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BRX Pro Tip: 4 Ways to Give Useful Feedback

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BRX Pro Tip: 4 Ways to Give Useful Feedback

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, feedback is an important part of any business, certainly in our arena. What are some things we ought to keep in mind and make a point of doing or not doing when it comes to giving feedback?

Lee Kantor: Now, when I went through Seth Godin’s altMBA program, we spent a lot of time on giving useful feedback, and we were required every day whenever we had an assignment that we had to give feedback, and we were taught how to give feedback that’s useful. And you couldn’t do things like great job, you know, or thumbs up. Like that wasn’t feedback, you know. And that’s where a lot of people, I think they err on the side of, you know, skimming over something and then just giving them a thumbs up and saying thanks and then moving on.

Lee Kantor: But to give feedback that’s useful to the person who’s asking, number one, is you have to be specific and clear. You have to focus on specific behaviors rather than generalization. This helps the recipient understand exactly what they did well or what needs improvement.

Lee Kantor: Number two is focusing on solutions. Encourage a solution-oriented mindset by discussing how to improve, rather than solely pointing out what the problem was. And ask questions like what can we do different next time, things like that, to just focus in on the solutions.

Lee Kantor: And number three is try to make it a two-way conversation. You know, encourage dialog by asking for the recipient’s perspective on the feedback. This promotes a collaboration and understanding and helps get a better outcome for the person asking for the feedback, which is what they’re trying to do.

Lee Kantor: And then think feedforward rather than feedback. Instead of focusing in on past behaviors, offer suggestions for future improvements. This shifts the conversation from what went wrong to how they can do better next time.

Lee Kantor: And by employing these kind of techniques, you can provide constructive feedback that’s clear, actionable, and supportive, and ultimately fostering a positive environment for growth and improvement.

Rise Up for You: Unleashing the Power of Soft Skills

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Rise Up for You: Unleashing the Power of Soft Skills
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In this episode of Women in Motion, Nada Lena Nasserdeen, founder of Rise Up For You, discusses the critical role of soft skills in leadership and organizational success. Nada shares her inspiring journey from a performer to an entrepreneur, driven by personal hardships and a passion for empowering others. She emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence, communication, and conflict resolution in the workplace. Nada also outlines strategies for building self-confidence and highlights the significance of community support.

Nada-Lena-NasserdeenNada Lena Nasserdeen is the founder and CEO of Rise Up For You, #1 Best Selling Author, Leadership and Career Confidence Coach, and 2x TEDx Motivational Speaker.

With over 10 years of experience as a college professor and former top executive for an education corporation, Nada understands the importance of fusing education, empowerment, and leadership together as she works with her clients and speaks to audiences worldwide. She has toured the world as a singer, has a Master’s degree in Executive Leadership, and has coached and mentored over 50,000 individuals around the world on self-empowerment, career strategy, and soft skills.

Nada has been featured on hundreds of podcasts and radio shows as well as a featured motivational and educational speaker on platforms such as TEDx Talks, The Female Quotient, The California Human Resources Conference, The World In Leadership Diversity Conference, Women of Influence, The Virtual Coach Expo, The Wonder Women Tech, The Human Gathering, and more.

She’s spoken on platforms alongside the greats such as Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Marie Forleo, David Meltzer, and more! She can be seen and heard on Canada’s Global TV, Radio Canada, Amazon Prime TV, and Bloomberg as one of the only female co-hosts of The Office Hours, a talk show that interviews celebrities, athletes, and world-renowned entrepreneurs. Most recently she was featured on a billboard in Times Square New York for her work. Rise-Up-logo

Her company, Rise Up For You has been featured worldwide and worked with brands such as CBS, Google Next 19, and various Fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses and currently has reach in over 50 countries with their programming. Rise Up For You is proudly Certified as a Women’s Owned Small Business and Certified by the Society of Human Resources Management.

Nada has been awarded 20 under 40 professionals, California Women of Influence for Entrepreneurship in 2021, the Keynote Speaker Award from the Lebanese Collegiate Network, and the OC Sheriffs Award for her philanthropic work with at-risk youth.

Articles by Nada Lena

Setting Health Boundaries: How to Politely Say No 🙂

The Confidence Challenge that’s Hindering Professionals

BeyondOrdinary: The Untamed Power of the Top 16 Soft Skills

Connect with Nada 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 wouldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Nada Lena Nasserdeen and she is with Rise Up for You. Welcome.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Hello. Thank you so much. Great job with the pronunciation of my name, by the way.

Lee Kantor: I practiced. That helps. So, before we get too far into things, tell us about Rise Up For You. How are you serving folks?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Yeah. Thank you, Lee. So, Rise Up For You is a global learning and development company. We work with organizations and leaders around the world to enhance leadership, company culture, and, really, the team performance through soft skills. So, we’re going into organizations, we’re working with leaders teaching emotional intelligence, leadership, how to manage communication, how to manage conflict. Really, all the human skills that oftentimes we don’t spend a lot of time cultivating, but they actually make up about 75 percent of a company and individual success.

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

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Oh. All right, Lee, you ready?

Lee Kantor: Ready.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Do you want the short or the long? Well, I’ll give you right in the middle. So, before I started the company, Rise Up For You, my first career, I was a performer. I used to tour internationally around the world and do musical theater and sing and dance, and I loved it. And I realized through that process that what I really like actually is just empowering people and developing both myself and people that are around me.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And so, after performing, I hung up the microphone and I went on to explore a career in executive and educational leadership. So, I became an executive of an education corporation when I was about 27, I had a couple hundred people under me. And in the evening, I was teaching at a community college, freshmen and sophomores that were coming into the college. And the biggest challenges, Lee, that I was seeing both on the professional level as an executive and at the college level as a professor were people skills. Those were the biggest challenges I was dealing with.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: So, as an executive, a lot of team members that had PhDs, master’s degrees, they were struggling with emotional intelligence, how to communicate, how to manage stress, self-confidence, managing and leading teams and working through conflict. And then, at the college level, a lot of the students were struggling with even just standing up and saying their name or raising their hand if they had a question. They would rather take an F than raise their hand and look stupid.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And so, I started to identify that there’s some big gaps that are happening across the board both in the workplace and at a college level, and those were the soft skills, the human skills that every single year I saw were getting worse and worse and worse. So, that’s really where this idea came into my mind about building these skills and helping empower students and professionals with them. But I never thought about building a company. It was just a thought.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And then, a couple years after being an executive, I decided to resign from the company because I got married and I moved out of the country. And four weeks after I got married, my ex-husband now said that he wanted a divorce on the first day of our honeymoon. So, I basically lost everything in a matter of weeks. I went from a six figure executive, brand new luxury cars, boat, house on the lake, you name it, to $100 in my account, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of heartbreak, stress, and really had no idea what was going on.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: I came back to California, got on a plane, and I just started crying and bawling. And I was crying so hard that I fell asleep. And in my dream, my father came to me. My father passed away when I was 27 years old. He passed away before I even became an executive, before I built the company. And he came to me in my dream and he said, “Nada, everything you need is already inside of you. You just have to rise up for you.” And sure enough, Lee, that’s what I did.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: I came back to California and within weeks I just started building the company, Rise Up For You. I really had no idea what it was going to be. I had no idea how to build a company. I didn’t know anything about business or entrepreneurship at the time, but I just started researching and I started building. And I was at the lowest I’ve ever been in my life, but I just started. I just started to take action. How do you build a company? What do people need?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: About three months later, my second parent, my mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer and she passed away nine months later. So, really, lots of challenges both personally and professionally that really catapulted the company, and I just doubled down. I doubled down, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but that’s how the company was created. And now, five years later, we’re in over 50 countries with our messaging and our programing, and we serve clients all over the world, and we have an amazing team.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you were going through all of that chaos and turmoil and it was at the beginning of founding the company, how were you able to kind of compartmentalize, I would guess, in some manner, all of the grief that you were feeling, and then also all the energy that starting a business or any enterprise takes? Can you share a little bit of advice for someone who is going through – I’m sure that amount of chaos seems unusual – the normal amount of chaos that a person is going through when they are going to take the big leap that you did at that time? Can you share any strategies or advice?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Yeah. I mean, I would say that the biggest thing that helped me, and I talk about it, you know, in my book and I talk about it quite often on stage, and even with professionals and companies that we work with, is, you have to have an unwavering self-confidence in yourself because times were very uncertain. Like I said, I only had $100. Both of my parents passed away. They were humble people, so there was no money or anything of that sort left to us, to my brothers and I. So, you have to have an unwavering belief in yourself that you can do it and that you can figure it out.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: So, even when I had no job, I didn’t have a degree in business, I had no money, I was heartbroken from losing both my parents, and going through this loss of love, I had an unwavering belief that I would be able to pick myself back up and that I would do it and I would figure out how to do it.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And I think that’s the biggest challenge, honestly, Lee, that we see today with women business owners, and even just women in general and men, is the lack of self-confidence is, really, I say, one of the greatest tragedies of human potential is a lack of self-confidence. Because my team and I, we ask every year thousands of professionals what their number one challenge is, and 83 percent say self-confidence. And that’s the one thing that I would say saved me.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: The second thing that saved me is my ability to coach myself in moments of uncertainty and in moments of trauma and sad moments that we all deal with, is that I had a conversation with myself and I said, “Okay. I have two options here. Either I’m going to take this pain that I’m going through and I’m going to feel sorry for myself, and I’m going to sit and cry and be miserable and make excuses why I can’t do something, or I’m going to take this pain and I’m going to use it as fuel for growth.”

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And I just ultimately made the decision that I didn’t want the pain of my parents loss and death to go to waste. And so, all the pain that I felt and all the suffering that I went through at the time, I made a commitment that I was going to use that pain for a greater good. And I would say that was a strong catapult to continue to keep going, to continue to grow the business, to continue to make an impact, because I wanted to leave a legacy behind that also involved my parents.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: If you ever see me on stage, Lee, or if anyone is listening to this podcast and they’ve seen me on stage, you will know that I always talk about my parents. My best selling book that I wrote, I have pictures of my parents. Everything that I do with the company, there is a trail of my parents in there. And I made that commitment when they passed away.

Lee Kantor: Now, early on you mentioned the importance of soft skills, and I know growing up that wasn’t an emphasis in traditional schooling or it’s not a class you take in soft skills, like that was all things you kind of had to figure out on your own, how do you help your clients and the leadership teams that you work with, first of all, just kind of have more of a respect for soft skills? Because a lot of the times those are the type of skills that aren’t easily measurable, and so a lot of times organizations tend not to value them because they can’t really count them or measure them.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: That’s a really great question. So, I have a couple of answers for you. You’re right in the sense that a lot of times you can’t measure the success of soft skills, and I debunked that early on in building the company. Because when I first started building this company and I would have conversations with CEOs and executives, that was one of the number one pushbacks I would get, “Well, how do we know it’s going to work? How do we know that emotional intelligence is actually going to make an impact with our ROI, and the bottom line, and the growth of our company?”

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And so, in particular at Rise Up For You, we have built multiple assessments and data benchmarks to ensure that we can actually show both the quantitative and qualitative results of building soft skills. And in fact, research does show that when you invest in emotional and social intelligence, the performance of a company can increase sometimes by eight times your investment. You know, research shows that when you invest in social and emotional intelligence, that it increases team performance four times – you know, four times over. So, there’s a lot of research to show that soft skills actually does make a huge impact when it comes to the bottom line and team performance, and, ultimately, the ROI that a CEO or an executive is looking for.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And so, we made sure really early on in the company that we had tools and assessments that are proprietary to Rise Up For You that we built to show that and to demonstrate that. And I’m proud to say today, Lee, that 95 percent of the companies that we work with are repeat clients. They come back and they sign multiple scopes of work, because we are able to show that on a quantitative level, 91 percent of our clients that we coach reach their goals and hit their benchmarks that we plan early on. So, we’re able to show that data, which is really, really, again, very critical.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: The way that we serve companies is everything from one-to-one coaching for team members, team training that is prolonged, you know, it can last for one year, two years, three years, so longer leadership succession planning, for example. We can also do smaller scopes of work such as leadership retreats, corporate keynotes. So that we’re able to support in the way that we need to, because we understand that every industry is different and every industry has a different cadence of how they can utilize these resources.

Lee Kantor: Now, earlier you mentioned self-confidence and confidence being an issue, is there any advice you can give to maybe a young person that’s listening to how to improve that area if they are lacking in confidence? Is there some low hanging fruit you can share that can help a person feel confident, at least, until they truly are confident?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Yeah. I’ll give you three steps. I’ll give you 3Cs. And by the way, Lee, I just want to preface by saying that this isn’t only for younger individuals. My team and I, we ask, again, thousands of people every year what their number one challenge is, 83 percent say self-confidence. We also have a confidence assessment that thousands of our clients take every single year. The average score for confidence is at 69 percent, which isn’t great by the way. That’s a D in our school system, which I know you’re familiar with, Lee.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: But the 69 percent is the average score, 57 percent of the participants that take that assessment are C-suite executives. And I say that to, again, allude to the fact that this isn’t a younger professional problem, this isn’t an entry level problem. This is across the board we are seeing, whether you’re a C-suite executive or entry level challenges when it comes to self-confidence.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Now, self-confidence, for example, is perfectionist mindset, not feeling enough, not able to set healthy boundaries, struggling with imposter syndrome, lacking a growth mindset, taking risk in your career, being afraid to speak up, being hesitant to take action because you’re afraid you’re going to get reprimanded. All of those things are part of the self-confidence model and blueprint.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: So, let me give you three things right now if you’re listening that you can do to take action that will help you. The first one is the hardest, and it’s the one that I would recommend that you do over and over and over and over again because it’s a great tool that you can use for your entire life, and it’s called Crush Limiting Beliefs. So, all of us have self-doubt. We all do, including myself. And we all have limiting beliefs that hinder our success.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: So, for example, have you ever been in a meeting and maybe you want to raise your hand and say something, but then at the last minute, something in your mind is like they might think that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and so then you pull back and you don’t say it. Or maybe, you know, as an entrepreneur and a business owner, because I know that’s the audience obviously here, you have a new client and there’s a certain price point that you established for your product, but you’re afraid that your client is going to say no because maybe it’s too high. And so then, you sabotage your pricing and your product just so that you can make the sale. And then, it ends up hindering your success and ability to move forward.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: So, there’s a lot of beliefs that we have. So, the first step is I want you to identify what the limiting belief is. We have a lot. Just find one. What’s one limiting belief that you have that’s getting in the way of your success?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: The second step to that is that I want you to try to break down the back story. Where does that belief come from? Where is that belief rooted from? Do you have that limiting belief from childhood? Is it something that came about when you were in a relationship? Did you come from a workplace or have a leader that put you down a lot, and so now you have this limiting belief that you’re not enough and you’re never going to be able to produce anything of quality or quantity? So, I want you to understand the back story of it.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: The third part of this step is what’s the behavior that it’s causing in you? Because I can tell you right now someone’s belief system based off of how they behave, because your beliefs drive behaviors. So, understanding your limiting belief, understanding the back story of the belief, and being able to pinpoint what’s the behavior that it causes in you. Does it cause you not to have cold calling because you’re afraid? Is there a belief? Does it cause you not to stand up and make the sale? Does it cause you to procrastinate? Does it cause you not to speak your mind or communicate effectively, even though there’s something you want to say? So, again, we all have behaviors and we need to identify how this belief is impacting the behavior.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And then, the last step to this process, so the first one, is now understanding how to break it. Now, this is different for everybody. It’s not cookie cutter. So, some of us are able to break it once we do the exercise. Once we identify where it comes from, that can be a very empowering tool, and then we’re able to say, “You know what? I’m tired of this limiting belief that came from Johnny when I was ten years old hindering my success,” and you’re able to move past it. For some of us, it’s deeper rooted. It might need a little bit more therapy, for example, so this is where we need to understand ourselves and how we can break it.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: That’s the first step, it’s called Crush Limiting Beliefs. Identify the belief, identify the backstory, identify the behavior, and then identify how to break it.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Step number two that I would tell your audience is you need to Clarify What You Want In Life. Because when you’re not clear on what you want, it’s actually a huge confidence crusher, because a lack of clarity means that you’re constantly chasing and doing things that might not be in alignment with you.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: You know, Gallup has a study that says that 76 percent of the workforce are disengaged. And there’s also another study that says 70 percent of it is because of poor leadership. But I challenge that. The reason why I challenge that is because there’s a good amount of professionals, and we see this every day when we work with companies, that don’t know what they want, and so they end up putting themselves in a job or in a workforce or in a workplace that’s not in alignment with who they really are, and that creates disengagement, that creates a lack of fulfillment, and ultimately that impacts how you feel about yourself.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: So, it’s really important to Clarify What You Want as a person. And I always say the first thing to do is ask yourself, what are your top three values in life? Top three values. Integrity, kindness, ownership, those are my values. And what are the top three things that are the most important to you? For me, it’s God, myself, and my family.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Now, I want you to ask yourself if you have your values and you have the top three things that are most important to you, are you living those values and things of importance every single day with integrity? Are you putting energy towards them? Are you honoring them? And if you’re not, every day you’re slowly crushing your confidence and you’re crushing the inner fulfillment and the light that you have inside, the spirit that you have slowly gets crushed.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And the last step that I’m going to provide – so just to recap, we had Crush Limiting Beliefs, Clarify What You Want, the last step that I’m going to give you is Create A Council Around You. You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you have people that you’re surrounding yourself with that are cutting you up, that are putting you down, that are not making you feel positive, that don’t believe in who you are, that are constantly gossiping, that have toxic energy, you will become that. That is what you will create and that is what you will manifest. You need to be able to surround yourself around people that are better than you.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: I have, like, just a generic value that I will not spend a lot of time with people that I don’t admire. Most of the people that are in my circle, I look at them with admiration. I’m like, “Wow. You are amazing. I respect you. I look up to you.” And I think that’s really important if you want to get to the next step and you want to build confidence, you need to surround yourself with people that are doing great things that make positive impact and that believe in who you are.

Lee Kantor: And speaking of a community like that, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Well, I’ll tell you that ever since I started the business, we’ve always had a lot of women in leadership initiatives. A lot of what we do, a lot of what we have done, has been in order to support women. Every year, we do a huge Women in Leadership Conference. It’s completely free. We usually have 3 to 5,000 people that sign up from around the world, and it’s totally free just to help women elevate themselves.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: You know, obviously I’m a woman, I’m also a minority female that was born in this country, and so I’ve been able to see some of the challenges that women unfortunately struggle with that are different than our male counterparts. And sometimes there’s challenges that women deal with that we have to break through that have to do with how we’re showing up in our mind. And so, it’s always been really important for us to provide value and to be a part of that landscape. And so, that’s part of the reason why we decided to to join WBENC, and we love it, and we’re now going on a little over three years.

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: And so, we want to be able to support as much as we can. We want to be able to add value. And we believe in what we’re doing and the impact of what we’re doing. And we believe that every organization, whether it’s small or a large enterprise, needs these soft skills that are going to help build team performance and, of course, individual success.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, is there a website?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Yeah, absolutely. You can go to riseupforyou.com. And we have a link there that says Informative Call, simply click on the Informative Call and then somebody from our team, maybe it’ll be me, maybe it won’t be, will hop on a call with you and share more about how we can support you and your team. But we also have a lot of free stuff on there, too, Lee. So, we have a ton of articles that I wrote and my team have written about soft skills and company culture. We have a confidence quiz. We have emotional intelligence quiz. We have free masterclasses on emotional intelligence and confidence in leadership. We have a podcast as well. So, a lot of free resources that you can gain from the website as well.

Lee Kantor: And then, your book, can they get that there?

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: They can, yeah. You can order Rise Up For You, you can go to our website, riseupforyou.com. Or you can simply go to Amazon. It’s on Amazon as well and you can order it from there.

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

Nada Lena Nasserdeen: Thank you, Lee, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me today.

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

 

BRX Pro Tip: 5 Hard Lessons About B2B Podcasting

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BRX Pro Tip: 5 Hard Lessons About B2B Podcasting

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, those of us in the B2B podcasting arena, sometimes we learn things the hard way. What are some tough lessons that folks in this arena have learned over the years?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think podcasting was one of these things that came about – obviously, we’ve been doing it for 20 years or so, but for people who are new to it, it seems easy. So they think like, “Oh, I’m going to just do this because everybody’s doing this. It’s not that difficult to pull off.” But I think some of the mistakes they’re making and some of the lessons they’re learning the hard way are number one is they’re copying B2C formats when they have or they desire to have a B2B podcast. So they’re modeling how to do a podcast by how a B2C podcaster is doing podcasts, and they’re totally different things. And a B2C podcaster has different needs and has different business objectives. So if you’re just copying somebody who’s got a B2C podcast, you are going to fail and you’re going to fail hard. And it’s not going to be good for you and it’s not going to help you grow your business.

Lee Kantor: Number two is I think podcasters, new podcasters especially, underestimate the effort required. It’s easy, obviously, to start a podcast, but creating a high quality B2B podcast requires a lot of planning, strategy, and consistent effort in order to reach the goals that you’re trying to reach.

Lee Kantor: Number three is they focus – a B2B podcaster initially typically focuses in on downloads as the measure of success.

Lee Kantor: And if you’re measuring success purely by listeners rather than business impact, you’re not going to be happy and you’re not going to – you’re going to quit, most likely.

Lee Kantor: Number four, you don’t leverage your podcasting content across other marketing channels. If you’re not leveraging that content in a variety of ways like blog posts, social media, things like that, you’re just missing valuable opportunities to grow the podcast and to grow your company and your business objectives. Because you can use this content a lot on a variety of channels, but you can use it throughout the year. It’s not like you do it once and then a week later it’s not good anymore.

Lee Kantor: And I think the number five, and probably the most important mistake that B2B podcasters make, and one of the lessons, the hardest lesson to learn is they’re not asking for help. They’re trying to do this alone. And I think that’s a big mistake. It’s so much easier and faster to hire an expert like a Business RadioX Studio operator to help because we’ve fixed enough broken B2B podcasts to help anybody strategize and execute their B2B podcast. Our proven methods can ultimately make the difference between failure and success.

Lee Kantor: So if you have a B2B podcast, you’re considering doing one, or you have one that you’re not happy with, contact us today at businessradiox.com.

Bridging Academia and Industry: The Georgia Fintech Academy’s Role in Career Development

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Bridging Academia and Industry: The Georgia Fintech Academy's Role in Career Development
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In this episode of High Velocity Careers, Stone Payton talks with Laura Gibson-Lamothe, Executive Director of the Georgia Fintech Academy. Laura shares her unique career journey from fine arts to fintech, highlighting the importance of creative skills in the tech and banking sectors. The discussion delves into the Academy’s mission to bridge academia and industry, offering fintech education, networking, and real-world experiences. Laura emphasizes the significance of networking, experiential learning, and continuous growth in fintech careers. The episode provides valuable insights for students and professionals aiming to thrive in the dynamic fintech industry.

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Laura-Gibson-LamotheLaura Gibson-Lamothe is the Executive Director of the Georgia Fintech Academy, headquartered at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business. In this role, Laura leads the academy’s mission to bridge the gap between academia and industry, equipping students across 26 institutions within the University System of Georgia with the skills and knowledge necessary for successful careers in the rapidly evolving fintech sector.

With a strong background in education and fintech leadership, Laura has been instrumental in expanding access to fintech education, fostering collaboration with industry leaders, and developing programs that enhance student employability in a competitive job market. Her work is centered on preparing the next generation of fintech talent through innovative educational initiatives, hands-on training, and strategic partnerships with leading financial institutions.

Laura’s leadership has earned her several accolades, including being named a finalist for the Women in Technology’s (WIT) 2024 Woman of the Year award and the Black Tech Awards’ 2023 Person of the Year. She was also selected for the Money20/20 Rise Up cohort in 2021, which highlights women leading and innovating in the fintech industry.

Laura is also a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the technology sector. She serves on the boards of PayTech Women and LaAmistad, where she contributes to advancing women in payments and empowering Latino students and families. An engaging speaker and mentor, Laura is passionate about helping students navigate their career journeys and creating opportunities for professional growth within the fintech ecosystem.

Connect with Laura on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Careers. Brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. For more information, go to Kennesaw Edu’s MBA. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of High Velocity Careers. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. This is going to be a good one. Please join me in welcoming to the Broadcast Executive director with Georgia Fintech Academy, Laura Gibson-Lamothe. How are you?

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: I am so good. Thank you for asking. I’m excited about our conversation today with High Velocity Careers. This is an exciting topic and I’m always evangelizing on behalf of careers in fintech, so this should be a good one.

Stone Payton: We are clearly right in your wheelhouse. It may be a good place to start. Can you share with our listening audience a little bit about about your career path?

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yes, my career path is an interesting one. Academically. I, uh, undergrad focused on, um, a fine arts. I had a passion for the creative side of things and, um, being, uh, interested in, uh, fine arts and approaching potentially graphic design as my career focus was something that came to a head post-graduation when I realized I couldn’t make as much money as I had hoped with that degree. Um, I did not want to be a starving artist, I must say. I took a paid internship at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which sounds very official, in Washington, D.C., where I did a server migration, a system server migration, um, initiative. And I led, uh, over 300, um, hardware installations, uh, for a very intense, uh, government funded initiative. And that was my gateway into tech, which led me into banking. Um, I no regrets looking back and reflecting on my, uh, life decisions to kind of pivot, uh, early in my career. But I like to say that fine arts degree gave me all of the, uh, cutting edge on being creative in the design and how I articulate messages, whether it be internal presentations or external customer facing, uh, engagement. So I’ve definitely put that fine arts degree to good use.

Stone Payton: You certainly did. And now you’re the grand Poobah of Georgia Fintech Academy. How would you describe mission? Purpose? What are you and your organization really trying to do for folks?

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yeah, we are bridging the gap between academia and industry by providing a full variety of services for our students. We engage with the 26 institutions underneath the University System of Georgia, which are all the public colleges and universities. We provide curriculum as a service, I like to call it. So we enable the offering of fintech degrees, and then we offer a whole suite of other services programing, which is really specifically targeted towards providing students visibility into the the, you know, multiple career pathways in the industry, providing them access to a network, giving them exposure into those, you know, very tough timelines for application to internship windows and and even long term, um, full time position opportunities. Our focus is to help students get staffed, um, provide them the education, create exposure into the opportunities in the industry, and then to help facilitate that connectivity into those those opportunities for employment. Um, and so it’s been a tremendous journey to over the past five years. See the evolution of that program. We’ve engaged over 8000 students. We’ve placed almost 3000 that we can track because tracking is quite laborious. Um, and unfortunately, data is hard to come by. But we’ve been able to to start sharing some of these success stories of students who have come in, uh, maybe outside of a Stem or Steam related discipline. Um, some who have, you know, from the beginning, uh, really targeted some more tech roles. Um, you know, tech focused roles with the fintech vertical or fintech lens, but seeing them progress to the point where they’re now on the the industry side, um, really paying it forward and kind of helping, you know, the future generations, um, navigate their, you know, career entrance into the industry is is a rewarding opportunity to see that that evolution.

Stone Payton: Well, I don’t pretend to know what they are, but I have to believe there must be an incredible variety of career opportunities available in fintech, probably a bunch of roles and responsibilities that not even on my radar. Yeah.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yes, I love to start those conversations with defining what is fintech. I think a lot of people, um, have different views on what fintech, aka financial technology stands for. And for us, for our perspective, it’s it’s literally anyone that operates within that broader ecosystem. So a fintech, financial technology thinking, payments and how people interact as human beings with payments, with finances. Um, it’s an enabling mechanism, uh, bringing cutting edge solutions so that people can transact on the go. Um, most students I talk to, they’re very familiar with Venmo and Cash App. But thinking about banking, thinking about all of the retail, you know, scenarios where people are using their mobile wallets or their Apple Watch to pay and Apple Pay to Google Pay and all of these different wallet. Um, you know, uh, formations. Students can really, uh, relate to the leveraging that technology. And on the back end, there’s so many different services that support that from, you know, cybersecurity and info security to data science and machine learning. Um, you know, from a fraud perspective or just being able to provide tailored customer experiences and different types of scenarios and use cases. The opportunities are quite broad and so I always tell students, you know, especially for me being a fine arts major, as we started off with this call and I’ve, I’ve, you know, gained I continued my education. I explored, you know, technical certifications.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: I have kind of a mixed bag of variety of education along the way. Um, along with my professional experiences. But I can say the industry opportunities are broad. It could be anything from, you know, project management, which many people are familiar with. It’s across multiple different industries to product management, people that are influencing the new products, the new features that that customers, consumers are interacting with to, you know, folks who are fingers to keys, developing, um, developers, engineers. Um, and then even cybersecurity analysts and folks that are really at the helm of protecting data, protecting the environment that contains, um, all of the information and the technology that’s keeping these, these technologies running, um, to even, um, we’re now exploring, you know, some, some newer trends. Um, AI has been a huge focus on from an industry perspective and then also academically. And people keep talking about generative AI specifically and, you know, prompt engineering. How can you leverage these technologies to advance the way that we operate and maybe even gain some efficiencies? And so there’s there’s roles abound. And I think I might have highlighted already eight of them. Um, but those are kind of the traditional ones that we, you know, tend to see a lot of students come in from an early talent perspective. Um, and things just expand beyond there. Um, beyond that point.

Stone Payton: Well, your enthusiasm is contagious and it just comes out over the airwaves in fabulous form. And you did hint at this a little bit earlier in the conversation. But what are you finding at this point in your career in this field? What are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it these days for you?

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: I think for me, it’s looking at ways to provide the students that we serve a cutting edge, a competitive, competitive edge in the industry. So I think for me, moving the needle means getting students the opportunity for, yes, a, you know, exposure and a network, which is extremely important. I constantly am enforcing, reinforcing to students to take advantage of these opportunities to connect with the the volunteers, the guest leader, speakers that we have that are dedicating their time, um, you know, to the academy in itself, but then also being able to to kind of rationalize ways where we can really provide students opportunities to really demonstrate what they’ve learned or learn in unique ways. One example of this is we really focus on experiential learning as part of what we do at the academy, outside of the traditional coursework that a student might have, taking a specific class and learning through that class. Certain competencies. There’s a real special. I feel like the secret sauce is being able to bring industry into that academic setting. Um, you know, most likely through a capstone project or a project type of initiative or a mini hackathon, I call it. Um, but during that, that duration of that course, giving students a problem statement, a challenge, letting them, you know, demonstrate what they’ve learned in front of industry, to then have conversations that lead to potentially hiring opportunities and staffing opportunities.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: That’s that’s one of those things that I feel like is a huge asset that the Fintech Academy has to offer and provide across the university system, and we look to broker those industry relationships with our academic partners to help facilitate that. Um, the other thing is we do and we’re starting to do more of them university wide, uh, events and In hackathons. We did recently a run it by the buyers, which is kind of like a junior Shark tank, where we gave out, um, just over $6,000 in scholarship monies. So students were able to pitch their idea, their innovative payments slash fintech solution to industry. Um, and I’m using air quotes you can’t see on the podcast, but air quotes for, um, buyers, uh, folks who would potentially be interested in investing, um, you know, from a venture capital perspective in those solutions. So almost a mock style pitch day, uh, and these students pitched, they were, you know, selected down, selected to a finalist group. And we had students from UGA to Kennesaw and Georgia State all participate in this competition. And we’re looking to do more of those in 2025. That’s a really meaningful opportunity. But again, it gets students in the front, uh, you know, kind of exhibition style demonstrating what they they’ve learned, demonstrating their skills and then building those relationships real time to to get those job opportunities.

Stone Payton: Well, I got to say, listening to you, this conversation is bringing into abundant focus for me. Uh, it’s challenging a preconceived notion, I guess, or a bit of a bias that I had, I guess. I guess me and maybe other laypeople when it comes to fintech, think of it as a very transactional ecosystem. But boy, this work and to be successful in the field is so grounded in relationship, isn’t it?

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: It really is. I mean, I wish I knew what I know now back in the day, I tell you, coming out, I remember my first time, um, in the banking world. Everyone told me, you know, I was in my early 20s. Like, everyone knows everyone. It’s such a small, tight knit group. And I’m like, how could it be tight knit when there’s. There’s folks everywhere scattered across the US, globally, the world just seems so big. But in reality, now that I’ve been, you know, in the industry for almost 20 years, it is quite small and my, my network is even bigger than I once thought it was. I come across people, you know, people move from, you know, bank to bank or financial institution to another financial institution to a fintech startup. Um, and we all are interconnected or what do you call it, one degree of separation away from each other. And I think, you know, now I hear panels constantly talking about network. Back in the day, I think we were so reliant on just demonstrating value, um, contributing to an organization, getting some, you know, big wins and successes.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: But that can’t be done without, you know, truly also being your own PR, building your network, having connectivity internally within the organization or the company you work for. And externally, it’s the opportunity for internal growth and promotion and then also industry growth and promotion. There’s opportunities everywhere. You never know when you’re going to need that connection, that you have to get to where you need to to be. And so I, I promote all the time network. But yes, the industry does feel so small. And I recently went to Amsterdam for a conference and lo and behold, I’m walking in the showroom floor and people are like, Laura, how are you doing? And I’m like, I wasn’t expecting to see you all the way out here, um, in Amsterdam. But I am truly, to this day, still amazed at like how how we’re so, you know, connected and how how small the world seems to be. Um, but yes, completely agree with you. The network is the most powerful thing. And yes, this this industry does seem small at times.

Stone Payton: Well, it’s impressive that the enterprises, the industry leaders that you’ve gotten involved in this effort, it sounds like they’re coming to speak. They’re participating fully. And it occurs to me that some of this is genuinely some enlightened self-interest, because they want to, as much as anyone, kind of, uh, close the gap a bit between what a traditional graduate has coming out of this, uh, this domain and what they really need there in the workforce. Right.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yeah, I think of it this way. You know, what better way to, you know, source talent that already is, you know, best prepared to transition into your organization. And I think, you know, doing some of these, uh, experiential learning projects is a great example of that. We’ve had students who have, um, you know, done some, uh, brainstorming around innovation concepts for business. And it required that company to, you know, dedicate a couple of hours volunteering, um, telling them about what the company does and what the business does and how it’s growing, and some of the strategic priorities for them. And then the students came out of this, this business challenge with recommendations and a solution. But they also learned about the organization. Right. Like when at the end of the day, if they were, you know, to pursue an opportunity at this company, they’re not starting from scratch. They know who a visa is or an FIS is. They know even some of the terminology because they learned that in the classroom, they learned, you know, some of the opportunities and some of the challenges that they’re facing as a company. And so they come in just a little bit ahead of the curve. They’re not like coming in fresh. They’re coming in with some background, some insights and some knowledge. And so I think that is a win win for both the student and for the employer. Um, giving the student the opportunity, the exposure and the experience and then giving the employer an opportunity to to even influence and see how students are able to adapt and apply some of the you know, critical thinking skills and soft skills as well.

Stone Payton: Well, this relationship oriented ethos, values, system mindset coupled with and you’ve mentioned it several times, experiential learning, first of all, vastly different than my little bit of formal education. I’ll tell you that. But I have to believe it also sort of sets a marvelous foundation for lifelong learning. I mean, that would if you’re going to experience learning that way, you’re going to continue. You’re going to be a life learner, aren’t you?

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yeah. You’re right. It’s a pattern that can be repeated. And I’m also interested, encouraged to see it happen on both sides, not only from a student perspective, but from the career professionals who are volunteering. We’re seeing the same thing, and it’s almost an entry point to kind of like refresh or re vitalize some of those thoughts of continuing their educational journey or going back and getting a certification of some sort. And so we do see it on, on both sides. And some of these themes that are being taught, um, are best practices no matter what industry you enter. I was joking around with some folks earlier today around, um, our focus on innovation and design thinking, uh, concepts. I applied some of those concepts. Um, and I should say principles to how I plan my personal life. I I’m going on vacation. Hopefully, I’m in the process of filling out this spreadsheet that I like to use for my personal life. I’m a project manager at heart, and I love to have things organized, and I use some of these things that I’ve learned from a functional perspective, uh, professionally in my personal life as well. So yeah, there’s opportunities abound to apply what they’re learning and to continue that evolution of continuous learning and growth and development.

Stone Payton: So let’s dive into the nuts and bolts logistics of this thing. If I’m a student within this multi-institution group, there’s a path for me to to learn about this. These are courses I take. Walk us through that a little bit.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yeah. So it’s unique to each institution. So within the university system we have these collaborative agreements with each institution. And so we’re behind the scenes from a curriculum perspective, opening up the curriculum to be leveraged by these institutions. And so if you were, for example, like Kennesaw State, you would come through the fintech program, potentially get a fintech cert certificate in fintech. Um, or you could even pursue what they’re offering now is the, the Mis and financial digital financial technologies. Um, and so there’s there’s multiple pathways for you at that specific university, and it would be accessible through advisors, through the faculty, through your normal typical registration process. There’s nothing new, and it should be transparent to the student that’s coming by way of that university. One of the fascinating things to add, though, to that point is the fact that we’re we’re really unique in the fact that we have a network of faculty that are spread across multiple institutions. And so you might be taking a course at Kennesaw State in fintech, but taught by a professor at a different university, um, and vice versa. We have Kennesaw State, you know, faculty that are also a part of the faculty network teaching core courses that are offered at other institutions as well. Um, and so this shared model, almost a shared service across university system is very unique. But it’s it’s powerful because it’s enabling institutions who might not necessarily have the infrastructure or the faculty. Experienced faculty or the credentials to offer, um, you know, these degrees or some of these courses. The ability to tap into, um, that core set of courses and curriculum.

Stone Payton: The depth and breadth of what you’re able to provide. And I don’t know if it’s the right word or not, but the diversity of thought is, uh. That is incredible. You it is. Now, you have also taken specific interest in serving, uh, very specific constituencies within this arena as well. Uh, isn’t there something like Patek women or something like that that you’re involved with?

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yes. So Patek Women is a nonprofit organization focusing on moving the needle for diversity and for for women in the payments and fintech ecosystems. Um, it’s an amazing relationship because we have joined a little bit of what we’re doing at the Fintech Academy with Tech Women organization. I’ve been on the board. This will be my coming up on my fourth year, um, on the as a board member, always looking for ways to, you know, engage and to increase our member base. But one thing that we’ve identified as a service to our Georgia Fintech Academy community, which is, you know, the universities that we’re speaking of, is to extend those services to them. So students who are, you know, enrolled in undergrad can sign up for an account, um, to become a member and take advantage of, uh, mentorship, job board postings, um, in-person sessions, online virtual webinars. All of these resources extend to them. We pay tech woman has an annual leadership summit, which we just had recently, um, here in Atlanta. Companies from across the US traveled to Atlanta. And there are their big brand names like, like discover, for example, who hosted a lot of our students at, um, some on campus at the conference events and a private company dinner as well. Just talking about career opportunities at discover and and networking with these students. And so there’s been a lot of time like just benefit in seeing, you know, how these two pieces can come together to extend resource and opportunity to students who are interested in fintech and payments?

Stone Payton: I don’t know when or how or where you would find the time. I was encouraged to hear you mention vacation earlier in the conversation, but I’m interested to know interest pursuits, hobbies outside the scope of your work. What? Anything you have a tendency to nerd out about that’s not Fintech Academy.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yeah, you know, it’s funny because I do. I I’m on borderline insanity when it comes to this job. I am Relentless when it comes to opportunities for students. I. I do appreciate the fact that I can’t be everywhere all the time. Um, and it’s it’s one of those opportunities for me as I continue to evolve, um, alongside with the Fintech Academy, um, you know, develop what that looks like. But for me, my passions outside of this, uh, include travel. I love travel. And when I think about travel globally, for me, I was born in Italy. I, I grew up abroad. My father played professional basketball overseas. So I lived in Israel, Holland, Spain, um, you know, came back in the States in middle school. But for me, I’ve always had a kind of a global view. And in my career it’s enabled me, um, I like to say fintech is, you know, money and there’s money in money. You can make money in money. And for me, it it enabled, uh, financial stability. Financial independence. All of these things that supported my opportunities to really enjoy some of these things I’m passionate about that you’re hitting on, like travel and I love traveling, and now it’s actually kind of intersecting not to bring back, because I know you were asking about my personal life, but like, it’s it’s allowed opportunities for me to connect with universities globally. Like we we went to Ireland this summer with the American Transaction Processors Coalition, um, and signed a cooperative agreement with two universities in Belfast and in Dublin. And there are opportunities to collaborate and leverage. Um, they’re interested in have developed a fintech program. They have a smaller but, you know, robust curriculum. They’re doing apprenticeships and some other things that we have not yet embarked on that journey here in the US for the Fintech Academy. Um, but I get to kill two birds with one stone personal trip. Love travel. Secondarily, there’s also a thing that I can do to help drive and promote what we’re doing at the Fintech Academy. It’s a win win.

Stone Payton: I am so glad that I asked. Before we wrap, let’s leave our listeners if we could students, business leaders alike with a couple things to chew on be thinking about. Sometimes I refer to them as as pro tips, maybe even what we in the in the larger business community and the media world, you know what we can be doing to help. But let’s leave them with a little something to chew on.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yeah, I think for, you know, the the professional experience, professional audience, for me, it’s more of giving a call to action. You know, if you’re not giving back, if you’re not mentoring, then what are you doing with your time? Investing in the next generation is investing in the future. And to be honest, I can personally attest that I would not be where I am today. If I had not had influenced directly by folks who volunteered their time and mentored me throughout my career. Um, and so I constantly am promoting and advocating for folks to volunteer for those opportunities. Um, by way of the Fintech Academy, if that’s something of interest. Um, or just, you know, locally at any of your institutions at the high school level, you know, and college. Um, folks need people to, to help support what they’re trying to do to help move the needle for our students. And then secondly, from a student perspective, I know times are challenging and I’ve noticed, you know, post pandemic, there’s almost, uh, new social anxieties, um, and stresses that our students are facing. And I just, you know, like to impress upon students to put themselves out there, be vulnerable, connect with people we mentioned earlier, the network is the most powerful thing.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Take advantage of all of the opportunities that you have. For us, we promote open it up to almost anyone who is at the the undergraduate or graduate level. Doesn’t matter if you’re in the university system of Georgia or not. Um, we have plenty of opportunities that are externally facing and public on our website. Uh, Georgia Fintech Academy. Org. Um, and so I really like to impress upon people to take advantage of these resources because they are resources. Um, and if you’re ever in need to, you know, pursue opportunities in fintech or want to explore what that would look like. Um, we have a whole, you know, um, roster of resources out there to kind of help you navigate those decisions and provide you some, some foundational, um, knowledge in what that would look like for you. So those two pieces, I think I would, I would like to leave with, with everyone, um, to engage and to connect and to network.

Stone Payton: That is marvelous counsel and just all around good mojo. Let’s leave them with that website again and any other coordinates you might want them to have.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Yeah, I would go out to the Georgia Fintech academy.org website for those that are interested in volunteer, it’s just Georgia Fintech Academy. Org forward slash volunteer simple form. There’s four different ways to really volunteer and connect with us. Um we also are on LinkedIn heavily. So look at our, um, Georgia Fintech Academy member page out on LinkedIn. Um, we are constantly promoting a lot of our events, um, and our collaborations with industry out there. So so give us a follow. Uh, we also have recently stood up our YouTube channel, which is easily found under Georgia Fintech Academy. Um, as well as Instagram because that’s how students like to consume, uh, content these days. So we’re we’re hip. We’re hip and fresh at the Georgia Fintech Academy.

Speaker4: Well, Laura.

Stone Payton: It has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast this afternoon. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm, the momentum that you guys have gained, the work that you and your team are doing is so important for so many. And we sure appreciate you.

Laura Gibson-Lamothe: Thank you so much. You’ve been a great host and I’ve really enjoyed this conversation and really appreciate it.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. Alright, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Laura Gibson, Lamoth Executive Director with Georgia Fintech Academy and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you next time on High Velocity Careers.

 

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The Power of Connection: Building Relationships in Tech and Food Industries

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Women in Motion
The Power of Connection: Building Relationships in Tech and Food Industries
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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Christine Ferns, President and CEO of Step Up Consulting and Step Up Foods. Christine shares her entrepreneurial journey, detailing how Step Up Consulting specializes in implementing UKG HR, time, and payroll software for small to medium-sized businesses. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on niche markets and addressing client pain points. Christine also discusses her passion project, Step Up Foods, which aims to introduce authentic Indian cuisine to North America. Throughout the episode, she highlights the value of simplicity, strong relationships, and empowering women and minorities in business.

Step-Up-Consulting-logo

Christine-FernsChristine Ferns is the President and CEO of Step Up Consulting LLC, an IT consulting firm based in Greater Los Angeles, CA.

Since founding the company in 2018, Christine has grown Step Up into a national consulting firm specializing in implementing cloud-based Human Capital Management (HCM) software for retail, healthcare, government, and education. Step Up’s customers have been able to automate critical business processes and significantly reduce operating costs.

Christine’s business leadership has been recognized by other organizations, including the 2020 National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Champion of Diversity Award and Enterprising Women’s magazine as one of 2023’s Businesswoman of the Year.

Early in her career, Christine recognized that women are underrepresented across the creation, use, and regulation of technology. Therefore, Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are top of mind for Christine and is one of the core founding principles for Step Up Consulting. This has also earned the company the privilege of being a certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) and a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE).

Christine also serves on the National Small Business Association (NSBA) Leadership Council, advocating for small businesses in Washington, D.C. In 2023, Christine launched another business – Step Up Foods. Here, Christine and her team distribute authentic regional Indian foods and beverages within the US. Christine is passionate about social responsibility and supports various charitable organizations in the US and her home country, India.

Towards this initiative, Christine has pledged 10% of Step Up Food’s net revenue into a venture investment, which will be used to fund philanthropic endeavors focused on empowering underprivileged women and girl children. Christine believes in maintaining a work-life balance despite her busy schedule and has also made this a core principle at Step Up.

In her free time, Christine enjoys spending time with her family, including two high school-aged children, her husband, father-in-law, and her chow, Waffles! She also likes reading, cooking, gardening, and traveling to new countries.

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 Christine Ferns, who is the President and CEO of Step Up Consulting and Step Up Foods. Welcome.

Christine Ferns: Thank you, Lee. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn about your story. Can you tell us about Step Up Consulting and Foods? How are you serving folks?

Christine Ferns: Absolutely. Thank you. So, yes, I own and operate two businesses. Step Up Consulting is a software implementation consulting firm. We are a boutique firm headquartered out of Los Angeles. We focus on deploying and implementing UKG, which was formerly Kronos, and we work with their HR, time, and payroll cloud-based software that we implement for customers across the country. We work across verticals, so we focus on public sector, private sector, education, retail, and healthcare clients.

Christine Ferns: And our forte is working with smaller businesses, so anywhere from 100 users to maybe about 1,500 users, because when I established Step Up Consulting, one of the key drivers was realizing the gap in that space where they want a lot of boutique consulting firms that offered, really, hands-on consulting expertise and support to smaller organizations that may not have been as well thought of in terms of having technical support, having expertise in a particular subject area, and that’s where we come in and we provide them with that support.

Christine Ferns: And then, Step Up Foods, really, I joke and say that’s like my third child, because I have two teens. And I established Step Up Foods last year. The reason and the driver behind establishing Step Up Foods was because my origin is from India, I grew up in Mumbai in India, and I’m a foodie. I love food. I love talking about food, reading about food, cooking and eating food. And I thought that North America was ready to expand their palette beyond just the more common Indian foods that are available today. So, what we are striving to do is bring authentic and regional Indian foods to the North American market space.

Lee Kantor: Now, let’s talk a little bit about your consulting firm first. When you decided to kind of focus in on, I think it was Kronos you said at the beginning, that’s what they were called when you first started, a lot of people who are in business think they have to serve a big group of people, a wide variety of services, because they don’t want to miss out on anything. But you decided to kind of focus in and become subject matter expert and kind of just a really deep knowledge about this one thing, can you talk about that decision, because that seems counterintuitive for a lot of people? And I think I’m in your boat where I believe that niches bring riches. So, if you can focus in on one thing and get deep knowledge, you’re going to become more valuable to the people who are using that.

Christine Ferns: Absolutely. Lee, I have a very firm personal belief. I like to keep everything simple in every sphere of my life. And that extends to the core values that I have put into place for both the businesses. So, to come back to your question about Step Up Consulting and the business niche that we serve, we have come up with a very core offering for our small and medium business clients that focus on the main areas of the implementation. It focuses on training their teams, training the end users prior to the product being launched. And providing them with the tools and the know how necessary to then have absolute ownership of the product and be able to successfully maintain it on a go forward basis.

Christine Ferns: So, prior to establishing Step Up Consulting, I worked for about 16 years in the software implementation space as a project manager and then a program manager. And I was able to delve into my knowledge and my experience and come up with these niche offerings because I’m well aware of what the pain points are during a software implementation. So, I was able to narrow our focus onto those pain points and tailor our offering and customize it accordingly that really works for the small and medium business space that we serve.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you were deciding to do that, that seemed very natural and organic for you. But a lot of entrepreneurs out there, they think they’re going to miss out if they focus so narrowly. Did you ever have that fear, or did you see such a big opportunity that you felt like, “Look, we’re never going to be able to, you know, solve all these problems. But if we can fix this one, the market is plenty big enough for us to be successful.”

Christine Ferns: It’s exactly what you said at the end. We’re never going to be able to solve all problems. I wish I could, but I know I cannot, not in this life. So, I targeted the top three to five issues that I noticed of the hundreds of projects that I worked with in my career, and I root cost those and then came up with solutions for those, and that’s what we have built the methodology of Step Up Consulting on.

Christine Ferns: And safe to say, it’s been met with a fair degree of success because, to your point, when customers begin working with us, they’re a little all over the place. They are definitely looking at the big picture, but there’s so much that they are trying to wrap their arms around, and that’s when we get them to focus on what is critical for the immediate success of their software implementation and then how they could then focus on the lesser critical factors in the long term.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you finding that once you get in there and start working with a client, they see so much value and you’re able to kind of wring out so much value from the relationship that they kind of stick around and they want you to solve more and more problems.

Christine Ferns: That is true. They definitely come back for more work. You know, we have seen a lot of repeat business. In the software space, especially with SaaS, cloud-based software, it’s like leasing a house because you’re paying your subscriptions from day one. So, what we get customers to understand is that they want to get their return on investment as quickly as possible, so our mantra is look at your big problems, get those resolved in the near term, and then stagger out the smaller issues for the long term. Because at least you’ve begun using the software, you’ve begun getting your ROI, and then you can continue expounding and building upon the software solution for the long term.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned a few of the areas or industries you work in, education, I think you mentioned, and public/private a little bit, is there other kind of industries or is this kind of industry agnostic?

Christine Ferns: It’s industry agnostic because, really, the methodology that we’ve put together is very much a one size fits all. There’s a little bit of customization that we do based on industry at the onset when we are putting the requirements together.

Christine Ferns: For example, if it’s a school, we focus on their staff segments, which could be janitorial staff, part-time staff, bus drivers. Versus if you’re working with a healthcare organization, then we’re working with nurses who may be working round the clock and have 24 by 7 schedules. But the USP of our offering is it is pretty much industry agnostic, and we have already built into place the customizations needed for the verticals that we serve.

Christine Ferns: So, we try and make it as easy and seamless and painless as possible for our customers when we begin working with them, because we have already taken the time up front to nail down the pain points of their vertical and have those solutions in place.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is the pain that they’re having? Are they contracting with you as soon as they purchase the software? Or is it something as they purchase the software and then they realize that they’re in over their head, that they didn’t realize how complex it was to really implement effectively?

Christine Ferns: It’s typically the first. So, they contract with us through UKG as soon as they have procured the software. And then, we have a smaller segment of our business that’s focused on customers who may decide to do the implementation by themselves, and then realize that, you know, it’s too much of an undertaking for them and they’d rather bring the experts in.

Lee Kantor: Now, let’s talk a little bit about Step Up Foods. Was that just something a passion project for you or did an opportunity kind of bubble up, you’re like, “Oh, I think I’m ready to take on this”?

Christine Ferns: Sure. You know, I chuckle when I talk about Step Up Foods because, well, my educational background is in hospitality and culinary management, so that’s what I studied for, for my undergrad. And as time moved on, I switched careers and moved to IT on the business side. But food and culinary management continues to remain something I’m passionate about.

Christine Ferns: And I think one of the key drivers behind establishing Step Up Foods was just because I grew up eating some amazing foods from my home land in India, and I just feel like I miss those foods over here. I feel like that subcontinent has so much more to offer in terms of the food that we presently get over here in the U.S. and that’s what led me to really establish Step Up Foods, because what we are looking to do is we are distributors of regional Indian foods.

Christine Ferns: So, my idea is being able to bring those lesser known foods, maybe create a fusion version of those when we bring them into the U.S., and really have it have mass appeal. So, my ultimate goal is being able to take these foods, which include snacks, it includes spice-based, we’ve got dessert options on there, we are working on a line of beverage options now, but I’d really like to take those into the mainstream market space like the supermarkets, the big box stores, so that we could have more and more people enjoy these offerings in their more authentic forms.

Lee Kantor: So, this is, I guess, tangential from your consulting business. Obviously, it’s not IT or anything like that, but are there some lessons learned from the consulting that’s helping you roll out the foods?

Christine Ferns: There is, because, Lee, Step Up Consulting was established in 2019, so we’ve been around for about five years now. Lots of loving lessons learned along the way as you can imagine with a startup. And I’d like to think, yes, we’ve taken those lessons, we did some things very well, we did some things not so well, but we’ve taken those and put those into place at Step Up Foods because that’s how you learn and grow.

Christine Ferns: One of them, like I was alluding to before, was I like to keep things simple, so I’ve used that same philosophy for any offering that I am working to develop within Step Up Foods. The second is, it’s all about people at the end of the day. Our mainstream offering of Step Up Consulting, definitely, it’s technology. We work with cutting edge software. We work with BI software. But at the end of the day, what it comes down to is how you work with people, how you’ve made them feel, how you’ve been able to solve their tangible and not so tangible problems, and that’s what leads to the success of our projects and our endeavors. And I have, you know, applied that same philosophy into Step Up Foods as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, one of your core values is empowering women and minorities through both of your businesses. Why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community? And does that relationship help you kind of on that mission?

Christine Ferns: Thank you, Lee. It does. I consciously realized because I spent so many years working in technology and I see that women continue to remain underrepresented in the technology space, and that was something that stayed with me. And I said, you know, in my own small way, if I ever start something on my own, I’d like to try and get as many women as possible to work with the company I establish, and that’s something that we enjoy doing at Step Up Consulting.

Christine Ferns: A lot of our workforce are working mothers, they’re women. We’ve established a process that allows us to all work virtually. We have flexible work schedules. So, we have our workforce needing to take time off later in the afternoons to go pick their kids from school or from daycare, and then coming back and wrapping up work for that day. And the methodology actually supports it. We don’t miss a step in doing that.

Christine Ferns: So, that was one of my guiding principles, that was something I really wanted to put into place, was create a workplace that was friendly for women, be gender agnostic, so to speak. And I feel like we’ve been fairly successful in doing that.

Christine Ferns: And then, coming to WBENC, I have my certification with WBENC now for Step Up going back, I believe, almost four years, and it has been a true asset. We have been able to bid on a lot of federal and local government contracts by virtue of being a WBENC certified organization. We have also been able to afford the trainings that WBENC rolls out. On a very regular and frequent basis, they get speakers from different walks of life to meet with WBENC members. And I try and take advantage of those whenever I can. They have been extremely insightful and informative.

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

Christine Ferns: I think with WBENC, I definitely like to see more in person events. I think that would be really helpful for us small business women entrepreneurs. You know, the opportunity to meet up more in person to learn from each other. And, also, if we could get some more support in terms of branding help, marketing support as WBENC certified organizations, I think that would would be extremely useful to small business entrepreneurs such as myself.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to connect with you to learn more about the consulting or the food business, are there websites, is there social media? What’s the best way to connect?

Christine Ferns: Absolutely. We’d love to hear from you. And the Step Up Consulting website is stepupconsultingco.com, that’s S-T-E-P-U-P-C-O-N-S-U-L-T-I-N-G-C-O-.com. The Step Up Foods website is simpler, it’s stepupfoods.com. And I’d love to hear from you. If you’re looking for something in the technology space or if there’s something you can contribute to us in the food distribution space, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-dot-F-E-R-N-S@stepupconsultingco.com.

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

Christine Ferns: Thank you, Lee. Thank you for the opportunity. It was great speaking with you.

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

 

Erica Whatley with Twenty20 Financial Group

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Erica Whatley with Twenty20 Financial Group
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Erica-WhatleyErica Whatley, the founder of Twenty20 Financial Group, leads our team of trusted financial advisors with a mission to transform financial confusion into clarity. Under her guidance, we prioritize customer service, delivering timely, reliable, and precise financial solutions.

Erica’s passion extends beyond numbers; she values building strong relationships with clients across diverse industries, including start-ups, nonprofits, and logistics. With Erica at the helm, we ensure your financial needs are met with the utmost expertise and care.

Connect with Erica on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Twenty20 Financial, Group Erica Whatley. How are you?

Erica Whatley: I am great, Stone, how are you?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. Really been looking forward to this conversation. Got a ton of questions. Erica. We probably won’t get to them all, but I would love it if you could just kind of share an overview with us briefly. Mission. Purpose. What? What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Erica Whatley: So we are trying to save people on their taxes in everyday life, whether that’s business or personal, where full service accounting firms. So we provide everything from your annual tax preparation to monthly accounting services as well as CFO services.

Stone Payton: So CFO services. That kind of caught my eye as I was reading through my notes earlier today. What would be an example of things that a CFO might do for your client?

Erica Whatley: So we help analyze the financials financial data. So we’re looking at your patterns, your risks, your opportunities. We make sure that your analysis aligns with the company’s operational processes. And we also set up a lot of growth strategy strategies and sessions to make sure the business owner is making informed decisions, whether it’s cash flow growth initiatives or just improving profitability.

Stone Payton: I would think that that would not only be really important in the day to day running of a business, but also if an owner is kind of in the early stages of preparing for their exit, maybe they’re even there a few years out to to have someone like you come in and get those ducks in a row, as it were. That’s that’s probably a very important step, isn’t it?

Erica Whatley: It is. It is very important.

Stone Payton: So what is the backstory? How did you get into this line of work?

Erica Whatley: So I’ve always been interested in numbers. Um, I remember I was about eight years old, went with my mother to H&R block, and I was just watching the guy. And I remember asking him, do you have to go to school to do this? And he was like, yes. And I remember every tax season I would go with my mom to a library and I would pick up the tax booklets. I’m kind of telling my age, but back then you could go to the library, pick up the little book and do your taxes by hand. And I would just flip through it and play around with the numbers and what was in the book, and I just built from there. I started as just tax preparation. Um, went to school and grew it. It was my purpose and my passion.

Stone Payton: Well, I can tell. I can hear in your voice. So I have a nephew in the financial services arena. You know, the wealth building arena. And he mentioned the other day that sometimes he feels like it’s almost. Especially if he’s working with a couple, uh, or partners, whether they’re a married couple or not, a business partners that it’s sometimes it’s almost like therapy. Like, do you ever consider yourself, like doing financial therapy?

Erica Whatley: 1,000%. 1,000%? Um, a lot of my clients have even told me, okay, you’re my financial therapist, because when you’re working with numbers, you’re looking at not just emotional, but also psychological and how that affects the decision making. It’s just like sitting in a regular therapist’s office and just laying everything out. We help you to get a bigger picture. And yes, he is definitely a financial therapist, especially working with wealth management.

Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like it would be incredibly rewarding work. What what’s the most fun about it at this point in your career? What do you enjoy the most?

Erica Whatley: Um, seeing the light bulb go off for business owners, seeing them finally understand why they were making the decisions they made previously, and how those decisions can help them or harm them in their business. Making sure that the the decision owner or I’m sorry, the decision maker or the business owner understands how their vision needs to tie to their actions. That for me, once that clicks, it’s like, okay, we’re over the financial trauma. We’re not making impulse decisions. We’re not making decisions based on anxiety. At that point, I know we’re where we’re supposed to be, and I’m doing exactly what I was put here to do.

Stone Payton: So I’m probably not very quick to admit it, but I but and I am a business owner, I own 40% of the business radio X network. I own 100% of one of our studios. And I would like to think that it’s not true, but I gotta believe it is. Uh, a lot of my decisions, period, maybe, but certainly financial decisions. Certainly. They must have an emotional component to them. Huh?

Erica Whatley: Absolutely, absolutely. Um, I tell everyone, money isn’t just the numbers. It’s deeply, deeply personal. Whether it’s a business account or a personal account. And it’s tied to emotional emotions like your security, or if you’re fearful or your confidence in the decision that you’re making. Once you can understand the decisions, it kind of helps pull back the anxiety and you can think through, why do I need to do this? How does it help my business long term? Or would this even be needed long term?

Stone Payton: All right. So let’s let’s dive into the work a little bit. And you may want to share a specific use case. Or if you want to use stone and Business RadioX or Stone and Cherokee Business Radio as a, as a use case, like how does the relationship begin and what are we sitting down and just having a conversation? Walk us through the the actual work a little bit.

Erica Whatley: So with me, when I first am introduced to a client, I don’t 100% jump into the numbers. I get to know the business owner as well as getting to know the business. I let everyone know my role is to provide clarity. I want to make sense of everything that you have going on. I want you to feel safe. I want you to feel seen. And once we get past that point, we can then start discussing numbers. My favorite saying is everything is fixable. Most business owners come. Owners come to me when they feel like things are chaotic or they can’t make sense of it, or I don’t know what my next steps are. Once we establish that relationship, once I understand what your goals are, we then start putting all the pieces together to build you a roadmap. That roadmap is going to connect your day to day financial decisions, which are overarching goals for your business, and we start working from there.

Stone Payton: So what’s becoming abundantly clear for me through the course of this conversation? I got to confess, I think I’ve, uh, before going into this conversation, sort of framed in my own mind. Your work is highly transactional, and the more I’m hearing the the more grounded in relationship and trust. It would have to be to work with you in that way. And you’re talking about my money and the emotions that are. Relationship is an incredibly important part of your work, isn’t it?

Erica Whatley: 1,000% at this point, I am now your spouse. When we start working together, I am your spouse. We are not going to hide anything from each other. We’re going to be transparent. We’re going to be open, and we’re going to say, hey, if you do this, you’re going to mess up. This could ruin our relationship. And it’s just that comfort. It’s the comfort that lets you know, hey, I really have someone in my corner that has been down this road. They have seen others go down this road and they’re comfortable. I trust them and they understand me.

Stone Payton: That empathy and that genuine concern and taking the time to get to know them and build the trust, I well, thank you for that awakening, Erica.

Speaker4: You’re welcome.

Stone Payton: Uh, just like I have visibly demonstrated, I got to believe that there are some recurring, I don’t know, patterns. So preconceived notions. Maybe it’s a little strong to call them myths, but maybe people come into the initially a relationship with you with some some ideas that are maybe a little off the mark, and you have to kind of educate them and help them understand. Is that true? I guess education is probably an important component of your work.

Erica Whatley: Education is very, very important. Working with me. And one thing I’ve noticed I do a lot is we are retraining what you’ve heard, whether it be on social media or someone telling you misinformation, we’re retraining you to understand how and why you’re going to make the decisions. Let’s say, for instance, an LLC. I’ll have people come to me and say, I’m an LLC. But so many people told me I need to be an S Corp. Okay, well, why do you need to be an S Corp? Well, I don’t know. Okay. So let’s explore. When an S Corp is by definition the compliance that comes with it, your responsibility and how it operates. After we go through that, I can then ask again, are you comfortable becoming an S Corp? Most people will say no because they’re like, oh, I didn’t know about the compliance portion. I can’t afford to pay myself a reasonable salary every month according to IRS rules and regulations. So just in those situations, we educate them to. Yes, you may have heard it, but it’s more to those decision making factors. So education as well as empathy within the education is very, very important.

Stone Payton: There must be a great deal of misinformation or incomplete information out there with so many, um, you know, with the social media platforms and with well-meaning friends and family, there’s.

Erica Whatley: 1,000% it is it is some of these situations that I’ve seen. I was like, no, everything is fixable, but let’s research. Let’s educate ourselves before jumping in feet first into something that could be more harmful to you than it is helpful.

Stone Payton: Now. Have you found yourself gravitating to certain types of individuals or businesses, or are you pretty industry agnostic? Or do you have a niche?

Erica Whatley: So my niche is personal injury attorneys. We do work with service based industries as well. But personal injury attorneys is one of my biggest, um, client base. Absolutely love them. And the complexity that goes into their iolta accounts and helping them grow and helping them understand how their money works because they’re so busy, they’re so tied into the business, and it’s great to kind of automate things with them as well.

Stone Payton: Well, and I’m sure after a few strong use cases under your belt. You become kind of known in that ecosystem. And and and they they know your potential client or your new client knows, hey, Eric has got this thing figured out, and she understands my world.

Erica Whatley: Exactly, absolutely.

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

Erica Whatley: Um, by the grace of God, my business is probably 99% referral based. Oh, amazing. Um, other than that, I do post educational information on my website via a blog. I’m also on LinkedIn and I do have some postings on social sites such as, uh, Instagram. And I’ve been able to pick up clients that way as well. I’ve also spoken at other events and met some clients that way.

Stone Payton: I got to believe in your industry as much, if not more, so than than most of the others. Change has got to be a constant. There’s probably new regulations always coming down. The always coming down the the pike. I guess there’s a big part of your job maybe is, is to stay in front of all that, isn’t it?

Erica Whatley: Yes, 1,000%. So the tax landscape changes all the time. And in most cases it’s creating both opportunities and challenges for businesses. So one thing I tell everyone, whether you’re an annual tax client or you’re a monthly accountant or CFO client, is proactive planning. Stop waiting until tax season. Work with your preparer, your accountant, your bookkeeper year round to make sure your financial operations are structured to minimize tax liability and then maximize your tax savings. That could be reviewing how your company is set up. It could be retirement planning. It could be the timing of your investments. Just always be proactive and not don’t wait till the last minute for everything.

Stone Payton: I know intellectually that’s really good counsel, and I feel like maybe you’ve been reading my mail or spying on me, because sometimes I’m guilty of waiting a little bit longer in the cycle than I should.

Erica Whatley: Yes, proactive. Always be proactive. It will cut down and possibly eliminate the the pop up tax bills, or just not knowing that you may have qualified for this because the law changed in the middle of tax season.

Stone Payton: Oh yeah. So what’s next for for you is are we going to publish the Erica methodology? We’re going to write a book. We’re going to scale the business. We’re going to keep plugging what’s on the horizon for you.

Erica Whatley: So we are working on scaling to be able to take on more clients and onboarding. And a part of that is quarterly. I will start getting on a zoom and just teaching what’s going on in the financial industry. How can you save money? What are we seeing? How to prepare, making sure your books and your numbers are in order? I just want to be able to educate while also scaling the business.

Stone Payton: Yeah, well, congratulations on the momentum. It sounds like you’re getting a lot done quickly and look forward to following your story. I got to know, uh, and I don’t know when or when or how you’d find the time, but when you’re not doing this, uh, interest pursuits, hobbies outside the scope of the work. We’re talking about anything you kind of nerd out about that lets you step away for a little bit and recharge.

Erica Whatley: Um, I will say to help me recharge is probably just going to be reading just a quiet corner of reading or just being out in nature, walking, or just sitting by the river or a lake, or especially the beach. Ah, it helps me decompress. 100%.

Stone Payton: Yeah. Back to therapy, right? That’s good.

Speaker4: Therapy. Exactly.

Erica Whatley: Back to therapy.

Stone Payton: But now doing that, I’ve come to believe. And I. And I’ve been an entrepreneur for several years, that, um, when you do that, you do recharge and you come back that much better equipped to genuinely serve your clients, don’t you?

Erica Whatley: I do. And the clarity that comes from it also helps me with just more ideas for the business or for my client’s business, or things that they can do to incorporate in their business for growth.

Speaker4: Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Whatley: So it’s very important to decompress.

Speaker4: All right.

Stone Payton: Before we wrap up, I’d love to leave our listeners with a couple of actionable pro tips, if we could, something to be thinking about doing, not doing, reading. Let’s leave them with a little something to chew on. But hey. And listen, gang. The number one pro tip is reach out and have a conversation with Erica or somebody on her team. But to to tide them over between now and then. Erica, let’s leave them with a little something.

Erica Whatley: Okay. So I would say today, October 15th, is actually the tax extension deadline. If you have already filed your tax returns and everything is ready and complete for 2023, start prepping for 2024. That’s things such as seeing if your W-4 withholdings are accurate with your employer, making sure if you’re a business owner, all of your books and income and expenses are up to date. If you have employees reviewing their W, I’m sorry, reviewing your w-2s just making sure everything is up to date for the employees, their home address, their email address. So at year end they can receive their W-2 or 1099 forms. Making sure you have all required information for any contractors that work for you. Items that you know are due in January. Start preparing for those now. Um, I do also have a quarterly and annual tax planning checklist. You can obtain that by going to my website, which is 2020 Financial Comm. Once you put in your email address, that will be sent to you and it gives you all the documentation you need to keep track of store in a safe place. So when January 31st hits, you’re ready to rock and roll. You won’t be searching for much.

Stone Payton: What a marvelous resource and what peace of mind must come from having that checklist and staying on top of it in front of it. So you’re not like biting your nails on April the 14th, right?

Erica Whatley: Absolutely, absolutely.

Stone Payton: All right. So one more time. Best way to connect with you. Follow your work. Tap into these resources website whatever. Whatever.

Erica Whatley: Yes. So via social media um, LinkedIn and Instagram, we are 2020 financial and our website is 2020 financial. Com.

Stone Payton: Well, Erica, it has been an absolute delight and a bit of a wake up call to visit with you this afternoon. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm, the work that you’re doing to serve businesses large and small as it’s so important. And we sure appreciate you.

Erica Whatley: Thank you. I appreciate you for having me on.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. Alright, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Erica Whatley with 2020 financial Group and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

BRX Pro Tip: 7 Ways to Win Back Former Clients

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BRXmic99
BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: 7 Ways to Win Back Former Clients
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BRX Pro Tip: 7 Ways to Win Back Former Clients

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, what are some good strategies for winning back former clients?

Lee Kantor: I think it’s so important to keep an email list of all your clients, all the people who have connected with you, and send personalized emails back to those former clients to let them know different things over the course of the months and years after you’ve done business with them. So don’t be afraid to craft targeted email campaigns to re-engage those inactive users. This is stuff that really isn’t expensive. This is stuff that you can create processes and systems around.

Lee Kantor: But some ideas to send in those email campaigns are just a casual hello, hey, you know, it’s been a while, and just remind them about your business and some of the services you offer, and maybe some of the things they purchased before. Let them know they’re still available.

Lee Kantor: Number two, just an update on some of the new things that you have, something that they might have missed. And maybe the reason they left you is you didn’t have this service and now you have this service. So let them know of any new features or services you’re offering.

Lee Kantor: Number three is really kind of leverage your CRM system and use filters and tools. In this way, you can flag some of these maybe at risk or inactive customers. So don’t be afraid to kind of lean on your CRM system to help you in this area.

Lee Kantor: Number four, ask for feedback. You know, reach out to a customer or former customer and try to understand why they became disengaged or why they left, and see if there’s any places you can improve. You know, I think they’ll appreciate you asking their thoughts in this area.

Lee Kantor: Number five, maybe implement some sort of a loyalty program. Let them know, “Hey, you know what? We haven’t done business, but if you refer us or maybe there’s ways to re-engage with you.” Let them know that those opportunities exist. And remember, it’s important to set up these processes on some sort of automated way to kind of create this re-engagement. If you have a series of messages that are triggered by certain periods of inactivity, leverage that. Like if you know the person hasn’t responded in X number of weeks, then they get this kind of message. You can do all this ahead of time, but just leverage your CRM system to make it easy for you to have these kind of communications.

Lee Kantor: And then last but not definitely not least, make a personal phone call for – these clients work with you for a period of time, and if they are a high value customer, a quick call can be very effective in re-establishing that relationship. The key is to use all your tools and data that you have already spent the time collecting to create these kind of personalized, timely outreach that reminds the customers of your value and encourages them to re-engage.

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