angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

BRX Pro Tip: Adjust Your Strategies to Your Audience

December 31, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Adjust Your Strategies to Your Audience

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BRX Pro Tip: Adjust Your Strategies to Your Audience

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, we’re always, as entrepreneurs, business owners, senior execs, and ongoing concerns, we’re twisting the dials. We’re trying to dial things in and make adjustments. But it’s key, I think, that we adjust our strategies, and particularly our marketing and networking strategies to our audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:29] Right. I think it’s important to communicate in the language of which you are dealing. So, if you’re dealing with accountants, for example, you might tell same story, same anecdote, same case studies, but use different words and use different language with the accountants than you would if you were selling that same thing to advertising creatives.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] Your philosophy isn’t really going to change, but the language you use, and the words you use, and the way that you communicate will change. And I think it’s a mistake to think that you can speak the same way and use the same words and examples with different types of people. You have to adjust to the type of person you’re dealing with.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:11] So, if they’re super analytical and number oriented, you should be adjusting your case study or testimonial or social proof accordingly. If they’re more creative or more vision or future focused, you should adjust your story to use that kind of language and to use those kind of words and imagery to help them really connect with the story you’re trying to tell.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:33] So, the example might be the same, but the words and the language might be totally different. So, keep that in mind. The next time you have a sales pitch or you’re talking to a prospect, listen to the words they’re using, listen to the the way that they prioritize what’s important to them, and then adjust your story to fit into their patterns.

Building Bridges: How Radford Doors and Gates Connects with the San Diego Community

December 30, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Building Bridges: How Radford Doors and Gates Connects with the San Diego Community

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In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor speaks with Emily Souliotes, co-owner of Radford Doors and Gates. Emily shares her journey into the garage door and gate industry, highlighting her background in design and business management. She discusses taking over the family business in 2019 with her husband, emphasizing the importance of continuity, customer service, and community involvement. The conversation covers technological advancements in garage doors, the types of clients they serve, and the significance of being part of the WBEC-West community. Emily underscores the value of collaboration and relationship-building among women entrepreneurs.

Emily Souliotes is the Principal of Radford Doors & Gates, a family-owned and operated business she runs alongside her husband, Aleko.

Specializing in high-quality residential and commercial door and gate solutions, Radford reflects Emily’s commitment to fostering a culture of integrity and excellence.

With over five years of experience in a traditionally male-dominated industry, she is passionate about building strong customer relationships and upholding meaningful values.

A mother of two young children, Emily balances the demands of business ownership and family life, drawing inspiration from both roles. As a WBENC-certified business owner and active member of NARI, she is dedicated to supporting women in business and advocating for female leadership in construction.

Emily also contributes to her community through involvement with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northwest San Diego County.

Connect with Emily on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Women In Motion. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories.

Lee Kantor: Today on Women In Motion, we have Emily Souliotes with Radford Doors & Gates. Welcome.

Emily Souliotes: Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Radford Doors & Gates.

Emily Souliotes: Yes. So we are a residential and commercial garage door and gate specialty subcontractor. So basically, we’re a construction company. We’re located here in San Diego. We have, which is kind of cool, one of the only garage door showrooms for our residential clients where we have, you know, full-sized doors up and people can come on in and take a look and design the door that they love.

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

Emily Souliotes: Yeah, you know, I get that a lot. It is a little bit different. So, you know, I have a background in design, which then led me into helping family with their own businesses, which in turn led me to managing businesses.

Emily Souliotes: So before I met my husband, I was managing at a practice, an optometric practice. And so people essentially was the business I was in and keeping that business running. And then when I met my husband, he was into – before we were married, he was doing some house renovations, house flipping, and construction was in his background, and he was looking to transition businesses. And he found this one for sale. So the two of us jumped in 2019 right before the pandemic and learned a lot about doors and gates pretty quickly, I’d say. When you jumped in, it was learning everything start to finish. And so now it’s been about five years; we’ve been running the company together.

Lee Kantor: So, is there any kind of similarities from the previous business? I mean, each of those, I mean, there’s customers, there’s some kind of basic foundational things of all businesses. But was there anything transferable for you?

Emily Souliotes: Absolutely. So, you know, when we jumped in, we took roles that we felt, you know, spoke to our strong suits. So, you know, he came from the entrepreneurial business strategy, sales side of things. And so, you know, he’s always been you know, the sales manager, acting sales manager and running that side of the business.

Emily Souliotes: And then I jumped in knowing what I did best, which was operations and people management, whether it was helping our dispatch team with customer management as well as the internal side, and making sure, you know, H.R. employees all that side, making sure that they, you know, they can do their job at their best. So we took specific lanes and roles, knowing that that was what we were good at. And it’s worked out really well for us.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice when it comes to buying a business that already exists, or are there any kind of do’s and don’ts that you picked up from doing this and successfully running it for five years?

Emily Souliotes: I would say, you know, my husband had a lot of financial criteria that he used, and he was more heavily involved in that. But what we were looking for was a business that had continuity. You know, we’ve – like I said, we’ve owned this for five years, but the company is actually going to be 80 years old next year. So we are the fourth owners. And we felt that, you know, if the business had sustained the economic cycles and had been around for those years, we felt like we could pick up where they left off. So I would say the continuity was the biggest thing for us.

Emily Souliotes: And then along with an industry where we just felt like, you know, we had a little bit of background in construction, and as long as you can jump in and put the right people in place for more of the technical aspect, we felt like if we had the people then we could make it work. So we actually have one employee that’s been with the company since he was 18 and his father was an employee as well. So that’s something that’s pretty special to us.

Lee Kantor: Now, were you searching out businesses or did this just kind of get on your radar? And it was an opportunity you couldn’t pass up?

Emily Souliotes: No, he was actively looking. You know, he was looking at different businesses in the home services space. So it wasn’t just garage doors specifically, but we did expand it. I will say that when we purchased residential garage doors was the only lane and we have since added gates and the commercial side of the business as well. So that’s been a creation that we’ve put on. It wasn’t there before.

Lee Kantor: Now, what about – for you, was this something that you were, like, fired up about, or were you like, all right, I guess we’re in the door business? I mean, like, because a lot of people believe, you know, follow your passion and everything is going to come from there. Was this something like that or was this business is business and it doesn’t matter what I’m selling, I’m going to be, you know, I’ll give it my all and, you know, do good customer service and all that good stuff?

Emily Souliotes: I think for us, the most important – one of our, you know, family values is just that. It’s being available for family. And yes, you know, follow your dreams is something that, you know, a lot of people hear about. But at the same time, we have to be realistic in what works for our lifestyle and our family. And for us, we wanted a business that gave us some flexibility. But at the same time, that was something that we could – that we knew we were good at already or, like, that we could tackle. And this fell into that. So I think, you know, since we’ve owned the business, we have two small children, you know, we’re growing the business, but we’re making sure that we have a good balance of our lifestyle with family and travel and the business as well.

Emily Souliotes: So I think for us, we are doing what we love because we can, you know, we have the flexibility as business owners and entrepreneurs and, yeah, we are still really passionate about the business itself and making sure the company is run from core values and spreading that not just, you know, here to make money and turn a profit and be, you know, be a local business like that, so, sort of answering that, yeah.

Lee Kantor: Now, who are your clients? Are they consumers directly or do you sell to middlemen who then sell to consumers?

Emily Souliotes: No, we’re direct to consumer. So we, and we’re not a manufacturer. The cool part about us is that we can source garage doors and products from a multitude of vendors. So, we like to sort of say that we are not brand agnostic. You know, we have a lot of different brands that we supply to our different customers. Some of them are businesses, but some of them are, you know, on the residential side, specifically. All those – people can come in and find us and we can sell to them and they can pick their brand of their choice. And like I said, you know, find a garage door that really fits their budget, their dream, their vision, and their design. And we can make that happen.

Lee Kantor: Now, are they coming to you because something happened to their door and then they have to replace it? Or do sometimes people just say, “Hey, we want to refresh, and let’s see what’s out there”?

Emily Souliotes: I would say the majority of the time people are just upgrading. It’s doing what we would call a retrofit, right? They lived somewhere long enough where the doors may be no longer in style, or they’re building a house or they’re doing a retrofit of their current home.

Emily Souliotes: But I will say, before I got into the business, I didn’t even really know. But there are more garage door accidents with cars than you can imagine. Some people, you know, just gas or break, they end up tapping that garage door a little too hard and they end up having to replace it. So, I’ve seen a couple of different things, some funny or not-so-funny stories, but unfortunately, that does happen. And we’re there for those replacements as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you decided to get into gates, how did that come about?

Emily Souliotes: You know, people came in asking for it. So usually when you’re designing a house or looking at the front of your house, the garage doors line up with any other access point, right? So, you’re going to have a walkway gate potentially. Or maybe there’s a driveway gate that leads to your garage door. And people were asking a lot about products that complemented themselves. So we just thought, well, if we’re already providing one access point that’s designed, why not add to the repertoire?

Emily Souliotes: So, some of the other manufacturers had already offered, you know, complementing or matching products. And so we thought it would be a good – it would be a good opportunity to offer more services to people that were already coming to us and finding us and asking for it.

Lee Kantor: Now, does the gate is that like fencing as well, or like, what is it?

Emily Souliotes: No. Yeah. A lot of people think, oh, so, you know, I can get a fence for my house. It’s not. It’s not. They’re actually pretty different. Perimeter fencing is kind of a different skill set where we focus specifically on the gate itself. So mounting like a pedestrian gate or a walkway gate and then a driveway gate where it’s the automation of it as well.

Emily Souliotes: So, home automation, as you can imagine, has become very big lately, especially with the advent of all the home automation services like Google and all the devices that are being created. You can implement a lot of that with access points to the exterior of your house as well. So garage doors and gates all have systems that can usually be integrated, and people are really excited to jump on that and heighten their security for their home in that way, too. So, you know, we felt like it was just sort of a match made in heaven, getting all that connected and offering all the possible services to our customers in that way.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that something the technology to open doors and gates remotely or to give, you know, maybe somebody who’s visiting access remotely, is that now kind of must-haves? Where they used to be nice-to-haves? Is that like – does everybody want that nowadays?

Emily Souliotes: Yeah, most people do. Almost every single garage door opener now comes with it whether you want it or not. You know, there’s a phone app that usually integrates with your garage door.

Emily Souliotes: And then, we have a lot of customers that have rental properties. Right? So they’re changing out their doors or their gates. And a lot of those are the access points for their customers and for their renters and they want to be able to have the security that they need. And so, yes, those access controls are a big deal to them and potentially, you know, is a make or break for their business.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I didn’t even think of that. That must really – that is a must-have for anybody who’s like Airbnb or doing some sort of rental. They need to have a –

Emily Souliotes: Yeah.

Lee Kantor: A way to, you know, turn it on and off.

Emily Souliotes: Yeah. I mean, they have people coming in constantly, whether it’s cleaners or maintenance people. And then, you know, the guests themselves need to get in and out.

Emily Souliotes: And then the same for some of the higher-end communities that we serve in the San Diego area. I mean, we have a lot of homes that are on estates that have multiple gates or multiple access points and door systems, and same thing they need to let people in and out. And, you know, all that is handled by these systems and needs to be up and running for people to be able to do their jobs.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your business, I would imagine in San Diego, there’s a lot of people with boats and things like that, or that’s a whole other kind of door and building that the boats go into. Right?

Emily Souliotes: Yeah. I would say we work more with people that have extra vehicles or terrain. We have a lot of clientele that have RVs and a lot of extra vehicles for vacations and stuff that, that on their property that, that sort of they house in, more commercial-looking buildings on their property with big commercial roll-up doors. And I would say that’s as far as we get into that.

Emily Souliotes: We also have a lot of commercial clients that have products in big warehouse-type settings too with commercial roll-up doors. For example, we had a property that stored a lot of their theme park floats and things, you know, on-site, but they needed them to be secured. And so we installed over, I think, 20-foot high door that needed to be able to house all these floats. So we get some kind of cool projects like that, too.

Lee Kantor: And then you can – it doesn’t matter. Like, you can create it no matter what need they have. You can kind of figure it out, right? That’s your superpower.

Emily Souliotes: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we have a technician that’s done, you know, been in this industry over 20 years, and I have yet to see him not be successful in, you know, making sure a customer gets what they need, whether it’s from getting the product and just deciding the product and then actually getting all the way to the install. You know, maybe construction, it wasn’t as easy or there’s been some odd things.

Emily Souliotes: Construction is a really – it’s a solutions-based industry, right? Everyone, you know, usually comes to us needing a solution. They might have a problem at hand and they’re trying to find solutions to it. And it’s not a one-size-fits-all mold. I mean, there’s so many different ways you can go about building something. And so, you know, we definitely pride ourselves on doing it the right way and making sure that people get what they want in the end and that it’s a good solution.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community? Like, what were your expectations and what have you gotten out of it so far?

Emily Souliotes: So, I felt pretty strongly that I wanted to have a presence in the community. And, as a woman in an ownership role, I felt that the biggest thing for me was to connect with other women business owners, right? I mean, not only am I a woman-owned business, so it’s something that is not as common, but it’s also in a field that’s not as common. Right? Construction industry is just pretty male-dominated. And so, I felt like if there were going to be any groups that would support me in my journey, I wanted to be a part of them. And so WBENC was definitely one of those.

Lee Kantor: And then have you found it to be as collaborative as you hoped?

Emily Souliotes: Yeah. So, I’m a little bit newer into the organization. This has been my first year and I’m about to renew for a second year. But I would say it’s really inspiring. I went to my first event this past year, and to be able to just talk to people face-to-face, hear about their journey as well was really inspiring. It’s amazing how much relationships I think make the difference, and that’s what I’m learning. I think if I have any advice, it’s sort of like, that’s where I’m starting to realize that just building relationships, whether you think people are in your same industry or able to help you, or maybe you might be able to help them without knowing, that’s been something that I’m quickly learning.

Lee Kantor: Now, what do you need more of? How could we help you?

Emily Souliotes: You know, just connecting with companies in the San Diego area that would partner with us and, you know, we can support them as well. We like to give back to the community as well. I’m heavily involved with Boys & Girls Club in the San Diego area, and just making sure that organizations like that get what they need. But, you know, really connecting with other commercial, commercial companies and bigger businesses in the San Diego area is something that we really aim to do in the next couple of years.

Lee Kantor: Like, what are some groups or industries that are good, kind of referral partners or good people for you to know?

Emily Souliotes: Yeah. So we really try to support commercial companies that need to maintain their own products for their tenants, for example, so apartment complexes or retail spaces that need to make sure that they stay open and that they have gates or serviceable areas, access control that needs to maintain a certain level of workability. And then obviously, if they’re, you know, if we can support the residential community as well, you know, we love to; we really love inviting people into our showroom.

Emily Souliotes: The other thing we’re partnering with later or partnering with now is the interior design community and remodeling community. Right? Just making sure that people have resources that they need, learning about garage doors. You know, I know it’s in the construction industry, but it is design-influenced, and there’s some fun aspects to it. And so we really love inviting people into our showroom and giving them a little tour and, you know, hoping that they leave knowing a little bit more.

Lee Kantor: Right. I’m sure that they don’t know what they don’t know. They might have made some assumptions and, you know, kind of the ins and outs of this thing that you can really give them some options they hadn’t even considered.

Emily Souliotes: Yeah, absolutely. People don’t know there’s so much that goes into a garage door. Right? It’s a moving wall in the front of their home. I mean, it’s a big product. So there’s a lot of options there, and there’s a lot of cool innovative things that I think have come out in the last couple of years that we’re excited to always be the first to offer.

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

Emily Souliotes: Absolutely. So you can definitely Google us or visit our website, radfordgaragedoor.com. We’re in a pretty central area in San Diego, which is nice. And so, the showroom is always open during the week, Monday through Friday. Walk-ins, welcome. We love anyone that wants to come visit us.

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

Emily Souliotes: Thank you so much, Lee. Much appreciated.

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

BRX Pro Tip: Don’t Let Planning Be a Crutch

December 30, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Don't Let Planning Be a Crutch

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BRX Pro Tip: Don’t Let Planning Be a Crutch

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with BRX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you this morning. Good plans are great. Great plans are good. But if you’re not careful, Lee, planning really can become a crutch, can it?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Yeah. I think a lot of stuff out there that you read is about how to plan, and the importance of creating a good plan, and preparation is so critical for success. And all that’s true. But if you don’t really manage that properly, it can become a crutch or an excuse because, at some point, you have to move from plan to execution. And it’s much better to get ideas out of your head and off the whiteboard and into the real world, so you can learn from real data rather than just imagine what could be or what might happen or whatever.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:52] It’s better to execute and iterate rather than plan and imagine. Get real data fast, learn, and tweak. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t work faster, and you’re going to get farther sooner rather than spending lots and lots of time just sitting there imagining and planning. And what if this happened and what if that happened? Put it in action, see what happens in real life, and then make your adjustments.

BRX Pro Tip: How to Make a Good Habit Stick

December 27, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: How to Make a Good Habit Stick

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BRX Pro Tip: How to Make a Good Habit Stick

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, let’s talk a little bit about habits and, specifically, how to make a good habit stick.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I’m a big believer in habits. I think that most of our behavior is kind of habitual. And the trick is to make good habits stick and to make bad habits not stick. And it’s kind of the same methodology for both sides of this equation. So, in order to make a good habit stick, you have to make it easier for yourself to do the new good behavior and you have to make it harder on yourself to do the not so good behavior.

Lee Kantor: An example of this is, like, say you want to lose weight or you want to eat less junk food. What you would do is you would not put M&M’s in a bowl near you, because if you do that, you’re going to just grab the M&M’s throughout the day and you’ve made eating M&M’s too easy on yourself. But if you put fruit in a bowl or grapes in a bowl near you, you would be encouraging yourself to grab a handful of grapes throughout the day. So, that’s what you have to do, is, you have to make it easy for you to do the good behavior and make it difficult to do the bad behavior.

Lee Kantor: So, in business, that might be I want to increase my productivity. So, what I’m going to do is, I’m going to turn my notifications off my phone so every time it bings or buzzes, I’m not grabbing it to see what’s there anytime somebody is trying to email me or text me or some new news thing happened. And I’m also going to take my phone and put it in another room because I want to focus on doing some deep, high impact work. This way, I’m not going to be distracted and I’m not going to be checking my phone because it’s going to be a little bit more difficult to do.

Lee Kantor: Now, I can do it if I want to, but I got to really want to. I got to get up and go across the room to get my phone. But if I want to sit in front of my computer and write a blog post or write an article, then I’m going to sit on my computer. I’m not going to get up. So, make it easy for yourself to do the good behavior and make it just a little difficult to do the not so good behavior. And you’ll see those good habits are going to stick and the bad habits will slowly go away.

BRX Pro Tip: Less Advice, More Encouragement

December 26, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Less Advice, More Encouragement

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BRX Pro Tip: Less Advice, More Encouragement

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, you are of the opinion that, for the most part, what people really need is less advice and more encouragement.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Yeah. I think it’s kind of a pendulum. I think giving advice is helpful. But there’s also a place for giving encouragement. And for most people, they’ve heard your advice, and what they need is kind of you helping them believe that they can do it. And telling them, “Yes, you can do this. Yes, your dreams can come true. Yes, you are talented enough.” I think people need more yes as you can than they need more of here’s what you’re doing wrong.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] So, do what we do at Business RadioX every day and support and celebrate the people around you. People need to be appreciated. People need people like you to appreciate them. So, please spend some of your day appreciating the folks around you because they are important parts of the community. And to have the role as chief cheerleader and encourager and supporter is not a bad role to have.

BRX Pro Tip: Ways to Capitalize on LinkedIn

December 25, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Ways to Capitalize on LinkedIn

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BRX Pro Tip: Ways to Capitalize on LinkedIn

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to BRX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, let’s talk about LinkedIn. What are some ways to capitalize on LinkedIn to serve our clients, and get out there, and market what we’re doing, and fulfill the promises that we’re making?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] One of the things that I like a lot about LinkedIn is the ability to connect with people and to send them a message that kind of bypasses their email or bypasses a lot of different places. And a lot of people look at the messages from LinkedIn and will respond to them. So, some of the ways that we’ve used LinkedIn in the past in our studio is when we’re trying to target a group of people, like if we know that we want to target CPAs or we wanna target payroll companies or marketing firms, we can make a search, and we could do that in a given market, we could do it in any type. We can kind of narrow down the list.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] And then, because our profile is that of which we run the studios and where the media, most people connect with us just by sending that out. But you can customize it even more and you can ask the people, “Hey, you know what? We’re looking for interesting guests that are CPAs. Do you know any of them? Please connect with me to discuss.” Our access to our platform is a great way to connect with people, the ideal prospect, and we can invite them to be on the show, we can invite to interview them, we can ask them for referrals in terms of other guests. And after the show, it’s a great way to connect with them if you’re not connected and saying, “I really enjoyed having you in the studio. Please connect.” And so, it’s very easy to build a really robust LinkedIn kind of group just through having access to our platform and having a show.

Stone Payton: [00:01:48] LinkedIn is a great tool anyway for most business people, I think, and maybe we’re a little bit spoiled. But particularly, for us, as media, I mean, it is just a marvelous tool. People want to connect with us. And that is such a robust tool for beginning the relationship. And then, even on the backside of shows, there’s just so much you can do to thank people for being on the show and to share the contents. It’s a marvelous vehicle for us.

BRX Pro Tip: Talk About the Stakes

December 24, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Talk About the Stakes

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BRX Pro Tip: Talk About the Stakes

Stone Payton: [00:00:01] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, in a selling conversation, I think it’s important that you talk about the stakes, the stakes involved in this conversation, in this decision, don’t you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:21] Yeah. You’ve got to make sure that somewhere in your marketing or your sales pitch that your prospect understands the stakes. What are some of the bad things that could happen if they don’t choose you in your service?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] So, like, for example, at Business RadioX, we always make sure we let our prospects know that if they choose to use traditional advertising instead of a Business Radio show, then their worst-case scenario is that they get no leads, that they have created no content, and that they have lost all of their money. They might as well have just lit their money on fire. That is the result of running an ad campaign and getting no results. That’s a worst-case scenario of running a traditional ad campaign.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:16] The worst-case scenario of doing a Business RadioX show, the same investment of money, the same investment of time, the worst-case scenario if they invest in a Business Radio show is they still have built relationships with a lot of the people that they say matters the most to them and they still have created tons of valuable content that they can use in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:45] So, the worst-case scenario with a Business Radio show is they still have a mailing list with lots of people on it that they’ve served, that think highly of them. They have human-to-human relationships with tons of people, not counting the people who are just kind of tapping into the content, but humans that were guests on their show and they have this great valuable content that they can be using time and time again, repurposing in a variety of ways for years to come.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:15] So, the stakes are high when it comes to understanding the worst-case scenario when it comes to using either traditional advertising versus a Business RadioX show. The stakes are real. If you use traditional advertising and nothing happens, then literally you might as well have lit that money on fire. You have nothing to show for it. Nothing. That message has come and went, and nobody – you don’t have one more lead. You don’t have any content that you can repurpose. You literally have nothing.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:47] The worst-case scenario with a Business RadioX is still you have tons of relationships with people that matter to you and you have tons of content that you can use over and over again. So, it’s not even close when it comes – it shouldn’t be close when it comes time to deciding between traditional advertising and Business RadioX. Our offering is going to create something that is going to be useful for you for years to come, no matter if a sale happened or not during the period of time you used this. You still can benefit over time by using a Business RadioX show as your marketing tool.

Building a Stronger Business: The Impact of a Chief of Staff on Strategic Growth

December 23, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Building a Stronger Business: The Impact of a Chief of Staff on Strategic Growth

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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Keziah Wonstolen, Chief of Staff at Vannin Chief of Staff. They explore the critical role of a chief of staff in businesses with revenues over $20 million. Keziah explains her firm’s services, including full-time searches, interim placements, and training for chiefs of staff. She differentiates the roles of a chief of staff, executive assistant, and chief operating officer, and offers advice for smaller firms. Emphasizing strategic time management, Keziah discusses how a chief of staff can help leaders focus on high-impact activities and long-term strategy.

After 13 years at Accenture, a large Management Consultancy, Keziah Wonstolen launched Vannin Chief of Staff.

Keziah is an experienced management consultant and Chief of Staff who spent over a decade advising Fortune 500 companies on their sales talent and operational strategies. In 2023 Keziah was awarded the Denver Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award.

Keziah lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and three children. When she is not spending time with family and friends, she loves hiking and kickboxing.

Follow Vannin Chief of Staff on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Women in Motion. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we wouldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women in Motion, we have Keziah Wonstolen with Vannin Chief of Staff. Welcome.

Keziah Wonstolen: Hi, Lee. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm. How are you serving folks?

Keziah Wonstolen: So, at Vannin Chief of Staff, we provide chief of staff talent in a couple different ways. So, we have a fulltime search. We will provide interim chiefs of staff, as well as we train and coach up chiefs of staff that are existing in the business. So, we work with, typically, CEOs and founders that are running businesses 20 million and above, and we can service… we provide talent and coaching across those three areas. We’re based in Denver, and we’ve been doing it for about five years now.

Lee Kantor: Well, do you mind if we get to the beginning, like people have heard-

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah.

Lee Kantor: … of the term chief of staff, but maybe they don’t really have an understanding of what are the kind of the role and responsibility of someone’s chief of staff.

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah. So, a chief of staff is someone who sits to the right of the leader and is able to do three things in how we defined it at Vannin Chief of Staff. They’re really there to align and execute and amplify that leader. And that can look differently across different sizes and scales of businesses. So, at Vannin, we’ve worked with companies from solopreneurs, providing them a chief of staff, all the way up to fortune 100 companies. And you can imagine that that chief of staff, when they go to align, execute and amplify that leader’s vision, it looks different across those variety of different companies.

In reality, what they’re doing, from an aligned perspective, they’re running all of your strategy strategic planning. So annual quarterly planning. From an execute perspective, they’re running the operating cadence of your business. So, setting… You know, with that strategic plan, they’re developing an operating cadence, tracking KPIs, establishing a KPI or OKR framework, and then running that operating cadence. They’re also under the execute bucket. They’re really running your special projects. So, as a leader of a company, things come up all the time. They’re not predictable. And so, to have someone to really help you execute and strategically project manage those initiatives, it’s really important. And then, amplify what they’re really doing is trying to amplify the leader across their impact, influence and communication. And that’s really what the chief of staff role does. And we can talk more about it, but that’s at the highest level.

Lee Kantor: So, what would be the difference between a chief of staff and an executive assistant or a chief operating officer? Like where are the lines drawn?

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah, that’s a really good question. And it depends on the size and the scale of the business. But what we generally find is that at around 10 million, a hundred people, either one of those milestones that you hit, you can have a chief of staff and a COO together. They start to delineate the responsibilities. But under that size and scale, you can have any… you don’t need both essentially. So, a COO and a chief of staff are playing the same role. We see companies choosing the chief of staff role because it generally comes in as a director level. It’s a little bit more moldable than the COO. You can aspire. You can have that person on a trajectory to become the COO, but you’re really bringing them in to, kind of, use them as like a leadership path that they can go on.

So, generally, the two core differences we see as you begin to have two of the same, like you bring on a COO and a chief of staff, is that the COO generally has the talent reporting to them. So, they own all the operational talent, they own the cost metrics, they own the P&L. That’s what a COO is doing versus a chief of staff then really stays aligned with that align, execute, amplify, running annual strategic planning, cross-functional project management, and then the amplify piece. That’s the difference between the COO and the chief of staff.

Between the EA, we generally don’t see a lot of overlap because it’s a completely different role. As you, kind of, just heard me talk about with the COO and a chief of staff, those are much more similar in the way that you need to… that we kind of think about the role. And admin is really… it’s someone that you bring on. They’re very, very important. But if you’re looking for someone to help you in a transactional way, right – emails, calendaring, logistics, travel – if you think about as a leader, you need to outsource certain things to elevate you to make sure that you’re spending the right time on the right things, the way I think about the difference between EA and a chief of staff is that if it’s a strategic thing you need to outsource, a chief of staff is a really good partner. If it’s transactional and it’s repeatable, then an EA or an admin is a really good partner that you can use. That’s the difference. We get that question all the time, and I think all of them are really important, but just kind of depends on what you need in the business.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you can give to firms that maybe aren’t large enough to hire you or afford a chief of staff today? Like, what things can they be doing to get kind of chief of staff results from their team? Or is that even possible?

Keziah Wonstolen: Well, one of the things we like to think about when we first start talking to a client is… and usually our clients are CEOs or leaders of organizations, we’re really looking at where should they be spending their time. So, we use this idea called the Zone of Genius, if you’ve heard of that. It’s by Gay Hendricks. But really, what is… where should you be spending your time in the business? And usually there are things that you should be… you know, that you’re excellent at or that you really thrive at doing, or really the business needs the leader to be doing. So, we start there. And then we look at the rest of the work that they’re doing, and then we start to see, well, where should that go? Who should own that? And if it’s a chief of staff, that’s great. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it is, like you said, an admin, or a CFO, or another person on the leadership team. But that’s where we always start with our clients of going, where do you need to be spending your time? And then, what falls out after that? that’s not a priority, but still really, really important to run the business?

And that’s how I would… you know, if I’m… if you can’t afford to bring us on, that’s what I always really recommend doing and starting there to figure out what are the bulk of activities that you need to then figure out who’s going to own them and then delegate within your team those areas. Because as a leader, you need to constantly be thinking about the strategic vision of the business versus, you know, the details. And that’s what a lot of leaders struggle with, is getting sucked back into the details and unable to sort of elevate them out to really focus on the things they need to be focused on.

Lee Kantor: Now, you talk about the term “zone of genius.” Is that something that a leader can kind of self-assess, or is this something that requires kind of fresh eyes to look at because they may not really understand what is truly their zone of genius and where they really need help?

Keziah Wonstolen: Oh yeah. I would recommend reading the book. It’s called The Genius Zone. And then, they can kind of read that and that’s a really good start to figuring out, you know, when you’re really thinking about how… if I’m growing a business, no matter what the size is, where… There’s always the best use of the leader’s time. Arguably, the… your leader, the CEO and the leadership team is some of the most expensive resources you have. So, prioritizing where they’re spending their time is really, really important. And that’s a good… You know, if a chief of staff is out of budget, then maybe start there and try to figure out how are we making sure that people are spending the right time on the right things?

Lee Kantor: And then, I guess looking back at your calendar is a good way to seeing how well you’re adhering to what you’re learning.

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we talk about chiefs of staff doing is strategic calendaring. So, they’re not going to be your admin, right. They… You know, I would suggest getting an admin if you need calendaring because, usually, chiefs of staff are more… you know, they cost more to bring on. But if that’s really… You know, you start there. A lot of what we do is, you know, at the beginning of an engagement, we kind of say, “Hey, what is the vision of one, three and ten years out that helps the chief of staff align – going back to kind of our framework around this role – align with the leader and what needs to get done that year. And so, they can help strategically calendar that leader with the admin to go, “Hey, this is our quarterly milestones. These are the metrics that we need to hit this quarter,” “Hey, you’re spending all of your time on something completely unrelated to that.” How do we align that, both just at the CEO level, but also across the leadership team? That’s really important. And that’s how we typically work with admins. And I think that’s why, again, they’re really important in the support of a leader.

Lee Kantor: And then, part of your role is not only kind of becoming that chief of staff for the organization, but it’s either training a new chief of staff or helping someone become a chief of staff.

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah. So, what we… Depending on the size and the need in the organization, we can support in… one is just we have a recruiting business that you can hire us, and we will go, and we will find… we have a network of 5000 people. We go out and we recruit from that and we work with you, given our level of experience, in the role. We really try to customize that chief of staff role for you as a leader, and then we will go out and find that. Generally, we’re… we can place within 30-35 days. And that’s because we know the role, we know the people, we know the network, and we can do that quickly for you. So that’s a fulltime chief of staff.

If you don’t… typically, we see people doing interim chiefs of staff if they don’t really know what they need yet, but they want to trial the role. And so, that’s usually where we need to get in quickly. So, we have a team of 13 people in Denver and those chiefs of staff will go in for 6 to 9 months period of time. And I like to think of them as like the Navy Seals of chiefs of staff. We can go in, diagnose, get in the business, set up a… you know, what we just talked about, like operating cadences, KPI frameworks, get that rhythm of business running for you, and then try to figure out, “Well, what is the longer-term solution? Is it a fulltime chief of staff or maybe it’s something else, right? We’ve done engagements where in reality, it really was they needed a CFO and an admin at the end of it, but really took that, bringing in an interim chief of staff to sort of diagnose, and then figure out a path forward for that leader.

And then, if you have someone existing in your organization that you think would be an excellent chief of staff, usually their head of ops, they’re kind of rising leaders within the organization, we have a framework, we call it the Chief of Staff Accelerator Program, that we then train the chief of staff up in to be excellent because one of the risks we run with this role is that it’s not clearly defined when you bring the person in. And what we found over the years, because our leadership team has 40 years of experience in this role, what we’ve learned is that if you don’t have a framework as a chief of staff, you run the risk of just being dilutive across all of the things that need to get done. And that’s not a good match for the leader. It’s not a good fit for the CE… the chief of staff. And that’s what our framework does is bring that structure to the role that a lot of chiefs of staff just don’t have.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are some of the symptoms that a leader is having where getting a chief of staff would be the right solution, but they… you know, maybe it’s not even on their radar to consider that role?

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah. So, we get pulled in for lots of reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is that CEOs are really struggling to be strategic, to get ahead of the business. So, you know, if you think about the role of the CEO, it’s really to guide and lead the business, but a lot of CEOs get sucked back into the weeds of running the day-to-day, whether they have… you know, they’re struggling with their leadership team or, you know, certain aspects of the business, but they cannot get ahead. And that’s usually when we get pulled in where we need to just elevate, support the elevation of a leader. We get pulled in by board members, we get pulled in by the CEO or the CFO, who has a lot of visibility into kind of the ways of working of the leadership team. That’s one example of why we get pulled in.

The other reason we get pulled in, especially on the interim side, is that they just need a good kind of like athlete in the business, right, that we… projects are being delayed. We need someone in there to sort of PM and make sure that those projects are on time and on target. And that’s how we drop in, a lot of the times, an interim capacity. There’s been a couple studies done on the way CEOs spend their time, and there’s some really interesting facts that… I can share the study, but an average CEO works over 63 hours a week. They, 70%, report no time to focus on strategy, and 36 to 40% of them are always in reactive mode. And then, again, there’s this stat that says that 58% have imposter syndrome and stretch beyond their abilities.

There’s a lot of reasons that we’re seeing CEOs in this way at this point in 2024, and that’s to do with like the changing technological landscape with AI coming on board, there’s post-COVID, there’s the political landscape. There’s so many reasons why being a CEO is so much more complicated than it used to be. And that’s why we’re seeing the rise in the trend of the chief of staff role within organizations.

Lee Kantor: Now, about what percentage of organizations of the size you serve have chiefs of staff?

Keziah Wonstolen: Well, the ones that we serve have them because-

Lee Kantor: Right. Obviously, yours is 100%. But out of all the universe of businesses that size, what percent have chiefs of staff?

Keziah Wonstolen: So, we see them a lot. I mean, I would say a lot of the time. And I don’t have the exact percentages. But in tech, professional services, you know, you’ll see them in government organizations, as well as political organizations, they generally have this role, and it’s become more of a blueprint role in the last five years. When we started the company in 2020, a lot of people didn’t know what this role was. And now, we get calls, you know, on a daily basis going, “I need a chief of staff. I know I need one,” whereas five years ago, it was a little bit more inquisitive of like, “What is this role? How can it help me?” And so, in those industries, we are seeing that it’s usually a blueprint role on the org chart. Emerging markets that we are seeing right now are really around like manufacturing companies and scaling large enterprise professional services. More and more, we see this role. And, you know, I personally… clearly, I’m a fan of it. So, I could argue with any leader anywhere could really benefit from this role.

Lee Kantor: So, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Keziah Wonstolen: I’ve always been passionate about women in business since I started. My background was at a management consulting firm, and I always found a way to get involved in how do we support women scaling companies? You know, in the last five years, I’ve gotten involved in investments and angel investments with women, and how do we continue to elevate them? And so, for me, as a majority owned women business, it was really important to be a part of WBEC-West only because they serve to elevate women and business across North America, which I just find really exciting to be around. My first interaction with the group was at an event, you know, a few years ago. And I just remember being like, “This is incredible.” The amount of support they’re able to provide women and the connection they have into corporate enterprise and government is phenomenal as a woman-led business to have that opportunity.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are some of the qualities that make a good chief of staff?

Keziah Wonstolen: That’s a great question. We find that there are three types of chiefs of staff, and I call them archetypes. So, when you start to look for a chief of staff, you’re looking for one of these three. And there’s the operator, which is essentially the junior CEO that we talked about at the beginning of the call. Then, they manage the operating cadence, goal setting frameworks, more of kind of like that junior CEO, head of operations type person. The strategist is really around being a thought partner, advisor to the leader. They support the alignment and execution of all cross-functional projects. And then, you have a proxy. And that proxy is really an extension of the leader that can, you know, replace them in meetings, you know, just that they could replicate that leader. We generally see more senior chiefs of staff acting in that capacity.

So, across those three archetypes, there are different things that are important, but the common threads that we see that make a good chief of staff are they have really high EQ. They are very, very good at building relationships because a chief of staff generally doesn’t have direct reports. So, they have to get and, you know, coordinate work being done by building relationships with people, and it’s really important. They’re very, very good communicators, and they’re excellent project and change management. Generally, we see good chiefs of staff being grown up in their career as, you know, project or change managers, because that becomes so important as you’re organizing and coordinating the vision of a CEO.

They’re also, generally, problem solvers and curious, and they’re ambitious in their profile. And so, one of the things I always guide CEOs, if you’re going to hire a chief of staff, you need to have a career path for them thought through, right? It doesn’t have to be very specific, but you need to be… this person generally will stay in the role for 2 to 3 years, and then will want to move on, and it’s really a good way to kind of create a leadership funnel for you if you want to move them into a leadership opportunity elsewhere in the business.

Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share that maybe don’t name the name of the company, but maybe explain this, the challenge they were having where they called you and you were able to help that organization get to a new level?

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah. One of the stories that I’ll highlight, and I have a couple, but one was that we had a client that was struggling to transition out of the role that they were playing. So, they had the role as the leader of the organization but, really, it was time to move on to their next plan, their next move onto the board. So, what we did, they brought us in as the chiefs of staff to really stabilize the leadership team, to stabilize and build the operational infrastructure before they could pass it on to a new leader. And that was the call that we got is going, “Hey, we need to, basically, stabilize our operational infrastructure. We need to create an operating cadence, a predictable operating cadence of our business that will allow a new leader to take on and not sort of immediately drown in all the things that needed to be fixed.” So, that’s why that particular client called us in. And they were able to, within the nine-month period of time, successfully transitioned to a new CEO, move on to the board, and our chief of staff stayed in there, and then handed off the role approximately three months after that. And it worked. It was really great. It was a great use of the chief of staff role.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of? How can we help you? Do you need more chiefs of staff? Do you need more board members to know about your service? How can we help?

Keziah Wonstolen: So, we always open the conversation to folks that are interested about how a chief of staff can help them. So, whether you’re a leader, a board member, a CEO, or even, you know, in the C-suite of a company, and you think that the chief of staff role could help you, we have free 3- minute consults that we offer. And we… you walk away with what is the right… you know, given the company size and the situation you’re in, what is the right type of chief of staff that we want to look for now, and is it a good fit? So, we offer that for free. You can go to our website at vanninchiefofstaff.com and do that. And we also love getting to know chiefs of staff or aspiring chiefs of staff. If this role has ever been interesting to you, we want to know you. And so, you can go to our website and connect with us to make sure that you’re getting all of our role opportunities that we share out to our community. And we host events specifically in Denver. And those are the two ways that would be really helpful.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more one more time, the website or the best way to connect.

Keziah Wonstolen: Yeah, it’s vanninchiefofstaff.com, if you Google vanninchiefofstaff.com but that’s where chief of staff, we will show up and that’s the best way to connect. Or you can send an email at hello@vanninchiefofstaff.com. And we will get back to you within a day.

Lee Kantor: And that’s V-A-N-N-I-N chief of staff dot com?

Speaker4: That’s right.

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

Keziah Wonstolen: Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.

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

BRX Pro Tip: If You Learned Something, You Didn’t Fail

December 23, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: If You Learned Something, You Didn't Fail

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BRX Pro Tip: If You Learned Something, You Didn’t Fail

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tip. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you this morning. Lee, today’s topic, today’s assertion, if you learn something, you didn’t fail.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Right. I think people have such a fear of failure that really holds them back and they’re afraid to try things and they make failure into this whole big deal. And if you can reframe failure into learning, you are going to be so much happier in life and you’re going to get so much more things done because you’re going to be trying so many more things.

But I don’t know why people are so hung up and afraid of failing. And especially in America, this is something that it shouldn’t be part of our culture. There are some other parts of the world where you only get one bite of the apple and it better work for you or else, you know, there’s shame and you don’t get another try. But here in America, it’s not that way. There are so many entrepreneurs, there are so many people trying things.

You have to get past this fear of failure. If you can reframe failing into learning, you are going to be so much happier. You are going to be so much more likely to try new things and take more risks and have better success if you can stick with it for any length of time. So please reframe failing to learning and you will enjoy a lot happier life and a lot more success.