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From Revenue to Real Wealth: The Strategy Behind Profitable Growth

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
From Revenue to Real Wealth: The Strategy Behind Profitable Growth
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In this episode of Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by My Global Presence, Lee Kantor interviews Octavia Conner, Tax and Business Strategist with Say Yes to Profits. Octavia shares how her journey from corporate accounting to entrepreneurship led her to help growing businesses transform revenue into consistent profits and cash flow. She explains the importance of financial strategy, accurate books, cash flow forecasting, profitable pricing, tax planning, and building a financially healthy business designed for sustainable growth and a successful exit. 

Octavia Conner has been quoted in Forbes and featured in ENSPIRE Magazine, Voyage ATL, Afro Tech, Inuit, and many more.

Selected as a top 50 accountant in North America for two consecutive years and an award-winning best-selling author and professional speaker she combines over 20 years of business, accounting, and financial experience.

Connect with Octavia on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Turning top-line revenue into consistent profits and cash flow
  • Shifting from basic bookkeeping to strategic financial management
  • Identifying and eliminating hidden money leaks within a business
  • Focusing on profitability and wealth instead of revenue alone
  • Building a profitable and focused business model
  • Using a 23-point assessment to identify financial gaps and opportunities
  • Creating a 13-week cash flow forecast to prevent cash shortages
  • Combining tax planning with financial strategy throughout the year
  • Avoiding the risks of commingling personal and business finances
  • Preparing financials and operations for business growth or an eventual exit
  • Improving pricing strategies to ensure every sale contributes to profit
  • Building a financially healthy business that is attractive to lenders and buyers

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by My Global Presence, the award winning Atlanta public relations agency that elevates brands and non-profits through authentic storytelling and national media campaigns. Find them at myglobalpresence.com. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is gonna be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, My Global Presence. If you want global visibility and meaningful impact, go to myglobalpresence.com. Today on the show, we have tax and business strategists with Say Yes to Profits. Octavia Conner. Welcome.

Octavia Conner: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Say Yes To Profits.. How are you serving, folks?

Octavia Conner: Yes. So Say Yes to Profits is a virtual CFO and tax advisory firm. We typically work with businesses that are in the growth and scaling phase, and they are ready to turn their top line revenue into consistent profits and cash flow. And so we help them gain the financial clarity and control that they need in order to say yes to profits.

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

Octavia Conner: Well, I have over 23 years of accounting, tax and financial experience. I started in corporate America. I was in corporate America for about ten years. I started as a data entry clerk, then a bookkeeper, then a controller, and then I became a CFO of a multi-million dollar pharmaceutical company. And back in 2016, I decided to take a leap of faith and bet on myself and start my business. Say yes to profits. And we are here today.

Lee Kantor: Now, were you always serving kind of small to mid-sized companies, or did you did that evolve over time?

Octavia Conner: So in corporate America, it was primarily those public companies that were anywhere between 1 million, upwards of $20 million in annual revenue. Once I transitioned to a full time entrepreneur, my focus primarily was small business owners, because small business owners needed the exact same help that I was giving to the corporate world, but just at a smaller, more personal level. And so I decided to really laser focus on small businesses.

Lee Kantor: And then was the service always kind of bookkeeping, accounting, that kind of work, or did it evolve into kind of business consulting as well?

Octavia Conner: It evolved. So when I first started, I was basically doing bookkeeping, taxes, accounting, things like that. And then I actually went through a financially struggling stage myself and was able to come out of that stage. And so once I was able to come out of that financially challenging chapter, I was like the same things I did for myself to get us past that. Other small businesses need this. And so I rebranded actually to Say Yes to profits and started offering the financial strategy side and the business consulting to really help companies scale faster.

Lee Kantor: And that is kind of really what the company needs. Because isn’t it like the bookkeeping and the accounting part, that’s kind of a commodity, but the consulting is where the real value is unlocked.

Octavia Conner: Exactly. It is nothing like deep diving into a business and understanding the goals and objectives, not just for the business, but for the business owner, and then developing the financial strategy that will pave the path for them to get there. Holding them accountable and showing them along the way how to capitalize off of the things that you know were successful, and then how to fix all of the things that may have not gone the way that they desired to go, so they can continue to grow. So yes, the, the strategy side is a side that I love, and it is the side that is honestly, I think, super important. If a company really wants to go to the next level.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I, I have interviewed lots and lots of people over the years, and I just find a lot of the CPAs just want to do tax and they want to just take your books and put it in a program and then spit out a tax form at the end of the year. And they don’t want to do the deep dive that can really help and change the trajectory of a business.

Octavia Conner: Yep, yep. That is so true. And that is the part that I love. Now, for those CPAs that love the tax prep and things like that, there’s nothing wrong with that. But again, to really scale, to really grow, to really build a business that not only has an impact, but one that is profitable, sustainably, you need that deep dive financial strategy. You need someone that can see behind and beyond the numbers and really show you how to excel.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re working with your clients, I would imagine you’re not just seeing them at tax time, you’re kind of checking in throughout the year in order to help do some proactive planning.

Octavia Conner: Absolutely. So we meet with our CFO clients at a minimum one time every single month. And then we do check ins throughout the month because during a typical CFO strategy session, we may give them 3 or 4 things that they need to do. Well, we don’t want to leave them at that. And so we will periodically check in just to see how the process is going so that by the time we have our next session, they’ve made progress and they’ve moved closer into their ultimate goals.

Lee Kantor: So you really are kind of changing the paradigm of what this kind of work can be. You’re not you’re not kind of an order taker. You’re a true trusted advisor partner for with your company. Companies you work with.

Octavia Conner: Absolutely. Yes. That’s the part that I love. It brings me great joy. And I love to see my clients achieve their goals. And, and I love to see my clients achieve the goals that they once thought were impossible. That’s like the biggest thing.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with so many entrepreneurs and companies that may have hit a plateau or are struggling a bit, are there some mistakes you see them making that you can share that maybe can help our listener kind of not make those mistakes? Are there some things that you see a lot where you’re like, oh, here we go again?

Octavia Conner: Yes, yes. So one of the things I tell my CFO clients a lot is that success leaves clues. And so we want to look at your historical pattern to identify the things that went well and identify the things that didn’t go so well and pick up the clues. Right. But outside of that, the one thing that a lot of business owners do is that they focus on the top line. So they focus on that revenue number. They want to be $1 million business, multi-million dollar, six figure business, eight figure business, whatever the number is. And then that is where they’ll stop. So they’ll identify a plan in most cases, or they’ll just know how to bring in the money. But what happens after the money arrives in your business? If you’re not able to retain the money, then you’ll stay on this hamster wheel. So a lot of times we will look at not just the revenue goals, but the profitability goals, the long term wealth goals, and identify exactly what to do to get to those places as well. Because if you’re just earning money and it goes back out, then it’s not really helping you. But if you’re earning money and then you’re able to multiply that money, right? And then you’re able to place it in what we call asset vehicles, where your money makes you more money. Then now you’re on the right path. So I would say not only focus on the revenue goals, but focus on retaining more of your money inside of your business.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s one of those things where I guess the owner a lot of times thinks I can control the revenue because I can just sell more. But if they have a hole in the boat and it’s coming leaking through the hole, you can’t sell fast enough. A lot of times.

Octavia Conner: Exactly, exactly.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re doing those kind of audits, are you kind of look, you have to kind of understand their whole business in order to really find where the leaking is, right?

Octavia Conner: Absolutely. So one of the things that we do, we have all of our clients go through a 23 point assessment. This assessment allows us to see all of the money leaks, all of the ways their company operates day to day. And because we are not emotionally attached to the company, we’re often able to see the things that the owner wasn’t able to see. Right. I tell my clients all the time, you often can’t see the picture when you are the frame where we come in from the outside and look at everything and then bring it all together to show the owner, and from there we’re able to develop the strategy to get to the next place and also fix the things that honestly was kind of right there in their eyes, but they couldn’t really disconnect from the business enough to see the actual problems and sometimes lead. Those conversations are challenging conversations, but I feel like you have to have those challenging conversations in order to get to the next step.

Lee Kantor: And some of those conversations might be that they don’t realize some value that’s right in front of them, that you see, that they might take for granted, that they might not see it as value. That could be just something they do, but you could see it as an outsider as, hey, this is extremely valuable. And you’re undercharging for this?

Octavia Conner: Yes. Yes. And we are also able to see what we call their profitable business model. So a lot of times business owners will think they need, you know, 1001 products and services to earn that next million, 2 or 10 million. But most times you just need to laser focus and develop a profitable business model. So what is like that one thing you want to bring to the marketplace you want to be known for, and you know that you can provide excellent service. And then from there, you build other revenue streams from that one important thing. Then you’re able to put that in the marketplace in a big way, but then you still have other revenue streams that will still bring in money. So you’re not depending on just one thing. But again, that one thing is the focal point that brings in all of the other avenues in your business. So they’re the strategic way to do it. But oftentimes business owners don’t see that. They’re just like, I just need to make another dollar.

Lee Kantor: Right? Instead of kind of doubling down on the things that are doing well and putting more emphasis and focus on that, they kind of spread themselves across a bunch of stuff that some of which probably should be pruned.

Octavia Conner: Absolutely. Yes.

Lee Kantor: So now, um, what’s it like to work with you? Like what, what is, uh, kind of the pain that your future clients have right before they call you and your team? Like what’s happening in their business where they’re like, you know what? I better call Octavia and her team.

Octavia Conner: Um, there are several. So some of the top ones right now, they may feel this financial anxiety, this financial stress, because as I mentioned before, they’re able to earn the money, but they’re not able to keep it. So oftentimes they’ll find themselves having like sleepless nights or just trying to figure out how do I make payroll? Like I just signed this new client, but the money is gone. How am I gonna afford to cover my team’s payroll. And oftentimes the CEO is not even paying themselves consistently. And so they’ll find themselves maybe depending on credit cards and loans to float the business through. And that initially tells me that there may be some cash flow problems going on. You know how to bring the money in, but you’re not keeping it. Another challenge is that they’ve experienced a high tax bill in the past, so they’ve earned a lot of money, and then they had to pay a lot of money to the IRS. Now, there are legal and ethical ways to lower your taxes to the smallest amount possible. But a lot of business owners not only pay the IRS their fair share, but they give them an extra tip. And so our goal is to create that financial strategy and that tax strategy. Place them both together throughout the year while we’re working together to ensure that you keep more money, you earn more money, and you don’t give an excess unnecessary amount to the IRS.

Lee Kantor: And you’re working with them through every aspect of this. You’re consulting with them to help them grow. You’re also, though, kind of helping them keep the books right and to do their taxes at the end of the year.

Octavia Conner: Yes, yes, yes, we have the full service here at Say Yes to Profits.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with your clients, it sounds like a lot of your work is in kind of emerging and growing companies. Do you also have clients that are on the other end of the life cycle where they’re looking to exit or looking to sell their business?

Octavia Conner: Yes. Great question. So we have a few clients that are looking to sell their business for those clients. What we’re focusing on is how do they exit the business wealthy? How do they set the business up so that it is attractive to buyers? And so we look at their projections for their profit and loss statement, their income statement, their balance sheet, their statement of cash flow. We are creating a cash flow forecast so that they can see into the future, and we help them internally. A lot of businesses are operating day to day without standard operating procedures. And so we’re able to kind of see where they need to have those standard operating procedures. So if someone’s going to come in and purchase the company, you don’t want them to come in into a mess, right? You want them to come in into a company that is operating like a well oiled machine, and we can assist them with that as well.

Lee Kantor: So you help them build out those standard operating procedures to help them give the playbook to the next owner.

Octavia Conner: Yes, yes, yes, yes, as well as exit the company wealthy also, so that the the current owner is able to exit the company, ideally at the number and the desire that they want while the new owner comes in to a profitable company that is operating well.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you find that a lot of folks, whether they’re trying to exit or they’re running, they’re kind of growing business that they sometimes think that they use their bank account of their business as their own bank account. And that’s something that might kind of bite them at some point in time.

Octavia Conner: Absolutely. So that is considered commingling and that is something you do not want to do. Here’s the thing that business owners have to understand. When you set your company up, when you create your entity, whether it is a limited liability company, an LLC or S Corp or C Corp, you do not want to co-mingle, meaning you’re mixing your business with your personal funds, your personal funds, with your business funds. And it is all just, you know, unorganized and co-mingled together. You don’t want to do that because one, you’re doing something called piercing the corporate veil. And when you pierce the corporate veil, that can lead to other challenges. If someone sues your business because you’ve pierced the corporate veil, you now have given them the opportunity to go after your personal as well. So that’s one thing. You don’t want to do that because you pierce the corporate veil, but also it limits your financial visibility on both your business and personal side. If everything is mixed together, you really can’t see what is going on, what really needs help, what really needs fixing. The money leaks. You can’t see really anything because everything is mixed together. And so one of the things we do when a company comes on board, if their books are not accurate, reliable and up to date, we will work with them to get accurate, reliable books because that is the foundation of being able to develop a financial and tax strategy for their business.

Lee Kantor: And they think that they’re kind of beating the system. But this is something that really can have devastating effects down the road, especially if they’re trying to exit or sell the business at some point. I mean, all of a sudden, why is someone buying a business when it shows like you’re not making any money?

Octavia Conner: Right, right. Or why is someone buying a business and it’s showing that the business is paying the owners mortgage, right? Or the business is sending the owner on trips. That has nothing to do with the business. Okay. So yeah, it really does limit the growth of the company. It can prevent someone from wanting to purchase the company. And it just gives you books that looks as if you’re not operating like a true business. And you may be operating like a true business, but your bookkeeping and your financials, if they don’t look that way, it can definitely hurt you in the end.

Lee Kantor: And I think that this is where having, um, a partner like you as part of the team really can help a business grow and get their act together because they’re the business owner knows how to do whatever the business is, but they don’t understand the kind of the complexity of business as a whole necessarily. And it takes somebody that’s an expert that has kind of a bigger view of how business should be to be able to help somebody like that, to make sure they’re not making kind of mistakes that are just shooting them in the foot.

Octavia Conner: Absolutely, absolutely. And you said it perfectly. You are in business to do whatever you’re passionate about. The financial side, you didn’t start a business to be a CFO. So why even take that on? Allow someone to help you that can really give you the advice and the strategies that you need to go to the next level.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that might illustrate what it’s like to work with you? Don’t name the organization, but maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Octavia Conner: Yes. So I remember a client that came to us, and for about 2 or 3 years, she had a desire to purchase a building and expand her company. And this was before working with us. One of the things that prevented her was that one. She did not understand her financials. Her financials were not set up in a way that will allow her to be attractive to lenders, and her profitability wasn’t at the level that it needed to be in order to qualify for the type of loan that she desired. Well, after working with us for about two years, and while I won’t say her name, if you go to our website or my YouTube channel, you’ll see ten plus 30 plus videos of different clients with their testimonies, right? But after working with us for about two years, we were able to set her business up to where she qualified for not only the building, but she was able to purchase a home as well. And so in her case, we had to do a few things. We had to get her books clean and organized up to date and attractive to lenders. We had to help her build an actually profitable business. She was top line heavy, meaning she had a lot of revenue that her company was earning. However, her profitability wasn’t exactly where it needed to be. We had to ensure her taxes were set up correctly and filed correctly, and then we had to look at her pricing. So even though her company was earning a substantial amount of revenue, she was still leaving money on the table. Her prices were not priced for profit. And so during our 23 point assessment, we were able to diagnose that and we were able to see that and help her build that profitable business model, which allowed her to not only earn more money top line, but actually show a profitable business and show her company as balance sheet healthy. So the balance sheet side of her business was extremely healthy, which allowed her to qualify for her loan and purchase her home.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you can share to the listener when it comes to cash flow? Maybe some of the good and the bad? Like, is there low hanging fruit to improve your cash flow? And is there some kind of warning signs that maybe your cash flow is telling you that you’re not maybe seeing.

Octavia Conner: Such a great question. So one of the things I will say is that if you find yourself waiting on the next client payment to purchase something in your business, that is a warning sign. If you find yourself heavily reliant upon your business credit cards and lines of credit, or needing a loan extremely, you know, bad in order to make it to the next level, those are clear warning signs. What I would recommend is that you create a 13 week cash flow forecast, and this is where you will forecast the next 13 weeks in advance. Your forecast, the amount of money that’s going to come in, what is going to go out, what will be your beginning cash balance and your ending cash balance. And you can do this by simply having a spreadsheet where you sit down and you map out the next several weeks. This will allow you to see ahead of time where you’re going to have weeks, where money is going to be few and far between, and then you can do something right now to fix those slow weeks. And if you do this consistently, this is something we do with our clients each and every month that we meet them. When you do this consistently, you will you will capture the things that you would have missed. And you’ll also likely, if done correctly, prevent a lot of the cash shortages that may happen in your business.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there an ideal client for you? It sounds like you want you don’t want maybe companies that just started this week, but maybe they’ve sold some stuff and have been around for a minute. Like what does an ideal client profile for you?

Octavia Conner: So typically our clients are consulting firm owners and or service based businesses that are earning between 1 million and 10 million in annual revenue. Um, those that are around $500,000 in annual revenue as well are our ideal clients for my firm.

Lee Kantor: And if there’s somebody out there that wants to learn more, is there a website? What’s the best way to connect?

Octavia Conner: Yes. So they can go to sayyestoprofits.com. While there, I encourage them to register for our monthly master classes. We do monthly virtual free master classes where we’re either discussing cash flow and profitability or taxes. So we have a couple of master classes coming up for this month. So I encourage them to register for our master classes, but they can go to say yes to profits.com to find out all of that information and more.

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

Octavia Conner: Thank you for having me.

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

From IT Support to Strategic Growth: Securing Businesses for the Future

by

High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
From IT Support to Strategic Growth: Securing Businesses for the Future
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Brian Daughhetee, President of ANC Group, about helping businesses use technology, cybersecurity, and AI to operate more securely and efficiently. Brian shares how ANC Group evolved from serving school systems to supporting businesses across industries, emphasizing a partnership-first approach that focuses on understanding each client’s goals, risks, and challenges. He also explains how businesses can assess cybersecurity vulnerabilities, right-size their technology investments, and strategically adopt AI to improve efficiency and profitability without losing the human element.

Brian Daughhetee leads ANC Group Inc., a technology services firm specializing in managed IT and cybersecurity solutions for K-12 schools, legal practices, manufacturing companies and educational institutions across South Carolina.

Under his leadership, the company has earned recognition as the state’s No.2 Best Place to Work and top-ranked IT employer, while also being named to the SC 50 Fastest Growing Companies list.

His technology career began unexpectedly at Washington’s Cispus Learning Center, where he served as Ropes Course Director before teaching himself computer network management. “The best advice I ever received was to ‘play to your strengths and hire for your weaknesses,’” he said.

His civic involvement includes serving as a Mauldin city councilman from 2001 to 2005 and chairing the Mauldin Cultural Center Board. He holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Towson State University and a master’s degree in managerial sciences from Indiana Wesleyan University.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Building a technology partnership instead of simply selling IT services
  • Moving from cybersecurity crisis response to proactive risk management
  • Using vulnerability assessments to identify and prioritize security gaps
  • Right-sizing cybersecurity solutions based on business needs and budget
  • Adopting AI strategically to improve efficiency and profitability
  • Protecting company data while employees use AI tools
  • Using AI agents to automate repetitive tasks while keeping humans in the loop
  • Helping employees focus on higher-value, human-centered work
  • Reviewing technology tools regularly to eliminate unnecessary expenses
  • Recognizing when business owners have become the bottleneck in their own growth
  • Using technology and efficiency to create capacity for sustainable business growth

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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Business RadioX. If you’re a business coach or consultant who’s tired of being a best kept secret, set up a call with Stone Payton at brookstone.com to unlock your perpetual prospect pipeline. Today on the show, we have the president with ANC Group. Brian Daughhetee. Welcome.

Brian Daughhetee: Thank you Lee. I appreciate you having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about ANC Group, how you serving folks.

Brian Daughhetee: So ANC group started company back in 99. We initially started out as a company that was focused on IT service delivery for primarily schools. I used to be a teacher before I jumped to the other side of the fence into technology, and we’ve kind of grown and evolved since then. We’re still very much involved with school systems, but we also do a lot in the private sector as well law firms, manufacturing, finance businesses and such.

Lee Kantor: So now when you started out in the schools, what was kind of the deliverable to the schools? What were what problem were you solving for them?

Brian Daughhetee: Oh, this was boots on the ground. This was this was before we even really had super reliable internet and stuff. So we were going on site installing new hardware and just trying to get like kids connected. So, you know, they were really making the transition from traditional paper and pencil models to the beginnings of, okay, how can we leverage this technology to teach kids and improve student outcomes?

Lee Kantor: And then how did the business evolve when you expanded into other areas, other industries.

Brian Daughhetee: You know, every one thing. And this has been a core tenet of ANC group since the day I started the company. In my prior in my prior role, I was technology director at a school district. And when we worked with other technology companies, the kind of repeating pattern that we saw was they wanted to come in and sell us something and then leave. And when I started ANC group, the, my mindset was, we’re going to make a company that comes in and partners with the school districts, and we just carried that over into the private sector. So, you know, when I work with a client, I want to know the client. How did tell me how you got your business started? What’s the stuff that drives your business? What makes you proud of your business? What scares you to death about your business? And we really get to know our clients. Um, and we are, we position ourselves and are seen as a partner to our clients rather than just someone else who’s selling us stuff.

Lee Kantor: Now, does when you’re selling it to a client, especially to if you’re focusing in on now, like kind of smaller organizations, it sounds like a big word that covers a lot of ground, but does it, does it? Like what particularly is there? Does something happen that is prompting them to call you? Like, is there like a, a breach of some kind? Or they got some ransomware or something crashed, like some something in an individual activity happened, but that it can handle that in a hundred other things.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah. And it you’re right, it encompasses a great big globe of terms and technologies. Uh, so, you know, we consider, I guess I consider traditional it being computers, servers, you know, keeping the network connectivity. So users can get to the internet and do their jobs. Um, but then, you know, you mentioned breaches and stuff that really gets into cybersecurity, which is where we’ve really made a move probably in the last eight or 5 or 8 years into really focusing on cyber security as well. We still do all the core IT stuff, but cyber security, that’s where you’re talking about. Is there a breach? Is somebody, you know, did they click on a spam link? You know, that’s that’s the bad area. And that’s definitely that in AI are probably the two fastest growing sectors where we’re seeing phone calls come in and saying, hey, we need help now.

Lee Kantor: Because, you know, as we were discussing that, it is so broad in terms of the things you could be doing to help the client. I would imagine that the client doesn’t know all the stuff. You know, that they think it’s a couple of things and, you know, it’s a lot of things. So how do you kind of expand their understanding of what you could possibly deliver. So they make sure that you are serving your partner in a way that is giving them all the value you could deliver, rather than just solving the triaging. One thing they think they need you for sure.

Brian Daughhetee: Now, you know, and that really does come back to what I was talking about earlier, is kind of why we’re founded and what I think about us as really our core mission, which is to help our clients businesses succeed, help them move the ball forward. Um, you use the word triage. Sometimes when we’re brought in, it is triage. I mean, the building’s on fire. Uh, we have to, you know, we have to get in, put out the fire, and just save the business in some ways. And then from there, we start building a plan to move forward. So that comes back to getting to know the business. What do they want to see happen with their business? Are they are they looking for big growth year? Are they looking to just survive or is it a maintain. And hey, let’s, let’s keep growing at a nice 15%. Uh, and then from there we look at what ah, I guess the, the targeted risks or the low hanging fruit things we can go after that to me is an IT professional and a cybersecurity professional. I look at that and go, man, that’s a big glaring hole. And if I was a hacker, that’d be the first place I’d look, you know? So we usually start there at the at the easy stuff. Um, some stuff, you know, is expensive. So a client may very well need it, but it’s expensive. So we work with them on budgeting to help plan for that. And then there’s other things, you know, I mean, a small business of, say, 15, 20 employees does not necessarily need the same security or solutions that a Home Depot or a target does. So we try to right size our solutions as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re coming into like I would imagine some of the times, your initial interaction with a client is to fix a problem that something bad happened or something troubling happened. And they’re like, Brian, uh, this happened and please make it go away. Is that accurate? Is that accurate? Like that’s a point of entry before.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah. And unfortunately, uh, you, you, I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So especially with a cybersecurity incident. So if, if someone’s managed to breach the network, if they’ve stolen data or they’ve locked you out of your stuff, it’s a lot harder to I mean, once the damage is done, the damage is done. At that point, we’re, you know, we’re cleaning up the ashes and we’re building a new building. A lot of the times, um, if we can get in there early and, and this is and sometimes it’s a scare. So, uh, we’ll get a phone call like, oh my gosh, my admin assistant, she got this, she got this email. It looked like it was from me. And she clicked on the link and something happened. But it wasn’t something bad, you know, it was it it just kind of, but it popped it into their heads like, this is this could have potentially been really, really bad. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So like I, I caught those near misses. To me, near misses are, are the best thing because a near miss it missed. So that’s a good thing. But a near miss is a warning sign that I better do something because next time it may not miss next time.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah. Next time they’re gonna, they’re gonna improve their aim and they’re, they’re going to get in. And so hopefully we get brought in, you know, when the near miss happens or even before that, it doesn’t always happen. Um, you know, so in kind of the worst case scenario, you go in, everybody’s locked out of your systems, then it’s like, okay, let’s, let’s see what stuff you had in place. Did you have backups in place? You know, are there things that we can use to kind of rebuild your network? But like those near misses, those are great because that raised the level of awareness for the business owner and said, okay, this could have ended my business. This could have been very bad. They pull us in and say, you know, I’m like, let’s like take a law firm, for example. You know, lawyers are really good at lawyering. They’re not necessarily tech people or cybersecurity people. And, and I, I’m terrible at, I would never want to be a lawyer. So, you know, bring us in, let us do the stuff we’re good at. And we’ll start by getting a baseline assessment. Let’s see where you are. You know, what do you have in place already? What’s good. And then we look at like, here are all the gaps.

Brian Daughhetee: There might be 15, 16 different areas that we look at. And hey, you know what? Three of them are rock solid in, you know, so those are green. You got a few categories that are yellow, but you got all this sea of red here. So we then we start looking at it and saying, where’s the biggest risk if something happened today? When when your admin assistant clicked on that link, how bad could it have been? And we start targeting there, you know, like what’s going to get the biggest bang for the buck? And it really is it does come down to a dollar spend at some point. Tools cost money. People cost money. And so our job is to, you know, balance what they need with what they can afford. And then in the areas where it might be like, you know, this would be really nice to have, but you can’t afford it right now. Then then we have a discussion with them on more of a professional services space. Hey, let’s take a look at your cyber insurance policy. Maybe we can get that. Maybe we can get the cyber insurance policy to cover that gap up until you can afford to roll out a better solution.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you see your services primarily in the through the lens of this is insurance to protect you from something bad that can happen? Or is it possible to expand your services into an area where we can not only protect you, but we can also help you grow?

Brian Daughhetee: Absolutely. Yeah. And that’s and that’s really where I like to be. Um, the reality of the situation is, is a lot of times people call, it’s like you don’t take your car to the mechanic if it’s running great. You know, you, it’s like you go there to get that noise diagnosed. And for us, a lot of times the conversation starts with a negative event, if you will. Uh, I hate fear based selling. Uh, you know, I just, I just, I’ve never espoused for that. So we really work as, as consultants in an educative consulting is what we do. I want to educate you on the tools that are out there. And some of that is so at least you have an understanding of why we’re recommending some of these tools. And some of the tools are recommended for a cybersecurity and protect you thing. But like you said, some of them are efficiency things. Uh, you know, we’re seeing a lot of talk and a lot of movement and adoption of AI in the industries, and it makes total sense. It’s a labor saver. Um, it’s an efficiency increaser. Uh, there is some risk that comes with it, but it’s manageable risk, you know, uh, you don’t want to just turn everything on and start using it without some thought behind it. But if you put a little bit of thought in it, it really can improve efficiency and profitability for a company.

Lee Kantor: Now regarding AI is some of the scope of the work you do. Could you help an organization like say, because within AI, obviously AI is another one of those terms that covers a lot of ground in two letters. You know, like it covers a lot of ground in two letters. So AI does the same thing. Um, can you help an organization like move from a situation where they’re like, okay, I’m going to be all in with ChatGPT and I’m going to do ChatGPT, but in reality, maybe they’re better served by having kind of a private LM for their organization. Is that something that you can help an organization with to, to help turn AI into a more protected tool rather than kind of a broad, um, open, open to the public tool?

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s funny, a lot of our AI discussions start with a business owner calling me and saying, we want AI. I’m like, okay, what do you want to do with it? I don’t know, I just know we want AI. And so again, it comes back to, all right, let’s see, what do you want to do with it? And AI? It really can do a lot of amazing things. Um, but what we encourage, you know, we encourage companies and owners to take a look at first, whether you’ve approved AI or not. I guarantee you your employees are already using AI. So at the very least, we need to see what they’re doing with it. And are they doing it in a secure manner? So you want to make sure they’re not, you know, they’re not using the free version of a cloud or a ChatGPT and uploading all your financial data, because that’s out in the world that’s not protected. So first, we want to get you in and kind of a protective status. Uh, we want to limit access to non-approved AI models or agents.

Brian Daughhetee: Uh, then it’s a function of, okay, what’s the stuff that you do in your business over and over and over again that requires human intervention. That is an easy, repeatable process. That’s, that’s a lot of the low hanging fruit. Once you get beyond, hey, chat, make this email look better. You know, everybody does that. Uh, but you know what? Then it’s like, okay, what are we doing? And spending a lot of time on these repetitive tasks. Could we assign one or more AI agents to tackle this for us? And, you know, and this isn’t about getting rid of employees. It’s about letting your letting your employees focus on stuff and really use their brains. You know, letting them, letting them apply themselves. So you’re getting the most out of your existing employees. Will it eventually make it so you don’t have to hire more employees? Throw body at problems? Most likely, yeah. But it’s also going to expose new opportunities and new job roles for hiring an employee that you may not have even thought about a year ago.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those things where, um, like you said, the, a lot of business owners don’t really understand the nuance of AI. Like to them, it’s just, oh, AI is a thing, but there’s a different AI for your accounting department than your, you know, your sales department to your IT department. Like all those things are different animals and. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s where having an expert to kind of help you and walk you through specific activities you could be doing within each team is extremely useful and can increase the productivity of the organization.

Brian Daughhetee: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. If you can take a look at, you know, if you can take a look at the stuff that is bogging down your employees. You know, I hate the word mindless, but it’s, it’s apropos in some cases. But, you know, if you’re just, if you’re just reentering the same data over and over and again, filling out the same form over and over again, that is a perfect thing to hand to an agent, you know, an AI agent like, hey, I need you to do this. You still want a human to review the work, but you’re talking about a three minute review of a document versus 30 minutes of entering in all that data, right?

Lee Kantor: You want the human to do human things and not do kind of tedious mechanical things.

Brian Daughhetee: Exactly, exactly. You know, we don’t, don’t, don’t hire a human to be a machine.

Lee Kantor: Right. And that’s where I think a big disconnect in this whole industry is that they’re not understanding that the object is to, to allow the human to do more human stuff like get unlock their humanity, not make them a better typist. Like that’s not the objective, you know.

Brian Daughhetee: Type.

Lee Kantor: Faster, right? Like that’s not solving the problem. You know, that’s not helping us grow to next quarter, you know, so like, when and how do you help them do that? Like, how are you kind of educating them? Because a lot of people don’t understand that they think it’s just going to replace the person, oh, I got an AI here. Now I don’t need this accountant anymore. Like it doesn’t work like that.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah. You know, and I always say, you know, it’s and even your big companies. So you look at some of the, the large enterprises that man, they, they dove 100% into the AI pool. And, you know, they just allocated these huge AI budgets and turned their staff loose with them. They’re now you’re now seeing them reel back the AI budgets and go, okay, maybe we should have a little focus and direction about how we’re using the AI, because we threw all this money at AI, and it certainly did a lot of things, but it did. Did it necessarily improve anything? Are we a better company? Are we a more profitable company? Are we better serving our mission? Are we treating our humans any better? Um, and so we’re seeing a lot this happen at the enterprise level. You know, your, your, your big companies, they’re, they’re pausing and going, you know what? We, we are a company ultimately of people, not of agents. And so for us, when we go in with a client, uh, that’s why we start at the beginning. I tell, tell me what got you fired up to start this business. Tell me your business’s purpose in life. And, and you know what’s going to make you Mr. business owner or Mrs. business owner feel like you’re successful. Feel like your company is thriving and successful. And most most folks that we talk to, they care about their people. They want their people to improve and develop. Because in this, in the economy that we’re in and the work climate that we’re in, if an employee doesn’t feel valued, if they don’t feel like they’re moving forward, if they’re like, oh, gosh, I’m doing the same job that I was doing three years ago, and it looks like I’m going to be doing it three years from now. They’re gonna leave. And, you know, they want growth. And AI has an opportunity to allow people to growth because you’re getting them away from the, the very rote, boring tasks and allowing them to engage their brains and grow and challenge them. And challenge is good people. People need challenges.

Lee Kantor: Now, this is to me an important area where having an expert by your side, a Sherpa, to kind of guide you through this is is critical. And are you finding that your partners are kind of leaning into you to kind of help educate them and guide them in their organizations to maximize the returns of AI? Because like you mentioned, AI is one of those things. If you turn that thing on, that price is going to go up pretty quickly, especially at the enterprise level. If they don’t know what they’re doing, that bill is going to is not a that’s not a set it and forget it Bill. That’s a bill that increases with the amount of use you use.

Brian Daughhetee: So yeah, exactly.

Lee Kantor: It can turn a small licensing fee into a big licensing fee in a blink of an eye. If you are doing this incorrectly.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah. What do you mean? We spent $10,000 on tokens. I don’t know.

Lee Kantor: That’s not what I bought. It says it’s $100 a month. Like, how did it get to 10,000?

Brian Daughhetee: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. We do. We do a lot of that. And that’s why, you know, again, we want everything to be measured. We we want people to be intentional about how they use it, how they use cyber security and how they use AI. Um, don’t just throw money at a problem, you know, be very targeted with it. And we also, you know, when companies work with us, one of the things we do is first, when we come on board, you know, we’re going to get in, you know, if the building’s on fire, we’re going to put the fire out. But really, once we’re in and we’re rolling on a regular cadence, we’re going to review what you’re currently using. Hey, you know what you’re paying for all these tools. Um, at least once a year, we should sit down and go one. Do we even still need this tool? Do we even use it anymore? Does anybody in the organization even use it to maybe one of the other tools that we like better added functionality that covers another tool. We’re actually going through this process. We kind of clean house every fall, review all, all of our tools, want to make sure the stuff that we’re using is still an industry leader, you know, especially around the security frame. And we just identified two tools that we said, you know, we use the heck out of this last year, but that those feature sets are now in other tools that we like. So we’re kind of paying for stuff we don’t use anymore. So we ended up saving about $10,000 just by dropping one tool. And we do that for our clients every day.

Lee Kantor: Right? Because you can immediately see what they’re using and what they’re not using. Like, yes, you know, and you couple that with what they’re paying for, then it all makes sense to go, hey, maybe you should, you know, double down on this and get rid of these.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah. You know, and another thing that’s that a lot of people go, uh, a lot of people like to do it themselves and I get all that. But you know, like with cybersecurity and, um, AI, you can do that to a point. But like, if you really want some of these advanced cybersecurity tools, you know, sassy Siem having a 24 over seven SoC, you don’t have the staff, you know. First you got to buy the tool, then you have all the staffing that’s involved. You know, so that I think is where a company like A and C group really shines is we can give somebody, you know, enterprise level security on a budget that’s palatable for a 15 user business. And because we have economy of scales, we’re doing it for hundreds of different clients. And by doing that, you know, we’ve, we own those tools no matter what. We have experts on the team. And we rightsize what we do for you. So it’s something that makes sense and is affordable for your business, right?

Lee Kantor: And you’re seeing this stuff every day through a variety of clients where the do it Yourselfer is reading a blog post that says, oh, maybe I should do that. Like, like their information, the amount of information they’re getting is random where you’re, this is what you’re living in at 24 over seven. So I’d rather have an expert watching my back than me. Hope I run into a blog post that’s going to save the day.

Brian Daughhetee: Right. And then on top of that, you know, whether that’s personal, you know, if they’re an attorney or an architect, they’re not doing the stuff that really pays them to be in business. You know, they’re worrying about cyber security. Uh, you know, and, uh, it’s, it’s definitely a balancing act. And I get it, you know, new clients, you know, new businesses, when they start out the owner, they wear all the hats. And we understand that I did the same thing when I started a NC group. Um, but at a certain point, you become the bottleneck and it’s like, wow, you are actually in your own company’s way. And sometimes we have to have that conversation with a client and help them understand. It’s like, hey, it’s a good thing that you’re this bottleneck because it means you’ve grown, it means you’ve got more capacity, you’ve got more demand than you have capacity to deliver. And we can absolutely solve a capacity problem through efficiencies.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates the impact you can make in an organization. Don’t name the company, but maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them. Kind of maybe, you know, get to a place that they didn’t even consider when they first started working with you.

Brian Daughhetee: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, we had it kind of dovetails into what we were just talking about. We had a client who, um, they, they were the, the, the owner was doing it all. He was an attorney. Um, and, you know, he was like, oh no, I, I set up our first server, I installed our first wireless network. I, I installed our first, you know, he did all the firsts. And then at a certain point, he’s now having to like reschedule meetings with clients to keep his network up and running. And, you know, they were, they were in a, they were in growth mode. And he just said, you know, he said, I’m, I’m stuck, you know, I’m the IT guy. And he didn’t want to let go of it because he enjoyed doing that. But, you know, once we were able to let him say, okay, we’re going to trust ANC group. And we started small, it’s like, give us your biggest time suck. You know, what’s the thing that is consuming the most amount of your time? And it was, it was, frankly, it was just keeping the server up and running because they had an old server and managing it. And, and they, they’d grown to probably 20, 25 employees. So it was, it was, it was a demand. And if it went down, it really impacted productivity. So we came in, I said, let us let us just manage your servers and your users computers. You know, let’s not even talk cybersecurity at this point. Let’s just let’s us keep the lights on. And we did that. And all of a sudden he was like, wow, my blood pressure’s gone down. Uh, I’m selling more stuff. I’ve got more billable time in front of my clients. And that’s when the light bulb went on for him. And he was then he was kind of like he was then driving the charge. Like, what else can you do for us? And, you know, now we we do everything for them. We are their entire IT department for them. We are their entire cybersecurity department for them.

Lee Kantor: And then, but not only, I think a challenge, like you mentioned, is there’s a sense of pride and identity of I did this, so I don’t want to stop doing this because then I’m not the guy who does this, you know, like, but, but I’m, I was hired to be the guy that runs the company, not the to be this brilliant i.t side hustle guy.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, you know, shoot, 20 years ago, I mean, 20 years ago, you really just had to keep the PCs and the servers up. And if you had antivirus and a firewall in place, you were good. It was like you said it was set and forget it. You know, we I know it’s in place. We’re good. Um, it’s just too nuanced right now. It’s, it requires constant attention. And so when we work with clients, uh, you know, and again, in the case of this gentleman that I was talking about earlier, Once he realized that he could operate in the area, that he’s just really good at being an attorney. Um, he had fun in the job more. He was kind of getting burnt out before that. I mean, it revitalized him. And then he just saw his revenue, revenue and profitability for his company increase. And that’s the big thing, you know. Yeah. We can get more work in. But are you are you being more profitable with the work? Um, and, you know, we, we help our customers do that.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any piece of advice you could share for somebody who maybe is going through those kind of growing pains is their low hanging fruit that they can kind of handle themselves right before they hire you? Or is this something that requires them to, you know, kind of make that big decision to, okay, let me bring on, uh, Brian Doughty.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah, sure. I think an easy place to start, um, is, you know, we, we offer what we call level one vulnerability assessment. You don’t know what you don’t know. Right. And a lot of people still have that mindset of, oh, I got a firewall, I got antivirus, I’m good. What we do for, you know, a very, very small fee, we come in and we do a full vulnerability scan of the network, and we find all the big holes and all the little holes, and you’ll get a full report. And whether you decide to ultimately engage with us or not, you’re going to get a report that outlines, hey, here are all the gaps and concerns that we see. Um, here’s the priority. And we recommend that when people do it decisions or cybersecurity decisions that it is, it is driven by risk and priority, not by, oh, this is easy to do. Uh, and yet there are, there’s some things that are easy to do, but they don’t move the needle, you know, so we want to do things that, that move the needle. And so the client’s going to get this report, whether they engage with us or not, they still get the report and they can go, oh, I could do some of this. And then they go do it, and then they come and they check the boxes. Well, great. Those are done. Ooh, all these other things. I can’t do those. Now I can go back to a NC group and say, hey, can you help us with these things? Absolutely. We love to do that.

Lee Kantor: So it’s kind of an assessment and a roadmap.

Brian Daughhetee: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s and it’s, you know, we like to think we can know it all and kind of, you know, with, with AI and AI and the internet, we can be experts for a really, really short amount of time and feel like we know it all. But in reality, we don’t. And it’s impossible. So bring someone in who can at least look at things and see where your gaps are, and then you can make smart decisions from there. You’re not just guessing now.

Lee Kantor: Um, if somebody like you mentioned the industry, you start in education and now you mentioned, uh, attorneys multiple times. Are those kind of the same main areas that you’re working in right now? Or is like, who’s the ideal client for you?

Brian Daughhetee: So an ideal client for us. So school systems are definitely still, we are heavily involved with school systems. Um, but, you know, and, and they are, they are kind of their own animal too. Uh, one of the reasons we did so well is because I had been a teacher, I understood the culture and the dynamic there, but it was a very easy shift to get over and working with businesses because, because we’re human focused and not sales or money focused, if you will. Um, people connect with that. People appreciate with that. So our ideal client, you know, I would say if you’ve got between 10 and 200 users even, and we, and we certainly have customers that are much bigger than that, but 10 to 200 users, you have no IT staff, or maybe you have one IT person that’s doing a specific specific task for you. Um, but you feel like, like your gut’s just telling you you’re missing something. Give us a call. Let’s at least do that initial vulnerability assessment and you can see where you stand. Uh, you know, our, our smallest customers, like I said, are, you know, in that ten user ballpark, but our largest customers are in the thousands. So we really, we scale appropriately based on what clients need.

Lee Kantor: And then like you do, you do a lot of work with like those small to midsize attorney firms or personal, um, professional service firms like, because those seem like they would all have kind of similar needs because they’re doing different things, but similar things.

Brian Daughhetee: Right, right. Yeah. So, so kind of our, our com, our big verticals, law firms, uh, financial planners, CPAs, those firms, we do a lot with manufacturing as well. Um, so, you know, factories, automated machines. Of product delivery, things like that. You know, those are those are some verticals that were very, very solid in as well. Um.

Lee Kantor: Now what about healthcare? Are you involved in that? Because that has different layers of compliance and security.

Brian Daughhetee: It does. We, uh, we don’t have a lot of healthcare clients. Um, because because of HIPAA and, and we do provide compliance as well. So, you know, if, if someone came to us and said, hey, we wanted to be soc2 certified, uh, you know, those are certainly areas that we can help. But, but do you agree health insurance is such a detailed, specific vertical. It’s not one that I would say that we’re experts at. We can certainly help in some areas, but I also I also know when I’m getting outside of our strengths. And a lot of times if that happens, we will pull in a partner that say, hey, I know these guys, these guys specialize in healthcare. Let’s get them at the table and part of the conversation, right?

Lee Kantor: And that stays true to the cultural DNA of your organization is everybody do what they do. You know, we’re this is our superpower. So let’s stay in this lane.

Brian Daughhetee: Exactly.

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

Brian Daughhetee: Uh, come visit us at ancgroup.com. You can reach out to us through there. It’s got the phone number on there. It’s got an email. Um, if you’re in the Greenville area, you may drive by and see us just pull in and say hi at the building.

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

Brian Daughhetee: Lee. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your show.

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

Building Careers Through Mentorship, Sponsorship & Leadership

by

High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Building Careers Through Mentorship, Sponsorship & Leadership
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Charisse R. Lillie, CEO of CRL Consulting LLC, about her journey from corporate leadership and law to entrepreneurship, consulting, and corporate board service. Charisse shares valuable insights on building meaningful mentor relationships, finding opportunities through community involvement, and understanding the distinct roles of mentors, sponsors, and workplace allies. She also discusses the challenges remote work creates for professional relationship-building and highlights her book, Upon a Turning Stage: Life Lessons of a Mentee, Mentor and Ally.

Charisse Lillie is an attorney, retired corporate executive, corporate board member, nonprofit board member and philanthropist. In her role as CEO of CRLCONSULTING LLC, she advises law firms, corporations and nonprofits on issues of corporate governance, talent management, mentoring and equity and inclusion.

She also serves as an executive business coach. She served in the US Department of Justice as a Trial Attorney in the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division and an Assistant US Attorney in the Civil Division in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

he was the first African American female to serve as The City Solicitor of the City of Philadelphia, appointed by Mayor W. Wilson Goode.She was also the first African American female to chair the board of The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. She was the the first female to serve as chair of the Litigation Department of the Ballard Spahr LLP law firm.

Since her retirement as a senior executive at Comcast Corporation, where she also served as the President of the Comcast Foundation, she has served as a corporate board member of three major corporations.

On September 29, 2026, Morgan James Publishing is releasing her memoir – UPON A TURNING STAGE: Life Lessons of a Mentee, Mentor and Ally. The book offers a deeply personal and practical guide to building meaningful professional relationships and leading with purpose.

Connect with her on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Building meaningful and lasting mentor relationships
  • Creating career opportunities through community involvement and service
  • Understanding the difference between a mentor, sponsor, and ally
  • Becoming a useful and proactive mentee
  • Developing professional relationships in a remote-work environment
  • Leveraging mentorship and sponsorship for career growth
  • Creating workplace mentoring programs that develop future leaders
  • Turning career relationships into opportunities for leadership and advancement

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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Business RadioX. If you’re a business coach or a business consultant who’s tired of being a best kept secret, set up a call with Stone Payton at book stone.com to unlock your perpetual prospect pipeline. Today on the show, we have the CEO with CRLCONSULTING LLC, Charisse Lillie. Welcome.

Charisse R Lillie: Thank you. Good morning.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn about your practice. Tell us about CRL Consultant. How are you serving folks?

Charisse R Lillie: Yeah. So I have been consulting since 2017. Since I left Comcast. I was a senior executive at Comcast for 13 years, and initially I was focused really on diversity. It was Post-George Floyd and I had a lot of clients who were calling me because they were trying to deal with employees who were concerned and upset. And I did focus groups, and we did a lot of creating a proposals for them about how they could deal with diverse workforces. My, my, my consulting right now really deals more with corporate governance issues and executive leadership issues. So I’m doing a lot of executive coaching and much less the diversity work, but always with a lens on making sure that that employers are working to have equality and diversity into their workforces.

Lee Kantor: Could you talk a little bit about the transition from working at a large kind of enterprise level organization to then being an entrepreneur and starting your own consulting firm. I’m sure a lot of folks dream of being kind of their own boss at some point, but maybe have never taken the leap.

Charisse R Lillie: Yes. Well, it was a part of it was I really depended on some of my mentors who were referring clients to me. And I also did a lot of speeches. I did a lot of speaking engagements. And then I had to get a make sure that I had some administrative help. So I had to have some administrative help. And it was so it was it was very different. And I was accustomed to having infrastructure around me and having an assistant. And, and also with the, the, the law firm who was a big structure in terms of getting referrals from my, my law partners, actually. So it was it was quite an adjustment, but it was an adjustment that I made and I’ve enjoyed working for myself. I, I also now serve on three corporate boards. So the. That’s the other thing that’s taking up a lot of my time. And serving on the corporate boards has been a lot of work because the, the change in the last, I would say 15 years, I 15, 20 years. I joined my first corporate board in 2006. Uh, really the focus on corporate governance, governance with corporate boards is huge. And I chair two compensation committees and it is a lot of work. So, um, doing the, the business development as well as working on the corporate boards means that I’m still working seven days a week. I didn’t think I was going to be doing that after I left corporate America and the big law firm world. But that’s, that’s the way it is. And it’s good. I have no complaints.

Lee Kantor: Now. Do you have any advice for other leaders out there that would like to kind of get on a corporate board? Are there some do’s and don’ts on making yourself available for that type of work?

Charisse R Lillie: Well, I’m going to tell you the anyone who is interested on in getting, um, joining a corporate board, um, you have to do that much younger in your career, because most corporate boards now have mandatory retirement ages. Some of them are in the 60s, some of them are in the 70s that you have mandatory retirement. But my experience of getting on a corporate board was really it was based on recommendations by other people, more senior in my than the legal profession. And then in corporate, um, they got to know me as a younger person. Uh, and it is very hard to do that, um, either mid-career or late in your career. Um, basically because getting on a corporate board is primarily is going to be based on personal relationships that the CEO, CEO, CFO, and in some instances, other board members have.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, early on, you mentioned the importance of mentors. Was that something you did strategically, or is that just something that happened as part of kind of the culture of your organization? Can you talk a little bit about, you know, how to find a mentor, how to, you know, kind of work with a mentor.

Charisse R Lillie: Sure. Um, I, um, was very lucky because I, I did not seek mentors. I was really my mentors picked me and, um, and so it is important that I really talk to people about how you get a mentor because getting a mentor, um, is going to depend on how your workplace is set up. Um, in the beginning I was a government lawyer and I worked in the Justice Department and both in Washington and later in Philadelphia in the U.S. Attorney’s office. Um, and, uh, some of the leaders that I met in, um, my law government law firms were also people that helped me along the way and served as, as, as mentors. Um, but it, it’s not easy for you to just get a mentor if you’re not in a workplace. And, um, you also have to work very, very hard. So my mentors, um, really sort of adopted me because I was known as a hard worker. I was known as someone who had some serious concerns about civil rights issues and diversity issues, and my mentors were always very supportive of me. But finding a mentor is not going to be easy, and I. The one thing that I can say to people who are early on in their career, and even mid-career, if you are not in an environment, and particularly for people that are working remotely, if you’re not in an environment where, um, you either have a formal or informal mentoring program, uh, that was created by your employer, then you are going to have to get involved either in community service.

Charisse R Lillie: Um, some people find mentors in their churches. Um, you may be able to find someone who has a business background who is active in your church. Um, but I also found a lot of mentors and, and we’ll talk about sponsorship later also, but I found a lot of mentors when as a young person, I served on, um, community, um, oriented boards in Philadelphia and the legal community. I was on the Juvenile Law Center board. I later joined the the local United Way board. But I met people who were in the business community who noticed me, who paid attention to me when I was talking in a in a board meeting or talking in um, a committee meeting of that, of that board. Um, and those are the people that ended up being my mentors. So I, I really recommend community service, um, as a way of finding things that you are passionate about in your community and volunteering and attending those board meetings. The other thing is that if you take on a community board, you have to show up at those boards. And the other thing about community service is that you also have to make donations to the boards. And let me just say this. I was a very young, um, government attorney when I joined my first corporate board.

Charisse R Lillie: And, um, and, um, and that’s, I’m sorry, my first nonprofit board and I didn’t have a lot of money. I wasn’t making a lot of money, but I gave in accordance with my ability to give. And most nonprofit boards are going to be happy. They’ll tell you it’s sweat equity. Um, and it’s also, um, money. So if you can volunteer and do things for that nonprofit board and give what you can, what you can within what you can afford, um, they are going to appreciate that. And, um, you, you’ll get some longevity in terms of that. But the other thing about community boards is you will meet some members from the business community who are also passionate about the same things that you are. And, and you can, um, speak up in the board meetings, but you can also introduce yourself to those business leaders, talk to them about what work they’re doing in their companies and develop a relationship because the best mentorships are going to be those relationships where the mentee also brings something to that mentee mentor relationship. It’s not just going to the um, to the Oracle on high to get advice about your career. It’s also being what I call a useful mentor. And I talk about this in my book, um, uh, to your, uh, mentor, to your mentor.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about kind of the advent of the work from home, um, kind of trend that’s happening? How does, how do you think that maybe an unintended consequence of that is affecting, uh, mentorship, uh, within organizations and even, like you said, opportunities, uh, to volunteer for boards and nonprofits. Do you think there’s that, that you have to also invest time face to face in, in some of this work and organizations in order to really reap the benefits of those kind of relationships.

Charisse R Lillie: I do think that the, the, the mentorships that you have face to face conversations with your mentor, you’re able to ask questions. You’re able to spend a lot of time, a little bit of time, um, letting that mentor get to know you and you getting to know, um, the mentor, it’s just invaluable. And, and I believe that you can do some of that on Zoom or, uh, whatever your, your platform of choice is, but it is easier to do that if you’re having a face to face conversation with a person. And that’s why, um, you know, I really suggest that if people are in, uh, virtual relationship in, in virtual work forces and you’re not seeing your supervisor, you’re not even seeing your coworkers, you don’t even know your coworkers. And, and unintended consequence of the virtual workplace is that you don’t have those opportunities for the face to face. And it’s, it’s face to face, but it’s also developing a personal relationship with that person so that they can be helpful to you and you can be helpful to them.

Lee Kantor: And also you miss out on those kind of random serendipitous, you know, times you run into each other at the elevator or at lunch or something like that. Those moments are lost and those things kind of compound over time.

Charisse R Lillie: That’s right. No question. I can remember with my mentees at my law firm, so many conversations that literally you have it in the hallway or on the elevator. Um, and you are, you are, you’re getting information, you’re getting data about that person. You’re understanding what kinds of issues they may be dealing with in one of the cases that they have. And those are standing, you know, putting a tea bag in a tea bag in the in the kitchen, you know, those kinds of opportunities are just missed when you have a virtual workplace. Um, so I think you’ve got to, you know, for a young person, um, and it’s also for mid-career people because we do have so many virtual workplaces or workplaces where people are only in the office Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They’re not, they’re working virtually, um, from Monday, you know, on Mondays and Fridays. So it is an unintended consequence. And so you are in control of any person who’s building a career has to remember you are control and control of building your career. And so if you don’t have those opportunities because you’re in a virtual workplace, you are going to have to figure out what other opportunities can I create for myself to develop relationships with people that are in the business world. And it’s optimal if those people are in the business world, in the profession, or in the business that you are in. But if they are not, then you need to find that business person in your church or in some community group that you’re involved in and really use them as a resource.

Lee Kantor: And do you think that organizations, because if they are remote, that they have to kind of be proactive and create opportunities for some of the serendipity and some of these more informal, um, connecting points?

Charisse R Lillie: Yes. And I’m, I’m aware of, of some, uh, businesses that are doing that. Um, a lot of businesses are um, having um, either annual meetups, um, with um, their employees. It’s expensive though, you know, if you’ve got a remote workplace that’s expensive. Um, but I, I, I feel like if you got the remote workplace and you’re not spending a lot of money on, uh, rent, um, in a big city office building, then you can take some of those funds and try to create a, a, um, a work environment. Um, that, um, that promotes, um, the, um, the creation of these, these closer relationships with more senior executives, but it’s challenging.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned your book, uh, Upon a Turning Stage. Can you talk about what was the kind of impetus to write a book and what’s it about?

Charisse R Lillie: Yeah, sure. So I, I wrote this book because I have a number of mentees and, um, I have too many mentees for, for one human being. And, what what are the reasons that I wrote this book is to answer the question, how did you get this career that you have? Because I, I have had a wonderful career in government, uh, in, uh, in, you know, big law firm in major, uh, corporation. I was a law professor for three years at Villanova law School. And, and people want to understand you’re, you’re successful. How can I be successful? And so part of the reason I wrote the book was to tell my story and talk about, um, the different jobs that I had along the way, but also it was an homage to my, um, mentors because my mentors were so important and helpful to me throughout the time that I was building my career. Um, I, um, I have, I have a personal relationship with an organization in Philadelphia called team shop Incorporated. It is a mentoring organization for young high school girls, um, created by a dear friend of mine, Ellen Jean Henley. And, um, I also wrote this book for them because every one of those, those girls is going to get a copy of, of, of this book.

Charisse R Lillie: Um, and I want to talk to, uh, I have three audiences and the title of the book is Upon a Turning Stage Life Lessons of a Mentee, mentor and Ally. And so I want to talk to all of those people and to the mentees. I’m, I’m really trying to say to them, look at what I did to build a relationship with my mentors. And not everybody is going to build their relationships the same the way that I did. But for example, um, I grew up in the South. I grew up in Houston, Texas, and my family, you wrote birthday cards, you wrote handwritten notes, uh, written thank you notes with my mentors. Um, I sent them holiday cards. I sent them cards on their birthdays. If one of my mentors I read in the newspapers they were getting an award, I would try to go to that. I buy a ticket to that, that event and try to go, um, to um, to celebrate them. If I couldn’t go to the, um, the, to the um event. I would write them a handwritten note and say congratulations. Um, and um, I stayed in touch with them even after I stopped being close to them. You know, once I wasn’t working for my, the judge that I clerked for or left the Justice Department.

Charisse R Lillie: I still, I stayed in touch with my former bosses and creating that long term relationship creates that friendship that, um, that you can always call that mentor. Um, if you get in a tough spot or if you just want to share some good news, I, I would share, I would share my good news when I would get a new job or if I was getting a promotion, I would let my mentors know and I would thank them for what they had done. Um, for me. Um, so I, so this is so as, as the mentee, uh, this book is, I’m, I’m saying to mentees, this is the way that I did it. You figure out some sort of way to be what I call a useful mentee to your mentor, to the mentors. Um, it is really a call out to them. Um, and to say that there are young people in your workforce and if you’re not seeing them in the hallway every day, figure out a way to, um, develop a relationship with some of those young people and give them advice. Um, and that advice and mentoring is going to lead to your ability at some point to be what we call a sponsor, someone that can really help them grow and, um, and nurture their career.

Charisse R Lillie: And then finally is also a call out to mentors in the workplace that I call allies, uh, people in the workforce that, um, that are, are going to take a public position if they’re in a leadership position that they want to say, encourage their, um, their, their company to have a formal or an informal mentoring program where you, you would actually identify someone in the workforce and that you would agree that for a six months or a year, you’re going to take a meeting with them and it can be a virtual meeting, but you’re going to take a meeting where you’re spending 15, 20 minutes with them, asking them about their career, asking them about what they’re trying to do in terms of getting better leadership or getting some promotion, and then giving them some advice along the way. So it really is a book that, um, you know, I hope is going to be, um, helpful to, to young people in the workplace, but also for people that are in more mature positions, um, in the companies that they are going to take, um, become allies for their younger employees. And also that they will be, they will be mentors.

Lee Kantor: Now you’ve mentioned several terms. Can you explain the difference between a sponsor or a mentor, an ally? How do they all come into play for someone?

Charisse R Lillie: Sure, sure. So a mentor is someone who makes a commitment to, um, a person that they’re going to have regular contact and maybe once a month or maybe once every couple of months, that mentor is going to give advice. Uh, the mentee should come to that meeting with that with with, with prepared questions and should have, um, have a view about what it is they want to do with their career. And let me just say this. What you want to do with your career is going to change over the years. When I began my career as a young lawyer, my goal, my two earliest mentors were, uh, federal judges, Judge Higginbotham. Adrian Higginbotham, junior, and Judge Clifford Scott Green. My first boss out of law school, and I wanted to be a federal judge like them. So I, when I was talking to my mentors was saying, this is my goal and this is how I plan to reach it. But all the things that I did led me in a completely different way. I mean, it led me to corporate law. It led me to, uh, senior senior position in a large corporation. And so I, the fact that you have a plan doesn’t mean that you can’t change that plan, but the plan can give you some Guideposts, and then that will help your mentor be a better mentor to you as you’re going along the process. Now, a sponsor is someone who may not even work with you closely, may not know that you are a hard worker. They may be sitting in a board meeting and they’re observing you. How you carry yourself, what your presentation is, how you ask questions.

Charisse R Lillie: Um, or they’re, if you’re someone who, uh, is being get, getting awards in your community, they’re saying, this is a young person who, who really has some, you know, has some get up and go. And I want to support them. One of my biggest sponsors was somebody, um, who was, uh, eventually became the president of the American Bar Association. Um, and I never, I mean, I never worked with him, um, you know, formally, but he observed me in the legal community and, and was always saying nice things about me at rooms where I had no idea who he was. And I had no idea that I was being discussed. So a sponsor is somebody who puts their reputation on the line and says, this is a good person. We should give that person an opportunity. We should give that person an opportunity to do this job or get this award. Um, and so that is a sponsor. Um, an ally has a less formal, an ally is usually going to be in that workplace and is going to be an ally of, of groups of, of young, um, you know, immigrants, young people who are maybe first generation, um, uh, um, you know, lawyers or business people. And, and the ally in the workplace is someone who is going or, or women, women who are in workplaces. And when I joined, uh, my law firm, we had not had a lot of, um, female partners. Um, so an ally is someone who is sitting in, in a position of authority and can be helpful to people in their workplace. An ally is generally going to be in a in a specific workplace.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates the importance of kind of investing in mentorship? Is there a mentor story, um, that you have been part of that maybe kind of illustrates how the impact, uh, you know, a, the right mentor, the right sponsor can have on someone’s career.

Charisse R Lillie: Yeah, sure. So, um, I’ll tell you one of my stories and then I’ll tell you about one of my mentees. Um, uh, Valerie. Um, Harrison. Um, I was, um, when I was, um, being considered for both, um, a position at Villanova Law School, um, as well as a position at Comcast. Um, uh, corporation. I had mentors who had worked with me in the past who were contacted by my mentors. So I had Judge Green and Judge Higginbotham, who, unbeknownst to me, were being contacted by Villanova Law School because their names were on my my resume and they hadn’t worked with me for years, but they gave good recommendations for me. Um, and, um, and I didn’t find out until years later that they had, I had been at the law school for, for a year. So when I understood that they had made those, those, um, that they had expected the calls and it said good things about me. Um, my, when I was at Villanova law student, uh, Villanova law School, one of my, um, mentees at Villanova law School was a young woman named, uh, Valerie Harrison. And, um, at one of my board meetings, uh, for the Public Interest Law Center, I was sitting next to, uh, Bill Brown, who was a senior partner at the law firm, which no longer exists anymore.

Charisse R Lillie: And he said to me, you know what I have gotten? We have gotten some really great applications from Villanova law schools, but Villanova Law School, but we have not gotten any applications from African American students. And I’m really concerned about that. Do you have any students that you would recommend? And at this point, Valerie was a first year student, uh, going between her first and second year. And I said, Valerie is not a second year student, which I know you normally would hire, but I recommend her highly. I recommend her highly. She is smart. She is hardworking. She’s thoughtful. She knows how to carry herself. She would do well in a big law firm. And so Bill Brown, um, I sent her resume and, uh, she ended up working, uh, hiring her for a summer internship. Um, that following summer, between our second and third year, she went to a different law firm and ended up not going to the state firm. She went to that firm. But she has always given me a lot of credit for making that initial introduction to, to, to Bill Brown. So it really is when you are in a position to help a young person, you’re, you’re, you’re doing everything that you can to help them. And so, um, I was blessed with a lot of Judge Greens and Judge Higginbotham’s in my, um, in my career.

Charisse R Lillie: And when I went to, to um, Comcast, um, I was recommended by um, the, uh, head of HR who I had worked with, uh, but also by my, the former chairman of my law firm, David L Cohen, um, who by then was a senior executive at Comcast. So I have throughout my career been had just these just amazing opportunities. And I’ve had people that I considered either sponsors or mentors who have just been, um, saying very nice things about me and being very helpful to me and very supportive of my getting those positions. And then as a result, I feel a real obligation to the people that I am mentoring, um, to try and do the same thing for them. And I’m still doing it. So when I get a phone call and it’s somebody that I can stand up for and, um, give them a good recommendation, I’m, I’m going to do that. Absolutely. Uh, because I have so many mentees, it’s hard for me to really accept, um, anymore when somebody asks me if they want to be, if I would be their mentor, I can’t really do that. But, um, uh, anything that I can do to be supportive of the mentors, mentees, rather that I currently have, I’m always willing to do that.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re consulting work, what is the problem that these organizations are having right before they contact you? Is there, do you have kind of a sweet spot in terms of, uh, what you deliver for organizations?

Charisse R Lillie: Well, you know, it’s going to depend sometimes it is an issue. Most of these are corporate governance issues where they have a general council. These companies have a general council and they are getting advice from the General Council. Their internal lawyers. So their internal lawyers are reading, reaching out to me and saying, um, we think that this is a special governance issue that either crosses the law or it crosses our our internal documents. And I feel like I need some outside help. And, um, they are coming to me to give them core corporate governance advice. And I take a look at what the law is. I take a look at what their internal documents are. I may make a recommendation that they change their internal documents based on what the law is saying. It’s usually a conflict of laws issues, uh, issue. And the general counsel, um, the chief lawyers for those, those companies are coming to me to ask them for um governance advice. Um, and some of it still is around, um, diversity issues because, um, for some of these companies, they have, uh, had interface with either the federal government, um, or their state governments and with the federal government. Um, now, um, taking a position on, uh, some issues in terms of diversity, um, they want to get outside guidance and make sure that they’re, they’re operating completely within the law. So it’s going to, it is going to depend, but the, the corporate governance issues, um, are those of the corporate governance issues. And then with the executive leadership issues, sometimes it is a question of executive action. And then sometimes it’s also a question of executive coaching. So I may also take on, um, a formal, um, coaching relationship for um, it’s usually middle executives that they think has the potential to have potential to be in senior leadership of the company at some point in the future. So it’s around corporate governance and corporate leadership. Executive leadership.

Lee Kantor: Now, have any organizations contact you about helping us build or develop their mentoring program? It seems like mentorship is so close to your heart that this would be another area of, um, interest and maybe, uh, work that you could get.

Charisse R Lillie: Yes. Well, I have nobody’s contacted me yet, but I’m, I’m hoping that some of the, the, uh, HR leaders will read, read my book and decide that they would, um, would like to have me, uh, advise them on that. And, um, and, uh, I can say this now I’ve been away from Comcast, uh, long enough now, but we did create, um, when I was the senior vice president of human resources, um, at Comcast, um, and I was SVP and, uh, cable division, which then was the largest division we did, we did develop an informal mentoring program, and it went all the way from the president of the um, uh, cable division, um, on down to our regional leaders. And the program worked well. Some of those, um, some of those people have stayed in the company and are now in more senior leadership positions with the company. Um, so yes, so I have not gotten those kinds of requests yet, um, from potential clients, but I’m hoping that if they read the, uh, read the book that I will be able to help some, uh, companies create those programs because I, mentorship is very, very close to my heart, as you can tell. And, um, I think that, um, particularly in companies where there are remote environments, um, I can be helpful to them to either either create the, um, the, um, in the formal programs or if they have the informal programs, I can help them make those programs better.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to get a hold of the book or get Ahold of you. Is there a website? What’s the best way to connect?

Charisse R Lillie: Yes, they can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Um, they can also go to my website, www.charisserlillie.com.

Lee Kantor: So and that’s the website is charisserlillie.com. Right, charisserlillie.com.

Charisse R Lillie: .com. Yes.

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

Charisse R Lillie: Thank you so much and I really appreciate this opportunity to speak with you. It’s been a pleasure, Lee.

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

Keeping Humanity Human in a Tech-Driven World

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Keeping Humanity Human in a Tech-Driven World
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews LauraLynn Jansen, a human-centered leadership innovator, keynote speaker, professional coach, and author, about preserving the human connection in an increasingly technology-driven world. LauraLynn shares insights from her coaching experience and PhD research on humanity, connection, emotional agility, and the importance of recognizing individual values. She also explores how leaders and professionals can navigate rapid change, strengthen relationships, and stay connected to their humanity while working in increasingly digital environments.

Dr. LauraLynn Jansen is a pioneering voice in human-centered leadership, assisting individuals in leading roles and as a keynote speaker and professional coach. For over twenty years she has worked with leaders, teams, and organizations to strengthen one of the greatest competitive advantages of our time human nuace, the capacity to create workplaces where people genuinely feel seen, valued, respected, and engaged with one another.

Blending cutting-edge research with real-world leadership development, she assists organizations navigate a growing paradox. As technology accelerates efficiency, automation, and scale, the human need for trust, belonging, empathy, and authentic connection becomes even more essential.

Her work equips leaders to cultivate the human nuance that technology cannot replicate – creating cultures that drive engagement, innovation, resilience, and sustainable performance.

Her groundbreaking doctoral research explored the lived experience of humanization (feeling one sees one’s humanity) among globally diverse individuals, identifying how intentional proactive interactions foster deeper engagement, trust, and collective flourishing.

Her research earned her the Academy of Management’s Promising Dissertation Award, one of the field’s highest recognitions for emerging scholarship. She is also a Fetzer scholar, and a Fellow of the International Humanistic Management Association, reflecting her commitment to advancing leadership that places humanity at the center.

Her influence extends beyond academia. She has designed and facilitated transformational leadership experiences for executives, health care professionals, military leaders, nonprofit organizations, and private-sector companies throughout North America and Europe.

From Washington, D.C. to Hawai’i and across international settings, she creates immersive learning environments that move beyond traditional leadership training, inviting participants into experiences that transform not only how they lead, but how they related to themselves and others.

As an accomplished Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (PCC), she has coached individuals for over two and a half decades, assisting them navigate complexity, uncertainty, organizational change, and personal growth with greater clarity, grounded courage, and intentionality.

Her facilitation and speaker style is highly engaging, combining thought-provoking research, interactive dialogue, reflective practices, and practical leadership development tools that audiences can immediately apply.

Drawing from both Eastern and Western philosophical understandings, she integrates leadership, coaching, mindfulness, somatic awareness, and whole-person well-being into an approach that recognizes as both and internal and relational practice.

She believes sustainable leadership begins with the quality of our presence – how we show up, how we relate, and how we create environments where people grow and thrive together.

Whether delivering keynote presentations, facilitating executive retreats, or leading transformational leadership programs, she challenges audiences to rethink what truly drives high-performing organizations.

Her work demonstrates that while technology will continue to reshape how we work, our greatest opportunity lies in strengthening the distinctly human capacities that build trust, inspire innovation, and foster meaningful connection.

LauraLynn’s vision is simple yet profound: to help create a future where leadership is experienced as deeply human-centered – where organizations and the individuals within them succeed not despite their humanity, but because of it.

Recognized for her cancer advocacy and foresight In a world where technology is evolving faster than human interaction, Dr. LauraLynn Jansen equips leaders to cultivate the one capability that cannot be automated: the ability to lead in ways that are deeply, intentionally, and authentically human.

Connect with LauraLynn on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Applying human-centered leadership in a technology-driven world
  • Strengthening authentic human connection and communication
  • Recognizing the impact of assumptions, judgments, and autopilot thinking
  • Developing emotional intelligence and emotional agility
  • Understanding personal values through lived experiences
  • Navigating rapid technological and workplace changes
  • Building meaningful social connections in increasingly remote environments
  • Using coaching to turn self-awareness into forward movement
  • Creating greater alignment between personal values and daily life
  • Maintaining humanity while embracing technological innovation

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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Business RadioX. If you’re a business coach who’s tired of being a best kept secret, set up a call with Stone Payton at books.phone.com to unlock your perpetual prospect pipeline. Today on the show, we have human centered leadership innovator, keynote speaker, professional coach, author with LLJansen, Laura Lynn Jansen. Welcome.

LauraLynn Jansen: Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn about your practice. Tell us all about LLJansen. How you serving folks?

LauraLynn Jansen: Well, there’s several ways. Uh, one of the oldest ways that I’ve been a coach for 26 years. So kind of when the field started, I became a professional coach. And I’ve been coaching in all different capacities from civilian world to through military. And then sometimes those evolve into people asking me to come do leadership development training. My focus a lot of times is on how we create more human centered, especially I. My tagline is the human nuance in a tech world. And part of that comes based out of the research that I did for my PhD, where I, where I interviewed people from literally all over the world about how they feel people see their humanity. And then I write, I’m actually writing a new book now based on my research from my PhD work. And I also have a memoir. And then sometimes I write for publications, and then I speak whenever I have the opportunity to do keynote speaking or speaking with local groups, or sometimes I volunteer to speak for leadership groups that are working with youth.

Lee Kantor: So what was it like at the beginning when coaching was kind of a new thing? Um, what drove you to get involved with coaching at that point?

LauraLynn Jansen: You know, everybody has asked me that lately because I’ve been out more in the coaching field than I ever have been. Uh, as my main thing and I really, I don’t remember, um, but I know what keeps me in it. That’s, that’s something I know for sure. And what keeps me in it is just like why I continue to facilitate with individuals is just to be a witness to people having those aha moments in their life that create change for them. So just to be a witness to that, help be a part of it. You know, I’m a co-active coach. So basically that means I hold people creative, resourceful and whole. I see them as holding the answers. And my job is to ask questions, offer different exercises, things that they can do to bring that out in them because it’s been forgotten or pulled over and not seen, because there’s what I call gremlin voices or saboteur voices that have forgotten. Or maybe they’ve gotten them for, you know, their whole life and they’re just uncovering them now to really just see what it is that’s underneath that is genuinely and authentically them.

Lee Kantor: Well, you describe yourself as human centered leadership innovator. What does that mean?

LauraLynn Jansen: So right now it means different things based on what’s happening in our culture and our society. But right now, what it really means is as we automate more and more and more, there’s a human nuance that we have to stay in touch with, right? Because so biologically, neurologically, we are wired to be in connection human to human. And when we don’t allow that to happen, when we deny it, we start to become a psychologically more sad, disconnected, which you can kind of see as an epidemic somewhat in our culture around how we’re getting less and less connected and there’s more depression and things like that. It also focuses on like those, those subtleties around, are you listening? But not in the sense of like active listening. Like I there’s layers to it and there’s ways in which you do it to yourself and to others and in groups. And so it’s, it’s activating those different levels of listening. It’s, it’s knowing how to acknowledge which was the number one thing that I found in my research that made people feel humanized was that ability to acknowledge another person and see their humanity beyond if they had social stigmas or whatever. So those are some of the things when you’re human centered that help bring towards more connection, more authentic engagement, also engage looking at autopilot, thinking, right. Like we were when we were cave people. Let’s say, you know, we quickly judged a tiger and we looked at it and went, not safe. Gotta run. Right. And but in the modern world, we’ve kicked those into high gear sometimes without really reflecting on when we judge. Set expectations, make assumptions. And so part of the work I do around human centered is how do we slow down? How do we notice what we’re feeling? What is our need in the moment? Are there assumptions jumping into the space? So those are some of the things when you work around human centered leadership, it’s looking at not only emotional intelligence, but emotional agility, moving it into action.

Lee Kantor: Now, throughout time, hasn’t there always been these periods of transition like we’re going through now where, um, humans gather and then something changes and whether it’s technology or, you know, the invention of fire or it could have been anything. Um, and then we kind of change our behavior based on that because it’s new. And then we make some sort of adjustments and then we go back to some form of elevating community and humanity.

LauraLynn Jansen: Um, I think it’s true. And I kind of think of it like a spiral. You know, like maybe we’re coming back, but we’re at a different place. So maybe we’re not in the exact same circle as where we were. Maybe we’re in another layer lower or higher, depending on how you want to think about it. I think the difference is with what’s happening right now. I just posted about this on my LinkedIn, is that there is this way in which we’re starting to lose our ability to understand how to communicate emotions or deal with each other through emotions, because we have automations that are just. It’s just assuming that we know. They know that it knows exactly what we need. And it’s not always true because it can’t read our body language. It can’t read our facial expressions, it can’t read certain cues. So what I worry about, if we are coming back around, what is lost, that was part of that human nuance in that process and is.

Lee Kantor: But isn’t that just part of the evolution? I mean, there was a period where we all stayed in one small location and that’s all we knew. And now kind of we have access to the world. And so our communication with the world would be different than it would be if we were just right across from each other. So we have to evolve and learn, relearn maybe some of those things that worked well face to face that maybe don’t work as well virtually. Or I think you’re talking about maybe AI driven where it’s not even a human, it’s a, some sort of a software machine.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah. But as I said earlier, you know, we are biologically wired to be in connection with each other, right? So if we lose the cues on how to genuinely do that, what, what happens to us as a species, right? Like, do we, do we, I mean, maybe we devolve.

Lee Kantor: Or maybe we evolve. It could be a good thing. I mean, we don’t know.

LauraLynn Jansen: I’m you can tell where I’m on this. You know, for me, it’s like, I don’t want to lose touch with humanity because when we lose touch with humanity, things happen that aren’t always really kind. I mean, history has shown that, right? And so like, we always like, we think about nine over 11 or other events where, you know, where each other, we saw each other’s humanity and for whatever brief moment it was, there was a different way in which we were with each other. Right? But what if we continually have a state of where we don’t connect. Like what will that how will that change us as human beings and will it change us? You know, I don’t know, I just I, as someone who works around relational cultural theory and has worked with individuals who have been stigmatized by our society, like I worked with foster girls for many years, and I’ve seen the impact of that and how it is so damaging to the individual when they are disregarded or disconnected from the larger sphere. And that’s kind of what’s the studies are showing is happening. So.

Lee Kantor: So now in your work, how does that translate to your clients?

LauraLynn Jansen: Well, it’s it’s a matter of some people will self-identify that, like I, I don’t know if I know how to have a conversation with someone in a way that’s respectfully curious or how to acknowledge or I noticed that my autopilot thinking is, is running me over, right? Like I jump into judgments or assumptions. So I coach executives, I coach, you know, a high tech people. I coach artists in New York who, you know, that need that communication skill. Even if they’re in a tech world, they need those communication skills to be able to, you know, exist in this world. And so there’s, it’s just a matter of refining it in a way that they show up with it. Every person is different. So I don’t have like a patent way that I work with every person because everybody shows up differently.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of the sign or signal that individual needs right before they call you? That is kind of the trigger that says, hey, maybe I should call Laura Lynn.

LauraLynn Jansen: So some of the triggers people have told me that they have had is they feel very distant from their spouse. They notice that at work, they can’t seem to have their team function well, right? Like there’s just this discombobulation within the space and they want to know as a leader, like, how can I support creating more connection for more productivity or, you know, whatever it is? Um, and for people who are sales people, you know, their number one thing is they have to be able to be in connection with other people to sell their products or, you know, create an experience of, um, the need. Like a lot of, I mean, just like me as a coach, people come to me because they have a need salespeople. You know, when they’re good. What I know is that you, you know, what the need of the customer is. And you, you go into that. But if you don’t know how to relate to a customer to find out what that need is, that could be a challenge. So it just really depends on the angle you’re coming in.

Lee Kantor: And then when they, when you work with them, is it primarily one on one or do you do group coaching or cohorts or is it kind of.

LauraLynn Jansen: All of it? I do. It just depends on what avenue they come through. So with my private practice, you know, it’s usually one on one. I do do group coaching, especially if an organization requests it. Sometimes it’s coaching in the moment when facilitating, you know, a communication course or, you know, some kind of part of the leadership development course that I have. It just depends on what what is needed in the moment. I’m very adaptable. If it’s needed in the moment to do individual and group. We do that, which I do with some groups, which I’ll be doing at the end of October with a group I’m working with on the East Coast. Um, I do individual coaching ahead to help them define their values based on their lived experience versus just pulling it from a list. And then that creates a foundation for them when we come into the group for them to understand when conversations start to happen, maybe if they feel tensions or whatever, they can start to think about, okay, well, I know this tension is happening because I know I value this certain thing and they may know from people they work with. I know that they don’t value that. And maybe that’s why we have attention. And that’s part of that emotional agility is like not only understanding your own needs or values, which are very, you know, they can go either way. Those words are kind of interchangeable in some level. Um, so it’s just, it’s just a matter of what, what’s in the space and how do I work with it? And if anything taught me to be agile around that was when I worked with teenage girls.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re working with technology leaders, are, are they right now involved in artificial intelligence and the deploying of that?

LauraLynn Jansen: All of it. They work.

Lee Kantor: In.

LauraLynn Jansen: Software AI.

Lee Kantor: Are they reaching out to you because they have a fear that, um, there would be less humanity if with their own service or products and they want your help to make it more humanized or like what’s, what do you think is behind it?

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah, I’ve had some people reach out for that and I don’t, I don’t take those jobs. Um. Uh. But I have had others who are working in tech companies who are working on developing stuff like that, and I’m helping them manage the stress of the competitiveness of being in positions like that. So I’m not directly working on the AI element itself, but I’m working with them to manage, you know, the work themselves as human beings.

Lee Kantor: But not for the output to be more human centered.

LauraLynn Jansen: No, no, I’ve been asked for to do stuff like that, but I have I have not done it at this point.

Lee Kantor: And then is that by choice or is there a reason behind that?

LauraLynn Jansen: I just um, at the moment the choice is, is that I don’t, I don’t want to be part of it at the moment. So I, I’m very conflicted because environmental impacts and things like that. I’m a long term cancer survivor. So I always look at like, what is the impact this is having, you know, on multiple levels. And it’s just not something I feel like I can do at the moment.

Lee Kantor: So but you believe that it’s something that if you were to guess if there’d be more of it or less of it in the near to mid-term future, I would imagine you think there’s going to be more of it.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah, I think there is. I think it’s already proven that like the trajectory of it is quite rapid. So, you know, and I have friends that do it and work in it and it’s they’re still my friends. It’s just not something, you know, I, it’s just a thing that I, you know, we all, it’s part of my values, right? So we all have individual values that kind of guide us to where we go. And I watched through coaching integrity wise, I don’t, you know, I don’t like, I, I’ve been approached by companies that are building AI things that are coaching. And I don’t believe that that can replace coaching because of all the things I mentioned before. You know, when you coach someone, there’s facial things, right?

Lee Kantor: There’s nuance that the technology can’t grasp.

LauraLynn Jansen: No, no, the breathing, the anything. And that’s, that’s what I talk about in my because my literally, like I said, my, my tagline for speaking is human nuance in a tech world, right? And I’m not saying the tech world shouldn’t exist. I’m just saying I’m, I’m, I’m here saying we also need to pay attention to these, these things because as humans, we need this to live healthfully.

Lee Kantor: So, um, when you’re working with them, what’s the outcome they desire when working with you? Because if they know clearly, you know where you stand on this, what are they looking to get out of it?

LauraLynn Jansen: Many of them are just trying to de-stress their lives.

Lee Kantor: So it’s just a personal kind of for them, their own sanity.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of them are in leadership roles. And so my PhD is in leadership and change. So sometimes I’m coaching them around how to, you know, manage being a leader in those realms. So some people come to me for that. So sometimes it’s professional that way. Sometimes it’s personal through the the stress or trying to keep their life on track because they’re just so busy and working so many hours in these tech startups and such.

Lee Kantor: So this must be a stressful time for you where your all of your life’s work is around humanity and human centered work. And the world seemingly is pulling to a more virtual and artificial interactions.

LauraLynn Jansen: I don’t know if I’m stressed about it or I can really see how I’m really needed. Right. To help keep that balance. Um, you know, when I finished my PhD three years ago and I came out of it with my research, there was an inkling that it could be really important in the near future. And I was living in Europe at the time, and it wasn’t as obvious there. But when I came back to the US, it became incredibly obvious to me. And it was at the time when everything was changing as far as around Dei and all that stuff, which is a field I had worked in in the past as well. And, um, and so, but when you look, if you look out at some of the things that people are asking for, there are now companies that are seeking out people like me that are tech companies to help make sure that the people in their work. Do remember that humanity side, right? There’s actually literally calls for people just like me to speak in those realms, which keeps gives me hope. Right? So that’s kind of where I’m one of those people. I’ll kind of go towards the hope side versus get negative as I’m, you know, you could probably tell I’m trying not to go there. So it’s one of those things where It’s gonna happen. I’m not fighting it. And I’m just gonna offer how we can keep it in balance.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s. I mean, I tend to be an optimist in general, directionally optimistic, let’s put it that way. Okay. And, um, I just, I just believe that in humanity is, is getting better in the net. And I know that it’s not perfect, but I think just if you look at the frame of humanity as a whole, we’re in a lot better place than we were a hundred years ago, 200 years ago on the whole. Um, and this type of change is extremely disruptive. And humans, I believe, and you, you’re the expert, but we’re not great at change. Um.

LauraLynn Jansen: No, that’s.

Lee Kantor: As a species.

LauraLynn Jansen: Around it, there’s change management degrees and everything. Yeah. I know people don’t like change.

Lee Kantor: So. And the speed of which change has been occurring in my lifetime at least, has been insane. Just if you just start writing down the things in our lifetime, as opposed to when you looked at your parents and you were like, oh, did you have cars or movies? Like those were the big things. But it seems like every week there’s a new thing that’s like earth shattering, um, in our lifetime. Um, and maybe it felt the same for them. You know, a hundred years ago. I don’t know. Uh, but it just seems the, the speed of it is what is disconcerting that we’re having trouble by the time you even can partially adapt to one thing, it’s already changed again.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yes. And that is hard on our nervous system, right? That is incredibly hard on our nervous system, not just our mental, you know, but the whole nervous system can be really challenged by that kind of rapid change.

Lee Kantor: So what what advice would you give a person like, especially a young person today that’s in this that are kind of digitally native. So I guess maybe they’re more used to the speed of which things change than maybe somebody of my generation would be. Is there any advice to kind of manage that? Um, how quickly once you’ve figured something out, it’s different.

LauraLynn Jansen: Right? Well, the coaching me would want to know what their need is, right? Like, I never like to give advice unless people come to me and say, you know, I have this thing and I’m working on so, but I, I so I’m thinking of my niece and nephew right now. One of them is in college and one of them is a senior in high school. And when I watch them, they are incredibly anti AI. Um, they are really working towards trying to stay in that human. And so I, I don’t know, because that’s probably different than a lot of the young people who are very tech like, very into tech. And so I think for all of them, it’s, it’s like, you know, stay in touch. If you can’t stay in touch with other people, at least stay in touch with your own humanity.

Lee Kantor: Are they creatives? Are you are the niece and nephew? Are they creatives? Is that they’re.

LauraLynn Jansen: One of one of them is a music major. The other one is in high school. So she, I mean, she’s president of her student council. And you know, they, I should say they identify as they um, are the head of student council. And so they are, you know, they’re in a lot of different things, softball and band and such. So there isn’t really a pigeonhole for that, which is one of the things I really love about this younger generation is that they’re not as willing to go into any box that we’re putting out there for them anymore. And I think that’s kind of cool. But, um, yeah.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s, I, I’m finding I have a son that’s 28, he’s a creative and he’s super anti AI like, yeah, not interested.

LauraLynn Jansen: Like, yeah. Um, well, it’s, it’s, I mean, the studies are starting to come out showing how it is killing those parts. Like we’re losing the ability to think for ourselves creatively, like when writing and things like that. Like that’s slowly starting to, you know, there’s a, um, we gotta watch that. But as far as me, like, I think throughout time, when we stay in touch with our humanity as individuals, we tend to do better. No matter what is going on in the world.

Lee Kantor: And then in some ways, um, people can stay in touch with their humanity. What are some of the ways that they can do that? Is it just, you know, kind of make the effort to do more things with more people in group settings and just connect with people.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah. I think they need to look at their values and, and understand what their values are. So when I, like I was saying earlier, when I teach, when I help people learn their lived their values, I looked at lived, lived experience. So like, if you think of a moment in your life that you felt really alive. Like, for example, I can think of a time I was climbing Kilimanjaro in Africa, or I was hiking on the rim of, you know, Marin County, the headlands in Marin County, and looking out at the water. Like both of those were really aligned with my values of being in adventure and pushing myself, you know, physically, but also at the same time, not like having to be a super athlete. Right. And then being near water and the fluidity. So like fluidity is something that is important to me as a person. So when, when we stay in touch with our own humanity, it’s being able to know what we value and be aligned with that. Because the minute we don’t live aligned with it, things start to happen for us. And we don’t, you know, that’s a lot of people come to coaching because of that, because they just feel unaligned. They don’t know why. They don’t know what it is, but there’s something just not flowing.

Lee Kantor: So So there’s some incongruence like the the way they see themselves and the way that the reality is, is kind of in, uh, conflict.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah, yeah. There’s an incongruence and that can change over life, right? Like what my incongruence was when I was 20 is very different for me now, decades later. Right. My incongruence has changed over time. Like now all so one way, another way people might do it is through faith or spirituality, right? So I’ve been a meditator for 40 years. I started when I had cancer, when I was young, I had cancer at a very young age. And, um, it taught me that being connected to myself was the most important thing on this planet. I got, I got, I got the lesson really early. So, um, yeah, so, you know, there’s different ways in which people do it. It just depends on what it is that that resonates most with them.

Lee Kantor: Now, isn’t there kind of a, I don’t want to say a backlash, but isn’t there less people like going to, you know, religious services?

LauraLynn Jansen: I don’t know. I’m not an expert on it, but I have watched, um, like when I went through cancer and then after I went through cancer and I ran support groups and I spoke on cancer survivor panels. And if there was anything I learned from that, when I would speak with other people who were supporting people who had cancer and such was, I always said, find the thing that they believe in, whatever it is they believe in, it doesn’t matter. You know? You know, if it’s if it’s God, if it’s Buddha, if it’s, you know, a frog, whatever it is, you know, that’s the way to support them and have them help them stay connected towards life because that’s the thing that matters to them again, their values. So.

Lee Kantor: Right. So it’s values and also being part of kind of the tapestry of a bigger thing.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah. If that’s if that’s part of their value. Most people have some kind of value around that, even if it’s a non connection to a figure. They might be connected to something around nature or the bigness of the world or you know, I don’t I don’t know, I’m not a philosopher in that way. But that’s kind of what I’ve noticed over time working because I worked in hospice for a while after I had cancer and, and stuff like that. So, you know.

Lee Kantor: So in your practice, what is kind of the ideal client for you? Is it just somebody who’s struggling with this in some form or fashion?

LauraLynn Jansen: The ideal client for me is anyone who really wants to, you know, figure out how to have the life they want to have, right? Like if they, I mean, I have people who come, I think genuinely, they think they want that, but they really aren’t ready to do it coaching on any level. Excuse me. Is about forward movement. So if you were going to come to it, like if you have a lot of stuff from your past that isn’t healed. That’s therapy. That’s what you go to therapy for, right? That stuff may appear in coaching, but it’s not the focus of coaching. Coaching is about forward movement. So my ideal client is someone who is ready to kind of look at where they’re at and assert, you know, work with me to figure out where they want to get to and how to get there. And they’re willing to work through the things that show up to get to that place.

Lee Kantor: And when you say willing to work, does that mean take action? Or is it just intellectually understanding that? Yeah, that’s something I should do. Or you’re more interested in the person that’s willing to do the thing rather than think about doing the thing.

LauraLynn Jansen: Right? Because I’m just, we’re both wasting our time. I don’t want to waste their money if they’re not gonna actually do what they want to do to go somewhere, you know what I mean?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I agree.

LauraLynn Jansen: You could, you could pay me to come just sit and we could just talk. I mean, but, you know, I don’t know if it’s doing a service to them.

Lee Kantor: Right? But there’s a lot of people that are at that stage, they’re getting ready to do stage.

LauraLynn Jansen: Right. Well, there’s a so I did my master’s is in, uh, in health education. And so there’s a behavior change model that health educators use. There’s a precontemplation, a ready for action action. You know, those three stages, somebody who’s in precontemplation and, and maybe ready to move towards, you know, or no, I miss there’s another step that’s like a not and not ready at all. Right. So if you come into coaching and you really just came to see what it is, but you really aren’t willing to take any steps, I, you know, maybe a few, maybe a few sessions would get you there, right? So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that few sessions would get you there. But most people who come to me, they have a they’re at least in that stage of precontemplation, right? They’re like kind of thinking about it and they want someone to help them to get into action.

Lee Kantor: Right. They realize that they can’t do it themselves, that maybe they’ve tried over time and haven’t been able to get the outcome they desire. And they say, okay, now I need somebody that can help me maybe get over this hump or get past this plateau.

LauraLynn Jansen: Right? But if somebody else is telling them you should do coaching and they don’t even have any inclination as to why.

Lee Kantor: Right. That’s a waste of time for everybody.

LauraLynn Jansen: It, it probably would be, I can’t say 100%, but it’s probably going to be a real challenge to get them to move forward if they’re not even thinking about it.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share? Don’t name the individual or the organization, but maybe share a story, what it’s like to work with you, maybe share what the challenge was that came to you with, and how you were able to help them get to a new place. And maybe it’s something that’s a rewarding one where you’re like, oh, I really made an impact.

LauraLynn Jansen: Oh, there’s so many. Um. I mean, I think about the foster girls I work with. I think about, um, there’s, there’s a gentleman who’s an immigrant, uh, who works for a tech startup and he was dealing with all kinds of different things around society and, uh, being an immigrant in the US at the moment. And I could tell he came to me pretty downtrodden about the whole situation, but he really wanted to figure out what could he do to make the best of it. And also, he was having some issues with his manager, um, at the tech company. And what I’ve, I’ve seen a couple times happen more than a couple times, several times is certain people at work. What happens is they come in under a manager and they seem to create this beautiful bond with this person Or, you know, a good working bond, if nothing else. And then the new manager comes in and takes over, which I’m learning is a very common constant, uh, flow in, in these tech companies. And so when he came in, I didn’t, I wasn’t sure where we would be able to go or what we would be able to do. But what was, what was amazing was that because of where he grew up, it’s a country I’ve been to, um, India. There was a way in which I could understand culturally what was going on from my little bit of understanding of India having been there multiple times. And, and so there was a way in which he the trust was built.

LauraLynn Jansen: So that’s one of the first things as a coach is to really assess, you know, when the trust is built and if the trust is building, you know, there’s different levels at which you can implement. So as I got to know him and he, I could feel he was starting to trust me more, you know, I could relate to his background and bring things that I understood about the culture or things he had disclosed to me about it into the conversation so that more and more he became at ease and started to find ways to reach out into. He needed social connection. It was something he had a lot of back in India and less so here in the US. And. And he got to the point where he trust he felt safe enough to go out into his part of where he lived, um, in New York City and find a, a men’s group that he joined and it became this safe haven for him. And then that began to change all of our conversations because he had that social connection, he felt safe in the social connection. And then he could now now he’s like on to, you know, he just asked his his girlfriend to marry him. And he is starting to consider building his own business. And so it may not seem like a lot to us, but the overcoming of things like that that are can be major barriers is really significant for people. And this is all just in a matter of months.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that for just people in general? I know you don’t like to talk generally, but, um, finding your people is that if.

LauraLynn Jansen: You’re a social person, it’s incredibly important. And so that again, goes back to that connection piece. Like if you feel disconnected because you work in your apartment, you’re, you’re in a remote role, you have no connection with people other than when you go out on the street, maybe and walk around or, you know, whatever, and have social connection, which it is inbred in all of us, but not everybody says they need it. Um, there is something that shifts. I mean, just think about the different, like think about how all of us, many of us were so eager to be able to leave our houses at the end of Covid and see our people, right?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I mean, people were hungry for. They couldn’t wait.

LauraLynn Jansen: Exactly. And that is that is my point. Right? Like we need to be in connection with each other that way. And, and so I had never seen it come to life so much as I did with coaching him and how much it changed.

Lee Kantor: It was like an unlock, like it just all of a sudden now the world is in color again.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah. Or something like that. I mean, he’s definitely coming out of, out of all of his shell, you know? And so, you know, it’s just one of those things I’m really grateful for that it happened for him.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I mean, the impact is real with coaching. And I, I, I just wish more people would be vulnerable enough to try it because I think there’s a lot of people who would benefit from coaching. When you find the right coach, it really can have a.

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah. And that is the key to find the right person, find the right fit. That’s why I do discovery calls with everybody to start. Because now after about, you know, 26 years of coaching, I can kind of usually tell in the first several moments, you know, if it’s going to be a good fit for me or them or, you know, whatever. So.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about your practice, get on your calendar, get Ahold of your books or hire you for something, is there a website? What’s the best way to connect?

LauraLynn Jansen: Yeah, my website is Laura lljansen.com. So Laura Lynn L l uh, so, and I’m on LinkedIn too.

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

LauraLynn Jansen: Oh, thank you for inviting me. It was lovely.

Lee Kantor: All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Leading With Purpose: Building a Law Firm That Makes an Impact

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Leading With Purpose: Building a Law Firm That Makes an Impact
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Brandon Price-Crum, partner and attorney with Serious Injury Law Group, about building a purpose-driven law practice focused on leadership, community engagement, and client service. Brandon shares his journey into law, his transition into firm leadership, and how community involvement, strong relationships, and a scalable business model have helped the firm grow while staying committed to serving clients and making a meaningful impact.

Brandon Price-Crum is a licensed attorney in Alabama and Georgia, an adjunct instructor at Alabama State University, and an attorney with Serious Injury Law Group in Montgomery, Alabama.

Born and raised in Flint, Michigan, Brandon developed an early commitment to education, advocacy, and community service.He earned his undergraduate degree Magna Cum Laude from Alabama State University, where he founded and led several student organizations and served in various student leadership roles.

He later earned his law degree from Florida A&M University College of Law, gaining valuable legal experience through clerkships in Montgomery, Fayette, and Fulton Counties and an internship with the Orange County Attorney’s Office.

Today, Brandon advocates for clients in serious injury and wrongful death matters, including car and motorcycle accidents, trucking litigation, nursing home abuse, slip and fall incidents, and medical malpractice.

His approach to practicing law is grounded in his belief that education and advocacy can be powerful tools for helping others and strengthening the community.

Connect with Brandon on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Developing a leadership mindset before stepping into ownership
  • Building strong community relationships as a business growth strategy
  • Turning community involvement into meaningful connections and trust
  • Differentiating a law firm through service rather than mass advertising
  • Creating a scalable model for expanding a professional services firm
  • Building a workplace culture aligned with values, purpose, and growth
  • Choosing professional environments that support long-term career fulfillment
  • Delivering compassionate and personalized service during challenging times

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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Business RadioX. If you’re a business coach or consultant who’s tired of being a best kept secret, set up a call with Stone Payton at bookstonephone.com to unlock your perpetual prospect pipeline. Today on the show, we have partner and attorney with Serious Injury Law Group, Brandon Price-Crum. Welcome.

Brandon Price-Crum: Hey, I’m happy to be here. I’m glad you made the time on your show to be able to have me on. I’m looking forward to this conversation.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m looking forward to learning about Serious Injury law group. How are you serving folks?

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah, we’re doing a lot of good things, both in the legal space and the business space and also in the community space. And so I look forward to just kind of breaking down the way that we’re able to operate. I think it’s a very, very unique style of running a law practice. But so far, for us, it has been effective in the way that we’re able to help people and also market and reach people.

Lee Kantor: All right. So why don’t we start on the business side first? Tell us a little bit about your background. Why did you choose law and what was your vision of this? Um the firm.

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah. No, I appreciate that question. So, you know, originally I was born in Flint, Michigan. I was raised in Atlanta, uh, right outside of Atlanta, South and city called Riverdale and always kind of had an interest ever since I can remember, even as far back as elementary school in law? Well, even before I ever met a lawyer. And I always kind of tell people that I never met a lawyer until my senior year of college. Uh, during an internship while I was clerking for a state court judge in Montgomery County. And, and just being in that environment kind of solidified my interest in law. And it was something that I wanted to do for a career. I saw how lawyers were able to, to help people and help communities. I’m not sure if you recall, but the Flint water crisis directly affected many members of my family. And luckily, you know, I was at that point already had transitioned from Michigan, but it affected so many members of my family. And it was something that I saw lawyers stepped in, um, to, to help that community. And a lot of times, you know, lawyers stand in the gap in between an injustice and a remedy. And I noticed that the opportunity to be a voice for the voiceless, to be a competent minded and an individual that is focused on ensuring that people get justice. I knew that there was only a select few career paths that I could take on, and so being a lawyer was the career path that I chose, and it’s one that I have thoroughly enjoyed for the time that I’ve been a lawyer almost a decade now. And I’m truly, you know, excited about what we’re doing at the Serious Law Group, Serious Injury Law Group and the work that we, uh, are able to do for people and the way that we’re able to help.

Lee Kantor: Now talk about kind of the transition from, um, kind of working as a lawyer to being a partner in a law firm because now you, you have kind of the owner lens of your business owner now.

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah. And I tell anybody, you know, even even before, um, you become an owner in a, in a business or a company, um, or a law firm, uh, you want to begin to envision yourself in that role and begin to make decisions, um, as if you were already in that role. And so, um, one of the things that I did, I always, even when I was an associate attorney for the firm is I always thought of myself and made decisions, um, in a leadership minded, uh, way. And I saw that the, the difference in some of the ways that, um, I would look at cases, some of the ways that I would handle the, the business side of my law practice, even as an associate was a lot different than many people that were in my same position. I have a, a business background. It’s, you know, I’ve always had an interest in business, even outside of law. And I saw that business has always been a way for people to be able to find a level of independence and a level of freedom. Um, and so when I was blessed and afforded the opportunity, um, where, you know, the, the partners at the time had saw me capable of becoming a partner, um, in an equity partner within the firm. I, I immediately, um, was already preparing for that, so I was already in a position to do what needed to be done to, um, to transition into that role.

Brandon Price-Crum: But I tell you, uh, Lee, it was so many and, and I’ve been a partner for two years now in this firm, but I will tell you those early days of me being a partner, it was so many, um, things about leadership that I realized that I did not know and that I needed to learn and be brought up to speed very, very quickly. And it’s not something where, um, I necessarily had a mentor, but I had to do my own research, you know. I had to, to make, um, um, very consequential decisions, um, with, you know, with just my experience and just what, you know, what I felt like would be the right decision at that time without much, um, background and, and it has paid off. We have, um, grown our firm, uh, I was, we, you know, we’ve been able to, uh, expand into Georgia, um, and have now two offices in Georgia. And I say a part of that is just that, that transition and being able to learn all of the, um, the ups, the downs and just kind of being able to stay steady through that and, uh, do research about leadership and, and how important, um, you know, those consequential decisions are. And sometimes there’s no real right or wrong decision. You got to just make a decision and live with whatever comes from it.

Lee Kantor: Now, how important is kind of immersing yourself and your business in a community. In terms of growing a business, do you find that useful?

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah, I think that’s critically important. I would say one of the first things, um, that we did when we opened up this office that we have here in metro Atlanta, which is the office that I’m, I headed up that, that expansion, um, was a really, one of the reasons why we’re even here is because of community connections. Um, one of the council members at the time here in Fairburn, uh, was somebody that when we were talking about internally about expanding into the Georgia market, is somebody that I called and said, hey, our firm, yeah, we got two offices in Alabama already, but we’re looking to expand into Georgia and we want to make a real impact out of the gate. He’s the one that, uh, put all of the city leadership together and had a sit down meeting with us to be able to explain and help us with the expansion and be able to explain why Fairburn would be a great place for us to expand into. And so political connections are very, very important. Um, we also, um, you know, began immediately, um, to, and I’m a spiritual person and, and, you know, and so I immediately began to reach out to leaders of, of, of churches and different religious organizations here in metro Atlanta and told them about our firm and what we’re trying to do and, and how we could help, um, their congregations and they ingratiated us and, and they made sure that we were a part of, uh, you know, some of the events that they were having, some of the, uh, donations and giving back to the community, uh, style events that they, that they offered.

Brandon Price-Crum: And so that was critical to us being able to expand in the way that we did. And also, you know, just community nonprofits and the business sector here. And, um, so like the Chamber of Commerce and the resources, uh, that they have. So anybody that is looking to scale a business into a new community, I mean, it’s always important to make sure that the community knows who you are and knows that you’re there for them, especially early on. You’re an outsider. People don’t really know you. And so the way that you get to know a community is making sure that you’re being a part of that community in a real way. And I say lastly, um, which is, is so, so near and dear to my heart is, uh, the school system that I grew up in, um, which is the Clayton County school system. I immediately connected with the school district for our firm to become a part of their communities, community partners. Um, uh, you know, group or, or council. And so we have been able to give scholarships to, to graduating seniors, uh, guest lectures for, for, for students and, and just give, um, through the, the school supply and backpack drives and just really, really, really hone in on being a part of, uh, the school districts and the local, uh, uh, community groups here, uh, I think has been very important, but that’s our marketing approach in each one of the markets that we’re in is making sure that we have a strong tie to the community.

Lee Kantor: Right? And you’re doing it by service, not just writing checks.

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah, 100%. I, I think that, you know, I think that makes a real difference. I think, you know, just like any other firm that does personal injury, uh, and wrongful death work, um, you know, we could just write a check and, and hold big checks up and, and, and, you know, and, and do that thing with, you know, but I think that it’s um more beneficial. Um, and it has shown results for the way that we um, practice law actually getting in there and being a part of these events and these initiatives and these task force and making ourselves available to the community. And so, so we task our lawyers not only to just practice law at a very high level, but also be involved in the community in a real way. So, you know, some of our, our associates are, are, you know, coaching little league programs. They are, uh, involved in, in nonprofit organizations on boards. Um, you know, myself, I sit as the chairman of the development authority in downtown Development Authority of Fairburn. Um, you know, and we are also part of, um, different, uh, task force and alliances and we try to make ourselves also, um, as a part of our local bar associations, um, put ourselves in leadership roles. And so we not only have a task as leaders to and lawyers to, to, to be good lawyers. Um, but we also have a task to be good people. And also, um, we challenge ourselves to make sure that we’re ingratiated in the community, um, in a way that we can offer resources. Um, you know, and it’s not even just pro bono work, but it’s work that we feel like can advance the next generation, uh, and work that can make our communities a better place.

Lee Kantor: Now as a kind of a firm that it sounds like you’re very scrappy, you’re very community focused. How is that your kind of secret sauce in competing with some of these big, I call them billboard law firms, the ones that it seems like every two minutes you’re driving that you see somebody’s picture because I mean, that cost a fortune to be have that many billboards in a state.

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah, some some of these law firms that do similar work in our, as you mentioned, are behemoths in marketing. I mean, they’re spending millions and millions of dollars in advertising alone. And so, um, you know, we are not in that position. I mean, we’re a, uh, a firm of, you know, we have a strong probably about 8 to 10 lawyers, uh, on any given day. Uh, we do have, uh, about 50 to 60 staff, um, you know, across our offices. But, um, in order to compete on a marketing level, I always look at it this way, you know, if you got a, a family member that you trust or if you have, um, a, you know, your doctor that you trust or you have your, your pastor that you trust or some community advocate that you trust that says, hey, go to this firm. They’re going to take good care of you. Uh, you know, or or, you know, you have, hey, this, you know, lawyer, I know they go to my church and they’re involved in church events or this lawyer came and guest lectured at my son’s school. I think when you, you know, when you have that type of relationship and connection with the people that will eventually become your clients, I think that that, like you said, that’s a, a true, um, differentiator between us and some of these behemoth firms that do mass marketing.

Brandon Price-Crum: Um, and I say we, we do do some marketing, uh, on that level, but it, what has been probably most, most of our clients over the years, um, and we’ve represented thousands and thousands of clients, uh, is word of mouth. Um, we try to do our clients a, a, a very, very good service. Uh, we try to be in communication with them. Um, we, you know, we, you know, take them by the hand and walk them through the process. So that way if they ever know someone that needs an attorney, they already know they’ve been through the experience and they can, uh, you know, basically give a testimonial to these folks to say, hey, this firm did me well, you should go to them. And so a lot of our clients have been through word of mouth and not, you know, radio ads or billboard ads or television ads. And so, you know, we’ve really, really, um, honed in on truly being a part of the community and that has, um, you know, paid dividends and, um, you know, us getting, continuing to get clientele.

Lee Kantor: And then you mentioned that you’re, you have offices in Georgia and Alabama.

Brandon Price-Crum: That’s right. Yeah. So we have an office in Montgomery, Alabama. Uh, we also have one in Hoover, right? Right outside of Birmingham. Uh, then we have, uh, the office that I’m currently at, which is in Fairburn, which is considered Metro Atlanta, South, uh, South Fulton. Uh, and then we also have a, uh, office in South Georgia, uh, which is in Thomasville. Uh, and we’re continuing to look to expand and scale our business. Um, I think we have a model, uh, that is scalable and it took time to develop that it took us getting with experts, uh, in business, um, that have worked with law firms in the past and have helped them build models, um, that help, you know, with the expansion, uh, and scalability of those firms. And we hired them to help us. Um, and we have, I believe, developed a firm now where, I mean, any place that has, uh, seemingly good laws, uh, for plaintiffs, I think that we can set up shop and we can do very, very well. Um, and on top of that, uh, we have a trade name, which is the serious injury law group. Um, that I think, you know, again, anywhere that there’s, uh, good laws for personal injury work, uh, wherever we’re needed, I think we can set up shop and I think we can do very, very well. Um, Of course, different markets require different ways in which you market to to individuals or to your potential clients. But at the end of the day, I think that we have a very, very strong trade name and we have a very, very strong business model that will allow us to continue to scale.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, is there any advice you would give a person that maybe is a lawyer or is thinking about joining a firm how to choose the right firm that is kind of philosophically a match for what you’re trying to accomplish. Because to you, this was personal and you wanted to make an impact. And you are. Can you share some advice for other lawyers out there that when you got to pick the right people, right to be around, you don’t want to be in a place where you dread going to work every day.

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah. And, and I tell you this, this is very difficult work. And so if, you know, people don’t come to us on their best day, they come to us on their worst day. Uh, and so if you’re already dealing with the complexities of the law, and then you’re dealing with, you know, a client coming to you at the worst time of their lives, and then you don’t like what you do. Um, I don’t think you’re going to be doing this very long. And so I, you make a very, very good point that it is important, um, for you to find a firm that aligns with your morals, your values and your principles. Um, find a firm that you find that you can grow in, um, that there’s, uh, an ability that they provide you with the resources, uh, for you to be successful in your career. Um, this is, you know, the, the law practice. What I find it for me has become a lifestyle. It’s more than just, um, you know, words on a page and, and persuasive arguments. It’s actually the way that you live your life. And, you know, one of the things, you know, we we hold lawyers to a certain esteem.

Brandon Price-Crum: Um, and it’s important that, um, you be with a firm that, uh, allows you to understand that, you know, you’re going to be spending a whole lot of hours doing this. And so you want to make sure that you’re advancing interest, um, that align with who you are. If you’re just doing this for, or you’re just with a firm for money, or you’re just with a firm for the benefits that they offer, but not, but you don’t enjoy what you’re doing. Um, I think that that’s a formula, um, to eventually suffer through burnout or, uh, build bad relationships or have bad work ethic. Um, and so, you know, it making money is one thing. And, and, and, and benefits is one thing, but you got to make sure that you’re doing something that you love with people that, um, you know, you enjoy being around. And so we try to make our, and I think we’ve been voted like, you know, one of the best workplaces for law firms and all that. Um, so we received those awards because I think we, we try to, you know, make a space where, um, we provide our, our attorneys with the resources, we provide our staff with opportunities to connect.

Brandon Price-Crum: You know, just a few weeks ago, we did a big tailgate, um, for one of the schools and invited all our staff out and, um, you know, and just, you know, we try to have the end of the year events where we get everybody together from all the offices and things like that. But we try to build a culture, um, within our firm that allows for, um, you know, the people within the firm to connect, but also grow and do something meaningful. And that’s one of the reasons why we do a lot of community events and our staff lives in these communities. And so they’re directly affected. Uh, they’re, you know, we’re doing things with their church. We’re doing things, you know, we’re partnering with a nonprofit that they, they really care about. And so, um, all of that stuff matters. Um, you know, when you’re making a decision as to which firm that you want to, uh, you know, send your resume to or that you want to apply to because, you know, I mean, this is what you’re going to be doing for, for majority of your, your day and hopefully for majority of your, of your life.

Lee Kantor: And who is kind of the ideal client for your firm? Like, what are they going through where it’s a good move to call the serious injury folks.

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah. So we, we do, we’re a full service or full scale personal injury law firm. So, um, we handle, uh, things, you know, uh, such as car accidents, trucking accidents or commercial vehicle accidents, dog bites, uh, product liability claims, um, medical malpractice claims. And we do that at a very, very high level wrongful death claim. So if you know, you have a family member or a loved one that has lost their life, uh, by no fault of their own, and you want to see if you have a claim, you should give us a call. And so, you know, you know, boating accidents, anytime that you find yourself in a position where you’re injured, um, by no fault of your own, we’re that firm that you should call. Uh, and we do free consultations, uh, and our firm, of course, you know, like most personal injury firms, you know, we, you don’t pay for anything upfront. We take on all the upfront costs. Um, so it’s a case if we take your case as a case that we believe in. Um, and you don’t pay us anything unless we’re successful for you.

Brandon Price-Crum: Um, and one of our, you know, our models is, you know, we will never, as a firm, we will reduce our fee to whatever we need to, to make sure that our clients always walk away with more than us at the end of the day, because this is their case and this is their opportunity at justice. So our firm would never take more than our clients would. Once everything is all said and done. And if the unfortunate event where we’re unsuccessful. For you, it don’t matter if we spent $2 or $1 million trying to prosecute your case for you. You don’t owe us anything. Um, and so, you know, that motto is a is a risk free model in the sense that if you find yourself injured or you, you know, you have a loved one that unfortunately lost their lives, um, by no fault of their own, then just give us a call. Um, and, you know, we’ll be able to, to speak with you. We’ll be able to get the facts and then we’ll let you know whether or not that’s a case that we can take on.

Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates what it’s like to work with you or your firm? Um, maybe one that, you know, you felt that, that the impact you made was really significant. Uh, you don’t obviously don’t name their name, but maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them, you know, get what they needed.

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I, yeah, we, I mean, we have a lot of cases, uh, like that where we were there for families when they had nowhere else to turn. Um, where they didn’t know how to open up in a state. And they needed help through that process. Um, you got minor children, um, you know, whose parents are in a, in a very, very difficult situation or lost their lives. And so we, we try to be there, uh, for some of the most vulnerable people, a lot of our, our, our clients are, are, you know, elderly or middle age, uh, clients and, and they just need help through all the paperwork. And, you know, you got these, you know, these companies that are trying to trick them and all these things that are going on. But one story, um, that, that really sticks with me and, and I had a client that was, um, she was rear ended here in metro Atlanta by a 18 Wheeler. Um, and she found herself after that crash was transported to, um, Grady hospital and she had severe injuries. She had a fractured back. Um, she, had to wear a colostomy bag. Um, you know, she was, by all accounts, primary breadwinner. Uh, and her and and in her marriage, um, you know, she had children, um, that she was trying to care for and she, you know, in a, in an instant, you know, went from a very, very healthy, you know, woman, um, to one that was very, very dependent, um, in a, you know, in an instant.

Brandon Price-Crum: And, you know, when I went and sat down with her in the hospital, uh, her and her husband and they were just a, just a working class family and they were just good people, genuinely good people. Um, you know, I knew that, you know, this was her first accident, and I knew that what she was up against, you know, you got an insurance company, uh, that was on the other side that was going to vigorously defend the case. You got, um, you know, a trucking company, um, That they were going to make sure that that. And unfortunately, in this particular incident, some of the evidence, uh, that of the, you know, video recording of what happened, we believe was, um, was not properly preserved. And so it disappeared. And so, you know, it was a case that we went through depositions and, and, and, you know, she was going through her own, uh, physical and mental recovery, um, from this and, and, and we were ultimately able to resolve that case. And the mediator was very, very impressed with how we were able to resolve that case relatively quickly within a year or so of this happening, um, with that trucking company. Um, just because like you said, we are vigorous advocates for our client, but she was able to leave a review for us that, um, you know, I hang in, in our, in our hallway because she’s one of the clients that really, really appreciated, you know, Number one, going to the hospital to meet with her and her husband.

Brandon Price-Crum: Number two got a staff that kept her in constant communication and updated with what’s going on with her case and whatever. She had a question. We were able to answer that question for her. Um, we were able to, to help her get some of the recovery treatment that she needed, um, to try to get back on her feet and try to get back to some sense of normalcy. Um, and then we were able to get her case to a position, um, where we could get it resolved in a relatively quick time frame. Um, even though I had to, to, to fight and fight and fight with, um, the, the insurance company and the defense lawyers and, and, you know, you got, you know, the truck driver that’s evading, uh, taking responsibility. You got the truck company, uh, that’s not taking responsibility. And so, you know, I got, we have countless stories of folks that we represent like that, but that particular client, she was just such a nice lady and her family was such good people. I was I was happy that we were able to get justice for them.

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

Brandon Price-Crum: Yeah. So our website is www.seriouslawyers.com, and that’s seriouslawyers.com. Um, you can reach us at our phone number, and that’s 855 Serious. Um, you can reach us here locally at (678) 268-6578. Um, you can also, you know, reach us on Facebook. Serious Lawyers, um, you can reach out to me, uh, at the Serious lawyer on Instagram or Brandon Price-Crum, um, on Facebook and LinkedIn. And, you know, like I said, it’s, if you find yourself in a position where you’re injured, um, By no fault of your own. Give us a call. It’s a free consultation. Uh, we’re happy to talk to you. We’re going to do right by you. If it’s not a case, we’ll let you know. Um, but, you know, it’s, it’s a situation where we’re just trying to do the right thing by as many people as we can.

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

Brandon Price-Crum: I appreciate you, uh, Lee and I, you know, enjoyed our time. And like I said, I enjoyed our conversation. I knew from the beginning, um, that I would enjoy our conversation, but thank you for allowing me to get the information out about, uh, me and our law practice and, and we look forward to continuing to work with you, uh, at some point in the future.

Lee Kantor: All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Beyond the Event: Turning Connections Into Meaningful Relationships

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Beyond the Event: Turning Connections Into Meaningful Relationships
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In this episode of Atlanta Business Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Ethan Cortazzo, founder and CEO of GetNetworked, about using AI-powered event and relationship intelligence to create more meaningful connections at in-person events. Ethan explains how GetNetworked helps event organizers manage registrations, engagement, introductions, networking, and post-event follow-up while using technology to facilitate genuine human-to-human relationships.

Ethan Cortazzo is the Founder and CEO of GetNetworked, an Atlanta-based technology company building AI-powered event and relationship intelligence software designed to help people make more meaningful real-world connections.

Through GetNetworked, he and his team help event organizers improve registration, check-in, attendee engagement, curated introductions, and post-event insights while giving hosts greater visibility into the relationships and outcomes their events create. The platform has supported more than 500 events and 10,000 professionals.

Before founding GetNetworked, he worked across technology, SaaS, and enterprise sales. A former NCAA football player and team captain, he brings a background in leadership, community building, and relationship development to his work.

Based in Atlanta, he is passionate about entrepreneurship, AI, technology, and building stronger communities through meaningful in-person connection.

Connect with Ethan on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Using AI to facilitate meaningful connections at events
  • Turning event attendance into lasting business relationships
  • Creating personalized attendee profiles and strategic introductions
  • Centralizing event registration, management, communication, and follow-up
  • Designing events around the specific needs of a community
  • Increasing engagement through consistent event experiences
  • Maintaining attendee engagement before, during, and after events
  • Using technology to strengthen rather than replace human-to-human connection
  • Building stronger communities through intentional networking and introductions

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by My Global Presence, the award winning Atlanta public relations agency that elevates brands and non-profits through authentic storytelling and national media campaigns. Find them at my global presence.com. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is gonna be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, my Global Presence. If you want global visibility and meaningful impact, go to my global presence.com. Today on the show, we have the founder and CEO with GetNetworked, Ethan Cortazzo. Welcome.

Ethan Cortazzo: What’s up? Lee? How’s it going, man?

Lee Kantor: It is going well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about getting networked.

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. For sure. So GetNetworked is I’m the founder of GetNetwork and CEO, and we’re building an AI powered event and relationship intelligence platform. And it’s designed to, yeah, make real world events more valuable. So most event technologies are really good at registration, you know, ticketing and check in. But once you walk in the room, you still are left asking, you know, what should or who should I actually meet? So that’s the problem we’re trying to solve for.

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

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. So I mean, I’ve spent years bringing people together through events and communities. And I just kept seeing the same problem. You could have 100 incredible people in the room, but if the right ten people never met each other, you missed a huge part of the value of the event. So getting networked started with the idea that technology should help facilitate these connections, right? Not just replace them.

Lee Kantor: So when you first had the idea, what was kind of the version 1.0, what did that look like?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. 1.0. You know, I just had a bunch of subcommunities, right? So I, I was, you know, plugged in with Jim communities. I was plugged in with faith communities, plugged in with technology communities, and no one knew each other. And so when I was on my 27th birthday, I had this idea back in 20. What was it, 2020? Um, yeah. 2023 in April. In April, I threw a birthday party and just invited all my friends together and had a, you know, over 150 people come. And it was just really cool to see. Um, I used a bunch of different tools to kind of bring this plot or this party together. And I just saw a bunch of my friends overlapping and connecting, you know, faith based friends, fitness based friends, technology based friends, social friends of mine. And I just felt like there was a really cool opportunity for people just to meet and connect. So I guess that was kind of the first iteration was, you know, I just had all these subcommunities and it started with hosting my own birthday party. And I realized that none of my friends knew each other. So if I could build, you know, a platform that can help connect people, not just through in-person experiences, but post-event, like I mentioned, I felt like there could be a really cool opportunity to, um, to build some value.

Lee Kantor: So take us through what a GetNetworked event looks like now that you have some technology engine behind it.

Ethan Cortazzo: Sure. Yeah. So I GetNetworked event. So we have a software platform. It’s, it’s in the app store, play store, tens of thousands of users. And if you’re a professional, that’s still going to create high quality connections, highly recommend getting on the platform. So, you know, as the founder, I host my own events. Our company hosts our own, our own events. But the way it works is we allow other organizations to house on the platform as well, so companies can list their event, market it. We have marketing tools manage their event, right with the managed suite. So their staff, their sponsors, organizers can help continue to, you know, manage their event. And then we can monetize, right? So we can monetize the platform. So we’re integrated through payments. And so folks can, you know, transact and ticket through the platform as well. And then, you know, the last part is really the AI part, which is the relationship intelligence. So the intelligence part is growing increasingly valuable amongst the communities that are using our platform. And what’s that doing is it’s actually using technology to help people not miss those high quality connections in the room.

Lee Kantor: So walk me through how this works. Okay? Say, say you do an event. Uh, you’re here in Atlanta. So here in Atlanta somewhere, you’re like, okay, Ethan’s doing a GetNetworked event and say, say hypothetically, 100 people show up at this event. Do the 100 people pay? Like, is that how money’s generated is? They pay to go to the event or is that just one aspect?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah, it’s a good question. So GetNetworked. If it’s a get network event, we have a couple of different series. I mean, we have, uh, you know, event models that have sponsors that cover the cost for tickets. And so those are typically free events if sponsors are covering the cost. So if someone registers, you know, they could come to the event. Some events are restricted with approval gates, right? So if someone registers the event host has to approve the attendee. Um, and then and then yeah, we obviously have paid events, right? Some more premium events that help that who gets to participate in these different events, right? So that’s on the get network side. And then on the event hosting side, we have a dozen, dozen, a couple dozen companies using the platform to host their own communities, right? And those communities, you know, spread out between nonprofits, they spread out between, you know, small businesses and enterprise organizations that are using this to help connect their communities or host events using our platform. So now.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, well, I’m just trying to kind of get into the nuts and bolts of this for the listener who might be interested in, you know, checking this out. So now I’m a guest at one of these events. I’m an attendee. How is AI helping me meet the two guys that are women that I want to meet at this event? Like, like, how does that come and help me?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah, that’s a great question. So as an attendee, the way event hosting today is it’s just a, it’s a very singular thing. You know, you think about going to a Falcons football game, which I don’t think many people are going to Falcons football games right now. But if you were to buy a ticket on Ticketmaster, you buy a ticket, you get an email confirmation and you get a ticket in your inbox, right? So you go to the event, they scan your ticket and you show up. So 2.0 is actually known who’s at the event. So when you purchase a ticket, go through that same flow, get your confirmation. You actually generate a profile page, right? So we actually create like a social media like profile with interests and it’s specific to that event. So if you registered for, let’s just use that same example Falcons football game, you never know who’s at the game. So on our platform, if you were to purchase that ticket, you create that profile. Now when you get inside that actual event, other individuals that have registered also created profile pages or they had existing profiles. So now you can interact and add people to your network to build your community as an attendee inside of these events on GetNetworked, right? And then the third way that’s really an innovative way I’ve seen right now is our platform is now providing the ability for hosts to use our AI tools to now strategically introduce attendee to attendee based off interest and some other algorithms that we’ve developed at the event level. So as a host, if your job is to create the best experience. We’re helping enable you with that, with our, with our get network platform now.

Lee Kantor: Like instead of a Falcons game, let’s use a chamber of commerce because that’s a business community that, um, they have, um, people that are looking to meet each other where the Falcons game, I don’t know if you know, you want to meet the guy next to you, but, uh, the Chamber of Commerce, I want to meet people that might buy my stuff, right? That’s just natural. So when your model, the chamber is the host of the event.

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah, they could be the the chamber could be the license or the subscription owner of generic. Right. So they would put the chamber on, GetNetworked.

Lee Kantor: And they say, I have a mixer at, you know, at this restaurant at 6 p.m. everybody that’s a member is invited. So they share the link with all their people. They register and when they register, they, you know, fill out a little profile so they can see who’s who and what, you know, there. And I would imagine they can customize the tags or the, you know, the information that’s captured in that.

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Questionnaires we have, you know, we have themes so you can customize things.

Lee Kantor: So like you could put, I’m hiring or I’m looking for work or I’m, you know, an expert in AI or whatever your specialty is. So that way as the host, I can say, hey, this person’s hiring and you’re looking for a job, you two should meet each other.

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah, yeah. I mean, to an extent. Yeah, that could definitely, you could definitely do that with our platform. Right? So yeah, the chamber’s a great example. We work with a few. Chambers. Had a meeting with one of the chambers today. The Gwinnett Chamber, and they’re doing a lot of great stuff. They have a directory. But oftentimes when they one of the team members has to go through and, you know, connect with the directory or excuse me, the the members and know who they are has to go through these introductions. They have to spend times, you know, creating introductions or, you know, using our platform. It could, it could do that, you know, through the event itself. Right? So, so yeah, I think that’s a great, great way to look at it, man. Um, what’s been fun? We have a great group. There’s a great amount of communities growing on the platform. And, um, yeah, I mean.

Lee Kantor: Now in that, in that example of the attendee if like, say the chamber is the sponsor, so they’re not charging for the event, does the attendee kind of get a couple of matches included, or does the attendee now have to pay to get a match? Like what, what are the services and how um, is there a fee like a pay per fee at every turn here?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. Great question. So right now as an attendee, there’s no cost to add people to your network, right? So we really gamified the ability for you to grow your network. What’s cool about adding people to your network is you create these like digital profiles and digital business cards on your, on your profile, right? So if you had a profile, you could put, you know, the radio website, you could put your email, your phone number. And until I add you to my network at the event, I’m not going to have access to view that information, right? So if you accept my network to request, then I would be able to then additionally follow up inside of the platform via communications with, you know, in chat communications, peer to peer chat, or I can, you know, click on your email and I can get pulled out to send you a direct email. So yeah, I mean, have you ever been to an event where you go and you forgot to connect with somebody, or you didn’t connect with people you wanted to connect with. So you can always go back to that attendee list at that event and you can add people and continue the conversation. You know, once that event ends, right? So that end is not the start to your experience when you go and show up. It’s actually the beginning, right? Because you can continue the conversation post event.

Lee Kantor: Right? So, but you’re, you’re looking to have get network be kind of the hub of where these interactions take place.

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. Correct. Well, I guess it’s, you know, we’re, I believe in, so I’m a fan that human to human connection is going to continue to become harder and harder to do. So it’s going to become a premium over the next couple of years, right? So our goal is to use technology to enable the human to human connection. So our platform is a tool to enable you to continue engaging through in-person events and experiences. So I don’t want to like, I don’t want it to be the central platform. I want to be the central events platform for these organizations to help enable their communities to grow through in-person experiences. But ultimately, we want people to meet face to face. And so our platform is hoping to enable that, right?

Lee Kantor: So you want it to be the jumping off point to have a human to human in real life experience.

Ethan Cortazzo: Precisely. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: Right. So but you want it to be the place where maybe that relationship begins and it’ll end somewhere else, but it’ll begin with GetNetworked.

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the events that I host is a, it’s a ministry on the platform, and it’s called Iron City Nights. And so this is an organization that I’ve developed to connect guys in the city, like faith based guys. And so one of the things we do is we do a monthly fitness event at Lifetime Fitness and Perimeter. So I have about 30 to 40 guys come together and we’ll do a 6 to 7 a.m. workout. Seven 730 we’ll cold plunge sauna, steam room, and then 730 to 830 we’ll do programing, right? A small programing with small groups that are intentional for guys to meet. We’ll have sponsors. It’s been a really cool opportunity to use GetNetworked to, you know, market, promote, manage the event and, you know, monetize through sponsors that cover the cost for these attendees to come. And one of the coolest things for me has seen these relationships that have been forming just from building this community. Um, you know, we have guys that are golfing together. We have guys that are doing fellowship together. We have guys that are, uh, you know, doing business together. So it’s just been really cool to help leverage our platform to help do stuff I’m passionate about, like ministry. And so.

Lee Kantor: Now for folks who are business organizations that have tried to do events in the past and may be used. One of those services, you know, like an eventbrite or meetup or one of those kind of things. Those to me seem very limited in the amount of, um, connecting they do. They’re good at, like you said, maybe, you know, being able to keep track of who’s coming or not coming, but it doesn’t do a great job to, um, help relationships become formed.

Ethan Cortazzo: Sure.

Lee Kantor: And that’s where, um, so do you have any advice for those organizations or associations that are putting on an event to get the most out of an event? Are there some do’s and don’ts that you’ve learned from putting on so many events?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s a great question. So. I mean, it’s, it’s like, uh, I think as community organizers. Um, I think it’s important to curate a great experience and, you know, meeting your community where they’re at and creating a space for people to, I don’t know, just experience that. So I try not to be super transactional, right? Through these relationships, I think the transaction that I have in these relationships through hosting events is helping people know what they do to connect with the right people. Like there’s some form of value transaction that I want to provide to everyone that comes to the events that are hosted on our platform. And I think oftentimes, you know, that can come from, you know, knowing people, relationships that come from the experience with high quality food or, you know, one of the things that I love doing is has people come in, I try to curate the room. You know, my job is not to, you know, just go meet a bunch of people. My job is to know people and basically germinate the room. Right. So I’d take, you know, Lee, I introduce him to another guy that might be in broadcast or radio or like to talk about sports and create a, you know, super quick introduction between the two. Then I’ll move on to the next, you know, group of people.

Ethan Cortazzo: So I think that’s kind of a due, which would be, is like, as an organizer, your job is to make sure that people are, you know, being seen having value through communication or value through networking or value through introductions. Um, and everyone has different interests, right? So people are coming for socialization. Some people are coming for business development, some people are coming, uh, to have a nice cocktail at a nice restaurant. Right? So I guess just being aware of what your community needs and doing a good job kind of hosting that. Um, I’m trying to think of some other ones, man. Um, what else? Uh, oh, I think one of the ones is post pandemic. I’ve seen People are very last second to register for things. So I think as an organizer, you know, I see I see folks registering up, you know, 72 hours before an event. I see a surplus of, you know, people registering, you know, pre pandemic. I felt like people were super, you know, months in advance to register for events or I feel like now things are very, uh, spontaneous, right? So being top of mind, you know, we built a lot of tools inside the platform with reminders, SMS, email, marketing, different tools to help, you know, adding things to calendars, just to remind organizers or excuse me, attendees and organizers like the events happening where it’s happening.

Ethan Cortazzo: So I feel like one of the dudes is to make sure you continue to, you know, market or push out communications leading up to the event. I’ve seen that help with conversions, with attendants and people coming to the event. Um, and then yeah, I guess post event is also important. Li you know, right. So once you host an event, following up with attendees, making sure they have a great experience, questionnaires are built into our platform. And, um, you know, the other thing is, um, for event organizers that are trying to build community. Consistency is key, right? Like having a great quality room that’s consistent. And that consistency could be time of the month, right? Time of the week. Um, you know, vendor setup, like just having things that are in order so that they’re can build this like momentum where people understand that, you know, every last Monday we host our fitness event, right? Every, every Thursday night, we host our executive dinner, right? These different, uh, nomenclatures, I think, help guests experiences and attendees really, you know, show up to events and be consistent. Um, I gave you a bunch of yeah.

Lee Kantor: Those were great, man. Those were.

Ethan Cortazzo: Great. I, I hope, uh, you know, I, I feel like I’m, there’s some good gems in there.

Lee Kantor: I know there were gold, gold. Um, what about, um, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates what it’s like for somebody who’s kind of deployed this or taken advantage of it. Anything from the organization or association standpoint, a story that would illustrate maybe what they tried before, and then the better result they got from using GetNetworked. Is there a success story you can share about a group that has used Get Network and it has worked out for them?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. One of the groups, um, that’s on the platform is the ministry, a men’s ministry called Purpose on Tap. It’s been around for a few years and they built this to just connect guys around. You know, once a month or once a quarter or I guess they made every other month. And it was to me to have fellowship around guys drinking beers. Right. So they used, you know, traditional websites, sign up flow, Google sheets. And so oftentimes when it came to the event day, you know, they’d have 60% attendance show up, right? 50, 60% attendance. And so it was a very, I don’t want to say traditional, but, um, you know, what companies either use like a sign up sheet on like Wix or a Google sheet. It’s a very easy registration, first name, last name, email, and just a, you know, just a calendar invite. And so oftentimes people forget they don’t show up. There’s no other tools. So they use their platform, uh, they’ve been using our platform for a few months and they had an event on October 5th with a guy named Jonathan Irons, who, you know, was in the criminal system and he was wrongfully convicted and ended up getting out of prison and spoke to our group. And we had they had over 120 guys show up to this event, right? So they, they doubled or tripled their attendance and occupancy.

Ethan Cortazzo: And one of the biggest events yet using our tool, because it just helped with registration, it helped with. The other thing is like the network effect is, you know, we built a lot of shared features inside the platform. So there’s something called server side rendering. So when you share a URL link, server side rendering is where it renders the actual image card instead of just a link. When you text somebody that could be on WhatsApp, Facebook or SMS. And so when you shared that it shows the actual event link or the event card. Uh, right. Like the event flier. And so, yeah, they, they use this platform. And it helped not only with folks coming in the door, but all the ticketing, the check in for their team. You know, they manage all the name tags and check in and then all the post communication follow ups, they were able to ask specific questions to understand where guys are going to church. Um, how are they plugged into the community? And all that stuff was managed inside of our platform. They’ve been able to follow up with. Yeah, a really good experience. So that’s our hope, man is just like using some of these, what I call frank and stack tools that, you know, these companies are using emails and a bunch of third party tools, and our platform really centralizes it into one, one product. So.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, get the app or learn more about what you’re up to and support you. Is there a website? What’s the best way to connect?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah, man. Um, I do a lot on social media. So you know, Ethan underscore Cortazzo I, you know, host a bunch of stuff or post a bunch of stuff on there. And then getnetwork.com, you know, is our website. And, uh, but yeah, find us on the App store, find us on the play store. And ultimately, if you’re, if you’re an attendee or looking to host, we allow host to host their first event or first couple events for free up to 75 attendees. So you can use the platform, you know, host your community, see if you can grow it. And then, uh, yeah, get out. We always say like, get out and GetNetworked, right? It’s the best way to get on the platform is come to an event and come experience our communities and the communities on our platform yourself.

Lee Kantor: And the ideal, um, prospect for you are people that do events like associations or, uh, communities, any type of group out there that is already kind of doing their own event with kind of like you said, this cobble together a bunch of tools that if they want everything in one place, it’s going to do a better job, then that’s a good prospect for you?

Ethan Cortazzo: Yeah. Of course. You know, small medium businesses or enterprises that are looking to scale their in-person events or communities. Um, you know, they’re having multiple platforms. They’re looking to centralize it or folks that are looking to implement in-person experiences inside their business. Right. We’re doing services for companies now where we’re seeing that you’re 34 times more likely to do business with who you meet in person. So there’s a huge, uh, not only like return to work, but, you know, there’s huge, um, return to people being back in this traditional handshake, the handshake, human to human, um, you know, engagement to really understand who these people are that they’re doing business with. Right? It’s in an AI world where you have the AI avatars and AI bots and AI cold calling systems. People want to know who, who, who, who the heck they’re working with, right? So if you can get in the room, shake a hand. It’s helping convert businesses. Uh, you know, people coming to these events into, you know, business relationships. So yeah, professional association, membership member membership associations, industry communities, networking groups, you know, we have, you know, we’re supporting B2B conferences. So we have multi-day conferences, we have virtual capabilities, hybrid capabilities, chambers, consoles, accelerators. Um, yeah, companies running customer and partner executive ecosystem events. So there’s a bunch of bunch of, uh, lanes that, you know, if folks are looking to use technology like this, they could definitely have some value with our platform.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff man. Well, congratulations on all the success. Uh, you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Ethan Cortazzo: Man. Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

From Owner-Dependent to Sellable: Building a Business That Works Without You

by

High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
From Owner-Dependent to Sellable: Building a Business That Works Without You
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Juan Carlos Velasco, founder of Scale My Profits, about helping business owners—particularly those in the trades—build companies that can operate independently, generate sustainable profits, and become valuable, sellable assets. Juan Carlos shares his personal experience of nearly losing the value of a business he built with his brother and explains how reducing owner dependency, strengthening systems, and addressing internal revenue leaks can create long-term business value.

Juan Carlos Velasco is the founder of Scale My Profits, a revenue operations advisory firm helping home service business owners — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other trades — at the $5M+ revenue mark fix the hidden problems quietly draining their profit.

He co-founded Breckenridge Mechanical with his older brother Manny, growing it into one of the most respected mechanical contractors in Colorado’s high country. After Manny’s sudden death, he kept the company running alone — and when he later explored selling it, a buyer offered him one dollar for the business, explaining that without Manny and him personally in it, the company had no value on paper.

That moment became the foundation of everything Juan does today. He rebuilt the business to run without depending entirely on its owners, eventually selling it to Comfort Systems USA — the first of four business exits.

Now, through his 7-Pillar RevOps System, he helps other home service owners fix owner-dependency before life forces the issue, building companies that are built to grow, built to sell, and built without them.

Connect with Juan on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Recognizing and reducing owner dependency
  • Building systems that allow a business to operate without the owner
  • Identifying internal revenue leaks before pursuing more leads
  • Strengthening the seven key pillars of a service business
  • Developing employees into valuable business assets
  • Creating a business that can grow beyond the owner’s direct involvement
  • Preparing a company for future succession, sale, or continued growth
  • Using proactive systems to protect a business from unexpected life events

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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is gonna be a good one. Today on the show, we have the founder of Scale My Profits, Juan Carlos Velasco. Welcome.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Thanks, Lee. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about scale, my profits. How are you serving folks?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Well, you know, scale more profits comes at a very personal backing on it. I originally built a company with my brother back in Colorado, and we learned the hard way after he passed away, that a company isn’t worth what someone that starts the company thinks it’s worth, right? So after he passed away, he. I tried to sell it about a year later and someone offered me a dollar for the company. It was a mechanical company that we built. And, um, when they offered me for that dollar, um, that’s when scale my profits was um, you know, started. Um, and that’s really what the major reason is for it to really allow people that build businesses specifically in the trades to build something that is sellable and that has value essentially.

Lee Kantor: So let’s, let’s go through that a little bit. So you had a business with your brother and what was that business like? What were you doing every day?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah. So we it was a plumbing heating company. It was Breckenridge Mechanical up in Colorado.

Lee Kantor: So your people with plumbing or heating issues, they would contact you. You had customers, but when you tried to sell it, they said it essentially has no value. Even though you had a book of business.

Juan Carlos Velasco: 100%. Yeah, we had over 20 employees. So when after he passed away, you know, I decided, you know, it was time to move on. And then when that CFO called me, that was one of the buyers. He said, you know, it’s going to be an asset sale. We’re going to buy it for a dollar. And I was like, I had no idea at the time, Lee, what an asset sale was. Right.

Lee Kantor: So what is an asset sale for folks who aren’t familiar?

Juan Carlos Velasco: 100%. So an asset sale is essentially, uh, the value of a business when is running negative, when the value is zero or it’s negative. So someone will buy a business as, as an asset sale, and they’ll give you a dollar for the company because they’re essentially inheriting all that debt, all that liability, right? So it’s a way to wash all that out. And then they’ll give you a dollar for the business. So they’ll take over the they’re essentially taking the burden over that company when it’s negative value.

Lee Kantor: So then was it because you didn’t have kind of recurring revenue that your business was built on? If somebody needs you, you come and, and then you, you know, do the work and then you leave. But there isn’t any promise of tomorrow that they would come again.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Correct. Well, actually, we did have some of that. Um, what I learned is these two words that we educate business owners on is owner dependency, right? If you remove the owner out of it, the business cannot function. Right. So we did have recurring revenue, but we were just it wasn’t structured with systems. It was more dependent on the owners us being there. Right. So when my brother passed away, that was 50% of the, you know, kind of pulling the strings, right? Like on the relationships and all that.

Lee Kantor: Were you the ones doing the work though, or you were the ones selling the work?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Uh, we were the ones selling the work. Uh, so my brother was sales and then I was operations and finance. Um, and we, we had employees doing the work. Um, so that’s one thing that’s kind of misleading, right? Like you can have employees doing the work, but if it’s, you know, like on paper, if you owe more, right. Um, then you’re actually bringing in. Then it’s a wash or it’s, it can even be a negative, right? And that’s what happened to us.

Lee Kantor: So when they offered you the dollar, did you say you took it and then you were done? Or did you say, okay, let me figure some stuff out and maybe I can get a higher amount of money down the road.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, that’s a really great question. So, um, when they offer me $1, um, I said no thank you. Right. Um, but that was an education for me. So, um, I, it took me about two years after rebuilding. I, I actually, that forced me to go back to school to get my MBA in finance because I said like, it’s impossible that we spent, you know, five, six years building the business that I can’t turn this around. Um, so I eventually sold it to a comfort systems USA, uh, the right way right after I built it up. And I essentially just turned the keys over to them, right? I removed myself, I had people in place, I had value in the business. Um, and that’s essentially, you know, what I help businesses with now.

Lee Kantor: Now, did you ever consider let me sell it to my employees.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Um, I did, I did. Um, and there was a lot of emotional, um, you know, so it was my brother and he was my business partner. Right. So, um, there was a lot of emotion involved. Um, and within that time, um, we lost some employees, you know, there too. So that wasn’t an option. Um, after about a year or so, so I had to restructured. So we had lost, um, a lot of people that were originally there.

Lee Kantor: So then this kind of gave you a chance to do a clean slate and reboot it with your new knowledge and new systems.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah. Correct. Correct. Um, and then you, you know, because, you know, you kind of think, you know, when you work in the business so much and you’re building that, you don’t see it from the outside. Right. Um, and for me, that was a huge lesson. Um, but what I eventually did with, with the people inside, I actually did take, you know, the, you know, the employees that we had left and I groomed them right. And I built them. So they were part of the business when it was acquired. So, you know, they were actually at a really good position when I left.

Lee Kantor: And then they become kind of assets for the new owner.

Juan Carlos Velasco: That is 100%. Lee. So, um, and that’s what you want, right? Because when that owner or that CFO, when they’re run by my business, they didn’t see assets, right? Like we had trucks, but, you know, the employees were dependent on us and, you know, you know, you know, us answering those questions. But they were assets when I left, right? They were dependent on themselves. We had a hierarchy. Um, you know, we can go on vacation, right? You know, one of the tests that I tell our business owners, like if you, you know, if you go on vacation for 60 days, right. Um, and if you can honestly answer the question that when you come back, the business will be in the same spot or even better. Um, then there’s owner dependency, right? And there’s things that we don’t know that rely on us. If we could just walk away right.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re defining owner dependency, um, you mentioned being able to leave and at least maintaining the status quo, but how much better is it if when you leave, then the business grows or you sell something new or you know, somebody you know, joined or you know, where it’s not just the status quo, it’s actually able to grow without you physically being there. Is that kind of the gold standard?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 100%. Because I mean, if you think about it, you know, and you know, when I realized this happened, it’s essentially for you to be able to, you know, have a life outside of your business, right? Um, so you should be able to leave and continue to grow because, you know, like even within those 60 or 90 days, I mean, you still want growth, right? And it’s not just for the owner, right? Like we, like, we definitely have to think about like the employees and the lives within the company itself. So you want that business to be self-sufficient, to be feeding all those families that are working within the company. So absolutely, you want it to grow. And, you know, here, um, in Florida is like ground zero for this. So at every level, so we have one of the largest Hvac and trades workforces in the country. It’s 492,300 to be exact. Right. So and we’re also adding 3 to 400,000 new residents a year who, you know, eventually need, you know, these services, right. Uh, but nationally, there’s about $5 trillion in small businesses that are going to change hands as baby boomers retire. Right? Um, it’s happening now. It’s, you know, it’s going to continue to happen. Most of them don’t even have a plan now. And there’s the Florida specific risk. No one talks about early 40% of small businesses never reopen after a major disaster. Right. And like, and, and that’s just astounding, right? So, and this is just like a natural disaster. So even if you have like a personal or like a business life event, um, you know, that just adds to it, you know, like I did like losing my brother. But, um, yeah, so essentially, I mean, you want the business to be running and start, you know, reducing the owner dependency.

Lee Kantor: Now, like you mentioned that a lot of businesses, especially in the trades, they got started because maybe something happened, they got fired. They’re like, I want to be my own boss. I want to do this. They’re the ones doing either the work or the selling of the work. And then it, like you said, it kind of dies with them. If something bad happens, they don’t have a sellable asset. What are you specifically doing to help those owners? Kind of, number one, understand that they don’t have a sellable asset, so they’re not kind of blindsided by it at the last minute where they can’t do anything about it, but maybe get ahead of it a bit. Can you talk a little bit about the service you’re providing for those owners? Like what’s kind of the the first move they should be thinking about?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, 100%. That’s a really great question because it can be overwhelming, right? Um, so the very first, um, I identify, uh, and I help them identify it’s what’s the biggest revenue leak? Meaning what is the biggest, um, attachment that the owner has in the business? Um, that is leaking revenue. If they stepped away a lot of the times, like a lot of businesses that I talk to is, you know, it’s revenue of course, right? They want to keep that revenue consistent, but between the revenue and the profit, if the owner steps away, um, what is being lost? You know, you know, are they the ones that are just quoting the jobs, you know, or are they the ones that make the final decisions? Or are they the ones just, you know, you know, kind of coordinating all those jobs, right? So we identify the biggest revenue leak tied to that owner, right. Um, and then so we identify it and then we start building systems around it. Usually, um, most businesses have the people and the capabilities internally, but it’s very hard to see when you’re in it. Right. So that’s the very first step. We identify the biggest revenue leak that’s tied to that business owner.

Lee Kantor: So is that something you and your team can tell kind of at a glance at this point, since you’ve been doing this for a minute, or is it something that requires kind of a deep dive into all their processes and systems, books, things like that?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, that’s a really great question. So we’ve been so I learned this the hard way. And then ever since then, I, I kind of reverse engineered it, right? So I call it like the seven pillar system. Um, there’s really seven things inside a service, a home service businesses that we can identify pretty quick. Um, one is going to be leadership, right? The other one is revenue, right? The other one is marketing, right. And one is sales and follow up. The other one is operations. And then you have finance and then institutional knowledge, which is a knowledge that’s only in the owner’s head. So we can speak to a business owner, look at the business, identify which of these seven pillars are the ones that that has the highest attachment to the owner. And then fix that one first.

Lee Kantor: And that’s how you do it. You just kind of pick the, the one that’s in worse shape and then just kind of work from there and just keep building it up one by one, one.

Juan Carlos Velasco: One, one. Yes, one 100%. So, um, so with when it happened to me, it was operations and it was leadership, right? And, and sales. So sometimes there’s multiple, but we take the very first one, um, and then work our way down.

Lee Kantor: Now what does it look like from the, because in these businesses, I would imagine, especially in the size that you kind of serve, the multi-million dollar home service business. On the outside, it might look like everything’s fine, like there could be cash flow, there could be employees getting paid every week. They’re not stressing about things like that. So from the outside, they may not see a sense of urgency to fix this. Um, how do you kind of elevate that information to the owner so they realize, hey, this is something that you have to fix if you want to exit successfully down the road.

Juan Carlos Velasco: 100%. Um, so I essentially, I mean, I, I share my story, right? And like the most important thing is, you know, they have to see themselves, what are you going to do ten, 15, 20 years from now? And they don’t even have to exit. You know, one of the things is when. So I just had this business owner tell me this other day, um, that is one of my clients. It says, Juan, I realized I have a high paying job, not a company. And I’m like, that’s it, right? Like, so I try to identify with them. It’s like, and, and you said something really, really importantly, like that was my brother when he started this company. And like most tradesmen, it’s because, you know, they, they’re working it at a company and they’re like, you know what? I can do this myself, right? Which is great. They, they have the talent 100%. But then you, you, you get locked in is where it’s like you’ve built, you know, like the business owner told me, um, you know, you’ve built the business, you’ve built a job, not a business. Right? And so that’s the first thing that I helped him identify is, you know, what is it that you want to do with your family? Right? Like going forward, like, can you be attached to this company for, you know, until you’re 60, 70? One of the hardest things that I have, the conversations that I have to have sometimes with business owners, there was, um, a business owner that just closed their business up in Ocala, Florida, just because of that, right? Because they were just hemorrhaging money and he was so attached to it. And it’s that control as well. So I really try to educate them as like, you know, there is life outside of the company that you can actually still keep it still generate revenue, or if you want to sell it, that’s fine. You don’t have to. But I try to paint the picture. What do they want to do? You know, um, with their lives, with their family, you know, ten, 15, 20 years from now.

Lee Kantor: And then is there something, is there a story you can share that maybe, um, illustrates exactly the impact that you can have in an organization? Don’t name the organization, but maybe share the challenge they came to you with specifically and how you were able to help them get to this new level.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, 100%. So, so one story that, um, uh, is, is a perfect example of this. So, um, is a two person operation up in California. Um, you know, he started for a national company, you know, um, bought a truck, started, you know, started running about this was about 4 or 4 years ago. Um, you know, he found me, you know, we connected. Um, he was doing everything right. You know, him and his, um, other guy, it it wasn’t his partner. And then I started slowly kind of educating them where he could be. So he started with himself and his helper with two trucks. Then eventually, um, he did all the installs in the service. He, he hired a couple install crews. Right. All of a sudden he said, hey, I don’t have to do all the installations. I’m like, no. So then he started doing estimates. And then after the estimates, we trained someone else, one of his leads to do the estimate. And then he pulled back. Right. Um, he, he doubled in revenue. Right. And he’s actually working less. So now he’s just supervising in. Our next step is to build another division within the company itself. So now he’s about six people. Um, now a huge life event just happened with him is his mother died and he’s like, Juan, I need to figure this out. You know, he has like four kids and their life event for him is like, now how can I step back and spend more time with my family? Right. Um, and the profit continues to increase by him removing himself, but his mind, his mindset changed a little bit. And then just it was forced now because of his life event. Right? So, um, but that’s a perfect example of, you know, you can start where you are and then, you know, it is a progressive growth, but it can happen quicker than most people think.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you deliver your services? Is it kind of one on one coaching? Is this kind of a cohort? Is this a group coaching? How um or is it kind of self-serve? They just kind of learn a, you give them a playbook? Like how do you deliver the services at scale? My profits.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah. So that’s really a great question. I always try to tailor to the business owner. Um, there is self-serve businesses, right? I have a lot of education on, on my website. I have free tools on my website. People can go in and, you know, identify all this stuff. Um, for those business owners that really want to be able to scale, right? Um, I do provide that one on one service, uh, to them. And then within, you know, the first 30 days, we identify everything. And then within 90 days we start seeing that movement. So it happens pretty quick just because we’ve done it so many times. Right? Um.

Lee Kantor: So it’s kind of choose your own adventure.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Because like, you know, like, for instance, like that example that I gave you with the gentleman in California, you know, it was he started more self-serve, right? Because he wasn’t ready. Like it was timing. And then he saw, you know, we made some changes. He saw the opportunity and then he started, you know, you know, scaling, growing. And then I started to work. We started working with them one on one. And then that’s when he really saw it started growing. Um, and, and it is timing for the business owner, you know, not everyone’s ready, um, to start growing, um, you know, or to start, you know, kind of changing, but so we do have some plenty of education out there for people. But then obviously, you know, we do have the one on one and that’s when we can really make a huge impact.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, is there kind of an ideal client profile? You mentioned that you, you started out in the trades, but is this something that that’s your sweet spot? And this is what we’re kind of doubling down on what I know and what I do well? Or is this something that kind of can impact other types of businesses?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Oh, that’s a really good question. The fundamentals of businesses is the same, right. Um, we mentioned that statistic of, you know, like of like natural disasters, 40%, you know, we saw this in the, in the pandemic when they were forced to close for, you know, 60, 90 days or whatever that was. A lot of businesses closed. Uh, again, that was because of the owner dependency side of it, you know? Uh, or at least tied to it. So no, so this does my, my specialty is a, is the trades. Um, but you can apply these, um, seven pillars to any business, you know, really, um, we do try to focus on the trades just because it is our specialty. Um, but we obviously try to assist as many as we can just because, you know, like with the statistic that we said, you know, it doesn’t matter what business it is. I mean, eventually, you know, you do want to retire or maybe sell the business or just have it run without you. And you can apply the same tools to all of them. But we do specialize in, in, in the trades.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there something that happens in an organization, maybe somebody who’s running a business now that’s listening right now that maybe they’re not clocking as, hey, maybe he’s talking about me that I should, you know, kind of have a better, better systems. Is there any clues or signals that maybe you aren’t? Um, kind of as ready to, um, pass the baton as you think you are or that there might be trouble if one of those kind of, um, you know, either big events happen that forces your hand a bit and, and you it’s much better to be proactive, I would imagine, than just kind of trying to triage something while you’re in a crisis. And now you got to deal with this on top of it. So are there some clues or signals that a business owner, you know, might not be noticing now, because it isn’t kind of, you know, it’s not bleeding in front of them, but it could be slowly bleeding out without them knowing.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah. No, so the 100%. So, um, there’s really two of them. So, so one is obviously, you know, I said, you know, if you can, you know, go on vacation.

Lee Kantor: Right? So vacation if you haven’t had a vacation in a while. That’s probably a clue that maybe something might not be optimized in your business.

Juan Carlos Velasco: One one 100%. Um, and then, you know, the other side of it too is, you know, if you never even kind of thought of like outside of the business, right? You know, like you, you know, you, you seen yourself outside of the business. Um, and if any of this sounds familiar, like, you know, if you go to our website scale my profits, you know, we do, we did build, uh, a free owner dependency score, uh, tool, um, it’s 100% free. Um, it takes a few minutes and it’ll show you exactly where you stand. So, so even if any of this sounds familiar, you just score yourself. Um, and it’ll give you in those seven areas where that dependency is, right? Um, 100%.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody goes through that, they go to the website, they take the assessment and it gives them, you know, I would imagine, you know, one through seven, it says, hey, you better work on number four. Um, what is kind of the low hanging fruit? Is there some kind of just general advice you could share with the listener? That’s if you’re going to do one thing, you know, this is a good thing to start thinking about or doing today.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, one 100%. Um, I would say look internally, um, at your operation step number one. And if you’re relying too much on two things. One, we, we spoke about the owner dependency, right? And the other one is if you’re relying on, let’s say, marketing to give you sufficient sales to keep the business going, then there’s an issue. And what I mean by that is if a lot of the times we want to find solutions outside of us. Right. Um, hey, you know, um, I’m going to leave for a week or whatnot, you know, let’s turn up the marketing, right? But you have revenue leaks internally. So that’s, that’s the number one thing. If you feel like you’re dependent too much on anything and it could be yourself, you know? It could be one customer that’s providing all the revenue. Um, it’s a dependency on something external. Um, that’s really a red flag, right? And that’s what, you know, I didn’t realize that, you know, kind of going through it. So if there’s 1 or 2 things that are very dependent on your business staying open, that’s the very first focus.

Lee Kantor: Right? And so most people think outward, their first move is bring in more leads and that’ll solve all the problems where a lot of times, you know, that could just exacerbate an existing problem. If you have too much leakage internally, you’re not really solving the problem, you’re making it worse.

Juan Carlos Velasco: 100%. So the analogy that, you know, um, that it’s like, if you’re, if you have a boat and you have leaks in it, right? Um, the faster you go, you might get less water, but as soon as you stop, right, that water just goes take over the boat.

Lee Kantor: So right, you got to pay the price at some point you, If you’re going, you’re going to have to fix the holes at some point, right? And today is a better day than tomorrow.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, 100%. And you know, and those, those, those seven pillars, if you take that owner dependency score, it’ll identify it for you. Um, but, but yeah, so if there’s dependency on anything external and we’re not looking at internal, that’s step number one. Yeah.

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

Juan Carlos Velasco: Well, you know, just kind of spread the word more. Um, I think with the change of hands, uh, one of the things that really, um, hits my heart is when a business closes, right? Because of those internal leakage or, you know, of, you know, natural disaster, you know, it just really spreading the word before a, a, a life event happens. Um, hey, you know, we do have a plan going forward, right? Because there are options and there’s another thing that people need to realize too, that private equity, you know, there’s companies out there that are paying up to 18 times earnings for a well-run company. Right? If and this is nationwide, I got offered a dollar because I learned that lesson. Just educate yourself on where the business is standing. What could it be worth? Or can it run without you? Um, and there’s still an opportunity to, you know, turn what you work so hard into an asset.

Lee Kantor: Well, one, um, amazing story and a great example of how to turn tragedy into something positive. I mean, kudos to you. You should be so proud. And your brother would be so proud of what you were able to accomplish in taking something that could have broken a lot of people, and you transformed it into something really miraculous. Well, thank you for doing that. We really appreciate the work that you’re doing in this area to help other people. Um, not suffer the way that you suffered in that moment of crisis.

Juan Carlos Velasco: Thank you dear. I really appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more and get on your calendar and take that assessment, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Juan Carlos Velasco: Yeah, just go to our website. Um, scalemyprofits.com. Um, you’ll find plenty of tools, plenty of information there. And then, you know, if you want to have a chat, uh, we also provide like a free diagnostic call, um, like on your business as well. You could just jump on the calendar there.

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

Juan Carlos Velasco: Thank you. Lee.

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

Building a Stronger Brand: Marketing Strategies for Small Business Growth

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Building a Stronger Brand: Marketing Strategies for Small Business Growth
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Caroline Lewis, CEO of Lawson House Marketing Agency, about helping small businesses build memorable brands and strengthen their online presence. Caroline shares her journey from joining Lawson House as an early employee to becoming its owner, along with insights on developing a clear marketing framework, identifying ideal clients, and using community and referrals to support business growth. She also discusses the role of AI in modern marketing, the importance of maintaining a human-first approach, and how strategic planning, consistent branding, and targeted outreach can help businesses attract quality clients and scale effectively.

Caroline Lewis is the CEO and owner of Lawson House, bringing a blend of leadership, hands-on experience, and a passion for helping small businesses achieve their marketing goals.

She began her journey with Lawson House as the Director of Operations, building valuable expertise in process development, personal support, communication, marketing, sales, and business strategy through her experience in the marketing and retail industries.

With years of experience at Lawson House, she is passionate about partnering with small business owners to bring their visions to life. She enjoys exploring the possibilities that a brand, website, or strategic marketing plan can offer and is always excited to help business owners discover new opportunities for growth.

Outside of work, she enjoys traveling with her husband and their black lab, Winston, exploring the outdoors, and trying new recipes. She loves connecting with new people and building meaningful relationships.

Connect with Caroline on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Developing a clear marketing plan and strong brand foundation before investing in campaigns.
  • Transitioning from employee to business owner and embracing entrepreneurial leadership.
  • Identifying ideal clients and aligning marketing messages with target audiences.
  • Using referrals and community relationships to attract quality leads.
  • Building meaningful partnerships with businesses that serve similar audiences.
  • Creating a memorable online presence through branding, websites, SEO, and content.
  • Leveraging AI to improve marketing systems while maintaining a human-first approach.
  • Balancing organic outreach and paid marketing strategies for sustainable growth.
  • Establishing clear business values, boundaries, and a signature marketing framework.
  • Helping small businesses achieve consistent growth through strategic marketing systems.

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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have the CEO with Lawson House Marketing Agency, Caroline Lewis. Welcome.

Caroline Lewis: Hello. Thanks so much for having me.

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

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. So we are a marketing agency based just up the road in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But we serve clients all over the country with our marketing support. So we work through design and marketing systems to help small business owners show up better online and create more memorable brands.

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

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. Great question. So I went to UTC. I got drawn to Chattanooga for the mountains and the river and started studying marketing here, and fell in love with helping business owners and really diving into their passions and things like that, and came across an opportunity to interview someone who had the job I wanted to have one day, and it was a school project, and then interviewed the previous founder or the founder of Lawson House. Her name was Suzy Consoli for a project. And after that conversation, a few short weeks later, she was hiring and got the opportunity to join the Lawson House crew as one of the first full time hires and worked underneath her, helping small business owners, specifically with their brands and websites. And then about three years in, she came to me and said, hey, I want to step away and do something else. Do you want to take this over? And gave me the opportunity to buy the business from her. So I’ve gotten to go from both the employee of Lawson House to now the owner of Lawson House, which has been such a joy and has given me a whole new passion for owning a business. What it’s like making these business decisions, and it’s been a really fun journey throughout all of that.

Lee Kantor: So what was it like? Um, first of all, so you were in college and then you had the opportunity to join the firm. Was that.

Caroline Lewis: Yes, I started right out of college, essentially the month I graduated. I started at the company two months before I graduated college.

Lee Kantor: So how did. So when you’re in college, you, you know, you knew the end of college was near. So you were like, okay, let me just start looking for a job. And you just kind of found Lawson House, like just in your job search.

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. Crazy through just searching on LinkedIn and things like that. I was constantly looking and I had a marketing internship at the time, but knew I wanted something more full time and came across a Instagram post that my wedding photographer had just posted about. And so she reposted that this company was hiring. And I was like, oh, I’ll reach out. This is a great connection. So it was just random timing of events, but was actively searching for a job right out of college.

Lee Kantor: And then what attracted you to Lawson? Was it was it just that the your person you knew just said, hey, check them out. They’re hiring. Like it was that simple. It wasn’t like, oh, they have cool stuff or like it.

Caroline Lewis: Was a combination of both. So I was interested by just the recommendation of the company, but also, um, was really intrigued by the fact that they were a startup and was really wanting to learn more about what it was like to gaining new business and starting to work behind the scenes and all of those kinds of pieces, especially with other startups and small business owners too. Um, I always liked the idea of entrepreneurship and always thought it wasn’t for me individually. But then this opportunity changed and there were other plans in the cards for me. So now I’ve got a whole new look on entrepreneurship. But really the intriguing piece is working for a startup from the beginning.

Lee Kantor: So then you’re. Insert yourself there. You say you’re one of the first full time hires. Now, is it one of those situations where, like, you didn’t like you weren’t like, okay, Caroline’s in charge of this and that’s it. Like it’s one of those you got to do a little of everything because it’s kind of a, you know, a small but growing team.

Caroline Lewis: Absolutely. Absolutely. So it’s one of those things and still is to this day that we all wear many hats. But, um, I was one of the first full time hires and started out as the operations assistant, which was a vague term for kind of a miscellaneous catch all that the founder needed support with. Um, and then we hired a graphic designer and grew from there being a design firm. Um, and now we have a team of eight and or nine as of recent. And um, so we all have our different respective roles, but there’s still lots of miscellaneous things that come with working for a small business too.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was the part that you were like, okay, this is my superpower. I’m really good at this.

Caroline Lewis: It’s funny you asked that. I’m still figuring out exactly what that looks like for me. Um, but I think the biggest piece is I really love being a cheerleader for others around me, whether that’s for my team or for our clients. I love seeing people succeed and anything I can do to help people do that, um, has been really just something that brings me so much joy. And so I think that being in the marketing side of things, you really get to have a pulse on helping people grow their businesses and drive real results and share about what they do. So anytime I come across another business owner or something that I’m passionate about, I’m telling everyone about them, hey, you could use this service or you should meet this person or things like that. And then similarly for my team, I think that they all have so much potential and are a great group of women. And I think that giving them opportunities to grow and cheering them on in challenging situations has been really fun too.

Lee Kantor: Now when you because it was only a short period of time from you went from an employee to the owner was just a few years. Right? So that wasn’t like, you know, ten years or, you know, some people their whole career. Um, was that transition to, uh, you know, the mindset of an employee to the mindset of an owner? Was that a difficult transition or was that something they kind of empowered you with early on?

Caroline Lewis: I would say it was more difficult than I thought it would be. Just for the mental shift is that I was so used to doing the things in the business day in and day out, and I love working with our clients, so that’s been really, really enjoyable. But the hardest part was for me to say, okay, these are my decisions to make and to really to be able to step into that freedom was not an easy thing, is that I was used to kind of the normal boundaries of a 9 to 5 and things like that. And to be able to say, okay, now I get to make these decisions and make it what I want. Um, it took me a little while to kind of figure that out. And I would say just in the past year, have I been able to step into that and say, okay, here are my dreams for Lawson House. And there was a lot of homage I wanted to pay to the founder before me and the things she set out to build. And I loved what she set out to build because we were doing it together. So it wasn’t things that I needed to rework, but it was just figuring out what does that look like for me and what do I want? Lawson has to stand on to.

Lee Kantor: So did. Was there kind of, um, I don’t want to say just a major pivot, but maybe just an expansion or evolution of the kind of the values and the true north of the organization.

Caroline Lewis: Yes, absolutely. And that’s what really in I’m just about to hit kind of two and a half years of being on my own and running this in the past six months or so, I’ve really figured out and been able to put words to that. So we’ve built out our own signature framework to take clients through. It’s really just putting a lot of words to what we’ve offered to our clients now to say, okay, here’s how we take someone through and make it easily understandable, easily explainable, um, but also shaping our core values at the end of the day to, to what we want the precedent of Lawson to be internally and Externally.

Lee Kantor: So how did you kind of land on, on these, um, kind of pillars of the organization? Like it was it just from doing so much, um, or just by you, you have mentors or maybe you learned of new ways of doing things like how did these kind of the Lawson House methodology come about?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, a little bit of both. A lot of time, just spending reflecting, what is this look like? How can we start to put words to this? Um, my husband is a creative genius and has worked in marketing and advertising for quite a while as well. And as he was hearing me on sales calls and things like that, he was like, I think you need a framework just to help explain this better and help to hit this kind of idea home. And so we really leaned into the name house and the part of our name house and walked people through what it looks like to map their blueprint and create their marketing plan. And then what does it look like to build their house, the theoretical house for their business. And what that is, is their foundation to their business. So the way that they show up online and their online presence and all those kinds of things, and then inviting people in is that third part. And that really was where I think that we bring together all of our core values, all of who we are as marketers, as people. We start to say, hey, you need a plan. You need something strong that your business can stand on. And we want to invite people in when that’s already, and that you get to share this with the world. And that’s how you grow your business.

Lee Kantor: Now as part of your journey, did you it sounds like you’ve kind of got some clarity around some of the language and some of the framework. Did you have to say, okay, these are the people that were kind of for these are kind of our people, and then these are not our people. Like, if they want this, they’re going to have to go somewhere else. Because having the people you, you know, you say yes to is important. But also the people you say no to is important to when it shapes kind of the world. You want to live in 100%.

Caroline Lewis: And I think that’s really where we have started to say, okay, this is what we need to stand on, and this is the message and why we’re doing what we’re doing is that we want to make sure that we’re starting with a plan every single time, because that’s where we see marketing being most successful. I think that the case scenarios that we’ve run into in the past or seen other agencies run into is when they just start spending clients money on certain campaigns, certain avenues, things like that. And there’s plenty of times that we’ve been guilty of that. But I think that really putting this framework into place is to say, hey, we want to have a really clear plan. We want to make sure you’ve got a strong foundation you’re sending clients to or, um, people to before they’re engaging with you, purchasing with you. Because if those pieces are in place, you’re going to end up wasting a lot of money and a lot of time over the course of your marketing plan that’s not currently in place, um, to make sure that it’s in a better place. So that’s really where we want to make sure that they’ve got clarity, they’ve got goals in place and we’re all on the same page before we’re moving forward with some of these pieces, because oftentimes that leads to unsuccessful campaigns or goals not achieved or things like that. And that’s the last thing that we want someone to experience. So that’s led to us people who aren’t willing to start with that plan or those messaging or saying, hey, actually, everything’s fine when it’s not. That’s when we’ve said, hey, it doesn’t sound like we’re aligned on what you want to be achieving here. We want to make sure we’re confident in the way that you’re going out and marketing, and that has allowed us to create the kind of boundaries we need to be successful with clients, too.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal client for Lawson House?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. So we like working with service based businesses to start. Ideally, you’ve been around for 2 to 3 years. You’ve got some clients under your belt. Um, but it might be time to no longer rely on word of mouth marketing or, um, they want to expand their online presence or they have a ton of marketing that they want to do, but they never have the time to do it and they need it off their plates. And those kinds of things are often signs that you’re ready to hire an agency, or at least start that conversation. Um, where Lawson House really differentiates ourselves is that we are the in-between between an individual freelancer who might be just good at your social or your SEO or your website and a full blown marketing agency that a lot of small business owners can’t afford. We try to find the happy medium between the two so we can serve you really well, like an agency with one point of contact and multiple experts on your team, but without you having to manage multiple freelancers or have the cost of hiring a full time person that you may not be ready for either. So that’s where we find the in-between of, okay, I’m ready to grow and scale. Um, and our industries that we serve are not, they’re not necessarily exclusive, but we do really enjoy working with people who are experts in their field white glove services, who are lawyers, accountants, interior designers, architects, things like that, where they know their specialty, they know their trade, and we get to amplify what they do really well through their online presence.

Lee Kantor: So what’s kind of the problem that they’re having right before they hire you? Is there some symptoms or signals that an organization’s going through that you know, that it’s really telling them, hey, maybe we should reach out to Caroline and her team?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. One thing I hear all the time from a variety of different industries is that I’m getting client inquiries still, but they’re not the clients I want to be working with. They’re low budget. They’re, um, they’re not fun to work with. They don’t understand my process. Those are things that we hear all the time. And oftentimes that means that your messaging or your online presence isn’t representative of those clients you want to be serving is that you’re not attracting those ideal clients. And that’s oftentimes where we start is to say, who is that ideal client for you? And a lot of times people haven’t really thought about that. What a question I love to ask our clients is, what’s a client that has gone really well. Like, who’s your favorite client you’ve worked with and where did they come from and why was it so successful? And those kinds of things are really good to start to think about of, okay, who is that person? How can we replicate getting more of those? Because they’re out there. It’s just getting in front of them in the right time and the right place.

Lee Kantor: So if you were giving advice for one of those people, um, prior to them hiring you, what are some low hanging fruit an organization can do to attract the right folks to their company or their service?

Caroline Lewis: I think the biggest thing is go to that favorite client or couple of favorite clients and ask for referrals. A lot of people expect people to refer them out of, hey, I know I did a good job. Surely they’ll tell their friends, but sometimes you just have to be honest and blunt and really kind and ask and say, hey, I feel like I did a really great job. I really think you guys were happy with this. What does it look like for you to introduce me to 1 to 2 people? Sometimes you can give them an incentive for referrals. Um, or they might just be willing to pass along your name, but I think that directly asking for referrals, whether that’s a text, a phone call, a quick coffee, things like that are all great ways to really start to build and attract more of those people that you want to work with, because oftentimes they’re in community together.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you find that a lot of folks, their first move when they’re looking to grow is let me get strangers in the door rather than let me just kind of start with my existing clients and build out from there.

Caroline Lewis: Mhm. Oftentimes people think that if they’re ready to grow or scale, that means that they need to go to a whole new audience, which I think is usually one of the biggest mistakes someone will make during growing or scaling times is that oftentimes that market that you need, unless you’ve genuinely tapped every organic avenue, that it’s probably within reach if you do good work and if you show up consistently. So I think that thinking about, okay, who’s in your community or associated circles that you can reach out to, because a warm intro and a warm lead is way better than having to go the cold outbound route.

Lee Kantor: So you’ve mentioned the word community several times. What does it mean to you when it comes to marketing?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, I think community is everything from not only operating a business to how you show up online, to the people encouraging you, engaging with your content. Um, it can look different in a lot of different spaces and different industries. Um, but community is one of the most important things, whether that is a community of paying clients that you serve really well and that you are nurturing relationships with or community of partnerships of other vendors that work with a similar clientele that you get to network with on a regular basis. That’s my favorite one. And oftentimes people aren’t leveraging for that as leveraging enough. Um, is are there people who serve similar audiences? For example, if you’re an interior designer, have you talked with builders? Have you talked with real estate agents? Have you talked with other companies that serve the same audience as you? Those are things that we really want to encourage that type of community. And then lastly, community, just for your own support in business ownership, is that, um, a business coach? Is that a therapist? Is that a CFO? What does that look like for you to have that community that continues to encourage you and support you? Because oftentimes you’re the business’s greatest asset and having that freedom and that space and that brain capacity to think of new ideas and to be present in your marketing. Um, oftentimes those community pieces can help support all of that along the way.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re doing your work, um, we hear a lot of folks, uh, leveraging AI. How are you? Or are you leveraging AI when it comes to delivering some of the services for your work?

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. It’s something that is probably going to be a part of our lives for the rest of time, and it’s something that we’re all trying to figure out of. There’s two sides to it is that when we’re constantly doing research on AI for how our clients can show up better in AI searches, and we do a lot of SEO work. And now the term E o or G, e o is coming up where there’s answer engine optimization, um, or generative engine optimization, things like that, where people are starting to search for your services where they used to go directly to Google. Now they’re going to chat or cloud or things like that. So we’re constantly researching it for how you can best show up within AI, um, and what that looks like. And then we’re also utilizing it to help optimize our team and make sure that we have the space to serve you better. Um, but sometimes that looks like just admin things of helping with emails or helping with task management, or we use it in our CRM platform and things like that just to make sure things don’t get missed and systematized.

Caroline Lewis: Um, every once in a while we’ll use it in our copy or support there as well, but we’re very cautious in how we use it on actual client deliverables because we always want to have a human first approach is that it’s a great tool. Um, but it oftentimes can get in the way of the message that we’re trying to say. We all have seen the AI fluff and the AI, um, kind of triggers and things like that, that we’re all starting to become accustomed to. And people know that that’s AI and that we are already our brains are already trained to go, ah, I don’t trust that as much. And so the important piece in all of your marketing to become a memorable brand, like we’ve talked about, is that you have to build trust with your clientele. And if you’re showing up with AI graphics or tons of AI copy or things like that, that that trust is dwindling quickly. And so there’s pieces that we use it as tools and resources, but we try to make sure that everything we’re putting out for our clients is human first as well.

Lee Kantor: So is there a story you can share? Uh, that kind of explains what it’s like to work with you don’t name the name of the company or the organization unless you want to, but just maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Caroline Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. So there’s a company we’ve worked with for a little over a year now, and they came to us and, um, they’re in the home service industry and they have been around for 20 plus years now. And they had relied on word of mouth up to this point, and they really had done a great job, but they were ready to scale their a team of, I think, between 8 and 10 and had done a fantastic job of getting to where they were, but they knew what the digital day and age that we’re in, that they couldn’t rely on that forever and that they do. They check all the boxes of asking for referrals and reviews and all of the things that we encourage them to do, but they knew their online presence needed to be stronger. And so through working with them, we started with one of those blueprint sessions, like I was talking about, where we mapped out their blueprint, who they wanted to be going after, what message they wanted to be sending. And now they’ve got a really consistent marketing plan. We were up. We uplevel their brand and website, and we took their original brand of 20 plus years and just modernized it just a little. We didn’t want to scrap all of what they’ve built over the years, but we also want to make sure it feels really fresh and exciting and inviting and all of the things that they encompass as a business.

Caroline Lewis: And then same with their website. They wanted to relevel that up too. So we wanted to make sure all of that foundation was set in a really strong way to not only enhance their digital presence, but also to honor all of the heritage that they’ve and legacy they’ve built with their company thus far. And so we took all of that and have put that into a marketing plan. And now we consistently run ads and SEO and email marketing and social and all of the different avenues for them. One, it’s 100% off of their plate. We have one monthly call with them. They review and approve everything there, and they don’t have to think about their marketing again. Two, they’ve consistently gotten in leads and quality clients from their, um, not just leads, but quality clients, which is really important to us. And then three their engagement and their website traffic is through the roof because of the consistency and systems that we have built. So on all fronts, we’re seeing growth for them, which makes me super happy. And they’ve also been able to get marketing off of their plate entirely. And it’s been just a wonderful client experience, um, to partner alongside them and help them through each one of these touch points and create a plan that has actually worked for their business.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you think in today’s day and age where there’s just so much, um, content being, um, available for everybody on all these different channels and platforms? Is it possible to grow organically without paid or is paid something that just should be part of everybody’s playbook?

Caroline Lewis: It’s a great question. One we’re constantly asked. And yes, I think there’s still an organic way to go. Um, the constant balance that we are teaching our clients is that just because you have tons of followers doesn’t mean it’s the right followers and a lot of times paid strategies can lead to that if they aren’t very specific or very effective, is that you’re getting more eyes, you’re getting more views, you’re getting more followers. Those are all great metrics, but it doesn’t matter if they aren’t people who are applicable for your service. If they aren’t in your target audience, that’s not necessarily helpful. Um, so we do recommend the organic route for as long as possible because that’s going that way you can start to attract the ideal customer. Um, now the organic route doesn’t mean it doesn’t involve outreach. So I think you can still engage with other accounts, like follow comment on posts that have similar audiences, things like that. Um, it’s not necessarily a paid strategy, but it does involve outreach and engagement that helps you grow your account on a more effective rate.

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

Caroline Lewis: Yeah. So two things. One, if you are a small business owner, I think asking yourself the question of, have I thought about who my target audience is in a while. And I think that reflecting on that is just my encouragement to small business owners listening, is that it’s a really good place to start. If you’re feeling like you need marketing, start to think about who would you market to? Who would that person be? Is there ways you can reach out to them or that type of client organically before you engage on any sort of paid strategy? Um, I think that that’s more of my encouragement to listeners than anything. Um, but as far as lesson house goes, if there are listeners who are looking for someone to partner with or looking for that marketing plan, we would be honored to have that conversation with you to put a plan together. It’s a no obligation plan. Um, it’s a one time fee for that conversation. And you can take that and run with it and execute it all on your own. Um, so it’s not something that we require you moving forward with our team to do, but we believe that every, every small business needs a marketing plan and that’s going to help them grow and achieve their goals that they have as well.

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

Caroline Lewis: Absolutely. So you can find us at www.lawson-house.com. House like the house you live in. Um, or you can find us at Lawson House agency on Instagram. Send us a DM, a message, whatever is easiest there. Um, but we’d love to connect you. If you schedule a call with us, it’ll be on my calendar. So I would love to chat with you here about where you’re at in your business and what best next steps would be for you.

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

Caroline Lewis: Thank you so much, Lee. I appreciate you having me.

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

The Power of Coaching: Transforming Leaders, Culture, and Careers

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
The Power of Coaching: Transforming Leaders, Culture, and Careers
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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews John A. Locke, Executive Coach with Forvis Mazars, about the transformative power of executive coaching in leadership development and organizational growth. John shares his journey of establishing a coaching practice within a major accounting firm, overcoming the perception that coaching is remedial, and helping leaders recognize it as a tool for career acceleration. He explores the importance of personalized coaching, psychological safety, and investing in people to build stronger workplace cultures. John also discusses measuring coaching impact, developing emerging leaders, and how purpose, passion, and serving others can create meaningful personal and professional success.

John A Locke is the founder of the Executive Coaching Practice at Forvis Mazars, a top 10 Public Accounting Firm. He and two other Executive Coaches provide one on one coaching to executives throughout the firm’s 75 offices.

He is a featured speaker at many corporate events on the topics of coaching, health and wellness and mental fitness. He has spent 45 years working in Sales, Marketing, Project Management and Philanthropy. Industries have included, Entertainment, Broadcast Production, Manufacturing, and Healthcare.

A Former Radio show and corporate PODCAST host, he has served as MC for multiple Not For Profit events and served on multiple NFP boards in Asheville and the state of North Carolina. He is Currently an International Coach Federation Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and a medically board credentialed Health and Wellness Coach (NBHWC).

He lives with his wife Gini and their Aussie Doodle Buddy, in Asheville NC. Their daughter Lauren lives in New Zealand. She is an Executive Coach and is an Account Executive with an Australian Leadership Training Firm.

Connect with John on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Establishing executive coaching as a leadership development and career acceleration tool.
  • Overcoming misconceptions about coaching and demonstrating its value through real-world outcomes.
  • Applying personalized coaching strategies to address individual leadership challenges.
  • Building psychologically safe workplaces that encourage feedback, growth, and collaboration.
  • Strengthening organizational culture through leadership development and employee investment.
  • Integrating coaching into talent development programs through gradual implementation and evaluation.
  • Measuring the impact of coaching through performance indicators and personal success stories.
  • Using purpose, passion, and selfless service to create meaningful personal and professional growth.
  • Empowering leaders to navigate career transitions and embrace new leadership responsibilities.
  • Creating lasting impact by investing in people and helping them achieve their goals.

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.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have executive coach with Forvis Mazars, John Locke. Welcome.

John A Locke: Hey, Lee, great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn about your coaching practice. Tell us about Forvis Mazars. How are you serving folks?

John A Locke: Well, first of all, Forvis Mazars is really a relatively new name to the business landscape here in the United States. It’s a organization that’s been around for a long time, but through a variety of mergers, has now grown to being a top ten accounting firm with 75 offices throughout the U.S. and For about 1012 000 folks internationally. So it’s a really large organization that grew out of a small accounting firm in Asheville, North Carolina, and a couple of other small firms here in the southeast. And next thing you know, we’re I think the last I saw, we were around eight largest in the United States.

Lee Kantor: So now how did kind of coaching get integrated into their practice?

John A Locke: Well, it’s really a kind of an interesting story in that coaching was one of those things in an accounting firm that was not necessarily looked at favorably when somebody came to a staff member or a rising leader and said, you need coaching. It wasn’t necessarily a positive encounter. So I had the opportunity to start the coaching practice about 12 years ago. And I had a leader whose name is Mike Crawford, who just recently retired, who was a regional managing partner. And he was always a great leadership visionary. And he wanted to find kind of the what’s the edge that we could have really for developing our leaders. And this was the earlier iteration of the firm. It was called Dixon Hughes Goodman back 12 years ago and headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so when we started talking about opportunities to develop leaders, we talked about working with them one on one and finding niches where they could really explore their talents and gifts and take them to the next level of leadership, competency and impact. And so I had the privilege of really being the very first coach, starting the practice. And then over the last 8 to 10 years, we’ve added a couple of more coaches, and now we serve primarily the partners and executive leaders throughout the entire footprint of four of us.

Lee Kantor: Mazars now was your background in accounting and then you kind of transition to coaching? Or are you looking at this kind of through the fresh eyes of a coach?

John A Locke: Yeah, not an accountant. I’m one of those that kind of just sits on the periphery of the day to day accounting and consulting work that we do. My background, Lee, has really been a wide variety of things from sales and marketing, project management, philanthropy, and I’ve just always had in my toolkit and my really my mind that this is a long haul journey of developing myself first and helping then share anything that I can learn as it relates to business success or dealing with people to others that I work with. So I to be very honest with you, I stumbled into coaching, didn’t really know that it was a real thing and a credible part of the leadership toolkit when I first really even got into it. And when I explored it, and I started looking into it because I’d been helping people and doing leadership events and things like that my entire career, but I didn’t really realize the impact that this one on one coaching industry was having in corporate America. And once I really found out what was going on, I thought, this is this is the ticket. This is the way to really differentiate leaders on their career path. And, and firms like Forbes, Mazars, as they’re trying to be distinct in their focus on developing leaders and, and providing, you know, a unique experience to their clients as a result.

Lee Kantor: Now when they, when you started working with them at the beginning, what was this kind of, uh, framed as an experiment? Let’s see how this goes. Or did they have a mission with an objective that they were trying to achieve through this? Because, I mean, I’ve, I’ve been doing this interviewing thing for a while, and I’ve interviewed lots of CPAs and lots of leaders of CPA firms, and it’s a short list of them. Of firms that have coaching integrated in their practices, at least in, you know, from what I’ve seen. So I mean, to establish that, I mean, kudos to them for doing taking that step. But I just want to understand the frame they gave you to work within.

John A Locke: Well, I think it really boiled down to the vision of that individual, Mike Crawford that I alluded to earlier. Mike was just a fanatic when it came to developing himself as a leader and realized, you know, what it took for folks to really be successful in this industry required a lot of work on the individual. And when he and I first sat down and talked and we thought about concepted really this whole coaching practice. It was really focused on this individualized journey that these leaders were on and how unique and stressful and complex it was, and helping them to then determine really what are going to be the priorities for their efforts to develop into the leader that they want to be. And so to say that this was a prescribed we’re going to build a coaching practice from day one is probably an overstatement. It was really focused on, hey, let’s see what we can do here to have impact and helping individual leaders with one coach who’s attempting really to serve as many people as possible, but realize that that’s going to be limited. And so we had to really focus then on what are the high potential opportunities for impact. And that led us into both the C-suite as well as into some emerging leaders. And finally, over a period of years, we realized it needed to focus on those that the firm had identified as next generation or existing. New leaders. And that’s kind of where we really spring springboarded the the coaching practice and then have focused since then.

Lee Kantor: So when did you know that it was working?

John A Locke: Well, that’s a great question because I will be totally transparent with you. The first couple of years were, uh, full of one step forward, two steps back. And, you know, people who would say, what is it? What are you doing here? What? Why are you why are we talking? I mean, there was a lot of misunderstanding because of that comment that I made earlier about coaching was not a positive term. You know, there were things, and this was to nobody’s fault. But just over time, if you needed a coach, you were in, you had a problem. And so my whole first two years was to help educate people, to help them understand that this was about developing leaders, not a remedial process to fix people. And so once, and it really took about almost three years for people to really understand that. And in combination with having some relatively positive outcomes and experiences from leaders who are going through the coaching, and they were just talking to other leaders about it and saying, hey, you know, this coaching thing is really powerful. It can work. And let me tell you how it helped me. Once we had those stories that started organically spreading through the firm, then I think about three years in, we we realized we had something here that was powerful for people and really a differentiator when it comes to developing leaders in our industry.

Lee Kantor: Now as a coach, were you was the focus kind of did you have to learn, okay, let’s do more of this, less of this? Like this is what’s resonating and this is what’s giving the biggest impact? Or did you kind of have a plan of, okay, we’re going to work on these kind of pillars and we’ll go from there.

John A Locke: Yeah, that’s a really great question. And it kind of speaks to what I think the power is associated with a coaching experience. And that is so individualized. So obviously from a firm standpoint, they’re looking to help our leader be successful in whatever that looks like. But in the end, it’s running their own business because in an accounting firm, in essence, you have hundreds of entrepreneurs who are partners that are running their individual businesses. Well, within that, everybody has a different set of challenges and variables that they’re dealing with. So some would be natural rainmakers and can sell like crazy and just build an amazing business. Other people are highly technical and struggle building their business, and maybe also struggle with the team dynamics and retaining people. And so there was especially early on, and even to this day, it is such a unique set of variables that we walk into in a coaching opportunity that we spend really the first several sessions digging deep and trying to really uncover what it is that’s really going to make the difference, not only in this person being successful in running a business, but the one thing that I like to approach it. And that’s, that’s why I went down the road of becoming a health and wellness coach as well as an executive coach, is that I want these folks, individuals, no matter where they are in their leadership journey, to feel good about themselves as a human being, as a husband, wife, father, son, whatever their key relationships are, and knowing that this is going to be a rewarding journey for them with their mental and physical health, as well as the outcomes that they would have relative to what the business expectations are. So I like to take a very holistic approach to my coaching and let people know from day one is, I’m here to help you achieve your goals relating to both the business and the personal side. Let’s talk about what maybe is not working for you, what’s out of balance. And let’s just start there and see if we can find opportunities to work together to move the needle.

Lee Kantor: Now, it sounds like this type of work can really improve the culture of an organization. Are you seeing any kind of evidence of that happening?

John A Locke: Absolutely. I think the culture piece of this is, again, the long term play. You know, individually, you’re having an impact on people’s lives and careers that can’t help but have an impact on then the relationships that they have within their teams and how they’re then taking what they’re learning about themselves and their approach to leadership and cascading that down through their organizations. So when they find Fine individuals that are struggling in areas that maybe they have struggled in. They use a lot of the coaching techniques that they’ve learned as a part of the process in helping them. And, you know, one of the things that we learn in the coaching world, and I think this has become elevated really in a broader scale, is that the reason that people leave organizations we’ve always heard for years is, well, they leave the manager, right? Well, that’s partially true, but not the total picture. People leave. And this was the Google, you know, Aristotle project from now, almost 20 years ago, where they determined that the reason that people leave organizations is because they don’t feel psychologically safe. And so helping leaders help people feel better in their environments about their ability to contribute and give appropriate feedback and those types of things to give them a picture of their future and support them on that path creates a psychological safety that enriches the team and potentially the experience that they have on their individual leadership journey. So it’s when you think about that from a culture standpoint, it really creates a very connected culture in a very supportive environment for people to grow. And one of the other reasons that people will stay with an organization is they see their future. They see an opportunity to grow. And that’s been painted by the leader because they’ve invested, hopefully in the individuals on the team to help them achieve what’s important to them with their life and career goals.

Lee Kantor: Now, since this has been going on for a few years now, is this something that has kind of permeated the organization where coaching isn’t seen as remediation, but is seen as something that is almost a perk or a benefit for the teams?

John A Locke: Yeah, and I think we’re over that hump. Finally, you know, we we went through the first early stages and had some difficult moments there. And I think, you know, won people over and helped people see the the real value proposition here. And then going through the mergers, though, kind of created another set of interesting conversations around, well, what’s the true value of this? Because in the big merger we had five years ago, we merged with a two, two groups came together, D, H, G and BCD. Very strong, historically credible, wonderful reputation firms from the southeast and the Midwest. But DHG had the coaching culture embedded for several years and BCD did not. And so there was, you know, some initial work to be done there. And I think what’s happened is now the folks who were coming from that side of it, who didn’t have that kind of coaching experience. Growing up or developing have now seen the value and are for the most part, really big supporters of it. So I think that we’ve gotten through that. That’s not to say that there’s not always work to do to continue to elevate the value proposition, the testimonials and and watch some of these leaders flourish as they have experienced coaching. But it’s, it’s the type of a, I think, you know, you can use metrics to, to measure it. Uh, the real power, though, is in the stories. When you have people who say, I’ve never made it through this part of my career, had it not been for the coaching that I received at a critical time, or let me tell you how this impacted my life and my home life at a key moment. And let me tell you how I’m using this now to build my teams. Those stories really kind of create the concrete foundation for building, I think, a culture of coaching and a unique coaching, that culture that emanates around, hey, we care for the people and we’re going to invest in the people that we have here.

Lee Kantor: Now. Um, is there any advice you could give an organization that’s thinking about integrating coaching into their organization? There are some things that, you know now that you would have liked to know when you started.

John A Locke: Yeah, yeah. Well, there’s just not one way to do this, which is really interesting. And I think you alluded to that earlier, Lee, that you haven’t seen a lot of this in the industry. What we’re seeing right now, which is not a bad way to start, is you’re seeing organizations who are now hearing about the value of executive coaches at key leadership moments to integrate that into your talent development, philosophy and execution. And so if I were, um, probably advising maybe a midsize firm as to how would I go about this? I would probably go one of two directions. One is, I would say, let me find a couple of coaches who I can be very transparent with to see if we could contract with them and identify key players here that we could start some coaching with, to see how this is received and see if we can start measuring the value of it. So you kind of start slow with a contract coach or two with some key leaders at at critical moments in their career. The other would would be to do, I think what we did in that, uh, find someone who could come in and initially be kind of the, the go to person for executive coaching and start very small. And that’s what we did. You know, I had probably 5 or 10 coaches when I first started to really get a feel and to get to know the individuals within the firm to talk about coaching, because one of the things is the big, like I said, I spent probably two years educating and it’s hard for people truly to understand that this is a benefit and it truly is a high leverage tool for accelerating someone’s career versus a remedial effort to salvage somebody.

John A Locke: And that is a hard thing, especially if somebody’s struggling a little bit. They think, oh, I’m getting a coach because I’m failing no matter what, how it’s painted. But after a while, when they start getting to know the coach, they started seeing and talking to other people who have gone through it. They understand that this is a privilege and it is a perk, and it’s something that can be a career accelerator. So I would say if I was advising, I’d say one of two things. If you’re a little bit squeamish about wanting to bring on a full time person to build the executive coaching program, which was what I was privileged to do. I would say, you know, find somebody out there, and there’s an amazing number of great coaches out there who would just be willing to kind of be a consultant with you as you’re designing the initial phases of it. And as a result, they’re getting some coaching work to start with and just see how it goes, see what the results are. And then after, you know, a year or so of that start, you know, talking to leadership about, hey, what’s next for us and what can we do to develop, you know, a more robust, uh, internal coaching program.

Lee Kantor: Now, in the accounting world, obviously they’re dealing with numbers all the time. Um, did was that a challenge like putting numbers on? Is this working? Like, were you charged with, okay, we have to know if this is working. And, you know, we love numbers. So let’s is this an eight or is it a two like yeah. Um, you know, like was that part of the consideration or was this thing, uh, something that okay, we can tell just by feel kind of thing?

John A Locke: Well, you can only imagine working in an accounting firm. The numbers are a big deal and proof of performance is not taken lightly. Fortunately, there was not a lot of pressure early on for us to, uh, populate a lot of ROI data on, on the coaching, which I was very I mean, just honestly, that was a gift to not feel that pressure. But here’s what was really interesting. Lee and, uh, there’s an organization called the International Coaching Federation, their global organization. And I immediately got my certification, got credentialed and, and attended and started attending a lot of their events. And one of them was a global event up in Washington, D.C., which was like in the first year of of my work. And when I went there, I was exposed to the bigger world of executive coaching within major organizations. And Ernst and Young was there. And I learned by going there that they at that time had 23 internal coaches. Pwc was there, and they put on sessions talking about how there are 25 internal coaches work to meet the needs of their leadership teams. I mean, and the stories went on, you know, Allstate, Microsoft, I mean, just all of these blue chip organizations and the investment that they had made in coaching, I just was blown away. I had no idea that it was at that level. And so I thought, hmm, I’m gonna, I’m going to come back and I’m going to start doing some research within, you know, the industry and see what I can find because I know somebody’s going to ask me. And so I was very fortunate. And I met a gentleman who was with Ernst and Young, and he was just such so open with what was going on.

John A Locke: And even though technically you could say they were a competitor, uh, but he, he just said, you know, here’s kind of what we’re doing. You know, we started this thing, I think it was eight years ago at the time I met him. And they talked about, you know, the resources that they were investing in it. And they were just at that point in time, starting to get some ROI data, especially with partners and how their revenues of partners that have been coached were increased after they had been coaching versus, uh, partners that had not gone through the coaching program. So things like that. I started then kind of pushing up to our leadership and I would get some data around that, and I would use other people’s data to, to validate the effort and to also broaden the perspective relative to what’s possible here. Because one thing about going to that global conference, when I came back, I said, boy, this is not just about me anymore. This is about the opportunity for us to differentiate and to really design a program that’s going to have an impact on our leaders for years to come. And I just I’m not going to be able to do this by myself. So kind of a sidebar to that funny story is, uh, his name is Bob Kunkle. Bob, who I met at E. We ended up hiring, uh, three years after I met him and we brought him on to help us kind of scale the practice. And, um, that was so cool to see that happen over a period of time. And Bob is Bob is still with us. And so we have three internal coaches now, Bob being one of them.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates what it’s like in the impact? Don’t name the individual that you were coaching, but maybe share, um, the challenge that they came to you with and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

John A Locke: Wow. Yeah. There’s, there are, there are many. Um, I’m trying to think of the one that might be the, the most impactful, but I would say early on is probably one of my favorite stories. Um, I was, uh, I had the opportunity to coach the chief operating officer of our, um, legacy firm, Dixon Hughes Goodman. And she had been with the firm for many, many years. And she, uh, little did I know her, when her boss came to me and asked me to coach, she had not even been informed that she was going to be going through a fairly significant transition in less than a year. So I didn’t know that. He didn’t tell me all the details right at the beginning, but he knew that he had to prepare her for that. And so she was a traditional accountant, um, and had really a lot of the, the mindsets of, of someone who had grown up in a very technical environment, although she was very pleasant and had good people skills, she was just very matter of fact. Matter of fact and tactical in her approach. And so we worked together for several months, and then all of a sudden her boss said to her, okay, we are now going to position you for a brand new role. And here’s what this is going to be required. And so we kind of dialed back and said, okay, now of all the things we’ve been talking about, what are the things that you need to really focus on to make sure that you’re going to be successful in this new role? And part of this new role was actually hiring kind of her replacement.

John A Locke: And so there was a big, you know, someone who had been with the firm for 30 some years. She now was not being moved to the side, but it was this restructuring was really going to have a huge impact on her ego because now this person, she’s going to have to almost hire somebody to take her place. And so she had to kind of process all of that. And she had to prepare for them this new role, which was very different than her COO role. And she came through that with flying colors. And she just said, you know, after all the dust had settled and boy, it got hairy there for a while with having to hire somebody and who heard going to a new role and being a senior leader in the firm and what all that meant. And she afterwards she said, you know, I will tell you that was one of the most at the time was one of the most stressful times of my entire career. And having you as a coach and working through that and all those different steps made such a difference. And she’s still with the firm today. And and probably her third new role since I’ve actually worked with her. But and she’s getting ready to retire here probably a year or two. But she, she was actually one of the biggest cheerleaders for coaching early on because she said, this is. It made such a difference in my ability to make make it through that transition.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I mean, the impact is real not only to the individual and the firm, but also it trickles out to the family. The community. Like this is one of those things where the gift keeps on giving when you can help somebody in this manner.

John A Locke: Yeah, definitely. It’s incredibly rewarding profession. I, I had no idea that you could actually get paid to help people like this. You know, I’ve been helping people my entire life, never thinking about wanting to get paid for it. And it’s like, you know, to be able to do this and to earn a living is, is such a blessing. It really is. It’s, it’s phenomenal. And not every coaching experience is, you know, a huge home run, but almost every experience is something that I would say an individual, when they reflect on it, will say there was some serious value in that for me, whether it was something that that had a huge impact or more of it’s a long term perspective that they’ve gained, etc.. But very few people, and I’ve coached hundreds now over the years have said, you know, that was a waste of time. Or when we do our surveys at the end rate, it very low. I mean, most of the surveys come back with really high marks and comments that are just incredibly heartwarming and enriching and make you want to get up every day and do this work.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your work, you mentioned, uh, delivering the, the coaching one on one. Do you do, um, group training? Do you do speaking? Um, like how, what are other ways you deliver, um, coaching?

John A Locke: Yeah. Now in our practice, we do do some group coaching. Uh, I’m not doing a lot of that right now. Uh, my kind of area of focus and passion and enthusiasm is around, uh, speaking to the, speaking to groups and doing some workshops. And I’ve been privileged to have the opportunity to do a lot of trainings for our, uh, up and coming leaders. A lot of the programed events that we have, we have a big conference every year in June. It’s called the Vision Conference, and we bring all of our leaders from the high level all the way down through senior managers together. And I will, um, do some speaking at those events and some individual core trainings that we do throughout the year. So that’s been kind of my area of, um, passion and, and enthusiasm is to take things that I’m learning and tee it up for, you know, groups of 50 to 100 or whatever to experience. So, uh, I would say speaking workshops, doing trainings in addition to my one on one coaching is primarily my, uh, emphasis.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there, um, some of the speaking, is there a keynote that you deliver? Or is this just kind of you adapt to whatever the group needs?

John A Locke: Yeah, I developed a couple of years ago, I actually was challenged to find something that would, we could kind of take out and present to our partners and leaders. That would be more of a kind of a thought provoking, uh, developmental type of, uh, presentation that is non-technical and not specific, you know, to the accounting industry. And so I, uh, I worked and worked on it and finally came up with a presentation. And in the title of it is, uh, three gifts that transform lives. And, uh, it’s about exploring these innate gifts that each of us have relating to our, our, it works around kind of identifying our purpose as kind of the umbrella and then looking at how, um, our passion, our, our, our passion for developing our energy, our, um, ability then to focus on, uh, unselfish giving and how all, how all this kind of comes together to truly not only elevate ourselves on this journey of life in our career, but it has the ability then to impact others. So when you think about, you know, waking up every day, when you think about, you know, the energy that we bring, we think about then our, the presence that we have with people and the opportunity to give unselfishly when almost every day we’re going to have that opportunity to do one of those three things.

John A Locke: And when we do that and we focus on people and doing that, it really makes our life, um, much, much richer and it potentially can have the ability. And I use a few stories. I had one particular story with, uh, personal experience I had with James Earl Jones, the actor, and which changed me forever, watching him interact with people. And I just, I, I want people to know that you don’t have to be an actor. You don’t have to be a celebrity. You can just be a normal person. And if you focus and you be present with people, that you can literally change their lives because you don’t know where people are at. And so, um, yeah, I’ve been able to, uh, present that on several different occasions here within the firm and actually to some clients over the years.

Lee Kantor: Now that sounds like almost a book too. Is there a book in your future?

John A Locke: Uh, yeah. Well, it’s so interesting that you would say that because, um, I initially thought that it might be a book. And then what I came to start thinking is that, uh, you know, there’s, there’s much more to it than just those three things relative to a book that I might want to write. So I, um, a year ago, I had a pretty serious accident and I’ve had some downtime. And in literally in between in doctor’s offices, I have this, uh, journal that I take with me to kind of keep track of everything that’s going on in my rehabilitation. I started writing one day and a doctor’s office, and the next thing I know, I’ve got 4 or 5 pages of a book. And, um, yeah, I don’t know exactly what the title is going to be. The working title is Serve Your Way to Success, but it includes basically the tenets of that book, as well as several other events and interviews with, uh, other people who’ve subscribed to that same philosophy of, of really wanting to help others first, and then knowing that at some point in time that those investments that we make are going to come in in a timely manner to help us at a strategic time in our life journey. So yeah, I’m pretty excited about that and trying to get that off the ground. It’s, uh, hasn’t gone as quickly as I’d hoped because, I’m my rehab is still kind of, uh, taking a little bit more, more time than I had thought. But I’m, um, I’m excited about the potential to have that as well.

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

John A Locke: Well, I just, uh, you know, I wake up every day thinking that, you know, this today is a gift. Um, and the reason that I have not that I always didn’t know it, but, um, you know, I broke my neck a year ago almost to this day. And so the fact that I’m able to walk and talk and even do this interview with you is such an incredible blessing. And so to have the opportunity that you’ve provided here today to just share a little bit of who I am and the story, uh, that I’ve had here as a coach is, is phenomenal. Um, and I truly wake up every day looking for opportunities to find ways to take what I’ve been through, what I’ve learned. Um, any gifts or experiences that are valuable to other people to help them to get to this next level. And so just you providing this platform to do this is, is a real gift to me. And I hope that it ends up being a gift to those that are listening as well.

Lee Kantor: I’m sure that it will, um, if somebody wants to connect with you or learn more about the firm, is there a website? Is there a best way to connect?

John A Locke: Really probably, you know, we have a massive website, so going to the website is not usually the best, most efficient way, but truly just to, you know, to shoot me an email. I’m on LinkedIn as well. Um, either way, uh, john.locke@us.forvismazars.com is an easy way or just, you know, go on LinkedIn And I’m John A. Locke on LinkedIn and reach out. And I would be happy to dialog and respond to anybody who has any questions about coaching, starting a coaching practice, or things that I could do to potentially help them on their journey to where they want to take their life journey.

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

John A Locke: Thank you Lee. I appreciate the opportunity and wish you the best with your radio podcast program.

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

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