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Hawaii WBE Feature: Technology & Digital Literacy

July 11, 2024 by angishields

WIM-Wendy-Awai-Dakroub-Feature
Women in Motion
Hawaii WBE Feature: Technology & Digital Literacy
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In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor engages in a conversation with Wendy Awai-Dakroub. They discuss various topics, including Wendy’s professional journey, insights into her industry, and personal anecdotes that highlight her experiences. The episode offers listeners valuable advice and inspirational stories, providing a deeper understanding of Wendy’s expertise and the challenges she has overcome.

Wendy-Awai-DakroubWendy Awai-Dakroub is a seasoned marketing and business strategist dedicated to promoting the visibility of Native Hawaiians in the tech industry. Currently, she is the CEO at Ohia Technology, where she leverages her expertise to drive digital consulting initiatives across various sectors. Wendy is also the Co-Founder of Acton Digital Academy, a nonprofit focused on empowering local youth through technology education.

With a career spanning over 20+ years, Wendy has held significant roles, including Founder of Sumo Sushi & Bento, the largest Japanese restaurant chain in the UAE, and Marketing Communications Manager at Cisco Systems for the Middle East, North Africa, and Levant regions.

Wendy holds certifications from Harvard Business School Online in Leading with Finance and Sustainable Business Strategies and a Certificate in Marketing from The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK. Ohia-Technology-Group-logo

She has been recognized for her contributions and has received accolades such as the Marketing Communications Manager of the Year award from Cisco Systems in 2006. Wendy is committed to advancing digital literacy and business acumen, particularly among indigenous communities

Follow Ohia Technology on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the show, we are spotlighting one of the WBEs from Hawaii, as we are all this month. And today, we have Wendy Awai-Dakroub with Ohia Technology. Welcome.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your company. How are you serving folks?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: So, we are a new, I say three to four year, tech company opened in Hawaii recently. We focus on customized software development and mainly indigenous software customized development.

Lee Kantor: And then, when you’re saying mainly indigenous, is that to serve the indigenous consumer?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, because I’m a native Hawaiian living in obviously Hawaii, when I first moved to home – because I just moved home. I lived abroad for many, many years – I didn’t realize how the language, Native Hawaiian language, was so much prevalent. It was becoming like a resurgence of our language. And as a Native Hawaiian woman, a lot of people started coming to me like, “Hey, can you help us develop customized software in our language?” And that was something new for me. I didn’t understand it, but now, three years later, I’m helping a lot of companies develop software that can do dual language.

Lee Kantor: So, how did that make you feel, like, being away and then seeing this resurgence?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: It was difficult. I mean, so I left Hawaii in ’87 and I moved to Dubai in ’94, so I lived in the Middle East for 20 years. And I, at the time, I didn’t speak the language at all because back then when I was in high school, we just didn’t speak Hawaiian. So, coming back and then having children and realizing a lot of people spoke Hawaiian and I didn’t know any, it was a culture shock because I didn’t know my own language. We didn’t learn it in school.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: So, what was exciting, I guess, was because I’m Native Hawaiian, people thought I spoke Hawaiian. And so, the more and more they would ask me questions about can you help us create even websites in our language or software learning management system with the language, I didn’t know how to do it, but I just hired the right people and I just got it done.

Lee Kantor: But you had the IT background.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Yes. Yeah. I worked for Cisco, and there, I was a regional marketing manager for 15 years.

Lee Kantor: So, you were kind of uniquely equipped to solve this problem?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Yeah, I think I was thrown into it, honestly. I mean, I started the tech company during COVID. I had to pivot. I was in the food and beverage industry. And because I knew a lot about how to order online, our business was already taking orders online when COVID happened in Hawaii, a lot of small businesses here didn’t have online access to ordering. So, I quickly helped them to figure out how to, you know, get their restaurants up online and that’s how the tech part started. I’m like, “Okay. Well, you know, I have the experience. I know how to get companies online.” And get them to quickly start pivoting and taking orders online, so that’s how my company started, it was really helping companies sell their restaurant items online, food items.

Lee Kantor: Now, did you find that in Hawaii there was a need for maybe this type of evangelizing for digital literacy, especially among young people, or was it something that was there?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: You know, I would say Hawaii, honestly, really lagged behind the rest of the Mainland United States and the world in terms of adopting new technology. Our education still uses equipment like Dell computers that are so outdated and they’re just so far behind. So, when I came along and I obviously started working on small little IT projects right in the beginning of COVID, I really noticed the gap.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: For instance, some of the middle schools and high schools that I was on the board during COVID didn’t have access to computers until six or eight months later. So, while everybody’s gone online and learning, a lot of our students and children in Hawaii were six to nine months behind just because they didn’t have access to laptops or WiFi.

Lee Kantor: So, when you saw this, what type of action were you able to take? I guess you have a network that was able to help in this area.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: It was difficult. A lot of industry, IT industry professionals came together. A lot of people raised money to help schools and small projects here and there. But even at that point, we’re so far behind in terms of not being prepared. Nobody was prepared for a pandemic and having to go online. We just assumed everybody has a computer, everybody has WiFi, and that was just not the case in Hawaii. So, yeah, I had to pivot and work with a lot of organizations to get things moving.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: In fact, for us, our company specifically, started having more and more business, meaning a lot of people started coming to me to help develop their external websites and online ordering. But I couldn’t find anyone to develop or create websites or software. So, that’s when I realized, like, “Wow. We don’t even have the talent here in Hawaii to do website development or basic coding.” So, all of these things, I mean, it wasn’t only my company we figured it out, it was a lot of IT companies here figured it out.

Lee Kantor: So then, where did you go to find the talent?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Well, that’s the whole new revolution here going on. So, I started reaching out to small organizations and schools. And there’s a program called Tech Savvy Teens, where we’re connecting teenagers, so ages 13 to 19, who are at-risk kids who just started getting computers and not learning the basics of IT. We’re connecting them with kupuna in their senior homes, because a lot of the kupuna started reaching out again to my company going, “Hey. Can you come to our senior home because the seniors don’t know how to use their laptops, they don’t know how to use their phones, they don’t know how to order telemedicine.” They don’t understand so many things.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: And so, I worked with a nonprofit that does just that. They connect all these new teens, at-risk teens, get them into the senior homes. And you should see, I mean, it’s an amazing experience to watch.

Lee Kantor: And I think that we’re seeing that more and more where they are pairing some of the elders with some of the young folks to have them interact together so they can each help each other. I mean, it’s really a beautiful thing if it’s done right.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Right. And even then, so what we do at Ohia in sponsoring this nonprofit is that, after the teen finishes 30 hours of volunteer work, we offer them certification, like IT certification. Ohia is a Microsoft partner and a training center for Certiport, so we donate free certifications. And then, hopefully, by I think October, we should have our first cohort pass. And if they pass, I’m going to bring them on as interns. And that’s how we develop that cycle of workforce development in Hawaii.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: But I’m one of the few that are doing it. I’m just proud that I’m part of something that can be bigger. You know, digital literacy is the whole gamut. It’s not just giving someone a computer and teaching them how to use it. It’s about connecting generations, connecting people, and then letting these kids have jobs, and in the process still give back to their community, and the ones who are least not looked at, which is our kupuna. We say kupuna when we say senior citizens.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you finding that young people are hungry for this type of knowledge?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Well, at first, it was tough to get students to sign up to help others. I think they’re like, “Well, what’s the benefit for me?” So, the nonprofit decided, “Well, we’re going to write grants.” And they wrote grants so that teens could have stipends. So, every time they would spend three hours at a senior home, they get $50. So, we had all kinds of teens now signing up. Summer is going to be busy because a lot of 13, 14, 15 year olds can’t get jobs. They’re not old enough. So, that was a huge motivating factor for these teens.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: And with very little training, they’re able to go in and sit with the senior and help them with all kinds of things. I mean, some of the questions like, “Can you take my picture and put it on Facebook?” Just the random things that they ask is amazing. And when you see the seniors coming back every month asking for the same teen, it’s kind of nice. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, the impact is real, right? I mean, this is life changing for everybody involved.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share about some of those interactions? Obviously, don’t name their name, but maybe explain the transformation maybe you saw in a teen or an elderly person.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Well, I guess two stories stick out. We have one student. When she first signed up – I think her mother kind of forced her into it – wasn’t interested. She’ll just show up, help the senior, and then move on. And then, after, like, the third or fourth time she’s there, she’s asking for more time, she’s laughing. And then, she was the first one goes, “Hey, if I finish my 30 hours, can I have certification?” And it was someone who just didn’t speak, like she hardly spoke a word. And now four months later, she’s speaking. She wants to get involved more in the project. She’s helping us to launch an event at a mall. And that was a huge transformation, not knowing and then knowing this is her thing. We found her sweet spot, what she likes, which is helping others and technology.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: And then, another story we just had, in fact, last week. We had a woman who, I guess, her older children bought her an Apple Watch and a new iPhone. And she sat down with one of them with teens, and she was like, “Okay. I need you to help me set this up.” And he’s like, “Auntie, I don’t even have a watch or I don’t have a Apple Watch or a phone. I don’t know how to work this.” But literally in half-an-hour, he managed to help her set all of it up.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: And then, the husband came down with this huge donation. He just wrote a check for $1,000, he goes, “Can you buy an Apple Watch for this child?” And we were shocked, “Like what?” We told him thank you. We will donate it and we’ll help it out. We’ll purchase a watch and we can teach the kids. But, you know, they were so impressed with this child just not having any experience with an iPhone or iWatch and to set it up, that was kind of cool.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. It’s so neat to see the younger generation that are digitally native that they’re around technology since they were born. And then, the older folks who this is new to them, a lot of it, and then the ease in which that the younger person can figure stuff out, it must be really amazing to see.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Yeah, it really is amazing to see. And, again, we have the seniors, but now it becomes a party when we go to the senior centers. Like every single senior is there, they get banana bread, they get apples and eggplant. I mean, the things that the seniors give to these children, it’s amazing.

Lee Kantor: Right, because they want to reciprocate. They want to give something to them too.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: And they spend more time. And we did a study that we spent 15 minutes on the problem and an hour talking, they talk story with the child.

Lee Kantor: That’s amazing. And it’s one of those things that the impact is so much more than even that you could have imagined it being, because it’s human to human interaction.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Yeah. And I think that was the goal, was generational. During COVID, we did see that, our kupuna were getting more and more isolated. And Tech Savvy Teens just started with a few teens helping kupuna who wanted to watch church online. So, they went to a church and they were helping from a church, and things exploded into a program they have, now Tech Savvy Teens.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you optimistic about the kind of next generation of maybe female and indigenous IT professionals? Are you seeing that there’s a desire and an opportunity for them to find opportunities?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: I’m hopeful. You know, I would say I’m hopeful. I mean, a lot of the programs that are coming out in Hawaii for teenagers to get certified, there’s so many. It’s just reaching the right demographic. And there’s not a lot of Native Hawaiian here, non-Native Hawaiians in Hawaii now. It’s so expensive to stay here so many are leaving. Yet alone female native Hawaiians in the tech industry. So, I think that’s what I’m concerned about.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: But I do have a handful of girls who are excited about the tech industry and they want to become developers, and stay in Hawaii and help create indigenous language platforms. Because Hawaiians, we learn differently. We’re not linear. We’ll jump from this subject to that subject and that subject. We have to move and jump and do so many things, so to create a platform that’s like that, it doesn’t exist. We would have to create it ourselves. So, I think having more and more Native, not only female, but all Native Hawaiians in IT would be the goal. But I’m hopeful. I won’t say we’re there yet.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of WBEC-West and be part of that community?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: So, in the process of finding out how, I guess just we didn’t have a lot of money [inaudible]. It’s hard to find employees or people here that understand software development. I decided at an early point in my career that if I’m going to create opportunities or jobs for these students or these youth in Hawaii, then I would have to also create the contracts or the opportunities to win business.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: And from what I know and through the YWCA program that I was in, they told me you should get certified and start doing government contracts. And then, as a female women-owned business, I could qualify for that. And so, I give credit to YWCA for providing me with the opportunity to get certified by WBEC. I didn’t know what it was, but it’s been amazing. Just having that logo on my business card and on my website, people take you more seriously, especially when I bid for local contracts, local state contracts.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: So, the goal, obviously, is I’m going through my women-owned certification right now for WOSB, and I’m hoping to be an ADA soon so that I can win contracts and then give more jobs to people in Hawaii so they can stay here.

Lee Kantor: So, what is it that you need more of right now that we can help you?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: You know, I had registered for a WBENC event, they had an event, an expo, I think, last year. But to go from Hawaii, it was so expensive. I mean, it was really hard. I mean, ideally what I would love to see is a local event. There’s a lot of women-owned businesses here that would love to be certified, but it costs us double the amount to travel to the Mainland and attend one of these events. I would love to see a local version of the WBENC event in the Pacific Islands, if I have to be honest.

Lee Kantor: Well, we’ll see what we can do about that. Now, if somebody wants to learn more about your firm, either your nonprofit or your for-profit IT company, what is the websites?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: So, our website for my tech company Ohia Technology is ohiatechnology.com. And an information about Tech Savvy Teens, the nonprofit that we support certifications for is techsavvyteens.org.

Lee Kantor: And for your IT firm, it’s O-H-I-A-technology.com?

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Yes. So, Ohia is the Hawaiian word for lehua, the flower. And it’s the first flower that comes through the lava. It’s a red flower. And, for us, it symbolizes strength to come through lava. The first plant.

Lee Kantor: Right. You got to be tough. You got to be resilient.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: Resilient, yeah. So, that’s the name of our company.

Lee Kantor: Well, Wendy, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: You’re welcome, Lee. Thank you for having me. It was my first podcast, I enjoyed it.

Lee Kantor: All right. That’s good. And one more time, the website if somebody wants to learn more.

Wendy Awai-Dakroub: www.ohiatechnology.com.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.

Tagged With: Ohia Technology

Jessica Green with Self-Made

July 11, 2024 by angishields

High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Jessica Green with Self-Made
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Self-Made-logo

Jessica-GreenJessica Green is a midwestern girl born & raised who’s always wanted & know she’s worth MORE!

She’s a little bit on the sassy but smart side, with a HUGE appetite for solving problems. Starting from running away and shaving her head at 13 to graduating college with honors & creating multiple multi million dollar businesses, Jessica will come up with a solution to just about anything, and where you won’t find me is STUCK IN THE MUCK! She’s a lover of life, travel, food and all the things that make life worth living to it’s fullest.

Jessica is an entrepreneur, educator, self-published author, wonder woman wife and Mom! Just ask the 4 boys she lives with or the two bonus daughters who she loves dearly! 5 kids you say? Wait no- two of those boys are furry, but not far from HOOOMANS too in this house!

# 1 thing she is grateful for? Her amazing God, with him absolutely anything is possible!

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Finding your super powers as it relates to entrepreneurship
  • About Jessica’s book SuperPower to Super Profit
  • Self-Made Hub- Jessica’s tech platform and mentorship membership

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Self-Made made Jessica Green. How are you?

Jessica Green: I am doing fantastic and thank you so much for inviting me on today. I always love to share with the world all of the things Self-Made and all of the things Jessica Green and how I can help more female online entrepreneurs.

Stone Payton: Well, we are delighted to have you on the broadcast. I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I’d love to start if we could, with an overview. If you could paint a picture. Mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Jessica Green: Well, I’ve been on a journey for about 18 years in the business world, but the last ten mainly in the social marketing space, with working with female online entrepreneurs and network marketing, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing. And there’s one thing I found in common that there’s a lot of opportunity out there, but not necessarily a lot of skill set in the tech space. So being able to take a business and, uh, infuse tech into it so that they can build, scale and accelerate online. And so I dove into helping people, helping mainly female online entrepreneurs infuse tech so that they can accelerate and scale their business with a tech savvy mentor, someone who can help them along the way.

Stone Payton: So what did prompt for you, Jessica? The focus on serving the female constituency. Was it a cataclysmic event or did you kind of know all along this is the group I want to serve?

Jessica Green: No, I just was that group, right? I was that person. And I think that’s where a lot of really good coaches and mentors come from is struggling through the same exact problem that then they can turn around and go help other people with, grab all of the ones that are left behind and can kind of help them through and shortcut things. So I did, I had a number of businesses. I launched a few businesses a number of years ago and realized real quickly that in this online world and this online space, things were moving extremely fast, right? Just ten years ago, I had kind of fallen out of a brick and mortar business and into a network marketing business, and I found that most people didn’t have a business and marketing degree, just like I did, and have all these years of business experience and building business. And I found that I wanted to help, I wanted to I wanted to help as much as I could, but actually found myself stuck in a little bit of a space of having to pay people to build websites and pay people to infuse tech so that I could scale like the big dogs. I could compete out there in the space with everybody else, and not all females have the background.

Jessica Green: And I shouldn’t even just say females. Not all people going into the online space to build a social marketing type business or an online business have the skill set and don’t necessarily have the money to be paying big agencies big amounts of money to build them a website or do simple email marketing or SMS marketing. And now, in just the last 12 to 18 months, because of AI, this world is just changing every single second of every single day. And it’s it’s a lot to keep up with. So I decided, after struggling through some of that and pouring thousands and thousands, I should say wasting thousands and thousands of dollars and time and frustration and headache that when dollars got tight and I couldn’t spend to have someone else do it for me, I just needed to dig in. I was a pretty smart cookie. I could learn how to do most of this stuff myself, and if I could learn how to do it most myself. And it was pretty simple, I could turn around and teach people how to do it. So it was me going through it and knowing there’s a different way. There’s a better way. If you’re willing to learn a new skill set and partner up with somebody who can help walk you through the hard parts, you can really have a lot of control over your own business no matter what.

Jessica Green: Maybe someday. I do believe in the saying that if you’re working in your business and not on your business, you don’t necessarily have a business. You have another job. I don’t I don’t disagree with that saying once you’ve made it. But on the journey to making it, you need to learn some skill sets. So if things get tight or you have to fire somebody or someone walks away from your business, or a team member quits and all those things, you can always step back in and take over for a short time while you get somebody else back up and running. And I found that was the most freeing feeling. That is the most freeing feeling about what I do now is being able to jump into my business and work almost any part of it, especially in the tech spot, and get it back up and running, because most things now are running from tech behind the scenes, helping you scale things and automate things, and maybe not have so many employees because you can really put a lot of that into technology. So.

Stone Payton: So what are some of the more common mistakes or patterns that you can almost anticipate when you first begin working with someone? I know we’re probably going to see this, this and this. What are some of the most common mistakes patterns that kind of thing?

Jessica Green: Um, number one, not believing in yourself that you could actually do it, thinking that you have to have all this skill set and being scared of not being able to do it. Um, honestly, it’s not as scary as it, as it seems from the outside looking in. And if you have the right person that can walk you through and be there to guide you and just answer some questions. So it’s number one, just thinking that it’s too overwhelming when it’s really not. If you have the time and you’re willing to put that time in to learn the new skill set, you can absolutely do it yourself. You do not need to pay one of these big agencies out there to build all of these things for you. I believe that’s why it’s called self-made. That is the entire reason why it’s called self-made. Um, and then number I would say, um, number two is probably so believing in yourself. But number two is actually not having I don’t think that you need to have your whole brand figured out up front, but it is the one thing that I start with because most people don’t niche down far enough, and I almost hate that word, but I’ll use it. They don’t niche down far enough, but they think that they need to throw their product or service or opportunity out there to as many people as possible, because the online space is so big and vast, and they just want to grab as many people when it actually that does the opposite when your message is trying to hit everyone, it hits no one specifically. And I find that is one of the biggest, biggest things that most newer online entrepreneurs, network marketers, social marketers, just online business coaches, whatever solving problems, they’re trying to do it for way too many people.

Jessica Green: And so their messaging that comes out, their branding that comes out, doesn’t target the person who’s actually looking for them right now, today. So they end up doing a ton of push marketing, which is a lot harder to get the people that you want to say yes than the attraction and pull marketing that you can do if you’ve really picked. And it’s hard because I even had to go through that, like I want to help all online entrepreneurs, but that’s a very big space to Niching way down to I want to help very specifically female online entrepreneurs that are in the social marketing space, meaning network marketing in between the ages of 35 and 55 like that is my niche, and I have to get really specific about that because I want to help everybody. But I also know that the person that’s looking for me needs to hear exactly what I can solve for them, and what I can solve. For a 40 year old female wanting to build her social marketing business is not going to be the same things that a 50 year old male wants to hear about his his business, that he’s trying to create? They don’t aren’t going to listen to the same messaging. So you want people coming to you rather than trying to just word vomit and throw noodles at a wall and hope it sticks. And that’s the biggest problem I see out there.

Stone Payton: I am so glad that I asked, because I think you have articulated for me this gut feeling that I’ve had for some time, and my partner is a big proponent as well, of finding that group that really does want to hear your music. And then if someone else strolls in, great, you know, maybe they can enjoy it too. But finally, play to the ones that want to hear your your brand of music, right?

Jessica Green: Exactly. That’s a great way to put it.

Speaker4: All right, so let’s.

Stone Payton: Dive into the work a little bit. What does that look like? Someone comes into your circle. You begin serving them. Is it one on one instruction? Is it tapping into a platform? Walk us through the work, especially the early phases of of the work you’re doing with the clients?

Jessica Green: Yeah, absolutely. So I kind of started this journey of building out a business called Self-made to put a coaching program together to just really help female online entrepreneurs get their branding set and time management. And like all just all the things that you need as a new entrepreneur, like a lot of people jump into social marketing, network marketing, influencer marketing because they fall in love with the product, service or opportunity. Not because they woke up one day and said, I’m going to go out and create my own business. Some do, but a lot don’t. So don’t always have the background and what it actually takes to be an entrepreneur because they never saw themselves being one. So I started off with a program to help people through that, and then shortly realized that everyone was going to really need all of the tech pieces. And I had learned all of it, and I could turn around and go teach them those things along with it. So what I went and did is created my own, uh, boutique style agency, backed by a tech platform that’s already out there and made it my own. And so our membership is we take people in for a monthly membership that covers the cost of their complete and entire all in one tech platform so they can build all their websites, all their funnels, their email marketing, their SMS marketing, their calendar booking, their I mean, you name it, our platform does it, has it, integrates it, and you don’t need anything else out there.

Jessica Green: Because what we found is a lot of people are out there duct taping 17 systems together for their email and for their websites and funnels and all this stuff, and you actually don’t need that. There’s really great all in one tools out there that can combine everything and save you a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of headaches. So we took that platform and paired it together with the business coaching and made it very inexpensive for people to be able to just belong to something and build along with some people that know what they’re doing and can direct them and guide them. So that’s really what we do. We go out there and we help those female online entrepreneurs that know they want to take the time, they want to spend a little bit of their energy, but not a ton of money going and building all the things that they need to scale their business and infuse that tech. So we start there, and then we have some other programs that we can offer along the way. If people are like, I need to dig in bigger, badder, better, faster, I need it all. I need it done quick. We have some like accelerator masterminds that will will invite people into that are pretty limited. But just because we like to spend time with our clients. But that’s it. It’s a it’s a monthly membership that gets you all of the tech that you need, plus the help to build it all.

Stone Payton: Well, it strikes me that if you can get the tech set up and in place, and particularly if it’s all available through one path as you’re describing, then you can really it seems like it would liberate you to lean into some of the things that you already bring to the table, like whatever. You’re already really good at the clarity of your own vision if you can. If you can get the tech figured out, speak to that a little bit about finding, you know, finding your superpower and really leveraging it.

Jessica Green: So I ended up writing a book through this journey because I did I what I have noticed out there in this industry, and I mean, especially since, you know, like everything changed with the world a few years ago. Right? And all of a sudden there was this like, oh, I could work from home. Oh, I could, I don’t want to go back to work now. I like this idea of working from home and kind of being my own boss. And so a lot of people with the online space decided they wanted to jump in and create their own businesses, but then they were like, oh, well, how what do I create? What do I go do? Do I go partner with a company and become an influencer marketer and have, you know, have a company that I just sell products for? Do I become a network marketer? Like, do I create my own coaching business? Like what could I do? And so I found myself counseling a lot of people and doing strategy calls with a lot of people. And so I decided to take all of that knowledge that I have of 18 years of business experience. My degrees, all of the businesses that I’ve had that have been successes and failures, I’ve learned way more from the failures and the successes and Then put that in a little bit of a book.

Jessica Green: Um, just a simple book called Super Power to Super Profits. Um, and it’s just me walking through. How do you find your own superpowers as it relates to entrepreneurship, and then utilizing those to create the business and empire of your dreams? So I always tell people when I start off coaching in that realm is if you if you create yourself just another job out there that you have to get up and go do every day, you’re not going to be excited about it. It’s just going to be like working that 9 to 5. But if we can create something that comes from passion, something that comes from what you get really excited to go work on, and you could jump out of bed every single morning and ready to walk across the hallway to that office home office of yours to work on your business. And you are so excited you’ve now created something that you will absolutely love, you will adore, and you will make a lot of money at. Because people know when you absolutely love and adore what you do every single day. And those are the people who are going to want to partner with you because they can see it and feel it, and it exudes from you.

Jessica Green: So my superpower to super profit is saying, hey, let’s go figure out what you’re really good at. What do your friends always ask you for advice on? What do you feel like you could do for hours and hours, and then look up at the clock and go, oh my gosh, I cannot believe I just spent five hours doing that. I could do that for five more hours and it wouldn’t even faze me. And no, I’m not talking about scrolling social media. That is not a career path. Um, because I think anybody can make time disappear like that. Um, so I’m very clear about not letting that happen. Um, but yeah, just I walk them through some questions and I walk through my own story. Um, as a young adult, actually a teenager to young adult. And some of the things that I went through, and it took me all the way until really my 40s to figure out what my superpower actually was. And so if I can, uh, speed that up for somebody who wants to get into the entrepreneurial journey, that’s what that book is meant to do. And then it walks them through some of the tech, how to start putting some things in place to build up your business online.

Stone Payton: So what was that experience like writing the the book? Did it come together pretty easily, or were were pieces of it harder than than others? I’d love to hear what that journey was like.

Jessica Green: If I could do it all over again, I would do it differently again. Another way I could speed up someone’s journey, I would point them in a different direction than what I took. I really wanted the book to just be a lead magnet, if I’m being quite honest with you. I had a lot to say. But it wasn’t the book that, like if Jessica Green was going to go write a book and it be like all of the things that I want to teach and share and show all of who I am, I wouldn’t. This isn’t the book. This is more of a lead magnet book, and I wish I would have done it the other way around. First of all. Second of all, I would really do my research on how you publish a book or self publish a book, or find the right company to work with. Through that process, I picked a company that I thought was a good idea. It came with some business coaching. Along with this book writing program. I would have gone to a company that was just a book writing program because I did need some help. I needed a mentor. I needed a coach. I’d never wrote a book before. I did know that I wanted to self-publish. I want because it was a lead magnet. I just wanted something simple. But the process was interesting. We’ll just we’ll just say that it was interesting. The book is written and it is out there. I can’t say that it’s like my masterpiece in any way, shape or form. So I’m looking to the second book that I write, but it’s a great book to just get people started in. Hey, I need to figure out what my superpowers are. I want to I want to start my own online business. I need someone to kind of walk me through those first few steps. And that’s what the book’s intended purpose was. So I’m okay with that. But the next book, stay tuned, it’ll be much better. All right.

Stone Payton: So you have another one in you. And I have to believe, while certainly it’s provided value to the people you’re trying to serve, I suspect it probably helped you crystallize your own thinking and equip you to even be that much better at what you were doing, just because you invested the energy to commit some of these ideas to paper, and really have to think them through and figure out a way to articulate them for others. I bet it helped you to be a better practitioner.

Jessica Green: Oh yeah. Absolutely. It’s like putting something in a really concise, organized format on how to teach. The one great thing is that I had already created a 12 week program that I was putting clients through, so I kind of took that 12 week program. That was my process of what I put clients through, and I kind of made that some of the chapters of the book pulled out like seven of the 12 different modules and made that into my book, with the exception of, like the first chapter, which tells my story and kind of how I uncovered what I’m really good at, which is problem solving, um, which is my superpower strategy and problem solving. But I take that was also really fun and cathartic. Maybe be the right word. Is telling a kind of embarrassing story about myself that I learned at 13 years old. Was was a like game changer for my life. Um, and telling that story out loud for anybody to pick up a book and read about that was interesting. Kind of cathartic, though.

Stone Payton: I would think the answer to this question probably changes over time as you evolve, as the work evolves. But I’ll ask you at this point now, you’ve been at it a while. What are you finding the most rewarding about the work? What’s the most fun about it for you these days?

Jessica Green: Oh, being a part of like so many different businesses. So we have a new client come in and we have a mastermind for our hub members every Wednesday morning. Um, and we have an accelerator program that’s like an 8 to 10 week program. We only take 12 people in at a time and so that we can spend time on their businesses, but it’s watching those businesses unfold. For example, I have, um, you know, we have some clients that maybe started with us eight, nine months ago, and you’re just now starting to see because they are really just doing it on their own. They didn’t join an accelerator. They’re just every week plugging away at building their business and watching some of that come to life. Now, having a just knowing, like when you see their business launch online and they start getting their clients and things start flourishing for them, and you start seeing their stuff on social media, you’re like, I had a little piece of that. If they if if we wouldn’t have gotten involved or connected, would they be where they’re at? Would their dreams be coming true? Would their empire be being built? Last week we got to walk through, um, a lady who’s in just a regular hub member of ours that shows up every Wednesday morning consistently and has been building out a math tutoring business, an online math tutoring business for, um, sixth grade to like through 12th grade, I think. Um, and she does it out of her home, but she really wanted to take this online and be able to do this for more people and do like, classes and watching all of her tech pieces finally get to completion so that she can launch everything and watching it unfold and seeing the website and seeing it’s just like, you know, that you just took somebody from working this like, boring 9 to 5 that they hate to actually making that dream of theirs become reality. That to me, there’s nothing like that.

Stone Payton: So are these people finding you because of the tech you have in place? Or I guess I’m interested in how the whole sales and marketing thing works for almost everyone I talked to. But in your case, like, are you out there shaking the trees? Or you’ve set things up so that they come shake the trees? Or how does that cause you have to, I guess you have to eat your own cooking to a large degree, right?

Jessica Green: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. If I don’t show up online and have all the things in place online, how would anybody ever trust me? Or I heard me right and I will in no way, shape or form, uh, say that I’m perfect at those things. I just actually am super transparent to my coaching clients, too. So I had somebody call me the other day that just is one of our hub members that needed a little extra from me, and I try to always do that as much as I can. And, uh, she was asking me some questions about the front end of her business, like the getting of traffic. Right. And it’s just it’s not our specialty. We focus on the back end, like, we can tell you everything to plug in so that when you’re generating the traffic, everything goes on. Automation. Um, like, you go make a reel or a post or a TikTok and we we can help you set everything up on the back end so that everything is automated from there on out. So you could do one reel and everything sets on automation all the way to conversion, maybe 14 touch points later so that you can convert a viewer into a buyer. So we do the back end. We don’t teach people how to do social media. So when she called me and started asking me some questions, I’m like, listen, I got social media out there. I stay very present online. I have someone that helps me with some of that stuff, but I can’t coach you on that because I’m not good at it. It’s not my favorite part.

Jessica Green: I don’t do a whole lot of it, but we do have to do that for our business. So we work on it and we bring in coaches and mentors of our own for the front end of things, because that isn’t that isn’t what my business model is, and it is not our forte. Um, but I will say being super active out there on all the social platforms is one of the things that we do. But for ten, well, 14 years, myself and a business partner that I brought in, uh, we’ve been in the network marketing space wasn’t what I started off in. I fell into it in an economic downturn. I was the girl that ran from everybody. I’m no longer building in the space now, but I did for 14 years. And that grows you a very massive network of people. Um, that’s the one thing that I absolutely love about network marketing. And so because we were very successful in that top 1% in the industry, both her and I, in different businesses, um, we have a large network. And so it’s it’s a lot of hustle out there grinding, getting our own. You used a term and I don’t remember what what you said exactly was like, you know, just going out and getting our own clients. Then we do also do social media. We are just now getting into the ad space of getting some ads out there. Also not my forte. I don’t teach people how to do that. It is not my thing. But I can, you know, find some people that can help me with that because I’m very resourceful.

Speaker4: Well, that’s.

Stone Payton: Such an important point, is lean on what you’re good at and set up systems that will help you really just leverage that to the nth degree and go get best in class. Help in the areas that were in the holes you need to plug, right?

Jessica Green: Yeah, exactly, exactly. The other thing we do too is we because we both came from a lot of experience in network marketing. Um, while our company helps a lot of network marketers, we’re not a network marketing company, but we do have an affiliate program for our company. And because no network marketing so well, it was like super easy for us to deploy an affiliate marketing part of our business. So we have a lot of people that are our hub members, that are also affiliates for us, because they know they can go out and sell our service. They believe in us. They’re already hub members, and then they can also make some money with us too. So that’s another way that we drive traffic to us.

Stone Payton: Well, you clearly have the passion for your work. I can see it in your eyes. I know our listeners can hear it in your voice. But I did want to ask hobbies, interests, passions outside the scope of your work, like a lot of our listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. Is there anything you nerd out about outside the scope of this work?

Jessica Green: So I, I love when this question comes up because I think I’m a little neurotic in my in my entrepreneurial journey, though, I know it’s not healthy at all times, but, you know, I’m not just working on my business. I’m working on so many other people’s dreams and empires that I find that is also a hobby. I say all the time, if you sit down with me for five minutes and we go have coffee, or we go to have a bite to eat, and we start talking in any way, shape or form that you could start a business or you like doing this. I’m trying to turn it into a business for you and show you how to monetize it, because I literally have fun doing that. So I spend a lot of time I don’t want to call it working because I really enjoy what I do. Um, but outside of that, um, I have three kiddos, uh, one son and two bonus daughters who are grown and have big girl jobs. We love to do stuff with our kids. We love to travel. Um, actually, as we speak, my husband is without me over in Europe, um, in Paris right now. And so we love to travel and we love to do things like that. We love to entertain at our house. And yeah, I mean, we’re pretty simple people, though.

Stone Payton: All right, before we wrap, let’s leave our listeners with a couple of actionable things. I’ll call them pro tips. Just a couple of, you know, start thinking about this or read this or don’t do this kind of thing. And look, gang, the number one pro tip is reach out to Jessica and her team, have a conversation with them, learn about what they’re doing. But let’s leave them with a couple of things to be noodling on between now and then.

Jessica Green: Yeah, I mean, my biggest piece of advice is, is just find them. Whatever you’re doing, go find someone who’s done it and has succeeded at it, but also maybe had some failures behind it because you learn more in those failures than you do the successes. It’s just the unfortunate piece about business. But, um, so when I, when I start coaching people, I actually tell them to go find a few people on social media that are doing what they want to do, but are only about 18 to 24 months ahead of them, and they’re successful. And the reason I say that is because, of course, I could go find the most successful person in my entire industry that’s been doing this for 10 or 15 years and model my behavior after them, but they’re at a different point in their journey. They’re so far beyond what I’m trying to accomplish right now. I’ll get there, but only modeling off of the activity and the things that they’re doing now kind of sets people back. So I try to have people look at somebody who’s more like 18 to 24 months ahead of them and looks like it’s becoming successful because the behaviors that you’re going to go and see or they’re breadcrumbs that they leave behind, um, are going to be what you need to do over the next 18 to 24 months, which is the most important right now.

Jessica Green: So find a mentor, find a coach. But maybe not someone who’s so far ahead of you that they’ve almost lost reality of. I always say it’s it’s almost the very same thing in network marketing. It’s like someone who first comes in and is just getting started versus the, you know, million dollar a year earner. That’s like been there, done that, spent in the industry for ten years and did all the things. They are not doing the same things every single day as the things that they want you doing when you first come in. Because the things you need to do when you first come in are quite different than what you do when you’ve been on your journey for 10 to 15 years. Believe in yourself and go find a good person to partner with. That’s like a mentor or a coach that can help walk you through some of the struggles and be there on the hard days. Best advice I could give?

Stone Payton: Well, I think it’s marvelous advice. Thank you for that. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you? Tap into your work? I want to make sure they have access to the book that you described. Let’s leave them with some coordinates.

Jessica Green: Yeah, I think the easiest way and the easiest one to remember is my personal website, which is just green. I got the dot green, not a.com, just dot green is actually an ending to a website. So um, just dot green is how you can find my personal website. And from there you can get to our business website too which is self made hub. So yeah.

Stone Payton: Well Jessica, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast. Thank you for your passion, your enthusiasm, your insight, your perspective. It’s uh, it’s been a marvelous way to invest a Tuesday morning and we sure appreciate you.

Jessica Green: Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. It’s been fun.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Jessica Green with Self Made and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Self-Made

BRX Pro Tip: Do the Thing

July 11, 2024 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tip: Do the Thing

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor, Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I think you’ve run across and maybe even re-read a piece of work that really had an impact on you and it’s about just do the thing.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, this is something I discovered a while ago. It’s a newsletter I subscribed to. It’s called strangestloop.io. You can go to strangestloop.io, and then you can read all this person’s work. They have a ton of essays and thought leadership.

Lee Kantor: But they wrote this essay and I quote it now, regularly when I talk to any aspiring entrepreneur, any aspiring artist, anybody who would like to do something that they’re not doing it right now, and I think that everybody here would benefit from hearing it. So I’m going to read you the entire essay. It’s not that long, but, this is a great piece of advice. So this is what they say about doing the thing.

Lee Kantor: “Preparing to do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Scheduling time to do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Making a to-do list for the thing isn’t doing the thing. Telling people you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn’t doing the thing. Writing a banger tweet about how you’re going to do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn’t doing the thing. Hating on other people who have done the thing isn’t doing the thing. Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn’t doing the thing. Fantasizing about all the adoration you’ll receive once you do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Reading about how to do the thing isn’t doing the thing. Reading about how other people did the thing isn’t doing the thing. Reading this essay isn’t doing the thing. The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.”

Lee Kantor: So I think that’s super important that a lot of people are trying to do everything but the thing. And I think the only way you’re going to move forward is by doing the thing. And you can go to strangestloop.io for more from this person. But please, today, start doing the thing.

BRX Pro Tip: Fully Leveraging Your Podcast Appearance

July 10, 2024 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tip: Fully Leveraging Your Podcast Appearance

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, what are your thoughts? What’s your experience, recommendations on fully leveraging the fact that you have been on a radio show or a podcast?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. This is something that I am a big believer in and I think this is – people are leaving money and time on the table by not doing this. But if you’re ever a guest on anything, radio show, podcast, if they wrote an article about you in a blog, or whatever the content you got in media, I recommend you take that content and put immediately – once it’s published, go to your calendar and then mark on your calendar over the next 12 months, 4 to 6 times that you’re going to mention this thing again to your people in your database.

Lee Kantor: So when you get the interview, put a calendar reminder to repost that interview on your socials every two to three months. You don’t have to always post new content. You can repurpose existing content. You probably have already done a ton of interviews and things in the past. Go back to that and then save yourself some time and headaches and just repurpose some of that existing content that you’ve already done.

Lee Kantor: I guarantee you there is a pile of content that you did already in the past that you can go back to and repurpose it, and it’s going to be new to the people on your socials. Because number one, all the people in your socials don’t see every single thing that you post. So there’s no harm in repurposing existing content. And if you did that, you would actually get more people to pay attention to your stuff because you’d be posting more often, and then you would just be able to build your following by just posting things that you’ve already done that’s new to the person that is reading it. So repurpose old stuff.

BRX Pro Tip: Narrow Your Niche

July 9, 2024 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tip: Narrow Your Niche

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, what counsel do you have around identifying and serving the right market for your business?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, this is one of those things. If you are out and about doing business and you’re getting frustrated or not happy with the results you’re getting, I think one of the first moves to make is to narrow your niche, especially if you’re in professional services. So instead of being a business coach, try being a business coach for dentists. You know, find a specialty, find an area of expertise that you can just narrow in on, and be the business coach for that group, or being the professional service provider for that group. You’re going to have less competition, and over time, you’re going to build up a lot of specific industry knowledge that will help differentiate you from everybody else, number one, and ultimately, you’ll be able to charge higher prices because you’re going to be kind of the guru in this niche.

Lee Kantor: So, this also works for your B2B podcast. If you’re not happy with the results of your B2B podcast, it’s probably because you haven’t narrowed your niche. And if you want help with a broken B2B podcast, you want to call Business RadioX because we specialize in fixing broken B2B podcasts, and we’ve helped a lot of B2B podcasters finally make money with their podcasts.

Stone Payton: Well, and I got to say, in my experience with the clients that I have out of the studio that I help run and operate, I’ve convinced people to pick a niche, continue to narrow it. But it doesn’t mean you can’t take another piece of good business that’s a little bit outside of your niche. It’s not shutting down the balance of the opportunity market, but it does seem to serve extremely well every time. But don’t think because you’ve picked a niche doesn’t mean you can’t ever do business with someone just a little bit on the other side of it as well, right?

Lee Kantor: Right. It’s not or, it’s and. But you just want to be known for something. And the tighter the niche is that you’re working in and to be known as the go-to resource for that, then sure, you can work for other people as well, but you’re going to be known in that area as kind of the go-to person, and that’s what you’re shooting for.

Stone Payton: Amen.

Dr. Michelle Thomas with The Exceptional Woman Enterprise

July 8, 2024 by angishields

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Michelle-ThomasDr. Michelle S. Thomas is a distinguished business executive and strategist, renowned for her expertise in eliminating growth barriers for women entrepreneurs, particularly those of color.

As the visionary leader of The Exceptional Woman Enterprise, she champions the advancement of women in business through strategic empowerment initiatives and Mastery Level business education.

Dr. Thomas combines over a decade of direct business operation experience with her roles as an author and speaker to drive innovation and excellence in entrepreneurial development. The-Exceptional-Woman-Enterprise-logo

Connect with Dr. Thomas on Facebook and Instagram.

The 2024 G.R.O.W.T.H Business Conference provides women of color a unique platform designed specifically to elevate your business acumen, expand your network, and take your enterprises to new heights.

The conference takes place in Dallas, TX on August 1-2 at The Gaylord Texan Resort & Conference Center. Find information about the conference and purchase tickets at https://growthconference.live/

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming back to the Business RadioX microphone. Author, speaker, coach with The Exceptional Woman Enterprise Dr. Michelle Thomas. How are you?

Dr. Michelle Thomas: I am doing amazing. How are you? Stone, thank you for having me back.

Stone Payton: I am doing well. It’s absolutely my pleasure. What a delight to have you back on the broadcast. We had so much fun last time when you were in studio. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I know there’s an upcoming event that we want to dive into in a few moments, but I’m thinking to get things going, maybe remind us, give us a little bit of primer about your work mission. Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Dr. Michelle Thomas: So the Exceptional Woman Enterprise is a parent company of multiple subsidiaries that focus primarily on ensuring that women entrepreneurs, especially women of color entrepreneurs, receive the resources, the funding, the support and the networking community that they need to be able to achieve sustainable success. And so we focused in on this because statistically, I’m a data person. Right. And so research tells us that starting in the Covid era 2020, 2021, we saw a record number of women of color entrepreneurs to launch their businesses. Well, what a lot of people don’t know is the IRS has its own litmus test, right, of what they consider the difference between a hobby business and a successful business. And so the loose terms of it is, if you are in business five years or more, but you have to be profitable for the IRS to consider your business a true business, uh, mature business. Well, statistically, uh, a lot of women entrepreneurs launch their businesses, but within the first 12 to 24 months are forced to prematurely close before they can even realize their success because they don’t have the right access. It’s not just about money, it’s about access. And so the Exceptional Woman Enterprise, we have multiple different entities that help you achieve the access that you need to achieve the growth that you want to do. That’s the brief overview of what we do.

Stone Payton: What a marvelous and noble pursuit. I know I asked this the last time we talked, but remind us of what got you going down this path. Aside from the obvious need, how in the world did you find yourself in this, in this line of work?

Dr. Michelle Thomas: By pure accident? Let me say let me say how this happened. So, um, back in 2017, um, my husband and I are a blended family, and we have seven kids, six boys, one girl, um, two dogs, two cats. A partridge in a pear tree. If you look deep enough. I’m just saying, that’s just how my house be rocking. Okay. So now you know our kids are grown. But back in 2017, um, June 15th, 2017, we lost one of our babies. He was 19, we lost him to a car accident. And so immediately everyone flooded me with these grief books and things about loss or whatever. And I wasn’t ready for it. Right. So what I did in my own little cubby is I took my laptop and I wrote about what I knew, I just I wrote about blending the family because when my husband and I first got together, I called it the corporate merger because we were two business people that had kids. So it wasn’t just like the regular get together type of thing. You got two really strong, bullheaded leaders that now have to live in one house. It’s the corporate merger. Like there was a negotiation table just to get this to work, right. And so between the seven kids, multiple different last names, whatever, no one on the outside knew that we were blended family because that’s how we structured our family.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: And so when we had this tragic loss and Bryant was our middle kid with the biggest personality, he was like the sales person for my business, one of my businesses. And like, he was just that kid. And when we when we had that loss, it impacted my family tremendously. And because I have a house full of males, it was important for me to make sure that they were able to process their feelings. So I started writing in my own way about the experience of blending of family. So this little, this little journal thing that I created, a friend of mine was like, oh, you need to turn this into a book. So I reluctantly like the bad child. Reluctantly, I reluctantly published it, but I knew that we guaranteed was going to have eight copies sold, and that was it, right? Because I wrote my family, wrote eight deep just in this in itself. And so my mom and daddy was going to buy a copy. So, okay, that’s ten. We got ten copies to be sold and then we’ll let this go. Stone it went global. Um, I had especially what was really profound for me is I had more men to reach out to me and say thank you. If I had had this book, I probably wouldn’t be divorced now because I never understood and looked at it from that perspective.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: So that began me speaking. People were calling me around the globe to do these conferences and do these speaking engagements. As I’m in the space and in these conferences, people begin, especially women begin to ask me about my professional career and how did I get there? How did I get with the Mark Cuban’s? How did I get with all of the Dan Gilbert’s and the Eric Thomases and the Tony Robbins? And how did I get in those spaces? And so I just would have these conversations. It wasn’t a business. I was just having these conversations. And it eventually the first entity that I created was the Exceptional Woman Tour, which was my event division, where we would go around from city to city. Instead of having people to pay to come to me, I would incur the cost to go from city to city and find the the, the women that were in that city that were hungry for professional growth and, and so what what began as just kind of a it was my own process of grief. And I actually spoke because I was giving Bryant voice. I wasn’t speaking for me. I wanted to give him voice because he thought that his mother was a superhero. And so I didn’t feel like a superhero, but because my kid thought I was a superhero, I’m gonna get out here and I’m going to keep this kid’s life going.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: Well, it turned into so much demand for ethical, vetted, true business principles. That’s what we stand upon. We stand upon not just the hype or the drip campaign or the funnel campaign type of information. We stand upon true business practices that transcends any type of trends or fads or anything we process on the true business cycle. And and what I found was that a lot of people and a lot of women, this was a man thing. Most men, you guys do this organically, but from a women’s women’s perspective, we usually focus on the emotion of it instead of the hard core business principles. And so my three plus decades of executive leadership turned into the exceptional woman enterprise where I want before I take my last breath, I want to see sustainable, permanent change for us as women entrepreneurs to stand upon so we no longer have to keep looking backwards for the next six generations. That’s my goal, the foundation that we that we build through the exceptional woman enterprise. I want women, young women, young entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs to be able to stand on this new, strong foundation for the next six generations. And then my my work will be done.

Stone Payton: What a marvelous story and inspiring path. I got to ask, what was it like? Especially in the early days of becoming a professional speaker, where were you intimidated at all? Did you have to learn some, I don’t know, skills tactics on how to deliver your message effectively in that medium as well?

Dr. Michelle Thomas: So for me, it was offered. I tried that stone, I really did, I tried, I tried to go and do the master classes and figure out whatever, but it didn’t fit. It didn’t feel right. I come, I come to my audience with a conversation. I want to make sure that I’m not. Whether you pay me to be the keynote or whatever my title is on stage. I want every person who sits in that office and that audience to feel like that. It’s just me and them having a conversation because I found that that resonates better than me leading with my expertise, me leading with my bank account, me leading with I’m all this. That’s kind of stuff in this day and time, because everybody has instant access. You can Google.

Speaker4: Anything if.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: If, if I’m gonna take the time out to go and get dressed and go to an event or go to a conference, I need that conference to deliver to me something I cannot Google. Does that make sense?

Speaker4: Yeah.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: And so for me, I didn’t want to resemble everyone else on stage. I wanted that by the time we left that event, or whoever walked out of that space that I was in walked away understanding that whatever they think they can do, they actually can do.

Stone Payton: It seems to me, for outside looking in, you’ve got so many irons in the fire, so many plates spinning. But they include, uh, I want to make sure this is accurate above and beyond the writing and the speaking and providing all these resources in a, in a variety of ways for people to access them. Am I right? Do you also find yourself in direct coaching relationships with individuals and groups, as well as part of your practice?

Dr. Michelle Thomas: Absolutely. One of my we actually own two corporate office and one of my corporate office, which is called Success Industries. We named it after our six kids at the time, but it spells six six Success industries is a minority consultant firm where we go into small, midsize and corporations, and we dive into the operations of that to help them to streamline and better create an effective operations so that they can achieve money to the bottom line. So we spend our time really in multiple industries, different industries. Um, but we drill down to what the problem is, and then we offer the solutions so that instead of you having to throw money at the problem, we find out where the core of the problem is so that you can strategically place your resources where they need to be so that you can get a result. So we do consulting, I do coaching. We also have now started, um, we haven’t launched the Universe Personal. Hear about it. We’re going to be launching an academy called Melanated Moguls Academy, where from people around the country who have experienced their success and their growth, but also understand the barriers that are still out there, the micro biases that we all experience. Um, I wanted to pull together an academy that just didn’t focus in on women, but focused in strategically on professional growth. So you don’t have to be an entrepreneur. But if you want to grow yourself to the VP status or the C-suite status, the Melanated Moguls Academy is going to get you not only the mentorship that you need, but the resources that you need to grow.

Stone Payton: So you touched on this earlier in the conversation, but I wonder if you would would say some more about your decision to specifically focus on serving women, and particularly women of color. I mean, because some of this is surely strategic, some of it is certainly born of the heart. But say a little bit more about that decision.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: So through my research, I found that a lot of people only did surface level research of what was actually causing women of color businesses to fail, and they always wanted to equate it to our financial stability and the lack of funding that we got. Well, here’s the thing about business. Business doesn’t really care what color you are. Business doesn’t care what gender you are. All business. The big cog of business has been around for centuries. All it cares about is that you can do what you say you can do, right? That’s how business works. That’s the bottom line principle. And so for women, what was happening because it’s so few of us that actually have these C-suite positions and actually watch how business actually works from behind the scenes. We don’t have access to those tables, so we tend to enter in our entrepreneurial journey or our small business journey from the experience and the mindset of an employee. Even if you were a manager or a leader in it, you still make employee type decisions because someone else gave you it was a pass down effect. You learn what you needed to do because it came from the owner or the key person that you never got a chance to sit with. So what I do is I take my 30 plus years of experience at those tables with some of the most prominent people, and I convert it into language and operations and strategic movement that is tailored for a specific entrepreneur and a small business owner. So I convert that corporate lingo and that corporate operation and move it into a space that any entrepreneur, in any small business owner, can grab on to implement into their process and achieve big business success.

Stone Payton: So now that this work has snowballed like it has and you’re clearly have hit your your stride at this point, what is the what’s the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you these days?

Dr. Michelle Thomas: To be able to hear the stories of people or meet people that I may have met five years ago, six years ago, maybe they attended one of my conferences. Maybe they heard me speak somewhere that I have never physically met before. But when I’m in a space and they get a chance to actually come and tell me their story, and I hear the shift and the impact that that conversation that I had, not directly with them, but they received it and were able to achieve success that they weren’t ever able to dream of. Because a lot of us are first generation, right? We are sitting in spaces and we’re navigating in in spaces that our parents or no one in our family has ever stepped into. This is a venture that we can’t call our uncles or aunts and be able to say and ask, how did they do this? Because we’re first generation. And so when, when, when when it’s that group of people, the underrepresented communities. My joy comes from taking a person that statistically has been led to believe that they could never have this level of success and watch them blossom into their true self, utilizing the very skills that they were born with. They just need to sharpen them a little bit and get a little bit more business experience and watch this person achieve something that no one ever believed that they could do.

Stone Payton: Well, that has to feel good. You must sleep incredibly well at night, not just as a product of all your work, but the the impact that your that your work is having. That’s fantastic. All right I want to hear about this event. You’ve got one coming up in in August. Walk us through it. What can we expect to see there.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: Oh my goodness. The 2024 Growth Business Conference is going to be and what I call home, um, in Dallas, Texas, August 1st and second. Um, I called Dallas home because I spent 16 years in Dallas. Uh, most of my kids were born in Dallas. And so I grew up from a business perspective in Dallas. Dallas took a broken girl from North Carolina that drove in with no job and no money, and taught me how to own my space, not try to skate off of it, but really own my space. And so coming back to Dallas is really important for me. And so the 2024 Growth Business Conference is going to focus in on getting our entrepreneurs and our attendees to not only learn the essential resources that they need, but we are actually implementing in every step that we’re doing, action items that they’re going to implement during the conference. Here’s what I find out. During conferences, we make people feel invisible for one, two, three, or four days, right? When you’re in that energy, you’re in that space. You feel like that you can accomplish anything that you want to.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: But then the next Tuesday, when you’re at home and all the bills are coming in and everybody’s pulling and tugging at you, see, somehow something happens with that energy, it dissipates real quick. And now you’re trying to figure out how to get that back. Well, what we’re going to do is while you’re in the seat, while you’re in the presence of the experts, you’re going to execute it in your own business. Bring your laptop, bring your phones, bring everything that you got, because we’re going to implement it right there so that you can become the expert of the skill. And when you go back to your office or go back home, you can now sustain it and grow it. That’s the key. You don’t walk away confused. My guarantee for all of my conferences is that you walk away with three resources and steps that you can implement immediately, and receive results from those things. We don’t do drip campaigns. We’re not giving you anything that you got to pay me more money to find out more about. We give it all. We give.

Speaker4: It all.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: On stage two days. Day one is the first day is the general session where our speakers, our experts are pouring all type of financial knowledge, operational knowledge and people knowledge. That’s sales, that’s customers, that’s your employees. We’re going to pour all that into you. Day two, August 2nd is strictly to drill down what you learn on day one and to break out sessions so that we can really answer your questions and really implement that and instill it into your operations. And so our conferences have a different experience to them. And I’m not saying that because it’s mine. I’m saying that because that’s the feedback that I get from everyone in attendance, that it’s a whole different experience than they’ve ever had. So this year is going to be August 1st and second. It’s going to be at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Conference Center. I’m encouraging every entrepreneur, every business professional to attend this conference. But we did something different, Stone, that we haven’t done in the other five years of doing this. We are going to have a business expo and we’re going to have an Authors Corner. So I want to speak right now to those business owners who need customers, who need to get their businesses out there, who want to find the people who need the products and services that they are selling. Get a vendor booth here. We are going to strategically drive sales to you. That’s our job for our indie authors out there. If you have publications, if you have a book that you’re putting out there, if you have, if you just want to poll the audience to find out if your concept is going to work, get your indie author book booth so that you now can meet the very people who are going to buy your publication and your book, and your best seller.

Stone Payton: I love it because while you are clearly the the grand master of this, uh, this this event, it’s not the Doctor Michelle show You have people with specific expertise and experience in these different domains. So they’re getting the best of the best, and they’re getting a platform to practice application in a safe environment. And they’re getting an opportunity to share their own stories and promote their own work while they’re there, aren’t they?

Dr. Michelle Thomas: Absolutely. And when I say, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, it is not. I warn my audience, people, you might find me sitting beside you because I take more notes than I am on stage. I because again, I want to make sure that people understand that we at the Exceptional Woman Enterprise, we walk our talk. I’m not going to stand there and tell you I know everything, but what I do really well is position my business and position myself around people that have more skills and strengths in areas that I am weak in. And I make sure that we are shored up in that way, so that the experts who need to be able to pour into you are the people that are talking to you. So this is how we strategically place this conference, so that if I don’t have an answer for you, there is someone in the room that has an answer for you. But it’s more than just you sitting in the seat taking notes. I want you to feel involved and action oriented. So there’s going to be a portion of this conference. I’m letting everybody know because you’re my friends. Don’t nobody else knows about this where we’re actually in the middle of the conference. We’re going to stop everything and we’re going to help you find your next customer, your next employee, your next business partner. Right in the middle of the conference, you’re going to walk away with some work. You’re going to walk away with a sale. You’re going to walk away with a new business partner during this conference.

Stone Payton: Wow. Okay. So at this point in early July and this thing is in early August, there’s still some registration available. There’s still, uh, booth space available. Yes.

Speaker4: Yes. Okay. Yes.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: So I, um, I actually put this in the chat so you could share it with everyone, but everyone can go to Growth Conference, dot live, live. And you can secure your vendor booth, your author, your indie author author book. You can get our VIP pass, which will give you a whole lot of access to our experts and some expert things that really behind the scene, things that you’re going to get as a founder or someone that wants to be in that VIP room. Um, our general session. But we even broke our tickets down this year because I know not everybody may have two days to spare to a conference. Right.

Speaker4: So you get to choose.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: You can a la carte however you want to attend this conference to things that are specific to what you need. So you make that choice. And I wanted to make sure that I got on your show, and I talked to people globally to make sure that if you need to be in this space, we have a room for you.

Stone Payton: All right. Let’s make sure that we give them that website once again, and let’s give them some coordinates to tap into your work in general. And maybe at some point, if they want to have a substantive conversation with you or someone on your team, let’s leave them with some of those coordinates as well.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: Absolutely. So the website for the conference is Growth Conference Dot live. And you can get all the information about the conference there. If you want to connect with me, you can connect with me through Exceptional Woman Network.com and all of our information. If you want coaching, mentorship, if you need someone, if you want to do specific coaching packages through me, then you can email email me at ashaunna a s h a w n a. That’s a s h a w n a at Michelle s Thomas comm. That’s m I c h e l l e the letter s as in Sam t h o m a s com. So I’ll get all of this information to you soon so that if they needed it, they missed it on the the live. You guys can post it, but find me if you want to find everything out about me, you can look at Exceptional woman Network.com. And you’ll always. They’ll get you to me. And we’ll find the resources that you specifically need to get your business where it needs to go. And again, I just want to plug in. This conference is for people who are tired of the predatory like promises that are plaguing us so much about I can make you rich in 37 days, those type of things. This is not that conference. This is not the get rich quick conference. This is true business principles that you can rinse and repeat throughout any industry to help you grow.

Stone Payton: Doctor Michelle, this has been, as I knew it would, an absolute delight. I’m so glad that we had you back on the broadcast. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm, and the the nature of your work and the impact that you’re creating. You are doing such important work and we sure appreciate you.

Dr. Michelle Thomas: Thank you so much, Simon. And anytime. Listen, I’m all I love being on your show. This is amazing.

Stone Payton: Absolutely. My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for Doctor Michelle Thomas with the exceptional woman Enterprise and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: 2024 G.R.O.W.T.H Business Conference, The Exceptional Woman Enterprise

BRX Pro Tip: Improve Your Clarity

July 8, 2024 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Improve Your Clarity
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BRX Pro Tip: Improve Your Clarity

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, let’s talk about improving your clarity.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:11] Clarity in communication is critical. Here’s a symptom that maybe your communication skills need some work. If you are constantly getting frustrated that people aren’t doing what you want them to do, it might be you. It may not be them. Maybe you haven’t explained it clear enough. Maybe you haven’t persuaded them that the value is there if they do what you’d like them to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:41] But whatever it is, if you’re constantly being frustrated that people aren’t doing what you want them to do, look in the mirror and try to explain things to them better and more efficiently. Pretend you’re trying to explain something to your mom or to a child, somebody who isn’t familiar with what you do, and put it in terms that anybody can understand. If you’re having trouble doing that, you know, you’re going to have a lot more problems down the road. You’re going to get frustrated. The work is not going to be done and it can derail your whole business.

Stone Payton: [00:01:13] So, I was participating in a workshop just about this time last week, and one of the things this gentleman shared was that, communication is really about the response that you get. It’s not necessarily the stimulus you provide. The true measure of communication is the quality of the response you get. So, now, I’m hearing you speak about this.

Stone Payton: [00:01:41] And then, another thing I came across while listening to some leadership development stuff on YouTube, which I’ve been known to do, one of the guys just said unabashedly, to be unclear is to be unkind. And I think that’s probably true.

BRX Pro Tip: How Do You Encourage Clients to Refer?

July 5, 2024 by angishields

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Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, here’s something that I think is really important if you’re going to have a sustainable business. It’s a question that comes up quite a bit, I think. How do you encourage your existing clients to refer new clients to you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:22] Yeah. That’s everybody’s dream, to have that one client you have now have them refer other clients to you. That way you don’t have this big, you know, customer acquisition challenge. You just have to do good work and then your client’s going to refer other clients to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] You know, that’s what we all dream to happen. But in order for it to happen, you have to put systems in place and processes in place that encourages your clients to refer new clients to you. This doesn’t happen just by magic or just because you want it to. A lot of clients don’t want to refer you other clients because they’re afraid that if you’re doing work for them, that somehow you’re not going to have time for themselves. So it’s kind of self-serving in a way that they don’t want to refer you because they want to keep you their secret.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] So, a way to encourage your clients to refer new clients to you is something that we do is we always ask our guests to suggest and reach out to other people like themselves to also be a guest. Make it very easy for them to refer guests to you, and guess what? They will do it because it makes them look good. They get to be a hero that they connected somebody to be on a show. That helps them kind of feel good about themselves, and they don’t mind making that referral.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:40] They’re not necessarily saying, hey, buy Business RadioX’s services, but they are suggesting somebody who probably meets the right profile that could be a client. And then, now it’s up to you to be able to move them into becoming a client. And since we spend a lot of time reverse-engineering our clients shows to be about their best prospects, anybody they refer obviously, any guest they refer will typically be a good prospect for us. So that works very well in our favor.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:12] This way, by doing this, by creating this kind of simple way to help our guests help us, it’s a win-win. It helps them look good. It helps them serve their community, but it also helps us get in front of people who might be able to benefit from our services. So if you can create a system that is a win-win, that helps your client get something that they desire and also help you get something you desire, which is a new client, then you have a great system in place and a great chance to grow your business organically through your existing clients.

Hawaii WBE Feature: Friendship through WBEC-West

July 4, 2024 by angishields

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Women in Motion
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In today’s episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor, Dr. Pamela Williamson, and their guests Cora Spearman-Chang and Bernadette Rivero, discuss the impact of WBEC-West and the significance of friendship and community in business. Cora, CEO of Coradorables, and Bernadette, President of The Cortez Brothers Inc., share their experiences of support and camaraderie within the WBEC-West network. They emphasize the importance of authentic connections and collaboration, especially in male-dominated industries. The episode highlights how genuine relationships and community support can drive business success and personal fulfillment, with Dr. Williamson underscoring the organization’s role in fostering these meaningful connections.

Bernadette-RiveroBernadette Rivero is President and Executive Producer at The Cortez Brothers, Inc., a Los Angeles-based creative production company specializing in bringing branded content to life.

She started working at an advertising agency while in high school, then segued into journalism, with stints at CNN International, NPR, The Marketplace Morning Report and the Weather Channel, where she chased hurricanes as a one- woman-band.

Since opening its doors in 2005, her content production company has worked with ad agencies and Fortune 500 brands across the United States, filming campaigns all around the globe.

Recent clients include Cadillac, Nissan, Honda, Kraft, MGM Studios and others.

Follow The Cortez Brothers on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Cora-SpearmanCora Spearman-Chang is the CEO and Founder of Coradorables & Cora Spearman Hawaii, Hawaii’s first product-based certified B corporation. Made in Hawaii retail brand that evokes a mid-century modern Hawaiian-kissed getaway lifestyle for men, women, and children.

Despite her battle with head/neck and brain cancer, Cora’s resilience and determination led her to found Coradorables in 2010, inspired by the birth of her first daughter. Her journey from adversity to success is a testament to her strength and serves as a powerful inspiration.

Recognized as 2024 Hawaii Power Leader by PBN, SBA Small Business Champion, and the Emerging Designer of the Year at the 2013 Hawaii Governor’s Fashion Awards, her designs now grace the shelves of 5-star resorts and hotels, online platforms, and upscale specialty shops worldwide.

She was also honored as a 2020 Pacific Business News Women Who Mean Business Honoree & a dedicated for the past 5 years Mentoring Monday Mentor. Cora’s WBENC-certified brand was Hawaii’s first featured retailer at Saks 5th Ave Waikiki, is a former Academy Awards Gifting Suite attendee, and a featured Made-in-Hawaii brand at Hankyu Department Stores Japan. Her creations, all designed, sourced and manufactured in Hawaii, have been worn by the stars of various television shows and featured in the pages of Vogue UK, Tatler, ELLE, Essence and beyond.

Cora’s commitment to sustainable fashion practices is not just a part of her colorful fashion, but it’s the ethos of her entire company. As a 2022 United Nations Climate Ambition Accelerator Graduate & Global Compact Member, she is a leading voice in the industry, frequently invited to speak on the national stage about sustainable fashion practices.

She has shared her insights on the 2022 NRF Retails Show’s “Future of Sustainability” panel alongside industry giants like LVMH and Macy’s, and her expertise has been recognized in Inc. Magazine.

Today, Cora lives in Honolulu with her husband, Kalanialii, and their two children, Izzabelle Ka’iulani and Zoe Heimakaokalani. Together, they bring a made-in-the-islands aloha spirit with them wherever they go.

Connect with Cora on LinkedIn and follow Coradorables on Facebook and X.

About Our Co-Host

Pamela-Williamson-WBEC-WestDr. Pamela Williamson, President & CEO of WBEC-West,  is an exemplary, dedicated individual, and has extensive experience as a senior leader for over twenty years.

She has served as the CEO of SABA 7 a consulting firm, overseen quality control at a Psychiatric urgent care facility of a National Behavioral Health Care Organization where she served as Vice President and Deputy Director,and has served as the CEO of WBEC-West, since 2008.

Her extensive experience in developing and implementing innovative alliances with key stakeholders has enabled the organizations to reach new levels of growth and stability. Her ability to lead and empower staff members creates a strong team environment which filters throughout the entire organization.

She takes an active role in facilitating connections between corporations and women business enterprises and sees a promising future for WBENC Certified women-owned businesses.

Dr. Williamson holds a Doctorate in Healthcare Administration, a Master’s degrees in Business Administration, and bachelor degrees in both Psychology and Sociology.

Connect with Dr. Williamson on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here with Dr. Pamela Williamson, another episode of Women in Motion, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And today’s episode is an exciting one because this is – we’re going to really dig into the impact of WBEC-West and friendship and community. And we have folks here, Pamela, that really encapsulate that.

Pamela Williamson : We do. I’m excited by this episode, and I know I probably say that about every episode that we do, but this one I’m excited about because one of the questions I get asked a lot is just what are one of the benefits? So, a lot of the benefits of being part of WBEC-West or any community of women is the connections that you make. And when I share some of the stories, people often look at me like, well, that just can’t be true. You cannot build that type of relationship with someone who might be a competitor. And I say it happens. And so, I think the two women that we have on today kind of encapsulate that being. And so I’m excited for both of them to be on. So, I’m going to start with you, Cora. So, Cora, can you kind of tell us a little bit about your background and what inspired you to start your business, and anything else you think we should know before we kick off?

Cora Spearman-Chang: Well, sure. Aloha. My name is Cora Spearman Chang, and I’m the CEO and founder of Coradurables and Cora Spearman Hawaii, Hawaii’s only product-based certified B Corporation. And luckily, not only WBENC certified business, which we’re very proud of. We are all locally sourced and manufactured. We’re an heirloom fashion brand for people who aspire to a joyful, bright, vibrant, Hawaiian-kissed lifestyle, like, for men, women, and children. We’re sustainably manufactured and sourced all here in Hawaii. And basically, when you invest in Coradurables, you’re helping to support over 30 locally family-owned and women-led businesses. So we’re very, very excited about that. You can find Coradurables on your luxury cruise ships and luxury resorts, as well as Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s, soon nationwide, but right now, in New York and online.

Pamela Williamson : Thanks, Cora. It’s – again, thank you for being here. And then, I also want to introduce Bernadette. And so, Bernadette is someone that you met actually at one of our conferences. So, Bernadette, can you talk a little bit about your background, what inspired you to start your business?

Bernadette Rivero: Sure. My name is Bernadette Rivero, and I am the president, executive producer, and co-founder of the Cortez Brothers, Inc., a production company based in Los Angeles, California. We film everything, and my primary clients are Fortune 500 brands, their advertising agencies, and film and television studios. You can find more about us on cortezbrothers.com.

Bernadette Rivero: What inspired me to get into the industry was starting to work in advertising when I was 14. I was working in a grocery store. My English teacher in high school at the time was horrified that I was up until 10 or 11 at night a few times a week and helped me get a job in a local in-house advertising agency. So, I’ve worked in content creation in one way or another for what feels like my whole life, and I’m lucky to get to do it on a daily basis for a lot of really great brands and entertainment studios.

Pamela Williamson : Thank you, bernadette. I think one of the biggest questions that I have before I pass it on to Lee is how important is it to have other women in business to connect with. Cora, I’ll throw that one to you.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Oh, it is paramount. You can’t – there is no better relationship that you can have than with another woman who’s going through the same thing. It’s like when moms bond at the playground or over their kids going to school together, or when it’s the same for the business owners, you know, because we’re basically birthing these, our figurative babies, which are our businesses, and we’re chatting over our labor pains and all the different things that go on. But it’s unique to find like minds and like hearts, you know. And so, for me, meeting Bernadette has been the best part of any cohort, any meeting, any conference that I’ve ever gone to because she is now my family; she is now my ohana.

Pamela Williamson : And Bernadette, what about you?

Bernadette Rivero: Oh, I feel the same way. I am so blessed and fortunate to have met Cora throughout the course of participating in WBENC and being a women business owner, and it’s because I remember how lonely it felt before that. There was a time when I – for a few years I was working as a journalist because, again, I’ve always worked in content creation and I’ve worked for CNN and NPR and The Weather Channel, and I was covering breaking news in a disaster zone. And there were hundreds of journalists gathered around an earthquake, you know, recovery zone. And I remember looking out and looking around and seeing hundreds of journalists, and I was one of only two women with a camera in her hands and thinking for the first time, oh, it’s a little lonely out here. This is weird.

Bernadette Rivero: And I really haven’t felt that since becoming involved with WBENC and then meeting Cora because I always have someone I can talk to now. There’s always someone who else who sort of shares the journey and knows the ins and outs and the ups and downs, and it’s been really great having someone who’s first and foremost, you know, a friend, but also a sounding board at the same time. And it’s – and I can’t – I can’t tell you which came first, the chicken or the egg in that case, but just having someone else out there who’s another women business owner, sort of on the same journey, although we’re in very different types of businesses, has been invaluable.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Yeah. No, I remember the first time we met at a WBENC conference. I must have looked like a crazy person, like running up to you after you and Suze Monroe had spoken and I was like, you are my tribe. You are my people.

Bernadette Rivero: All right. So from my point of view, you have to understand it was, you know, I had stepped off the stage, we were doing a discussion about, you know, working for Disney, I think. And out of the corner of my eye, I sense what I can only now describe as sort of a ball of tropical energy coming my way.

Cora Spearman-Chang: A hurricane.

Bernadette Rivero: Of color. There was just this explosion of color in an otherwise very staid conference room. And that was Cora, someone – the next thing I know, someone’s putting –

Cora Spearman-Chang: Chocolate.

Bernadette Rivero: Cookies. Chocolate-covered macadamia nut cookies in my hand, which is a great way to skip right to my heart, you know. But you never think going into a business conference situation. You’re going to come out with something so fun and joyful as a friendship.

Cora Spearman-Chang: A sisterhood. I mean, now – I mean, I just couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t imagine. It was the best thing. And for us to be able to talk about our ups and the ebbs and flows of business, you know, and it’s been for years now. Like, literally now, Bernadette is the godmother of my youngest daughter and so – and she’s flown out for the baptism and first communion and confirmation of her – of Zoe Dodd or Zoe as she calls her.

Cora Spearman-Chang: And oh, my goodness, it’s even – even when it comes to parenting. And I say, hey, you know, she’s getting straight A’s, but you know what she’s hanging out with a little bit of kolohe girls. And I was just like, get comadre on the phone. So I call up Bernadette and she’s like, let me speak to her. And then they will Zoom, you know, and my daughter go in her bedroom and just have FaceTime with Auntie Bernadette. And it’s definitely a community. It’s definitely a tribe. And as they say, it takes a village, you know.

Bernadette Rivero: Cora has taught me what the word ohana means, right? It really does mean family. My kids know her as Auntie Cora. And that’s how we extended our family across an entire ocean. I’m in Los Angeles, Cora is in Hawaii, but it feels like there’s no distance at all. So business, I’ve learned, doesn’t always just have to be business. A lot of times it’s life and friendship too, at the same time.

Lee Kantor: Now, Pamela, can you talk a little bit about things that WBEC-West does to kind of foster these types of relationships? Because this is special and it’s not common. And there has to be some things that you’re doing as the leader of the organization that allows this to foster and to grow.

Pamela Williamson : I think one of the biggest things that we do is we really push for authentic relationships, meaning we try to create experiences that allow people to show up as their authentic selves and build real relationships by getting to know each other in different states. And I don’t mean states like location, I mean states of who they are.

Pamela Williamson : And so, one of the things that we do is we have an event that’s just about connecting and cooking. So it’s not really about your business as much as it is about getting to know people’s likes and dislikes and how they interact with each other under different ways of being, different types of stressors and just really finding out who, for example, Cora is as a person, not just about her business. I think that’s the biggest thing that we do.

Cora Spearman-Chang: And I think that a lot of it is it’s always in a business when you look at a business, the trickle-down effect. It’s the management, it’s the leadership. And you, Dr. Williamson, are the epitome of sisterhood. And you lead with such grace. You lead with such kindness, such compassion. Like I said earlier, it’s like you’re a phone call or a text or an email away, and you always have our backs, and to me you’re extended family as well. And so it’s sort of the vibe that you’ve created throughout the entire network, you know, and I think that has a lot to do with who you are as a person and how you lead. And just kudos to you for that. I’m very grateful.

Bernadette Rivero: And echoing what – I didn’t mean to cut you off, but echoing what Cora said, it’s true. There’s very much an emphasis on stepping away from being business-oriented 24/7 and actually connecting with people on an authentic level. I struggle a lot with trying to keep a business facade on it at all times, and never talking about anything personal, and Cora has helped me open up and talk more about life, what it’s like being a mother, having kids, talking about where we’re from, what we’ve done, and it’s the sense of openness that I think that’s come under the leadership of Dr. Williamson that’s again trickled down throughout WBENC, you know, through WBEC-West specifically. There’s something special in those waters.

Lee Kantor: Now, Bernadette, can you share – you talked about how you met, you know, coming off the stage and being greeted by Cora? How did the relationship evolve after being – you know, when you met each other, it seems like very frenetic? But how did you kind of slow down and deepen the relationship and realize, hey, this is somebody that is going to be a part of my tribe?

Bernadette Rivero: We were locked in conversation, and I was also very distracted by the cookies. So I wanted to know more about Cora and we ended up walking together to lunch. I think there was a lunch session, you know, right as we were finishing, and I wanted to keep talking with her because she’s fascinating and it was just a really good conversation.

Bernadette Rivero: We sat together at the next session that came, at a big round table, and I saw some of her catalog pieces. I was looking through it. She was sharing, you know, sort of what her company did, because it’s one thing to say you have a fashion company, it’s another to actually see it in front of you. And little did I know that one of the models in the catalog would become my goddaughter one day. When I look back on it, all I can do is smile. You know, things are destined, I guess, for a reason.

Bernadette Rivero: And we had this amazing session where she’s very outspoken and she’s very confident and assured, and it’s hard not to be, you know, deeply involved in wanting to have some of that energy in your life because it’s so positive and it’s just glows. And then after that, Cora, I can’t remember when did we end – we ended up at a spa together somehow.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Yeah, well, that was at another conference.

Bernadette Rivero: Oh, another conference.

Cora Spearman-Chang: That was another WBENC conference. And, it was – we were so – we would always – WBENC would be our set meetup when we first started our relationship, when we first started meeting and greeting each other at these conferences. But we were at a spa, and that’s when you announced to me that you were pregnant with Evie, Evita. And I was just like, “Oh, my gosh.” You’re like, “No one knows yet.” I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” And so we were so excited that she was birthing this new baby and scaling her brand, and she was doing all this cool stuff. And it was like, “All right, when are you going to have this baby so that you can come to Hawaii?”

Cora Spearman-Chang: And that’s when we started having that conversation because actually, I had asked Bernadette to become an advisory board member of mine. And so, it was – I deeply valued her opinion on all things, you know, business and all things, you know, motherhood, you know, as well. We have – we’re both Midwesterns. So we both came up in the Midwest and now we live both on the West Coast. You know me a little more. But we bonded over several different things. We were both Rotary Youth Exchange students when we were young. And so coming out of the Midwest and becoming Rotary Youth Exchange students, it’s like its own little tribe, right, Bernadette?

Bernadette Rivero: That was what caught me off guard, I think, at the first WBENC conference that we had met, we continued the conversation and we ended up, I think, getting drinks in the lounge later that night.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Yeah.

Bernadette Rivero: And it was one of those conversations –

Cora Spearman-Chang: And Suze Monroe was with us.

Bernadette Rivero: Susan Monroe was there.

Cora Spearman-Chang: But she wanted us to be quiet because she was watching the game.

Bernadette Rivero: It was. It was a very sports-oriented night. But the minute I found out that Cora had had a rotary experience as well, because I had come through the Rotary International scholarship program and we’d sort of had that experience of going to another country and having to be an ambassador from the Midwest, and I couldn’t stop talking to her. There was just a lot that we had in common. And the conversations continue –

Cora Spearman-Chang: And full circle, full circle. Right now, your daughter is in Japan, where I was where I went to high school for Rotary. She’s there right now.

Bernadette Rivero: She is. She got there early this morning. And all of my fears about having my child in an, you know, 11-hour flight away totally allayed because Cora has been there. She did that. She spent a year in Japan. We spent a lot of time at the first WBENC event talking about that, your experiences. I’ve loved Cora’s insistence that it is natural to do business internationally, globally. Because what I hear from a lot of clients is it’s very hard to find companies that know how to work on a global stage. And Cora makes it seem so easy because she had the experience living and working in Japan. Speaks fluent Japanese. Her business operates across, again, oceans as if there’s absolutely no border or separation there at all. And it reminds me as a business owner, it’s okay to be okay with that fluidness of doing business globally. She makes it seem very glamorous.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Oh, I’m just a mirror. And Bernadette does the same exact thing, except across the borders on South America, throughout Europe, you know, shooting campaigns, major campaigns that my daughter’s, like, still ooh and ah about. We have it as a screensaver of L.O.L., you know, commercials and dolls that you’ve done. It’s just – you’re hashtag goals this and I’m ever proud of you. I will ever be your biggest cheerleader. And I am so grateful to WBENC for having met you like that definitely brought us together. And shout out to our niece Lam, who was insistent on me becoming WBENC certified.

Bernadette Rivero: May she rest in peace. I have lovely memories of being with our niece and she’s just, was, and is part of that longer overall circle, I think, of bonding and friendship that I’ve been lucky to find through WBENC.

Lee Kantor: Now, can both of you share some advice? Maybe for either the person that’s new to an organization or is thinking about joining an organization. But how do you kind of lean into an organization like you have and not just get involved from a business standpoint and have business objectives from being part of it, but also elevating the relationships within them and finding those special people that you can kind of bond with beyond your business and beyond the organization? Any advice?

Cora Spearman-Chang: My advice is always to show up as your authentic self. You know, be – let your freak flag fly, so to speak. You know, because it’s like your vibe will literally attract your tribe. And, you know, people who are into talking about, you know, Star Trek will invite their Trekkie vibe. You know, it’s be yourself. Be authentically you. And those who are for you will be for you and will gravitate towards you. And your relationship will have the solid foundation that is needed for any relationship to thrive, you know, because you’re being your authentic self.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Be vulnerable, you know. Be open. Be honest. You know, have integrity. You know, it’s all the bases – all of the, I think, key base points of what you would utilize in forming a business you also use in formulating your relationships, especially ones that you want to last the test of time. And you can only do that if you show up as your true self.

Bernadette Rivero: On my end, the advice would be you’re not coming in to look for contracts, you’re coming in to build relationships. Because any time you join an organization, you have to start by letting people know who you are and asking questions to find out who they are. And finding out that there are other business owners that have things in common with your business helps make yours stronger.

Bernadette Rivero: Finding out that there’s other businesses that are completely distinct from yours and are completely on different journeys, you’re still going to learn aspects that apply to growing your company. But the best part of all is finding people, humans with stories that you can exchange stories with along the way because that’s what helps you refine your message, refine who you are, refine how you do business, and build again relationships and structures along the way that help you become a better business owner.

Lee Kantor: Now, Bernadette, one of the things Cora did early on was invite you to be on her board of advisors, I believe, or on the board or one of her boards. Is that something that were you like, “Sure, I’m in,” or was this something that you had to think about? Because it seemed in the storytelling it seemed pretty fast. It happened early on in the relationship.

Bernadette Rivero: It was a game changer for me because I’d never been invited quite like that to be on a board of advisors. And it wasn’t that it was fast. It was after we’d had conversations about marketing and advertising, which is what I can drone on about for hours unless you put a drink or a cookie in my hand. And so I think she knew that I knew what I was talking about. So it was easy to create a bridge and an invitation for me to have an excuse to know more about her company but more importantly about her.

Bernadette Rivero: And I said yes because it caught me off guard, honestly, and I’ve never had the wherewithal to try that on my end. I don’t have an advisory board. I should. I think about it all the time because Cora puts them together with such finesse, with such ease and professionalism. But what it did on a practical level was make me become invested in her company. And because I already liked her as a person, wanted to see her succeed, seeing her company succeed was an extension of that.

Bernadette Rivero: Where it really deepened was throughout the pandemic because production globally shut down for several months, and I really did not know if my company was going to survive, if my industry was going to survive. What I knew was going to survive were my relationships, and I had time to dedicate to making sure her company was as strong as it could be. And that made me learn more about her company.

Bernadette Rivero: It’s been an ongoing journey to learn the roots, who her customers are, who her clients are, where to position her branding, what advice I can give, and the advice that I can’t give because there are other smarter people on her advisory board who succeed in areas I don’t have expertise in. And it made sort of like a fabric of sorts. It knitted us together both personally and professionally in a way that I find really rewarding, and it gives me a thrill every time her company succeeds.

Bernadette Rivero: Every time she accomplishes something, it’s been a brilliant journey to be on with her because I’m a part of that advisory board. So, I have skin in the game, so to speak. I would care about her as a friend anyway. I would care about her as an individual as she’s succeeding. But having a small piece to play in that makes it all that much sweeter when she does incredible things. She’s flying out to New York today to go talk to a luxury, you know, chain like that’s – she’s rolling out some incredible levels right now.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Oh, but I don’t do any of it alone, you know, and it’s your network is your net worth, you know, and, goodness gracious, if you looked at my net worth right now, it’s because I have a powerful network of a person like you, such as yourself, Bernadette, and such as Dr. Pamela Williamson. And to have you all in my corner, it literally makes me feel, in a lot of ways, invincible or like Teflon. You know, I walk in with a probably like a false sense of self, but it’s like authentically who I am. I’m talking and like, oh, I’m breakable, you know, until I get broken. It’s like, oh goodness, I still have a lot to learn.

Cora Spearman-Chang: WBENC, I can’t say enough great things. You know, it’s not about joining just to talk to the Macy’s and to the Target’s. You do do that. And I do know that those relationships can take years. Again, it’s a relationship for people to get to know you, get to know your business and eventually, you to penetrate those doors.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Like, I met Diana Pawn online through a WBENC panel that we had. And Diana convinced me to sign up for Macy’s, the workshop at Macy’s. And I just completed that. And now one of the meetings that I have when I fly to New York today is with Macy’s. So all of that and again, that goes back to the WBENC. And the first thing they ask you or one of the last things that they ask you is, “Are you WBENC certified with Macy’s?” And it’s like, “Yeah, I am,” you know, so WBENC is the glue that kind of, like, ties us all together, you know, or binds us all together.

Lee Kantor: Now, Bernadette, is there anything that you’d like to talk about? Any project or launch that’s happening?

Bernadette Rivero: Let’s see. What do we have? We are constantly in a state of filming and bidding on jobs and shooting commercials and campaigns. We just shot a second unit on a very big feature film that will be out, that I can’t speak about, I think by the end of the year through a large studio, and that was a very exciting process. We just wrapped a rebrand for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a newspaper, and that was exciting because coming full circle as someone who used to work in journalism to come back to help relaunch the image, the visual image of one of the oldest newspapers in the United States was a really fun deep dive. And as someone who used to live in Atlanta, getting to capture and film Atlanta from all its different, you know, corners and aspects and the people really filled my soul, working with, you know, the ad agency and one of our directors there, because my company represents directors. We work with directors who each film in a very different way, are artists at the end of the day. That was exciting.

Bernadette Rivero: And I just always love and look forward to projects that allow us to take someone’s idea that exists only on paper and bring it to life. Like Cora said, you know, hearing that her daughters have seen our L.O.L. Dolls commercial that we shot in Bulgaria and filled their lives with color and energy and excitement excites me. So those are some of the projects –

Cora Spearman-Chang: And you shot it underwater. That was amazing.

Bernadette Rivero: Yes. We filmed underwater because the only thing more fun than filming is when you get to dunk the whole cast and crew underwater at the same time.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Completely submerged.

Bernadette Rivero: Completely submerged. Yes.

Lee Kantor: So, Cora, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Cora Spearman-Chang: Well, we are – well, goodness gracious, I always welcome help, welcome any assistance, any support. Definitely, follow me, follow our brand on social media, on Coradorables, on Instagram and Twitter or X or whatever it’s called now, and as well as all the other platforms. But also support – I just got notified that I won 2024 small business champion with the National Retail Federation. And so, they’ll be flying me to DC next month, where I’ll meet with a lot of policymakers.

Cora Spearman-Chang: But last night, I happened to have been on a phone call with other female business owners and community activists, and they’re trying to push a Momnibus, as they call it, in regards to prenatal care as well as OB-GYN care and care for black women who are dying giving birth and throughout the birthing process. So that’s going to be a big mission that we’re going to be pushing on maternal health issues and advocacy within America, within our healthcare system. So definitely going to need our sisters of all races, creeds, etc. to help us to bring awareness to that and to push that bill forward as it makes its way through the Senate and the House.

Cora Spearman-Chang: So, definitely, advocating for female rights, female reproductive rights, and just the right to, you know, be able to do business and do business well and getting the support that we need in regards to financing, etc., you know, just all the different things that are being attacked with the Fearless Fund and with Hello Alice and being able to advocate for women just in general, just all of us need to pull together as a network and a consortium of like minds and like spirits to move the needle forward so that we can all do, make the world literally, without sounding trite, a better place.

Lee Kantor: Pamela, this must just fill you with pride, this conversation with two folks who met through your organization and through your community. And I’m sure this is just one of many that have, kind of, grown like this, but this just must make you beam.

Pamela Williamson : It does. You can’t even – I cannot even express how proud I am of them both, for all of their accomplishments, but also just the fact of the support that they give each other. And so, we know as an organization the value of having this type of relationship. We know it helps to lift you up. And that’s what we’re all about, lifting women up.

Lee Kantor: And the ripple effects that go beyond just their businesses, to their families, to their communities, it just keeps growing. The impact is real.

Pamela Williamson : The impact is real and the value of having a tribe is real. And so, I think that these two, their story definitely shows that.

Bernadette Rivero: I feel very lifted, so mission accomplished because I want to lift others, primarily Cora. But when I find other businesses that are women-owned, women-driven, that are giving opportunities to underrepresented voices, which is why my company is here in the first place. Right? That’s what is driving me. It’s not even a challenge. It’s an opportunity to lift others up as we’re being lifted ourselves.

Cora Spearman-Chang: It’s literally the fabric or the textile in which you make your business, Bernadette. It’s the voices and the amplification that you give other directors, young directors, specifically females who are starting in the industry and being able to highlight them and give them opportunities that they normally would not have access to is just who you are as a person. And, you know, I’m, like I said, honored to know you, let alone to make myself, you know, insert myself and be related to you by ohana, by hook or by crook.

Cora Spearman-Chang: You know, I’m just – I love you as a person. I love what you do with your business. And just it’s a testament to who you are. You know, it’s a testament to your spirit. And it’s a testament also to, you know, with me now, knowing your mom and your dad and how you were raised. So it’s definitely a legacy. And you do your legacy proud.

Lee Kantor: Now, before we wrap up, Cora, website, last time for ways to connect with you.

Cora Spearman-Chang: Ways to connect with me is at Coradorables and then my website is www.coradorables.com.

Lee Kantor: And Bernadette.

Bernadette Rivero: Best way to reach me is to go through our website, cortezbrothers.com, C-O-R-T-E-Z, Brothers dot com. We love having conversations with anyone who’s looking to film something anywhere around the globe. It’s what we love to do is put those together and film and make magic and make content together.

Lee Kantor: Well, Dr. Pamela, what a show.

Pamela Williamson : It was amazing. And I just – you know, I hope whoever is listening today, they walk away with just knowing that, you know, authentic, building authentic relationships is definitely one key to success.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor for Dr. Pamela Williamson. We’ll see you next time on Women In Motion.

 

Tagged With: Cora Spearman Hawaii, Coradorables, The Cortez Brothers

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