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BRX Pro Tip: Don’t be a Commodity

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Don't be a Commodity
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BRX Pro Tip: Don’t be a Commodity

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, you know what a huge believer I am in positioning and establishing your value ideally before you even really begin to substantially engage with someone. And a core tenet of that is you don’t be a commodity.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. There’s something that Seth Godin wrote a long time ago that it really resonated with me. He goes, “Accept no substitutes is the opposite of you can pick anyone and wear anyone.” So, if people just see you as just another business, they’re going to compare you based on price, generic services or just kind of whatever the industry calls it. That’s what makes a business a commodity. That means you’re replaceable. That means you’re competing in a race to the bottom when it comes to pricing. You have to be able to position yourself as something unique, valuable, and indispensable.

Lee Kantor: If you do that, then clients are going to seek you out specifically and happily pay you for what you do. If you want people to choose you instead of shopping around, you have to make it impossible for them to compare you to anyone else. That means the more unique, the more specialized, and the more personally branded you are, then you’re going to be able to shift in the mind of your client from being a commodity to being an in-demand thought leader. So, spend some time elevating yourself above the commodities in your industry and be one of one, not one of many.

The Art of Active Listening: Elevating Your Leadership Game

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High Velocity Radio
The Art of Active Listening: Elevating Your Leadership Game
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Stone Payton is joined by Jane Bishop, a dedicated coach and leadership expert. Jane shares her diverse career journey, spanning academia, corporate consulting, and solopreneurship, which informs her coaching approach. The discussion delves into the distinctions between coaching, counseling, mentoring, and consulting, emphasizing active listening and powerful questioning. Jane highlights the importance of self-leadership and emotional intelligence for effective leadership. She also addresses the challenges of marketing coaching services and offers a pro tip on understanding core values.

Jane-BishopJane Bishop is a self-proclaimed unplanned entrepreneur that founded Take The Next Step to empower others to go for their “it!” She positively interrupts other’s space to help them stop, pause and think so they move forward as she uses tools/methods of coaching, training and speaking.

Jane uses her experience and expertise from her background that includes academic/athletic at the small college level, corporate, non-profit and business owner to help entrepreneurs, business owners and team leaders co-create a path to develop and/or strengthen their self-leadership skills.

Jane is known for making it all about the other person and has been described as “unexpected” and “refreshing.” As a lifelong learner, she continues to learn new skills and techniques. She holds academic degrees from three institutions, the ICF Coach Credential, and multiple certifications.

One of her favorite quotes is by John Mason: “You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.” It describes her personal approach to life as well as her desire to empower more “originals.”

Connect with Jane on LinkedIn and follow Take The Next Step on Facebook.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Take the Next Step, Jane Bishop. How are you?

Jane Bishop: Well, Stone, thank you for having me to have a conversation with you today.

Stone Payton: Well, I have really been looking forward to this conversation. I got a lot of questions and I don’t know, we might not get to them all, but let’s, uh, let’s start by maybe if you could describe for me and our listeners mission. Purpose. What are you really out there trying to do for folks, Jane.

Jane Bishop: The great question, Stone. I really am passionate about empowering others to go for their IT, whatever they’re looking for at a season in life, at a point in life, at a career, and helping them understand that a lot of times they have everything they need or most everything they need within them. They either don’t know it or they don’t know how to pull it out. But helping them realize that, identify it, and really be able to stand on their story and make a difference in their sphere of influence.

Stone Payton: So tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you find yourself doing this kind of work?

Jane Bishop: So I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version. I have been blessed and fortunate to be in three different career contexts The Academic Athletic Arena, where I was coaching and teaching on a small college level. Then the corporate sector where I was using my gifts and skills with the strategic development, consulting, coaching, training. And then now as an unplanned solopreneur. So I’m where I am today simply because that’s how my life has evolved.

Stone Payton: So I saw a phrase in the, the, the pre-show preparation that I did. And at first I thought it was a typo. And then I thought, you know what? This isn’t a typo. She is using this word. She’s using it for a reason. And you were talking about the coach approach to Leadering. Can you speak more to more to that?

Jane Bishop: Leadering. Well, I think maybe there was a little typo there that I did not catch, but a coach approach to leading and or leadership. That is a great way for people to learn how to better connect with other stone, and it’s using five basic coaching skills that those of us who are professional and credentialed coaches use. Anybody can learn, anybody can use and begin using that approach to conversations and connecting with people. And it is amazing what happens as a result of that. A coaching colleague of mine likes to put it this way in saying it’s like having a conversation on steroids.

Stone Payton: Okay, so there are coaching competencies that can make someone a far more effective leader. That’s funny. So it really was a typo. I like that word though. I’m going to start saying leader. It’s like an action word right.

Jane Bishop: Hey you know and and since I gave you that typo, I’ll use it too. So we can both use it. So how’s how’s your leadering go going today? I think that’s a great see, I love stuff like that.

Stone Payton: I do too, I do too, but look. Yeah, say more about this because it’s the, the, the things that you’ve learned as a professional coach. Those competencies, those skills, those discipline, that rigor, those really do dovetail right into what it takes to to be a good leader and, and generate results with and through the, the voluntary cooperation and effort of other people, doesn’t it?

Jane Bishop: Yes, yes it does. And connecting with people is different than communicating. You can communicate. You can offload information all day, but it doesn’t always connect with the person or the people around to really connect. It’s understanding what is valuable to that person and where the two of you can intersect, or the group of you can intersect. And I’ll just I’ll just give you a little freebie here. The five basic coaching skills that I teach in a, in a workshop that I do are all around listening, asking powerful questions. It’s about aligning to the language that that person is using. You know what’s important to them. You know, picking up and listening on that brainstorming and then finding a way to support, you know, in terms of what you’re hearing. But the two basic ones, the listening and the powerful questions. If if people would practice, learn and practice and hone those skills and didn’t do anything else, stone it, it would be phenomenal. What incredible results would be experienced?

Stone Payton: I don’t remember exactly who it was, but I’ve been blessed with a lot of mentors throughout my career. And he did a great job in like this workshop, really painting the picture and the distinction between listening and waiting. Right? Those are two different things, aren’t they?

Jane Bishop: Yes yes, yes. Well, you know, listening. I don’t know what the what what your mentor did, but listening is, is not hearing. Hearing is that auditory function. We hear sounds and we pick up way, you know, sound waves and different tones if we are listening. Basically what we’re doing, we are all in with that person or that group. We are listening for what they’re saying, for what they’re not saying. We’re focused. We’re not looking around and distracted. We are involved in in their words and understanding where they’re coming from. So it is an all in process.

Stone Payton: So are you working with individuals, teams? Uh, who are you? Who are you working with these days?

Jane Bishop: Yes. Uh, both. As a matter of fact, I work with I have individual coaching clients. I work with teams and groups on a lot of communication and leadership. Under the umbrella of what are some essentials for high performing teams, and it all comes out of how we lead ourselves, because how you and I lead ourselves, how well we do that is really going to determine how effective we are in leading others.

Stone Payton: Well, that’s an interesting perspective. Say more about this because, well, the positive aspect of that, what I find in empowering and inspiring about that is maybe that I do have some degree of control, right? If I start working on leading myself, say more about that.

Jane Bishop: Trying to think of a good, good metaphor, because I think metaphors are an important if if we are if we’re driving a car. I don’t know that this is the best metaphor, but it’s the one that comes up. But if we’re driving a car, we are in control of that car in terms of where it goes. You know, the acceleration, the braking and the changing of the gears. To some degree, though, the car also has its control mechanism because it it functions and everything works together in the engine and all the components. However, how well those components work together is really dependent on how well we care for those components in the inner workings of the car and then how we use those components, how hard we brake, how quickly we accelerate those types of dynamics. Same can hold true to ourselves. We must take care of our internal components physical, mental, social, spiritual and then handle those in a way so that they are used effectively.

Stone Payton: Well, I think it’s a marvelous metaphor. And then to me, it extends for where my mind went was, yeah, we have some control over that immediate environment, but we have to leverage that to adapt and respond to some things we don’t have control over, like the guy in front of us and the guy behind us.

Jane Bishop: Right. Exactly, exactly. So if you’re if if you haven’t taken care of your car and you need new brakes and all of a sudden you have to hit the brakes and they’re not there, what’s going to happen potentially.

Stone Payton: Now, do you make a distinction in your work? Because I know some do between these different things mentoring, consulting, counseling, coaching, the there’s do you make some distinctions between those things?

Jane Bishop: Yes, yes. There are there are distinctions. Stone. That’s a great that’s a great insight from your side. And I appreciate you bringing that up, because a lot of people think that that counseling is coaching and coaching is counseling and consulting is coaching. And here’s the basic distinctions between those disciplines. Consulting is when I go into your organization or your team and you you have issues or you’ve identified that something’s not right, but you don’t know what it is. So I do an assessment. I do all that it takes to get involved, to put together a plan. And I hand that off to you and I say, here’s the plan based on my knowledge, based on my assessment. It’s up to you to work the plan. That’s what consultants do. Counselors will work with you to resolve something from generally our past that is holding us back from moving forward or leading forward, as I like to call it, effectively in our lives. So we have to put some closure to to whatever that is in our past experiences that we just haven’t reconciled. So counseling the discipline of counseling and therapy helps with that. Mentoring is where we come alongside somebody and we act as a guide and we ask questions, but we always but we also invest and impart what we have learned along the way our lessons learned, our hard knocks, things that we got knocked down and had to learn to to get back up. And then coaching is where the client, let’s say you and I were you were you and I were in a coaching coach relationship and you were the client. You are definitely in the driver’s seat, stone. My job is not to take over the wheel and tell you where to go. My job is to watch and listen and observe and ask questions, and then occasionally nudge you to keep you from going off in the ditch. So it’s helping. It’s listening and asking those good, powerful questions so that your wheels begin to turn in your brain and put some things together that perhaps you haven’t thought about.

Stone Payton: Well, yeah. Then those are very different, um, roles and. Right. And functions. And you’ve chosen to gravitate for the most part to coaching, I take it.

Jane Bishop: Yes. That that is my, you know, coach’s the one difference in the distinction in the counseling and the therapy discipline and the coaching profession. Therapists are required to have a license, a credential. There’s certain types of certifications that they are required to go to through, to accomplish, to, to be known as a legitimate therapist. Coaches do not have to do that. How? It’s. However, if you want a legitimate coach, they’re going to be a credentialed or a professional coach that has that coach specific training. Because here’s what happens. Sometimes people say, oh, I’ve got this great coach. They tell me everything I’m supposed to do. Well, okay, then they’re either being a consultant or a mentor. They’re not really being a true coach, because that means you’re not having to think about it. So you want to be disciplined in your experience and your knowledge base, even in the coaching profession, as you do in the other professions.

Stone Payton: Well, and you made the financial and time and energy investment in yourself and in the profession to become a credentialed coach with, um, the International Coaching Federation. Say a little bit about that experience.

Jane Bishop: Yes. The International Coach Federation is is a global organization that is one of the most widely Recognized for coaching, credentialing, and coaching membership. And there’s a certain standards. Any of us who are credentialed through that organization, there are certain coach specific training that we have to do initially, and then there are continuing coaching credits every three years that have to be taken to renew our credential. If a person wants to renew it. There are professional standards, ethical standards, learning support systems. So it is a it’s a good organization, even though a lot of people have not heard about it. And it it’s a guide. It a lot of people will find coaches through that organization because they know they’re they’re credible.

Stone Payton: So at this point in your career, you know, you’ve been at this a while now, what are you finding the most rewarding about the about the work. What do you enjoy the most these days?

Jane Bishop: One of the things I enjoy the most about coaching is when that person or that group has that aha moment and the expression, the energy, the excitement that starts showing up, and they start realizing and putting pieces together of a puzzle that they already had, they just didn’t know where the connecting points were. I love that.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a coach? Like how do you get the the new business?

Jane Bishop: Well, that’s a very challenging part of coaching for most coaches. I you know, I tell it like it is.

Stone Payton: Yeah.

Jane Bishop: There are a lot of business models in the in the coaching world. Some will use the business model of creating funnels to attract people to be able to disseminate information. Others will you speaking to get in front of groups to make themselves known? It really depends on the coach as to what model they use. The key to any model though, that that they try to use in sales and marketing is are two things from my experience and observation. Number one, there’s got to be a marketing plan. You can’t just say, okay, I’m a coach, everybody come now who wants to, you know, pull some things out of them, here I am. That doesn’t work. There’s got to be a plan. And number two, that marketing plan must align with who you are. Just because somebody else is doing, or it’s the hottest and latest thing on the market, does not mean it’s for you. When solopreneurs and entrepreneurs or anybody, but specifically in that I’ll just key in on those two, start trying to grab everything that comes across their path because they think that’s going to get them where they want to go, and yet it’s out of alignment with who they are. It does not end well.

Stone Payton: So what do you enjoy doing when you’re when you’re not engaged in coaching? Anything that you kind of nerd out about that doesn’t have anything to do with the work?

Jane Bishop: You know, I, I enjoy having conversations with people, wherever that may be. On on the High Velocity, uh, podcast with the Great Stone Payton or whether it’s in line, the the local grocery store. I enjoy reading. I enjoy movies, I enjoy my yard work, I find aspects, I simply enjoy life, and I enjoy connecting with people where I am. I love to travel. I haven’t had an opportunity to do that for several years for for family reasons, but I hope to get back to that, you know, at some point in the future.

Stone Payton: Well, I think that’s marvelous. And I. I don’t know if this has been your experience or not. I may have shared with you before we came on air. For example, uh, some family members and I are going to Greece in a few weeks from when we’re doing this on air conversation, and we’ll enjoy the heck out of it, of course. But I find personally when I do that, I honestly believe with all my heart I feel like I come back a better practitioner. I feel like I come back better equipped to serve than before I left. Yes. Do you find that? Yeah.

Jane Bishop: That’s that’s very, very important. I will, I will say I don’t know your your thinking or your rationale behind the name of your podcast, High Velocity. I’d be interested in knowing what that is. Going back to your question about when you get away, you come back feeling refreshed. Yeah. If we want to maintain high velocity, in other words, be the best we can be. And to use your words to have better results in less time, we have to build in those those breaks in life. Now it could be three seconds, or it could be three hours, or it could be, you know, three weeks. However, the key is consistently doing that. We can’t go at high velocity and high octane 100% of the time without stopping to tend it along the way. So your trip that you’re doing with your family and and going to have that refreshment and that reset is is huge.

Stone Payton: I agree, and that’s a marvelous way to wrap the conversation. I was going to specifically ask you for a pro tip around producing better results in less time, and I think you just laid it on us. But I’ll give you a chance. Is there another piece of advice you might leave our listeners with? Just something to chew? You know, something to chew on and be thinking about with respect to coaching internally, getting some, getting some coaching help, engaging a coach, anything around around your body of work. Just some some things to consider or think about before we wrap.

Jane Bishop: Thank you for that opportunity, Stone. I would encourage the listeners to be very clear about the core of who they are. And I’ll the acronym of Core is your character, your operating system, your beliefs, your value system, your relationships. Are they healthy relationships or are they toxic relationships? And then the E of core is your emotional intelligence. Identifying those components within you keeps your core strong. Like our physical core that supports every part of our body so that we stay in alignment so that we can be positioned consistently to lead ourselves well, which leads others well, which creates a whole team of people in high velocity function which is better results in less time.

Stone Payton: I am so glad that I asked, and I’m even more glad that we recorded this conversation. That is marvelous. What’s the best way for our listeners to tap into your work and, you know, maybe have a conversation with you? Let’s leave them with some coordinates so they can do that.

Jane Bishop: Sure. I give anybody a free coaching conversation so you can give you the two things. You can find me at Jane Bishop Live.com or or Jane Bishop Dot. I’ve got two different places there, but I’ll just do the Jane Bishop live. That’s easier because you can get to the other one that way. And then you can find me on LinkedIn. Simply Jane Bishop, real simple. Gives you some information about the leadership. You’ll find my phone number on all of those two places. You can call me. I do answer my phone, and if I’m not available, leave a message and I will call you back. I realize that’s a little atypical in this day and time, but that’s how I roll.

Stone Payton: Oh, marvelous. Jane, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast this afternoon. You’re clearly doing really important work and genuinely serving so many. Thank you. We sure appreciate you.

Jane Bishop: Oh, well, thank you for having me and allowing me a little glimpse into stone and all that you’ve got going. So you just you just keep up that high velocity and keep leading forward.

Stone Payton: I’ll sure do it. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Jane Bishop, with Take the Next Step. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Coaching for Success: Uncovering Blind Spots and Achieving Leadership Goals

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Coaching for Success: Uncovering Blind Spots and Achieving Leadership Goals
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In this episode of the High Velocity Radio Show, Roshmi Dalal, Director of Executive Coaching and Leadership Services at Weaver, joins host Stone Payton. Roshmi shares her journey from CPA to leadership coach, emphasizing the importance of emotional intelligence and mental fitness in effective leadership. She discusses her role in launching Weaver’s new coaching practice, which includes individualized and team coaching, emotional intelligence training, and well-being coaching. The conversation highlights the value of coaching in personal and professional development, the significance of trust in coaching relationships, and practical tips for enhancing leadership skills.

Roshmi-DalalRoshmi Dalal, Director of Executive Coaching & Leadership Solutions at Weaver, is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), CPA, and Mindfulness specialist, dedicated to coaching leaders and individuals to improve their Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and empowering them to make positive behavioral changes to unlock their greatest potential.

With years of experience in high-stress, corporate roles and over 500 hours of coaching clients globally, she has successfully helped people overcome an array of challenges, including their insecurities and negative thought patterns, imposter syndrome, burn out, conflict avoidance, procrastination, career/life transitions, health challenges and more.

Roshmi’s coaching methodology includes extensive positive and emotional intelligence training, a strengths based approach, resilience and accountability tools and mindfulness mastery, which all empower her clients towards achieving their goals and desired outcomes.

Connect with Roshmi on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. This is going to be a good one. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast Director of Executive Coaching and Leadership Services at Weaver, Roshmi Dalal. How are you?

Roshmi Dalal: I’m doing good, Stone. So happy to be here with you today.

Stone Payton: Well, it’s a delight to have you on the show. Tell us a little bit about your role at Weaver and what you find yourself doing these days inside that organization.

Roshmi Dalal: Yeah, I’m very excited to talk about that. So we at Weaver, um, are launching our newest practice in leadership and executive coaching services. Um, so these will these services will involve individualized coaching team coaching. We’re going to, you know, offer some emotional intelligence training. I know that’s really in trend these days in addition to wellbeing coaching. Um, any any challenges with succession planning or even outplacement services? Um, and we have our very own, um, coach training program that we are offering our clients. So yes, I am the director of these external services for our firm. We are a CPA firm that offers audit, tax and, uh, consulting services.

Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like good work if you can get it. Tell tell us a little bit about the journey. How did you find your yourself on this path?

Roshmi Dalal: Yeah, that it is quite the journey because, um, I, you know, started my career as a CPA. So it’s it’s like it’s all coming, you know, to one big circle now with this position I’m in. Um, so I started my, my career as a CPA. Oh, gosh. About 25 years ago. Um, coming out of the University of Texas at Austin. Um, and, uh, leaping into the world of the big four public accounting firms. One very famous kind of actually infamous, infamous known as Arthur Andersen is where I started my career. Um, and I was there for almost five years with, um, another infamous client called Enron being, uh, my main client over there. And, you know, early this was very early on in my career that, you know, I experienced, um, such a curveball as both companies, as you know, went went down in the early 2000. Um, and we had promising careers. Um, my husband and I actually both worked for these companies, and we we just saw it all come to an end within five years of being at these firms. Um, so from there, I went on to work for an oil and gas company called Occidental, and I continued on providing or, you know, servicing in accounting, finance and specifically in Sarbanes-Oxley at the time, which was very hot off the press due to the situation at Arthur Andersen and Enron. Um, I became their technical accounting lead. And then life happened. Stone um, we started to experience some, uh, personal setbacks, which caused me to take a break from my career in, um, in oil and gas accounting for a bit.

Roshmi Dalal: We started a family at the same time. And our our extended family, um, meaning our parents really experienced some health issues that I had to take a break for and be and be a caretaker? Essentially. Um, for a few years. Um, so as I was experiencing those setbacks, I was, you know, kind of exploring my own personal growth at the time and noticing how much I, you know, had to turn to mental fitness tools. You know, essentially, that’s what I call them to recover and jump back, uh, and move on from these setbacks, whether they were health as they were, my parents both had, um, serious health issues that I was trying to combat or, again, with my career. Any other area I was noticing myself in those instances and how I was recovering, and I was taking the help of meditation practices, mindfulness tools, all to kind of help me move on from these setbacks. Um, I did try to go back during this time to my accounting career. And, you know, as we all believe in destiny would have it. It just wasn’t working out because I was a caretaker for a few years. Doing both was, you know, very, very hard on our families and was difficult to find a part time situation that would accommodate that. Well, lo and behold, we, um, experienced loss, uh, due to those health issues. And, um, we also experienced devastation from our home being flooded in Hurricane Harvey in 2017. And once again, instead of spiraling because of those setbacks, we did something very, um, out of the ordinary.

Roshmi Dalal: We took a position to go to the other side of the world, to the Middle East, and work for Saudi Aramco. Um, that was certainly a a brave leap of faith, uh, from some of the, again, challenges that we faced here back at home in Houston. But we just saw some real possibilities for our career as well as for our family. And it was in the Middle East where, um, I was assigned to come up with a positive mental wellbeing program for a sizable oil and gas company. And it was there that I discovered the world of coaching, and I was coaching on the job without even knowing I was a coach at the time. And, um, and, and because of, you know, the world becoming more virtual at the time, this was soon after, uh, the pandemic hit. I was able to start my own global coaching practice, um, in the Middle East and, um, service clients at large oil companies that were in leadership roles as well as the community over there. Uh, that was going through so much progress, um, with males and females being on, you know, the same page or on the same plane, rather both at work and in, um, in, in the In the local communities. Um, and then, uh, I took my practice back here in Houston. We moved back a few years ago and resumed my, um, private practice and then got, uh, an exciting opportunity to work for, for Weaver and launch their external coaching practice, which is what I’m doing right now.

Stone Payton: It’s never a straight line, is it?

Roshmi Dalal: But that’s what makes life so interesting, I think.

Stone Payton: But what a tremendous amount of, uh, street cred you must have in your day to day work. Are you finding that mental fitness resilience that it’s analogous to physical fitness in that you really can impact it with some discipline, some rigor? There are ways to to increase this. Yes.

Roshmi Dalal: Yes, 100%. I mean, I do believe and through my own personal and professional setbacks and challenges that, you know, we are in power of our destiny in a way. Um, as long as we can get out of our own heads, as long as we don’t allow ourselves to spiral in response to major setbacks and challenges, and these mental fitness tools and practices that I was so privileged to have by my side when practiced regularly and with intention, can definitely help you with that resilience that’s needed. Um, whether it’s a, you know, decision that you’re having to make in a leadership role or, again, whether it’s something personal that you’re trying to recover from, such as a loss of a loved one. Um, you know, when practice regularly, it can do so much, uh, in terms of that recovery, in terms of seeing the possibilities ahead even when things seem so bad. Um, so I, I draw huge parallels to physical fitness, as you mentioned. Um, and it of course it depends on the size of the challenge, but the more regular we are with our mental fitness practices, uh, the easier we’re able to hand handle the challenges, no matter the size.

Stone Payton: So with that, as an overarching framework, what are some other key topics or practice areas that you find yourself working with, with people and teams on? Or there are a few that just are almost always part of the process for you guys.

Roshmi Dalal: A lot of clients come to me for just developing their emotional intelligence. And emotional intelligence covers so many competencies. You know, uh, self-awareness, emotional self-awareness, self-control, self-confidence, um, growing initiative, flexibility. Um, again, that resilience. Empathy. Very key to emotional intelligence. Um, and, you know, all these competencies, uh, are used in leadership, um, in, at on executive roles as they’re managing teams, as they’re, um, you know, trying they’re challenged with, uh, a merger or acquisition bankruptcy, um, trying to, uh, engage their clients, retain them, trying to develop productivity tools, uh, time management tools for their employees. So, you know, all of these, um, emotional intelligence, um, tools are being used to address client needs in the areas that I, that I work in.

Stone Payton: And the people you’re working with, I’m operating under the impression. I mean, these are they’re in high stress, high stakes roles, right? I mean, this could have a heck of an impact on the everything from mental fitness to bottom line, right?

Roshmi Dalal: Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, you know, there’s strategic planning involved. There’s high stake decision making with lots of stakeholders involved. Um, communication is so key. So, yes, uh, depending on the challenge, of course, all these areas of development are needed in, in, you know, highly, uh, high profile leadership roles. I’ve seen it with, with my own clients.

Stone Payton: So I think you mentioned earlier a phrase like, you know, I have clients who come to me or to us for this or for that. And I was kind of thinking, man, it would be great if they are coming to you. And it must be tremendous value in having them engage in the work. But is that sometimes a challenge? Because I can think that there it would. There are people in my life. Let’s let’s put it that way. I can only speak to what I observe. That boy, I really feel like they would benefit from something like this, but I don’t know that they would be real quick to come to any. Like how do you get the new clients new the new business?

Roshmi Dalal: Now, that’s a great question, Stone, because often people don’t realize that they have the need, right? Or it’s difficult for them to talk about. And, um, you know, I’m a big believer in listening to to to the, the challenges that my prospects have, uh, before trying to offer what I, you know, what I can do for them. So being a very keen listener and really trying to take a deep dive on what someone’s needs are, I think are extremely important, um, for them to build awareness on, you know, how we as a service provider and coaching can help them. Um, and of course, we take the help of assessments as well. Um, I have emotional intelligence assessments that I offer. Um, I’m trained in Harrison, which is a very robust leadership, um, assessment where people understand, again, at a deeper level, you know, where are they? What are their own roadblocks? Where, where how are they getting in their own way of progress? You know, the famous saying, our minds can be our best friends, but they can be our worst enemies. And a lot of times, these assessments are a great indicator on helping people figure out, um, you know, what they can do for themselves to, to get ahead.

Stone Payton: I could see where some of the people that you’re working with, maybe many of the people would feel feel alone. I don’t maybe even like you got people aiming at you. But I can see in leading an organization of any real size and complexity feeling that way. And then I can also see the person really kind of getting down on themselves when it doesn’t go right. I mean, you’re dealing with all of these dynamics at once, I suspect.

Roshmi Dalal: Leadership roles as as you can imagine, are different from management roles, traditional management roles. I mean, you are, as a leader, having to really, you know, um, address those curveballs that are coming at you a mile a minute at the same time, uh, with very, very deep consequences if if those decisions are not made right. And so, um, there is there is so much to, uh, you know, there’s so many benefits of developing oneself by the time you get to that point, um, to be able to handle a company in distress, you know, or a company that’s restructuring, um, or going through, um, major growth even, you know, how do you take that company in the right direction in a way that’s, um, calm and effective and influential, inspiring as well for, you know, your employees.

Stone Payton: So what’s the most rewarding thing about the work for you these days? What do you what are you enjoying the most at this point in your practice and your career?

Roshmi Dalal: Well, I think, you know, taking my clients through the journey of coaching can once again just reveal so many blind spots that they didn’t know they had in their, um, in their own way of thinking. And I think, you know, taking that deep dive with them to really understand, um, their past to some extent. Of course, as coaches, we don’t go into their past as much. But but to really understand the present level, um, in a much more deeper level is impactful for them to make the changes that they want to make and seeing them make those changes and get closer to achieving their goals for me is is absolutely rewarding. I mean, that’s why I entered this profession and to begin with, um, I’m so, uh, fulfilled as I offer this trusted, uh, quiet space for my clients to do the deep reflection that they do and to, you know, lay out their their action steps to get closer to achieving their desired outcomes has been very rewarding for me as a coach to see.

Stone Payton: Well, I’m glad you mentioned, uh, a trusted space, because I was thinking, as you were talking the level of trust, the depth of relationship that you must have to cultivate for the to to really help these folks as much as possible. I mean, they have they have got to feel safe when they’re engaging in this learning, don’t they?

Roshmi Dalal: Oh, that level of safety is one of the most important things to build that, you know, trust, uh, and vulnerability, um, you know, in this coaching relationship, I start, uh, with six months of coaching to begin, and we meet twice a month. And believe me, the first few months, I would say, yeah, we’re just getting to know each other. You know, we’re just continuing to explore one another and, um, get those very uncomfortable, get to those very uncomfortable places. Um, that that’s not easy to always talk about, you know, looking at patterns and for myself, making observations. But even being able to be very transparent as we go along in our coaching, it just takes time and trust and, um, again, creating that safe space in our coaching relationship. But that can lead to phenomenal results.

Stone Payton: Well, I suspect there’s tremendous value if your clients choose to take advantage of it That in watching you model behaviors, maybe even strategies and tactics and tools to build trust because, wow, how much more powerful might they be as a leader if they take some of what they see you doing inside their organization? Yeah.

Roshmi Dalal: What a great point. You just made, stone. Um, that’s really that’s a lot of what happens during our coaching conversations. We marry each other in a way. And so it is important for me to show that empathy that that leader wants to grow in for his or her team. You know, it is important for me to show active listening where I’m completely present to, to what my client is telling me versus being distracted on the phone or trying to do something else. Um, again, if that client wants to work on his or her presence and productivity. Um, so yes, as we are engaging in these conversations, I am doing my best to model and project the behaviors that my client wants to see and develop.

Stone Payton: So do you run into I got I’m going to call them myths, misconceptions, just preconceived notions about what this work is. You know, maybe early in the in the in the course of engaging with people, do you find that you have to kind of educate through or work around to sometimes people have some pretty, um, off the mark ideas about things like mindfulness and, and mental fitness and emotional intelligence and these kind of things.

Roshmi Dalal: Oh yes, there is always misconceptions. Sometimes, as you know, the the mindfulness. And these areas are perceived as being woo woo, you know, uh, by many. Um, but, you know, I, I take the time and I think it’s important for coaches to do this to to clarify, first of all, the coaching tools that I use and the meaning behind them and what they’re able to bring for my clients when I do demonstrate, for example, mindfulness practices during the coaching sessions, I do it with permission. First of all, I ask my clients for permission to to engage in these practices, and then I love to explore what those practices did for them so that, you know, it’s not just a one sided approach. They’re receiving it and feeling the difference. Um, and then I, I want to ask them, has their, uh, perception of these tools change? And nine out of ten times it’s a resounding yes. Um, they see the impact, they see how calming the effect is. They see the clarity that it brings in their, um, approach to thinking and decision making and and most of all, they see the long term resilience that they gain from doing these practices regularly. And of course, the emotional intelligence competencies that they’re building over time. So, um, again, early on, I do like to clarify, you know, a little more about what these practices do, will bring them, will do for them and what they’re all about and how they’re relevant to our coaching. I also try to clarify what coaching is in general and how it’s different from therapy and mentoring and counseling, because many times when I do have a client that wants to work with me, they want to know the answers. They want advice, um, specifically if they’re in the same area of business, which is the finance industry, you know, if they’re CPAs that are wanting to develop that emotional intelligence. And, um, of course, my answer to them is, is that coaching is not advice. It’s about us engaging in a series of thought provoking questions and conversation that helps allow for you to bring the best solutions to your challenges.

Stone Payton: Well, this brings me back. I don’t want to dismiss this at all, because it’s kind of a I don’t know, revelation may be strong, but it’s certainly opening my eyes to this this idea of capability transfer and thinking about return on investment from having senior leadership participate in something like this. But with this capability transfer, I’m going to call it for right now, whether it’s conscious or not. I mean, that could have an exponential impact on going like the, you know, like the ripples in the pond thing when I get back to my ranch. Right?

Roshmi Dalal: Yes. Are you referring to the ROI, the return on investment? Yeah.

Stone Payton: Coaching to me, you know, and like, I’m. I’m the number two guy in a pretty successful media company, right? So if I’m in there working with you. We’re working through some of my challenges. I’m building that trust. I’m watching you model that behavior. I’m practicing on these skills in a safe environment. And, um, you know, I could certainly have other people in the organization come to you as well. But now we’ve got a we’ve got me going back to the ranch Business RadioX and behaving this way and being a model for people in my world, that’s a a multiple return. It seems to me like.

Roshmi Dalal: Yes. And, you know, to kind of corroborate that, to back that up, you know, we encourage our clients to do 360 reviews with their with their teams, you know, do a set before the coaching, do a set after the coaching so they can really realize from the feedback, the changes that their teams are experiencing, um, with their leadership. So there are definite return on investment numbers to back this work up. Um with improving leadership competencies, uh, for our clients.

Stone Payton: All right, I’m gonna switch gears on you for a moment, if I could. I am genuinely interested, and I think our listeners will be, too. Uh, hobbies, pursuits, interests outside the scope of your work, anything you have a tendency to nerd out about or really enjoy that doesn’t have anything to do with any of this?

Roshmi Dalal: Well, I am a very extroverted social person, so I, number one, love people. And, uh, I, I love just, um, you know, engaging in all kinds of, uh, clubs, like book clubs. I love to read. I love to discuss books. Um, sometimes they’re on coaching since it is a place of passion for me. And sometimes they’re on various topics. Um, I am quite the spiritual person, so I love topics on spirituality. I enjoy, um, teaching yoga. That’s one of my passions and mindfulness. Um, and it again brings me closer to that spiritual path that I, you know, um, take very seriously. I love children, so I teach Sunday school, and, uh, I love, you know, being able to engage with kids. I love traveling in the Middle East. We got to travel quite a bit, just being geographically in a very central location. Um, and of course, my family is number one. I’ve got two teenagers, 19 and almost 17, who I adore and would love to spend every waking minute with if I could. So I’m very grateful I have a very full life in addition to this, um, wonderful job that I have at Weaver.

Stone Payton: Well, I find you remarkably calm and evenly keeled for a mother of two teenagers. So, uh, congratulations on that.

Roshmi Dalal: I’ve had lots of tests there, so.

Stone Payton: Hey, before we wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners with a pro tip for producing better results in less time. But, you know, in the context of of this conversation, whether it’s, it’s, uh, their own development or trying to look at their organization and look, gang. The number one pro tip is reach out and have a conversation with me or someone on the team. But let’s give them a little something, whether it’s something to read or to think about. Uh, let’s leave them with a pro tip.

Roshmi Dalal: Yes, absolutely. You know, I go back to we are often the ones that get in our own ways. So instead of looking at challenges as just being external, whether it’s in your professional or even personal life, um, take a deep dive and look into developing your own self, you know, building that self-awareness, taking that pause. More importantly, when you are faced with a challenge and, you know, doing some reflection on what is what is it that that it continues to get in the in your own way regarding your thought patterns? And what are some neat ways that you can help change that with the help of a coach or someone that could hold that trusted space for you as we work on ourselves? I believe in so many more possibilities, and I think we deserve to give ourselves that pause and do that reflection and work on ourselves as we move forward in our lives.

Stone Payton: I think that’s marvelous, counsel. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to continue to tap into your work, maybe have that conversation with you or someone on your team. Let’s give them some coordinates to do that.

Roshmi Dalal: Yes, absolutely. Please do check out our company website at Weaver. Com and specifically, if, um, anyone wants to reach out to me, shoot me an email at roshmi. That’s spelled r o I dot. I’d a l a l at Weaver Comm.

Stone Payton: Rosemead. Thank you so much for investing the time to visit with us this afternoon. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, and thank you for the work you’re doing. It is so important and impacting so many and we are sincerely grateful.

Roshmi Dalal: O Stone, this was so much fun. I really appreciate the opportunity and time you’ve given me to talk about a topic I absolutely love.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Roshmi Dulal with Weaver and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Women in Health: A Bold New Approach to Ending Hunger

by

WIM-Jenny-Buettner-Feature
Women in Motion
Women in Health: A Bold New Approach to Ending Hunger
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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor welcomes Jenny Buettner, CEO of Buettner Global Services. Jenny shares her remarkable transition from the fashion industry to the food service sector, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. She discusses her company’s mission to combat food insecurity by providing healthier food options and developing a transparent vending program for donations. The episode highlights the importance of innovation, partnerships, and community engagement in addressing food security issues, showcasing Jenny’s dedication to making a significant impact in the health sector.

Buettner-Global-Services-logo

Jenny-BuettnerJenny Buettner is a dynamic business leader, entrepreneur, and strategist with a proven track record in brand development, sales, and market expansion. As the CEO of Buettner Global Services Jenny has been able to assist in scaling brands into Food Service through her connections and partnerships.

Additionally, she has used her expertise to participate in the launch of Aqua beato as their Chief Operating Officer, she has been instrumental in driving growth, securing key distribution partnerships, and positioning the brand as a leader in the **natural alkaline water industry**.

With a passion for innovation and sustainability, she has spearheaded initiatives that bring high-quality, environmentally conscious products to market along with spearheading food scarcity and fatigue through SirVend aiming to combat hunger during emergencies and everyday needs.

Beyond these initiatives, Jenny has built a diverse portfolio of business ventures, from consumer goods and private labeling to strategic brand consulting. She excels in forging meaningful industry relationships, navigating complex supply chains, and creating impactful marketing campaigns.

Her expertise in scaling businesses, breaking into new markets, and leading high-performing teams has made her a sought-after voice in the industry.

As a WBENC-certified entrepreneur, Jenny is committed to empowering women in business and helping others navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship. Her insights on leadership, business development, and innovation continue to inspire emerging entrepreneurs and industry leaders alike.

Connect with Jenny on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Jenny Buettner, and she is the CEO of Buettner Global Services Corp. And this month, remember we are highlighting women in Health, so I am so excited to be talking to Jenny about her work. Welcome, Jenny.

Jenny Buettner: Hi. Nice to see you. How are you?

Lee Kantor: I am doing well. I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Buettner Global Services. How are you serving folks?

Jenny Buettner: So, Buettner Global Services has been in the food service industry for the last five years, supporting food banks and shelters and major distributors across the country and helping with food insecurity.

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

Jenny Buettner: Oh, okay. So, this is my backstory. It’s very interesting, considering I did not come from the food industry. My background has been in fashion, and I was in fashion for 12 years, designed and patented fashion solution products, and have been in manufacturing for quite some time. And COVID happened. Everything came to a complete standstill with fashion, you know, the fashion shows, weddings, whatnot, everything just kind of stopped. And I overheard a conversation with Sysco mentioning that they needed food and helping with the MREs, Meals, Ready-to-Eat, for different food banks and shelters across the country and that they had been contracted for. And since they did not have the capability to do small-scale retail, shelf-stable food, everything they did was in large portions like six, ten cans, 20-pound bags of pasta, they needed assistance in finding smaller quantities of food.

Jenny Buettner: So, I overheard a conversation that this is what they’re looking for, and I said I can help you because I’ve been working in that space. And then let me tell you how I worked in that space. So in the fashion world, I made, manufactured my products that I patented, and I sold them into high-end costuming, wardrobing and boutiques across the country. And then I knocked myself off and also brought myself, bifurcated the company and brought myself into discount chains like Dollar Tree, 99 Only, and so forth. So that manufacturing and that scale increased exponentially by being able to go from 600 high-end boutique stores and costume and wardrobing to now, you know, another 30,000 stores across the country by going into the discount retail area.

Jenny Buettner: So, that’s my manufacturing background, being able to perform for all of those different categories. And so, initially I heard that they needed assistance. I told them that I worked with these discount retailers. They asked me if I can assist them through that process. So it got me into the food business. And then I started working directly with manufacturing or different manufacturing companies to assist us in that purchasing.

Jenny Buettner: So, as I started to see the food start to – so, people starting to get food fatigue, you know, with a lot of these food programs. It’s the same food over and over and over again. And you start to see that people who are receiving this do become fatigued with the choices that are presented to them. The choices are not always the healthiest that the government provides to them. And so, I started seeing that there was a need to provide healthier choices to our community. And that’s how I got started.

Lee Kantor: Can you talk a little bit – you kind of went over it pretty quickly, but I’m really curious about the point of you knocking yourself off. And that’s – I find that most companies are afraid to do something like that. I mean, I can only think of Netflix as one of the few that have successfully knocked themselves off to be, you know, a major pivot, but still kind of within the same industry. Can you talk about the thought process there and the steps you took to knock yourself off so you can expand your presence?

Jenny Buettner: Sure, sure. So in that fashion world, my initial products that I patented were designed to go into, like I said, high-end costume and wardrobing, into fashion boutiques, and so forth. And so once I accomplished that, I went that is very limiting. You know, you’re stuck now with just a specific demographic where I really wanted to be able to provide my products to the masses.

Jenny Buettner: And so I created a secondary brand, and I brought it to Dollar Tree and to 99 Only and Dollar General, and like I said, I bifurcated the company and created another network of opportunities for my products that just didn’t sit in a high-end level. So by doing that, I was really able to expand the brand. And that brand is Shibue Couture, and that brand has been doing exceptionally well and still does today.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was – can you just walk us through what was the thought process like? Did you hit a point where it’s like, hey, there’s no – this market’s not big enough for our dreams? We’re going to have to do something. Can you talk about how you went to that point? Because that – I don’t know if everybody would make that same step that you took to, you know, go into a different, you know, whole market, you know, knocking yourself off like you did. Can you talk about kind of the thought process, the trade-offs that you were debating about doing it?

Jenny Buettner: Well, as long as I was not interfering with my high-end brand, then I was okay. And that’s really what I was looking for. I wanted to make sure that – the thought process behind it is how do I be able to increase my manufacturing capability, bring prices down, and hit a wider market? And I was not able to hit a wider market just by sitting alone in a high-end retail, especially with fashion solution products. And that’s what my company, you know, it’s still my company today, Shibue, is that Shibue was designed for fashion solutions, so things that you can’t see, which is – we went from food to fashion. But the whole basis for Shibue was to look flawless underneath the clothing that you’re wearing, without showing panty lines and bra straps and so forth and so on. So that was the concept all behind Shibue, and I felt like there was a much broader audience than just in your high-end retail, that there was a need across, you know, all walks of life.

Jenny Buettner: So by providing those products to the discount chains, you know, I felt like I was giving somebody else a high-end product but at a better offering. And also, I was able to increase my capability of manufacturing at a higher level.

Lee Kantor: And then by building those relationships with those other outlets, that kind of made sense with the food side of the business. Now, you had access to a variety of markets that your food could get distributed into.

Jenny Buettner: That’s right. So it really was when the change of the guard happened. So I went from providing them as a, you know, as manufacturer my products to saying, hey, I need to buy your products for this need. And so, I did. I became, you know, I switched hats and came out to them and said, look, I need to be able to buy these products for Meals, Ready-to-Eat, and I need to be able to buy them at a better price. And I need them immediately. And you have access to it right now, and I need it right now because that’s what happened in COVID. You know, all of a sudden everything was cut off immediately and people were, you know, without a job, without food; there was only so many people that were designated to be – what was the word that they used? We were –

Lee Kantor: The essential.

Jenny Buettner: Essential. We were essential, yeah, you know, who was an essential worker, who wasn’t an essential worker. And so, you know, everybody was pretty much cut off from the food chain or, you know, financing, you know, having money to be able to go out and buy food. So we were picking up the pieces along the lines with some of the retailers that I had relationships with.

Jenny Buettner: And then, as I was utilizing those relationships, I was also creating new relationships in the food industry and started calling and knocking on doors and, you know, reaching out to people who were very seasoned in the industry and that were also needing help. And I became an integral part of sourcing for not only Sysco, but, you know, various other high-end distribution companies and, you know, food banks and shelters. So, we became very essential very quickly.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you could share for other people when they’re trying to elevate themselves from a vendor to a partner? How did you build the relationships in such a way that that made sense for both parties?

Jenny Buettner: That’s interesting because it wasn’t super easy in the beginning. You know, this industry and the – I could say that about industry, every industry, every industry has it seems to be your good old boys or, you know, people who have been in the business for so long that, you know, they’re an anchor there. And me coming in as somebody brand new saying, look, I want to buy half a million dollars worth of your product. They’re, who are you? You know, how do we know you’re going to pay us? How do – you know. It was – it was quite a challenge. It really was.

Jenny Buettner: I mean, there was, you know, deals that I was making all. You know, I will go ahead and I will confirm that I will buy X amount over this amount of time and really started building up relationships and showing that there were benefits and they could trust me in the business. And that was the biggest part. You know, you have a lot of people, I think, who come to some of these businesses, and they’re looking to make the quick buck and then escape. That wasn’t my plan. My plan was to go in and make a presence and then grow my presence.

Jenny Buettner: Because if I was going to step into something like this, it wasn’t going to be a one-shot wonder. I was going to make something of this, and this is what we’ve done. And as a result, now we are expanding into the way we assist people who are having food security issues or even basic need issues.

Jenny Buettner: That’s become a huge thing as well, as we start to see emergencies happen all across our country. One of the things that we’ve developed and we’re deploying now is our containers with not only Meals, Ready-to-Eat but your basic necessities of aspirins and, you know, laundry detergent and toothpaste and toothbrushes and things like that. All in vending, in vending machines. So that’s a whole nother thing. You and I could talk for hours about some of these programs that we have, but it’s really been expanding the way that we are implementing our food choices and healthier choices to the end user. So we can avoid the food fatigue, avoid the food waste, the labor shortage, and so forth, and really making a meaningful impact.

Lee Kantor: Now, how are you deciding how and when to innovate? Like is – I guess I would imagine in something like vending, you’re getting pretty instant data about, “Okay, this is selling, this is not selling. Let’s do more of this. Less of this.” Is it something that you are from the top down, you’re saying, hey, we need more of this? Or is it from the bottom up, where the people are like, hey, you know, if we had more of this, you’d sell more of this?

Jenny Buettner: So, this is a new program that we’ve just piloted, and we’re just doing it right now in California, in Orange County. And the way that the program works is that our vending is all powered by our wishes platform, which is another exciting thing I could share with you.

Jenny Buettner: It is a platform that you can go in and make a donation and specify it to family members, friends, people who have stories, like a GoFundMe. But the difference is, is when you give your $100 donation and you say, I want it to go to the fire victims and I wanted to go to basic essentials, that money goes into that pool. And then the minute that money is spent, you know exactly where that money was spent and who spent it. So, you know, not a full name and whatnot if it was gone into a pool but you’ll know exactly that data.

Jenny Buettner: And today nobody has that kind of data on donations. And so if you went in and said, I want $500 to go to my son who’s going to college, and I want him to only spend it on food because, you know, we want to be able to track what my son’s spending, now you have that donation and that when your son goes to spend that money on our vending machines, you know exactly where that money’s been spent.

Jenny Buettner: So what we’ve seen and what we’ve uncovered in the last 4 or 5 years during our work with food banks and donations and fundraisers and so forth, that there’s no transparency. When you give that money, you don’t know where that money has gone. You don’t know if it’s gone to food. You don’t know if it’s gone to liquor. You don’t know, you know, or even if the story is that you’ve been told has been properly vetted. You know, I can tell you stories like Scamanda, right, on Netflix today where people were donating and that was a complete farce. Well, everything that we’re doing through our wishes platform and through our Serv-Vending program, you know exactly where every penny has been spent through the donation process. And the data is remarkable. Just the data that we’re able to provide is remarkable.

Jenny Buettner: And we really feel that that’s going to be super meaningful as we move through our pilot and then move across the country with our vending program, because not only are we going to be able to provide – not only are we going to be able to provide, you know, detailed data of how the money is being spent, the food choices that people are making but we’re also going to be able to provide healthy food that is either specific to people’s health requirements, you know, low sodium, gluten-free, that type of thing, high protein, low carbs, healthy, good food that is all locally sourced. And that’s been – you know, this whole program that we’re developed out right now is all about community, working with local, local companies and really being able to provide a missing link in what is going on in today’s world for food security.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you partnering with organizations, school systems, or is it individual people?

Jenny Buettner: No, right now we’re partnering with campuses because we’re recognizing that on – especially on a lot of our, you know, college campuses that there’s a huge insecurity of food for, you know, some of these students that are on campus. We’ve determined just on one campus alone, I won’t mention it, but here in Orange County, the one campus alone, there’s 19,000 students enrolled in the school, but there are 5000 who go without a meal a day.

Jenny Buettner: And so, with our wishes program and with the donations that we’re able to put up into that pool, they’re able to go and utilize our wish card through our Serv-Vending program and utilize that money to be able to buy food, laundry detergent, just necessities, you know, school pen, paper, you know, and you’re starting to really understand where money is being spent and how it’s being and how – and be able to take that data and derive the information that’s necessary for us to be able to take this and pilot it across the U.S.

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

Jenny Buettner: So when I started working with Sysco, the amount of projects and, you know, sales that we were doing with them across the country, they asked, they said, “Are you certified through WBENC?” And I said, “No.” And I really didn’t know much about WBENC at the time. And they said, “You know, you really need to get on with WBENC. We would like you to be a WBE.” And I said, “Sure, no problem.” So we signed up with WBENC, and I’ve been thrilled that we’ve been a partner with WBENC because they have been instrumental in really a lot of connections throughout, you know, throughout the country.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of right now? Do you need more strategic partnerships? Do you need more talent, more funding? What –

Jenny Buettner: All of the above, actually, because this particular program that we’re going into is not a small program. You know, FEMA is having a little bit of a challenge today. And I think what we’ve got going on today, nobody is being able to provide the type of data that we can provide. And so growing out this platform and bringing it across the country to all the different schools and campuses and shelters is where we’re going.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the best way to connect? What is the website?

Jenny Buettner: So, the best way to connect with me right now is jenny@bgs-corp.com. They would be able to reach out to me on my email. And our website is bgs-corp.com. They’d be able to reach out, check out our website there. But that is my what you called me on regarding my food business. Right? This is what we do.

Jenny Buettner: But one of our – it’s our – you know, a subsidiary is our Serv-Vend, which is what we’re pushing out there for the food insecurity across the campuses across the U.S. So, that is the launch of this one. And like I said, our first pilot is going on here in Orange County, and we’re really excited to be able to provide that data and show how we’re making an impact, because today people are, you know, feeling like their donation is making an impact, but they really don’t know what kind of impact that donation is making.

Lee Kantor: Now, the Serv-Vend, does that have its own coordinates? Do you have a website for that? Or is that –

Jenny Buettner: Yes. That’s actually – it was up yesterday and then we just took it down to add all the menus. And so that’s going to be back up on, I think, on Friday. So it’s being all developed out.

Lee Kantor: And then who’s the ideal candidate for Serv-Vend?

Jenny Buettner: So, the ideal candidate is again it’s shelters, campuses, airports, you know, gymnasiums and really doesn’t – there’s no limitations to where our vending machines can go.

Lee Kantor: All right.

Jenny Buettner: In order for somebody to be able to utilize our vending machine, they can use it with their regular card. Or if you are somebody who is having a difficult time and going through a challenging experience, you can go on to our wishes platform, and you can get assigned. You can go in and tell your story. You get assigned a number and then people can donate either up to your story like a GoFundMe, or what they could do is go into a pool like they’re, you know, they can say, you know, I’m in the fire zone and I need help because of whatever. And that money will go into that pool, and where they can go ahead and swipe their wishes card because now they’ll have a wishes ID on their phone, and they’ll be able to use that at any one of our 76,000 retailers.

Lee Kantor: And they can use that just like money.

Jenny Buettner: And they use it just like money. And the good thing about it is, again, they get to go utilize it for what it’s been designated on or designated for, right? So, you know, if I’m donating it and I want it to go to food or I wanted to go to gas or I wanted to go to insurance, the minute somebody goes and they swipes it, I’m going to know where my money was spent as the donor.

Lee Kantor: What an amazing story, Jenny. Such rewarding work. You must sleep well at night knowing the impact you’re making.

Jenny Buettner: Thank you. Well, we are really excited about this program. We’re really excited about being able to make an impact and help people because there is such a need today as we start to see, you know, every time we turn around, there’s something else going on, where we really feel we can help people.

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

Jenny Buettner: Well, I appreciate you having me on and love to share more as we start to grow this program across the U.S.

Lee Kantor: Sounds good. Well, thank you again. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.

 

Bridging the Gap: How Education and Financial Support Can Change Lives for Marginalized Youth

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Cherokee Business Radio
Bridging the Gap: How Education and Financial Support Can Change Lives for Marginalized Youth
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Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

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In this episode of Cherokee Business Radio, Stone Payton facilitates a roundtable discussion with Natalie Hutchins, Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young, and Dr. Angelita Howard. Natalie discusses EverFund’s mission to secure funding for small businesses and educational institutions in underrepresented communities. Dr. Young and Dr. Howard highlight the challenges faced by students in the juvenile justice system and the importance of educational opportunities. The conversation emphasizes the need for financial support, community involvement, and partnerships to create transformative educational environments.

Natalie-HutchinsNatalie Hutchins has 23 years of experience in education and community development. Her primary roles and responsibilities have been to oversee federal grant budgets upwards of $55M annually and the development of the Consolidated LEA Improvement Plan (CLIP) and comprehensive needs assessments for the districts she has served.

In 2020, as the world faced unprecedented challenges during the pandemic, Natalie recognized a critical gap in the landscape of grant writing and charitable funding. With small businesses and educational institutions struggling to stay afloat, the realization was that too many dreams were being lost simply because people lacked the expertise to navigate the complex world of funding. This realization led to the creation of EverFund – a venture dedicated to helping individuals, organizations, and communities secure the resources they need to thrive.

She enjoys marrying the politics and the practicality of State and Federal Laws to seek relevant opportunities to fit the district’s needs. As a part of the EverFund team, she aims to bring her wealth of experience to meet the needs of some of Georgia and our nation’s most underrepresented, justice-involved families by bridging the gaps in equity and access to high-quality education.

Natalie began her career pursuing a double major in Biology and Chemistry at GaTech, received her Bachelor’s in Interdisciplinhttps://theeverfund.com/ary Learning and Master’s in English Speakers of Other Languages from Western Governors University, and her Specialist Degree in Educational Leadership from Berry College.

Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn.

Angelita-HowardAngelita Howard is an educational pioneer, author, teacher, mentor, scholar, and servant leader. She serves as the Vice President for Global and Online Learning at Meharry Medical College.

Formally, Angelita was the Founding Dean of Online Education and Expanded Programs at Morehouse School of Medicine, in Atlanta. She served as inaugural Co-Director for both the Master of Science in Biotechnology (MSBT), and more recently over the last 2 years, the Master of Science in Health Informatics (MSHI) and the Doctorate of Health Administration (DHA), which were both established under her direction.

In her current role, Dr. Howard has demonstrated outstanding leadership, teaching, scholarship, and academic achievements. She has successfully launched and overseen several new online programs, including the #1 ranked MSBT. She has also developed and implemented innovative teaching methods, such as the Summer Bridge Pathway Programs, which have helped to increase diversity in the student body.

In addition to her administrative and teaching responsibilities, Angelita is also an active researcher with scholarly activity. More recently, she is a certified clinical research coordinator and has extensive experience in conducting research on educational interventions.

She has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals highlighting these research approaches and has presented her work at numerous national and international conferences.

Dr. Howard is an exceptional and internationally recognized leader of graduate education and online student performance & outcomes research. She is a gifted leader and educator who can connect with students from all backgrounds. She is also a tireless advocate for students, and always willing to go the extra mile to help them succeed.

Connect with Dr. Howard on LinkedIn.

Dr-Angela-Coaxum-YoungOften regarded as an innovative leader, researcher, author, and speaker in education, Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young brings nearly two decades of experience to the field of education.

She is a candid, frank, and resilient educator, committed to disrupting systematic norms that often marginalize or disregard students deemed “at-risk”. Dr. Young’s public trials and triumphs became the conduit of change that ignited her advocacy and discussion around equity in education.

She is an energizing public speaker and challenges audiences to innovate and create new practices that ensure ALL students have a seat at every table.

Dr. Young began her career as a middle school social studies teacher in Miami-Dade County Schools. She continued her career trajectory serving in various roles in school districts across Metro Atlanta including principal, district support specialist, and most importantly, teacher.

Dr. Young founded Favor Academy of Excellence, Inc. (2009). The non-profit is credited for expanding educational opportunities for underserved youth in communities with limited resources. Dr. Young recently opened the company’s first tutoring and intervention center in Douglasville, Ga.

The center provides intensive academic, social, emotional, and restorative intervention for K-12 students. The center’s signature educational therapy: the Restorative Learning Model (RLM), is committed to ensuring students are academically inclined and mentally well.

Dr. Young is a respected school strategic planner, program/curriculum designer, published author, and culture builder. She has committed her life’s work to establishing educational programs and opportunities for underrepresented student populations. She utilizes her experiences as an educator to develop programs for diverse student groups including Students with Disabilities, Gifted Students, Students with Socio-Economic Disadvantages, and first-generation high school/college-bound students.

Dr. Angela C. Young received her Bachelor’s in Sociology from Bethune-Cookman University, her Master’s in Administration of Educational Programs from Nova Southeastern University, her Specialist Credential from Georgia College and State University, and her Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership from Georgia Southern University.

Dr. Angela C. Young is married to SFC Travis Young, and they have four children: TJ, Jordan, Joshua, and Jacob.

Follow Favor Academy of Excellence on Facebook and Instagram.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by our Community Partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending Capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Mainstreet Warriors 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. Also a very special announcement. I’m so excited I can’t see straight. For those of you who have been following our collaboration with Wildlife Action and so many community partners here in the Greater Cherokee area, the SS Freedom Adventure, for all that wheelchair friendly boat that we are going to be taking folks out in fishing, cruising, having a good time, it will be in the water tomorrow, will be booking cruises soon. Please continue to follow us and you can go to ssfreedom.org and stay on top of that. You guys are in for a real treat. Today we have a special roundtable episode. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast to introduce all of this, set the stage. With EverFund, she’s the owner and executive Director of federal grants and funding for EverFund. Natalie Hutchins. How are you?

Natalie Hutchins: I’m doing so well. Thank you so much for having us.

Stone Payton: What a delight to have you and your crew.

Natalie Hutchins: Oh, yeah.

Stone Payton: Here in the studio. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. I have so many questions. I’m looking forward to to learning a great deal and sharing this conversation with our listeners. But let’s start. If we could give us a little bit of an idea of your work, what are you and your team at EverFund really out there trying to do for folks?

Natalie Hutchins: Thank you. Well, at EverFund, we are a small but mighty team and we really have two intents and purposes. Our objectives are to support small businesses, especially those in underrepresented communities, to ensure that they are fiscally responsible and fiscally ready for funding opportunities so that they can grow their own agencies. Right. And on the second side, we have a procurement and grant administration firm where we support charter schools, private schools and public schools under 30,000 students to ensure that when funding ebbs and flows, schools and students and families don’t miss out on the very vital programs that they need to be successful. So that’s really what we bring to the table. We’ve been doing this work for about five years exclusively, but as a team of five between all of us, we have about 200 years of experience in the federal programs world, and we’ve managed between 50 million and $150 million annually. So it’s just really, really great to be able to share our skills within the community and around the state of Georgia and beyond. We’re officially now we have seven programs, two schools, and we’re in nine states. So it’s just really a blessing to be able to do this work.

Stone Payton: Well, congratulations on the momentum and every indication that it’s not anywhere near stopping. It’s only going to continue to scale and grow. Uh, sounds like noble, just and true work, if you can get it. What was your journey? How did you wind up doing this?

Natalie Hutchins: Well, I started off at, believe it or not, as a pre-med student at Georgia Tech.

Speaker4: Of course. Makes perfect sense.

Natalie Hutchins: A double major in chemistry and biology, which was awesome. And I realized very quickly that if you got out of work at 5:00 in the hospital, it really was 9 to 10:00 pm, and the schedule was a little bit hard for me with a bunch of little kids. So I decided to take a break. And I am a bilingual speaker, so I do speak Spanish very fluently, and I was invited to just hang out at school. So I started as a paraprofessional. Then I was a bilingual educator and things just kept going from there. And I found myself in central office in one of the largest school districts in our country for about 20 years. And within that every program had money and had funds. So I had the opportunity to just slow down and learn how to navigate the 32 overarching federal grants that are available in the United States. And now I just do that work for the people that can’t afford it.

Stone Payton: So at this point in your career, what what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it these days for you?

Natalie Hutchins: Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. A board that I had been on for about three years, um, the private school has done so well. And in their space and the juvenile justice and juvenile engaged arena, they’re going to be here with us today, or they are here with us today to just really speak about that work. And I’ve transitioned, um, from that role of being on the board to actually supporting them in their Office of Finance, and they’re doing some really, really amazing things, and I’m so proud of them. So I really just want to highlight a really great example of what partnerships can do when you believe in others and give them the support that they need when they need it.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. Well, let’s bring them into the conversation. Introduce our other guests, if you would.

Natalie Hutchins: Absolutely. We have our Executive Director and Founder, Dr. Angela Young. Um, so she’s here with us, as well as her President of her board, Dr. Angelita Howard. Um, so they’re going to take it away and share with us what’s going on. Um, with Favor Transition Academy and Favor Academy of Excellence.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: Um, thank you so much for having me on. I am super excited to engage this discussion, and I hope there’s an opportunity to to merge, um, the value of financial support, um, with missions that are underfunded in communities that are certainly underrepresented. So, um, today we’ll give a little bit of discussion around the juvenile justice, mental health and, um, how we have been able to kind of partner and work together. I want to pause before I get into favor Academy of Excellence and just give some homage to Dr. Howard. Um, allow her to tell a bit of her work and why she is so integral in our success as an organization.

Dr. Angelita Howard: Thank you. It’s such a pleasure to be here and share. And so the three of us came together over the last two years. When we talk about justice involved juvenile justice and partnership and finance. We do understand that if you don’t have financial support, it’s a nightmare. It can be a nightmare. So that’s why it’s really important, the work that Natalie has done and is doing. But beyond that, we also understand how important education is. And so with Dr. Young, she and I are the educational specialists, if you will join team to create opportunities for those who are marginalized, who don’t necessarily have the support and then adding a financial support to that to make sure that students, no matter where they are, no matter their background, have opportunities to success, is what we’re about. That’s the work that we’re doing, and I’m so happy to have joined this team of amazing women on this last few days of Women’s Month, to highlight the work that’s being done to create opportunity, access and impact for young women and men.

Stone Payton: So what are some of the the major gaps, the the unfunded things, or they’re not properly funded things until you guys get involved at a layperson like me may not might not even cross our mind. We might take for granted.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: Um, I’ll start in the K-12 space. So I will also say that Dr. Howard and I represent education from two different lenses. And so we’ll be able to speak to this, um, in a more in a broad way. Um, K-12 specifically, um, has some challenges when we’re talking about dynamic student groups. And so in our case, we are talking about students who are just disengaged. So students who have what we call enter the pipeline to prison. So at some point, their behavior, um, their attendance, uh, their records, uh, criminal records have removed them from the ability to continue their traditional learning in a traditional school environment. And so we look for alternatives for them. What we found to be an issue was, uh, the resourcing for alternative spaces for students like that is just not there. So our partnership was birthed, um, from the idea that this is a student group who needs more, not just for the benefit of educators and for society. These are the group of kids that we certainly want to reform, restore, make sure they are ready to return to our neighborhoods and our communities, um, healed, um, free of all interest and participating in any criminal activity and just create safe environments for everyone. So I was really looking for a thought partner who had some expanded experience. And I came to Dr. Howard, who at the time was working with the college, and they had just created, um, a justice involved care program or. I’m sorry. Yeah. I’m sorry. Um, and she she really blew me away with the work she was doing and how she could expand our vision. So.

Dr. Angelita Howard: So, yeah, you know, that’s the wonderful thing about education is transformative from k through 12 to college. And so even at the institution I’m at now, Meharry Medical College, one of the things this is why it’s so important for we’re talking about, uh, networking and partnerships is because even to your question, even when we think about the needs of those who, again, are underrepresented, underserved, we’ve had we have to have partnerships. We have to have back to finance. We have to have those grants because we’re trying to make sure people have access to education. They have access to to equitable education. And a lot of times, the way that happens, especially in minorities or marginalized populations, are through grants or through grant fundings or through private funding. Some of course, now with everything that’s taking place, honestly, we are concerned because a lot of the federal money is being taken away. A lot of the words, the key words that we in favor Academy have dealt with, you know, if you say those words, you can’t get funded, certain funding, certain federal funding. So that’s a stressful time. And so when we think about partnership with Natalie, then what happens is here she can find opportunities that are not necessarily Really funded by federal grants. It might be private sectors that can help us streamline some of the work that we’re doing from K through 12 private. And then certainly in the college arena.

Stone Payton: Way to go. Natalie, you’re the hero. All right. So kind of break it down again. Kind of at the layperson level. And I’m going to say $100. Check. I know there’s a lot more zeros probably attached to some of these programs. I certainly hope so. But so what are some things you would you tactically invest in once you receive the funds?

Natalie Hutchins: So I would like to just if we think about how much it costs to educate a student. So with our particular program that we are sharing we have a middle and high school program. So that program is a Saturday program that maybe will run about 12 to 16 weeks, where we’re watching students and partnering with our nearby counties to say, hey, we can see that these students based on an early warning system, may be on the trajectory to not being able to complete school or being very close to being just disengaged. So let’s start now. We do with our middle school and our high schoolers. We have a wonderful giveback program. That alone you’ve got teacher, you’ve got a counselor, you’ve got a psychiatrist, you’ve got the therapist. You have the building. Right. So that alone can cost us $25, $40,000 just to run that program.

Natalie Hutchins: So that’s huge. And then on the other side, we have a private school for high schools that is fully accredited. You know how much it takes to raise money for a kid to go to school? We all know what our tax bill looks like, right?

Natalie Hutchins: We’ve talked about the Tax Digest. We’ve talked about those homestead exemptions and what those funds look like. So favor is positioned well to ensure that they have the funding that’s necessary to take care of all of a high school student’s needs and some of our really large endeavors for next year. We recently just put in some applications Dr. Young for some school and sports things. So if you want to maybe share what that looks like, because we are a petite private school, but we’re intentional.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: And so I think it’s important to kind of expand on the understanding around the student group we’re talking about. These would be students that for some can not return to the traditional public school system. Some have already, um, acquired felony charges. Um, some have through school disciplinary measures. Um, been permanently expelled from the school system. Um, what’s in place right now typically for this student group is online learning. And that poses a problem because these are students who are very active already, very connected in communities. Um, and they are kind of left to their own devices, Vices, if you will, to learn independently. Most times they won’t continue their learning, but even if they are more tenacious and they decide to pursue their education, they’re still partnering with people who might have been the very people who led them down the wrong path, and they are free all day to, in some cases, if I’m honest, wreak havoc on communities. And so this is where we need partnership. This is where we need everyone on one accord. We want to have safe communities. We want to have students who are prepared. We want to have students ready to enter our workforce. Um, we have a student group who, if we reform them well, might be, you know, ideal candidates. Um, and so we need to make sure that we get them prepared. So when we think about this school favored Transition Academy in particular, it would be the kids who are already disconnected from the public school would be the kids that we need some oversight or certainly some resources like mental health therapists and etc. to make sure that we deal with the thing that lives inside of them that might be creating some of the behaviors we’re seeing.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: And we certainly need people who are willing to partner with the school to create, to create opportunities for them to get job skills, career readiness skills, etc. and we need advocates. Very strong advocates who are going to say, give the students a second chance. They may look a bit scary sometimes, but like at the end of the day, they are still children and that is something we firmly believe restoration, like giving them an opportunity to restore their communities through righteous and rightful efforts. And so that is the the premise and the basis of this school. And so partnering with Natalie was huge because we kept running into barriers and we attempted everything. We attempted to open the school as a charter school. Charter schools are, you know, in general, schools are very focused on academic success. This is a group that we can’t guarantee. Academic success for. I can’t even guarantee sustained enrollment for, because I am in competition with the very thing that attracts them outside of the schoolhouse. Um, so that that’s problematic. Um, and ultimately, we did not win there. Um, but we kept pushing and again, through partnership and I have to be able to, um, really, really just celebrate Natalie and Dr. Howard. These ladies have continued the fight with me alongside of me breaking walls, connecting, you know, partners and networks as best we could to get us to this point. Um, we are now positioned to open an actual school site. So we have been operating out of our program site for the last a little over a year. We’re now opening a school site coming into the next year. Um, it’s a little scary, but we because.

Natalie Hutchins: What I hear, I, what I hear is, you know, we’re about to get into a building, right? We are looking for.

Natalie Hutchins: And you know what that money looks like. So, um, anyone who has a mortgage, if you, you know, you buy something that’s two, three or $400,000. I mean, now we’re looking at 2 or $3000 a month just for overhead on top of what we just recently talked about with that program. So educating children is a very expensive and fundraising is very important. Um, we’re getting into some spaces now where we’re going to be looking at kind of some adopt the students, um, opportunities so that corporations and of the like can volunteer or at least maybe pitch in and say, you know, if this is the tuition for the student, can you, you know, how many students could you, you know, pay a semester or a quarter, those kind of things? Um, in addition to the, um, the grants, because these families really do need the help and support. But more importantly, like Dr. Young is saying, we all need these students to go through the program and to be successful, it’s for the greater good of our communities, right?

Stone Payton: That’s an excellent point, and it’s an inspiring mission. And I got a ton more questions around it. But I’m thinking just if even just from an enlightened self-interest point of view, I want these kids on this other path than the one they’re they’re on. Absolutely, absolutely. And it also, it occurs to me that it’s great if we can have this, you know, major sea change and, you know, incredible transformation. But even if you just change, the word you used was trajectory. Even if we just move them a few degrees, we’re talking about a very different future.

Natalie Hutchins: And think about the families, right?

Natalie Hutchins: So if you know your grandfather or your great grandfather, think about your life differently today. If your great grandfather made some really bad decisions, you know, how long does it take a family to recover from maybe an accident, an incident, or just being naive. And we are talking about children, and children are children, right? They’re going to do things. They’re going to test the limits, because everybody has had that experience of just saying, I’m invincible. I can do anything because I’m 15, 18 and 20. And then when you get on the other side, you’re like, how did we make it? You know, what were we thinking? But, um, that’s just what we’re here for because we understand, like you’re saying, if we just can get them a few degrees to look the other way or have something else inspire them or catch fire inside of them. The world isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. You know they deserve their grandchildren deserve for someone to step in to help change their grandchildren’s lives. And that’s what we’re here for.

Stone Payton: And the earlier we can get to them and provide some of that positive input. But yeah, I’m thinking just a few early wins and, and the, the psychological benefit of hey, someone you know, something has invested in me a little bit. And now I’ve tried this set of behaviors and I’m getting some positive results, then maybe we can achieve some escape velocity. I asked Natalie the question a moment ago. I’m going to ask each of you because I’m interested in kind of the the day to day, that energy that you must have to have to keep doing this work, as noble as it is, has got to require a great deal of energy. Um, but what are some of those things that you find rewarding? Uh, Angelina, that just push you on to tomorrow? Even if today was a tough day.

Dr. Angelita Howard: Change, change pushes me. And knowing that students, no matter where they are, things can happen. Dr. Jung talked about workforce development, but even beyond there, there are students who will be in her program or who are in her program, who will come to college. They will end up going to college if we get them early enough, if we help them, if we make sure that they have guidance, if they have mentorship, they will come to college. And so then it’s my responsibility to make sure that we have programs for them, aligned for them, so that they don’t feel as if they are on an island by themselves, that we embrace whatever has taken place. For example, in a program that I have run, we had a felon, a person who was in there in prison for 25 years. He’s now graduated from college. He now works for the government. He works for the Department of Behavioral Health. So he went back to the system that had him for 25 years, and now he’s training uh, other, uh, juvenile impacted or justice impacted individuals to do some of the work. The peer specialists that he’s that he has done. So this type of work is what fuels me to get up every single day to make sure that, again, people have opportunity. Because oftentimes in my field and in what I am so passionate and I care about, is to make sure that those who would not have the opportunity, that they do have the opportunity. So that takes a little bit more work, a little bit more elbow grease, because they’re not the ones who normally have a 4.0. They’re not the ones who normally will just get accepted into your Ivy League schools. They are ones that may have, you know, some issues along the way. They may have had lower GPA, they may have had family issues that have stopped them from progressing in the way that they should. And so it’s my responsibility to go and find opportunities, create opportunities for them to be successful, create pathways for them to be successful.

Stone Payton: So does, um. I’ll come back because I want to hear this from you, too. Um. Dr. young, but does healthcare impact this world at all? Because it strikes me. Well, my my wife, who made a very comfortable living and we had Cadillac insurance and all that, she hung up her cleats, retired. I had to go out on the thing, get my own insurance. That was even, you know, in my situation in life, that was kind of a tough transition. But does health care impact us?

Dr. Angelita Howard: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. In fact, at Meharry, where I am now in the School of Global Health, we just built a program focused on not only health equity, but looking at how health equity really is amongst everyone. There are people who are in the jail right now who, you know, they tell them to take one medicine for everybody. It’s like blood pressure medication. Okay, everybody take metformin. But my body is not like the next person’s body. And if you don’t have equity, if you’re not teaching, if you’re not showing, if it’s not building, if we don’t have access to these different types of medicines, these different types of therapies, then people, no matter where they are, are going to suffer. And that’s the that’s that’s the bad thing about, you know, disparities and social determinants of health. And beyond that, political determinants of health. Because if you don’t have access then of course you’re going to suffer. And in again, marginalized community in which we serve, which we know a lot of our kids are from, they have chronic diseases which have stemmed from years and years. Grandpa, grandma, all of those years of of health issues. If they’re not addressed early on or through their process, then they’re it’s only going to get worse.

Stone Payton: Yeah. So Dr. Young, speak to that as much as you want as well. And what keeps you going? What are you really enjoying?

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: I definitely want to make the connection. Um, the health care connection with the student group that I serve. Just because we’re when we think about students who are inclined to link up with people who would perpetrate, um, unsavory or they would perpetuate, um, scenarios that are unsafe for themselves and for everyone around them. Um, you have to wonder where the origination of that mindset comes from. And so we find that there is an intersectionality between mental health or mental instability and student behavior. We definitely see that show up in our schools. And I also want to kind of bring this back to just the passionate side of me. Um, I served as a school assistant principal, a school principal, and I happened upon one school, one population of students. It it affected my health care. I’m going to say I’ll start there. Right, right. Um, I don’t think I’d ever come across a set of students who who had such a hopelessness. It was such a buried hopelessness that it was hard to describe. And I remember driving to work for the first year on the job, just wondering when and how could we ever get a student to be so angry? How could they wake up angry? How could they wake up so aggressive, so ready to fight the world and attack anyone that that stepped into the space that they were holding on to their life for. Um, and so slowly I began to unpack that. But as we moved into the pandemic, I started to see what a lot of educators saw.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: Um, there was a rise of violence, um, in schools, there was a rise of violence in the communities. The kids had had some time to be home. Um, that created this for some, this interest in isolated environments. And so, of course, when we brought them back into the school with hundreds of kids, anything and everything could set them off. Um, I shudder to think. Um, for some of the things I’ve engaged in, I won’t be as colorful as I could be for some of the things I’ve engaged, some of the experiences I’ve had as an educator and students I’ve had to kind of come alongside of and help turn the bus around. Um, I shudder to think of a society that would be laden with large amounts of students who operate with that level of hopelessness. It’s scary. I’m. I’m saying it from someone who has seen it, who does not separate myself, who does not categorize myself in a specific race. And I don’t want to paint a picture that’s untrue. This is scary. Some kids are scary. There is danger. No one wants to deal with that group. The only way we could get to that group is if we put them in the prison system. There has to be an alternative, because it could take us 20 years to catch a kid and put them in a prison system. They’re running around doing who knows what. In between that time. So this is a very hard thing, which is why it isn’t a one that you see every day.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: You’ll you may see one school dedicated to students who have some very advanced and significant negative behaviors. Um, in every community, I’m going to say in every county, maybe. Um, but they are very few and far between because this is hard work. Even as we open the private school, we’re opening it with the idea that we want to keep it small. We have to grow, you know, in concert with what we’re seeing. Because we don’t know what we don’t know. I don’t know if I bring the wrong set of kids together, what that’s going to look like in a school building, I don’t know, but what I do know is I have to staff it with enough mental health support. I have to staff it with enough teachers that are not just, you know, able for to be able to teach the curriculum, but they have a passion that exists beyond what their degrees have prepared them to teach. Because that’s what you need. You need someone willing to go the extra mile for this group of students. And that wakes me up. The idea that I’m not just changing a life because that’s important to me. I have to be purpose driven. That’s that is definitely motivating. But the fact that every life I change changes the lives of so many others. You when you drive into our county, because there’s a favorite transition academy, there may be an incident you never experienced because we existed. And that’s important to me.

Dr. Angelita Howard: So and you see why we love it? Do you see why I follow her? Do you understand now why we follow her?

Stone Payton: Absolutely.

Dr. Angelita Howard: We’re connected.

Stone Payton: Well, and you said you don’t know. There’s a lot that you don’t know right now. I applaud your your efforts for so many reasons, but the your willingness to throw your hat over the fence. Because what you do pretty well know is what’s going to happen if you don’t do anything.

Stone Payton: If you’ve got some real not just anecdotal evidence. You probably have even some hard data on what’s going to happen, what’s going to continue to happen. And I’m sure, Natalie, I’m sure it’s everybody’s doing a high five in the parking lot when we get like an injection, you know, a company, an organization steps up and provides some money, or you win this big grant from a from the federal government or something like that. But what you really I suspect you need this ongoing, you know, consistent funding to make this work. Right. That’s got to be on your mind.

Natalie Hutchins: Absolutely every day. So we’re just like a stool. Any client that we work with or we support, you know, we talk to them about those three legs, you know, what are your private sales? What’s happening? What are your donations? What is foundational, what is philanthropic. And, you know, what is federal, state and local. And I know those are a lot of things, but we’ve got to decide what those three prospects are and really be steadfast and consistent. We had a conversation on our way over. Um, as we were driving up today, just going, okay, so we’re looking at this building. What is this going to cost? What do we have in the pipeline? When is the next thing over? How many opportunities do we have in the waiting? What’s pending, what’s next? And it’s just that everyday grind of it all because like, um, Dr. Young said, you know, I have to come alongside her. And when she prompted and she was sharing this and I said, wow, I’ve never thought about what happens with the children that because every district is trying to raise their API. And we can do that by saying, you know, this kid’s a little bit too rough for our our building, but also protecting the students that we do send to school. Right? So you have those students who are not coming to school traumatized. We don’t want them to leave traumatized, right?

Natalie Hutchins: So what do we do in the interim? What do we do for the child who needs a different safe space? What does that safe space look like? I remember years and years ago. I believe it was either cut or racetrack. But I want to say cut. And of course, like now we all see the blue lights, right? That’s the thing. I love the fact of thinking like Favre as that blue light. We knew that if we rode past a cut and it was 2 a.m. and something was happening, and we used to tell our children this because we’re all educators, you know, I’m in the K-12 space as well. So we always tell our students, if you ever have a, you know, a situation or you can’t find your mom or there’s a fire, or we worked with lots of homeless students in our district at the time. You know, if you can find that blue light, they will feed you. They will give you a snack. I mean, you can walk into that and say, I don’t know where my mom is. Call. They have someone on staff. And that was huge work that you think a gas station like, why would a gas station do that? A gas station understood that it is common to loiter at a gas station. That’s where people are. So if you’re having an emergency, there is always a gas station. So they took it upon themselves 15, 20 years ago to say, hey, we’re going to create safe spaces and you’ll see the little yellow. This is a safe space. Next time everybody’s going to go to sh and a racetrack and be like, I’ve never known this space, right?

Natalie Hutchins: So we used to really talk to our parents about that and talk to our students about having that safe space. And that blue light is explicitly what that is. It’s like, hey, if you’re homeless and you need food, that’s why we keep fresh food and fresh vegetables. You guys always we can walk into sh and you see that little basket. That’s one of their selling points.

Natalie Hutchins: They don’t make any money off of that. They want people to be able to come in and grab that. If you have an emergency or if you need something. So I feel that same way about favor. I feel like that is the the blue light that is really shining on that side of the county. And we look forward to their growth and their efforts. I love that they are so intentional and so thoughtful about the student group in a way that I’ve never seen. And so for me, I was like, let’s do it. Let’s just find the funding. I know that this is important not to just us, but other people, because we want everybody to be in their community safe. We want you to be able to go to the grocery store and not worry about the teenager who can no longer go to high school, who’s doing nothing all day. Right. Um, and Faber has been really instrumental in building partnerships with barbershops and places like KFC and Taco Bell, so that students actually can work during the day and do classes in the evening, which may not be very traditional, but it’s excellent for our population of students because now, instead of you going to school for only seven hours a day, now, you know, we’ve kept you occupied for 12, 14 hours a day, which again, is that, you know, reentry into society. And it is our community responsibility. So that within itself, it just takes a ton of money to do it. Um, and I’m here for it. So I’m going to my you know, papa always said that, um, you know, it’s easy to tell a man to pull himself up by his bootstraps. But what about the man with no boots? Right.

Natalie Hutchins: Well, we’re boots on the ground. Boots on the ground.

Stone Payton: So I want to talk more about these sponsorships, because now you’re starting to touch my world a little bit. We do a lot of work with with small business, of course, and they want to try to contribute in any way that they can. That’s why we have a community partner program here in Cherokee County for our little operation. Um, but I got to tell you, you know, as a, you know, a middle aged, rich white guy, I am going to make a point of doing more business at the county on my way when I go hunting and fishing.

Stone Payton: And, you know, because it just that makes me feel I would rather buy my coffee and beer, buy my coffee there, and I gotta believe a lot of folks would, would feel that way, even if they’re not as educated and all. So I’d like to hear more about the partnerships, and then I’d like to hear a little bit more about how you’re educating, you know, people like me and people with a lot more power and influence than me to try to to help you guys?

Natalie Hutchins: Absolutely. I will get straight to the money and then I’m going to turn it over to, um, Dr. Howard because she is all about that. Um, I will tell you that the tuition for a student is $7,000. So any partner that wants to say, hey, I’ll cover a kiddo for a year, that would be lovely. And a semester is 3500. Super easy math. Um, and that’s a lot cheaper than what it costs to on our tax dollars, because our tax dollars are about $25,000 a year to house an inmate, even at the juvenile level. So you can pay $25,000 a year off your taxes or, you know, ask your boss for some cash.

Speaker4: Right? I like that framing. Yeah, absolutely.

Natalie Hutchins: 7000 is nothing. That’s a third of the cost. Um, and if a kid goes to high school for, you know, four years and you’ve kept him out of that, then you know, that return on investment for community people, we will we will feel that in our pockets when we’re not building more and more prisons. Right. Because that is it’s very costly. So, um, that’s, you know, our pitch. If someone wants to adopt a student, we would be more than grateful for you to be able to do that. And then we have those Saturday programs where the students are actually reinvesting into the communities that they’re tossing. Right. So that’s really important to us that we say, hey, we are going to be community builders and not community wreckers. So what Dr. Young has going on is every Saturday, those middle and high schoolers that we kind of see on that trajectory, we keep them in small groups, but they are doing community service oriented projects. So if you ever want to donate any amount that helps us with community service, as we look at a building, we’re going to need to get paint. And the inside of the building is great, but the outside of the building we’re going to need some work on. So we’ll be definitely hitting up Home Depot and your fellow friends if you want to come out and help us and bring some. You know, I love the cow manure. So bring it. Bring the plants, bring some trees, bring the flowers and let the kids, you know, make that building their own as we begin to, um, really set that in motion over the next couple of months and be ready to open our new building in August.

Stone Payton: Well, and here again, it would just it would feel good to contribute to something like that in whatever fashion we could like as the Business RadioX network or something like that. Um, but again, it’s everybody wins in that equation, right?

Natalie Hutchins: Absolutely.

Stone Payton: Everybody wins. So at the, um, Dr. Young, um, at the school level, like if you identify a kid or maybe you Angelita as well, um, that has an interest. I’ll just make this my little tiny world. But you got a kid that’s interested in media or broadcasting or, you know, they they think so. Like to give them opportunities to come and hang out and do, like, how cool would it be to have the a kid sitting right here running the board, right. Or.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: Absolutely. That’s a huge part of our school, um, model.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: Um, the students aren’t always earning money at jobs during the day. It is internship. What we’re trying to do is occupy a large portion of their awake time. And so.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: It is getting them connected to career fields that they thought were just off the table for them, for their past, you know, commitments. Um, and so partnering with people who say, I understand this is going to be a student that I might have to work with a bit, I might have to kind of coach up and maybe, um, through redundant practices, teach and reteach again. But I am committed to making this student ready and prepared to consider this as a viable career option for us, because that’s the first part of restoration. They have to see the potential.

Stone Payton: And they got to believe that there’s there’s light at the at the end of the tunnel. And you know, my example may be very pedestrian, but how cool would it be for that kid who in that environment may be, you know, they’re there. They really like the rap music. And they see all the stars and the flash and all that stuff. Um, and, you know, maybe we can’t put them in a limo and make all that happen for them, but how cool would it be if the raw audio from this interview was sent to the that kid and and he’s on a computer, you know, doing all the the magic to the audio and he’s he’s part of the industry just again those little moves.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: It would be life changing.I think it’s life changing for them if they see that what they’ve done is a part of something great, it’s a part of something useful. Yeah. When you hear negativity all the time.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: You start to believe that. So when you and you’re able to put something out there, product, anything. I mean, if they paint a wall and someone walks in and says, this wall is gorgeous, there’s a pride that lives inside of them that is hard to contain. And so that’s what we want. We want to inspire that feeling all the time, because then they’re more inclined to move in this direction than this. Because now this one also comes with finances, Answers, praise, adoration. People like me here, over here, not so much. And I want to really get away from this, this level, this lane and live in this one. And so it’s it’s exposure. It’s access. It’s all the things we’ve talked about today. And when you asked about community education, that was one of the reasons we initially partnered with Dr. Howard. Um, so they were doing a justice involved care program. They were training people who were very interested in working with justice involved people, not just juveniles, adults as well. And I was in love with their life coaching model because it’s a whole child, whole person effort. And there are some things that as an educator, a veteran educator, it’s more than the social studies. I can teach you what’s going on right here. I need to be able to take the the titles off and just be your aunt for a second.

Stone Payton: I love that, I love that.

Natalie Hutchins: And, Dr., um, Howard, talk to us a little bit about the film festival. That was a great segue, Stone. So talk to us about the film festival, which was our most recent, um, program project.

Dr. Angelita Howard: The film festival.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: I think she’s talking about the act, but but I do want her to piggyback on, um, the program that she did with, uh, the justice involved care and what you all were doing with that and how we got to. Because it was all.

Natalie Hutchins: And I’m calling it a film festival because it was just really awesome. And I was a guest, and it felt like a film festival to me. I mean you know.

Natalie Hutchins: I mean, the kids did an amazing job, and you, I was like, wow, kids edited this.I’m just trying to, like, figure out how to turn on my cell phone. Right. And I walk in and these kiddos were just did some really amazing, amazing things. Um, under her, her support and her leadership.

Natalie Hutchins: That was a part of that care program.

Dr. Angelita Howard: So, yeah, that was the menopause that just happened.

Dr. Angelita Howard: Like, that was a menopause moment.

Dr. Angelita Howard: I’m like film.

Speaker4: Festival because.

Dr. Angelita Howard: We know, honestly, this team does so much all the time because in this world, in the world that we serve. You don’t stop. You don’t get a chance to stop. You rest, and you wait for someone to kind of hold your hand up while you’re resting and then you jump back in the game. But so this film festival we had, oh my goodness, one one, one little young lady, she stole my heart. But we had people, children, youth that came and gave projects. They were given a title to work within, but they took it and transformed it to another level. It was held in Douglasville somewhere not far, uh, in a convention center. Uh, the team had done such a amazing job. Back to what Dr. Young said. Providing them an opportunity, giving them this is this is what you can do. And so they took their film. They put it on like a YouTube, if you will. They created they had all these segments that they were able to do based on a justice involved, if you will, or an issue and how to go through that issue like one of the issues dealt with absenteeism, frequent absenteeism and how to overcome those things. Some of these students, unfortunately, have had some of the worst home life, upbringing, sex trafficking, you name it. It was it was so difficult to to know their background, but then it was so rewarding to see how they pushed through, how they wanted to push through.

Dr. Angelita Howard: But then even more, when they saw the adults cheering for them, clapping for them, praising them, and really saying, you know what? I really can do this. I really can be something different. I can go and I can shift or pivot because somebody invested in me. Somebody saw me today. Someone looked at me today and saw that I was not just a piece of meat, or I was not just a piece of, uh, a story that I had this or I had this or this background. And so that was one of the changing moments for even our school for favor, because we knew then it was we it was unspoken. It was really unspoken. But we knew then we had no other choice but to push forward with all of the what we believe were setbacks. I believe they were set up for something greater. We didn’t need we. Not that we didn’t need, but at the time that we were trying to go through the charter schools and go through that, those rejections, they were certainly they were needed because we wouldn’t have been able to experience what we’re experiencing now if it were not for the rejection. So each one of us have had rejecting moments and workforce over the last 2 or 3 years that if I were to talk about it, about it, I think we would all cry.

Dr. Angelita Howard: But the rejection that came as a result of us losing. But God said, we’re going to win on the other side. And so because of rejection that she had. It’s been greater for her because the rejection that she had has been greater for me because of the rejection that I had, has been greater for all of us. And that is absolutely why we cannot not have a favor. We cannot favor is on our lives. And we didn’t see it then and we didn’t understand. Each one of us did not understand why we lost. We lost our jobs. There were jobs. There were people who, um, and not before. And I hope they don’t mind me sharing. But we we lost even with my last employer, you know, not giving the things that I simply asked for. And when we talk about going hard, going hard for we are all 200% workers, not 100% not 99. But we had to transition in order to transform. And so what you’re seeing now is transformation. You’re seeing transition. You’re seeing hurt. People heal. You’re seeing heal people going to heal others. And so we’re excited about the work.

Stone Payton: Well, I’m glad that you’re invested in this work because you could be out making a ton of money as a keynote speaker. I feel like i just went to a big corporation keynote talk, and I will, from this day forward that it’s it’s not a setbacks or set ups.

Speaker4: Yeah, absolutely.

Stone Payton: You’re going to if you’re if you listen to any more of our program, you’re going to hear me say that. And I’ll try to remember to credit you in the early.

Speaker4: Going and then.

Dr. Angelita Howard: And then it’s.

Speaker4: Yours.

Stone Payton: Over time, it’ll be like I always say.

Speaker4: Yeah. That’s right. There you go.

Natalie Hutchins: I feel like we all need t shirts.

Speaker4: Yes.

Stone Payton: Oh, you guys are doing such important work. Okay, let’s make sure. Before we wrap, Rap. Let’s leave our listeners with whatever coordinates or ways to connect continue to tap into your work. I want to make sure that, you know, maybe they can have a conversation with you guys, go to websites, LinkedIn, whatever is appropriate. But let’s, uh, let’s make it easy for them to, to tap into this.

Natalie Hutchins: Well, I just want to say thank you so much for having us, um, for trusting us in this great work and allowing us to share just a small piece of our story with the community and the listeners at large. Um, we appreciate you. We appreciate your support of Stone and what he has going on at Business RadioX. And just all the people out there doing what they know needs to be done and filling the gap for someone else. So for that, I’m just so very grateful. At EverFund. We have lots of different spaces that we’re in. So, um, we’ll be on the road here for the next 3 to 4 months. Um, we have some campaigns with KSU Small business, UGA Small business as well as Grameen America with Bank of America. So we’re going to definitely be on the road. Um, just really supporting entrepreneurs and making their for profits and nonprofits steadfast and give them a really good foundation so that financially they can, you know, do what they need to do because it takes a lot of money to, to make people’s dreams come true. So that’s where we are. And as far as favor is concerned, I’ll hand it over to Dr. Young. Um, there will be a there is a link to be able to donate. Um, on the website. But, you know, I’ll give you her cell phone number if you guys want.

Speaker4: To.

Natalie Hutchins: Support a kid, like I don’t mind. Um, you know, giving you the direct bat phone. Um, but we’d really appreciate, you know, any type of corporate or individual sponsors. Uh, we have a goal of ten students next year. Um, so that’s $70,000, right? Like, it’s seven grand a kid. So we need a budget of about 125,000 to make that happen. And that’s, um, that’s our charge. So, Dr. Young.

Dr. Angela Coaxum-Young: Um, yes. Um, they can follow Faber News on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter. Um, our website is Faber Academy of Excellence. Org. The school in particular is Faber Transition Academy. Org. Um, we spoke a little bit about our program, our restorative program. We are in Douglasville, Georgia, but we are a Georgia nonprofit organization. So I certainly want to be able to say we are mission minded. Um, doesn’t matter where the student lives, if you have a student that would benefit from partnering with us, if you feel like this would be a program that could exist in another community, I avail our organization to you. We have written our own curriculum. Um, we certainly train on justice involved care. We’re operating under a grant right now and we are able to reduce tuition for students for next school year. And so, um, I just encourage everyone to please reach out to us if you, um, just for students. And so if you have a neighbor next door who you feel like needs to be connected to someone yesterday, do not feel like because we’re in Douglasville, we would close the door because we are mission minded and this is important work. Wherever the kid is, however we can help them, we will help them.

Dr. Angelita Howard: And if you’re interested in anything around healthcare, especially health care law policy, health law policy, how the policies work, how leadership works from going to advocate, we talked about advocating and making sure people have a voice. And so sometimes people need a voice, but you’re their voice. So if you’re interested in health law, policy management or healthcare equity, health equity, political determinants of health, we certainly have those Opportunities available at Meharry Medical College in the School of Global Health. They’re online so you don’t have to move. You can stay right here in Georgia or wherever you are. And that’s Meharry Global. Org. And I’m so thankful to be here.

Speaker4: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Stone Payton: Ladies. It has been an absolute delight having you in the studio. You’re doing such important work. And keep it up. And we want to continue to follow your story. And we’re going to try to figure out how to help you any way we can. So thank you so much. This has been fantastic.

Speaker4: Thank you.

Natalie Hutchins: Thank you so much. We appreciate.

Speaker4: You.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.

 

BRX Pro Tip: Guy Kawasaki’s 5 Tips to Becoming Indispensible

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From Employees to Owners: The Journey of Transitioning Your Business

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Cherokee Business Radio
From Employees to Owners: The Journey of Transitioning Your Business
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Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

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In this episode of Cherokee Business Radio, Joshua Kornitsky discusses employee ownership with Marie Davis, executive director of the Georgia Center for Employee Ownership, and Keith and Kevin Young from Young K9. Marie explains the center’s mission to help small businesses implement employee ownership models, highlighting benefits like increased engagement and productivity. She shares her personal motivations and success stories. Keith and Kevin discuss their dog-walking business, Young K9, and how employee ownership has positively impacted their operations. The episode underscores the transformative potential of employee ownership and the importance of early guidance in the transition process.

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Marie-Bell-Davis-bwMarie Davis is an Atlanta, Georgia native. She currently serves as Executive Director of The Georgia Center for Employee Ownership (GACEO), one of 24 State Centers created by the Employee Ownership Expansion Network (EOX).

After obtaining a Social Work degree at The University of Georgia, she served as a foster care coordinator for the State of Georgia, certifying foster parents and working with foster care children. Obtaining a Series 7 and 63 financial license, she worked with a private financial firm as Assistant to the President.

While raising her two children, Marie worked for a local developer, forming relationships with County and State officials. Moving to Florida for ten years, Marie served as a Targeted Case Manager with Children’s Home Society of Florida and a certified tutor for autistic children.

Marie also served as the Director of Mentoring for Center Point in Hall County Georgia, recruiting and training mentors for several school systems. She also served as a Technical Assistant for the National MENTOR program, working with mentor programs across the country with direction and development and served on the Georgia Mentor Provider Council For 6 years.

Follow GACEO on LinkedIn and Facebook.

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Keith-Young-bwKeith Young, owner of Young K9, is originally from Ohio. He has a background in Psychology and ABA therapy, which is applied behavior analysis for kids with autism. He has worked in the school setting, as well as the clinic setting.

Kids and animals are definitely Keith’s two passions. He’s been working in the pet industry since 2013, from selling dog food to walking dogs. With over 10 years of experience servicing over 500 clients and multiple breeds of dogs, he really enjoys what he does.

​Growing up Keith had turtles, rabbits, fish, and is currently the doggy dad to a German Shepherd Pyrenees mix named CoCo.

Kevin-Young-bwAt 25 years old, Kevin Young is a proud graduate of Jacksonville State University, where he earned a degree in Communications, graduating cum laude with a 3.6 GPA.

Kevin’s passion for storytelling and connecting with audiences has shaped his career path, leading him to diverse experiences in both media and pet care. He previously worked as a sports journalist covering the Atlanta Dream, where he honed his skills in reporting, content creation, and audience engagement.

Currently, Kevin serves as both a dog walker and Social Media Manager for Young K9, a professional pet care company based in Atlanta. In this role, he combines his love for animals with his expertise in digital marketing, helping to build the company’s brand presence while providing high-quality care to clients’ pets.

Follow Young K9 on Instagram.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Joshua Kornitsky: So welcome back for another exciting episode of Cherokee Business Radio, where we help business leaders get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession. I’m your host, professional EOS implementer, Joshua Kornitsky, and I am here today with Mary Davis of the Georgia Center for Employee Ownership, and Keith and Kevin Young from Young K9. Let’s get started. So good morning, Marie, if you would. Let’s start with you.

Marie Davis: Good morning.

Joshua Kornitsky: So I understand that you’re the executive director of the Georgia Center for Employee Ownership, and I can I can read what that means. And you’ve explained it to me in the past. But tell me so that people can understand. What do you do? What does the Georgia Center do?

Marie Davis: Okay, well, the Georgia Center is one of 24 state centers that were created as a way for small business owners like these guys who are with us today to find information on how to set their business up for success. And by that, I mean thinking of their employees engaging their employees. It might not be the employee ownership model, but we can help you figure out what to do with your business. Seasoned businesses, young businesses, entrepreneurs. We just want them to have the information about how they can do this wonderful model.

Joshua Kornitsky: So is this you said that it’s across the United States in different states that you’re heading up the one in Georgia. How many employee owned businesses are there across the country?

Marie Davis: You know, and I also neglected to say that we have a parent company called Employee Ownership Expansion Network, and they are the ones that created all these state centers. Most of them, some of them have been around for 40 years, like, I believe the, um, Ohio State Center that’s at Kent State has been around a long, long time, very solid state center. Um, well, so what.

Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, so across the country, I was wondering, are there a lot of employee owned companies?

Marie Davis: Oh, sorry about that. That’s okay, I got distracted. So there are nearly 7000 employee owned companies, and we would really like to see that. I’d like to see it quadruple, because in the last few years, when I have moved up from launch manager at ten hours a week, uh, to program director to an executive director, I have seen and talked with so many businesses that have done this and are just so successful, and it changes lives. It absolutely changes lives.

Joshua Kornitsky: So you mentioned in, in your overview of what the Georgia Center does, that there are very, you know, businesses of various size, various stages. If in a perfect engagement, when would you engage with an organization to advise them on this? Is there a lot of pre-planning that goes into it? You know, what’s the ramp? Time to get ready to turn a company into an employee owned company.

Marie Davis: So I’ll say that if you do go on my website. Org you will only get me. It is just me. And so most of the calls we get are people who this is not right for them or it’s not right for them yet. I got a very exciting call. It’s been well over a year now from a company that already knew about employee ownership, and was extremely excited about the prospect of finding information out front before they had to go hire somebody. So the process for them is we immediately, uh, I put them in front of my executive national executive director and talked and said, oh, you know. And I knew that they were perfect for employee ownership model and they knew it too. So rather than rush them, we had them talk with other employee owners, sort of in the same field, uh, about the same size, so that they would know what the process was going to be like. And that was well over a year ago. They have some big events coming. I can’t tell you anything about them, of course, but I will tell you that they are. It’s going to be very exciting. And so they met with those employee owned companies, and then we introduced them to the service providers that do this kind of work. And unfortunately, they had already paid. And this is this is a big point to make for companies. Don’t go pay a trust attorney. Don’t go have a business evaluation done until you talk to us.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wait, wait, how much does it cost to talk to you?

Marie Davis: It doesn’t cost anything. I should have said that. We’re all nonprofit. We are funded.

Joshua Kornitsky: A big deal.

Marie Davis: It is a big deal. Eocs, our parent company, is funded a lot by some of these service providers, but also by very, very happy founding owners. I’m pointing at these guys across the room since this is on radio and you can’t see me, but they will sent their business, put their business in an employee stock ownership plan for their employees, and they made a ton of money. And so they’re very happy about how their business prospered and their employees prospered. So they give back to employee ownership expansion network. Sometimes it trickles down to the state center, some sometimes it doesn’t, but it doesn’t cost anything. And so going back to this company that gave me the call right after they they had already paid a trust attorney, unfortunately, and had that business evaluation and that probably cost them, I don’t know.

Joshua Kornitsky: A bunch of.

Marie Davis: Money, a bunch of money, I’m going to say upwards of $50,000. Ouch. And it doesn’t apply to what we’re going to do with them. We don’t actually do any of the work, and I will stress that. So we won’t ever charge you a penny. So we put them with different service providers and we’re actually still doing that. And then they choose the one that clicks with them. Because when in a in a Esop transaction, there’s a lot of people that have to be involved, especially right at first. And you need to like you might not like working with your brother if that was the case. And you might want to choose Joshua to work with you get the idea. There’s clicks and there’s personalities.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, sure, anytime you’re making introductions, you’ve got to make sure that it’s an introduction that resonates for all the parties involved in order for everybody’s interests to get served. But it’s great to know that this is a service that’s available to a business owner, and they can get guidance and advice that has no bias, has no leaning one direction or the other. It sounds like you just give them the information and help them find the right match. Is that.

Marie Davis: We do. And so you I didn’t finish answering your question because again, I keep seeing something shiny over there. But, uh, when a company decides to become employee owned, they can do it in less than six months. It might take a year. It depends on whether they’re already an S Corp, if they’re an LLC or a C Corp, and they want to move to an S Corp, that might take time, might take time to work out the funding of paying off whatever percentage the owner wants to put into the employee fund. And by the way, that can be 10%. Most companies now are doing 100%.

Joshua Kornitsky: So it sounds like there’s it’s and I mean this in a good way. It’s not a one size fits all. And it sounds like it can be customized to fit the the transitioning out owner, what their goals are.

Marie Davis: Exactly.

Joshua Kornitsky: And if I can ask only because you had shared this with me in a previous conversation, what are the some of the benefits? Understanding that obviously it depends on the circumstance in the situation? Are there are there specific benefits for the owners in order to make this transition that they see, in addition to handing their their legacy to people that they know, trust, love and respect? What other benefits potentially are there for an employer?

Marie Davis: Well, hopefully they’re going to do it before they’re ready to walk out the door and they’ll still be involved so they can watch that company explode. And they can watch their employees learn to become employee owners. They can watch their retirement plan grow. They can watch their company, their legacy, remain forever, hopefully. You know, sometimes people buy employee owned companies. It just depends. That happened right here in Woodstock. Uh, the last time I was on this show, I had a lady from Erb Industries here, and, uh, it was on. If you all remember, the, um. I’m only doing this because it’s Cherokee wood, uh, Business Radio. But if there was a water tower right down here near the technical group, right here in Woodstock. And it said Erb industries proudly, 100% employee owned. They sold, but they negotiated that that stay there on that water tower. No one lost their jobs. No one fired the management and they just recently sold. There’s a new name down there, and they took it off the water tower.

Joshua Kornitsky: But that’s.

Marie Davis: Okay. That’s because the company’s become so. Powerful so quickly. Um.

Joshua Kornitsky: Strong and passionate in what they’re doing.

Marie Davis: They do. So for a founding owner to realize that they’re that water tower is going to be there as long as they want it to be there. That’s pretty exciting.

Joshua Kornitsky: That is cool. But you had mentioned to me that there may be some tax benefits. Oh, there’s.

Marie Davis: Wonderful tax benefits. So for the for the founder he can defer his capital gains. And that’s really important. And again that I’m not the technical person. But last time we were on here we were very technical. But um, it depends on what form. If they’re an S Corp or C Corp and that’s kind of getting in the weeds. Really anybody can do it. But there are more benefits if you’re an S Corp for the founder. They’re still going to be deferred capital gains. And you know, if you sell your business or move your business into an employee ownership plan, that is critical.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s great. So thank you for letting us know that. And before we’re done, we’ll make sure people know how to get Ahold of you to to learn more about it. Uh, and obviously, it’s important to share again that there’s no cost in asking questions. Um, so tell me, Marie, how did you get involved with all of this?

Marie Davis: Well, I was, um, in Gainesville, Georgia, and wanted to move this way and had to have a knee replacement. Couldn’t drive that distance there. So, um, I was looking for a job, and it said something like, like, what the heck is a launch manager? It didn’t say anything about employee ownership. And so when I did the interview, uh, my now executive director said, uh, well, um, I see you had your series seven and 63. What do you know about employee ownership? And I said, well, I said, we had our own Esop attorney. I said, I haven’t heard that name in a long time. And then I told the story of my parents business that, um, my parents had a business on Buford Highway for almost 50 years.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, wow. What type of business?

Marie Davis: It was a landscape business. My dad was a landscape architect and horticulturist. He’s been gone a long time. He’d be 104 now, but he, um, got on the, uh, just out of. He got after World War two. He got a double major back when a major’s like a doctorate now. And he came to Atlanta and started his own business. And this is before Lowe’s. This is before Home Depot. All this, you know, people doing yard work now. So, uh, it was very successful. It was a huge place about the size of a small Walmart.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.

Marie Davis: And then a big nursery and right next door. And I love to tell this story is where Mr. Pike started Pike’s nursery. And they were great friends, so they both went completely different directions. My father had two locations and as you know, Pike Nurseries has many, which by the way, 100% employee owned.

Joshua Kornitsky: Good to know.

Marie Davis: Yes, and that’s another story. But we probably don’t have time for that. So you got to have me back. But anyway, I’d love to do that just to have employee ownership stories to tell.

Joshua Kornitsky: We’ll talk more about that then.

Marie Davis: That’d be fun. People really like that. But, uh, so he at one time had 41 employees. He had two crews, and he had a couple of management people, mainly my mother, who worked her whole life. They worked together. And when my dad got sick now he was still working at 78 every day, seven days a week. But he got sick and sorry. So we just had to sell the land. I mean, the business was him. There was no handing it over to his management team. Nobody was prepared. His three daughters. I’m the baby. Um. We’re not in that business at all. Sure. And so he ended up losing the legacy that now nobody knows who Atlanta Garden Center was, which everybody did. Um, my dad was, you know, president of the Farmers Club, which doesn’t sound that big, but it was.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, there’s a lot of land that has houses and subdivisions and shopping centers on it. And in the modern Atlanta area, that all used to be farms.

Marie Davis: Exactly. And so everybody knew who. Atlanta. My point is, is that his legacy is totally gone. It’s in my head. And people my age probably came over there and bought their mother a rose for, for Mother’s Day or bought the fertilizer there. And I was pulling the little red wagon with the cow manure in it. I did grow up doing that kind of stuff. But when he died, and this is what’s really sad, I went to clean out his drawer. The drawers in his cabinet. My mother just couldn’t do it. And there were envelopes of money with his key employees name on it. One was his head guy that ran the group. That was his idea of saving for them. And so there was literally envelopes of money because he even though he was a very smart man, he didn’t know how to help his employees other than that. Had he gone?

Joshua Kornitsky: The mechanisms that you teach and show now didn’t exist. But it’s it’s great you’ve ended up helping others now maintain that legacy for their families and generations to come. That’s fantastic.

Marie Davis: So when I told that story, one of our board members, uh, and my boss, Steve Sorkin, looked at me and said, can you tell that story to other people? Can you talk about that? I said, you bet I can. What?

Joshua Kornitsky: What an incredible backstory for someone who didn’t grow up thinking, gee, one day I want to be the executive director of this.

Marie Davis: Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic. Well, I know we were talking, Uh, before that, you’ve got some events that are coming up. I think the first one is, is this month in Macon, right?

Marie Davis: Yes. On, um, April the 11th at the Macon. Well, it’s not at the Macon chamber, but it’s at a business in Macon. You could go to the Macon chamber, and it’s going to be a really great team, a panel. It’s their morning group called brew. They’re just getting to go again.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Marie Davis: And it’s going to be two employee owned companies from Macon. One is Sheridan Construction. They’re all over Georgia. The other one is B and D industrial. And they’re going to be there to talk about what it’s like to be an employee owned company and also score. If you know what score is through SBDC, they’re going to be there. Now, the story behind this is that the absolutely fabulous president of the Macon Chamber, Jessica Walden, used to be very involved with the SBDC. So she knows what it’s like for businesses to be looking for information. And she wanted to do a panel on employee ownership. So I’m going to be very challenged to be sitting there. I can’t say any boo boos with two employee owned companies there. It’s going to be great.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s awesome.

Marie Davis: So that’s at 830 okay.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s in Macon. You said they could go to the Macon Chamber of Commerce website to get the details on where. And then you’ve got something coming up in May in Athens.

Marie Davis: And. Okay. And so we have a grant to work in my favorite town in Georgia, sorry, Atlanta, Athens. And I was born in Atlanta. So we have a grant to work there. And so I have a joint venture with the Athens SBDC. And if you don’t know this, the Georgia SBDC is also headquartered there, and I hope they’ll be there. And the small businesses, the SBA, the Small Business Administration, and we’re going to be at the Delta Innovation Center from 9 to 12. We probably won’t be that long, but we hope it’s going to pack it out. None of these are going to be online because we want people to come and mingle with other business owners, meet the SBA, meet the SBDC, and get involved with them because it doesn’t matter what size your business is. One of the best sbdcs in Georgia, I’m going to call them out is in Kennesaw and they’ve been around, uh, Drew Tonsmeire who runs that one? He’s he’s led some amazing companies to where they are now. And one is anybody with kids knows elf on the shelf. They came right through the Kennesaw.

Joshua Kornitsky: Really?

Marie Davis: Yes they.

Joshua Kornitsky: Did. The elf on the shelf was born in Kennesaw.

Marie Davis: Uh, I’m assuming so because they came through the Kennesaw SBDC.

Joshua Kornitsky: We’ll have to talk more about that and let’s see if we can get them to to come tell us more about it. And then last I know you’ve got something bigger happening. It’s an annual event in October, right?

Marie Davis: Yes, in October. And I don’t have my date yet, but it’s, um, we’ve. This will be our fourth year. October is employee ownership month, and I’m very proud that one of my first things I did with my boss poking me say, do it, do it, do it, was to ask Governor Kemp to declare the first one, the first time it’s been celebrated in Georgia. So we have the governor’s proclamation every year. We’ve done this, and we’ve held it every year at 100%. Well, okay. The first year is Choate. That’s a very Georgia Choate construction. We had it there. There 100% employee owned. The last two years we’ve had it at J.E. Dunn Construction, which is not 100%. They may never be because they’ve got 5000 employees. But the point is, is to have the new employee owned companies in the room and give them awards. And two of the better known ones from last year, you’re going to know these names Woodstock Furniture Outlet. They we gave them an award last year, and Georgia Spa Company, which was berthed right near Athens. And they’re very well known names. And so we had a lot every year. We’ve had a long list to give awards to for becoming 100% employee owned. And let me tell you, there’s some happy companies.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s wonderful to hear. Well, before we wrap up the segment, I do want to ask. I like to ask a question of of all the guests. That’s just a little bit thought provoking. Uh, as you look back along your family path, your professional path to what brought you to here, what’s the most valuable piece of advice you were given that you would share with others?

Marie Davis: Um, it has nothing to do with business, really. So my background and I’ve been here before is the mentoring world and give back. Absolutely. Try to help somebody. And I know every time I’m mentoring a lady through the University of Georgia mentoring group now, and she’s a grown woman, she’s teaches me things every day. And I always have to say, oh, Marie, you know, you don’t have anything to share. You don’t know anything. But you do. You do. And so whatever age you are, give back. Go read to a kid at school. Whatever it is, give back and it will grow your business and it will grow you. And you will touch a life that you will never, ever know how far that reaches, but it will.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s great advice. Well, thank you again. Uh marybelle. Davis, executive director of the Georgia Center of Employee Ownership. Marie, what’s the best way for people to get Ahold of you?

Marie Davis: Well, I’m going to give them my phone number because it’s on everywhere anyway. It’s (400) 432-7255 four. Nobody’s worn that out yet. All right. Marie at g a CEO. Org. Or if you go to the website you can pull GA CEO. Well go to the Georgia Center for Employee ownership because there’s another great company called GA Georgia CEO. That’s film company. So Georgia Center for Employee Ownership. And you click on a contact me button and there is no one else. It will be me. All right. So any of those things I’d love to.

Joshua Kornitsky: Chat one and only. Well, thank you again for your time. I hope you have the ability to hang out and stay with us as.

Marie Davis: Oh, I want to hear about these guys. I’m watching them. I can’t wait to hear.

Joshua Kornitsky: So thank you, Marie. All right, well, switching over, uh, we have with us both by special arrangement, Keith Young and Kevin Young from Young K9. So I know that Keith, you’re the founder of the company, correct? Tell us, what is Young K9?

Keith Young: Hey, guys. Good morning. Um, young canine is a dog walking, dog training dog sitting company. So we help busy professionals take care of their dogs while they’re at work. Um, they’re out of the country. Or if they just got a new puppy and they need some training.

Joshua Kornitsky: So you do training as well?

Keith Young: Yes.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, wow. Okay. So what other kinds of services do you offer that maybe other dog walking companies don’t.

Keith Young: Um, so right now I just got a company van. So we pick up dogs, we do group walks, and then also for people that have, uh, big backyards that don’t want to pick up their own poop, we actually do poop poop pick up as well. So that’s something.

Marie Davis: I live right down the road.

Keith Young: Yeah. So that’s something we just recently added. Um, but we have a couple people that, you know, need the Arcs picked up, so. Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so how did this get started?

Keith Young: So during the pandemic, I used to work for a company, um, for about 4 or 5 years, and I had to kind of make a decision. Um, well, let’s back up. My background is working with kids with autism. Oh, okay. I was a behavior therapist, and, um, I had to kind of make a decision. Do I want to work with kids or do I want to work with dogs? And like I said, when the pandemic came, it kind of made me shift my focus. I’ve always had a passion for working with, um, dogs. And the company I worked for, they went under because of the pandemic. And then that kind of just jump started everything.

Joshua Kornitsky: So. So you had this opportunity that just presented itself? Yes. And so and and you’ve got your brother working with you?

Kevin Young: Yes, sir.

Joshua Kornitsky: So how’s that?

Kevin Young: Well, one thing I will say is, uh, growing up, like, you know, when we were younger, we did have our like tussles and fights and stuff like that. But one thing I will say is we always been close and tight. So just being able to work with my brother, that’s probably like one of the best things in the world. So like I get a kick out of it most definitely. Because like, you know, growing up we would talk about like toys and all kind of like kid stuff. And now it just comes to a point to where now we’re talking about business. And hey, um, how do you feel about this? How do you feel about this idea? How do you feel about that idea? So I still get a kick out of it, because I still look at us as ten and five years old. So like I said, I most definitely get a kick out of this.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, so Kevin, what else do you do other than walk dogs there. So young canine.

Kevin Young: So my background, um, I recently graduated from Jacksonville State in 2022. Thank you. And, um, I graduated with a communications degree. So like, by communication being so broad from broadcasting, um, running the teleprompter, social media. So that’s what I’m, that’s what I pretty much do as far as, um, with young canine, I run the Instagram page so.

Joshua Kornitsky: Nobody likes looking at pictures of dogs online.

Kevin Young: I mean like literally so literally all day, I’m just, you know, just coming up with ideas on, you know.

Joshua Kornitsky: This is what you do all day is just take cute pictures of dogs.

Kevin Young: Like, that’s what that’s what we all like, literally like, um, that’s a part of the business. So, um.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s awesome.

Kevin Young: So as we’re walking the dog. So most of our walks are from 30 to an hour walks. And during that time that we’re walking the dogs, we’re taking pictures of each dog like, um, we’re taking a picture of, like, just different areas, like cute pictures of the dogs and everything. And we’re sending messages to the owners like, hey, your dog did a very good job of, you know, literally, literally, like, we’re just sending like, messages.

Joshua Kornitsky: So that brilliant idea that is.

Kevin Young: Yeah, like we’re literally sending them messages. So at the end of the day, we’re making them feel better and more comfortable. So, you know, we’re getting more clientele and stuff like that. Like, oh yeah, these guys took really good care of my dog. And you know, that’s how the more clientele starts coming in and everything.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s a really great differentiator. What else do you guys do that that kind of sets you apart from what others do in this space.

Keith Young: Um, we also set up meet and greets. So some dogs during the pandemic, um, they weren’t socialized properly. So they don’t like seeing new people, or they’re used to certain people. They don’t like people that wear hats or they don’t like, you know, taller guys. They don’t like women. So we do meet and greets just to kind of have the walker feel comfortable, have the client feel comfortable, and also get a better assessment of the dog. And even just to see if it’s a fit, because there might be a case where this dog really doesn’t like a walker and it’s just not a fit for us. So that’s why we like really.

Joshua Kornitsky: So it goes down to that level of detail. But I guess that kind of aligns with what you’re saying. You want to make sure that you’ve got the right person working with the right animals.

Keith Young: Yes, because we’ve had it happen. We’ve had a couple clients, um, do a meet and greet, and the dog just didn’t care for the walker. It was nothing the walker did. It was just it just wasn’t a mesh. So then we got another walker and it worked out perfectly well.

Joshua Kornitsky: So. And you had shared with me because it’s not just about the the dog and the walker. It’s also about the client. And without asking for anything confidential, uh, you had shared that you have some kind of high profile clients. So you work with, uh, people who’d rather not be named?

Keith Young: Yes. So we work with doctors, lawyers, um, all types of business owners around Atlanta. So the biggest thing they want to know is like, can we trust this person coming in? So that’s why we like to do meet and greets so they can get a better, better understanding of who’s coming into their house. Because we’re getting access, we’re getting codes, we’re getting all this personal information from these high end people. So we just want to make sure, like this is a perfect fit.

Joshua Kornitsky: So that that makes great sense. And it must go a long way to putting people at ease. And and like with all things in business, the the more business you do, the more people will grow to trust you. Yes. So that’s fantastic. And, um, going back to what you were saying about social media, do you are you utilizing things like Google reviews and other ways? How do you get the word out?

Kevin Young: Um, so pretty much what I do is, um. Excuse me. Yeah. Um, pretty much what I do as far as with the social media, is I, um, I post on my Instagram or I. Yeah, I post on the Instagram page, but then I also post on my separate Instagram. So like, we get more people to view and just participate in certain things that we do. And then also as well, um, I send stuff out to like Facebook. Okay. To get people to because we got a lot of clientele from Facebook, just from, you know, me reposting things and hey, I seen you guys on my Facebook. You know, um, the only thing that we’re working on now to get more people is, like the other social medias, like the TikToks, the Snapchats, the Twitters, maybe. So once we get that aligned, I feel like we’re going to get like even more so. But just as of right now, we’re just sticking to like, one thing. So like, you know, we’re just staying consistent with that one thing. And then as we continue to grow, that’s when we start adding more other like.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and so that brings up an interesting point that I’d ask both of you. What are some of the other challenges that you guys run into.

Keith Young: Um, I would say the biggest challenge, um, would be funding, because we’re still a new company. Um, we’re about to be two years in July. So, yeah, we’re about to be two years in July. So sometimes getting funding and having banks actually see that we’re a legit business can be a struggle. Um, and also scheduling.

Kevin Young: I was about to say scheduling. You can most definitely you can.

Keith Young: Touch.

Kevin Young: On scheduling. So the biggest thing with scheduling is we feel like that most of the clients book at the same times and.

Joshua Kornitsky: Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Kevin Young: Most definitely. But like our prime time is really between like that 1130 to that 130, uh, time frame because it’s like the afternoon, it’s lunch time or whatever. And we only have so many walkers and it’s like, you know, trying to like, you know, decide who’s going to walk which dog or on that time. And, you know, just it can be a lot. And then also too, whenever a walker is out like an emergency or Anything. It kind of throws a lot of things off, and that’s when we kind of have to, like, step in and do as much as we can.

Joshua Kornitsky: It sounds like you guys are pretty adaptive and cover all the bases, which is important for people to know that, that the doggie’s not going to be left at the door.

Kevin Young: No, no.

Joshua Kornitsky: So did you guys grow up with dogs? Animals of any kind?

Keith Young: So it’s funny you say that. So, uh, we had every animal but a dog. Uh, really? Until I went off to college.

Joshua Kornitsky: So what’s on the list?

Keith Young: So we had bunnies, we had fish, we had turtles. And I’ve always asked my dad, like, can we have a dog? Can we have a dog? He’s like, it’s too much responsibility. And I’ll be stuck handling.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wait, wait, do turtles fetch?

Keith Young: Turtles are actually faster than what you think. Really? They don’t play fetch. Okay, but I used to let it out in the grass, and then I would look up. I’m like.

Joshua Kornitsky: Where’s the turtle?

Keith Young: Where’s the turtle? Turtles on the sidewalk. Wow. Yeah. So they’re actually faster than what you think. But, um, I didn’t have my first dog until, uh, I went to college in 2013.

Kevin Young: Sophomore year?

Keith Young: Yeah, my sophomore year. And I’ve had her ever since. She’s ten years old now. Her name is Coco. She’s a German shepherd. Pyrenees mix.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, wow.

Keith Young: She goes everywhere with me.

Joshua Kornitsky: Super sweet. And and in fairness, she is not in the studio only because we didn’t have a microphone.

Keith Young: And two, I don’t think we have space for her. She’s a big dog. Oh, yeah?

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, she’s she’s welcome for her outdoor. When we do a remote event, please bring her along.

Kevin Young: Definitely will.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, so what are the. Well, wait a minute before. Before I ask that question, what on earth is March Wagner?

Keith Young: I’ll let Kevin tell that it’s been so much fun, but. Yeah.

Kevin Young: Um, so pretty much this was. When was this? February when we talked about it. Yeah. Um, like I said, we’re just always just jotting down things. We’re sending each other ideas like, hey, how do you feel about this? How do you feel about that? And I’m a big basketball fan. Okay.

Joshua Kornitsky: So I just there’s something going on in March, isn’t there?

Kevin Young: March madness just. Yeah, literally March Madness. So I just thought I’m like, Keith, how do you feel about, uh, we do like a tournament for the dogs? Uh, and we do like, a march madness. And I was like, how? How about March Madness? How does March Madness sound? He’s like.

Joshua Kornitsky: You know what? With brackets and everything.

Kevin Young: Uh, yeah, we have brackets. Um, it was we start off with 32 dogs because this is our first time doing it, and we just wanted to see how it was going to go the first time. And it’s been going pretty good. And we even have like four different regions. So one region is Mutt Town. You have, uh, what is it? Hollington, Howell’s town. Um, it’s like two others. It’s, uh I’ll have to get back to it later. But yeah, we pretty much just separate them all in different regions, like a march madness tournament. So.

Joshua Kornitsky: And and are these all your your clients dogs?

Kevin Young: Yep. All the clients.

Joshua Kornitsky: Dogs. Does the winning dog get a ring or something? What happens?

Kevin Young: Uh, they get they pretty something in that line. But, um, we’re gonna, like, arrange, like, a gift basket. So, like, it’s going to be nothing but, like, a whole bunch of treats. Toys. Just like a little gift basket like that.

Joshua Kornitsky: So I’m telling you, by next March, you’re going to have clients beating down your door. Just trying to get there.

Kevin Young: We’re going to have a full 64 next year. I guarantee you.

Keith Young: We already have clients. Like, why wasn’t my dog on there? We’re like, hey, we’re just testing it out.

Kevin Young: Can you use more than 64 dogs?

Keith Young: But we had to kind of test it out this first.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s got to be like college football. You got to explain the playoffs.

Kevin Young: Yeah, literally. Like, we literally have to break down the whole process how voting is and everything. So but yeah, for the most part it’s been very interesting. And we just text each other like, man. Like, you see, uh, goose is in the lead right now or Bansky’s in the lead right now. Like, this is crazy.

Joshua Kornitsky: Based on on people’s submitting their their vote for it.

Kevin Young: Yeah. So, um, how we get people to vote? Um, we, um, I set up a poll on the, uh, on our IG story. Okay. And I have, like, the, uh, the first seed dog against the eighth seed dog, and it’s like a, um, a poll at the bottom, and they just literally just click to see who they want. So.

Joshua Kornitsky: So where are we now? Have we reached the finals?

Kevin Young: We’re in the finals. Okay. We’re in the.

Joshua Kornitsky: Finals. Are we down.

Kevin Young: To. So we have, uh, moose Most of the third seed. And we have, um. Clark. He was the second seed.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, so where do people go to see this?

Kevin Young: Um, they go to our, um, Instagram page. Our Instagram page is the real young canine. And, um, we have, like, highlights set up to where, um, you can pretty much just look at the whole recap of how the tournaments been going on from start to finish. I think we already even had like the first, the first tournament or the first round. We had like maybe like 4 or 5 upsets, like we had a couple number one seeds get kicked out really, which was pretty shocking.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’m like, that’s that’s what makes it a game.

Kevin Young: That’s what Mark Wagner is all about. So like because we love Mark, because.

Keith Young: You would literally look at the votes at like lunchtime, you’re like, okay, such and such is winning. And then by dinnertime you’re like, wow, they’re beating them by like 25 votes. So it’s it’s amazing to see.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah. Maybe next year you can move this into YouTube as well. Yeah. Tiktok. You were.

Kevin Young: Saying.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah that’s fantastic. Well, so as I asked with Marie, if you guys don’t mind, I want to ask this of both of you. Um, I like to ask one question that kind of makes you think a little bit towards the end here. Uh, for each of you individually, if you don’t mind. Uh, Keith, then, Kevin, what’s a mistake you guys have learned from whether personally or professionally, kind of along the way, that that’s changed the way that you’re doing things.

Keith Young: Um, I would just say, like, just communicating a little better. Um, when it comes to this business, sometimes you’ll do things because you’ll do it, but sometimes you got to put your, uh, your, your perspective in, in the other person’s hands because people deal with so much on a daily basis. We got to have more, uh, empathy for people rather than sympathy, because there’s so much going on in the world. We’re so quick to, you know, lash out or we’re so quick to judge or we’re so quick to, you know, be mad about a certain situation. But like I said, as we grow and and we develop, like I said, just having more empathy for people and just communicating a little better.

Joshua Kornitsky: Do you think and I’m not being funny. Do you think you obviously your background with behavioral understanding. But do you think working with with animals has also helped you be more patient?

Keith Young: Yeah, honestly. And also working with kids too.

Joshua Kornitsky: I didn’t want to draw comparisons.

Keith Young: I mean, I hate I hate to say it, but sometimes there are some, some similarities with kids and animals. Um, especially working with kids with autism, you might have a kid that’s nonverbal and he can’t properly talk to you. So just like with animals, they can’t speak to us, but their body language. Certain things that they do, um, just gives you a heads up of like, okay, like that’s what you want. Okay.

Joshua Kornitsky: So you learn to be intuitive. And with that, we’ll we’ll switch back over to the guy with the communications degree. What’s what’s a mistake you’ve made and learned from.

Kevin Young: Um, I made a few mistakes. Like more. Okay. More. So just just dog walking, I made mistakes. So, um, it was a situation to where, um, like I said, like the clients, they most definitely trust us. And, like, one mistake that I made was, um, I was kind of, like, in a rush. It was a lot going on as far as, like, picking up other people’s schedules and stuff like that. So I probably had like, ten dogs that whole day. And one mistake that I had made was, um, just pretty much just like, um, leaving the doors unlocked. One day I left the door, like, open, like kind of wide open, not even paying attention. And the dog was across the street or whatever. So it was just little stuff like that that I kind of like made mistakes and but the good thing about it that like, you know, mistakes happen, obviously. And like the clients, they, you know, just one time.

Joshua Kornitsky: And checklists.

Kevin Young: Literally. So just like little things like that. So and like I said, that’s whenever trust comes into into play as well. So.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well and I appreciate your honesty. That’s that. It’s the only way any of us learn.

Kevin Young: That was a that was a one time thing guys too, by the way. That was a one time thing. One thing about.

Joshua Kornitsky: Me I wasn’t worried about that because like I said, you learned from.

Kevin Young: It literally. So like.

Keith Young: I’m sorry, just because he’s my brother, I’m hard on him too, because when he told me that I, I was, I was furious.

Joshua Kornitsky: I was no nepo baby stuff.

Keith Young: No.

Kevin Young: Yeah.

Keith Young: No. Like I told him.

Kevin Young: Shout out LeBron and Bronny. But yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s right. Discipline and accountability.

Kevin Young: Yes.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s what we need to know for sure. All right. Well, uh, Keith Young Kevin Young, thank you both. What’s the best way for people to find you? Thank you for sharing the Instagram. But how do they find you? What’s the best way to reach you if I. If I’ve got a dog that needs to get walked?

Keith Young: Yeah. So if you can go to our website at Young Canines, or you can give us a call at (404) 476-4985.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, Marie White, Marie Davis pardon me, Marie bell Davis, Kevin young Keith Young, thank you guys for joining us today. Uh, we will have all of your information posted up onto our website. And, uh, this has been another episode of Cherokee Business Radio. I appreciate everybody listening.

 

BRX Pro Tip: How to Get People to Find You, Not What You Do

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: How to Get People to Find You, Not What You Do
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BRX Pro Tip: How to Get People to Find You, Not What You Do

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, let’s dive into this idea of getting people to find you. What are you learning on that front?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. You know, we deal with a lot of business coaches, and I think this is really appropriate for business coaches specifically, but a lot of entrepreneurs, in general, when people are searching for a solution to their problem, you want them to choose you. You don’t want them to choose business coach. So, if you’re a business coach, you don’t want to be found in a pile of other business coaches because that’s not going to help you. If they just search business coach, and a hundred business coaches show up, that’s probably not going to help you.

Lee Kantor: So, how do you get your brand and what your superpower is kind of locked into what it is they’re searching? So, that, to me, is much more powerful and that’s a better marketing objective than it is to be just found as a business coach. So, you want people to search for you specifically and associate your name, your brand, and your unique approach to whatever it is the solution that you’re delivering is. And that’s when you have a chance to build something that’s really special.

Lee Kantor: So, how do you make this happen? So, the way to make this happen, some of the steps you can be taking today to make sure that people are knowing who you are and what your superpower is tomorrow is you have to show up. You got to show up consistently, you have to be visible, you have to be engaged, and you have to be present, so people get to know you. And when it seems like you’re everywhere, they can’t help but think of you first when they need help. So, that’s an important to kind of create that level of being always there when your prospective partners need you.

Lee Kantor: Second is you want to build a personal brand that’s not just a business. Building a personal relationship is so much more important than building an anonymous audience. So many of the people out there are just building kind of this generalized thought leadership, and they’re not really building relationships with the people who matter most to of them. I would argue that it’s much more important to have lots of people know who you are and what you do way more. That’s way more important than it is for just the internet to know, “Oh, that’s business coaching content.”

Lee Kantor: So, ask yourself, how can I show up today in a way that makes me the one person that people remember? And do this individually. You got to relentlessly meet people and serve people, so they connect you with the problem that you’re trying to solve.

Lee Kantor: And if you’re having a problem in this area, if this is an area, a weak spot in your business, this is where Business RadioX can really help because we specialize in helping our clients build that authority and reputation, so that they can stop chasing clients and instead have them come to them like a magnet where people are excited and they want to know our clients. And we have systems in place that can help people really separate themselves from all the other people doing work that may look similar, but it’s really not.

The Evolution of Intelligence: How SCIP is Shaping the Future of Data Utilization

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Association Leadership Radio
The Evolution of Intelligence: How SCIP is Shaping the Future of Data Utilization
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In this episode of Association Leadership Radio, Lee Kantor is joined by Paul Santilli, CEO of the Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (SCIP). They discuss SCIP’s mission to promote effective data use for organizational growth and personal development. Paul highlights SCIP’s evolution from a focus on competitive intelligence to encompassing broader disciplines like economic and social intelligence. The conversation covers the impact of COVID-19 on data utilization, the challenges of distinguishing valuable data from noise, and the importance of critical thinking. Paul also emphasizes the role of education and global collaboration in building a robust intelligence community.

Paul-SantilliPaul Santilli is the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Advisory Board Chair Emeritus of the Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) organization and is active in several advisory roles to academia, business, and government organizations.

Paul presents worldwide on Intelligence, Innovation, and Strategy in keynote and executive coaching capacities, and has published numerous papers in industry and academic journals related to Intelligence Modeling, Innovation, Disruption, and Strategy.

He is a recognized thought leader in this space and chairs multiple Executive Customer Councils and Industry Advisory Boards globally.

Paul is also Founder and CEO of Strategence LLC, a company that provides proprietary advisory and business insights & analytics to companies for intelligence-based business growth strategies.

Prior to his current role, Paul was a long-term veteran of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and most recently headed up the HPE Worldwide (WW) Industry Intelligence & Strategy Organization for the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Solutions Business. scip-logo

Paul also contributed at Apple Computer in various leadership roles around Quality, Operations and Product Development.

Paul has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Master’s degree in Engineering and Business from Stanford University.

Connect with Paul on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • What is SCIP and what they do
  • Why Data and Intelligence is important
  • How SCIP works with individuals and organizations to expand the role of Intelligence
  • Some of the globalization efforts SCIP is doing
  • How to become a part of this “Consortium”

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Paul Santilli, who is the CEO with Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals, SCIP. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Santilli : Thank you Lee. Pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Before we get too far into things, tell us about SCIP. How you serving folks?

Paul Santilli : So SCIP, Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals. We are the world’s largest global intelligence association. We’re a nonprofit community. We have over 25,000 individuals in 120 countries. And our mission is really to promote, develop, share knowledge around data, the use of data, and how data can be transformed into intelligence and insights that can be used to build organizational growth, improve personal development, improve societal issues and things of that nature. So we are an institution that has a lot of thought leadership, that provides that sort of value and content to a greater population.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Paul Santilli : Actually, SCIP’s been around for many years, over 30 years as a nonprofit, and it’s been traditionally in what we call the competitive intelligence platform footprint. Really looking at what are your competitors doing, how are they performing, what are their customers and products and pricing and marketing strategies and all those kinds of things, and use that information then to develop your own competitive positioning and how you can compete better in the marketplace and, and hopefully get your products to sell and gather market share and so forth. Over the last few years, I’ve taken leadership of SCIP. I’ve been affiliated with SCIP for a long time on the board of directors and so forth. But now, as a leadership position with SCIP, I’ve realized the importance of the fact that you have to really go beyond just the competitive intelligence landscape that is forever critical, absolutely critical in any intelligence modeling effort, but we want to build off of that to include other data driven intelligence disciplines, such as economic intelligence and social intelligence and human intelligence, and all the other types of applications anywhere there’s data generated. For example, the electric car gets anywhere from generates anywhere from 4 to 20GB worth of content, terabytes, I should say, of content every day. Now that data that’s being used there is being used by many, many different people downstream. A lot of the advertisers and the manufacturers of the tires and and all of these sorts of things in terms of how they use that data to create a strategy to promote certain elements in your lifestyle, or to promote a business development plan or whatever the case might be. So this use of data is critical and very important for all individuals to really understand how to use that data to create a strategy that can help you and your organization grow.

Lee Kantor: Well, I think your associations more and more important, especially in an age we’re living in now with the with AI and large language models and machine learning, it seems like what you’re doing goes hand in hand with that effort.

Paul Santilli : Yeah, absolutely. See, the the intent here is, I think what’s happened over the last few years, especially with Covid, has really come to make organizations and individuals realize the importance of data. You know, the use of data to digitally transform. You might have used that. Heard that term used before in the industry. Digitally transform your organization to be one by which they use the data to be able to understand customer behaviors. Using data to improve your infrastructure. Using data to improve how you market and price and position your products in the marketplace. And Covid, a lot of organizations because of all the restrictions that were put on on companies and individuals. Many companies failed because they didn’t have this data centric mentality in the organization. Now, from the learnings from that, we’re able to to have a pretty comprehensive understanding of how data can get you into this digitally transformed, 21st century type of a company that is so crucial to be able to compete in today’s world.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you find that we’re getting to the point where so much data is being, um, captured that without a strategy on how to learn from it, it’s kind of you’re just doing something. It sounds like you should be doing. But if you’re not kind of learning from it or connecting dots from it, it’s kind of a silly pursuit, right? Like, if you’re not able to do anything with it, then why are you doing it?

Paul Santilli : Absolutely. And that’s the whole crux of what SCIP is all about. We help individuals understand the fact that the data is there, you can collect it, but it’s how you analyze it and how you use it in order to make it a growth enabler for you and your organization. And you mentioned AI earlier. Um, you know, interestingly, AI has been around for at least 50 years. I took an AI course in college 100 years ago. So that tells you how old this AI has been around, right? The reason why it’s really taken off over the last few years is because of two things. One, the fact that we have the data because we didn’t have the data enough for the models to learn from, and B we have compute power, the compute technology, in order to run these algorithms, you know, very effectively and quickly. So with that now in play, you’re able to have these AI algorithms as as tools in your toolbox to analyze the data, to come up with behaviors and experiences and hopefully get to a point where you can project future situations. We call this scenario planning or futures planning, and understand what the future may hold for a different organization. You know, doing extrapolations and in roadmaps and technology trends, and vertical market trends and things of this nature, and then come up after that, really a prescription of how the organization needs to behave in order to respond to this sort of scenario that’s been painted by AI.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help or advise people to kind of separate signal from noise and to know what are the metrics that matter? Because there’s so much data, it might be easy to see something, but it may not be the thing that really matters. Like just because you can capture something easily or you can count it doesn’t mean that it’s, you know, worth counting. Like, how do you is that an area that you help your members with?

Paul Santilli : Well, without a doubt. I mean, it’s, you know, I call it trying to extract the golden nuggets of information from that vast population of noise out there. And if you look at different sources, I mean, social sources, for example, has a tremendous amount of noise. But there are golden nuggets you can extract around customer sentiment and behaviors and things of that nature, uh, structured data that comes out of, um, you know, corporate environments or, or public domain content. There’s always information to pull from that. And again, the tools you use and the way you’re able to interpret the content that these tools generate the content from are really the way that you need to do that. And the key to this is employing not only the technology around AI and all the other sophisticated knowledge management tools out there, but it’s also the human intelligence element that’s a very critical component to help eliminate bias and help eliminate hallucinations in your AI algorithm and help eliminate, you know, the the the trends that are strictly data centric when in fact society has accepted a different perspective. They may not be representative of the factual data that comes out of out of the AI information. Many times in history, we have instances where the societal acceptance of a perspective is what dictates the future trends, and that may not be based on the actual data that comes out of the research. So you have to be able to differentiate and know which one do you want to use as the data source for your strategy and growth? Uh, opportunity for you and your company now?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s so important to have this knowledge and the ability to think critically about all of this because it’s it’s permeating every aspect of our, our world right now. And if you don’t like if we can’t agree on certain things as facts, it’s hard to have conversations about data. And, um, and the importance of it and what’s true and what’s not true and what’s a hallucination? What’s not a hallucination? If we can’t all agree with this, it gets really challenging.

Paul Santilli : And it’s that’s, you know, that’s a whole nother podcast episode that’s probably at least two hours long, to be honest with you, Lee. Uh, I talk in this topic quite often, and, uh, it is certainly a challenge to, uh, What I like to call the the intelligence professionals out there. Um, this expanded perspective of using data around all types of things that are intelligence based. You know, competitive, as I mentioned, with all the other types of intelligence, even intelligence and sustainability and social responsibility. This is something that SCIP is active upon and using and educating individuals and organizations how to use your data and intelligence to create what we like to call, uh, a consortium for the betterment of people and planet. How do you use this data to to improve your infrastructure, to improve societal, uh, challenges and behaviors and things like that? And the, the, the aspect around SCIP is really these individuals who understand the need of intelligence. And also SCIP is comprised of experts in the field, people who understand and have the tools to be able to analyze this. So we are a consortium of this intelligence, thought leadership and intelligence subject matter experts that are able to educate and train and show people how to use data in order to create this better environment we’re trying to get to.

Lee Kantor: Now, under your leadership, you mentioned you’ve kind of, um, made the tent larger, maybe, and or including people in other areas in other industries that maybe weren’t first part of this.

Paul Santilli : That’s absolutely yes. We call this expanded perspective. What I like to call the intelligence ecosystem. It’s really that expansion of all things generated from data. And so this again applies to many different applications. But we’ve not only expanded the reach of where data can take us and intelligence can take us, but we’ve also expanded ourselves significantly in the global sense. And what I mean by that, we’ve expanded our major events that we have around around the world. We used to be primarily North American focused. We’re now in Europe, Asia, Africa, um, putting one in South America, uh, Japan, so forth and so on. So we’ve expanded our international conferences, but we’ve also put together what I, what I call these intelligence centers of excellence, iQOS. These are regional communities that are extensions of Skype that reside all over the globe to talk about the regional data and intelligence needs and challenges. How does the intelligence and data management and the maturity of the intelligence model exist over in Africa versus Indonesia versus, you know, Romania versus Silicon Valley? And as you can imagine, the maturity levels between those areas are going to be very, very different. So it’s not a one size fits all in the intelligence business. The the having these intelligence centers of excellence all over the globe allows us to get a footprint of how the intelligence model behaves in these other regions so that we collect the information from all these regions. And now we can disseminate best practices to everybody so that everyone can get up to speed, and the learning curve becomes that much faster for those organizations and countries that have a very low maturity model, for example.

Lee Kantor: Now, since doing this effort and expanding the participants as well as the reach, have you had those kind of serendipitous connecting the dots that maybe no one had connected because there hadn’t been that many disparate individuals doing, you know, disparate things all in one place now, but now they have kind of a, a common playbook that maybe they can all, you know, there’s now a more common language that you’re you’re connecting the dots between people that maybe hadn’t really maybe they had been siloed previously.

Paul Santilli : Yeah. So I referenced these intelligence centers of excellence. We started this a little over a year ago. Uh, we we kicked it off with eight locations around the globe. We currently have 22, and we’re going to probably have 30 or so in the next 3 to 4 months. That’s how much traction we’re getting in the international community. So these are areas that are hearing what we propose and what we want to do and are in dire need of being able to understand the value of data in today’s environment, especially around, you know, countries around Africa, countries of Southeast Asia. These are emerging markets that really need to have a better understanding of how to use data. Now we coupled that also with what we call our affiliate program. Now our affiliates are partnerships with other international and local um intelligence organizations that have a similar but different sort of intelligence mission and focus. For example, there’s there’s um, several of them in Africa we’ve dealt with where we only US based, um, intelligence organization that has partnered on a, on a grand scale with a number of different African intelligence communities. We have intelligence relationships and affiliates with several different universities around the world who are helping us develop our educational content that we put together. Um, so these affiliates have, have are starting to fill in the gaps in the overall intelligence ecosystem model that I painted and are really helping us to become much more broad in our intelligence applications. As I mentioned from this, uh, data centric perspective that I painted.

Lee Kantor: Now, I would imagine that in certain places they’re just hungry for this type of interaction and this type of education and this type of sharing. It must be so rewarding to be able to give these people a place to go and a community to become part of where where everybody is kind of talking the same language and really passionate about the same, uh, things.

Paul Santilli : It’s without a doubt. And, you know, there’s one thing to build an organization, but to do it for the right reasons and to have a, a, a, a, um, global impact, uh, and have an impact on societal behaviors and organizational behaviors. And underdeveloped countries like we’re working now with Africa, uh, is truly rewarding. And I think that’s the real value you get from this. It’s not only the, you know, the ability to create a strategy for your business grows better and you make more money and so forth. But it’s also to help those organizations that are underdeveloped in infrastructure, you know, helping them use data to understand, you know, what is needed to put sanitation systems or water water cleanliness system or help to, you know, eliminate, uh, the destruction of native native habitat and so forth and so on. These are very rewarding things that are part of the model to use data and intelligence, as I say, for the betterment of people and planet. So it is very, very rewarding in that sense.

Lee Kantor: So who should become a member? Who are the people that you want in this ecosystem? And you mentioned a variety of groups and industries and and organizations. But who should consider being becoming a member of SIP?

Paul Santilli : Yeah. So the beauty of this is, you know, the question to ask is what individuals or who are the individuals that use data to make informed decisions and to create intelligence to make informed decisions in the workplace or even in their individual personal lifestyle or whatever. And it’s hard to say hard to find somebody who doesn’t or shouldn’t use data. And that’s the whole context here is the fact that, you know, we call these I call these people intelligence professionals. Well, they’re more of people who can understand the value of data and how to use that not only to you can grow your your organization, but to provide a skill set for yourself as an individual, to be more knowledgeable and better equipped with tools and the way you look at data and analyze information, the logic applied and the intelligence you can derive from that, and how to implement and take action on these things to make a change rather than, you know, sitting on your hands and kind of waiting for everyone else to do it. So the door is open. We have a very broad membership community portfolio you can join for free and be on the receiving end of a lot of very valuable content, or for a nominal fee. Every year you can get access to literally thousands of pieces of assets webinars, papers, podcasts, all different kinds of things we generate that can be used as, um, content to equip you with the knowledge that you need. Plus the training. We offer very broad education program and access to workshops and webinars and and all kinds of things in that space to get you more equipped. As you know, again, it’s adding the tools in your toolbox and increasing your brand as an individual with the intelligence knowledge that will help you, uh, be better in industry and in life in general.

Lee Kantor: So in a given business, um, who is typically the like, what’s the title of the person who is the member in an organization?

Paul Santilli : Well, it could be anywhere from a data analyst. Uh, there’s, there’s people who are in the competitive intelligence role in different industries, but it can also be folks in marketing and sales and product development and strategy. You can have mid-level and upper level management who are looking at supply chains and logistics and, and even all the way up to C-suite. And we have a C-suite program in development right now, um, an advanced Education degree program in intelligence and data management. This is something we’re developing because it’s so important to have the leadership of your organization be data driven and understand the data requirements that organizations must have, that digital transformation mindset that organizations must have in order to to create a culture that uses data within all of its decision making context. And once you have that at the top level, you know, the the trickle down effect within the organization that much more efficient and more usable for other people to then gain that knowledge and make it a priority in their everyday efforts.

Lee Kantor: Now, what about for the young people out there? Uh, is there a career path or a, um, maybe a like what? What would be their major? What would be their, um, kind of the direction they should go in in order to really, uh, learn more and get more involved in data and intelligence.

Paul Santilli : There’s a number of, uh, universities around the world that offer intelligence, uh, career path intelligence curriculum, I should say. Um, one of them we partner with, they’re an affiliate as well as a provider of curriculum for our education program. And I’m going to give a plug here to Mercyhurst University out of Pennsylvania. They’re very much advanced. And one of the world leaders in the intelligence development, business, community development, education and curriculum. So for young people getting into the into this environment and getting into this industry, it’s really you can start it at the, at the education, you know, school level. And then you can take that as a part of SCIP to help you nurture it along within your career all the way through to, you know, senior management type levels of applications. So there’s really a a groundswell, but there’s also an executive swell that’s happening simultaneously. And when you have both of those growing, you know, they’re going to then encompass the entire, you know, Ecosystem of of of the range of people that are affected then by in organizations by this whole data centric perspective.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice for other association leaders that would like to expand the reach and expand the types of members of an organization? That was probably a big lift, and it was probably took some negotiation to even get the board and everybody kind of on the same page of, hey, we used to do this, but now let’s aim higher. Let’s think about this more holistically. Um, can you share some strategies or some ways you were able to kind of get everybody on board with this?

Paul Santilli : Certainly challenges and there’s setbacks, but then there’s, you know, two steps forward, one step back, sometimes three steps back. It depends. But it all begins with a vision. It’s all begins with how you want to paint the world. And once the you know, from a leadership standpoint, when you have the vision, the next part of your your, your responsibility as a leader is to garner the troops around to follow that vision and support them every step of the way to achieve the, you know, not only the trajectory, but to achieve that vision over time and that that involves trust and and support and behaviors. Um, that’s the sort of thing that I, that I think is a critical element for anybody trying to take an existing organization, um, and kind of expand the box or get out of the box to create a different environment. Today’s world is so small, and the data has made it that way, such that if you try to stay within some sort of a niche geographic or product or services niche, I think you’re going to be limiting yourself in terms of the longevity and your ability to compete.

Paul Santilli : Now there’s exceptions, of course, but I’m talking about, you know, the the world being so small, the globalization effort is, is really, I think, where there’s opportunities and that’s happening all around us. Mergers and acquisitions and, and, you know, different perspectives to being taken on from a, an international, um, business relationship standpoint and, and all of the things happening in this context. I think the the ability to bring in partners, you know, the consortium we’re building has grown significantly over the last two years. And I’m very, very excited and happy about that. But to me, this is still scratching the surface. I’m trying to create what’s called what I call intelligence gravity, where as you build more and more of an intelligence consortium, you tend to draw more and more intelligence related entities into your consortium such that you have this gravity effect. And I think organizations in general have to really reach out and try to determine how do they affect this sort of gravity behavior of other organizations to build that sort of consortium model to have an impact, especially in the areas that we’re trying to focus our energies at.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about SCIP or connect with you, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Paul Santilli : Yeah, obviously LinkedIn profile, you can reach out to me by all means. I’m more than happy to have a have a frank discussion with anybody who’s interested, but our website’s websites. Wwe. Has all the content there you can join for free if you’d like. Or as I say, you can pay a nominal fee and get all the great content, literally thousands of pieces of information and access to a ton of other content that can really help you develop as an individual and also help you develop the tools needed to help your organization grow and be a part of the consortium. So that was how I would recommend reaching out and connecting.

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

Paul Santilli : Lee. I appreciate the opportunity. I had a great time and uh, hopefully, uh, you know, we can make a difference out here. So thank you again for the opportunity.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Association Leadership Radio.

 

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