angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Hawaii WBE Feature: Safety Intelligence

July 26, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Hawaii WBE Feature: Safety Intelligence

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On today’s Women in Motion, Lee Kantor is joined by Tracy Lawson from Lawson and Associates and the Safety Intelligence Institute. Tracy discusses her company’s role in providing safety support services across various industries, including construction, general industry, and maritime. She shares her journey from military service to joining her family’s construction business and emphasizes the importance of integrating safety into all business operations. Tracy highlights the benefits of proactive safety management and the value of leadership and communication.

Tracy Lawson has 30+ years’ experience in the occupational safety & health field. Tracy has a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Safety and Health and maintains several board certifications. In 2009, Tracy opened Lawson & Associates, a certified VOSB, VBE, WOSB, WBE and State of Hawaii DOT DBE/SBE specializing in safety support services. In 2020, Tracy and Nalani Jenkins co-founded the Safety Intelligence Institute.

Tracy is the 2021 Pacific Business News Business Leader of the Year – Small Business, 2020 Pacific Edge Magazine Businesswoman of the Year, 2019 BBB Torch Award for Ethics Honolulu (Tier 2) recipient and SBA Person of the Year for the County of Honolulu, 2015 PBN Small Business Leadership Hawaii Award recipient and finalist for the PBN Women Who Mean Business Award, 2010 Honor Alumni of the Honolulu Community College OSH Program, 2003 PBN Top 40 Under Forty business professional and American Society of Safety Engineers Hawaii Chapter Safety Professional of the Year.

Tracy’s experience ranges from being a U.S. Army Military Police Corps Traffic Accident Investigator, a construction small business Safety Director, a Vice President of a national general contractor and a business owner.

In 2002 her program was recognized as one of America’s 17 Safest Companies in the October 2002 Occupational Hazards Magazine, was the recipient of the 2001 AGC of America National Construction Safety Excellence Grand Award and First Place in Building for 500,000 + man-hours and contributed to winning the 2000 USACE Worldwide Contractor of the Year.

Connect with Tracy on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This 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 is Tracy Lawson. She is with Lawson & Associates and the Safety Intelligence Institute. Welcome, Tracy.

Tracy Lawson: Hi. Good morning. Aloha.

Lee Kantor: Aloha. So, before we get into things, tell us about Lawson & Associates and the Safety Intelligence Institute. How are you serving folks?

Tracy Lawson: Well, we are a safety support services firm. We are not consultants. And so, we work in the occupational safety and health field in all industries, whether it’s construction, general industry, maritime. And our focus is to help companies stay out of trouble and learn how to be productive and safe at the same time.

Lee Kantor: So, how did this come about? What is your journey? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Tracy Lawson: Well, it’s kind of a crazy journey. Out of high school, I joined the Army and I was a military police traffic accident investigator and saw a lot of stuff. And when I got out of the Military after Desert Shield/Desert Storm time, I joined my family’s construction company. My dad was a contractor and developer. And probably the first three months in business, we got a visit from our insurance company and they said your rates for accidents are so bad that we’re not going to cover you anymore if you don’t do something drastic. And I told my father about it and he said, “Well, you are law enforcement, go do something about it.” And that’s kind of how I fell into the industry.

Tracy Lawson: And I found out pretty soon that it’s not about following rules. It’s actually about managing your business really well and planning ahead to do the job the right way, the first time, the safe way. And I’ve been very fortunate to have some really great success throughout my career. And we just try and share that information with other businesses and help change their perspective about not having to choose between safety and production.

Lee Kantor: Now, are there certain industries or niches that your work focuses in on?

Tracy Lawson: Well, definitely. I mean, we work in all industries, especially construction. I think I just have a heart for that coming from, you know, a construction family. And there’s so many things that change on a daily basis. It’s dynamic. It’s constant challenges. And I enjoyed a lot. In fact, some of the smartest, most innovative people I’ve ever met work in construction and they just have to use that power of innovation for safe production, not the other way around.

Lee Kantor: Now, when organizations contact you, is it proactively or is it kind of after something happened, they’re like, “Oh. We need to fix that so that doesn’t happen again”?

Tracy Lawson: That’s a great question, Lee. Actually both, it just depends on the organization and kind of their, I think, maturity and understanding of how safety can help their business. So, often we get people calling us saying we want to have you come evaluate how we’re doing with our own in-house safety department and do some independent audits or help us put in place a safety management system versus just safety programs. And of course, we get phone calls saying I just got inspected or we’ve just had a serious incident or a lawsuit, can you help us? And so, we’re happy to help both circumstances, of course we prefer to be proactive if possible. But we’re here to do whatever we can to help our industry make sure we provide safe workplaces for everybody so they can go home to their families.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice or any low hanging fruit for organizations that they can implement that maybe is obvious to you but maybe not so obvious to them?

Tracy Lawson: Yeah. I think the first thing is really understanding what laws apply to you and figuring out the perspective how the law and the regulators view your decisions versus how you personally would view them. That’s a big gap we see with organizations. And leadership, making sure leadership understands and has a good foundation of safety knowledge to be able to value – basically a lot of times, you’re paying for training and staffing or programmatic elements, that if they work, you won’t see something go wrong, and that can be kind of counterintuitive sometimes.

Tracy Lawson: And as far as low hanging fruit, it’s all over the place. You know, the obvious going to the OSHA website and looking at what are the top citations issued for the year prior, and going back and checking your house and making sure that you’re a business house. And making sure that is our hazard communication program in place. Do we actually have good value added training taking place that’s resulting in changes in behavior, not just checking a box that we did a class? Or do I actually have the written programmatic elements that I need and do they integrate into all the operational elements in our business?

Tracy Lawson: So, there’s a lot of requirements that need to be made and just taking one at a time and looking at them through a different lens of somebody else’s perspective. Everybody thinks that we have reasons why we do something or don’t do something, but look at it from a regulator’s perspective and see if that can help identify things that you could change or do better. And we tell people this can be overwhelming sometimes, especially if you have nothing or you’re in a bit of a situation with the regulatory agencies.

Tracy Lawson: But we encourage people, you know, do 5 percent better every day. Just pick one thing, do 5 percent better every day, and just chip away at it so that, eventually, you’re moving forward, you’re gaining traction, and you’re changing your culture and putting the elements that are necessary in place.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you explain kind of the pros and cons of hiring somebody, an outsourced solution to this rather than just saying, “Oh, I’m just going to give that to Bill and Bill will figure it out.” You know, somebody on the team already and just add this to the pile of stuff that person has to do.

Tracy Lawson: A lot of times people think that they’ve got someone who may be interested or could handle an extra workload, and I advise against that. First of all, Bill may not be interested and really know what he’s getting himself into. And this is a scientific profession. It’s a subset of engineering. And so, there’s a knowledge base that needs to be there. And, really, for in-house professionals, they need support too.

Tracy Lawson: And what we often hear from clients who come to us to help them staff or mentor their safety staff in-house is most business owners don’t have any idea what their safety person is supposed to be doing, if they’re doing it well or if they’re doing the right things. And that’s where we can come in and help from all different aspects.

Tracy Lawson: It can be much more cost effective to hire a third party like us to come in and maybe staff a construction site. When that project’s done, then we go away. Or come in and help coach and set up and put in place your company program and teach your leadership what are the things they do on a daily basis to support those programs. It’s a tell when we see that companies are going to give safety to their administrative assistant or some other manager who they’re probably already overwhelmed with the amount of work they’re doing in the first place.

Tracy Lawson: And to think that it could be so simple to just put a plan on paper and there we go and we’re good. There’s so much more to it. And it really takes someone with good leadership, well-rounded ability to communicate in writing and verbally. And it takes somebody who has the passion and desire and understands the value that this can bring to an organization to work through things that can be challenging.

Tracy Lawson: So, we’d love to talk to companies about the pros and cons of in-house versus hiring externally and, of course, we encourage folks to take a look at both sides and see what works best. It’s a pretty tight market right now. And, you know, I think with all professions, there’s a difference between people who are professionals in the industry and people who are practitioners, I’ll say.

Lee Kantor: And I think it goes to your point about this is a leadership kind of marker here. It’s about the culture, how important really are your people. This doesn’t have to be an administrative expense. This is something that could kind of impact your company in a lot of ways if you do this right and it’s more of an investment than it is an expense.

Tracy Lawson: Absolutely. You know, short story, I just did a safety leadership class for an executive group. There’s probably ten executive leaders within this very large organization. And we have a full day safety leadership course and then we do a workshop at the end identifying what does the ideal safety management system in our organization look like after we’ve created a good foundation through training of what is culture, what is the true cost of safety, what are the legal implications, and just looking at safety from a little bit different perspective from a business lens. And we always talk about culture and how culture is so much more important than any policies and procedures and strategies that you may have as an organization.

Tracy Lawson: And after that meeting, I had a bunch of executives walk in, kind of like, “What am I doing here wasting my day? I’ve got other things to do.” And by the first hour, they were surprised and engaged and actively participating to create what the future of their organization’s program looked like through their leadership.

Tracy Lawson: And so much so that shortly thereafter, one of the senior vice-presidents from a whole division came back and said I want to do this training for my leaders and my division because this isn’t just about safety. The things you talk about translate into production and quality, and they are big picture leadership issues that all my supervisors and managers need to know about. So, you’re spot on that this truly begins as a pure business leadership people leading issue.

Lee Kantor: Now, you’ve used the phrases safety management system, safety program, can you explain the difference between both of those, because one sounds more systemic and one sounds more administrative?

Tracy Lawson: Well, unfortunately, both have administration that has to be done. We live in a society where – somebody said this to me the other day – if it isn’t on paper, it’s vapor. And I said, “Well, that’s so good.” I used to say if it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen.

Tracy Lawson: But the biggest and the easiest way I can identify the difference between a safety management system and then an organization just running on safety programs is this, safety programs are just a bunch of different parts and pieces, not necessarily interacting effectively with one another. You go implement a fall protection policy, you go implement your scaffolding policy, and you go implement your personal protective equipment policy, and all three of those were written in a vacuum, standing alone and not looking at how they interface with one another, and certainly not taking into account how that impacts or interfaces with the activity and the operational element.

Tracy Lawson: Where a safety management system interacts with all the core business elements from estimating, if that’s what your company does, or procurement of materials and tools and equipment to marketing, to accounting, to human resources, to your production element, your operational element of how the work that you do gets done, to how we evaluate how effective was that. And even instead of incident investigation, using learning teams to be able to take people from each group and look at an incident and say how can we learn from that with different perspectives, and also what’s working well in our business, and how do we replicate that.

Tracy Lawson: And so, a safety management system is just like you said, the interaction of safety with all the parts of the business that help it be systemic, help it drive culture, and help the business be more effective and doing the job the right way and the first time, the safe way, and preserving our most important resource, which is people, and the intellectual property that they have, and the ways that they contribute to our business versus somebody going out and trying to just implement parts and pieces that don’t necessarily fit nicely together.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you explain why it was important for your organization to become part of WBEC-West? What were you hoping to get out of it and what have you gotten out of it?

Tracy Lawson: Well, I think it’s important to join like-minded people. And when we look at women-owned businesses, especially for us, we work in construction, we work in maritime, and we do a lot of other general industry work that’s a variety from warehousing to schools, to hotels, to telescope organizations, you name it, it’s a wide variety, it’s important to be able to connect with organizations that help understand and want to understand what we do, and promote the business that we do, and see the value in even having the opportunity to talk on this podcast about safety and health.

Tracy Lawson: So, WBENC has been great for us from that aspect. And it’s wonderful to be a part of an organization that’s trying to lift up businesses and help us to be competitive and successful and to learn from one another.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share who your ideal client or referral partner is and maybe we’ll be able to help you connect with more of them?

Tracy Lawson: Sure. Well, our ideal client, first of all, is an organization that either knows what they don’t know and needs help or values safety and health in terms of how it can make their business more efficient. They realize safety doesn’t have to slow them down. They don’t have to choose between, you know, making their dollars and getting their productivity done versus saving their employees. That’s the first thing.

Tracy Lawson: And, you know, we’re looking for businesses who see a value proposition and understand how it can help level their organizations up. That’s really our broad brush criteria of what we’re looking for, who wants our help and will allow us to come in and work with them to make improvements. And so, that’s what we’re looking for, organizations that either want to know more and learn and want to know better and do better.

Lee Kantor: Now, is your work primarily in Hawaii or you do the Mainland as well?

Tracy Lawson: Primarily in Hawaii, however I have worked across the whole U.S. And I am not opposed to coming out and helping organizations that are ideal clients who really want to learn and level up and do better. So, physically and geographically, of course, we’re located here in in Honolulu. We work on all of our neighbor islands. But we’ve done work in Micronesia, we’ve done work across the whole U.S. And so, we just take it on a case by case basis.

Tracy Lawson: We’re very open to helping organizations that are interested. Safety Intelligence Institute is the training institute and we’re global with that. We’ve had people from the Continental United States, Bahrain, Wake Island, Guam, Alaska, everywhere participating in our classes, which we really focus on competent person level training and teaching people not just here’s what the rule says, but what does this look like for me when I implement it in my workplace, and what are some strategies I can use to be successful, and just a little bit of a change in perspective about how that applies to them, how it affects them, and how it can make them and their business better.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to learn more and have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what are the websites?

Tracy Lawson: They can go to lawsonsafety.com or safetyintelligenceinstitute.com. Lawson Safety, there’s a contact us point, they can sign up to be on our email blasts and they can reach out to us directly. It’ll come straight to me. And then, we’re happy to reach out and have a conversation.

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

Tracy Lawson: Well, thank you, Lee. I really appreciate the opportunity. And I appreciate what the organization, WBENC, is doing for all the women and our women-owned businesses.

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

Don Grier with Wellness Leadership LLC

July 26, 2024 by angishields

High Velocity Radio

Don Grier with Wellness Leadership LLC

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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Stone Payton interviews Don Grier, founder of Wellness Leadership LLC. Don discusses his transition from a corporate consultant to starting his own wellness-focused company. He shares his personal journey of overcoming health challenges and emphasizes the importance of wellness in leadership and project management.

Don explains the services his company offers, including wellness coaching, program design, and quality assurance with a focus on employee well-being. The conversation also covers the business aspects of running a consulting firm and actionable tips for enhancing wellness in organizations.

Don Grier is a seasoned IT project and quality assurance director with over 30 years of experience delivering innovative and impactful solutions for diverse clients and industries.

As the Managing Partner and Founder of Wellness Leadership LLC, he combines his passion for complex service delivery, servant leadership, and wellness to help organizations and individuals achieve their full potential using his Well-Led Guidelines and Playbook.

Before launching Wellness Leadership LLC, Don was a Managing Director and Product Development Lead at Accenture, where he led a 2,100+ global professional services organization that successfully implemented transformative software for 2,000+ clients across diverse industries and ecosystems.

He also served as an Elite Quality Assurance Director, ensuring client satisfaction and mitigating risk for many challenging and multidisciplinary programs. Throughout his career, he has won multiple awards for software development and program management and holds numerous certifications, including the PMP, Elite Quality Assurance Director, and SAFe Agile certifications.

Connect with Don on LinkedIn and follow Wellness Leadership LLC on Facebook and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Don’s personal story that led him to create Wellness Leadership, LLC
The top three issues companies face in delivering complex projects while maintaining employee wellness
Products and services Wellness Leadership LLC provides
How wellness impacts the bottom line

This 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. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Wellness Leadership, LLC, Mr. Don Grier. How are you, man?

Don Grier: I’m doing great. Stone just got back from New York City visiting my son and and my daughter in law. And, um, I’m glad to be back and back at it.

Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the show. I got a ton of questions, man. I know we probably won’t get to them all, but I’m thinking a good place to start probably is. If you would share with me in our in our listeners a broad stroke view mission, purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, man.

Don Grier: Okay, so after about, uh, 30 years of leading IT projects, I decided to start my own company, and we’ll get to my personal story about why this company started. But it’s called Wellness Leadership, LLC, and it’s designed to solve three problems. The first is we’re personal and executives, you know, lose their wellness over time. We’re all under stressful jobs. We’re working out. So I have the standard coaching training seminars to help people that maybe let their wellness go, and they’re looking to shore it up. The second part is, and I do this with my wife, who’s a registered nurse and a nutritionist. The second is the design and implementation of wellness programs for organizations. We come out there, we do an assessment of your organization and help you design wellness programs. Something I did at the consulting firm I used to work at. The third thing is, and this is probably our our strongest service is quality assurance, risk management and independent verification services for programs and projects with a with a twist. We, unlike just looking at everything from a project management institute or the normal risk factors, look at wellness, the wellness of your employees because anybody can drive a project and get it done and hit their goals, but they they sometimes lead their people in the lurch. And as soon as that project is done, half the people are tricked because they’re burned out. So that is something I feel very passionately. And I started a company to do just this.

Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like noble and rewarding work. Say more about the backstory, man. What? What led you here?

Don Grier: Okay, Stone, I, I’m a different person than I was back in 2015. So I, I was a former Army officer in West Pointer, so I always had my weight under control. I could pick up a rock and hit the weight limit. At that time in the Army was 185, so I was always fit. But then I joined a consulting firm, and for the first 25 years I gained some weight, but not too bad. But the promise of where I gained weight I got got up to about 220. I’m going to use weight as a factor of wellness. I know it’s not the only thing. Oh, it’s not exercising as much in the army. You’re paid to exercise the corporate world. You’re not. They may want you to, but it’s not a paid, uh, event. Second ad yo yo dieting. I’m a I gained some weight. I would do SlimFast protein only all those kind of diets. And I could exercise like a crazy man, but it wouldn’t happen. And the third thing, of course, like all of us, my metabolism was slow due to aging. I couldn’t eat the four Ding Dongs that I used to after working out, but instead, uh, I was still eating too, right? So then several things happened. Uh, I call it the hockey stick moment about 2014. The first is I took on way too much responsibility at work. We’re pushing a major project, building new software. I took on three roles simultaneously. Where grew our team from 60 people to 1000. The second I lost my parent and I did my last parent. And I decided during this all and I didn’t grieve. So let’s bring us to the day when I decide I had to change.

Don Grier: I was walking out of 3 a.m. out of the delivery center that we had built for this new software product. I was tired, I slipped, fell and knocked myself out. And when I came to I could not lift my 358 pounds now off the ground. So I crawled about 200ft, you know, first in, first out. Luckily my car was close by. Pulled myself up on the bumper and I said I had to change. Then another thing amazing happened. I received a discount from Weight Watchers from my company and I joined it. And in one year’s time I had lost and was back to near my army weight. Wow. And I. And after that, in celebration in November, on the Veterans Day, I established a walk or to raise money for vets. When I started off, I could only walk 50 yards or remember distinctly I was walking with our dog and, uh, boots and I was saying, it’s our last chance walk, walk. And we were both huffing and puffing. And then I walked 50 miles. It’s called the Kennedy walk. I was raising money for Mary’s, uh, program that helps vets and young Marines. Um, one year later. And during this time. During this time, I traveled every week. So I, I just learned I didn’t have any tricks. I didn’t do whatever the stomach staple. I didn’t use that, uh, medication they currently have. I just used total Change of Habits. And I did this while traveling and now I want to play. I started paying it forward when I was in my former company, and now I want to pay it forward even more to. And that’s why I established Wellness Leadership, LLC.

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve established this concern, you’ve been at it a little bit, uh, for a little while. What are you finding the most rewarding about this kind of work? What are you enjoying the most about it, man?

Don Grier: Well, the one thing I really love is connecting with people and hearing their stories. And in trying to understand through active listening, what are their specific problems and how do they need to change? The other thing I enjoy a lot is going to a project and doing an initial delivery assessment, and they think they have it all nailed. They’ve got all the rest. So I look at them, they’re doing pretty good from I used to be an elite QA for a top consulting company. That means you go and check out and make sure the delivery is set up right. For all the extremely large projects we had, some of them were half $1 billion projects. You had to go out there and make sure. But I always am able to point out one or 2 or 3 things that they’re not thinking about in terms of wellness that can sink the project. And so it’s rewarding when the light bulbs come on, they they change it. I call it change well, and the project hits with success, but they don’t lose all their people or half their people afterward because they ran them into the ground.

Stone Payton: I got to believe that you feel every day when you’re doing the work, and leadership in these organizations feel that this kind of pursuit is right and true and just and all that. But there’s also my impression is there’s a very real Greene green dollar, bottom line value to getting this these kinds of ducks in a row. Getting this stuff in check in there.

Don Grier: Yeah, they’re they’re totally, um, a bottom line thing. There was a study. It was, uh, Gapan Institute. And you can find out on the website it I think it was done by one, um, a West Coast university. And he found that companies with highly effective health and wellness programs have 11% higher revenue per employee, 1.8 fewer days absent per employee per year, and 28% greater shareholder returns. And I think that is maybe understating it. And here’s why. The top three reasons why. First, by focusing on wellness and improves decision making, we know when you have no sleep, you’re stressed out. You’re fatigued, you do not make good decisions in a simple 20 minute walk will provide a few minutes to clear your mind and focus on the problem. I can’t tell you how many things I solve while sleeping. And I didn’t sleep too much, but I. My song will. Hopefully you’re at the end. Um. I was working 18 hour days. That’s what I used to do. And then once I changed it, I was more productive. The second thing, it builds camaraderie. The, you know, the greatest thing that I lost a little bit after leaving the Army was the camaraderie. And so we can’t have morning tea, but you can have employee resource groups that bring people together and they know them.

Don Grier: They know about things outside of the workplace that they can relate to. One thing I remember is we did this Fitbit walk with a group that I had in my company, and we were all trying to hide, like how many steps we did to see who would win on a on a Saturday weekend. And it was funny. We were doing banter on there, like busting on each other to see who would win the the Fitbit walk over the weekend. The last thing we brought about this is it reduces sick days and days when people say they’re sick and they’re not sick, they just tired of you, right? Um, I noticed from personal experience before I lost the weight, I, I got bronchitis at least 3 or 4 times, and several times I had to take a few days off. And most, most of the time I didn’t take it off because of walking pneumonia. And since I’ve lost weight and focused on wellness, I haven’t. I haven’t been sick at all. I haven’t missed a day. So those are just three things.

Stone Payton: So the transition from working for one of these large organizations and then going out on your own, I mean, now you’re a you’re a business guy too, so you have to be a master at your craft, but you also have to to run a business. Speak to that a little bit. What has that been like making that transition?

Don Grier: I got to say, I’m going to be blunt here. It’s been a little more difficult than I thought it was. Right? Because I ran I held almost every position you could think of in this in my prior consultant’s firm. And it’s it’s the I don’t know if I can say the consulting firm. It’s the one of the it is the largest consulting firm in the world. Right. So I was a solution architect. So on the front end, planning the projects, some of the largest ones. I delivered the projects. I was in their outsourcing realm. I knew about contracts and such. But now, when I made my own organization and I didn’t really have a lot of capital or I, I, I was a little egotistical and thought I could do it all on my own. I’m here making my own website, which, you know, I need to take, drink some of my own Kool-Aid and not make my own website. But it’s like you’ve got to do your contracts. It’s different. You have to learn about the simple thing about how to pay yourself through an LLC is tricky. So and then you can get wrapped up in that. And then my wellness could go away. And then I wouldn’t be a good spokesmodel for, um, my wellness practice. Right. So it has been a transition. I’m I’m caught wind now. I think I’ve got it going. Well, um, but there’s quite a transition.

Stone Payton: Well, you just brought up a great point in your line of work, particularly. You really have to eat your own cooking. I mean, you can’t show up to one of these initial assessments or any other aspect of your work being way out of shape and not healthy yourself. Right?

Don Grier: Right, right. You can’t be touting wellness. And and so it’s kind of a fraud not to go back to my old habits and, and and it you know, it was a little tricky, I gotta say. I did gain a little weight back with. And I think a lot of us did with the Covid. Right. You know, nobody could you couldn’t get down as much. But now I’m back on track. But it it is important to keep that wellness aspect to it because I always have my project management skills to fall back on, but I, I really, really am passionate about the wellness aspects and I’ve got to keep it up. Yeah. All right.

Stone Payton: So the corporate work, let’s walk through this, dive into that a little bit. It typically begins with some sort of audit assessment and then unfolds into whatever strategies tactics programs make sense.

Don Grier: Yeah. Yeah. So what we would do let let’s say you go with us for our third service that we do the, the Well-led project assessment. Um, I would come out there for three days. I would go through a standard quality assurance checklist to make sure that the project from a project management set up is set up correctly. Um, by the way, I just gave a presentation to the Austin Project Management Institute for a lunch and learn about this Well-led framework. So I go down and I, I review your project from the typical aspects of risk and standard quality assurance for our project, but I have come up with 15 different well LED guidelines that makes me dive into the project more to say, okay, how are we going to ensure project success and take care of your people? So you don’t want you don’t want to finish a project, and that’s the only project you got, right? Especially for these new companies that maybe they built a product and they’re implementing it for the first time on a client. And you want to succeed again and again in the best way to succeed is to retain the people you’ve trained. Right. So that’s the that’s the way. So after we do the three day assessment, you’ll get a report with recommendations of what you need to. What I suggest you do on your project from both angles. And then if you want, I can come on and be a consultant on your project. Or I can do fractional um co or delivery organization. So bottom line that’s one aspect. That’s the well-led delivery assessment. I also give a seminar called the Well-led project, which I can do that if you’re a medium or even a large organization and you want to know how to not only have projects success, but take care of your people, there’s a, um, there’s a one day seminar on that.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole. Well, now that you’re not part of the largest consulting organization in the world, that just puts you on a plane and sends you somewhere. I’m kind of curious. How does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy? Like, like, how are you getting the business in the first place?

Don Grier: Well, the way I get business is several aspects. First, I have my own website. I have a weekly blog that’s on my website too. I have done some LinkedIn advertising. Three I have the change well podcast and four and this is the way it really works is I have done networking with my extensive network from prior clients and such to look at opportunities, um, with them. So there’s there is the normal way that anyone does it through social media, through blogs, through podcasts, but also the second way to everyone does it through networking and establish and meeting with people that I know, and having them direct me to people that may not know but they think would like my services.

Stone Payton: And I’m sure you knew this going in, and I’m sure you get it validated every, every day. There’s just no sales and marketing tool as good as doing good work, right?

Don Grier: Right. That is that is the number one thing, um, to that point. Um, for the first ten years of my career, I did serial projects with one client, and they would hire me for anything that potentially was it. It may not even be related to my total wheelhouse and I. And it was built on a client relationship. Um, one of the clients was a project manager. We call it two in a box. You have two people, the client and the consultant running the same project. Her name was Donna. My name was Don. And I said, between Donna and Don, there’s only two letters n a not applicable. So that’s the way you have to build a reputation based on the ability to deliver.

Stone Payton: Okay. You know, we got to talk about this change. Well, podcast I’m not letting that go. Tell us about that. What compelled you to do it and walk us through what you do on the podcast and and how you operate that show.

Don Grier: Okay, so I am new to podcasts and I know one thing I have to do and that’s why I’m on with you, stone is get a guest that goes back and forth. But what I do now is weekly. I call it a Wellness Wednesdays. I present a podcast on all different wellness topics. It’s not just how to lose weight, but my my most recent recent one was about the importance of civility and kindness on mental wellness and the soul of this nation. So I go and tell stories. I also am a wannabe poet, so I have poems in there. I have songs in there. I wrote the original song for change. Well, and and what I’m trying to do is relay information, much like I. Um, hear from Weight Watchers and others. But I want to bring all the lessons that I’ve learned over my 30 years, and the one intense year of losing weight, of how to become well in all aspects spiritual, mental, physical. And so that’s what it’s based on.

Stone Payton: Well, I got to tell you, my experience has been that this can be a marvelous platform for capturing and sharing thought leadership. And and it’s easy enough. It’s getting easier now. There are so many tools that make it easy to get it to a lot of people and allow them to access it kind of on demand when they’re ready for that kind of content. So I applaud your efforts for doing that, and I sure hope you keep it up. And now that I know about it, I’m going to I’m going to tap into that work and and be and be listening. But and yeah, for whatever my opinion is is worth, I do think if you choose to expand the the scope of that work to, from time to time interview some other folks, uh, in the space or anybody with an interest in the those topics. I think you’ll find that really rewarding as well. I certainly do it. I love getting on the, uh, on the on the air with people like yourself. You just learn a ton and you build some marvelous relationships.

Don Grier: And and you do a great job on it. So put me right out my ease here.

Stone Payton: Well, good. All right. So so what’s next? We’re going to continue to grow the business. Are we looking at some point into replicating your uh, I guess I, I’m going to use the word methodology because that’s from a, because I kind of came from the training consulting world as well. Would you expand it and have other practitioners help you get this to even more people? What’s next for you? What’s on the horizon 12, 18 months out?

Don Grier: Yeah. I’m currently working and I’m with the Austin Writers League, currently working on this, um, working on a book called The Well-led organization. And it takes all the knowledge I have the various blogs pulls them all together into a guideline I’ve already written a small chap book on this, but it’s going to expand it out. I want to take that as a launchpad, not only to talk at seminars and wellness seminars, but also to launch further my consulting practice. And then, and this is down the road to franchise it or bring in people that would be trained in this well-led methodology, especially in terms of project management and assessment, and bring it to others. Well, I am.

Stone Payton: I’m so glad I asked, and I’m thrilled for you that you’re going to build that infrastructure. I just think you’ll you’ll find that you that you’re able to serve even more people. And I have had many authors share with me that they felt like their book had had done the things that they wanted it to do. It helped them command more speaking engagements, higher speaking fees. It was good for authority, credibility and all that. And almost to a person, they have said that even had it not done all of that, just investing the time and energy to commit those ideas to paper and try to articulate them in a way that would be clear and concise and actionable. It actually, they felt like it made them a better practitioner, like solidified and crystallized language and ideas in their mind where it made them better in the field.

Don Grier: Yeah, I’m finding that, and it really does help. So hopefully it’ll be out in the next six months. So okay, I’m working feverishly on it. Well.

Stone Payton: Well then I’m going to ask for another date. Then when when you release this thing and we get it out there, will you come back and visit with us?

Don Grier: Sure will. Stone, I really appreciate this, uh, this podcast and and business radio. So I definitely will.

Stone Payton: Well, great. Well, I’ll look forward to that. I don’t know when or how you’d find the time because you got you got a lot of irons in the fire, Don. But I’m going to ask anyway, uh, outside the scope of the work, um, interests, hobbies, passions that you pursue. A lot of our listeners for this particular show. Uh High Velocity Radio. They know that I like to, uh, hunt, fish and travel. How about you? Anything you nerd out about besides the work?

Don Grier: Oh, I love, I love writing, I love singing, I love karaoke, I do a mean Elvis impression. Um, I also am highly involved both in veteran organizations and our church organization. I just came back from a mission trip with about 140, uh, teens. Uh, we went out and fixed some homes on the border of Texas for about nine families. So those are the and of course, the most important thing is my family, my my wife of 37 years and our four not kids anymore, but four young adults. So that that’s a little bit of my passion outside.

Stone Payton: Yeah, now I understand. I read it somewhere and I didn’t ask you about this before we came on air, so it’s okay if you’re not prepared, but I understand you’ve got a little bit of a gift for. And you you touched on a little while ago. Uh, poems, rhymes. And you’ve developed a couple, I don’t know, stanzas, the right name, but a couple of things around this, uh, business of leading projects. You got anything along those lines you want to share with us?

Don Grier: Yeah, I want to do. I’m going to do my, uh, theme song real quick here. Okay. Uh, I don’t have the background music, so I’ll do it. Acapella. All right. Hopefully it won’t blow your ears out. Here we go. I was working 18 hour day, I slept in, I failed when it up and hit me. I had a change. Well, there’s no way to sustain it. You’ll crash and burn. We’ll not be able to work and no way to earn change. Well, and then you can leave change well and your kids? You can feed a turn your life around for the final bell. It’s now or never. You have to change. Well, it’s now or never. You must change. Well.

Stone Payton: Wow, that was awesome. I’m so glad I asked. That is fantastic. Oh my gracious. Oh! That’s neat. Okay, before we wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners and I guess, you know, including people who are running organizations that might want to, um, engage you at some point or at least have a conversation with you, but also just individuals, just 1 or 2 actionable pro tips. Maybe it’s something you know that they could be reading, thinking about, you know, doing or not doing. But let’s leave them with a couple of actionable pro tips on this business of changing. Well.

Don Grier: Hey, the first thing I think is look at the habits of your organization and of yourself and figure out what what is working and what needs to change. And I would suggest two books on this topic, and one is fundamentally changed my life. The first one is called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The second one a lot of other people have heard about is called The Atomic Habit. The second thing you have to do is prior to prioritize your life and your work. And the best book that I found on that is called the 12 Week year. And basically the proposition on this is you should be able to get all your work done in 12 weeks and make your revenue targets in 12 weeks if you focus on the essential. So those are two. And the last blog is if you’re trying to lose weight, make sure you join up in a community that has your back. Uh, we have a community. The, uh, one I will always recommend is, uh, Weight Watchers. Um, but you have to do it with someone else. Yeah, you could try it yourself, but you’ll fall back on on your old habits. So those are just some pro tips right there.

Stone Payton: Yeah, it sounds like marvelous counsel. And I have heard of the one book, The Atomic Habits. I was not familiar with the other, but I’ll definitely look into that. All right. What’s the best way for us to tap into your work, stay connected with you, maybe even set up a conversation with you or somebody on your on your team?

Don Grier: Well, the best way is to go to our website. It’s, uh, wellness elder.com. So, um, another way is I have my own personal blog that’s been established for a long time and it’s called Weight Loss Leadership. Com all one word. I’m also out there on LinkedIn. We have Wellness Leadership LLC. You can search on it and LinkedIn and connect that way. Um we have a if you do it that way, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. So those are three very quick ways to get in touch with us.

Stone Payton: Well, Don, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your knowledge, your enthusiasm and your gift for rhyme. You have an awful lot to offer people. You’re doing important work and we sure appreciate you, man.

Don Grier: I appreciate you, Stone, and I hope you have a good trip. Um, I heard you had a trip coming up. I hope it’s, uh, fun and everything goes well.

Stone Payton: Well, it has been my pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Don Greer with Wellness Leadership, LLC and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.

BRX Pro Tip: Don’t Sign Your Next Client if They Can’t Answer This Question

July 26, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Don't Sign Your Next Client if They Can't Answer This Question

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BRX Pro Tip: Don’t Sign Your Next Client if They Can’t Answer This Question

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I know you’re a real proponent of asking good questions of prospective clients, but do you have one or two go-to questions? You’re going to make sure that you get the question in and you get the kind of answer that you’re looking for before you go much further.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, especially this is for people who are in professional services, and it’s so important to ask this question to rule out a problem before it becomes a problem. And you should never be in a mode where you’re just going to take anybody as a client. You should be selective. You’re choosing them as much as they’re choosing you. So, never forget that.

Lee Kantor: But a question that I think is so important when you’re having a conversation with a prospective client is to figure out and ask them specifically, are they ready to make a change? Because if they’re not ready to make a change, then the odds of them being successful with your solution are very slim. And you’re going to run into a situation where they’re not going to be happy, they’re going to be a pain, and it’s not going to be worth your time.

Lee Kantor: So, you got to really assess the client’s current situation and their openness to a new idea or new strategy. This is going to indicate if they’re really mentally at a stage where they can benefit most from your coaching or your service, or whatever it is you’re offering them. And it helps you assess whether they’re a good fit for your service and their needs. You know, just because they have a need doesn’t mean they’re ready to make a change.

Lee Kantor: So, be clear that they are ready to try this new thing. Because if this isn’t a new thing or this is something they’ve done with somebody else and they didn’t like how it ended previously, you’re setting yourself up for a difficult client. So, it’s better to be clear about, you know, your next client if they are really ready to make a change and they really are buying into whatever it is you’re selling. Because if they’re not, it might not be worth your time.

Hawaii WBE Feature: AVS Audio Visual Services

July 25, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Hawaii WBE Feature: AVS Audio Visual Services

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In this episode, host Lee Kantor is joined by Heather Bailey, a seasoned professional in the audio-visual industry. Heather is the founder of AVS Audio Visual Services, a leading provider of comprehensive audio-visual solutions, specializing in event production, equipment rentals, and technical support for a wide range of events and corporate functions.

Heather Bailey is the founder of AVS Audio Visual Services, the premier event technology partner for top event producers and designers across the nation.

Under her leadership, AVS excels in delivering cutting-edge live event solutions, offering a comprehensive range of audio, video, and lighting equipment for meetings, conferences, expositions, and more.

AVS’s extensive experience providing audiovisual services to top 50 event agencies, fortune 100 accounts, live broadcasts, large associations, and headline entertainment, ensuring every event is executed with precision and innovation.

Her commitment to excellence, customer service, and problem-solving defines AVS’s reputation in the industry. Prior to founding AVS, Heather was part of the Quality Management Team at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company that won the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Heather holds a degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, graduating Magna Cum Laude.

Follow AVS Audio Visual Services on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This 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 Heather Bailey with AVS Audio Visual Services. Welcome.

Heather Bailey: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about AVS. How are you serving folks?

Heather Bailey: Sure. So, at AVS, we provide technology solutions for live corporate events, so for major retailers, our financial institutions, insurance companies, technology providers, or WBEC. So, we are sometimes hired by event planners or producers or agencies to provide and handle the technical aspects of the events that they’re producing.

Heather Bailey: So, our company comes in and provides the equipment and the technical support, so that would be the LED screens and the video walls that you see in meeting rooms. It could be projection and large screen surfaces. We’ll bring in lighting solutions, like stage washes, moving lights, ambient lighting to create some drama. Audio systems, of course. Top of the line PA systems so that everybody can be heard crisp and clear. And then, we provide all the technical support to operate all of that technology for these large venue meetings.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your back story? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Heather Bailey: Well, I started in Hawaii about 25 years ago. I started in a little town called Keauhou on the Big Island of Hawaii. It’s kind of nestled along the Kona Coast, very beautiful, very scenic, and deeply rooted in Hawaiian heritage. And with that came sort of the spirit of aloha, which has really built the foundation for Audio Visual Services. So, this Keauhou community is deeply rooted in the Hawaiian heritage, aloha spirit with love, peace, compassion, mutual respect, and kind of built the company culture.

Heather Bailey: There, I was able to meet local businesses, organizations, different event planners, and organically grew the business. These folks met me and asked if I could come to other islands with them. So, we expanded AVS from this small little town in Keauhou on the Big Island of Hawaii to other islands, including Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Lanai. And over time we built up a great reputation, reliability, quality, just exceptional service.

Heather Bailey: And we were able to expand our reach. In 2006, we had some clients that asked us if we’d like to go on the road with them. So, of course we said yes. And so, we started servicing their needs on the Mainland and that’s how we expanded our service from this little town in Keauhou, Hawaii to be a nationwide company.

Lee Kantor: Now, was your background in kind of audiovisual equipment or was it in customer service or was it in sales?

Heather Bailey: Well, all of the above. I had a background in all of the above. I studied communications at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I worked in the hospitality industry for great companies, like The Ritz-Carlton, and learned a lot about service, and sales, and quality management through The Ritz-Carlton. I also worked for a great company called Nordstrom, which really taught me a lot about listening to the customer, finding out what their needs were, and going above and beyond. So, all of those things led to Audio Visual Services.

Lee Kantor: Now, coming from a background to work with, you know, two of the premier brands that are known for customer service, how has that kind of affected the culture in your organization?

Heather Bailey: Well, it really has. I mean, we’re very customer-driven, customer-centric. You can have all of the greatest technology in the world, but if you don’t have the right people who embody the aloha spirit, embody really listening deeply to the customer, active listening, adapting to their needs, and really kind of meshing with their personality, so we do our best to take our technicians and source them with the client so that there’s a personality fit and a cohesiveness. Because they’re spending many, many hours in a ballroom for a week or so with these folks, and so that’s a really important aspect of the service that we provide. It’s really a family.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for other entrepreneurs out there who are building their team on how to really get that level of customer empathy and the ability to really serve the customer in the manner that you’re doing it, a lot of companies struggle with getting their team on the same page as the leadership.

Heather Bailey: Yeah. So, I think that there are certain things that you can teach people and then there’s certain things that are inborn. And so, we really look to people who genuinely want to provide a service to people who want to help, people who want to build a community, and some of those things are just rooted in their personality. And we can train and teach, but it really has to come from within, and so we look for those traits and those strengths when we’re hiring.

Lee Kantor: So, is there anything you could share that kind of is a tip off that, “Oh, this person has the right attitude and I can train the skills. And I can tell at a glance this person probably wouldn’t be a good fit for our team.”

Heather Bailey: Well, yeah. So, I think we do ask questions during the interview process that would lend itself to sort of a service-oriented, customer-centric person versus someone who’s just solely technical. And you can tell a lot by their background or what their interest is, are they outgoing, their positivity, their ability to come up with solutions and overcome obstacles. So, we’re looking for all of those traits that people have nurtured throughout their lifetime, even before coming to AVS so that it’s more of a personality trait and something that we can expand upon, because it’s really hard to train somebody who doesn’t have those innate personality traits to begin with.

Lee Kantor: Now, how did your clients kind of come to you? Like, what are the problems they’re trying to solve? Because I would imagine that they might have a general idea of what they would like, but you can point them in a direction that maybe they didn’t even consider.

Heather Bailey: So, they have a message to communicate, whether that be a product launch or they’re bringing together their top performers and they want to motivate them. Our job is really to provide the technology that allows them to do that and allows their message to shine. And so, we’re providing that support for creative producers and the creatives.

Heather Bailey: And we have just a host of different technology options that allow them to do that from LED screens and video walls that, you know, have a really fine pixel pitch to provide stunning visuals, and that really immerses the audience in the visual portion of the message. We have top of the line audio systems. One of the ones I’m most proud of is D&B. It’s what most renowned theaters use. It just provides a really clear and precise audio experience, so that every word that’s spoken or every note that is played, it can really be heard with the utmost clarity.

Heather Bailey: So, in reality, our job is to kind of let the message shine. You don’t really want to see the technology that we’re providing. We just want the message that the client has to deliver to be center stage and really be able to motivate the audience with the message that they’re trying to convey.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have a sweet spot in terms of clients? You mentioned some extremely large enterprise level accounts. Is that your sweet spot or do you do kind of smaller as well?

Heather Bailey: Yeah. So, our sweet spot is sort of in that 700 to about 12,000 person corporate meeting. Most of our end clients are going to be, you know, Fortune 100 companies, larger associations. But we also do the smaller events. We do community events. So, we do have a broad range, but our bread and butter would be those Fortune 100 corporate events.

Lee Kantor: And are those events primarily happening in Hawaii or now you’re at a size where you’re traveling all over the place?

Heather Bailey: Yeah, it’s a mix. So, it depends a little bit on the year, but it’s about 50/50. So, 50 percent of our business is within the Hawaiian Islands and then 50 percent of our business is on the Continental U.S., so we get to see a lot of beautiful places.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s that initial conversation with you and your team? Like, are they coming to you and saying, “Hey, we have a thousand person event and we want to blow them away with a lot of audiovisual elements”? Or do you get to the heart of I want each person to leave feeling inspired and ready to take on the world? Are you talking kind of about their emotional journey or are you talking about I have to manage a thousand people. I got to keep them all engaged.

Heather Bailey: Yeah. So, we would typically get what we call an RFP from an agency or a producer or an event planner. And they have a message in mind that they want to convey. And they’ll provide us with what they need to do that. And then, we’ll spec the audio systems, lighting systems, video systems based upon the venue that they’re at, the size of the audience, and, really, the message that they want to convey.

Heather Bailey: So, some events are pure meeting, educational, some are gala awards, incentive programs. And so, the dynamics of the technology that we provide are going to change based upon the message that they’re wanting to convey. So, of course, for a gala, we’re going to add in a lot of drama with moving lights and LED wall visuals, et cetera. So, I can’t say that we’ve done one event that is the same as the next. Every event is really quite unique to the venue, the audience, and the message that is being conveyed.

Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share about maybe an event that you got a great response from your client where they were like, “This blew us away”?

Heather Bailey: Sure. We typically get a lot of praise, really, after almost every event. And the underlying message is that the technology is the technology, but it’s the coming together of the team that really makes the event special. So, sometimes you can have, you know, up to 40 professionals backstage putting together this event and it can be a week or two, and it really becomes a family.

Heather Bailey: And oftentimes there’s obstacles that need to be overcome, and it’s coming together as a team looking at what needs to get solved and solving it as a team, and knowing the show must go on. And it’s really that spirit of excellence, and the spirit of getting things done, and the spirit of having fun while doing it, I think that really is what our clients talk to us about and why they want to hire us again. It’s just leaving with that feeling that we did a good job, we came together and got it done, and we had fun while we did it.

Lee Kantor: And it’s creating that sense of community that the client is probably trying to wrap around all the people there, right? They want to feel like they’re all connected and they’re all on the same team.

Heather Bailey: Yeah, I think so. So, of course, during the pandemic, we couldn’t do any live events. And so, that camaraderie, that sharing of experiences face-to-face was really missed, and that’s really what bringing people together is about, sharing experiences and bringing a diverse group of people together. There’s really nothing like it. The energy and the motivation that you can build through that. And then, that leaves people, they go home and they share that energy with maybe their office mates or even their family.

Heather Bailey: And so, it really kind of creates this just exponential experience that this great positive energy is lasting. And we’re able to spread that to the folks around us. So, yeah, there’s just nothing like bringing a group of people together for an experience.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou who says, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And I think that your work just ties exactly into that, because after the event is over, these people have an emotional connection that maybe they didn’t have when they got there.

Heather Bailey: Absolutely. Absolutely. Is that feeling that you are left with that you’re remembered. And sometimes it’s a glow and sometimes it’s just a really great energy. And that’s a lot of what the aloha spirit is about, it’s leaving people with that warmth, and that love, and that compassion, and feeling cared for, and feeling part of a community. We try to bring that wherever we go.

Lee Kantor: Now, speaking of community, what was the reason you decided to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Heather Bailey: Yes. Great question. So, I decided to become a part of the community for the benefits that it offers, the knowledge base, the camaraderie. A lot of the Fortune 100 companies, too, they want to add diversity to their supply chain, so we allow them to do that by utilizing AVS. So, for all of those reasons. And I just think, you know, attending different trade industry supported things like WBEC or in any entrepreneur-specific industry, that peer-to-peer information and knowledge that you get from other entrepreneurs is really priceless.

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

Heather Bailey: Well, I think that WBEC does a great job, and really what I need to do is tap into it even more than I have been.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to connect with you or learn more about AVS, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect with you and your team?

Heather Bailey: Sure. Thanks for asking. So, our Mainland-based website is avservs.com. And then, we have one specifically for Hawaii as well, and that is audiovisualhawaii.com.

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

Heather Bailey: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

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

Podcasting: The Secret Weapon for Business Growth and Community Building

July 25, 2024 by angishields

Sandy Springs Business Radio

Podcasting: The Secret Weapon for Business Growth and Community Building

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In this episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio, Lee Kantor and Rachel Simon discuss the intricacies of podcasting, focusing on challenges and strategies for success. Lee, with nearly 20 years of experience, highlights the difficulty of sustaining a podcast, while Rachel emphasizes its potential for business growth.

They explore the importance of planning, resource allocation, and content repurposing. The conversation also delves into how associations can leverage podcasts to promote member engagement and create a supportive environment for podcast guests. The episode offers valuable insights for businesses and associations looking to harness the power of podcasting effectively.

Lee Kantor founded Business RadioX® out of frustration with traditional media’s cronyism, onerous gatekeepers and anti-business bias.

Business RadioX® is a community of community builders, helping solopreneurs, professional organizations, and brands build community around the people who matter the most to them.

Connect with Lee on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now here’s your host. This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Connect the Dots Digital. When you’re ready to leverage LinkedIn to meet your business goals, go to Connect the Dots Dot digital.

Rachel Simon: Hi Lee, how are you?

Lee Kantor: I am doing well. Welcome to hosting your show virtually.

Rachel Simon: Yes. I’m sorry we can’t be together.

Lee Kantor: I know there was. The Sandy Springs Perimeter Chamber had some issues, but we’re here making it work virtually.

Rachel Simon: So well. I’m super excited about the show today. You know, normally we have a guest, but it’s the summer and everyone’s schedules are a little wonky, including my own. So I was out of town. And so I think we have a really fun conversation for the two of us to have on a topic I’m a big fan of, which is podcasts. You know, I was just out of town and I listened to I listened to podcasts a lot. But when you’re on vacation and I was sitting on trains in Europe, I listened to even more. So, um, I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun things to chat about in, uh, in the value and sort of challenges when it comes to creating, producing and maintaining podcasts, which is something obviously you are an expert in.

Lee Kantor: Yes. I you know, I’d like to tell people if you do something a few thousand times, you learn a couple things from it.

Rachel Simon: Exactly. So, you know, I’m sure you’ve heard this stat before, but it is a bit jaw dropping, which is that, um, only 90% of podcasts make it past episode three.

Lee Kantor: Yes.

Rachel Simon: Which is amazing.

Lee Kantor: It is. It’s kind of shocking because there are millions of podcasts kind of in the library of the various third party platforms like Apple and Spotify. And sadly, most of them have, you know, less than four episodes. And I think a reason for that is podcasting is easy to begin. It’s just hard to, uh, sustain over a period of time, and especially if you’re not getting any kind of results in terms of, you know, how you imagine it to be. So it’s easy to start, but hard to sustain.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, it’s interesting because I over many years of, you know, being in lots of different communities with entrepreneurs and business owners, there’s been many, many times that somebody is like, I’m going to start a podcast. And I’m always like, okay, do you know how to start a podcast? Do you have the time to, you know, make it happen? Do you have the what you need to record it for the sound? Are you going to edit it? Are you going to how are you producing it? How are you pushing out? Um, and you know, the amount of time and energy is that something that is particularly when you’re a business owner or a small business, is that going to push your revenue goals forward, or is it just something that feels like work? And it’s kind of fun, but may take up more time than it’s worth? It’s very interesting, and many of those people, I think, are in that category of having produced, you know, less than ten and have been kind of thrown in the towel.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s one of those things that, uh, since I’ve been doing this and I’ve been doing this for, uh, close to 20 years. So I was doing it at the beginning of podcasting, and it’s something that I didn’t even it wasn’t even on my radar, because most of the people I work with have shows that last for years. I mean, we have lots of people who have shows five, six, seven years. Um, you know, I host the Atlanta Business Radio, which I’ve been running continuously for the almost the entirety of my time doing this, like since the beginning of podcasting almost 20 years ago. So it’s one of those things I didn’t realize that so many people start and then quit so quickly until I heard that stat. So it is pretty amazing to me that folks go through the effort to begin and then quit so quickly.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, I mean, it’s very, you know, it makes sense, I think on the again, on the small business, the entrepreneur side. But I think where it is surprising, um, that falls into that category is when organizations, when larger companies decide to, you know, get leverage their expertise, leverage their thought leaders to produce a podcast, and they still run into challenges. And so, you know, a stat that I um, saw is 60% of companies, uh, cite a lack of internal expertise as a barrier to podcast production, which makes sense, right? Who’s going to be the one internally? Who’s going to create it? Is it going to be your marketing director who already has 15 other things on their plate? Are you going to outsource it? Um, and if so, you know, where’s that budget coming from? Um, in order to get get your return on the investment of doing so. Uh, so I thought that was very interesting that companies struggle with this as well.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And a lot of times in their head, they’re like, oh, we’re going to just have our, our leader be smart. And so we’ll just interview them or they’re going to share their expertise, or they’ll be the host of the show. And then reality strikes that their leader is busy leading and they’re not busy, you know, kind of doing all the work it takes to execute a podcast on a regular rhythm and that they realize pretty quickly they’re like, okay, we’ll do this once a month. It’ll be the third Tuesday of the month, okay, let’s do it. And they get the first one. They’re like, oh, that was great. And then the second one comes along and they’re like, I got a meeting or, oh, this thing came up or there’s a fire I got to put out and I can’t do it. And then all of a sudden they miss that month, and then one month they miss it turns into two months. And all of a sudden you used to be doing a podcast and that was, you know, now it’s a back burner thing. It’s no longer a priority. So it’s really hard for, uh, especially growing, fast growing organizations to have their leader carve out time to do a podcast on any type of regular rhythm. Um, and to get that return that they’re looking for.

Rachel Simon: Right. And I think that that, you know, the the intentions are always, you know, from coming from the right place as far as, again, we have got this all this internal expertise, we need to leverage it. It’s so easy to because we just need people to talk. And how hard could that be? Just talk and we’ll do. We’ll take care of the rest. Um, but, you know, one of the other challenges I see all the time is when these shows are are created. They’re not leveraged well enough beyond sort of that initial push out. Right. So maybe it gets pushed out on LinkedIn through the company page like, hey, here’s our newest episode, but that long form piece of content, your podcast, there’s so much richness in there and it’s just kind of sitting there collecting dust. And, uh, unfortunately, you know, that value is not fully taken advantage of. Um, whether this comes, you know, company A is able to produce five shows or they are able to really get in that rhythm of producing something on a consistent basis.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’s a mistake. I think that a lot of podcast guests make. Um, they don’t take that piece of content and repurpose it. I think you can repurpose it multiple times a year. Like I would look at any piece of content I create and put in my calendar. When it comes out, I’m going to put immediately into my calendar every at least quarter. I’m going to just put it out again and say, hey, I was on this podcast because no one’s going to remember and it’s still good information. Most of what we’re talking about in a business to a B2B podcast is kind of evergreen. We’re not talking about breaking news where it becomes irrelevant in a month. We’re usually talking about kind of, uh, things that will be true in three months, six months, a year. So why not just put out a blurb in your social media again about something you did three months ago no one is going to remember, and the way these social media platforms work. Anyway, your initial post didn’t go to your entire list anyway, so who cares if you know this will be new people that’ll see it. So I have no qualms at all about repurposing content. You know, multiple times the same piece of content, you know, three or 4 or 6, as many as you want really, over a period of time.

Rachel Simon: Oh, I you know, I love repurposing content. Um, and so I completely agree. And, you know, something that I’ve done is, um, is now I’ve been on a had the, you know, honor of being on a bunch of different podcasts. And so I have created a Spotify playlist of all the shows I’ve been on, which is in my featured content on LinkedIn. There’s a little tip for y’all if you’re a frequent guest, make a playlist. And I’ve actually sent that to prospects. They want to get a sense of sort of how I present on my area of expertise, which is you’ve been listening to us for a while, you know, is LinkedIn. Um, I send them an episode that I’ve been on and say, oh, here in this one, I specifically was talking about how leadership can position themselves on LinkedIn or how a sales team can leverage LinkedIn because nothing is better than you kind of talking about your area of expertise very organically to get for someone to get a sense of what it would be like to work with you. Um, and so that’s a fun little thing that I, I use, and I should just go back and repost some of those episodes. I’m going to go ahead and schedule that into my content calendar.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those things. And that’s a great idea with the playlist because it’s in essence, your portfolio. It’s giving a person a prospect. This this is the last mile, right? This is the time they’re going to make a buying decision. They can hear your own voice, your own passion, your own expertise in your own words shine. And then they can make that buying decision. Okay. I believe Rachel is right for me. I can tell she thinks like I think she’s she’s going to be able to help me solve this problem. Look, she’s obviously an expert. She’s been on all these podcasts. So it checks the box of social proof. And it also checks the box of hearing your own kind of expertise in your own words, your own passion. Um, so that’s it’s in essence to me, your portfolio. Um, it shows you that you can do the work that you’re promising that you can.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a great way of describing it. And it’s just a nice asset to have as well. And, and, you know, one of the things I mean for people listening, if you have been on podcasts, if you I mean, I don’t know, I listen to all the shows I’ve been on and there have been some where I’m like, this lady really knows what she’s talking about here. Like, because when you’re in the moment, you’re not really thinking about it and going back and listening. But it’s also helpful to kind of think about content ideas that are coming from those conversations that you’re having with people that I know on our shows here, our guests always get a, you know, they get the show, they get their audio recording, they also get a written transcript. And so that is such a great tool to be able to kind of mine content ideas from whether it is, you know, blog posts, LinkedIn social media posts, um, you know, ideas for presentations. Whatever the case may be, there’s just tremendous amount of rich, uh, content to be found in, in your conversations that you’re passionate about, because that’s the best way to kind of showcase your expertise is when you’re excited about it.

Lee Kantor: Right. And that’s something that we do at Business RadioX that’s a little different is we transcribe every, um, interview. So it’s important to grab that audio content, which really right now isn’t, uh, the ability to search that isn’t great right now. It’s getting better, but it’s not great. But the transcripts to create the digital text, which is searchable, is so important because that is where those chunks of information will be grabbed by the search engines. And and you’ll be found that way. And then from in terms of content to have for the guest, they can see all the words and they can grab chunks and they can say, oh, you know what? This would be a cool little quote on Instagram. Or this I can take this little clip here, starting from here to there, and I can edit it out and I can make a little video about this, a little highlight reel or, you know, you can use it in, in so many ways, when you have the text in front of you that you can read or like you said, you can make a blog post or you can go, you know what? I’m going to flesh this out and make an article about that, or I’m going to send this chunk to a prospect to remind them that I’ve solved this problem before. So having that, uh, an audio podcast, also in digital text format is so important. And it just kind of like you said, adds to this exponential pile of content that you can repurpose, you know, for months or years.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, switching gears a little bit, I know, um, on our show, we’ve had a few guests who are involved with different, um, community organizations, associations. And so, you know, what is it that, um, associations can do to really kind of pull podcasting into their, um, into their marketing plan, into their membership plan. Like how is podcasting an asset when if you have a membership organization?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, this is something that we’ve stumbled upon, uh, several years ago, is to create an offering just for, um, associations and business groups. And, and our model of doing this is we realized, like we discussed earlier, that the thought leaders intentions are good and they want to capture some of that thought leadership. So we include some of that thought leadership capture as part of the deliverable to them. But what we’re doing on their behalf on a regular basis, which is kind of counterintuitive, is we’re interviewing the members of the association and giving them a platform to tell their stories, and this activity is really a game changer for associations, because what it does is it allows them to show their members that they value them, and they are helping promote them and helping them get their next client, which is one of the reasons that a lot of these, especially B2B association members, are joining the association is to get more clients. So not only are they learning stuff from the association and getting the advocacy from the association, they’re also getting the association to kind of promote their work and share the stories that, uh, about their work to their other members. So that’s super important, um, for the membership. Because what we do when we do the interviews, we’re not only just hearing their story about what makes them special and unique. We’re also in the course of the interviewing. We’re asking them why they joined the association, what they’ve gotten out of the association. And when we do that, I would say 100% of the time we’re getting a great testimonial from the member.

Lee Kantor: And then when we one of our deliverables back to the association is we pull out that, um, that testimonial and we give them the association, the interview in its entirety. But we also pull out the testimonial. And so what they’re able to do is create that library of testimonials so they can do what you suggested and create those Spotify playlists of just testimonials so they can hear from the members mouths. Exactly why it’s great to be a member of this association and what they’ve gotten out of it. And I’ve had one association, even at their annual meeting, they took all of the clips of the testimonials, and they were just running it in a loop, um, at the, at the conference in the background. So they’re seeing all these members just talk about how great the association is. And, um, and what it did is it created a lot of engagement and a lot of positive feelings about the association and an unintended consequence of doing this kind of work is these associations realize the spotlighting of their members, and giving them that kind of love is a great way for them to refer new members to them, and these people are now looking to reciprocate back to the association and helping that association find their next member or two. And that is really where the rubber hits the road, and that’s where they see this tremendous ROI. Not only are they getting just tons of content, tons of testimonials, they’re capturing their leaders thought leadership. They’re also getting their members engaged and looking for ways to help the association grow by building their membership.

Rachel Simon: I mean, it’s like it’s like a win win, win, win win. There’s so many wins in there across the board. Um, and I love it for so many reasons. Uh, but one of the big main areas that what you were saying that I think is, is really so important to highlight is that there’s a lot of people, a lot of really smart professionals who have a lot of wisdom to share and And maybe a goal is to get on podcasts more often, but it can be a scary prospect of like, how do I find them? And I’ve never been on one before. Like, we’ve had guests on our show that it’s their first time ever being on a podcast, and they’re so nervous. Even though we try, we make them feel very calm and at ease because there’s nothing to be scared of. Um, but there’s a level of of, you know, nerves that go into it. And to make it so easy where these associations are just saying, sit down, we’re going to have a very comfortable conversation because we know you and you know us, and we just want you to talk about what you do. And we’re going to put the spotlight on you. Um, is such a good way of getting people to feel, uh, valued and at ease and start to build their library of podcasts, because once you’ve been on 1 or 2, it’s a lot easier to get on more, in my experience. So I just love that so much. It’s such a huge, huge value.

Lee Kantor: Right. And that’s what, um, one of the tenants of Business RadioX since the beginning is we always want to be the safe place for these people to go. And we understand these are not professionally trained media, you know, media people, they’re business owners that are just trying to get through the day in their business so they don’t really have the time to be an expert, uh, you know, media performer. So we try to be a safe place. And, and our intention is to support and celebrate their work. We’re not investigative reporters, so we try to give them a safe environment for them to share their story, to be comfortable and to know that we’re there, kind of watching their back and to help them articulate what makes them special and unique.

Rachel Simon: Yeah. And I would imagine that, um, within, you know, various associations, then it becomes a, uh, you know, something that members want to do, right? Oh, how do I get on there? When can I book a show to, uh. Because I want to do that. That looks like fun. And I think that’s so smart that that one group that you mentioned kind of used all those testimonials, um, during their conference as a loop because it first of all, you know how like when you are at a like some sort of event and there’s like a photo montage, you always get so excited when you see yourself in there. And I’m sure that the people whose, uh, testimonials were shown, like, were so excited when theirs came up, like, hey, that’s me. People love to see themselves exactly talk about themselves.

Lee Kantor: And they become a little bit of celebrities because the other people see them too. And they’re like, oh, I saw you on the screen. Like then they get that kind of, uh, attention that it’s all positive, it’s all kind of supportive. It really kind of leans into the mission of most associations that they’re trying to help their members be more successful. So this type of activity, while it might seem counterintuitive to spotlight your members, is really a great way to create that win win, win all the way around for everybody. Because by spotlighting your members, you’re really showcasing how important the association is, that they have members like that and it lets people connect easier because now they know this a little bit about them that maybe they didn’t know before. The members have a way to kind of share how great the association is because they take their interview and like you mentioned earlier, and they repurpose it, and it’s going out to the world about how this association spotlighted them. Oh, I didn’t even know about that association. Let me learn more about it. Like so it creates content in a very engaging way, and it makes the members feel good about being a member of this association. So it does create a lot of good vibes in a kind of win win win all the way around, um, elegant manner.

Rachel Simon: It’s like it’s like when you see yourself on the jumbotron and a Braves game, you’re like, that’s me, right? Damn. Um, well, for these, uh, when you’ve done this for different associations, how often are they producing shows?

Lee Kantor: Well, we have, um, our main service when we do this is we have a done for you element where we’re just we’re doing the interviews of the members, Um, at whatever rhythm they want to do. So some people want us to interview, you know, one, two members a month, some want to do. We’re doing interviews. I’ve done weeks where I’ve done five, ten interviews for one association. It just depends on how they want to, um, do this. So they have to reach out to the members. We do the interviewing on their behalf. We execute the podcast on their behalf and we give them back the content. We give them back. The testimonial pulled out, um, and then whenever rhythm they want, we also facilitate some sort of a roundtable or a subject matter expert episode where we’re interviewing the leadership on whatever rhythm works for them, because, again, the leader is busy, and I think that is like we discussed earlier, that’s where the disconnect happens. The people who want to do the podcast want to focus in on the leadership and make sure they get kind of the attention as the host or as the expert, but they don’t realize how much work goes into it and how how much it affects their schedule.

Lee Kantor: So we do that, um, whenever they’re available so we don’t have to worry about, oh, I got to get that leader in here every week or every month. We’ll get them in whenever we can get them in. And we don’t have to focus in on one leader. We can focus in on whatever leader is available that month. So we do this done for you. Turnkey association service that creates content as much as they want, really on whatever rhythm that works for them. And but it’s focused mainly on spotlighting members and then also capturing the thought leadership from their leaders. So it’s a done for you, a little done with you, but it’s one of those things where they can kind of set it and forget it. As long as they have kind of a good admin, they can just invite members on the show. Then we take care of all the rest.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, that’s I mean, what a great service. Um, for so many reasons. Right. Generating a ton of content, generating a ton of goodwill. Um, you know, another little stat I saw was 50% of companies find it challenging to measure the success and impact of their podcasts accurately. I would imagine that in a model like this, you’re measuring success based on, you know, you can come up with a few, uh, metrics to track. And that might be, you know, membership referrals, membership renewals. Right. If your members are happy, they’re going to continue to stay within your organization. Um, there’s probably a few other, you know, KPIs that could be. Yeah, you.

Lee Kantor: Can measure how much engagement the content, like you were saying earlier about the content, look at how much more content engagement, because each one of those guests is incented to share the content about the association with their network whenever it comes out. And if you teach them like we were going over earlier, hey, you should be repurposing this every month or every three months that the association goes along for the ride every time they share that. So, you know, some of these members have followings of, you know, 500, 1000, 10,000, 20,000 people. So they’re sending out that interview to that group, you know, multiple times a year if you train them.

Rachel Simon: And I would imagine, too, that this would be a great model for conferences where you could because I know that because I’ve come to events with you where you’re doing live podcasting, right, interviewing people, five, ten minute little snippets. Um, and that is always a fun sort of value add at conferences and in-person events to be able to just do it in real time, right?

Lee Kantor: It’s one of those things we tell them we can take the show on the road, so when they have a conference or it doesn’t even have to be their own internal conference, they could be going to a conference where maybe they’re speaking where they can tell the conference, hey, I’d like to have a booth where we’re doing our podcast at that event so it can be used in a variety of ways. But yeah, we do take the show on the road, and we’ve been doing that for decades now. Um, where we show up at these conferences, trade shows, other kinds of events, doing live, um, interviews.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, so much fun. And, um, I was at a conference last fall for it was a health care conference, and there was somebody there similarly like set up and was just interviewing, you know, had a constant stream of people coming in for these little snippets of interviews. And, um, it’s just a fun little activity, particularly for, again, for people who maybe don’t have experience, um, or looking to kind of kind of get that first couple of interviews, uh, under their belt and realize that, oh, being on a podcast is really, really fun and really, really easy because I just have to answer questions that are things I love to talk about.

Lee Kantor: Which is themselves.

Rachel Simon: People love talking about themselves.

Lee Kantor: Yeah.

Lee Kantor: And I, I’ve had multiple times people come up to me, um, thanking me, you know, years later. Oh, you were my first interview. That was the first time I’ve ever done this before. And now I’m, uh. You know, my business is killing it. And we’ve interviewed literally people who at the time had five figure businesses to now have nine figure businesses. So, um, we’ve been doing this for a long time, and we’ve been around people, um, doing their interviews early in their, in their kind of trajectory. So it’s been an exciting ride for us to be able to have been doing this kind of work for so long and spotlight so many great business leaders out there.

Rachel Simon: Yeah. So, Lee, does this model work within companies as well?

Lee Kantor: Absolutely. But what it requires, if they’re going to do it as a company, I would highly recommend instead of trying to just create content that is, uh, build it and hopefully they’ll come spotlight your clients, do this and focus in on the clients you already have and just show them more love and you’ll be amazed at the type of engagement and that they they’re going to want to reciprocate back to you and help you get your next client. Um, because most vendors are not are are treated as vendors. And then the relationships transactional. When you do this kind of work and you spotlight and promote your existing clients, what you’re doing is you’re elevating your relationship from transactional to relational. And what that does is it bonds you more with the client. The client sees that you’re trying to help them get their next client, and that’s ultimately why they’re hiring you, is they want more business, and they’re hiring you to help them get more business. So by promoting them to your own network, you’re helping them get the word out. You’re appreciating their talents and what they’re doing, and you’re helping them get their next client. So I would recommend any organization do a podcast, focus in on your clients. First, sprinkle in some thought leadership, but do a guest oriented, client oriented podcast. And I think you’re going to be a lot more successful and a lot more happy with the results you’re going to get.

Rachel Simon: I that is so smart. And you know this because again, lots and lots of companies love the idea of podcasting. But you know, again, all of these stats, whether it’s the amount of time it takes to produce the lack of technical experience and skills, the the challenge of staying on a regularly, you know, on a regular schedule. Um, you know, again, like I said earlier, like the ability to measure the results by finding a partner that you can outsource all of that to, and you literally just have to book your guests and show up, takes so much of that stress off the table and then leaves you with just a tremendous amount of content. And and then again, goodwill and relationship building. Um, that is only a value add for the organization. I mean, so smart, I love it.

Lee Kantor: Well, before we wrap, I want to make sure that people understand you are the expert on LinkedIn. You’ve mentioned some ways to leverage the content on LinkedIn, but what do you think would be some other tips you can give people regarding LinkedIn when it comes to this kind of work, or just content in general?

Rachel Simon: Yeah, so I think when it comes to, you know, podcasts and specifically since that’s what we’ve been talking about today, I think, you know, making it as easy as possible for your guests to know what to do. Right? So, um, if you, you know, give them directions when you send them the show to say, here’s if you, you know, you could give them a little blurb as a starting point for them to post, put a post out of it, make sure they know who to tag. Right. Because like, you want to make sure that you get tagged, your company gets tagged, your association, whatever the case may be. Um, but getting it out in a, in a in front of as many people as possible is super important. Right? And again, if you’re going to, um, you know, let’s say you do a do it as a video podcast, right? That can go up into a number of different ways. You know, we tested it one time on our show to do a do it as a LinkedIn live. It didn’t totally work. We’ll have to try that again. Um, but, you know, you could put that stuff up on YouTube, post those videos on LinkedIn as well. So it’s really, again, leveraging that content as much as you possibly can. But I do believe that one of the challenges is that guests don’t always know what to do after they get the show, so they might just click repost on something as opposed to creating their own original piece of content that talks about their experience on the show. You know, you could either give even give a couple prompts for a post of like, what was your favorite part of being on the show or what? What surprised you? This, that, and the other. So I think it’s just the ease piece is super important. And obviously before you’re going to do any content on LinkedIn, your profile obviously is going.

Lee Kantor: To be.

Rachel Simon: Looking good. So if it’s not, then you know where to find me.

Lee Kantor: And to find me you can go to Lee Kantor. Com you can book time on my calendar at Lee Kantor. Com and that schedule gets to my calendar. You can book a 30 minute call. Or if you want to learn more about how Business RadioX does this kind of association work, you can go to Business RadioX dot com and then you can look in the tabs for how we help associations. Um, and Rachel, thank you so much for allowing me to be a guest on your show. I love doing it every month with you. Um, and it was great to chat with you in this way.

Rachel Simon: Absolutely. Super fun. And, um, you know, y’all can find me at Connect the Dots digital.com or on LinkedIn. I’m very easy to find. Uh, Rachel. Simon. Just look for someone with big, curly red hair. Very easy to spot. Me. And until next month, hopefully, we’ll be back in the studio. This was a fun one.

About Your Host

Rachel Simon is the CEO & Founder of Connect the Dots Digital. She helps B2B companies close more business by leveraging the power of LinkedIn.

Rachel works with professionals, both individuals and teams, to position their authentic brand on LinkedIn so they can connect organically with ideal clients, attract the best talent, and stand out as a leader in their industry.

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn.

BRX Pro Tip: How Do You Measure Progress?

July 25, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tip: What Diet and Productivity Advice Have in Common

July 24, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: What Diet and Productivity Advice Have in Common

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BRX Pro Tip: What Diet and Productivity Advice Have in Common

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, you’ve recently discovered a connection between diet and productivity advice.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I’ve spent my whole working life, you know, kind of in the wellness diet place of business and also, obviously, in running Business RadioX, and I read a lot of books about both things. And I kind of figured out, after decades of studying these things, that each of those kind of things that people strive to do, they strive to lose weight and they strive to be more productive, they all can be boiled down to just a few basic tenets that if you just do those couple of things, then everything’s going to be fine.

Lee Kantor: But then, you know, there’s libraries filled with books and systems about each of those that have their own kind of little jazz hands and nuances that dress it up. But, really, the bottom line is both of them can be boiled down to just a couple of things.

Lee Kantor: And to lose weight, if you just eat less non-nutritious food and exercise more, you’re going to lose weight. And it doesn’t matter what all the books say. You can follow all the books, any of the books, some of the books, but that’s usually at the heart of all of this, you have to eat less and then move more.

Lee Kantor: And then, to be more productive, again, you can read all the books and they all have a variety of ways to get to this end point. But the endpoint always is identify the activities that are most important to you and then actually do them. And if you do those things, then you’re going to be more productive, get more done, and be more successful.

Lee Kantor: So, both of those cases, the advice is simple but not easy. And there’s been a lot of wealth created on dressing up those core tenants in each of those areas, but those are kind of the bottom line things you have to do in order to lose weight and be successful.

Hawaii WBE Feature: Leadership Coaching

July 23, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Hawaii WBE Feature: Leadership Coaching

00:00 /

In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Sarah Kalicki-Nakamura, owner of TH!NK, a learning and development company. Sarah shares the origins of TH!NK, which began during a challenging period in her life, and discusses the company’s growth from modest beginnings to expanding beyond Hawaii. She details the services TH!NK offers, such as executive coaching and leadership development, and highlights the importance of these services at all organizational levels. Sarah also shares success stories, including the impactful “Growing Leaders” program, and emphasizes the benefits of being certified as a women-owned business.

Sarah Kalicki-Nakamura, co-owner of TH!NK, is more than just a leadership coach and consultant – she is on a mission. Her goal is to inspire and empower managers and executives to create workplaces where people are excited to come to work. With over 20 years of experience in executive coaching and hands-on workshops, Sarah has been helping people thrive at work.

Sarah holds a BA in Broadcast Journalism from Arizona State University and a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix. Additionally, she is an Everything DiSC® Certified Facilitator and a Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Certified Facilitator.

Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sarah lives with her husband Malcolm, sons Trey and Wyatt, and their fur baby Ikaika. Outside of work, she enjoys yoga, CrossFit, and finding the next most delicious dessert.

Follow TH!NK on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This 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 Sarah Kalicki Nakamura with Th!nk. Welcome.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Well, good morning!

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Th!nk.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: So Th!nk is a learning and development company where we really help leaders and teams to reach their full potential and help people get along at work. We do it through executive coaching, team building, as well as leadership training.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s your back story? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Well, like every story, it starts – you know, the seed is planted kind of way before the business even flourishes. I moved to Hawaii back in 1994, and when I moved to Hawaii, I was super excited about the change and moving there, but it ended up being somewhat of a difficult transition for me, just kind of finding my footing in the state and finding what do I do and who am I when I’m there.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: So, I worked in the hospitality industry at the time, and I was working with Hilton Hawaiian Village. I just started my job and I read a book about transitions. And when you’re having a difficult transition, it’s called your neutral zone. The exercise was to just list down as many things as you would ever want to do and start doing them. Get in forward motion to get yourself through this awkward period of time.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And on my list was to actually go get a master’s degree, and I didn’t want to do it by myself. Just started this new job. I’m in a new state and there was a girl sitting next to me, I guess a woman sitting next to me, looked about my age, and I just introduced myself. I said, “Hey, I’m Sarah, I’m new to Hilton,” and she was new to Hilton too. And I said, “I’m thinking about getting a master’s degree. Have you ever thought about it?” She said, “Yep.” So I said, “Here’s the admission officer, give them a call. We’re going to start the program in a couple of weeks.” She signed up and we did the program together.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Fast forward a year and a half later, at the end of our program, we were asked to write a capstone project and a business plan, and we decided to do it on learning and development since that was our field, got a great grade on it, put it away. Intention was just to go back and work in hospitality and stay on track that way.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then I had my first son, and I realized I didn’t want to work the same way throughout that time when he was young and I needed to not commute as much. I wanted to have more time with him. So I dusted off. The business plan was written as a partnership, and so I went to my business partner, Cindy, and I said, “Hey, I’m going to do this and work differently while my children are young and wanted to see if you wanted to do it with me or give me permission to do it on my own.” She said, “You know what? I’ll quit my job too.” And we started the business. So we always laugh. We’re actually accidental businesswomen or business owners. It was all centered around a choice for how we wanted to raise our kids and run our family and have an income at the same time.

Lee Kantor: So, how did you make that transition to go from this concept and saying, okay, how do I – did you ease into it? Did you keep your job and then start trying to get clients on the side? Like, how did that transition occur?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah, we went cold turkey. We did all the wrong things based on the business books, I think. So we literally quit our jobs. We set a goal for how much money we needed to make, which was very little. We just needed to pay, like, certain bills. So I always tell people, like, aim higher because we kept making the little bit of money that we were wishing for until we started setting stretch goals, and we just sought out our first client. We just started telling people what we were doing and we, you know, delivered our first, I think it was a customer service program for a hospital. And, you know, our belief system has always been just do great work each time. And the more people we help, the more business will follow. And I never thought we would be here about 24 years later under this identity.

Lee Kantor: So, how did you go about getting those early clients? You know, going from kind of a corporate setting, I don’t know if your job was sales, but when you’re an entrepreneur, everyone’s job sales. So, how did that take place that, you know, now I have to sell something?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: You know, we were in human resources, actually, so we weren’t sale – I mean, everybody does sales, but we were in human resources. We were specifically in leadership development training, and we had made connections out in the community and people we’d worked with. And like a lot of things, I’m sure everywhere but for sure in Hawaii, it’s just good relationships. So we just started calling people in and letting them know what we were doing and asking them if they needed any help with that. And one client turned into another client that turned into another client. One of the things we’re most proud of is that many of our clients from day one will still use our services over this period of time.

Lee Kantor: So, was your business primarily at the time Hawaii-based?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yes, our business is primarily Hawaii-based. Still is. So most of our clients are still in Hawaii, although we’ve expanded to Las Vegas recently and we’ve had some mainland clients over the years, and so we’ve been able to service them more. And our hope and our wish is that we’re going to be able to grow more in this area as well.

Lee Kantor: So, what is usually your point of entry with a company?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: You know, it’s been interesting. It’s just meeting people. Usually – well, our entry would be at the director or vice president or CEO level. And it’s typically through some sort of either volunteer project or community meeting where we’re able to start making these connections, or that somebody has heard about our work that we’ve done for other people and they’ve given us, you know, a reference or a lead saying that hey, you know what? They’ve helped things up, helped us. Maybe they can help you, too.

Lee Kantor: So, are you going in to do, like, a project, like, hey, do this, you know, workshop, or we need this kind of teaching happening because we had an issue, so we need someone to teach this thing?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah. So, they’re usually calling because maybe an executive needs some coaching to take it from this level to the next level, and they just need some guidance in that. So executive coaching would be one entry point.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Strategic planning would be another entry point. An executive body needs to think about the next three years out and where the organization wants to go. They need somebody to facilitate that conversation to help them map that path. In our construction and military environment, we do a lot of partnering meetings. So when the military and a construction group get together before they kick off a project, they need to form a partnering meeting where they, you know, learn how to work together. They learn about each other’s strengths, weaknesses, build some trusting relationships so that they can have a successful project.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then it could be in leadership development. They have a group of people that they know that they want to invest in, to help them have those interpersonal skills and strategic skills to go ahead and lead the organization as they build a succession plan or a bench.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then also when people need to just get along at work, maybe there’s some conflict or some difficulties, some pain spots on a team, it’s just not working so well, we can come in and we often will help them get unstuck and find ways to, you know, really value each other’s differences and thrive.

Lee Kantor: Now, how have you seen coaching evolve in the business world? At one point, it was just for either senior, you know, the most senior of people and/or somebody there trying to fix that has a problem that needs some, you know, help. Are you seeing it kind of being disseminated throughout the entire organization nowadays?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Oh, it’s everywhere. It’s such a funny thing. When we started over 20 years ago, it was kind of unheard of. You know, maybe the highest-level executive had it. And you’re right. Maybe somebody needed to fix something. Or maybe oftentimes, you know, once you get to that, that CEO level, you just need somebody to bounce ideas off of because, really, it is lonely at the top, right? You don’t have a lot of peers you can talk about what you’re thinking about strategy for your company, and then you can’t talk to your direct reports. So it was a very unique, small niche kind of business.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Nowadays, everybody’s involved in it. So we do some long-term leadership training programs and embedded in that. By long-term, I mean we work with companies for three to 12 months where a cohort of people go together to experience leadership lessons and to develop their skills at a certain level so that they can help propel the organization built into those programs. Now, it’s supportive coaching after each session for every person. And this would go from a senior-level person all the way down to a high performer or a high-potential performer. So we’re seeing it go all the way through the organization from highest level to maybe C-suite to directors, managers, all the way to supervisors and somebody maybe in the succession planning pipeline that they’re helping, they’re trying to grow to get to the next level.

Lee Kantor: Are you also seeing it as kind of things that must be there to attract younger talent like that? Younger talent wants to see some sort of coaching or some sort of training that’s going to help upskill them so they’re going to get that out of the experience.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah, I would say with the younger talent where we’re seeing it be a talent attractor or a magnet of sorts, a recruiting tool, is when they have set programs in place and clear learning steps. So if an organization in their organizational development plan, they can show somebody, when you enter here, here’s the pathway to learning all the way through your career as well as here’s some potential succession steps that you can take. So that’s really valuable to them when it’s already embedded.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And I’d also say that our younger or newer in their career steps are also looking for mentoring, not just coaching. And I would say the difference would be is coaching is they’re working on something that they personally want to develop and is very specific and we’re going to grow that skill set. Mentoring is that trusted person that they can go for advice inside and outside of the organization. It may not be specifically to develop a skill set but to just develop that relationship and just that tacit knowledge, that knowledge that can only happen by working with somebody who’s been through something.

Lee Kantor: What are some symptoms that an organization is going through, that they may not connect the dots where, hey, maybe we should bring somebody on to help us in this area when it comes to coaching or leadership development?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Oh, that’s a great one. A more high turnover is an obvious one, right? If you have a high turnover, we have to drill down to the root cause of that. And the root cause could be maybe the supervisor is not fully developed. Maybe the manager is not clarifying what the job is. Well, maybe when they’re onboarding, there’s not a system in set to train somebody and build their confidence and competence really directly. So that would be a reason that you would want to call us.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: You might also be having a team that’s working together and you know they’re just not reaching their full potential. It’s a little sticky. There’s a bit of infighting. People is competing for individual success, not collective success, and there’s just not that openness and transparency of sharing information. In those team issues, we put people together and we just assume everything’s going to work perfectly. But there are actually systems that need to be put in place, both interpersonal and structural systems that we need to do when we assemble any team.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then maybe you’re also finding out that you’re not able to attract top talent. Or when it’s time to promote people, you realize you don’t have anybody internally to promote, which is a misstep, right? If somebody is hired by us, our belief system is they should actually be prepared to grow their career with us. And if we’re not developing them for the next level, then maybe we didn’t do our job well, and you might want to call in somebody like us to make sure that you have those growth opportunities and people are growing in your organization, not just staying stagnant.

Lee Kantor: Now, have you ever worked with a high-level executive and that person didn’t notice that there was friction or silos and there were, you know, problem people in the organization because to them everything seemed fine and the reports they’re getting everything seemed fine. But you dig a layer too deep and you’re like, “Dude, there’s some problems here. Like, this is – you have -things are on fire.”

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah. Of course. Right. That happens frequently. Because there’s a certain level where you may not be completely in touch or the people who are reporting to you, you know, perceive everything as going well. But if you dig down deeper and you look at certain things happening, you can get a sense that we need to figure out more here. So you may have a sense that your engagement scores are down. That’s a symptom that you may have some troublesome leadership inside the organization.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Maybe even your customer service scores are down and they’ll call us and say, “We have to do customer service training.” You’re like, “Well, what do you want to talk about?” They said, “Well, you know, our customers are saying that people don’t smile. They don’t have a nice tone of voice. They’re not saying hello right away.” And our question would be is, do you think your people really don’t know how to smile, don’t really know how to use the right tone of voice? It’s possible. Or is it that they’re not wanting to do that? You know, it doesn’t feel good. They don’t feel good being here, and therefore they’re not feeling in a way that they can communicate that to others. And oftentimes that’s the case. And so that would be a case where we’d say, we got to dig into this, right? We have to figure out exactly what’s going on to create that culture.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Gossiping is another symptom that we can hear, if there’s certain gossiping or if people won’t just speak up in a meeting. When meetings are quiet and silent, sometimes leaders view that as agreeing, being agreeable to whatever they’re saying. But oftentimes that’s just people being fearful or not willing to say what’s on their mind because the trust level is low. And then we have to put in some systems to make sure that we can open that up in the environment.

Lee Kantor: How important are kind of regular assessments when it comes to engagement and the things that you mentioned?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Well, we’re a big believer in self-assessments and 360 assessments where we love data and a different way of asking questions so that we can get actually tangible information of what to start working on. So we really love the Everything DiSC Workplace Profile to help people understand what their preferences and tendencies are for communicating with others and how others want to communicate to them and just build that environment of understanding that we all bring strengths to the team and how do we best use them.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: We also love the Five Behaviors product for team development, so they can take time to assess where are they at in trust. Are they engaging in conflict productively? Are they committing to ideas and moving forward? How well are they holding each other accountable? And are they pursuing collective or individual results?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And we also believe in the PXT Checkpoint 360. That’s a 360 assessment where people can actually go out and ask people for feedback about their leadership and give them tangible skills that they need to work on so they can be even a more effective leader. And when things are down, rooted in data and there’s other profiles and assessments we like, but that rooting in data allows us to disconnect from our feelings and really look at what is and take that time to kind of look at ourselves through a different lens and really reflect on how is this working for us. And then from there, the strategies begin.

Lee Kantor: So what’s kind of the rhythm of those types of assessments? Because so many organizations and sometimes when you have dysfunctional organizations that have trust issues, they – you know, the people see this coming and they’re like, “Oh, here we go. We’re going to do this thing. We do it one time. And then, you know, I’m a yellow and you’re a blue, and then it sits on the shelf. And then, you know, we don’t talk about it anymore.”

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah, yeah. The problem is we don’t talk about it anymore. That’s the problem, part of it, because, you know, that self-assessment part that’s always valuable as you look at it. I’m going to break this down in a couple of ways. So let’s take the yellow-blue and the color. I’m going to reflect on myself. I think that’s where organizations make the mistake. They share the content like, “Hey, look about this key information. Isn’t it cool?” And it is cool to look at yourself through another lens. And then we end and we just have a label but we don’t have so what. Like, so what do I do with this now? And I think we’re super committed to the so-what part of it. Now that you know this information, so what can you do with it? How can you apply it to make your life easier and other people more comfortable working with you and that practice component and embedding it into operations?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: So one of the things we do before we work with a company is first, make sure they’re really ready for the long-term development of it, right? Not just only short-term impact. While that has its place when we’re they’re looking for culture change, we have to really make sure that they’re going to be in it for the long haul. And then we help them look at their operations, like, where can you take this information and embed it in something you’re already doing? So we’re using the language throughout the organization.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Now on the other side, you said you were talking about the trust like the team trust or if trust is low and then it’s the oh, no, we’re going to do this survey. Is anybody going to really listen or do anything with it? In those cases, we spend some time priming the organization, meaning we have one-to-one meetings with the participants before they do it, usually sitting at the team level. We talk to them about what the assessment is, what they want to get out of it, why they would want to participate what we’re trying to do, and we make that one-to-one connection first and really get to know a little bit more about the person. And then we invite them to take the survey and we show them in that process our commitment to that we’ve set up with their executive to actually carry it all the way through until there’s some sort of resolution that’s satisfying to the team.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for your firm to become part of WBEC-West?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: It’s a funny thing. So, we’ve been around for 24 years, technically with the name Th!nk a little less than that. And we’re a women-owned business. Me and my best friend own it, although that was another rule we broke. I think somebody told us the only ship that doesn’t sail is a partnership, but we do. We sail well. And as a women-owned business, it was to us for a long time, like, isn’t it obvious? We’re two women and we own it, so we are one.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then, we would try to do the designation and it just – life would get away from us and we wouldn’t do it. And we finally met somebody named Monica Coburn here in Las Vegas, Nevada, and she’s a business consultant who helped us really see the importance of it and navigate the process. Once we got our designation, I just realized probably something I didn’t even notice is just this whole world of opportunity opened up to us.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: WBEC-West keeps us in the loop of future opportunities. There’s educational opportunities. Just even having the logo on our site and in our signature line has helped us even secure more business for people who are really interested in working with women business enterprises. And I’d say we’re probably just scratching the surface of all the goodness. We’ve only had it for about a year. We’ve recertified, and we’re excited to keep getting deeper and deeper and give back to, right, find our ways to give back as well as be supported by the organization.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a story about a company that went to you with a challenge and how you were able to help them kind of overcome that and get to a new level? And obviously don’t name the name of the company but maybe share what challenge they had and how you were able to help them.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah. Gosh. There’s so many ones. I’m trying to figure out which one would be most satisfying. Would you prefer a team conversation?

Lee Kantor: Well, whatever you think may be the most rewarding, where you’re like, oh, I made an impact that this really helped.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: We do this series called Growing Leaders, and it’s a six-month program that we bring inside organizations, and it’s really a leadership development program that focuses on interpersonal skills. And embedded in that is the content, a cohort goes to work together, and then they also are able to apply the lessons afterward. And we’ve recently been working with a healthcare company and we’re working at actually supervisory level. So these are early leaders. And at the end of this program, we do a graduation. And in that graduation, people talk about the most valuable lesson they learned or how it impacted them. And over and over again, what we hear is, I wish I would have known this earlier. It would have helped me so much. I’m now able to handle difficult conversations. I have the confidence and competence to speak up like I hadn’t been able to do before. I’m able to lead my team better, and now I’m willing to apply for jobs that I wasn’t actually thinking that I was qualified before. And it’s making a difference in terms of how we’re managing our budget, how we’re managing turnover, and how we’re growing our leaders.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And we’ve now started with one cohort in that organization. They’re now on their I think they’re going to be on their fifth cohort because the organization is really seeing trust, just grow amongst all of their management team who have been going through it. They’re seeing that people are handling situations more directly. They’re able to – where they’re able to understand the business at hand and give innovative ideas to making sure that they meet their business demands.

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

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Oh, gosh. We need people who would love our help. So if there’s organizations out there who have a team that they feel they’re just not working to their fullest potential and they just need a little help, we’d love a call to see if we can help out with that.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: If you have a leadership group and you just know that you want to put in a leadership program and you want to support your future and current leaders by giving them a common language and easy-to-apply strategies that will make a difference in their business and in the world that they live in, we’d love to be able to do that. And then if there’s somebody out there who just needs some one-on-one support, maybe there’s a business need that they have that they would like to just get a little bit better at in terms of a skill set, we’d love to be able to help them with that too.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you specialize in certain industries or are you industry agnostic?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: We are industry agnostic. Our philosophy is if you have people, we’re probably – we’re a good fit for your industry. But the perfect client for us is somebody who really believes in personal development and growth and that it really makes a difference.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Sarah, congratulations on all the growth and all the success. And thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Thank you very much, Lee.

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

BRX Pro Tip: How to do More A-Level Work

July 23, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: How to do More A-Level Work

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BRX Pro Tip: How to do More A-Level Work

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, what insider perspective do you have on trying to get more A-level work done?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:12] Yeah. I think the easiest way to get more A-level work done is to stop doing C, D, and F work. And if you can eliminate doing work that you’re not proud of, that’s mediocre, and just focus in on the stuff that you do the best and that’s within your wheelhouse and is your superpower, then you’re going to raise the quality of all of your work.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] So, typically, most people do some A-work, but they also do some C and D work as well. And that’s the stuff they’re like, “Oh. That’s a necessary evil. Or that stuff has to be done and no one else can do it.” If you just kind of cut that out and just focus in on the stuff that is your superpower and just get that done to the best of your ability, you will find that, over time, you’re going to have a portfolio that’s filled only with A-work. And that you’re not going to invest time in stuff that you can’t do well or you’re not proud of at the end of the day.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:12] But, ultimately, you get to decide, if you want to do more A-work, then do more work and stop doing the work that you’re not as proud of as maybe you should be.