angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

BRX Pro Tip: 2 Questions to Ask if You Want to Make the Sale

May 19, 2023 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: 2 Questions to Ask if You Want to Make the Sale

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BRX Pro Tip: 2 Questions to Ask if You Want to Make the Sale

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, do you have a few go-to questions that you like to incorporate that you like to ask in the sales process?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Sure. In our business, we try to find sponsors of shows and that’s what we’re working on everyday in our studios. And two questions that I like to ask any potential sponsor, first and foremost is I want to be super clear who their ideal client is. I want to know who it is they want to build relationships with. Who are those most important people that they want to know more of and serve. These are the people that they want to either nurture existing relationships with or build new relationships with. So, I have to be super clear on who that ideal client is and make sure that they are the person that writes them checks or refers business to them. That is a must have. I have to know that.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] And then, secondly, I have to understand clearly what is the metric that matters most to that potential sponsor. Do they want more top of the funnel leads? Do they want more closed sales? I have to understand exactly what that metric that matters most to my client is. If I’m not clear on that, I can’t really determine if my service is going to help them.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] Like, if they tell me that they want to do a show on Business RadioX and they want the biggest audience possible, I have to tell them, “Well, that’s not what we do. That is not our superpower. We are not an audience-driven business. We are a guest-driven business. We help our clients build more relationships with the guests on the shows. That’s what we do. That’s our superpower.”

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] So, if I don’t ask them this and I do not get a clear answer and to get agreement that they want more relationships with the people that matter most, then I can’t really serve them properly. So, I have to understand that at the end of the day because I want them to keep being a client. And if we’re aiming at two different things, I can’t really deliver the value that they want and I can’t really serve them in the best way possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:18] So, I have to get clarity on who it is they want to build relationships with, and I have to get them to articulate that they want more relationships with that bottom of the funnel person, not the top of the funnel person, because our business is about building relationships with the people that matter most, not the most people.

Heather Winston with Health Guru Heath and Holly Kaye with HoneyBee Events

May 18, 2023 by angishields

Cherokee Business Radio

Heather Winston with Health Guru Heath and Holly Kaye with HoneyBee Events

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This episode was brought to you by

Heather Winston with Health Guru Heath, was born in Los Angeles and raised in SoCo, the OC specifically. She moved to Atlanta in the late 90’s. She graduated high school and went to college there. Heather lives about 40 minutes north of the city with her three beautiful children Hayden, Zachary and Olivia.

Heather has been in business for almost four years and is licensed across the country. She specializes in helping self-employed people like herself find affordable healthcare. Her college experience was in computer networking, and she bartended for years in her twenties. Heather also did almost a decade in corporate America, which really solidified her expertise in how to run a business.

Heather’s variety in professional experiences has really helped her learn how to interact with people of all personalities. She’s built her business on blood, sweat, tears and honesty. She’s licensed, educated, and constantly increasing her knowledge of American Healthcare through constant continuing education.

Connect with Heather on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Holly Kaye is with HoneyBee Events, a full service event design and management company that handles every detail so you don’t have to.

They have planned events for 10-600 for Holiday parties, Corporate events, Client/Employee appreciations, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, NYE celebrations, Baby showers, Glam slumber parties, Grand openings and weddings. They help bring your ideas to life, doing it all so you don’t have to.

Follow HoneyBee Events on Facebook.

This 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 Kid Biz Radio. Kid Biz Radio creates conversations about the power of entrepreneurship and the positive impact that journey can have on kids. For more information, go to Kid Biz Expert.com. Now, here’s your host.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:00:19] Hi. Welcome to KCBS Radio. I’m Layla.

Austin Guest: [00:00:31] And I’m Austin.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:00:32] And today we have awesome guests with us in the studio. Holly with HoneyBee events and Heather with Health Guru Heath.

Austin Guest: [00:00:43] Hi, Holly and Heather. Thanks for being with us here today.

Speaker3: [00:00:46] Thank you for having us.

[00:00:47] Yeah, for sure. It’s nice to be here.

Austin Guest: [00:00:50] Thanks for being with us today. Can you tell us about yourself and a bit about your business? Either one of you is fine.

Holly Kaye: [00:00:56] I’m sorry. Okay. Well, my name is Holly. I am a Georgia native. I grew up in Kennesaw, Georgia, and then migrated to Woodstock and then to Canton, where I’ve been for 20 years. I have three kids. My oldest is my only daughter and her name is Bailey. And then I have two boys, Joshua and Samuel. And Samuel is about to graduate high school. So he’s my last and my business is an event planning and design company where I take all of your dreams and make them come true from the smallest detail to the biggest and any event really from personal to corporate. So anything in between, we help take over, lighten the stress and let the client actually be a guest at their own event.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:01:40] I have a question. Where did honey like, how did Honeybee get in the title?

Holly Kaye: [00:01:45] I’m glad that you asked that because not a lot of people do. I normally offer that as free information, so kudos to you for asking. I actually have a little honeybee on my necklace. So when I was growing up, I stayed with my grandmother a lot and my oldest sister could not say her true name, which was Helen. And she made a connection because my grandmother raised bees and robbed their honey. So when we were growing up, her name was Granny Honey. That’s what we called her. And since I stayed with her a lot, she just always meant a lot to me. And she passed away about seven years ago. So the name is an homage to her.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:02:26] Oh, I’m. It’s sweet. Okay. Heather.

Heather Winston: [00:02:30] My name is Heather Winston. I’m actually from California. I was born in Los Angeles and I grew up in Orange County. I moved to Georgia right before high school, so I’m a little Southern fried at this point. I have three kids as well, three Kid Club and Holly. I have two boys and a girl, but my girl is my youngest. My kids are 16, 11 and nine, Hayden, Zachary and Olivia. So I’ve still got a little bit to go. And I am a health and life insurance broker, so I help people with health insurance. Life insurance group benefits, individuals, families, you name it, I can do it. Anything. Health and life. So my business is health group health. A lot of people like you ladies think it’s Heath, but unfortunately, us Heather’s, we don’t really have a nickname. You know, my mom called me Heather, so I kind of went with the alliteration, you know, health insurance. So, yeah, Yeah.

Holly Kaye: [00:03:24] There’s not a lot of nicknames for Holly there because you don’t want to shorten it to exactly your first two letters. You want to be known as home. No, no.

Heather Winston: [00:03:33] No.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:03:34] Okay. Well, either one of you can start. How did you get started in your business? Like, what was the inspiration? It kind of just came randomly. What happened?

Holly Kaye: [00:03:43] Well, I’ve always been in the hospitality industry one way or another. My first marriage was restaurant business and I was a stay at home mom, but it always kind of infiltrated my life as far as planning my children’s birthday parties, making their birthday cakes, doing my friend’s birthday parties. And then when I needed to get a full time job, I went obviously straight back into hospitality because it’s natural and it’s what I know and started working full time with caterers And then through the caterers I met other event planner companies and made those connections while I was on site and just kind of started making bigger and more connections on purpose with the people that I knew were the the the bosses of those companies. And it’s been probably about ten years now. So I started with a smaller, I would say, mom and pop, but she’s busy enough to where she had like 4 or 5 employees. So I started working with her and working all of the design and the logistics, which I became extremely proficient at. And it’s imperative for events because people think you just throw up some banners or balloons, but when you have a lot of moving parts, you have to be well versed in the logistics part of it where it a lot of people coming in and out and the requirements of what that event might be and from that. I went to a bigger company in Atlanta where they were having events literally six, seven days a week and 2 or 3 events a day. So this was more of it was still individually owned, but extremely high end events in Atlanta. And so then I learned kind of the business side from them of how to be big and proficient and COVID hit, and that rocked the hospitality industry. So coming back to Canton and after COVID, I had to really think about what I wanted to do. What did I like? What could I really put my efforts into for myself? And that being my background, I just started to do it myself and created the business and really hit the ground running with it.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:05:54] Is it still the logistics part that interests you the most?

Holly Kaye: [00:05:57] It does. I think that for me, being creatively minded, the biggest thing for myself is. Can I do it? And in order to do it, you have to sit down and really work through everything from A to Z. Well, how do you do it? Where do you get it from? Can you get it here on time? Is this what the client wants and does it fit their esthetic? So the logistics always intrigues me, but the biggest part is being able to bring that dream or that vision that’s just in your head or on paper into reality. When you finally get through all the work. And there is a lot of work on the back end of a big event, especially something that’s really important to people like retirement parties, engagement parties, corporate client appreciation, those are big deals. And when that client sees that end result and knowing that they’re happy with it, then it makes that work worth it.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:06:56] That is amazing. Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:06:58] Very cool. Hey, Heather.

Heather Winston: [00:07:00] I actually ended up in this field kind of on accident. I went through some major life changes back in 2017. I got divorced and was in corporate America for about eight and a half years and decided I wanted to change everything about my life. So I left my company, my marriage, and put my resume on Monster.com and was picked up by a health insurance kind of company. And it was a straight commission position. And I like to do hard things. So I just jumped right in full force and I’ve made it work. And here we are, you know, six years later, rocking and rolling on with you lovely ladies. So thank you again for having me. But it’s been a whirlwind. I enjoy helping folks find solutions. I’ve kind of built my business off education. Nobody really knows anything about health insurance. That’s one thing that I’ve learned. And so I really just used my first couple of years building a referral based business by teaching people for free, you know, whether I could help them or not or earn a paycheck off of it. I always did the right thing, helped them put them in the right place. And that’s really been my biggest reward because I’ve just built that word of mouth referral business. So it’s great. I really enjoy what I do and.

Holly Kaye: [00:08:23] I would imagine.

Speaker3: [00:08:23] Trust.

Heather Winston: [00:08:24] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And being your own boss is key.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:08:30] It’s my it’s my mom’s favorite thing. She doesn’t have to listen to anybody. Yeah.

Heather Winston: [00:08:34] My dad loves it. Yeah, I don’t have to leave the house if I don’t want to, so it’s pretty nice.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:08:40] Okay. Again, either one of you can answer. What have you done that that most contributed to your success as an entrepreneur?

Holly Kaye: [00:08:49] I feel like that’s such a loaded question.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:08:51] Yeah, we can, like, break it down and things, but, um.

Holly Kaye: [00:08:55] I think one of the first and fundamental things in making mine successful. And granted, I still kind of while I have the experience as far as it being my own business, I’m still in my mind in the fledgling period, you know, it’s not as big as I want it to be, but it’s consistent. But the biggest thing I would say is believing that I could do it. If you don’t have full fledged not even 100%, I mean, like 200% determination and belief in yourself. You won’t even get your foot out the door. So that’s a constant struggle, like I said earlier, where I like to be able to figure things out. But in that process, there’s always the doubt of can you and how do I. So it’s a constant balance of questioning myself, but telling myself that I can. So for me, that was the first and foremost thing. And then. Taking a step back and very purposely looking that now was in a new demographic. I wasn’t in Atlanta anymore where people had money to throw wherever they wanted. And Cherokee and Canton, you have to adjust to the demographic and the mindset. So I had to purposely step back. And look at how I did. How can I do that? How can I connect on purpose and with benefit? Because time is money. So I had to make my time worthwhile and really look at how I could connect with the community and get my name out there and give it a sense of worth. But also. Just like Heather said, educating people. Because a lot of times for an event planner, people don’t think that it’s needed until it’s too late. I get more phone calls after the fact saying that they wish they would have booked me because of the stress that goes into it for that actual day. So educating people on the worth of it was probably the second hurdle that I feel like I’ve gotten over now.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:11:03] Um. You said that you feel like it’s hard for you to grow anymore. What do you personally think the next step would be to help you do that?

Holly Kaye: [00:11:12] Right now. It’s going to be the word of mouth and references from the people that I already have booked. So I have a wedding this Friday and next weekend I have an event Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So it’s growing and which I’m grateful for. But for it to to go from there, just like Heather said, again, it’s it’s that word of mouth and people trusting you that you are worth what you say you’re worth. And once that’s proven. Then the word of mouth is the best advertisement you could ever have. And that’s going to only happen from people truly experiencing you and it turning out the way that A you promised B that it looks the way they wanted. And see that their experience was above and beyond what they initially expected. Because everybody’s going to have a retirement party, everybody’s going to have a wedding, everybody’s going to have a baby shower. Everybody’s going to have a child graduating a milestone birthday party, corporate events, Christmas parties, things like that. So it’s then again, those people being able to validate my name.

Heather Winston: [00:12:28] Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. Piggybacking off what you said, time is money for sure. Referral based business and having belief in yourself. I had no doubt that I could pull off a straight commission job. I just believed in myself and going against, you know, United Health Care, Aetna, that’s a little bit intimidating. So thinking outside the box really helped for me. I jumped on board with the social media train very early and started humiliating myself online, making like I did. I started making very right after COVID. I joined TikTok and started making funny videos, poking fun at American health care and, you know, and it worked. Whatever it took off, it took off, you know, and just, you know, anything and everything was health insurance, health insurance, every video, health insurance, health insurance and branding yourself. And then obviously, you know, delivering the honest performance, the honest advice, helping people, whether you can make money off them or not really drove my business to become referral based. And now I just, you know, my phone rings. I don’t really have to invest in any outgoing leads. It’s all word of mouth. So it’s been awesome.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:13:41] That’s really good.

Speaker3: [00:13:42] It’s very cool.

Austin Guest: [00:13:44] Um, um. So you have both become very successful. What would you say you define success as?

Heather Winston: [00:13:53] Um, I. I’m really happy with myself and I’m really satisfied with my life and where my life is and my relationship with my children, especially, you know, being a product of divorce. I guess it took some time to heal from that. And just the value that I’ve built in myself by making a straight commission job, working work and the, you know, the reviews, the feedback that I’ve gotten from people is really made me proud of myself. So I’m, you know, Holly, what.

Speaker3: [00:14:34] Do you think? I would agree.

Holly Kaye: [00:14:36] Um, for me, success is. Freedom. And in freedom that comes not just with finances, but with time.

Speaker3: [00:14:50] So, yes.

Holly Kaye: [00:14:51] Being able to give myself the time that I deserve to accomplish the things in my life that I want. And when you go through a lot of life changes and growing up and coming out the other side, a lot of places that you never expected to be in becoming an adult. Really defining who you want to be and how you want to be and how you want to do it, and being able to do it obviously ethically, but to walk those guidelines and really walk your own drum. The only your true beat, you know what I mean? Like when they say everybody hears a different drummer, obviously we’re all individuals, but to be able to live that out, that is success to me. And that time that we cannot get back, it’s the only commodity that is not replaceable and to be able to. Again, not only give myself that time to try to set out the accomplishments that I have defined in my life, but also to have that time to give to my family because my family is my biggest reward. And. I don’t want to waste it giving to an employer that A won’t appreciate me or that I’m breaking my back for and sacrificing time with my kids. Even if it’s dinner or going to a movies or whatever. I want to be able to have that flexibility and that time to say, Yeah, I can do that if I want to. I can rearrange these things if I want to. That’s success to me.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:16:24] Um, my mom, whenever she was working and like her like office job or whatever, once she quit, even though she was working, she still felt more present at home just because she would be able to, like, watch the movie with us. Even though if she was like working on a Lego or whatever, she was able to be there and not be at work physically present. Yeah. And like becoming an entrepreneur affects so many other people besides just the entrepreneur themselves, affects their family and their friends as well.

Speaker3: [00:16:49] Absolutely.

Holly Kaye: [00:16:50] And I think the other side of that, too, like being able to to do this and step out on my own, knowing that I could. Is also showing my children that success to me, like leaving some type of a legacy for them to be able to look at, not just financially, because honestly, anybody can make money, but it’s a legacy that I’m going to leave my kids that they can look at me and know that. Was it hard? Yes. Was it doable? Yes.

Heather Winston: [00:17:17] Yeah. I think if you do anything just based off money, it’s not going to be as rewarding as doing what you love. Yeah. Any advice that I could do? What you love. Find something that you love and learn how to make money off of it.

Speaker3: [00:17:33] Yeah.

Holly Kaye: [00:17:33] Because money comes and goes.

Speaker3: [00:17:34] Money comes and goes.

Holly Kaye: [00:17:35] And I’ve had.

Speaker3: [00:17:36] None. Yeah.

Holly Kaye: [00:17:37] If you’re not happy with yourself, then you’ve got nothing to teach anyone else.

Heather Winston: [00:17:41] Exactly.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:17:44] Move on to the next section.

Austin Guest: [00:17:45] All right. So what are some maybe possible regrets that you have had while starting up your business? Like thinking something like, Oh, I probably could have done this differently or I could have done this better while starting up your business.

Speaker3: [00:18:00] Lots of those early videos that I made.

Heather Winston: [00:18:05] I had to go back and private. A lot of those videos, I didn’t know how to do my makeup or about lighting. So yeah, those will be hidden in a vault.

Speaker3: [00:18:16] You know, that means that we’re going to have to go find those videos.

Heather Winston: [00:18:20] Privated them all. I privated them after a while, but, you know, fail forward. Fail forward. You know, I got you where you needed to go. I have embarrassed myself fully out there, so now, like, nothing can hurt me. Yeah, exactly.

Holly Kaye: [00:18:34] I would say for me, my only.

Speaker3: [00:18:38] Well. And I probably have a lot of regrets.

Holly Kaye: [00:18:41] But as far as my business is concerned, the main one that I would say is not starting sooner because I my personality, I have a loyal personality and I have. Honestly work till I die. Work ethic. And my word is the only thing that I have. And if I give it to you, then I will die fulfilling it. And I was doing that for other people. And that’s where I was saying time is success to me and freedom. Because again, I was investing in someone else’s livelihood, someone else’s dream. And while I honored that commitment, I wished that I would have started for myself sooner.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:19:29] It’s not funny that you say that, but I feel like until the past few years it was kind of like crazy or weird to start a business. But now it’s so like, Oh my God, it’s become very normal. Yeah. So for like, you guys started a while ago, did people like, make fun of you and all that stuff or like, just.

Austin Guest: [00:19:45] Say that you like, Oh, you’re not going to make.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:19:48] It crazy.

Heather Winston: [00:19:50] I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, Holly, but when you start doing what’s best for yourself, a lot of people tend to have an issue with it, especially people that, you know, I got a lot of the. Who does she think she is? You know, I think it’s you know, my rule of thumb is how people treat you as a reflection of themselves. You know, you’re a mirror. And if you invest in yourself, you know, the people that are going to come with you, surround yourself with people that support you, that love you, that really want to see you succeed, and all the rest of them will just weed out.

Speaker3: [00:20:21] Yeah, you know.

Holly Kaye: [00:20:22] I didn’t get critiqued too much. I think more of the of the feedback was from my own mother, who of course still worries even though I’m a grown woman. But it’s just part of motherhood, you know, because she wanted me to go get a steady job, a reliable job, something that I could bank on. It wasn’t risky. Yeah. She wanted me to, like, go work at a bank. If she said that once, she said it a thousand times, like, you know, they’ve got good hours. They’re off on holiday. I was like, I understand what that means. I want to do. If I went and worked behind a desk for six hours a day, I would shoot myself in the foot. Like, to me, that’s not my. Personality. I just am. I know it would be miserable. I to to me I have, I’m sure adult add like it wasn’t a thing you know, when we were growing up. But it fits my job because I have to finish so many different tasks at different times. And I’ve got, you know, six different clients at any given time and I have to be up creating something.

Holly Kaye: [00:21:32] I have a creative personality. So while I could appreciate my mother’s angst, I knew once again I had to walk to my own drum and had to be willing to take that risk. So I didn’t really get the critiques really, other than from kind of cold shoulders from people actually that I worked with before. So the mom and pop that I worked with out in Roswell. While she had earned her keep in a spot in the industry, it was more like. She was the only one that she thought could do it. Well, like kind of. Who do you think you are? Or kind of wanting to take the badge that she taught me everything. And then the higher end business that I worked with kind of has looked down their nose at me laughing of like because I obviously, compared to them, I am small. So I was kind of surprised at more of a response like that coming from them in a professional setting and especially as adults. But outside of that, if anything, it’s more my friends want me to do their events for.

Speaker3: [00:22:46] Free, so there’s no criticism.

Holly Kaye: [00:22:48] From them. It’s like, Hey, can you come over.

Speaker3: [00:22:50] Here and help? Can you come over here?

Heather Winston: [00:22:52] Yeah. I think being Neurodivergent is a superpower. In my opinion.

Speaker3: [00:22:58] You can really use it to your advantage.

Heather Winston: [00:22:59] Oh, absolutely. You know, strong sense of justice is a I think everybody should have a strong sense of justice, not just neurodivergent people. But I use it to my benefit. And as a superpower, I don’t look at it as a disability. Right? Yeah. It’s sparked my creativity. It’s helped me succeed. I thrive on being different.

Speaker3: [00:23:21] Oh, 100%. I have been since I was in elementary school. Same.

Holly Kaye: [00:23:26] I’ve never looked back. I’ve never had a problem standing on my own two feet, speaking my own mind. And I don’t go through a room or through life trying to cause destructive waves. I’m just trying to make my own waves. I’m not trying to take anybody down. I actually the other side of that is I’m trying to take as many small businesses with me as possible, and especially women owned businesses.

Speaker3: [00:23:47] Yes, always. Yes.

Holly Kaye: [00:23:49] I’m my own worst competitor, like no one else’s competition to me more than I am myself.

Heather Winston: [00:23:53] Yeah, I always say that the only person you should be in competition with is the person you were yesterday, right?

Speaker3: [00:23:58] That’s it. That’s it.

Austin Guest: [00:24:00] So based on what you have told us, what would you like give What advice would you give for aspiring entrepreneurs to help? Maybe prevent some of the things that you regret, whether it’s not starting sooner or some funny videos or.

Heather Winston: [00:24:17] Oh, gosh. I don’t know. Do what you love. Like I mentioned before. Do what you love. Believe in yourself. You know? Believe in yourself. Nobody’s going to do it for you. Nobody’s coming. You got to have that faith in yourself that it’s going to work out. Everything happens for a reason. You know, don’t get too high on the highs and don’t get too low on the lows.

Holly Kaye: [00:24:41] Yeah, because they’re consistent, if anything. Yeah. For me, I would say if I was talking to a younger version of myself that instead of just. Having a pipe dream, having an idea. At some point you really have to sit down and put it to paper. At some point you really have to look at. Can I do this? What am I interested in? Is there a niche in it that’s not being fulfilled? What’s a need in even in that industry or want that I might be able to fulfill outside of the generalities? You know, even in my industry, there are niches, you know, of what might be fulfilled as a need. But I would say to really sit down and put it to paper and then those next steps, like I had said earlier, of really planning out, okay, well, what does that mean? Who do you need to connect with? What’s the first step that you need to do? Is it an LLC? Is it your tax bracket? What does that mean? Making a logo, a business account, you know, what are those steps? And because those are the big ones that you need to get over, but then the day to day, you know, what does that look like? How are you making those connections and be willing to burn the midnight oil until it comes to fruition? Because there is no perfect scenario. At one point I was working three jobs and still trying to get my business off the ground. And sometimes that means going to bed at 1:00 in the morning. But you have to determine. How much is it worth? To me, that’s the biggest thing I would say. What is it worth and what are you willing to do for it?

Layla Dierdorff: [00:26:26] In CBC this morning it’s a networking group. The main topic was like, even if people are further along than you or if the market’s already full, as long as you find a problem and stick to it, you have a place. And it’s not like you’re not worthy. Even if people are like higher up or more successful than you. Correct?

Holly Kaye: [00:26:44] That’s that niche.

Heather Winston: [00:26:46] And don’t be too hard on yourself. That’s what I would tell my younger self. I was so self-critical and and don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break. Yes, give yourself a break.

Speaker3: [00:26:56] Yeah.

Holly Kaye: [00:26:56] Because I think I would have to say that one of the things that I kept thinking that besides Covid pushing me, you know, it was a blessing and a curse because it forced me to do what I had been thinking. And what it came down to is me telling myself, If you can do this for other people. In events that are $100,000 events, corporate events. If you can do this for them, why can’t you do it for you?

Speaker3: [00:27:26] Yeah, I agree.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:27:27] That’s powerful. It’s very powerful. Okay. Well, we’ve talked a lot about the past and the present. Why don’t we talk about the future? What are your future goals? Wishes like ideas?

Austin Guest: [00:27:41] Do you want your business to go within maybe the next few years, I’d say.

Holly Kaye: [00:27:46] Where I would like for it to go is for me to be regardless of how big it gets, but consistent enough to have enough consistent events to where I can actually employ someone like I used to be with that small mom and pop. I would like to be able to employ someone full time. Because I’m kind of in that limbo right now. I’m. I’m small, but I’m so busy that I’m literally swamped. But I’m not busy enough to where I can afford someone else’s livelihood. And I don’t take that lightly. So where I would like to be is that consistency and be able to have someone on staff full time and really start growing this thing and knocking it out of the park and being the go to name, not just in Cherokee County, but then even outside of that as an event planner, not just for weddings, for the for the other 364 days a year. Yeah. For any event. And again, being that trusted name that anybody can turn to and trust with executing the event that they want. So. I would like to be able to employ another young lady. I think it just kind of fits our personalities. Not that I won’t hire a man, but right now, my day of staff that helps me. They’re all female. It just kind of goes hand in hand and to be able to somehow inspire them, like along the way, whether they want to learn this industry or even if they want to learn how to be an entrepreneur, that I would like to be able to positively and directly impact a younger female generation.

Heather Winston: [00:29:30] Well, you’re inspiring me, Holly.

Speaker3: [00:29:32] Very, very inspiring.

Heather Winston: [00:29:36] For me. Financially secure. My oldest will be graduating high school in the next couple of years, and I have struggled in the past. And what I would love to give to my kids is the choice to if they don’t want to work, they don’t have to. I want to set them up financially so they don’t ever have to struggle like I have. And as far as my work goals, my business goals, you know, AT&T, Coca Cola, you know what’s going on. I do group benefits. You know, where you have any school system in the local area. I can help with anything. Got no skin in the game. So that’s really just, you know, breaking down the doors. And I’m all about the female empowerment. Yeah, I don’t really see how I could employ somebody. I mean, I really, you know, if I nail Coca Cola, that’s. I’m done. Yeah. Go buy my island and we are out.

Speaker3: [00:30:36] Well, see, a whole different TikTok. Exactly.

Heather Winston: [00:30:39] I’ll be out in the Maldives in one of those little huts, you know, although I am kind of deathly afraid of the ocean.

Speaker3: [00:30:48] Oh, that might not play a good part, but.

Heather Winston: [00:30:52] I’ll stay up on the shore and just, you know, you know or admire it from afar. Exactly.

Speaker3: [00:30:57] Exactly.

Austin Guest: [00:30:58] So. So for warning, we are going to ask to sort of deeper questions and then we’re going to do a quick this or that like very speedy, very speed round questions. But we are going to start with if you had the attention of the world for five minutes, everybody was listening. They were all paying attention to you. What would you say?

Layla Dierdorff: [00:31:19] You can take a minute.

Austin Guest: [00:31:20] Well, that might take a second.

Heather Winston: [00:31:24] That we need to seriously address the issue of human trafficking. And we seriously need to address the issues of what’s going on in our country and within our own government and to power the people. Huge. I’m all about saving the babies. I have a side hustle that I do where I make my own stone beaded bracelets, jewelry. They’re very pretty. Thank you. It’s called help end child trafficking. Dot com. Not a shameless plug here, but, you know, save the babies, man. Save the babies. That’s that’s my biggest deal.

Speaker3: [00:31:55] Always.

Holly Kaye: [00:31:58] Oh, man.

Speaker3: [00:32:00] I mean.

Holly Kaye: [00:32:01] The whole world. Yeah. I think the first thing that comes to my mind is urging people to get their house in order. So for me, that is a couple of things. First, your faith, because we don’t live forever and coming to the reality of who you trust to really save your life, not on just this earth, but in the one to come that men have their house in order and teaching their family the way that they should be taught that their children know something when they leave their house instead of being dependent. They are independent benefits to society. And being a role model model that’s worth following, you know, outside of the finances and everything else. So I would think, you know, have your house in order and spiritually then financially and just be somebody of worth. If you say something, mean it. And if you mean it, then do it. Your integrity is is everything.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:33:12] I’m sorry. Okay. Yeah. Very inspirational.

Austin Guest: [00:33:16] I love that.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:33:18] Okay. If you woke up tomorrow, I’m going to change the question a little bit. If you woke up tomorrow without your business, what would you what would be your what would be your first steps to recovery? And who are you without it?

Heather Winston: [00:33:32] I mean, I’m still me. I show love no matter what. I just want to be a positive light. There’s a lot of negativity in the world. I, I do a lot on social media, and I just try and put positive out there and, you know, I guess I do kind of have a backup plan, but I just believe in myself so much I don’t see myself failing. Yeah, to be honest.

Holly Kaye: [00:33:58] If I woke up without my business tomorrow, then I would just start something else.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:34:03] You wouldn’t try to rebuild it.

Holly Kaye: [00:34:05] If that wasn’t an option. Like if I lost it beyond recognition. For some reason, rebuilding is always a factor. But if in hypotheticals that I just lost it to where there is no coming back then. I would just start something else. I mean, I’ve.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:34:23] Goes back to what you said, like, I’ll work till the day I die. You’ll just keep on working.

Speaker3: [00:34:27] Yeah.

Holly Kaye: [00:34:27] I mean, it’s not an option. And like I said, anybody can make money. I mean, the reality is, as much as people complain about this country, it’s the freest country that you have the opportunity to be whatever you want. And if you really want to put your effort and your muscle behind your words, then there’s nothing really that you can’t do. It’s just, again, doing something that’s on purpose and be willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it. So if I woke up without it, I would still be me because I’ve woken up literally with nothing before. And. There would just be something else. I would just. Basically say what’s next?

Speaker3: [00:35:06] Yeah, I agree.

Heather Winston: [00:35:07] There’s two kinds of people in this world. People make excuses and people that don’t. You just make it happen. I’m not the same person I was five years ago. I’ve made such huge transformations in my life and I don’t even recognize who I used to be. Anyone can do anything. Anyone can do anything. You just got to believe in yourself. I really believe.

Speaker3: [00:35:27] That. Yeah. Okay.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:35:28] Ending on a happier note. Other than that, we’re going to do this or that now. It’s like just a quick ten ish questions.

Austin Guest: [00:35:35] Um, just a few simple this or that questions.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:35:38] Who wants to go first?

Speaker3: [00:35:39] Go ahead, Holly. Okay.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:35:41] All right.

Austin Guest: [00:35:42] Cats or dogs?

Layla Dierdorff: [00:35:43] Oh, dogs. Spider-man and Batman.

Austin Guest: [00:35:45] Batman. Books or movies? Movies.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:35:47] Waffle or curly fries.

Austin Guest: [00:35:49] Waffle. Mountains or beach.

Holly Kaye: [00:35:52] That’s always a 50 over 50 for me. But I’d probably end up at the beach.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:35:55] Sweet or salty?

Speaker3: [00:35:57] Salty?

Holly Kaye: [00:35:57] Chocolate. Like my.

Speaker3: [00:35:59] Personality.

Austin Guest: [00:36:03] Chocolate or fruity candy? Chocolate.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:05] Cake or pie. What’s that? Cake or pie?

Holly Kaye: [00:36:09] Cheesecake.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:11] Agreed? Yes. Yeah, you’re correct.

Austin Guest: [00:36:14] Um. Lower high rise jeans.

Holly Kaye: [00:36:17] Um. Low. I have on low right now.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:20] Comedy or horror movies?

Holly Kaye: [00:36:22] Oh, God.

Speaker3: [00:36:22] Comedy.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:23] Okay, your.

Speaker3: [00:36:24] Turn. Okay, let’s do it.

Austin Guest: [00:36:25] All right. Okay. Cats or.

Speaker3: [00:36:26] Dogs? Cats.

Heather Winston: [00:36:27] I’m sorry.

Speaker3: [00:36:28] Cats.

Heather Winston: [00:36:29] I will always choose dogs. Cats? You know, I don’t have time for dogs, man. I like them. But I’m not crazy cat lady that’s living in the woods, you know, by myself. So.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:39] Spider-man or Batman.

Austin Guest: [00:36:41] Spider-man books or movies.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:43] Books. Waffle or curly fries, waffles.

Austin Guest: [00:36:46] Mountains or the.

Speaker3: [00:36:47] Beach. Beach.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:48] Sweet or salty.

Austin Guest: [00:36:49] Sweet chocolate or fruity candy.

Speaker3: [00:36:51] Chocolate. Chocolate. All the way.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:53] Always. Cake or pie?

Heather Winston: [00:36:55] Both. Anything sweet. Anything.

Speaker3: [00:36:58] I feel you on that one.

Austin Guest: [00:37:00] Low or high rise jeans?

Heather Winston: [00:37:02] Uh, low rise, man.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:37:04] Low rise, for sure. Comedy or horror movies?

Speaker3: [00:37:06] Horror.

Heather Winston: [00:37:07] Horror. All day.

Speaker3: [00:37:08] Thank you. Oh, I love horror. Horror. I know. Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:37:12] Everything was.

Speaker3: [00:37:12] Opposite. I know.

Austin Guest: [00:37:14] But Love me a good horror movie.

Heather Winston: [00:37:15] Yes, me.

Speaker3: [00:37:16] Too. No way, man. I hate going to bed like I love it. I’m ready to fight somebody. I will love coming movies.

Austin Guest: [00:37:24] But I. I will never turn down a horror movie. Oh, my.

Heather Winston: [00:37:27] God. There’s some good ones that have come out this year. Some good ones. I just watched Ex the other day, which was pretty good.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:37:34] It was jinotega or something.

Heather Winston: [00:37:36] Yes. Yes. Shit, that shit. That sucks for her man in that movie. But that was great. Mia Goth. I like her a lot. She’s awesome.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:37:45] So I actually did an English presentation on her one time.

Heather Winston: [00:37:47] Did you? She is my new fave. I love her. I can’t wait for that new one that she’s got coming out with Halsey.

Speaker3: [00:37:53] So no.

Holly Kaye: [00:37:54] Way. I totally started. I don’t even listen to the beginning intro music. I totally expect somebody to be in my bedroom behind the door and I’m like, We’re watching a kung fu fight.

Speaker3: [00:38:04] Yes, I have.

Heather Winston: [00:38:05] Traumatized my children.

Speaker3: [00:38:06] Yes, my mother has done the same.

Austin Guest: [00:38:09] I personally look forward to the new Scream movie that they just came out with that I have not seen yet. I cannot wait for it.

Speaker3: [00:38:15] Oh, my.

Heather Winston: [00:38:16] 11 year old is dad. My dad took him to see it.

Speaker3: [00:38:18] So.

Holly Kaye: [00:38:19] So, yeah, I’m looking forward to the John Wick. That’s what I’m going to go look at.

Speaker3: [00:38:23] That’s that’s what I’m going to watch.

Holly Kaye: [00:38:24] Like I’m all about that action. I’m like, Yes, I should have been CIA. Maybe I like being able to just, I don’t even know, wheel about 15.

Speaker3: [00:38:33] Guns and.

Holly Kaye: [00:38:34] Yes, just smashing people in the face.

Speaker3: [00:38:36] That we can.

Heather Winston: [00:38:36] Get along with.

Speaker3: [00:38:37] We can totally vibe with that every day. Walking into the club like Women in Black. Yeah. The two H’s. Yes. Yes. That’s awesome. I love it.

Austin Guest: [00:38:46] Okay. Sorry. Well, thank you, Holly and Heather for hanging out with us today. We really appreciate it. Can you tell us a little bit about how everyone can get in touch with you and check out what you’re doing?

Holly Kaye: [00:38:59] Sure. I’m on social media, just like every living being. I’m on Facebook for the older people, apparently I’m on Instagram and TikTok for the younger crowd. So it’s honeybee events and you’ll know that you have the right person. If you see my logo, which is an outline of a honeycomb.

Speaker3: [00:39:21] Very nice.

Heather Winston: [00:39:23] And for me, health guru head on, everything short for Heather. It’s not Heath, guys. You got it. Health guru.com Facebook for the older people LinkedIn for the business folks Instagram for the people that are a little bit younger than me. And then tick tock where I embarrass myself.

Speaker3: [00:39:39] That’s okay.

Heather Winston: [00:39:40] But yeah, Health Guru has on everything.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:39:41] Well, fantastic. We really enjoyed our time with you today and we know our audience will get much out of hearing your story. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you on the next one. Thank you.

Heather Winston: [00:39:51] Ladies. Thank you. Thank you so much.

BRX Pro Tip: 2 Things Every Case Study Should Have

May 18, 2023 by angishields

Mike Watkins with The Joy of Business Strategy and Casey Howard with Flourish for Moms

May 17, 2023 by angishields

Cherokee Business Radio

Mike Watkins with The Joy of Business Strategy and Casey Howard with Flourish for Moms

00:00 /

Sponsored by Business RadioX ® Main Street Warriors

Mike Watkins launched The Joy of Business Strategy in January of 2023. In 2022 Mike capped off 45 years in the broadcast industry, the final 25 years with Cox Media Group.

During those more than four decades Mike enjoyed a diverse career that included roles as a Program Director, Assistant PD, and Sales Marketing Executive. A Pittsburgh PA native and graduate of Ithaca College, Mike’s career includes stints at legendary stations KDKA Pittsburgh, WGCI Chicago, and WSB & WALR Atlanta where he has served as a Marketing Consultant, Sales Manager and Business Development Manager.

Mike’s passion in business is helping decision-makers take a strategic approach to their marketing and developing a strong understanding of consumer behavior. Mike is a skilled facilitator of Brainstorming and Marketing Strategy sessions.

When not strategizing, Mike’s passions include faith, family, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mike is married to Joy (Walton) Watkins and has two sons Phillip (Rebekah) and Matthew and a grandson Malachi. Mike is extremely active at Ben Hill United Methodist Church where he has served in a number of leadership.

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.

Flourish For Moms helps stressed out moms along their self care journey to create and live their best life. We are a self care product based brand for moms to become the best version of themselves and completely flourish!

We are not just a brand, but also a community for moms to become the best version of themselves and completely flourish in life together! By taking time to help yourself, take a break when needed, implement daily routine self care, and remember to put yourself first, be able to live your best life and completely flourish!

Flourish For Moms is there for you during your self care journey. Our line of self care products, implemented into your daily routine, will totally transform your life.

The founder of Flourish For Moms, Casey Howard, resides in Canton, GA with her husband Eric and three young children Anna Kate, Millie and Bo ages 6, 4 and 2.

She has always helped moms throughout their journey, since the start of her maternity and newborn portrait studio business and now with the new business, Flourish For Moms.

Helping moms navigate motherhood and the stresses that come along with it is extremely important to her and she wants to share all that she can with every beautiful mother out there!

Follow Flourish For Moms on Facebook.

This 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 Cherokee Business Radio Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by our local small business initiative, 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. You guys are in for a real treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast, first up on Cherokee Business Radio this morning with The Joy of Business Strategy head coach Mike Watkins. Good morning, sir. Good morning.

Mike Watkins: [00:01:13] How are you Stone?

Stone Payton: [00:01:14] I am doing well. It is a delight to have you in the studio. I got a thousand questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but yeah, I’m thinking a good place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners mission purpose. What what are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Mike Watkins: [00:01:33] Man So thanks so much for asking. Stone and for having me here. It’s really a pleasure to be with Business RadioX the The Joy of Business Strategy. Our mission is to help business owners and leaders make better decisions through strategic, through strategic thinking. And so basically what I like to say, I listen to help you see the one of the biggest challenges really in life. Think about my marriage. If I could always see things through my wife’s lens, that would be awesome. And in business, quite often that’s the big challenge. Business owners don’t see their business through their customer’s lens, through their employees lens. And so having someone with a different perspective kind of watching from the sidelines and saying, Hey, what if you did this? What if you did this? How about this? And much like a head coach would do on a football team or a basketball team, it helps players with great talents become even better. And that’s what we do with businesses. Well, it sounds.

Stone Payton: [00:02:50] Like a noble pursuit to me. And I got to believe, having run my own business for, gosh, 30 plus years now, I don’t think you’re going to run out of market opportunity because we could all get better at making decisions and and seeing things from a from a different perspective. I got to know the backstory, man. How in the world did you find yourself in this line of work?

Mike Watkins: [00:03:11] Well, I’m a radio guy, a former radio guy now. I was in the radio business for 45 years. Wow. In multiple places in Ithaca, New York, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Illinois, and here in Atlanta with some of the premier radio stations around the country. First radio station ever in the country, the first radio station in the south. And and so I’ve had a lot of experiences both on the content side as a program director and on the sales side as an individual sales person, as a sales leader, as a business development manager and all of those things. And I loved radio, been a part of some great experiences and at the same time had a plethora of experiences of working with different businesses, different audiences. At the end of the day, it was always about understanding what other people wanted to help bring them, what they wanted. And so it was time to retire. From what I did with Cox Media Group, I was with 95.5 WSB Radio for 25 years, and I had a loved my career there. And and it was just time to move and do some different things. And taking all of those 45 years of in the industry, the collective experiences, what I found in most cases I was really coaching people on what to do differently and what to do better and how to take something that was really good and make it even better. And and so here we are today with the joy of business strategy, because helping people with their strategy is what brings me joy.

Stone Payton: [00:05:08] So where is the most joy for you now that you’ve been at it a while? What are you finding the most rewarding? What are you enjoying the most about this work?

Mike Watkins: [00:05:17] You know what’s really great is to to deliver, whether it’s a nugget. Or a process or a strategy and see it come to formation or see it come to life and see how it benefits somebody. So right now I’m working with a law firm and we’re. I’m sorry.

Stone Payton: [00:05:40] No, I’m kidding.

Mike Watkins: [00:05:43] I’m sorry. Go ahead. Well, here’s here’s the good news. There are plenty of law firms. That’s true. But I’m working with a law firm right now. And and we’re shifting their focus from multiple services to a specific line of work so that they can be focused on that. And we’re really transforming everything down to the way they intake callers. And so that’s one of the things that we’re talking about right now. How does everybody answer the phone? Where do we direct the calls when someone has an inquiry? How do we manage it so that from the very beginning the relationship starts off on a positive note as opposed to simply here’s how much it costs. And so taking that and seeing everybody take hold of that and watching that process, that’s what again. So you see, I light up like that when we talk about that, those kinds of things. That’s what brings me joy.

Stone Payton: [00:06:47] All right. So let’s talk about about the work a little bit. I think it’s great that you landed there on on that and on that. One specific thing that sounds very tangible. It’s something we can see results from. We can throw our hat over the fence, try some things, make some adjustments, see the see the results. Back me up a little bit, like especially early in the relationship and in the in the engagement are you you’re just sitting at the table with the principles of a firm or the leaders of the firm and I don’t know, asking good questions to figure out where they’re hurting. What is the early part of an engagement look like?

Mike Watkins: [00:07:18] I love that. So it starts off with conducting, you know, basically a needs analysis. Everybody does an initial discovery meeting, you know, in just about every business, right. Every situation you’re doing a needs analysis or some type of a discovery moment when we’re understanding what’s important and where is the real pain and we’re narrowing down to the real pain. And and so we do that in some initial meeting or meetings. And really the focus of what generates whether it’s a simple engagement to help you develop a single strategy or an ongoing coaching relationship. The real work takes place when we do what we call a strategic marketing focus session. And that session, it’s about a half a day session where we sit down, we get all of the principal stakeholders, everybody who knows something about the customer. And how the customer interacts with the business. And we spend time, we have a four step process. First of all, we want to talk about who is our target. I like to say you might take money from everybody, but you’re only going to spend money to get your ideal customer profile. All right. So with most businesses, I’ll take business here. I’ll take business there. But this is the customer that I’m most equipped to work with. I’ll do the best job of delivering. And they are that Peralto principle. They’re the 20% of the people who will deliver 80% of our revenue. So we we first of all, we start off with the who are you targeting? Who’s your ideal customer profile? Next, we want to look at what do they want? Probably the biggest mistake most businesses make is that they focus what they sell, what they do, what services they offer on what they like to do. As opposed to what people need.

Stone Payton: [00:09:25] I think I might resemble that remark. Casey, how about you? He’s been reading my mail.

Mike Watkins: [00:09:33] Yeah. Most people think about, Hey, here’s what I do. Well, here’s what I like to do. Yeah. Even in the coaching circuit, you know, I get emails every day from, Hey, could you take on to, you know, more clients? Here’s our strategy, here’s what we do. And I think, well, what if your strategy doesn’t fit with this customer needs. So so the second thing that we talk we talk about who are you targeting, What do they need? What’s most critical when they make a decision to go with the business? What are the things that they got to have? And so we look at that. Then we think about where. Where else can they get the things that they need? So we think about in our own box what we do, but we often don’t really take a look at the competition. And so if I’m trying to sell somebody something, who else is trying to sell them? There’s a great line from the movie Scarface. I love this line. Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed. That’s one of that’s one of my favorite lines. So so you’ve got to understand what the competition is, what your customer’s competition is, how do they satisfy the things they need? So who are you targeting? What do they want? Where else can they get what they want? And within that, where is the place that you can settle in and find your niche? And then finally, finally, how how do we deliver the message to them that you can satisfy what they need better than anybody else? That’s the big that is probably the most critical thing that we do is spend that that strategic marketing focus session to really from there we do some ideation and develop different concepts to to understand how we can satisfy the need of your ideal customer.

Mike Watkins: [00:11:35] And from there we map out a strategic plan. And then, you know, our motto is plan, focus, win. So once we map out that plan, then my job is to help you as a business owner really stay focused. Mission drift is prevalent in business. I love this plan. But you know what? I just had this customer walk in and this is like, this might be a great customer. It’s not it doesn’t fit my plan, but that might be a great customer for I might actually have to take a loss on the deal to get them. But they’re really a big customer and we just have this mission drift. So my job as a coach is to say, No, I didn’t tell you to run down and out. I told you to run a fly pattern, stay on the course. And so that’s what that’s what we do. And and that relationship ongoing is, is really let’s focus on the plan. Let’s continue to tweak and modify the plan based on the changing environment. And from there, that’s how we win.

Stone Payton: [00:12:45] And by that time, you the group has a common nomenclature. You’re calling the same things, the same things. So you’ve got this common language and the trust that you must personally have to cultivate to be able to work with teams at this level. I mean, you must really pay a great deal of attention to the way you carry yourself from at go. And you’ve got to be talk about cultivating and maintaining trust in a relationship like that, because I got to believe it’s paramount in your work.

Mike Watkins: [00:13:15] Boy, that is a great question. So I earlier referenced that ideal customer profile. And that ideal customer is the people whom you can serve the best, who are really great customers for what you do. I actually have an ideal customer profile.

Stone Payton: [00:13:35] You got to eat your own cooking.

Mike Watkins: [00:13:36] I got to eat my own cooking. That’s right. Yeah. This cobbler’s children tries to have shoes. At least they have crocs. We. What I do is I target business owners. I’ve got a formula. They have to have a desire to win. So a D desire and drive, they have to have ego. You cannot be a business owner without some aspect of ego. Ego gets a bum rap. You know, when ego becomes arrogance, it becomes a negative. But ego is really important because you get kicked every day as a business owner. And in third, you have to have humility. You can’t look at yourself as the smartest person in the room all the time. So if you’re driven, you have ego, but you have enough humility to be coachable. That’s the that’s the makeup of my ideal customer profile. Okay. I’m a relationship guy, and I can tell from the very beginning if we’re going to be able to develop a relationship and if you’ve got those three characters, we’re going to be able to work. I love somebody who’s driven got a little bit of an edge with with with the ego because they want to own it, but at the same time, they’re coachable and they want to hear more. And so we start from the very beginning, understanding relationship. And when you understand what somebody needs, that’s half the battle in developing that relationship because it’s not all about me. It really is about you.

Stone Payton: [00:15:09] So have you had the benefit of a mentor or a coach of your own to help keep you in check the way you were describing helping your clients stay focused? Or do you have to pull all that off by yourself? Well, I.

Mike Watkins: [00:15:22] Mean, there are multiple, you know, multiple coaches that I’ve got, you know, from a personal standpoint and from a professional standpoint, you know, I’ve had over the 45 years of when I was working for someone, I probably had somewhere in the range of 80 different managers or leaders or bosses or bosses bosses thing. And I always found to take something from everyone. And so in doing business, I do a lot of networking. I talk to a lot of people who have been there before who can coach me on certain things. There might be different levels and different aspects of things that I just don’t know because I can’t be the smartest person in the room. One of my best coaches right now is the one who’s working with me on social media. I think he’s 25. He good for you, though? You know, I’ve got. But but that’s what I need. I need someone to call my baby ugly. And help me in every arena there is.

Stone Payton: [00:16:34] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you? I think it’s marvelous that you get into the boardroom. You’re talking to these folks. Obviously, I can tell just in conversing with you for 10 or 15 minutes, I can see why a lot of people would say, yes, let’s do this. How do you get to have those conversations in the first place? Are you out there shaking trees? Is it all referral? How does it work in a business like yours?

Mike Watkins: [00:17:00] A lot of it is is referral or relationship. You know, anytime I talk to a business owner. What they might do from an advertising perspective to bring in customers is important. But if they’re not telling me their number one source of customer acquisition is referral. That means they have some work to do. So relationships and referrals and those kinds of opportunities are really critical. And then you know what situations where you can offer things to people, where you can offer advice to people, where you can coach. I just just last week I spoke to a business incubator, a group of about 30 entrepreneurs, sharing with them what I call OPM, other people’s mistakes. So we we did a workshop on marketing and much of that workshop was on other people’s mistakes. And, you know, coming out of that have a couple of conversations going on. And, and so it’s just that it’s all of those kinds of things. The more you give, the more you get back and sharing content and sharing ideas and being open to relationships and networking, all of those kinds of things. All of that is what leads to the end goal.

Stone Payton: [00:18:26] Well, in my experience at least, it’s been it comes back to you in some way and maybe not often in a straight line necessarily. When you go help out a, you know, a group of young entrepreneurs or that kind of thing. But it seems to come back in its own way sometimes, you know, tenfold. Just being out there, serve first, serve early, serve often. But even if the only thing that comes from that is just when you articulate those ideas and you’re trying to help someone else with whatever your specialized knowledge is, it helps crystallize your own thinking and make you that much more effective for the next guy that you’re serving who is writing you a check, doesn’t it?

Mike Watkins: [00:18:59] That’s exactly right. When you teach, When you teach, you get better. Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Stone Payton: [00:19:06] So you’re obviously clearly it comes through on the airwaves. I’m sure it definitely comes through in the studio game. This guy is passionate about what he’s what he’s doing outside the scope of your of your work, of what we’re talking about. Any other passions that you pursue? My listeners know me. I like to hunt, fish and travel. So it’s no secret anything kind of outside the scope of this that you like to nerd out about and dive into.

Mike Watkins: [00:19:29] Well, what I’m as passionate as I am about being strategic and marketing and helping business owners. My my biggest passion, my biggest two passions are my family and helping people with marriages. And so my wife and I are heavily involved in marriage ministry and we work with couples and we work in a marriage ministry. We we do an ongoing couples groups. And we’ve got a great big old married couples retreat that we do annually. And so that’s really that that’s one of the reasons God placed me here. It’s to work with people in their marriages.

Stone Payton: [00:20:15] I think that’s marvelous. I’m glad I asked.

Mike Watkins: [00:20:18] I’m glad you did, too. All right.

Stone Payton: [00:20:20] Before we wrap, I’d love it if we could leave our listeners with a couple of actionable I’ll call them pro tips. Right. Just to I mean, number one, pro tip gang, if you want to have a conversation about any of this kind of thing, reach out, tap into Mike’s work. I’m sure he’d be glad to have a conversation with you, but maybe something. Someone’s listening. What are some things that they could begin to think about? Maybe start doing stop doing? Maybe a book they could read? Let’s just give them a little something to chew on. If we could.

Mike Watkins: [00:20:47] Have a plan Number one thing. Have a plan. I can’t tell how many times I receive calls about, Hey, I want to advertise on the radio. Great. Tell me about your plan. What’s your. Well, I do X. Okay, so tell me about your plan. Who’s your customer? So have a plan. Know your customer. Know your customer. It is critical. You can’t sell anything to anybody if you don’t know what they want. People buy for two reasons. One, it’s a problem that’s important enough to put money behind. Two, it’s a problem that they either can’t fix or don’t want to expend the resources on their own to fix. So if someone’s going to spend money only for those reasons, so understand what people need, excuse me, and then be focused and remain focused on what they need. Don’t start this way on other things. Squirrel and you get an idea Over here. Hello? That’s me.

Stone Payton: [00:21:54] He caught me again. Casey. That is me.

Mike Watkins: [00:21:57] Yeah, I mean, those are. Those are. Those are some of the biggest. Don’t get persuaded by your. Your competitor or your friend. I have a friend in Saint Louis who’s doing what I do, but they do x. I need to do X. No, you don’t. We don’t have arches in Atlanta, so don’t do what someone else does just because it works for them. Those are probably kind of the biggest rocks that I see. If you’re going to do some advertising, spend what you need for that particular medium. If you don’t have the budget for that medium, do something else or you’re not ready to advertise. You know, there are just some things that folks have done that you want to be careful.

Stone Payton: [00:22:42] Marvelous. Thank you. Sounds like marvelous counsel to me. All right. If someone would like to reach out, have a substantive conversation with you or someone on your team, begin to tap into your work. What are the coordinates? What’s the best way for them to do that?

Mike Watkins: [00:22:54] Easiest way is to go to the website. The Joy of Business strategy.com. The joy of business strategy.com. We’re on LinkedIn we blog on LinkedIn, go to the website. You can find all kinds of information there about what we do. Contact information, reach out, read some of the blogs that’ll give you a sense for who we are, and we’d love to talk to folks.

Stone Payton: [00:23:22] Marvelous. Well, thank you for coming in, man. It has been an absolute delight having you on the show. Keep up the good work. You’re doing Important work, man. And we appreciate you. And we want to keep up with your story as it continues to unfold.

Mike Watkins: [00:23:36] Stone Thanks so much for having me. We love small businesses. We love major businesses. We just love business and and helping them with their strategy. And I appreciate you having me.

Stone Payton: [00:23:45] Well, it’s my pleasure, man. Hey, how about hanging out with us while we visit with our next guest?

Mike Watkins: [00:23:49] I would love to do that because I want to hear what she’s got to say because I’m fired up.

Stone Payton: [00:23:56] All right, gang. Me and Mike are ready for the headliner. I hope you guys are, too. Please join me in welcoming back to the Business RadioX microphone with Flourish for Moms. Ms. Casey Howard, how are you?

Casey Howard: [00:24:09] I’m so good. How are you?

Stone Payton: [00:24:11] I am doing well. What’d you learn in that last segment? Anything touch you there?

Casey Howard: [00:24:15] So many great nuggets there. I mean. Yeah, I just feel like we could all use someone like Mike.

Stone Payton: [00:24:22] There you go.

Casey Howard: [00:24:23] All the other people that come here need his services.

Stone Payton: [00:24:26] Isn’t that the truth?

Stone Payton: [00:24:27] Literally everybody on my logo wall ought to be talking.. Yeah. I’ll put his interview on a CD and sell it to you for $4.95. You know, free. Just pay $4.95 for shipping.

Casey Howard: [00:24:36] Okay. Sounds good.

Casey Howard: [00:24:37] It’s a deal.

Stone Payton: [00:24:38] All right. Tell us a little bit about Flourish for Moms, product services and your mission and purpose. Who are you helping and why?

Casey Howard: [00:24:45] Sure. So Flourish for Moms is a. A product based brand. Where? Basically, we are so long story short, I went on this whole journey kind of late last year where I was just really feeling like crap to say it in the most, you know, layman terms possible. But I just wasn’t feeling that good and I wasn’t sick. There was really nothing that I could pinpoint that was wrong with me. It really just boiled down to the fact that I was not taking care of myself. I’m a mom of three kids and I just let that completely take over me. And so I wasn’t taking care of myself. And when that happens, you end up just not feeling that great physically, not feeling that good mentally. You’re super stressed all the time. So I went down this whole path of starting to implement self care into my daily routine, and I started to feel so much better. Long story short, I’ve kind of always wanted to have some kind of product based business, and it just kind of all seemed like that was the perfect fit. I never really knew, like, what kind of products I wanted to sell these past few years when I had this in my mind. But when I went through my own personal self care journey recently, I was just like the light bulb went off and said, This is what my business is going to be. And so, yeah, I’ve created this brand for moms where they it’s encircles their whole journey of self care.

Casey Howard: [00:26:21] So essentially we’re selling self care products from a journal manifest your best life journal a weighted blanket to help you de-stress and sleep better at night vitamins to help you just make sure you’re taking care of your body. Um, exercise pants to get yourself out and moving. All sorts of things like that. Essential oils. Those are all the initial products I have in my lineup that I’m going to release over this next year. Um, but yeah, it basically encircles this whole entire person and what they will need to take care of themselves as a mom and feel so much better. As moms, we just really we forget about ourselves. Honestly, I would say like 85% of us do. There’s some moms that are really good at making sure after they have babies to just still work out and eat healthy. But most of us, we just kind of were focused on taking care of the kids and we don’t have time for anything else. And it just kind of takes over. So and forgetting about ourselves, you just you really find yourself not feeling that great. And so here I am. I started this whole brand and it’s really exciting. So the first product that we launched just recently over the past few weeks was our journal. So that that’s what’s going on now. And then over the next year’s time, I’ll release the other different products that I mentioned.

Stone Payton: [00:27:55] Well, I’ll tell you, for whatever my opinion is worth, I love it that you’ve launched with something that has these these ladies being introspective and beginning to think about the whole picture and working on their mindset rather than launch with a tangible product. I think that’s a are you finding that you’re beginning to cultivate community and get a tribe around the whole idea and mindset of this work?

Speaker5: [00:28:23] Yes. So…..

Stone Payton: [00:28:23] That’s great.

Casey Howard: [00:28:24] Yeah, it’s really exciting. The The Journal is all about manifesting your best life. Like what do you want as you are a mom, you have kids and that’s great, but you cannot forget about yourself. And so we’re every morning writing down our goals in the journal. Big things, small things and like monthly goal, weekly goal goal for today. And also what is your mantra? All this kind of stuff. It’s really getting back to what do you want and what is your plan and just focusing on yourself. But for the you asked about the community. I do. I did start a Facebook group for moms. So we’re all in that group just kind of interacting together and throwing out, you know, what what are some great tips for some quick exercises you could do today to de-stress your mind? You know, here’s like these are just all examples, like, oh, here’s a picture of my my breakfast this morning, you know, like eating clean and just kind of keeping each other in check.

Stone Payton: [00:29:31] Just communal support, I would think. It’s very important. Be very powerful, right?

Casey Howard: [00:29:34] Yeah. We have a also in the Facebook group, we have a like a early morning accountability group. So I always get up early before the kids so that I have time to. Basically get my head screwed on straight before the kids come at me. Rapid fire. You know, the kids are just like, You have kids, right? Well, they’re grown, but, you know, they just wait.

Stone Payton: [00:29:55] I stand by the product and it’s not me. It’s Holly that made it happen. But I’m still enjoying the fruits of that labor.

Casey Howard: [00:30:01] You wake up if you wake up when the kids do, it’s. It’s too much for me. I can’t take, like, rapid fire questions from three young children without having, like, a moment to myself before they get up. So I’ve been making it this past year at least, a habit to get up before them, do my journaling, have coffee in peace, and just have that moment in time. And so I mentioned that to all the the moms and the Facebook group and they all seemed very interested that they would want to do it too. And so we said, Well, let’s just have an accountability group. And so every morning I just do a quick poll in the group, early morning accountability check in who did it today. And everyone pipes in and there’s a lot of things going on in the group, but the community part is really nice.

Stone Payton: [00:30:50] Well, I think it’s terrific.

Stone Payton: [00:30:51] And I got to tell you, I was teasing my sister in law. She’s staying with us while they build our house in Acworth. And I was up making coffee for everybody. That’s how I contribute around the house. And and I had made mine before I had made hers. And then I was teasing with her. You know, they tell you on the airplane, put that mask on you first and then. Yeah, exactly. But there really is some merit to that on on these more serious right.

Casey Howard: [00:31:15] For for my kids to have a good day you know like I need we set the tone for them so we have to be mentally in a good place before they get up. So we’re setting the tone for them. So I just think it’s really important to get up before they do. If you can. You don’t have to do all the time. I mean, sleep in on the weekends, whatever. But yeah, so the Journal has been the, the first product that we’ve rolled out and other products to follow.

Stone Payton: [00:31:46] Well, again, with that mindset, that ethos and following the kind of counsel that that Mike is describing about, you know, pick a focus, I got to believe the resources, the products, the services, I think they’re just going to continue to pop up for you and then you can make your decisions against. I think Mike would would back up back up this idea against some predetermined criteria. Does it serve these people in this way the way we want? Yeah, I’ll bet you they’re going to continue to crop.

Casey Howard: [00:32:13] Up for you. Yes, I always have all these thoughts in my head about other products I can release for these moms, but it’s really nice because I am my ideal client. I have been through the exact thing that a bunch of other moms out there are going through. So I, I know their their problem. I know their pain points. I know what will help them. And so really, I just I feel lucky that I’ve already gathered this information because this is the most important piece. Before you really, like start your business, you got to find out who your person is. So luckily I am that person I didn’t have to go to of a deep dive. But I. I mean, I feel like I can also really relate to these moms for sure.

Stone Payton: [00:32:55] So say more about what you were doing before this little detour, this little dip and this in this recovery. And are you still serving in that arena as well.

Casey Howard: [00:33:05] Before.

Stone Payton: [00:33:07] Before you started this business? Right, Because because you’ve been here before talking about that work. Are you still doing that work?

Casey Howard: [00:33:14] Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s still my bread and butter for sure. Okay. So, yeah, I’m a maternity and newborn photographer. My portrait studio is in East Cobb. Okay. Still very much doing that. And so that will never go away.

Stone Payton: [00:33:28] Well you meet a lot of moms.

Casey Howard: [00:33:30] Exactly. I know.

Stone Payton: [00:33:31] Sounds like a funnel to me.

Mike Watkins: [00:33:33] How about you, Mike?

Casey Howard: [00:33:34] Yeah, I just. I just put a sign in my studio the other day that said that let them know about the moms Facebook group that I have created. Let them know to join it. And that’s kind of like my my hopper, you know, get all the moms in there and then kind of let them know about these great things I have for them and send them to the other places where they. But, you know, there’s not too much like selling in the Facebook group, but it’s more of like a community and support type thing. But I did yeah, it’s a good funnel for sure because I, I definitely let all the moms know that come into the studio.

Stone Payton: [00:34:05] Well, it’s got to serve each other, right? Because I got to believe one of the things you can do for yourself is go get pictures that you’re proud of and that you like. So yeah, they feed each other, which I think that’s that’s terrific.

Casey Howard: [00:34:17] Yeah.

Casey Howard: [00:34:18] So it all kind of works together in a weird way. It wasn’t that wasn’t really the plan, but it. Yeah, it seems.

Casey Howard: [00:34:25] To be perfect.

Stone Payton: [00:34:26] You get focused on who you want to serve and why, and you invest in serving early, serving often, I think. I don’t know. I just think it just comes to you.

Casey Howard: [00:34:34] It does.

Casey Howard: [00:34:34] And I always now that I think back, I any time a mom, especially a new mom, would come into the studio to get their newborns pictures taken, I always felt the urge to. Just tell them a few. Not too much because I know it’s annoying for someone to tell you all the things when you’re having babies and you’re like, I know whatever. You don’t want someone to tell you. You know what I mean? Like too much advice, like, relax. But I did just feel the strong urge to to let moms know, like just little things that I discovered along the way that no one told me. Like, make sure you’re still taking care of yourself. And, you know, if something’s not working out for you the way that, you know, everyone says you should do it for your child, then just do what works for you. And, you know, I just always felt the urge to tell these moms advice, I guess. And so here I am. I’ve created a whole

Stone Payton: [00:35:27] Now you’ve got a vehicle for it.

Casey Howard: [00:35:28] Brand to help them. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:35:30] All right, let’s talk about me a minute. You know, it’s my show.

Casey Howard: [00:35:33] Yeah, go. Go for it.

Stone Payton: [00:35:35] So I’m a managing partner and and a equity partner in the Business RadioX network, and I’ve got a couple of communities, so I really do want your insight and the benefit of your experience and expertise on on cultivating and serving a community. And I’ve got a couple of different constituencies, one of which is the group of people who are doing every day in their studios, in their markets, in Arizona and Florida and Tennessee exactly what I’m doing here. And so we call them studio partners, right? And they have their own studio. And I just know I’ll take credit for knowing we could do a much better job. And I just lessons learned ideas for for continuing to build that community, support that community and provide value to them. I mean, I’ll take all the help I can get. And of course, the other group is the end user client community who are, you know, they come in here and they host or co-host their own shows or sometimes they let us do the hosting, but they do the other parts. Those are two communities. I feel like we’re serving them well. I know we’re delivering them. Roi right? But I feel like Man Stone, you could be doing such a better job at Stone and Business RadioX of just, yeah, anything you could offer on that front, I’ll take it. Or maybe even if you’ve had some challenges along the way.

Casey Howard: [00:36:53] Community wise. Um. Yeah, I’ve just found that my my Facebook group that I’ve. I mean, that I’ve created just to. I’m really just there to help and I’m not there to, like, try and make money off of.

Stone Payton: [00:37:10] You’re not hammering them, trying to sell them the blanket.

Casey Howard: [00:37:12] I’m not selling anything in there. I’m literally just there to help them and create a good community where we all enjoy interacting and keeping up with each other. So I think you just. Need to make it a point to be providing value for these different groups of people in some form or fashion. I found that the Facebook group is really nice. It’s just an easy way to get people together. So was.

Stone Payton: [00:37:40] There a little bit of.A chicken and egg thing of like, you know, Hey, come join my group. You’re you’re number three or did it or did it.

Casey Howard: [00:37:47] It was it was a little yeah, a little weird at first, like a slow start. But I just initially invited all the moms on my Facebook group that I thought would enjoy being there. And then I did to kind of ramp it up faster. I did tell everyone that had joined the group, you know, tag ten of your mom friends in a Facebook post that you think they would enjoy to be here. And you’ll get entered into a contest to win a $50 Starbucks gift card. So that got a lot of moms to. Yeah, they were all sharing with ten of their friends. So if you have like ten moms share with ten of their friends, then you potentially could get, if everyone joined 100, 100 extra people joining. So I did kind of do something like that at the beginning to get. People to join faster. So that was fun. Yeah.

Casey Howard: [00:38:38] So it’s a work in progress?

Stone Payton: [00:38:40] Well, sure it is. But congratulations on the launch and congratulations on the on the momentum. It may be early to ask, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Share an early win if you can that really sticks out for you. And if you’re open to it and if you experienced it, maybe, you know, a shot in the gut.

Casey Howard: [00:38:59] Okay, Let’s see. Early win. Well, I just recently received the physical sample of the journal that I created. And so shortly after that, I felt like I’m like, Oh, well, I guess now I can start taking pre-sales and take some sales for this journal, you know? And so I did. I threw it out there and I started, I pre launched the journal. So we’re in, we’re taking pre sales right now and I’ve had quite a bit of preorder sales come in so that’s exciting. Like I, I thought of this product, I made it, I designed it, I had a supplier make it for me. They sent it to me and I showed it to everyone. And then now they’re buying it. Even strangers that I don’t know have bought it. So that’s very exciting for me. So it’s just, yeah, got to keep the snowball effect rolling and just, yeah, keep getting more and more sales. So that’s exciting for sure. A punch in the gut, huh? I don’t know. Right now, I really don’t know.

Stone Payton: [00:40:04] Good, I’m glad you can’t think of one. I think that’s fantastic.

Casey Howard: [00:40:08] I’m gonna think about that. I’ll get back to you later.

Stone Payton: [00:40:09] Well, you’ve been in business long enough to know that you’ll get one at some point. Oh, yeah. But you’ve also learned, I suspect, that you’re resilient enough and you have the strategies to work your way through it.

Casey Howard: [00:40:20] Yeah, absolutely.

Casey Howard: [00:40:21] It’s been nice already owning a business and knowing basically what I need to do to get to where I want now. But I mean, the beginning of this business for sure has been kind of difficult. It’s just a lot of the initial start of it all and I think I kind of forgot about. You know how hard the initial stages are because my studio has been up and running for years now. So these past few months and already having a business and starting this business and having three kids and I’m just like, I think I might be like. Yeah, just losing my mind. But then I come back to reality. I’m like, it’s the grind will be over soon. The grind of this new business and I’m going to get it off, you know, and really launched and, you know. It’s not going to be so stressful anymore. So just the initial stages.

Stone Payton: [00:41:09] Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:41:09] So one nugget I picked up in the victory that you described is pre-sales, right? And I’ll share with you why I kind of zoned in, lasered in on that is it’s not uncommon at all for young entrepreneurs, people who are doing startups, right? And they’ll come to me. And in my case, it’s rarely a formal consulting coaching relationship. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve had one of those in years. It’s often, you know, a beer under the elm tree over there behind Reformation or, you know, something like that.

Casey Howard: [00:41:39] But a good spot.

Stone Payton: [00:41:40] It’s a marvelous spot. That’s where all my best work gets done.

Casey Howard: [00:41:42] Great conversations go down there. I’m sure.

Stone Payton: [00:41:44] You better believe it.

Stone Payton: [00:41:45] And so but so often in their mind, they’re going to they may have without the benefit of some direction from somebody like me or you or Mike going out. Spend X dollars on the journal. Yeah, it’s parked in mom’s garage or, you know, or in their basement and now go out and sell it and you really, especially at this day and age, with so many products and services, go out there and sell it, or better yet, go out and find out what the customer wants. Maybe they don’t want that journal, Maybe they want this journal, you know, or whatever. Yeah. And then pre-sell it and it sounds so simple and straightforward, but I mean people get excited about their ideas but.

Stone Payton: [00:42:26] Right?

Casey Howard: [00:42:27] Yeah. So you don’t always have to. Just. Find out where you’re going to get all this money from to start a business and use all of your own funding to. Buy all the inventory that you need. I just did the reverse and I am taking pre-sale orders now. I’m getting all the money up front and they’re very well aware that the pre-sale period will take several months and you’ll get the journal when it’s ready. They’re just excited that that they’re going to get it. They are have preordered paid their money and once the pre-sales are over then I’ll take that. Capital to go and buy all the journals and and then some some extras with all of that money and ship them out to everyone. And then the rest of the bulk of the inventory will be dispersed to all the different sales outlets.

Stone Payton: [00:43:22] What’s my favorite form of financing? Again, I talked to people trying to get anything from grants to loans like Main Street Warriors. They’re they’re either competing in a contest or winning a grant or a loan or were these startup competitions that we do stuff at. And but my favorite form of financing is customer funding. Yes, that’s the way to run a sustainable business.

Casey Howard: [00:43:42] Getting a loan and all that stuff and using your own money, that’s extremely stressful. So I was excited to figure out the route of going pre-sales, and when I heard that, I’m like, Yeah, bingo, we can start now.

Stone Payton: [00:43:56] It might be a little unfair to ask you on the air.

Casey Howard: [00:43:58] That’s okay,

Stone Payton: [00:43:58] But I’m going to ask it. Do you think you’ll have product available to ship in time for Christmas?

Casey Howard: [00:44:06] Oh yeah. So pre-sales. I’m okay. So pre-sales are supposed to be ending May 20th and then after that I will order everything and that. They’re saying it could take 30 to 60 days, depending on what kind of shipping I select. So. Here In about two months, I will have a bunch of product. So definitely before Christmas.

Stone Payton: [00:44:33] I wasn’t a strategic business question. It was a very selfish question because I want to get Katie one and Kelly one for Christmas.

Casey Howard: [00:44:39] Oh, that’s so sweet.

Casey Howard: [00:44:40] Yes, they’ll definitely be around.

Stone Payton: [00:44:43] They’ll be all over it. Well, Katie will appreciate it. My youngest, Kelly will. She will just jump on it with all fours. She’ll just love it. I don’t even know what it costs. And I just committed to buy two so I can see. I think you’re going to be successful.

Casey Howard: [00:44:56] Go ahead and preorder it now because it’s $5 off during preorder, so do that for sure. It flourished for mom’s dot com in the shop.

Stone Payton: [00:45:04] Well I will jump on that. Anything else that you might be willing to to share with with especially those the the people who are this is their first swing at entrepreneurship. You know maybe they’ve got a corporate job but they’re trying a little side hustle or something. I don’t know. Surprises. A couple of tips, a couple of dos or don’ts. Let’s let’s see if we can, you know, remove a little bit of the friction and shrink the timeline for them.

Casey Howard: [00:45:31] Yeah.

Casey Howard: [00:45:32] Well, so my my studio, my portrait studio that I have that was initially a side hustle where I was taking pictures just on the weekends for people while I worked my corporate job. And I did know in the back of my mind that eventually I want to quit this corporate job and I want to do this full time. And so I was very much this person you’re describing, you know, about five years ago, I would say just to really focus in and and work on it all the time, consistently, consistently posting, never giving up, even if you feel like you’re not really getting anywhere and just if this is what you want to do, just continue on. It’s going to be it’s a little stressful, I guess, at first to get the business kind of started and going. But if this is something you really want to do and you want to eventually leave your corporate job, then just keep up with it because the rewards are so great when you get to work for yourself. I’ve been at both ends of the spectrum. I like I liked where I worked my corporate job. That was a great company. However, I just feel like working for yourself is so rewarding. So if you if you can get there and work for yourself, you’ll you’ll definitely see the benefits for sure.

Stone Payton: [00:46:48] Well, there’s certainly rewards, aren’t there? Yes.

Casey Howard: [00:46:51] I mean it’s very hard, but it’s kind of like the benefits really outweigh the little daily stresses that you might feel sometimes. So.

Stone Payton: [00:46:58] So I stack the deck. I married way up and she’s got a great job, And she’s very supportive. So that’s my first piece of advice to entrepreneurs. If you can marry up.

Casey Howard: [00:47:10] I know, at least have someone who’s supporting you. That is so important, though. You’re right. Like to have my my husband was very supportive of me quitting my corporate job and going out and. No, that’s everything, right? You don’t have that. That’s very sad. And it’s hard to. Yeah. To really continue on and go out on your own if your spouse is saying like, you know, like this is never going to happen. And I have I can’t imagine met people that they were trying to go out on their own. Their spouse is just really not supportive. So have a good support system. If it’s not your spouse, then get in a bunch of Facebook groups full of the people that do what you want to do, or entrepreneur group or a mentoring group, mastermind group, whatever, and be surrounded by that support group for sure.

Stone Payton: [00:47:56] Great advice.

Stone Payton: [00:47:57] And I do I do think it’s been my experience that feeding your mind consistently and maybe making a habit of it, a discipline of it, and maybe for you, it’s an early morning thing. For someone else, it might be a after the kids are in bed thing. But I do think that that discipline of feeding your mind. Yes, over time is anyway, it’s proven helpful to me and it sounds like it has.

Casey Howard: [00:48:18] It is important.

Stone Payton: [00:48:19] All right. So what’s next for you and what can we do to help? And by we, I mean me, Mike, the Business RadioX Network, Cherokee Business Radio, the the community here, which of course, as you well know, in Cherokee County and I mean, just so supportive. What can we do to help?

Casey Howard: [00:48:34] So what’s next for me is I will after pre-sales I’ll be fully launching. Meaning right now I’m just taking pre-sales through my website, but I will be selling my journal through all their bigger sales outlets. So through Amazon I have a Shopify store, so we’ll be going all over the place here towards the end of the year. So that’s what really for anyone that buys the Journal or anyone that has learned my journaling method that I’ve taught you in the Moms Facebook group or wherever you may have seen it, like I really if you could go on to Amazon when I do launch there, I need your reviews. Okay, Amazon reviews to get up there. In the. On the list of sellers. So yeah, reviews are helpful for sure. Yeah. Other than that, just sharing with your friends about my business. There are so many moms out there and so many moms that need to take care of themselves and that aren’t so. Let them know about Flourish or Moms.

Stone Payton: [00:49:43] You got it. And you made two sales this morning.

Mike Watkins: [00:49:46] Probably a lot more than that.

Casey Howard: [00:49:47] I’m excited.

Stone Payton: [00:49:49] All right. So what are the coordinates? What’s the best way for people to learn more or talk to you website, email, LinkedIn, whatever you feel like is appropriate.

Casey Howard: [00:49:56] So the most important thing you want to do is subscribe to our email list. That’s how you will never miss a update or a launch of a product or any, you know, special pre-launch sale that we’re doing. So you first and foremost want to get on our email list. And the way you do that is on our website. It’s pretty direct. You’ll see where you can sign up to subscribe to our email list. So that’s on flourish for moms.com. Go and subscribe to our email list and then also that website flourish for moms.com is where you can find us anything that you might need. And of course we are on Facebook and Instagram as well under flourish for moms and any moms that want to join the moms Facebook group I mentioned that is on Facebook and the group is called Moms De-stressing and Flourishing in Life Together. It’s a long one, but it describes exactly what we want.

Stone Payton: [00:50:47] So there you go.

Stone Payton: [00:50:48] Nobody’s having to question it.

Casey Howard: [00:50:49] Right.

Stone Payton: [00:50:50] Well, thanks for coming in and getting us updated. What an exciting time. We’re excited for you. We want to continue to follow this story and we’re going to try to help any way we can.

Casey Howard: [00:51:00] I’m excited. Thank you so much.

Stone Payton: [00:51:02] Well, it is my pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guests this morning. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.

BRX Pro Tip: 4 Things Professionally Trained BRX Hosts Ask

May 17, 2023 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: 4 Things Professionally Trained BRX Hosts Ask

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BRX Pro Tip: 4 Things Professionally Trained BRX Hosts Ask

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, as you well know, especially early on, when we have a newer host in the Business RadioX system, often they don’t know what to ask. They’re asking us, “Well, what questions am I going to ask during the course of the interview?” Can you speak to that?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Sure. I think it’s important. I know when someone hosts for the first time, they don’t really understand kind of what it means to be a host. And in our world, we look at hosting, not just hosting of the show, but there’s a before the show, a during the show, and an after part of the the show. And we train our hosts to leverage each one of those elements to get the most out of that experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] So, some of the basics when it comes to before the show, we want to make sure that the host asks how to pronounce the guest’s name, how to pronounce the company name. That’s an important thing. That’s not something you just kind of blow by. If you don’t pronounce their name right, they’re not going to be happy. So, make sure you do that at the very least.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] Now, during the show, you want to have some go-to questions. One of the go-to questions I ask in a lot of the interviews is what’s their backstory, how did they get into their business. I like to ask for them to share some advice for a young person that’s just getting into their industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:36] And then, after the show, I like to ask if the guest knows any other people that are doing interesting things in their industry that we should be interviewing on a future show. And then, I ask them to make a warm referral if they know anybody.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:53] So, some of these things are just the way that we run our shows, but they’re very helpful to give some structure for that new host to know that before the show, I got to cover this ground; during the show, I want to cover this ground; and then after the show, I want to cover this ground. And so, we want to be able to go into the show prepared and ready for anything. And having this type of structure and having some of these go-to questions are really useful.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:23] Now, when a person is going through our training, they’re going to learn a lot more than that. But this gives you an idea of some of the things that we cover before, during, and after a show.

CodeLaunch 2023

May 15, 2023 by angishields

BRX Onsite

CodeLaunch 2023

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CodeLaunch sponsors and partners put thousands of dollars in professional seed services behind the winners of its national seed accelerator competition. CodeLaunch has become a unique and critical amenity to pre-MVP startups.

At the core of CodeLaunch is an annual seed accelerator competition between individuals and groups who have software technology startup ideas.

Transcripts are machine transcribed by Sonix

Isaac Carter, Contollo

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TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the beautiful Buckhead Theater for CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here the place is buzzing. It’s Buckhead Theater, Atlanta, Georgia CodeLaunch, Atlanta 2023. So excited to be talking to my first guest today, Isaac Carter with Contollo, who is a sponsor here today. And he sponsors CodeLaunch around the Country. Welcome, Isaac.

Isaac Carter: [00:00:41] Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:42] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about your firm, how you serving folks.

Isaac Carter: [00:00:47] Well, I believe very strongly in that technology should be an opportunity both for the companies that leverage it and for the people that are doing the work there. So we work with universities throughout Latin America, especially in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, and we train the students there on how to leverage skills in mobile app development and cloud computing and help with internships and then get them jobs with US firms. Allow the US firms to take advantage of really high quality talent and also some cost savings and availability to talent that is just typically really hard to find here in the US.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:25] Well, what’s the genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Isaac Carter: [00:01:28] So I started doing work with my church group back when I was 12 years old. We actually built an orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. My dad’s a master electrician and have been staying in touch with these folks through the years and was working with an orphanage down in Managua, Nicaragua, just outside Managua, and was thinking about moving down there and becoming a missionary. And the people there said, Hey, you know, we love our missionaries, but we really need jobs. What can we do to get some jobs here? It’s they were going through some pretty bad political unrest at the time. And so I started interviewing these folks and they had tons of certifications and they were exactly the kind of people talent that we were looking for with our clients up here in the US. So we opened an office down there and started just doing the connections.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] So you had a business in the US providing services?

Isaac Carter: [00:02:18] Yeah, I was acting as a big data cloud consultant, but just by myself and started just hiring some folks down in Central America, training them on using big data, things like Databricks, Google Public Cloud, using Looker Studio and BigQuery, and a lot on the Azure framework as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:37] So you were taking like skills you knew that folks were hungry for here in the US and you were just saying, Hey, is it possible to train these folks who are motivated and have the desire to do this, but maybe they don’t know exactly what skills to be focusing in on?

Isaac Carter: [00:02:54] At the time, there were people with Azure Cloud certifications working in call centers like they were. They had masters, so they had the.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:00] Right skills, but they just didn’t have no one was connecting the dots to give them the opportunity.

Isaac Carter: [00:03:06] That’s exactly right.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:07] So then when you come in there is were you getting traction like at go? Was this one of those things where you were like, you just unlocked this thing, you know, a treasure that people didn’t realize existed?

Isaac Carter: [00:03:18] Oh, yeah, because that’s how business works.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:20] Well, look, it doesn’t work like that. But you found a pool of people that had the right skills that were probably taking jobs well beneath what they could be making if they lived in the United States.

Isaac Carter: [00:03:32] We were very methodical about it, so we started updating their skills. Maybe they had the skills, but they didn’t have experience. So we started doing our own hackathons and started doing internship programs for these folks. And it was it was a journey. But yes, absolutely. With some strategic growth, we were able to get them in with folks. It was not an overnight success story by any means. But yeah, we were able to bring them in, train them, get them the skills and experience, and then start ramping up with clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:01] Well, and when you mentioned earlier that now you’re working with universities.

Isaac Carter: [00:04:05] That’s right, Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:06] So that was a slight pivot from the initial.

Isaac Carter: [00:04:09] Yeah, absolutely. And then getting with universities, training the professors on what skills were necessary, they were still teaching folks MySQL, which is great, but not for enterprise classes, right? And so teaching, getting the professors to use the right technology stacks and teaching them to use flutter and angular and the modern technology that’s that’s really used and.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:30] Keeping them abreast of everything that’s changing when it changes. So they’re ready instead of lagging.

Isaac Carter: [00:04:35] Yeah. And also really focused on the language skills, because even if you can work in a call center and do tech support for Netflix, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you can communicate accurately with cloud data or mobile technology terminologies.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:51] So your team helps upskill them in those kind of areas that they need in order to be kind of a perfect provider for your clients in the US. That’s right. And then so what has been the biggest challenge? It sounds like you there are a pool of people that fit the bill here if they’re trained properly.

Isaac Carter: [00:05:08] Yeah, yeah. A lot of the challenges at first especially were around language communication skills and then a lot of folks try they work on on site onshore and then they start trying to get. The nearshoring or offshore offshoring and start realizing that they’re just not getting the result that they want. So just learning how to really leverage and maximize the experience with nearshore resources was a challenge for us because you need to know how to turn. Like it’s not like you and I are sitting together right now, and if something’s not right, you can signal me with your hands or with your eyes, and I.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:45] Can point and you.

Isaac Carter: [00:05:46] Can write. You can point or use an iteration from an illustration from a movie that they might not be familiar with. So learning how to communicate and also teach them to communicate more than just the language, but make sure that the the folks know what they’re working on and how to be successful with that. And a lot of companies, even on site, like for the last 15 years, Forbes has said that 78% of all tech projects fail. So if you’re failing when you’re working at the same cubicle with somebody, what are you going to do? If they’re working in a different country.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:19] And they speak another language?

Isaac Carter: [00:06:21] Yeah. Or yeah. So that was that was a challenge. But that’s a challenge that you would face anywhere when you’re sitting next to somebody making sure that you’re working on something that has the business impact that you need is is a skill all on its own. And and that’s.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:36] Why they partner with you because you’re helping kind of minimize some of that and alleviate some of that pain because they’re dealing with you, not them, directly.

Isaac Carter: [00:06:45] Right. I help them devise a strategy myself and I have some other architects that we’ve trained. Right, Your team. Yeah. And we can come in and create a strategy before you even start coding. You get the requirements and then you develop a strategy around how are we going to leverage the cloud? Because a lot of people like to take what they’ve done on site and do the same exact thing in the cloud and next thing you know you’re running $3,000 a day in cloud hosting and you’re spending because there’s.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:10] More efficient ways to do.

Isaac Carter: [00:07:11] Yeah, if you know how to design it that way. So designing the strategy and then designing exactly what your what your protocols and what your best what your practice is accepted practices are. And then you start ramping on your teams either if they’re in the US working on the desk with you or if they’re in Central America or Pakistan or wherever your teams are located, you have to have the strategy first. And that’s where a lot of people historically have been failing, is that they just start working and hope the strategy catches up with them and it doesn’t work that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:44] So why was it important for you to partner with Code Launch?

Isaac Carter: [00:07:48] So the last couple of years I’ve been really thinking a lot about how we lack some leadership in our company. And my mentor was talking to me and he said, Hey, what are you doing to foster leadership in your company? So what kind of opportunities are you giving your team to lead besides just giving them a task and expecting them to do it? And especially in Nearshore with managed services, they work for me, but they also are working through a partner for somebody else a lot of the time. So we need our own internal culture and I need the ability to to have something that we can all work on together, even if we’re working on six different projects. So code Launch has just been amazing at giving me the opportunity to bring people I believe in up, give them the opportunity that I’ve got five people here with me from Central America, Nicaragua and Honduras. They led the teams this year. They were face to face with the with the startup. They were taking the requirements. I was here to make sure that it was successful because I’m always going to make sure my team is successful. But they come up, they work together. When we won in Dallas, man, it was huge. We had people begging us to come work. For us, recruiting became a non-issue.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:55] A lot easier, huh?

Isaac Carter: [00:08:56] Yeah. And then we get leads. We’re on target to close a little bit over $2 in sales from our Houston outreach just from that one event through the partnerships and relationships that we made during that event, which is amazing for us. And we see the leadership, we see the culture growing since our coming into the end of 2022. We were concerned because of inflation that we might start losing staff members. And as soon as we won that belt, we we have not had an exit since then in November. And we’ve had people continuously coming in and wanting to be a part of what we’re doing and really engaged and the people that are the most engaged to get the most certifications, they’re the ones that come up and travel and get the.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:40] Right they get the goodies, they.

Isaac Carter: [00:09:42] Get the goodies. We took them to a Braves game yesterday and face to face work with some local companies that are that they work for. They’re on contract with a local company and they met with them, worked with them face to face yesterday. And so it’s just opportunities that because of code launch, it’s helping us grow our internal culture, helping us increase our communication and network and helping us create a more of a leadership and internal culture. That’s just really been amazing for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:12] Now, what advice would you give somebody who who hasn’t done code launch but has heard about it? What would you share to them to get the most out of doing it next year.

Isaac Carter: [00:10:22] You mean? From a sponsor or from a contestant.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:25] You you’ve got to sit on both sides of that table. So you tell me. Yeah.

Isaac Carter: [00:10:30] So if you’re coming in as a contestant, know your market, know your edge and know your monetization strategy. I’ve been this is my third event right now that we’re doing. And every event people are here on the stage or coming in wanting to be finalists and they don’t know how to communicate, how they’re going to make money. So if you can’t communicate how you have an advantage over somebody else and the other competitors and you can’t communicate how you’re going to make money in a way that’s believable, and I we can agree with, you’re not going to be successful and you’re not going to be successful in business either. So and then on our side, from the sponsor side, let this be a part of your culture. Let it be an event that you use to reward folks that deserve it. Or if you have people that you want to move into leadership positions, use it for that, use it for man. Every cold launch, our social engagement is through the roof. My LinkedIn profile goes from 50 hits to a thousand hits a day for a whole week. All of our engagement through our websites, through all of our our networking is just through the roof. So make sure you’ve got messaging out there that that allows you to leverage that and then come here, talk to the other the other participants and don’t come here trying to do business, come here trying to meet people. Don’t come here trying to win. We won Dallas. We went to Houston, not ready to win, but just ready to engage. And that engagement has brought us Dallas. We left with the belt. Houston. I left with 12 leads that I converted into four contracts. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:08] And we know which one you want more more of moving forward, right? That’s right. Both So if somebody wants to connect with you and learn more about what you got going on, what’s the website?

Isaac Carter: [00:12:19] It’s cantalo dot net control. L o dot net.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:25] Well, Isaac, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Isaac Carter: [00:12:29] Thanks so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:30] All right. This is Lee Kantor Broadcasting live from Code Lounge, Atlanta 2023.

Taylor Ri’chard, CASTU

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TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the beautiful Buckhead Theater for CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from the Buckhead Theater. This is CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. I am with the winner, the champion of the night, Taylor Ri’chard, and he is with CASTU. Welcome, Taylor.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:00:38] Thank you for having me. It’s exciting.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:40] I know. Exciting stuff. And have we interviewed before?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:00:44] I’ve interviewed with Business RadioX before for one of my films, so it’s very good to be back. I like you guys a lot.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] We’re good luck. Thank you. We’re good luck. You are. So tell us about cast you. For folks who don’t know, what is it? You have an app that.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:00:58] Yeah, so cast is a mobile app for people in the industry, entertainment industry. We connect talent with productions. We connect productions with investors. So the idea of cashew is that we allow or help you serve as a one stop shop. If you’re breaking into the industry or even if you’ve been here long, helping you stay employed, helping you find gainful opportunities and really kind of moving the needle for productions who need investment.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:23] So you’re helping the talent find opportunities and you’re helping the people who have productions get the investors. Absolutely. Yep. Kind of complete the loop.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:01:35] Complete the loop because that’s usually the problem. People will get access to making the films, but they didn’t have to deal with it after. So we’re hoping to make this whole thing a unique circle just to make sure we can help everybody.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] So what was the genesis of the idea? How did you come up with this?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:01:50] So I’m a filmmaker. That is what I do my my day job. And really, we created this idea to solve our problem because we had a problem finding the right talent problem, finding money and those things. So I said, What if we created a uniform app that solved all these problems? I’m sure other filmmakers were struggling with this and it looks like it was true.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:09] So now is the app available here for the Atlanta area?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:02:13] It’s going to be worldwide. So in six months we have a launch in the United States. And in February 2024, we’ll go international on the App Store and on the I got to learn that the Android marketplace for iPhones.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:28] So now how did you get connected with code launch?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:02:30] So we were at an event and met Jason Taylor, who told us about code launch and how it was a great way for, you know, startup tech companies to really have a launch pad. And so we applied. I kind of feel like a Cinderella story, to be honest, because this is our first year. And I know some people have been coming back and forth, but we applied and here I sit.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:50] And here you sit. So why do you think that you made it to the top? What was kind of your secret sauce on this?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:02:57] I think what I did is I focused on the truth, right? Everyone dreams, Everyone believes in magic, right? And so that’s what I focused on. And I just told our story and told the story of so many countless people out there who want opportunity but are barred from access by Hollywood gatekeepers. And so we’re going to put the power in their hands.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:20] So now part of this competition is successful entrance and people who have won have had some monetization plan that was important component. What is your monetization on the app?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:03:32] So we are going to be free for the users. I’m sorry, free for the production companies because again, we are disruptive, so we want to get the industry to come aboard, put their jobs and put their opportunities at no cost to them. And for low fee, we’re going to charge the users $9.99 to access all that a month.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:49] And then so the users can then go on board. They can create a profile for themselves. Absolutely.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:03:54] So it works like an Instagram. So think of Instagram meets. Indeed. So it’s a social platform. You can go there, you can post, you can comment, you can put your resume, you can send messages, you can apply to jobs. And if you are on the other side of the house, the industry, the truest saying, but you can source talent, you can find opportunities for you to invest all in the app in a one all all in one stop.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:20] So now if the talent are you defining talent as the actors or this could be a sound person or a videographer, anybody that is is kind of involved with the production is talent.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:04:33] Absolutely. So it’s talent. It’s below the line. It’s above the line. Directors, writers, grips, pays. And this is just our entry way. Eventually, we want to solve the problem for the entire entertainment industry. So if you’re a sports writer, newscaster all of those things that are defined as media and entertainment, you can find your job in Kasshu.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:53] And then how? So I put my profile in, say I’m an actor, I put my profile in, and then I just hope somebody sees it. Or is there anything I could be doing to kind of pinging people to.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:05:04] Say, Absolutely. So the good thing is that actors can empower themselves by buying a package and they can advertise so they can post their reels, they can advertise themselves because we have a get discovered section so they can advertise themselves and get discovered where productions will get emails sent to them. Hey, a new entrant, a new talent, something like that. That puts them at the top of the list. So if someone. You know, filters out like I’m looking for an African-American female. You paid for advertising. You’ll be at the top of the list.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:29] And then if I’m a production, I can search for African-American female. And then I will have a.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:05:35] List spit out to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:36] Yep, absolutely. And then, like you said, it’s like Instagram. I can just scroll down and see who catches my eye.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:05:41] That’s exactly it. That’s the concept.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:43] And then how what was it like with the the partners that you had with launched.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:05:50] My deaf team. Right. Improving Atlanta. They were amazing. They really latched on in the beginning. They understood what we were trying to. Are you a.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Technologist at.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:05:58] All? I am not.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:59] So you are a non tech? I am not.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:06:01] Founder at all.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:03] So you haven’t explained people what you wanted? This is how I want.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:06:06] I walked them through my loose idea and they framed it up. We went through the hackathon, the hackathon in two days and I felt so good because not only were they excited about getting to work on it, they believe in it and they like it. And so that made all the difference. There was a lot of good energy in that room, so it’s no doubt that we’re able to have that same energy replicated on stage.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:29] And then you’re excited about moving forward?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:06:31] I am very excited about moving forward, especially with this on my arm, this belt. So I’m very excited.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:36] So if somebody wants to connect with you, learn more about the app, what is the coordinates?

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:06:42] So you can find us on Instagram at Cast W X2, or you can follow me at at Taylor, Richard T LRC Ricard.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:54] Good stuff. Taylor. Congratulations. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work. We appreciate you. Thank you.

Taylor Ri’chard: [00:07:00] I appreciate you guys love it.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:01] All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few at code launch, Atlanta 2023.

Lee Mosbacker, Cyrannus

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TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the beautiful Buckhead Theater for CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here live from the Buckhead Theater CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. So excited to be talking to the presenting sponsor, Lee Mosbacker with Cyrannus. Welcome.

Lee Mosbacker: [00:00:35] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about your company, how you serving folks.

Lee Mosbacker: [00:00:41] Well, Serena’s identified some problems early on the last couple of years in VC, where it just seemed that young or unexperienced investors were making mistakes around basic technology. And so I formed Serena’s to be sort of a due diligence blog initially, but now we’ve kind of pivoted to be a due diligence or I guess a rating system for startup ideas and then connect those with qualified investors.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] So what is the harder part to find the qualified investors or the vetted ideas?

Lee Mosbacker: [00:01:14] You know, the idea is we one of the reasons why we’re sponsoring Code launch is because we get access to a lot of great ideas. The investors, you know, it depends on the type of investor. If you’re an active investor or you have a fund, you know, you may want to do your own due diligence and that’s fine. The type of investors I look for are individuals that want to syndicate due diligence with the world’s leading edge technologists, with the with the best marketers with imagine you can put together a dream team to evaluate a deal and eventually we want to turn that into an automated system where it’s sort of the the chat GPT for, for venture funds. But it’s kind of easy to find both. You know, we’ve we’ve got 10,000 experts signed up. We’ve got eight VCs that are working with us currently and with with Code launch, we’re getting an access to 3000 ideas a year. So it feels great.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:05] So how long have you been with Code? Long.

Lee Mosbacker: [00:02:07] I’ve been sponsoring code launch for about a year. We’ve done four events. This is our fourth event and we’re signed up to do two more.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:15] Now. When you first started with them, was that something that you you kind of were betting on and hoping and or did you feel pretty confident from Go that this was a good fit?

Lee Mosbacker: [00:02:27] You know, we really aligned. So we did we did a test in Columbus, Ohio, and I got a chance to meet Jason Taylor, who runs runs Code Launch, and him and I have sort of the same idea about what makes a successful business. If you’re a Jordan Belfort and you want to go pump and dump a startup and you’re that type of VC, that’s great. Go do it. You probably won’t last for long. But if you want to build real businesses and you want to invest in good people, hard working people with great ideas, that’s what Code Launch is about. And Jason and I really, really carry that mantra for both Sarantis and Codebench.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] But there’s lots of people that do kind of similar events as code launch around the country. Are you working with all of those as well, or are you just kind of locked in on code launch and that’s where you spend your time?

Lee Mosbacker: [00:03:15] Yeah, you know, code launch is interesting because it never takes anything from founders and it only gives the founders. There’s a lot you’re right, there’s a lot of noise in the startup space. But I think the ethos around Code launch matches my own personal like goals around how how America, you know, keeps its lead in the world, how how we fund viable businesses, how we help founders.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:39] So you find that there’s a lot of organizations that are pretending to serve maybe that community, but they’re just taking from it.

Lee Mosbacker: [00:03:48] And yeah, I find like, you know, they they do it through services or they do it through, you know, like or it’s their own thing. They’re taking fees. It’s, you know, to me, like because that.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:00] Group is vulnerable, right? Because they have big hopes and dreams and they might have something. But if somebody is kind of picking at it too soon, too quickly, you can destroy something before it even has a chance to flourish.

Lee Mosbacker: [00:04:13] Agreed. And, you know, I think they’re in six cities now. We’re trying you know, I’m trying to push Jason to put this in to be a worldwide 25 city event. You know, you know, a couple a month. We’re trying to scale this. I know that he’s probably gonna get mad at me for saying that, but, like, I just think that their their focus is to elevate ideas and to help founders. And one of the reasons why I was so anti a lot of the venture capital that’s been going on in the world is that it’s not about helping founders. It’s about how do we how do we how do we create a wealth transfer from A to B and how do I get my 20% or my 2% fee? And to me, with my venture fund cobalt, we don’t take any carry. We don’t take fees. I put my own money in it. And that’s the kind of people we do business with. And Jason and improving and code launch are all together in that same mantra.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:06] Are you getting enough of the founders from these underserved communities or is that part of the equation when you’re doing things like this?

Lee Mosbacker: [00:05:14] You know, I’m a big I’m a big proponent of overlooked founders. And so my venture fund cabal, we focus primarily on on Overlooked. That doesn’t mean that we don’t that we draw lines, you know, around sex or gender or race or whatever. We just look for scrappy founders and they just happen to be female founders. They just happen to be minority founders or they just happen to be founders that, you know, grew up in a in a tough environment. You know, I come from a I come from Appalachia. You know, my my dad passed away from an overdose a year ago. My mom was a single mother on welfare. I was always I grew up extremely poor and I didn’t have an indoor bathroom. Right. So when when I’m out there funding with my success, when I’m out there funding founders, I’m looking for scrappy founders that, you know, some some person that grew up in the Bay Area, a VC that went to Harvard and graduated, he doesn’t know that person exists, probably discounts them. So I’m in it for the little person. Yeah, for sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:18] So if somebody wants to connect with you, what is the best way to do that?

Lee Mosbacker: [00:06:23] Just go to arancio or Lee at arancio is my email. I’m happy to to, you know, to respond.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:30] All right, Lee. Well, I appreciate what you’re doing. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work.

Lee Mosbacker: [00:06:36] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:37] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’re back in a few at code launch, Atlanta 2023.

Karen Sammon, Conscious Capitalism

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TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the beautiful Buckhead Theater for CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here live from the Buckhead Theater CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. So excited to be talking to my guest right now, Karen Sammon, the CEO with Conscious Capitalism. Welcome.

Karen Sammon: [00:00:36] Thank you. Thank you for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] I am excited to be chatting with you. For the folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Conscious Capitalism, what it is and why it’s so important in today’s world? Oh, it’s.

Karen Sammon: [00:00:47] Such a great question. Thank you. So conscious Capitalism is an organization and a movement that is focused on elevating humanity through business. And it is so important in this day and age because we are a big tent and we we bring in CEOs, presidents, founders of businesses of all states and stages to convene and connect around the philosophy of conscious capitalism, which is based on our higher purpose to elevate humanity through business conscious leadership, building really strong, conscious culture. And the fourth tenant is our stakeholder orientation, where the ecosystem is healthy. So we believe in conscious capitalism philosophy that when you focus on the ecosystem, your team members, your suppliers, your customers and your investors, the community, the environment, whoever those stakeholders are in your business, when they’re healthy, the business thrives.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:53] Now it seems like the movement has been, I don’t want to say attacked, but there’s people poking at it from all different fronts that historically hadn’t really been poking at it at all. I mean, when it first came out, it was such a noble gesture. It was eye opening. Everybody was like like it was common sense when I first heard about it. And now it seems like there’s people poking from one side, people who are kind of questioning capitalism and then another side where they’re questioning, should we care, you know, about the community where it’s just about the, you know, shareholders. How how has the movement kind of managed through this turbulence? Yeah.

Karen Sammon: [00:02:34] That is also you know, it’s an area where we focus. And I said that we’re a big tent. We are secured by our tent poles of higher purpose culture, leadership and and stakeholder orientation. We are open to diversity of thought, diversity of ideas. We welcome all leaders regardless of their political orientation, regardless of their race, regardless of anything. If you are aligned with our tent poles, we welcome that diversity. So that’s how conscious capitalism is able to navigate the political, you know, the politicizing of capitalism, of diversity, of ESG, all these all these things that tear us apart. We bring different voices into our community to have real conversation as leaders. We can’t we we shouldn’t we shouldn’t pick and choose who works for our company. We we can’t have we can’t have just one thought process in our organizations. We need to welcome all different worldviews into our organization. And as we do that, when we are when we have a foundation of trust, when we have a foundation of inclusion and belonging that creates creativity and innovation. So it’s we think it’s really important, especially now that conscious capitalism is of the philosophy that should be integrated into businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:04] I agree 100%, and I think that America is uniquely suited to be kind of the place where this happens. Being the melting pot that we are, that we bring together so many diverse groups in one place for a common kind of good. How do you kind of help other people kind of spread the word about this path, about considering, you know, making their organization kind of along the lines of a conscious, capitalistic organization? Is there a ammunition you can give them? Is there research, is there data that supports that businesses that kind of go along this path, you know, have less turnover, you know, more successful things like that?

Karen Sammon: [00:04:45] Absolutely. So so, you know, you mentioned that, you know, conscious capitalism should be adopted, especially in America, where we’re a melting pot. Conversely, conversely, we’re also a nation that is highly polarized when when you look at the Edelman Trust barometer and they they focus on the world, they look at all all, you know, who’s trusted? Business leaders, government NGOs, media CEOs are trusted more than anyone else. So right now, we have this opportunity to be able to bring CEOs, presidents, founders together. And the way that we do, we bring them along is. There’s of course, lots of literature out there. Conscious capitalism, the book was is out and available. The public is written back in 2014 by John Mackey and Raj Sisodia. There’s a a companion book, The Field Guide, which is a kind of a how to but the organization, Conscious Capitalism, brings our community together in different events, whether it’s our CEO summit that’s in October of this year or through our chapter events where we convene locally or through conscious capitalism, senior leader network, where we bring we bring leaders together to have conversation around issues that are impacting our impacting business leaders. So they span from things that you just talked about. So we we’ll we’ll talk about employee engagement and how conscious companies with conscious cultures can outperform and reduce turnover. We talk about longevity and consistency of our customer relationships and how the philosophy has enabled, enabled our community to be be more successful in maintaining, maintaining their customer base without churn. And we, you know, we talk about how they are able to communicate the impact that they’re having both on the both both in terms of their financial reporting and the impact they’re having, whether they focus on sustainability or wherever they’re putting their attention.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:47] Are you finding that young people and maybe some of the leaders of underserved communities are embracing the tenets of conscious capitalism? Is that kind of a good fertile ground for new and up and coming conscious capitalism, you know, people that are believers of that?

Karen Sammon: [00:07:05] I do. I do think that it’s an interesting question because there’s a lot of young people who have kind of turned away from capitalism. So I believe that we have a really important role to be able to demonstrate that there is a better way of doing business, that we can we can because capitalism has lifted so many out of poverty. And that’s that’s why we focus on elevating humanity through business. And so when you bring next generations through, you know, into the conscious capitalism conversation, whether they’re in business school or undergrad or through their their parents, they’re able to see that capitalism can be a force for good. And so our role, our role, our job, what I am doing is working to change the practice and perception of capitalism. And so getting to that tipping point that Malcolm Gladwell tipping point of. Getting to past the center of the bell curve so it becomes the norm of doing well and doing good, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:08:05] They go hand in hand and I would think the young people would embrace that if they were if they could open their mind to capitalism not being a four letter word that is a force for evil when like you said, there’s so much data that supports it. Capitalism is the biggest driver of good in the history of man. It sure.

Karen Sammon: [00:08:24] Is. And when when young people get into organizations where they’re feeling valued, it starts, it starts to the flywheel starts with them, and they start to understand that the companies that can can live their values. But it’s up to the leaders. It’s up to today’s leaders to demonstrate to the next generations of leaders of the ways that we can we can elevate humanity, the way that we can bring bring the next generations through and become the next best leaders for for the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:55] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Karen Sammon: [00:08:58] Well, we are we are we have a focus on a million conscious capitalist leaders. We feel like when we get to a million conscious capitalist leaders that we will have have the conversation that is very natural and organic. So we are we’re, you know, things like code launch today. This is a way that we can amplify the message of conscious capitalism. Improving is one of our partners in the movement of conscious capitalism, and they have integrated the philosophy through their whole organization. They focus a lot on on how they can they can support their ecosystem, their stakeholders. And through that they they have this code launch, which is an amazing event where they’re they’re showcasing what their company can do and they don’t do it for an expected return. They do this because it is it is going to be able to proliferate what they know is a better way of doing business. And on the back end of that, there will be a better return. And so this is a demonstration. So how you can help is we can do more of these these kinds of discussions. You can I can give you a long list of great leaders to interview so we can learn more about how they bring the management philosophy into their own organizations. And that will help that that helps us all spread the word.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:17] If somebody wants to connect with you or somebody on the team, whether it’s here in Atlanta or anywhere in the country or I guess the world now, what is the website?

Karen Sammon: [00:10:25] Their website is conscious capitalism. One word.org.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:31] Well, Karen, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Karen Sammon: [00:10:35] And Luke, it was great to talk to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:36] All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few at Code Lounge, Atlanta 2023.

Tim Butler, Fund Hub

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TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the beautiful Buckhead Theater for CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here live from the Buckhead Theater. So excited to be working with CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023 one more time. And I have with me the judges champion Tim Butler with Fund Hub. Welcome.

Tim Butler: [00:00:40] Thank you so much for having me here. I’m so excited.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, congratulations. First and foremost, this big win, judges choice. That’s not the people’s choice. This is the people, the smart money in the room choice.

Tim Butler: [00:00:55] Yes, it is.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] So tell us first what Fund Hub is. What’s your service and how you serving folks?

Tim Butler: [00:01:03] Fund Hub is the premier AI powered fundraising platform where we connect grant seekers with both grants and professionally vetted grant writers all in one place. So what we do is we help businesses and nonprofits who are challenged in accessing capital get high ROI funding by focusing on founder education.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] So now what was the genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Tim Butler: [00:01:32] So essentially, I have been a certified grant writer for 20 years and worked historically in nonprofit and education. I felt devalued and decided to just launch out into the deep step out on faith and start my own fundraising and consulting firm. Writing grants started off very small and a spare bedroom in our home on an old funky laptop. Slowest Christmas and we’ve been blessed to level up on our direct services side over six figures and we’re in route to seven figures. So because we are a social enterprise where we value not just profit but purpose, we found that connecting with founders in our ecosystem consistently grants were a recurring thing and we can only do so much as a direct services company serving folks who need grant services. So we got the idea to take tech, marry it to the knowledge that I have in the grant writing space and then automate it and serve the masses.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:38] So let’s educate some folks a little bit about grants. Some people maybe there’s a lot of businesses out there that could benefit from grants that they just even didn’t even know about or didn’t consider. Is that true?

Tim Butler: [00:02:51] That is absolutely true. So, for example, in America, the grant making market is $1.2 trillion annually. So that money is available for businesses and nonprofits. Essentially. The problem is, is less than 10% of all applicants that actually apply get funded any grants. And the main reasons are they don’t know where to find the grants. Their companies or organizations are not grant ready their ask in those grant applications are more often not aligned properly with the funders, and they usually need the help of a professional grant writer because for federal grants specifically, they take on average 125 up to 200 hours just to complete. And then also drawing a comparison, there are approximately 1 million working engineers all across America. There are only 10,000 freelance grant writers nationwide. So finding a good grant writer can be hard. And then you also have the piece that adds insult to injury. For Bipoc founders, they have even more unique funding barriers due to racism in the form of inherent bias. And so we’re trying to address that. And then overall, just in the grant writing space alone is highly fragmented and the tech is very, very outdated. And so our platform solves all six of those pain points.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:28] So now, are you a technologist? Do you get involved in trying to build your own app before you got involved with code launch, or was this something you had an idea, heard about code launch and said, You know what, let me have my dev team handle that, that part of this.

Tim Butler: [00:04:44] No, sir. My, this, this is I cannot take all of the credit for this because this is a joint venture. My wife and I actually are co-founders of our company and I do have a team. We are non-technical founders. So tech was not in our wheelhouse. What the thing that we came to the table with, we knew how to get and keep a customer and make them satisfied, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:10] So you had all the brainpower but you didn’t have it in the phone?

Tim Butler: [00:05:14] No. And that’s where our lead UX person Truce and Doherty and other coders on our team come in to take the vision. That we cast and then carry it out with the technology.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:26] So now, was it difficult to build your team because you know that you know there’s not. You said there’s a lot of engineers, there’s not a lot of grant writers. But to find the right match is not that easy. You might have to kiss some frogs before you find the right match there, right?

Tim Butler: [00:05:43] Yes, that is true. We like to take the slow were purposeful approach. So we as a social enterprise first and foremost, we are born again Christians and everything that we do, we know Jesus gives it to us. So for us, we pray about everything. Our business was birthed out of prayer and purpose, and so we prayed about who to connect with and we feel like God brought us the right people to be able to make this happen. One of the things that was that’s universal about everybody on our team, they have a heart for people. It’s never just I just want to make money. It’s always about purpose for this because this is our ministry in the marketplace.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:28] So now how did you even hear about Code Launch? How did that even get on your radar?

Tim Butler: [00:06:32] So in searching for grants for both our company as well as our clients, I come across hundreds, actually thousands of hits as I search Cold Launch came up in the hits. And so I decided to apply for Cold Launch Houston last year. And I well, we made it all the way down to we made it to the semifinalist round, but we were not selected, but we were encouraged to still come back and apply for Atlanta. They felt like it would be a second chance and a better fit. And so after thinking about it, really counting up the cost of it, we decided as a team we were going to do just that. And so we did. And when we lean in, we sink our teeth into something. For example, even though we were not selected to go on stage at Cold Launch Houston, I still committed to exhibiting. And so I drove overnight on a shoestring budget from Tulsa all the way down to Houston, and I slept in my car just so that I could show up and be a man of my word. It was suggested that I come and I’m glad that I did because when I got there, I was able to get the lay of the land, so to speak, and really see from the inside perspective how cold launch runs and what it really does take to win this competition. And that was not something that was unfruitful because voila.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:57] Here I am. Here you are an overnight success, right?

Tim Butler: [00:08:00] No, it has definitely not. Not in it. No, it has not been an overnight thing. But because it has been a four and a half year journey for us in doing this. But I wouldn’t take anything from my journey now.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:12] So now what’s next?

Tim Butler: [00:08:14] Now we are currently developing our clickable prototype. And so once that is ready, later this summer, we’re going to start rolling out our first phase of beta testing. Because one thing about it, I’m not going to try to talk too long, but one thing about whenever you’re building a technology platform, and I would even say this still goes for building any business successfully, you have to be married to the problem and not your solution. So you want to build whatever you’re going to build completely with the customer in mind, making sure you solve their problem. If people are not touched enough by your service or your product to reach in their pockets, grab their cards and be willing to spend money, you need to go back to the drawing board. So we value understanding our clients at a granular level and rendering the utmost highest value that we can to them. So we want to hear their voices, get their input on our tech, you know, look at what they like, what they don’t like, let’s get the bugs out of it. And then after that phase is over, then we will move towards market.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:24] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Tim Butler: [00:09:27] So what we need are we have two sides. We have a direct services side in addition to the tech from the direct services side right now is funding the tech. So we need new grant customers or clients. So if you or any folks out there in radio land are in need of any grants or grant writing services, please by all means connect with us. You can find us on LinkedIn, you can find me Tim Butler, Tim Butler. You can also look up Fund hub Tulsa on all social media handles, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook and you will be able to connect with us. Another thing that we’re we are still recruiting for beta testers. Beta testers go into our pool and if they’re selected, they qualify to receive free limited grant services. So if you’re interested, reach out to us on social media and we can get you signed up. It only. Takes three minutes. And then last but certainly not least, though, we have been blessed to raise 118 K non-dilutive. We know that we’re still going to be able to connect with VCs and we’re looking to form those relationships because it’s going to make more sense as we continue to grow to look for those types of investments. But we only want to connect with those VCs who both understand and align with our vision, profit and purpose. So we’re looking to connect with social impact investors and start having conversations and more and forming more relationships.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:01] So now you mentioned that you’re open for business for businesses or nonprofits that are interested in grants.

Tim Butler: [00:11:09] Absolutely, because there’s a misnomer for some folks. They think that only nonprofits can qualify for grants. That’s a myth. That has never been the case. Nonprofits historically have had been able to qualify for more grants, but there are grants that are allocated for businesses, and they always have been.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:28] So in order to work with you, they can find you online and they can go to website for.

Tim Butler: [00:11:33] Yes, you can go to our website, Capital fundraising.co. It’s literally spelled exactly how it sounds.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:41] And then they can go there, have a conversation with you, explain their situation and you can is that free to have a conversation with you to kind of see if it’s if there are possible grants for somebody?

Tim Butler: [00:11:52] Yes, it is. It is free. I offer free 20 minute intro consultations with those clients. I do vet and screen clients up front first because I want to make sure from a direct services standpoint, there is synergy first because I get a myriad of requests and some businesses and nonprofits, frankly, are just too early to really get in the crux or the sweet spot that I call where they can really level up and get grants. I would rather them focus on getting grant ready first. From there, if you are further along, at least generally for our direct services side, we work with businesses and nonprofits that are generally two years, at least two years old, up to ten years old because they’ve by that time they’ve already had some market traction in general and they have raised some funding and they’re looking for their next funding milestone. However, our fund hub tech platform is a social enterprise that’s open to everyone. We use our profit to underwrite the cost of the grant match, making it free to everyone. We just charge for the premium features and the upgrades.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:01] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on the victory. Congratulations on the momentum thus far. And one more time, the website. If somebody wants to connect.

Tim Butler: [00:13:09] You’re going to go to capital fundraising.co spelled exactly how it sounds capital fundraising.co. You can also find us on social media at Fund Hub Tulsa Fund Hub is all one word fund Hub Tulsa.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:28] All right, Tim, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Tim Butler: [00:13:32] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:33] All right. This is Lee Kantor. Back in a few at code launch, Atlanta 2023.

John Ruzick, Improving

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TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the beautiful Buckhead Theater for CodeLaunch Atlanta 2023. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here live from Buckhead Theater. This is CodeLaunch, Atlanta 2023. Another winner here. We have John Ruzick with Improving. Welcome, John.

John Ruzick: [00:00:36] Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] So exciting. Holding the belt. Feeling pretty good about that. I feel.

John Ruzick: [00:00:41] Great. Repeat champion from code launch Atlanta 2021. So glad to bring it home again here in 2023.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:48] And then you were working with Taylor with Last.

John Ruzick: [00:00:51] Correct? Yeah. Taylor with Cashew. Great bunch of folks. We had a pleasure for a whirlwind 24 hours developing an app for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:59] Now, John, when you’re your tell us about your day job at improving.

John Ruzick: [00:01:03] Yes, I’m a principal consultant with improving. So I help clients realize their objectives with application development, infrastructure, architecture, etcetera. So it was just brought in to lead a team on a something that’s a little bit out of my wheelhouse with mobile development, but put together a team that got some kudos on stage and I’m happy to talk about that. And so I’m really excited to be able to deliver for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] So but you’re part of improving is kind of serving the community through these programs like Code launch and then encouraging the developers to get involved with Code launch. Is that how that.

John Ruzick: [00:01:38] Absolutely. So improving is a big sponsor of conscious capitalism. So we try to give back to the community and code launch is just one of the most visible ways that we do that. So all the developers on the team just donated their time 12 hours on a Sunday, 12 hours again on a Monday to really just put together and hack and code and help one of these startups get from kind of infancy to a product that is closer to release in the market.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] So for you personally, is this, you know, part of why you’re part of improving doing things like this? Is this things that you would have done on your own had you not had this opportunity to to work with through code launch like this?

John Ruzick: [00:02:19] Yeah, Improving just really encourages that. They encourage you to lead out in areas that you aren’t necessarily completely comfortable. So I’m a developer, I’m an IT guy. So a lot of times you sit back and just code, right? But these through improving really get you to put yourself out there. And I was able to get together a really good team of folks that again are more behind the scenes but lead out say let’s go put yourselves out there and really give something back to the community. And improving is just amazing and encouraging that for everybody that works for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:52] So how do you get connected once you raise your hand and say, I’m in to be involved with the hackathon like this, how do you get paired with cast? Who is that just kind of luck or do you how does that happen?

John Ruzick: [00:03:04] No. So I mean, it is absolutely luck, but I was part of a draft. So there’s a draft. Yeah, absolutely. So so a couple days before the finalist reveal the six dev teams that have signed up to to sponsor the event, donate their time, get a list of in this case, it was 12 finalists. We had six dev teams. And so we got to look at their technology stack, look at what they were trying to accomplish and and draft being the host sponsor, I was last in the draft and it just so a lot of luck in that cast you kind of was still on the draft board if you will.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:43] Excited about when you heard about the concept because Taylor said he’s not a technologist.

John Ruzick: [00:03:49] Yeah, it was. It was the vision and being here local in Atlanta, we see how vibrant the film and entertainment industry is. And I don’t have aspirations or certainly don’t think that I’m going to be a part of it, but this was a way to get into it or get connected with it. So that was really, really attractive to us.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:09] So then you kind of read his vision or see his vision, and then you’re saying, I can add to that. There’s stuff my skill set can really make this come alive. I can create that marketplace that he envisioned.

John Ruzick: [00:04:21] Yeah, absolutely. So there vision is is wide ranging. But at least going into this and I will say this Sunday morning, they had mockups and diagrams. Monday at 9:00, they had an app that they could load on their phone and show some of their functionality. So just the ability to make that quantum leap from nothing to something they can show investors or partners in the industry to generate more excitement. The ability to play some small role in that is just unbelievable. And I relish that opportunity with my team through this through the code launch.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:01] So now how are you seeing technology evolve in your years of being involved to be able to do that in that short period of time? You couldn’t have done that, what, five years ago it been five years ago.

John Ruzick: [00:05:12] Would have been would have been.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:14] Tough, right? It would have been very difficult to to pull off something similar.

John Ruzick: [00:05:18] Absolutely. It would have been it would have been tough. So there’s there’s a lot of resources out there. And I. Was laughing as everyone went through the the presentations, everyone mentioned AI and Chatgpt and all that, and I almost yelled out bingo at one point because I thought everybody had hit the AI buzzword. But absolutely, through the development process, there are tools and technologies that you can use to accelerate that development this day that didn’t even exist. Heck, six months ago.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:47] Really? So you were using things on on his app that weren’t available six, 12 months ago.

John Ruzick: [00:05:54] Just just learning techniques and different ways to get answers to questions and tips. If I don’t know how to do something, there are new ways to find that answer and new resources to go go poll to try to get get you over the roadblock that you’re currently facing in the development process.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:14] Now, how does going through an event that’s this, you know, time compressed? Right. You’re getting a lot done in a short period of time. You know, a lot of time in your work. You’re working on projects that could be months, years in the making and things are slow and grind and it’s hurry up and wait and here you are just like cramming, you know, information and technology into a mobile app as fast as furiously as you can.

John Ruzick: [00:06:37] Yeah, absolutely. So as part of this, there is a showmanship part of this event, the.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:45] Belt and the hat. There was there’s some clues there, some showmanship involved. Exactly.

John Ruzick: [00:06:50] So even even in the development process, when you get there late on the second day of the hackathon, they know they’ve got to be up on stage in front of hundreds of people displaying it.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:59] It’s got to be some jazz hands There is.

John Ruzick: [00:07:02] So the goal when we’re developing this is to set them up foundationally with something that they can build upon. And as you get late in that second day, make conscious decisions of where we’re going to make things look beautiful, right? But when they get their funding, when they get their that venture capital interest, it’s a minor lift to make it 100% functional. It’s not a rewrite of the application. So we have set them up.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:31] With foundationally, you invested a lot of mental energy to give them a strong base to build on.

John Ruzick: [00:07:37] Exactly. Yeah. So the first the first day and a half is setting them up with the technology and infrastructure that right, exactly like you said li to build upon that is not going to put them into a negative space. And then the last day is is make it look beautiful for the event.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:56] Right. Because at the end of the day, that’s what people are voting on, right? They want to see the pretty app do the the cool thing.

John Ruzick: [00:08:02] And even on stage, one of the judges mentioned that the UI looks amazing and beautiful. And so.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:09] So you’re all high fiving in the back, right?

John Ruzick: [00:08:11] We are. And my team, Daniel Brown, Mark Bantog and Nate Short, who’s our UI UX guy, just ran with it as we were building out functionality. He was just making it really look esthetically pleasing and making decisions of how a user would use this from a user experience standpoint that is just going to wow their customers when it hits the app store hopefully very, very soon.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:34] So now how do you take this experience in the belt and leverage that to help your client? You know, you’re paying clients. Is it something that you can take some learnings or maybe next time we can do more with less? Or like how do you kind of take this as a learning block for future endeavors?

John Ruzick: [00:08:54] Yeah, I think it it really shows kind of what we can accomplish in a in a compressed amount of time. But I don’t want to get too far over over her skis with some clients that say, Oh wow, you built this mobile app.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:08] Make me a mobile app tomorrow.

John Ruzick: [00:09:09] Yeah, exactly. I’m about 24 hours and I want this in the store. That’s that’s not it. They are the this is still a kind of long not that far away from being production enterprise ready. But two days doesn’t get you there that being said, it’s really a showcase of the expertise within improving Atlanta and all of the improving enterprises and really shout out to all of the other development teams that partnered with the other startups because the work they did over the same compressed time frame is just amazing. It’s just the capabilities that we have to show. And when you invest and partner with a company like improving and give us more than 24 hours, then the sky’s the limit. Yeah, the sky’s the limit is exactly right.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:51] Now, does it help you when you’re working with a group on a project like this to go, okay, next time when I have a bigger project, I want Mary on my team. She’s killing it. You know, I’m getting to see people in a stressful situation kind of perform or not perform. So you know that in future projects and work, you can build the team that you can trust.

John Ruzick: [00:10:14] Yeah, it was it was an absolute blessing to be able to pick this team. A couple of the folks on the team that I’ve worked with quite a bit. So I. Knew their technical prowess. I’m excited to do it again. And I would pick a completely different team, to be honest with you, because it also depends on technology. Seeing what their goal was in the mobile space and.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:37] The right talent.

John Ruzick: [00:10:38] Exactly. If the next person came in with a data project, I’d pick a different group of folks. Sure. You’d have to. Yeah, you would absolutely have to. That being said, the group that that I have, they’re just it was the willing to run through a brick wall mentality that. Oh, it’s mobile today. Great. I’ll figure it out. Let’s go. And that type of mentality over to make it happen.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:03] You got to have that make it happen mentality.

John Ruzick: [00:11:06] Yeah. Because if somebody walks in three hours in on a 24 hour hackathon and goes, I don’t really know this technology, I’m out. You’re you’re screwed. So I need someone that is going to take a look at it and say, I’ve never done this before, but I’ve got a wealth of experience. I’ll know what I’m doing. Let’s go. Right. And of course, brings a level of professionalism and and experience, like I said, to the project.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:31] So what’s next for you on this? You just go back to work tomorrow like nothing happened or what goes on.

John Ruzick: [00:11:38] Tomorrow won’t be like nothing happened. I’ll probably feel it tomorrow because we’re going to go celebrate a little bit with this win. But yeah, we just go back and reflect on it. I know there’s huge plans for code code launch in 2023 in different different cities around the US and internationally and certainly with 2024, we were blessed to have improving, nearshore, participate as one of the hack teams in this event. Right. And maybe there’s an opportunity that improving Atlanta provides one of the development teams for one of the international events or something.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:12] I wonder who they’ll pick. The two time winner. That person’s got to go. Right?

John Ruzick: [00:12:16] We’ve got a nice we’ve got a nice track record following us. So but I’m willing to put the belt on the line any time because it’s just fun. It’s really good. And like you brought up the conscious capitalism. Everybody wins at this event, getting those people on stage. I’m in the audience. Certainly I’m rooting for my team, but I’m really paying attention to really wowed by all of the startups and their presentations and the problems and industries they’re about to disrupt. So really excited to see what’s coming out of in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:46] So if somebody wants to connect with you at improving or LinkedIn, what’s your best coordinates? Yeah.

John Ruzick: [00:12:50] So John Ruzek or K john.ruzek@improving.com I’m on all the social channels LinkedIn reach out and I’ll get you connected either with stuff that I can personally help with or improving nationally or internationally has resources to cover all of your bases. So get in touch with me. I will get you in the right place and improving. Just it’s amazing place to work and we love being partners with our clients, not just a just a company for hire.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] Good stuff, John, thank you so much for sharing your story. Congratulations. You’re doing important things and we appreciate you.

John Ruzick: [00:13:28] Thanks, Lee. Really, really a pleasure to be here. All right.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:31] This Lee Kantor back in a few code launch, Atlanta 2023.

Ingrid Weir with Cornerstone Hospice, Jenny Cantrell with Arbonne and Melissa Pearson with The Barter Company

May 15, 2023 by angishields

Charitable Georgia

Ingrid Weir with Cornerstone Hospice, Jenny Cantrell with Arbonne and Melissa Pearson with The Barter Company

00:00 /

This week on Charitable Georgia our guests include Jenny Cantrell, a naturopathic doctor and master herbalist. Cantrell’s story of overcoming health challenges and her passion for helping people improve their health through clean eating and natural remedies is truly inspiring. She also sheds light on the crisis of malnutrition and toxicity in America and emphasizes the importance of educating people about making healthy choices.

We also talk with Ingrid Weir with Cornerstone Hospice, who shares her experience of providing compassionate end-of-life care to patients and their families. Ingrid also discusses the challenges faced by the organization and the importance of community support in their work.

Melissa Pearson from A Barter Company talks about the benefits of bartering and how it can help people save money and build stronger communities. She also shares her experiences of working with different businesses and individuals and how bartering has helped them achieve their goals.

With her family working in real estate, finance, and construction, Ingrid Weir began her career in the areas she knew well. After 14 years of working at the same company in electric radiant floor heating, a twist of fate led her into the field of senior care.

Beginning in home care, she quickly realized that she had an affinity for working with patients and their families and liaising between them and those in the senior care community. After three years working in the for-profit area of home care, she realized her true passion was in hospice and helping those terminal illnesses embrace their lives.

She now spends her time educating the community, patients, and their families and caregivers on the benefits of beginning hospice care early while working for a non-profit hospice. Her main purpose is to educate those under the misconception that hospice is only for the last few days of life. Patients and their caregivers miss out on the many services hospices provides because of the delayed care caused by this myth.

Hospice provides 24/7 on-call nursing and nursing assistants to help with hygiene and bathing while reporting changes back to the medical team several times a week. In addition, medical equipment, supplies such as Depends and bed pads, volunteer and respite services, on-site x-rays and wound care, medical comfort care, bereavement and community support and resources, education on the disease and dying process, and much more are available free of charge when on hospice.

When started at the point that someone has decided to stop medical intervention in the disease process, this potentially saves patients and families thousands of dollars and reduces stress on both parties by assisting throughout the entire process including bereavement support for the caregivers long after the patient has passed.

Jenny Cantrell has a degree in naturopathic medicine and is a master herbalist. She is a Health and Weight Loss Coach, a Clean Eating Coach and Speaker. She is passionate about changing the health of one person at a time, one family at a time so they can feel great and thrive, not just get through the day and so they can accomplish what they were meant to do and enjoy life
to the fullest!

She is a native of Georgia mother of 2 sons, has a granddaughter, and is a great grandmother to 2 boys, 2 and 4 years old! Her father was a pastor for 40 years and she saw both her parents helping people in many ways. So it naturally followed suit that she would be in a helping business as well. As a young adult, she was interested in nutrition and how our health is affected by what we eat and drink.

In spite of eating healthier than the average person, she found herself losing her energy and found herself very weak and living in pain struggling to get through the day. This led her to seek out naturopathic holistic ways to get her strength back and totally regained her health! She went on to get a formal education from Trinity School of Natural Health to further her knowledge. As she says, “It Matters What You Put on Your Body and What You Put in Your Body!”

You can contact Jenny via email jenny@jennycantrell.com or by phone at 865.405.8861

Melissa Pearson has a background in Marketing & Advertising. She previously worked for Trader publishing, cars.com and apartments.com. She worked for The Barter Company in 2013, but left to start a Money Mailer Franchise for 5 years and came back in June of 2018.

What she likes most about her position as a Client Growth Specialist is her TBC family, networking in the community, meeting new people and helping businesses reach their highest growth potential. She has a beautiful daughter, 2 precious grand gifts and a fur baby who she adores.

When she is not working or networking, she Loves spending time with family, (especially her grand gifts) friends, the outdoors, hiking, festivals and walking her little dog Izzy.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:09] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by B’s Charitable Pursuits and Resources. We put the fun in fund raising. For more information, go to B’s Charitable Pursuits. Dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruitt.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:46] Good, fabulous Friday morning. It’s another fabulous Friday. And we’ve got three more fabulous guests. If this is your first time listening to Charitable Georgia, this is all about positive things happening in your community. And I don’t know if I’m if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m the only guy in the studio this morning, so I got my favorite producer, though. Sharon’s back.

[00:01:06] Hello.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:06] Stone is actually on the golf course doing his thing with that. So, Sharon, I’m thankful that you came. And.

[00:01:12] My pleasure.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:12] Like I said, I’m the only guy. So we’ll see if I make it through this. But I do have. You’re brave. Yes. Yes. I do have three great guests, though, this morning. And you’re going to hear some some great stuff. We’re going to start with Miss Jenny Cantrell. So, Jenny, thank you for being here this morning.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:01:29] Oh, thank you for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:31] So Jenny is a naturalpath doctor and a master herbalist, right. So please share your story and why you’re passionate about helping people in their health.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:01:43] Okay. I’m happy to. Well, my story actually starts as a young child. I was born with great hearing loss. And when I was in my 20s, when I went to have my first exam, I was in my late 20s and the audiologist was amazed that I actually worked outside the home, had my own business, and I asked him why he was amazed with that. And he said, because people who have a great hearing loss such as yours really do not do well in life. In fact, they become totally dependent on their parents and never work outside the home. And I said, Well, I never thought about that. I just thought as a child when I was told that I would be deaf by the time I was 20, I just thought, well, you know, I’m just going to have to do the best I can. I’ll just learn sign language. And it never occurred to me not to work or, you know, be productive in society. And so that is really where it started. And I just want to encourage people that no matter what your setbacks are physically, emotionally or whatever, you can overcome that there is something that you can do. Now, one of the reasons I went into sales is because, you know, I’m kind of an old woman. I’m 68 years old. So if you go back in time, a lot of the phones did not have where you could increase the volume. So I knew that I could not do office work if I had to answer the phone. So but I’m a people person and I like to be out.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:03:42] So I just had to choose sales in in order. That was my really my only, only option. So and then later I went into business for myself because I had always been a healthy eater and I did not allow, you know, coats and candy and things like that in my house. But all of a sudden I started losing my energy and I didn’t know why. And I was starting to struggle to get through the day. So I went to the doctor. They couldn’t find anything wrong. They and then I began to live in constant pain, unbearable pain. So I asked the doctors, you know, for help. They couldn’t figure it out. And their only option was pain medicine. And I’m the kind of person I like to get to the root of the problem. I I’m not going to live on pain. I’ve got to find what is causing this. It doesn’t make any sense. So that put me on a path to seek out a naturopathic medicine, alternative means of healing. And so I got in touch with some experts in that field, began to apply clean eating. Now, my my diet was better than the average American, so but I realized I could clean it up even more and make some changes. So I did that, took some, you know, supplements and I put all of that in remission. I mean, I was very, very weak, could hardly walk and in a lot of pain. And after about 5 or 6 months, I began to feel the energy coming back in my body.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:05:38] And so and it all went in remission. And I felt better than when I was a teenager. So I got curious about, well, why these herbs, why this? Why that? What was it in that the chemistry of that that provided healing for my body. And so I just began to study. At the time I was an interior designer, but I started studying this on the side and then I decided to get a formal education. So I got a degree in natural pathic medicine and two certificates of the master herbalist to study, to study the chemistry of herbs. And that put me on a path to share my knowledge. So I didn’t just learn that for me, but to share that knowledge to make a difference in people’s lives. So when I, I do speak and when I speak and whatever organization it is, I want to share information right then that a person can go away, makes them changes. That is going to bring more energy and health in their body. And so that is a passion of mine to change one person’s health at a time, one family’s health at a time. Because we are in a crisis in this country. We are in a crisis with toxicity and malnutrition, and we don’t think of us as being malnourished. We when we hear the word malnutrition, we think of starving children in a foreign country. But most Americans walking around right now are very malnourished. They’re extremely dehydrated, and they are very toxic. And so my passion is educating people so that they can can manage that. Now, we’re not going to get away from a chemicals.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:07:43] We’re just not. But there are some changes that we can make every day that will make a difference because when these toxins get in our body, unfortunately, we can’t just drink water and flush them out. They build up inside of us on a cellular level. So we need to be focused. Being healthy nowadays will not just happen like when I was a kid because I grew up, you know, we were before intensive farming, but when intensive farming began to take control of our country back in the 50s and 60s, everything changed. For the first time in the history of mankind, our food was altered to the point that our bodies do not really and truly vegan. It’s not just what you get inside of you, it’s what you’re able to assimilate and your cells use for nutrition to produce energy for healing and energy for the day. So that’s what I like to teach people and it will make a difference. I’ve done this for well over 25 years and almost every week somebody is texting me and telling me, Oh my gosh, I feel so much better. I’m sleeping better. I don’t have this brain fog. I’m, you know, and it’s just such a joy to be able to share that and know that I’m turning people’s health around because it’s not just them. It might be the woman of the family. Usually the women, you know, kind of control the food in the family, hopefully. And and so it can really make a difference. And that’s what I love to do.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:35] You can tell I like my women’s cooking. So as we shared a couple of weeks ago, I’ve got the keg, as Tara like to say. So I got the 24 pack. Can you can you share just one thing that you mentioned about knowing what you’re eating and stuff like that? Can you just share one tidbit of how you can, you know, the natural part of changing what you eat?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:09:57] I tell you. Your goal every day. My goal every day is how much green food? And I’m not talking about pistachio pudding.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:10] Or green M&ms?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:10:10] Now that that’s not on the list, but green vegetables, When you sit down to eat, half your plate needs to be dark green vegetables or your yellow or your orange. That’s a given because we’ve got to balance the alkalinity with the acid. And so that one thing I’ll give you another tip, we should never drink when we eat.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:38] Why is That?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:10:38] Well, several things. When you eat, your stomach is to release digestive fluids. That’s got all kinds of good stuff. Food, enzymes, hydrochloric acid, other things in there to help break down that food, to assimilate it. So when you crowd your stomach with liquid, there’s not enough room for the digestive fluids to really work on digesting your food. The other thing is you can actually drink so much that you’re flushing what nutrition is in that food. You’re flushing them on out of the body. So those are two important reason. The rule of thumb is drink your water 15 minutes before you eat. That gives it time to go through your stomach and then you can eat. And if you have to, people tell me, well, I have to drink when I eat, well, then you’re eating the wrong thing. So if you’re eating something that’s super dry, what is that? Because vegetables have a lot of liquid in them. You don’t need to drink water when you’re eating vegetables. So those are two tips. But dark green vegetables. And when I have people come and I work with them, I have them write down five days worth of what they’re eating. It’s not for me. I already know what they’re not eating and but this is for them. So I look at and say, we’re going to circle all of the green vegetables that you’ve eaten in the last five days. And it’s shocking because sometimes it may be. The only thing is that that one piece of iceberg lettuce on the hamburger.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:26] I mean, that doesn’t count?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:12:27] No, it does not. There’s no nutrition in that. So anyway. Okay, so.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:34] So can you there might be somebody listening who doesn’t know exactly what a naturopathic doctor is. You shared a little bit. But what exactly is that? And the difference between that obviously in a medical doctor and what you can and can’t do.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:12:48] Right. Well, naturopathic means that there’s healing through natural means without medication. So through your diet, through herbs, through supplements. And that’s what is different. Medical doctors. And I’m not against doctors. We need them. I go to them all the time to help diagnose. I cannot diagnose. And but doctors can do that. That’s what they are trained to do and can legally do. And so they diagnose and they’re trained to then get a medicine to help control that symptom that you’re having. But naturopathic means that you’re you’re really balancing the body on a cellular level so that the body is able to heal itself.

Brian Pruett: [00:13:45] Okay. On the supplements, I’m guessing there could be good and bad supplements. Can you share about supplements?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:13:52] Yes, there are a lot of supplements out there that the bottle is actually more expensive than what’s on the inside. I’ve read lab reports over the years where these are labs that don’t they don’t actually make a supplement or sell a supplement. They’ve gone into health food stores and pulled as many as 50 bottles off the shelf and taken it to the lab to dissect it, to see what was in there. And shockingly. Some of those did not even have anything that it said it had inside of it. Some of them had a little bit and it was mostly fillers and additives. So there is, you know, unfortunately, a lot of fraud in that industry. So it’s important to to know the brand that you are taking and making sure. That’s why I don’t endorse a lot of companies. I just don’t I have to do the research, talk to the people, the scientists in the lab, so that I know I can trust, because when I’m working with people, they’re dependent on me to know. And and it goes a step further, too. You know, you may have the company may have put like if you get a bottle that’s got like 50 ingredients in it, that sounds impressive, but the pressure that it takes to compact all of those nutrients in that tablet make it completely indigestible. I’ve talked to a couple of people that are in the Porta John industry and that’s.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:42] A messy industry.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:15:43] Yeah. So they have said that they see mounds and mounds, piles of supplements that have passed through people’s bodies and you can even read the name brand on the tablet.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:02] Why are you getting that close is what I want to know. But anyway, no, that’s wild.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:16:06] Yeah. So it’s about maybe they they have everything that’s on that label in that tablet, but then it’s completely indigestible to your body. So people have paid the money, taken the time to take it and it’s done them no good. And over the years I’ve had people say well I’ve tried supplements whatever. They don’t help. And and I know why because it for those reasons but it may be that it’s not digestible but it may also mean that they don’t have enough enzymes in their stomach to break things down. So that’s what I try to, you know, figure out with a person what’s going on so that we can get you producing energy. Because if your energy, the lack of energy is the beginning, because your body, if it’s losing energy, you are losing your energy also to assimilate and to heal the body and do what it needs to do.

Brian Pruett: [00:17:14] I’ve always been told that when you’re looking at supplements, there’s I guess a certain label or something of endorsement of a particular I don’t know, that’s supposed to be the best ones, but can you maybe share the one that you would endorse? That would be good.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:17:28] Well, the product that I have researched and checked out are made by a company called Arbonne International, and the other one is nature’s sunshine. I have bought from them for 30 years and I’ve I’m a watchdog because before that I did buy from certain companies, but I saw them making changes, cutting corners to save money. But then they started adding chemicals and whatever. And so I couldn’t endorse them anymore. So I want you want to get what you pay for, you know. But but the labeling laws are so deceptive. It would take me a few minutes to explain that. I don’t want to take up time for that. But the way the FDA sets up how labeling can be, it’s really deceptive. So it’s my job, You know, when I recommend something, it’s my job to know everything about that product. So that because my the people that I’m coaching and helping are dependent on me to know.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:51] So on the herbs, actually, when I was growing up, I always called them Herb. So are you British? No. Well, we all transition, I guess at one point we were, but no, just kidding. Um, on the herbs, is it something that the herbs that you cook with or do you take them as a supplement? Can you share about the, the herbs that you.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:19:08] Yeah, well a lot of the herbs we can cook with and they have medicinal properties just we just have to be careful sometimes in cooking that we don’t cook something to death, meaning that we cook the life out of it. Um, so their herbs have different properties. Some herbs are considered as nutritious, you know, like alfalfa. That. That’s a good one. Kale, Those are considered herbs that are more nutritious and have, you know, lack of food. But then there are herbs that have not really considered a food but have a certain chemistry that will vivo in and support because of the chemical structure of it. It will zero in and support different systems in your body. And so that’s why knowing the chemistry of herbs, you would know which ones. Now all herbs are going to feed your body. Vitamins and minerals may have some fiber in it, phytonutrients in it, a number of things, but it will have different actions on the body. Do you need to take something for an astringent to kind of draw out an infection or something you need to draw out? Do you need one to to add moisture to the body? So they all have different properties, but they will have different nutrients. So that that’s why you would take a specific herb if you’re dealing with the nervous system or the circulatory system.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:59] I don’t think her stuff would work with what we had on the other week with bread. Delicious. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:04] Yeah, it looked really good, but I think you’d probably pull out all of it apart and be like, All right, there’s nothing green, right?

Brian Pruett: [00:21:10] I will tell you, Alfalfa was my favorite on Little Rascals, but I think that’s probably different than what you’re talking about.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:21:15] Right? Yeah. Yeah, There are two different things. Okay. All right.

Brian Pruett: [00:21:19] All right. So you do a lot of networking. You’ve been a part of several groups, and that’s how you and I met, actually, years ago. We were part of the same BNI group, and we’re now part of Cartersville Business Club, Acworth Connections. And you’re out there a lot in the community. So other than the reasons why you just share like helping people, why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:21:38] Well, if I’m not part of the community, I will not be in a place that someone might need my help. And there’s not that many people that do what I do. You’ll have people that do sell supplements and so forth, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I had someone just not too long ago asked me to tell them certain herbs that they could take. And I said, Well, that’s that’s not the way to get at the root of the problem. You know, you’ve got to do more. And I want to tell you, because of the malnutrition and the toxicity, you can’t just take a couple of supplements anymore and really get to the root of it and make the changes that you want. You’re going to have to change. We we are what we eat and what we digest. And so you’re going to have to be more focused on making the changes, what I call clean eating, and that that alone will carry so much weight of it. But then there may be some supplements added to that.

Brian Pruett: [00:22:56] So if somebody’s listening out there, whether it’s an organization or somebody just wants to talk to you about your services, how can people get Ahold of you?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:23:05] Well, they can email me at Jenny at Jenny control.com or they can call me at (865) 405-8861 or text me and I. I love to speak to organizations because that’s more than one person that I can influence at a time and make a difference in their life.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:33] Awesome. Well, Jenny, thank you for sharing a little bit of your story. We’ve got a couple other guests that have good, good stories. You mind sticking around because we’re really not done with you. There’s a couple other things I’ll ask you towards the end. So you can’t go anywhere anyway. But you mind sticking around?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:23:46] Okay. No, I’m happy to be here. I want to hear from them, too.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:49] All right. So you guys just heard about some keeping yourself healthy. And this is going to be a weird transition. Maybe, but, Ingrid Weir from Cornerstone Hospice. Thanks for being here.

Ingrid Weir: [00:23:59] Thanks for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:59] You, I guess it takes a special person to to work in your industry as well. But give us a little bit of your story and why you are in the hospice industry.

Ingrid Weir: [00:24:11] Well, I am in the hospice industry. Well, it’s weird. I actually used to work for several years right behind this building selling heated floors.

Ingrid Weir: [00:24:19] And then one day my boss got sick, and then we shut down the company, and I had to kind of. Feel around and figure out where I was going from there. And I actually landed in home care, which is a form of senior care. And while that’s a wonderful thing, not everybody can afford it. So that is what slowly got me over to where I came into hospice, because this way, especially working for a nonprofit, I can help everybody for free. So it’s been very fulfilling.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:53] So do you actually work with patients or are you what is your role within Cornerstone?

Ingrid Weir: [00:24:59] My role is I’m the liaison, so I’m the go between. And then if anything goes wrong after we have them on service, then I’m I’m the bulldog.

Brian Pruett: [00:25:08] So can you share because I’m sure there’s people out there that kind of have an idea of what hospice is. And most people think it’s you know, obviously when somebody is about ready to pass and things of that nature, but share exactly what a hospice organization does.

Ingrid Weir: [00:25:22] Okay. And that is one of the reasons why I’m trying to spread information is it’s not the last five days that you’re alive like it used to be. So it’s anyone with a life limiting illness. We are here to help you embrace what’s left of your life. And we do that by providing medications that are delivered right to your home. We have home health aides that will come and help with bathing and hygiene. And then, of course, we have the medical equipment, hospital beds, wheelchairs and all of that. Then we have the chaplain that can come in. Always optional, of course, non-denominational. And we have social workers that can come in and help with any kind of financial end of life planning, anything like that, and just be there for emotional support for the family as well as the patient.

Brian Pruett: [00:26:13] So hospice can be several different things, right? You can. I know some places actually have a hospice facility. It could be a hospital. It could be in a home. Is that right? That’s right. Share a bit about Cornerstone. You know, this is a nonprofit, which I think is an interesting concept. And that in itself can you share about Cornerstone?

Ingrid Weir: [00:26:29] Well, Cornerstone is a profit, like you said. So we accept anyone, regardless of ability to pay. We go to wherever the patient lives. Now, if symptoms become unmanageable, then we do have settings where we can have 24 hour care. But generally speaking, we’ll have a nurse come once a week and then a CNA or home health aide come out a few times a week and the home health aide reports back to the nurse. The nurse reports back to the doctor as well. But then as symptoms progress and the nurse will actually come out more frequently.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:07] So you’re coming to they’re coming to the home.

Ingrid Weir: [00:27:09] Is that right? We’re coming to the home, yes. But if needed, then we we do have facilities that they can go to and then we will go there and treat them as well.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:17] So Cornerstone being a non profit, is it kind of like any other non profit? Can people get involved and help with that?

Ingrid Weir: [00:27:23] Absolutely. We we have volunteers. We have amazing volunteers that come out and sit with people or they go and walk their dogs, take their dogs to the vets. We also have a program where if somebody can’t afford to pay for vet visits or pet food or anything like that, where our foundation will actually cover that as well, and we’ll actually rehome your animals so nobody has to lose their pet before they lose their life. Wow.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:51] So business can get involved and well and be sponsors, I guess.

Ingrid Weir: [00:27:54] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We accept any kind of donations as well.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:59] What all do you guys service? Is it just Metro Atlanta or North Atlanta or North Cobb or. Well.

Ingrid Weir: [00:28:04] We’re in Cobb, North Fulton, Cherokee and Gwinnett currently, and then half of Florida as well. We’ve been in Florida since 1984, so we’re fairly new up here, but we’ve got the backbone down in Florida.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:19] So I’m guessing especially the caretakers. I mean, that would be hard to be working with somebody who, you know, is on the deathbed, literally. Um. I don’t know. You don’t do that part, but can you share a story of somebody that there are things I mean, I can I can remember being in a hospital room when my grandmother passed, and that was awful. But I know that there’s been other people who have been in and it’s kind of a I don’t know, this may sound weird, peaceful transition or whatever, but it’s just kind of a happy time. I don’t know. But are there any stories you can share? The kind of people make people feel good about the hospice and not know that it’s a, you know, oh, no type of thing.

Ingrid Weir: [00:28:59] Actually, I had a I had a family member that we put on service a couple of years back. And first of all, they did not want to go on hospice. They he had brain cancer. It was very clear that he needed our help, but nothing that I could say would convince them until he started having seizures that were uncontrollable and the doctors were just putting up their hands like, you know, we can’t do anything. So I came in, I was like, please let me get my nurse in here. And I was convinced that this entire family was going to just unravel when this man died. And it scared me. And I’ll tell you what it did. But then she finally let my nurse come in. We got the seizures managed, and then our whole team just attacked the whole family. And when he finally did transition, it was so peaceful and calm and the whole family was there. They were prepared. He was comfortable. I could not believe the difference between what they were just a few months earlier. And then the family that they were that they were actually able to enjoy the time they had left with them.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:13] Wow. Wow. Is there I know like when people are they have pre funeral things you can do. Is there something you can do ahead of time for hospice. For services for hospice is that’s something you can you know if you know that there’s a the end is near type of thing can you set that up beforehand or is that something when it actually happens, you do it when it’s when it’s happening.

Ingrid Weir: [00:30:35] Most people do it when it’s happening, but you can actually go through and we have what’s called the Five Wishes program, where it’s this booklet where you go through and you put in all of your wishes as your life comes to a conclusion and you can actually specify things like what hospice you would prefer.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:55] Okay, So you also do the networking piece. You we see you at the Acworth connections in other areas. Why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Ingrid Weir: [00:31:03] Because people don’t know enough about hospice. It’s people don’t realize that this is their right to have this service to help them through it. And I’ve seen families and patients go through this transition without hospice. And the difference is, I mean, it’s really tragic that most people don’t know about it. So I’m just trying to raise awareness.

Brian Pruett: [00:31:27] So give somebody a little tip that that they need to kind of be what do they need to look for when they’re looking for some hospice care?

Ingrid Weir: [00:31:37] I always check the reviews, of course. Also take some of the review reviews with a grain of salt because people are very, very upset during the time of their family transitioning. But, you know, ask around if somebody’s good. People are going to know if people are bad and people are definitely going to know. Look for somebody that isn’t just just now opening somebody that does have the backbone behind them so that, you know, they’re not just going to disappear all of a sudden because the regulations in Georgia are not strong enough. Just about anybody can open a hospice here.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:14] Well, wow. Well, if somebody’s listening and wants to get a hold of you and talk about your services, how can they do that?

Ingrid Weir: [00:32:21] You can call my cell, text me whatever. Six, seven, 85518103.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:27] Awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing that little tidbit. We’re going to kind of lighten the mood back up because I know that was a.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:33] But, you know, that’s an important part of I mean, everyone will face has someone in their life or they will be facing it, too. So you’re right, people don’t consider that as being like top of mind, but it will affect everyone at some point. So I get why that’s important.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:47] And I share this with Stone last week, Sharon, you know, people listening to the show and they may think, why in the world is he talking to somebody about hospice that’s not positive or charitable, but it is, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, you’ve got to be you’ve got to be prepared for one. But you also do want your loved ones to be, you know, have up to the end be as comfortable and live what they can left. And so I don’t care whether you smile at somebody, open the door, say thank you, work for hospice, give somebody the herbs or whatever you’re doing worse. You know, there’s plenty of positivity and charitable things out there. And so it doesn’t have to be that you’re giving somebody money or a nonprofit to be charitable. So. Again, I thank you for coming on and sharing. Do you mind listening to this next story? Absolutely. Uh, Melissa Pearson from the Barter Company. Thanks for being here. Like I said, I don’t know if I’m going to be in trouble or not, because as you can tell, they all like to give each other myself a hard time and I have to give it right back. But I still don’t win. I don’t I don’t understand that. But anyway, Melissa, thank you for having me.

Melissa Pearson: [00:33:53] Really happy and excited to be here.

Brian Pruett: [00:33:56] Yes. So you are passionate about helping people, especially in business, right? But you do have a just a passion for people. Do you mind sharing your story? And then we’ll talk about the barter company when after you share your story? Sure.

Melissa Pearson: [00:34:10] Well, I grew up in a very sheltered family, strict household, went to church every Sunday, went to the best schools and was very shy. I had a dad that was very still, very strong, and he kept moving up the corporate ladder. So we moved like 19 times. So I never had that chance to develop long term relationships. When I turned 19, we had moved 19 times and he moved up the corporate ladder. So when we moved here, he was like, I’m starting my own company. We’re not moving anymore. And it was 10th grade when I moved here, so it was hard to fit in. I was very shy. I didn’t want to talk in front of people or even this is not you know, I know. I know everybody’s shocked to hear that. But I really am. I mean, even our little one minute at Cartersville Business Club, I’m like, oh. So we moved and I went to Lassiter in East Cobb, and I always wanted to be a teacher because my parents were teachers. They met in college. And then I was at a ceramics class and a lady promoted me to be a leasing agent, lease apartments. And I was like, okay. And did that for a while. And she would hand me one day she handed me this book of stuff and a box of fliers and all this stuff. She goes here, go out and talk to businesses.

Melissa Pearson: [00:35:34] And I’m like, What? I was scared to death. And then I was like, Oh, my gosh. And I went into advertising and I worked for Trader Publishing and we flew out to Dallas, Texas. And within ten minutes of being there, we were on stage and being filmed in front of everyone with the old VCR and people were throwing up in the class. It was horrible. We had a before and after, so I had to learn to adjust and talk to people. And from then on I just loved it. And I had this client tell me he goes, Melissa, you just thrive in front of people. And I’m like, Well, yeah, you’re right. I do. I do love people and helping people and connecting people. I had a boss in the in the advertising or before that, I think, leasing. And she said, Melissa, be the go to girl, be that connector you know and you will always have business and people relying on you. And I was like, okay. So I just lived that forward and I do. I love connecting people, helping people give back. I mean, there are so many amazing people out there doing so much for our community and I want to be one of those people and do my part. And that’s what I try to do every day.

Brian Pruett: [00:36:45] So we mentioned you were worth a barter company share about them and what the what their goal and mission is.

Melissa Pearson: [00:36:53] We. Our goal is to get more clients for small businesses and get their business to grow, and they get them in barter dollars rather than nothing. So a restaurant that’s not completely filled or a painter that has gaps in their schedule or like a entertainment place that’s not completely filled, why lose that money and get barter dollars instead of nothing? And a lot of people don’t understand that. They get referrals from other businesses and it spins anywhere in the network. So my boss, Rick Zampatti, started this company 27 years ago, so we’re very well established in Kennesaw. He gives back to the community, must ministries. They call him the Giver. And we’ve all given back and most ministries, and we do a lot for our clients too. We have Casino Night, which Jenny came and a huge Christmas show that’s so much fun. Lots of different meet ups and different client appreciations. So we try to give back to our clients as well and connect them. And I work with just wonderful, amazing people, the brokers in the office, and they are dedicated to give back to their people and find their people business. And it’s just it’s a ton of barter business going on. And we have several people in the $2 Million club and like I think eight now it grows and the $1 million Club. So it’s a huge business and we’re the largest in the Southeast and my boss is always looking for ways to help people and savvy business ideas. So it’s, you know, it’s a great company to work for. I’ve been there since. Well twice now, five years this time and beforehand also.

Brian Pruett: [00:38:43] So if somebody who doesn’t know exactly what barter is and barter dollars, what is that share what that is?

Melissa Pearson: [00:38:49] Well, barter is an alternative currency. You have your regular bank and your barter bank and your barter bank works just like your regular bank. You just can’t see it. So where you you don’t change, you don’t charge more and you don’t charge less, whatever your good or your service product is, is what you charge. And that money goes into your barter bank account and now you have an extra money in your bank account to use wherever in the network. So if you go out to a restaurant, the waitress comes, she puts the check down, you put your barter card, they swipe it and they spew out a receipt. And that money leaves the customer’s account into the restaurant’s account. And now they have an extra, say, 100 bucks in their barter bank account to spend anywhere in the network. Could be hood cleaning flowers, gift, employee incentives. We have pretty much everything you can imagine.

Brian Pruett: [00:39:47] Are there certain industries that are not good for barter?

Melissa Pearson: [00:39:51] Well, we do have industries that we have tapped out and we don’t want to promise them business if we can’t get them business. So we kind of you know, we’re all over the Atlanta area, from Gainesville to Rome to, you know, the Atlanta area. So a Peachtree City Newnan. So if we can’t get someone enough business in a certain area, we will not bring them on. And we have a list of that and we have a top list, too. And if clients are asking for a certain category, we’ll go out and get it for them.

Brian Pruett: [00:40:24] Are there certain are in those categories? Do you have multiples or do you just stick with a couple in that category or do what.

Melissa Pearson: [00:40:33] I’m saying it depends on what it is. A restaurant is so transactional. We’re going to have a lot of restaurants all over the Atlanta area, whereas maybe a counselor, we don’t have as many. You know, it’s not as transactional. So it just depends on what category it is and where it is.

Brian Pruett: [00:40:52] But there’s no exclusivity, right? You don’t know. Okay. All right. So other than the reason of why you shared of being the barter and stuff, why is it important for you to be part of the community? Because you’re everywhere as well.

Melissa Pearson: [00:41:02] Well, I don’t want to be just a taker. I want to be a giver as well. And I want to help people grow. I’ve been in advertising all the time and that’s what I did with numbers. I would help businesses grow and we have a ton of advertising. I think that’s the most brilliant thing people can do, is invest their barter dollars back into advertising. Could be TV, radio, magazines, direct mail. I mean, tons of different things.

Brian Pruett: [00:41:27] So you actually had started a business before, right? You were in between when you did your own business. And I’m going to ask this for you, Jenny, as well, too. But Melissa, first, can you share with somebody who may be thinking about starting their business what they should do.

Melissa Pearson: [00:41:44] Really look at the numbers and investigate it and the trends, too? I kind of I had a money mailer and I could have been successful if I had a mr. Melissa, but it was just me, so I didn’t have that backup. I don’t know.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:01] If we could have the. Mr..

Melissa Pearson: [00:42:02] Melissa You just wait till we get outside.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:07] Brian Jenny, how about you? If somebody is thinking about starting a business because you’ve now obviously been in for a while, what would you tell them?

Jenny Cantrell: [00:42:15] Well, first of all, is there a need if, you know, you may be let’s just use this as an example. Let’s say that you love making cupcakes and that’s your passion and whatever. But if there’s no need for cupcakes, how are you going to sell it? Because you have to be able to sell it and make money to provide for yourself. So there has to be a need. You have to count the cost of really getting detailed about what it’s going to cost you to start up, and you need to have several months advance for when money is not coming in to to take care of yourself and your needs and buy more supplies and so forth. So you’ve got to have some cash flow to carry you until the money is coming in for that. And you have to just if there’s a need and you’ve got the money, then you have to do it in spite of being afraid.

Brian Pruett: [00:43:29] Sharon I like how she gave the example of cupcakes and what she does, and she brings up cupcakes.

Melissa Pearson: [00:43:34] There’s a need to eat them, right?

Sharon Cline: [00:43:37] She balances it out a little bit. Probably is. Okay. Maybe a little.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:43:40] Yeah, that was a bad example, I’m telling you.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:43] Green cupcakes. Green cupcakes.

Brian Pruett: [00:43:45] So, Melissa, if somebody’s listening that has a business and wants to be a part of your barter system, barter company, how can they get Ahold of you?

Melissa Pearson: [00:43:54] They can call me on my cell at (404) 375-9023. Or email me at melissa@bartaco.com. That’s Melissa at barter co.com.

Brian Pruett: [00:44:10] Awesome. Well thank you. I was sharing last week Sharon not Sharon. Sharon sharing. Last week we had Shannon Bowfield on last week as one of the guests and he was he shared what he did at the Castle Business Club on the written written word and how powerful that is. And and one of the things that I also said at the end of the show, too, was that the thank yous are a lost art as well. So I want to thank each of you for not only just coming to be a part of the show, but what you guys do because it does make a difference. You you, the two of you, Jenny and Ingrid are making people in difference lives and you’re making people in difference businesses. So I just thank you for that. So before we wrap this up, I have one more question for the three of you. And I’d like for you guys to share one nugget quote word, just a positive thing that people can take and live today and the rest of 2023 and beyond with. So, Jenny, give me some wisdom.

Jenny Cantrell: [00:45:04] One of my favorite quotes is if it is to be, it’s up to me.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:11] I like that. Awesome. Ingrid.

Ingrid Weir: [00:45:13] My favorite quote is from The Lorax. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:21] Nice.

Melissa Pearson: [00:45:22] Melissa I have several quotes, but my most recent is Sidewalk Prophets. I heard a song Reason to Smile and that has stuck with me with these times because he wrote it. Just because of that. To look around and be thankful for what you have instead of looking at all the other stuff that’s going on in the world.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:46] All good. Good stuff. So, guys, again, thank you for coming to be a part of the show. Everybody out there listening. Let’s remember. Let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.

BRX Pro Tip: 2 Ways to Stay Focused

May 15, 2023 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: 2 Ways to Stay Focused

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BRX Pro Tip: 2 Ways to Stay Focused

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, today’s topic, Staying Focused.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:08] Yeah. Here’s two ways that I use to stay focused. And they might seem like opposites, but they’re really important that you do both of these things.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] The first thing that I like to do is eliminate distractions. And the way that I do this is I use something called time boxing, which blocks time on my calendar that I know that I’m not going to be doing anything else except the task at hand. And that turns off all notifications. Sometimes it means put my phone in another room. But whatever the case is, I eliminate as many distractions as possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:42] And then, secondly, when I do time boxing like this, I also want to make sure that during those times that I have allocated to do the task is that I have regular breaks. And I don’t want to go more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time focused on one task. I want to really do that deep thinking, do the work. But then, I want to walk away. I want to clear my head. I want to take a walk. I want to do something. And then, I want to get right back to it.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] So, the combination of intense focus and then intense rest will help you get more done in less time.

BRX Pro Tip: Do a Systems Check Up

May 12, 2023 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Do a Systems Check Up

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BRX Pro Tip: Do a Systems Check Up

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, today’s topic, Do a Systems Checkup.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:09] Yeah. I think it’s really important to do kind of regular maintenance on your systems, and I would recommend doing this at least quarterly, a quarterly checkup on the main drivers of your business. Some of these questions you should be asking yourself, Are you connecting with enough of the right people? Secondly, are you serving all of the constituents of your community? That means your prospects, your referral sources, the industry experts and the influencers. Are you selling enough? How many sales conversations are you having? How many sales are you closing? If you’re not selling enough, then why?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Every system you have needs regular maintenance and checkups, so methodically kind of add it to your calendar and make sure that you’re asking these questions and having these conversations with your team. Because you don’t want, you know, a bad week to turn into a bad month, and a bad month to turn into a bad quarter, and a bad quarter to turn into a bad year. Nip some of this stuff in the bud by regularly checking on them.