Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest today, Dana Watkins, CEO of Due North Enterprises. Dana is a certified exit planning advisor who helps business owners maximize the value of their companies and prepare for successful transitions on their terms. Her work focuses on helping entrepreneurs de-risk their businesses by addressing key vulnerabilities such as legal exposure, insurance gaps, cybersecurity threats, and owner dependency. Before launching Due North Enterprises, Dana led high performing teams across North America. At Harris, where she oversaw more than 20 professionals and supported over $1 billion in mergers and acquisitions strategies. Her background also includes leadership roles in banking and private equity. Nina is passionate about helping entrepreneurs build stronger, more resilient companies so they can eventually exit with confidence and security. Dana, welcome to the show.

Dana Watkins: Thank you so much for having me. Trisha.

Trisha Stetzel: This has been such a long time coming. I was looking back at how long it has been. We are finally here and I’m so excited about having this conversation with you today. Dana, would you share just a little bit more about who you are?

Dana Watkins: Certainly. Thank you. Um, I will say that I, like you come from a military background, although I didn’t have the honor of serving our country, I was a military brat probably a few times over with all the the 20 plus year career military veterans that we had in the family. Um, and you know, when you do that, you, you, you grow up with some resilience with that school of hard knocks. And, um, was unexpectedly blessed with my first daughter right out of high school. I didn’t get the chance to go to college until I was 26. Um, but when I did, um, it was, it was such an amazing experience. I worked full time, went to school full time, took me five years, but graduated with a degree in economics, a minor in finance. And, uh, still the proudest thing I ever did for myself, but graduated magna cum laude through all of that and, uh, went into banking, did a lot of really cool things in banking, um, financial advisory. And when I was in banking, I had seen companies implode because they didn’t have themselves de-risked. They frequently didn’t have their corporations set up, you know, either correctly or at least at least, you know, in the most advantageous way. Um, frequently didn’t have the right insurance backing things up, etcetera. Um, and so I just organically started. So, uh, started consuming every M&A for dummies, um, up to seminars and classes and eventually my, my CPA designation and folks get, get their companies where they need to be where and, and the D’s, as we call it in the industry, which there’s a bunch of them, but things such as death, destruction, divorce, disagreement, disability can just implode a company. Um, so it’s, it’s one of the main components of getting a company, uh, not just exit ready, but ready for anything that, that life can throw at you. And if there’s one thing that’s certain is that emergencies happen and people need to be prepared for them both individually and in their business.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so you and I had this really like, um, colorful conversation around you don’t go into business to just give it away in the end. And there’s so many things that we need to think about. And I love, I love using the, the phrase begin with the end in mind, but I want to talk about de-risking first, which I know is one of the big D’s. So when you talk about helping owners de-risk their company, what does that actually mean for the business owner day to day?

Dana Watkins: So number one, ah, there’s a lot of legal aspects and I am not an attorney and I am not giving any legal advice right now. Um, I looped in attorneys. When I see that there’s something that’s wrong or. Or that I have a question about to make sure that we’re proceeding forward in the correct fashion, etc.. But the first thing you want to do is make sure that the company is incorporated properly. Um, one thing that I have seen happen is people that have single member LLC, um, and a single member LLC, unless that member is something like a trust or another corporation, then it is very likely going to go through probate court. And if it goes through probate court, that, um, whoever’s left in that company, someone passing away is going to have difficulties accessing the money. How are you going to pay your employees? Um, during, you know, the time that this is being probated, which could be anything as little as, you know, a couple of months to it could be, you know, probate can can be challenging. And if you know, if the company’s bills are not getting paid. Um, from cost of goods to payroll, then the company is going to have challenges at. Least. And, and the, the likelihood of implosion is really rather high.

Dana Watkins: So the first thing you want to do is look at that, um, for tax avoidance strategies, you also want to look at other arenas too. There is a, and again, we bring in an attorney for this, but if the company qualifies for a QBs exemption and can switch over to being a C corp, then um, you know, there’s the potential for each major shareholder with ownership over 10% to have a $15 million capital gains tax exemption on the sale of the business. So and that should be looked at because it takes three years to start even prorating that 15 million and it takes five years for it to become fully vested, so to speak, under IRS compliance. So one of the first things we always want to look at is how is your company set up? What kind of incorporation is it? Who are the shareholders, etc.. Then we’re going to want to look at okay, you need to have an operating agreement. One of the biggest D’s is the disagreement. You know that that kind of divorce with the partner or partners. And that’s a that can that can also implode companies. But when you have something fully delineated out and I mean, you get granular with that with the attorneys and it’s worth paying them for.

Dana Watkins: So that if something happens, you have an ultimate guiding document that holds people accountable so that you can get issues resolved. Um, another one in there, you know, that operating agreement, shareholder agreements going to fall into that same category. And then a big one. And this is, this is the one that ends for the first company I really saw have a challenge from a D, and from that point on I started learning what I could. Started asking if people have an exit strategy, but I. When I was in business banking, I had these clients that owned a boutique grocery store. They had three locations. It was doing about 7 million in gross revenues. One night, one of the two 5050 partners passed away in a car accident. His wife inherited his 50%. She didn’t have the acumen nor the desire to run the company. The infighting that ensued in imploded that company. A year later. They had closed down two of their locations and were between about one and 2 million in revenue. And the reason why that happened is because they did not they didn’t. First off, they didn’t have an operating agreement and they did not have a buy sell agreement. So a buy sell agreement is a combination of insurance and a legal document.

Dana Watkins: The legal documents are going to go in and fully define exactly under what terms and conditions. A buy and sell can happen, and it could even mean a normal thing, like one wants the exit and the other one to buy them out. It’s going to cover all of those, and it needs to get really, really granular on exactly how the company is going to be valued. That’s the number one contention point when that actually has to be brought into play for some reason. But then what it also does is you have underlying insurance for death scenarios on that, such that, you know, those owners essentially in its most simplistic form, they’re going to take out life insurance on each other with themselves as the beneficiary. And then, you know, had that happened with this particular client of mine, that remaining owner would have had the life insurance distribution from that policy and would have been able to use those proceeds and would have been directed by the buy sell agreement to use those proceeds to buy out the surviving wife. And then she would have been made whole, and he would have owned 100% of the company. But none of that was set up, much less set up properly. Oh.

Trisha Stetzel: Gosh. So, Dana, I know people are listening right now and they’re they’re like, wow, I really don’t have these things set up, which is why you guys, you need to reach out to somebody like Dana who really knows what they’re doing here when it comes to this exit strategy. So I want to if it’s okay with you, I want to shift to another what I think is a really big deal, especially for the people who are listening, because I know my audience pretty well. And that is owner dependency. This is huge where this dependency on the owner can cause a potential problem down the road. So tell us more about that.

Dana Watkins: It absolutely can. It’s actually one of those things that will make a company at the very least devalued. And many times unsellable. And people don’t realize just how important that is. Because even if you’re setting up a transition period, if that company is totally dependent upon the owner, whether that transition is a year or whatever, it’s, you know, when that when that owner ends up leaving, what’s going to happen to that? I will tell you on the buy side, M&A, one of the things we looked for when we got the salary census of everybody and you know, we didn’t need names, but we’d have all the positions and what they were making and then goes into the valuation. But one of the first things, the actual. The first thing we would look at is, do they have sales reps listed on here? Because many times those very owner dependent companies, the owner is doing all the sales. So therefore that’s even a more integral, um, problem with owner dependency because not only was the, is the leadership going to walk out, the sales person is going to walk out and we would know that we would have to put in sales people to start taking that over.

Dana Watkins: So the impact of those salaries that you’re not paying now is going into the valuation, because we have to calculate for it going forward. So yes, and I’ll tell you one example. We had, um, you know, we asked the owner about it while we were, you know, looking at a sale, you know, buying this company, the software company. And, and he said, no, I don’t have any salespeople. We said, well, where are the majority of your sales coming from? And he’s like, oh, all of my old high school and college buddies, that’s almost unreplicable we decided not to purchase it because of it. We didn’t think that we could adequately replace him, even with a good sales person, the way that things were set up. And so we, we ended up backing out of that and not, not putting forth a full Loi on it and said, that’s just too much of a risk for us. Yeah. Um, and on our dependency. Sorry. Go ahead.

Trisha Stetzel: I said that’s huge. Go right ahead. Um.

Dana Watkins: It really is huge. Um, and this is a sad story, but we’d had someone come to us wanting to sell because he was, um, he’d been diagnosed with cancer. Um, and we looked at purchasing and everything else, but there was 100% owner dependency. There were no other real leadership in the company, no hierarchy. And he was doing the sales. And we just said, look, we, we can’t. And so, you know, one of the biggest risks is that owners tend to put all of their eggs in one basket, and that basket is their company. And so if you don’t have the company set up right and built up correctly, um, for an advantageous sale, then it’s very challenging to segue into your act three, you know, with retirement or whatever it is that you might like to do. So it’s super important. And mitigating it is two pronged. The first prong is typically having a leadership or life coach of some sort come in and start working with the owner to help, um, work on the control freak tendencies that have made them very successful because you have to let go. You have to work to delegate and develop folks to take over the reins. And until you can go to Europe for 90 days and nobody misses you, your company is not ready to sell. The other prong of that two prongs is, um, then doing that either internally or externally or a hybrid thereof, delegating, developing, empowering employees to, um, start and then follow through on taking over the company from that original founder owner.

Trisha Stetzel: I think it’s so important to Dana to begin with the end in mind. So before we jump into that section, I really want to talk about the importance of starting early rather than later. I know that there are people on or listening today that want to connect with you. So what is the best way, Dana, for folks to connect with you if they have questions or want to learn more?

Dana Watkins: Thank you. The best way is just to go check out my website. It is w w w dot D o e n o r t h enterprises plural.com. So www.enterprises.com. And there’s a book now function on there if you’d like to have a 30 minute consult with me. Um, have having a conversation never costs any money with me. So, you know, people are always welcome to pick my brain. You can also send me an email at Dana d a n a@enterprises.com as well.

Trisha Stetzel: Fantastic. Thanks, Dana. You’ve been on one of these before. Thank you for spelling everything for us so we can remember where we need to find you. Uh, okay. Fantastic. I want to dive into, um, what I see happening a lot. Many owners are not even thinking about exit planning until they’re ready to sell. Why should that process start so much earlier?

Dana Watkins: It really needs to start so much earlier. I generally work with people in the 3 to 5 year space, but I have a client right now that doesn’t even want to exit for ten years. Um, but um, good exit planning is just good business planning. Um, getting in there, de-risking and then accelerating the value of the company and the leadership is super important, but there’s three reasons why I really think is, is key. Up to three years or more. So number one, it takes at least three years to get in and do all of the things that we’re going to need to do to de-risk the company, and then to bring up the value. And the value is based number one, on the tangible assets, which is your numbers. You know, what, what are your, your, your, your gross revenues look like your profit margins, your EBITDA, your EBITDA margin, all of those things that are going to be in your years of panels and things of that nature. I think we all know that. And in general, and this can differ. When I was on Buyside software, it was recurring revenue and net revenue that we really looked at for the multiple. But, um, or what we would apply the multiple to, if that makes sense. Most folks, it’s going to be EBITDA.

Dana Watkins: Um, but then the other side of things where that actual multiple comes from like, are you getting a four multiple on that EBITDA or a seven multiple? It’s the intangible capital. So that’s customer capital, operational capital leadership capital and infrastructure capital. And it takes three plus years to go through and what I call 90 day sprints to, you know, one bite at a time, because how do you eat a whale, one bite at a time? Go through and systematically working with that company’s leadership, bringing in SMEs as we need to, to go through and work on either shoring up or growing, um, those things. So that’s the first reason we need three years. The second reason we need three years, um, is because it takes time for certain things to bake. Um, you know, like the tax avoidance strategy with the USPS, there’s other tax avoidance strategies because it’s not just how much you get, it’s how much you walk away with, right? Um, that are going to take time and compliance to take to, to do. And then the third one is, um, 95% of the time, in my opinion, and I’ve double checked myself on this because I had someone like, are you sure? Uh, so I actually checked in several different arenas on this, but, um, you need to be on accrual accounting.

Dana Watkins: Accrual accounting and cash accounting are two different things. And the only time the 5 or 10% that you might not need to be on accrual is if literally there would be almost no difference or no difference at all between whichever way you did it. And you can think kind of mom and pop retail, main Street stuff. Um, because for the rest of it, accrual accounting is really going to help account for, um, things that, uh, the biggest one is going to be working capital and the biggest challenge as you’re working to get something closed a lot of times is disagreements over working capital. Uh, gentlemen, I know who ends up a family office for investments and things like that. They’re in a lawsuit right now. Post-close because that working capital was they, they got in there after purchasing the company and found out it needed like three times as much working capital, and that working capital essentially gets deducted off the price of the company. It’s it’s, it’s basically in its most simplest form once it’s going to take to run the, the company’s short term interests for like the next year after purchase. And when you have accrual accounting, it protects your valuation. It is going to give that buyer. And those buyers tend to be very sophisticated buyside folks, family offices, private equity.

Dana Watkins: This is what they do for a living. It’s not what a business owner does for a living. Most business owners will only go through one sale in their lifetime. There are the serial entrepreneurs, but accrual accounting really protects the valuation. It just straight up gives the buyers less cracks to find in your armor, less rabbit holes to go down because every one of those that you give, they’re going to pull that string and be like, oh, I found something else. Then I’m going to pull another string. And every one of those things, every string that they’re pulling, is a way for them to lower the offer amount on your letter of intent. So you really need and you can pay if you’re not on accrual accounting, you can pay. And with the big four accounting firms, you’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even the smaller firms are going to cost you at least 30 grand to backdate the last three years of your accounting to and convert it to accrual. Um, instead of cash, you’re better off beginning as you intend to proceed. Start it now. Get real time, fabulous accounting in place. That’s going to have far less cracks in it. It’s going to cost you a fraction of what you would pay to do it otherwise.

Dana Watkins: And it’s also going to give us the good, strong data that we need during that planning period to be able to make data driven decisions to help fix and grow the company. So there’s a lot of really solid reasons, in my opinion, why you need to start at least three years out. There’s a lot to do. And and it will be worth it because 70 to 80% of companies that try to sell are unable to sell. And when I heard that from the Exit Planning Institute, I thought, surely that’s that’s high. But then I started I work with a lot of business brokers who do smaller asset based sales and a lot of investment bankers, M&A advisors that do the larger equity based sales. Um, and so I started asking them, what’s your turnaway rate? Because they make all their money on the commission of the sale, just like a real estate agent does, right? So they’re not going to take somebody on that they don’t believe they can sell. That’s an enormous opportunity cost of their time and then of their money bringing this and marketing it to the market. Um, and guess what? I, I actually never had an answer. And I’ve asked dozens. Never has the answer been less than 70. And what I was actually hearing was 70 to 90.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow.

Dana Watkins: So do you want all those eggs that are probably in one basket to be something that allows you to move on to your act three and reward yourself for the decades of blood, sweat, and tears and probably sacrificing maybe your health through the, you know, through stress and your family on that altar of your business, then it’s a very good practice to make sure that you are in a good amount of time getting ready for a sale or succession.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. So these numbers are blowing my mind. Dina, just thinking about, you know, 70 to 90% of these owners who want to sell their businesses don’t or have been turned away, and they just walk away from their businesses after they’ve put all the blood, sweat and tears into it. Okay. So for for those people who are listening and are thinking, gosh, I might want to retire someday, you need to reach out to Dana to have a conversation around getting started with that right away. You can’t just sit on it until you feel like it’s time to sell or you want to retire. And here’s what I’m thinking, Dana, maybe you can tell me if I’m wrong. If a if a business owner has not taken a vacation or stepped away from their business in the last X number of years. Fill in the blank. I feel like there’s an owner dependency there. One of the D’s. Um.

Dana Watkins: That would probably be the number one indicator because they don’t leave because they feel like they can’t leave. The vast majority of them will absolutely say this to you. I haven’t been on a vacation in X number of years. Um, small side, shameless plug. If it’s okay, you can call my husband who, um, owns a travel agency.

Trisha Stetzel: Yes.

Dana Watkins: To help you get that plan. Um, but I, I, I have a dear colleague that I do a lot of work with and exit planning recently. And he, he said, I, I, I’m dying to go skiing. I bought an epic pass and I’ve never used it. And I’m like, you need to go. And it’s his birthday. And through pleasant persistence, you know, I just said, hey, did you take a look at this and that? And the bottom line is he’s going. And he told me he was like, um, I haven’t been on vacation in three years. Thanks for making me take a vacation. Um, you know, so yeah, it’s a huge indicator and everything else too, but you also, uh, in some way, shape or form, whether it’s a staycation or vacation, everybody needs a mental break now and then. And not, not just the owners, but the employees as well. People work better, perform better, are happier and more satisfied when they get some time to themselves, um, with the fix that they enjoy.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. All right, Dana, we covered a lot of these today. We talked about de-risking dependency. You had lots of other D words out there disagreement, divorce, death. And there were more. I didn’t capture all of them, but so many things that we need to be thinking about if we’re eventually going to get out of our business, what we put into it. And we need to start now. And I think that that’s really important. So last question for you as we close today. If someone who’s listening today wants to start preparing their company for a future exit, what’s the very first step they can take this year? Dayna.

Dana Watkins: Honestly, they can give me a phone call. I do a four hour, a four week, one hour a week free consultation to educate people on the pros and cons of the various exit strategies that are out there. And there are several key ones, and they’re like everything else in life, there are pros and cons to every single one of them. Um, and then go through and do what I’m going to call is a desktop valuation. So it’s not something certified for divorce or estate or going to the the IRS with it. But I have software that, you know, with three years of financials and some other details about the company with those intangible capitals and leadership, etc., that we can do a, what I call a desktop valuation of the business. So if somebody would like to take advantage of that, they can feel free to go to my website or send me an email and book some time to talk about that.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Thank you so much, Dana. This has been fantastic. I know it will provide so much value to the people who are listening, who’ve not been on vacation in the last three years. We know who you are. You guys need to reach out to Dana. So her email address is d a n a at U North enterprises.com, and the website is D u e n o r t h enterprises.com. Dana, thank you so much for being with me today. It’s been my pleasure. It’s been a long time coming, and I hope that people will reach out to you. And when they do, they’ll tell you that they heard us having this great conversation on the show.

Dana Watkins: Thank you so much for having me, Trisha. It’s been a pleasure and an honor.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today. You guys, if you found value in this conversation that Dana and I had, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate and review the show. Of course, it helps reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Amanda Banks, founder of Create and Innovate Solutions. Amanda is a thought leadership strategist who helps integrity driven leaders clarify, develop, and distribute their message in a way that feels human, aligned and sustainable. She’s a TEDx speaker, host, and three time TEDx organizer of TEDx Old Hickory. A former corporate sales executive and competitive athlete, Amanda now focuses on helping leaders turn lived experience into meaningful influence. In 2026, she’s expanding her grassroots media platform, Our Humanity Network, to bring thoughtful, service oriented leadership to a wider audience. Amanda, welcome to the show.

Amanda Banks: Trisha, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to dive into conversations with you.

Trisha Stetzel: Really excited to have you on. And, uh, shout out to Dr. Kevin Dyson for introducing us. I’m sure he’ll listen to the show. All right, Amanda, tell us a little bit more about you.

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So as you mentioned, you mentioned a lot of different things. Uh, started out as a former high level competitive athlete and carried those lessons into my professional career, have a corporate background, uh, transitioned into entrepreneurship in 2020. And really since then have just been helping purpose driven entrepreneurs and leaders, um, identify and expand their ideas. I’m a mom. I’m a wife. I’m a dog mom. Um, so live a really busy life right now, and I’m just so grateful and I’m excited about the journey.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that. And you do so many things even beyond your bio, just the things that you voiced. We do a lot of things, but before, you know, I really want to dive into how you went from corporate to entrepreneurship because I think that’s really important. But before we get there, Amanda, do people ask you often, how do you get it all done?

Amanda Banks: I’m maybe ask myself that, right? Um, I do get asked that, right? But I ask myself that as well. I think that, you know, there’s a lot of moving parts and pieces and I’ve got a very busy teenage daughter, um, that keeps us busy, right? We’re doing sports and choir and all the things, and I try to live in harmony. I don’t always win that, uh, that battle. But, you know, busyness is part of, you know, part of the journey right now. And I just try to find harmony within all the things.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. I love that people ask me that all the time. And I, I don’t know, I don’t compartmentalize, I don’t have a magic wand that says, hey, I’m going to get all these things done. I just do what I can. And I love that you say live in harmony. Uh, and maybe we’ll circle back around to that a little bit later in our conversation. So let’s start with this. You moved out of corporate and into entrepreneurship, specifically in this thought leadership space where you’re serving others in this space that you work in. What what led you to move away from this corporate position into doing your own thing?

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So in March of 2020, my daughter’s school got destroyed by a tornado. So right before Covid was a thing, um, we had, you know, our daughter, who was, I believe, in fourth grade at the time, if I’m remembering correctly, um, at home. And so, you know, throughout the following weeks and months, you know, we started having the conversations around those harmony discussions around how can we create harmony within the family unit? And quite frankly, it was it was not there. So that’s really what kind of forced me into entrepreneurship. So I didn’t intentionally say I’m going to have a corporate background and then at some point go into entrepreneurship. So it was more of a forced experience. Um, but it’s been one of the best, I guess, learning lessons that I’ve experienced in my entire life.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So what’s really shifted for you, moving from working for someone else to owning your own day or owning that harmony?

Amanda Banks: You have to be really mindful of who you are as a human being. And I think that that is something that we don’t spend a whole lot of time exploring. And all of the things, all the tendencies are really exemplified in entrepreneurship because it’s you like everything stops with you. Um, you may have strategic partnerships or teams, but you know, a lot of the mindset challenges or a lot of the tendencies that you carry that may not be exemplified in a corporate role really get highlighted when you become the the one stop shop of trying to run your own business.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So, Amanda, how do you decide who, who you spend your time with professionally? Because you are a busy professional and you do want to create this harmony in your personal and your professional life. How do you choose who you’re spending time with?

Amanda Banks: I think it evolves. It evolves over time. And I’m a process driven person. I’m my mind thinks through strategy. So for example, you know, I know a lot of people want coffee meetings. Like that’s a new, a new thing in business is let’s set up a 30 minute coffee meeting. And those add up really, really, really quickly. So one of the things that I did this year was say, you know what, let’s, um, rather than me doing one on one with all these different coffee meetings, let’s create a monthly group where if you want to have a coffee meeting, we just get together as a group. And so to your point, I think it’s a strategy on time management. It’s also a boundary setting thing of like, what am I going to apply my time and my resources to? And being very mindful of that, knowing when I’m living within harmony of that or living in not in harmony in that. Um, and so I think it’s a strategy thing is being very mindful of this is the time that I just have, it is what it is. We can’t add additional time to our day. Um, and being able to ensure that you’re still spending time with as many people that you want to be spending time with, but being very strategic about that.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things I love to talk about is who’s in your room and the importance of the relationships that we’re building. So as you’re, you’re meeting new people, you still have relationships with people that you’ve met a long time ago. How important is it for you to be in the right room with the right people?

Amanda Banks: Oh, it’s everything like neighborhood Community network. All of those things are. Those are so incredibly important and everything that we do. You know, we just had a massive ice storm in Nashville. And I didn’t really think about the importance of neighborhood recently. And when that ice storm hit, you know, who are the people that are asking, what do you need? It’s your neighborhood. So, you know, I think that it’s everything.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I, I agree with you. I get goosebumps when you talked about the whole neighborly thing and the people that are going to be there for you when something happens. And it’s not just about one room, it’s about the rooms that you’re in. I recently discovered that I may have been hanging around in some of the wrong rooms, where I kind of felt like I was the person that everyone was coming to. And then I discovered Amanda, a room where I wasn’t the biggest, strongest, fastest, most intelligent person in the room, and it was very fulfilling for me. Have you discovered that your rooms have different intentions when it comes to what you’re learning or giving?

Amanda Banks: So my intentions are always to just simply be and learn or to teach one of those two things, depending upon the rooms that I’m in. And to your point, I think, you know, the diversification of the spaces in which you’re showing up is incredibly important. You know, I know oftentimes it’s very easy as leaders or whatever to get stuck in our silos and to only show up in spaces, spaces in which we seemingly belong. But I think that there’s something really beautiful about showing up in different industry spaces or different, you know, just places that you seemingly shouldn’t belong in. So I love to just randomly show up to maybe a real estate mixer or just something that can keep me sharp and help me get a better perspective on what other industries or other people just in general are facing.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. And I think a lot of us find ourselves. We’re not sure we have the right room. Are we hanging around with the right people? I feel like if if we eventually decide we’re the smartest person in the room, that we might be in the wrong room right now. And then we can circle back to that because there’s also this giving space. And so I want to go there next. Amanda, when you and I connected a few weeks back, um, this whole value of serving others really came up and, and I, I feel compelled to have a conversation around that today because most of the people that I hang around with are, um, givers. They’re serving others and you do it in such a special way, helping people be visible without looking for the fame, if you will. So can you talk more about the work that you’re doing now with helping people create space to be visible in their businesses?

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So one of the lessons that I learned pretty quickly in my entrepreneurship journey is it’s much easier to speak and be visible and attract people to the business, rather than me having to individually try to go after all of these different people. Um, from a sales and business development perspective. And so as a natural introvert and somebody that I did not like public speaking, um, I had, I was terrified of cameras and media and public speaking, but I recognized the value pretty early on in my entrepreneurship journey of how important that actually can be. And so I leaned into those skill sets. As you mentioned, I got asked to do a TEDx talk, which was an incredible experience. Then I emceed one and then I hosted three, and I had the opportunity to work with people from all walks of life, all industries, all different visibility. Uh, you know, some people are highly visible. Other people, you know, have no social media presence at all. Um, and work with those individuals and visibility is really important in that perspective because once again, if people don’t know that you exist, then how can you show up and serve them? And so there’s this weird balance, especially for somebody that’s naturally introverted and doesn’t really care much about self-promotion, but also being a business owner and trying to find and attract the right people that you can show up and serve at your highest capacity.

Trisha Stetzel: So how do you, how do you mind set shift? So one, maybe your own personal experience going from, I’m terrified, I don’t want to do this. This is way out of my comfort zone to actually doing it for your, for, for you personally, but also for those that are listening today that may be going through that same thing. They know people keep saying, do a video, show up, do the thing, and they’re like, no, I don’t feel like it. So tell us your personal experience and then give us some maybe tips on how do we shift that mindset from where we’re at today to getting in front of the audience that you need to be in front of?

Amanda Banks: Yeah, I think that the biggest thing is comparison, right? Like we as individuals will oftentimes look at other people’s content or look at other people when they speak on stage and compare ourselves at where we’re at in our journey versus where they are at in their journey. And so everybody has to just start like you just everybody begins from somewhere. And that’s the mindset shift is like, you know, starting and using it as an opportunity to learn. Maybe it’s to learn to become a better communicator. Maybe it’s to learn how to be more comfortable on camera. Maybe it’s some other skill than it is just to post social media content or just to go and get on a stage. You know, one of my favorite things is to take people that have never done that work before and get them in in five months ready for a TEDx talk. And so that was, you know, part of what we looked for at TEDx Old Hickory was speakers that did have current visibility, but also people that maybe had never even stepped foot on a stage before. And so having that side of the experience. I firmly believe that regardless of how introverted you are or regardless of how you know self conscious, everybody has the ability to become a more effective communicator and show up in a way that is their best selves. Not comparing themselves against somebody that is different or shows up differently from them.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that being authentic and actually feeling authentic when you’re showing up. Yeah, I.

Amanda Banks: Think most people that, um, that we look at that are professional speakers, like these people have years and years. It is a craft, it is an art. It is something that takes a long time to develop. And so there’s a big curve between just getting started and then, you know, being a globally renowned speaker. But the beautiful thing is there’s always something else to learn within that journey. There’s always something to, you know, maybe it’s a technology that you learn, maybe it’s you want to, you know, learn how to have better conversations one on one with people. These are all things that in that ecosystem can be part of the equation to keep you, keep you behaviorally motivated to keep moving forward.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Even in this space, in the podcasting space, it increases my ability to be a great coach by asking questions and listening. And it’s, it’s not something you think about, right? As someone who’s doing that, but it really has increased my capabilities as a coach. And it was simple, although I didn’t know I was doing it. Amanda. It just happened.

Amanda Banks: It’s the learning lessons. I mean, I believe that we’re here to learn. That’s part of our journey. And there’s so many different components and parts and pieces that you can take from these experiences. It’s also about building value for other people and building relationships with other people. There’s something very intimate on these types of conversations, especially when you have people that don’t feel super comfortable in these spaces all the time. Um, and there’s something really beautiful about that.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I agree absolutely. All right. So I know people, listeners are already wanting to connect with you. So where’s the best place for them to find you or connect with you? Amanda.

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So my website is www.com and that’s the easiest way to reach out. I’ve got a contact form if you’re interested in maybe speaking yourself or learning more about the work that I do. Please feel free to reach out.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, thank you Amanda. Okay, I’m going to circle back to Ted. I set it in your bio. You’ve talked about it. I’ve talked about it. I know people are curious. Oftentimes you hear Ted and ears perk up. Like what? What does it actually mean? Because you taught me a lot of things when we talked just a few weeks back. So tell us about Ted and the real work behind that.

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So I am no representative of Ted or Ted as a whole. I can only speak to my journey with Ted Old Hickory, so I’ll speak to that. Um, we’ve had three events and had amazing experiences every single year. Um, and so part of what the TEDx ecosystem and TEDx Old Hickory is, is a fully volunteer led, community oriented team that says, you know what, we want to bring ideas to our local community. Let’s collaborate. And so we collaborate. We do everything from coaching the speakers to getting them ready to, to step foot on stage to building the community around it. Um, and then we host the event and it’s an amazing experience.

Trisha Stetzel: Love that. Thank you. And, and then five months of coaching, it’s all volunteer work.

Amanda Banks: It is. And not every, not every, um, TEDx event is similar. That’s the beauty of the ecosystem. Tedx old Hickory. We were able to, to within the, the, um, within the ecosystem and obviously the rules, we were able to create our own approaches. And part of that is I really wanted to better understand how to capture this individual thought leadership and really refine it to an idea and get it out to the world in a meaningful way, and do it with people that come from all walks of life, all experiences, all backgrounds. And so that was the beauty of being able to serve in that capacity and coach these individuals for five months, um, and work with them and watch them show up on the stage and deliver incredible results regardless of what experience they had.

Trisha Stetzel: I think we’re, I think we’re on to something here. Amanda. Um, I’m really excited about having this conversation around being in a place where, uh, we didn’t want to be on stage yet. We knew we needed to get out there to get in front of the audience that we wanted to serve to. What does it look like on the other side? So can you talk to me about what it what the difference is between professional presence and being an influencer when it comes to being in the public?

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So to me, there’s a difference between influence and influencer. Like oftentimes when we think about influencer, we think about a lot of noise and a lot of just doing whatever to do to bring eyes and ears, likes, follows, whatever you want to call it, to build influence. We as individuals, I believe we all have influence. I mean, my daughter has massive influence on me. So we as individual human beings, we all have our own wisdom and our own unique knowledge and experiences, and we all carry something within us that has the ability to serve other people through the influence that we have, regardless of how big or small we may perceive that influence to be. Oftentimes, I think when we think about influencers or influence, we’re looking at a very macro scale with when to me, I look at how do we build individual influence as leaders to serve the people sitting right in front of us, or to serve our families or to serve the people in our in our sphere of influence. And by doing so, how can we either become a student or become a teacher to serve other people with the knowledge and the experience and the wisdom that we have?

Trisha Stetzel: How do you find that? Amanda. So for the, for the listeners today, they want to serve. They want to be a part of something bigger. What’s one thing, just one thing that we can do to take a step forward to using the influence that we have with the right groups that we want to be a part of.

Amanda Banks: I think that’s the intentionality around it. It’s having an intentional focus of some of the things like, who are we? What are we passionate about? What services or industries do we have experience in, and what are other things that we are deeply knowledgeable in that may not even relate to our career? Um, which is oftentimes like for me, I was a gymnast, so I can talk gymnastics all day long, but I don’t do anything from a career perspective in that industry right now. So when you take a look at all four of those categories and you kind of get to the core of where the intersection is between those four things, you get to a better understanding of what are some things that are unique to me that maybe by just sharing through conversation or teaching that I can serve other people with.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Oh goodness. Yes, I love that. So many nuggets today. Um, very excited about everything that you’ve offered. Amanda. What about, um, and I’m going to focus on the women for just a second. I hope that’s okay because I, I often will have conversations with women who, um, don’t feel like they have enough content or don’t want to be on camera or don’t want to fill in the blank. Um, I don’t, I’m not labeling it this, this is the word that words that I hear is imposter syndrome. So if someone, a woman today is who’s listening, struggles with that imposter syndrome, but knows they have something worth sharing. What’s the first 15 minute step that they can take this week to just start showing up?

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So this was me. Okay. I didn’t label it imposter syndrome, but when I started in this journey, I recognized very clearly if a camera is in my face, it’s going to be very easy for me to say no. Over time, I’ve become more comfortable with that. But when I first started down this journey, I had to think about how can I build a platform or an ecosystem that is going to allow me to show up at my best today and serve other people? And I knew that by conducting interviews with other people that I would not let other people down because I you know, if I say I’m going to do something, I try my best to get it done. I also like to help amplify other people’s people’s voices. So I love to give platforms where, you know, other people have the ability to share their, their amazing ideas and their amazing experience. So I think to somebody that’s tuning in that may struggle with even just like that first step to get started, I think it’s an intentionality in understanding, like one that this is something that you want to dive a little bit further into. But two, creating an ecosystem in which you can serve other people and you can take the focus off of yourself as you’re getting things started. And so once again, I had a live show that I did for a year and a half straight every single week. And I knew that if I just created that discipline and that ecosystem and that that muscle to keep things moving forward, that if I interviewed other people, rather than doing one on one, I would keep it moving. And so that’s a great strategy for when people are a little bit more introverted or not comfortable or feel like they’re weird, Like find something that you can do that helps amplify other people. And that tends to take a lot of the pressure off yourself.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. I love that it makes it reminds me of something I like to talk about, which is the gift that you have. It needs to get out there. You have a gift to give. So what is it? And it doesn’t have to be about you. It’s about the other person receiving it. Yeah. And if you keep it to yourself, then you’ll receive your gift.

Amanda Banks: And that’s, that’s one of the things that I’m kind of leaning into this year. And one of the things that I saw very clearly in my TEDx Old Hickory work is there are a lot of incredible people, amazing people that have absolutely no digital presence, but that their stories have so much wisdom and experience and just deep rooted knowledge. And part of that is like, if you know, and you recognize as a leader that you’re not going to follow through with, you know, maybe hosting a podcast or getting on stage or doing these things. Find other people and their ecosystems and work with them to help get your information and knowledge out there. There are those spaces available.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. And the word of the day today, Amanda, is an is intentional. I’ve heard you say that multiple times and we all need to be very intentional. All right. Last topic, if it’s okay with you, I would love to talk more about our humanity network. Tell us more.

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So it is a grassroots initiative. I know that there’s a lot of complexity in media today. And really what the area of focus for our humanity network is. How can we find those people with amazing ideas and amazing stories? And how can we, you know, capture those with as much integrity and beauty as possible and bring them to the world in a meaningful way? So it’s totally grassroots. There’s not a lot of information out there about it yet, but throughout this year, we’ll start releasing some content and bringing on a contributor network and really doing some amazing work in this humanity space where it’s all geared around individual thought leadership. And how do we bring that to the world to serve other people with it?

Trisha Stetzel: And yet, one more great reason to follow Amanda.

Amanda Banks: Yeah, I’d love to connect with people. So, you know, our humanity network is really geared around people and humans, and how can we learn from one another and build from one another. So please just reach out to connect. I’m, I’m on LinkedIn. I’m very active. I provide content on LinkedIn pretty regularly. So I’m always looking to connect with new people.

Trisha Stetzel: Love that. All right, Amanda, one more time where people can find you.

Amanda Banks: Yeah. So w w amanda.com or LinkedIn. I’m very active and I produce a lot of content on LinkedIn. So if you’re looking for more content, that’s humanity esque oriented, leadership oriented, definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. And I’d love to keep the conversations going with whoever’s listening.

Trisha Stetzel: Yes. Amanda, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. And I also appreciate your, um, allowing me to be part of the balance that you’re having this week.

Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much.

Amanda Banks: I, I’m so grateful for this conversation and so thankful for you for having me on.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you very much. All right, you guys, that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that Amanda and I had today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or a Houston business leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.