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Orion Brown’s Journey with BlackTravelBox: Celebrating Women of Color Business Owners

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Women in Motion
Orion Brown's Journey with BlackTravelBox: Celebrating Women of Color Business Owners
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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Orion Brown, founder of Black Travel Box. Orion shares her journey from a corporate career to entrepreneurship, driven by her frustration with the lack of suitable hair and skincare products for travelers of color. She discusses her initial consumer research, the development of her first product—a travel-friendly body balm—and the importance of building an authentic community. Orion also talks about her involvement with iFundWomen, a crowdfunding platform, and her future plans to expand Black Travel Box’s presence in hotels and retail spaces.

Orion-BrownOrion Brown is the Founder & CEO of BlackTravelBox®, a trailblazing clean beauty brand with a passion for serving women of color. With nearly two decades of experience, she’s a seasoned brand strategist who’s excelled in diverse industries.

Her journey includes notable roles in brand strategy at Oracle, consumer brand marketing for iconic digital brands like Transformers and My Little Pony at Hasbro, and significant contributions to beloved global brands during her tenure at Kraft Foods.

Orion recently joined Ifundwomen as a Senior Coach, helping the team equip women founders to close the funding gap by raising non-equity dilutive investments from their personal networks, and customers, and broader business communities.

Orion’s impressive academic background includes a Bachelor of Arts from The University of Chicago and an MBA from Duke University. Beyond her career, she’s an avid traveler and a devoted food enthusiast, always seeking the best of both worlds. Black-Travel-Box-logo

Connect with Orion 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 Women in Motion, we have Orion Brown with BlackTravelBox. Welcome.

Orion Brown: Hey, thanks for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to get caught up with you. For folks who aren’t familiar, can you tell us a little bit about BlackTravelBox?

Orion Brown: Yes. So BlackTravelBox is really at the apex of beauty and travel. So, we’re a hair and skincare brand, really a lifestyle brand focused on travelers of color. So, everything that we make is in forms and formats that travels well, gets through TSA and it’s actually inclusive. So, our hair and skin care products actually work for a wide variety of hair textures and skin tones.

Lee Kantor: And what’s the back story? How’d you get involved?

Orion Brown: Oh my gosh. Well, I’m a career brand strategist. I spent a lot of time in corporate America, took all of my vacation days, and I just found that every time I was traveling and every time I was on vacation, I had this singular frustration with not having access to products that really worked for my hair. I had quite a bit more hair back in my 30s, curls and everything, just so much volume. And it was a lot to really contend with bringing my own products, rewrapping things, repackaging things, running around town, trying to find a store that I could potentially find something that would work for me in. And it just took away from the beauty of being able to be on vacation and be away from sort of corporate life and be able to unwind. And so, I was on a trip to Japan, and it just really hit it home for me that there really needs to be something on the market for women of color who travel.

Lee Kantor: Now, did you launch this while you were working in corporate, or did you say, “I’m going to pull the ripcord and I’m going all in here”?

Orion Brown: Well, you know, when I started BlackTravelBox, I actually wasn’t even really thinking, “Oh, I’m going to become an entrepreneur now.” I thought- I spent quite a bit of time in food and beverage and had run pretty big brands, pretty well-known brands, and I was like, “This would just be a really cool passion project to work on and create something interesting.” So, I was working full time and continued to work full time for a while and got the feedback, particularly from early-stage investors that, you know, “We need to see that you’re all in. So, you need to be full time on it.” And so, I did take some time and do that. But you know, not all advice is good advice. So I have gone back throughout my time with working on BlackTravelBox to supplement and really to fund much of the work that we’ve done here.

Lee Kantor: So, the first move was to get investors. It wasn’t to, like, create a minimum viable product or something along those lines?

Orion Brown: No. Yeah, the first move was to do the consumer research. So, I spent about a year just looking at and understanding the consumer. And, arguably, I think a lot of time people make the mistake of believing that because they sort of resonate with the idea that they are complete and total in terms of the ideal consumer. And that’s not really true. So, I spent quite a bit of time doing consumer insights and research, surveying, doing interviews, all kinds of things, as well as going out into the marketplace to see what competitive products were out there. Because even if I hadn’t heard of it, it might already exist. And so, I went to things like Expo West and those types of places to better understand what was going on within the beauty industry as a whole, so that I could really anchor in what was the unique value proposition of this potential brand and product, as well as, like, what were the competitive set and what were really the pain points that customers like me or consumers like me had beyond the ones that were obvious.

Lee Kantor: So, you spent a lot of time kind of understanding the consumer before even putting together what the service or product was going to be?

Orion Brown: Correct, correct. And so, it really was doing that initial, my poor friends, I interviewed the crap out of my friends. Every time someone would come in town, I’d be like, “Oh, this is great, let’s have lunch. What’s in your luggage?” And just really started talking to people and then, of course, scaled that up. So, doing surveys and doing quantitative studies and that kind of thing. So really understanding.

Orion Brown: And I took a very corporate approach to it. I’m sure this isn’t like the scrappy, just sell it out of your car kind of approach. But I really took the approach of doing the due diligence to understand the consumer side and then building out both. The brand was one sort of lane of build, and then the other lane was product, right. So, what is this brand? What should it be? What should it mean to you? How does it show up in the world? And how can it be different and really differentiated? And then, from a product perspective, what can we develop that will actually meet and exceed expectations on these particular pain points?

Lee Kantor: And then what was kind of 1.0? What was the first product or service you landed on?

Orion Brown: So, the first product was our body balm. And it was an amalgam of a lot of conversations where men and women alike were like, “You know what? The products that are in hotels are just so watery,” which nobody really likes them. But the challenge is, is that they have a filler in them. And that filler is a white powder when it’s not mixed with water. The first ingredient in those lotions that you get at a hotel is going to be water. The next ingredient is some form of filler. So, what happens is, is it goes on brown skin, the water evaporates, and it leaves the white film behind. And it’s just you look dustier than you did when you were trying to get rid of the dryness.

Orion Brown: And so for me, it was about, well, how do we create a product that’s rich, emollient, and kind of does the job that we need in terms of efficacy? And then, let’s back that out and understand how do we get this thing to travel well, to be convenient, to last long? And then, how do we also then get around the headaches of TSA? And that’s where I landed on a formulation that is very, very stable. Semisolid, I would say. It’s a whipped body balm. And it’s something that our customers really, really love. I actually- it’s arguably 1.0, but it hasn’t changed since we started, and it’s been doing pretty well.

Lee Kantor: So, what was it like when you had- like, this is kind of one of those moment-of-truth times, right, where you’re like, “Okay, we’ve thought about it. We’ve talked all these people. We have a product that these people should buy,” and then you put it out there. Were you getting traction right away? Like, what was that like when you put it out to the market and just got that real data, not your friends, just real people that are going to spend money?

Orion Brown: Yeah, totally. So, the funny thing is I spent quite a bit of time after I got to the MVP doing some consumer research with the actual physical product. So, sending product out, particularly to influencers. And this is influencers like lowercase I, not uppercase I. I’m not talking about big celebrities, but folks who are in both the travel and beauty space. And the reason why is because I wanted to find super users, people who have the use case more often than most people, people who have to pack products, use products while they travel more often than most people. And so, that was the initial sort of get in front of people and get their reactions. And we got a lot of great feedback and a lot of great support from that.

Orion Brown: Once it was time to actually launch this into market, there was sort of a twofold thing. So, the first challenge was is I totally came into this, I would say arguably very naive thinking, “Entrepreneurship, it’s a meritocracy. If you show up, if you have the experience and the chops, people will come, they will invest in you and you’ll get the support you need.” That just wasn’t the case. And that first year that I went out kind of focused as a full-time job as of sorts in trying to get that funding, that initial pre-seed funding for the business, it was just like, that’s the best- that’s the technical term I’d have to give for it. So, I said, “You know what? That’s okay.” And this was going into 2020 now. So, you know how we do. We do our vision board in January. We’re like, “Okay, 2020 vision. I got this. This is going to be great. I’m going to do it organically. I’m going to bootstrap it.” And my launch date was pegged at April 1st, 2020.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it was probably something on that vision board that showed up that wasn’t on the vision board.

Orion Brown: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The world caught a cold, to say the least. And the brand and business that was all about out-of-home use, no one could leave their homes. So, it was a little bit of an anticlimactic thing. I still launched. I took about a month to just decide whether or not I was insane for even trying to move forward. But I did decide, “You know what? Here’s the thing. If I move forward, it’s so new that the unique value proposition, we can’t pivot for COVID and then pivot back.” I don’t see a way to do that. And so, I said, “You know what? I’m just going to keep this really anchored in travel and travel as the esthetic and sort of the brainchild for the entire brand. And we’re going to continue to celebrate that, but we’re going to focus on cultivating community.”

Orion Brown: And so, through that time, it was twofold. One, it was getting product into people’s hands via promotional things. So, we did a hospital or frontline workers bundle, which was our hand cream, as well as our lip balm. And being able to- you could purchase one and then donate one to a frontline worker. People wanted to be able to support frontline workers. And particularly within the black community, we found that like a lot of major hospitals and health clinics that were just overrun, just disproportionately hit by COVID. And so, it was a way to, one, give back to the wellness of my community. But two, also get people engaged and involved and understand the product without getting in like a weird space of, “Hey, you should be traveling. Hey, you should be doing this,” because I didn’t feel like that would be the right way to go.

Orion Brown: And so, that was a really wonderful way to introduce people to the brand. They understood what we stood for. They understood why we weren’t like on scene in Tahiti, like shooting stuff. And it built up our initial customer base. So, we were able to get to 10,000-12,000 followers on our social in that period of time and really start to build a buzz that landed us in a number of publications, eventually on Beyonce’s website and a number of other places.

Lee Kantor: Now, that’s a great lesson for entrepreneurs in terms of investing time and energy and resources on building community. Do you have any advice for an entrepreneur that wants to build community but may not know where to begin?

Orion Brown: Yeah. I mean, I would say the biggest thing is, is begin with the thing that’s probably most uncomfortable. I’m going to be super transparent. I don’t love to be on camera. I don’t love to be on live. I’m a little bit- I’m just old enough to not be intrigued by the internet as much, but young enough to still understand that it’s important in how it works. And so, for me, one thing that was really breakthrough was started doing Wind Down Wednesdays. And the reason why it’s a Wind Down Wednesday – again, obviously this is like I didn’t invent this. It was as a thing that was out there. But I was like, I get to have a glass of wine, so my nerves aren’t shot, and I can go live and talk with people and talk about the thing that I’m excited about without kind of freaking out and being a total klutz about it.

Orion Brown: So, the advice is, is really kind of do the hard thing. In terms of building community, especially as a small business owner or as a brand, an entrepreneur that has a brand that’s really structured around you or structured around identity, being able to see you and see who you are is so, so critical. And I think it’s also- particularly so if you don’t have funding. When you have funding, you can have no name or no face brands, right? You can have tons and tons of ad spend and acquire customers at scale really quickly. When you don’t really have that funding, the key is then to draw people in with realness. And that’s where you’re going to get highly engaged smaller communities that are really, really loyal because they get to know you as a person.

Lee Kantor: And that’s an interesting lesson for everyone to hear, but also from you coming from kind of a corporate background, where their first move usually is throw money at it.

Orion Brown: Yes.

Lee Kantor: But as an entrepreneur, with limited resources, you have to do what you got to do. So then, you had to do kind of ground up. So, it’s interesting for you to have gone through that and shared the story because you get to see both sides of that. You’ve seen what it looks like throwing money at it. And now, you’ve seen what it looks like kind of earning your way up the ladder like that.

Orion Brown: Definitely, definitely. And it’s- you know, we’re still earning our way up, but that’s the value of the connections. At one point, I had actually stopped doing wind downs. I had done maybe 80 or 90 of them in a row. Just every wee,k I was interviewing new people. We just brought it back, but I had gotten a little bit burnt out with doing it and stepped away and came back and people were like, “We missed you. We missed this.” Like people were looking for it a year and a half later, which was pretty impressive considering the internet really gives us the attention span of a flea, if at best. So, knowing that we’ve created these really deep connections with people that I can even kind of go away and come back, and they’re still there, and they’re still hungry for that connection, because we resonated on a really authentic level, it’s just priceless.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Well, that’s one of the markers of you have a brand that matters is people miss you when you’re gone.

Orion Brown: Yes, I guess that is true.

Lee Kantor: Now, can we talk a little bit about this Ifundwomen. I’m not familiar with it. I’d love to learn more. Your role in this and what it is.

Orion Brown: Sure. So, IFundWomen is a rewards-based crowdfunding platform and a community actually. A very large community, of tens of thousands of women who are entrepreneurs and who are looking to fund their businesses. So, I came into the IFundWomen community initially a couple of years ago through a grant that they had in partnership with Caress, the brand Caress. And so, with the Caress brand grant program, I was introduced to the platform. I had heard of it a little bit. And many of us have heard of like, sort of, the Kickstarters and stuff of the world. It’s that idea. It’s non-equity based. You’re essentially selling a product, service, experience, whatever it might be in service of funding your business.

Orion Brown: And so, what I was really looking for was taking the business to the next level because we had some opportunities, potential opportunities coming up in retail and other places. I had done a number of accelerators, and I really wanted to raise $50,000, so that I could get warehouse space and get out of my house and, like, execute this in a more structured way. And so, yeah, IFundWomen was great. I got amazing coaching. I think we went through about 6 or 8 weeks of coaching and classes that actually took us through the IFundWomen method, which is their way of essentially soup to nuts planning a campaign and executing it.

Orion Brown: And so, we hit and surpassed that $50,000 target. I think we came in at right around 67K as we were closing that round. And even after that, I had done tons and tons of like grants and things like that that I was like applying for. Some hit, some missed. And so, I actually opened it back up about a year and a half later or a year later, and raised an additional, gosh, we got up to 80, I think, in total. So, we had- it was just such a great experience, and I was able- the process is repeatable, it’s reliable, and it really puts, I think, the entrepreneur in the driver’s seat of their own destiny in terms of funding. And so, I joined IFundWomen recently on the back end of the business as a senior coach. And so, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with them, helping them to help entrepreneurs like me, and kind of bring in that experience of having gone through the programing to build even better programing.

Lee Kantor: Wow, that sounds wonderful. Is this a nationwide organization or global?

Orion Brown: It’s actually global. So I have literally coached people random times in Norway because it’s as long as you can make a time, all of the programing is digitally delivered. So, it gives you the opportunity to really- whether you’re reviewing things asynchronously, like watching videos of workshops and things of that nature or getting one-on-one coaching, it’s all done remotely. So, it’s very, very much global.

Lee Kantor: And can you tell us- we use the word community multiple times here. I’d like to ask you a question about why you decided to become part of the WBEC-West community.

Orion Brown: Oh, yes, definitely. It’s funny because when I first started out, I was like, “What can I do to get this business in front of as many people as possible?” And one of the first things that comes up is when I walk in a room, people notice that I’m black and I’m a woman. And so, understanding that there are a lot of platforms in different places out there that do certifications and things like that for the disadvantaged or minority businesses or whatever you want to call it. I started to do research. And actually, at the time I had spoken with a woman who she was just really kind, and she was like, “I used to work with WBENC and let me just tell you more about it.” And it just felt like it was a much more comprehensive community-based sort of situation or certification than anything else that I had seen out there. There was a lot more programing, a lot more community, a lot more connectivity. And so, that’s what brought me in. And then I’ve been a certified WBE for now, I think three years. And we just had our conference out here in Denver where I’m located. And it just continues to give dividends.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s next for BlackTravelBox?

Orion Brown: Oh, my. I would say my focus now and has been for really almost the last year but continues to be, getting us into hotels. We’re in a hotel called Rooms in New York. We’re looking to get into other hotels within their sort of blanket of hotel groups, as well as talking to some of the major players. And that’s always a challenge, right, when you’re a small business. But we’re really hopeful for an opportunity to not only get into in-room, but get into sundry shops, get into their retail, etc., because we really want to be where our customers are. The challenge for most people is we can’t find you when we need you. And so, that is the focus as we go into this next phase of growth.

Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wants to connect with you and become part of the BlackTravelBox community, where should they go?

Orion Brown: Oh, yes. So, you can find us at BlackTravelBox.com, or you can find us on pretty much any social platform. Although I would lean towards Instagram, @BlackTravelBox. And if you’d like to find me, Iamorion_helana on Instagram.

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

Orion Brown: Thank you. I really appreciate you guys for having me. This was really fun.

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

 

BRX Pro Tip: Start a Group Instead of Joining One

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Start a Group Instead of Joining One
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BRX Pro Tip: Start a Group Instead of Joining One

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, there’s a lot of opportunity, maybe it’s easier than it used to be, to join groups that could be important in growing your business. What’s your take and counsel on joining groups?

Lee Kantor: I think it’s super important to join groups and everybody should have a community of some sorts in a variety of areas of interest. But I think something also to consider, especially if you’re an entrepreneur or a business leader, is to consider starting your own group that’s around something that’s important to you, and a group that you can, you know, kind of build your own community around.

Lee Kantor: And the way to do that, I think, is you find a handful of people, probably less than six people, that also have some sort of a commonality or some sort of desire that’s similar to yours. And then, you kind of brainstorm with them and say, “Okay. This is what I’m thinking. Do you think that we can get some other people involved?” You got to get clear around the purpose and the intent and the outcomes that you all desire.

Lee Kantor: Like, for instance, is this going to be a leads group? Is this going to be a group where we’re going to share leads and we’ll help each other grow? Is it going to be a mastermind group where we’re going to help each other solve problems and learn more about each other and things like that? Is it an industry group where we’re just going to kind of understand the cutting edge stuff that’s happening in the industry?

Lee Kantor: So, once you get agreement on that type of thing, then you just kind of have to get agreement around the rhythm of it. Are we going to meet once a week, once a month, once a quarter? What is the goals we want? What do we all have to do in order to execute this? And you have a couple of meetings around that and then you see how it’s going. Is this something now do we want to get more members? Is this something that we want to keep small and intimate, you know, under 10 people or under 15 people? Or is it something we want to just create some sort of a mixer or a kind of a larger group where there’s, you know, 50 to 100 people in there?

Lee Kantor: So, you have to decide what it is you’re trying to accomplish and see if you can get a handful of people to kind of go along for the ride and let it play out. Because I think a lot of times you’re going to find that a group that you kind of curate and you kind of are in charge of is going to help you more specifically achieve the things that you want to do. So, you don’t always have to join a group and be a member of it. You can create a group and be the leader of it.

David Shapiro with DSE

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Cherokee Business Radio
David Shapiro with DSE
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FF-David-Shapiro-DSEDavid Shapiro is the Producer / Director at DSE, an Atlanta-based script-to-screen promo video production company generating Corporate, Commercial and Documentary showcases for worldwide audiences.

DSE produces powerhouse promo videos for corporate and charitable clients, as well as fascinating feature-length documentaries, consistently striving to deliver effective storytelling for on-line platforms and theatrical audiences.

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BRX Pro Tip: The Main Difference Between a Team and a Family

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BRX Pro Tip: The Main Difference Between a Team and a Family
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BRX Pro Tip: The Main Difference Between a Team and a Family

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I have heard the terms family and team used a lot in the business arena, how do you make the distinction?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. This is one of those things in business you hear so much, you know, we’re a family, we’re a family, we’re a family. But in essence, most businesses are a team. And to me, the biggest distinction between a team and a family is a team is always looking for the best players. Teams are continually replacing the weakest member with somebody stronger. Where a family is always protecting the weakest member, and they’re always doing everything they can to make sure the weakest is being taken care of and that they can thrive.

Lee Kantor: So, as a leader of your business, you have to decide is your business more like a team or is your business more like a family. There’s no right or wrong answer, but as its leader, you have to decide which way are you going to go, because there’s ramifications for whichever path you decide to take.

Lee Kantor: So, just be clear that in business, we’re typically more like a team than a family. In business, we’re typically looking to continuously improve and continuously find those A players that can help take that business to a new level.

All About Tansy, the only Black Women owned Nursery in LA County – Celebrating Women of Color Business Owners

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Women in Motion
All About Tansy, the only Black Women owned Nursery in LA County - Celebrating Women of Color Business Owners
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Shawna Christian joins Lee Kantor in this episode of Women in Motion. Shawna is the owner of Tansy, a plant nursery and home decor shop. They discuss Shawna’s shift from a successful IT career to entrepreneurship, her journey, challenges, and the positive community impact of her business. Shawna highlights Tansy’s diverse customer base, strong LGBTQ support, and her plans to start shipping plants.

Shawna-ChristianShawna Christian left her 24-year career in IT to follow her dream and open her own business. Tansy is a family-owned and operated nursery and home goods store located in Burbank, California as well as Seattle, Washington.

Tansy features a wide array of hand-picked indoor and outdoor plants, as well as a vast selection of art and home goods from all over the globe.

Shawna is the only black female in LA county to currently own a nursery.

Connect with Shawna 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 Women In Motion, we have Shawna Christian with Tansy. Welcome.

Shawna Christian: Hi everybody. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Tansy.

Shawna Christian: So, Tansy is a plant nursery. It is also home décor accent shop. We have items from all around the world. It’s insanely colorful. It evokes so much emotion and joy. It’s my baby.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s your back story? Have you always been involved in this kind of business?

Shawna Christian: You know, after dedicating 24 years to the management of a very successful outsource IT firm, I had a very close friend passed away suddenly, and it just made me realize that it was time for a change. That as much as I loved my old job, my old business, it was just time to move on. I was in that later part of my life. My kids were grown. And I, for the last 10 to 15 years, had really become obsessed with plants and home décor and just, essentially, making your home a sanctuary. Your home is your safe space, and I learned that very early on, and it was one of those things that I just got really good at.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about kind of the decision to change careers. Like you had a passion, obviously, you were enjoying it in your own life. Can you go through kind of the thought process and maybe how you came to actually taking action on this and not just keeping it in the background? Like a lot of people do with their dreams, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. I’ll get to it whenever.” But can you walk us through what it took to go from, “Yeah, I’m going to do this” to actually doing this.

Shawna Christian: Yeah, definitely. So, it was a few things happening. It was the realization that, you know, life is just so short. The person who I actually spoke about that passed away suddenly, he was on the brink of changing his life. He was about to live his lifelong dream about a couple of weeks away from it before he passed away suddenly. So, that was a pretty big impetus for me.

Shawna Christian: I had been with this company for 24 years. It afforded me an amazing life. I made a very good salary. It’s very comfortable. I had helped build it from the ground up. It was just amazing. And once I turned 50, I realized that if I didn’t change up what I was doing now, I was never going to do it. I didn’t want to die there, so to speak. I had all these ideas of other things I had wanted to do.

Shawna Christian: And I have to say, I do feel like I had a little bit of a leg up because I had run a company for so long, I feel like I had already had the skills to be able to do this specifically. And once you get over the fear, which I think is the biggest piece that stops you from doing things, it’s kind of like all – what is it? – move ahead. Everybody go. Let’s do this.

Shawna Christian: It was definitely a very quick transition for me, unfortunately. I would have liked to have it been a little bit slower, because it feels like I did think it through, but I didn’t think it through deep enough, if that makes any sense. It was one of those things where I said, “Oh. This would be very neat to do. Let me see if I can sit down and write a business plan.” I wrote the business plan. Then, I was thinking, “Hmm. I wonder if I can get a small business loan off this business plan?” And I applied for a small business loan and got approved. And then, two weeks later, we found a space in Burbank to renovate and to do. It all happened so quickly, I almost didn’t even have time to scare myself out of it.

Lee Kantor: Did you go through kind of a pros and cons or playing out “Okay. What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Like did you get into that side of it as well?

Shawna Christian: Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. And honestly, you know, writing down the pros and cons list as I was talking about fear, the biggest thing for me was what is the worst possible scenario that can happen from me doing this. And, really, I’m not going to be homeless. I have an amazing support group around me that would always help me if ever need be. I will always have clothes on my back. I will always be able to get food.

Shawna Christian: Really, the biggest fear was, “Oh. It might not work. I might have to owe some people money. Maybe I have to claim bankruptcy.” But, really, when it came down to it, the pros and cons, the list of pros, even when you first write it down, it could be the same amount, or you could even have more cons than pros per se. But then once you do it, the amount of pros that come up just from living in that life just supersedes it. It is hands down I would never go back.

Lee Kantor: And it’s funny doing the exercise like you did, in which a lot of people do is, you know, kind of imagining or catastrophizing the worst possible scenarios that could happen. A lot of time we don’t spend as much time on what are the best possible outcomes. We focus only on what are the bad things that can happen, but we don’t even anticipate all of the positives that are going to come out of it.

Shawna Christian: Yeah. And, honestly, I couldn’t even have told you most of the positives that have come out of it so far. Like, I couldn’t have told you in the beginning. I really needed to do this and to work through it and to see what basically came out of it, because it’s basically shaped my whole life and it has completely changed the direction of me.

Lee Kantor: Now, talk about those early days when you’re coming from a more established company and a comfortable kind of day-to-day routine, I’m sure, to now this more chaotic, more make some stuff up as we go scenario that you kind of thrust yourself into.

Shawna Christian: Yeah. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, essentially. It’s funny, we like being comfortable as human beings. We like being in something that we know, that there’s not a lot of change, what have you. But with that, there’s definitely no growth. You get to a certain point where if you could do this in your sleep, I don’t know how you stay awake for your normal daily life.

Shawna Christian: It is crazy to own your own business. It’s insane. There are days where I am putting fire after fire after fire out. There are days where I’m wondering sometimes how I’m going to pay payroll. And then, there are other days where we get to see what we’ve accomplished and what we’ve done. And that just makes it all worth it. Do I miss having money and not worrying about money? Definitely. Definitely. But again, I would never go back. It’s only up. It’s only up from here.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I think what happens to a lot of people who choose this entrepreneurial route is they kind of become unhirable because they get used to “Hey, we’re making things happen and we’re just figuring it out,” and you don’t have kind of the patience for a lot of the bureaucracy or politics that happen in more of a corporate environment.

Shawna Christian: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Your tolerance is definitely not the same. And it’s that thing, too, I think that when you live in every moment and there’s reaction to every moment, that’s how you come across. And being in a corporate environment, that just doesn’t work. You either look unstable, or you look like you’re a maverick, or you look like you’re not really part of the team. But I had a great mentor, the gentleman who owned the company that I worked for, for 24 years, he was an expert at it. He bobbed and weaved like I’ve never seen. And, honestly, it’s something I probably couldn’t have even learned in college. It was definitely a great education.

Lee Kantor: So, why do you think that so many people are afraid to kind of take the leap that you have made? What does it take to overcome that fear?

Shawna Christian: I think a lot of it stems from having very low self-confidence. It’s scary to think that you could basically maybe take away a safety net to do something that you love, but I think it’s more in the idea that you’re not 100 percent sure you believe in what it is you’re doing, whether you’re making art, or you’re coming up with a new invention, or you’re trying to bring a service to people that maybe isn’t around. You have these seeds of self-doubt, like “Why hasn’t somebody done this before?” or “Nobody’s going to want to buy this art of mine, only I like it.”

Shawna Christian: I think until you get over the self-doubt, you’re never going to fully jump, you’re never going to fully leave that life and really extend yourself and try and do something different. I think, unfortunately, it’s human nature, but fear is the driving force behind so many things, so many things. And like you were saying, the fact that you can think of all these cons, but nobody really stops to think of the pros. It’s a mindset. It is totally a mindset.

Shawna Christian: And I can’t say that this is like an automatic switch, like just think positive. It’s not that at all. It’s literally going through the idea of you have to stop worrying what people think about you. You have to be insanely strong and confident in what it is you’re bringing to the masses or to your customers, your clients. Once you’re there and you really, really love what you’re doing, and nobody’s going to tell you different, that fear of doing it, it dissipates. It goes away. It really does.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. The first sale you have to make is to yourself.

Shawna Christian: Yeah, yeah. If you don’t believe in yourself, you are not going to con anybody else to do this for you at all, at all.

Lee Kantor: And that comes across. That’s not something you can really fake. People can sense if you’re really all in or not.

Shawna Christian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, it’s just confidence is such a huge thing. I think a lot of people are born with it. I think some people aren’t. I think some people have to learn it. But it has to be a jumping point. If you don’t have the confidence, you will always stop yourself. There will always be something in the back of your head telling you why you’re going to fail or why you shouldn’t be doing this.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned some of the positives that you didn’t kind of anticipate, can you share some of those moments where you were like, “Hey, I am making an impact. My work is important and this thing is working.”

Shawna Christian: I think the biggest thing for me was I never really was a person who sat in the idea of pushing my femininity out into the open, my race. I’ve always felt like I’m Shawna, and I never really defined myself in any manner. It really just wasn’t a thing for me. I’m of mixed race. I was raised in different religious households. I had to adapt pretty much my whole life, which was great, but it made it so I never really thought about what I was or who I am. I just was always just very confident.

Shawna Christian: And doing this has shown me that everybody is different, but it’s the amount of women who I have come across who don’t know how to begin changing their lives. The amount of women who DM me, they email, they call, they come into the shop, and it’s always “Can I take you to lunch? Can I take you to breakfast? I just want to pick your brain. How did you start? What made you want to do this?”

Shawna Christian: And, really, the biggest piece for me was there is this need to not educate, but to help other women find their voice and find their vehicle to basically take control of what it is they’re doing and for them to just become insanely proud of it. And it was something that I didn’t realize that it was a need. It just hadn’t really occurred to me. But it’s the biggest thing in my life right now. And I’d have to go straight down to the fact that I had a great mentor, I think it’s the same thing.

Lee Kantor: And it’s probably one of those things where while you were having that mentorship, it just probably organically occurred during your day-to-day life and you don’t realize how other people are lacking that.

Shawna Christian: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You don’t. I mean, it’s that idea that when you put your child into, say, an advanced class, most times your child will basically push themselves forward to try and stay in that advanced class as opposed to if you’re going to put a child into a class where kids are like messing around and not doing much, what do you think that child’s going to do? And so, you don’t realize when you’re being mentored or actually people are showing you things on how to do and how to be, I can’t even put a monetary value on it.

Shawna Christian: I’m so grateful that I got 24 years of just the most amazing mentor in the world. And I realized it’s this whole idea of pay it forward. And it’s what I want to do. It’s made something where I have now found my life’s mission from opening this business, where if you had asked me when I first opened the business, this wasn’t even on my radar.

Lee Kantor: Now, for folks who haven’t been to Tansy, can you explain how Tansy is different? Like, you used the word nursery, but it’s a lot more than a nursery. It’s a community. And you’re doing work that goes well beyond buying a plant for the yard. Can you talk about how you’ve kind of reframed what a nursery could be and you’ve created this third place, really?

Shawna Christian: You know, it’s funny, it was this idea that I wanted to sell plants and I wanted to sell things that I would only have in my own house. That was kind of how it started. And it turned into the most insane community. People come to our shop and it’s their field trip for the day. The shop itself, because of all the color and all of the curation that’s been put into this shop, whether it’s stuff for your home or it’s gifts or it is the plant room, it evokes so much emotion from people.

Shawna Christian: We always know when it’s somebody’s first time when they come in. The look on their face, it is something I wish I could bottle. It is amazing to see. The amount of community that we have been able to create, we have workshops, and we have parties, we have pop-ups. We are very supportive of local artists. Half the items in our shop are of local artists. And it has turned into something that is just, again, I could never imagine the vehicle in which this was going to become. It’s just been amazing.

Shawna Christian: We also have what I call the Teen Titan program. We have girls ages 9 through 13 – I have a waiting list every summer at this point – and we pick basically seven girls, and each one gets a day to come in over summer and they get to work four hours one day a week. And they get to learn how to run a business. They get to learn how to help customers. They get to learn about plants.

Shawna Christian: And the biggest piece for me is this idea that ages 9 through 13, that is like the most uncomfortable age for a girl. You don’t know your voice, you don’t know your body, everything is like pins and needles. And you get these girls in there and the first day they’re there, you can barely hear what they’re saying because they’re just so guarded and just don’t know how to talk. And then, you get to the end of summer and we have people coming in the door and they’re like, “Hi. Welcome to Tansy. Can I help you find something? Here, let me walk you over. So, tell me, how well do you know plants?” It is amazing. It is amazing.

Shawna Christian: And so, this whole business has turned into something I could just never have forecasted.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. That wasn’t in the business plan, I’m sure.

Shawna Christian: Not at all.

Lee Kantor: And that’s the beauty of entrepreneurship, you can adjust to the new information you’re getting as it’s happening. That didn’t have to go to a committee and a board to make a decision.

Shawna Christian: Right. No, I didn’t have to get approval for it. It’s very nice to feel like you get to make your own decisions, as scary as it might be sometimes.

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

Shawna Christian: So, I hadn’t realized what a community it was. Initially, when I had first opened my business, a friend of mine, a mentor of mine had said this is something you might want to look into. And it’s one of the only women I know who is just, you know, years ahead of me when it comes to business, and everything she says I listen to. And so, I looked into it, I started down the path and I kind of gave up halfway. It was a lot. COVID hit. We were bobbing and weaving trying to kind of figure out how we were going to stay open. And it was a lot of paperwork. And I kind of gave it up.

Shawna Christian: Well, fast forward, I have this master plan of something that we have in the works that involves women, and it involves women around the country. And my friend, one of my mentors had basically said, “Hey, you might want to try this again. I think it would be really good.” And so, I finally had time. I did my research and I was blown away. I was blown away at the amount of female support that WBEC gives. I had no idea. I had no idea.

Shawna Christian: It was one of those things where I had been trying to do what they do on a large scale. For me, trying to do it on this really, really small scale for women that I’m meeting, not even realizing that this network that WBEC offers, it’s life changing. It’s life changing. And I am so proud and excited to be part of it.

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

Shawna Christian: What do I need more of? I would like to have more group specific to industries. I would love to be able to have those groups where I can find where it’s great to have a retail group, but I would love to find a retail group that’s, say, in the top five biggest cities in America. Because it’s a major difference being the only Black female-owned nursery in all of Los Angeles County than it is for me to talk to somebody who they’re in retail and they might be selling candles and they have places in, like, Oklahoma and Florida or what have you. I like the idea of having just more defined meet and greets, if that makes any sense.

Lee Kantor: Right. With people that are kind of doing work maybe similar, maybe not exact, but tangentially connected to your kind of mission and vision.

Shawna Christian: Yeah, exactly. They don’t have to be into plants per se. But maybe they are – I don’t know. Maybe it is plants.

Lee Kantor: Who’s your ideal customer? Are they right now people in and around Burbank, in Los Angeles County? Can people order your things online?

Shawna Christian: Yeah, definitely. So, our demographic, it’s a good 70 percent women from ages, like literally, one, because we have children’s stuff as well, to 100 years old. We definitely are very well-established and liked within the LGBTQ community as well. We have a website, it’s shoptansy.com. We can ship all over the world. We don’t ship plants right now. It’s something we’re actually going to start doing. But we have our social media as well, it’s ShopTansyLA for Los Angeles. We did open a second location in Seattle last year, and so that’s ShopTansySEA. Our demographic is definitely highly female, but we cater to anybody who has a love of plants and color, honestly.

Lee Kantor: And that website is shoptansy, S-H-O-P-T-A-N-S-Y,.com.

Shawna Christian: You got it.

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

Shawna Christian: Thank you so much. And thank you again so much for even thinking of me and having me. I’m so excited to hear this.

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

 

 

BRX Pro Tip: The Reason Your Guest Doesn’t Share Their Interview

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BRX Pro Tip: The Reason Your Guest Doesn’t Share Their Interview

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, one of the reasons I think that our media company, Business RadioX Network, has seen the success it has is because our guests are so great about turning around and sharing their interview with the constituencies that matter to them most.

Stone Payton: But I have talked to other people who have shows outside the network, and it seems like their guests aren’t sharing those interviews as prolifically. I mean, why not, do you think?

Lee Kantor: I think this is one of the big differentiators between the way that we train our studio operators and our hosts when it comes to doing interviews, and I believe the number one reason a guest does not share their interview is because the guest does not feel the content is valuable enough for them to make the effort and share it. I mean, that’s really the bottom line. A lot of show hosts make the show about themselves, and they don’t really shine a light on the guest, and they don’t give the guest the opportunity to share their intelligence, and their IP, and the advice and things like that.

Lee Kantor: So, I think that where we really have differentiated ourselves and really helped a lot more hosts become successful and have shows that go on for years is because we have taught this very well. In every interview, you should try and give your guest a question or a series of questions that they answer that will give them a valuable soundbite or content that they can self-servingly use in their own marketing. This is going to ensure that they share their episode with their people, their audience, and their network.

Lee Kantor: If you don’t do that, if they’re just a prop for you to be smart, they’re not going to share it. It’s just not going to work out. The thing you have to do is make them look good. You have to give them opportunities to shine. You have to give them opportunities to share what they know.

Lee Kantor: And as a bonus tip, and this is something that we’re getting better at, especially with the advent of all these AI tools, is you have to give them media assets in a way that makes it easy for them to share. So, the more media assets you give them, the better it is and the more likely it is that they’re going to share that content with other people. And guess what? Every time they do that, you come along for the ride so it’s a win-win all the way around.

BRX Pro Tip: 5 Places to Look for Your Next Podcast Guest

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BRX Pro Tip: 5 Places to Look for Your Next Podcast Guest

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. You know, a lot of people in my community, Lee, are surprised when they’re asking me about podcasting. And I tell them, you know, I don’t run out of questions but I also don’t run out of guests. And they’re really surprised that we have a consistent flow of guests. What tips, if any, do you have on finding good guests for your next podcast?

Lee Kantor: That is one of the areas where we do not have to worry about. And it’s funny because when you hear so many people, one of their big obstacles they put in front of themselves is this fear of not getting guests.

Lee Kantor: So, if I was, you know, plopped into this world and I had never done this before, these are five places I would look for if I was looking for guests for a brand new show, and I had no network or I had no experience doing this before.

Lee Kantor: So, the first place I would look is my personal network. I would ask people I already know and people who know me and I would start with them, that’s the first place I would go. And then, the second place I would go is I’d go on LinkedIn and see if I can kind of dig a little deeper, and then I would start asking my LinkedIn connections to be a guest or if they knew of any guests.

Lee Kantor: Thirdly, I would lean on my professional business associations. First, I’d start with some of the leadership from those associations, and I’d start asking them to be a guest and/or some of the members of the association to be guests. Another place to look is through other kind of social media platforms or podcast platforms. Look for guests who have appeared on other podcasts that are in your industry. So, if they’ve been a guest on one show, there’s a high probability they’ll be open to being a guest on your show.

Lee Kantor: And then, finally, the last place I would look for guests, which is really the most obvious place, is, all the previous guests, I would ask them for referrals for my next guest. So, those are five places that I would go to look for guests.

Frank Zaccari with Life Altering Events

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Frank Zaccari with Life Altering Events
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Frank-ZaccariFrank Zaccari is an adept Professional Problem Solver, and engaging TV, podcast and youtube Show Host and speaker. With a diverse background spanning military Trust-the-Process-Book-Program-v2 service in the U.S. Air Force, over 25 years in the high-tech industry, and acclaimed authorship, Frank brings a wealth of experience to his endeavors.

As a 5-time Best-Selling and 2-time Award-Winning Author, Frank has penned nine impactful books and co-founded the Trust the Process – Book Marketing Program, propelling numerous authors to success. He is a passionate mentor, conducting workshops at institutions like Arizona State University, the University of California Entrepreneurship Academy and guiding veterans through the Veterans Treatment Court.

An accomplished speaker and NAMCA Certified Speaker, Frank captivates audiences worldwide. He hosts a popular Roku TV and YouTube show with over 240,000 listeners across 42 countries. Frank holds a Management Development for Entrepreneurs Certification from UCLA Anderson School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from California State University at Sacramento.

Driven by his mission to unlock opportunities, solve challenges, and foster high-performing teams, Frank Zaccari continues to make a profound impact in business, leadership, and authorship.

Connect with Frank on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Really excited about the guests that I have on with me today. Mr. Frank Zaccari, CEO of Life Altering Events. He’s a five time best selling and two time award winning author. Frank has penned nine impactful books and co-founded the Trust Process Book marketing program, propelling numerous authors to success. He’s a passionate mentor, conducting workshops at institutions like Arizona State University and University of California Entrepreneurship Academy, and guiding veterans through the Veterans Treatment Court. Frank, welcome to the show.

Frank Zaccari: Trisha, thank you. It’s always a pleasure to be with you.

Trisha Stetzel: I’m really excited about our conversation today. So the first thing that I want to draw out, Frank, is you’re in California and I’ve invited you to be on Houston Business Radio. And you and I have a background together through the Houston Regional Veterans Chamber of Commerce. And thank you so much for all you give to that organization. And you’ve also got some other Houston ties. I want to just give one plug. Thank you, Frank, for allowing so many of us to be authors in this best selling book. It was an amazing experience. So let’s talk about Frank’s ties to Houston first.

Frank Zaccari: Sure, be happy to. I love Houston. I used to come to Houston in my high tech life many years ago and spent a lot of time there. Um, then I was went back to Houston again when the, uh, when the housing meltdown occurred and Houston was becoming almost like a ghost town or even was leaving, it was a disaster. But but what I love about the people of Houston and I love about the organization, is that they they said, we’re not going to let this define us. And the city has come back and the whole community, the whole area has come back and has brought businesses back in, and it’s got a very positive attitude and positive approach to life. And then it started partnering with people like the Houston Regional Veterans Chamber of Commerce, because what I saw with Houston is they started to look around. It says, all right, what do we have a lot of? Okay. We have a lot of oil and gas and we have a lot of veterans. Okay. So how now do we take this big block of veterans that we have that are living in the Houston area, the community, and bring them into the fold because these are the people. These are the kind of people you want to own businesses and be part and be employees. Yeah, that was the CEO for several years. Everybody wants loyalty and persistency and a leadership and willingness to work around and find obstacle around obstacles and get that way. And I look at Houston and that’s what I see. I see a city who finds a way around. Whatever the problem is, it will find a way.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And just to note, we have the highest concentration in the nation of veterans. Uh, second highest, excuse me, of veterans in the greater Houston area. And we’re number one for female veterans in the nation here in the greater Houston area. So you’re absolutely right. There is a huge market to be served here when it comes to our veterans and how we can help them. And for those of you who are only listening and are not watching the video, the plug that I was giving was on this beautiful book that Frank afforded many of us from the chamber and otherwise, but veterans to coauthor business secrets from the battlefield to the boardroom. And for most of us, Frank, it was our first time to go through that process. And I know that you have built a business around helping people with that. So would you just give us an overview of a short overview of your background to get started, and then we’ll take a deeper dive?

Frank Zaccari: There. Sure. Very thumbnail sketches that grew up in Western New York in the Buffalo area, and I was the only ladder guy I ever won was the military lottery, and my draft number was ten. So, okay, that pretty much made a lot of decisions to things were done. They were deciding. Um, I enlisted in the Air Force rather than going into the Army. I was during the Vietnam War. And so I was a medic in the military near the end of the war. I didn’t I was not combat medic, but I was in the Air Force during that period of time. When I got out and went back to school and I got into the high tech world, I don’t know how or why, but I did, and I thought, well, I’ll stay in high tech for a couple of years. I my degree is in finance. I’ll go back into the finance world. And 27 years later, I was a CEO of two companies up in Seattle, and it was still in high tech. All right, which I loved, I loved we had a domestic situation change and I became a single father with my two young daughters. And so getting out of high tech was necessary because I was traveling too much and had to be a full time father. I took over an insurance agency which which I tell everybody, if you come from high tech, proactive industry and you go to insurance reactive industry, it’s like dying and going to hell if you’re a type A personality like God.

Frank Zaccari: But it was a means to an end, a means to an end. I had to get my daughters through school to get them into their first, what they call grown up jobs, which we did, and they both did them very, very well. Uh, I, uh, got married again at in my 60s. And so my wife had a house in San Diego, which is where I am now. And then I have a house in Scottsdale, Arizona. So we basically go between the two quite frequently. Uh, we the book thing for sure, just it nothing was planned. I didn’t plan any of this. Um, I was going through counseling after the divorce, and one of the counselor said, Frank, you need you need to journal and write this down. No chance. Don’t write this down. I’m living it. Well, I want to write it down and memorable. So, um, one of my daughters said, yeah, dad, do it. So I do stream of consciousness. I’ve never been trained as a writer, never had not just stream of consciousness. Write down, write down, and then go back and start it to starting to make sense a little bit. And I found out that cannabis, who became my publisher and we put the book out, um, and the first book was not it was a good book, but it didn’t what I was doing.

Frank Zaccari: Right. Right. So I did five of those that way not knowing what I was doing, what, five books? And then I said, okay, I’m going nowhere. Stop, this isn’t working. And then Cat cannabis calls me back and I’m driving to Phoenix and I’m in the middle of the desert. And she says, you got to write again. You’re too good. And I said, okay, I’m tired. I don’t want to do this anymore. So I said, let me get off the freeway. So I’m sitting in a Dunkin Donuts in Goodyear, Arizona, and it’s 110 degrees. And she’s saying, Frank, we’re going to do a series. We’re going to do a series of books in the Business Secrets series. Okay. And the first one was going to be about business things you don’t see coming. And so that one went to number one, and we figured it out, and that my partner Melissa Van Hoss and me, at least we figured out how to market and promote books. Right? So book goes to number one and the second, uh, cat comes back to me. She says, Frank, people say they got their business under control, but the personal life isn’t very good. And we need to write about relationship issues because you’re a master at failed relationships. Thanks, Cat. Not a nice.

Trisha Stetzel: Compliment.

Frank Zaccari: There’s a second book and it went. Yeah, yeah, that one went to number one. And then we had, um, your life could be going good, but you get stuck, and that’s just the way it is. Everybody gets stuck. So that was a third book. Then I wanted to do the fourth one with veterans. I’ve always wanted to do this, and David Weaver and you and your group are so gracious to step up and say, yeah, let’s be part of this. And what we wanted to show. And this is not just for veterans, it’s for anybody. Everything’s a transition. Every transition is difficult. So what are you going to do and what is your goals and how do you connect and how do you reach out and find people. And that was what it was all about. And we talked to veterans. They all say, oh, I can’t write. And my story is boring. And so as we did with, uh, with this one, we sent questions and said, here, fill these out. We’ll fine tune it with you for you. And what was amazing was, as we were going through, we 1919 contributing authors, and as we were going through it, the women, their stories were so much better. They were so much more in depth. There was so much more emotion. There was so much more detail. And it made a huge difference when the guys were good that the guys were, yes, I’m there, did this, and they’re pretty much, you know, to the point.

Frank Zaccari: Yeah. But uh, but but the lady, the women veterans, we had a mom, a military mother, and then we had a woman who, uh, um, flew the troops over. She was a flight attendant, flew troops over to to Vietnam. And we got her perspective on what it was like, uh, interacting with military so that the thing that that I found in doing this book and the thing that I find. And every time I go to Houston and meet with you and your team is there’s this there’s this resiliency. Okay, we’re going to not just do okay. Here’s something just for veterans okay. That’s wonderful. There’s 45,000 entities that deal with veterans. But you go to the other side and you go into the Houston community and you say, okay Houston, we’ve got these people. You got great employees or great businesses here. And what do you need and how do we make it better for you, as opposed to what I see in some veteran groups that come out and say, look, we served you and now you owe us. Okay. Well, then what? He owes you anything? No one owes you a thing. So what do you bring? What value? And when? When I read your story and Carlene and, uh. And LaToya, uh, Westbrook. The story was this is the value that I have. This is how you take all those skills that you’ve developed and you translate it because the world is changing radically.

Frank Zaccari: I interviewed a futurist named, uh, doctor, um, Edward Hess from the University of Virginia at the Darden School. And he told me, he said, Frank, children entering kindergarten today, right now, today, 65% of them are going to work in a career that doesn’t exist today. It doesn’t exist. Wow. And I said, well, that’s pretty intense. And he said, look over, look over history, the industrial revolution, those jobs didn’t exist. And you went to the automation that didn’t exist. And the tech world. He says. So it’s in a constantly evolving thing. So finding your value and finding your skills and how do your skills translate? And I hear this all the time, particularly the veterans. You know, I get ready to go. And you know what? I don’t have any skill. Yeah you do. Yes you do. But let’s sit down. And when you do a great job with working with veterans and working with the community, here’s what they bring to the party. Here’s the value proposition. Now, doesn’t this make sense in your business? And if you have a business, doesn’t it make sense to say, look, this is what this is what I can bring and you have to have value. Just can’t be I serve. So help me out here. It’s got to be I have value build what it is and you guys do a great job.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you I appreciate that. I love the mission of this particular chamber because it’s not just about networking. It really is about identifying all of those amazing veterans out there who have opened a business. And you’ve you’ve heard my story, John Cleese. Many of us spent years as business owners without ever identifying as a veteran, because we didn’t think we needed to. Uh, I can do it myself. You and I talked about this on your show, right? Uh, those five words. I can do it myself. I don’t need a handout. And that’s really not the message here. The message is we need to know who you are, because we may need you to help the next guy or gal who’s opening a business come out and mentor them. And that’s really important to me, right? We all have something, something of value to give back to the community. And I think that’s really important. Well, I want to circle back around, Frank, when I first introduced you, um, I talked about trust the Process book marketing program. I’d love for you to talk more about that so that our audience can really understand the work that you’re doing with people there.

Frank Zaccari: Be happy to. Uh, my partner is Melissa Vanasse, and she lives in Washington, DC, and she was on my show and she had written a book, and we started talking about, what are you doing and how are you marketing? And so she had a lot of this process already figured out. And I said, well, let’s collaborate because I think we could productize this. Okay. So then we tried it on ourselves first we did it on ourselves and our books went to number one. I said, okay, we might have something here. And then we started looking at, well, what are what are the things that are preventing it? And there’s a there’s a ton of myths in the publishing world. Authors. All they want to do is get the book done. Okay, you’re writing a book. I just want it done because it drives you crazy. So you got it done. Now what do I do? I put it on Amazon. Everybody’s going to go buy it. Okay, that don’t work like that. 11,000 books are released every single day in the United States. 11,000? Okay. How are you going to stand out? What are you going to do different? And so what we did with our program and Melissa and I is that we, we meet with the other first potential author and say, number one, why do you want to do this? Okay.

Frank Zaccari: If you want to do a legacy book for your grandchildren, then okay, probably not the right people for it. But if you want to write a book that’s going to enhance the value of what you’re doing, help your business, open up speaking engagements, webinars, workshops, and all of those kinds of things, then let’s fuck. And then it comes down to consistency and continuity. Because the first thing that every author thinks is, oh, my publisher, because they tell you this, my publisher is going to market my book. No they’re not. Publishers publish. They don’t market. That’s it. Okay. Now they might put out a press release that nobody reads, but they’re not going to market your book. Okay. Now it’s up to you. And then they’ll say, okay, well, um, I was told I should have a watch party, and so I’m going to get this big party, this big event at this hotel or whatever. And I said, how many people said they’re going to come? 150. How many people actually show up? Ten. Six. Four. Doesn’t matter. So you’re spending all this time and energy when you could be sending out a consistent and a message? Something better than that, right? So we we create a whole campaign. We do the campaign. We create the content working with the author, and then we send it to them. We say, here, post this on this day at this time.

Frank Zaccari: All right. So the first step is who are you author and why should anybody care. And we say it nicer than that obviously. But here’s what the skill sets are. So we spent a period of time putting out posts about this author is then we go into the launch process. Okay, now you know who the author is. Here’s this book that’s coming. And this is why it’s important I know who she is or he is. This is the book. This is what we’ve been prepping you for on this day. Go buy it. Then we’re going through a whole long sequence. So we have a social media campaign, we have an email campaign. We have a live video campaign. We have people on on my show and other people’s shows, uh, during the course of this thing. And the net net is release day is the magic. And you drive everybody to buy the book on that day, right. Mhm. And we’ve now had 13 in a row. 13 consecutive titles have gone to bestseller, 11 went to number one, five have won awards. So we’re thinking okay I think we’ve got this kind of figured out. Yeah. Now it’s a matter of sitting down with the authors and we do a real hard screen to fish. We say. We say no more than we say yes.

Frank Zaccari: Okay. And if it’s a you want to use it as an evergreen tool for business or for your life or for something along those lines, are you willing to be coached? Right. Because when you write a book, everybody and their brother and their uncle’s cousin is an expert. Of course. Oh, you should do this and you should do that, and I get a kick out of it. And I did a talk at the Military Info Influencers conference in Las Vegas about this. And I said to to the people there, I said, who are the smartest parents in the world, smartest parents in the world. And they went, what? And I said, people with no children. They are the smartest parents in the world because they’ve never done it. But they can tell you what to do, but they’ve never done it. It’s the same with the book. Okay, so you can write a book, you have an editor, you can have editors to do it, and then you got to market it. So one of my third book hit Number one, I get a call from a big distribution house. They actually called me and they said, why aren’t you using us? And I said, okay, what do you bring to the party? They said, we’re going to put your book in Walmart. We’re going to put your book in, uh, target, and we’re going to put your book in bookstores.

Frank Zaccari: And I said, how are you going to do that? And he said, well, we got this giant online catalog. And I said, like the old yellow Pages, remember the old yellow pages? Yeah. And I said, so I’m one line in a big giant book. Right. And they said, well, yeah. And I said, they’re going to buy 10,000 copies of my book off of this one line. And they said, no, no, Frank, Frank, Frank, what you do is you create the demand for it. And then when you are driving. 8 to 10,000 sales, then we’ll put all our muscle behind it. And I said, if I can get 10,000 by myself, I don’t need you. Right. I’ve already figured it out. So that’s what we’re doing with Trusted Process. So authors are out there and you want to write a book and people say, what would I write? You write about something, you know. Okay. You start with something, you know, and everybody has a story. And this is what we head into with the veteran, right? You have a story, and there’s somebody out there who’s going to probably thousands of people are going through what you are going through or what you went through. And that story, that book, could be the thing that triggers them to continue going forward or gives them hope.

Frank Zaccari: I’m speaking at the veteran, uh, the VA Department of Defense Veterans Suicide Conference in, uh, in one month in Portland, Oregon. And that’s what this is. That’s what this am I talking about, publishing the book. We’re talking about the connection portion of it is that your story matters and your story can help somebody else, right? Help them move forward. And then it comes. And it comes down to, well, I don’t know how to write what we can do. We got people could do that. We got people who can help you write it. We have editors. We have people from the graphics. The whole thing is we tell the author, if you can do if you can cut and paste, we can run the campaign for you. And are you willing to listen? Big thing because are you willing to listen and take direction and say, here it is. And one person told me, Frank, you know, if you post something in three times a week or four times a week, you’re you’re annoying people. And I said, okay, you’ve heard of Coca Cola. You’ve heard of McDonald’s. How many times do you see ads for them? Every day. Multiple times a day. And when I was at the Military Influencers Conference conference in Las Vegas, there was a group that was involved in the second Top Gun movie where they were involved in the production side from the military side.

Frank Zaccari: Yeah. And so I said to them, how far in advance did you start working on promoting that movie? Everyone knew it was coming. Everyone knew the first one. Everybody knew Tom cruise. Seven and a half months before the release, they started marketing the movie. So consistency and continuity of the message is so important, and that’s what we excel at in. Melissa is a master at it, and we create this and say on this day, at this time, post it. Now why is that important? Because social media, if we’re using the social media part, social media if you don’t get a response, not a click, not a yes or a statement or a comment, if you don’t get a comment within the first 15 to 30 minutes, that post goes away. Have you ever seen a post and you say nobody saw that? What did he go and you can’t find it? Well, nobody responded, so therefore the algorithm pushes it out. It’s gone. So we know what it’s going to be posted. We comment on it, we share it. We send it to our networks. And that’s how you start that that spider approach that goes through. And then it comes down to you then touch your your key people that you can send emails to and say, hey, I’m doing this.

Frank Zaccari: Can you help me out? And then why video? Why video is critical because now you’re telling your story. And as you and I said before we started filming here, sometimes you can get a little long winded like I’m doing right now, but on those videos we call them minute and 30s no more, and we write the script for them. Okay, now you can tune it up to make it sound more like you, but right. 30s. First person we did it with with timer stopwatch. And so when you hit a minute 30s, I said stop, stop. We didn’t get to the point yet, and I said, exactly. You didn’t get to the point. Get to the point. Do it now. Here. Say this. Yeah. And then leave them wanting more. Right. Okay. What is this? And there’s something about it. And we create an author page, one page author sheet for the author. Okay. And then when we want to go to interviews or other certain things, we have them send that out. And then we have an award winning, uh, journalist. And if the author wants to have a news article, not a press release, no one reads press releases, news article. Okay. Publications are lazy. And if you send them an article that’s already done and they have space or it fits.

Speaker4: It.

Frank Zaccari: They’ll plug it in. So the last two that we did were picked up by 117 and 171 different publications, including Bloomberg, USA today, New York Times, etc. because they they don’t want to pay for content and they don’t want to pay for journalists anymore. So if you send them something that’s.

Speaker4: Already.

Frank Zaccari: Done, they may just pop it in and then we’ll do virtual book tours. If the author wants to do that, where we get, um, if they call themselves book geeks, right. We’ve done enough of these where we’ll say, look, the book is about this. I don’t want somebody who does zombies talking about a family or relationship book, somebody who does that. Like when we did the battlefield book, we had veterans write, do veterans read it and commented about it? And and the beauty is when you reach out and you ask people that are friends or you build a relationship or help, they will help you. Does everybody says, how can I help? How can I help? But we never tell them how, right? No, I can do it your typical way. You said before. I’ll figure it out, right?

Speaker4: Yeah, I’ll.

Frank Zaccari: Just.

Speaker4: Do that.

Frank Zaccari: You’re not going to figure it out by yourself. These people are willing to help. Tell them. Do this for me, please.

Speaker4: Well, I mean, it works.

Frank Zaccari: And so far, so good.

Trisha Stetzel: I’ve seen part of this process work live with the the book that we put together together. Uh, and using that process where we reached out, you fed us everything we needed. Here’s an email template. Send this out by email, put it out on social. And I had so many people interested because I was engaging with them, saying that I had written my story in this book, and so many people reached back out to me and said, I bought the book and it was amazing. And so I know we didn’t use the whole process around this particular book, but we used parts of it, and I know that it works, and I think it’s really important to have somebody like you, uh, on your side if you’re going to write a book because you’re right. You write a book, and then what? You don’t know how to get through the rest of the process. And that’s what you guys have built out and I think is so amazing. So, frank, as we close up, can you share the name of your show where people can find it and how they might reach out and contact you? I know you’re also on social, so if you want to give those channels as well.

Speaker4: We, uh.

Frank Zaccari: We have a web. My website is Frank Zuccari. Com we have a new one coming out. Authors trust the process.com. It’s not done yet, but it’ll be done soon. Uh, I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on Facebook. I’m easy to find. Linkedin usually is the best place. I get a lot of emails. Frank Zachary at gmail.com. I keep everything simple because I’m old and I can’t remember all the passwords and logins.

Speaker4: Yep. So it’s like yeah, absolutely. There’s just too many. Yeah. Uh.

Frank Zaccari: Call me (916) 718-5517. Um, I’m easy to find, and, uh, we’re very open to have a conversation, uh, with our new site trustee. Uh, authors trust the process. There’ll be, uh, information where people can fill out what it is they’re trying to do or what they want to do, and then we’ll set up a time to meet with them.

Trisha Stetzel: Wonderful. Frank, thanks so much for being with me today. This is so much fun. And we may have to have you back to talk about some other things.

Speaker4: Okay. Anytime.

Frank Zaccari: Happy to do it. Oh.

Trisha Stetzel: Well thank you I appreciate it. And that’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.

 

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