the leaders in this topic in our industry for years now. We take it very seriously and have a team dedicated to security (not dev ops, we have a team of them as well).
ZeroBounce is SOC2 T2, ISO27001, HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA, and Privacy Shield-certified and will continue to do more. We also engage third-party companies to do ethical hacking into our systems so we can be made aware of any gaps or vulnerabilities.
Furthermore, we do automated testing, manual testing, and monthly penetration testing. You name it and we are doing it.
Do we have to do this much? No, but our clients can sleep well knowing that we do everything in our power to secure our platform. I didn’t realize how detailed cyber security can be until ZeroBounce. It’s been a very big learning experience for me as it’s not my expertise. But man, do we have sharp people on our team!
As a top executive, how do you manage stress and maintain mental well-being? Do you have any personal practices or routines that help you stay centered?
I really do find it hard to break away from work.
Our company operates 24/7/365 with our live team members always available for our customers. We have 24/7 support shifts and are operating in many parts of the world with offices and team members.
Finding time to disconnect is frankly hard. I’ve found ways, though, which is to take mini breaks throughout the day. I refuse to watch my kids grow without my involvement. I make sure I have time for the milestones that they’re approaching and just plan around it.
Also, I try to take vacations a couple of times a year — but again, find it nearly impossible to fully disconnect. Like most other top executives, it’s hard to shut your brain down and just unwind.
I consider the weekends to be slight vacations and I make the best of them, I don’t sit around. We are constantly thinking, worrying, and planning our next moves. So the things I do to help myself personally are:
- Make time with my kids every single day, no exceptions.
- Regular date nights with my wife.
- Plan vacations as often as possible, because that means twice a year at best.
- Disconnect on weekends.
When things start to get to me or I become emotional quicker or for longer lengths, I know it’s time to take a break. Work is clearly overpowering my ability to control things. This is when I force myself and take time.
What habits or practices have been most instrumental in your personal and professional growth?
For personal growth, I really focus on my kids. They’ve taught me so much and they’re still so young. I never thought I’d learn so much from something. I’ve learned how to explain better, how to think like them, and predict behavior. I know what triggers them. I know what makes them happy. All of this has shaped parts of me.
What I love about this — and it just hit me while writing this — is that I still have such a long journey ahead. I’m very excited about how much more I will continue to learn from my kids.
On the professional side, I try to take courses and pursue constant education. I recently went to Harvard Business School and took a course there. Stayed on campus for a week and was blown away by the takeaways, the people I met, and the level of thoughtfulness that goes into a program like that. I love to learn, and usually, my curiosity is what drives the urge.
When I was very young, I thought I knew it all. Now I hope to learn it all when I meet new people or have new experiences.
The business world is evolving faster than ever. How do you ensure you’re constantly updating your knowledge and staying ahead of the curve?
You have to innovate and be cutting-edge. You must be moving in a forward direction at all times. I don’t believe there is a thing such as “staying still” or “smelling the roses”. This is the business definition of going backward. Business does not stand still, you either move forward or get left behind.
So we do many things here: we encourage our employees to suggest new things, try new things, or create breakthrough ideas. We also encourage our customers to give us feedback and we actually do things with their feedback. The worst thing you can do is request all this feedback from all your channels and then do nothing with it. Nothing will de-motivate a team or customer faster than that.
The importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace has been emphasized more than ever. Do you have any initiatives promoting diversity and inclusion in your organization?
I wouldn’t say that we have initiatives to promote this. We simply look at everyone on an equal playing field. We don’t hire based on a specific thing, I think that in itself is odd. Instead, we hire the best person we can for the role we’re looking for. And when I mean equally, I really mean this.
We don’t care where you live, how you dress, if you have tattoos, etc. It means nothing to us. What matters is what you can bring to the table and boost the company forward and that you are aligned with our overall values and direction. Each person naturally brings diversity to the table. We all have a unique story.
Can you share a piece of feedback or advice you received that significantly altered your leadership approach or philosophy?
In a previous role, I had the great pleasure of hearing a private speech from Harry Kraemer. He was the CEO of Baxter and originally started at that company as a customer support agent.
His story was fascinating. He left one thing in my brain that I just can’t live without, and I constantly mention it to our team.
“Don’t be right, just do the right thing.”
It’s such a simple message that I refuse to forget. I bake it into so many things that I do. When
I’m thinking about team members or our customers, it makes things so easy to flip the hat on the other side and accept that sometimes you can be wrong. Will never forget this and thank you, Harry, for your amazing wisdom!
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
That we just all have more compassion in our lives for other people. I think we all need to be nicer to each other and help each other. I find there’s a lot of division in people today and it’s sad to me. Unfortunately, my experience has taught me that in general, people are brought together when something bad happens. I don’t wish for the bad, I wish we could come together when things are also good.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Follow and connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-minick/ and you can always contact me via our platform, https://www.zerobounce.net/. We’re there for you 24/7.
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About the Interviewer: Cynthia Corsetti is an esteemed executive coach with over two decades in corporate leadership and 11 years in executive coaching. Author of the upcoming book, “Dark Drivers,” she guides high-performing professionals and Fortune 500 firms to recognize and manage underlying influences affecting their leadership. Beyond individual coaching, Cynthia offers a 6-month executive transition program and partners with organizations to nurture the next wave of leadership excellence.
C-Suite Concerns: Brian Minick Of ZeroBounce On The Top 5 Issues That Keep Executives Up at Night was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.