Working at a startup can be a high-stress environment, with celebratory highs and devastating lows within the same week. Steve Travaglini, chief revenue officer at LinkSquares, said he’s seen very few companies invest in helping employees manage these moments.
As the pandemic dragged on through the summer of 2020, Travaglini and the LinkSquares leadership team realized they needed to make an investment in boosting employee resilience for the long haul. The Boston-based legal tech company decided to hire its first professional mindset coach.
Two years later, Travaglini said the company and its employees are seeing a benefit from regular sessions with the mindset coach, including a boost in retention, and he expects to see other companies hopping on this trend.
“I think a big piece of our secret sauce that’s less talked about is just how much we invest in making sure that our team is getting the support that they need,” Travaglini said. “And not just on their skill sets as it relates to their different jobs.”
'Love': a 'four-letter word’
Even though Travaglini supported the idea of hiring a mindset coach, he said he was still “hesitant” heading into his first meeting with the person they’d hired for the job, neuroscientist Kevin Bailey.
“Folks that report to me weren’t exactly sold right away either. They thought maybe we should just be focused on working harder,” Travaglini said.
Despite these concerns about wasted time, Travaglini said he also knew that the times he felt most motivated in his career was when his employer showed its love for him.
“It was an interesting four-letter word to share in a business capacity with my leaders to say, if (employees) are feeling the 'love' — and if we’re doing this because we do actually love our team and we want them to be able to do the best that they can — they’re going to give it back to us tenfold,” Travaglini said.
Bailey’s science-driven approach also reassured Travaglini. Before jumping into meditations and breathing techniques, Bailey walked through topics like physiological responses to stress and the subconscious mind.
While mindset coaches may be less common at companies, Travaglini said the sports industry regularly relies on them. He knew that organizations like the Celtics and Patriots bring in sports psychologists to help players optimize their mindsets. He saw how a similar approach could benefit his sales and revenue team.
“They want to do right by their players and help them emotionally handle the stress of high-performing jobs because they know that by doing that, you’re actually investing in the success of the organization if you can have your highly trained people be just as trained at a mindset level,” Travaglini said.
Bailey provides one-on-one coaching to LinkSquares’ executives and managers, Travaglini said. He also holds weekly group sessions with the revenue organization. Bailey covers topics like dealing with a dry spell in deals, turning around after a slump and maintaining balance when things are going well.
Mindset coach results
Travaglini said LinkSquares and its employees are already seeing results from having a mindset coach. The company finished 2020 and 2021 strong, Travaglini said. In April 2022 LinkSquares raised $100 million, hitting $161.5 million in total funding since its founding in 2015. At the time, CEO Vishal Sunak told the Business Journal that annual recurring revenue was "north of" $20 million.
“All of those results come on the back of hard work from our teams,” Travaglini said.
Having a mindset coach and other wellness benefits, like mental health days and workshops on topics like personal finance and nutrition, helps with recruiting. Travaglini said more employees are looking for workplaces that are going to invest in them instead of just caring about the bottom line.
LinkSquares has more than 350 employees across the organization, with a little less than 300 in the Boston area, per Travaglini.
The company’s sales team has an 80% retention rate, which Travaglini said was “quite good.” Before the company implemented different trainings, mindset coaching and other wellness benefits, he said the sales retention rate was around 66%.
“We can see that folks are using the tools and staying more positive,” Travaglini said.
Lessons from Bailey have been known to permeate outside the office too. Travaglini said he’s heard of employees using visualization and other tactics to work toward personal milestones like buying a house.
“The idea is that we keep people in that positive mindset so they keep driving towards their goals,” Travaglini said.
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