Maria DeLorenzis Reyes has over 30 years of experience working in corporations and then starting and building her own business. The combination of corporate and entrepreneurial experience, coupled with business education in varied industries is one of her most significant qualities. Most people come with either corporate or business ownership backgrounds. Maria has the unique perspective of seeing things from both sides – inside multi-million and billion-dollar organizations and building her own businesses and that of her clients.

Hailed as a straightforward leader, Maria only gives the real truth to help companies grow and prosper. At times pushing boundaries, her intention is always to challenge the status quo and help open minds and try innovative approaches that others may not see as options. She is passionate about what she does, sharing her insights and knowledge with others to help and serve them.

She is goal-oriented and motivated, confident yet humble, and personable, easily making quick yet long-lasting connections with her clients.

Maria is a leader with a proven record of creating an exceptional experience for customers. It is relevant to mention that Maria serves on the advisory board for The Seton Hall University, Stillman School of Business CX program, an Executive Education Certification Program for Professionals that focuses on building the best Customer Experience. Her background in Client Service and Product Development allows her to contribute to this program with real experience. She has built-in developing products and support services that meet customers’ demands and changing needs. “In my corporate experience with Nielsen Media Research, I was tasked with building out an exceptional customer experience for our data and software clients – through their journey from contract to delivery and beyond, with support and education to ensure they achieved the ROI intended in subscribing to our products,” she explains. “That intention and formula is one that I have weaved into my own company brand and built into the products and support that I create to ensure my clients’ satisfaction. Further, it allows me to mentor other working professionals that have a role in creating and leading customer experience initiatives in their organizations. Being able to share my knowledge and educate and mentor other professionals in this realm is a complete honor.”

Overcoming Barriers to Become a Leader

According to Maria, as a woman, it can be difficult to garner respect being a leader, particularly in comparison and around male business leaders. This is partly due to the patriarchal structures in the society and she experienced the impact of that and the bias that exists concerning women. “If you are a strong leader, as a woman you run the risk of being seen in a negative light when if you were a man with the same behavior, you would be seen as competent and effective,” explains Maria. “Further, when balancing work and family, it was common to be seen as less committed even through typically myself, and other female colleagues put more time and energy into our work. It comes from the prejudiced belief that a woman can only be dedicated to either their family or work.” She was fortunate to prove herself, but the cost was often higher in time and energy to do that. “This is one of the reasons why I am so passionate about empowering other women leaders and entrepreneurs, as well as transforming the limiting mindset and beliefs that all leaders, male and female may be carrying around.”

Maria has committed to helping other women prosper as entrepreneurs. While she does not exclusively serve women business owners, she is particularly passionate about modeling female entrepreneurship as an attainable goal. “Many women don’t see starting or owning their own business due to family history and limiting beliefs placed on them by society and their families. This is particularly true in communities with lower economic status and families with immigrant parents.” Maria wants anyone who dreams of owning their own business to know it is possible and seeks to find opportunities to educate and inspire others on this topic. She makes time to join and attend women entrepreneur programs, donate to women organizations, and highlight young women entrepreneurs worldwide in her work and social media. She shares her experience and knowledge with aspiring and budding entrepreneurs and helps motivate them to Dream it and Achieve it.

Achieving Success

For Maria, it took a great deal of work and time to reach the level of success she enjoys today. The best piece of advice that she can offer is to stay true to your goal despite anyone doubting your ability. “That is the most challenging part of finding success in anything really. Many people will impose their doubt in themselves on you and you cannot let that detour you. The second thing I think is most important is to be flexible. The path to success is not a straight line and the unexpected curves in the road, setbacks, and failures are all part of the journey.” She strongly suggests everyone to welcome the challenges as opportunities and know that the greatest successes often come from the lessons learned along the way.

Creating Results in Business

Maria’s formula for success has been largely attributed to having a framework of processes to ensure predictable results.  Her approach with clients is to first identify the goals through a needs analysis which allows her to understand what they have been doing, what’s working and not, and where the gaps are in the current solution. Through direct and honest communication, she shares her insights on the root cause of the issues and then gives a recommendation based upon the various criteria attached to the goals. The training program design combines instructional design principles and specific content to address the concepts that build the desired skills.

Maria states historically a lot of training was delivered live, but now this has evolved where most training programs that are designed are a hybrid of online, self-paced delivery, combined with virtual, and live delivery. Clients can offer on-site training if they desire, and if all the teams are in one location. After 2020, more and more training occurs via webinars and evergreen courses that clients can access at any time, from anywhere. This has provided more flexibility for clients and has allowed Training Innovations to expand its reach to more companies and people.

Looking ahead, Maria and her team will create and deliver more training programs and information products for Training Innovations, while expanding the new business unit of MDR Brands. They will also usher towards Coaching Business Owners and Executive Teams to produce the results they set to achieve their goals and allow the business to thrive, expanding the reach of the coaching side of the business to compliment the training and education side of the business.

Individually, Maria will continue the quest to learn new things and explore new places, along with building her portfolio with multiple speaking engagements at virtual and live summits and events. She will celebrate the launch of her first book, co-authored with other women leaders and complete work on her individual books which will be published in late 2022.  All these activities will be where she will be sharing stories of inspiration, educating to help others grow, and motivating people to attain the success and personal best they desire.