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BRX Pro Tip: Leveraging LinkedIn

May 21, 2024 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Leveraging LinkedIn
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BRX Pro Tip: Leveraging LinkedIn

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I know you’ve learned a lot and continue to learn about how to leverage LinkedIn to grow your business. What’s today’s LinkedIn Pro Tip, man?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. This is a good one. And you know I’m a big fan of surprise and delight and I think this falls under that category. And on LinkedIn, this is something that every professional service practitioner can be doing. Anybody that’s in business really can be doing this.

Lee Kantor: But on LinkedIn, if you write an honest, authentic recommendation for each of your clients, you will find out that that is extremely appreciated and it is extremely a worthwhile activity to do. Your client will appreciate you doing this. It will help them get more business. And the bottom line is, no matter what service you’re providing or you did provide for this person, remember, it’s your job to help your client get more business. That’s the bottom line. That’s usually why they hire you.

Lee Kantor: So, this is a great way for you to do that. They will see that you’ve done that. They will appreciate that you’ve done that. And it will help them get more clients down the road. So, a great way to leverage LinkedIn is write an authentic recommendation for each of your clients.

Oldcastle APG: Making Outdoor Dreams a Reality

May 20, 2024 by angishields

Sandy Springs Business Radio
Sandy Springs Business Radio
Oldcastle APG: Making Outdoor Dreams a Reality
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On today’s Sandy Springs Business Radio, hosts Lee Kantor and Rachel Simon talk with Jason Dean and Dave Jackson from Oldcastle APG. Jason discusses his journey from the US Coast Guard to the brick and block industry, while Dave, who handles branding, shares insights into the company’s marketing strategies. Oldcastle manufactures a variety of outdoor products and the conversation covers the company’s focus on customer relationships and the integration of sales and marketing. The guests also discuss the impact of the pandemic on outdoor living trends and Oldcastle APG’s participation in HGTV’s dream home program.

Oldcastle-logo

Dave-JacksonDave Jackson is Senior Brand Manager, Oldcastle APG, leading all aspects of brand strategy and managing marketing and advertising efforts for brands including Sakrete, Amerimix, Echelon Masonry and Belgard Commercial.

Utilizing more than a decade of experience, Dave’s innovative mindset and customer-centric approach have propelled APG’s dry mix, masonry and hardscapes business to new heights and exceptional growth.

Jason-DeanJason Dean is Senior Vice President of Pro Sales of Oldcastle APG, leading all aspects of national sales efforts for the professional division across the organization’s hardscapes, masonry and dry-mix business. With nearly 30 years of company experience and industry insights, his keen leadership skills enable him to develop effective sales strategies, drive revenue growth and cultivate stronger relationships with existing and prospective customers.

Since joining APG through the acquisition of Georgia Masonry Supply (GMS) in 1994, Jason has held several leadership positions of increasing responsibility and experienced significant success in building and strengthening the pro sales department. A testament to his dedication and expertise, his 30-year career has produced an outstanding track record that has positively impacted our business and continues to serve and address our customers’ needs across North America.

Since being appointed SVP of Pro Sales, he has championed several successful strategies which focus on increasing customer connections, developing strong sales pipelines, collaborating across all brands and honing key markets and prospects. To grow the customer base for a commodity in a static market, he reenergized the network of customers and enhanced relationships with dealers to increase loyalty to the brands.

In addition to customer-centric strategies, Jason championed several creative projects to promote brand awareness, such as Concrete Combat and Sakrete Time, both of which appealed to previously unengaged markets. Jason’s innovative approach to boosting brand awareness and increasing market reach has led to increased revenue in an extremely competitive business.

Follow Oldcastle APG on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Transcript-iconThis 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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here with Rachel Simon. Another episode of Sandy Springs. Sandy Springs Business Radio and this episode 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, welcome.

Rachel Simon: Hi Lee, how are you?

Lee Kantor: I am doing great! I am so excited about this show. Got a great group here today.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, we’ve got two guests. It’s our first time with two guests. So super excited for that. It’s going to be fun but.

Lee Kantor: That was good. You managed it by being of the same firm.

Rachel Simon: There you go baby steps. Yes. So we are really happy to welcome Jason Dean and Dave Jackson from Oldcastle APG. Welcome. Thanks for being here.

Jason Dean: Yeah, we’re really excited to be here. Thank you so much.

Rachel Simon: Uh, so let’s dive right in. Tell us a little bit about yourself and Oldcastle APG.

Jason Dean: Okay. Um, once again my name is Jason Dean. I’m the SVP of pro sales for Oldcastle APG, and I’ve kind of had an untraditional path to get here today. Um, you know, uh. Early in my career. Um, you know, I was coming out of high school. I went to high school in Maysville, Kentucky, which is rural Kentucky. I wanted to go into law enforcement, so I did a stint in the US Coast Guard. Um, and then went to college, um, using the GI Bill, which is always a great thing. And um, studied criminology corrections in there. And then when I got out, I was trying to really decide what I wanted to do with my life in law enforcement. My uncle had a brick and block company here in Atlanta, Georgia, and he said, hey, while you’re thinking about your next step, why don’t you come down and sell for me for a short period of time? And then, um, you can see where your career takes you? Well, that was 30 years ago. Um, started my career in 94, and it’s been a it’s been a really good ride. Once you get sucked into this industry, you just can’t get out of it. Um, it’s been a great career. It’s not over yet. Um, and the thing probably the most exciting about working with Oldcastle APG is, you know, we’ve got the same core values, integrity, creative community. Um, our our three big ones. But, um, the respect for our employees is probably number one, um, regardless of their background and beliefs. So, um, great working environment, great company. And happy to be here.

Rachel Simon: Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself, Dave. Yeah.

Dave Jackson: Dave Jackson um, I come from the agency world, so, uh, most of my career has been in marketing, and actually before that I tell Jason. And actually, that’s my story. I’ve had two jobs. I’ve either worked in hardware or I’ve done advertising. So working at Old Castle now for a little over five years is kind of a beautiful synthesis of the stuff that I’ve, uh, done throughout my career. So, uh, I run branding for a couple of our brands in Oldcastle, APG, working really closely with Jason and the sales team, um, most notably being Sakrete, which is the bagged concrete brand, the original bagged concrete brand. It’s important to note, um, and I think we’re going to spend some time talking about that today. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: So, um, first of all, I love nontraditional paths because it’s always great to tell that story of like, how did you end up doing this? Um, those are always fun. So yeah. Tell us a little bit about specifically what Oldcastle APG does, who your customers are, because it may be a brand that our listeners are not familiar with. Sure.

Jason Dean: So. So we’re part of CRH and Oldcastle. We’re a leading product manufacturer in North America and probably one of the biggest companies you’ve never heard of. Um, we we’re a family of brands. And kind of our mantra right now is live well outside. Right. So we play in a lot of spaces, um, including pool finishes and landscape products, masonry fencing and railing, composite decking, soils and mulches. And then once again, of course, our Sakrete brand, which we’re really proud of from, um, originated in 1936, um, as Dave mentioned.

Rachel Simon: So chances are somebody who has an outdoor space has probably has products from your company.

Jason Dean: Absolutely. We drive I get texts and emails all the time. There’s always people going, hey, I saw your product here. I saw your product there. Um, actually, my daughter was in New York City a couple of weeks ago and sent me a picture of a pallet of sakrete in downtown New York City. So it’s always fun to see our products, um, kind of out there in the real world. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: And it’s a global company, correct?

Jason Dean: We are. We’re a global company. Yes, ma’am.

Rachel Simon: Um, very, very interesting. I mean, especially I’ve been begging for a deck at my house, so maybe someday I’ll have some Oldcastle APG materials at my home. Well, you know.

Jason Dean: Who to call.

Rachel Simon: You do? There you go. Um, yeah. So tell us what. What’s sort of your differentiator in the market?

Dave Jackson: Well, you know, I think we work in a very interesting space where, you know, at the end of the day, building materials are a bit of a commodity product, especially bad concrete. It’s probably one of the worst offenders. That bad concrete, at the end of the day is sort of bad concrete. So what it really comes down to for us is how can we get closer to our end users and solve problems for them, because it’s really not all about the material. At the end of the day, concrete is concrete is concrete to a certain extent. What we spend a lot of time thinking about and driving, I think both from a sales and marketing standpoint, is how can we make APG a customer or a business that our customers want to do business with? How can we make their lives easier? How can we help them make more money, get the job done faster, easier, more efficiently? So I think that’s really the thing that from a conceptual standpoint, sets us apart is that starting from the customer’s point of view rather than our own.

Speaker6: Yeah.

Jason Dean: And we focus on building relationships, right? Because we’re in a relationship business people buy from people, and we want our customers to feel confident in doing business with Oldcastle, because providing the highest level of service and quality products is. Kind of our day to day goal.

Lee Kantor: Now, from a B2B standpoint, obviously you’re working with people who are dealing with the end user. At the end of the day, how does sales and marketing kind of work together? Like our sales kind of the front line. You’re learning what your customer needs are and you’re trying to stay ahead of that and you’re listening to their concerns, and then you’re sharing that with marketing or like who who’s kind of driving and who’s kind of reacting to the information that’s gleaned.

Dave Jackson: Well, I’d say if you’re doing it right, the information is flowing in both directions. You know, the sales team is definitely the front line. They’ve got the best read on who the customers are, what they need, what the competition is doing. That obviously has to be fed into marketing for us to spin, for lack of a better term. And then we on the marketing side, I think, have to be well versed enough in the sales process to give the sales team information, assets, campaigns that solve that problem for them, because sales guys are great at selling, and if we can help them tell a really good, compelling story, they’re the the best voice that we have out in the market.

Lee Kantor: So do you have a mechanism that allows the sales folks to bubble up those stories? How does that come about?

Jason Dean: Yeah, so so being a big company, we do a really good job of collaborating across the sales team and the marketing team. The good news is Dave and I have worked really close together for, you know, for a few years here at corporate. And we do we take stories from the field and it’s all about the customer. We listen to the customer and understand what their needs are. And it’s not just the customer that’s buying the material. We talk. We made a pivot the last few years and we really focus on the end user, okay. Because that’s really important information of what the end user actually needs to be successful in the field. And then we take that back to Dave. And Dave puts wonderful spins on and gives us good ideas of kind of how we can take what our customers need, the end user needs, and spin that into a story that that really resonates in the marketplace.

Rachel Simon: Is the end user like a contractor? Like who? Who would be other examples of who that end user might be? We’ll have.

Jason Dean: Diyers. Yeah. You know, the Weekend Warrior, they’re doing their own projects. And then a lot of pro customers, you know, the pro customers, you really don’t. You know, we always joke about where does Sakrete end up. We sell so much sakrete, you know, one year we sold enough sakrete to go around the world like three times. If you take the bags end to end and a lot of it ends up in the fencing world, a lot of it ends up in repair products. So it’s kind of it’s kind of fun seeing and we’ve seen some outlandish ways that our products are used and we’re like, I probably wouldn’t do that. But it’s it’s always been fun to kind of see kind of what’s going on in the marketplace and how they’re using our products.

Lee Kantor: Now, you’ve been in the business for so many years. How have you seen it evolve in terms of kind of learning from your customer? Have you seen some things like, oh, we didn’t think of that, but the customer did, and now that’s a whole, you know, big part of our business now.

Jason Dean: Yeah, we have, you know, when when the brand started in 1936 obviously I wasn’t around in 1936. But you know, over, over the past few years, we’ve kind of dug in and we’ve understood that, um, you know, even though it’s just concrete and it’s repair products, um, they’re used in so many different ways. And we always try to find that niche use that we haven’t thought of.

Lee Kantor: Um, can do you remember any that stands out to you in the years that you’ve been doing this? That something was like, oh, wow. That’s that’s pretty clever there.

Dave Jackson: Well, you know, I think to your point about trying to really nail down who our customer is, what they care about, who they are. As as people has become more and more and more important because especially when we’re selling commodities, it’s how do we set ourselves apart? It’s by being smarter, more relevant, more connected. And I think the one that jumps to mind immediately for me is the fact that we have just in the past year or two years, started doing a very, uh, focused Hispanic marketing effort, uh, which frankly, and this is, you know, egg on my own face, something that we should have been doing for a long time. Um, statistically, just based on census data. Hispanic customers and Hispanic pros are 30% of the construction market, and that’s a low number, I would imagine. So the fact that we had been. What, man? Not not intentionally, but unconsciously, leaving them out of our our communications. And the story that we’re trying to tell was a huge gap that we needed to fill. And I think in the past year and a half, two years, the efforts that we’ve made to really make sure that we are speaking directly to that customer and making sure that they see, you know, feel heard and represented and respected is a very big deal for us. And just I’d say that’s a good sort of encapsulation of our ethos around making sure that we’re delivering solutions for the actual customer. Yeah.

Jason Dean: And based on some of that feedback we’ve gotten from our customers, we have created products maybe that are more fast setting, maybe that the extended working times, there are certain things that the Concrete Pro is looking for to be able to do their job efficiently and effectively. And I think we’ve we’ve made some tweaks along the line of finding what that what our customers are really needing. And we’re still listening to them. You know, we listen to them every day. Um, you know, we’re very connected to that end user. And if we find that, um, if we find that we’re missing a, we’ve got a gap in our portfolio, then we quickly figure out a way to fill that gap.

Speaker6: Yeah.

Rachel Simon: So when you’re, you know, trying to using your example of kind of getting tapping deeper into the Hispanic market, are you connecting with them at conferences like in print? Like how where are you tapping into that audience?

Dave Jackson: So there’s I’d say there’s really two big ways. And what’s really interesting, not just about that, that customer and that market. I’d say this is a general rule, but the idea of getting involved in their in the community, having a voice, having a presence, being, um, seen essentially, you know, but being in an organic, authentic way is what’s really important. And I’ll say in particular for Hispanic pro social media has been a really strong entry point for us. Um, obviously it works very well, general market, but there’s what we’ve found is that that is really such a big point of community for the Hispanic pro. They have a ton of pride in the work that they do, sharing that on social building, kind of that community, even though it’s not in person, is something that we’ve been able to tap into. And I think make sure that we’re, you know, authentically engaging with them through that direction.

Rachel Simon: Yeah. Which channels are sort of the most successful for you?

Dave Jackson: The, the big ones? Um, TikTok and Instagram are definitely the big two. Um, we’re working with, um, a couple of influencers over on that side. And, and I would say those are definitely the big two. So it’s short form, mobile driven, uh, relatively young audience. And just from a digital penetration standpoint, you know, the Hispanic pro is very, uh, overindexes on sort of their interest in social media.

Rachel Simon: Linkedin is is beta testing short form video again. So just.

Speaker6: Interesting.

Rachel Simon: Put that on your radar.

Speaker6: Put that in put.

Dave Jackson: That in the queue. There we go.

Lee Kantor: Now is there any advice for other firms that you’ve mentioned several times here how important it is to have that collaboration between sales and marketing? Is there any kind of advice or tips you can give an organization to create that level of communication and clarity of messaging when it comes to having a good working relationship between sales and marketing?

Jason Dean: You know, I would say that, um, it goes hand in hand, right? If companies keep those departments so separated that they’re not collaborating on a day to day basis, they’re going to miss out. And that’s one thing that we’ve done really well is we’ve brought the teams together on the marketing and sales.

Lee Kantor: So that’s from a cultural standpoint. You think the culture of the organization is such that it kind of lends itself to this level of collaboration and and teamwork, whereas some of them, as you mentioned, are siloed. Some organizations may be culturally dysfunctional or siloed. And then it’s they’re they’re kind of adversarial rather than collaborative.

Speaker6: Absolutely.

Jason Dean: And I think our culture, um, is one thing. And then our focus on the customer, right? We we focus on our customer and we focus on the end user. And I’ll keep saying that because that’s such a foundation of what we do and how we’ve been successful. Um, you know, brands don’t stay around for almost 90 years. Um, if they don’t have that.

Dave Jackson: And I think you’re right, it is that that culture. And that’s something that I try and reinforce to my team. Is that really marketing done right is a sales support function. But I think that that your point about customer first is really the ethos that brings us all together and points us in the same direction.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, I’ve seen just in my, uh, observation from different companies that a lot of times one of the reasons why there’s misalignment is lack of clarity on who owns what, right, who’s. For this function. And, you know, sales thinks its sales marketing thinks its marketing or vice versa. And then it’s like, let’s all play together. We all have the same goals. We. So kudos to you all for really sounding like you’re doing an amazing job of collaborating.

Jason Dean: And one other thing I would say is, um, you got to be willing to change course, right? You know, I mean, there’s we’ve said and we’ve said in rooms for hours, Dave and I have and we’ve, we’ve thought we had it all figured out. We do something, we make a change. We we we pull out an ad, and then all of a sudden we’re like, no, we need to we need to tweak this and we need to hit the market again with a different message. So you have to be willing to to change course if needed. Um, but once again, it does. It comes back to that collaboration piece is so important from a sales and marketing group.

Dave Jackson: And having a bit of humility, I think that we don’t necessarily have all the answers. And it’s, you know, reaching across the aisle and making sure that we’ve got sort of everything considered.

Lee Kantor: Now, how has the kind of outdoor, uh, architectural or landscaping, um, industry as a whole changed? Is it is this now more of a must have for people in their homes, or is it is that trend going or is it, um, you know, kind of a nice to have.

Jason Dean: Well, well, I think during, during Covid, um, it changed a lot. I think a lot of folks at home, you know, they would spend time in the out in, in their backyard. Right. Um, when Covid happened, they had to spend time. It wasn’t it wasn’t a maybe we will we have to because we can’t go anywhere. And we saw a really boom. And that’s kind of why we we changed our mantra on on our outdoor living segment to live well outside. People feel better when they’re outside, right? Um, you’re healthier. You feel good. So we we’ve kind of gone all in. And what we’re trying to do is we want to be a family of brands that play in the, in the backyard and be able to, you know, from the pool, finish all the way to the fence when you’re done. We want to be able to play in that space.

Lee Kantor: So are there some things that are are that we can look forward to, maybe trends that are upcoming that people, homeowners can, uh, you know, either aspire to get or start thinking about putting into their household budget when it comes to outdoor elements.

Speaker6: Yeah.

Jason Dean: So we offer a lot of elements in the outdoor. We’ll do we do everything from kitchens, um, you know, we can do the art forms, kitchen packages, which are really popular right now. But but I really don’t think the products have changed much overall. You know, when you look at your outside, you think about a nice deck, a fire pit, a swimming pool, an outdoor kitchen. We’ve played in those spaces for several years, but we’re being a little bit more intentional today on kind of how we talk about those products and make sure that customers know that, hey, these are available in your market. And, um, it’s just a matter of picking and choosing what your backyard wants to look like. And we help with design as well, and through our belgard business. So, um, you know, we we’re all in. And if people go to the website Oldcastle apg com, they can see and they can pull up the belgard, um, side of our business and really see what we offer from from that backyard solution.

Rachel Simon: Are you doing commercial spaces as well?

Jason Dean: We do. We’re heavily involved in. I’ll let Dave talk about the HGTV. We’re the dream home. We’re we’re heavily involved in that program every year, which is phenomenal. Um, so you can if you watch HGTV, you’ll definitely see our commercials there. Um, on that side of the business as well.

Lee Kantor: Has has that changed kind of people’s expectations, like those type of, uh, shows where they see like, oh, this is out, this is possible. Now why can’t I have one?

Speaker6: Yeah.

Jason Dean: And all you got to do is you got to figure out what you want and make sure it works in your budget. And the good news is, is, is we’ve got, um, we’ve got you can get a nice backyard upgrade what you have now for $5,000. Right. Or you can go out and spend $200,000.

Lee Kantor: You can spend as much as you want.

Speaker6: I’m sure you can.

Jason Dean: Spend as much as you want. So. So that’s the thing. We appeal to all, all sides of that. Um, and we’ve got products that, that we make that will work in, in each, you know, each segment of, of whatever your budget might be.

Speaker6: Yeah.

Rachel Simon: That’s a very cool brand partnership with HGTV, I’m sure.

Jason Dean: Oh it is, it’s been long standing and it’s great. And our customers love it. And and it does. It’s it shows the possibilities of what you can do outside, um, understanding, you know, that there’s budget constraints for everybody. But we can we can hit each bucket and get them something really nice that that works. So you get.

Rachel Simon: To go to the dream home every year when they do their HGTV dream home.

Jason Dean: We do. Yeah, we’re heavily involved in the dream home, um, stuff and, and our, our, our president, Tim Ortman and Jenny Nail, our, um, chief revenue officer, they’re heavily involved in in those as well. So it’s a team effort, um, on kind of our marketing side and, and what we talk about on a daily basis to live well outside.

Lee Kantor: So what is an element you’ve seen somewhere that you were like, oh, I didn’t even I couldn’t imagine something like this. Like what’s kind of the most, I don’t want to say outlandish but maybe most extravagant outdoor.

Dave Jackson: You know, I actually don’t think that it’s extravagance so much as the transformation element of seeing someone’s backyard, you know, as it was torn down to the studs and then rebuilt into something that is completely different. Um, that is what gets me really excited personally. Is that potential for change and how much you can do with the space that you have? Because we all know that, you know, housing market’s real tough right now. So people are not buying their way into these upgrades. You kind of have to build with what you’ve got. But I think the fact that you can take a boring, basic builder grade backyard and really turn it into an oasis using a combination of all of our products is really powerful and exciting to see out in the world, because.

Lee Kantor: You see sometimes, like in a hotel or you travel, you see a resort kind of experience outdoors, and all of a sudden now you’re seeing some backyards that are having kind of some of the elements that were only in like high end.

Dave Jackson: Absolutely.

Speaker6: I think it’s yeah.

Jason Dean: It’s absolutely amazing. Some of the stuff that we see because we, you know, we do our obviously we do our belgard catalogs every year and things like that. And we get submissions in and, and some of these backyards. Outlandish is a good word to use. They’re crazy. I mean, we see everything from, you know, full kitchens, um, you know, pool slides. I mean, really, the sky’s the limit. And, um, and a lot of folks, you know, they’re I mean, that’s a living space anymore, right? You know, we’re years ago, it wasn’t a living space. Um, you know, over the last few years, you know, we’ve changed that. We’re like, hey, I’ve got this backyard. So that’s an extra room. So that’s the way we.

Lee Kantor: Look, right? So they’ve kind of in their mind, they’ve reframed what their backyard could be, where it was like grass and a swing set maybe. And now it’s like you said, it’s another room. This is more square footage for my house to make it more valuable and more. Yeah. Um, you know, better for me currently and for the future owner if I sell this.

Speaker6: Sure.

Jason Dean: Absolutely. And it’s more livable. And people, obviously, you know, with what’s going on with interest rates and how and home prices, people are saying, hey, I could do this and move and spend this much money, or I could invest in my property and, and make it nicer for, for me and for my kids. And, and we see that. And that’s the most exciting part about being part of a progressive company is we have all these products and we do we we, you know, we want to own the backyard, and we want our contractors and customers really to be able to come to us. And then we can provide a solution so they don’t have to go to ten different vendors to, to accomplish what they want to accomplish in their backyard.

Rachel Simon: This is what I aspire to in my backyard.

Speaker6: We can help.

Jason Dean: I told you, we can help you.

Lee Kantor: It’s also you’re helping them think bigger. You know, they might not even know what’s possible, but you’re giving them an idea of what could be. And then, like you said, you can take baby steps to get there.

Jason Dean: Yeah, Belgacom there’s a lot of stuff on that. So if people want to start at least looking at what, you know, kind of.

Speaker6: The possibilities.

Dave Jackson: Getting it out of getting out of Pinterest mode, out of inspiration and actually trying to put some bones around that, like, hey, this is what I could theoretically achieve. So as she writes down Bellosguardo.

Speaker6: There you go.

Rachel Simon: Um, yeah. So tell us a little bit again. You’re based here in Sandy Springs. What are some examples in the area, some success stories we could potentially see in our community here?

Speaker6: Oh, it’s.

Jason Dean: Kind of funny you say that. So, um, you know, Georgia Masonry Supply is our local business here, and we’ve got block, paver and dry mix plants over, um, just a couple jobs that that you would probably see us at is the the Sandy Springs, Sandy Springs city center. We were heavily involved in that, the Abernathy Greenway. We’ve got hardscape products there. And then right now we’re doing the Sandy Sandy Springs Police headquarters, um, that’s actually under construction. And then not to mention the hundreds or thousands of backyards that that are around our community right now that have product going in. Um, you know, it’s funny, I was talking to somebody this morning and I was talking to Anne Carlson, and she’s in our office this morning and she’s like, yeah, she lives in Sandy Springs. And she’s she was out for a walk, and she sees belgard pavers and sakrete on her walk every week. She sees a house that’s doing a certain project. So you’ll see our a lot of folks, they use our products every single day and they just don’t realize it. Um, so.

Speaker6: Yeah.

Dave Jackson: And I’m still at the point where I get excited when I’m like, oh, look, that’s our block. My, uh, my wife’s about tired of hearing about it, but it’s still exciting to to see our stuff out in the wild, I think.

Jason Dean: I love to see it, you know, um, we I was in Salt Lake City, um, several weeks ago, and I was at a stoplight and there was a whole, um, truckload of sakrete next to me that somebody had just picked up. And I just got the. Yeah, I took a picture. I was sitting in a stoplight, so. Safely took a picture, but it’s exciting when you see your products out there making a difference and customers are are raving about our quality and our service. And that’s really that’s why that’s why we do it for that’s why I’ve been here for 30 years. And if they if they keep me around, I’ll be here for another, I guess until they tell me to tell me to leave.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those things where everybody is happy around your product. Like when they’re done, they’re they got something they’re proud of. So it must be rewarding work for you.

Speaker6: Oh, absolutely.

Jason Dean: It is rewarding. I mean, you know, that’s the ultimate goal during the construction phase. There’s a lot of hard work obviously. Are we? We always joke our products aren’t real sexy on the secret side of the business, but but our secret products are useful in everything that that we build in the backyard, from the fence to the repair, you know, the.

Dave Jackson: Port walkways.

Jason Dean: And walkways. So but when you get to the final end of that, um, end of that journey on your project, you can look at it and you can be really proud of kind of what we helped create.

Speaker6: Um.

Rachel Simon: Great. Well.

Lee Kantor: And so once again, what are the best websites coordinates for someone to plug in?

Dave Jackson: I start with Oldcastle APG. Com and you’ll be able to access all the other brand sites from there, from belgard to moisture shield decking to Sakrete to pebble tech pool finishes and everything in between. But yeah, old.

Jason Dean: Fencing and Brett fencing business. Um, everything you can you can get from that website.

Rachel Simon: Absolutely. One stop shop. You got.

Dave Jackson: It. That’s the idea.

Speaker6: Stop shop. There you go.

Lee Kantor: And, Rachel, before we wrap and a LinkedIn tip.

Rachel Simon: Uh, yeah, well, not as much of a tip as, uh, some a new kid on the block. Um, so LinkedIn, uh, May 1st rolled out games. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it. There’s three games they rolled out. So now, if you’re on your home screen, kind of underneath where the news is on the right hand column, you’ll see the games there. Um. I think it’s kind of interesting. I’m not sure why they feel like LinkedIn users want to play games on there. Um, sometimes.

Lee Kantor: I think it’s time on site. They want they.

Rachel Simon: Want time on site. They do.

Lee Kantor: More time on.

Rachel Simon: Site. I will be honest. The games are. Not the most fun to play.

Lee Kantor: Uh, there’s not a Wordle in there.

Rachel Simon: There’s not a Wordle. There is like a minesweeper. Oh, my God, I wish right.

Speaker6: Um, bring back minesweeper.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, they should have. Totally. I used to be addicted to that game. Um, so, you know, test them out, see what you think? I. I’m not sure they’re getting the play that they were hoping, because you can kind of see how many of your connections are playing them. And mine is generally around like 10 to 15. And I have a lot more than that. So I just don’t I don’t know, sometimes it’s just an example of they roll out features that. May not be what the users want, but.

Speaker6: Check.

Rachel Simon: It out and see what you think. Let me know.

Speaker6: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you both for being part of the show today. You’re both doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Speaker6: Absolutely.

Jason Dean: Thanks for having us. We we really appreciate you being here.

Lee Kantor: All right. Lee Kantor for Rachel Simon. We’ll see you all next time on Sandy Springs Business Radio.

 

About Your Host

Rachel-SimonRachel Simon is the CEO & Founder of Connect the Dots Digital. She helps companies ensure that LinkedIn is working for them as an asset, not a liability.

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

Rachel co-hosted LinkedIn Local Atlanta this week along with Phil Davis & Adam Marx – a networking event focused on bringing your online connections into the real world.Connect-the-Dots-Digital-logov2

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn.

Tagged With: OldCastle APG

Rebecca Strobl with New Day Education and Motivation

May 20, 2024 by angishields

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Cherokee Business Radio
Rebecca Strobl with New Day Education and Motivation
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Chief-Rebecca-StroblAs the Founder and President of New Day Education and Motivation, Chief Rebecca Strobl has dedicated her life to serving her community since 2007 through Fire and Emergency Medical services as a volunteer.

Rebecca’s qualifications include being a licensed State of Georgia EMT-Intermediate and a certified Health and Safety Institute (HSI) instructor. She has also contributed as an Advisor for Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services Explorer Post 469 since 2012. In addition, she made history as the first female fire chief in the Lake Arrowhead Volunteer Fire Department’s and Cherokee County’s history. Rebecca’s dedication to serving her community and fellow volunteers remained steadfast until she retired from the volunteer fire department in 2020.

Rebecca’s professional background extends beyond emergency services with over two decades of experience in new business development, client retention, employee engagement, training, team building, and motivational speaking. She has captivated audiences worldwide with her ability to weave knowledge, enthusiasm, and humor together in an engaging manner. Her various skills in Corporate America and grassroots volunteerism have honed these skills. Her passion lies in inspiring others to embrace learning and personal growth. New-Day-Education-and-Motivation-logo

She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree and has completed FEMA – Incident Command and Management Systems Courses 100, 200, 300, 400, 700, 701, 702, 703, 704, 706, 775 and 800. Over the years, she has been recognized with multiple awards and honors for her contributions to training, new business development contributions, and exemplary service as a volunteer firefighter.

Furthermore, Rebecca holds the prestigious Certified Protection Professional (CPP) certification from the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS). This global “gold standard’ certification demonstrates her expertise across the seven key domains of security. Rebecca has the privilege of serving as the Chair of the Greater Atlanta ASIS International Chapter, where she continues contributing to the security management profession.

Connect with Rebecca on Facebook.

Kid-Biz-Radio-Austyn-GuestAustyn Guest is a young entrepreneur from the The Kid Biz Expo program.

 

 

 

Layla-DierdorffLayla Dierdorff is a young entrepreneur from the The Kid Biz Expo program.

 

 

 

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Kid Biz Radio. Kid Biz Radio creates conversations about the power of entrepreneurship and the positive impact that journey can have on kids. For more information, go to Kid Bispo. Com. Now here’s your host.

Layla Dierdorff: Hello. Welcome to Kid Biz Radio. I’m Layla.

Austyn Guest: And I’m Austyn.

Layla Dierdorff: And today we have an awesome guest with us in the studio, Rebecca, with New Day Education and Motivation.

Austyn Guest: Hi, Rebecca. Thank you so much for being with us here today.

Rebecca Strobl: Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Layla Dierdorff: Of course. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your business?

Rebecca Strobl: Yeah, absolutely. So again, Rebecca, I am an actually retired volunteer fire chief. I’ve made history in this county by becoming the first female fire chief. So my volunteer department up in Lake Arrowhead in this county, little did I know, I was making history. I. Yeah, I just raised my hand to help my community. And the next thing I know, I’m getting letters of accommodation from congressmen and all these other people telling me. So that was cool. And then I also have been in the physical security world for the last 20 years. I’m a licensed security professional. So when you think of security guards, you think of cameras. Yeah, I’ve been selling those services, running sales teams that sold those services. So I’m just all I’m also an advisor for the Cherokee County Fire and Explorer Explorer program. Okay. So all kinds of different hats.

Layla Dierdorff: All kinds of things.

So how did you get started in this business?

Rebecca Strobl: So with my current company, New Day Education Motivation, I actually started that because on a sales call cool story I love this. So I was on a sales call, I was working for a staffing company, and I was trying to convince him to use our staffing company to get him forklift operators and those types of people very quickly. In a conversation, I realized that that really wasn’t going to go anywhere and we weren’t the right fit for him. So he started talking about his workers. And I had mentioned at the time I was running the fire department, I was a fire chief, and I was doing CPR and AED and first aid classes for my community. So he’s like, oh, you do those classes? I said, yeah. And he goes, well, the people we have suck.

Rebecca Strobl: He’s like, well, you know, again, these this is like, you know, construction HVAC industry. They don’t beat the bush. So he said that they had had some incidents and he didn’t feel people were prepared. So he’s like I would love for you to teach us. And I was like, well, number one, we technically shouldn’t be having this conversation.

Rebecca Strobl: Because I’m supposed to be trying to get you to sign a staffing contract.

Austyn Guest: Yeah.

Rebecca Strobl: And I’m like, I would love to, but it would have to be on a Saturday because the full time commitments. And so he basically told me, well, I want you to do it. And are you available on this Saturday? I’m like, sure, you okay? So I’m going to have you do it. I’m going to have you teach my guys. And by this date, I need you to be a business. I need you to have your tax ID number. I need you to be registered with the state of Georgia.

Layla Dierdorff: Very, like, direct?

Austyn Guest: Yes, very.

Rebecca Strobl: So I did it. So that’s how I started my business. And I’ve still maintained as a client. And then I picked up a couple of more and maintained those for the last six years.

Austyn Guest: And that’s really impressive. Yeah.

Rebecca Strobl: And then last August I decided that instead of just doing this as a Saturday business, I realized after the last 20 plus year journey started my working career at 16, working at McDonald’s. Yeah, yeah. So I’ve been working for a long time.

Austyn Guest: Yes.

Rebecca Strobl: What I realized last fall is that I’m good at sales, but I’m passionate about educating people to be prepared in emergencies. Yeah, and to make a difference in their life and others. Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: So on this journey, what have you done that has helped you become a successful entrepreneur that you are today?

Rebecca Strobl: Having conversations with other entrepreneurs?

Austyn Guest: It always helps. Yeah.

Rebecca Strobl: And being in the security industry the last 20 years, there’s a bit of a progression in that world where you get into it because you just got out of the military, or you just got out of law enforcement, and then you do that for a while. You work for somebody else, you work in a security company, and then you get to the point where, you know what, I have enough experience.

Austyn Guest: Certifications, do it myself. Let me do it myself. And so there’s like.

Rebecca Strobl: A plethora of people to talk to that have started their own companies. And it was actually one of my good friends that when I was running a sales team, I managed people that reported to his business unit. Okay, he’s the one that encouraged me to start, you know, to really focus 100% of my efforts. And after that conversation, he’s like, you need to go for it.

Austyn Guest: Just do it. You know, you’re.

Rebecca Strobl: Getting to the point where, like, you’re getting to that age where if you don’t, you’re not going to do it. So just jump off the cliff.

Layla Dierdorff: And yeah, I like that.

Rebecca Strobl: And he connected me with his marketing person that set up my website and then other people. So really it was those relationships that I’ve been developing over the last 20 years, okay, that I was able to reach out to and bounce things off of.

Austyn Guest: That’s very cool.

Layla Dierdorff: Love it, love it. Okay.

Austyn Guest: We have had several different kinds of answers to this question, but what do you define success as?

Rebecca Strobl: I define success as doing what you absolutely love and making a difference in other people’s lives. And I firmly believe that when you do that, the money and the finances will follow. But ultimately, I can tell you, running emergency calls and having to face death and see things that in those final moments of people’s lives, they are not asking us as EMTs and firefighters and telling us what’s in their bank account. No, they’re calling out for loved ones. They’re running through their mind what they did or what they didn’t do. Mhm. And that’s how I want to live my life. That in my last moments there’s not going to be regrets because I might not have a penny to my name, but by God I.

Austyn Guest: Know that I gave it my best.

Rebecca Strobl: And I helped as many people as I could.

Austyn Guest: That’s a good way to go or.

Rebecca Strobl: Decide what happens on the end. That’s a good.

Austyn Guest: I mean, if you do what you love, you don’t work a day in your life, or so they say. But yeah. So speaking of some regrets you hope not to have in the future. Do you have any regrets, um, in your journey to becoming an entrepreneur or maybe like setbacks that you had?

Rebecca Strobl: One of the regrets I would have is that when I decided to jump in and focus on this full time, I wish I would have prepared a little bit better before I just jumped off, because I had been working for a security company and I resigned from that position in April. Then I went to work for another one for a little bit, and then all last summer I was like, oh, I’ll just get back on the hamster wheel, I’ll work for somebody else. And then last fall I decided to do it. So I really wish, looking back, that I had taken those months and.

Austyn Guest: Built a little bit more of a pipeline for myself. Yeah. That’s fine.

Layla Dierdorff: That’s smart. Um, do you have any advice for any aspiring entrepreneurs to help prevent some of those regrets, or just any advice in general?

Rebecca Strobl: Talk. Find people that are doing what you want to do and that love what you want to do.

Layla Dierdorff: Yeah.

Austyn Guest: So story does help. Yes. So yeah.

Rebecca Strobl: Don’t find an entrepreneur that’s like hating life.

Austyn Guest: Yeah.

Rebecca Strobl: And it’s like, you know, Oscar the Grouch is like a positive person compared to this person you’re talking to. Okay. Find someone that really loves it and is story time about that is when I was elected to be the volunteer fire chief of Lake Arrowhead. Again, my background is sales, security, sales. Before that, I was had a nursing background. I worked as a CNA and I was on that. My my dream as a little tiny thing was to be a medical missionary to go overseas somewhere. Africa, India somewhere. Yeah. And just plant and help a bunch of people. Yeah. You know, so I’m doing that in a different way.

Austyn Guest: I’m just not in a village in.

Rebecca Strobl: India right now. Yeah. You know.

Austyn Guest: Yeah. It’s more local.

Rebecca Strobl: Yeah, exactly. So when I was elected as a fire chief, I thought to myself, I don’t know anything about being a fire chief. I mean, I know how to be a firefighter. I know how to be an EMT. I know how to train people. I know how to train my firefighters. So I actually started reaching out to my former instructors that put me through fire school and EMT school, and then just started looking on the internet for other female fire chiefs. So I started making phone calls and emailing and getting anybody to talk to me. And so the few ladies that did call me back, I’m like, hey, hello, honey.

Austyn Guest: Yeah, this is this.

Rebecca Strobl: Is what I’m doing, what advice you can give me. And so I literally I filled, uh, notepads full of notes from these ladies as far as what books to read, what to do. And they were a tremendous help.

Layla Dierdorff: I like that a lot. Yeah. So we’ve talked about the past and the present. Let’s talk about some future things. Um, do you have any future goals for your business? Short term, long term, long term anything?

Austyn Guest: Yeah, I.

Rebecca Strobl: Would say a long term goal that I have. And depending on how hard I work and what happens, it may not be long term. But the one goal I have is to get to a point where I’m so busy with CPR, first aid, bloodborne pathogens, fire safety classes that I have to hire other instructors to keep up with the demand, and then I can move over to the more motivation part of my.

Austyn Guest: Company.

Rebecca Strobl: And do more speeches and be in more media opportunities like this to inspire others. Because I can tell you that when I was in your shoes and your age, um, there was very few people, if I can think of maybe one individual, but I had nobody in my life that was encouraging me and inspiring me to be my best being an entrepreneur. Oh lord. No, that was yeah, that was not. That wasn’t an across the ocean.

Austyn Guest: Yeah, my mom always said that. Like, as her generation growing up, it was always the one thing you had to do was go to college. That’s how you’ll be successful in life. That’s what you were supposed to do. And now here she is running kid biz with Renee. So.

Layla Dierdorff: Yeah, my mom’s always talked about how she just regretted regretted not being an entrepreneur sooner because of just the pressures that was put on her. So she’s like, made sure to never put those on anyone like me or Harper.

Austyn Guest: So that’s incredible. Okay, so these are kind of more in depth questions. So take your time with answering. Um, if you had the attention of the whole world for five minutes, everyone was paying attention and listening to what you were saying, what would you say?

Rebecca Strobl: I would say every single person that’s on the planet. You were designed for a purpose. You have unique talents, you have unique skills, and you have the power to make a massive difference and bless other people’s lives. So use those, figure out what those are, whatever just excites you and you’re passionate about and use them. Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s it’s wrong or anybody tell you that, well, you’re not good enough. Yes, you are good enough because you have a talent I don’t have. You have a talent I don’t have. And that’s what I would do because I see that time and time again. Especially being an advisor with the explorer posts is everyone has so much potential, and we spend too much times in our lives telling ourselves and letting other people tell us about how all this isn’t right. And you can’t do this and you can’t do that. Yes, we can, but we can do what we were designed to do.

Austyn Guest: Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: Um, another question. If you woke up tomorrow without your business, what would be your first steps to recovery if you even wanted to recover?

Rebecca Strobl: I would figure out why I don’t have a business anymore.

Austyn Guest: It just disappeared out of thin air. You have no idea where it went. It as if it never existed.

Rebecca Strobl: Well, I would be doing a lot of praying.

Austyn Guest: And I would.

Rebecca Strobl: Reevaluate, think. Okay, well, I thought that that was a good business plan, but maybe not. And sort of like what I did when I became fire chief. Start making a whole lot of phone calls and talking to people. Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: Communication, networking, all the things.

Austyn Guest: That always helps. Mhm. Okay. So after said deep more in thought questions. We have a quick this or that answer as quick as you can. It’s going to be just simple this or that. All right. Cats or dogs.

Layla Dierdorff: Cats Spider-Man or Batman.

Austyn Guest: Batman books or movies. Books.

Layla Dierdorff: Waffle or curly fries.

Austyn Guest: Curly fries. Mountains or the beach.

Rebecca Strobl: Oh, man. That’s a mountains.

Layla Dierdorff: Sweet or salty?

Austyn Guest: Salty chocolate or fruity candy?

Layla Dierdorff: Chocolate cake or pie? Pie.

Austyn Guest: Okay. This question every time. Lower high rise jeans.

Rebecca Strobl: I don’t even know the difference, so I’ll just take one. Low rise jeans.

Layla Dierdorff: Comedy or.

Austyn Guest: Horror? Comedy? I personally would have said horror, but that. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Rebecca, for hanging out with us today. We really appreciate it. Can you tell everyone how they can get in touch with you and check out what you’re doing in the future?

Rebecca Strobl: Absolutely. You can go to my website. It’s newday education and motivation.com. And if I want to tell everybody that’s listening, if you’re having a rough day and you’re feeling discouraged with life or you need to pick me up, go to my website newday. Education and motivation. Com go to the Be Inspired page and you’ll see some of my poems and motivational quotes.

Layla Dierdorff: Very nice. Well, fantastic! We really enjoyed our time with you today, and we know our audience will get so much out of hearing your story. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you on the next one.

Austyn Guest: Awesome!

 

Tagged With: New Day Education and Motivation

Green Flag’s Innovative Approach to Dating and Relationship Wellness

May 20, 2024 by angishields

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Sandy Springs Business Radio
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In this episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio, Erik Boemanns interviews Abby Larner, founder of Green Flag Date, a company focused on mental wellness in dating and relationships. Abby discusses her motivation for starting the company, which stemmed from her own experiences and the desire for personal growth in relationships. She explains that Green Flag offers educational courses and assessments to improve relationship skills, with content developed in collaboration with a licensed therapist. The company aims to help individuals find long-term relationships by integrating psychological principles and therapeutic approaches into their platform.

Green-Flag-logo

Abby-LarnerAbby Larner is a product leader with over 10 years of experience designing and building products that users love. She is enthusiastic about solving problems to make positive, material improvements on others’ lives, and thrives working at the intersection of design, business, and social impact.

In 2013, she started the non-profit, Design Like Mad to provide pro-bono design services to nonprofits in need, and she’s excited to make a difference with Green Flag. Abby is passionate about making mental health resources accessible and providing relational education to everyone (because no one teaches us how to be in a relationship!).

Connect with Abby on LinkedIn and follow Green Flag on Facebook.

Transcript-iconThis 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.

Lee Kantor: This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Mirability, providing unique IT solutions, leveraging cloud, AI and more to solve business problems. Here’s your host, Erik Boemanns.

Erik Boemanns: Good morning. Thanks. This is Eric and today we have a special guest, today. Her name is Abby Larner and she is a founder of Green Flag Date. And we’re going to kind of dive into her story, the story of why she started this company and how kind of how she’s bringing that into the world. So maybe just quick start with Abby with an introduction of yourself.

Abby Larner: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Abby Larner. I’m one of the founders of Green Flag. And Green Flag is a mental wellness focused dating and relationship company.

Erik Boemanns: Gotcha. So what led you to create Green Flag Date? Like what was the motivation?

Abby Larner: That’s a great question. So I am single myself and I’ve been, you know, in the dating world now for a while. Personally I’m looking for a long term relationship, and I was talking to a lot of my friends that are sort of in the same situation. We’re all interested in finding someone for the long term. And kind of the common thread in all of these conversations was people were looking for somebody that was interested in growing themselves and growing with their partner, and I have benefited from going to therapy and noticed that some of the things I was learning in therapy were translating really well to helping me date intentionally. And so I thought that bringing those skills and those tactics to other people, to a broader group that’s sort of dealing with the struggle of the dating environment right now, would be a really great, positive thing to do.

Erik Boemanns: Appreciate you sharing that and how kind of where your mind is at with that. But maybe let’s take a step back before we dive into more details about the the company and the problem you’re solving there. Tell me a little bit more about yourself and what brought you to this.

Abby Larner: Yeah, definitely. So I went to the University of Virginia. I graduated with a degree in environmental science. And throughout that experience, I kind of was always on my computer doing mostly design in Adobe products, and decided after I graduated I wanted to transition into design and technology. I learned to code with the help of my brother and co-founder, who is a software engineer and was a product designer for about six years before I transitioned into product management. So I worked as a product manager at both large companies like Adobe and much smaller startups, and also worked on some startups of my own. The very first one was actually a dating app back in 2012, so that’s kind of where I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. And yeah, I’m working on Green Flag full time now.

Erik Boemanns: Oh, congratulations. Thank you. And I think I heard your brother as a founder as well. Yes. Very cool. So family business. So what what made you decide on the name Green Flag? It’s like, I think a unique name for a dating app. So what was the motivation?

Abby Larner: Yeah. So like I mentioned, people are really struggling with the current dating environment. Um, there’s a lot of frustration. Um, the apps are difficult to be on. It’s sort of endless swiping. And I think people can feel hopeless at times that that they’re not really finding the things that they’re looking for. And I think also there’s kind of this sense of negativity on the apps as well. So, um, you know, people might put in their bios like what they’re not looking for. I don’t want someone who does this or that. Um, and so our hope was to sort of flip the narrative on dating and really bring a sense of positivity to that whole experience. And so instead of focusing on the negative red flags, we decided we wanted to help people focus on the green flags, the positive things that everybody can bring to a relationship.

Erik Boemanns: Okay, that does make sense. And yeah, so how does that translate then into your product design and kind of the the mission of the actual product.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So we have like I said, we want to really focus on the positivity and the name Green Flag really pushes or. Helps us, uh, with our two main product principles, which is one, you know, everybody has something positive to bring to a relationship. And then second, the green flag is that you are focused on personal growth and that you want to grow with someone else. So with those two things in mind, we’ve, um, built, um, a product where we offer relationship skills courses and assessments to help people understand themselves better in the context of dating and relationships. And then they can share those research backed compatibility traits with others online. And so, um, you know, we have a focus on providing content and relationship skills that is best in practice in terms of psychology. We have an advisor, Krystal DeSantis, who’s a licensed marriage and family therapist who develops all of our content for us. So we are really focused on providing this high quality content. Help people grow and level up their dating and relationship skills and as a result, kind of have those green flags that are readily available on their dating profile.

Erik Boemanns: That’s interesting. So yeah, there’s no shortage of dating apps in the world, right. And you’ll see tons of advertisements for them. So it sounds like this education component almost makes what makes you different than a typical dating app.

Abby Larner: Yeah, definitely. So like I mentioned, we really are focused on helping people be successful in finding long term relationships. So what that looks like and what we’re working towards right now is an app where we combine educational courses, um, with a platform for matching. So those courses might be something like, how do I set boundaries with a partner, or what are the most important questions to ask in the first three dates? Um, and, you know, our long term vision is that we are the relationship guide throughout the journey of somebody’s relationship. So not just dating, that’s where we’re starting, but really helping them, even in the early stages of a relationship all the way through, you know, whatever those milestones might look like for that person and their partner.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. Yeah, I think I see how that that ties together. And you mentioned an advisor earlier. So I am curious how how do you incorporate some of the psychology psychological principles or even you mentioned therapy, therapeutic approaches to this to your product.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So it all starts with the users. You know, we are very plugged in with, um, daters and kind of the problems that they’re running into. And um, so in terms of topics, we’re really drawing on the topics of interest from that group. And then we’re also looking, um, well, I should say Crystal has been very, um, effective in sort of taking. Compatibility traits that are proven to, you know. Determine the success of a relationship and bringing that into our content as well. So for instance, um, right now we have a green flag profile you go through, you take some video courses and assessments to learn things about yourself that help you understand how you might be with a partner. And then, um, so an example of that would be what’s your communication style? How do you connect with somebody? What’s your dating approach? Are you really, you know, deliberate and ready about your dating approach or are you, um, you know, a little bit more, uh, kind of leisurely about the approach that you’re taking. And this helps individuals understand themselves, and they can take that profile and share it with others so their potential matches can get an understanding of, of how they might be with that person. So in terms of psychological approach, we’re really not saying these two people should or shouldn’t be together. We’re trying to increase awareness of the self and the partner so that, you know, when a conflict comes up, for instance, you know how this person communicates and it’s not, um, in increasing the conflict, it’s actually decreasing it. Um, and so, yeah, we’re really we’re really trying to help create that awareness and shared language and foundation for two people.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. So yeah, I think it’s uh, we talked about a little bit earlier. Right. It’s it’s dating plus. Right. It’s dating plus building that. Yes. That strength I guess. Yes. Fair, fair summary. Um. Pivot a little bit to conversation. You mentioned your early stage startup. Maybe talk a little bit about where you are in that life cycle.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So, um, like I mentioned, we are working towards this dating app, but we wanted to take a very iterative approach and make sure what we were building was resonating with people. So last year we started on Green Flag in March. We interviewed 40 different therapists and, uh, about as many users. And, um, we decided to build an MVP of our product that was this, uh, shareable profile. So we released that back in October. And, um, since then we’ve, you know, started to see users on the on that profile and sharing it as well. And, uh, back in March, we. Launched what we call the Green Flag Challenge, which, if you imagine the goal of the profile, is really to help people understand themselves and increase them their compatibility. The goal of the Green Flag Challenge is to help people get into a positive and good mindset going into dating. So that challenge, we’ve run one cohort, we have a second cohort coming up, and basically what that looks like is that we get a group of people together every day. They get a task in their inbox. That is a task that they can complete in ten minutes or less to sort of level up their dating skills. And, um, one example of a task might be, you know, take a different route home.

Abby Larner: And every task has a reason, a psychological reason as to why that’s important to do or an important thing to practice. Um, for that one in particular, it might be, uh, you know, you want to create, you want to be able to look at things from a different perspective, or, um, maybe if you’re in conflict, you’re trying to take a different route to a solution. So, um, and again, all of that was developed by Crystal. And um, so yeah. So we have the challenge. You get your, your 14 tasks. And during that time you also have access to a group chat with all of the other participants. So you can sort of check in and um, see how things are going on a daily basis. We have two Ask Me Anything sessions with our licensed therapist. And the second cohort. We’re actually adding an in-person meeting opportunity. So at the end there will be a mixer where all of these participants can get together and meet each other in person. So really, like I mentioned, kind of coming back to your question, we’ve made this MVP profile. We have this in-person event and um, we’re sort of testing out now the waters of actually making those matches happen initially in person and hopefully in the future online.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. Very cool. Sounds like a lot of progress in that year right?

Abby Larner: It’s been very exciting.

Erik Boemanns: And so we do have a lot of startups on the show and at various stages in their their life cycle. And one of the things I’m always curious about is for other founders who are thinking about starting their own startup. Right. Do you have any, um, lessons learned already that you’d like to share with them?

Abby Larner: I think one of the most helpful things that we did early on was get very clear on what the problem was, and that was difficult because there are a lot of problems in the dating space. There’s a lot of problems that people have with the apps that they brought up with dating in general, with finding the right person. Um, there’s a lot of different user groups as well. So we had to be very clear about who our users were initially, um, and what the problem was that we were solving. So that was sort of part one. And then with. A two sided marketplace, you have to have critical mass in order to be successful. And so we were trying to think of ways that we could sort of validate our idea without building out an entire app, which is why we ended up with the profile. It’s a way for us to tap into the apps that already exist and see if what we’ve created is resonating and working for people. So I guess my advice is get clear on the problem. And then what? Figure out what the smallest step is that you can take to validate whether your solution is the right solution for that problem.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah, I think that’s that’s great advice and and definitely something that a lot of people will struggle with when they have their brilliant idea. And, and they want to solve all the world’s problems. Right? Yeah. Um, so you mentioned the the March challenge that you kicked off, but what’s next? What’s your next big feature, big initiative that’s on the horizon.

Abby Larner: Yeah. So like I mentioned, we’re running this green flag challenge. Uh, it starts on June 9th. We are about we’ve got about, uh, half of the cohort filled up already. And I can kind of go into that as well a little bit. But we’re using this as a way to validate that the matching works, that this sort of, um, unique community of people that we’re creating adds value. And, um, after that, we’re going to be actually building out the app. So and, you know, kind of building up a wait list and trying to get enough people that the app is valuable to those who are on it. So those are kind of our next steps. Um, in terms of the green flag challenge, this is sort of just an interesting. I guess the thing that we’ve noticed is we have more women than men signed up, and that’s actually the opposite of what you see on most dating apps. Most dating apps, I think, are 60% men generally. So that is kind of just an interesting, I guess, insight that we’ve had about our, our users, our audience, as we’re kind of, um, skewing in the other direction at the moment, which is, uh, great. I mean, love to get the women involved as well.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. It’s a yeah, that’s an interesting flip of, of the tradition. Um, so people do want to get involved. How do they get involved?

Abby Larner: Yeah. So right now we have sign ups for the Green flag challenge. Um, on our website, green flag dotcom. We have an Instagram account as well. If you just want some like, great dating tips and, and relationship advice. Uh, we’re at Green flag date. And finally, uh, we have our green flag profile, which anybody can get started with any anybody in any location. It is not specific to Atlanta, which is one thing that’s really interesting. Um, and we’ve seen people from all over the country signing up this week. We had Atlanta, New York, LA. Um, so, you know, I think that people who are single anywhere can sign up and people who have friends that are single can also spread the word.

Erik Boemanns: Absolutely. And so just the website, um, repeat that one more time just to for everybody.

Abby Larner: Yep. It’s green flag dotcom okay.

Erik Boemanns: And. What are some like? If there’s one thing you want to make sure people take away from today’s conversation. What’s that?

Abby Larner: I think. That. There is hope for dating. There is a way to, you know, improve your relationships. And, um, I think that. Looking into resources was always is always a is always a great option. Um, I think that that for me, like I care very deeply about creating community and, um, mental wellness accessibility. And so, um, there there are a lot of great resources out there. Green flag is one of them, but there are many others. And, um, I guess if people are interested. You know, they they can. There. There’s a lot of like great books and and options out there for them. So I guess that’s what I would say maybe is a is a good takeaway.

Erik Boemanns: Awesome. Well thank you. Today again our guest was Abby Larner of Green Flag Dating. So check out her website and see what helps you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

 

About Your Host

Erik-BoemannsErik Boemanns is a technology executive and lawyer. His background covers many aspects of technology, from infrastructure to software development.

He combines this with a “second career” as a lawyer into a world of cybersecurity, governance, risk, compliance, and privacy (GRC-P).

His time in a variety of companies, industries, and careers brings a unique perspective on leadership, helping, technology problem solving and implementing compliance.

Connect with Erik on LinkedIn, Substack and Medium.

Tagged With: Green Flag Date

BRX Pro Tip: Pricing Tip for Your Next Product or Service

May 20, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tip: 4 Ways to Leverage Local Chambers of Commerce

May 17, 2024 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tip: 4 Ways to Leverage Local Chambers of Commerce

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, we have been so blessed with some marvelous relationships with local Chambers of Commerce throughout the Business RadioX network. What’s your take on the best way to cultivate and leverage local Chambers of Commerce?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:21] Yeah. I think it’s important to understand what’s the win for the Chamber of Commerce and what’s the win for you, and how to kind of best marry those two things so that each of you are getting what you need. As you mentioned, our studio operators in all the markets that we work in across the country have good relationships with their local Chamber of Commerce. We’re there to tell their stories. Part of their mission is to tell the stories of business. So, it is a logical and a very good relationship in all cases in our network.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] But you have to understand, if you’re dealing with the Chamber of Commerce, what is a reasonable expectation? One is networking. Obviously, meeting other business people at the core of both the mission of the Chamber of Commerce, and usually most local business people want to meet more business people, so networking is a logical way to leverage your local Chamber of Commerce, attend meeting member events, share referrals, do things like that.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] Secondly, another kind of mission of the Chamber of Commerce and something that you may not have put much time into it, maybe not important to you, but for some businesses it’s very important, it’s advocacy, providing input on issues that are important to your business to kind of the local government. The Chamber of Commerce usually is the group that’s doing that and speaking on behalf of the business folks in that market. So, it’s important if you have an issue that’s important to you, the Chamber is the place to kind of start those conversations.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:59] Third is professional development. Again, it’s not something that you might be thinking of, but when it comes to professional development, the Chamber typically have some sort of training that they are at least partnering with other local business people that offer that type of training. And that’s a great opportunity for you to take advantage of some of the training that the Chamber offers.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:20] And lastly, exposure. You can sponsor advertisers in Chamber directories, and that’s a great way to get the word out to a very targeted group of business people. That’s obviously a place where we help and work with our Chambers, where we’re either producing shows on the behalf of the Chamber or work in partnership with the Chamber to help kind of spotlight their members.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:43] Business RadioX works with Chambers in a variety of ways, usually in and around exposure or networking, where we help put people in contact with other members. So, figure out ways that you can leverage your Chamber of Commerce in your business, but those are four ways that we do.

WBE Feature – Women’s Health Awareness: Stay Well Leola

May 16, 2024 by angishields

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In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor speaks with guests Leola Williams and Annette Davis Jackson about their venture, Stay Well Leola. Leola, a nurse and entrepreneur, shares her experience donating masks to VA hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging connections to secure supplies when resources were scarce. Annette, with a background in college coaching and political candidacy, discusses their combined efforts to promote health education and patient safety. They highlight the importance of community service, health advocacy, and the creation of their philanthropy, Heroes of Health, which recognizes individuals contributing to community wellness. The conversation also touches on overcoming barriers to supply acquisition and expanding their services beyond initial emergency response to broader health and wellness initiatives.

Annette-Davis-Jackson-Leola-W-Williams

Leola W. Williams, CEO of Stay Well Leola, is an RN, MSN, who passion was spending 33+ as a Registered Nurse for the VA.

Leola has many awards including the Daisy Award, the Humanitarian Award and being featured in the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Annette Davis Jackson is a former College Coach with a B.A. in English from Spelman College, to include being one of the Top 25 Women in Atlanta in 2011-2012, a Member of the Statesman Academy, 2017, and a former Candidate for U.S. Senate.

Connect with Annette on LinkedIn.Stay-Well-Leola-logo

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] 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: [00:00:27] 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 Leola Williams and Annette Davis Jackson with Stay Well Leola. Welcome ladies.

Leola Williams: [00:00:48] Thank you.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:00:49] Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about stay well. Leola, how are you serving folks?

Leola Williams: [00:00:57] Well, this is Leola, and I like to say hello to everyone. And I like to begin with saying that my calling was calling me. I am a nurse of 30 plus years. And I worked for a federal government facility, and during a time when there was Covid, nurses did not have masks. And so being in that space, I said I should step up and do something about that. And so I donated 1500 masks to the VA hospital, serving my fellow veteran nurses and doctors. And the rest is history.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] So where did you get the masks?

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:01:50] China. China. We had a good friend out of Georgia where I went to school. I went to Spelman College and connected, uh, Leola. And his name is D.G.. Uh, his last name is Gordon, and he had a connection to China. And at that time, during Covid, everybody was boxing out the smaller companies that were medical supply companies. And so we just happened to know somebody who had a connection. And I don’t care what anybody said, there is preferential treatment and there is connections that you can use. You just have to be connected and you have to have a relationship. And so that’s how we got the that’s how we got the mask. That’s how we got the glove. That’s how we got some of our supplies, thermometers, uh, you know, um, oximeters because, you know, some people will have to test their oxygen. So we were very excited to be able to, to, to get those supplies, but we were locked out as a small company for, for a while, too. And of course, China’s, uh, went up on the shipping because the US companies were also the big corporations. They were buying up all the supplies, too. So it was everybody was getting into health care.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] So now you, um, this this kind of spurred you into an entrepreneurial adventure. Um, having this connection, having the ability to kind of help the people in your local community get the supplies they needed. This kind of was the aha moment of, maybe we have a business here. Is that how it started?

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:03:26] Absolutely.

Leola Williams: [00:03:27] Absolutely. And, um, being in being in the space of, of the medical profession myself as being a nurse, of course, I’m looking at standard of care, quality of care, equality and safety, you know, for the community. And the big piece of this is education. And so having. The opportunity to come along with the supplies that was needed at this particular time. Man, they was just overjoyed at the VA when I came with the mask.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:04:09] Or as as we should say, we came bearing gifts and not just year one, year two. And the Leola decided, hey, you know, I’m going to be this nurse entrepreneur and I’m going to even tap in to there is a group called the Nurses Club because the stable was concerned that nurses were leaving the field, and we need more nurses not to leave the field the same way we need doctors to stay in the field too. So we just kept being those community servants. And of course, I’m a former college coach in golf and tennis, so I had I’m on the other spectrum of how to rule your health, and that’s one of our taglines. And of course, you know, this trademarked. And then we have a philanthropy called Heroes of Health. And what we decided during this volatile time of public crisis called the era of Covid, that what we would do is just like Leola said, that we would go out and we would educate and we would convince people they have to drink more water. They have to they because we were finding out that people were dehydrated and they weren’t exercising.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:05:18] And because Leola is a marine, she’s a veteran. So we’ve been going to veterans meetings to convince, convince veterans that given their conditions, preexisting conditions for them when they were in the military, that these are the things that they have to rid themselves of, of these toxins. So we became involved in, in, in patient safety for, you know, all of medicine. And we’ve had really good success. So we started on the ground level. And Leola and I have been knowing each other for over 35 years. And I believe that that’s the connection which which is the greatest impetus in the community because we’ve known each other. And when, you know, um, each other and who’s best at what and how to get things done, it makes a partnership just amazing. And that’s why we’re telling everybody, you got to stay well and you have to rule your health. And it’s very important to when you go to the hospital to also have an advanced care directive, because they weren’t letting family members in the hospital during the pandemic times. And even now, some family members cannot get in these hospitals.

Leola Williams: [00:06:32] This let me add one one word that is so important and that is commitment. We were committed and we still are committed. The keeping people.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:46] Well, now, can we go back to the beginning times where you have this idea that I’m going to, uh, find a way to supply these important supplies to the people that are in my community. I reach out, you reach out to somebody in another state across the country, and and you figure out, hey, we have this great connection that we’re able to get access to a supply that maybe other people don’t because of the strength of our relationship. How did this how did you two begin talking and saying, you know what, let’s join forces here. Let’s kind of combine our strengths so that we can maybe formalize this relationship into a business so we can really kind of leverage both of our strengths so we can help the community more.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:07:33] Well. You’re good. I’m telling you, you’re good. You’re you’re really good. You want me to tell you how we did it? Yeah. Um, I’ve lived in Georgia for 43 years, so Leela, Leela and I have always kept in touch. And finally, when she was going to retire, I said, let me join forces with you. Not only was I a former college coach, but I also was a candidate for United States Senate. So I knew the lay of the land and the medicine world, and she knew the lay of the land in Los Angeles, California. And we said, whoa, what better way for Georgia and California and push it in both spheres? And that’s really how it happened. I’m going to tell you, it was just meant to be, you know, some things you can’t push some things when you work hard at research, they just happen. And our research component with Heroes of Health and pushing our plan by being a part of WebRTC, um, that helped greatly because we start doing the seminars, you know, we thrive. Um, yeah, reading Gino Wickman traction. And so we just stuck it in what we liked. And of course it catapulted and, you know, all of our leverage into these different industries. And because of all of these different industries, we found out that there’s a health component in every single industry. And that’s when we came up with our philanthropy model called Heroes of Health, that we give out Heroes of Health awards to various people in different industries who we believe that they’re practicing health. Let me give you an example. And and viola can take over. Um, we gave her heroes a health award to a lady that has a chest setter. So she’s not only teaching adults how to play chess, but she’s teaching children. And some of the children play the adults. And we figured that that was healthy for a community because we wanted better veterans to get into that mold, too, that there are other things that they can do to support a community. But that’s part of a healthy community, too, having something to do and feeling good about it.

Leola Williams: [00:09:41] And let me just add to that is getting into this space. Definitely there was barriers. The barriers, uh, to getting supplies came up and we had to move through that. And that was where, um, dealing with the person in Atlanta who would become our supplier, reaching out to China, because during that time, everybody was in, uh, the business. And everybody was looking for masks, and there was so much going on that people was getting, uh, fraud. Even the government was was fraud with mask and everything. But we came together, um, as a component to work out a system that we would be able to get the supplies, uh, that we needed so that we can move into the community and, and try to help everyone that we possibly could.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:48] Now, after the masks and the initial kind of onslaught, I’m sure, of all the supplies. How did you kind of pivot and expand your services to, you know, like you mentioned, doctors, nurses and kind of a variety of constituents within that industry.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:11:07] Oh that’s good. We just start giving. You can give it. Sometimes when you have a service and you have if you’re in an industry like we are with medical supplies as well as the health and wellness component, you know, we just are giving things away. And once we gave it away, people said, wow, we’re going to need you in another in another sphere. And so that’s really what happened. Uh, into the medical industry. And then we went to the community and we started telling the community that they must be healthy. So Leela started a magazine called Stay Healthy, and we started just becoming those public speakers to let everybody know this is something that you have to do. Um, my mother was a smoker and she couldn’t breathe. One day, thank God I was in California and rushed her to. She said, uh, and that I called the paramedics, rushed her. They were going to give her, uh, put her on a ventilator. I said, no, what you do is you do breathing treatments. And I believe that if they were to put on a ventilator, I wouldn’t have seen my mother today. Um, and so we go also go to various caregivers, and we look and we say, okay, can we see the nature of how you’re taking care? Uh, one, uh, Korean War vet, we went over to his house and we just cleaned the kitchen. We got everything decluttered and everything, and we showed the caregiver how you have to feed. Uh, this gentleman, uh, of, you know, morning, noon and night is from what the old school used to say. And so she started doing that, and it started making a difference, uh, within his health. And then also the rehabilitation. We talked about how people have to walk, they have to exercise, they have to swim, and we’re pushing everybody, hey, anybody who’s over 55, they have silver sneakers. So you can join LA Fitness Equinox, um, any of these, uh, fitness centers for free. So that’s how we start doing it in the era of Covid. Um, I want.

Leola Williams: [00:13:14] To add, too, is that we are organizing, uh, and joining the movement with other, uh, organizations and one organization that I like to mention, um, it’s called the uh Sankofa Elders Project. And that is the main word with them is that it’s a village without elders. It’s like a whale without water, which is an African proverb. And so we are now, uh, joining in with this organization, uh, to promote health equity, uh, in the communities.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:55] Now, you’ve mentioned throughout this conversation the importance of relationships and how relationships in a variety of ways have really taken your company to new levels. Do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs on how to really get the most out of relationships? And maybe it’s creating joint ventures. Maybe it’s partnering in a lot of ways, but how do you how would you advise another entrepreneur when it comes to really leaning into their network and really nurturing some of the relationships that they may already have?

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:14:30] Oh, you.

Leola Williams: [00:14:31] Just nailed it. You just. You said relationships. Building relationships is the most important thing. You know, reaching out, stepping out. Uh, when you want to be in a space where people feel that they are comfortable and working with you or working with others. Starting out with building that relationship is so important. Would you like to add something in it? Yes.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:14:58] And what we did, we had to, um, as a part of WebEx, we had to really develop our core competencies. And so we really took time to strengthen our infrastructure. So we moved into the digital literacy. We moved into the education of self care. We moved into workforce health, we moved and workforce health was really critical for us because we find in the workforce that people are fighting against each other for position, and they don’t have to fight for each other for position. They just have to open up to how you can have a healthy workforce. Then we went into technology innovation to find out what’s the best technology. Give an example. You know, with my mother. So she had to get an oximeter. So she had to, you know, put her hand in the oximeter so she could she could test. And now she is amazing. Um, then we had to go to medical supply companies and find out, hey, and let them know that we’re a supplier of, uh, mass nitrite, nitrate, nitrite, gloves, thermal thermometers, pulse oximeters, gowns, you know, face shields. And then we had to realize is health is for every industry. And we began to push that soundbite into the atmosphere and people started to like it. But what we’re really proud of in 2022, what we did, we did the 11th American Health Care, Nursing and Patient Safety Summit in Sacramento, and there were doctors from all over the world. And our presentation was, uh, called closing. And triclosan was a pesticide that’s in a lot of laundry detergents, soaps. The FDA banned some soaps, but not all soaps that’s in your food. And so we start building our journal resume. And so we’re shortly we’re going to be in certain journals talking about these pesticides. And of course, now, you know, uh, my, my good friend and business partner, uh, Leona Williams, uh, she was in Camp Lejeune. Just amazing. And it would happen to do with the water. And so we’re telling people about this to close in how it’s also in your water. So you need to test your water. So we are sounding the alarm of education.

Leola Williams: [00:17:12] And may I add, one thing is to to have a vision. You know, having a vision is so, so important. And some people have vision boards. We have our own vision board. We also, uh, come together and meet on a continuous basis. And we get together and we discuss, you know, all our barriers, the things that we’ve done well and the things that we need to do, uh, for the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:42] Now, Leela, can you share a little bit about this new entrepreneurial venture? It’s a lot different than, you know, maybe the previous chapter in your career, but can you share something, maybe a lesson learned from going from working as a nurse to now being an entrepreneur, still serving that same, similar community. But, um, is there something you’d like to share when it comes to, uh, this transition?

Leola Williams: [00:18:10] Yes. What I’d like to share is that. It was my calling in the beginning that placed me in the position of being a nurse, uh, caring about others. But because I was in. The business. Of caring for others, which is a business from the very start, is that I was able to care for veterans. I was able to, um, promote, uh, equity, uh, in the workplace, uh, by being, um, a representative of the doctors and the nurses. So once I retired. I felt that I need to continue. Retirement was just not an option. And so entrepreneurship. Really, really stood out for me. And going back to supplying those nurses with those masks, that was the jump start to becoming a nurse entrepreneur, and I do not regret it until this day.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:25] Now, um, it was important for you to become part of Webrequest. Is there something that you can share, maybe to other female entrepreneurs out there about, uh, what can they expect from joining Webrequest? And how would you recommend they get the most out of their membership?

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:19:46] You know, I can I can say that that we have a we’ve been working with a lot of women businesses and first we have to see their infrastructure, what the infrastructure looks like. Because what we have shared with them that we backed West is no joke as far as getting certified. And so we want more women being certified, but we have to let them know that it’s a paperwork game, you have to do the paperwork and you have to have all your paperwork in order. So we would say just starting from the beginning of getting your EIA number, establishing, you know, your target population, what product or service are you going to provide, developing a mission statement, getting a website because people have to find you. Um, a lot of people are working from home, but we suggest, uh, having a co-working space so that you can branch out also in relationships. But we do the how to, uh, to to how to, to how to really get in the game to develop your infrastructure. And it’s not overnight. Sometimes it takes six months a year. Some people have taken five years, you know, because they were dreaming.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:20:57] And finally they ran across somebody who just told them what to do. So we’re working, um, with two women, uh, who’s really been the impetus of mentors for us, a lady named Rhonda Jackson, um, who has her own paint company in downtown California. And so she’s about to, uh, reinstate her process. But we went to her a lot of a lot of her fun, slow growth, uh, processes. And it’s just been amazing. And another lady has the chess academy, but she’s also a bail bondsman, so we’re working to get her into the process. So everybody we meet, we talk to them about the process and what it means to be certified, because certified catapults this level all over the country if they will connect. And of course, we connected by also being in the Women of Influence in Health care for the Los Angeles Business Journal. So we’ve been writing to so it’s not only selling somebody something we’ve been writing to and telling them that sometimes you might have to give your services away, you know, for a minute to, to get into these emerging markets and these capital markets.

Leola Williams: [00:22:08] And let me add, this is something that is is put, uh, into writing. And I’m just going to quote this because I think this is so important that we back with the next a women business enterprises to procurement opportunities with corporations and government entities through education, strategic networking events and certification. I love it.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:22:38] Biggest. So there’s so much that we can do. We’re just tapping into people’s, um, passion. And we believe that when you tap into people’s passion, like, you know, our passion is, look, we want to keep nurses into the field. We want them to love what they do. You know, because that’s, you know, the safety of a patient. We want more doctors to come into the field because we find out that particularly when it comes to to people of color, uh, as far as doctors, um, I think the statistic is like 5% and we find out that medical boards are taking away some licenses of doctors because they have a computerized system. So we try to tell people that, you know what, make sure that your paperwork is good on paper, because sometimes these computerized systems, their algorithms might not be right and you might be listening to the wrong statistics. So you have to vet everything. So we’ve, uh, tapped in to, uh, amazing companies who helps us to vet people before we can tell other people this is what you have to do, and we’re loving it.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:44] So what’s next? Uh, what do you need? And how can we help you?

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:23:49] Well, the next thing that that that I can say that that, that we need is we are, um, close to, um, putting our journal entry for to close because we want people to know that you might be buying the wrong product. And so we care about morbidity, we care about you prolonging your life. And so that’s how a wayback can help that, that we want to do a survey out there that says how are you protecting your health. Because some people have a heart attack and they’ve had, um, you know, uh, Parkinson’s, they’ve had heart disease, they’ve had, um, high blood pressure. And a lot of times we don’t know it until somebody gets sick and we want to prevent that. So we want to just put out some information about, uh, um, prevention because prevention is worth what does it say, a pound of good pound, a ounce of good. It prevented prevention is key. And, uh, and people have to exercise. And I tell you, if more people got into the swimming pool non-evasive where they can feel like they’re working out, but they’re doing something for the quality and not only the quality of life, but. When your mind is sharp and you feel good about yourself, that helps your health too. So we want everybody to also laugh too, because laugh is like a medicine too. So we’re trying to get everybody to laugh more. And, you know, I’ll end with this. Leo and I like to sing karaoke. And so that’s a part of the, the, the sphere that we’re in, too, because then we get to introduce our business as well by doing nontraditional things instead of just being stuck in one box. So let me go ahead.

Leola Williams: [00:25:42] Let me finally add this part. I’d like to go back to the focus that I talked about at the very beginning is the standard of care, the quality of care, the equality. That’s a big one right there. The equality, the safety which. I would like to also bring forth, um, for promoting health and wellness in the community by adding, uh, stay well products. And I don’t focus that much on those products. And then again, I do. But I think when you are caring about someone and they realize that you do care, the products just add itself, you know, to the, uh, to the condition, to the matrix.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:26:29] And some things are people think that they’re hard, but they’re easy. Um, we took a Pilates ring to one of the veterans meetings. Next thing you know, all these veterans start taking the pallotti ring away from each other, wanting to use the Pilates ring. Just a simple something like a Pilates ring can help with muscles. And we find that. It’s really important that we work on elders because we find that elders are falling all the time, and that’s the key. We just knew a veteran 99. He was headed for his 99th birthday, end up falling, and two days later he wasn’t with us anymore. So we care about that preventive measure that that doesn’t produce that doesn’t produce the loss of life anymore. It produces the, the, the life of life.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:19] So if somebody wants to learn more, is there a website?

Leola Williams: [00:27:24] Yes it is. It’s w-w-w-what day. Well, Leela com s t a y w e l l l e o l a.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:41] Well, thank you both for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Annette Davis Jackson: [00:27:47] Well. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we hope that you’re ruling your health. And we hope Ella’s ruling her health, too. And. Yes, and Ella drink a whole lot of water. But more importantly, the old school used to have apple cider vinegar. Just put a little apple cider vinegar in your water and get all the toxins out of your body.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:06] Well, thank you all. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.

Leola Williams: [00:28:12] Thank you. Lee. Bye bye.

 

Tagged With: Stay Well Leola

BRX Pro Tip: 3 Common Ways to Measure Success of a B2B Podcast

May 16, 2024 by angishields

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Stone Payton: [00:00:01] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, what’s your counsel on measuring the success of your B2B podcast?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Well, there’s one way I like to do it. There’s three ways that most people do it. I’d like to address all three of those things. The first way some people like to measure the success of a B2B podcast is audience growth, like downloads and subscribers. A second way they like to measure is audience engagement, like number of reviews or social media shares. And to me, the most important one is number three, lead generation, like revenue or ROI, return on investment.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] There’s a reason that close to 90 percent of B2B podcasts fail, and it’s because the B2B podcaster spends far too much time and energy worried about the cost metrics of audience growth and listener engagement. And they’re not investing enough time on the one metric that matters, which is lead generation and a healthy ROI.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:09] Audience growth and listener engagement are nice to haves. Sure, you want that to happen. that’d be great if that happens. But if your podcast isn’t generating leads and building a healthy ROI, it’s not going to work. Lead generation and healthy ROI is a must have. That’s not a nice to have. Audience growth and listener engagement are nice to have. Sure, that’d be great if that happens, but if it’s not generating leads or money, then why are you doing this?

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] You know, a B2B podcast is there to grow your business. If it’s not growing your business, it’s not a marketing tool. It’s just a hobby that you get emotional satisfaction from. And I’m not saying that you should stop doing it for that reason. But just understand, if that’s what the objective is, you’re not going to make money from it, you’ll be emotionally satisfied. There’s nothing wrong with that. But don’t consider it a marketing tactic. This is just something you enjoy doing.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] So, if you want to use a B2B podcast as a marketing vehicle, then focus in on the metric that matters, and that’s lead generation and having an ROI. And that’s something that we do at Business RadioX. That’s why our podcasts go on for a long time, our clients stay with us for a long time because we’re focused like a laser on growing their business, focusing on the metric that matters, which is lead generation and ROI. That’s how we want to be judged, not by audience or engagement. Those are nice to haves. So, when you’re ready to fix your broken B2B podcast, hang out with us at Business RadioX.

BRX Pro Tip: Price is Never the Reason

May 15, 2024 by angishields

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Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I’ve been at this a while, I know you have too. We have secured some deal. We have lost some deals. On those that we’ve lost, I got to believe, price is never the reason.

Lee Kantor:Yeah. Price is not. If somebody, if you’re losing a business because of price, I think you should be happy because you really don’t want to be that low price provider and you don’t want a client – your ideal client is probably not someone that is nickel and diming you and is that price sensitive. I think price – if all things are equal, price can be a factor. But since you know you shouldn’t be the low cost provider, you just shouldn’t kind of care if you lost that business because of price.

Lee Kantor: Most small business owners can’t afford to be the low price provider. So, you know, just don’t play that game. Just push the value you provide up so that your price is defensible and your prospect believes they’re going to be getting a better value for the outcome they desire if they work with you. They may not get a better price, but they should be getting a better value because you’re going to deliver more value than what they’re paying for so they should be happy about it. And it shouldn’t be an invoice that they’re dreading. They should be happy to be paying you because they know they’re making a lot more money from working with you than not.

Stone Payton: I loved what you said about all things being equal, price can have an influence or be a factor. So if that’s the case, then just don’t let all things be equal. Put some weight.

Lee Kantor:  Exactly. Make value higher.

Stone Payton: Exactly.

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