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BRX Pro Tip: If You Want to Sell Your Business

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: If You Want to Sell Your Business
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BRX Pro Tip: If You Want to Sell Your Business

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business Radio X Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, we’ve got an upcoming season of Buy A Business Near Me. But let’s talk a little bit about, you know, if you want to sell your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Yeah. We’ve learned a lot of things on that show and through the interviews over time. Most entrepreneurs at some point are going to exit their business one way or another. So if you want to sell your business, you better be doing these two things well.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] The first thing you have to do is get your processes written down. You have to have standard operating procedures or playbooks for every aspect of your business. This gives the buyer confidence that they can continue to operate your business in your absence.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] A second tip is if you can automate some of those standard operating procedures, that’s even better. Anything that operates your business with less people and more processes is going to be more attractive.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] Another thing to do is to know your numbers. What are the metrics that matter and can you show a pattern of growth?

Lee Kantor: [00:01:04] Get your processes right, get your numbers right, and you can successfully sell your business.

WBE Feature – Women‘s Month & Stress Awareness: Stress Management

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Women in Motion
WBE Feature - Women‘s Month & Stress Awareness: Stress Management
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In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor and Dr. Pamela Williamson discuss stress awareness with guests Heather Cox and Sarah Hope, both CEOs managing their businesses and personal lives. Heather shares how she balances running Certify My Company and raising five children, emphasizing independence, scheduling, and exercise. Sarah talks about juggling three businesses through extensive lists, calendar management, and delegation. The conversation also touches on leveraging certifications for business growth, the value of organizational systems, and the significance of thorough hiring processes to protect company interests.

Heather-CoxHeather Cox is a champion and a cheerleader for underestimated women entrepreneurs!

As president of CMC, Heather works with both diverse businesses and corporations to increase visibility in supplier markets, and connects certified businesses with the corporations eager to do business with them.

Heather educates corporations about diversity practices and collaborates with managers of supplier diversity programs to help them reach their diversity goals, including a coveted seat at the Billion Dollar Roundtable.

She sits on the board of the national and regional forums for Women’s Business Enterprise Council – West, and has held past posts with the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization (WPEO-NY), WBENC National Council, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and the Advisory Board for Super Bowl XLVIII.

Away from her many professional pursuits, Heather enjoys not relaxing with her husband and five small children.

Follow Certify My Company on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Sarah-HopeSarah Hope, a dynamic and visionary serial entrepreneur, leads several thriving ventures including Vertical Identity, 911OccMed, The Mission Wedding Chapel, and Easy Trim Weight Loss Clinic.

Her exceptional ability to envision future pathways and assemble formidable teams has been pivotal in scaling her businesses. With her husband Jason—a steadfast partner and the executor of her visions—by her side, Sarah navigates both her professional and personal life with a blend of determination and strategic foresight.

Recently, Sarah has embraced Alaska as her newfound haven, where she is embarking on an exciting journey to establish a general contracting business in 2024. Amidst evolving her enterprises, Sarah is keenly focused on steering her businesses towards the future by integrating Artificial Intelligence, ensuring they remain at the forefront of innovation and efficiency.

About Our Co-Host

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

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

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

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

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

Connect with Dr. Williamson on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

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 with Dr. Pamela Williamson. Another episode of Women In Motion, brought to you by WBEC-West. Dr. Pamela, have you fully recovered from the big weekend in Colorado?

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:00:42] You know, Lee, I am not going to lie, I have not. I think I need another three or four days of rest. The conference was fantastic. Almost a little shy of 5,000 attendees, 300 corporate members, and just a gigantic trade show floor to get through, so it was a pretty exhausting experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:06] And it’s so important that the conference happens like that in person, having 5,000 people like that, the energy must have been off the charts.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:01:18] I would say that it was beyond any chart that has ever been measured. It was absolutely crazy connections happening everywhere.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:29] Well, it’s great to be back with you here in the studio and so excited to be talking to our guests. The theme this month is Stress Awareness Month, and we have Sarah Hope and Heather Cox with us. Anything you’d like to share or talk to them about before we get going?

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:01:47] Yeah, I would love to. So, I have known both of these ladies for a very long time. I have watched them go through the trials and tribulation of growth and expansion and I have seen them both handle stress amazingly.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:02:04] So, I’m going to start with you, Heather, and have you introduce yourself. Heather Cox is the CEO and President of Certify My Company. And I don’t want to say this wrong, Heather, I am counting on my fingers, but I think you have five kids while you are also trying to run a very successful business that is expanding. Can you tell me a little bit about your business?

Heather Cox: [00:02:28] So, Certify My Company, we work with diverse entrepreneurs and corporations to make sure that (A) they get matched up, but also to make sure that everybody in the supply chain that should be certified is certified with the right certifications for them and their business. Otherwise, you know, like really use it for what they want to use it for.

Heather Cox: [00:02:48] And, yes, I do have five children. I started the company right after I had baby number one, which is when you start a business, right, like right when you have a new baby? And so, there have been plenty of conferences that I was pregnant at.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:03:02] So, I want to bring in Sarah Hope into this conversation. Sarah Hope, I’ve also known for a very long time. Sarah, I think when I first met you, you only had one company and your kids were at home. Now, if my recollection is correct, you have three companies. You you separate your time between here and Alaska, here being Arizona. But can you tell us a little bit about your company?

Sarah Hope: [00:03:31] Yes. It’s been ten years. Can you believe it? Next year is our ten year anniversary for Vertical Identity, which I’m the CEO and Founder and ultimate visionary. My biggest issue with Vertical Identity or any other business that I start is I love starting, and then I get absolutely bored whenever running it. So, I definitely need an implementer to help me just to run the companies and execute the vision for sure. That’s one of the biggest takeaways that I’ve taken from the last ten years, my love is just starting the company.

Sarah Hope: [00:04:12] So, I have Vertical Identity, which is a background screening and employment screening company. We do a lot of compliance also for trucking companies. We also recently started a easy trim weight loss clinic. So, after I lost 30 pounds, mind you, that I had gained because I was working 24/7 for the first seven years or so of my business journey, and gained some weight and then realized an amazing new technology that has basically come out, a medicine that’s really helping women all over the world at this point. It is a game changer for obesity in America.

Sarah Hope: [00:04:54] So, we switched over. We had drug testing facilities, four of them. We were also frontline in COVID and frontline with mass COVID vaccinations and testing. Got through that and then I just pivoted and did the weight loss clinics. And we also own a little wedding chapel. So, I have my hands in a bunch of different stuff. But, yes, my kids are gone, so now I can just work 24/7, right?

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:05:19] Thank you, Sarah. Hey, Heather, I do have a question for you, which I think is on all of our listeners mind, is, what is the secret of running a successful business and raising five kids? And none of your children are teenagers, right?

Heather Cox: [00:05:37] No. My big two are 15 and 13 so, yes, we have a lot of attitude also in the house now. I don’t think there’s a secret. I mean, people say to me all the time, “I only have two and I can’t do it.” I don’t know if it’s two or five, but I don’t think it matters. Kids are kids. They all need your attention in different ways, different times.

Heather Cox: [00:06:02] I will say that my kids are very independent from a very young age. They make their own lunches for school. My big two do their own laundry. Some people do allowances and they can earn money in the house, but there’s citizens of the household chores because we all live here, we all have to take responsibility. So, I think that independence is huge when it comes to having to run a business.

Heather Cox: [00:06:30] I started a second one and I have a JV as well, so I think it’s just a matter of keeping things going. Schedules are very important. During COVID actually, I was interviewed by GoDaddy. They asked me, you know, How are you doing it? I was like, schedule, schedule, schedule. Schedule is so important because everybody knows what’s expected of them at that point.

Heather Cox: [00:06:51] Same for me. I live by my calendar. If it’s not on the calendar, it’s probably not going to happen because this brain can only hold so much information and it’s already reached its limit. So, we do a lot of scheduling, and I think that’s really the only way. And then, as far as like the stress part goes, the gym is the reason that I don’t lose it quite often because I get that stress out at the gym.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:07:13] Well, I also see you, because we both were joined together on Peloton, so I see your name sometimes and I check out your workout.

Heather Cox: [00:07:21] I am in the Peloton cults. I do love it. It’s easy. It’s in my room. I run upstairs if I need to. But I just think that was such a great shift. Of all the technology, I think, that’s happened over the years, that one, because you still get the camaraderie of being in a class but you can roll out of bed and jump right on the bike.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:07:41] Yeah. Hey, Sarah, with your juggling your three businesses, how do you handle stress?

Sarah Hope: [00:07:51] Well, like Heather, the calendar is basically my Bible. So, if it is not on my calendar, it is out of sight, out of mind. A trick that I learned some time ago is that our internal mindset is really important. So, for a while, all I would do is continue to remind myself of the things that I had to do. So, in order to stop that, I keep extensive lists. So, I’m super old fashioned, if something comes up, either comes up in my email or someone asks me to do something, I give myself permission to not continuously think about it all the time.

Sarah Hope: [00:08:37] So, I have different lists for different things. I have a business list for each business, and then I have a personal list – and then I’m in a pretty big legal battle right now with an ex-employee that’s costing me a lot of stress – and I have a legal list. So that way, I don’t miss anything because I think, for me, there’s so much stuff going on all the time that I cannot miss anything as a result between my calendar and then keeping my list.

Sarah Hope: [00:09:11] But then the other thing too is – I hate this word, but it’s so important – compartmentalizing tasks, so I shut things off. If I’m going to do something, all of my notifications on my phone go off, I don’t look at my email. I focus on that one thing and get it done for an hour or two, which is really hard, but there’s no way that I can be as productive as I am without having major organization.

Heather Cox: [00:09:43] Do you delegate well to, Sarah? Are you a good delegater?

Sarah Hope: [00:09:45] Yes. At this point, absolutely, you have to delegate. We run on EOS, so it’s based on the book called Traction, so it’s the Entrepreneurial Organizational System. And we have our Level 10s at our meetings and how we’ve set up the company to where – you know, I’m famous for interrupting everybody’s day when I want to know a number or something – the promise of everybody is that on our Level 10, each company communicates to me where we’re at. So that way, I’m not having to blow up people’s day or hour or I want that because I know that I’m going to get all the numbers that I need on the Level 10. But, yeah, delegation is certainly key when you’re managing a lot of different projects.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:33] Now, were you always this way or was this something that you started having a bunch of kids or you started having a bunch of companies and you were like, “I better change some behaviors or else I’m going to have to manage this.”

Sarah Hope: [00:10:45] This was so much fun in the beginning, because my husband is in the business with me too. And we say we’ve been married now for ten years, but it’s more like 20 or 30 because we’re together all the time. But I remember when we first started the business, we were like, “There’s nothing going on, let’s go see a movie.” Those days are long gone. And we did. When we started the business, we had four teenagers at home and managing their schedules.

Sarah Hope: [00:11:15] What we did at that time, forget it. Our office, we had a tiny little office. We paid $350 a month. It was the best thing ever, like, ten years ago when it was simple. We would drive to that collection site. It was a drug testing collection site. We got a contract with Valley Metro at the time, and we started off that way. And then, we were only open, like, 9:00 to 3:00. Now, looking back, it was so cute, right? Like we were so cute. So, we would leave so we didn’t have to drive traffic. It was 30 miles there, 30 miles back. We would be like, “Okay. There’s no one coming, let’s go catch a movie.”

Sarah Hope: [00:11:50] Those days are long gone because you get so busy. You have to have so much grit to get through the last ten years. I mean, it’s literally flown and we’ve grown so much. I think the first year we did, like, 18,000 in revenue. The next year, we did, like, 50, we got up to 100. And then, we were like whew. whew. Well, two years ago – well, it’s been a few years now, we had a million. And then, last year we hit 4 million in revenue.

Sarah Hope: [00:12:20] I mean, the difference of the journey of what actually goes on and the multiple different levels of things that you have to handle, things that you don’t even realize that you had to learn because, as Allison Maslan says from Pinnacle, what got us here isn’t going to get us there. And so many things changed along the way and we have to adapt. As the leadership of the company, you don’t have a choice because everybody’s staring at you like, What’s next? So, yeah, stress management is really important.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:02] Now, Heather, let’s go back in time with you a little bit. What was the impetus of your business idea? Like what was the pain that you were going through that you were like, “Hey, I might be able to solve this.”

Heather Cox: [00:13:14] This wasn’t even my own pain. When I was pregnant with that first baby way back, you know, 16 years ago or 15 years ago – she’s 15 so nine months before that – I was asking, I knew I had to work. I didn’t know exactly what that looked like, but I knew I would have to work. And I’d always done sales and operations. And I was asking a lot of women about their experience as working moms, whether they were executives or part-time or worked for themselves, whatever it was, I’m asking a lot of questions.

Heather Cox: [00:13:43] And the business owners, I just really, like, gravitated toward. I thought they were amazing. I loved their energy, their passion. And when I started talking to the ones, especially the ones that were doing business-to-business sales, I really was like, “Wow. This is fascinating” and I just kept asking them more questions. And at some point a couple of them said to me, “Oh. There’s this certification that I need, they want me to get, but I just can’t get it done.” I’m like, “Hold on. You run a $2 million business, whatever, a $250,000 business, $2 million business, or $2 billion business, what do you mean you can’t get it done? I don’t understand.”

Heather Cox: [00:14:20] So, I went home and did a little research, and my husband’s an attorney, and he’s never worked in my business because I would like to stay married. Unlike Sarah, she’s much braver than I am. But I asked him, like, What’s an operating agreement or what’s a certificate of organization? He’s like, “Well, in some states -” I’m like, “Wait. Some states?” So, that’s when I realized that documents are called different names in different places.

Heather Cox: [00:14:41] So, if you’re a busy business owner and your time is – this is even before I was a busy business owner or a mom of five, I’m like, “Well, how do you know what it is?” And he said not everybody knows what they don’t know, and so they’ll be spending hours and hours trying to find their certificate of organization, only to find out their state doesn’t do that.

Heather Cox: [00:14:58] So, I said I could do it for you. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I never really thought about running a business before. And then, this one told that one, that one told that one. And then, someone said Can you do minority? Can you do this one? Can you do that one? And then, about five years later, we had our first corporate contract and they started calling me a certification expert. And I’m like, “Yeah. I sure am.” I went with it.

Heather Cox: [00:15:23] So, that’s really how it started, was just somebody had the need and I have always said one of my biggest attributes is I’m a very resourceful person. And so, I just figured it out, and now I have five people who work on my team with me to figure it out for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:40] Now, how did you kind of figure out pricing? You know, you figured out, I’m sure the first time you were doing it as it was as if they were doing it. So, you had to learn like they would have learned. But you’re just doing it now so many times, you now probably no shortcuts and you know where all the landmines are, where the regular person doesn’t know that. So, how did you kind of build it into a business that you could delegate and you could teach other people how to do it?

Heather Cox: [00:16:11] Yeah. I mean, until probably eight, nine years ago, it was just me doing everything. And, yeah, first the pricing is just kind of were like, “Yeah. This sounds good and no one said no,” the first few times we did it. And then, now, obviously there’s metrics behind it and there’s information statistics. We know how long it takes us. We know what payroll is. We have a lot more actual data behind what we’re doing. But we just kind of, “So, this is the price.” And then, I realized everyone’s saying yes, it probably means it’s too low. Everyone’s saying yes. So, we raised it and then slowly just kind of changed a little bit here and there until we really found our sweet spot.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:55] And, Sarah, what about you, what was kind of your back story on beginning your adventure in business?

Sarah Hope: [00:17:03] So, I have a huge risk. I have a huge fear of failure, so it dominates in everything that I do in my life. So, as a result, I have chosen businesses all the way up through the weight loss business that are required by law. Why? Because I felt like if it’s required by law that you get a DOT drug test, or that you have to have compliance for your trucking company, or that you have to do a pre-employment background screening because you have a federal contract, then that’s safe for me because then it’s more about not trying to convince someone that they need something, but they’re coming to you because it’s required.

Sarah Hope: [00:17:55] And so, as a result for me, it was easier because then I can go shop the competition. So, understanding your market and what you have to offer. And then, at first it was more about price. But now that I understand more about the values that we have and what we bring to the table, especially, for example, with our background screening process, we have really, really great turnaround times.

Sarah Hope: [00:18:23] I was talking to a friend that they were getting hired at a retail store, I’m not going to say who it is. But it took them, like, a month. They’re like, “I couldn’t get the job. It took a month to get my background check back.” And I just started giggling because we do a lot of school districts in Arizona and their turnaround time, we got them down to, like, three days. And that’s really important for whenever you’re trying to hire a teacher with a teacher shortages and they’re competing. They’re competing with another school to get the teacher. So, it’s not even so much about price. It’s more of how can you get us what we need in the timeframe that we need.

Sarah Hope: [00:19:02] Cooperative contracts have been really huge with the state, especially because the State of Arizona, they do have a DBE program, but it’s not very friendly as far as I’m concerned. So, getting in front of cooperative contracts – and I don’t know if everybody’s familiar with what a cooperative contract is. So, just imagine Costco or Sam’s Club. If you belong to Costco or Sam’s Club, then you can buy there at a certain rate. With cooperative contracts, every state has them and it’s like cooperative association.

Sarah Hope: [00:19:47] So, one of ours for the State of Arizona – actually, they cover a lot more – it’s Mohave Cooperative. And under Mohave Cooperative is they have, for example, electricians and plumbers and background training companies and people who build the outside yard toys for the kids and office supplies. And they bid them out every, you know, three to five years.

Sarah Hope: [00:20:09] So, this contract that I finally won, this my third try and it was actually another WBE that helped me, The RFP Success.

Heather Cox: [00:20:24] Love her.

Sarah Hope: [00:20:25] Yes. So, I had her check out my RFP because our lives revolve around responding to RFPs. And sometimes we’re too close to the tree or too close to – what do they say? – you’re too much in the woods to see the trees or whatever, so anyway, I had her check it and helped me with it. And we won the contract and now people are just lining up. So, it’s not necessarily price all the time. It’s you have to look at the market, really understand what people need.

Sarah Hope: [00:20:53] And, Heather, one of my biggest things is I became an ADA certified. Oh, my gosh. Do you do that?

Heather Cox: [00:21:01] No.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:02] She means she will do it shortly, right?

Sarah Hope: [00:21:07] I cried. I remember the process was so painful. It’s a federal certification. I remember getting back something that I didn’t do something right. And I remember being in Thailand on vacation, because I thought it was all the way on the other end of it, and I was in tears because I was like, “Oh. They’re asking us for something else that I don’t even know.” And it took me, like, two years to get the certification. It was the worst thing.

Heather Cox: [00:21:35] We have a partner that does it, and I have my own thoughts on it, but that’s not what this conversation is about.

Sarah Hope: [00:21:40] What about stress?

Heather Cox: [00:21:41] I will say, though, that your point was right, Sarah, you talked about changing over the years and it becomes less about price and more about value. So, now that we are the leaders in what we do, there are other people who say they do what we do. There is nobody who does it to the extent that we do it to the level that we do it. So much so that we’ve had a good number of our corporate clients who are like, “You know what? We want to divide your contract into two because this other company is less expensive.” And every single time, they’ve come back and given us the entire contract, every time, because they just don’t have the process. They don’t have the expertise that we have the way we do it.

Heather Cox: [00:22:21] And we’ve had other people who’ve tried to compete with us, but they’re just not in the same level. I mean, there are some people who are more expensive than us, people who are less expensive than us, but I always tell entrepreneurs, especially, I say after polling a bunch of our customers, we found out we saved a lot of our clients approximately 22 hours of work. That’s about the time that we’ve saved them by outsourcing the process to us. So, I tell them, you take what your hour is worth to you, whether it’s your billable hour, whatever it is, multiply it by 22. If it’s more than our fee, you’re saving money. If it’s less than our fee, then you might want to try to do it yourself. It just depends on how valuable your time is.

Heather Cox: [00:23:03] I outsource everything I possibly can. I remember one time all five of my kids got lice at the same time. All five. I was like, “Where’s that lice lady?” I called up a lice lady. I was like, I’m not doing this. There’s no way I was going to spend all that time and get it wrong. Because you know what? If you don’t have a time or money to do something once, you don’t have the time or money to do it twice. So, I did not need to do that again. So, I outsource everything I can, taxes, marketing. People are like, “Do your website?” It’ll look like I did my website and it’s going to cost me more in the end.

Sarah Hope: [00:23:34] I wish I had my card because when I first started my business in 2015, I was a lice picker on the side because I got paid $35 an hour.

Heather Cox: [00:23:41] Oh, that’s so funny. A lice lady.

Sarah Hope: [00:23:42] Yeah. And I was just like, whatever I could do to get a little bit of income. I mean, I would have stood in the corner of the road and sold water like they do in Hialeah when it’s hot. I would have been like, “Here’s some lemons. Here’s some water.” Whatever it is that you need to get your business going because you’ve got to make it and you’re so great in time. But, yeah, I just saw my card recently from the lice doctors.

Heather Cox: [00:24:15] And I think we used lice happens or whatever.

Sarah Hope: [00:24:17] Yeah. It was awesome.

Heather Cox: [00:24:19] See, outsource and delegate, that’s how you make it happen.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:23] Now, you both mentioned the importance of systems, processes, these kinds of delegation, can we talk a little bit about AI. Are either one of you kind of leaning into AI or leveraging AI at this point in your business? And if you’re not, are you seeing that as part of the future that you’re going to have to at some point kind of lean into that?

Heather Cox: [00:24:45] I mean, we are in some respects, obviously, a lot more automation than we’ve ever had. Through our CRM, we’ve included a lot of automation and sort of take away some of the manual tasks that are just time consuming for the team. So, we’ve definitely done a lot of AI with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:02] Sarah?

Sarah Hope: [00:25:03] I am really deep into AI. So, not only am I investing in every single AI stock that I can get my hands on, Nvidia was at 400 recently, up to over 900. I bought some AMD. So, I’m researching everything. But more importantly is I’m embracing it to the extent. So, I have just replaced my outbound sales team with outbound AI callers. So, I have basically two fulltime AI caller – I don’t even know what to call them – agents that are making outbound calls to trucking companies.

Heather Cox: [00:25:50] They’re like robocalls, Sarah?

Sarah Hope: [00:25:51] Yeah. But they sound exactly like a human. You listen to the call and you listen to the conversation that our potential customers are having with them and they’re like, “Yeah. do you want to get transferred?” And then, we initiate a transfer to the live team. But they don’t know. They don’t know the difference at all.

Sarah Hope: [00:26:13] And the most beautiful thing about AI is that you can upload your knowledge base, so you can upload the questions and answers. Like for us, it would be DOT Part 40 of the regulations of what a trucking company has to do to be compliant with the drug and alcohol testing policies, and the randoms and all the things that they have to do. Again, back to my fear of failure, this is not something an optional. Nobody wants someone in an 18 wheeler getting into an accident being on drugs, so we manage those processes for trucking companies. And as a result, every new trucker, we reach out to them. We were having live agents do that.

Sarah Hope: [00:26:53] And the AI, the AI doesn’t have any feelings. The AI is going to ask every single question that you tell it to ask and it’s going to have a conversation. So, it is completely fascinating. Our sales, since we launched that, have gone up drastically. So, we were getting about five new signups a week, and we’re getting three a day now. So, yes, it’s been huge AI.

Sarah Hope: [00:27:24] Then, the other changes that we’re making is that I know where this is going, so while I’m not [inaudible] yet, but I’m on it. Like everyday, I get up in the morning and I watch YouTube about whatever new came out. Because my goal is to transition a lot of the administrative duties that we have internally to an AI process, to where, literally, the AI can record your screen, follow whatever admin tasks that you’re doing.

Sarah Hope: [00:28:05] For us, a lot of times it’s like, What collection site for drug test do you have in zip code 85086? Now, it’s a human that has to go in and enter the stuff. The AI, you can train it to go log in here, check here, answer here. Imagine not only being able to service our customers 24/7 to be able to automate that process, make them feel like – well, it’s not just make them feel. Honestly, a lot of this, let’s face it, our employees don’t always do what we ask them to do. Our team skips questions because of whatever it is that they think is happening. The AI doesn’t have that emotional response. They’re just going to ask the question, and it’s so polite. And you can pick male voice, female voice. I mean, I can’t even tell you how much fun we’re having with it. It is absolutely amazing.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:03] Did you have someone kind of Sherpa-ing you through this? Like, how did you kind of find the service you’re using for this? Or is this just you kind of just dove into a ChatGPT and just started doing it yourself?

Sarah Hope: [00:29:19] Oh, I’m a ChatGPT queen, too. Let me tell you, I want to write a book about ChatGPT because it’s handling my entire legal case. By the way, I didn’t even hire an attorney. It is my attorney. It’s writing all of my motions. It’s writing everything for me. It’s handling my entire legal case with this ex-employee issue that I have, so I’m using ChatGPT for that.

Sarah Hope: [00:29:41] But I ended up going to Traffic & Conversion. And at Traffic & Conversion, there is one called AIRAI, and they kind of kicked it off. But at Traffic & Conversion, there was a company called Acquisition AI and that’s who I use. So, I liked their setup fee, it was pretty reasonable. Don’t quote me, I want to say it was about $1,000. It’s about, I want to say, $800 a month for two fulltime AI. So, I gave them the script, everything that we wanted, and then they set it all up, and then we launched. And I want to say, it probably took about ten days to get it all set up and for them to set it up on there, and test it, and run it, and run with it.

Sarah Hope: [00:30:28] But I did a lot of research. Again, YouTube is my best friend because how I use YouTube in the morning is I’ll sit and have my coffee, and then I’m like, What’s new in AI? And AI is going to revolutionize the entire world. And I know that there’s a lot of people that are like, “Oh. I’m afraid. I’m afraid.” Don’t be afraid. Open AI is the main source of the large language model, but it is written in an open language. So, there’s a lot of large language models that are being built under that.

Sarah Hope: [00:31:04] So, it’s not like one big brain. It’s kind of like the gremlins. You have one and then there’s a ton of large language models under it. So, I don’t feel like they’re going to take over and the robots are going to kill us all and all of that stuff. It’s more of, how can we use a large language model that can really understand our business, that can really help our customers, that can facilitate the changes that we need, improve processes, better customer service. I love it. I’m completely obsessed.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:38] Well, Sarah, I mean, you could tell how passionate you are about this. Is there a fourth business kind of lurking there? An AI business?

Sarah Hope: [00:31:46] I wish I had the time. That’s something I’ve been playing with. I actually named it and everything. I named it Denali Sky. But we’ve recently started purchasing a lot of property up in Alaska, so I’m starting a general contracting business up there. So, it’s called Denali Sky Builders and Contractors. So, I’m kind of involved in remodeling and flipping some houses up there while we’re there for the summer and just learning Alaska. But part of that is also subcontracting and using the technologies that are coming with AI and being able to facilitate a lot of these smaller businesses and being able to get their marketing out.

Sarah Hope: [00:32:24] But AI, guys, this is bigger than the internet. I don’t think that people are realizing the effect that this is going to have in all of our lives daily and how amazing everything is going to be. I am so excited to be alive to be part of this.

Heather Cox: [00:32:45] I also love it. I just need to make sure my children know how to actually write an essay also and not just use ChatGPT, so there’s that part that I need them to use their brains. But we use it a lot also for those type of things, marketing documents, things like that. That’s my only downside to it, is that I still have little ones who I’m trying to raise to use their intelligence and intellect.

Sarah Hope: [00:33:06] I don’t know if you’re going to be able to stop it though. So, that’s the biggest thing, is that unless we start taking things away —

Heather Cox: [00:33:15] Well, so far they don’t have smartphones. I’m a very mean mommy.

Sarah Hope: [00:33:18] Oh, well that’s good. But there’s a lot going on with AI. The thing is that people like jobs, right? So, I do think that a lot of analytical jobs that are going to be – I’m using it as an attorney. I don’t have no else to go. I’m not suggesting anybody go replace your attorney with this. But if I need a case law or whatever, I’m researching it, or what the rules are for Maricopa County, or what I have to respond to this motion or whatever, it’s a matter of prompting ChatGPT and asking the questions so you don’t have to be sitting out there waiting or going through tons of Google questions and answers, because it’s a conversation that you have back and forth.

Sarah Hope: [00:34:00] And there’s software out there that is doing automatic training, like day traning for you because it’s learn. And it can look at the stocks analytically in a way that our brain can’t do it. So, I think that the human touch is still going to be really important, that the relationships are going to be really important, but how we use AI to help our processes and our business, it’s going to help us be more profitable, keep our costs down in this very expensive world we live in. And it’s amazing. I’m so excited.

Lee Kantor: [00:34:44] Now, Heather, do you mind sharing a little advice for folks out there that have maybe joined some associations, got some certifications, but they aren’t leveraging it and they’re not kind of maximizing their investment into that. Because there are so many people that go, “Oh. I have to be certified or I have to join this group,” and they check the box and they think they’re done. And then, they go back to work and they’re like, “Well, where’s the ROI on this? I don’t see it. It’s not working for me.” So, can you give some advice to kind of maximizing your certification or leveraging your association?

Heather Cox: [00:35:22] Absolutely. I mean, we tell people all the time, it’s a tool and not a magic wand. It is not if you certify it, they will come. You really have to leverage it and use it, as you said.

Heather Cox: [00:35:32] So much so we created a whole program called Diversity Masterminds, because after hearing so many of our clients say like, “I’m not renewing my certification. I didn’t get anything out of it.” And I would say, “Did you do this? Did you go here? Did you talk to these people?” “No. I didn’t know I could. I didn’t know I should.” And so, we really wanted them to understand how to leverage the certification to maximize growth. And so, we created a whole program both on demand and in person to do that.

Heather Cox: [00:35:59] But it’s really about being part of the organization. I would say that’s probably one of my biggest pieces of advice is that, you know, when I moved from New Jersey to Nevada, I immediately reached out to Dr. Pamela Williamson and just said, “Hey. Now I’m one of your WBEs out here in Nevada,” and then I was all in. I was like, I want to be part of however I can support the organization because I think that – what’s that expression? – rising tides bring all the boats to the top, whatever that is. You know that expression?

Lee Kantor: [00:36:31] Yes.

Heather Cox: [00:36:31] So, I really believe in that. I believe in elevating each other elevates ourselves as well. And so, just any way that I can meet more of the WBEs, be part of it, show up, and you have to really let go of any kind of entitlement that like, “Well, I’m certified. Where’s my contract?” Because that will get you nowhere. It’ll actually get you less than nowhere, whenever that’s possible.

Heather Cox: [00:36:55] But that’s what I think what it is, is kind of wherever you can, sharing your expertise with those around you, and they’ll share with you, obviously you’re not going to give things away for free, but just having conversations with your other WBEs and the network, everybody knows someone or something that you don’t. And so, by being part of this organization and the network, you have so much exposure to resources you never even knew you needed and never knew you had.

Heather Cox: [00:37:26] And so, that’s what I think at the WBENC conference last week during the WBEC-West RPO breakout, both Dr. Williamson and myself mentioned that elevating the other people that were there at the conference was a game changer for your conference. Not just their conference, but your conference. And I think that’s what people underestimate.

Heather Cox: [00:37:45] And, also, the business development part of the certification, people get. They understand that’s the logical part. What people often forget, what entrepreneurs often forget is the company development and the leadership development opportunities that are out there. [Inaudible] scholarship to go to the talk education business, the executive MBA program, or being a part of mentorship opportunities, these are all parts of the organization, parts of your certification that are underutilized and under recognized, in my opinion, by the entrepreneurs out there.

Heather Cox: [00:38:21] I think there’s so much that they can take advantage of, even WBEC-West has the – oh, my gosh. Dr. Williamson, I’m blanking on the name of it.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:38:31] I’m going to take a guess, Platinum Supplier Program.

Heather Cox: [00:38:35] Platinum Supplier Program. Thank you. Platinum Supplier Program that really teaches you how to elevate the use of your certification. And so, I think people forget about those and they get so caught up in just filling out RFPs or just buy for me, buy for me, buy for me. They forget about the relationship part of it and, really, the other aspects of the certification.

Lee Kantor: [00:38:56] Now, who is the ideal client for you? What’s your ideal client profile?

Heather Cox: [00:39:01] Well, we really have two sets of clients. We have our corporate clients who utilize us to make sure that everybody in their supply chain understands the value of diversity certification, and what it is, and how to use it, so we do a lot of webinars and trainings. And, also, they’ll engage us to work with the suppliers in their supply chain that should be certified but are not, that they have relationships with.

Heather Cox: [00:39:21] And then, our the entrepreneurs that hire us are people who understand their time and worth of their time. But also companies who are already doing business-to-business sales or either have already started doing business with the Fortune 1000 or the government entities or are just about to, who maybe have been a tier 2 supplier previously and they maybe seen the opportunity cost. So, really anybody who understands the value of outsourcing and also the people who are business-to-business and are ready to take that next step.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:52] And if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website?

Heather Cox: [00:39:55] It is certifymycompany.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:59] And, Sarah, who is your ideal client?

Sarah Hope: [00:40:04] My ideal client is a company that needs help with compliance and screening their employees, basically. Making sure that they have the right team. One thing is the interview, but another thing is their history. You know, California Act, California recently just passed a law – before it was seven years. If you had any felonies before seven years, they didn’t show up. Now it’s after four years, they’re completely expunged. And now California has decided to not verify dates of birth.

Sarah Hope: [00:40:57] So, let us just take Heather Cox. I don’t know if there’s more than one Heather Cox in California. But if there is, it makes it very difficult for us to run a background check and then to actually verify who you are. And if you have an employee that has felonies – one of my ex-employees, the one that I’m in a legal battle with right now, had eight felonies and we did not know. We ran a background check, but California kept the information because they were not allowed to release it.

Sarah Hope: [00:41:42] And so, understanding that, we put everything into our business. Our business is everything. It’s like our children. And then, you allow someone like this. People can change. It just so happens that this person didn’t. And I found out about it after the fact in the investigation. I’m horrified. I’m horrified for myself and my company. I’m horrified for possible new companies that come in. But this is happening everywhere.

Sarah Hope: [00:42:16] You know, California isn’t the only one, but the ramifications that come from not having the right hire, which you’re not completely, I guess, immune to, I mean we are a background screening company and it didn’t come up. The background check was completely clear, so we didn’t do anything wrong because we didn’t have any idea. But then, what goes through my mind is, “Oh, my gosh. What if a teacher comes over from California and we’re hiring a teacher for a school district, and we can’t release this information or we don’t see?” There’s so much. There’s so much stress that goes along with it.

Sarah Hope: [00:42:58] So, I just think it’s really important to screen and to do the reference checks for as painful as it is to talk to their personal references, to talk to their prior business references. It’s not just about the criminal background check. You guys, check. Check who you’re hiring. Protect your company. So, that’s my ideal hire, someone that really wants to protect what they’re doing and have a background check and compliance. And let us be human with you and help you navigate this journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:43:33] Now, what’s a website for Vertical Identity?

Sarah Hope: [00:43:36] Vertical Identity, so vertical, like horizontal and vertical, and identity, like in stolen identity, .com.

Lee Kantor: [00:43:42] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. Dr. Pam, what an episode. A lot of smart people in this room.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:43:50] There are a lot of smart people and a lot of great information. We discussed AI. We discussed health and stress. We discussed positive energy. I think we discussed everything possible under this topic. So, I really want to thank Sarah and Heather for joining us and sharing all the nuggets that they did. I appreciate you both.

Sarah Hope: [00:44:15] Yes. Thank you for having me. It was nice to see you both, all of you.

Heather Cox: [00:44:20] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:44:21] All right. Well, that’s a wrap for this episode of Women In Motion. This is Lee Kantor for Dr. Pamela Williamson. We’ll see you all next time.

 

How PrivOps Can Revolutionize Data Integration and Governance

by

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Sandy Springs Business Radio
How PrivOps Can Revolutionize Data Integration and Governance
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In this episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio, Erik Boemanns is joined by Tyler Johnson from PrivOps, who shares his expertise on DevOps for data, emphasizing its role in optimizing data integration and governance. Tyler discusses the challenges of cybersecurity, privacy regulations, and the necessity of incorporating security from the beginning of the data integration process. He advocates for control through automation and the use of low code to enhance data engineering productivity. Tyler also addresses the concept of data fabric, urging a cautious approach to industry buzzwords and stressing the importance of understanding their specific definitions.

PrivOps-logo

Tyler-JohnsonWith over two dozen US patents, Tyler Johnson is a proven innovator, change leader and senior technology executive. Tyler invented the concept of the data fabric over 8 years ago with the 1st data fabric patent.

Early in his career, Tyler invented an automated testing platform that transformed how Hewlett Packard tests their most advanced server designs, which is still in use after more than two decades. Later, Tyler managed strategic technology alliances with over $500 million in joint revenue and grew Rackspace’s $300 Million VMware based private cloud services line to over $600 Million while serving as product leader, lead architect and strategic alliance leader.

Currently, Tyler is the co-founder of PrivOps, a Georgia Tech ATDC Accelerate startup and inventor of the PrivOps Matrix, a highly scalable system for building data fabrics that safely share data via standardized, interchangeable building blocks.

Tyler holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Florida Atlantic University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University and resides in Alpharetta, GA, with his wife and two sets of twins.

Connect with Tyler on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] 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: [00:00:24] This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Mirability, providing unique ID solutions, leveraging cloud, AI and more to solve business problems. Here’s your host, Erik Boemanns.

Erik Boemanns: [00:00:38] Good morning. Yeah, this is Erik Boemanns with Mirability. And today we’ve got a great guest. His name is Tyler Johnson and he’s with the company PrivOps. So, let’s get started Tyler, maybe introduce yourself.

Tyler Johnson: [00:00:47] Hi, Eric. Thanks for having me on. I’m. You know, I know we’ve known each other for a couple of years, and I’m really excited about what you’re doing with Mirability. All right. So as far as as me, I’m an entrepreneur, an older entrepreneur that spent two decades in industry and then decided to take the plunge. And I’ve got a little bit of a history of innovation. For example, 20 years ago, I invented all the test automation that Hewlett Packard uses to test their Unix supercomputers. So really bringing lean agile techniques into software and test and it. So that’s kind of my specialty. I’ve also worked with a lot of the big players in the world, Rackspace and Microsoft and Google and so forth and so on.

Erik Boemanns: [00:01:34] Right, right. No, that’s a great background. And so, you decided to take the plunge. PriVops is the plunge. I assume that you took. And so tell us a little bit about what PrivOps does.

Tyler Johnson: [00:01:44] The the simple answer, the three word answer is DevOps for data. And you may not know what DevOps is. Think of it as as an assembly line, right? 125 years ago, we were using assembly lines to geometrically increase the rate of building physical goods like cars. Ten years ago they came up with DevOps. So Jean Kim and John Willis and Patrick Du Bois and a bunch of leaders in that space, and what they did was they applied assembly line type techniques to building software, and that’s called DevOps. So what we’ve done is we’ve extended that concept into data, which is why we call it DevOps for data. So think about what we do is enabling companies to build assembly lines for building integrations. So this isn’t speeds and feeds for data. This is how quickly can we add connections, change connections, remove connections so that we can get the best use of our data. In this world where we’re hampered by cybersecurity constraints, where we’re hampered by data privacy regulations. And just from the the scale problem, like how much data from how many sources do we need to be able to feed into artificial intelligence and other tooling to make those tools as useful as possible?

Erik Boemanns: [00:03:06] Got it. Yeah. And so you talk about data and you talk about all the sources. I’m curious. So maybe if there’s some examples of what those data sources could be, what kind of data are we talking about.

Tyler Johnson: [00:03:15] Well, it’s it’s everything. Data is a lifeblood of an organization. So you’ve got you know, obviously you’ve got customer data. So the interactions that you’ve had with your customers, who they are, um. You’ve got employee data. So your your your employees, your contractors, you’ve got contract data. Uh, things like expiration of contracts and terms and, uh, the actual storage of the contracts themselves. Uh, you’ve got product data. There’s there’s just a whole and one, one type of data people don’t think about is identity data. So, so, uh, so one of the things that we do that’s unique in this space is, is we use identity along with, uh, the provenance of the data. So where it was created, where it came from, uh, when it was created, those kinds of things. And we, we combine all that together, uh, to enable access to data based on both data provenance and identity.

Erik Boemanns: [00:04:19] Got it. And so hit go to take a step back to you talked about cybersecurity. You talked about some of the privacy. Obviously those are two things that are only increasing every single week at this point. Right? Between breaches between new cybersecurity laws getting passed. What is that connection that you see? We’ve got all this data. We’ve got to protect it. You talked about DevOps for data. Where’s the convergence point? How does this all come together in a way?

Tyler Johnson: [00:04:45] Well, it’s. I’ll give you an analogy, like building your house. Right. You have a contractor and you really want your general contractor that’s building your house to think about all of the plumbing and all the electrical as they build the house, knowing that the inspector is going to come and make sure everything was built right. So you don’t want plumbing or electrical to be an afterthought when you’re building your house. And it’s the same thing with data integration you don’t want. Security or data privacy or data governance to be an afterthought, that you’ve got to slap a band aid solution on right now. And that’s that’s really how most people think about things like data governance. We think about it as by design. We build it in from the ground floor. So. So as you extend your capability to move data from point A to point B, you’re able to have that security built in by design, have that data privacy built in by design, and that takes friction out of the process and makes you move faster.

Erik Boemanns: [00:05:54] Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a key thing. If you’re working with data, you’re working with some of the regulations that by design is almost required just for the sake of those listening. What would you what’s your definition of data governance? What does that term mean to you? And DevOps?

Tyler Johnson: [00:06:08] Well, data governance traditionally refers to the controls you put in place, making sure that data gets, uh, tracked and audited so that you’re not passing customer data where it shouldn’t go, for example. So that’s really more of an audit, uh, like a after the fact, you know, so that and then we build, uh, controls in place. And those are and what’s different about what we’re doing is since we’re automating everything end to end, uh, we already have all of that tracking, and we can demonstrate that that data was not, uh, wrongfully accessed for something that wasn’t a legitimate use of that consumer’s data. So from my perspective, data governance is about. Control through automation, whereas the traditional term for definition of data governance is having controls in the place to minimize the chances of things going wrong.

Erik Boemanns: [00:07:07] Right. That makes sense. And I think the automation is a key point. I’m curious if you have an example or a story of where that automation helped a business process or helped help somebody manage their data better.

Tyler Johnson: [00:07:17] Yeah, absolutely. So we we have a customer that’s a mortgage bank. And they wanted to their regional and they wanted to expand into California. And California passed a data privacy law called the CcpA, the California Consumer Privacy Act. And then there was a follow on Cpra. Whatever its legal stuff, Eric, that’s that’s your bailiwick, not mine. But, uh, but yeah, so we wanted to be able to make sure that we could still allow our salespeople to have access to their customers data and to be able to use that data to create a better experience for their customers. But then we now have this new regulation to contend with. And so what we did was we replaced all of the company’s data integrations for reporting and analytics, uh, using our automated data fabric solution. And what that gave them was, uh, first of all, it it dramatically improved their ability to get data to where they could analyze it. But what it also did was because we had the data privacy built in by design, uh, we could open a branch in California without having to worry about going through a bunch of current state assessment of, uh, you know, our data governance maturity and rationalize that that to the regulations in California. We don’t have to do any of that. That all went away because we knew that if California comes back to us, to the bank and says, you know, hey, prove to me that if a California residents asked to or opts out of having their data processed or used for sales and marketing purposes, prove to me you do that. And that’s with the automation that becomes a no brainer and it takes friction out of the system.

Erik Boemanns: [00:09:19] Got it. And I think that makes sense. So I’ve done data development. I’ve done data integration work for decades now, going all the way back to having to handwrite these things in scripts. And data integration to me is moving data from system A right, which could be the sales system or the customer system, that people are storing all their customer data in into whatever system B, C, D, whatever other systems there are reporting analytics today. An AI system. Right. Um. And so in all those years, I had to do. Um, software development to move the data. Right? It was first it was scripts, then it was later using packaged software that that I could drag and drop shapes and then I could start to move the data. But it was still always software development. Where does DevOps fit into that model? How does it what does it replace that those traditional data developers are doing?

Tyler Johnson: [00:10:10] Well, I’ll go back to my first comments about bringing Lean and Agile into data. Uh, the idea is to look at this holistically, start with the process first, and then think about how the technology could be used to do that. And when I think about process, if you if, uh, those of you that are familiar with Lean and Six Sigma, uh, know that that lean is all about eliminating waste and processes, it’s all about efficiency. So if you can take a step of the process and building a data integration where you have, uh, a data engineer or someone, uh, with, with Eric’s skill set, for example, going in and, and building this stuff manually, uh, writing code that’s, that’s time intensive. Uh, Eric’s expensive. Uh, you know, it takes a lot to be able to do that. So one element of what we do in eliminating waste in the overall process is, is to incorporate low code into building data interfaces. And so what that does is that, uh, dramatically increases the productivity of your data engineering capability. Because you can you can take your most talented engineers and put them on value add work, uh, and then use the low code interface to take care of all the plumbing on the back end. Uh, and so you can do a task switching, uh, bringing in other folks that might not be as, as, as senior in terms of skills and talent.

Erik Boemanns: [00:11:44] Yeah. Well, that’s interesting because even though some of the products I was using were marketed as low code, right, because they had drag and drop kind of interfaces, they still weren’t. They were still you still had to code or you still had to understand what was happening. So it sounds like we’re shifting, that you still had to be a very senior data engineer to use these products, even though they were visual.

Tyler Johnson: [00:12:06] Yeah, and that’s why I said that it’s low code and not no code. Yeah. Uh, it’s all about the most critical metric with data integration is the rate at which you can build and maintain data pipelines. And that is, uh, that’s it’s unfortunate that that is not seen as a critical metric with a lot of organizations today. Uh, because there’s an implicit assumption underneath that, uh, that we’ve got to work with the processes that we have. And that’s why I’m going to always go back to starting with process and then thinking about your technology architecture, not the other way around.

Erik Boemanns: [00:12:45] Right. Well, I think the other thing as we’re thinking. Layer back in privacy layer back in security. None of those products I was talking about even worried about that. Right. That was not their problem. Right? They moved data. That’s all they think about. I, as the engineer, maybe thought about security, but even so, it’s another level up before that even gets talked about. If we’re thinking about that old way I think previous approaches that differently. Right. If we’re talking about privacy by design, security by design.

Tyler Johnson: [00:13:12] Yeah, exactly. So if, you know, for those of us that are familiar with DevOps, it’s it’s DevSecOps, right? It’s being able to shift left. And I don’t want to use too much of the jargon from the DevOps world. Sure. But but basically it’s building these things out from the get go. And, you know, I’ll go back to the the the house construction analogy. Um, you know, you want to put the, the wiring in before you lay the drywall and paint. Yep.

Erik Boemanns: [00:13:41] Exactly. Yeah. Are there other? Um, stories are examples where where you’ve seen that really work well, where taking that approach of. Privacy by design. Applying it to your data governance, the way we think about it today. Um, just some examples of where that has made life easier, better, faster.

Tyler Johnson: [00:14:03] Well, yeah. So I’ve come up with a list of 19 different, um, process requirements for employing. Uh, basically eliminating waste in the process of getting data safely from A to B and managing all of that mess. Right. And low code is one. We’ve already talked about that. Um, the other thing is, is another one is modularity. So being able to write code or have our UI, uh, do it where we’re able to automatically switch up data pipelines and move things around rapidly. And what that does is, is, is like, okay, well, yeah, that makes that makes your engineers more efficient, of course. But there’s another thing that it does that’s actually even more important from more of a business or a program perspective, which is that by having that type of approach, you have separated your different projects. It’s separated your work streams. You’ve you’ve minimized or eliminated dependencies. So I’ll give you an example. So on a Thursday afternoon we were talking with a VP of applications. So she had all the application developers and managers under underneath her. And we were the the meeting was to kick off a migration of CRM. So moving to a different customer relationship management platform. And one of the things that just came out was that, uh, she told me that, hey, you know, the next week or so is going to be hard for us because over the weekend, we’re going to release the updated version of the accounting application across the company. And so I mentioned to her that, um, well, that new version has a different database technology on the back end.

Tyler Johnson: [00:16:02] So Monday morning when the CEO comes into the office, his dashboards aren’t going to have the sales data from over the weekend. And that’s going to be a problem, because all of those integrations with the accounting data and the dashboards all will break because, you know, there’s you know, we just went from Oracle to MySQL on the back end and none of that’s going to work. Uh, so because we have these things like low code and, and, and modular architectures and data integration as code where we can move rapidly, we were able to complete that migration of those of, of pulling that accounting data, um, over the weekend. Uh, so, so the result is, is that the VP of applications doesn’t have to go to the CIO, or the CIO doesn’t have to go to the CEO and say, hey, by the way, that big accounting, uh, upgrade that we’ve been working for the last six months on, that we’re supposed to release this this weekend? Well, we can’t do it because there was a dependency we hadn’t accounted for. And, you know, you don’t usually think about data governance or data privacy by design as a way to save face with a CEO. But it absolutely does that because of that fact that it’s able to isolate those different work streams. So yeah, there was a dependency there we forgot about, but we’re so agile that we’re able to account for that and, and continue to make progress unabated.

Erik Boemanns: [00:17:38] So it sounds like basically there is a technology problem that the CEO never found out about because it never actually became a problem.

Tyler Johnson: [00:17:45] Yes. Now. You got to be careful with that. Because if you’re if you’re so good, nobody sees the problems. Exactly. Then then they’re like, well, why am I paying for this thing? So, you know, so that that becomes an issue as well. But if, if as a leader, your focus is on. The competitiveness of your organization as a whole, like you’re in it together, then that’s the approach you’re going to take every time.

Erik Boemanns: [00:18:16] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We we want to not have problems, but at the same time, we want to make sure people know that we’re solving problems. Right. That could happen.

Tyler Johnson: [00:18:25] Yeah. And the good news is there are by by. Going down this pathway and thinking about efficiency and eliminating waste and and getting data from A to B. Um, you’re able to show a whole lot of business results that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to show. So less, uh, less bad results. More good results. So that’s where you want to be?

Erik Boemanns: [00:18:53] Exactly. I think that’s great. The, um, a couple of questions just to get some quick, um, quick thoughts on buzzwords in the industry for folks that are that are seeing these buzzwords. Right. Um, Microsoft had a huge marketing push on the term fabric, right? They said, look at all of our fabric that we have. And I don’t know if you actually, I think you had to go three paragraphs down before you realized they were talking about data. Right? In those marketing messages. What is what’s your take on fabric data, fabric, Microsoft using that term?

Tyler Johnson: [00:19:23] Well, I don’t want to pick on Microsoft specifically. I think that’s more of a general vendor marketing. Um. Attributes of what the big vendors do. Over time, they will rebrand their technology stacks and having come from the big vendor space as as a sales person, as a engineer and as a product manager, I understand that that’s important from the vendor perspective because it gives you an opportunity to go back to your customers and say, we’ve we’ve got this new capabilities, and sometimes those new capabilities get lost in the messaging when, uh, when you’ve got the same branding for, for all of your technology. So if you look at Microsoft and their fabric branding, the fact is they, you know, they’ve got Synapse and Data Factory and Logic Apps and all these different things that they’ve been working on for all these years. So now the data fabric has become kind of a term. Um, they want to they, they want to message that they’re making progress out to the marketplace and changing that. Branding is is is a way. So like moving from Azure Active Directory to enter ID, right. Exactly. Uh, that kind of thing. And, and I can pick on any vendor out there and tell the tell the same story. Uh, what I would what I would say is that in this space, because it’s so rapidly evolving that you should avoid using jargon whenever possible. Period. Full stop. Right. Uh, here’s an exception, though, that as a customer, you want to look at, if somebody says data fabric, uh, there’s lots of different definitions.

Tyler Johnson: [00:21:07] Right. So, uh, Gartner calls it a, an emerging architecture and data management strategy. Um, you know, last week I presented at the Air Force’s chief data office, put, put a I data analytics forum together, and I presented there and we were talking about the Department of the Air Force data fabric. And so they they’ve got what they call the big six data platforms in the Air Force. And their data fabric was uh, basically they built some point to point integrations between six different big data warehouses. Uh, so their definition, you could say, well, it’s it’s a, um, you know, integration of multiple, uh, integration on top of integration. Right. Uh, and then, okay, I’ll give you another one. So NetApp. So I spent a couple of years working for NetApp. I love the company. I love the technology. Um, lots of great stories from from those days. Uh, they have what they call the NetApp data fabric and what NetApp definition of a data fabric is. Um, I think it’s it’s something along the lines of software defined hybrid cloud management for storage. So being able to use software defined methods to manage your storage, whether it’s on premise or in the cloud. And that’s great. That’s here’s that’s a third definition. Um, in fact, you can go look at what IBM Red hat is saying about data fabrics. Uh, you know, snowflake, uh, you know, Accenture, Deloitte. Everybody’s got their own little take on that. So here’s my take on what a data fabric is. Uh, it’s an assembly line for building data pipelines.

Erik Boemanns: [00:22:56] Got it. Okay.

Tyler Johnson: [00:22:57] And what that means is the focus is on process, right? Is is how how do we build and manage data pipelines at a scale that’s exponentially greater than where we are today? Because that’s what we’re going to need for I, by the way. Yes. And and you think about all those different definitions of data fabric. There’s there’s something you can glean from that. And the common thread through all of that is that each. Definers definition of data. Fabric says something about what they’re trying to accomplish, what their agenda is. Uh, you know, with Microsoft, it’s, you know, hey, we’re. Were the leaders. So data fabric. Right? Exactly. Gardner. Emerging where the thought leaders. We want you to come to us for thinking about what the future is going to be for the Air Force. It’s we want to show to Congress the American people that we’re making progress. Right. And then NetApp, of course, NetApp wants to sell storage. Right. So software. So for me, when I say data, fabric is the actual the actual fabric, not the methodology or architecture, because I’ve already built it, it’s already in place. But my agenda is that assembly line idea, which is we want to get to where we’re 1,000% faster than we are today, ten x. And the only way we’re going to do that is eliminating waste in process. And then the technology choices we make are ones that support those changes.

Erik Boemanns: [00:24:29] Makes complete sense as as we get to this point. I’m curious. What about DevOps? Do we did we miss what? What do you want to make sure we talk about today?

Tyler Johnson: [00:24:41] Well, there’s. This is an emerging space. Data fabric is, you know, beyond the. We talked at length about how overused and confusing the term is, but conceptually, the idea of having to transform the way we’ve moved data as a lifeblood of the organization from different points to maximize things like customer experience that’s new. So, you know, in the last year, I’ve met dozens of CIOs and VP’s and directors and individual contributors in this space. And and what I found is that the the enemy isn’t necessarily, um. For? For Prevost, by the way, the enemy isn’t the competition. The enemy is a status quo that we’ve already got. Uh, we’ve we’ve already got some stuff in here. And, um, you know, it’s it’s we’re kind of like where DevOps was with software development a decade ago. Uh, where, you know, ten years ago, your software teams, you know, they don’t want to hear about operations. They want to just write code and kick it over the fence and let the operations people deal with it. Right. So, and the idea that we’re going to create more automation and people are afraid of automation because they think that they’re going to lose their jobs, which isn’t true, by the way.

Tyler Johnson: [00:26:09] Right. Um, they’re afraid of that. Uh, so what you’ve got to think about is, well, what is the effects that transforming the way that you’re managing data in your environment? What are the cultural effects? How to how does that affect, you know, do you have the like the the right leaders in in in place, right. Yeah. Uh, do you have the right partners in place? And I think one of the things that kind of gets lost in the message with DevOps is that even though we’re a technology platform and, you know, I built this whole methodology around, you know, eliminating waste and, and data management. Uh, what’s really the most important thing is, is, is mapping out that strategy and that roadmap and thinking about, uh, what kind of waves that could potentially make in the organization. Yes. Because, you know, it takes a while to change. It takes much longer to change culture than it does to swap out a tool.

Erik Boemanns: [00:27:13] Great point. Yeah.

Tyler Johnson: [00:27:14] And and it’s unfortunate, but my prediction is that, um, that since since data is the lifeblood of any AI strategy, uh. You know, people are not paying attention to getting the data into AI as part of their strategy. If you look at the if you look at the some of the research today and look at, you know what? What are the most important elements of your AI strategy? Data governance is like at the forgotten, forgotten. But it’s like if if AI is like a light bulb. Um, you really should take care to make sure that your switch works and your wiring works and all your electrical works, because otherwise you’re not going to be able to turn the light on. Yes. So that’s really where I think that, uh, DevOps can help and, and Eric can help, uh, with, with thinking about how that affects things holistically. And then, of course, tying all of that at the end of the day to the bottom line. So revenue and profits.

Erik Boemanns: [00:28:23] Good, good idea to tie that back to the actual revenue, right?

Tyler Johnson: [00:28:27] Well, yeah, you have to do that constantly. Exactly. And that’s that’s one of the things people don’t understand about agile is that and a lot of times we’re agile fails is because they don’t do that. They take a big waterfall project and put it in chunks and say, okay, we’re agile. It’s like, no, at the end of two weeks, you need to be able to show your customers and your other stakeholders and improvement in their life and an improvement, and that improvement needs to happen every two weeks.

Erik Boemanns: [00:28:54] Exactly. Yeah. Strongly related to continuous improvement. Right.

Tyler Johnson: [00:28:58] So absolutely. Yeah, CI is a big part of lean.

Erik Boemanns: [00:29:01] Exactly. So how can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about DevOps?

Tyler Johnson: [00:29:07] Uh, well, fortunately for us, we trademarked the name a while back. So if you just type DevOps, it takes you right to the website.

Erik Boemanns: [00:29:15] That’s easy.

Tyler Johnson: [00:29:16] That’s first entry for DevOps Priv ops. Uh, I’m also on LinkedIn. I post every now and then. Um, and, you know, I’m also a blogger, so I’ve got a lot of if you’re interested in more in depth information around this, I’ve got several blog posts I can point you to. So, you know, and then also, I’m always happy to have a conversation so free. Feel free to reach out to me directly. You can reach out through the website or through LinkedIn. My email is Tyler Johnson at devops.com. Uh, so yeah.

Erik Boemanns: [00:29:53] Okay. Great. Any parting thoughts?

Tyler Johnson: [00:29:56] Uh, no. Just that it’s great to see you, my friend.

Erik Boemanns: [00:30:00] Yeah. Good. Good talk. I enjoyed having you here today.

Tyler Johnson: [00:30:02] Yeah, it’s been fun.

Erik Boemanns: [00:30:03] Yeah. All right. Thank you, 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.

BRX Pro Tip: Success Doesn’t Always Transfer

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Exploring the History and Significance of the Tour Championship in Atlanta

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Association Leadership Radio
Exploring the History and Significance of the Tour Championship in Atlanta
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In this episode of Association Leadership Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Alex Urban, the Executive Director of the TOUR Championship in Atlanta. They discuss the prestigious PGA Tour event, Alex’s career journey, and his role in managing the tournament.

Alex talks about the importance of serving various stakeholders and enhancing the event experience. They explore how businesses can leverage the tournament for growth and the availability of customizable sponsorship packages. Alex also highlights the significance of communication and trust in stakeholder management.

TOUR-Championship-logo

Alex-UrbanAlex Urban joined the PGA TOUR organization in 2013 and now serves as the Executive Director of the TOUR Championship in Atlanta, Ga. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Clemson University in Political Science, and a Master of Arts from the University of Georgia in Public Relations.

Equipped with a background in communications and marketing, Alex utilizes his passion for storytelling to manage relationships with the tournament’s sponsors, generate charitable donations for local nonprofits and grow the tournament in all areas. In addition to his work with the tournament, Alex serves as a board member of First Tee.

Alex, his wife Jamie and daughter Lillian are happy to call Atlanta home and are eager to grow the Playoff finale’s future.

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn and follow TOUR Championship on Facebook and Twitter.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Lee Kantor. Here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Alex Urban. He is the Executive Director of TOUR Championship in Atlanta. Welcome.

Alex Urban: [00:00:32] Hey, thanks for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] I am so excited to be chatting with you. For the folks who aren’t familiar, can you talk about the TOUR Championship?

Alex Urban: [00:00:40] Yeah, absolutely. Uh, the TOUR Championship is a PGA tour event, so professional golf, the best players in the world, and it is a yearly event contested at East Lake Golf Club here in Atlanta. It’s been here for more than 20 years, and it’s an extra special PGA tour event. And that it is the culmination of our yearly Fedex Cup playoffs. So every year, players play all season to try to make it to the playoffs. And then there are three playoff events. The amount of players it gets called down each week until you have the best 30 players from the season who contest against each other here at East Lake Golf Club for the chance to win that Fedex Cup every, uh, every August. And the paycheck that comes with it, which for first place is $18 million. So it’s a heck of a payout. It’s a very difficult trophy to win, and it’s contested at an unbelievably wonderful golf course in East Lake. And we’re very lucky to be here. And yeah, that’s overall that I would say that would be the description of the Tour Championship.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:40] Now, can you talk a little bit about your backstory? Um, how did you get involved with the PGA and how did you get, you know, work your way to this position of executive director?

Alex Urban: [00:01:48] Yeah, it’s funny, I, I grew up playing golf, played my my high school team and my, my background when I went to college was in journalism and I wrote for the school paper. I went to Clemson, wrote for the school paper, covered sports, covered the golf team, among other things. And when I was graduating, I ended up going to grad school at the University of Georgia, worked some internships in the industry. So I worked, uh, internship in the communications world for the United States Golf Association. They run the US open and the US Women’s Open and the Senior Open, among some other golf tournaments. And that was a really nice kind of introduction to the industry. Golf’s not a huge industry. And so once you can find your way in as an intern, it’s you kind of start to meet the right people and, you know, do hopefully do a good job and then get asked to do more stuff. And so I, uh, I did that and then did another internship. And, uh, when I was graduating from the University of Georgia with my master’s degree in public relations, just happened to make the right connection at the right time and got introduced to Jay Monahan, who is our now commissioner. At the time, he was the CMO at the tour and had a conversation with him and a job opened up in our corporate partnerships group. So I was my first job at the tour. This was 2013. So 11 plus years ago now was managing some of our larger corporate partners. So the main one on my team being Fedex, which is a huge one, obviously important to my job now, which is kind of a fun, full circle moment for me. But my background was in communications, so I was really hoping to move to that side of the business and was able to do that in 2014.

Alex Urban: [00:03:22] And so for the next four years, um, was a public relations, um, basically a communications manager for PGA tour, key PGA tour events like the Players Championship and the century event in Maui and, um, the Tour Championship and, uh, some of our events all over the place, Los Angeles, New York. I did the Presidents Cup in Korea and some of the other events on our, uh, our Asian swing. So it was really, really cool. It was a fun time of my life to go travel around and see a whole bunch of. I probably went to 50 tour events in four years, so I was on the road a lot, which was super cool. But I was in my 20s and I, I really enjoyed it. And, uh, it was after those four years that a job opened up to, uh, get into the tournament operations management business, uh, with the century event in Maui. Uh, and I accepted the role to move out there full time and, and run that event. So it was, uh, you know, I never expected I’d live in Hawaii, but it was a really interesting and great way to learn the business of managing tournaments out there in Hawaii. So, um, spent four years out there. We went through Covid out there and, and everything that that entailed. And, um, then had the opportunity to come here to Atlanta back in 2022, about two years ago this exact time. And, um, it’s such a great event and I’m lucky to be here. So that’s kind of the that’s kind of the progression of how I made my way and found myself in this role here, uh, here in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:42] Now, um, as executive director. What, like which constituents do you serve or do you serve all of them? Are you kind of overseeing to make sure that the guest is having a great experience there, that the players are having a great experience, that the sponsors are having a great experience like? Is that what your job encompasses is the totality of the event.

Alex Urban: [00:05:04] You’re you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head, more or less. Um, it’s it’s taking key, um, stakeholders. And you’ve just named three of them. So I would say the player experience is paramount. You want the players to show up and have an absolutely wonderful time. You want their families to have a great time. Um, sponsors, obviously very important. The events wouldn’t happen without our sponsors. So in our case, we have three proud partners in Coca Cola, Southern Company and Accenture. Um, so making sure that they have what they need and they can activate the sponsorship the way that they want to, um, make an impact, the way that they want to make an impact. Our fans are obviously a key stakeholder. We need to make sure that they’re enjoying the tournament and they have a great time on site. Um, that’s extremely important. And then there’s a whole bunch of other, you know, groups as well. You think about the community stakeholders and, you know, we’re in a neighborhood here. So making sure the neighborhood is happy. And we do. We’re very lucky to give a lot of money to, um, you know, worthy organizations. Um, you know, as part of what we generate for the tournament every year. And we gave, um, almost $7 million to local nonprofits, um, this last tournament. And so that’s a whole nother piece of what we do, that community engagement piece and working with the community, um, on that. So it’s. Yeah, it’s working. And then, of course, all of our vendors and, uh, other tour constituents, the list goes on and on. But it’s our purview here in this office that’s here full time. There’s nine of us that oversee that entire, um, that entire thing. So it’s just making sure that all of those things happen every year. And and we continue to grow and, you know, all hospitality sales, everything rolls up to us, all the build, all of the everything.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:46] And then for folks who aren’t aware like this is this requires it’s a year long effort. The tournament might be a week or so, but it’s this is a full time job, right?

Alex Urban: [00:06:57] Yeah, absolutely. It’s, uh, you’d be amazed how much there is to do on a year round basis, especially, um, you know, the sales cycle certainly lasts a full year, but as you’re figuring out what to sell, it’s all the operational needs and requirements of how do we build it, what do we build, what kind of hospitality experiences are we looking for? And, um, how do we improve what we have? How what’s working and what’s not working? What’s working? What can work better? What are the new things that are out there in the industry that we can try all of those things. And it’s really unique because, you know, if I, if we were working, um, for a team sport, if we were, you know, the Atlanta Braves or the Falcons, the Braves, as the example I typically use, you know, they they might try something one week and be able to try something else the next week and try something else the next week. And we don’t really have that luxury. We have that. We’re open to the public Wednesday through Sunday once a year. And so that’s a big week for us, obviously, to test things, see what works, uh, so that we can make the right changes for the following year. But yes, it is. It is a full, full time position. I promise you, we are plenty busy now.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:03] How did you reimagine the hospitality program for this year?

Alex Urban: [00:08:07] Yeah, so this year is a really interesting year. I would say, um, much more interesting than it. A typical year might be in that the course is undergoing a renovation. And so what that means is they’re the they being Eastlake is looking at the the layout of the holes and bunkers and green and retooling some of that, um, for various reasons and to the goal of ultimately making it a better place to contest the tournament, a better course for their members, um, as well. And so that gives us the opportunity to what we tried to do over the last 18 months or so since since we started seeing plans for this renovation is, um, really looking through at. Zeroing things out and. Okay, we’ve been here for 20 plus years. What if we had just shown up yesterday? Where would we put things? What locations? Uh, could be new locations for hospitality that we’ve never done it, or new locations for fan area or a new fan area or a new, you know, you name it, new place to bring fans in to certain areas or different flow, um, between holes because the holes might be changing. And maybe we had a choke point where it was tough for fans to walk through. So we have tried to reimagine as much of that as possible from the ground up. Um, so the hope is that this year when fans come on site, they’ll say, oh, wow, the, you know, the course is renovated and new and exciting and oh, wow, the tournament has really has really brought their A-game as well and done the same thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:37] Now, if you were, um, a business person here in town, independent business person, how would you kind of leverage an event like this in your business to kind of wring out the most value? If you were to invest in a sponsorship or even just invest in tickets to bring, uh, you know, clients or prospective clients.

Alex Urban: [00:09:56] Yeah. The that’s a great question. And we’re, we’re in a really, um, we’re really lucky to be in a market like Atlanta that has a ton of corporate activity. Obviously, it’s a hub of business in the entire country and the entire world. So, um, the beauty of golf as a, as a vehicle for, um, growing a business is that there are several different ways you can do it. And, um, in my opinion, it is from a hospitality standpoint, if you have, whether it’s customers or internal folks that you need to entertain or incentive trip kind of kind of thing for a company or, um, it’s certainly great for prospective clients. In almost any business that requires relationships. The golf platform is a is a tried and true platform to grow business, in that a golf tournament is not a game that lasts 90 minutes or 2 hours or three hours. It is a longer day that has a cadence where golfers come through, you know, every five, ten minutes. Um, it builds in the ability to, um, interact and discuss, um, business, uh, with, with those clients, with those key stakeholders.

Alex Urban: [00:11:07] And that cadence is really makes golf, um, a wonderful platform for hospitality entertaining. And similarly, it’s not only are you is it just a really nice setup from a day cadence, you also reaching people at a passion point? Um, you know, golf is a sport that is very popular with key business decision makers. And so, um, you reach people at a sport that they care deeply about and it makes it, um, you know, a, a fertile place to do business. I would characterize it. We have partners that have, um, had really great success out here entertaining and growing their businesses. But on top of that, we also have sponsorship opportunities. So, you know, it’s a lot of people that come out to the tournament, um, and, and interact with the tournament here in Atlanta. So we have a number of things that you can do from that perspective to get in front of people. So there’s that version, the brand kind of marketing version of growing the business as well. So you get the hospitality and you have the sponsorship piece.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:06] Now, is there a way to leverage the tournament? Um, kind of throughout the years, it’s something that I am going to get obviously the most value the week of the event, but is it something that I can benefit from an affiliation, you know, year round?

Alex Urban: [00:12:22] Yeah, we have we have sponsorship levels that include rights to market alongside the tournament and to utilize, um, you know, our marks in the name of the tournament, um, to create, you know, official X category of the tournament. And so it just depends on what, what your business is and what you’re looking to do, but that that opportunity does exist.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:46] Now, how how does it work from uh, is everything bespoke like are you customizing packages for pretty much anybody or are there kind of set? Okay, these are the ten kind of things that are the base packages that regarding sponsorship. And then you just find one that works for you and then just, you know, you pick a, B, C, d.

Alex Urban: [00:13:08] We have a mixture of both. I would say we have some things that are very turnkey which certain, you know, groups really like, like, hey, I don’t want to over I don’t want to have to think too much. And we’ve got things like certain ticket packages, like for example, our youth ticket sponsorship is pretty turnkey and you just get your name attached to that. And it’s something that we promote all over the place. So that’s an easy if you want to sponsor something without a heavy lift, you can do that. Um, but there are other opportunities that exist that are more custom and we work with you. I mean, that’s the beauty of a golf tournament. And building it from scratch is that we can be more creative because we don’t have a defined, you know, arena or stadium like you would with another professional sports. So, um, yeah, I’ll say I’ll say both. Both. Exist just depends on what you want to do. And, um, you know, there are limitations, of course. You know, with the model we have for our sponsorship with, um, Coca-Cola, Southern Company and Accenture. Uh, a lot of the very overt branding is is reserved for them. That’s what they’re that’s what they’re sponsoring and getting those rights on site. But that’s not to say that we can’t develop things that that fit within the parameters. We have a number of partners that we do that with.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:16] Now, do you have any advice for other people that are leading organizations like yours in terms of kind of making sure all the stakeholders are happy? And, um, you know, from a leadership standpoint, how do you kind of make sure and ensure that each of your stakeholders is, you know, you’re over delivering in terms of value? And how do you kind of ensure that your team is is kind of you’re all on the same page when it comes to this?

Alex Urban: [00:14:45] Yeah. This a great question. I mean, I we have a, a small and, and um, you know, nimble team here on the tournament. And I think that’s one thing you have to do is make sure your team is all on the same page. So we spend a lot of time communicating internally to make sure that, hey, whatever we’re working with on the sales side is something that we can execute. You know, the last thing you want to do is sell something that you actually can’t build or it’s in the wrong spot or, um, you’ve promised something on the sponsor side that you actually can’t pull off. Like, so we try really hard to avoid that. Um, but also foster creativity. I think that’s key as well. Uh, especially because our we work in a, in a business that allows for that creativity. You want to make sure people are keeping their minds open to new things and change and all that, all that fun stuff. Um, in terms of keeping stakeholders and over delivering, I think the key to all of that is communication. Um, it’s key to a lot of things. And it’s just you have to create meaningful relationships that, um, are the foundation of that is trust. So that if you have a difficult conversation, you have to have whomever it is that you’re talking to. Whatever stakeholder understands that you’re coming to it from a place of. Like from a, from a from a place of respect and understanding and that you’re not just trying to bust their chops on something or, or do something just to do it. That if you’ve built the right relationship, the the difficult conversations become not, not quite as difficult. And then the, the easy conversations or the fun conversations become even better. I would say communication is key.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:22] Now, um, if somebody wants to learn more about sponsorship or tickets, what is the best way to do that?

Alex Urban: [00:16:30] Yeah, I would say tour championship.com for us is the is the kind of one stop shop where you can buy tickets. You can see all of our brand new hospitality. We have all kinds of new offerings this year. When I talked about us zeroing out the the tournament and starting from scratch, we have new things that have never been available. We have some things that have been have existed but haven’t had any inventory, and we’ve been able to expand them a little bit. We have a VIP product called our 1904 club. We we have some memberships to that available for the first time in years. Um, so I think you go you go to tour championship.com and you’ll, you’ll get where you need to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:08] Well Alex, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Alex Urban: [00:17:13] Thank you very much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:14] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on the Association Leadership Radio.

 

BRX Pro Tip: We Fix Broken B2B Podcasts

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: We Fix Broken B2B Podcasts
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BRX Pro Tip: We Fix Broken B2B Podcasts

Stone Payton : [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I’ve been watching the numbers and it seems like our fastest-growing revenue stream at the Business RadioX network is fixing broken B2B podcasts.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Yeah. I think a lot of people have gotten into this podcasting craze and thought it was simple to start a podcast, and they were seeing other people be very successful, so they thought it was, hey, I can do this too, so they start a podcast. And we’ve seen the numbers, we’ve spoken at conferences, we’ve been involved in this industry for a long time, and we know for a fact that most people do less than four episodes and then quit. The vast majority of podcasters cannot sustain a podcast, especially the ones in business they are. They think this is some magic instant success tool and it just doesn’t work this way.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:55] So we have spent a lot of time in this space, and the way we do it is definitely not how most podcasters attempt to do podcasting. And, you know, we’ve told people straight up that if your podcast is not generating enough sales and is taking up too much of your time, we can help you. What we specialize in is helping our clients use a business podcast to position themselves as leaders in their industry, differentiate themselves from their competition, build more relationships with the people that matter most to them, and ultimately sell more to help them grow their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:33] And this though – but this strategy is not for everybody. Some people want to be the smartest person in the room, and they want to do it to show how smart they are and they want to be, we call them, guru shows where, hey, look how smart I am. And everything they’re doing on their show is to make them appear smart. And they hope that by doing this over time, they’ll create enough content out there that people will go to them as an expert. That just doesn’t work for most people, and that is definitely not the strategy we usually deploy for our clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:04] We are not for everybody. We work best with business leaders who care about their industry and truly want to serve the people who serve them. We’re not willing to say anything to create outrage or controversy just to generate clicks. That’s not how we do it. You know, generating large numbers of impressions or listeners or clicks is not our goal. That is not the metric that matters.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:29] We will not manipulate the technology to inflate numbers in any area. That is just not how we do things, but we are great. If you want to support and celebrate the work of the people important to you, we can help you do that. We can help you improve your positioning. We can help you improve your pricing. We can help you improve your business if you’re willing to open up your mind and do podcasting differently and kind of buy into the Business RadioX way of doing B2B podcasts.

Realtor Olivia Price

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Cherokee Business Radio
Realtor Olivia Price
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Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

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Olivia Price of Olivia Price Realty Group joins Stone Payton and guest co-host Madeline King. The discussion emphasized the importance of community involvement, with Olivia and Madeline recounting their participation and contributions to local events, like Woodstock Arts fundraisers.

Olivia shared her journey from working in car sales and insurance to thriving in real estate, underscoring the value of building relationships within the community and industry. For first-time homebuyers, Olivia advised not to focus solely on location but consider long-term financial impacts, while homeowners were encouraged to explore investment opportunities, leveraging their home equity in an “equity-rich era.” 

Olivia-PriceOlivia Price is a dynamic and accomplished young professional making waves in both the real estate industry and community leadership.

A native of Florida, Olivia has an extensive background in sales, customer service and business management.

Connect with Olivia on LinkedIn and Instagram.

About Our Guest Co-Host

Madeline-Henriques-King-headshotMadeline King, Owner Closing with Madeline, is a Woodstock native – enjoying life with her husband, Chase, two girls – Lucy (2.5 years) & Della (1 year) – and 2 fur babies, Lando & Yoda (4). When she’s not with her family, she is helping Real Estate Agents leverage their time and grow their businesses.

As an Independent Transaction Coordinator, Madeline brings calm to the chaos of a Real Estate transaction. She communicates with all parties, making sure deadlines are met, the contract is legally compliant, and generally, helps get you to the closing table.

While Madeline takes care of all the details, Agents are free to focus on what scales their business – nurturing relationships and selling houses!

Follow Closing with Madeline on Facebook.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:24] Welcome to this very special edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton and Madeline King here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by our community partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors. Defending capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Main Street warriors.org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David Inc. Please go check them out at diesel.david.com. Madeline, it is so good to be back in the studio. What’s going on in your world?

Madeline King: [00:01:07] Uh, I mean, I have two small kids, so a lot, all the time, but um, most recently I’m super. This is the first time I’ve really. This is like a wide audience. I’m about to say this, too. It’s a big deal. I just got my real estate license. What Olivia doesn’t know is I’m a transaction coordinator, so I am. So I’m a transaction coordinator, and I decided I started this back in November. Oh, it’s been a month, but I finally did it. I’m super excited. Opens up a lot for me. I can do more for my clients, etc. very exciting.

Stone Payton: [00:01:38] Well, it’s an exciting time for you, and a large part of today’s conversation, I think is probably going to be geared toward serving community. You and I were just at a community event for the fundraiser for Woodstock Arts, and, uh, your husband did more than eat the buffet dinner, and he was there. Or did he even get a chance to eat?

Madeline King: [00:01:57] He almost didn’t. Because I’m the wife that forgot to get him a plate, I did. I’m not kidding. He was like, hey, did you get my food? I was like, I ran up. Luckily there was still food there. He ate. He also did a live painting on stage. It was super cool. Um, that Woodstock Arts is really great. They they started doing this with him in, I think, 2019, which is his first ever live painting. It’s like in front of 400 people. It was like, oh, you don’t know if you want to do it. Let’s see. And good. He loved it, actually, and he had a great time. The painting sold in the silent auction after which is sweet, so exciting. So all donated to the Woodstock arts.

Stone Payton: [00:02:32] So so Holly, my wife was with me and, uh, air quote, she air quote, won this plate that she was bidding on. Oh, she did. Yeah. So she got we need to get in the buggy and ride down there and get it later this afternoon. That’s my life now. I walked to the studio, I do a show, then I go home, get a late breakfast, and then we hop in the golf cart and tool around town. And so that’s it’s a nice. Oh, you know. And did I mention I’m going to Paris next week?

Madeline King: [00:03:01] Oh my goodness, I want to live your life.

Stone Payton: [00:03:02] Yes you will, but not for the next. You don’t. You have no hobbies or anything for like years.

Madeline King: [00:03:06] You know what I don’t know? I have a friend that has a three year old similar to one of my daughters. They have been to Japan, Singapore, uh, Paris for sure. Like they’ve done all the things because they said I am. My life is not stopping. So, like, we haven’t quite done that. We haven’t even quite gotten to go camping in North Georgia. So that probably needs to be the first thing we do.

Stone Payton: [00:03:28] Kudos to them.

Madeline King: [00:03:28] You know, so.

Stone Payton: [00:03:29] So we’ll get a lot of that under your belt before soccer, gymnastics training and all that.

Madeline King: [00:03:35] I know I want to hear about your kids. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:03:36] Oh you are in for such a real treat as are our listeners. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Olivia Price Realty Group. The lady herself, Olivia Price. How are you?

Olivia Price: [00:03:49] I’m ecstatic. Listen, I am loving the energy, okay? Because I am also a mother of two. I have a three year old and also a seven year old. So yeah, so with balancing that work and then motherhood and being a wife mom, I give you the MVP for the year. It’s a lot. It is a lot. And um, congratulations.

Madeline King: [00:04:12] Thank you.

Olivia Price: [00:04:13] That’s exciting. Um, and, um, so you were already in transaction coordination before getting your license?

Madeline King: [00:04:19] Yes.

Olivia Price: [00:04:19] Well, that’s awesome.

Madeline King: [00:04:20] I did it the other way, right?

Olivia Price: [00:04:21] No, that’s okay though. That’s okay. That’s awesome. Um, so that’s that’s exciting. Thank you. But I’m excited. I’m excited to be here. Um, in Woodstock. I know the traffic was crazy, but I am here. I’m glad.

Stone Payton: [00:04:35] You. For what it’s worth, even when you’re here, traffic is crazy. Unless you can walk there or buggy there. Look, we.

Olivia Price: [00:04:41] Don’t have the the, um, the luxury of of buggying here, especially on 285 to 85. Right. All the routes that we had to take to get here once you.

Madeline King: [00:04:50] If you come to downtown Woodstock for like a date, family night, just let me know and I’ll tell you where to park that that I can help you with.

Olivia Price: [00:04:57] Is it pretty? Um. It’s packed. Oh, yeah. But if you know.

Madeline King: [00:05:01] Where to park, you’ll be good.

Olivia Price: [00:05:02] Um, see, it’s all about the tricks.

Stone Payton: [00:05:05] Madeline is in the know. Uh, so I got to know backstory. What has held you to get into this arena? To get in the real estate arena?

Olivia Price: [00:05:14] So initially, um, I’ve been in sales for years, since my early teens. And, um, I started off with car sales. I was working for Ford. I was a Ford for several years. Um, then I got into, um, insurance with State Farm. Um, so after I left Ford, literally, it was after I had my first daughter, and, um, I was spending so many hours and my husband was like, yeah, I think you need to find another career. So that’s why I ended up getting my insurance license and started working for State Farm. And literally I was there for a few years, and I just thought I could just do a little bit more. Right? I was my daughter was a couple of years old at that time. I was like, okay, I think I need to get back to me, right? I like the, um, aggression of car sales. I like the fact that I do, I do, I love the fact that we’re able. Um, I do, I do, um, and now I’m able to use those same skill sets into real estate. Right. Um, and it’s just a little bit more impactful. And that’s what I like about it. Um, car sales is pretty straightforward. You come in, you do your thing, but real estate is more relationship based. So I do like that. I like building relationships and seeing my product form. Right. It’s a different product that we’re selling than cars, right? It’s more of you and the idea of being in home ownership or, you know, your secondary home, whatever the case may be. So I just like that. So I’ve been in real estate now going on five years and I love it. So you are in you’re in a great, great profession. So I wish you all the luck.

Stone Payton: [00:06:45] So what was it like the first Tuesday after you got your license, which is what was it had to be an exciting time, but maybe a little scary too.

Olivia Price: [00:06:54] It was just because that test. Right. The test I think is pretty extreme. And I think it’s you’re still in shock. You’re like, oh my God. Okay, so, um, I got I got the piece of paper. All right. Now you’re, you’re a business owner and now you’re like, okay, so what do I do to get business? Where do I start? And I think it’s just so broad that I think I was just kind of still in shock. I was like, okay, so I’m here now. Now what?

Madeline King: [00:07:21] So when when you got your license, you were you you weren’t in real estate yet and you were like, I want to be let me get my license. Jump in. Good for you.

Olivia Price: [00:07:30] Fresh in, fresh in. So I didn’t you’re.

Madeline King: [00:07:31] Like, what.

Olivia Price: [00:07:32] Lesson? Besides the previous, besides the previous sales experience that I’ve had is nothing compared to real estate, though it’s still new.

Madeline King: [00:07:41] By the way, I am really impressed that she was in car sales, because that scares me. Like the fact that you did that makes you. I know you’re a good real estate agent, because you probably advocate for your clients and know how to negotiate and also know how to be a nice person, but be just aggressive enough, yes, to get it done right.

Olivia Price: [00:08:01] And that’s one thing too, because it’s male dominated. Right. Um, and I just learned a lot from my fellow counterparts. I did, and I loved it. Um, they loved me. I was in Buford. Um, Buford, um, shout out to Marla Georgia Ford, by the way, because now I can.

Stone Payton: [00:08:17] Send them an invoice. This is great.

Olivia Price: [00:08:19] Now, um, because they were great. It was. It was real family. So really good experience. That really helped me get into the field that I’m in now. So real. Really. Um, from real estate for me, um, since I’ve been in, it has been a whirlwind of learning experiences. Right? And seeing what works for you and what doesn’t work for you and your business. But ultimately, I’m just happy to be here. I am and happy to still be in business, so I’m just happy.

Stone Payton: [00:08:45] So have you found yourself gravitating to a certain type of client, a new home buyer? The investor, the luxury? The.

Olivia Price: [00:08:53] So in terms of. Which route I take for business. I tend to find a lot of first time home buyers for me and resell on this. On the listing side. Um, I love my first time home buyers just because it’s like. How can I put it? Your aversion. You don’t know. It’s like you’re new to everything. So the first impression that they get from me is is is lifelong. So I like that. I like being that. Hey, your first experience was a good experience. And I like to build those because that’s where my business comes from now is referrals for people that have done business with and also people that haven’t done business with me but have heard about me, and they send people business. I mean, they send me business. So within the released, um, the resale and then the first time home buyers, that’s really my lane. Um, so.

Stone Payton: [00:09:50] So now that you’re five years in, what’s the what do you think is the most rewarding? What’s the what’s the most fun about it for you?

Olivia Price: [00:09:58] Fun. Hmm. Can you put fun in real estate in the same sentence? Yeah, I don’t know, but, um.

Madeline King: [00:10:06] What’s happening?

Olivia Price: [00:10:07] It depends on what’s happening. But I can say that, um, at year five, we’re building our team, and I think that is the. That’s the fun part. I will say that’s the fun part. Or the, um, the liberating part about it, that you can do that. I started from ground zero. I, I’m originally from Florida, born and raised right. I’ve been in Georgia going on 12 years now. I didn’t know anyone, didn’t have a dime when I started, and to start at Ground Zero to build it up now, to come into the position to build a team. I mean, right there, that speaks volumes. So I’m just to a point where I’m like, okay, you know what I’m at, where I’m at, and I’m just looking to continue to grow. That’s where I’m at with it. Just continue to grow.

Madeline King: [00:10:59] I’m really impressed. And yeah, you’re not kidding when you first start and you get your license, the fees and the what? It’s like $120 just to take the test. You don’t want to fail it.

Olivia Price: [00:11:11] I was just going to say hopefully you listen. Listen, I’ve had so many stories of people trying to get in and you got in, so I just want to say congratulations on that. Thank you. That’s an accomplishment by itself. I’m sitting here.

Madeline King: [00:11:23] Impressed by you because now you’re okay. You’re five years in and you’re building a team. What does that look like? You’ve got agents, you’ve got transaction coordinators. You got all of it. That’s really exciting. Next level.

Olivia Price: [00:11:33] Yes. Um, so like I said, I just started with me. So I’m my marketer. I’m a cold caller. I’m my, uh, back office team, my transaction coordinator. I’m my showing agent. I’m everything right? Yeah. Come on. As a first time business owner like myself, I came into an industry at the age of 24.

Madeline King: [00:11:51] Okay, okay. Thank you. Because I have no idea how old anyone is. I’m like, I like you. Could. You could be 20. I don’t.

Olivia Price: [00:11:58] Know, um, that’s.

Madeline King: [00:11:59] That’s. No, you couldn’t actually technically.

Olivia Price: [00:12:01] Okay, listen, listen. So I’m the same way I usually not. And that’s you to listen. Because when I first met him, he was like, well, look, that’s an old picture. I’m like, look, I didn’t know. Okay, listen, it looked good, okay? But honestly, I can say that from the beginning of having to do everything myself now I’m like, okay, I have people in position now. I have my back office team, which is my outsourcing team, which is like my cold callers. Then also I have, uh, my transaction coordinator and then she has her own team as well. And then I have my preferred vendors. Right. That goes hand in hand because I think that without having two vendors, I think it’s hard to navigate through real estate, especially with professionals that you trust. Um, and then on the front line, which is me. And then I have my several agents. So front line agents, back line back office team, which handles all my contracts and communications with my clients. So, um, I mean, right now I can say that especially with being a new agent and coming in and just getting licensed, I think the biggest thing for me, especially with coming into the industry, was just getting more involved with events and seeing who’s who in the industry. I think that was a big thing for me coming in. I think that helped me build my team. That’s because I started to see other agents and they started opening up to me and we started networking, and that’s a good thing about our field too. People want a network. Mhm. People want to help you. People want to see you grow. So I think with that, along with my five years in, I just think everything is collective. It’s a collective thing.

Stone Payton: [00:13:36] Was the turn that you just used. Was it preferred vendors. Mhm. Say more about that because it sounds like that’s an integral part of a successful practice. Yeah. Mhm.

Olivia Price: [00:13:45] It is, it is, is this.

Stone Payton: [00:13:46] Home services type people.

Olivia Price: [00:13:48] Yes. Yes. Home services I.

Madeline King: [00:13:50] Mean even lender. Can we talk about that.

Olivia Price: [00:13:52] For a second. We’ll talk about the money because.

Madeline King: [00:13:54] I well the lender uh it’s so important to have a good lender. And when I was a first time home buyer I was not in real estate yet. And our agent was like, here you go, call him. And I was like, huh? Who is that? Why? What are you getting out of it? Mhm. Nothing. And that’s it took me a while to realize that. And I think it’s important to teach people that. So yeah having the vendor list but especially a good lender, we just wanted to go through. Right.

Olivia Price: [00:14:20] I think that is huge when it comes to the money. Right. And that’s one thing too. When we first bought our house we weren’t in real estate, so we were just two pigeons in the road. We were like, well, shoot, okay, she’s great. She knows what she’s talking about. Let’s just take, you know, let’s just follow her lead. And I think with having those. Trusted partners with you is everything. Because, like you said, you, um. When you’re new. And you don’t know, and you’re trusting your agent to know and to refer you good business. Right? Either. And and how it works is that we don’t get anything from this. Right. But just knowing that they took care of my client, that means everything to me. Yeah. So I was able to build different relationships and one of it too. So when I came into the industry, uh, maybe two years deep into it, I really got involved within the Georgia Association of Realtors, um, my local board and also my local development authority because I’m in Loganville. So I served on, um, all of my boards as board directors. Um, I.

Madeline King: [00:15:31] How so you got kids? Jason.

Olivia Price: [00:15:34] It was a lot. I’m impressed. It was a lot. It was a lot. And, um, honestly, that’s my husband. My husband is the real MVP, honey, because, listen, I it was times where I’m like, oh, my God, I know he cannot deal with me because it was a lot. That’s the first thing that we spoke about too. I said, look, motherhood, being a wife and being a business woman, it’s a lot. But, um, with serving on those boards and seeing how people do business and seeing how relationships are really cultivated and, um, held to a high degree, I just learned from the best, I learned from the best and built some really solid relationships. And that’s how I was able to find my vendors through networking within our real estate boards. Um, so.

Stone Payton: [00:16:17] In our pre show forum that we have all our guests complete, they send it in. Sometimes they’ll have I’ll suggest that they, uh, give me a couple of topics and maybe 3 to 5 topics to tee up and fold in the conversation. I got one topic for from Olivia, but it’s the one thing that made me say, I cannot wait to do this interview under Topics and Questions. Empowering our community through Real estate. So so obviously though this is this is very important to you community and empowering the community. So yeah, speak to that a little bit.

Olivia Price: [00:16:50] So we do a lot of things for our community. And one of the things I think you asked was, okay, who is your I won’t say target audience, but who do you predominantly work with? I said first time home buyers and resell. So one of the things that we focus on is helping our people invest. Either it’s in your first property, or it could be from when you’re already a homeowner and getting into Airbnbs, duplexes, vacation rentals, um, fix and flips, X, Y, and Z. So one of the things that we do is free investment property seminars for our community. And it’s free. Oh yes. Oh yes. Very big. Um, just because right now in Georgia, our market is already owned by 45% investors, which blew me. Well, it doesn’t really blow me because to be honest with you, our population between the years of 2022 to 2023, we grew like 60 plus thousand. So I think a lot of that is is bringing our investor friendly people here. So I’m encouraging people who live here who already bought their properties here or just currently work here in Georgia. We need to invest here. That’s I’m pushing that agenda that. Hey everyone. Young, old, new, whatever you need to invest. No.

Madeline King: [00:18:01] You’re right. And I actually work with an agent in another state, and he’s bringing buyers from that other state investing in South Georgia. So I see it.

Olivia Price: [00:18:11] I hear you, they’re not here. Right. So I’m encouraging people who are here. Right. Especially for my people who’s been here for years. I’m talking about 20 plus years, 30 plus years. And I’m like, listen, we really need to get you to own a lot of where you already built your home and your farm. And when I say farm, I mean your friends, your family, your job, whatever you have going on, that’s your farm, right? My farm is in Loganville. That’s where I am. That’s where I built my family. That’s where I do a lot of my networking. I’m involved within my city council and community, so I’m big on that. I served on the City of Louisville’s development authority. Yeah. That’s. Yeah. So I care about what’s going on around me. So I want everyone else to care about what’s going on around them. Right? When it comes to investments, super big.

Stone Payton: [00:18:57] So as a layperson, I have a couple of observations that may be assumptions or conclusions that are in error. So I want to get them validated and checked out here. One is your arena and I’m talking to both of you. It looks from the outside looking in very crowded like there’s a lot of players. And so yes. Is that is that.

Olivia Price: [00:19:17] No. That’s a great.

Madeline King: [00:19:18] Thing to bring up.

Stone Payton: [00:19:19] That’s true. But there’s a lot of folks in the arena. So to me, I got a whole set of sales and marketing questions that I’d like to dive into if we if we find time. But also it’s a dichotomy because there’s that. And you guys, you seem to be such a collaborative group of people. Madeline and I, Madeline and I go to a mastermind group and it’s held inside a realty place, Vibe Realty, there on the wall there a community partner is and there must be. There’s people from 3 or 4 agencies. There’s there there’s.

Madeline King: [00:19:52] A Keller Williams person there the last time.

Stone Payton: [00:19:54] Right, right. So anyway, I’m just throwing that out there. It just seems, you know, like it’s crowded and you’re very collaborative. Can either or both of you talk to that a little bit.

Olivia Price: [00:20:06] So honestly I can say from experience and I said that before too, I mentioned when I first came in, I networked and I was able to meet some really great agents who took me underneath their wings who were like, hey, Olivia, these are some pointers on what you can do within your business and how to navigate this industry. Now, when it comes to population, we’re out here, agents, we are getting our license by the bundle. We are. That’s a fact. But I agree with it too. I think everyone should have their real estate license. Why not? Right. And one way or the other, you’re going to come across someone who needs to service, right? But at the end of the day, I can see I can say that. I’m trying to find a good terme. We’re together, but we’re separate, if that makes sense. Right? Because everyone offers something different. And that’s what I think the collaborative ness. If that’s a word, it’s going to be a word. It is now. It’s going to be a word today. I think that, um, how we come together is the fact that first off, at least right now, at least in our economy. I represent the buyer. You represent the seller, right? So it’s always going to be a situation where we have to.

Stone Payton: [00:21:22] Well that makes sense okay.

Olivia Price: [00:21:23] We have to learn how to get along with each other. Right. Because I don’t know, you might be listening to home. Let’s just say I made you upset, right? I pissed you off. So let’s just say you’re listening. A beautiful home up here in Woodstock. And I have a client that’s looking at that particular home in Woodstock. At that particular time, it was me versus several other, you know, um, buyers. Who would you go with? I don’t know, probably don’t answer that.

Speaker5: [00:21:49] I’m like, I would, I would try I would.

Madeline King: [00:21:51] Hope most people would not base it off emotions. But we know that people are people. Yeah. Yes.

Speaker5: [00:21:55] But it’s like I.

Madeline King: [00:21:58] The networking networking within your community and networking within your community of agents to um, I’m, I see a lot of collaboration versus competition. To your point and to your point, we kind of have to. Right. Especially because at the end of the day, you want the deal to go through, you both do. So even if you like, don’t vibe with each other like your personality also too.

Olivia Price: [00:22:20] And that goes back to business practice, right? And not saying that you’re going to be in a predicament where it’s like, okay, that agent isn’t going to use me because they feel some type of way about me, but it’s more so business, right? And I think a lot of it boils down to that. Like, okay, it’s like, okay, this person, the deal didn’t go through or something happened or you were just really hard to work with. I think that that can be a little difficult navigating in this industry with professionals who think like that. Right. Not saying that’s the sole basis of it. No it’s not, but you want to just make sure you’re doing clean business, that’s all. Make sure that you’re building relationships with people fairly. And I believe in that. Um, especially when it comes to situations, like I said, if there’s me versus especially with me, right, it’s still competition, right? At the end of the day is competition in terms of bidding wars and things like that. So but the way that I structured my business, the way that I represent my buyers, relationships matter when it comes to agents. If I know the agent not saying that the agent is going to pick me because they know me, but if they know my track record, they know I sell. They know how I represent my buyers properly. Then by all means, I think that that stands to a certain degree, a high level of degree when it comes to choosing who’s the best fit for that particular client that you’re representing on the seller side? No, I think it has.

Madeline King: [00:23:38] I heard that from other agents. Like just like when you get offers like, oh, well, I know Olivia. Okay, cool like that in the back of your mind you’re like, well, I know that this is going to be a and the.

Olivia Price: [00:23:48] Offer to now the offer has to make sense. Right? That too. At the end of the day, the offer looks great. The lender.

Madeline King: [00:23:56] Yeah the lender. All of it. So but to Stone’s point like there’s a like in your point there are a lot of agents out there. And as a new agent that can be scary right. Uh oh. Well what who’s how am I going to get business? There’s it’s a mindset thing, right? Because I network with, you know, okay, there’s a group that meets Monday mornings and we network and there are several realtors there, but none of them have an issue with the other agents being there. The people who have an issue aren’t there. Right? They’re going, well, I’m not going to go. There’s a bunch of agents there. Why would I do that? Those agents are going, I’m going to go because I’m networking with my community, and I know I’m not everybody’s cup of tea and they’re not everybody’s cup of tea. It’s going to be different strokes for different folks. Right. And I think.

Olivia Price: [00:24:39] All of it comes together. What makes you different in a field of a lot of realtors? I think at that point, um, and I guess we can really touch bases on to piggyback on what you said. There’s a lot of us here. We collaborate with each other, but also what are some things that can make you stand apart? And I think with having the full circle, which is your community, your sales volume, of course. Right. Because we’re it’s a sales game. Everyone looks at everyone’s numbers, right. Everyone wants to see what are you doing in your business. And it’s accessible. That’s a beautiful thing. You can is it really. It is. Oh, wow. Yeah. You can see who’s selling what in what area, you know, and things of that nature. So community, um, your production and then also your relationships within your industry. I think those three building factors, I feel as though that can make you a very strong agent and a field where there’s so many agents in here. Right. You want to be cool with your counterparts, but at the same time, you want to set yourself apart when it comes to business practice, right? So that’s how I see it. If you have if you’re mastering those three levels, I feel as though you can really stand out in this industry, especially in Atlanta, because I think, what do you think.

Madeline King: [00:25:53] Makes you stand.

Speaker5: [00:25:54] Out?

Olivia Price: [00:25:54] Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know, question. That’s a good question.

Stone Payton: [00:25:57] I thought you said you were a first time co-host. I’m not saying jumping in.

Olivia Price: [00:26:01] Huh? I love.

Stone Payton: [00:26:02] It. I want to go get some coffee.

Speaker5: [00:26:04] Oh.

Olivia Price: [00:26:05] I love it, I love it. Um, I love the energy. Um, so some of the things that makes me different is back to what I said. I’m one of the youngest African American board directors to sit on the Georgia Association of Realtors, um, the Northeast Atlanta metro Association of Realtors, the Woman’s Council, Realtors of Gwinnett. I served as their first vice president and membership director. And then I also once again served on the City of Loganville Development Authority. So I think with that, on top of my sales production, I’m a top 5% team with Keller Williams Realty, Atlanta Partners. And then also, um, in terms of community. That’s one of the reasons why I do my free investment seminar is for the community. Love it. Um, and also I speak at high schools to speak to you.

Speaker5: [00:26:55] Is there anything.

Madeline King: [00:26:56] You don’t do?

Speaker5: [00:26:57] Well, yes. So I’m sold a lot.

Olivia Price: [00:27:00] No, but, um, honestly, I can say that, um. Uh, but, yeah, I speak at different high schools, too, about financial literacy, because I feel as though that’s a big thing. I feel as though as children, if we I wouldn’t say as children, but as teenagers, because we predominantly, um, speak to high schools, if we had a basis of helping them understand credit, understand homeownership, understand different trade positions, right, because everyone isn’t built for college.

Speaker5: [00:27:29] That’s I love you.

Olivia Price: [00:27:31] Address the elephant in the room, right. Everyone’s not meant for college. So what are some trade positions. Because real estate is a trade. Mhm. You don’t have to go to college for it. You don’t have to be the brightest cookie in the jar. You don’t have to do any of that in order to come in here and make a decent living for you and your family, or just you and yourself. So, um, like I said, biggest thing here that made me different, my community involvement, I do, I do charity events, my, um, seminars and um, then I have my production and then also I’m pretty popular with them, my community, well, real estate industry.

Madeline King: [00:28:08] I am really impressed that she speaks to high schoolers. Like we don’t learn that in high school. There is no let me talk to you about finances and I wish I had that so.

Speaker5: [00:28:18] Me too. That’s awesome.

Olivia Price: [00:28:19] Me too. That’s great. But hey. Oh.

Speaker5: [00:28:22] No. Go ahead.

Olivia Price: [00:28:23] No, I was just going to say. But, um. And I think that’s the biggest thing in real estate. Be cool with everyone. Be great with everyone. Know your counterparts. Know who’s selling. Know who’s not selling. Right? Because those are people who are going to sell eventually. Um, and just build those meaningful relationships with people like what you’re doing with networking with other realtors or whatever, um, groups that you’re affiliated with that has other realtors there. I’ll get to know them too, because you never know when you need someone help. Like, for instance, I had someone looking for a house down in Douglasville. I’m like, girl, I can’t make it out there. Can you go show my person for me real quick and help me out? Honestly, that’s that collaborative, um, relationship that comes into play. So. Or I give it away, I’m like, hey, look, they’re looking and making I can’t I’m not driving to making referral.

Madeline King: [00:29:12] Sure.

Olivia Price: [00:29:12] And that’s big. I’ve gotten so many referrals from social media okay.

Madeline King: [00:29:16] So that’s going into the sales and marketing and I because I’m going, okay, how do you well you have a team now. So you have someone doing that for you in social media. You’re doing oh that’s nice. How is.

Speaker5: [00:29:28] That?

Olivia Price: [00:29:29] Um, it was hard because for me I was so tight on everything. I’m like, oh, wait, I don’t know. I don’t know if you might not do it right. Oh yeah. I’m that type of person. I feel like I could do everything by myself.

Speaker5: [00:29:39] I have like, business.

Madeline King: [00:29:40] Owners are like.

Speaker5: [00:29:40] That, right?

Olivia Price: [00:29:41] And also I think with being a mom, oh, help my kids way too much. They. I probably disabled them just a little bit. Um, but if they’re not doing something right, I’m like, look, baby, let me help you. You know, um, so I had to learn to let other people do the things that are necessary to my business and giving that to someone, right? So, hey, here’s my baby, because your business is like your baby. At least mine is. Because I’ve seen it. I’ve. It was at my baby had no legs, no anything. Right?

Speaker5: [00:30:09] Honestly, I helped it grow legs.

Olivia Price: [00:30:11] It was just an idea. Yeah, just. I don’t know about what made you get into real estate, but mine was like, okay, well, shoot, I’m not really feeling my career right now. I think I need a change. Yep. So it was just an idea?

Speaker5: [00:30:21] Yep.

Olivia Price: [00:30:21] And growing it and forming it and putting some legs on it, pinning some eyebrows.

Speaker5: [00:30:25] It’s your baby person molding it.

Olivia Price: [00:30:28] And now I’m like, okay, you can walk. You can go to someone else now and they can build you up to whatever is going to be.

Speaker5: [00:30:34] Mhm.

Madeline King: [00:30:35] I love the way she put that.

Olivia Price: [00:30:37] It is a baby. It is like can your stomach come on. We had two. You know how it was. That baby was just a.

Speaker5: [00:30:43] I do it’s.

Olivia Price: [00:30:43] Like a little some.

Speaker5: [00:30:44] Hard work. Hard work.

Stone Payton: [00:30:46] But it occurs to me you have so many um and rightly so. I think a lot of lines in the water. You got all this stuff going on in the background. You have this activity, you’re serving the community, you’re building these relationships with everything from people in other aspects, the other services that homeowners and potential homeowners are going to need. And I think you said early in the conversation, you’ve got people in the office cold calling. Mhm. Yeah. So you still got to get out there and shake the trees. Yeah. Mhm. And then so they’re uh they’re cold calling like how do you, how do you even know who to call. Or do you just call them all.

Olivia Price: [00:31:20] No. That’s a good question. So and that goes into where are you trying to get your business. I had a conversation, one of my colleagues in my office. And that’s one thing too, why I love my brokerage. They’re so they they’re like, Olivia, what do you need? What do you have going on? What do you need help with? I like that, right, because you need that, right? Besides your family being your foundation, you need your counterparts to help you sometimes hold you. Accountable or different things of that nature. So he was like, hey, so what are you? Because he asked the same question, like, who are they cold calling? So my biggest thing in terms of where I’m getting my business from or where I’m wanting to get more business from, is businesses promoting our service to them. Right? When it comes to that investment, not only are we helping our, um. How can I put it? Not only are we helping our clients like our resellers and our first time home buyers to invest, but also we’re teaching business owners to invest too. Like, for instance, it might be a small dentist office. They’re like, hey, you know what? Um, I was thinking about wanting to open up a second location, but, you know, I’m not too sure on how that process will look. So that’s who we’re targeting and different things like that. So smart. So they’re literally just dialing out.

Madeline King: [00:32:35] Yeah, that’s really smart.

Stone Payton: [00:32:37] So I don’t know when you would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway. Passions, interests, hobbies outside the the scope of of your real estate work?

Olivia Price: [00:32:47] I think we talked about that too before we aired. You were like, oh, I don’t I think he was saying that what you do, you don’t have.

Speaker5: [00:32:54] Yeah.

Olivia Price: [00:32:54] Listen, I, I think it’s almost $1 million question. And for hobbies of mine. To be honest with you, I don’t really do much. I don’t have many hobbies.

Speaker5: [00:33:05] Like I said, I.

Stone Payton: [00:33:06] Don’t know when you do it.

Speaker5: [00:33:07] I don’t have anything. Okay?

Madeline King: [00:33:09] I’m gonna make you feel better, okay? Because I understand what you mean. Because your mom, your business owner, is like, how do I even have time for that? Versus, you know, like, I don’t know, riding horses. I’m just, I don’t know, throwing that out there. But real estate is such a large thing and there’s so many facets to it. So like, I hear a lot of people who are good at being agents say, but this is my passion. So there’s nothing wrong with saying that real estate is your passion, because within that you’re helping people. You’re serving your community. Yes, there’s all of those things and it’s enriching you too. So there’s no shame in that at all.

Speaker5: [00:33:44] Well, I.

Olivia Price: [00:33:45] Can say that in the real estate thing, I was going to say that I think within the real estate field, I think there’s a lot of different perks that you get to do with being in our field. Right? Like for instance, um, I use like Dalakhani, Hunter and Tucker. I use their office for a majority of my closings. Um, so they do a lot of events. So I’m able to go out to different events through them. Right. Um, because they do a lot of things for real. That’s the beautiful thing, right? Realtors, we get special privilege. I think they want to invite us out to different things, right? For us to talk about it, for us to promote it to our clients. So I think there’s just a. It’s a win win, right? Because I don’t do much outside of what I do in real estate. But within being a real estate, a lot of things come with it. So I go to a lot. I go to the Hawks game, I go to concerts. So okay, I think we get a lot of that. But then just being in a job. So I guess I really don’t have any hobbies, but just real estate.

Speaker5: [00:34:43] That’s. Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

Olivia Price: [00:34:44] It’s time consuming.

Stone Payton: [00:34:46] Well, no, what I think I’m realizing I like to hunt, fish and travel and I enjoy bourbon, but I, I imagine if I were in the real estate arena, I would get my, I’d get to have plenty of access to bourbon, probably. And maybe all the, maybe the, you know, the lenders would want to go fishing or hunting or whatever. So yeah, it’s all kind of interwoven. It’s a very symbiotic, uh, environment.

Olivia Price: [00:35:06] Those relationships. Right. Yeah. Those relationships once again, um, they’re so important. And I think with the way I formed them. So, like, Olivia come out, my wife and I are going out, and me and my husband will go out with them and hang out. That’s one thing to my husband is amazing because he really, really holds holds the fort down. And he he’s with me everywhere. And a lot of times my family too. That’s a beautiful thing to real estate. The whole family can be involved.

Speaker5: [00:35:33] Yeah. All right.

Madeline King: [00:35:33] We’re gonna have to talk about that after this. Like, how does that. Does your husband have a job? Does he a full time job?

Speaker5: [00:35:38] Yes, he is.

Olivia Price: [00:35:40] But he’s an entrepreneur, too. He owns two barber shops.

Speaker5: [00:35:43] Oh, my.

Olivia Price: [00:35:44] So he’s not hands on, hands on as much, but he still works.

Speaker5: [00:35:48] Yeah, that’s. Wow.

Stone Payton: [00:35:49] He’s a superhero. Oh.

Olivia Price: [00:35:52] You call him what you call it, I don’t know.

Stone Payton: [00:35:55] Well, shout out to him. That is fantastic. All right, before we wrap, I wonder if we could leave our listeners with a with a few pro tips and pick an area. You know, maybe it’s the first time home buyer, maybe it’s the investor, maybe a little bit of both, but or maybe just some things to look for if you’re entertaining listing, um, a home or like, I don’t even know if I know what questions to ask a realtor. Anyway, let’s leave them with a couple of pro tips if we could.

Olivia Price: [00:36:20] Okay, so, um, I’ll start off with first time home buyers because I experienced them all the time. Um, my tips would be for them is. Do not get caught up on location. I think a lot of times people are paying to be within a certain location. That they may need to be open to trying different areas. Like for instance, um, I know right now a lot of people are wanting to be certain parts of Atlanta, certain parts of Cobb County, certain parts of Gwinnett County, and I’m encouraging them that, okay. Yes. In this apartment, you’re getting all these amenities and you’re super close to certain, um, certain, um, activities, restaurants, whatnot. But at the end of the day, we have to think longevity, right? In the next however many years. How much did you pay in rent for that certain location? Um, I think when it boils down to the numbers, I think if we focus more on the numbers, I think that we can make better decisions in terms of is that location even worth it? At the end of the day because I’m telling people, we’re actually starting a buyer di campaign that we just launched. Yes.

Stone Payton: [00:37:32] She’s so creative.

Speaker5: [00:37:33] And I’m like, no.

Olivia Price: [00:37:35] It’s extreme. And I and I wanted to be buyer Di because with the way that we’re going for our rental rate in Georgia, because we don’t have a rental cap here. And that’s one of the reasons why so many people are coming to Georgia first and foremost, especially on the investment tip. But I’m just encouraging people look at the numbers. Let’s be real. Do you feel as though where you are right now, and how much money you’re making and where you’re trying to go, longevity wise? Does it add up to your long terme goal? Honestly, because I’ve had so many people, the amount of money they’re paying in rent is astronomical. I’m like, oh my God, you could have paid off like three houses.

Madeline King: [00:38:10] That’s painful.

Olivia Price: [00:38:11] Honestly, I’m telling you, I’ve dealt with people who’ve been renting for 20, 20 plus years. Wow, do the math.

Madeline King: [00:38:16] Maybe some of them don’t even know they can buy.

Olivia Price: [00:38:18] They don’t. And that comes to advertising to our advertising is very detailed and we get a lot of calls from that advertising. So I just tell people, look at the numbers and let’s focus on where are you trying to go longevity wise. So that would be my tip for first time home buyers. Uh, my tip for, uh, my resale people, my people who already own homes or whatnot. Let’s talk about investments. Let’s go ahead and see, for instance, um, for my people who like to travel to Florida or whatnot, South Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, whatever the case may be, let’s see about getting a vacation rental out there if you’d like to visit there a lot, let’s see how we can get you another property out there. And in the meantime, let’s see how we can Airbnb it out or whatnot. So, um, that would be my tip if you’re if you own, let’s see how we can go ahead and reinvest into something that you’re interested in and what can give you some cash flow and build your exit plan. That’s the biggest thing too, especially for my late people. Building that exit plan is real right now. And if you can still build it and and gain some residual income from that built, it’s worth it right now because George’s field effect filled with equity.

Speaker5: [00:39:22] Um, yeah.

Olivia Price: [00:39:23] This is the equity rich era they’re calling it. That’s what they call it equity rich era. Um, I’m living proof too. Honestly, my house has a lot of equity, and I’m like, I don’t know what to do with it. Well, I can tell you, I reinvested it. I bought two Airbnbs in Florida, so. Good.

Speaker5: [00:39:41] Oh, good for you.

Stone Payton: [00:39:42] She is building that empire.

Speaker5: [00:39:44] This is what all.

Madeline King: [00:39:45] Of what you said. I and people I know need to talk to you.

Speaker5: [00:39:50] Yeah.

Madeline King: [00:39:50] I think things people need to know for sure.

Stone Payton: [00:39:52] I am so glad I asked. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you? Have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your.

Olivia Price: [00:40:00] Team, for sure. So, um, we are all social media platforms. Um, first we’ll start with Google. You can Google Olivia J price rules to group and everything will pop up from our social media or websites. Um, then you can find us on Instagram at Agent Olivia J. Price and then Facebook at Olivia J. Price, and then TikTok at Olivia J. Price. Um, everything is going to be Olivia J. Price, um, across the border on all platforms, LinkedIn as well. And, um, you can always reach me directly through DM, or you can call me at (407) 601-9025.

Stone Payton: [00:40:34] Fantastic. It has been such a delight having you in the studio. Thank you for making the time, making the drive.

Olivia Price: [00:40:41] It was all worth it.

Speaker5: [00:40:43] It was a.

Olivia Price: [00:40:43] Pleasure meeting.

Speaker5: [00:40:44] You. You as well.

Stone Payton: [00:40:46] All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for my co-host, Madeleine King and our guest today, Olivia Price, with Olivia Price Realty Group and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.

 

Raj Choudhury with Alloy and Brooke MacLean with Marketwake

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Raj Choudhury with Alloy and Brooke MacLean with Marketwake
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In this episode of Tech Talk, host Joey Kline talks with Raj Choudhury of Alloy and Brooke MacLean of Marketwake, both leaders of Atlanta-based companies. Raj discusses his journey from starting as a creative to operating units and emphasizes the importance of building teams, culture, and tackling underserved markets in agency services. Alloy, under Choudhury’s leadership, focuses on bridging gaps in transactional and creative marketing for technology firms and large-scale nonprofits, leveraging acquisitions to enhance their service offerings.

Brooke MacLean shares insights into Marketwake’s approach to campaign strategy and performance marketing, valuing specialist talents and fostering a collaborative, fun work environment. The acquisition of software company Punch List by Marketwake exemplifies their growth and adaptability, reinforcing the significance of internal culture and client relationships. Both guests underline the critical role of Atlanta’s dynamic environment in fostering entrepreneurial success and technological innovation.

Raj-Choudhury-AlloyRaj Choudhury is CEO of Alloy. His leadership style focuses on building strong cultures and teams that drive to tackle complex problems with innovative solutions for some of the best brands in the world.

In his earlier career, Raj co-founded Spunlogic in 1998, leading it to become one of the largest privately-held digital agencies in Atlanta. Spunlogic was acquired in 2008 by Halyard Capital to form Engauge, which was then acquired by Publicis Groupe and merged with Moxie to create the largest digital agency in the Southeast.

More recently, Raj served as chief delivery and innovation officer for Ansira, one of the largest global independent technology and marketing agencies with over 1,700 employees. Raj came to Ansira through the 2019 acquisition of BrightWave, a leading eCRM and cross-channel agency, where he was president.

During his tenure there, he helped build an incredible high-performance team and culture that was sought after by leading brands. He also previously served as CEO for the social advertising tech company BLiNQ Media to provide new vision and rebuild its technology teams before merging the business unit within Tegna.

Raj is an investor in a number of technology startups, as well as a mentor to fellow entrepreneurs. Through his unique agency endeavors, he has become known for his hands-on approach, calm manner and work-hard, play-hard mentality.

Additionally, Raj participates as a board member and advisor for a number of non-profit groups, including 48in48 and the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership (ABLP).

Born in Uganda, Raj moved to London at age nine. He earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Economics and Geography from Kingston University (London) and an Executive MBA at Georgia State University.

He has traveled extensively throughout the world and is always looking to explore new places, or at least blow off some steam snowboarding. Raj has three young children and a dog and has called Atlanta home for over 24 years.

Connect with Raj on LinkedIn.

Brooke-MacLeanBrooke MacLean currently serves as the CEO of Marketwake, an award-winning Growth Marketing agency offering two key areas of mastery: Campaign Strategy and Performance Marketing.

By fusing our award-winning creative campaign expertise with our advanced performance marketing strategies, Marketwake empowers your brand to reach new levels of success and growth. With an ever-growing pool of clients across the globe, Marketwake has been on the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Businesses list four years in a row. Under Brooke’s leadership, Marketwake was also named one of Inc.’s Best Places to Work three years running.

In 2023 Marketwake announced their first acquisition of a software company, Punchlist. Punchlist is a feedback management tool that centralizes comments and streamlines QA. This strategic move is aligned with Marketwake’s vision to strive for excellence by enhancing the way they serve clients, which includes innovating beyond the creative domain.

Brooke acts as chairman and founder of Marketwake Ventures, an investment firm backed by Marketwake which invests in early-stage companies.  In addition, Brooke is a sought-after speaker and host.

She has given a TEDTalk and acted as the premier host for Venture Atlanta, the Southeast’s leading venture conference. She has spoken in front of audiences across the nation on key topics including digital marketing as well as topics around leadership, culture, and growing a successful organization.

Before founding Marketwake, Brooke served as the CEO of Kevy, an email marketing automation company. She is a proud graduate of The University of Georgia and was later nominated for UGA’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2019 list. She also won the John E. Drewry Award in 2017 for her noteworthy career developments in the years closely following her graduation.

Keep up with Brooke on LinkedIn for marketing insights, leadership thoughts, and so much more.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:11] Coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for another episode of Tech Talk with your host, Joey Kline.

Joey Kline: [00:00:22] Welcome to the latest episode of Tech Talk, and we have two fantastic executives for you to talk to today of Atlanta based companies. First, we’re going to talk to Raj Choudhury of Alloy.

Raj Choudhury: [00:00:37] Hello. How’s things?

Joey Kline: [00:00:38] Doing well. Looking forward to chatting. And then we’re going to chat with Brooke MacLean of Marketwake, CEO and founder. How are you, Brooke?

Brooke MacLean: [00:00:45] Doing great. Thrilled to be here okay.

Joey Kline: [00:00:48] All right. We’re going to go alphabetical as normal. So we are going to start with Raj. Raj, how are you doing today? Oh, not too bad.

Raj Choudhury: [00:00:53] You know, getting through the lovely weather of the weekend. It’s great.

Joey Kline: [00:00:56] Was it was it lovely or do you have allergies?

Raj Choudhury: [00:00:59] I have allergies, but I found the secret ingredient of the right kind of, uh, allergy meds. So I’m good.

Joey Kline: [00:01:06] Just like a whole thing of Claritin crushed up into anything.

Raj Choudhury: [00:01:10] That works, right?

Joey Kline: [00:01:10] Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, I hear you. It’s about survival. So. So let’s talk alloy. So we want to get into obviously what alloy does. And you know how it’s growing here in Atlanta. But a little background on yourself and how you got to alloy.

Raj Choudhury: [00:01:28] Sure sure. So um I accidentally started an agency I’ll say that, um, I was, uh, you know, as, as most folks sometimes do after after school, I ended up traveling around the world and, uh, kind of fell into web design and ended up starting my first agency with my old college roommate, a guy called Jeff Hillmyer, um, out of Toronto, Canada, and he was actually still in his dorm room in Charlotte, North Carolina. And we started, uh, spun, uh, spun logic and, uh, kind of winged it, if you will, uh, grew the agency pretty well. We were based out of Atlanta. That’s how I ended up here in Atlanta. Um, and then just, you know, did did great work, did just had a fantastic team. Uh, we exited that business and then, uh, went into another venture that pushed into it, which was called engage. Um, and then from there sold into Publicis. So I kind of started getting a history of, um, you know, a lot of kind of M&A building up units and selling the units and so forth. So my background is actually creative, which is kind of odd. So I moved from creative to really operating units and moved much more into the finance side of things. So, uh, you know, fast forward, um, you know, built up and sold four units. Um, I really enjoy building up teams. Um, love the work still. Um, and just love, uh, the people aspect of, of, uh, agencies and the culture that comes with it.

Joey Kline: [00:03:00] So. So why do it again? What’s the or is it, uh, you don’t have hobbies at this point. Addicted. What’s what’s the what’s the drive? Um, for doing this with alloy. And why do you think alloy kind of fills a niche that your other ventures did not.

Raj Choudhury: [00:03:16] Yeah. So every time I’ve gone into a venture, it’s trying to create, um, an agency unit that’s, uh, that perhaps, you know, the market’s underserving or that there’s an area that, um, that can, um, you can, can really take advantage of. So, uh, as I was thinking through my, you know, my next adventure, if you will. Um, and between everything I do, sabbaticals, by the way, which is also a great kind of break point between them, but, um, I started thinking about, um, the type of marketing that goes on with technology firms and really more so the, the nature of transactional marketing versus large brand creative marketing that is lacking with a lot of kind of B2B marketing. And so we seek out to basically create a unit to tackle larger concept ideas as opposed to just transactional marketing, which is very, very typical, especially in the in the tech sector. So alloy is built around, um, really bringing together best in class agencies. So we acquire, uh, units, uh, we put them together into the alloy brand. Um, and then we stitch up the capabilities to basically push into technology sector primarily, but also large scale nonprofits, um, and really through ideation. So we can bring storytelling, uh, to precision execution throughout. So kind of parts, if you will.

Joey Kline: [00:04:38] Why, on the surface, one might look at this focus on technology companies and nonprofits and think that there’s not much overlap there. Why the what what is the relationship, if any, between those two industries, or at least in terms of serving that clientele?

Raj Choudhury: [00:04:55] Yeah. So the technology sector moves extremely fast. So that’s why we love it. Right? It’s it’s not stagnant. It’s it’s constantly being challenged. So you know, as a brand architect within the alloy side of things, we’re out to disrupt the agency industry itself. Uh, both the com side of things as well as the digital side, which typically don’t marry up often very well. Um, so from a disruption standpoint, we’re trying to also disrupt how agencies operate. And technology brands tend to allow you to experiment a lot more fluidly than say, you know, say retail or, um, tourism or, you know, manufacturing as an example. Right? Those will be kind of tried and true, hard to kind of really push new concepts and ideas. So that allows us to basically really reinvent how we work and how we, uh, work with those clients. And then similarly on the, on the large scale, uh, nonprofits, that’s that’s to be honest, we can take a lot of those kind of principles and drive it into the nonprofits, which tend not to innovate that often, but they their dollars have to go extremely far, you know. Um, and so from that perspective, there’s a tie in from how we enable experiences and technology and PR uh, but also from a purpose standpoint, it’s also great for our employees. So, you know, culture is a huge component of any agency unit. So, uh, for us, those are purpose driven, uh, elements. And that the work that’s, that’s meaningful, all work is meaningful. But sometimes when you’re doing some of the nonprofit work, it’s very meaningful for, uh, employees. And they enjoy that side of things. Oh, look.

Joey Kline: [00:06:37] I can understand that, right? You know, we we we do our best to, uh, give 110% to all of our clients. But not all projects are created equal in terms of just the internal passion that you might bring to the particular cause.

Raj Choudhury: [00:06:51] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And especially in local markets where we operate, whether it’s New Orleans or Atlanta, uh, there are certain things that, you know, matter much more to to folks locally.

Joey Kline: [00:07:01] Sure. You want to do good work. You also want to be a good corporate citizen. Absolutely. Um, your personal background is actually of particular interest to me just because I feel. Well, look, uh, it’s a, you know, somewhat of a, um, uh, you know, trite statement that our background, of course, influences how we act in the world. But you have a particularly interesting one that I’d be curious if you’ve, I don’t know, subconsciously or consciously kind of drawn any parallels or lessons that have helped you in your professional life.

Raj Choudhury: [00:07:30] Yeah. I mean, you know, so first off, I’m a, you know, a bit of a model of the world, right? As you know, uh, you know, so born in East Africa, grew up in London, then traveled everywhere. Right. And so, um, I’ve also, um, you know, got to realize that, um, you know, the people side of the business matters way more than the money side of the business. Um, that’s, you know, you build a team that fights together, um, that, um, a culturally bound together. You can do some great work. And ultimately, if you do great work, you can build a successful business if you just focus on the numbers on its own. Um, it’s really not enough to move the needle. Um, so a lot of my parallels around, um, the communities I’ve lived in, um, and Atlanta has become home to that, but it’s also the teams that we pull together and how we kind of interact socially. Uh, so, uh, I kind of work in the mantra of kind of work hard, you know, play hard side of things and, and very, very in tune to that. Within kind of the service industry, you work hard for your clients, you make them shine, you do great work, and you’ll get rewarded as a result. And so that kind of prevails in every unit that we, we work with. Um, and the types of units that we try and pull into, into the alloy platform.

Joey Kline: [00:08:51] You talked about people and hopefully it’s not it’s not necessarily a groundbreaking statement, right. That the people are the what matter most in business. You would you would hope that any good leader after a, you know, a certain period of time generally recognizes that because the people are what make the money and what make the organization actually go, um, you have, of course, at this point recruited for many, many different jobs across a number of different agencies. And I’m curious if you have any, um, best practices just seems to corporate of a firm. But any particular mantra or guiding principles that you go by when you’re looking at candidates?

Raj Choudhury: [00:09:33] Yeah. I mean, there’s a few. Right. Um, and they’re very based on roles, obviously, but in. In general, I’d say that, you know. Especially in our industry. You know, if you don’t have a natural ability to, um, want to learn or aren’t afraid to run into the fire, you know, it’s hard for you to survive in the agency world. You’ve got to be able to do things other people haven’t done before. And so that kind of natural learning ability and curiosity and ability to not be afraid of the unknown. So that’s one aspect. The second, you know, I think I may have mentioned this to you, but I always ask a question in all the interviews, which is, you know, what is on your bucket list, right? And that’s always an indication of the person’s true passions and character. Right? If it’s something to do with, um, you know, something coal based or perhaps travel or a hobby or something like that, you know, that’s truly a passion. If it’s around, I want to buy a sports car or I want to buy a yacht, that typically not going to work well within alloy because they’re money driven and their mindset as opposed to purpose driven.

Joey Kline: [00:10:41] I think that that is. In a in a universe now in which I feel like we have somewhat of a split workforce, we have a workforce that I think some of whom want to be around people and grow, and some of whom want to sit behind a computer and find the easy way out. And when you choose the latter path, all you’re really getting out of your employer is money. And when all you’re getting out of your employer is money, it makes it much easier to jump to something else. And so it I think that you just you eventually see the difference. Because if all you’re getting is money, that is not going to fulfill you long terme. Exactly. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be compensated fairly, but if that’s literally all it is, there’s just not going to be anything keeping you being that much loyal to that organization.

Raj Choudhury: [00:11:33] No, I agree, I mean, I think ultimately, you know, you do the best work when you’re around the best people and, um, you know, the best people get the best work out of you. Uh, and it’s, it’s, I think people who want to do great work, um, there’s a difference between doing great work and just getting a paycheck.

Joey Kline: [00:11:51] That is that is correct. And and yes, I think that your point about just being around the right people, I mean, that’s life, really. You are a you are a sum of the people with whom you spend the most time. And I forget who said this or if it was even someone notable, but said, I never want to be the the most attractive or wealthiest person in the room. I was like, I like that because, you know, you should have people around you that are challenging you in some way, shape or form.

Raj Choudhury: [00:12:17] Yeah, and even even my own role. Right. I don’t want to be the only person thinking about things. I want to be challenged, and I want to have incredible leaders around me who are pushing me as well.

Joey Kline: [00:12:29] So. So let’s talk about alloy a bit more. Granularly you guys had some big news in the last couple of weeks.

Raj Choudhury: [00:12:34] Yeah. So, um, you know, we’ve, uh, we’ve had actually a number of just different kind of, uh, announcements. But the biggest one is that we moved, we got a great investment from the purpose Group, which is an investment firm, actually, actually, ironically, uh, started by, um, Jeff Helmer and David Cummings. Uh, Jeff was my old roommate, as I said. And, David, um, we’ve all known each other for a while, and I’m sure a lot of the listeners probably know David Cummings. Uh, so it’s a great infusion of capital into alloy. It allows us to, uh, kind of continue, um, kind of our aggressive M&A strategy, uh, that we’ve been using, obviously, we’re quite a unit in 2022, which was alpl, which is kind of best in class tech tech PR firm. And then last year we acquired um, uh, Narwhal Digital, um, which is just a fantastic kind of brand creative shop. Um, so we’ll be looking to continue that kind of path, um, over the years. So we’ll be using, um, you know, capital from the purpose group to kind of fuel alloy’s, uh, M&A growth strategy around it. So it’s also the other side of things is it’s great to be back in business with, uh, with Jeff and and David. Um, I have a ton of respect for those guys. Um, you know, they’re extremely influential in, uh, in our industry as well, both on the tech side of things as well as on the on the marketing side of things. So on a personal level, that’s that’s fantastic. And, um, I know my leadership team is, is kind of like, uh, pumped around that as well. Yeah.

Joey Kline: [00:14:04] That’s that’s big. Um, you know, I find it interesting when I talk to organizations who are a big part of their growth is, um, you know, M&A strategy because, you know, yes, there’s a technological fit. But at the end of the day, as we’ve been talking about, I think as big or a bigger piece in that is a cultural fit as well. And I am curious kind of how you go about sourcing opportunities and sussing out does it fit both of those buckets?

Raj Choudhury: [00:14:32] Yeah. I mean, to be honest, the the most important site is the cultural fit, right? Um, and unfortunately, I think in a lot of M&A, uh, a lot of people focus on the financials, right, and try and show that there’s a cross-sell element and the economics are going to make sense. Yes, the economics have to make sense. But if you don’t nail the people side of things, then you really don’t have an asset, uh, that you can kind of grow out out through. So, um, yeah, we, we look at, uh, we look at shoring up capabilities, but really through talent. Um, so when we’re looking at units, we’re looking at from a capability standpoint where we need to basically own the end to end side of things. So we already own, um, I’d say the PL com side of things to the brand and KCS side of things. So, uh, we’ll be looking to kind of shore up other elements, whether it’s on the data side of things or the martech side of things. So those are the next targets or even just amplifying existing capabilities. But first and foremost, we’re looking at, um, you know, great founders, um, great teams, um, and great work, um, that that matters most. The numbers themselves matter less to us, uh, in honesty, because we bring units in. To our platform and we already have the infrastructure in place, both on the financial side, the HR side, um, you know, the sales and marketing side and the workflow infrastructure side of things. So that’s less of a concern. So we’re not necessarily looking at units to bring those capabilities. We’re just really looking at fantastic talent and folks who want to take it to the next level within our platform.

Joey Kline: [00:16:04] So I know AR, PR is a local Atlanta firm. Was I forget his Narwal local or. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Raj Choudhury: [00:16:10] So actually LPL was out of both Atlanta and New Orleans. That’s kind of how we have our footing in New Orleans. And um, Norwell was actually here in Atlanta. Um, you know, it just happened that both were in Atlanta. We weren’t necessarily sourcing in Atlanta. Uh, but it works out sometimes, you know, you know, the entrepreneurs. Uh, so that brings a level of trust. Uh, and then sometimes doing acquisitions, you you don’t know what you’re getting until you close. Um, but you know, when, when we, we bring a unit in, we’re, we’re sourcing anywhere from 60 to 75 companies. Um, you know, initially just to bring it down to the right fit and make sure that the people side of things. And then when we integrate, we’re focusing right off the bat on cultural integration. That’s that’s the primary focus. And then we move into the the financials. Okay.

Joey Kline: [00:16:59] So I think you probably answered my question. Is this a national or regional strategy. It sounds like this is national. If it if it’s in my own backyard, so be it. But it doesn’t have to be.

Raj Choudhury: [00:17:08] That’s right. Yeah. I mean our workforce has changed changed quite a bit. That’s right from the pandemic side of things. So the centralized office strategy isn’t isn’t the strategy anymore. Um, it’s really finding the best talent and the best work, um, regardless of location, you know, so we’re we’re open to all locations.

Joey Kline: [00:17:24] Is there a certain target that you have in terms of acquisitions per year or. It’s. Yeah.

Raj Choudhury: [00:17:30] Yeah. So, you know, the hardest thing in acquisition is there’s there’s teams that can get acquired and then there’s teams that know how to acquire. And so we’re targeting one a year right now for the next couple of years. And then um, as the team is used to that pattern of acquiring we’re moving to two a year. Um, so that’s, that’s the general plan. So we’ll stay fairly aggressive in the marketplace within that. But um, the harder challenge obviously is, is bringing in a unit, making sure that, you know, our management team is set up for it. Our systems are set up for it. We can we can, you know, culturally integrate quickly. We can culturally, um, you know, move through and grow the, you know, this hub because every single unit has a different, you know, DNA and different culture. So you don’t want to you’re buying something that’s special. And so you don’t want to ruin that. So you want to add to it.

Joey Kline: [00:18:24] That’s right. Um, you know, you’ve done this a couple of times now. And so I’m curious, as you have really integrated your experience into alloy, what what have you found? What would you I guess it’s sort of two sides of the same coin. It’s have you learned something that you would go back and tell your younger self, or have you taken experiences that were maybe fumbles in the past that you have corrected this time around?

Raj Choudhury: [00:18:51] Well, I think the biggest aspect is, um, you know, a lot of deals are done based on numbers, right? And, um, you know, what I found is and especially on the private because I came from the private equity side of things. Right. And so that’s the basis of, of a lot of deals. Um, so the numbers matter. It’s not that they don’t matter. Um, but I truly believe that there’s an element of understanding the capabilities. You’re, you’re adding to the team and understanding the threats to both teams and openly talking about it. And so we prescribe to a very kind of open management, um, system. So when we’re going through that side of things, even through, um, kind of the honeymoon phase, if you will, the pre diligence side of things, we’re very open to what’s going to happen. So, uh, folks understand their roles, you know, what’s going to happen, which teams are getting integrated, which ones are standalone and so forth. So even through the pre diligence period, I found in the past where we’ve moved fast through the financials and then created an integration plan after the fact. Um, and that’s not always the best thing. Sometimes you have to start the integration plans actually in pre diligence. So that’s one one big aspect. The other is not to overthink a deal. Right. Um you can over try and correct to mitigate risk. Um and just kind of cycle through way too much time and effort on something that probably isn’t going to be a big deal. Um, and so I’ve learned over the years that, you know, yes, you’re trying to mitigate risk, but you’re never going to be able to mitigate all risk.

Joey Kline: [00:20:32] Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That’s right. Yeah. Okay. Well, that that is all super exciting. Raj, if someone wants to learn a little bit more about alloy, where would they go? How do they get in touch with you? Yeah, absolutely.

Raj Choudhury: [00:20:43] So alloycrew.com is our website. You can certainly go there. Check out our work. Check out our people. Um, you know, the different types of experiences and certainly find us on LinkedIn again, Alloy Crew or Instagram or anything like that. For me personally, you can find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably the easiest place, just Raj Chowdhury, uh, there’s I think two of us out there, but, uh, one’s a Harvard professor. He’s doing fantastic. Um, and then, uh, there’s me.

Joey Kline: [00:21:12] Do you guys do you guys ever get each other’s emails?

Raj Choudhury: [00:21:14] You know, I don’t, but people mistake me for him because he talks a lot about his, uh, interesting professor who talks about work culture and, uh, uh, you know, the changes in and work behavior that’s happened, you know, since the pandemic, certainly. But office culture to work at home. So people think sometimes that I’ve written those papers and I’m like, no, no, no, this guy is way smarter than me. So yeah, but I share similar philosophies so that people mistake.

Joey Kline: [00:21:42] It sounds like there are worse people to be mistaken for.

Raj Choudhury: [00:21:44] Exactly.

Joey Kline: [00:21:45] Yeah. Great. All right. Well, Raj, thanks a lot for sharing the experience, I appreciate it. Yeah. Brooke, how are we doing?

Brooke MacLean: [00:21:50] Doing great.

Joey Kline: [00:21:51] Yeah.

Brooke MacLean: [00:21:52] Loved listening. Fantastic story.

Joey Kline: [00:21:56] Well, I think I mean, you know, look, the reason we don’t have anyone on here who’s, who’s a dud in terms of storytelling. So it’s true. The goal is.

Brooke MacLean: [00:22:04] You filter well.

Joey Kline: [00:22:05] Well, you know, we want to make this interesting. So speaking of stories, you are the founder and CEO of Marketwake.

Brooke MacLean: [00:22:14] Yes, that is correct.

Joey Kline: [00:22:16] And you had you have had entrepreneurial experience in the past. Right. But I believe this is kind of your first. First venture of your own in terms of like, full founder.

Brooke MacLean: [00:22:28] That’s true. It’s true. Well, it’s funny listening to your story because we’ve crossed over. My original entry into the startup world was actually with David Cummings also. So fantastic. Congratulations. There I was working for with him on one of his companies for a while, ended up becoming the CEO for a time and learned so much. It was it was one of those phases I had started. Marketwake came back to be the CEO of the company while it was undergoing a pivot. I say all the time I would never do both again at the same time, but I would never change the fact that I did because of how much I learned and what I can now apply to Market Week.

Joey Kline: [00:23:08] That’s right. I think that, you know, when people ask you like, do you have regrets? Would you change anything? It’s like, well, if you’re generally happy with where you are, you can’t change a thing because that one flap of the butterfly then changes your present as well.

Brooke MacLean: [00:23:21] Absolutely. And it was interesting doing software and services at the same time. Right. So it was they’re very different ways that you run both companies. And the crash course in software was extensive working with investors, building a product, having CTO, doing sales, transferring everything from a previous version into what it became while trying to build behind the scenes the soft, the services side. Because I knew at the end of the day, that’s where I would go back to once we got it to a stable place. And now fast forward six, seven years later, we just acquired a software company Punch List. And so now I’m back and managing software and services at the same time. So it is funny how that happens. You think, wow, that was really, really hard. And all it is, is just preparing you for a later date.

Joey Kline: [00:24:14] David Cummings does seem to touch all things Atlanta. He does companies for you too. And of course, I was touring his new real estate acquisition the other day. And um, we I think Atlanta has always had good boosters, but I think that it certainly in the past decade, decade and a half, we have a group of kind of new executives that have experienced success that are really giving back in a really amazing way. I agree. Um, so so let’s talk about why you went back to the services side of things. What was it that drew you to that part of the industry?

Brooke MacLean: [00:24:53] I love the energy of the services. I think that in order and Raj alluded to this a little bit, you have to have the ability to work with a lot of different people, a lot of different industries and retain. A great deal of information simultaneously. So for those of us who are fast paced, we like learning a lot. And even outside of work, those of us who are excited and not overwhelmed by the rush of tight deadlines, I think services is an unbelievably powerful outlet for this type of person, and it is not for everyone. There are a lot of people who prefer the brand side, where there’s a singular focus and singular product and singular aspect to their role. We’re on the services side, the agency side, you where a lot of different hats. You’re working with, a lot of different team members, lots of different personalities. And I think that for those of us who are energized by that and not overwhelmed by that, it’s just a beautiful industry to work within.

Joey Kline: [00:25:55] Okay, for the uninitiated out there, talk about the very basic differences between the services side and the brand side of things and what you have chosen to specialize in at Market Week?

Brooke MacLean: [00:26:08] Absolutely. Market week. We specialize in two distinct areas. One is campaign strategy and the other is performance marketing. The campaign strategy comes in and figuring out what does a client have to say, what is important about it, and how are we going to roll that out into the masses. The performance side of what we do is really the channel execution. And a lot of a lot of companies come to us and they’re very interested in a specific channel, let’s say it’s paid media or SEO or content creation. And that’s amazing. Absolutely. We can step in and support them in a singular channel. Oftentimes, though, we have to back up and say, what are we saying to the world through that channel? That’s just a means to the end. If we were to back up a little bit and say, what is your story and is it resonating with your audience, that’s where the campaign strategy comes into play. And sometimes campaign strategy takes the entire brand into consideration, and sometimes it is more of, in which case an evergreen campaign. Sure. Other times it comes in form of hey, what’s going to be entertaining? We live in a very high demand, high frequency world right now. There’s a lot of news and content and videos and what is going to be entertaining and really cut through, whether that is a B2B client or a B2C client. It really comes down to the same thing. What are we saying? And then where are we going to say it? The brand side. When I’m referring to the brand side that is a client, uh, those are any company that we work with. Typically they have a singular product, um, sometimes singular service. But oftentimes those brands are very large, sweeping known companies, household names.

Joey Kline: [00:27:49] Sure. Okay. All right. That, that I think that helps delineate. So do you I think we talk a lot about people on this podcast. Okay. For for good reason. Um, I’m trying to think of another industry in which the talent has to be so up to date and ever learning on different forms of technology, communication and strategy. Uh, I’m having a hard time even thinking of one that surpasses.

Brooke MacLean: [00:28:19] If you find one, let me know. Yeah, because that’ll be our new hiring pool. Right?

Joey Kline: [00:28:23] Right. Um. It is. Look, you need to be on your toes in every industry, I think, to be the best professional that you can be. But in your world, it is so ever changing. So where I’m getting to is, do you have do you hire for specific capabilities like you mentioned, campaign versus performance strategy. Right. Do you hire people that are better at some type of services work than the other, or are you are you saying, look, we are a nimble, small, growing organization. You’ve got to be able to do all of this if you want to rise up and be on this team.

Brooke MacLean: [00:28:58] We very much lean into. We’re a little over 60 full time people now, so we’ve very much lean into specialty. We used to be the jack of all trades, where you have to know a little bit about it all, and you do still have to have a working knowledge of all of it. But there is no way that someone who is excellent at paid media can also be excellent at creative. Those are very different skill sets, so we really look for people who want to be a craftsman, honestly, in the skill that they bring to the table. Now, does that mean if we find incredible talent that we’re going to pass them by? No. I think that there’s an ability to train people and really find what they’re best at. But we are at the point of looking at specialists over generalists. Okay.

Joey Kline: [00:29:42] Do you think that that sets you apart from maybe your competitors, or is that a strategy that most executives have kind of narrowed in on?

Brooke MacLean: [00:29:52] Um, both. And yeah, it does. It depends on the size, the scale and then really what the expertise is. For instance, our account manager is a lot of times, uh, agencies use account managers is really the, the front lines and means of communication. Our account managers, their strategists, they’re the ones who have experience ideally in-house, somewhere on brand side, who know what it’s like to answer to investors, to answer to board members, to answer to an executive team, to have to work with sales and customer success. They have that working knowledge. And so when they come to be an account manager on our side, it’s not just agency experience that they’re bringing to the table, it’s empathy to our own clients. And that has been astronomical in our growth.

Joey Kline: [00:30:38] Sure. I mean, people want to work with people that they like. They do. You know, it’s look, obviously you the the price of entry as you have to be incredible at what you do. But beyond that, it’s um, it’s actually somewhat freeing, assuming that you’re a nice, interesting person that likes other people. How much? Just you and your own personality, um, can really drive success and retention of clientele.

Brooke MacLean: [00:31:04] Amen there. And also, there’s so much of just business professionalism that we hide behind of. We’re supposed to present something a certain way. And here are the numbers. And here’s how we’re going to tell that story. And and you lose so much by I call it the theatrics of the presentation, because there is a level of dissociation that occurs when you are trying to be the most professional version of yourself versus sitting on the same side of the table with your clients to say, all right, here’s where we’re at. Here’s what we think is going to work. Here’s why we think that. Here’s the data to support it. Are you on board with this and that collaboration of of lowering your own guard, not taking yourself too seriously, but being on the same side of the table to get the job done together? It goes a really long way. And I think, I think clients, they’re used to working with, uh, agencies who have a little bit of a, an arm’s length approach to things. And we I mean, we’ve been to baby showers and weddings and trips with our clients, and that’s the way we like it.

Joey Kline: [00:32:07] I think that’s right. And it’s so it’s almost shocking. Like what such a little difference like that can make or. No, it’s not shocking that that makes a difference. It’s understandable. What is shocking is that most people still hide behind that veneer of, um, formality, maybe a little bit too much. Um, I was I was talking with someone recently who started a new construction company, and they said what they thought was somewhat of a novel statement, like, we just like to be fun, we want to be fun to work with. And I was like, I can’t tell you, like, how often I’ve actually used that word because, like, yes, you need to be really good at what you do, but let’s enjoy each other’s time, right? There are going to be moments in any client, um, service relationship that are stressful. And the more that we can at least have some levity and fun with each other, it just makes for a nicer experience in the day.

Brooke MacLean: [00:33:07] It does, it does. And I think it also directly impacts and lowers the degree of miscommunications, because if you trust the person that you’re working with on a daily basis, you give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe their email, their slack came off a little harsh, but you know them because you’ve had good conversations with them outside of the workspace workforce. And in that all of these slights and miscommunications and defense mechanisms, they start to just disseminate. And that is really why, um, we put a lot of emphasis in our culture of connecting with people first.

Joey Kline: [00:33:45] Um, what do you think is the most surprising thing that you wouldn’t have expected to be a reality of your day to day since you kind of, you know, full time kind of got back into market wake.

Brooke MacLean: [00:33:58] Uh, reality of my day to day, uh, the amount of meetings. So we are very much of an in person culture. I think it I mean, even back in 2020, we were still very much an in person culture. And I think it has given us an edge to this point of being able to work quickly and efficiently and connect with each other. Our onboarding is weeks instead of months, which is very nice. I think I spent a lot of my day doing gut checks, making sure that I can be a sounding board for people. Uh, and then in this most recent acquisition, it’s now building up a new team to run software in the middle of our our normal day to day role of serving clients.

Joey Kline: [00:34:40] You know you would. I don’t think you will be shocked at how in my line of business, how many executives get who ask me, it’s like I can’t get I can’t get people to come in like, what do I do? What’s the silver bullet? I’m like it. It’s like I’m not trying to be reductive, but as long as you’re modeling that behavior and you’re making this like a good, enjoyable place to be and you have interesting people to be around, it shouldn’t be that hard. There is not some magic formula here. This is like, do I have a mission that people believe in? Do I have other people that people want to be around? And it’s you know, I imagine it sounds like this is just something that you’ve been doing. It’s not like there’s this big magic formula of how I, you know, x plus y plus z equals people want to be around each other.

Brooke MacLean: [00:35:31] That that is it. That is it. One. Absolutely. To the modeling, the behavior, the number of people that there. How do you do this? I say, well, I’m in the office every single day. Oh well I can’t do that. Well then how do you expect your team to do that? You have to do it first. So I am in the office, but and then also from a culture perspective, we like each other. We have fun. It is a dog friendly office, which is helpful because I do think that that that matters. I can.

Joey Kline: [00:35:56] Attest that is a very enjoyable part of being.

Brooke MacLean: [00:35:58] In your office. Very enjoyable. But across the board we enjoy spending time together and it’s fun. Our employees, they do trips together, they go to the beach together, they go skiing together. So they’re friends in and outside of work, which again helps us just move so quickly because we start sharing brains, which sounds crazy, but we do. We start storing information in each other’s minds. We know what someone else is going to say. We spend a lot of time together, and it just helps us all be in sync. So our clients have a very similar experience, whether they’re working with someone on the paid media side or on the creative side, or in social media, because we are all really in sync and speaking the same language. But yes, you have to be able to model it. If you’re not willing to do it, they probably won’t either.

Joey Kline: [00:36:42] That’s right. I mean, the, the, the, the work friendship, both personally and professionally is so valuable and special. I just don’t I feel very bad for people that are totally missing out on that. I don’t think I don’t think they’re going to realize until later in their career like what they actually missed out on.

Brooke MacLean: [00:37:00] That’s exactly because we spend so much time at work, so much time in our jobs and in our careers and pursuing growth. And why not have a little fun along the way and do it with people that you actually care about personally, not just professionally? Totally.

Joey Kline: [00:37:15] I met my wife at work. It’s you know if, you know?

Brooke MacLean: [00:37:18] Well, there you go.

Joey Kline: [00:37:19] There you go.

Brooke MacLean: [00:37:19] I love that.

Joey Kline: [00:37:21] Right? Um, okay, let’s let’s talk about this recent acquisition, because I think that’s very interesting. My guess. And you will confirm this or deny this, that this wasn’t necessarily something that was planned. It just kind of happened.

Brooke MacLean: [00:37:34] Yes, absolutely. We’ve we have had a goal of some sort of acquisition for the past two years. We have been down the road pretty far with a few different companies. And then at the last minute, and Raj, you’ve mentioned this too, but it falls apart for whatever reason. And there are sometimes necessary reasons where that happens. This one, it came in our radar and a couple months later it kind of came back into our radar. And then a couple months later it came back. And so it was one of those that I couldn’t shake, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right direction to go. Software again. Now, this is a tool that we use all the time. So we already had the benefit of having integrated into our work streams. Our clients were familiar with it, our team was familiar with it. So really it came down to, okay, do we have it in us to integrate a software into our processes seamlessly? How separate are these teams going to be? Because we have an amazing culture, and what we don’t want to do is feel like we have two totally different teams working within the same umbrella. So what does that look like? And then do we have the appetite to scale? And when all of those came back, yes, we have the appetite to scale. No, we do not need to keep these very separate teams. Our our team already has a lot of information on how to scale a tech company, because the majority of our clients are B2B. Uh, we can do this. And it was really it was very interesting to see the excitement that our management team and our leadership team had around this idea. When I brought it to them, they were all in, and I was expecting and anticipating a little bit of pushback, and we received none. So when we went down that path, um, it’s been amazing to see the adoption, the integration, the excitement and the growth that our our team treats it, the software and that team as if they’ve always been here. That’s great.

Joey Kline: [00:39:27] That’s wonderful. It’s. And it sounds like that was. I’m sure you didn’t expect maybe negativity, but it sounds like the seamlessness and the positivity was maybe somewhat surprising to you.

Brooke MacLean: [00:39:40] Yes, absolutely. Well, yes it was. The product is fantastic. It works well. So I think that that made it a whole lot easier to when they knew what a solid platform this was, especially uh, it’s a company called Punch List. And the the purpose of it is to collect aggregate feedback, especially for creative teams of which we are. So it’s amazing. It integrates with asana. It integrates with Monday, it integrates with teamwork, all of these other web applications to manage projects and do project management. It already integrates with those. So for us to be able to collect feedback in one mechanism for whether it’s a website or a PDF or, um, any kind of creative material, and then sync it into our project management system and create those tasks, it eliminated 15 steps from our day. So for our team, it was a no brainer because it’s already making our daily lives easier. Why not own it and grow it for sure?

Joey Kline: [00:40:38] Um, final topic here. You know, Atlanta is kind of the, uh, excuse the, uh, potentially, uh, you know, obscure reference, but it’s it’s kind of the Greek chorus in the background. I feel like, of this, this show. Right. There’s typically an Atlanta story, whether we’re talking about organizations that are homegrown here in Atlanta or some sort of a business unit that moves here. Right? It’s always kind of shifting in the background, speaking to us in a different way. And I’m curious what how you feel Atlanta has affected your success in your company.

Brooke MacLean: [00:41:13] I love it. I really do. I grew up here and promised myself I would never live here. So right after college.

Brooke MacLean: [00:41:21] So I never, ever, ever really live here. I traveled about 32 weeks a year. I was working for a company out in California for thought that was going to be my new home, and after traveling that much for so many years, I realized there’s nowhere like Atlanta. The opportunities, the people, the culture, the the intersection of all different types. I mean, we have amazing to see here. Direct to consumer. We have amazing B2B in tech. We have amazing fintech, we have incredible investors and opportunities. It really is a playground for being an entrepreneur. And so I love it. And I think that the talent that we find here is pretty amazing. So as we’re looking to grow and expand, it’s another reason why we’ve continued to source talent here. And not to say that we don’t have talent in other places, but we’ve just found over and over people are more willing to move here than even wanting to stay where they are and work remote.

Joey Kline: [00:42:13] Sure. Yeah. Well, especially if you’re going to look if if you’re going to join a company like yours, I think that that person that you have vetted, right, if they’ve come out the other end, they they want to be part of the mission at this stage in the company. Yes. And of course, it helps that we happen to be located in a pretty cool city.

Brooke MacLean: [00:42:32] It sure does. Yeah, it really does.

Joey Kline: [00:42:34] Yeah. Look, I felt the exact same way. And in I think I’ve learned but also Atlanta has, I think, become a much more interesting, fun place to live in the past 15 to 20 years or so.

Brooke MacLean: [00:42:46] I think so too. It is. It has changed quickly. It is not going to slow down by any means. I mean, even looking at I can’t remember, but I think it’s between 6 and 10 million more people were anticipating over the next ten plus years. That’s a lot of people. Um, so I think that we’re just getting started, to be honest with you.

Joey Kline: [00:43:05] I would agree the I think the the most the most recent jump is we have gone from the ninth largest metro about five years ago to the sixth largest metro, uh, leapfrogging Miami, Philly and DC. Um, which is pretty impressive feat. No small feat. Yes. Um, Brooke, if someone listening to this wants to learn more about Marketwake, learn more about you. Where do they go? How do they do that?

Brooke MacLean: [00:43:29] Marketwake.com that is Marketwake. We get it all the time. Is it week? Is it? It’s Marketwake.

Joey Kline: [00:43:36] Wake? Yes.

Brooke MacLean: [00:43:38] Marketwake.com. And then feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Brooke B McLean.

Joey Kline: [00:43:42] Okay.

Joey Kline: [00:43:43] Brooke Raj, thank you so much for sharing your stories.

Brooke MacLean: [00:43:46] Absolutely thrilled to be here. Thank you.

Joey Kline: [00:43:48] Okay, have a good day everyone. Thanks for listening to Tech Talk.

BRX Pro Tip: 3 Copywriting Tips

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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Copywriting Tips
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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Copywriting Tips

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, you know this. I’ll share it with the world. Anytime I want any direction on writing good copy, my first stop is Lee Kantor. So I am very interested in your perspective on writing good copy.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:20] Yeah, as you know, I have a degree in advertising from the University of Florida. I went to school to be an advertising copywriter, and I have written copy in a variety of mediums since I was a teenager. So I studied this, I study this now. Currently, these things are what I believe to be true when it comes to writing effective persuasive copy for any media.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Number one, write like you talk. I look at copywriting as a conversation between me and my prospect. I try and write like I would be talking to this person in person.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:55] Number two, kind of forget about good grammar. I’m not advocating for terribly wrong grammar, but I am advocating for grammar that sounds like you talk. So that means one-word sentences. Don’t be afraid of one-word paragraphs. Care more about the flow than perfect grammar.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] And number three, and I think this is the most important thing, is the philosophy of links on a chain. Your headline is the most important sentence, and its job is to get the reader to read the next sentence. And the job of the next sentence is to get the reader to read the next sentence, and so on and so on, until they’ve read the call to action. So everything is a link on the chain. Everything organically leads seamlessly and without friction to the next thing. So think about that when you’re writing. Every step has to lead elegantly to the next step.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:48] So those are my three tips about copywriting.

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