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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Must Haves When Creating an Assessment

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BRXmic99
BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: 3 Must Haves When Creating an Assessment
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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Must Haves When Creating an Assessment

Stone Payton : And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor, Stone Payton here with you. Lee, today’s topic, creating assessments.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, a lot of folks out there are using assessments as either a lead magnet or as one of the services they provide or even a deliverable a lot of times for the business coaches or consultants that we work with, and I’m seeing it more and more. So I thought I’d share some tips that, you know, I’ve come across when it comes to creating an assessment.

Lee Kantor: Number one, you have to really be clear on what is the purpose of this assessment. Is it to educate? Is it to entertain? Is it to qualify leads? You have to understand the goal because that’s going to shape the design and format of the assessment.

Lee Kantor: Number two, you have to do some research when it comes to what your target audience’s interest, pain points, preferred learning styles are because that’s going to help you create an assessment that they’re going to find valuable and engaging.

Lee Kantor: And number three, give the users tailored, immediate feedback based on their responses. Because when they go through the assessment, they’re going to be curious about what the results are and the feedback is so critical. And this helps them feel engaged and guides them towards the desired outcome.

Lee Kantor: So creating an assessment that provides genuine value and a memorable, personalized experience for your target audience is going to help you boost engagement. It’s going to help you with lead generation and brand awareness. So if you do this right, it can be a very effective marketing tool, but you have to do the fundamentals correctly.

BRX Pro Tip: 3 Must Haves When Creating Compelling Case Studies

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: 3 Must Haves When Creating Compelling Case Studies
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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Must Haves When Creating Compelling Case Studies

Stone Payton : And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor, Stone Payton here with you. Lee, what are you learning recently about creating truly compelling case studies?

Lee Kantor: I think having case studies on your website and your materials when you’re selling somebody something is super important. They have to be able to see that you can really deliver what you promise, and having examples of how other people have used your service and benefited from your service is super important when it comes to persuading someone to try to buy what you’re selling.

Lee Kantor: So number one, I would focus in on the customer and their experience, not just the product or service. So highlight the customer’s challenges, their goals, and how you’re offering. Help them achieve whatever their desired outcome was. And I would use direct quotes from the customer to add authenticity. You want to get as much of this information in the – out of the mouth of your customer, not your marketing team.

Lee Kantor: Number two, I would quantify the impact your solution had on the customer with specific metrics that demonstrate the value that you provided. So if you’re saying we increase revenue, don’t say you increase revenue, say you increase revenue by so much, or you reduce costs by so much, or you improve efficiency by so much. Specificity matters, and it’s important to capture the exact amount if you possibly can. And this helps potential customers understand the real-world benefits of the service that you’re providing.

Lee Kantor: And number three is structure the case study like a story. Don’t just make it, you know, dry numbers or charts or things like that. So try to kind of set the scene by introducing the customer and their situation, their challenge, and then describe how your service was implemented. And then at the end, you close by showcasing the final results.

Lee Kantor: So I think it’s super important to have case studies. And I think it’s super important to put case studies on your website, in your marketing materials. And if you use some of these kinds of tactics within the case study, I think you’re going to have a lot more people buying what you’re selling.

BRX Pro Tip: 3 Solution Based Selling Techniques

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Six-Figure Chicks Book Series Founder Mel Carr

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Houston Business Radio
Six-Figure Chicks Book Series Founder Mel Carr
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Mel-CarrOwner of Cloversy Executive Virtual Assistance, Mel Carr is a dynamic entrepreneur, multi #1 international bestselling author, and founder of the Six-Figure Chicks Book Series.

Passionate about empowering women, Mel also founded Her Write to Rise, a nonprofit dedicated to elevating women’s voices and stories.

Through her work and platforms, Mel inspires others to achieve their goals and rise to new heights. six-figure-chicks-logo

Learn more at www.sixfiguremel.com

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest today, Mel Carr. She’s the owner at Cloversy. Executive Virtual Assistance is what they offer. She’s the founder of Six Figure Chicks book series, multi number one international best selling author and founder of her Right to Rise nonprofit. Mel, welcome to the show.

Mel Carr: Good morning. Thank you. That’s a mouthful.

Trisha Stetzel: Is you’ve done so much and you’re doing incredible work. You and I met through, um, an invitation for Six Figure Chicks. But I want to start at the beginning. So, Mel, tell us a little bit about you and how you got Cloversy started and what that is all about, and then we’ll dive into the rest.

Mel Carr: Wonderful. So Six Figure, or sorry Cloversy, it’s all about six figure chicks right? Let’s be honest. Um but back up a few years. Cloversy was founded after I’d spent a number of years overseas. Uh, contracts ended. I decided to come back to the real world, and my my visions and paths in life had changed greatly. And so I was like, ah, I think I’m done. 25 years in corporate. What else can I do for myself? How can I, like, earn money for myself? All the investment of time and energy that we put into jobs? While it’s not bad, I was just at that point where I wanted to, um, you know, invest in something for myself. So I searched through small business owners and associates that I had friended here in Arizona, and I saw, wow, okay, well, we can really offer the support virtually, even if we’re in the same town. Um, you know, there’s a lot of gaps in businesses that, you know, the, the owners or entrepreneurs don’t see because they’re in the business and they think, you know, well, I don’t need to hire a full time person, so I’ll just do it myself. And then, you know, as we start our businesses, we do usually wear all the hats. And, you know, that doesn’t mean we have to continue wearing all the hats we can delegate. That’s the one way that your business is going to grow, right? If you delegate out those tasks you don’t need to be doing, you shouldn’t be doing, you don’t have time to do. Um, so yeah, I created oversee executive virtual assistants, kind of how I say the executive virtual assistants is different than like the VA that everyone has heard of or knows is that we are 100% woman led US based company. Um, nothing against anyone else or overseas. However, we just have a different level of expertise, understanding and communication. So that’s why I say we offer a higher level of virtual assistance to take care of our clients needs.

Trisha Stetzel: It’s so important to have access to something like that. You know, I talked to so many business owners who don’t think or believe that they could have someone on their team that can help them with these administrative tasks that they really don’t have time for, but it is actually very affordable. When you think about the business owners bill rate compared to what they would be paying for a virtual assistant to come in and do some of those things, right. We don’t want to pay ourselves to go do email and calendaring and those sorts of things, but we do it anyway, right? Uh, because we don’t know. A lot of us don’t know that we have access to something as amazing as the service that you’re providing.

Mel Carr: Yeah, exactly. And to think about, like, you know, back in the corporate days or when you’re working for another company, there was always an executive assistant or an assistant closely working with the VP or CEO or, you know, they handled everything. They were the right hand person to that VP. If they couldn’t do a task, they knew who to contact or who to give it to. Like that frees up so much time. I like how you said, you know, it’s it’s challenging sometimes for us to really put into dollars what our, our, our time is worth, you know. So I always like to say easy to think of, like if you’re at $100 an hour times that by five hours a week, you’re spent on doing social media content or replying to emails. So that’s $500 a week times four weeks. That’s, you know, $2,000 a month of your time that you are just giving away. But yeah, you could turn that into something beneficial for your company, like concentrating on your clients, being new clients.

Trisha Stetzel: Or prospecting getting new ones. Right? Yes.

Mel Carr: Yeah. And hire somebody for, you know, half the price or less. Um, it just and or, you know, some business owners have been burned by going overseas or not delegating or hiring on the right person. Person that’s going to understand your business and your vision. Um, so that you know, that bad experience often delays them in wanting or looking for other support.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. And there’s such a learning curve. If you’ve never had an assistant in your own business, you don’t know how to communicate. You don’t know what they can do for you. And I know that Cloversy really, um, is very apt at making sure that the owner and executive virtual assistant have a good relationship and they understand each other and what needs to get done, right, so that the the business owner, the entrepreneur, isn’t sitting around going, gosh, how am I going to give this person X hours of work, right? And so they spin in circles and then they don’t hire them or they don’t have a good relationship with that assistant. Right. Uh, there’s a lot there’s a big learning curve. Yeah.

Mel Carr: Most definitely. It’s a learning curve for the hiring anyone. Right. In your business, in person, brick and mortar or virtually. It’s all about communication. That’s the number one thing to a successful relationship with your clients, your staff. You know, your personal life, right? Yeah. Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. So Cloversy led to six figure checks. But before we leave Cloversy how can folks who might be interested in talking to you about the opportunity to have an executive virtual assistant? How can they find you? What’s the best way? Yeah.

Mel Carr: Easy, Clover. Com it’s clover with an s y.com. I’m on all social media outlets. Um, you know, go to the website. It has direct contact with me. Call me email. I have an executive team as well as our clients. So every client gets a dedicated exec VA, they get an online business manager and then they get me as a business strategist. So it’s kind of like your own little exec team. Um, but for just a microcosm of the cost and time needed.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And worth every single penny. You could go get more clients while you’re getting all of the other stuff done at a very high level. Right? And that’s what’s important, right? They make me look good. Yeah.

Mel Carr: Our time is our most valuable asset. And for you to really take control of yourself and your business is by seeing how how else you can delegate. Who else can be doing these things? And you know, that then flowed into, you know, my own, um, business management. I was like, how am I going to grow my business? How am I going to market myself and my business? There are so many other avenues besides social media, ads, email you should be doing, you know, most or all of those things, however. So I was in one of my business masterminds early on a couple of years ago, uh, publisher came to the meeting and she was like, the best way to write your own book is to do a book collaboration. So that means you bring in other authors to all write one chapter. You don’t have to write a whole book. One and done. Easy. I’m like sold. So I, I, you know, I, I sold you know, I bought the package. I was like, this sounds amazing. I have clients who have done this, so I know. Um, how well this marketing piece is to, you know, businesses and entrepreneurs who. Take advantage of this. And, um, you know, they all said, well, why don’t you write a book on.

Mel Carr: Vas and I’m like, well, everybody has a book on Vas. That was right at that time where it just kind. Of exploded and I said, huh, what am I going to write about? So I went back to my first business coach. She asked me what I wanted to make that first year, and I was like, I don’t know, I just want to. Pay my bills and have a good life. She’s like, well, you know, I kind of need a dollar amount. Good coach, good coach. Right? Like, okay, so I just said $100,000. Um, and I reached that goal, surpassed it. So. Fast forward, back to the the book collaboration. I was like six figures like that really stood out to me because it was more than a dollar amount. Even then, it was my road to success. Like I put that in front of me as a goal, I reached it, I surpassed it, and I want to celebrate it. Yeah. And too often I found that people just don’t talk about it. Like women especially, um, because we, you know, we feel judged or that, you know, we’re, we’re touting we’re better than others. And it’s not a fact at all, like six figures. And then I was like six figure females, women chicks, six figure chicks came.

Trisha Stetzel: I love it. That’s so awesome. I this is how you and I met, uh, someone introduced us, by the way. It is a BNI connection. Maybe once or twice separated. We both know BNI, and so it was a great connection for us. And when you started telling me about this book collab. I was so excited. And by the way, the reason why Mel is on with us in Houston is because six figure chick’s book collabs coming to Houston. And you’ve already had lots of successes around other cities that you’ve been in, and you’ve got a couple. Houston. And I believe there’s one in California that you’re starting up right now as well. So tell us more about the actual book collab. And then we can kind of dive into some of the things that I really love about the, um, intangibles around doing something like this.

Mel Carr: Yeah, yeah I know, thank you. And it’s just so many great things about this. Like, you know, if we had an hour, I could go on and on. But. So first book was published in 2022 with women from around the nation. Um, it was great success. International bestseller. Fast forward 24. I was like, I’m ready to do my next book in the series. However, let’s let’s dive down into like a community focused book. Like, let’s start with my hometown Phoenix. I did Phoenix, it was just like ten times the success of the previous one because we were focused in on one community. We built really strong relationships. We were in person, which I love in person meetings. Right? Like no more craziness from before of separation. And then I was like, okay, how else can we leave a lasting legacy in this community? Phoenix well, let’s let’s have a launch party. Let’s invite local businesses. Let’s give these authors a really strong platform to stand on and market their their success, their expertise. So we brought these women together. We had an amazing launch party. And then I said, okay, what else can we do? Let’s do more books.

Mel Carr: So we do have LA. We have Houston, which you were a part of. Which I’m super excited about. So we have in both locations, we have a couple of authors signed on. Now we have a total of 19 six figure chick author slots that we’re looking to fill. And then, um, from the Phoenix launch party, we announced Phoenix Volume two is in production as well. Due to popular demand, I had the lady, the first author for that book at the launch party. She was just like, she missed out on the first book, and she saw me at an event, um, like last month. And she’s like, I really want to let you know that I feel so bad for saying no to Phoenix. She’s like, I’ve seen what you’ve created and what how the women are together and what, um, you know, empowerment and inspiration you’re sharing. Like, I’m so sorry I missed out. Let me know when you have your next book. And I said, okay, let’s do it. She’s like signed on.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. It’s like FOMO, right? Oh, she totally has FOMO.

Mel Carr: However, you know, like, it takes big, you know, shoes to say, like, hey, look, I missed out. Like, yeah, let’s do it. You know, I instead of like, oh, well, great. Congratulations. I’m so happy for you. And behind the scenes, she’s like, shoot. Yeah, I don’t ask. You don’t receive.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s right. You can never get a yes if you don’t ask or no for that matter. But you do. You got to get out and and be proud of the question that you have and just ask it, what’s the worst that could happen? Right? Mel could say no, but instead she said, yes.

Mel Carr: Yes. And it’s all about saying yes to yourself. The whole premise behind six figure checks is, you know, celebrate your wins, because everything that we create assists and aids somebody else in some way. Like, you enrich other people’s lives through your coaching. You know, I give work opportunity to women that work for my company. I give time back to our clients. We all are in this for a reason, to give back and serve others.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So before I give my take on why I want to be a part of six figure checks, Houston edition, uh, tell people where they can find you if they’re very interested in being a part of the six figure checks collab.

Mel Carr: Yeah. So if you’re interested in becoming an author, sharing your story of success, being in a publication with other successful females, um, go to six figure male.com. That’s the private authorship page to see all the benefits. Contact me. Um, you know Mel C at six figure chicks.com. We’re on all social platforms as well. Um, you know, I’d love to have a conversation with successful females in the Houston area to be in the book with you. Um, and to be a long in this amazing movement and to leave that lasting legacy with women, men and young women, especially in Houston area and nationwide.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And I’m so excited about it. Mel Watt now when we connected, we would probably be friends anyway, right? We just connected. And it was a fun conversation from the very beginning. But what drew me in and made me want to be a part of this book collaboration was not just telling my story, but being able to share that experience and mentorship with others, especially young women. So a lot of my listeners know that I’m very involved in the veteran community and very involved with other women, but also in mentorship. It’s very important to me. So I think the biggest piece for me is to be able to bring this book launch to Houston and invite young women to a book signing or an event where they can talk to all of these women who have told their story about how they got to six figures or beyond. And I think that’s so important that these young women see these strong women not only telling their stories, but how they are also collaborating together. As you and I talked about this, I come from a generation. I don’t want to make any assumptions about you, but I come from a generation where women competed so much that we didn’t support each other. And so I’m a huge proponent of finding ways for us as women to to lift each other up. Right, and bring bring each other, bring us together so that we can do something meaningful for the next generations or generations to come. So thank you for doing this and I’m so excited. So I ladies, if you’re listening and you’re in the Houston area, I’m in and so should you be. So reach out to me or you can reach out directly to Mel. Go to six figure Mel mel.com so that you can get all the deets on this and schedule a call with Mel and get on board. So I’m super excited about this. All right, Mel, I do not want to leave this conversation with you without talking about her right to Rise, the nonprofit that you started. So tell us more about that.

Mel Carr: Yeah. Thank you. Um, so her Right to rise was birthed from six figure checks because I, you know, I, as I said before, I lasting legacy. How can we do this even stronger, harder, more memorable in our communities? I said, okay, let’s leave. Let’s let’s team up with a local charity on each of these events. And I said, okay. Thought about it a little bit more. I said, well, why not do my own charity nonprofit? Like, I know exactly what I want to give and who I want to, you know, give it to. And I said, okay, fine. I teamed up with our, one of our authors in the second book of our The Phoenix Volume one, Shantoyia Nicole Brian Pruett Foundation. She’s my fiscal sponsor. So we were able to start right up. Her right to Rise is here to provide a platform of the ability for young women, 18 to 26, to share their story of, you know, their their struggles, their triumphs in that young age, to be able to network and mentor with the authors that are in this book. So coming up is our first mentorship day for Phoenix, January 25th. We’ll will bring back all the authors from the Phoenix book, and even the first if they want to join, along with 100 plus young women. We’re going to mentor with those young women for the day. We’re going to invite them complementary to learn from these women will create vision boards. We’ll, you know, go over financial success, financial literacy, you know, dressing to impress all of those tangible, practical, tactical things that they may not have learned or are learning in school. Um, you know, I want to give them the opportunity to really have that time with these authors to ask questions, learn, grow, become as successful or more than us.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, and I failed to mention because I think this is something else, is really I not think I know this is something else that’s really important to me is yes, there are 19 authors, 18 of them are paid collaborators. That 19th one comes in on a scholarship, and it’s all based on the 18 who have come together and get to decide who to scholarship that 19th position, to somebody really important in the community, which I think is fantastic. I just love that there’s so much give back and everything that you’re doing. Mel, I very Farbstein thank you for introducing me to Mel C and shout out to Barry. Um, otherwise I wouldn’t know about this. And I’m so excited. I’ve already been talking about this opportunity I had for ladies that I’m working on getting them to reach out to you, and I know there are so many others in the greater Houston area that could benefit from an opportunity like this. So, Mel, as we start to close our conversation today, what advice do you have to women out there who are thinking, gosh, that sounds like a great opportunity, but maybe I’m not ready?

Mel Carr: Yeah. That’s great. Just just hop on a call, you know, hop on a call with me or you. Because, for example, in the second book, I have one of the authors, um, Amber, she’s a flight attendant for southwest. Her husband introduced us and pushed her. She was like, I don’t have a story to share. I don’t own a business. And I said, no, there’s that’s so incorrect. You have a story to share. You have been working for southwest for 20 plus years. That’s what you’re passionate about. Like you love serving the people that are, you know, on your planes daily and you have a personal side that you know, you can share and heal from. Because writing those stories for these authors are more than just marketing their business, sharing their story, growing. It’s about healing from their written words. And that’s the message I want to get across to these young women, women in general that are scared or don’t think that they have a story to share or that they’re writing down those words, are going to do anything to help them move forward. And and it is it’s personally, professionally, it all goes hand in hand. And Amber is now pushed past those barriers that held her back. And she is leaving a legacy for her son, you know, like she’s she has something that she’s so proud of. And she has a circle of these women who are around her to support her and motivate her to do whatever she wants.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Yeah. So for women who are looking for that circle that you don’t have, this creates that, right? It gives you a new network of women to be with and like physically, not just over zoom. We’re all going to get together in person. And I think that that is so important as we move forward on all of our journeys. Right. So I know I sit behind my computer screen all day, every day, almost 300 days a year, right? Uh, I had to get out of my my seat. I gotta get out of my seat, and I gotta get out, and I need to do that. And this is going to give me the opportunity to get back in person with a community of women that I really want to be around. And I’m so excited about this. And while you were talking, I thought of one more lady that I need to reach out to. So, uh, if you’re listening and and hear what Mel said. Mel said this particular lady, Amber, was not a business owner, but she’s still a six figure chick and she still has a story to tell. So please hear that. You do not have to be a business owner, right? You just have to be in the space where you’re ready to go tell your story as a six figure chick. Mel, I’m so excited to have you on the show today. This is so much fun. Any parting words from you as we close?

Mel Carr: No thank you. Somebody asked me just recently, what’s your three favorite words to share? And I said six figure year chicks.

Trisha Stetzel: I love it. All right. You can find Mel C at Cloversy which is her executive assistant business. You can also go directly to the Six Figure Chicks website at six figure Mel mel.com. So you can get all of the deets on what we talked about today. Mel, thank you again. I’m so excited about this. We’re getting started right away, which is even better. No one has to wait. Uh, and I hope that we can drive some more ladies to pick up the phone and have a conversation with you. Thank you.

Mel Carr: Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.

 

Yoga for Everyone: Transforming Lives in Underserved Communities

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Women in Motion
Yoga for Everyone: Transforming Lives in Underserved Communities
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In today’s Women in Motion, Lee Kantor is joined by Kary Sinkule, founder of Yoga’s Arc, a mobile yoga company serving underserved communities. Kary shares her journey from personal healing through yoga to establishing Yoga’s Arc, emphasizing the importance of making yoga accessible to everyone, regardless of physical abilities or backgrounds. The discussion covers the diverse populations Yoga’s Arc serves, including homeless shelters, corporate offices, and addiction recovery centers. Kary also highlights the business and nonprofit aspects of her work, demonstrating yoga’s profound impact on mental and physical health.

Kary-SinkuleKary Sinkule has dedicated the last 30 years of her life to health, wellness, and education, and has been teaching and practicing yoga for over 25 years.

Kary spent 20 years in Public Education, which she has since retired from to follow her passion for sharing yoga through her Yoga’s Arc’s Mobile Yoga Company, Yoga’s Arc’s Foundation for Non-Profit, and 5 Yoga Teacher Training Schools. We have over 100 teachers in our communities serving to fulfill our purpose of bringing more Yoga to more people.⁠

Kary will always have the passion to teach yoga even though she has taken a back seat, giving all of our Yoga’s Arc Instructors a chance to shine through our ongoing Schools and Mentoring Programs. She truly cares and it shows in her ability to help her students and teachers feel comfortable in their yoga journeys.

Follow Yoga’s Arc on LinkedIn, X and Facebook. Yogas-Arc-logo

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.

Lee Kantor: Today on Women In Motion, we have Kary Sinkule with Yoga’s Arc. Welcome.

Kary Sinkule: Thank you for welcoming me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Yoga’s Arc.

Kary Sinkule: Well, Yoga’s Arc came about because I was a yoga teacher. Well, I am a yoga teacher. It’s been 28 years. At the time, I was about 20 and I had to retire from school, teaching, and counseling to take care of my grandmother with dementia. And when she passed away, I felt like I needed a purpose, and I was so tired of bringing yoga to the elite in studios, I decided to create a mobile yoga company where we can deliver yoga to people, and it has exceeded my expectations. And we’re really serving so many people in places like homeless shelters, corporate offices, prisons, sex trafficking places, and parks. We do – I mean, it’s just endless. We have so many great, great clients.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit about why yoga is so important to you, and why you think it’s so important to be sharing this with others?

Kary Sinkule: Absolutely. Because I know in the world we live in today, sometimes yoga is intimidating or it looks intimidating, but yoga is as simple as breathing and moving our body to really tune into ourselves and to get to know ourselves.

Kary Sinkule: And 30 years ago, I started yoga because of all the trauma I endured as a child. And I give credit to yoga for saving my life. And it’s important to me to bring the benefits of what breath and movement can do to others. And it’s as simple as just moving our our spine in the six directions that we don’t usually move in during a workday. We really just need to move a little bit. It doesn’t have to be anything huge.

Lee Kantor: Now, for folks who’ve never done it or like you said, intimidated because they see people, you know, super flexible, doing flexible things and they can, you know, they’re looking at a computer screen all day and maybe they’re hunched over and they can barely, you know, get in and out of a chair, what is some kind of easy entry point for that person to even enter a yoga studio, or watch a yoga video, or go to one of your classes?

Kary Sinkule: That’s a really good question. So the first thing I would recommend is joining our YouTube channel that we created during COVID. We paid our teachers to create classes. And so we have so many of these accessible classes on our free YouTube channel.

Kary Sinkule: We also provide classes on our Instagram channel. We have some of our teachers in training that are finishing up. We have amazing chair yoga classes and really accessible all levels classes.

Kary Sinkule: We also – if you are local in Arizona, we have a lot of like public, really accessible classes in farmers markets and you can access our calendar, but you can really just go on any channel or any, you know, YouTube and start to watch different yoga classes and maybe look for beginner yoga or yoga for corporate and start to explore watching so it’s not as intimidating as you find things that look accessible.

Lee Kantor: Now, is yoga something that works for every body type? Because a lot of times when you’re seeing someone do yoga or watching an instructor do yoga, they have a certain body type that may not match what, you know, the public’s body type.

Kary Sinkule: Correct. And that is something that I’m passionate about changing. We’ve created teacher trainings here in Arizona, and we also have them on demand. So any of you that are interested, and we’re recruiting people that have physical challenges. We have we’ve we’ve certified teachers that have hip replacements that have overcome cancer surgeries and cancer treatments.

Kary Sinkule: We have a police officer that fell, and she ended up with 37 surgeries and a reconstructed elbow, and we certified her. And she delivers chair yoga to seniors and some police officers that need recovery.

Kary Sinkule: So I recruit people that don’t think they can, but really want to see if they can. Because if you have a willingness to learn, that’s who I want. So, if you look on our website at the teachers, we’re starting to change what the typical teacher looks like. And that’s part of my mission.

Lee Kantor: Now, for a person who says, “Okay, I’m in, I’m going to do this,” how quickly do they start seeing some sort of a health benefit or result? Is it something like if you’re, you know, you go to a strength training facility, you start seeing muscle growth? If you go and do cardio, maybe you lose some weight. Like, what do you see, you know, kind of physically when you start doing yoga?

Kary Sinkule: I’m going to give you the answer I give to my teachers and training when I teach them that drives them nuts. And the answer is it depends. But the reason why I say that is because sometimes we are coaxed or encouraged to go to a studio with a friend, and we’re there the whole time. Our nervous system is dysregulated because we’re not comfortable and we’re probably not going to get much out of it.

Kary Sinkule: But like, for example, the other day I was at a WBEC event in Mesa and they put on a beautiful celebration catering for us. And they had asked me to do like a five-minute guided meditation. And I stood up and I had them soften their eyes and just I started to take them through their body parts and have them connect with each body part. And after it was over, they were like, “Oh, my gosh. Can you keep going? I feel so much better.” Right.

Kary Sinkule: So the nervous system when we just breathe slower, for example, if we during the day, anytime we think of it, when we start breathing in and out for five seconds in and five seconds out versus quick or holding our breath like we do when we concentrate, our nervous system will regulate. So just by breathing slower, we probably will feel a little better.You add some neck circles when you’re sitting at your computer every, you know, 25 minutes, your neck will probably feel better. So it doesn’t need to be this whole big thing.

Kary Sinkule: However, if you jump down the yoga path, right, it’s like suture number one, 1.1, you now begin when you’re introduced to yoga, it is your beginning. And for those that dive in and maybe do it two to three times a week or become more regular, the results, I have heard so many stories that would blow your mind because I’ve been in this industry for 30 years. But the most important thing is the consistency, right?

Kary Sinkule: And when we think of yoga, it doesn’t have to be something really physical. So if someone decides they want to do something consistent three times a week and they decide on Friday the third day, they’re way too tired, well, maybe they don’t do the physical yoga. Maybe they just sit and do a meditation for rejuvenation.

Kary Sinkule: So in yoga, you can make it really rejuvenating if you’re feeling really run down, or if you need that physical outburst, you can go to like a strength class or do more of like a a strength class. It doesn’t have to be a lot of movement, but just standing on, you know, in a pose and holding for ten breaths can be very powerful. So it’s beneficial in so many ways.

Lee Kantor: And then it can be part of and maybe it should be part of kind of a whole wellness program. Right? Like there is a place for strength training, cardio, and yoga. They can all play nicely side by side.

Kary Sinkule: Very much so. And that’s where we came in, where we go into communities, corporate offices, addiction recovery centers, and we create the yoga program. We have over 80 teachers. So we go in and we find out what’s their budget, how – like, what do you need? Are you a group of painters? Is it your shoulders? Do we need to do shoulder rehabilitation? Is it addiction recovery? And then we tailor the program within that wellness center. And whether it’s five classes a week, 15 classes a week, we provide all the teachers and we do virtual as well so we can create those programs.

Lee Kantor: So do you find the need or the demand from businesses that are looking to provide a benefit to their employees? Or like you were saying, you’re serving a lot of underserved communities as well. And there’s a nonprofit element to this in your business.

Kary Sinkule: Correct. That nonprofit came because I am a servant at heart and I don’t like to say no. I was a special needs teacher and counselor for junior high, and so when people started coming to me without money and wanting our services, I was like, we’ve got to do something. So we created the nonprofit.

Kary Sinkule: We have the most successful nonprofit story, is our prison project, and we have two women that have been incarcerated. They are now in our teacher training. One of them is our sales manager, and both of them teach yoga for us. So we are really making a difference in the world. And I know that was a tangent. Back to your question.

Lee Kantor: Well, I think you answered some of the questions, but when you’re working – let’s take them separately. When you’re working with the business, they’re looking at an employee benefit. I would imagine they’re looking for some sort – and they’re looking at it in business terms of return on investment. Is this increasing productivity? So you have to answer those questions when you’re dealing with corporate people, right?

Kary Sinkule: Correct. So we do have a corporate landing page that kind of has a lot of the statistics. There’s a lot of studies and research out there. But anecdotally, what I’ll say is what I love about a 30-minute yoga class that we call like no stretch, no change in corporate wellness, sometimes it’s 25 minutes because you don’t want to take their whole lunch break. They should – you know, we do it in chairs and you’re literally moving their spine, which is good for your physical body. You’re helping them breathe, which is good for clarity and the nervous system. You’re empowering them with affirmations and such so you’re building their confidence. And then you can do strength, stretch.

Kary Sinkule: So literally in yoga, you can get your life coaching, your movement, your breathing. So it’s one and all. And then you can have one teacher serve 20 people at a time, per se. That’s why it’s so economically beneficial for mobile yoga company. We go in, we bring one teacher, we provide it for 30 of your people. The cost per person, it’s like $2 per person when it comes down to it. And the more classes people put on the calendar, the more percentage they get. So it’s just been a win, win, win in those aspects for the the ways people feel so much better when they go back to their desks. After lunch, we’re usually feeling really bogged down. Our brains are shutting down, and we need a nap. But just doing 25 minutes in a chair can change everything now.

Lee Kantor: What was it like kind of selling this into your first corporate client? What – had you had experience doing this type of corporate sales, or was this a referral of somebody who knew you and then they gave you a chance? Like, what was the kind of the early sales like for you?

Kary Sinkule: That’s a great question. Because I was a 20-year yoga teacher in the community and a school teacher, I built this huge following and I would be asked to do baby showers, bridal showers, backyard parties myself personally. But I couldn’t do it all with just me. And because I was a network marketer for ten years, I saw the vision of duplication, and if I created more teachers.

Kary Sinkule: And then what happened was we started saying yes to like farmers markets where we’re out there actually doing the yoga instead of just trying to sell it. We went down a path of trying to sell it, marketing online. But yoga is so intimidating that we really – we needed to show up in front of the people. And from there you got two or three people that run companies or work for companies, and it started to trickle effect.

Kary Sinkule: The biggest surprise is, I would say 70% of our clients are addiction recovery centers, where we’re providing 3 to 15 classes a week for their programs, whether they’re in-patient or out. And that’s been really beneficial as well.

Lee Kantor: Was that something that surprised you, or did you have a gut feeling that, hey, this is a good fit for folks going through addiction?

Kary Sinkule: Well, I lost my mom to alcohol and she was an alcoholic my whole life. And when she passed away, that’s when I had to take care of her mom. I really feel like she’s been the angel over my shoulder.

Kary Sinkule: And I did not know that this one woman that was in my yoga classes at one of the local gyms for five years was the top admin for all addiction recovery out here, and when she saw that we went mobile, she insisted that we went into these programs and they just spread like wildfire because one teacher in addiction recovery, you just can’t do it yourself because that teacher is going to get sick or pregnant or a flat tire or move. So we have 70 teachers where we can keep the program going no matter what happens. And that’s been the biggest benefit.

Lee Kantor: Now, as part of your program, every teacher has a different personality. Do you have a kind of a curriculum that you’ve developed that goes company wide, that they adhere to, or is everybody kind of doing their own thing?

Kary Sinkule: That’s a great question. So we have created – we have a YouTube channel of probably a thousand training videos. We have a 200-hour teacher training, a 300-hour teacher training, 500 hours like a master yoga teacher. So we provide all four of those schools in-person on demand.

Kary Sinkule: And then we have trainings that are specific to what are the tips to bringing yoga to addiction recovery? What are the tips for bringing yoga to adolescent behavioral, kids with behavior disorders? What do you do in prisons? How do you bring it to -we have partners where we’re helping in bringing yoga to the teens that are rescued from sex trafficking. Right? So that’s a whole other hat.

Kary Sinkule: So we train the teachers ahead of time. If they don’t have time to go to the class first to see it happen, we have them talk with the teacher. And it’s just very organic. But we have systems to everything to make sure our teachers get all of the materials and the trainings before they even start.

Lee Kantor: So, are your clients typically people – this is kind of a, one of the first yoga experiences they have. Or do you have some things for the, you know, the hardcore? I want to just be the best yoga person in I-can-be classes.

Kary Sinkule: I love that question. We, 99%, are bringing it to underserved people that can’t get to it because of finances, ability, time, whatever it may be. But there are a few that come and they want that really intense training. The great thing is, I have many studios and partners and friends in this community that have that.

Kary Sinkule: So if I have someone that wants that level, I’ll refer them to one of our local studios where they can get that level of experience. We really are bringing trauma-informed yoga and this new word somatic, somatic movements. That’s pretty much what we do. We’re bringing it to people that maybe can’t get out of chairs. They just had knee surgery. They maybe have one leg. They are a veteran and are afraid to close their eyes because of trauma. We’re really looking to bring it to the people that really need the benefits, but don’t know how to access it.

Lee Kantor: And that’s a great lesson for entrepreneurs out there who are starting their business. You have to know who your client is and who to say yes to, and also who to say no to and refer them to a different resource.

Kary Sinkule: Yes. Correct. Like, we don’t do the bachelorette parties at the Airbnbs anymore. We refer them to our independent teachers because it’s a lot of work for our company for just one event. We’re now building big, you know. We’re building programs and it’s been great.

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

Kary Sinkule: I love that question. So, I’m a very thorough person and I follow directions. When this idea came from God in 2017, in the middle of the night, literally woke me up on August 5, 2017, and told me to buy yogasarc.com at 2 a.m. and I literally got my credit card and bought all the things and put it away. And my husband’s like, “What did you do?”

Kary Sinkule: And from there I, you know, thought of this idea and I was told to get a business coach. So I signed up, got a business coach, SBDC. And Paula, my coach, said a lot of things. And one of the things is you must become women’s business certified eventually. And this was in 2017, 18 when I was starting it out. And I looked at the application.

Kary Sinkule: And because I’m a Yogi and I understand and I live in the present moment, I’m not one to take on a project and stress my team out and run and get it done and put all these unrealistic due dates on it. I like to look at it and say, you know what, let’s give it a few years, right? Let’s build it organically with a solid foundation. I don’t want to just pull together a group of – what do you, what do you call it when you have to have your team, your foundation, your board of directors. Right? So I took the time. I really took the time, and three years later we were ready and I applied, and the journey was so beautiful because it went right along with building my company. And then when I jumped in, I did the same thing. As soon as IU got the certification, I said, “I’m not going to just sit and wait for the phone to ring. I’m going to see what they have to offer me.” And that’s my biggest recommendation to anybody listening to this.

Kary Sinkule: Set your timer or your asana or whatever your task is once a week for 15 minutes. Go through all your WBENC emails, go through your WBENC West and your WBENC, you know, portals and see what’s out there and sign up for things. So I kept signing up for things and I kept applying for things. I even tried the pitch contest. I was horrible at it. But guess what? I got picked and I tried. It’s something I tried.

Kary Sinkule: My biggest exciting thing that I suggest everyone does is WBENC offers a training. I think it’s called Ignite, but it’s the entrepreneurial operation systems. And I didn’t even know what I was applying for. But I applied for a three-day WBENC conference, was accepted – there were 60 of us in Chandler, Arizona – and literally was trained in the EOS systems on how to scale. And it’s changed everything in my company. So thank you WBENC just for that.

Kary Sinkule: And I’ve only been in it for six months. I’ve been going to all the local events and they’ve asked me to be part of, like, certification process. I got to do the five-minute breathing exercise. And it’s not because I’m jumping in and saying, what’s in it for me. I’m jumping in, going, how can I serve WBENC and what can I do to add to WBENC? And just from doing that, it comes twofold. I have an ambassador, and we had a great time the other night, and I just look forward to the future.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Kary Sinkule: Well, I think what we need to do is spread the message that yoga is not scary. And if anyone listening is interested in a program, I want you to call me, and I will talk to you and help you. Because even if you’re not local, we can get you a virtual yoga program. And if there’s something that you want to do within your community, I can even coach you through that as well.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you or somebody on the team, can you share the website, maybe some of those social links that you mentioned?

Kary Sinkule: Thank you. Everything Yoga’s Arc, Y-O-G-A-S-A-R-C. And you can reach me at info@yogasarc.com. That’s me. Direct goes to me. Or my first name K-A-R-Y, @yogasarc.com. Myself, (480) 861-3788. And everything, yogasarc.com. We have our Instagram, our Facebook. You follow us. And if you sign up for our emails, I write beautiful Sunday vibes every Sunday and share my heart with the community and everyone seems to really enjoy them.

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

Kary Sinkule: Thank you so much for letting me share my story, Lee.

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

Scott Sutton with Empower Brands

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Denver Business Radio
Scott Sutton with Empower Brands
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Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, where we explore the cutting-edge of marketing, technology, and business ownership in franchising. I’m your host, and today we’re thrilled to welcome R. Scott Sutton, Chief Development Officer at Empower Brands. With a career spanning over 25 years and expertise in strategy, franchising, and corporate development, Scott is a powerhouse in driving franchise growth and sustainability. Today, we’ll delve into his insights on Conserva Irrigation, a standout brand under Empower Brands focused on water-smart irrigation solutions, and discuss how they’re making a meaningful impact in the home services sector.

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Scott-SuttonR. Scott Sutton serves Empower Brands as its Chief Development Officer, responsible for the franchise development strategies, initiatives and tactics across the company’s 10 franchise brands.

In addition, he leads the development strategies associated with the integration of acquired brands and incubation of new-to-industry concepts. Scott’s leadership and strategic experience is extensive and diverse.

During his 30+ year career, he has led M&A, strategy, franchise development and new brand incubation functions in publicly traded and private equity backed businesses operating within the B2B products, petroleum services, childcare, home services and retail segments.

Currently, Scott serves as an elected member of the Board of Trustees of the International Franchise Association’s (the “IFA”) Foundation and is a member of the IFA’s Legislative Action Group.

He is a former three-time Chairman of the Emerging Franchisor Conference and served two terms on the Board of the International Institute of Franchise Education at the Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship at Nova Southeastern University.

Scott is recognized as a Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisor, a Certified Franchise Executive and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Oklahoma.

A native of Chesapeake, Virginia, Scott and his wife Linda are parents to two adult children and reside in metro Atlanta, Georgia.

Connect with Scott on LinkedIn.

The Power of Collaboration: How Pink Maison is Changing the Fashion Game

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GWBC-Pink-Maison-Feature
GWBC Radio
The Power of Collaboration: How Pink Maison is Changing the Fashion Game
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In this episode of GWBC’s Open for Business, Lee Kantor talks with Rose Gordon, founder and CEO of Pink Maison. Rose shares her journey in the fashion industry, starting with her first fashion show in 2015, which led to the creation of Pink Maison in 2020. The platform supports emerging designers through fashion shows, showroom access, scholarships, financial resources, and service provider connections. Rose emphasizes the importance of community and collaboration, especially for women entrepreneurs. The episode highlights Pink Maison’s mission to empower designers and expand internationally, offering valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

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Rose-GordonRose Gordon is the driving force behind Pink Maison, steering the company with a blend of visionary leadership and an unwavering commitment to excellence.

Leveraging her expertise in marketing, sales, and business management, Rose has propelled Pink Maison to unparalleled success within the fashion realm, earning acclaim from both local and international media outlets such as Getty Images, ABC, CBS, Associated Press, OK Magazine, VH1, MTV, and Fashion Bomb Daily etc.

Under her guidance, Pink Maison has achieved remarkable milestones, including organizing high-profile fashion shows like those at New York Fashion Week, and obtaining prestigious certifications such as WBENC, MBE and WBE. Her strategic acumen has also contributed to substantial revenue growth, solidifying Pink Maison’s status as an industry trailblazer.

In addition to her role as President of the Rose Gordon Foundation, where she provides scholarships and mentorship to aspiring student designers, Rose is an active member of Forbes Black and has been honored with prestigious awards like the Invest Atlanta Women Entrepreneur Initiative, Ignite SBA Certification, and the Bank of America Women’s Entrepreneurship Certification at Cornell University.

Her involvement in the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Program & Milestone Mentor program underscores her comprehensive approach to leadership. Rose is also a small business consultant at the The Acceleration Project where she helps small businesses to tap into their potential.

Partnering with esteemed organizations such as Invest Atlanta, Wellsfargo, Operation Hope, Shopify, UPS, JP Morgan Chase & The Accelerator Project Small Business Consulting, as well as fashion institutions such as SCAD, IFA school of Design, and the New York School of Design, Rose continues to champion innovation and purpose-driven initiatives.

As Pink Maison flourishes under her guidance, Rose serves as a compelling example of how passion, innovation, and a sense of purpose can reshape industry standards and inspire positive change.

Connect with Rose 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 GWBC Radio’s Open for business. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of GWBC Open for Business and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Rose Gordon and she is the founder CEO with Pink Maison. Welcome.

Rose Gordon: Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Please share with us a little bit about the story behind Pink Maison.

Rose Gordon: Sure. So Pink Maison was born out of a deep passion for fashion, and my desire to create a platform that supports new and talented designers. When I started the brand back in 2020, I wanted to help designers to bring their visions to life and to connect with people who would really appreciate their unique perspectives. Since we launched, we have evolved into something much bigger than I imagined. We are not just a typical fashion brand, we are a full community, giving designers resources and support and also connecting, you know, connections that they can grow their brands with. It’s been an incredible journey and I’m so proud of how far we have come.

Lee Kantor: So can you share a little bit about your backstory? How did you get involved in fashion?

Rose Gordon: So I started back in 2019. I’m sorry, sorry 2015. Back in 2015, I started my first fashion show at the Hotel Pennsylvania in Times Square, New York. The fashion show. It was just something for me to promote My online boutique and it’s it’s evolved from there. Other designers saw what we were doing and wanted to be a part of it. And between 2015 and 2019, my fashion shows has grown to hosting over 3400 people in attendance. And I really wanted to get a little bit deeper beyond the runway and connect with the designers, and I decided to start to have small conversations with them, learning more about their brand, about, you know, their journey and wanting to know where their pain points are. And it just dawned on me that, hey, every single one of these designers, they need support. They need resources. Some of the designers were within the industry for over 20, 30 years, and they are just doing it because they love it, but they’re not making any money at all from it. And that was just too heartbroken to. I was just sad over that. And I decided to start, you know, Pink Maison where we’re not just doing fashion shows. We really I really wanted to be impactful. I really wanted to change these designers, change their lives, changed their brand. And then that’s how, you know, Pink Maison was birthed.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you were at that stage, I’m sure it’s frustrating to the designer and maybe you also that you were able to see this is that there’s so many talented people, and sometimes the most talented person isn’t the one that wins. It could be somebody else, and that could be because of politics or somebody you know, knows somebody who is helpful and it’s so fragile to make it. And it’s so difficult to kind of go through this journey and get the happy ending you desire. Is that kind of what helped you, um, you know, really say, you know what? I gotta lean into this community. I gotta help them help themselves.

Rose Gordon: Yes, absolutely. You’re so right. Um, it’s it’s the politics and the who, you know, within the industry. Um, fashion. It’s it’s very glamorous, but it’s also very ugly on the inside. Um, and for me, you’re seeing these. I’m seeing these talent, and, you know, they’re not going anywhere. They’re some of these brands. They just need a little bit of resources. They’re just a little bit of advice. And it was just very, um, overwhelming. And, um, you know, frustrations, of course, um, to the fact that they’re not getting the kind of exposure that they deserve. And, and so I really that really helped me to, um, to motivate me to really go deeper and to create this platform to to really show the support that they, you know, to give the support that they that that they deserved.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was it like kind of early on when you had this idea of, I want to help these new designers succeed? Did you have somebody individually that you helped that you were like, okay, I can do this? Look at how I, how I was able to help this person. Or did you have some clues that, hey, I am the right person to be starting this community to be?

Rose Gordon: To be honest, when I started out, I as a as, as, you know, myself as a, um, small business and, you know, trying to make the most of what I, what I started, it was really difficult. Um, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Um, for me to get the resources and, um, at some point, the way how I wanted to help it, I wasn’t able to really give that help because I didn’t have that kind of. I know it’s there, but I didn’t have access, so what I did, um, I opened it in 2020 and 2021 and 2022. Throughout the whole Covid, I kind of like stepped back a little bit and wanting to learn. I wanted to learn more because I didn’t go to school for anything in fashion. I just love fashion. I have an MBA and I’m a marketing person, so I was able to step back a little bit and um, look at what is in front of me, look at my, my weaknesses. And I decided to do a whole relearning, like unlearning and relearning, um, through, through through the process, like going, doing, um, accelerator programs which give me access to, um, you know, to different communities. Um, and, and also not just to the different communities it’s now given me mentors. Um, and I was able to do that for the past two and a half years, just learning and growing and getting access to and resources and was able to harness all of that. And and now being able to, you know, distribute it among my community.

Rose Gordon: So at the beginning, it wasn’t easy. I was able to help, but I really wasn’t able to help the way I wanted. Um, and trust me, it there are times when I’m up at night doing research or, um, during the daytime just making calls or going to different networking meetings and um, uh, doing zoom meetings or, you know, just trying to get myself into rooms to be able to get because I know that the resources are there, I know it was there, and I just need to, um, present myself or position myself in a better way so I can get them and then utilize it, you know, distribute it among the designers. I was able to to bring designers, um, to New York Fashion Week for them to present their collection at New York Fashion Week. That was a major breaking break point for some of these brands. They’ve never, ever done that with their brands. Some were, some of them, they’ve been doing it for over 20, 30 years and they’ve never, ever shown. In New York, I was able to get, um, media spotlight for designers. Um, uh, notable media like Getty Images. Um, and, you know, and these were, you know, just to see the, the the look and the smiles and the and the growth, um, in the designer, in the brands and in their, their personal building, too. It’s the icing and everything else after, you know, going through the trials and tribulations.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share some of the ways maybe, um, how it’s evolved, like how did you begin to support these emerging designers? And, and I’m sure whenever you have a new idea, you keep adding to the value of being part of this community. But can you share some of the ways that you’re supporting these designers and, and, and and explain why that this is so special and different?

Rose Gordon: So, sure. So, um, my company, I started out, you know, with my showroom, um, to complement doing our fashion shows. Our fashion shows is one of the biggest platform that we use to support them. Um, but again, it’s go beyond just the runway. The showroom is where we bring buyers into the showroom to get them to look, feel, see and purchase and actually buy from these designers. So they’re making sales. Another area that we focus on is the scholarship. And we do offer through my foundation. We do offer scholarships to students that are currently pursuing, um, design and business. And in regards to the the buying process, the buying process goes into different ways. We do the retail, which is online or in person, and we do the wholesale, which we encourage designers and the ones that have the capability to can sell to different boutiques or different big box stores. Um, and that in itself give them those income, that income that they’ve been dying to, to, um, to make from their companies now. And we also provide and we also provide um, additional resources like financial resources, um service provider resources. Um, financial resources is we will share, um, any kind of opportunity for them to apply for grants and small business loans. Um, we will help them with their application process as well. We’ll make sure that their, you know, their, their, their business is good in terms of, um, licensing, licensing and everything like that. We also help them with service provider, meaning that if they need help with their website, if they need help with their social media or even to create a business plan. Um, we can direct them to some someone or, or a business that can help them with that.

Lee Kantor: So how does it work? How does someone join, uh, and become a member of the community?

Rose Gordon: So they be a member of my community? Um, it’s on our website. Um, it’s a it’s a subscription based. It’s like 29.99. They pay per month. They pay us per month to join and they can join through our website through the Pink Maison dotcom website.

Lee Kantor: And then so so they just pay and then they can.

Rose Gordon: Pay once they pay. Um, it’s there. We add them into our community and they are in that community and they get all the resources. Um, once they come in, we typically make sure that they’re introducing themselves and communicating with others and learning from others within the community. Um, and to also we before we even add them into the community, we want to make sure what are what is it that they’re looking to get from the community. What are their pain points? What are they’re working on right now so we can direct resources to them once they get in?

Lee Kantor: So like how how far along do they have to be? Or will you take anybody at any level. Like how about if they just think they are interested in maybe pursuing this, is this the right place for them Or do they need to get, you know, something where they’ve actually produced clothes or, you know, gone to school for this? Like how how advanced do they have to be?

Rose Gordon: So we do have two different levels of designers in our community. We have the students or the the ones that are just starting out. Those doesn’t have to be a student, but the ones that are just starting out and they’re, you know, we have to give them those training wheels. Um, be pretty, very hands on with them. And then we have the ones that they’re pretty much been through a lot of stuff doing amazing job with their with their, um, their marketing or they just need help with their marketing. Um, you know, so we have two levels. And so the entry levels, we would assess where they are, what they what their goals are, what are they trying to achieve. Because sometimes, you know, it’s being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. So we try to make sure we try to assess them first. What is it that you’re looking? How can we help? What are your goals? We go through that process first. Um, and then we will, um, work with them a card accordingly. And with the advent of what we call the ones that don’t, you know, they’ve graduated their training wheels and just looking for support will do the same. And we will, um, work with them accordingly as well.

Lee Kantor: So now, you mentioned earlier that you were able to, um, invite some of your folks to New York. Is there other opportunities, maybe internationally, because, you know, obviously New York is a place for fashion here in America, but there’s obviously other places around the world. Is there other ways that you can help them kind of, uh, be seen internationally?

Rose Gordon: Yes, absolutely. So and thank you for asking that. So, um, I think, Maison, we have just within the past couple of months, started working with designers, um, for international designers. We’ve been working with international designers through our old fashion show process. But now we have really streamlined it to where we’re bringing international designers, um, into the US. And, um, specifically, we’re working with designers from Lagos, um, the Ivory Coast and other areas to bring into the US. And this is something that we are looking to expand in terms of hosting shows and pop up showrooms and workshops in those areas for 2025 and 2026. And of course, those opportunities are also open to our designers that are here and who wish to work within that community with within those, um, markets as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice you could share for other entrepreneurs. Maybe they’re not in fashion, but they would like to build a community as well. Is there any kind of tips you can share about starting and launching a successful community like you’ve been building?

Rose Gordon: Yes, I would say ask for help when you need it. Um, no one is going to know what you want. What are your your needs if you don’t ask? I would say ask for help. And secondly, have an open mind for learning. Never stop learning. You think you know something, but honestly, there’s more to know. And if you have those two mindsets, I think it will be a it’s an amazing start because not only you open yourself for new information, you also open yourself for help. And um, honestly, those are the two recipe to to to build and to grow in a business.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of the GW, BC community and, um, you know, work in the way that you’re working for, you know, with women and at such a diverse clientele?

Rose Gordon: Well, I was introduced to the, the, the community through one of my cohort program that I, um, participated in, again, that open mind of learning. And after doing my research on them, I realized that they’re doing amazing. They’re doing amazing things for women owned businesses. And that, to me, is a community of support. Um, being an entrepreneur can get really lonely at times, and sometimes you need to be in a room where others can understand you. And the GWC, uh, community was, I would say it has helped me tremendously throughout this past year. Um, the community of of women. Um, you know, the the events that they host, the support that they give, the resources that they offer is priceless. And I would encourage women to really reach out, um, to any of their chapters in any of the states and be part of it. It’s amazing.

Lee Kantor: So what’s next for Pink Maison? What’s on your roadmap?

Rose Gordon: So I will just continue to to champion women businesses or small designers, minority businesses. Um, being able to to grow with them. Um, planning for shows and or immersive fashion shows or pop up events in new cities and Also, um, expanding our online platform to reach even more designers. Um, we’re also looking to working with more powerful partners, um, bringing more partnerships and, um, to give greater exposure and opportunities to our designers. I see, um, in the next few years, um, I really see Pink Maison becoming a major force in the fashion industry for, you know, to know, known for helping emerging designers and thrive to make our mark within the industry.

Lee Kantor: Is there a success story you can share with maybe one of the people in your cohort, or maybe somebody you know, that has been able to benefit from being part of the community?

Rose Gordon: Absolutely. Um, there are a couple of success stories, but I’ll start with, um, a student designer that, uh, been a part of us since 2020. And, um, she’s a graduate of Scad, and I’m so proud of her. We brought her to her business and her. We brought her to New York. Have her presented on New York Fashion Week twice. Um, she has sold, um, gowns. Um, within our showroom. She has styled influencers. She has styled, um, um, fashion magazine covers, um, um, for the past year. I think right now she’s looking to scale, um, into bridal. She’s doing bridal right now, and I’m so proud of her and can’t wait to see, um, her journey and how it’s evolving, um, into the success that we know she will be.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, can you share the website or the social? Uh, yes. Best way to connect?

Rose Gordon: Um, absolutely. So anyone wants to know more, they can visit our website, which is the WW Dot Pink Amazon.com and our social is Pink dot Amazon and they can DM us, send us an email and we will definitely strive to to get them into our community and work with them.

Lee Kantor: And that’s p I n k m a I s o n.com. Correct. Well Rose, congratulations on all the momentum and the success. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Rose Gordon: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. All right.

Lee Kantor: This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GWBC’s Open for business.

 

BRX Pro Tip: 3 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Connect with Decision Makers

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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Connect with Decision Makers
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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Connect with Decision Makers

Stone Payton : Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, how are you utilizing LinkedIn to connect with decision-makers?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think there’s some things that are the nuts and bolts of using LinkedIn to connect with decision-makers. I think the first thing you have to do, if you’re really going to have some sort of a LinkedIn strategy, is to make sure that your profile is optimized. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete, up to date, and positions you as that kind of go-to knowledgeable professional in your niche. I think that’s table stakes number one. So you really have to invest time in doing that. And then, you know, go through LinkedIn and see other people’s profiles and, you know, copy from them because you want to make sure that your profile is optimized.

Lee Kantor: Number two, you have to get clear on who it is or who are the decision makers you want to meet and get to know. So that requires some research, and you want to build kind of this persona of this ideal decision maker. And then you want to use LinkedIn search and filtering tools to find and identify that specific decision-makers at the target companies that you’re trying to work with. So the clearer you can get with that, the more effective this outreach will be.

Lee Kantor: And then lastly, and probably most importantly, don’t automate this part and don’t have a third party do this, this part, when it comes to the outreach. It’s so important for you to personalize your outreach. It has to be authentic. It has to, at first, come from you until you really are clear on who the persona is.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re sending connection requests or messages, avoid generic kind of one-size-fits-all templates that are obvious that it’s some sort of automation. Take the time to personalize the outreach based on what you’ve learned about the individual, you know, if there’s any shared connections or interests or pain points you can relate to. That’s so important, especially as you’re beginning a LinkedIn outreach campaign, you have to do the work. You have to get clarity around who that ideal persona is, and you have to get clarity around the messaging. And the only way to do that is to actually do the work.

Lee Kantor: So invest the time, do the work. Once you have it, you know, getting predictable results, then take the time to systemize it and then maybe outsource it. But at first you have to do it.

How Telemedicine Can Transform Healthcare Accessibility and Affordability

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How Telemedicine Can Transform Healthcare Accessibility and Affordability
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In this episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio, host Erik Boemanns talks with Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh, a board-certified family medicine physician and CEO of Ask Me Your MD (AMY MD). Dr. Marsh discusses her journey and the inspiration behind AMY MD, a telemedicine platform designed to provide accessible and affordable healthcare. Motivated by her father’s struggle to receive timely medical care, she emphasizes the importance of supporting caregivers and reducing healthcare costs. Dr. Marsh also shares advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, underscoring resilience and the significance of never giving up on one’s goals.

Dr-Patricia-Kelly-MarshDr. Patricia Kelly Marsh is an Atlanta native who grew up in College Park. She is a national, award-winning, Board Certified Family Medicine physician-scientist who has been published three times and graduated from Temple University School of Medicine.

Currently, she is the CEO and Co-founder of Ask Me Your MD, Inc., a telechat platform that instantly connects patients to licensed physicians for real-time care. She is also an educator, serving as an adjunct professor at Morehouse School of Medicine in the Family Medicine Department, and precepts at the HEAL Clinic.

Additionally, she is a principal investigator on several clinical trials with Randomize Now. She serves her Atlanta community as the Health Committee Co-chair of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. – Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter, a non-profit advocacy organization, where she secured a $1M grant. Ask-Me-Your-MD-logo

Dr. Marsh builds innovative technology and has two music platforms. Her hobbies include playing badminton; she was a nationally ranked collegiate badminton player. She also enjoys critiquing film and television, running 5Ks and 10Ks, and traveling, especially to places with a beach. She is dedicated to advancing science, technology, and medicine with her innovations.

Connect wtih Dr. Marsh on LinkedIn, X and Facebook.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Erik Boemanns: Thank you for joining us today. Yeah, I’m happy to be here. And my guest today is Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh of Ask Me Your MD. And so I wanted to welcome you and thank you for joining us today to talk about yourself and to talk about the business. And, you know, just to share with everybody some of your thoughts. But yeah, maybe just a quick introduction of yourself.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yes. So I am, as you stated, Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh. I am a board certified family medicine physician, the CEO and co-founder of Ask Me Your MD incorporated, or AMY MD for short. And I’m excited to talk about the solution that we came up with. That seems extremely intuitive and very helpful, but the objective is to bring accessibility and affordability to care.

Erik Boemanns: That’s great. Yeah. And that’s obviously a super important thing in today’s world. And so I’m curious maybe what motivated you to start a MD, should we call it a MD?

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yes. Yeah. We should. We should. So it was actually my co-founder’s idea. She came to me and she said, I want to make the world’s best doctor chat. And I had been going through something that I’d never gone through in my life around that time, 2018, my father was hospitalized, and I just so happened to stay over at night with him. And what ended up happening was he had a emergency overnight. He was vomiting blood. And when I saw that and I assessed my dad, I was like, okay, he’s showing signs of obstruction and this is a condition that could need emergency surgery. He had just gotten out of ICU, so of course I was very concerned. I asked the nurse, please call the doctor. She did so three times and the doctor never came. And so it was with my knowledge of knowing who the head internal medicine physician was called her on her cell phone at 2:37 a.m. because that was the time that I thought, something is happening to my father. I don’t know which way this is going to go, so I will never forget that time or that day. And she immediately got his care rendered. And I felt like, this is the power of the knowledge that we doctors have, that so many people watch their loved ones pass away because they don’t know what to do. And so I was like, even though the simple idea of having a doctor chat, having that easy access, giving it to you, just like my sister has to me saying, hey, your niece has strep and she doesn’t have to make an appointment with the pediatrician, doesn’t have to waste time calling anybody else. And this is a simple text message, that simple knowledge that we have to render the care in such efficient manners. That’s what we wanted to add to the idea of the world’s best doctor chat.

Erik Boemanns: Gotcha. No. That’s amazing. And I completely can understand that need to have that access to a medical professional, especially to your point, it can be very hard for if we don’t know the head of the department to to get in touch with somebody who can help. And I think myself, I had similar situation with my father in the hospital, and he spent days there because they were waiting for, you know, the right people to come see him so completely understand.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Um, and of course, the other side of that is often it’s not about that. I don’t know who to call, but I may not. I may feel that I can’t afford to call them either. Right. I might be able to afford to go see that doctor. So I think you have an approach there as well. Maybe talk a little bit about the affordability side that you’re bringing. Yeah.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: So that was extremely important. So I’m from here, College Park, Georgia, born and raised. Um, and it’s a middle class, you know, lower class community. Now it’s being gentrified. The city’s bought up a lot of land around there. Um, the airport has extended its reach, and so they’re they’re gentrifying the area. But prior to in the late 90s and mid 90s. There was a lot of disparities that we saw between the health resources that we could get versus those that I would see when I was bust up to here. Sandy Springs. So I went to North Springs High School. Shout out Spartans! Um, and just seeing the differential was something that I never, you know, left my mind in pursuing my career as a physician. I remember in writing out our objectives because we would always write out like, what is your why? What is your what is the reason you want to pursue this career? And one was to go back to my community and make sure I am availing myself or my resources and knowledge to them. Um, to close those health gaps. And so affordability was one of them, like Sandy Springs, you know, median income versus that of College Park, especially during those times, were quite wide. And so the affordability piece was very important for me to make it a no brainer. And also to the people that could afford you’re paying every single year. You’re paying maybe 50 to $75 more for your health insurance premium. But does your access really change right? It doesn’t. Does the benefits actually like expand that from what you were getting the years prior from your health insurance? It doesn’t. And so now we have to implement something where we’re lowering the barrier for those who are insured or uninsured to not only care, but specialist. That was very, very distinguishing from all of the telemedicine solutions that we saw in the health care industry.

Erik Boemanns: Got it. Yeah. And that’s what I was curious because obviously telemedicine has grown, especially because of Covid. But even before that, it was starting to make an appearance. Um, and that is very convenient for the minor things. But but also to your point, there’s never a specialist there. So. Yeah. Is that maybe a little expand a little bit on how you distinguish there?

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah. So, um, a lot of the post, uh, hospital time with my dad, he needed, you know, infectious disease, cardiology, all of these specialists that had wait times of two and a half months, on average or more, and that’s just the norm. But if I called the office and said, hi, I’m Doctor Marsh. I’m the, you know, concierge physician for George Kelly. Um, we need an earlier appointment. Voila. All of a sudden there is access there. And so this was a part of the platform where we were like, oh, we can actually advocate for the patients to get the care that they need and the access a little bit faster, especially for specialty care. But let’s just go beyond that. We have a network of friends that are endocrinologists, radiologists, all of these specialties. Let’s let them know what we’re doing. And they joined us and they said, yeah, we can give those consultations. We do it to each other. We text each other even when we’re like in the hospital and working in the hospital, we’ll like text a kidney specialist or nephrologist and we’ll be like, hey, this is the, you know, the kidney function test. And like, what do you think about this? Or what would you do? You know, and I did that with my dad. I screenshot and took a picture of what they were giving my dad in his hospital stay, and my friend whose infectious disease was like, this is exactly what I’d choose. And that peace of mind. Um, that is just it’s invaluable, right? And so that’s what we wanted to bring on to increase the value of what you get for $35, you can talk to a GI specialist or a cardiologist about yourself or your loved one.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah, well, $35. And so, yeah, I don’t think you can see that price maybe with a copay. Right. For for your regular provider. Maybe.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Maybe. Yeah. These days, average co-pays, like they range from like $20 all the way to $120, depending on your plan. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: And never a specialist. So that’s the other side. Yeah. Right.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Probably no less than $80 for a specialty copay. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. And I know that was something that you wanted to work on, was reducing that overall health care cost, right? Because if I don’t have if the reason I’m not getting care is for financial reasons, then obviously my care only gets more expensive later. But, um, so maybe talk a little bit about how your approach that, that cost from the health care side, from the patient, from the provider side.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah. So for the patient side, of course, there’s the direct lower cost that you can compare to your usual out-of-pocket pay for an in-person visit, say, at the urgent care. If you don’t have an established primary care provider or, you know, for those specialists like it is much, much less of a financial barrier. Um, and then for those who are insured, of course, it’s less than your copay, right? And so it’s good to run, you know, these questions and concerns and inquiries across to the specialists at a lower cost. And so that direct low cost to the patient. That’s one of the ways. The second way is a little bit more subtle. So, um, to kind of understand the way that the money flows within the healthcare industry, you have to understand the health insurances are the big boss. And Medicare, um, they’re the big payers. They’re the ones that are, you know, fronting the higher cost of care. And so they will do anything to share those costs or to decrease those costs for their business. Um, and so when we see that when physician groups are submitting medical notes that have all of this documentation to get paid, sometimes the health insurance company, they’ll see that document and they’ll say, we’re not going to pay you for everything that you did. You didn’t document X, Y, and Z. You know, it starts to get into the weeds of, of kind of back and forth conversation of pay me.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: No, we’re not going to pay you this. And and that could go on forever. So what I saw and said was, what if we didn’t even have to have that conversation? What if we made this very simple for you, health insurance company, you pay us a subscription, we render the care and you get to have our specialists access for your members, which then specialty claims, oh my, they’re like two and a half to three times that of a normal visit. And so they begin to see the value proposition very quickly. And that direct contract then less money for them processing all of that paperwork, less money for us having to have a company that we pay to send the processing of all of those medical notes. So an entire billion dollar industry side to health care that drives up cost is now being avoided. And we’re having a direct financial conversation with the health insurance that over time, will decrease the amount of care that you see, because now they’re paying us directly, not at the regular rate, which is three times as much, but they’re just giving us that consistent lower subscription for you to have access to us. And so that’s also a way that we’re decreasing costs within the health care industry overall.

Erik Boemanns: Got it. Yeah. And I think that’s a great point, because it is such a complicated market that people don’t realize that it’s like me, my doctor and maybe some health insurance. Right. But yeah, it’s never that simple. Um, but it makes me curious. I want to pivot a little bit to AMD as a startup as a you know. Oh yeah. As the company. And so. Obviously you’re a co-founder and you’re bringing this to market. But it sounds like at first I thought maybe you had a two part market, right, that you had to attract patients and you had to attract providers. But it sounds like it’s a three way if you’re actually going to the insurance as well.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah. Yeah. Um, we can we can even call it a five way. Okay. There are so many verticals because physicians and patients are at the core of providing health care and rendering healthcare. Right. So we’re the two key ingredients. Um, the others that are already, you know, having a group of people together that they want to render this care to, we want to bring them in the conversation just to do exactly what I said, which is to decrease overall cost of care. So, um, we have leveraged just our peer connections. We haven’t done any formal recruitment for any of the physicians. This is literally word of mouth. This is me and my co-founder getting out there telling people about AMD as a startup. Our first big break came in 2020 2nd November. I remember I was invited to a dinner that CVS health was having, and they were starting to want to increase the knowledge of clinical trials within communities of color. And so as people of color, myself and my co-founder, Doctor Sara mission, you know, she’s South Asian, I’m an African-American female, and we are connected to our communities. And so they saw that and they said, you know, we would want you to come on board and help us to educate the communities that you already service. Absolutely. Great. So now we get free co-branding with a multi-billion dollar industry leader, and we began to now be on the face of television and radio and emails that were sent out for CVS health. And so people began to know our name and associate us with a trusted person within the health care industry.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: And so that was the start, I would say, as a startup, that was one of the key pivots to us being really known, even to the world of investors and other health tech startups. Um, so then we got invited for collaborations and other partnerships, and then we went into an accelerator and got our pre-seed revenue, you know? And so it was it was quite the the journey over those next two years, just building and implementing new technology, um, and including AI, because everyone needs to think about that and strategically do it. But back to your point. Um, our our friends came with us, and that was like we went from two physicians to 12 physicians, and then all of a sudden 26. And now we’re at 51 doctors that have signed up to render care on AMD. Um, but it was through those key partnerships that we were able to do that, get our eyes in the community. Yeah. And become trusted. And now having the conversation with the health insurance companies, with employers and other corporations of medium small businesses to let them know you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to give health access to your employees. And so that’s another vertical that we work on. And some more to come. But yeah, right now um, our B2C model that’s rapidly increasing. Um, and then the B2B. Yeah, the focus is the health insurance companies for now.

Erik Boemanns: Got it. Yeah. And every one of those adds a complexity right to to your effort. So.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Oh yeah.

Erik Boemanns: So doing it times five. Right.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Right.

Erik Boemanns: But at least to your point you’ve got some good partners to, to create that momentum and, and to get that brand that co-branding recognition. So.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Exactly.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. And you mentioned technology and you mentioned AI. Which one do you want to talk about first? Because I think both of those are interesting as well.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: I think both are very interesting. Um, I would just talk about technology and where I see, you know, technology going within the health tech industry. Uh, especially for telemedicine. Um, a lot of us have, you know, gotten very used to the video component, of course, sending over videos and pictures and other kind of key, um, evidence that we can utilize in making our health assessments. Um, but yeah, that has gotten to the level of where we now need to incorporate AI, because a lot of that data from those pictures and videos, um, they can be utilized in such a more high value way. Um, so I’m seeing a lot within the healthcare industry in telemedicine, where now AI is assessing the photos or they’re assessing the videos, um, or they’re doing, you know, live assessments with very innovative tools. Um, so I’ve talked to a couple of founders that have utilized AI to assess the back of the throat to make the diagnosis of strep throat, you know, without like going in and getting the test. And so that to me is incredible. It’s like it’s making that part of healthcare now accessible through just digital. Yeah. Um, so that’s that’s pretty pretty phenomenal.

Erik Boemanns: Right. I think you you make a really good point. If if people are hearing the word AI, they’re probably thinking the chats, the, the intelligent agents. Right. And things like that. But in healthcare, a lot of those AIS are exactly what you just described. They’re they’re diagnostics. They’re looking at video, they’re looking at images. And so it’s a totally different world of AI. It is still AI. It’s still machine learning. Correct. But it’s not the the one that maybe is popularized. So if I go to a chat window on my doctor’s office and start chatting with an AI, should I trust it, right? I have a trust issue of whether I can trust a ChatGPT style right medical resource, no matter how well trained it is.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah, certainly never by itself. And I get this question a lot because we are a tele chat platform and we’re text based. And so even though we’re text based, um, there is the fear that, okay, you’re going to let the machine take over the conversation. So number one, that’s like a medical liability that we are not willing to take on. Okay. So you’re always going to be speaking to a human being doctor. Um, what we chose to do was utilize AI to have the information assessed on the back end to make the conversation easier for our physicians. So number one, it’s learning how they speak to patients. Number two, it’s bringing in evidence based information and letting that doctor know, hey, looks like this is a sinus infection based off of the conversation you’re having. This is the latest treatment for sinus infections. And two is taking out that bias piece. Right. So when I see you or you see me, there are these implicit biases that we can have just from living life in America. And that’s normal. It’s natural. But when it comes to care rendering, we need to be very mindful of that. And so when we take out the visual cue for those, I would say 85 to 90% of the tele chat consultations that are purely tele chat, um, we need to make sure that we’re rendering the same care across the board. Yeah, right.

Erik Boemanns: No, that makes sense. And and yeah, I think that it’s a good distinction, right? That you are talking to a human because too many of the chat agents now are not. And it’s impossible to get to one. And, and for customer service with a, you know with Amazon that’s probably fine. But for healthcare.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah. Not. Not so much. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Um, so I’m curious. Obviously you mentioned $35 earlier, and I believe that’s for whether or not you have insurance. Right? Yeah.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Whether or not we are not discriminating. Um, although, you know, we are advocating for those who are insured for the health insurance because we’re not billing them. Yeah. Um, to give us a way at a free cost. Um, and not as a shared cost, because we’re saving them more money than they’re having to pay for you to have access to us. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: And so if we’re thinking about you mentioned using AI to reduce the bias, you mentioned the kind of that that price, whether you’re insured or not. How is that helping reach people who may be underserved today with healthcare?

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah. So those that you know have heard of us, word of mouth is primarily, um, in these times, the way people come on, ask me your imdb.com that is really changed their lives, their daily lives and thoughts of okay, I don’t have to save up to go to urgent care. I can actually ask my question or get treatment for these things that I’m going through. Um, and so this access actually acts as like something that prevents them from having to go to the emergency room with a simple urinary tract infection or, you know, just something that could have been treated as an outpatient. But because, number one, they don’t know an office that they can easily go to. Number two, again, the cost barrier to urgent care. Um, this has helped give them that access and maintain the level and quality of access of care. You know, with a physician directly, just like they’re, again, one of my own family members.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah, Yeah. That’s great. So if people listening today do want to find out more, where do they go? How do they find out more about AMY MD?

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah. So you go to ask me your MD. Com and we have a button that’s really top of the line there that lets you chat with a physician. You pay the little $35 fee and then you come on. And you, you talk to our live doctors and we get you to what you need and instruct you on ways that you can even take care of things before you require, like prescriptions. Um, and we’re coming on December. And so that’s when we have caretaker awareness, right? There are a lot of people that are caring for elderly parents or grandparents. Um, and so we want them to also utilize us as like their resource to help guide them, to help let them know you know you’re doing a good job, or if they have any concerns about, you know, wanting a second opinion. Our clinicians can help in that realm too.

Erik Boemanns: Awesome. And so I think as we kind of wrap things up, one of the things that I was curious as a founder in Atlanta, and it’s a great thriving community here for startups, but you’ve been a couple of years in this. You have a five way marketplace, so you’re making this even more interesting to your to yourself. Yeah. Do you have words of encouragement, words of suggestions to others who are also thinking about starting their own startup similar to yours or not similar to yours, but could be completely different?

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Yeah. I’ll tell you. Like I tell my medical school students. So I’m an adjunct professor at Morehouse School of Medicine, and on the road to becoming a physician, you’re going to run across a lot of hurdles just in life. You’re going to experience things that maybe be a setback or a very challenging issue that you have to overcome. And so my advice every single time is just three words never give up. Never give up. I think it is worth telling the story about how I say that I was favored to fail because I’ve had to overcome failure in so many different ways. Even after my undergrad, I didn’t have enough money to pay for the MCAT. I had to take a job over the year after undergrad, and so I was already starting one year behind. And you see your colleagues and and classmates moving on with their lives and, you know, having the white coat ceremony, um, etc., and I’ll get to the business. I just want to go through all of these failures because each was very key in my never give up like resilience. And so that monetary barrier that again, it stuck with me. Even now, when I’m thinking about my business and business model and how I’m going to, how are you really going to give access? If you really wanted to give access, it would be free, but then there’s nothing free. And so, you know, coming up with all of these price models and assessing the situation and saying, okay, I know who holds the gold and having a very key knowledge of the industry and how the money runs in that industry is very good, but don’t give up.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: I didn’t have the money for MCAT, and then after I got into medical school, I didn’t have the money to go to the world’s like most expensive medical school temple at the time. Um, but I never gave up, so I did accrue quite a bit of debt, quite a bit. Um, and then you’re you’re going through residency. You’re getting paid, you know, for the first time, which I wasn’t complaining because I come from very humble background. And so I was still trying to never give up and continue to pay for all of those loans so they wouldn’t accrue too much. Um, but before I even graduated medical school, I failed my first attempt at one of my licensing exams. But that was the biggest lesson because I learned how I know how to be prepared for medical license exams, which I’ll have to take for the remainder of my career. And I learned that, you know, you really have to be strategic with your time because I was rushing things, trying to keep up with my classmates. And that doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. So, you know, nevertheless, um, searching out your resources. Right. So I learned to search out my resources throughout residency because financially it was very strained. And so all of the resources that they had a foundation attached to every single hospital in the United States. So anyone that’s dealing with a medical bill or anyone that’s having a hard time paying a medical bill, call the foundation that’s attached to that hospital, call the, you know, financial department attached to that, because they have a level of forgiveness of which the government has subsidies for them, and they get tax credits for that stuff.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: So it there’s a solution out there. You might just have to look for it. And in your never give up journey you might come across those things and I did. Um, and then when I started the business, I left a high paying job with a corporation here in Georgia. Um and went to zero. Literally went to zero. But that was the conviction of belief that I had in the business itself. And so never give up. Even if you have to start from the, the the ground level again. Um, and believe in yourself and know that, you know, there are solutions out there. There are people out there that want to help you. Uh, particularly in the health tech industry, there are people that are focused in that vertical in that, um, you know, that industry. And so seek them out. Seek out who’s ever really, really on fire for your, um, your objectives and your business model. And then, um, you know, from going from zero to now, we’re like $180,000 in revenue. Um, in the three years we just celebrated three years, November 9th. Um, and we’re about to raise our seed round. And of course, there will be challenges. Of course. That’s a whole long road. Um, but the resilience that has developed along the path of my life, I can’t do anything but be grateful. Um. And say to my fellow tech industry or startup or people that are just in the ideation phase, just never give up and keep going. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Well, yeah, that’s awesome advice and I appreciate that. And so yeah. Thank you Dr. Marsh for joining us today. I appreciate you sharing about AMY MD and and what you’re doing to kind of change the perspective on healthcare and the cost. So yeah, again, thank you.

Dr. Patricia Kelly Marsh: Thank you for having me. Absolutely.

 

About Your Host

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

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

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

Connect with Erik on LinkedIn, Substack and Medium.

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