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How Jane Hartgrove Transformed Tres Picosos into a Leader in Mexican Cuisine

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Women in Motion
How Jane Hartgrove Transformed Tres Picosos into a Leader in Mexican Cuisine
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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Jane Hartgrove, owner of Tres Picosos, a company specializing in burritos and Mexican food. Jane shares her journey from starting as a packaged burrito brand to expanding into a broader range of Mexican cuisine through a contract manufacturing model. She discusses the importance of customer responsiveness, product innovation, and maintaining authenticity. Jane also highlights the growth potential in various retail channels and her experience as a woman-owned business, emphasizing the support from organizations like WBEC West.

Jane-HartgroveJane Hartgrove is owner of Tres Picosos, a Mexican food company with four brands: Tres Picosos, Naughty Chile Taqueria, Muncho Muncho, and Tres Locos. Founded and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Tres Picosos — translated as three hotties, or spicy peppers — has produced authentic Mexican burritos for the convenience and foodservice channels since 2005.

Hartgrove has grown Tres Picosos from a regional store-distributed brand to a national distributed CPG company with more than 75 wholesale partners and 3,000 retail locations. Beginning her career as Assistant Editor of WaterSki Magazine, Hartgrove wrote features and columns, managed photo shoots, and covered professional water ski tournaments. Hartgrove then spent six years as a partner in Marketing Resources Group in Winter Park, FL, where she created and implemented many national public awareness programs.

With responsibility for the Miller Brewing Company’s Designated Driver campaign and other safety outreach campaigns, Hartgrove also produced public safety marketing plans for other high-profile clients such as the US Coast Guard, Toyota and Coors. Concurrently, as director of the company’s Personal Watercraft Riders Association, Hartgrove was responsible for media relations, government relations and membership services.

She created promotions and campaigns to increase membership and public awareness about the association’s mission. In 1994, Hartgrove relocated to Denver, Colorado, and opened the Denver office of Marketing Resources Group. She was a founding member of International Women in Boating, and a contributing editor to several boating publications specializing in boating safety, regulations, the environment, and marketing to women.

From 1998 through 2000, Hartgrove served as director of marketing for telecommunications software provider Evolving Systems Inc, where she directed the company’s comprehensive marketing, public relations and philanthropic efforts. Hartgrove helped her family’s venture Passport Foods Company, Inc. bring several brands together in 2003 to develop, manufacture and distribute fresh, pre-packaged ready-to-eat salads, dips, sushi, burritos, sandwiches, party trays, and custom fresh offerings to Colorado retailers and foodservice wholesalers. Passport Foods made a variety of on-the-go products as well as consumer packaged foods, and launched Tres Picosos burritos in 2005. Tres-Picosos-logo

Hartgrove bought that brand from the company in 2011 and continued to grow and expand the Tres Picosos company as a WBENC-certified woman owned business. While focusing on Tres Picosos burritos, in 2015 Hartgrove launched Naughty Chile Taqueria with her business partner/husband Shultz Hartgrove to serve the foodservice and convenience industry with high quality Mexican food made to order. Naughty Chile Taqueria is a licensed concept for quick-serve Mexican food at non-traditional retail locations. Capitalizing on their combined experience with QSRs, the convenience/non-trad channel, consumer packaged goods, and marketing, the Hartgroves brought this compelling consumer brand to market and expanded into mainstream foodservice distribution.

As a business owner, Hartgrove has proven success at building brands and growing sales via constant attention to product quality, customer presentation and packaging. Hartgrove graduated from the University of Florida College of Journalism & Communications with a BS in Public Relations in 1987. While at UF, she was a member of Pi Rho Sigma, the Public Relations Honor Society; an on-air announcer and PSA writer for NPR affiliate WUFT-FM, Classic 89; Communications Assistant with UF Office of the President; and Special Events Coordinator for the University of Florida Foundation.

Hartgrove enjoys the Colorado sports of hiking and biking, the Florida sports of golf and boating, and the universal enjoyment of gardening and wine tasting. While committed to comida delicisoa and relentless promotion of Tres Picosos, her children Augustus, Sophia and Margaux are her proudest accomplishments.

Follow Tres Picosos on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Jane Hartgrove with Tres Picosos. Welcome.

Jane Hartgrove: Thank you. I’m elated to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Tres Picosos. How are you serving folks?

Jane Hartgrove: Tres Picososis a burrito company, and we have expanded to make all kinds of wonderful Mexican food. I started in 2011 when I bought the brand from my family’s company, and it was a packaged burrito company that we were doing what’s called DSD, Distributed to Stores Directly. And since then, we have expanded rapidly. We got three different packaging styles. We no longer do direct distribution. We have distributors all across the United States, and also we ship to Guam. We’ve got some Circle K stores out in Guam that are serving our wonderful Tres Picosos burritos.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a little bit about how something like this happens? A lot of folks think about food service, and they don’t think about going in this direction. Can you share a little bit about the backstory about how that came about?

Jane Hartgrove: Yes. I’m really happy to say that we expanded very organically. My family’s company had a food production facility, and we were making all kinds of wonderful things, like seafood salads and sushi and green salads, you know, like a chicken salad wrap or a grilled chicken Caesar – let’s see – cocktail sauces, sandwiches.

Jane Hartgrove: And a retailer came to us because of the distribution channel that we served. And he said, I have this burrito that’s coming into my stores every day, hot in foil. It’s delicious. Very authentic. My customers love it. But I’ve got 35 stores and I don’t really know where they are making these burritos. And so, I need a production facility that has USDA designation in order to be sure that the food quality standards are adhered to and we can expand to all these 35 stores.

Jane Hartgrove: So, we launched the brand Tres Picosos in order to fill that need. It was a direct customer request. And we’ve never looked back from doing the distributed to the stores directly to the large scale distribution model that can reach every aspect of the United States.

Lee Kantor: And then, you started honing in on Mexican food?

Jane Hartgrove: Right. So, this company had a bunch of different brands underneath of it. And I was the kingpin behind the Tres Picosos brand because I loved it the best. When things got a little bit too hairy for me, I bought just the brand that I wanted, which was Tres Picosos. So, in 2011, I established Tres Picosos as the woman-owned company. And I could outsource everything. I no longer needed the production facility. I got what’s called a co-pack business model. It’s also called contract manufacturing. So, we have co-packers to make our food to our recipes and our specifications and using our packaging.

Lee Kantor: And then, your responsibility is to kind of sell it into stores?

Jane Hartgrove: Right. Sales, marketing, promotion, quality assurance, everything other than the actual production, which is, you know, inside the food production facility working the production line.

Lee Kantor: So, how do you develop kind of new brands? Like, are you doing kind of R&D and saying, “Okay, maybe there’s a space in the market for something else”?

Jane Hartgrove: Yes, absolutely. We do that. We work really closely with our customers. Our primary channel is the convenience industry, which is also known as convenience retail. It’s our favorite channel. It’s where we started. And we’re expanding into grocery and food service as well, which I’ll tell you about our secondary brand in just a few minutes. So, with the convenience channel, because we have such great strong relationships with our customers, we often are able to fill their needs. Just recently, a customer came to us with a suggestion for the fillings for inside of a quesadilla. And so, we’re launching this as one of our quickie burrito mixes under the Naughty Chile Taqueria line. So, we’re very, very responsive to our customer needs.

Jane Hartgrove: I would like to tell you about the Naughty Chile Taqueria product line. I established the brand Tres Picosos in 2005 with my family’s company. Then, when I bought the brand in 2011, I ran it with the outsourced business model. And then, in 2015, I launched another brand called Naughty Chile Taqueria. We always had the idea to sell the great food that’s on the inside of the burrito in bulk for retailers and food service operators to be able to run a Mexican program on their own.

Jane Hartgrove: So, with Naughty Chili Taqueria, it is a scalable platform and the food service professional or the retailer can take just beans and rice and our bare breast chicken, use it with our green chili sauce, and make burritos all day long in-house. Or they can run an entire Naughty Chili Taqueria set up, like a quick serve restaurant that’s inside their other location, think airports, hospitals, universities, coffee shops, convenience stores. They can run it as a licensed outlet of Naughty Chili Taqueria.

Lee Kantor: And then, why would they choose this path rather than partnering with a Mexican restaurant brand, maybe a franchise?

Jane Hartgrove: Well, it has to do with ease of operations. All of our food is completely cooked, so it’s very easy to execute. It’s also infinitely scalable. So, it’s all thaw, heat, and serve. Now, the recipes are authentically Mexican. We’ve always had Mexican chefs. And we want to take the back of the house labor way, way back for whoever is serving the food. I mean, beans take six hours to boil. And our barbacoa beef, it boils all night for the slow braise and that very, very delicious infused carne. It’s just delicious. So, we’re taking the labor out of it for the retailer, streamlining the process so that they can serve their food and put their workers on frontline where they belong.

Lee Kantor: And then, they could still offer kind of an authentic Mexican product?

Jane Hartgrove: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: So, they’re not skimping on quality or authenticity. They’re just having a more efficient way to execute that and deliver value to their customers.

Jane Hartgrove: Yes. Because in these retail establishments, we’re seeing that labor is really stretched. And so, they want to take the difficulty out of food service. And Tres Picosos has done that for them by having the authentic Mexican food with very, very high quality recipes, but it’s way easier to execute than if they made it in their own kitchens.

Lee Kantor: Now, when they choose to partner with you, are you kind of giving them like a playbook on how to execute and how to deliver the food in a delicious manner?

Jane Hartgrove: Yes. Our operations training manuals, we’ve got instruction videos, we have job aids. It makes it really easy for the operator to execute perfectly.

Lee Kantor: Now, typically these customers, have they had any type of food before? Or when they’re switching to you or partnering with you, is this kind of a new adventure for them?

Jane Hartgrove: Sometimes yes and sometimes no. We play very well with others. In a retail establishment, we find that variety lifts everybody. It doesn’t cannibalize sales. So, in the convenience channel, you frequently see fried chicken, pizza, a roller grill, and having the Mexican components there, it lifts everybody’s sales. It doesn’t cannibalize them. The variety is what keeps the customer coming back day in and day out.

Lee Kantor: And then, how are CPG sales relative to other channels? Is that a growing area?

Jane Hartgrove: For Mexican food, yes. Mexican food is the second most popular food type in the United States, second only to hamburgers. So, we’re finding that a lot of retailers are under skewed on Mexican foods. In other words, they’re just not offering enough variety. And Tres Picosos and Naughty Chile Taqueria are able to fill that void.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you kind of dial in the spice level?

Jane Hartgrove: I love that you asked that. The green chili sauce is one of our staples. We use hatch green chilies. And there’s the bell curve, right? You’ve got some people who are like, “Oh. Too hot. Too spicy.” That’s only 10 percent at the very, very top – I’m sorry, at the bottom. And then, at the top you’ve got the people who are like, “Man, bring it on. I need some more hot sauce. Where’s the Tajin? Where’s the Tabasco? Where’s the Tapatio? And so, between those two extremes, you’ve got 80 percent who just want the delicious infused smoky flavor of green chili sauce, and that’s where we always want to be.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. That’s always interesting to me, in a lot of the especially authentic Mexican restaurants, is, how they cater to so many people by having so many choices in terms of getting that spice ratio just right. Because people are particular. They have their favorites.

Jane Hartgrove: Indeed. So do I.

Lee Kantor: And then, is that an area of growth for you? Is that where you’re continuing to explore and go through the Mexican cuisines to give them and deliver those kind of delicious recipes and deliver delicious brands?

Jane Hartgrove: I believe that our growth progression will be toward other channels, maybe not so much in other items. Because once we’re making the black beans and cilantro-lime rice and the barbacoa and the pork carnitas, et cetera, adding another flavor is only one track of growth. But, really, because Mexican food is so popular in the U.S., I believe that the growth is going to be in grocery, other retail, other food service. I’d very much like to serve airports and hospitals, universities. So, I believe that the growth will be in those diversified channels, maybe not so much in the diversified product line.

Lee Kantor: Right. So, taking what you have and just expanding it into more places.

Jane Hartgrove: Right.

Lee Kantor: So, what compelled you to get involved with WBEC-West? What was the thinking behind that decision?

Jane Hartgrove: Well, I’ve been a woman-owned business since I bought the brand, but I just didn’t have the bandwidth to actually finish the application until we had the quarantine. During the quarantine, I was able to accomplish some big projects that had been hanging out there for quite some time. And top of the list was applying to be the certified woman-owned business with WBEC-West. And I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it. I’m thrilled with the opportunities, the training, the networking. It has just been a joy.

Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go?

Jane Hartgrove: Well, all of our spec sheets are on trespicosos.com, and that’s T-R-E-S-P-I-C-O-S-O-S, trespicosos.com. And I’m pretty easy to find through those channels.

Lee Kantor: And then, what do you need more of? How can we help you? Is it just kind of finding more partners in these different channels to have conversations?

Jane Hartgrove: Thanks for asking, Lee. I would encourage any of the women-owned businesses, if they’re in retail or if they’re in food service, when they need a Mexican food service solution, please think of Tres Picosos first.

Lee Kantor: And if they’re even thinking of exploring food, think Mexican and then have a call with you too, right?

Jane Hartgrove: Absolutely.

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

Jane Hartgrove: Thank you. I appreciate being here.

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

 

BRX Stories – Servicing Associations

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Stories - Servicing Associations
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BRX Stories – Servicing Associations

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, let’s chat a little bit about serving associations and maybe share a specific use case or something.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. We’ve been serving associations, it’s just part of the DNA of how Business RadioX serves the local market. I mean, we’ve been working with a variety of associations for many years in a variety of ways. And when we first started out, sometimes we were doing this work and not charging. We were just happy to be included at the events. Now we charge a lot of times, most of the times when we’re working with associations.

Lee Kantor: And one of the kind of recent use case that we’ve had was we were contracted by an association, where the vision of the show was a regular roundtable with their leader and me as a co-host and interview corporate leaders and members every month. And so, that was kind of the vision that we would do this kind of a facilitated conversation around a theme, a topic that was important to them, and talk about how the corporates and the members and the leaders all work together to kind of provide value for the membership and their community and things like that.

Lee Kantor: So, we were doing that on a regular basis and it was starting out great. But what happens a lot of times when we’re doing these type of shows with leadership involved and multiple guests are, it’s difficult logistically to kind of make sure that everybody says they’re available on, you know, the third Tuesday of the month. But then, the third Tuesday of the month comes and there’s some crisis for one of the people or two of the people, and all of a sudden it just gets difficult to schedule and they can’t find a replacement and something will happen invariably. And then, all of a sudden you miss that month and then now you miss the second month. And then, this becomes a thing that you used to do and you stopped doing.

Lee Kantor: So, when this was happening, we were seeing that it was very difficult logistically to schedule. We pivoted to a show where we focused in on their members and we said, you know what? You can invite as many members as you want. We’re going to do this just to keep serving the current membership. And you can still do these roundtables. But let’s not just make the roundtables the only type of content that we’re providing for you. Let us, on your behalf, interview members and just make sure that we tell their stories.

Lee Kantor: So, what happened was this association assigned the inviting of the the members to the show to one of their communications people. And she would just every week invite ten members, of which five of them typically said yes. And then, they would just enter my calendar and I was doing the interviews.

Lee Kantor: So, we were doing this all virtually. It was all done on Zoom. And we were talking about the members, you know what makes this member’s business unique and special? What was their backstory? How did they get involved in this type of work? What’s a success story that they’ve had with their person? And then, always during the course of the interview, I always ask, why did you join this association? How has it helped you? And they always gave a testimonial.

Lee Kantor: So, part of our delivery back to the client was the interview, which they shared through their marketing and networking and the newsletters and things like that and we would carve out that testimonial. So, we were capturing for them just dozens and dozens of testimonials of happy members. And they’ve been able to use those testimonials in a variety of ways. One of the ways which is really cool is they do a conference on a regular basis, and they just have it playing in the background, all these testimonials from guest after guest.

Lee Kantor: And since we didn’t kind of put a limit on the amount of guests, I guess in the last six months, we’ve interviewed over 50 members. And that’s just kind of part of the service that we’re providing them. And then, something that they do, which I think is super creative from a member retention part, is the cohort of guests, they do a meet and greet every quarter for that quarter’s guest, where they all come on a Zoom with the head of the association, thanking them for being part of the show, connecting them together, making sure that everybody knows each other. They’ve kind of created an alumni group of guests of the show.

Lee Kantor: And then, in the last conference, I know an upcoming conference that they’re about to produce, they’re having the person who’s doing the booking of the show stand up and have a speaking opportunity to let all the members know of, hey, we do this show. We would love for you to become part of it. And if you’re interested, please go to this QR code, which we’re going to show on the screen, and sign up here. And then, what she does is she vets all the guests, and she just is really leveraging our methodology of multiple relationship building moments.

Lee Kantor: And so, they’re really serving the heck out of their members. They’re providing so much value. They’re getting a lot of opportunities where the members are actually referring other potential members to her, because she’s casting a wide net and wants to just meet more people, connect with more people so she can help more people.

Lee Kantor: So, the show has really exceeded expectations when it comes to value, providing that this association is doing. And it’s really great that they were open to pivoting, and they’re still getting those roundtables that they wanted, but they’re also getting a mechanism to really provide extra value to members, where a lot of associations are struggling when it comes to providing the value of members that keeps members sticky, and it helps the members refer new members to the association.

The Secrets to Better Sleep: Selena Porter’s Journey with NurtureLux®

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Women in Motion
The Secrets to Better Sleep: Selena Porter's Journey with NurtureLux®
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On today’s Women in Motion, Lee Kantor is joined by Selena Porter, founder of NurtureLux®, a company specializing in sleep aid products. Selena shares her journey from creating decorative throw pillows to developing innovative sleep solutions inspired by her own sleep struggles. She discusses the importance of sleep for wellness, offers practical sleep improvement tips, and highlights the unique features of her products, such as silk pillowcases with attached sleep masks. Selena also talks about her business expansion plans, involvement with the WBEC-West community, and upcoming kickstarter campaign, aiming to enhance sleep health for more people.

NurtureLux-logo

Selena-PorterSelena Porter, Sleep Products Inventor, and CEO of NurtureLux®

In 2018, Selena experienced a health scare which began a heightened awareness of wellness. She then began having bouts of insomnia. This cycle felt very unhealthy and because of this, wellness became a lifelong passion of hers.

Not sleeping well can be frustrating and hazardous to your overall health and well-being. Selena has spent the last five years researching and designing solutions to help. She’s on a mission to reform the image of sleep, as well as develop nurturing solutions for both sleep lovers and insomniacs alike.

Connect with Selena on LinkedIn and follow NurtureLux® on Facebook.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Women in Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women in Motion, we have Selena Porter with NurtureLux. Welcome.

Selena Porter: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about NurtureLux.

Selena Porter: Well, NurtureLux, I’ve been in business about five years now. I started the company, really, to make pretty decorative throw pillows. However, I am a really light sleeper. And so, I started making pillow products with sleep aid components.

Lee Kantor: So, what is a sleep aid component? Isn’t a pillow a sleep aid?

Selena Porter: A pillow is a sleep aid. But I make- like I have a couple pillowcases with an attached sleep mask. And then, you can also put- they have an eye sleeve and a neck sleeve. So, you can put a hot or cold pack in for headaches for your eyes, warmth for your eyes, and also warmth or cooling for your neck and shoulders. And so, I just try to- anything that the Sleep Foundation says that will help us get a better night’s sleep, I weave that into our- into my designs. And since then, I’ve gotten five patents-

Lee Kantor: Wow!

Selena Porter: -on it, so.

Lee Kantor: Now, so share a little bit about sleep. Do a lot of people have problems sleeping?

Selena Porter: Yes. So, at least 30% of all adults say they have trouble sleeping. About 10% of people actually have insomnia. And then, there was a study, I think in 2022, that says that 40% of adults in the US say they’ve fallen asleep during the day each month without meaning to.

Lee Kantor: Wow! That’s a problem. That sounds like a problem.

Selena Porter: Yes, that’s a problem for all of us. So, I think we should all be sleep advocates. I’m just- I’m on a mission to make us all sleep advocates, so.

Lee Kantor: So, now, when you- have you- had you struggled yourself with sleep issues?

Selena Porter: I have. I have. I used to struggle with insomnia, what I thought was insomnia, but really it was just bad habits. So, which a lot of us have. And then- and I’m a really light sleeper. So, I’m really passionate about wellness and just making that connection. That sleep, to me, is the first pillar of wellness.

Lee Kantor: Now, have you learned over the years of doing this kind of work some advice for folks when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep? Are there some do’s and don’ts you can share?

Selena Porter: Yes, yes. As I said, the Sleep Foundation and the CDC said like 62 degrees, which is pretty cool. I like it about 70. You don’t want it too cold where you shiver, and you don’t want it too warm where you sweat. So, but actually you want to cool your room because as the- when the sun goes down, the earth cools, so does our bodies. So, it’s actually just a natural state of- to start to cool your- your core starts to cool as you go to sleep. Keep a cool room, quiet, dark, hence the sleep mask on every pillowcase on my pillowcases where you can just cover your eyes. Even in the morning, sometimes when the sun comes up and you want to sleep a little longer, you can just- it’s like a soft stash to help you to sleep. And take care of any pain, aches and pains. Try to soothe yourself before you go to sleep. Set up a nice routine nightly where you kind of enjoy getting into, “It’s time to sleep. It’s time to rest and give my body a chance to restore itself.”

Lee Kantor: Now, should you, like, put your phone in a different room. Like, what’s the rules with the phone?

Selena Porter: Yeah. We have- we don’t realize it but, you know, your body is actually a conduit. That’s the reason, you know, if you touch electricity or we walk on something, we can tap someone, and then, you know, you feel that spark. Our bodies are a conduit. So, actually there’s electromagnetic vibes that come from your phone. So, you want to put it in the other room because it actually causes sleep disturbances or not- it won’t let you sleep as sound as you would.

Lee Kantor: Now, let’s talk a little bit about the way you develop these products. How did you decide kind of on the materials and how did that evolve?

Selena Porter: So, I make them- I make the pillowcases in silk and satin, only because silk and satin is really good for your skin and your hair. And actually, I thought I never could sleep on satin. I thought, just like most people think, it’s going to be hot or it’s going to be- but really, your room should be cooler. If you sweat during the night, your room should be- turn the dial on your thermostat. It’s good for your skin and your hair. I actually started making them with a combination of cotton on one side and satin on the other. And now, that’s all I sleep on. So, that’s one thing. And, I also have travel pillows. I make that in satin, too, so it doesn’t- you don’t have the friction on your hair, and it has a sleep mask on it too, and you can also put hot and cold for soothing in the travel pillows.

Lee Kantor: Now, is- for someone who’s never worn a sleep mask, is there- how do you know, like, how to get the right fit and what material’s, like, optimal for you? Or is this- is that an issue?

Selena Porter: You know, there are a lot of sleep masks on the market. And sometimes, the reason I attached it to the pillowcase, a sash to the pillowcase is because sometimes in the middle of the night, you might take it off or you can’t find it, so it just makes a really convenient option. But I think for sleep, we should all just try various things in order to see, “Okay, that really helped me,” or “That didn’t help me,” until you find your sweet spot that- where you can get a great night’s sleep because it’s just important.

Lee Kantor: Now, how are you selling all of these items? Are they on your website? Are they, like, on Amazon or at the retail store? Like, where can you get the NurtureLux items?

Selena Porter: They are on my website right now. I am in talks with several stores in Las Vegas in order to- I’m starting to roll out in Las Vegas, and then wider from there. I actually lost my husband two years ago, so I kind of slowed down.

Lee Kantor: Sure.

Selena Porter: And now, there’s a point where I’m, like, just now ramping back up. And like I said, it’s my passion and it’s something that just makes me happy. So, I’m back at it.

Lee Kantor: So, now when you put products online for folks who have never done that before, is there any advice you can share about doing kind of an e-commerce website like that? Because a lot of folks, you know, maybe would like to do that, but they don’t know how to do that. Is there some things you can share about how to put together an e-commerce website like you’ve done?

Selena Porter: Yeah. I mean, you really need to have good images, as well as you can. And I mean, there’s several there’s Shopify, there’s GoDaddy. I personally like GoDaddy, but I think that there’s a lot of support out there to start a business and to get the word out and just stay with it. It is- and hopefully, you are turning your passion into your revenue and into taking care of you as you take care of you with the things that you enjoy doing and the things that makes- that fills you up. And then, share that with the world.

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

Selena Porter: WBEC-West, it gives me a sense of community and someone I can call. It connects us to our various to the casinos, to MGM, to Caesars. Just the opportunity. I actually did a Macy’s- I did a Macy’s workshop in 2022. I was part of the 10th year of that class, and they only choose 25 businesses per year, and we go through a whole workshop. I went to New York and all that. And I believe that happened because of WBENC. I heard about it through WBENC. And so, a lot of things just- there was a lot of opportunity that we should- that we get. And just from being connected to other people, with likeminded people and women is just a really nice thing. You don’t feel like you’re just out here by yourself.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to learn more about NurtureLux, is there- can you share the website?

Selena Porter: Yes, the website is nurturelux.com, N-U-R-T-U-R-E-L-U-X dot com. And if you want to email me, I’m at selenaporter@nurturelux.com.

Lee Kantor: And then, what do you need more of? What could we be doing to help you? Are you trying to get into more retail stores or are you just trying to get more online sales? What can we be doing to help you?

Selena Porter: I am trying to get into more retail stores. I would love to be in, like, a best mattress and to some of our local chain stores, sleep stores. Also, I am about to launch a kickstarter campaign for my newest pillowcase. It’s now a collection. I have- I started out with just one pillowcase, and now there’s two, just to give a different design. And it actually has eight sleep health options and five pockets. It even has its own neck pillow pocket where I put a neck pillow in the pocket, and it supports your neck. And you can put heat or put cold on top of that pillow.

Lee Kantor: Well, congratulations on all the momentum. One more time, the website.

Selena Porter: Website is nurturelux.com.

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

Selena Porter: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.

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

 

Amanda & Matt Harper with Flyin’ Wrench Motorsports

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Cherokee Business Radio
Amanda & Matt Harper with Flyin' Wrench Motorsports
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Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

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Amanda-Matt-Harper-bwAmanda and Matt Harper are the owners of Flyin’ Wrench Motorsports.

Since 1994, Flyin’ Wrench Motorsports, a family-owned business, has been a trusted European car specialist, recently bringing our exceptional foreign car repair and maintenance services to Woodstock.

Our journey began with a vision to create a clean, honest, and reputable auto shop, and we’re excited to now offer that to the Woodstock community. Our welcoming atmosphere reflects our family values in every interaction. Flyin-Wrench-Motorsports-logo

As a family-owned business with decades of experience, we’re more than just a repair shop; we’re now becoming part of the Woodstock community. Our commitment extends beyond the garage, as we strive to build lasting relationships with our new clients.

We treat every customer’s vehicle as if it were our own, providing the same level of care and attention we would give to our family members’ cars.

Follow Flyin’ Wrench Motorsports on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this morning, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by our Community Partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending Capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Mainstreet warriors.org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at diesel. David. Dot com you guys are in for a real treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Flyin’ Wrench Motorsports, Amanda and Matt Harper. How are y’all doing?

Amanda Harper: Hello.

Matt Harper: Doing great.

Stone Payton: This conversation has been in the works for some time now.

Amanda Harper: I know well over a year.

Stone Payton: I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think a great place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners mission,purpose. What is it that you guys really are out there trying to do for our community?

Matt Harper: You know, we started this shop basically by accident, out of necessity. It was something that we did. A friend of mine, him and I were working at a local shop years and years ago. We tried to create a better work environment for the people that work for us, because our environment then was not so great. Maybe calm tempers down a little bit while working on cars late at night in the cold? Um, but build a better work environment for the people that work for us and in turn offer a better service for the people that come to our shop.

Stone Payton: And so have you always been a mechanic that’s been your career path?

Matt Harper: Pretty much, yeah, since I graduated high school.

Stone Payton: Amanda, how did you get roped into all this?

Amanda Harper: I married a mechanic. My background is operations, so I stand more on the on the operations side of the business for sure. Standard operating procedures is my thing. Numbers, KPIs. He loves hearing that. That’s his favorite.

Stone Payton: Where’d you learn about all that?

Amanda Harper: I’ve been in the corporate industry for a very long time, and the way corporate treats individuals isn’t the greatest, honestly. So creating an atmosphere where it’s people development is definitely what we wanted to do.

Matt Harper: Corporate gets a bad rap because corporate things work great, but corporate doesn’t always work so great.

Amanda Harper: People become a number. Yeah.

Matt Harper: So there’s a very hard or very fine line between those. I hear my guys every once in a while. It’s like, you know, one of the things we love about this shop is it’s not very corporate. We don’t. It’s laid back, it’s relaxed. I’m like, yeah, but we still have to do these things. If we don’t, one person misses something that hurts another person. It slows the process down. So finding a mix between those two is is tough. And the bigger you get, the more people you get, the more corporate you have to be. A little in some sense, I think.

Amanda Harper: We just got to change the words. Like instead of saying KPIs, you could just say like key lines.

Matt Harper: That word anymore.

Matt Harper: I was on my way to work this morning and someone said that on the radio. I was like, you.

Amanda Harper: Got a twitch, didn’t you? You were like, oh.

Matt Harper: I’ll be like, home.

Stone Payton: Well, let’s dive into the recruiting, the selection, the development. I know it’s always been a challenge for me. I am horrible, I have a tendency to hire in my own image, believe everything the first interview says, you know, and I’m sure I’m a good cheerleader, right? But I’m a horrible interviewer for a job.

Matt Harper: I was there for years.

Amanda Harper: So he just started his own business.

Stone Payton: So what have you learned about recruiting, selecting and and cultivating that culture that you’re describing?

Matt Harper: I think the number one thing that I look for, because we get a lot of candidates, we’re currently hiring now. We get a lot of candidates that and we’ll get on. Indeed, I’ll get everything from someone who has never worked on a car but saw the word technician, and they may work on HVAC to people that have tons of experience. But if the person doesn’t fit into our family, if their personality is not, what would fit into our personality, in our personality of our family, or, you know, those kinds of things matter. If you, you know, you can hire somebody with tons of experience and, and tons of of good work ethic and all that is great. But if they don’t gel well with the other employees, if it’s not, if it’s not a family style environment for us, they wind up on the outside of the group. You know, it’s they’re the third wheel, if you will. And so that’s the hardest part. I found tons of of candidates that that fit the bill on paper. But like some of the things we ask in an interview, it’s like, you know, tell us about your tools. Tell us about your experience. All right. So what do you like to do for fun on the weekend?

Amanda Harper: Yeah. Who are you? Yeah. Honestly? Yeah.

Matt Harper: Who are you? You know, what do you do for fun? What? Do you like to go on vacation? Are you married? What are you. What is your wife like to do when y’all go on vacation? Where does she like to go? You’d be surprised how many people, how different people are. Even though we do the same things, how different people are. And and candidates are really looking for that too. They’re looking for somebody to to have a home and not just be a number. They want to be invested in.

Amanda Harper: Yeah. I mean, and so do we. Like as people. Everybody wants to be invested, right? You’re never too old to continue learning. And I think people get in their own way of that, especially if they’ve been in the business for so long. Any business, not just automotive, right. Any business at all. If you are blinded and think you know everything, you’re never going to continue moving forward. I don’t know everything. I am continuing to learn something. I don’t know everything about KPIs and SOPs. As much as I’d love to think I do, I know I don’t, and I’m continuing education all the time, so I think that’s just something to always remember. There’s an ever evolving education door that everybody needs to remember for sure.

Stone Payton: So would you advocate in some circumstances? And maybe you do this at your shop having potential candidates visit with your existing staff?

Amanda Harper: Oh yeah. I mean, we always walk them around the entire shop when they come in interview. We want them to see everybody and meet everybody and. Yeah. And to see what they would find themselves involved in.

Stone Payton: Right. Yeah.

Matt Harper: I think I think you’ve got to give somebody a tour. Yeah. Let them see the place that they potentially are going to work at. They may walk in the back and be like, this place is a dump. I don’t want to work here. Well, they may walk back and be like, this place is way too clean. I’m not clean enough for that. So now, you know, expose those problems on day one and find a solution for them. Or, you know, and I get a lot of I get so many candidates that will apply. They’ll come in for an interview and they’ll tell you how excited they are to be there and how excited they are for this opportunity. And the whole time you can read it on their face. This is the like, they don’t even want to do this job anymore. Like I’m working. You just hear like, you know, I work on cars for a living. What’s your favorite thing about them? I don’t even really like working on cars. What do you like to do? Oh, man. I really wanted to go to school to be a CPA. Why aren’t you doing that? Why are you. Why are you working on cars? You know. Don’t come. Why are you so miserable doing the thing that you basically set up to do for your life? You know, this is your chosen career path. If you made a bad choice, change it. Make a different choice. Do something different.

Stone Payton: So what’s the most rewarding about the work for you guys at this point? What’s the most fun about it for y’all?

Matt Harper: I feel probably a little different than most shops owners or mechanics, as you will. Yeah, I figured out a long time ago that for me it was about building cars or about fixing things. So I, you know, I used to buy cars years ago. I would buy a car, fix it, drive it, and then as soon as I got through fixing it, I get bored with it, so I’d sell it. And so I always seem to have that one car that just sits around. You tinker with it. And then. And I realize now that the reason I haven’t finished it, because I know if I finish the thing, I’ll get bored with it and sell it. Right now. I have something to do to it. You know, it’s just like, I don’t want to say, like, saving cars, but I have saved cars that were probably long beyond savable, and it probably shouldn’t have been saved. It probably spent more money than I should have, saving them maybe even lost a little money doing it. But it was the fun of of saving the car or building that car, or fixing something that maybe someone else couldn’t fix. Uh, it’s just just a challenge in that in itself.

Stone Payton: Now, before we went on air, I tried to schedule an oil change for my old hunting truck. But you guys have chosen a niche. Tell me more about that choice, how you arrived there and how you try to meet that. Meet that market.

Matt Harper: You know, I always joke European cars stay broke the most, so it’s not true. Of course cars break. They’re just. They’re planned obsolescence is is part of the planning of building a car. They design a car. If if automotive manufacturers didn’t want cars to break, they would build cars in a way where they broke less. Some of the stuff we see, it’s almost like, you know, they planned it to leak oil. They, you know, they designed this gasket to fail over a certain amount of time. Uh, second source markets fixing things that first source couldn’t fix, you know, in the design process with, with unlimited budgets. Um, we chose European cars. That’s what I drove in high school. I had my first car was a BMW. I bought an old raggedy BMW from a friend, drove it. A guy ran a stop sign, wrecked. It, started. We fixed it in my backyard, in my garage, and then sent it over and had it painted and started driving it again. And then another guy hit it, and it was then it was done from there. So, uh, it’s the story of my life, right?

Amanda Harper: Um, he’s like, oh, I feel like this is meant to be.

Matt Harper: Even back in high school, you know, this is what I was doing. So European cars just kind of stuck. Tooling is a little different. European cars have different types of you know, that you use metric tools and you use special tools. And we just built up a good variety of specialty tools. Timing tools, um, you know, a good assortment of tools in our, in our own tool boxes. So it’s not to say that we can’t work on a Ford, but you need different some different tools for Fords. And they have their own inherent problems that we’re just not geared for. Yeah. So there was a time when I probably could have done both, but now the shop is so geared towards European and like exotics and things like that that what like for your truck, for example, comes in. I’m not saying we’re lost, but you’re lost. You know, it’s like it’s like the, the wrench in the, in the cog. You know, we need it’d be in the way we’d never get it done. Well, I can tell you.

Stone Payton: Everything I know about the auto mechanic business. You could stick in your eye and still see out. But I will say from the professional services world Coaches, Consultants, my experience has been the niche year. Often the better, you know, and you really get to be known as an expert in that field, you know, title sponsor for the community partner program. Diesel David I mean, he’s the diesel guy, right? And everybody and everybody.

Matt Harper: Truck to him. Yeah. There you go.

Amanda Harper: We definitely.

Matt Harper: Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Harper: Dave is our guy.

Matt Harper: Yeah. All right.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a shop like yours with a niche like that, do you have to get out there and shake the trees? Is it more referral based? What’s that?

Amanda Harper: Well, yeah, especially since we looked closed since our shop, you know, was boarded up from the guy not knowing our parking.

Matt Harper: So that was a Ford Chevrolet.

Amanda Harper: I think that was the Chevrolet.

Matt Harper: Those domestic trucks really cause problems, right? Exactly. So that guy parked his truck inside my office? Um, literally in my office. Yeah.

Amanda Harper: And then the roof came.

Matt Harper: Off, and then it left a giant hole in the front of the building. So we boarded it up and got insurance involved, and we’re looking at other things. I got a contractor over, and then about 20 days later, we had a big microburst storm that came through downtown Woodstock. Oh, yeah.

Stone Payton: Yeah, I remember I remember the pressure.

Matt Harper: From that storm came right through the hole in the front of the building and got under the roof and lifted it up and dropped it over in the shell station parking lot. It really is a.

Amanda Harper: Whole new meaning of raise the roof like it was just like the whole.

Matt Harper: Thing. Yeah. So all intact. The building had a drop ceiling, so that collected all the water and dispersed it evenly amongst everything in the building. Oh, my. Yeah. Got everything.

Stone Payton: And that’ll take the wind out of your sails.

Matt Harper: No kidding.

Stone Payton: Literally. I mean, what do you even do the morning you see that or the day you see?

Matt Harper: Uh, well, we spent the first, I’d say, six hours putting tarps on the building. Yeah. Those last. If anybody’s ever had a tarp, a roof or hasn’t had a tarp, a roof, tarps last about 30 days. Uh, that’s about it. After that, they start to deteriorate, come apart, die, and then the water leaks start all over again. And if you’ve ever deal with insurance, insurance likes to buy tarps once. Uh, yeah, but it takes about 90 to 120 days to get a roof on. So it’s kind of a little catch 22 there. They don’t want to pay for it the first time. They definitely don’t want to pay for it twice or three times. But they also want to take too long to get the roof on to where you need to tarp the roof 3 or 4 times. Yeah. Um, after that, we operated under a 20 by a 20 foot tent. A ten by 20 tent. So you kept it going?

Stone Payton: You still.

Matt Harper: Were. Yeah, we were open.

Amanda Harper: We were operational.

Matt Harper: Yeah, we were open.

Amanda Harper: We just didn’t have a lobby and we didn’t look open.

Matt Harper: Yeah. It just, you know, the front of the building looked closed.

Stone Payton: Oh my goodness. In the dictionary, there must be a picture of you two under the word resilience. Oh my God.

Matt Harper: Prayer.

Amanda Harper: Lots and lots of prayer.

Matt Harper: Wow. So for a couple of weeks we operated under that tent. We had a mobile office delivered, which is about the size of this studio. And four of us operated out of that for a year. Yeah. In the parking lot.

Amanda Harper: Good lord. I went to every networking meeting, um, in the area. Um, just to make sure everybody knew we were open and available. Please refer to us. I know we look closed, but we are open. Facebook was Facebook and Instagram and social media. All of that was definitely a target marketing base for something I was concentrating on wholeheartedly. To grow that and make sure people understood that we were open. We’re available. Um.

Stone Payton: Man, I never thought about it from that perspective. You weren’t just out there trying to get new business as an established shop. You just got to you got to let people know that you’re open.

Matt Harper: Just that we’re open. Wow. Literally go into survival mode because. Yeah, I can’t tell you how many people that I would meet say, you know, at Kwik Trip. And I’m like, yeah, I got to shop right at the top of the hill. We can take care of it. And they pull in, they’re like, oh, I thought this place was closed. Yeah. So many, so many.

Amanda Harper: Yeah. Even when I went to the meetings, they’d be like, oh, I thought you guys were closed. I was like, no, no, we’re open, we’re open.

Matt Harper: Please.

Amanda Harper: Please come.

Stone Payton: Now, how has the community responded during that that that recent time of unpleasantness.

Matt Harper: You know, we were we were in this building for six months. We had just moved in in January of the year of that year. We had our ribbon cutting, just had a ribbon cutting, and mayor truck kissed the place in June. Roof comes off in July. But and when I didn’t expect was several businesses, local businesses, um, several friends. Just people. We met at Ypo and some of the other, other groups just showed up one day. They were like, we got boxes. We brought some tape, we brought bubble wrap, uh, and we brought breakfast. Oh, man. Just started helping us wipe things down, clean them, pack them and put them in a box. We bought a a 40 foot shipping container and had it put in at the end of the building and would just pack a box, tape it up, write what’s in it, walk it down to the end, put it in the building. Wow. It was amazing, you know? Yeah. Machines that were, you know, decimated by water. They would clean them, wipe them down, get them as clean as we could possibly get them, and then roll them down there, and we put them in the building, and some of that stuff’s still in there, and some of the stuff that we haven’t figured out what to do with yet is, you know, it’s a great time to declutter, especially when everything turns into clutter. Um, we cleaned it out. Decluttered it. Uh, what’s left down there now is some, you know, some stuff that needs maybe need some repairs or probably needs to go in the garbage at this point. But people from all over the community just showed up like I was, you know, we were just like, yeah, we’re we’re going to be over there this weekend cleaning. And then 4 or 5, six people showed up.

Amanda Harper: It really proved to us that we made such the right move of where where we were in Cartersville to downtown Woodstock. Yeah, because we were questioning life, honestly.

Matt Harper: After all of that. Someone does not want us to be here. I was like, what?

Amanda Harper: God? Huh?

Stone Payton: But that makes me feel even greater. And of course, I have had I haven’t had the tragedy, but I have experienced the, the, the positive side of this community. They they have just been so embracing Ypo young professionals at Woodstock, the Woodstock Business Club all. And I mean just the community in general, business owners here in this community. I mean, it’s a very collaborative, supportive bunch.

Matt Harper: It really.

Amanda Harper: Is.

Matt Harper: It really is. It is.

Amanda Harper: And like every business, it’s and it’s not even competition. It’s collaboration. It really is.

Matt Harper: And we’ve met we’ve met friends from other shops that when we first moved in here, we didn’t see them as, like, enemies, you know. But you see them, it’s like they’re the competition. Right, right. And then here, two weeks ago, we went and had dinner with them. Nice. I mean, it’s yeah, we just happened to meet them at a, at a function we were at, and we talked for a few minutes and then we went and had dinner together. Um, talking about Lauren and Billy from Alpha and Omega. Oh, man.

Stone Payton: You’re not going to meet two finer people then? Oh, yeah. But you don’t.

Matt Harper: Know people when you just. You don’t think of them as people. You think of them as other shops. Right? Right. We’re all just people running a business trying to, you know, make a living and. Right.

Amanda Harper: Human.

Matt Harper: Yeah. It’s not like any shop’s going to get all the cars. There’s so many broken cars out there. So many.

Amanda Harper: Cars. Yeah. Need help and honest. And the thing is, is meeting them and getting to know honest automotive shops, too, so that we can refer to each other is so great, too.

Matt Harper: It is. Right.

Amanda Harper: Because you. I don’t want to say there’s bad ones out there, but honestly, some shops out there have bad reputations, so it’s good to know good ones so that we can all know each other and and refer to each other.

Matt Harper: Anybody that thinks running an automotive shop is easy, it’s not. No. There’s a lot of challenges. Um, and some shops get a bad reputation for doing things the right way, you know? A perfect example is that if you bring. You said something earlier, you said I got an old hunting truck, and I want to get it looked at, but I don’t want to spend any money on it. Right. Don’t find.

Stone Payton: Anything wrong with.

Matt Harper: It. Anything wrong? So if I told you there was $10,000 worth of stuff that was wrong with your truck? The general stigmata. In the in the in the in the in the community is that I took it in for an oil change, and they told me I needed $10,000 worth of stuff. They’re trying to rip me off. Well, what if I didn’t tell you anything was wrong with it? And you’d left out of here and it broke down in the middle of the interstate. You got an accident? Mhm. Then you want to blame me for not telling you? So if I don’t tell you, it’s my fault. And if I tell you it’s my fault. But the reality is, the right thing to do is to tell you what’s wrong with the car and let you make an educated decision on what you need to do and what’s best for you your vehicle, your finances, your personal life. It’s my job to tell you what if I find something that’s so dangerous that you didn’t know was there, like, you know, wheels about to come off the truck or, you know, axle is about to fall out of it, or driveshaft is about to fall out of it, or something that could get you hurt.

Amanda Harper: Right, right. Great example is my dad’s car. Yeah. Oh my.

Matt Harper: God. Her dad. Her dad brought us a car from. From Miami. He drove here from Miami. And I get it here. And the front left corner of the car. The strut, the shock, the control arm. It’s all loose. It’s all about. He just drove 500 miles and it had.

Amanda Harper: Arteck was like, no, I need you to come out here and see this because I can’t make this up. And it had this screwdriver stuck in it.

Matt Harper: Yeah. Someone had a bolt was missing. They stuck a screwdriver through it. Oh, my. It zip tied it in place down in Miami, where those shops get a bad reputation because the workmanship. But like. Yeah. So, you know, I get people sometimes like, this is what your car needs. These are the things you could do now that it really needs. And these are things you can postpone. But this is I’m giving you information. I’m not telling you how to.

Stone Payton: And that’s what I would want. And it really is old beat up truck. And I don’t drive that far. But I would want to know about anything that’s really needs to do. And then you can say, okay, and let’s build a plan or you know what, your budget come in next month and we’ll, you know, the next time it.

Amanda Harper: Has to be done.

Matt Harper: What doesn’t have to be done?

Amanda Harper: Yeah, it’s up to.

Matt Harper: You how many times we’ve done a free inspection and the customer took the car and went over to CarMax. Traded it in. I don’t make any money if I if I tell you that, but if I don’t tell you that and you get hurt, I’m at the very least I’m going to feel really bad because I missed something. Sure. Did I not tell you? Because now, are you thinking that we’re not going to tell you if your car’s broken? We’d rather tell you. And you go trade the car in and maybe you go buy something other than the Euro car. And so you are no longer a customer of ours anymore, right? But you’re still here and you’re still driving a car, and you’re still going to work every day and you’re safe. And two, I’ve had plenty of times where someone’s brought me a car. I’ve given them an estimate. They’re like, yeah, I’m not going to fix this thing. And they go trade it in at a car lot. And then three months later, the new owner of that car drives it in and goes, yeah, I need a bunch of stuff. So I want to get it fixed. There you go. And it winds up back at the shop.

Matt Harper: Anyway, um, I just would I just think it’s, it’s a thing in our industry that people think that shops are taking advantage of them by giving them these high bills, but and maybe some shops are too expensive and maybe they charge too much, but that’s that’s in the individual shop. But I would rather tell you what’s wrong with the car and you make an educated decision rather than say, hey, you need $1,500 for stuff, and then next month you still need another $1,500 for stuff, and the next month, oh, you need a right right stuff. And all of a sudden you’ve spent $25,000 on a car and that happens to we will fix things and then other things will break. But I always tell you everything we find on it, right? The whole car. Because I don’t want you to find out. What if I fix $1,500 for stuff? You get on the street to another shop and they write it for five grand worth of stuff. You’re going to think I missed it. Right now. We’re incompetent. So that’s a tough that’s a tough choice. It’s a tough battle. Uh, and some people don’t see it.

Stone Payton: Well, I don’t think for you it is a tough choice. I think you’ve already made the tough choice. Or you’ve established the discipline. You’re going to take the high road, you’re going to provide the information, and then you’re also if if that other five grand doesn’t have to happen today, you know, help you build a plan, maybe.

Matt Harper: Tough choice is not the right word, but it’s right if I don’t do it, I have to live with that. If I do that and you yell at me, you know, you come in and I tell you that, and you yell at my staff and you leave and you’re angry and you leave us a negative review. I have to live with that, too, you know? We have to. We have to experience that. Deal with it. And that’s happened. We’ve we’ve literally had a customer escorted off the property by sheriffs. Well, the car never even made it on our lot. They came in to ask a question. We gave them an answer. They didn’t like the answer. They argued with us. You know, we were just like, hey, this is what it is. And it turned out the car was never even there. We never even got to see the car. Um, it’s and we’ve been called names and told, you know, people are tough. But, you know, I think in the end, it’s just people don’t want to get bad news. I don’t want to be the person that my job is to basically give people bad news all day, every day. Yeah. Not great.

Stone Payton: But no, Amanda, you also have to have all these systems in place to execute on on what Matt is trying to do. So you you’ve got to have systems where you can get the parts at a decent price in a reasonable time and all that is that is that you and your part of the business or.

Amanda Harper: Well, that’s something we’ve all been doing together as a team, actually, because we’ve as we’ve been growing, it’s like we need to get these systems in place. So and it’s funny.

Matt Harper: Because those systems you put them in place when you’ve got three people, right, right. You hire two more people. Right now the systems have to change, right? Right. But then you need more people.

Amanda Harper: Need to know how to do.

Matt Harper: It. So, so okay.

Amanda Harper: You know what I mean.

Matt Harper: Systems evolve. So everything is constantly evolving. It’s a lot of moving pieces in an automotive shop, especially a bigger shop, if you got 1 or 2 people in your two bays, two lifts, those were the easy times. There was a time where it was just me and my technician. Right. He’s he’s been there with us for well over ten years. I just hey, this car needs this. Okay, here’s what it needs. All right, Mike, fix it. It was just two people. I mean, you can just open the door and yell out there to him.

Amanda Harper: No, it’s not like that.

Matt Harper: Now there’s communications that have to happen. He’s 500ft away. There’s parts have to get brought in inventory, and they got to get to him. So yeah, I want him traveling up here to get them. So. Yeah, we literally have a system in place to get the parts from our parts room to the technician. And then I have another tech that’s another 150ft away. So these guys could literally spend the whole day just walking back and forth with the keys and parts. Right.

Amanda Harper: And then hiring another tech is what we’re looking for. And that’s a whole nother.

Matt Harper: Yeah 150. All right.

Stone Payton: But it’s a new day now. The shop is all nice and shiny and we’re ready to go. And we got tell us, tell us the current state of affairs. We have.

Amanda Harper: A lobby.

Matt Harper: It’s so. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. And there’s no more mold. I know. Does it smell like mildew? It doesn’t. It doesn’t rain inside. And there are no vehicles currently parked inside our lobby.

Amanda Harper: And hopefully everyone continues to know where the parking lot is.

Matt Harper: Yeah, we joked, because at one time, the way the lobby was laid out, it was a little bigger than what we needed for a lobby, and we had joked, we’re going to hit somebody like, we should put one of the race cars in the lobby. And I’m like, I don’t want any more cars inside the building. We’re past that now.

Stone Payton: All right, so where exactly are you and where is the parking lot? Because you’re close. You’re not far from where we’re sitting right now. Right.

Amanda Harper: Right on the corner of 92 and Main Street. Oh, wow. Right across the Sam’s Club. Yeah.

Matt Harper: This used to be the old Edwards Tire building. Okay. For years and years and years. 1952 the building was built. Aha! And it’s been added on to and added on to. But we are next door to the shell, uh, direct, basically across the street from Burger King and right before Sam’s Club.

Stone Payton: Oh, yeah. And are we going to cut the ribbon again or throw a party or have margarita Mondays? What are we doing.

Amanda Harper: This Thursday at 3:00? We are going to be cutting that ribbon again just to celebrate and just show appreciation. A little sober bar’s going to be there.

Stone Payton: Oh, Britney and her. Oh, yeah. Isn’t she just wonderful?

Matt Harper: I love her.

Amanda Harper: Yeah, it’s her birthday today. Happy birthday Britain.

Stone Payton: Happy birthday.

Matt Harper: Yeah. All of our. I think I was talking to Dave. I think Dave Diesel Dave is going to come by. So we got a lot of people, you know, it’s we joked like it’s our grand Regrand opening, but it’s really a good opportunity. Just we had so many people from the city, I’d go in to get a permit for something. It’s like, yeah, how’s the shop going down there? I saw they, you know, they’re working on this and working on that. I’m like, I’ve never been in a city where I felt like everyone was watching you. Yeah, I don’t mean, like, in a bad way. No, not a bad way. We’d get a sign put up and I’d go down. I was like, here’s my sign permit, and I just want to drop this thing off. I was like, oh, yeah, the sign looked amazing. I saw it the other day and I’m like, I’m turning the permit in, you know? And yeah, the inspector would come by to look at the concrete. He’s like, yeah, yeah, I came by the other day. You had so many cars out here. It looks really good. You know, like everyone’s watching this building and everyone’s got a an interest in what’s going on and what’s happening here. So to have all these people, everybody that can just come by and hang out for a little bit, you ain’t got to stay all day. There will be some food and drinks there. And just to say thanks to everybody that that helped us.

Stone Payton: Yeah. Well I’ll find my way there. It’s too hot to hunt, so, you know, I would come anyway, especially if Britney’s going to be there. She made me a nonalcoholic Manhattan or something at another event not too long ago.

Matt Harper: Mocktails are amazing, aren’t they?

Amanda Harper: They really are.

Stone Payton: And she’s just such a great person. Now she’s got a little retail spot up in canton.

Amanda Harper: I know I went and saw. It’s so.

Matt Harper: Beautiful. Yeah, she went by. What was that? Sunday? Yeah, I had to work.

Stone Payton: Um, I was hunting that day. That’s why I wasn’t there.

Amanda Harper: That’s okay. I purchased enough for everybody.

Matt Harper: Oh, thank.

Stone Payton: You for that. So I don’t know when or how you two would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway. Interest, pursuits, hobbies, passions outside the scope of your work. You know, my listeners clearly know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. Anything you guys have a tendency to nerd out about and kind of get away for a little bit.

Matt Harper: Racing? Yeah. There used to be a time when I had all this extra time to do things. Um, still do stuff with. I do. I do race cars. Um, I do endurance racing, so that’s a lot of fun. Oh, wow. We race old BMW. Now, where do.

Stone Payton: You go to do the race?

Matt Harper: So we just went to Mid-Ohio, which is a fantastic facility. Okay. Um, we do tracks like road Atlanta. Daytona. Wow. Barber motorsports park. We race at Sebring here at the end of the year. Mhm. Um, a lot of great tracks, a lot of road racing. Uh, most of our races are either seven, eight, 14 or even there are some 24 hour races.

Amanda Harper: Yeah. We can’t get away from cars.

Stone Payton: I can see that.

Matt Harper: Yeah. So for fun, I like to do is leave the shop, take a lot of tools with me and get back in the car. Break a car and then fix on it in a very short amount of time so that we can go break it some more.

Stone Payton: What a marvelous escape from the day to day grind of running a shop.

Amanda Harper: It’s such a stress relief.

Matt Harper: Yeah. We love. We love to go to universal. Uh, her her dad lives in Miami, and we’re we’re here. So that’s where I’m from. Orlando is kind of our halfway point where we can meet up and see him and and hang out for a little bit, and we just went last week. We took a couple days off and went down there for that, so.

Stone Payton: Oh, neat. Is there a new rule that he has to have any automobile that he drives up to see you? He has to have it inspected before he leaves.

Matt Harper: Well, he has a couple of Euro cars, so. Yeah.

Amanda Harper: It really I always tell him I was like, first off, you’re not allowed to go to. That shop any ever again. Never.

Matt Harper: Yeah. He’ll call me. He’ll be like, this shop’s going to. Give me a price. Here’s what they told me. It’s going to cost. I’ll look at it. I’m like. Yeah, it’s not so bad. It looks pretty good. Just.

Amanda Harper: Just make sure you look and. There’s no screwdrivers left in there.

Stone Payton: All right, before we wrap, I’d love it if we could leave our listeners with a couple. Of pro tips. So many directions. We could take this on resilience, on getting a business off the. Off the ground on recruiting, selecting, developing, building that culture. But let’s just leave them with. A little something they can they can chew on. Because a lot of our listeners are business owners. Or aspiring entrepreneurs.

Matt Harper: You know, I heard I heard I was listening to a radio podcast thing. This morning with Mark Cuban. And he said something about starting businesses. The hardest thing. To do in starting a business is making the decision to start a business. Mhm. Every day is a challenge. If you have a job, every day is a challenge. There’s challenges in your job. There are challenges in your hobbies. There are challenges in anything you do. So the hardest decision to make or the hardest thing to do is make the decision to actually do it.

Amanda Harper: I think that comes back around to getting out of your own way.

Matt Harper: Yeah. Sometimes, um, I, you know, I would love to say that I built a business and I did, but I had there was there’s so many people that have helped in so many ways along the way. Those people are drawn to you. If you’re doing things the right way and you’re making good decisions and you’re honest about how you do your work, those kinds of like the people that came and helped us, we didn’t ask them to help us. They came and helped us because they saw what we were going through, and they believed in what we were doing. Yeah, and that’s if you’re honest about what you do and that people, those people will come into your life when you need them to.

Amanda Harper: Authenticity. Yeah. For sure. Just be you. Yeah.

Stone Payton: It’s a lot easier to remember if you can just be you. Yes. Yes.

Matt Harper: I mean, sometimes you forget. That’s it’s business will do that. You know you will. You’ll get so caught up in the day to day and what you’re doing. And you know, we got to make some money and we got to have money for payroll. And we got to get this car out, or we got to do this. But, you know, sometimes you just got to close the door, take 10s and remember, you know, this is your chosen thing. You chose this. So how do you make it better for you, better for your people and better for your customers?

Stone Payton: Amen. All right. What’s the best way for people to learn more? It sounds like there’s a little bit of a social media presence. Let’s make sure they know where the shop is. But I just want people to be able to tap into your work, and I want them to I want people to meet you guys, so whatever is appropriate. Contact info.

Amanda Harper: Well, all of our social media is flying. Wrench Motorsports. No g no g f l.

Matt Harper: Y I n Flying Motorsports. We’re on Facebook, we’re on TikTok, we’re on Instagram. We’re probably other places I can’t remember.

Amanda Harper: And then our websites. Flying wrench. Com. Yep. Um, we also have a newsletter. So everybody can sign up for that as well. Uh, yeah. We’re just excited to be in Woodstock. And we really appreciate everybody. And we just want to thank everybody.

Stone Payton: Well, we’re excited to have you. Thank you for your insight, your perspective. Keep up the good work. Congratulations on the momentum. It’s it’s been a real delight having you guys on the show this morning. And if you come.

Matt Harper: By to visit, just park outside. Yes.

Amanda Harper: Please. God, please.

Matt Harper: Please, please. We don’t have a lot of parking spaces left right now, but just anywhere you want outside the building.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. Alright, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Amanda and Matt Harper with Flying Wrench Motorsports and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.

 

BRX Pro Tip: 8 Ways to Get Your First Business Coaching Client

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: 8 Ways to Get Your First Business Coaching Client
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BRX Pro Tip: 8 Ways to Get Your First Business Coaching Client

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, if you were starting a business coaching practice tomorrow, what are some ways that you would go about getting clients?

Lee Kantor: Well, selfishly, I’d have a Business RadioX Studio in my marketplace and I’d serve the community that way, so that would be number one. But if I was not using Business RadioX, some of the ways that I would go about getting a first business or coaching client would be I’d start with my existing network. I would go to the people I already know, let people know, hey, I’m a business coach now and I specialize in this. And if you’re interested in that, please let me know or tell people about me. And in my case, I would be helping people build that perpetual prospecting pipeline. If they’re looking for more prospects, please contact me. I’m kind of an expert at that, and I have some tools and systems that can help you get that perpetual prospect pipeline.

Lee Kantor: Second thing, I would be offering some coaching sessions to friends, family, former colleagues. Especially if I didn’t have a track record in this, I’d want to get some people saying, hey, I worked with Lee and he did a great job. So, I would go to my friends and people that I think I can serve and help first and give them an opportunity to try it so they can help, hopefully, evangelize for me.

Lee Kantor: Third, I would have some easy introductory package that allows people, especially first clients, to try this in some way with trying to remove as much risk as possible so that, again, they can become evangelists and create testimonials to help me have the social proof I need to show people that I can do what I promise.

Lee Kantor: Also, if I came from corporate, I would be leveraging my contacts and expertise from my former career to position myself as a coach in that space. That’s an easy way to get some low hanging fruit. If you worked in corporate in some manner, go back to those same people and offer to be a consultant. That’s a place to go also for, you know, your first clients.

Lee Kantor: I would try to be speaking at different places, local business events or organizations. Again, this puts you in front of potentially the right people,. It establishes some credibility. Go into the industry associations that you were a part of before, there’s probably opportunities to speak there.

Lee Kantor: I would also consider partnering with complementary service providers, like if there’s somebody else that is hitting that same marketplace that does something different than me, I would be looking for ways to work together and come up with some great kind of ways that we both can go to the market together and serve the group. It might be accountants. It could be marketers. It could be anybody that’s selling to the same area, but is complementary to what you’re doing so you can kind of create referral partnerships with them so that the client can benefit from knowing both of you.

Lee Kantor: And I think it’s super important to create these kind of case stories, success stories, the use cases once you started working with a few people that you can use in your marketing. But the bottom line is focusing in on building relationships, demonstrating some level of expertise, and providing value upfront to attract those crucial first few clients, and then kind of rinse and repeat.

Lee Kantor: But, again, if you are working with us at Business RadioX, you kind of have a cheat code that can help you get in front of the right people at the right time by serving them, and interviewing them, and telling their story on your platform.

Elevate Your Image: Wellness, Fashion, and the Psychology of Branding

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Women in Motion
Elevate Your Image: Wellness, Fashion, and the Psychology of Branding
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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Rhoda Johnson, founder of Rhoda Design Group. Rhoda, a Hollywood-trained image brand strategist, makeup artist, and jewelry designer, shares her journey into image consulting and personal branding. She emphasizes the importance of aligning one’s personal brand with innate talents and aspirations, and discusses the psychological aspects of fashion and color. Rhoda highlights common mistakes in personal branding, the significance of wellness, and the impact of fashion on productivity. She also touches on her jewelry design work and the supportive community of WBEC-West.

Rhoda-JohnsonRhoda Johnson is dedicated to elevating the leadership presence of professionals with wellness-based image strategies as a Hollywood Trained Image Brand Strategist, Makeup Artist, and Jewelry Designer. She is the Creative Visionary and Founder of Rhoda Design Group offering Personal Branding Services for professionals and organizations with transformative private sessions and workshops sharing her expertise from over 35 years immersed in the Beauty and Fashion Industries working for prestigious brands.

Rhoda is a sought-after keynote speaker. She is the author of 50 Plus Marketplace News “Ageless Beauty” articles, Entrepreneur Platform Digital Magazine’s Personal Brand articles, and her blogs.

Rhoda has consulted Motown celebrities Stevie Wonder and Freda Payne; International Model Nikki Taylor, ESPN’s Joe Thiesman and Mike Patrick; Politicians, Attorneys; TED talk Speakers, Authors, and Global leader, Thandeka Tutu- Gxashe (Bishop Desmond Tutu’s oldest daughter). She has also consulted Sales teams, Executives, and Entrepreneurs.

Rhoda was a presenter for the 2020 Denver Startup Week, Women’s Forum, Women Playing Bigger Conference, and Second Act Women over 40. She has provided personal brand seminars to the Colorado Psychologists, CSU, Mile High United Way, College Track, Oakwood Homes Sales Teams, Emerge Political Candidates, and BBI. She was a featured guest on Dr. Peg’s radio show, on Judith Briles’s national radio show “Author U”, and on the Artful Entrepreneur Podcast.

Rhoda has a BA in Fashion Merchandising from Brooks College in Long Beach, California; Certificate of Makeup Artistry from Cinema Secrets in Burbank California, studying under the legendary Hollywood Makeup Artist Stein family. She is licensed to teach Personal Brand Development from John Robert Powers in Cerritos, California, and JF Images Talent Agency in Denver, Colorado.

She continues her professional education with mastermind groups, virtual courses, and networking.

Connect with Rhoda on LinkedIn, X and Facebook.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Rhoda Johnson with Rhoda Design Group. Welcome.

Rhoda Johnson: Oh, thank you, Lee. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Rhoda Design Group.

Rhoda Johnson: Oh, thank you. I am a Hollywood-trained image brand strategist and makeup artist. And so, Rhoda Design Group encapsulates the makeup skillset, the wardrobe development, personal branding is what I’m licensed to provide to individuals and corporations, and I’m also a jewelry designer. And all of that supports the personal brand transformation.

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

Rhoda Johnson: Oh, wow. Well, it always makes me smile to think about what started this whole motion. Refined women in my community inspired me to invest in improving in my own image. And after I did so, I felt more confident and gained respect for mothers and received greater opportunities. And so, this led me to want to offer these services to others, so I pursued a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fashion, an image consulting license, and makeup artistry training in Los Angeles.

Lee Kantor: So, how do you kind of approach a new client? Like how do you build an image brand for someone to marry their innate talents and abilities and their inner beauty with, you know, maybe what they aspire to be and do?

Rhoda Johnson: Oh, I love that you asked that. Well, I don’t know if you know this, but 93 percent of all communication is nonverbal. And my image brand strategies empower professionals to elevate their leadership presence by aligning their nonverbal cues to their brand message. My goal is to help professionals eliminate the daily frustration of dressing and applying makeup to ensure that their style matches their personality and their brand message so they’re seen as trustworthy, competent, and powerful.

Lee Kantor: So, how does kind of an engagement with you begin? Like, what are the first things you’re working on? How do you assess maybe the beginning and then show a path to some future self that they’re going to really fall in love with?

Rhoda Johnson: Oh, okay. So, the beginning is a kickoff call after we’ve done a needs analysis discovery call to find out what their specific needs are. The kickoff call helps to create the North Star as far as developing their personal brand based on the quiz and the questionnaires that I send them before that call. That helps me understand their personality, their unique value proposition, what their brand message is.

Lee Kantor: So, you have some kind of questionnaire or some assessment where you can kind of get where they are today kind of snapshot?

Rhoda Johnson: Absolutely. There’s an audit that takes place and also a deep dive into who they are and what their goals are. Because fashion tells a story, and so by aligning all those nonverbal cues to all of the inner parts of who they are and what their aspirations are, we have a clear message of how they want to be perceived by others, and it helps them show up more confident.

Lee Kantor: Now, are there some mistakes that you see people make time and time again where we go, “Oops. Here we go. They fell into this”?

Rhoda Johnson: Well, I love that you asked that. I think the biggest mistake that I see people making is they’re not intentional about how they show up. They don’t understand the depth of fashion psychology and color psychology. And so, they’re putting on clothes that are either on sale, what their favorite celebrity is wearing, and it really doesn’t represent who they are and who they’re meeting with, and that’s key.

Lee Kantor: So, is there any kind of low hanging fruit that a person can do on their own, you know, to at least improve their current state?

Rhoda Johnson: I would say make sure that you start with a wellness-based lifestyle, because there is no amount of fashion or makeup to cover up exhaustion and stress. And that’s the foundation for my work, I really start there because if there’s not work-life balance in place, this is just another thing on their to-do list that’s going to overwhelm them. And I want to be compassionate in holding space for them and the journey of transformation.

Rhoda Johnson: And so, that would be my biggest recommendation is to really create more work-life balance, put some wellness practices in every day, not just on a weekend or when you’re taking a vacation. It really needs to be a wellness-centric lifestyle in order to be unstoppable.

Lee Kantor: And then, when you’re using the word wellness, are you talking about kind of less stress, more sleep, kind of some of the basic tenets of wellness?

Rhoda Johnson: Definitely sleep, more sleep. But a lot of people are not eating healthy and they’re not hydrating well. And they’re sitting at their computer for hours on end and not taking the breaks that you need. Sitting is the new cancer, by the way. And getting daily exercise. These are just part of the wellness practices that need to be incorporated so that people can show up the best version of themselves.

Lee Kantor: Now, are your clients primarily celebrities or are they executives? Who kind of is the ideal client for your services?

Rhoda Johnson: Both celebrities and executives, but they’re also CEOs, C-suite executives that are really trying to take their career to the next level. A lot of times there are people that are making a career change, going in a completely different direction. I have a lot of Ted Talk speakers, and so people that are in the public eye. Politicians are part of my client base.

Lee Kantor: So, when people are approaching you, are they coming to you from having tried something and it not work? Or maybe the first time they’ve ever hired or worked with an image brand strategist? Where are they in their journey of kind of exploring this practice?

Rhoda Johnson: Oftentimes they’re preparing for something, like a speaker, a Ted Talk speaker, or someone that’s giving a presentation to a large group of people, or they’re getting ready to present a high level webinar. They are people that are rebranding. A lot of times people forget, they rebrand their businesses but they need to rebrand themselves to be in alignment with what they’re showing the public in their business so that the message is the same.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that you’re also a jewelry designer, how did that come about?

Rhoda Johnson: I was going through a tough time in my life, and because I’m a creative at my core, Lee, art and nature tend to be my go-to’s for helping me get through some tough times. So, that’s how the jewelry came out. I had no intention of it being a part of my business, but that first year I was designing just for me, I sold $14,000 just off my body everywhere I went. So, I thought, “Oh, okay.”

Rhoda Johnson: And then, later – I just put out a blog on this – there’s actually research that shows that women that show up in makeup and jewelry, as well as a polished wardrobe, they earn 20 percent more. They’re considered more competent.

Lee Kantor: So, it’s an investment worth exploring?

Rhoda Johnson: Totally. This is why I do this work is because there’s so many studies that reveal that. I stay in research with neuroscience and the research that comes out about this work, there’s now more than ever, especially since we’ve come out of COVID, on how wearing the right colors and your fashion really affects how you show up in terms of your productivity. That was a research that came out of Northwestern University called the Enclothed Cognition. They were revealing how what you wear actually informs your brain and helps you to be more productive if you’re wearing something professional. And it also informs others on how to engage with you and interact.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a different strategy, now that as we come out of COVID, that now you’re doing more face-to-face interactions as opposed to kind of on a camera?

Rhoda Johnson: I would say it’s blended because I do have clients that are not in my state. And so, that was the shift that happened in COVID, was making the services be just as effective virtually as they are in-person.

Lee Kantor: But when a person is interacting in-person primarily versus interacting online or virtually, is there a different strategy when it comes to your image?

Rhoda Johnson: Absolutely. And one of the things that I do that my competitors don’t do is there’s a whole piece on virtual presence. There are certain colors that you can’t wear when you’re on camera that you could wear in-person, for example. So, yes, there are different strategies that are in place for virtual presence as opposed to in-person.

Lee Kantor: So, what is that? Is that a secret the color to not wear on camera?

Rhoda Johnson: It’s per person. There isn’t a one size fits all, because all of us have different skin tones and personalities and also brand messages. So, we take into consideration all of those factors and curate a tailored presence that they should have for all of their business settings.

Lee Kantor: And that’s probably what is special about your practice is that everything is custom because every individual has their own individual goals, or own individual look, their own individual strengths. It takes someone with your kind of overarching skills to be able to meld all that so that you are delivering that correct image brand.

Rhoda Johnson: Absolutely. I’ve been in this for 40 years, and I’m more passionate about it than I’ve ever been. But I’ve worked with some amazing luxury brands in my journey, and it’s exciting to see how fashion is really catering now more to the mindset of where people are.

Rhoda Johnson: And I’ll tell you what I mean by that. Back in 2022, there was a global trend that came out, dopamine fashion. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It came out of the U.K., and my daughter said, “Mom, you’ve always taught this.” But it was a fashion psychologist that was prescribing her clients to wear color to get them out of black. I tell people to wear color because color is actually light, vibrating at various speeds, and it has the ability to boost our mood. And that’s what this fashion psychologist had discovered, is by having her clients get out of the dark depressing colors and into more vibrant colors that it actually lifted them out of depression and suicidal tendencies.

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

Rhoda Johnson: I love this community. I am inspired by the amount of support. And I’m almost speechless because it’s ongoing what I’m discovering the amount of support that’s available to me and also opportunities to serve, like today, that WBEC continues to roll out. I was part of the National Conference and it was my first conference, and I met so many people from all over the country, and even talking to different vendors at the booth, I can just tell you, I’ve never been a part of a community that’s been more supportive about everybody really maximizing their full potential.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to learn more about your practice and maybe get on your calendar, is there a website? Is there a way to connect with you on social media?

Rhoda Johnson: Absolutely. I offer a free eBook if they join my email community. I’m on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram, and I’m happy to offer what that looks like. Do you have links or —

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Can you share the website, please?

Rhoda Johnson: Yes. It’s rhodadesigngroup.com, and Rhoda is spelled R-H-O-D-A.

Lee Kantor: And it’s rhodadesigngroup.com. And then, if they search on Facebook Rhoda Design Group, they’ll find you there?

Rhoda Johnson: Right. And on LinkedIn, I’m Rhoda Johnson.

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

Rhoda Johnson: Well, thank you for the opportunity to share. I hope that someone listening may be inspired. And I’m grateful to be a part of this community.

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

 

Author and Business Development Manager Porscha Jackson

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Houston Business Radio
Author and Business Development Manager Porscha Jackson
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Porscha-JacksonPorscha Jackson, PhD, is a powerhouse in Houston’s small business ecosystem! As the Business Development Manager at the City of Houston Office of Business Opportunity (OBO), she’s not just managing programs; she’s the secret sauce for small businesses hungry for success.

Beyond her city role, Dr. PJ is an author, penning two books, “Pursuing Legacy” and “It’s Me, Not You”, as well as contributing to academic texts and anthologies. With a heart for the underdog, she’s not just a professional rockstar but a community champion, fighting for inclusivity and brighter futures. It's Me Not You

“It’s Me, Not You” is not just a book for the shelf but one for your hands. You’ll journey alongside Dr. PJ as she reflects on her contributions to her toxic work experiences and ultimately offers practical tips to handle and overcome toxic behaviors and environments.

Join Dr. PJ in this transformative journey to understand and combat workplace toxicity, making “It’s Me, Not You” an essential read for anyone looking to thrive in today’s professional world.

Don’t miss out—grab your copy on Amazon: https://buff.ly/3XtEZjS

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. I have a very special guest here. She’s been with me before just a few weeks ago, and I’m going to tell you about that as well, so you can go back and listen to that. But I’m really excited about having doctor Porscha Jackson on the show again today. We spoke a few weeks back about the Office of Business Opportunity for the City of Houston, which you run that program and how many amazing things are coming out. So, Porscha, welcome to the show. I’m so glad that you came back today.

Porscha Jackson: Yes, I’m glad to be back.

Trisha Stetzel: Awesome. So for those of you who may be interested in those programs that I just talked about. Please go listen to the last episode that Porscha was on with me just a few weeks back. You can find it down inside of the list of radio show series in there. So, Porscha , today we are not talking about the Office of Business Opportunity. We’re talking about you. And I’m so glad that you agreed to come back and let us focus on you, what you’re up to. And oh, by the way, I happen to know that you’ve got a book release coming up. So for those who don’t know you already, would you just do a quick introduction for our audience?

Porscha Jackson: Absolutely. So hello, everyone. Um, like Tricia said, I’m Doctor Porscha Jackson. I also go by doctor PJ. And so outside of my duties with the city of Houston, I’m a published author. So I’ve written, um, this is my second book and affectionately titled It’s Me Not you. How I survived toxic work environments. But in addition to that, I’ve written also another book, Pursuing Legacy, which is about family, businesses and intergenerational careers and have contributed to other bodies of of of books, academically as well as fictional anthology. And so writing is my passion. And so doing that, as well as dabbling in entrepreneurship and in the retail industry and a lot of different things, that’s me. But ultimately, my personal mission is to help people become better versions of themselves. So everything that I do aligns with that personal mission. So I’m just here trying to help people connect on our stories. And, um, and that’s pretty much who I am.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And I think this book that you’ve written is really going to resonate with a lot of people. You hear. I heard the words toxic work environment. And I was like, oh, I need to know more. And I think that you I don’t think I know just from having the conversations that I’ve had with you over the past several months, that you are very passionate about sharing knowledge and bringing people on board and getting everyone moving in the right direction, doing the right things at the right time. And I appreciate that so much. And we need to be out there supporting each other. Let’s talk more about the book. So why did you decide to write this book? It’s me, not you.

Porscha Jackson: So and the funny part about this is I had been preparing for this book for years now. And so the book is a journey with several different jobs that I’ve had in several different industries. And so when it came down to the bulk of the book with this one particular job, things became a bit chaotic that I started just recording things and putting it in folders. And then years later, it just popped up in my head like, what are you going to do with all those emails and those notes that you took? And I said, you know what? I’m not the only one who had to experience this. Other people have experienced it, but let them. Let me just share that, because we have to kind of get that out of us and not hold on to that toxicity, otherwise it consumes us. And so that’s why I decided to to write this book and saying, hey, this is how I survived it. Maybe this will help you survive it. And even, um, if you never tell your story. But if you’re still in toxic work environments, you can use this tool. And that’s where the saying came from. It’s me, not you. And so that you can help that get you through, through that process until it’s your next step of maybe getting to a better environment or hoping that that environment changes.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So the book release, we got to get people to preorder because it’s on September 30th, and we want people to preorder so they can find the link in Amazon. Now I’m going to put that in the show notes. So anybody who’s watching or listening electronically, just grab the show notes and click on the link. If you’re not, then you can find this book by simply going to Amazon and doing a search for Porscha Jackson. And her name is spelled p o r s c h a Jackson. So if you do a search there, you’ll find the book. It’s me, not you, and we want everybody to go out and get their preorder in September 30th. Awesome.

Porscha Jackson: Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: So, Porscha, I think it’s amazing that you’ve been able to this is your second book. Um, get it all in writing. I know so many people who have a story to tell, but they never tell the story. So how did you get past or energize yourself to get past? Just collecting all of this data and making the decision to put this out there for others?

Porscha Jackson: It’s I think it’s kind of I enjoy writing, but it’s hard to get that time in to write. And but then also I’m of kind of of a reflective person. And so I believe that everything we go through is not wasted. And so when I realized and going through some files, you know, sometimes you’re just cleaning up. And I found those files, I was like, you, they’re still here. You have to do something with them because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m telling myself that’s what you’re supposed to do. So start writing now because somebody is waiting for this. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they are. But somebody is waiting for this, and you’ve gotten through it, so you owe it to get that out because it’s going to help somebody. And really, that was my fuel and my push to say, you know what? It’s been collecting dust here in this folder. Let me get this out and let me start writing. And I just started breaking it down in chunks. So one month I’d work on, you know, one particular folder that I had of that information. Another month. I’ll work on that. Now, I took a series of years because, you know, you start things and you have to kind of like, stop. But it was just the underlying push that you have to get this out. You went through this not just for you, but for some other people. So you owe it to them to get it out.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that it’s your gift, right? It’s your gift. I love that you’ve been able to put this in print. So if there’s one, one thing that you could share without spilling the beans about the book, what would you want people to know about? It’s me, not you.

Porscha Jackson: I want them to know that toxic environments one can and that’s the key is not just workplace. It’s Is environments, right? And that sometimes we it’s so easy for us to put the blame on other people, even if we’re not toxic. It’s easy for us to say they’re crazy or they did this to me. But what I really want people to take away from the book is look at yourself and what can you do differently so that you don’t become a part of what they did. Right. So I’m not into the blame game, but how do I take accountability for myself and create an environment for myself that I can deal with, and then they’ll just have to deal with themselves? But how can I take accountability to make my environment better for me? Until I’m able to make it to to the next, to the next step?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that. And a lot of it is really self-reflection. How am I participating in what’s going on here? Am I a standard? Why am I just watching what’s going on? Am I also participating in this toxic environment in a bad way, or is it something that is there something different that I could be doing in this environment? And yeah, you’re right, there’s so many. It’s not just work. A lot of us tend to talk about that when we’re younger, and we’re still in our careers and we spend more time at work, I feel like, than we do at home. But those environments can propagate from each other where you’re taking that toxic toxicity from work, home, even creating space like that there. What, um, from all of your. So you’ve been writing this book for years, you’ve collected all of the data and you’ve been putting it together for years. Is there a favorite story that comes to mind, whether it’s in the book or not, but just something that you reflected on as a story that you’d like to tell?

Porscha Jackson: Yeah. Um, one of the Stories. That’s actually in the book. And I always laugh about it because and it’s my favorite, because I was so engrossed in the dream of this job that I wasn’t seeing the red flags. And, um, and to me, it’s just like, you didn’t wake up. You didn’t you didn’t see all these things. People were saying all that. And I’m like, nope, nope. But it hasn’t happened to me. It hasn’t happened to me. And I kept going on and didn’t ask questions. When I did see some things that were odd, I just kept moving because at that time it didn’t happen to me. But y’all, you know what happened, right? It ended up happening to me. And then, you know, I’m mad and had to write a book about it. But no, but, um, but that’s one of my favorite stories is because I had all the red flags there early on, but it was just I was so engrossed in the dream that I overlooked everything. And it just thinks about. I just think about other people. And sometimes they’re so engrossed in what the potential of something could be. When all everything is saying, this is not it, this is not it. Your gut is saying, this is not it. But you’re like, no, but it could be. You know, we try to force things. And so that’s why that’s my favorite story. And it’s about, um, uh, working in the a sports agency.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. All right. Yeah. And I could see that being a part of just who we are, like, this is my dream job. It’s going to be fine. I know we’re all going to get past this. And then it comes back around and it becomes part of your story then as well, because we I think we oftentimes will just ignore those signals because we want it to be okay. We want things to be great. Right? Yeah. So who should pick up this book for sure?

Porscha Jackson: Who should pick up this book. This should be everybody who has a story to tell. Who has been in toxic work environments, who are currently in those environments, or folks who just like a good story to really to relate to. As far as the things that happen on your job, in your social organizations and you’re wondering, this is weird, but does it happen to other people? Pick up the book. We all want to connect, and we all want to share these stories. And so everyone go out and pick it up. Whether you’ve been in a toxic work environment or not, I’m sure you know some of the characters. And that’s why I say them as as characters, uh, in the book of what I’ve experienced, because I think you can really identify with some of the folks that are the characters are in the book, and you may have run past them a couple times or two. And so it’s a good read. And, um, I just really hope everybody enjoys it and, and is able to relate to it and wants to. And it helps people to kind of detox and share your stories, because you want to get that and get that out of folks.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that and also share this with other people. So if you’re out there and you’re listening to this and you intend to go get the book, please share this episode and share it with other people who can benefit from getting this book as well. Now, if you’re catching this before September 30th, I want you to go preorder right now. The link is in the show notes, or you can just go look up Porscha Jackson on Amazon and find the book. It’s me, not you, and get your preorder in. If you’re catching this episode after the 30th, it’s okay. You can still go get the book. We want you to do the preorder so that we can get it to the top of the list. We want to help Porscha get there and we want to share this with other people. So again, if you feel like you know someone who could benefit from this book, please share this episode with them. Get the link over to them, tell them how to find it and get this book on your reading list. I’m so excited about getting this book, Porscha and I would be remiss if we didn’t spend just a teeny bit of time. I know you described Pursuing Legacy, which is your first book you wrote several years ago, but I’d love for you to give us a little information about that, because maybe it’s a twofer and they want to get both of your books.

Porscha Jackson: Absolutely. So pursuing legacy is really my my dissertation that I did. Um, and so I just brought it into life. And it’s really going the patterns that we have growing up determine who we become. And so what this book is describing and giving the stories of six different families who’ve either had family businesses or intergenerational careers. So why did they continue to go in the business? Why did they continue to go in the same career? And what it reveals are the family patterns and how our environment shapes our aspirations, especially our career aspirations and our social aspirations, but also not just for positive, but for negative too. And so what I really wanted to get out with this book is for folks to understand your environment shapes who you are. So as you move forward in your life to make sure that you’re doing things for the next generations that help to shape them for the better.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, and I can see how these two books play into each other so much, where you are driven by certain things as you mature in home life and work life, and sometimes that may turn into a position where you got your dream job, and so you’re ignoring all of the bad things that are going on over here because it’s not you, it’s not you, it’s not you. Right? But then it becomes you, right? Right. Yes. Oh my goodness. Well, I’m excited about both of these books. Again, it’s me, not you. You can find it on Amazon.com. Get your preorder version before September 30th. If you’re listening after, you can always still buy the book out there. I’m really excited. So, Porscha , what would you like to leave the listeners with today as we close?

Porscha Jackson: Everybody get the book. Um, and I just really want to make sure you fully understand that our life is really not our own. Right? Our life depends. What we do in our life goes to help other people and contribute to society into this world. And so all I’m really trying to do is make sure that you understand you’re not by yourself. There’s tools out there. There’s other people who share the same stories. And if we just come together and connect, we can help each other through this thing called life, and we can actually make this world better. And all it takes is one person. All it takes is that one mind change and change of behavior. So that’s what I want to leave with you, that you’re not alone and we can do this together. And we all want to strive just to be better people.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Thank you for sharing such words of wisdom with everyone. And I love having conversations with you. I know we are starting to connect or have been connecting on a regular basis, and I it always thrills me to have conversations with you and thank you for coming on the show again. I hope we can get you to the top of that list by doing all of these orders. It’s me, not you. Help us get Porsche to the top of the list on Amazon. That is so exciting. And if you’re interested, Pursuing a Legacy is the other book that you wrote a few years ago that she just described, and I’d love for you guys to share that story with her as well. Porsche, I know people can find you on social media. Is it okay with folks to connect with you there?

Porscha Jackson: Absolutely. I would love it. Connect with me. I’m definitely on LinkedIn. Um, I’m on Instagram. I’m trying to get better, but definitely on LinkedIn. And my handle is PJ, PhD. Uh, you can find me there.

Trisha Stetzel: Awesome. Doctor PJ. Thank you for being on the show with me today.

Porscha Jackson: Thanks for having me.

Trisha Stetzel: You’re very welcome. So I want to say this because I think it’s so much fun. Porsche with the is with the heart of the underdog. She’s not just a professional rock star, but a community champion fighting for inclusivity and brighter futures. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Porscha Jackson: Thank you for having me. Bye bye. Thanks.

Trisha Stetzel: And 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.

 

BRX Stories – Fintech South 2024

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Stories - Fintech South 2024
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BRX Stories – Fintech South 2024

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, this was just a couple of weeks ago, let’s tell them about our recent experience at Fintech South 2024.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Being invited to be the media at Fintech South is a testament to the work that we do and we’ve been doing for almost two decades now here in the Atlanta market. But Fintech South is a global event. Financial technology is an industry Atlanta is especially kind of prominent in. This is where a lot of the credit card transactions of the entire country happen through Atlanta, and a lot of the major players have offices here.

Lee Kantor: So, when we’re invited to Fintech South, and we’ve been invited since its inception, I think, seven years ago as a media partner for them, this is something that potential studio operators and studio partners can really leverage in their local market because this is how it works for us here in Atlanta. We get invited to interview some of the people important to them. They assign an event handler to us that goes and gets all the guests for us. Not only do they invite the guests, they are physically escorting the guest to where we are so we can interview them.

Lee Kantor: And in this case, we were in the green room. The event took place at the Woodruff Arts Center, and that’s where the symphony performs and things like that. So, we were set up in a green room where the guest conductors are typically housed. So, we had a private room, there was a piano, there was a bathroom. It was our private space. And their handler was inviting and escorting the guests to us.

Lee Kantor: So, the event took place from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30, and we interviewed 19 guests during that time. And the event handler escorted each one of them down to see us. And these guests were board members. They’re CEOs. They’re founders. They’re award winners. They’re finalists. They’re people that are difficult to reach, that a lot of people in marketing would love to have time with. And we got to spend alone time with each one of these people in our studio interviewing them.

Lee Kantor: And we were given a spreadsheet with all their contact information, with all their information, and then we were able to interview them, and then we were able to build a relationship with them. And of the 19 people, I think we have follow up calls for at least with ten of the people that we met, that they were interested in learning more about the service we offer, and we were demonstrating the service we offer by interviewing them, and they saw how it went.

Lee Kantor: And then, as a bonus, the people at the event brought us coffee. They brought us lunch. They had a professional photographer take a picture of us interviewing each and every one of the guests. So, they did a lot of the legwork for us, and we executed the interviewing. And then, we produced and distributed the content. And then, it’s being released and has been released through our website and through all the third party platforms.

Lee Kantor: And then, we’ve gotten so much positive feedback through LinkedIn, where we share a lot of our work, that’s our main social channel. And these people are just so appreciative. They’re sharing it with their network. And it’s just one of these things where, because we are the media and we are seen as a force for good in the local market that we serve, we get invited to these type of events in front of these type people, where we can demonstrate our mission and purpose which is telling the stories of business in the communities we serve.

Jason Burchard with RootNote

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Nashville Business Radio
Jason Burchard with RootNote
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JasonBurchardJason Burchard is a co-founder at RootNote where they’re using data to help digital creators build better businesses.

Prior to jumping into the complex world of creator data, he co-founded one of the first equity-based investment firms that invests directly into creators, worked at a seed stage social impact venture capital firm in London, and consulted as a senior consultant at a Texas-based consultancy.

Jason holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and MSc in Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Nashville Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming back to the Business RadioX microphone with RootNote, Mr. Jason Burchard. How are you, man?

Jason Burchard: Stone, it’s great to great to talk to you. I’m doing well. Thank you. And thanks for having me back again. I know it’s been a minute since we last caught up.

Stone Payton: We have really been looking forward to this conversation. I was on the phone with my business partner earlier today, and I said, I’m going to get to visit with Jason, so I can’t wait to give him the full report on it. Jason, I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think a great place to start would be if you could kind of paint a picture for me in our listeners, mission, purpose. What is it that you and your team over there at RootNote are, are really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Jason Burchard: Yeah, I think at the broadest scale possible, we’re we’re aiming to make really analytics accessible to everyone. Um, we like to say that we’re building the consumer layer of analytics, really with the meaning that the world is digital now. Anyone can go out and build a global brand around, you know, content and commerce, and they’re relying on a lot of a lot of different platforms and products to do that. And they’re creating a ton of data, and they need to be able to use this information. But what we found over the years and working with a lot of creators is that this information really wasn’t made, uh, readily accessible or useful to kind of the demographic that are building these brands. So we really want to just simplify the process of business analytics. And, um, really for, for kind of, you know, the hundreds of millions of individuals that are out there building their brands online. And so, you know, that’s kind of the broad vision. And what that boils down to right now is we’ve effectively we’re building kind of what we call the future of business analytics for the sports media and entertainment space right now. And we’re going to end up kind of expanding beyond that. But, you know, right now we’re working with colleges, professional teams, talent agency brands to basically consolidate all of the data that they’re generating across all of their kind of we call it like owned and operated media or owned and operated content. And then also all of the, the, the content across the talent that they work with, whether those are athletes, collegiate or pro, um, creators, YouTubers, podcasters, and really help them use that information to go out and, you know, build better businesses and then also sell, um, as you know, the world kind of runs on data today, and a lot of people need access to that information. And it’s not always easy to get. So we’re, uh, we’re we’re working to reduce friction wherever we can when it comes to helping digital content creators and creative teams data.

Stone Payton: Well, you’re certainly singing my song, man. You know, I’m a part owner of a fairly successful media company. I gotta believe there’s a ton of data that we’re not even realizing we have available to us. We certainly are not knowing how to capitalize on it. Uh, good work if you can get it. It sounds like a very noble pursuit. What is the backstory, man? How in the world did you find yourself doing this kind of work for for these folks?

Jason Burchard: Yeah. Well, I’d say, um, by complete accident. Uh, so the first company we launched was effectively a venture fund where we were making direct investments into digital content creators. So, you know, the goal was to invest in a MrBeast before he was MrBeast and, you know, launched, uh, MrBeast burger and Feastables and this kind of whole kind of line of different chains. And, um, we just we weren’t working specifically with MrBeast to put that out there, but I like to use him as an example of what you can do once you’ve kind of built your your audience. Right, and you can start kind of building your own brand and productize and creating a lot of different lines And really, you know, we live in a world, as I mentioned, where anybody can do that. And so our initial business was effectively funding these individuals that were building these global brands around content. And what we learned very quickly was that data was just this massive hurdle to overcome. You know, we were working alongside the creators and their agents and managers and publishers and labels and kind of all of these different parties and realize just how complex this world was. Everybody needed access to the information. Nobody had that kind of full picture. And we actually realized that we couldn’t actually scale a financial product or an investment model without getting out there and kind of solving that data problem first. So that’s when we started exploring, you know, the first thing that you do when you’re you’re trying to solve a problem is you see if there’s something out there that does it for you.

Jason Burchard: You know, building a platform is certainly not the easiest solution. If there was something else out there to do it for us, we probably would have just done that. But, um, we realized that there wasn’t. And we also saw concurrently that there’s massive generation and demographic of people who are, you know, building their brands around content. They were launching podcasts as well now and radio shows and really kind of using it as a way to reach new audiences. And, you know, we saw that all kind of emerge during the pandemic. And really it hasn’t slowed down. So super excited to be in the software space now, solving what we believe to be a real and a really big problem for a lot of people out there. And we’re I think we’re ultimately really excited is that while we started specifically focused on the content space, we see this whole kind of shift in the way that people are advertising, reaching audiences by, you know, creating their own content, whether you’re a startup or an SMB. So we we see a lot of opportunity. We think that, you know, the content creators are a great place to start. But ultimately, um, you know, we want to be serving anybody, whether you’re an individual or a company that’s building a brand around your content.

Stone Payton: So what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the work these days for you?

Jason Burchard: I mean, so we, uh, we launched a series called I’m going to plug it, and then I’m going to plug it at the end to call hashtag trending by RootNote, where basically we just take a deep dive and look at the data across different creators and influencers. And it’s really fun for me to be able to use our product to do an analysis and learn something I didn’t know. Um, because I know that if I can do that, then our customers to and it’s just really fun. Um, we have a pretty wide demographic of, of early customers. So I’m learning a lot about different spaces field. You know, with college you’ve got nil going on, which is name, image and likeness. And, you know, helping athletes monetize now that they can do that. And on the pro side, you have this whole contingency of athletes that are becoming content creators. That’s really exciting to see. And then on the agency side, I think you’ve seen a lot of really innovative, um, you know, companies emerge and they’re looking for more data. And it’s because the brands are asking for it. And we’re seeing this trend where, um, you know, brands, they used to want to go out and partner with, you know, LeBron. And they still do. But they also want to partner with, you know, micro and nano influencers. And they’re kind of changing their strategy to work with a lot of different creators. It’s really interesting because it gives us an opportunity to help. And, you know, they’re creating new new revenue opportunities for these creators. And, um, so long answer to your question, but it’s just exciting to be building in a space that’s quickly evolving and changing. Um, and to be just to be a very, very, very small part of it right now.

Stone Payton: Well, let’s dive into the work a little bit. Maybe walk us through a use case. You don’t have to share, you know, specific names or anything if you don’t want to. But maybe I’m particularly interested actually in the early stages, but just kind of walk us through. I guess that’s the right term, a use case.

Jason Burchard: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, just got off the phone earlier today. Excuse me? A zoom call with a team. As a talent agency, they represent everyone from professional athletes to college athletes to now, even, um, some athletes that are still in high school. And, you know, the challenges that they have, these really large kind of rosters of of athletes who are, who are creating content and basically going out to land brand deals or marketing deals. And it’s really, really hard for these teams to keep track of all that data. Right. You’ve got, you know, dozens to hundreds of clients. They’re building their brands. They’re on multiple platforms across TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and email lists and Shopify stores. There are these really complex brands, and they’re managing a lot of them, and they need to have data at their fingertips. Right? So whenever you’re getting ready to go out and pitch, uh Business RadioX. To sponsor, you know, maybe your athlete or to jump in and sponsor like a content series or, you know, you’re getting your Business RadioX is ready to go out and you all are getting ready to pitch your next sponsor. You’ve got to have that data to back up kind of the narrative.

Jason Burchard: And, um, what we’re finding is that, you know, these these teams are still operating in a very manual, kind of one dimensional world of, you know, spreadsheets and then taking that and creating a deck. And then once that that data is out of date and it’s almost a I’d like to say it’s irrelevant by the time you’ve made it right, you’ve got more listeners, your audience is grown. So anyways, um, we help them roll all of that, uh, information across, you know, all of their different individual athletes into a unified place of truth. And then we’ve effectively built a sales enablement that makes it really easy. For example, Business RadioX, if you want to roll up your data and you want to go talk to your next partner or city when you launch into another city or, um, you know, to tell that story with data and to tell it in a way that was built for creators and creative teams opposed to data analysts. Because the reality is that everybody needs data now, which means everybody needs to be able to use data. And we found that’s kind of our sweet spot in helping teams at this point in time.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole speaking of sales, how does the sales and marketing thing work for a firm like yours? Is the work coming to you, or do you have to get out there and shake the trees a little bit? You know, just like we do in a lot of our listeners do.

Jason Burchard: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it’s for for us and I think pretty much for everyone right now, it’s finding the right balance between inbound and outbound. And, you know, we certainly have some some great partners coming in through referrals. But there’s also that that outbound effort of just hitting the pavement and, you know, sending those cold emails and telling people about what you’re doing. I think, you know, one of the challenges that everybody’s facing right now is just it’s getting harder and harder to reach the inboxes of people. And I don’t know about you, but I am completely inundated with, you know, AI generated emails from everybody. And it’s, you know, it’s hard it’s hard to reach your audience. And so I think, um, you have to be super, super, uh, focused and also just compelling in what your value proposition is and even just to get that attention. So, um, to answer your question, we’re doing a combination of inbound and outbound. And you know what we love doing. And it’s obviously what you all are doing is we create a lot of content ourselves. Um, we create content that informs, you know, our target audience whenever they’re ready to buy about different issues. So we actually have what we call a content library strategy, um, where we kind of, you know, generate the traffic to our website by creating a lot of content. And then our goal is to eventually turn, you know, some of those, um, readers when they’re ready over time into customers and advocates of what we’re building.

Stone Payton: So as you were making the transition to this world and deciding to take the deep dive in this direction. Did you have the benefit of one or more mentors to kind of help you navigate the way? Or is everything so far been built on your own, your own scar tissue and.

Jason Burchard: Yeah. Well, I’d say there’s definitely even even with some just brilliant mentors, there’s always going to be, I think, a lot of scar tissue. Um, whenever you’re building a company, because, as you know, I think no company is built the same. And it’s really hard to repeat anything. Um, so everything is, is a little bit different. But yeah, we’ve relied so much on, on just mentors and advisors to help us get through, you know, challenging and difficult times. And, um, you know, I think in friends as well, you know, I think one of the biggest challenges that I have is I’m a non-technical founder, you know, meaning that I don’t I don’t code, I don’t build the product. So, um, whenever we were initially finding our first, um, co-founders on the technical front, you know, the best resource that I had was my, you know, other founder friends who were technical, who were CTOs and CEOs who could say like, yeah, you really need to talk to this person. They would be a great co-founder and a great engineer and a great builder. And so, um, yeah, I mean, there’s I can say with 100% certainty that without friends, mentors and advisors, we certainly would not be where we are today. And, um, let alone even have, I think, a product off the ground at this point.

Stone Payton: I know in our arena, being the, uh, business talk media, that there are a lot of myths may be a strong word, but misconceptions, preconceived notions, some things that are a little off the mark. The the frame of reference people have for this platform and the methodology that can be applied. Uh, you know, sometimes it’s a little off the mark. So for us, we have to do a lot of education. Are there some common patterns or myths in your world where education or some other strategy is important early in those conversations.

Jason Burchard: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think whenever you’re building a product that kind of, um, like looks at data in a new or novel way, um, there’s always going to be some, some education. Um, I think one of the, the myths that I hear a lot is a myth that you have to have, you know, a massive audience to be interesting or compelling to a brand or a partner. Um, I think what’s more important now than than ever before is that you can communicate that maybe you have a niche, right? Like maybe you only have 10,000 followers, but they’re incredibly engaged and passionate. And so I think those are some of the myths that we can kind of help dispel and really help highlight the, um, kind of the uniqueness of every individual creator, uh, is, you know, it’s like like we tell people, you don’t have to have a million followers to be interesting to a brand or a partner or similar. With a radio show, it’s more about you know, who those audience, who that audience is and, you know, really like what the, um, you know, finding the right partners, obviously, to reach out and connect them with your audience.

Jason Burchard: So, um, yeah. And then I mean, obviously, like, you know, as far as, like other kind of things that we have to deal with on, like the education front, like our space, as you know, is just it’s constantly changing. It’s like, um, you know, Twitter rebranded to X, and now Instagram has launched threads to compete with them. And then snap is starting to make a comeback. So there’s just a lot of questions in general about, you know, where do I have to be? What’s the platform. You know. And, you know, we’re having this conversation today and, you know, September 18th, 2024. And then the question is like, okay, well, what’s what’s the landscape going to look like in two years? Is TikTok going to even exist in the US? Um, you know, I’m not making a comment on that either way. I’m just saying there are a lot of questions because this landscape is just changing so quickly. Um, and will continue to change.

Stone Payton: What a great segue to my next question. What’s next for you guys? What are you seeing on the near and mid-term horizon?

Jason Burchard: Yeah. So for us, our priority is we’re moving from kind of our private beta phase to our public beta phase. So we’re actively out there and onboarding new customers and building our use case, and really just building product and working to make the product as good as we can. And you know, the best way to build a great product is to get great feedback. And the best way to get great feedback is to get a lot of people kind of telling you what they need. And so that’s what we’re focused on right now. And it’s been really exciting to just kind of grow. And you know, for us, you know, I keep running into to other startups kind of in like the consumer product goods space that are using influencers to get their first, you know, X dollars in sales. And so it’s just it’s really exciting to see this space continue to evolve. And as I mentioned, like to be a small part of it. So, um, yeah. And like I said, for for us, what’s next is continuing to build our, our, uh, you know, our customer base and go to market.

Stone Payton: So it sounds like you’ve got more than plenty on your plate. So I don’t know when or where or how you would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway. Interests, passions. Pursuits. Hobbies outside the the scope of your work. Anything you have a tendency to nerd out about that’s not about this to kind of step away.

Jason Burchard: Yeah. No, it’s a great question. I’d say, um, unfortunately, I’m probably one of the, the, the more boring of, of our team members. But honestly, for, for me, you know, I like we love just getting out in nature and kind of recharging that way. Um, as I’m sure you do and can imagine, I spend most of my day, um, you know, on zoom calls or on the laptop. So, uh, for, for me, kind of, uh, the hobbies right now, I’d say are kind of getting out there and finding new, uh, new hiking trails to explore, um, with, uh, with my wife, but, um, yeah. And outside of that, you know, love traveling. Um, we try and get up and see a new place whenever we can. And the beautiful thing about having a kind of remote first company is that we do that. So.

Stone Payton: Oh, I like that phrase remote first company. Very nice. Well, I’m a little longer in the tooth than you, so I’m at a little different phase in, in my life. So I probably have a little bit more of that kind of time than, than you do. But I, I will say throughout my career, my observation was that I felt like if I gave myself I, you know, I called it white Space. Um, it stepped away periodically. One thing, a lot of times the company just did better if I’d get out of the way for a little while. But but also doing that, it really did allow me to recharge. And I feel like equipped me to serve the people I was trying to, to serve that much better. When I came back with those with those fresh batteries. I think it is important for a lot of entrepreneurs, isn’t it?

Jason Burchard: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s critical and I think everybody has their thing that kind of helps them recharge their battery. But the reality is that there are no there are no quick wins in this space. Um, you know, everything takes a while and you know what you may perceive as being a quick win that you read in the headline. There was a lot of work that went behind it. So. And it’s the same for creators, too, right? Yeah. Um, it’s you have to create a lot of content before that first post goes viral, and you really start building that audience to take off. So, uh, it’s it’s a long game. So, um, you know, you have to treat it like such. And you have I mean, it’s a lot of hard work. It doesn’t mean you can just, uh, do it for a while and hope that it’ll work. It requires the work as well. But I would certainly encourage everybody to make sure that they’re taking care of their, their mental health. Um, and they’re building a creator journey because it is a it’s a long road.

Stone Payton: Well, I really resonate with your your comments on that front. First of all, I think it’s marvelous counsel I was sharing with a young I’ll call him an aspiring entrepreneur. Just the other day and I just made it very clear to him. Yes, Business RadioX is a 20 year old overnight success story. Yeah. You know. Yeah.

Jason Burchard: Yeah.

Stone Payton: Uh, before we wrap, I’d love it if we could leave our listeners with a couple of of pro tips, whether some things to be looking about, reading, doing, not doing in, in this world that we’ve been describing or just in, in building and and scaling an organization. But let’s leave them with a little something that they can chew on and look, gang. You know, the number one pro tip, particularly if you’re at all interested and you very well should be around leveraging the data. You know, reach out to to Jason or someone on his team and start tapping into their work. But let’s give them a little something to chew on.

Jason Burchard: Okay. Um, yeah, it’s funny, and I wouldn’t say I’m a pro, but what I can definitely say is, if you’re building or creating, just keep your head down and focus on on what you’re doing. And don’t worry about the noise or the competitors. The reality is you’re going to see a lot of things that you you, you lose sleep over that really don’t matter or are inconsequential. All that matters is that you, you know, you build a great product. Talk to customers. You take their feedback and you put it back in the product and you just don’t stop. Um, that’s what I, you know, it’s like, don’t worry about the headlines or anything else that’s going on around you. Because if you do build a good product and you figure out the right distribution channels and the right partners to get it out to market. Um, you know, you’ll have something. So I’d say that’s kind of my my tip number one. Um, I’d say tip number two is, uh, don’t try and do it alone. Uh, you know, find find some great advisors or mentors if you’re trying to build a company as a solo founder. I can’t speak to that because I don’t have that experience. Everything I’ve done, I’ve always done with, with with partners. But, um, you know, it. It does take a village, and it certainly takes some co-founders, or at least some close advisors or mentors to help you get it off the ground. So I would say, um, build that network because times are going to get tough and it’s going to get hard. And the first thing that you’re going to want to do is ask somebody who has, you know, been there before you, because I guarantee you that while your situation may seem, uh unsurmountable or, uh, you know, like, maybe you may be facing it for the first time alone, um, the odds are that someone you know has probably gone through something similar, and they can probably help you out. So those would be my pro tips for anyone who’s kind of, at least in the phase of the journey that we’re in right now.

Stone Payton: Nicely said. Amen to both. All right. What’s the best way for people to learn more? Tap into your work. Let’s leave them with some coordinates.

Jason Burchard: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, so you can find us at a ww.co.co. We’ve got a free trial going right now. So if you’re interested in what we’re building or would like to see a demo and easily schedule one online, or if you want to reach out to me directly, you can reach me at Jason at runoko. Um, if you if you mention that you heard about us on the, uh, Business RadioX podcast, we can give you an extended trial. Um, so certainly, uh, feel free to reach out. Um, also, please connect with me on LinkedIn. You’ll find me there. I’m at, uh, Jason Burchard on LinkedIn. And then lastly, if you’re interested in some of the analyzes that we’re running on, some of your favorite local sports, media and entertainment personalities, um, you can follow us at Hashtag Trending by. Net or actually go subscribe on LinkedIn to our weekly newsletter. So that was a lot, but we’re pretty easy to get Ahold of, so please don’t hesitate to reach out if you think you’d be helpful.

Stone Payton: Well, Jason, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast this afternoon. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm. Congratulations on the momentum. Keep up the good work. What you’re doing is having such an impact on so many and we sure appreciate you, man.

Jason Burchard: Well, we appreciate you, Stone. Thanks for giving us a platform to share more about what we’re doing.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Jason Bouchard with RootNote and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you again on Nashville Business Radio.

 

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