Business RadioX ®

Kyle McDowell, Author of Begin With WE

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Former Fortune 10 Executive turned inspirational speaker, bestselling author, & leadership coach Kyle McDowell is on a quest to create cultures of excellence and reignite leaders’ passion and purpose. With nearly three decades of experience leading tens of thousands of employees at some of America’s biggest firms, his philosophy is rooted in his trademarked principles, The 10 WEs.

While today’s workforce is plagued with uncertainty and apathy, his strategy is simple – Begin With WE.  His mission is clear: crush the deep-rooted dysfunctions so many organizations passively accept. During his incredibly successful run in corporate America, his  leadership legacy was born from delivering superior results, empowering leaders, and driving massive cultural transformations.

His Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller, Begin With WE, delves into the root causes of business dysfunction, offering a remedy through The 10 WEs framework. Rather than outsourcing solutions or ignoring cultural challenges, He elevates leaders and sparks massive change within organizations by adopting a mindset that prioritizes “WE” over “I,” “you,” or “me.”

McDowell’s insights have earned him invitations to speak at prestigious business, educational, and nonprofit institutions, and his expertise has been featured in major national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Inc. Magazine.

Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Leadership
  • Toxic Work Cultures
  • Teams
  • Thriving instead of Surviving inside Corporate America

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 Kyle McDowell, author of the best selling book Begin with We, welcome.

Kyle McDowell: Hey Lee, really great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn about you and your book. But before we get into that, can you share a little bit about your backstory?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, absolutely. I spent nearly 30 years in corporate America, leading at the end of my journey, leading tens of thousands of employees at, at, uh, household names here in the States. And I was really privileged to, to have a really successful run. And I usually use air quotes when I say successful. But, you know, by most standards, I had the fancy titles, the Cool corner offices, uh, great compensation, and, you know, a pretty big sphere of influence. But what I found the last decade or so of the career of my career was with each new kind of step of growth and taking on bigger and bigger operations, I found myself becoming more and more apathetic to the whole engine. Like so many of us. You know, I started my my career with a lot of passion. I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to find fulfillment. I wanted to do big things. And and I was able to do a lot of those, a lot of, you know, fulfill a lot of those expectations and hopes. But I also, um, never really took the time to ask at what cost. So I found myself just completely disconnected from the very environments that I was responsible for creating, which is a really tough thing to swallow. So I stepped away from it all 2019 and, uh, felt like I had an opportunity to, to, to share a message that I had seen really, really impact several, several organizations in to these concepts that I created called the ten wise, their principles that I use to create a sense of belonging and inclusion and really transform cultures inside of, of of big organizations.

Kyle McDowell: When I left, I was at a crossroad that I want to I want to put this book together and get it out to the public. Or do I want to go back into the corporate world and lead another organization? And I just felt like my purpose was bigger. So I wrote the book and became a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller. And now I just spend my time, uh, working with leaders and, and companies alike to, to help them get out of their own way, to help reconnect them with their, with their passion and, and try to find fulfillment and man, maybe in some ways get them to. Lose the Sunday scaries and not necessarily hate work, but try to find a way to thrive inside of it because, as you know, will we? We spend a good portion of our life doing what this thing is called work, like 100,000 hours, as a matter of fact. So it’s my mission to, to to rid the world of that toxic stuff that I was a part of and help people find real fulfillment, genuine fulfillment.

Lee Kantor: Now, just, um, before we get too far into things again, I want to share a little of my background, my background. I’ve always been an entrepreneur. Always had small, uh, businesses. My wife, on the other hand, had a corporate career. Um, not exactly like yours, but involved in, you know, super large enterprise organization and kind of worked her way through. So I’ve had a chance to get a glimpse of what that corporate kind of life and mentality is. And then I’ve experienced firsthand this kind of small business entrepreneur grind. Uh, obviously there’s a lot more people like me on the planet that are doing a small business kind of grind, rather than working in a large enterprise level organization. Can you talk about kind of how you view that lens of your career has primarily been through these large corporate enterprises versus kind of the. The entrepreneur. That’s kind of grinding on on Main Street, not on Wall Street.

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, man. What a what a really, really important question. Because after spending those 28, nearly 30 years in the, in the, you know, big, big settings, uh, you know, for some context, my last role I had, I, I led a team of 15,000, um, had a PNL in the multi billion dollar range, um, switching that, switching that, that, that, that kind of, um, paradigm from big, big organizations to going the entrepreneurial grinding route. It could not be more eye opening. It could not have been more of a of a shock to the system. Um, now, the common element between the two scenarios is just people is trying to connect with people and and help people. And I genuinely believe, at least for me, I can speak for myself. Right? During during my corporate America run, most of that time was focused on me and not on those around me. When I discovered the principles and started to cascade them and evangelize them as who I am and how I wanted to lead the whole. My whole paradigm shifted, and my emphasis and focus was on people and the we, the people around me and developing them. And I’ve managed to keep that through the entrepreneurial journey. The grind is different. The way I spend my days is wildly different than it was in the in the corporate days. But at the end of of of everything, it’s really about the people and those that I work with and try to help.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your book, uh, I believe the first we is do the right thing, um, and do the right thing always not that’s not that’s kind of a non-negotiable. Now, in the corporate world, um, do the right thing is that in the context of do the right thing for me and my career, to get to the next rung of the ladder or do the right thing for humanity, or do the right thing for my shareholders, or do the right thing, uh, you know, for my employees, I mean, who are we doing the right thing for? And who’s our true north?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah. So I, I walked the reader through kind of a decision tree in the book that that helps. And and before you react, just hear me out because I love the way you framed that. I’m like, am I working? Am I helping myself and doing the right thing for me and getting to the next rung? But here, here’s that filter. If I’m struggling with a decision or need to to to make, uh, or choose a path for, for the team, by the way, or for my organization more broadly, I like to think of it through three filters. The first is, and this is where I ask you to hear me out. The first is, am I doing the right thing for the company? Because this just end. If there’s no company, there’s no client. And that’s the second cohort, the three keys, by the way, the company, the client. And if there’s no client, there’s no crew, there’s no team. So my goal has always been to make a decision or choose a path that checks all three of those boxes. I’ll live with two, and if I have to, I’ll sacrifice and just live with one. But you notice what’s missing me. There is no scenario where I should prioritize myself and my own well-being as a leader. When I’m struggling with doing the right thing now we can disagree with the right thing is we can argue about it. We can go on and on because it is a very subjective depending on the scenario and the environment. But at no point should should I prioritize my well-being in that decision. Hard pill for some to swallow, but it really does show in how we approach our leadership game.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your model, you don’t include the C being the community. Um, like the where you’re located, the people around you that aren’t part of the company but are part of the ecosystem that the company is part of.

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, fair point. But I do believe if I focus on those three cohorts, the company, the client and the crew, by definition, if I’m with an organization that cares about the people, the crew. Yeah. Um, there will be some payoff for the community. We’re going to be providing jobs. We’re going to be providing opportunities. And of course, we want to be in a situation where we’re giving back to the communities in which we operate. So I think it’s inherent in those three C’s.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re talking to people about this concept and having them not focus on themselves, is this something that people are like, hey, Kyle, where have you been all my life? This is a breakthrough. This is eye opening, you know? Tell me more. How do I get more of this? Or is it something that like, dude, you’ve gone through this? Yeah. It’s easy for you to say. Don’t worry about you. You’re set.

Kyle McDowell: Yeah, yeah. Really? Another great question, Lee. The, um. And I would say it’s split. Um, um. The principles. I am the first to admit the ten we’s, the principles that are outlined in the book, and where I spend almost every waking moment trying to evangelize. They are incredibly simple. You just touched on one. We do the right thing. No one’s going to. No one’s going to disagree that, hey, I want to be a part of a team that does the right thing. It’s very, very simple. But simple is not easy. Um, so the split is those that say, ah, yeah. And I even say this on stage and hopefully you can bleep this out. It’s like, no shit Kyle. This is this is so elementary and fundamental. But it’s not easy. It’s not easy to live it every single day. It’s not easy to walk it every single day because you’re faced with challenges that our natural reaction is to go into self-preservation mode and do things that benefit ourselves. The other side of of the coin, the other cohort that that I hear from is like, this makes so much sense. I’ve never had anybody put it in writing and say, this is who we are, and be as discreet and and succinct about how these rules and I call them they the rules that govern our behavior, how we treat each other behind the scenes. So it really falls into those two camps. And I’m prepared to work with either candidly.

Lee Kantor: Now, another one of your, um, wheeze, uh, is the we of we measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity. How how can you measure yourself on outcomes when so much of outcomes are really outside of your control? I mean, you can you can you can measure yourself on doing the work, the process, doing all of the things that could possibly lead to an outcome. But the outcome, a lot of times there’s nothing you could do. It just, you know, sometimes the fate is not working for you today or all of a sudden there’s a pandemic there when there wasn’t a pandemic. So all your numbers are going to not work out because something dramatic happened that was outside of your control.

Kyle McDowell: Well, I think once in a century scenarios notwithstanding, like a pandemic, which presented a number of challenges that no one had ever faced before, you know that that aside, what we’re talking about here, when we say outcomes over activities starts even before we have, uh, before, whether we judge if we have achieved an outcome. And that starts with expectations. So every person theoretically, and I’m sure there are exceptions, but at least in my experience, every person on the team has a series at least one of outcomes for which they have been assigned or to which they’ve been assigned. Right? So it’s on their annual appraisal. It’s on their, uh, evaluation. Like whatever those metrics are, those are the outcomes we’re talking about. And if there are scenarios or hurdles that step in the way of us delivering those outcomes, that’s fine. But we have to talk about it. What we’re trying to avoid is mindless activity, meeting after meeting that are not connected to the outcomes that we’ve been assigned to deliver. So if I know what’s if I if if my leader and I have aligned on what the expectations for me are throughout the course of the next quarter, the next year or whatever.

Kyle McDowell: And we have agreed, even even gone as far to like, shake hands that this is this is the list of things that Kyle must achieve over this, over this defined period of time. Then that’s what I got to chase. And I really need to eradicate all activity that is not connected to those. I say very plainly, if you can’t draw a straight line from something in which you’re engaged, whether it be a series of meetings or whether it be, you know, you pick whatever the activity is, if you cannot draw a straight line from that to an activity or an outcome, rather that you have been assigned or that you’re chasing, it should be scrutinized. And that’s the point. Sure, things will get in the way and you’ll have you’ll have unexpected, uh, scenarios. But the point of a we oriented culture is when those things arrive or arise, we talk about them openly and we share. Okay, boss, this is something that might stand in the way of me delivering that outcome. And then we rally to come up with a different outcome. But it’s really about weeding out the mindless and unnecessary activity.

Lee Kantor: And it’s the, um, honest and transparent communication. Amen.

Kyle McDowell: Amen.

Lee Kantor: Because a lot of, at least in my opinion, a lot of corporate issues are because somebody doesn’t want to tell somebody bad news. So that’s true. They’re they’re true. They’re maybe that’s.

Kyle McDowell: Why one of the ways is, is what it is. We number five is we own our mistakes. I want I want my teams to understand if if they stumble or make an error or even a giant blunder. I tell a story in the book about a guy on my team who made a $10 million mistake. We’re still great friends many years later, but owning our mistakes is is essential for recognizing improvement opportunities for us to avoid repeats of those same mistakes and ultimately satisfy those we serve externally, our clients. But, uh, this fear mentality, uh, and fear of retribution for making a mistake, it’s all over the news lately with Boeing and the CEO testifying in Congress. Is is a scenario that I just can’t be a part of. And I don’t want my teams to live that way.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And our organization, we have a rule, uh, bad news fast, you know? Amen. Yeah. We just want to let this come out now so we can proactively deal with it rather than be surprised by it, you know, next quarter. Yep.

Kyle McDowell: Yep. And that’s you know, that’s why I also created we number six is we pick each other up. So if I’m brave enough to raise my hand and say, hey boss, I blew it. Or, you know, there’s something that I’m really struggling with. Everyone around that person, peers, leader, even members of that team, if they lead another, another team, they need to say, okay, Kyle, it’s okay, I got you. My hand is extended. What can I do to help? Uh, and when we have that, that environment owning up to mistakes, that it becomes so much more natural.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you role model? Um, kind of that combination of being vulnerable and authentic but also confident and competent. Right. So you have to your team has to believe that you know where where you’re going, but you also have to kind of. Sometimes tell them that this is a best guess here. You know, I’m. There’s no guarantees.

Kyle McDowell: I don’t know that it’s a balance as much as just you use a couple of words that I think are super powers for leaders. Uh, vulnerability, uh, was one that was one that stuck out. That is absolutely. Um, uh, something that I think more leaders must get comfortable with. There seems to be this positioning that so many leaders more appropriately, bosses take that they must have all the answers. Um, and I believe, you know, the foundation of all leadership is trust for for my definition, for me to be a leader, I’ve got to have followers, and no one’s going to follow me if they don’t trust me. And I think trust is the outcome of authenticity and relatability. So authenticity plus relatability. You’re going to land on trust. So when my team knows and I practice this in my business today, um, in a couple of different businesses, my team is well aware when I’m uncertain, they are well aware when I don’t have the answers because I tell them. And the goal is for us to align on the approach to something. And if we fail, we’re going to fail together. And if we win, we’re going to win together. But we will not have dissenting opinions once we’ve made that decision. So I just believe in being incredibly open with with my concerns, my fears, because they have the same. And if I’m not, that relatability component is lost and therefore trust is lost.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your kind of temperature on this upcoming cohort of young leaders? Are you bullish or bearish?

Kyle McDowell: I tell you, man, I think I’m bullish by the way. I’m bullish. And there’s a story that I’ll tell, a really brief story that highlights this for me. I gave a keynote in South Florida not long ago, and I was checking into the hotel and, um, I live in Tampa, so I actually drove down. I had a, I had a box of books in my trunk, and, and I was checking into this hotel. The trunk was open to grab my luggage out of the back, and the valet walks up, and the valet couldn’t have been more than 18 years old. Um, and he, um. Tattoos on his face like he was. He was a rough looking fella. Like you would not would not be the kind of guy that would proceed to do what he did. He looks. He looks inside my trunk and he sees this box, these boxes. He said, are you an author? And I said, yeah, man, I’m an author. He said, you write books. I go, yeah, well, I wrote a book. He said, no kidding. He said, um, where can I buy your book? And I said, well, first of all, I said, what’s the book about? I said, leadership, you know, trying to thrive inside of your work life and not just, you know, bear it.

Kyle McDowell: And he says, uh, well, where can I buy the book? I said, well, I’ll give you I’ll give you a book. I have a bunch right here. Let me give you one, I said, but I have one condition. I said, I you have to promise me you’re going to read the book, and then promise me you’re going to get back to me on what you thought about it. And he said, of course I will. I said, you give me your word. He said, yeah, of course. So I actually took a picture of me signing the book and he signed it, as well as his commitment to get back to me. And this again, probably 18, 19 years old, uh, wouldn’t, you know, a couple of weeks tops. Maybe a week and a half went by. I get an email from him telling me he started the book. He’s loving the content. My point is, sharing the story is if we judge an entire generation or profile of people in that, uh, you know, that their, their approach to work, um, all the, all the descriptors you hear in the media today, if we if we approach an entire generation or profile with that negative mindset, we’re going to get exactly what we expect we’re going to get.

Kyle McDowell: Garbage feedback. We’re going to get garbage results. I’m not naive. The workforce is absolutely changing the profile, the expectations, the work ethic, absolutely changing. But at everyone’s core, there’s a degree of humanity that I think can be reached. It just has to be reached in a different way. That’s where I think we’re at, this inflection point where we’ve got baby boomers aging out of the workforce. We’ve got Gen X that is also kind of getting up there. And as they approach millennials, um, it’s a different approach. Um, for, for decades, if not centuries, all employees had to conform to the way the organization operated. That’s that’s no more. Uh, there are too many opportunities. There are too many. With work at home being what it is with gig, the gig economy, there are chances for people to do so many different things, far more than they ever could in the past. So now I think it’s important for the leader in the organization to find ways to reach the employee, to get the most and best out of them.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal reader of this book? Is it just people in corporate America, or is it going to be anybody?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah. It’s really and I and I mean this with sincerity. It’s not a, it’s not a play to sell books. Um, because I didn’t write the book to make a bunch of money and. Good thing, um, although, you know, I have to share. We’ve just passed 15,000 units sold, which is a mind bending number to me, but it is for anyone who is tired of the old. Tired of the old leadership playbook. Someone that wants to lead in a way that they’ve never been led, or be on a team and participate as a team member in ways they’ve never been asked or allowed to participate in the past. The other thing that has been so heartwarming to me, and a completely unexpected byproduct and I heard it. I hear it a lot, actually, lately, is the impact that the principles can have on one’s personal life. So these are rules for life. They’re there. They’re principles, which is let’s let’s just level set. A principle is a fundamental belief. It is a it is a system of beliefs, a foundation for a system of beliefs. And if we align around these ten keys or any one of these principles, we’re going to be better off in the workplace and out. Um, and I just I am really, really, uh, optimistic that there’s a place for these principles much broader than the corporate world.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to take advantage of, uh, principle number four, we take action. And by the book, where can they go? Uh, do you have a website or do you. Is just Amazon. Where should they go? What you did.

Kyle McDowell: There? Lee it’s available essentially wherever books are sold. Um, Amazon seems to be the easiest and quickest for most people, but it’s also an audible, um, there’s an e-book as well. Um, Barnes and Noble target, you know, basically anywhere books are sold.

Lee Kantor: And then if somebody wants to connect with you, do you have a website or LinkedIn? What’s the best way to, uh, kind of follow you?

Kyle McDowell: Yeah. You bet. So really simple. Kyle McDowell Inc.com is the website and my social, uh, for all platforms essentially is, uh, Kyle McDowell Inc as well. So LinkedIn, uh, Instagram, TikTok everywhere. Always. Kyle McDowell Inc.

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

Kyle McDowell: Well, Lee, you are as well man, and thank you for the platform to share to share the message. I’m very grateful.

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

Eric Pfeiffer With MPWR Coaching

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Eric Pfeiffer is the founder and CEO of MPWR Coaching. He has been in the leadership development space for over 15 years, having helped build a multi-million dollar coaching business and trained over 150 coaches worldwide.

He founded MPWR Coaching in 2019 to expand his efforts to unlock leaders’ potential so they can grow their organizations and teams in new, never-imagined ways.

He is known for creating one of the only Leadership Operating Systems available today, which empowers the true engine of any business – its people. He has published two life-transforming books: Leadership Gravitas and Transform Your Trajectory, each introducing simple tools that give leaders a competitive advantage in any context.

He speaks and leads out of the overflow of his own journey. He is a fierce practitioner of what he teaches and is committed to becoming a better version of himself daily.

Connect with Eric on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Leadership
  • Development
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Leadership operating system
  • Culture transformation
  • Unlocking leadership potential

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 Eric Pfeifer with Empower Coaching. Welcome. Thank you Lee. Great to be here. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Empower Coaching. How you serving folks?

Speaker3: Uh, yeah. Well, I started in power coaching about seven years ago. Now it’s slightly before the pandemic with a desire to help leaders become the best leaders of themselves. Uh, which then translates into becoming better leaders of other people. And, uh, then the pandemic hit, and I thought the business was done, but instead, um, it went in the opposite direction. Uh, our business grew very rapidly as, um, people in corporate America came under a lot of pressure. And, um, you know, we have a little saying that when things are going well, we’re usually okay. But you put us under enough pressure and we start to crack. And I think there were a lot of companies that were starting to feel the wear and tear of internal relationships and the struggles that came out of that season. And so we’ve we’ve been working hard ever since to help people identify the key challenges they’re facing within their businesses, especially from a personnel standpoint, and to help them, um, develop long term sustainable remedies for those.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s your back story? Have you always been involved in coaching?

Speaker3: Uh, yeah, in some degree, yes. I’ve always been involved in the leadership space. Um, and like so many people, you know, in my younger years, I couldn’t have led myself out of a box, per se. But then, you know, began a long journey of trying to figure out what it meant for me to become a better leader and consumed lots and lots of content over the years. And but most importantly, thankfully, had a few very significant mentors who helped me discover what it meant for me. Really, uh, to to become a better leader of myself. And I think that’s where all great leadership starts. And and so I’ve been on that journey personally and have just basically translated all of, of what I’ve been learning from smarter, wiser people into simple, practical tools that, um, that everybody can benefit from.

Lee Kantor: So what was going on for you to hit a point where you’re like, uh, I don’t think I have all the answers. I better start asking some folks.

Speaker3: Yeah, well, to be honest, Lee, I hit multiple points. That’s probably what kept me on this track is, uh, you know, in the early days, you. I think we all kind of glamorize leadership. We think, you know, what comes with a role and a title and a potentially a better paycheck is, you know, that we’ll have the answers all of a sudden. We’ll know what to do when problems arise. But it was the exact opposite for me. I found myself constantly feeling like I was underwater. I found myself in stressful situations, uh, operating in ways that were unhelpful actually, to the people that I was trying to lead. That was a big wake up call. Um, I was seeing some of those same trends in my the early years of my marriage and my parenting. Um, and, uh, and I think for me, um, you know, I really there was a particular mentor who basically said, hey, listen, um, you’re coming to me bitching and complaining about, you know, how the world’s not playing fair and things aren’t working out for you. Um, but until you wake up and realize that it’s the person in the mirror that’s the problem, um, you’re going to have a very frustrating life. And that that began my journey into what we call, you know, the power of personal responsibility, that we can’t control the world around us. But we we have a lot more control and power over our own attitudes and behaviors than we realize. And we are the people who really do end up shaping the life that we experience. And so we’re either going to choose to give away that power to the people and circumstances around us, or we’re going to take that power and learn how to leverage it wisely, um, for ourselves and for other people’s sake.

Lee Kantor: So when a person is going through a struggle and then they have that aha moment that, hey, maybe it isn’t you, it’s me kind of situation, what are um, like, what’s the next move? Like, say you get to that point, you have that aha moment of oh personal accountability. Yeah I usually don’t like that. But I’ll give it a try. And then you say, okay, I’m going to be uh, more personally accountability. I’m going to control what I can control. I am going to work on the processes and focus less on the I mean, focus more on those and less on the outcomes I desire. Yeah. What are kind of the baby steps that then get you moving instead of just talking about it? But to actually doing it because the doing is the hard part.

Speaker3: It absolutely. Um, I would say this for, for any listener out there. First of all, most of us didn’t learn these basic skills growing up. Some of us were fortunate enough to great, but most most of us didn’t. I certainly did not. And so it wasn’t until my late 20s, early 30s, um, where I began to wake up to this reality. And fortunately, in that time I was apprenticing in under a mentor who began to coach me and teach me the basic core skills of what we call self-awareness. Right? So practicing honesty, um, humility, self-love, all of which sound pretty easy, um, but are incredibly difficult because, um, you know, like I often say, we’re our own worst enemy because we have blind spots, because we don’t really want to take a hard look inside, because shame and guilt and self condemnation are always lurking around every corner, what people nowadays call the imposter syndrome. And so I tell people that the first order of business, um, when we wake up to the the necessity for personal responsibility, the first thing is to give ourselves permission that like every other human being in all of history, we come with all kinds of dysfunctions, inadequacies and foibles, some of which have been inherited from our family of origin, some of which we’ve picked up along the years out of self-protecting coping mechanisms.

Speaker3: And so just giving ourselves permission like we’re human. And so for us to embark on this journey of personal responsibility, we need to give ourselves permission. To be on that journey to, um, to wrestle and what I call stumble, fumble, bumble our way through the practices of honesty, humility, and self love and and to know that it takes time. But I you know, people like Brene Brown, I’m so grateful for people like her who have, um, have declared that this is perhaps one of the bravest of all journeys that we can make as people. Um, but it’s also the journey that I think leads us to a much clearer perspective on ourselves, which gives us a chance to change something we can’t change, what we can’t see. And so the first order of business, after we give ourselves permission, you know, to to be on a journey is, um, is to begin the process of learning the simple skills of seeing ourselves more soberly, more clearly, so that we have a fighting chance to make the necessary changes.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that where, um, some of the really important value of a coach comes in is to be that kind of honest broker? Uh, to tell the truth to the person, um, and hold them accountable to some degree about what they’re saying and then what they’re doing.

Speaker3: Absolutely. Lee, I think I think the role of a coach, a great coach, is to empower their clients with the skills, the tools and skills. So that they can do that for themselves. But at first, because that is such a difficult and oftentimes uncomfortable, painful, disorientating experience that the help the partnership of a good coach to practice those skills in a safe environment where there’s no judgment, um, and there’s lots of grace, empathy and compassion, I think is essential. Um, but ideally, the clients that we work with, um, we want them to learn how to solicit the appropriate feedback. Um, through a variety of mechanisms from their environment so that they can self diagnose and self assess and then make the necessary changes in their own attitudes and behaviors. But yeah, a coach is usually a great start for people who are either unfamiliar, lacking confidence, or feel like, man, I really would love some partnership as I learn how to how to how to engage this process.

Lee Kantor: Now, how does a person who is struggling decide if is coaching right for me? Is therapy right for me? You mentioned his mentor having a mentor. Is that right for me? How do I know who is the right Sherpa for me at this point in my journey?

Speaker3: Yeah. You know, I’m a big believer in all of the above, Lee. I think, um, at different times, most of us, especially if we’re in our adult years of life, we can point, we can look back and point at particular persons in our life who have served different purposes, whether mentors or coaches and guides, um, uh, you know, consultants, whatever. Um, or therapists. What I, what I tell people is I think we need therapists, um, when, when we come up against things from our past that are holding us back and we need to get free from those, I think therapists can be very helpful, um, in dysfunctions that are rooted in our family of origin, um, in, in traumatic past experiences. So when I think of of therapists, I tell people that’s like looking in the rear view mirror and as you’re driving through life, um, I think we need coaches who can equip and empower us with practical tools so that we can move forward today, um, where oftentimes therapists, there’s most of that time is spent thinking about the past. Coaches are, are, are are meant to help us develop the new skills, um, so that we can operate more effectively moving forward. I think the role of mentors is we need people that are further down the road than us. Um, these may not be therapists or coaches, but these are people, um, who we can be inspired by, that we can process tough situations with and by virtue of their their experience and their wisdom. Um, they’re not necessarily there to give us the answers, um, but to speak from the overflow of their journey in whatever area of life we’re looking to, to receive mentorship, and we can draw from their wisdom and begin to develop our own solutions.

Lee Kantor: Now as your client, typically somebody in business that’s going through some business like struggle or is it just could it be a person that’s, you know, retired at home and has their own personal demons they’re wrestling with?

Speaker3: Yeah. You know, we I have a variety of coaches that are a part of our organization. And and so we work with a very diverse, um, uh, spread of different kinds of people. I personally work with, um, high level executives for the most part, or high level performers and maybe professional athletes, um, CEOs, presidents, ownership groups, um, boards. Um, it’s and it’s all the same toolkit that we’re all using but applied um, in, in contextualized a little bit differently for, um, the particular client that we’re working with.

Lee Kantor: And and your business has evolved to not only are you coaching people, but you’re also certifying people who are considering becoming a coach.

Speaker3: That’s right. So I spent I’ve spent, you know, the better part of 20 years, um, borrowing from people much smarter than myself, other coaches and mentors, um, other other thought leaders and, and working to develop what I call a leadership operating system. And what I tell people is it’s it’s comprised of a set of core visual tools that provide people because we’re all leaders, right? Leaders are anybody who has influence. And so we’re all leaders in our own way, shape or form, even if we don’t have a role or a title in an organization. And so what these tools do is they provide for us a mental framework so that we can, first of all, have real clarity around what does it mean for me to be the best version of me, regardless of who I am, my context of life, my, you know, my economic, social, uh, situation? How do I, as a human being, have a clear picture of what it means for me to be the best version of me? Um, and then secondly, these tools provide a diagnostic effect and that we can assess our attitudes, our behaviors, our impact on the environment around us through these tools, um, so that we can determine what’s working, what’s not working, um, which is incredibly important. Um, and I think, you know, in the midst of all that, um, I think that what we call our leadership operating system, which I, you know, I could be wrong.

Speaker3: I think it’s one of the only or one of the only organizations, you know, um, promoting a, a leadership operating system. Um, it’s so incredibly important because so much of what’s available out there in the world of coaching and consulting, which all of its great, um, a lot of it reflects more of what I would call an app. Like, you know, we pick up our smartphones and we open them and we love them because we can download a million different apps to help us solve a particular problem in our life. Uh, but the genius behind these smartphone devices is the operating systems that were developed, which I think think of the operating system as a governing or parental, um, set of software that dictates, determines, guides, protects, sets, boundaries and expectations for what the apps can and can’t do. Um, how much energy is given to an app, um, managing those apps. And I think for most human beings, what we fail to realize is that from when we were in our youngest years, we’ve been developing our own human operating system. We inherited something from our family of origin, from from our upbringing, from schooling, from coaches, from different contexts, different jobs, bosses. And I think what most people get frustrated with in their leadership journey is they read the books, they listen to the podcast, they watch the YouTube videos, they go to a conference, they get all these amazing ideas.

Speaker3: Then they start trying to integrate and put those ideas into practice. And and they don’t find the kind of success they want. So they get frustrated and they blame those various products. And I tell people the problem usually isn’t the product, because those are apps, and they usually work well because somebody spent a lot of time developing those particular apps, those leadership apps. The problem is probably more fundamentally in your personal operating system that you are unable to effectively, um, leverage those leadership apps that you’ve you’ve acquired. And so once a leader recognizes that, they first of all, do have their own operating system, in other words, the kind of the internal system of attitudes and behaviors, default patterns of, uh, reacting, responding to life. Um, once they recognize I actually do have an operating system and some of it is helpful and some of it isn’t. And so all we’re doing is helping people, leaders, uh, anybody who wants to increase the benefit of their influence to to recognize, hey, if I can, you know, download this leadership operating system, then it’s going to greatly enhance my ability to actually engage in all of the different spheres of my life. Um, with a far greater chance of bringing the best version of me to that space.

Lee Kantor: So what? Um, who is a good candidate for Empower Coaching certification? Like what is what are they doing right now?

Speaker3: Yeah. I mean, our ideal clients are business leaders, business owners, maybe business owner operators, um, high, you know, higher level executives, although we work with, you know, we have a lot of coaches that work with anybody. Um, but our ideal client, we want to work with people of influence because we know that if we can help that leader and then get access to their team, then to their organization, the the scope of impact that we can have is much greater. And yet we’ve developed content and products to put this operating system into the hands of as many human beings as possible. Honestly, this this is the stuff I wish I had learned when I was 14, 15, 16 years of age. I wish I had learned this in college and grad school. I wish I had learned this in my early years in the workforce. I this what we’re trying to do is change the world by changing the leadership of the world, by empowering those leaders of at any level with an operating system that will allow them to move beyond the the dysfunctions that are robbing them of greater experiences of success.

Lee Kantor: So are they currently a coach of some kind or are they, you know, a retired executive or are they, you know, a somebody who just graduated college? Like who who is this person?

Speaker3: Yeah. So most of the clients that come to us right now, um, for, you know, for actual coaching, um, these are people, first of all, who can afford it. Right? And so, um, these are usually leaders of larger organizations. And when I say larger, I mean, you know, these are businesses that are usually 50 to $100 million a year in revenue or larger. These are professional athletes. These are people of influence. So they’ve they’ve reached a particular level in their, their industry, um, but are beginning to experience the wear and tear of I may know how to build a. This. I may know how to market and sell whatever said product or services, but as any business grows, more people get involved in the business. And what I tell these leaders is the people are the engine of your business, not the product or the service, and therefore to the degree that those individuals and collectively they are operating effectively, the business is going to succeed and flourish to the degree that that engine is not operating well. That’s why you’re finding aspects of your business broken down on the side of the road. And therefore, for most leaders, they eventually fatigue because they have never been trained in how to assess and change culture in their organization. They’ve never been trained in how to develop other leaders. They’ve never been trained well in how to engage in in what we would refer to as, you know, the very common experience in the workplace of conflict and disagreement and, you know, difference of expectations and what happens when somebody is not performing up to snuff. And what do we do with the difference of personalities and perspectives that are that are going to be involved in any context where there’s a team? And so it’s it’s really all about helping leaders who have hit a threshold where they say, I know how to build a business. I don’t know how to build the people of my business. We want help.

Lee Kantor: Now, how have you seen kind of just the career of coaching evolve over the decades that you’ve been in it? Um, at one point it was only, you know, for the highest performers, and now it seems to be trickling down to all aspects of organizations.

Speaker3: And for that I am so incredibly grateful because like I said before, leadership is synonymous with influence. And I think the more that we recognize that we as human beings are leaders in our own particular domain of influence, the more seriously we will take the importance that all people should be engaged in some kind of leadership development. I mean, you know, we are we are in the influencer era, right on all over social media. And I just it absolutely scares the snot out of me to think of all these incredible people who are having lots of influence on a lot of different platforms. Right before, it was just the politicians, the high level business leaders, the professional athletes, the, you know, the celebrities. But now, you know, we’ve got young people who have are able to develop a significant scope of influence, who themselves behind the scenes are breaking down, burning out and and operating, um, you know, out of a lot of insecurity, heartache, uh, stress, anxiety and not not because they’re not great people in and of themselves, but because they’ve never been trained in how to operate well under pressure. They’ve not been given the simple skill set, um, that would enable them to persevere, endure through difficult challenges. Um, and so, you know, I’m a big believer that the more that we can popularize not just the importance of, but access to, um, basic leadership training, um, I think we’re going to see, uh, a significant uptick in the health of our kind of prevailing culture across every sector.

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

Speaker3: Yeah, so it’s empower coaching, but it’s spelled m p w r. So empower without the vowels empower coaching. Com and um we offer a free one hour coaching call for anybody and everybody. Uh, it’s we are democratic and we want everyone to have access. And we’d love to have a chat. Not because we’re the solution for everybody, but because we want to help people get connected with the resources that will help them. Increased their leadership capacity.

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

Speaker3: Thank you. Lee.

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

Jason Leverant and Kamal Bhatia With AtWork

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Jason Leverant is the President and COO of the AtWork Group, a franchise-based national staffing firm centered around and driven by the simple mission, to be AtWork For You, to its employees, clients, and community partners.

His service-focused mindset makes him incredibly passionate about not only helping people find jobs, but, through AtWork’s franchising model, helping others find the joy he does in the staffing industry.

Stepping into the COO role in 2012, Jason used the opportunity to refocus the company mission, which he views as one of the key drivers of the company’s growth. Under his leadership, AtWork has seen consistent double-digit growth at rates 3 to 4 times the industry level.

AtWork has received several recognitions including:

– Inc. 5000 five years in a row
– One of the top 100 of Entrepreneur magazine’s Franchise 500
– One of Staffing Industry Analysts’ largest and fastest growing staffing firms
– Inavero’s Best of Staffing Client & Talent Diamond award winner

He spent the first 5 years of his tenure at AtWork, which he joined in 2007, as Vice President of Sales. Prior to that, he was a senior staffing manager at Randstad. Before working in the staffing industry, he was in the golf industry as a marketing manager for Dunlop Sports (Focus Golf Systems).

He has been included among Staffing Industry Analysts’ “100 Most Influential People in the Staffing Industry” for six years consecutively, and in 2019 was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He has also been recognized in Staffing Industry Analysts’ “40 Under 40” lists and as one of Knoxville Business Journal’s “40 Under 40”.

Jason has a BS in Business and Economics from University of Tennessee at Martin and an AS in Business Administration from Greenville Technical College.

AtWork Peachtree Corners is locally owned by Kamal Bhatia, an immigrant from India with decades of experience in hospitality and Senior Vice President of Operations of Atlanta-based Action Bartending School.

He is a valuable member of his community and is dedicated to helping the area’s economy thrive by connecting qualified workers with rewarding opportunities.

Follow AtWork on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Global trends in staffing
  • How AtWork differentiates itself among the industry
  • Spotlight on opening the third Metro Atlanta AtWork location in Peachtree Corners

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 Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today, on the Land of business radio, we have Jason Leverant and Kamal Bhatia with AtWork. Welcome, gentlemen.

Jason Leverant: Hayley, thanks for having us.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Let’s kick it off with Jason, who is the CEO of Atwork. Welcome.

Jason Leverant: Hey. Thanks, Lee. Yeah. Super excited to, uh, to join you and share, uh, all the exciting growth we’ve been experiencing here at the At Work group. You know, the staffing industry is is really an amazing place to be. You know, we’re creating impact in all the markets we’re in, helping great people find fulfilling careers and employment across, you know, across the country. It’s it’s amazing and exciting to, uh, really bring that impact to Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: Now at work Group is a your franchise. You’re a national staffing company and you’ve been around for a minute. This isn’t the the first time you’ve done anything like this. Can you give us a little backstory into how that work started?

Jason Leverant: Yeah, it’s definitely not our first rodeo. We’ve been franchising for 32 years now. I think that’s the count where it just keeps, you know, time flies when you’re having fun. But, uh, we, you know, we focused our business model exclusively around franchise sales and franchise support, really building a really unique staffing model. We’re quite different. There’s only a couple other real active staffing franchise companies that exist in the market today. Our model, how we structure the business is unique, and it brings massive strategic and tactical advantages to our franchise owners. And so, again, it’s one of those where our business really emulates and follows the, uh, the employment market in the US. And if and if you’ve just been around, you drive around your local communities, uh, you’ve been seeing now hiring signs literally everywhere, uh, whether it be the local Starbucks when you’re grabbing your coffee or big manufacturers, everyone is hiring. Unemployment rates are adjusted unbelievably, unusually low levels, and they’ve stayed there for for years now. And it creates massive demand for our services because we bring, you know, speed, we bring flexibility, we bring adaptability, agility. Those are key words that most businesses are really trying to trying to bring into their businesses. We can deliver on the on the human capital side, on the employment side, which in most instances is is company’s biggest expense. So it’s been an awesome time to be in the staffing industry.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re defining staffing, what types of jobs are you helping folks with? Is it, you know, light industrial? Is it kind of administrative? Is it executive? Are they C-suite? Like? What is kind of the scope of the staffing solutions you offer that?

Jason Leverant: That is an awesome question because, you know, you think about staffing. It’s it’s very broad. You know, a lot of people immediately think of, uh, who aren’t experienced and aren’t hiring managers and haven’t, uh, done this type of thing, maybe never worked for a staffing agency. They have a preconceived notion of what it is. But when we look in the mirror, uh, at work is what we call a commercial staffing organization. So we primarily focus on your traditional staffing opportunities. So those are going to be your warehouse manufacturing industrial positions and your clerical call center administrative roles and things of that sort. Those are the type of roles that we handle day in and day out. And we typically handle those types of positions on on an hourly basis. Those are true contingent or temp to hire type positions. We also have opportunities to work in what we consider most people familiar with, like headhunters or executive search, where we’ll help professionals find the next career that they’re looking for. But the engagement is slightly different with our customer base, where we were actually take that professional, find them that career directly with that organization. And it’s a slightly different structure. It’s a direct hire is what we call it internally. But, um, the reality is we can fulfill pretty much a very, very broad range of positions within, within an organization. And we do so across the country. It’s not like we only do this in this area. We only do that in that area. All of our offices are capable capable of handling those various types of roles.

Lee Kantor: Now, from a candidate standpoint, are you a good fit for somebody who wants to work remotely, or is it a better fit for somebody who is okay with going into an office on a regular basis?

Jason Leverant: Oh, that’s a that’s a great question. Obviously, work from home is has been a very, very, um, interesting topic over the last few years. The reality is, most of the positions that our businesses focus on are, uh, on site and in location due to the nature of those positions. Now, depending on the clients we work with. And that’s the reality. Our jobs are very much bound to the type of companies that we end up working with, and that can be somewhat market specific. So if we’re marketing into downtown Atlanta, where there’s high, you know, a lot of high rises, but a lot of those high rises now are 5050 open or not open because people are working from home. Then our opportunities mirror those of our clients needs. Whereas in the manufacturing setting, there is no work from home when you have to go operate, uh, manufacturing, uh, equipment or, uh, move products in a warehouse or things of that sort. So again, it all depends on the types of clients that we work with, the type of companies we serve in our local communities.

Lee Kantor: And then. But so the best fit, though, are the ones that have a need for people to physically be there. That’s a great fit for you and your.

Jason Leverant: Yeah, if I had to look in the mirror, that’s the vast majority of our opportunities are on site client. You know they’re working at the company’s facilities locally. But again it’s not any kind of direct rule or anything like that.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re looking for a franchisee, um, what is kind of that avatar for you? What kind of skills does a good franchisee have?

Jason Leverant: Well, you’re about to talk to, uh, one of one of them right here in just a minute. So he just said I could take an easy cop out and say, oh, just just, uh, look at Carmel’s profile. But the reality is, we’re looking for someone very much like Carmel. Entrepreneurial minded, has been successful in really everything they’ve touched, engaged with. Um, you know, obviously our industry is very, uh, sales focused, very business development focused. So, so that is very, very critical to see, uh, previous experience in direct sales or managing sales teams, growing businesses. It’s really important because at the end of the day, staffing, uh, and being in the staffing industry, we sell to companies, we also sell to candidates why you should come to work for us. So we’re selling on both ends of the spectrum and both aspects of what we’re already doing. So that’s such a key component of it. But having you know, you know, again, hot list of traits uh, grit, determination, resilience, those are all qualities that we want to see from franchise owners that join the Atac system. Uh, and obviously we want to work with winners. We want people with with track records of success, uh, who want to be successful in our industry, who want to see the value.

Jason Leverant: You know, staffing is unique in the fact that it offers tremendous scale for entrepreneurs. So, you know, other franchise concepts, other business industries, you know, there’s a there’s a general kind of maximum that you can really do in a market. You know, I know the threshold for growth is only so much for a quick service restaurant or for, uh, a small service based company in staffing. With the right client mix, you can build 20, 30, $40 million enterprises out of single branch locations in relatively small markets. And we’ve got the proof to back that statement across the at work network. It’s truly amazing. And I’ve found and I challenge anybody, show me another industry that offers the same level of scale and then compare that to the investment required, the amount of capital required to do that because we don’t need them. You know, we don’t have massive inventory, we don’t have machinery we have to acquire. We don’t have big assets that we have to bring in. It all goes back to that hard work, the drive and determination of the franchise owners that we have in place, then building and motivating their team success will follow that.

Lee Kantor: Now, one of the qualities I didn’t hear you mentioned is experience in the staffing industry.

Jason Leverant: Oh yeah. Yeah. Good good good observation. You know that that helps obviously. But we’ve got a phenomenal structured approach to to doing business. And I’ll tell you, the staffing industry, as you heard me say a moment ago, uh, it takes determination. It takes resilience. It’s not really about having this unique proprietary knowledge that nobody else has. At the end of the day, we work with companies, we provide great service. We find great people for them. That’s really the secret sauce. It’s the service. It’s that franchise owner being there at present, ensuring that there’s a high level of service. Service in our world really focuses on communication, facilitating communication, making sure that the employees are prepared for the assignments they go to, make sure they’re the right fit. Uh, having staffing experience helps, uh, elevate slightly, but only to a certain point. At the end of the day, once somebody understands, our industry knows what needs to happen, it’s rinse and repeat. We’re going to go and keep doing what we do. So yeah, it gives you a little bit of a tactical advantage on the front end. But especially savvy owners like Jamal, we bring in folks that have business sense, good acumen, understand sales. They jump right into it very quickly and they realize, wow, put the work in and the results follow. Doesn’t take 20 years experience to be really, really strong. Staffing. Operator.

Lee Kantor: All right.

Kamal Bhatia: Let’s bring back and uh, yeah.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, please. Kamal, I would like to welcome you. Kamal is, um, I think one of the newest at work, uh, franchisees. And his location is going to be in the Peachtree Corners area. Kamal Bhatia. Welcome.

Kamal Bhatia: Thank you, thank you. Lee. So, uh, basically what, uh, you know, I want to add on to what Jason said when I looked at the artwork, I could see the work ethics. I could see how genuine they were, uh, you know, had total integrity in, uh, in what they were serving. And that’s what intrigued me. And, uh, you know, I’ve been in the hospitality business, uh, you know, opening up hotels for investors or for the Marriott. And that’s what intrigued me, uh, looking at the job market. And, uh, so it is basically not you got to have staffing experience. It’s all about creating more leaders and right from from the bottom, because that’s what I did in my past, uh, you know, created, uh, right from the bottom, you know, people who have accountability, they, you know, they take ownership and, uh, they have good sense of being a team player. That’s when you see that, uh, the profitability, uh, you know, for the company starts to grow. And that’s what, uh, you know, the staffing requires. And, uh, me being in the hospitality business, I could see that there was always a need of, uh, you know, of the right people with the right profile. And, uh, when I went for the artwork discovery session, I could really see, you know, how focused they were, how the training proper, uh, you know, processes were, uh, right from their, uh, systems of operations. And everybody were so welcoming. And that’s what, uh, you know, uh, guided me that I should. This is the, uh, you know, company. I should, uh, basically franchise with. Now, that’s where I am today.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about kind of the decision to get into franchising, just in general? You were working in hospitality. You’re probably still working in hospitality to some degree. Can you talk about, hey, I think I want to do something on my own. I want to buy a franchise. And then once you have that thought, how do you kind of narrow it down and land on that work?

Kamal Bhatia: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, you know, with the franchise, uh, you know, I don’t have to create systems. You know, the systems are already created. All I do is go there. And if I have any questions, they are. You know, there’s a team of leaders who assist me in every aspect of it. So as soon as I, uh, you know, went for the discovery session, I could see, you know, how focused they were and how, uh, you know, inviting they were and, uh, you know, they would take ownership and, uh, create every value. The values were awesome. And that’s where what I thought that, uh, you know, that will help me, that even, uh, not, you know, having this kind of a business like, uh, you know, I do not have any experience in the light industrial, administrative finance or, you know, placing people in this, uh, different companies. I would, uh, get a very thorough training and, uh, and also leaders who would assist me, uh, to, uh, hold my hand and, uh, guide me through the whole process and looking at the numbers, you know, because it’s all about numbers also. And I see that, uh, you know, within, within a year, they start to make $1 million and within like what Jason said, you can even a small entity, a small business can even touch 30 to $40 million. Uh, so with the limited amount of money, what you’re putting in, and this is where I want to leave a legacy not only for myself, but also for my children. So they also can, uh, you know, uh, hold my hand and move forward with it. So that was my reason of now this, uh, franchise.

Lee Kantor: So when you say, okay, now I’m in at work, I go to the discovery, I sign the papers, I’m in what is like your first hundred days look like at at work? Like, what is the kind of the work that you’re doing to grow the business locally?

Kamal Bhatia: They give us. They give us a whole manual. They give us, uh, you know, handheld training. We actually go to the corporate, we hire the people. What they require, they say we need a recruiter along with the sales person. So we go there and we get specific, uh, you know, skills that are required for each and what the recruiter needs, you know, how do we actually recruit people right from the scratch? Like, what are the norms and what are the policies and procedures? What while we are recruiting, same thing goes with sales. You know, uh, they even recommend us books to read. Uh, what books? We can actually keep enhancing our, our growth. Not only that, they are audio, audio, uh, you know, programs which consistently are there. They have training managers with them who can guide us through the entire process. And then not only that, then we have, uh, some, uh, test on, uh, you know, online, which we give that also gives us even more confidence. And then if we are not if we are not aware of it, that gives us a, you know, it’s anybody, you know, from any field, I would say can come in, join this franchise and they will hold your hand, guide you through the process, and then you start to make what what your dreams are now.

Lee Kantor: How quickly is it open now? Is the is your location open? We.

Kamal Bhatia: Yes, we just opened, uh, you know, our location. We just got a signboard actually, last week, and, uh, we are getting a lot of, uh, you know, uh, calls from, uh, people are coming up to sign up with us because we are centrally located right on Buford Highway and Jimmy Carter. So a lot of people actually, because it’s right on, on the main road. So a lot of people just look at the sign and come in, and then they also read, uh, you know, at work reviews. And they, they see that it is one of the top 100 franchise. So I actually don’t have to upsell in any way, even when I go, you know, I’m treated with a lot of respect because, uh, you know, the name carries itself and then.

Lee Kantor: You have a physical location. So there’s an office for people to go into and. Absolutely.

Kamal Bhatia: Yeah, we got to have a physical location because there we, you know, we recruit people, we interview them, uh, we make them fill up all the paperwork and, uh, we get all the assistance from at work, uh, you know, at the corporate.

Jason Leverant: If I could jump in Lee two on the, uh, the first 90 days, you know, and Kamal mentioned that, uh, kind of playbook we deliver on staffing is is really two parts. And I referenced it earlier. You’ve got the client development where we’re working with companies locally to identify where their needs are. And those the sales part of it is asking those companies to allow us to help them with their open jobs, their open requisitions and the recruiting side, which is building the talent pipeline. And so, you know, really the first 90 days is is getting the gears moving on, on both of those processes, you know, and the reality is building relationships with, with on the sales side of it, it’s, it’s it takes time. It’s one of those it’s the challenging aspect of starting any business is generating those those sales activities and those sales leads. And so, you know, Kamal brought his sales team, he brought his whole team to training and got firsthand really experience on what it takes to kind of get those gears moving and those, those, uh, those things happening because building relationships takes time. And the faster we can do it, the sooner we can do it, the more effective we can do it, the better the results become. And the reality is, as those things start building, that’s where the grit and resilience, just like any sales role.

Jason Leverant: Right. How many no’s before you get the. Yes. And that’s really the key is to keep your your sales team motivated, keep them encouraged, you know, embrace the yeses, embrace the positive outcomes, push through the nos because it’s going to happen at sales in any in any industry. And the outcome is ultimately positive. The big differentiators though, I go back and what stands out to me about Kamal’s experience and where, I have no doubt you’re we’re going to see the impact in Atlanta to the positive are companies that they will be servicing. We’ll see. The impact. Is his background in hospitality. You’ve done any time in hospitality. You know what it takes to provide service that is different or better than your competitors. And so we found that that folks that come from the hospitality industry, they just get it. They understand what good service means. And so if we can be the in the hotel reference the Ritz-Carlton to the staffing industry, high levels of service, our clients will see that they feel it, they embrace it. And now we’ve got lifetime customers, which is really our M.O. we have customers that we’ve served for many, many years. Our retention rates are so much better than industry averages, and I attribute it completely to that service focus from franchise owners and that commitment to our mission. So.

Lee Kantor: So now, what’s that conversation look like when an at work person goes to a company? And I’m assuming that you have to be proactive in this. You can’t just wait for companies to go to you that you have to. That would be awesome that you’re going to have to take some action and say, hey, if you have this need, we have the people. Um, like, is that what the work is like? Is that relentless kind of prospecting in that area?

Jason Leverant: That’s it. Lee. So, you know, we provide resources to kind of start the baseline of where to start calling. And we look at validation. We look at account qualifying. We have a it’s pipeline funnel management. It’s your it’s your typical B2B based sales approach with staffing the the the identification of talent, the screening of talent and placement of talent as being the service that we deliver on. And so that sales person gets into it and they’re cold calling, they’re dropping by customers, they’re visiting them, they’re hitting them on email. They’re hitting them on social media. It’s every avenue possible. Flanked by the resources that we deliver. There’s some marketing resources. There’s social media resources to help facilitate that process. At the end of the day, though, it’s those local activities that really make the difference for us. Our typical buyers are going to be HR directors, maybe plant managers, maybe office managers. But for the most part, just if I had to stereotype, it’s going to be those HR type roles. They typically own the staffing relationships. So we’re engaging with those people and they want to build that relationship.

Jason Leverant: They want to build that trust. To know that Kamal, that Jason, that that Lee is going to help them find the best people in the market. Why should I trust you? Well, it takes relationship, takes a while to build that trust. So that’s where we go back to the repetition of those calls, the really the focus on our differentiators. Uh, yes, we have we’re nationally backed. We have all the resources of the big boys. But at the end of the day, we’re locally owned, we’re citizens of this community. We are here in this market. You’re going to see me at the grocery store, you’re going to see me locally. And it’s my reputation that I care about. It’s my team’s reputation that I care about and the service that will follow it. You build that trust using those differentiators. The basic value props in the staffing industry client says, great, send me XYZ person. Send me an office manager, send me a forklift driver, send me a machine, whatever the title is. And the recruiting team goes into action and starts delivering candidates.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that it’s you’re it’s kind of a two sided marketplace. You have the you need the the clients and you need the candidates. Is there any kind of training for a candidate that a person comes in and says, hey, I’m enthusiastic, I have some of the right qualities of a good employee, but maybe I don’t have the skills to do that specific thing. Is there any training element as well, or is it they got to be kind of on their own, a perfect fit.

Jason Leverant: So it all depends on what the client’s needs are and what they want. So if a client said I need an experience X, I have a candidate come through the doors. They really need to meet the needs of the client with. The job orders that we have. There are opportunities for what we call upskilling and what’s a very hot, hot topic in the in the HR world right now. And looking at partnerships for upskilling and allowing training opportunities for our customers. And we have those opportunities. We have partnerships with skills based assessments and learning, uh, resources and things of that sort. That’s an area where I feel like personally, we could we could increase our presence in. Although we have those vendors, we have those resources. The reality is our customers needs are are very specific. And for us to be able to meet those needs, provide good service. We need to find candidates that match exactly what our customers are looking for. So upskilling is on our radar. It’s something that we want to do, but it also becomes a component that we have to engage with our clients who are willing to accept candidates that may not match their skills directly, that we can upskill into. That’s a dialog that’s more of a a deeper relationship with a customer where we can have those type of discussions. But I’m I’m a huge proponent. I pushed out some blogs recently. I’ve got a piece on Forbes in regards to upskilling and mentorship programs to help develop talent that is on everybody’s mind, because the reality is today, the talent that is on the market and interested in work doesn’t always align exactly with the positions are available. So offering offering opportunities for skills development is becoming very much the forefront of everybody’s minds in the hiring and HR world.

Lee Kantor: Well, if Jason, if somebody wants to learn more about the at work opportunity as a franchisee, where should they go?

Jason Leverant: As a franchisee and or a candidate and or a client. It’s really easy to remember. At Work.com Artwalk, they can find all of the information around our franchise opportunity, but most importantly, the opportunities that we’ll have at Atlanta and Malls office, uh, opportunities for clients, jobs available for the talent who are interested. Um, also, another great place is is find us on LinkedIn. Kamala and I both are very present on LinkedIn. Uh, you know, follow us on LinkedIn. Connect with us on LinkedIn. All of our contact information is there. Send us a message. We’d love to engage and chat with you further about, uh, about at work and about how we can deliver a positive experience, whether it be a franchise owner, client, or a talent.

Lee Kantor: Now, Kamala, is there a website for your specific location at at work, or should they just go to at work.com and then kind of drill down to your your geography.

Kamal Bhatia: At work.com/peachtree Corners? Uh, they can uh, then we can, uh, they can fill up their applications online and, uh, they can hit us right there.

Lee Kantor: And, Kamal, what do you need more of at this stage? Do you need more candidates? You need more clients. What can we be doing to help you?

Kamal Bhatia: Uh, you know, as a start up business, I need both right now. So I’m working side by side, both on on the recruiting as well as on the sales. Uh, definitely on the sales side, because as as long as I have the clients, then I can recruit the people. And especially with the market right now, how it is, uh, especially in my location, you know, we have a lot of candidates who are ready to, uh, you know, jump for the jobs. So I’m looking for the right, uh, you know, uh, clients who can whom I can fulfill all the needs and just move forward with it. But I definitely know that there is a lot of growth in right in Peachtree Corners.

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

Jason Leverant: Thank you for letting us, uh, really showcase and share the work we’re doing. We appreciate you.

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

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier With Breaking Through Consulting & Coaching

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Firmspace-sponsor-bannerFor Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier, life is more about the journey than the destination. Her journey began in Colombia, where she fought for life after being born prematurely.

In 1999, she immigrated to the U.S., proudly representing her Colombian heritage and establishing Breaking Through Consulting & Coaching and, later, Let’s Awaken Purpose. She has faced and conquered numerous personal and professional challenges, striving to find her place in the market and corporate world and battling the need for perfection to feel worthy of love.

Motivated by a desire to contribute and inspired by her name’s meaning, “clear light,” Clara Lucia achieved an M.A. in Transformational leadership and Coaching, obtained certification from the International Coaching Federation (ICF) as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), received recognition from the Graduate School Alliance for Education in Coaching, and secured various certificates in emotional intelligence, human empowerment technologies, and transformational coaching.

She celebrated her tenth anniversary as an entrepreneur in 2024 and has developed an international client base. In 2023, she published her book, Purpose. Clara Lucia is devoted to awakening humanity in the marketplace by helping individuals and organizations ignite purpose, instill hope, and foster growth so that they can become better human beings and true agents for positive change.

Connect with Clara on LinkedIn and follow Breaking Through Consulting & Coaching on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • What is a business and professional coach
  • How is this different from say, a counselor or a psychologist
  • What is concerning people about this generation and what can a personal coach do to help them get on the right path

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Chicago, Illinois, it’s time for Chicago Business Radio, brought to you by Ferm Space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to Ferm, Space.com. Now, here’s your host.

Max Kantor: Hey, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor. And as always, today’s show is sponsored by Ferm Space. Thanks to Ferm Space, because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we got a good one for you today. On today’s episode of Chicago Business Radio, we have an entrepreneur, communicator, coach, speaker, and author with her organization Breaking Through Consulting and Coaching. Please welcome to the show, Clara Lucia. Welcome to the show, Clara.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Well, hello, Max. It’s an honor to be here with you today. Thank you.

Max Kantor: Excited to talk to you about everything that you’re doing. So let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit about how you are helping people in the community.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yeah, absolutely. So, Max, I have a passion for three things. I have a passion for supporting and helping people understand the importance of self love, purpose and a positive mindset. And in my experience as a coach and as a consultant, the combination of those three are like the perfect ingredients for a wonderful and yummy cake. And at the end of the day, those three things are actually helping me fulfill my purpose, which is to awake humanity in the marketplace. I think as human beings, there’s a lot of things that we have forgotten to go back. It’s almost like going back to the basics, and that is to remind ourselves constantly that we are human beings, that we work with human beings, and that we are in community with other human beings. So through those three things self love, purpose and positive mindset, I am helping people live better lives and have more successful careers because they are going back to the basics of what it is to be a human being.

Max Kantor: Totally. And let’s talk about what your role means. So you’re a business and professional coach. How what is this? What does that mean? And how is it different from like a counselor or a therapist or psychologist?

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Great question. So I have a couple of hats that I wear on a daily basis. I started my consulting ten years ago, and I started it more as a consultant doing brand strategies, communications and marketing focus on the power of purpose. And then as of six years ago, I started my own developmental work through a master’s degree in Transformational Leadership and coaching. Out of a deeper desire, Max, of being able to support my clients even deeper and deeper. And through that experience, I’m actually on these ongoing journey of learning how to become more human, learning what self-love means to me and going through that I’m able and more equipped with certain tools and, you know, knowledge that I have to actually support. My clients do the same. So this is a both way, both way situation while I support and I, you know, pour out all of that that I have to my clients, I am also learning from them. So there’s a mutuality in the process, um, which is a little bit different than what a consultant does or a psychologist does or a therapist. Uh, those are different skill sets I don’t treat.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: For example, I don’t treat symptoms. I don’t do prescriptions. I’m not equipped to do that. What I am equipped to is to actually offer my presence and creating a space where the person, the client, either individually or as a group, where they feel secure enough, safely enough that they can start opening up and sharing and even asking questions about who they are now and who they want to become next. So there’s a lot of, um, collaboration. There’s a lot of questionings back and forward. There’s a lot of what I call reflective listening, because when you are with someone else that it’s non-judgmental, that does not have a specific expectation of you, that is able to see you as the beautiful and imperfect human being as you are. There’s a willingness and a sense of openness that happens automatically when that person is able to start digging a little deeper inward, to connect and to find those things that are important and as a value to them, and then be able to start creating a life where they are becoming their own designers, they’re choosing ways of being.

Max Kantor: So what kinds of clients are you seeing and what are they looking for when they come to you?

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Um, it’s a good question. And I, I, I would hope that I had like, uh, like a yes and no answer to you, but it’s a combination of, um, clients. I have the individual person who has kind of been in the marketplace for years and years, um, maybe a director or a senior director. And there’s kind of like that aha moment where they stop and they start thinking about, is this really it? Is this what career looks like? Is this where I’m supposed to be? So there’s some kind of like, existential questions that are starting to bubble up, and those individuals are ready to dive deeper into what is next, not necessarily to get a hold of what’s coming to them, but actually start choosing what is it that in indeed at the end of the day, is fulfilling to them? So that’s a group of, um, kind of individuals. There’s also group settings where, um, you know, a group of staff members, you know, are kind of like stuck or are finding difficult working with each other or aligning towards a common or a unifying objective. I come in and I do an assessment as to where they are now, and I help them, you know, develop a vision of where they’re wanting to head towards. And I identify dynamics that may not be helping them as a group to move forward. So it’s very hands on. It’s very interactive, and it’s really an experience where they kind of pause for a moment and they allow themselves to be without any specific expectations of productivity or any anything like that. And, and they just reflect on who they are as individuals, as a group of individuals working together. And they finally start kind of aligning towards that vision of becoming and identifying some of the barriers that are on the way to that.

Max Kantor: And I hear that this is your 10th anniversary. So what kinds of trends have you seen since you began?

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yeah. It’s a it’s a great question. Well, I think, um, you know, one of the big ones is, you know, the word coaching is now so popularized and it’s a buzzword. And, you know, sadly, anybody claims to be a coach. Um, which actually, I’m infuriated when I see that kind of advertising out there because, you know, coaching, to be a coach, you’re required to invest not only time in educating yourself and ensuring that you have the tools and the education and the background and the experience, because it’s a big responsibility. Um, you you have the ability and the power to really become a very powerful, positive influence on people, especially those that are hunger to find out what’s next and find more meaning and purpose. Um, so it requires a lot of education and a lot of hours studying. I had a master’s degree. I did, um, like almost 350 papers about myself, but also other people. Um, and it takes an investment of continuous, um, uh, work in studying and also getting the support that you need as a coach, because we’re human beings as well. So I got supervision classes I am still in school for, um, you know, getting better at the tools that I already have. I have communities of other coaches where we gather together and we go through things and support each other. So it’s it’s a practice and it’s an ongoing profession of love and dedication, but also a big responsibility.

Max Kantor: Totally. And I think it shows your dedication not only to working on yourself, but also working with your clients in in the level of work that you’re putting into this. I’m sure it reflects on your clients and your relationships with your clients.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yes, that beautifully say, Max, I think there’s a reason why my clients continue to come to me after, you know, I’ve been coaching for for six years now, and I have clients that are still with me because coaching is also there’s there’s there’s seasons of coaching, right? There’s a season of coaching where I can meet with my clients every other week, um, to gain that momentum and to see kind of like things progressing and those kind of like barriers or behaviors that are limiting people, they start to kind of break through those. So it could be a client, you know, that meets with me every other week. Um, then there’s other things that do kind of like a monthly check in with me and a monthly session with me, and there’s some other clients that come to me whenever they are preparing towards someone specific, and they want to noodle through what it is and navigate through that specific circumstance. But coaching, it’s like, um, it’s almost like, you know, running a marathon. Um, you have different coaches for different things, and each coach has a very specific angle and, um, you know, specific purpose to help you overcome that. But an athlete, you know, either someone that runs a marathon or someone that has a different, you know, sport, an athlete never stops having coaches because it’s the same thing with us individuals. I mean, having someone outside of our own brains that can help us process things, it’s it’s a it’s the greatest gift. Um, we’re not meant to do things alone. We’re not meant to be in isolation. And it is in community and with the support of another human being and in my case, someone that has gone through some of those things that I support my clients, it’s a beautiful blessing.

Max Kantor: Now to take off what you just said, talking about like, you know, you shouldn’t have to struggle by yourself. You can reach out to others. I think it’s a perfect segue to talk about mental health. Um, so what can a personal coach do to help people with their mental health and kind of help them get on the right path?

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yeah. Great. Great question. Max. Uh. Good connection. Um, so one of the things that and again, I want to be very clear, because I’m not a psychologist and I’m not a counselor either. But what I am in terms of, um, the support that I provide in terms of mental health is having a safe space to talk about things. Is, you know, I’m struggling with my boss at work. Um, you know, he or she comes to me and is demanding, and I get freeze, and I don’t know how to go about it, and I’m paralyzed by fear. So that in itself, that circumstance, which is very real, you know, some leaders notice that some other leaders don’t. Right. We all have an effect on other people. So what I do with my clients is I provide that space where we can talk about it and name some of those dynamics and then go deeper into like, what may be the case for you to be paralyzed, what you know, who is this person reminding you of? Maybe there’s something about your past that you’re not even aware nowadays that we can go through and explore. So to name those dynamics, to name those feelings that are coming up instead of like shutting them down deep inside you, is a way for you to start actually acknowledging them. And also, um, bring a little bit of that space where you can be with someone else to help you process. It’s almost like that space where you can raise your hand and you can say, hey, I need help. At least I need someone that I can talk to without feeling judged or without feeling like, you know, condemned to be labeled into one category.

Max Kantor: Totally. You’re creating, like you said, that safe space for them to just talk and be open and honest.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yep, yep. And obviously, you know, if there’s things that are above and beyond my capacity and my responsibility, I will make referrals for that person to get other supports. But in the initial in the initial stage is almost like knocking the door, opening the door, and letting a little bit of light come in so that you don’t feel so alone, so that you don’t feel that you’re just an exception to, and that you feel that you have someone, that one is empathetic towards you and is offering perhaps a different view of things, or is asking questions that will then help the person start gaining some inner insights that are very revealing, and that could bring some sort of hope at the end of the call or at the end of the session.

Max Kantor: Now since Covid started, it seems that people have different attitudes about working. So can you talk about when it comes to Covid, specifically what you’re seeing as a coach?

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yeah. So there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of positives and there’s a lot of, you know, obstacles that Covid brought to our lives. Um, covet was a forced shut down. It literally was something that happened that was so big, bigger than our own capacity to handle at one given point. And it forced us to stay in and to go inward. And when you stay in physically in, you know, four walls, uh, you have nowhere else to go but inward. So a lot of what covet did was actually starting those questions about, what am I really up for this life? What does you know, what does living a purposeful life mean is my job. What I’m here to do is is my job what defines me as an individual. So all of those kind of like existential questions are a beautiful way for us to actually stop and think about the kind of life that we have. You know, Max, we only have this chance of life once, at least that we know it. And I think when those type of forced circumstances appear like, you know, covet dead, it’s actually an invitation to rethink what’s possible, to rethink what about my life now? Do I even want to see differently? And what are some of the choices that I have moving forward? So I think covet, in a way, was a blessing because a lot of people took that time to really stop and rethink their lives and their careers and who they were as individuals.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: And many of them began making steps towards, you know, those possibilities. And obviously there’s there’s things that are still, uh, people and me included, we’re still trying to noodling through, which is that ability to embrace our humanity and, and remember that, you know, there’s power in, in the power of touch, the power of being with another person in proximity, the power of our physical presence with someone else. I mean, that’s irreplaceable. Technology is a beautiful thing. We’re having an incredible conversation right now thanks to technology. Um, in Colombia, back at home, because I’m tending to my dad, who is battling cancer now, and you’re in Chicago and here we are together. So all of those things, I think, are opportunities for us to look at what is the good in this? What can I choose to actually what’s my approach to embracing the positive? Although it’s hard and although it’s difficult, what is the positive about these and how can I become a better person because of it?

Max Kantor: So, Clara, the the last question that I like to ask every person who comes on Chicago Business Radio and you’ve kind of touched on this in your last answer, but for you, in all that you’re doing as a as a coach, what is the most rewarding part of the job for you?

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: I did. So as you asked me that question, I had, I had goosebumps. Um, Max, I think I think the most rewarding experience that I have about my job is to see the person’s eyes lighting up for the first time in a long time is that moment of realization when the person is aware of something so powerful that can change the trajectory of that person’s life, is that aha moment where they realize they make a connection, um, of, you know, that happened then, but now it’s a different circumstance, and now I can take control over and I can choose how to react to things. It’s that blends of hope and possibility, uh, that I see in, in a person’s expression. It’s how they, you know, come a little closer to the camera and they kind of like, stay in awe and admiration of something that they just unpack, that it’s so powerful that has the power to change their lives. It’s it’s hard to explain in words because it’s something that is very experiential. It’s, you know, the person coming afterwards and saying, you know what? I got through that difficult conversation and it went wonderful. And I feel a little bit more confidence, you know, talking to my boss, or is that person that says, you know what? After, you know, going through this process, I realized that I’m ready for a career change and I’m good to go. Now, is that person that is able to go back to the boss and, you know, ask for a raise after being kind of like paralyzed by fear? Um, to ask what that person needed at that point. And, you know, it’s even now with my dad coming alongside and being with him and, and supporting him enough that he feels a little bit more hope to wake up and get a couple of steps to the door so that he feels a little bit better, um, emotionally and physically. So, I mean, it’s a long answer, Max. I don’t know if that captures a little bit about what it means, uh, to me to support people.

Max Kantor: No, it totally does. And just hearing the way that you talk, it comes across that you just want to see people achieve everything that they possibly can. And and you’re there to help them do that.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yeah, I mean, it it’s like I said before, we get these chance at life one and we we were created in as beautiful and perfect human beings. And we have what it takes and we we, you know, we’re so we’re marvelous creation. And there’s so much potential and there’s so much possibilities. Um, and it takes to know yourself. It takes it it takes to go inward to do the work. Right. This doesn’t happen instantaneous. It’s not like taking a pill and then boom, there you are. It takes work. But in the work, there’s the adventure. In the work, there’s the learning. There’s, you know, the possibilities that pop here and there. And it’s just a beautiful process. It is. It’s a great journey.

Max Kantor: So, Clara, if people want to learn more about breaking through consulting and coaching or if they want to reach out to you, what’s the best way to get in touch?

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Yes, the best way is to go straight to my website at start breaking through.com start breaking through the com. There’s a contact page and they can send me an email directly. Uh, goes to me and I’ll be more than happy to, um, facilitate some connection and some conversation. Um, as needed. I would love to do that. It would be my honor.

Max Kantor: Well, Clara, thank you again so much for being on Chicago Business Radio today. It was great talking with you, and you’re really doing great work, and we appreciate all you’re doing for the community.

Clara Lucia Jaramillo-Carrier: Thank you for the opportunity, Max, and for shining the light a little bit to the small business owners like me that are trying to fulfill a purpose and make a difference. So thank you.

Max Kantor: It is not a problem. It is our pleasure. And thank you for listening to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and we’ll see you next time.

Inro: This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by Ferm Space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to Ferm. Space.com.

Myrna Clayton With SHOWAbility

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A cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department singing at U.S. embassies around the world, also known as America’s Songbird, Myrna Clayton is an international jazz singer who has been performing for over 14 years. She has performed throughout Russia, Belarus, Germany, Nigeria, Great Britain, Ghana, The Baltics, France, and across the United States.

When she’s not performing, she is a dedicated community servant focused on executing her vision and mission of the organization she founded SHOWAbility, a 501c3 nonprofit representing performing arts excellence, equity, inclusion, accessibility and opportunity for performing artists with visible and invisible disabilities.

Prior to establishing her career as a performer, she was a successful MBA corporate executive and adjunct professor.

Connect with Myrna on LinkedIn and follow SHOWAbility on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Why Myrna created SHOWAbility
  • The need for inclusivity/accessibility in performing arts, TV and film
  • The need to identify performing artists with disabilities in entertainment industry

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 Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program. The accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Myrna Clayton with SHOWAbility. Welcome.

Myrna Clayton: Thank you. I appreciate it. Lee.

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

Myrna Clayton: You know it. SHOWAbility empowers talented performing artists across the disability spectrum, whether that’s born or acquired, a parent or not, a parent. And we’re excited about supporting artists that are that are musicians. Singers as well as actors were frequently contacted by casting agents looking for actors with disabilities.

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

Myrna Clayton: You know, I’m a professional singer. That’s what I do. And I happen to see a young boy about 11 years old a while ago. But I say a while ago, like over ten years ago, struggle to get up three steps into a church pulpit in order to sing, but leave. When he started singing, he was phenomenal. And I didn’t have the presence of mine at the time to ask his name or anything. But he crossed my mind about five years later and I began asking musicians, corporate band, you know, choir directors, school school band directors, and, you know, and chorus directors. If they knew any singers with disabilities. And Lee, no one knew any singers with disabilities. And that just didn’t make sense to me. And and so at that point, I began just kind of asking around more and more. And I started the organization because I was like, there’s an opportunity and there’s a need. And so it went from there.

Lee Kantor: So what did you see as the opportunity?

Myrna Clayton: Well, first of all, as a singer, we understand that everybody has a talent. And I knew at that time I did not know the statistics. Now I know the statistics. The disability community is the largest minority population in the country. 26% of the US population have a disability. That’s 1 in 4 that have a disability. I didn’t know that statistic then, but I knew that. That if no one knew anybody, then there was a, there was there was something there just to let you know. Also, I have an MBA and I worked in corporate and I worked in new product and new business development. And so I operated conceptually looking at research to find needs. And the other piece of that, if you just add one family member to the disability community, that 26%, that’s 52%. That means that over half of the US population is connected to this population. And that means, from a business standpoint, that there’s huge opportunity subsequent to that, the discretionary spending power is larger than the the Black and Latino population combined. The spending power is $21 billion that the disability community has. We in the general population I say we I give us an out. I don’t have a disability and I give us an out because from childhood we’re taught not to point and not to stare. And so pretty much we have blinders up and so they don’t even come to our minds. But when you look at the opportunity and you see no one’s fitting that need, no one’s meeting that need.

Myrna Clayton: And often times as well, when we think about the disability community, we think about the special ed class. We don’t think about those persons like a Stevie Wonder, or we don’t think about persons that have that are wheelchair users. We don’t think about that again, that doesn’t come to mind. And then along with that, because, um, we’ve been we we, we get nervous when we get around. So we’re not comfortable. We never learned how to engage. And so what we do is we look the other way, we turn we we don’t even, um, oftentimes speak, you know, because we don’t know what to do. We’re uncomfortable and we don’t like being uncomfortable. We don’t like looking quote unquote, ignorant to the situation. And so because of that, um, we we don’t know. And we’re missing out on the opportunity, the business opportunity within this population. And again, what along with the person with disability, there’s a whole family that comes along with them and there are certain needs that they have. And, um, and so our thing was about, um, artists meeting employment and enjoyment people want to have everybody wants to have a good time. This this disability does not mean not able doesn’t want. They’re human beings just like everybody else. That’s a human being. They’re not robots. We’ve got enough bots around here going around now. Um, these are human beings that have the same desires and needs and wants that everybody else. And so everything that you need, Lee, they need.

Lee Kantor: Now, once you had kind of this, uh, aha moment of, hey, there should be a place for people with disabilities or they should be more visible. At what? How were you playing in this ecosystem? Because I would imagine once that light bulb went off, now all of a sudden a lot of things become visible. Like you were like, okay, there needs to be communication with casting directors. There needs to be communication with creative people to include, uh, people with disability in the performing arts. Like what part does show ability, you know, play in?

Myrna Clayton: We actually, um, first of all, when we started casting and all of that was not we started in actually 2011 and casting and all of that wasn’t even on the page. Our biggest thing, again, we’re working with performing artists. And so our biggest thing was getting on stage. And most stages are not accessible. Um, we can’t get on stage though. There is an Ada that’s there. And so the biggest thing for us is finding the talent and identifying the talent so that when the opportunity presents itself, we can be we can we can present them and have them, um, ready when I’m saying them. Talented persons, talented artists, just like any other presenter of talent, um, you’re making sure that they are ready for the opportunities. Now we have shows, we have concerts. Um, we actually also have, um, right now we have an inclusive chorus that’s made up of talented singers with and without disabilities. And what we’re doing is actually singing the national anthem at major sports events. Um, and so that’s something that we’re reaching out to do. We’re also bringing attention to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the fact that the general population needs to know. And so we’re having, um, an event July 26th coming up. Um, that is, um, collaborating with major organizations like, um, Bobby Dodd Institute, like, um, the states Ada coordinator, like Southeast Ada, like Disability Link and a number of disability organizations, um, to let the population know there are 61 million people in the US that have a disability.

Myrna Clayton: We don’t realize how huge this is. And so, um, and so we’re trying again, our thing is to reach our target audience is the disability community, not the general population. Because again, we’ve got that. This is not a niche, 26% is not a niche. And so we’re looking to to create the awareness and for opportunities again for employment and enjoyment. Um, and so we’ve when we began, when we started, we started realizing that so many people were not aware. And so it’s a lot of consulting that I do. Um, and um, it’s preparing the artist as well. And the performers to. Engage with others and meeting inform others on how to respond to them. Accessibility and accommodations are very important for this population. And so we’re looking and wanting to in. Um, uh, engage that in terms of the casting agents. They find us because they have the need we, you know, there when, when a, when, um, when a movie is looking has, has a has a position for a role, then they’re sending out for, for actors and so they contact us. Acting was not on our radar in the very beginning. But three things happened in 2019 that were significant within the disability community and the entertainment industry.

Myrna Clayton: Number one, and you may or may not know about these, these folks, but number one, Cody Lee, young man who was blind and on the autism spectrum, won America’s Got Talent number one artist grand prize. That happened. Number two, Ali Stroker, who is an actress on Broadway, won best actor Tony award for best actor. Um, for her the production of Oklahoma! Now, of course, Oklahoma is not written for wheelchair users, but she’s a wheelchair user. And guess what? Every show, not every night, every show, whether that’s matinee, midday or evening, she had to be lifted on to stage on her in her wheelchair in order to perform. Can you imagine? Yeah. And but she won Best Actor. And then third thing that happened in 2019 was there’s a documentary that was released on Netflix called, um, Crip Camp. That’s that introduced, um, the plight that led ultimately, ultimately to the 504 and eventually to the Ada. Those three things were significant and really brought to the forefront the the disability community. And after that, right, was the was the pandemic. And in the midst of the pandemic, we had persons from, um, casting agents contacting us saying, hey, because they’re not that many, um, organizations that boast about having access to talented artists with disabilities.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re defining disabilities, is it everything from, like you mentioned, people in wheelchair, you mentioned people you know with vision or hearing challenges, but also autistic. Does that fit in there as well?

Myrna Clayton: We say the across the disability spectrum. And so that is someone who’s born with a disability, whether that’s cerebral palsy, that’s blind, um, that’s deaf. Um, and and then as well as, um, someone who’s acquired and that’s what the Shepherd center refers to it. They’ve acquired a disability, meaning they had a car accident or something happened. And so that’s a wheelchair user or someone who has an invisible disability, you know, that, you know, brain trauma, things like that. Our thing is the talent has no bounds. There’s no limit to the talent. It’s about the performance and the ability to perform. Um, and so for us and yes, included in that is Down’s syndrome, autism, those with intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities. It just depends on the talent and and and um, a person’s ability. I tell people quick, this is not a kumbaya thing. Nobody wants to be patronized. We are, uh, very much so for folks who are talented, um, we say that we want to be for the arts and entertainment industry what the Paralympics and the Special Olympics are, and the sports industry, and that is showcasing talent and excellence. And it puts it in perspective because we’ve got it. We’re not, you know, there there are businesses that are out there that are doing it. It just so happens that for most of us, we’re not aware of it because again, we we don’t we never learned how to engage. And so for us, for the most part, they’re hidden in plain view.

Lee Kantor: Now is this is the scope of your work. Stop at training aspiring performers.

Myrna Clayton: Um, that’s a great question. And no, um, we do artist development and then we then present opportunities when when job opportunities come, you know, they reach out to us, we then facilitate them going for that opportunity. Um, we also have shows and events, um, and present them, you know, for things like that. As, as I mentioned, the inclusive course we’ve performed at the Atlanta Gladiators, we’re going to be performing at Georgia State’s, uh, opening game. Um, we’re looking at performing at the Falcons and Atlanta United. Um, and our goal for that is really creating awareness of the talents within the disability community. Um, we also have, um, some of our outcomes. Are we actually present artists, like there’s a young man that’s um, that’s, um, on the autism spectrum, and he, he well, he’s now 20, but when we met him, he was 16, and he sounded like a 35 year old Elvis Presley. And he and he was phenomenal. And, um, he had all the mannerisms, all the dancing moves and everything. And his. And his name is, his stage name is Elvis. Um, and so we present opportunities and showcase talent like that as well. Um, and so there’s so much talent our, the what differentiates us is it’s performing arts, um, artists that have visual arts or sculpting. That’s not what we do. We do anybody that would want to be on stage or in front of a camera, um, or work on a crew, then that’s what that that’s our space. Um, and presenting talent.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you ever go into, um, maybe the production company or a writers room to explain, um, kind of the benefit and the value to them to be to maybe expand their, you know, maybe unconscious bias to include people with disabilities in their creative work.

Myrna Clayton: Um. The honest answer is no. Um, if they’re interested, then we will do it. But, um, it’s a huge, uh, it’s a huge ask, um, to, to introduce, um, the possibility and change someone’s perspective. They’re already nervous and uncomfortable. Um, where again, my our target audience are those people who are connected to the disability community. Again, it’s 52% of the US population. So that 48% they can they’re going to eventually come around. But I’m not wanting to convince someone of the opportunity here. Um, there are there are people with that that are connected, that are family members, you know, that, see it and get it. Um, and because it’s, it’s it’s such a hard it’s a, it’s a hard pull, um, in order to convince someone of the opportunity. Um, and I’d much rather go where we’re appreciated and not tolerate it.

Lee Kantor: Well, I just didn’t know if there’s any kind of educational or evangelistic element to this where it’s not that people aren’t including them as part of their scripts or their writing or their video game or their, um, music video, that they just it isn’t occurring to them, you know, because maybe it isn’t as present as it would be if somebody had a cousin or a brother or somebody with a disability. That would be of course I would include that or yeah, that would be great. Let’s let’s have one of the characters be somebody in a wheelchair.

Myrna Clayton: And, um, that is happening. Um, and believe it or not, it’s happening a lot in terms of people are becoming more and more aware. One of the things that when we when the mere fact that we show up, we’re informing and educating, uh, for example, when we go to theaters and the stages aren’t accessible, I’m educating as we go. We can’t get on stage. And so there’s an opportunity for education in that respect. Um, if and when we’re doing casting calls, a lot of times the folks that are below the line, if you know about film, they’re not knowledgeable at all about the disability community. They’ve been they’ve been hired, uh, to accommodate a person, but they’re not aware. And so something that we’re looking to do coming up this October is have an event, an expo where we’re looking to educate, um, those that are below the line, um, in the film industry, um, about opportunity, about just kind of how to accommodate persons, uh, that have a disability because, um, again, they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to engage. And so it’s it’s very much an informative space. And we’re looking to have that expo coming up in October. October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. And so that’s why we chose October. And it’s going to be, um, the end of October, Cadillac around the 26th or the 20th. We’re we’re in the final stages of preparing and planning that we’ve we’re we’re in the preliminary stages of, of fine tuning and, and probably, um, the month of July, which is the Ada month.

Myrna Clayton: Um, um, is really going after more aggressively on our, um, our sponsors for, for that particular expo, but we’re anticipating, um, a good 2 to 300 people to come to that expo as a starting place. Um, but yes, um, we are, like I said, every time we show up, we’re, we’re informing people. And, um, as they’re informed, then they’re able to become the evangelist for us. You know, um, one of the things that we’re sad about is, and I’m so grateful for you is, um, media does not cover this topic that much and, um, hardly ever. Um, and I think, again, because people are uncomfortable about the topic and, um, and so therefore we much prefer to go where we’re, again, appreciated and not tolerated, because again, that’s 52% of the US population who understands. And so we’re not talking about, you know, 10% or 2%, you know, that’s niche. Um, but 26% of the US population, um, there, there’s, there’s a, there’s a need there and there’s an opportunity there. Um, and um, and so having conversations with you and people like you, um, um, platforms like you is a part of that informing and that evangelizing. Um, because I obviously I don’t shy away from telling the story, but in terms of our business strategy is our target audience is the disability community and those who love them. That’s our target audience.

Lee Kantor: Now, is the target, um, Atlanta centric right now because you’re here in Atlanta, but this is a big film and entertainment town. So that gives you access to people that are from all over. Or is this is it are you looking to go nationwide or international? What’s kind of the the dream here?

Myrna Clayton: Um, actually the we’re actually metro Atlanta and not just Atlanta city. And we expand out, um, into, uh, into Georgia and very much so the plan is, is sort of a tiered into, you know, the southeast. And I’m, um, commissioned by the US State Department to represent American music abroad at US embassies around the world. And so as a singer, um, I’m global, and I, um, my cause is the disability community. And so it’s very much a global situation because disability is not unique to America. And so I’m doing my consulting, I’m doing my, um, evangelizing, I guess, if you will, whenever I am performing abroad, because I’m asking, hey, I want to have persons with disabilities invited no matter if they don’t want to come. That’s a whole different thing. But invited to come to the shows and it highlights, you know, the the inaccessibility of some theaters and the accessibility of others. And again, it brings to their awareness, because I’m making the request as the artist that’s coming to perform, um, of the of the opportunity of I don’t want to say, you know, the missed the or the lack thereof. Uh, but it also informs me that America is not ahead of the game as it relates to disability.

Myrna Clayton: There are so many countries that are much further ahead than America. Um, as it relates to the disability community. Um, and so, um, so it is a global situation because the disability community is global. This is, again, not unique to America. Um, but in terms of show ability, we are taking our steps, um, because we definitely see the need in Georgia. Um, and um, and then going from further in America. So yes, National, we’d like to do things like have a, um, either a franchise. Eyes or a or a or chapter or something in other, in other cities. Um, um, but for right now it’s hey. Yes. Again, film is is hot here, here in Atlanta and in Georgia. Uh, but we were here before that. Um, and we’re happy to ride that momentum rather than, you know, just kind of try to, um, do anything other than ride the momentum. Because, again, the need is there. They reached out to us because, again, there’s not another organization like show ability in the country that focuses on talented performing artists across the disability spectrum. And so, um, we very much so want to expand.

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

Myrna Clayton: Thank you. Um, we’d love to, um, have sponsors. We’d love to have, um, receive grants for nonprofit 500 1C3 nonprofit. And so, um, that we’d love to have volunteers because we always are in need of volunteers. Um, and not just volunteers that kind of show up for the event, but volunteers who are skilled volunteers like we right now, um, need marketing, um, support, uh, for that. And so that kind of help and then what you’re doing right now is so very helpful because your audience now is informed. And so we appreciate that. Um, and then the other piece, we need artists. You know, oftentimes we find that artists don’t want to self-identify. And you can imagine why, you know, um, and so they don’t want to come into the spotlight because no one wants to be jeered at or, you know, you know, made fun of, um, and it really takes a certain kind of personality of an artist to push past that. And so we are always looking for artists that are talented. And so we have auditions and so folks can reach out to us at our website. Um, or they can contact me. Our website is show ability. Org. They can send emails to info at show ability. Org or they can contact me directly at um Clayton at show ability org. Um, but however persons feel that they are interested and would like to be a part, we want them with our event coming up in um, um, in July. Um, we’re looking for volunteers for that and so they can reach out to us for that.

Myrna Clayton: And then lastly, um, we are very much so, um, looking for persons who are connected that are in our target audience and that are connected to the disability community, a person, say, for instance, an artist especially, you know, artists are sensitive, you know, so they may not say, I want to do it, I want to do it, but there may be someone that has heard them, whether that be a teacher or a friend. And, you know, hey, I want that person to to contact me and then give me that artist’s information and then I’ll contact the artist. Artist, because a lot of times persons will make recommendations and the artist will never contact, but I’ll contact them and I’ll be able to say, hey, Lee told me that you’re amazing. You’re an amazing musician. I’d love to hear you, you know, can you send me a tape or can I come and hear you perform someplace? And it starts like that. And it’s really an encouragement to just kind of come out of your shell and, um. Or I heard that you’re an actor. We got some opportunities, and we’d like to present to you. Um, and so it goes from there. So that’s those are the kinds of things that we would love to have. And then lastly, from a media standpoint, um, Lee, for you to tell your colleagues, hey, this is something that, um, is worth talking about. Um, and so I again, I appreciate you so much for giving us this platform.

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

Myrna Clayton: Thank you. Thank you so much, I appreciate you.

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

Scott Matthews With Verusen

by

Scott Matthews is the CEO of Verusen, leading the company’s day-to-day operations. An accomplished corporate strategist, he is renowned for optimizing business performance while propelling revenue and delivering extraordinary profit margins.

Previously, he was CEO of MRP, the Philadelphia, PA-based global provider of predictive customer acquisition software and services. Before joining MRP, he was CEO of CrowdTwist Inc. He successfully negotiated multimillion-dollar contracts with Fortune 500 accounts while repositioning the go-to-market strategy for CrowdTwist’s customer loyalty SaaS solution.

During his tenure, the company rapidly scaled sales, achieving 728% overall revenue growth, delivered strong business performance, and was acquired by Oracle in a multimillion-dollar deal.

Earlier, he held senior-level roles in technology, sales, and SaaS companies. Scott holds an MBA from Pace University and a BA in Business from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Connect with Scott on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Named one of Atlanta’s 100 fastest-growing companies – what is driving this growth
  • What are the biggest issues facing your industry today
  • Verusen offers an AI-powered MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) Materials optimization and collaboration solution – what problems does it solve

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 Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program. The accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Scott Mathews with Verusen. Welcome.

Scott Matthews: Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: Well, before we get too far into things for folks who aren’t familiar, can you tell us a little bit about Verusen? How you serving folks?

Scott Matthews: Sure. Lee, we’re a supply chain company based on artificial intelligence, and we go after the indirect side of the supply chain and trying to automate the way maintenance, repair and operations is done without increasing any business risk to the company that we serve.

Lee Kantor: And for folks who aren’t as familiar with supply chain as as you are. Can you kind of paint a picture of what supply chain means for a regular person?

Scott Matthews: Sure, absolutely. Thanks. Um, so there’s two sides of a supply chain. The direct side of a supply chain are the raw materials and finished goods that are in ports, warehouses, people’s, um, you know, uh, shipping facilities. What Verizon does is we look after what’s called the indirect side of the supply chain. And what that is, is all the, the maintenance and engineering and manufacturing facilities inside of your wall to make, uh, something that we may buy at this point, like John Deere as an example, as a customer. And we look after all the spare parts and all the inventory inside the factories where they make the big green tractors, and usually that’s a couple of hundred thousand parts it takes to make, you know, a tractor as an example. And that’s what Verizon does, is we try to automate that side of the supply chain inside the four walls of a plant or a warehouse.

Lee Kantor: And is this kind of a Russian nesting doll situation that within each customer there’s a supply chain. And within each of their customers there’s like it just never ends, right? The supply chain is involved in every aspect of every business.

Scott Matthews: Yeah, it’s a good point, Lee. So, um, the challenge that most customers have is data is stored in different systems and in different formats. It might be in an accounting system, it might be in an asset management system. You know, it might be on a spreadsheet. It might be different across different plants, across different geographies and in different locations. And it’s hard to make sense of that incongruent data to figure out what’s the right part. I should have an inventory. Where should I store that part? How much should I pay for that part? From whom should I buy that part? And how do I maintain the minimum amount of inventory without increasing any risk to the business? Ever having a manufacturing facility go down or a line go down? So that’s actually the problem that Verizon solves. Is that incongruency of data and recommending what the inventory level should be, given the business risk profile of the customer that we serve.

Lee Kantor: Now you’ve been named one of Atlanta’s 100 fastest growing companies. Were you? Um. Growing because it was just expanding, like with the supply chain, especially during the pandemic. There was obviously issues there, and then people kind of got caught and and they, I guess, weren’t as intimately involved with their data that they couldn’t kind of protect themselves from that. Is was that kind of an engine for your growth?

Scott Matthews: Yeah, that’s a good point, Leah. That’s part of it is, you know, people overordered, you know, during the pandemic because they just didn’t have visibility into when something would arrive, especially if it’s a critical part. It might have, you know, a four month lead time, you know, versus a washer or a nut. That is, you can get, you know, in a day. So that did create some issues. Um, you know, the real issue is, you know, the people that run the plant make their own decisions, and procurement tries to buy what they want on a contract. And the problem was really hard to solve. And Verizon at the beginning of the company had to create the need to solve this problem. And now major companies, fortune 50 companies are coming to us saying, I have $400 million of inventory. That is not moving. Well, it’s slow. It might be obsolete. How do I figure out the right inventory management policy given the risk profile that we have? So we’ve seen a huge influx of business where people have a budget, they have a problem they want to solve, and they’re looking for the right technology. And those are the catalysts for growth for a company like Verizon, because, you know, we’re an enterprise, um, software package, which means many people get involved. It’s six months, nine months, 12 months to have a major fortune 50 or fortune 100 companies. Um, make a decision on the types of problems that we solve.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, this kind of. Attention and the need. I guess more people realizing there is a need for this kind of a solution has opened up some new verticals for you.

Scott Matthews: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, we’ve done really well in process manufacturing and that just means it’s, you know, something that happens in repetition and there’s a lot of inventory and spare parts that’s needed. Uh, we do well in pulp and paper and things like that that are and that’s the heritage of our company. And recently with the hires that we’ve made and the investments that we’ve made, um, oil and gas, you know, we’re about to sign a really large customer and that oil and gas sector. Um, energy, you know, one of the companies based here in Georgia is our largest customer, the one that we all buy, uh, power and electricity from is a large customer of ours. And mining, mining is actually a huge vertical that has a lot of assets when they mine, you know, the precious metals and things that that are components and the products that we buy. And those are huge industries that the three people that I support, that we signed on with Verizon, have 40 years collectively of operational expertise, domain expertise, and it’s helping us to solve those problems easier and faster. When I can speak the language of oil and gas, I can speak the language of mining versus process manufacturing or, you know, um, CPG and companies that we’ve done really well in, in the past.

Lee Kantor: We now are these verticals, primarily US based companies or are they global?

Scott Matthews: They are not. Um, you know, we have a top three, um, food and beverage company in the world that we use that they use us in four continents around the world. We support 40 languages, 40 currencies. It’s a worldwide problem to figure out inventory management about what part do I need, where in what plant, what factory, and how do I balance inventory on a worldwide basis across multiple languages, across multiple currencies? So Verizon is blessed to have a bunch of customers that are global, um, in nature.

Lee Kantor: Now, how has kind of the acceleration of AI tools impacted your business? Is this something that you’re kind of always looking for more and more talent in that space in order to stay in the forefront?

Scott Matthews: Yeah, it’s AI is a continuum. And when you take incongruent, data incongruent systems, it’s a perfect problem for artificial intelligence to solve is how do you make that a common data set? How do you make that actionable when the data is stored in all different formats and in different systems? And where are the benefit of being a young company and basing our data acquisition and data manipulation tools, all based on artificial intelligence. And once we have that data in our system, we look at the data to years of history across suppliers, across manufacturers. We normalize that data, and then we make recommendations for what should be the stocking policies for every single SKU SKU across someone’s plant floor. What should be the minimum you have in stock? What should be the maximum you have in stock? What are duplicates? How should you share parts? And the goal is to drive down working capital without increasing any risk, um, in the manufacturing process. And that’s all benefit of artificial intelligence and large language models and generative technologies. So, you know, we spend a huge 57% of every dollar, um, in our company goes to technology and artificial intelligence because it makes a huge difference in customers outcomes for what they hire us for.

Lee Kantor: Now, how difficult is it to implement your software into somebody’s system if they if they don’t have this right now and they say, okay, we’re going to flip a switch, do they start normally in one area and then it eventually kind of expands as they see the benefits? Or is it something that they got to make this kind of major change? No, it’s.

Scott Matthews: Actually a it has to be a wide decision. Lee. It can’t just be piecemeal because you won’t get the benefit of it. So it’s generally the plants that you want to control inventory. And the benefit of being based on artificial intelligence is we can be live within 30 days of of starting a project because of modern technology, because of AI. And customers can start to see value in 45 days of us starting. Gone are the days of six months, nine months, years of implementation to get value. That’s what artificial intelligence has brought to our customers is time to value. On buying software like Verizon. It happens really, really fast.

Lee Kantor: Now in the companies that you serve. Are there some times when the different groups within the organization are siloed and they don’t have, just as a culture, good communicative policy?

Scott Matthews: Now your audience can’t see me smiling. But that’s actually a problem that we solve is I’ll call it organizational alignment. So people in procurement, right, who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in dollars to keep those plants operational, want everything under contract. They want everything to be planned. They want it to be consolidated across certain suppliers because it can drive down unit costs in acquisition. People on the plant floor don’t care about that. They just want to have insurance because they’re paid on availability, they’re paid on production. So it’s opposing agendas between manufacturing and procurement. And Verizon is the glue that puts those two departments together by showing evidence and science for why and how should you make inventory recommendations. So both parties win both manufacturing wins when they always have the right part at the right time. Procurement wins when you can drive down inventory costs without increasing risk. And Verizon is the balancing act between manufacturing and procurement. And generally those two departments are misaligned as organizations.

Lee Kantor: So who in the organization makes this buying decision?

Scott Matthews: It’s actually split. Um, procurement is often the sponsor, but manufacturing has to buy in and say, yes, this will work because manufacturing in the plant floors are the users. They’re the ones taking our artificial intelligence recommendations, and they have to accept it. They have to accept it. And then once they accept it, we update the systems of record like, uh, SAP, it’s an accounting system and a manufacturing system that runs many, many plant floors. So it’s actually a circle of inventory management that happens. But I need both parties to be involved for Verizon to be successful.

Lee Kantor: So how do you kind of demonstrate to the skeptical party that this really is going to make their life easier? This isn’t another one of these, you know, mandates from up high who don’t understand what it’s like to be the boots on the ground.

Scott Matthews: So it’s an excellent question. So risk mitigation is really important when you make multimillion dollar decisions to change process. So um we have ways to take in data in a sampling sense. Put it into our algorithms and show prospects not customers prospects evidence, quantitative evidence that our algorithms work, our science works. So it really does minimize the risk of buying, uh, software from Verizon. And we’ll do that as a pre-sales effort because I also want risk mitigated. I want to make sure that we sell the right software to the right customer that will be successful, and then they’re able to build the business case, quantitative ROI about how much they’ll save versus qualitatively saying, gosh, I might save $10 million. I might save $40 million. It’s hard to get a business case justified in today’s economy without quantitative evidence that it works.

Lee Kantor: So what’s next for you? What do you need more of and how can we help?

Scott Matthews: So what I’m in the process of doing is, um, building out, you know, the worldwide aspect of our company by hiring, you know, three people in sales. It sounds like a small amount, but for us, you know, it was a good investment. And then to build out, you know, people that are outside of Atlanta, outside of New York to hire in, you know, appropriate geographies. The other aspect of what we’re doing is building a partner network for complementary services that add more value than Verizon can independently. And I’ll give you an example. So you might have in your factory lead $40 million of inventory that hasn’t been moved in a while. And if you’re the financial person, how do I get that off my balance sheet? How do I get that that expense, uh, liquidated in an appropriate way. So we’ve integrated to two different disposition companies that will look at slow moving inventory and either buy it or consign it for resale. So customers are able to get more value than just what Verizon can, can supply. As one example, we have another partnership with recurring spare parts versus buying new. So we have third parties that integrate to our solution, and it might cost $0.30 on the dollar to spare to repair a $24,000 motor versus buying something new. So again, offering a a better way to spend money versus always buying new and dealing with supply chain issues. Why don’t you fix what you have? Because it’s just less expensive. And mean time between failures is not, uh, high on this. So those are some examples, um, of partnerships that we’re building.

Lee Kantor: So now the new verticals that you’re working in, that sounds like it was kind of customer driven, like there was a need. And then you decided to put a body on those verticals.

Scott Matthews: Yeah. So, um, I’ll give you again another really good example. Um, there’s a top ten oil and gas company that we haven’t signed the contract yet, but it’s imminent. Um, you know, they have a billion and a half dollars of inventory on oil rigs out in, you know, the ocean and and different warehouses and plants, you know, around the world to produce the oil that ultimately goes to the refineries. And they wanted to reduce that inventory without increasing any risk, right, of production. Uh, at this point. And Jeremiah, you know, Jeremiah Woodford knew the decision maker and ultimately positioned us for, you know, in our world, a very large deal. Um, and we think we can decrease inventory by $50 million for this customer, which is a huge, um, amount of value that we would have. And we can do this within a year of, of signing. But that’s an example of how the new people we’ve hired have got us in to verticals that we didn’t participate in because they knew the decision makers, they knew the processes, they knew the language, and they knew how to get around, um, that type of an account to show our value in the same way we might have for, you know, a top ten, uh, you know, company here in the States that produces paper products that you and I are buying at a grocery store or a beverage that, you know, we’re buying and, and in a grocery store or a bar or something like that.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, uh, where should they go? What’s the website?

Scott Matthews: Um, it’s it’s the dub dub dub dot Verizon. Verizon.com. Um, there’s a sales link. There’s a, you know, all kinds of, uh, FAQs and questions. Um, you could, um, you know, engage with, but, you know, that’s that’s we that’s how we generally speak to someone who’s interested in what we’re doing today.

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

Scott Matthews: We thanks for the opportunity and thanks for letting me talk to your viewers. All right.

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

Cheri Benjamin With Village Premier Collection

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Cheri Benjamin stands as a trailblazer in the realm of real estate, with a journey marked by remarkable achievements and unwavering dedication. Her entrance into the world of Real Estate commenced in 2000 as a Loan Officer, where she not only excelled but also expanded the business to include a team of 22 Loan Officers. Throughout her tenure, she shattered sales records that endure as testaments to her prowess over the past two decades.

In 2006, she transitioned seamlessly into the role of a Real Estate agent before returning to her roots in Atlanta. As the CEO of The Benjamin Group, Village Premier Collection (VPC), and WEINSURE JAG companies, her leadership has propelled VPC to #676 on INC 5000 and secured its position as one of the Top 5 Commercial real estate brokerages in Metro Atlanta. Village Premier Collection stands as the Largest Minority Female Owned Real Estate brokerage in Georgia, boasting a roster of over 500 agents.

Her insights and expertise have garnered national and local recognition, with features in esteemed publications such as the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Business Chronicle newspapers. She has been a sought-after voice on platforms like 11 Alive News, lending her perspective on the intersection of the Real Estate Market and the evolving economy.

Her accolades, including being named the 2018 Coach of the Year by Club Wealth and achieving the prestigious 2019 Multi-Million Platinum status, underscore her unwavering commitment to excellence. With over $450 million in revenue, her impact reverberates across the industry.

Beyond her professional endeavors, her commitment to service is evident in her role as a US AIR FORCE Veteran and her dedication to coaching five brokerages nationwide. A devoted wife and mother of five sons, she epitomizes family-centric values and community engagement.

Her vibrant personality and tireless work ethic ensure that every real estate experience under her guidance is not only professional but also pleasant. As she continues to empower others to flourish and thrive, Cheri Benjamin remains a beacon of inspiration and excellence in the real estate landscape.

Connect with Cheri on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Village Premier Collection

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the Atlanta Business Radio, we have Cheri Benjamin with Village Premier Collection. Welcome.

Cheri Benjamin: Hi. Thank you, thank you.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to get caught up with you. For folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Village Premier Collection? How you serving folks?

Cheri Benjamin: Yeah, so Village Premier collection, we go base to base just short of VPC. So we break that on down. Make it a little bit easier for people. But we serve real estate needs. Whether you are buying, selling, investing in residential or commercial or doing development. So we service a lot of different angles in the real estate space.

Lee Kantor: So what is the climate in today’s real estate world? Is it a good time to be in the real estate business?

Cheri Benjamin: I mean, you’re asking a person who loves the real estate business that question. Absolutely. This market that we are in right now is really starting to make a huge shift into those that space that is very viable for buyers, sellers, investors, all of that is what we’re really seeing. A lot of people back in the fourth quarter of last year were interest rates spiked pretty high. It slowed down a lot of our demand that we had based upon our supply. And now we’re starting to shift a little bit more back into that very high supply. And we’re getting those folks to come on out now in order to meet that this the supply and the demand need that we have here. So the market is doing fairly well and it’s really starting to climb now.

Lee Kantor: Is that the metro Atlanta market in general or is it across the country?

Cheri Benjamin: This is actually what we’re seeing in more than just the Atlanta metro area. We actually service the entire United States. Now, there are some markets that are still having a little bit of a time getting rebounded from there. But generally most markets is starting to we’re seeing a large increase in the amount of homes that are going on the market, the increases in prices that are happening. Um, the on the commercial space, we’re seeing a lot more of the commercial properties that are that’s going to be the difference there. Those properties are a little bit harder to get rented out. So anyone who is doing any leasing of commercial spaces, there has been a little bit more of the less there in the opposite of the supply and demand for those that are out looking for commercial spaces. But on the residential side, everywhere in the US is really starting to catch up to what you’re seeing in Atlanta is really starting to happen across a lot of markets now.

Lee Kantor: Is it that folks have just kind of accepted that, look, interest rates are going to be a little higher now for a while. And just like I mean, I remember when I bought my house decades ago, interest rates were higher than this and we just adapted to it. And then, you know, when they got lower by a certain percentage, we refinance and we refinance our way down to when it was low. I mean, it just isn’t it kind of cyclical.

Cheri Benjamin: I don’t think that people are getting used to it. I do believe that what is happening is that their interest rates have softened a lot from where they were. I mean, they got almost up to 8%, and in some areas they were at 8%. And, you know, really not to talk about either one of our ages. But yes, I do remember my first house and where I closed it was higher than that interest rate, the interest rate that was offered, um, no matter what your credit score was, was a lot higher than what we have seen. But people don’t. People weren’t looking at buying back then. You know, when I talked to a person who’s ready right now and I tell them, you know, when I back when I bought my first house, I was at 8.375. They really think, well, that’s great for you, but I’m thinking of what’s happening right now and the affordability right now for my property. And with the interest rates softening from that 8% and trickling back down, especially in the markets where builders and people are doing buy downs of interest rates. So we’re getting very creative when it comes down to the financing side of it. In order to make the homes more affordable, uh, for those that need loans.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you seeing kind of the aggressive financing that was around maybe back in the day a little bit where there were, you know, balloon payments or adjustable for the first few years and then, you know, larger payments after that. Is that happening?

Cheri Benjamin: Well, those loans are still available, but those loans are not what we generally see from most. And the reason why is Dodd-Frank came in, and it really did help with making it so that back in those days where someone would do a two year, 228 is what it was called fix for two years, adjust for the next 28 years. That adjustment, you know, went so high that that’s what sent us into the recession is that we had an influx of people that they they could not afford their mortgages anymore. Those types of things we don’t generally see. Can you get an arm? Yes you can. You can still go and get A51, A31, 271, a ten one. You can still get those. And those will give you a much lower interest rate, um, to start off with. So those are still available but those are not the deals. Whereas in 2005 the ARM deals were dominating the market. Now in 2024, the ARM deals are a very small piece of the market. And I believe that’s because we’ve learned our lesson. And that is the one thing I’m very proud of when it comes down to the to the real estate industry as a whole, whether it’s on the mortgage side, whether it’s on the, uh, buyer and seller side, and including what has happened with the regulations that have come down. I do believe that that has helped our industry as a whole that will keep us from going back into that recession again. So we’re not seeing a lot of those that we used to see before. People are not I think we have a much more educated buyer nowadays, uh, versus what we had back in, you know, rewind the clock back 20 years ago. We had a we have a much more educated buyer nowadays.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s it like to be in the real estate business if you’re a realtor? Is this a good time to be a realtor?

Cheri Benjamin: I think so. I have enjoyed my real estate license for the last 24 years. I’ve seen a lot of ebb and flows of real estate that has happened. I’ve seen people come into the market and get out of the get out of the Or come into the industry and then get out of the industry. I’ve seen all those different things happen. For a person who is looking at starting to get into this business, treat it like a business. I want for people to understand that when you get into the real estate space, you are getting into entrepreneurship. If you’ve never been an entrepreneur, so you are getting into entrepreneurship and you do need to treat it as such. You need to treat this business no different than what you would treat your carpet cleaning business, or your brick and mortar that you would have that you would go into on your 9 to 5. You really need to structure your business, create the leverage around your business and understand what you’re getting yourself into. There is a lot of mentorship. There’s a lot more coaching. Youtube can be your friend in some aspects of these things too. Whereas we didn’t have these sort of accesses to this type of education 20 years ago. Nowadays we do. And so a person who’s looking at getting into the real estate space, I always tell them mentor and coaches are number one for you because they will you don’t know what you don’t know, and there’s going to be pitfalls that you want to get around. And so let’s get them in place that can help you with your pitfalls. And then also make sure that your business is structured properly in order for it to grow.

Lee Kantor: And then it’s like you mentioned, this isn’t like a job where you show up and you’re going to get a starting salary and you’re going to get bonus based on what how the company does this is kind of an eat what you kill. Uh, you’re learning, you’re making investments, and then you’re seeing the fruits of your labor if you do well over time.

Cheri Benjamin: Correct. And you’re also. Need to understand those that you’re helping and how that works. You know, your buyers, your sellers, your investors that you are helping that is out there. And as you grow and you grow your knowledge and all those different areas, there’s more people that you can that you can assist and that you can help, um, that’s there. So it’s not just understanding the business itself. You have to understand the business. You have to understand client acquisition. You have to understand relating relating to your clients and understanding your clients and getting to the root of what your clients are really looking for as their ultimate outcome. And can you provide that? And if you say that you can provide that, you better deliver, you better deliver, because this is a business that everyone that gets into it, the only thing you have is your name. When you first get into this, you have your name. And that’s the one thing that I can’t get rid of. I’m not getting rid of that sucker. I’m Sharif Benjamin every day when I wake up. So that’s the one thing you have. And if, Lee, if you were my client at the time, then I want you to continue to use me. And so therefore, I have to get to the root of what it is that you are looking to accomplish. Make sure that I can check all those boxes. And if I can’t check those boxes, then who can? Who is the right person in order to do that? Or who is the right person for me to bring in in order to assist us in getting that done, lowering down the egos, understanding what you don’t know, putting your client at the center of your focus and your client’s outcome and your client’s experience is what is number one. And making sure that your business can handle the ebb and flows of real estate. And that takes time and it takes patience, but everyone gets there.

Lee Kantor: Or they don’t.

Cheri Benjamin: Were they done? Did they run? Can get there.

Lee Kantor: So now when you started at VPC, I believe you were the first agent that they hired or was hired.

Cheri Benjamin: Yes. Oh, wow. You’ve been to the vault? Yes. So they used to be village royalty, and I was their very first agent, uh, that they hired back in. Technically, it was 2013 because I moved on December 30th 1st to 2013. So January the 1st. I started off with just them. Uh, so. Yes. So that’s where I started off with them in 2019. They approached me about purchasing the company. I purchased the company in October 2019. Uh, the acquisition reduced our agent count. We went from 112 agents down to 67. And now, since then, just the evolution of what village has done and what village has grown into. We recently just brought on and did a partnership with Rio. So we’ve taken those 486 and offered them the partnership with real that we have. Also what happened with that is that it then exploded us across the United States, um, by doing so. So we have grown immensely and, um, very grateful for all of the growth that we’ve had, um, over the course of the years. I don’t think that I’ve even envisioned all of it that has taken place. So this has all been a blessing, um, to us by just putting people first. So I just believe in putting humans first. And this is what has come from doing so.

Lee Kantor: So now, what’s it like leading an organization that’s nationwide now? Like what systems in place? What are some of the things you’ve done to enable you to be successful? You know, in taking something that was maybe local, regional and now kind of scale it?

Cheri Benjamin: Yeah. So we had already scaled it. So we were in prior to um, joining, we were in moving the organization. We were already in eight states, so we were already going through. So it’s almost as if we had we got the groundwork done. So we didn’t have to make a lot of system shifts from how we already showed up. There was not a lot of shifts that we’ve had to make. What we have done, though, is we’ve deepened a lot of our connections so that we can go wide and go deep at the same time. Um, but I’m very strategical when it comes down to how our growth is. We’re not for everyone, and everyone is not for us. And I am 1,000% okay with that. I believe in attracting our like mindedness for growing out our tribe. Um, and so with that, we didn’t we didn’t haven’t had to use brand new systems and anything of that nature. We were already in eight other states. Um, so we’ve just added on.

Lee Kantor: So who is a good tribe member for you? What do they look like? What are they? What are they? What work are they doing right now that you’re like, hey, I’d like to get on their calendar.

Cheri Benjamin: A good tribe member for me doesn’t have to do always with how many transactions they are doing. It has to do with the human. So I’m much more with getting to who is the human behind this. So do the value system align? Do we have a shared vision? It can. What you are looking to grow to in your business? Can that be done here or can it not? And having true authentic conversations in reference to that. And that’s where a lot of people so we don’t do any sort of a recruiting. We do more attraction, meaning that we are looking for those that are more similar to us, those that believe in reaching behind you and pulling the next person up, those that believe in taking care of that person that’s next to you. Um, those who don’t believe in glass ceilings, that it’s a glass ceiling for a reason. It’s meant to be broken through. Let’s keep growing those with same similar style drives, those that are willing and that want to deposit more into those that come from them, and even those that don’t, you know. So we have a saying that’s called m’butu, which means I am because you are. So can I look at you and deposit into you and know that I’m going to receive everything that I should receive just from depositing into you? It makes me who I am to deposit and to invest in you. That’s really at the core of us, you know. So the real concept of work hard and be kind. And when we link these two things together, it’s just a full alignment for our agents. So that’s who we attract and that’s what we’re looking for. Those that are more like minded, that operate in authenticity, that believe in, if I’m going to put something out, it needs to be ecological. It needs to be good for all, not just good for self. And that’s the community of the tribe that we have been growing and that we are continuously growing.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help? You mentioned residential. You mentioned commercial. Um, what do you need more of?

Cheri Benjamin: All of the above. It is really all of the above. This business was built in order to. Fill the spaces for those that come into it, and to be able to invest in those that come into it. So if it’s in the commercial lane, we have that. If it’s in the residential lane, we have that. If it’s in the more of content creation side, we have that. If it has to do with I want to grow from an attraction piece of my YouTube channel, we’ve got that in the coaches for that. So villages really meant for a place where the our real estate entrepreneurs can come to thrive in their lanes, that they choose to do it in and to build a community around that. So any and any of those that fit that, but the center of them is that I want kind individuals.

Lee Kantor: So now what is.

Cheri Benjamin: That’s what’s really at the center is the kind individual. Right.

Lee Kantor: And the value alignment and what so if there’s a real estate entrepreneur out there right now that maybe is frustrated, maybe is plateaued, is that like what kind of pain are they having right now where they should, you know, go, hey, maybe I should check out village.

Cheri Benjamin: A lot of people are just not being supported. That’s what’s what I see a lot of right now. We have a lot of people that are not being supported and people don’t see them. So at village, it’s really big for us to see you and what your light is and not put you into the same exact boxes with the next person’s light is. And I’ve been at several companies, several big box ones and not so big box ones, and I’ve seen this where they like to paint one one brushstroke and put everybody underneath that. That’s not how we are. That’s a lot more of what is authentic to you. And then helping that grow and turning up that dial of whatever your light is, uh, is how we really look at our approach is to coach, lead and train and help those agents, because the more and more agents I help coach, lead, train, navigate through business, grow their business vertically, the more other agents. They’re going to reach out to and let them know about the company.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody.

Cheri Benjamin: Wants, that’s really how we see it. There’s a lot of agents out there that are just struggling.

Lee Kantor: Right. And it’s like you said, they feel like they’re in an island. They were sold a bill of goods, and then it’s kind of sink or swim on your own and good luck. And, um, they don’t really have the support and the mentorship and the coaching needed to help take, you know, maybe somebody who needs a little more guidance to the next level. So if somebody wants to, if somebody wants to connect with you and learn more, what’s the website?

Cheri Benjamin: So in order to connect and learn more with us, you can actually visit a real village.com. And if you visit a real Village.com, that really does explain a. A lot of who we are and our main website is Village Premier. Com so you can also go there too. They both link to each other, but a real Village.com does tell you how about who we are? And you can always dig and dig and dig even more if you’d like to.

Lee Kantor: Well, Sherry, thank you.

Cheri Benjamin: But you can reach out to us there. You can contact us there. You can learn more about us. Join the tribe. You can do all those things there.

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

Cheri Benjamin: Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. All right.

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

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Steven Pope With My Amazon Guy

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Steven Pope is the founder of My Amazon Guy, an agency with 20-million dollars in annual revenue and 400+ active brands. He is a best selling author with his book “Amazon Selling Tips.” He started his career as a TV reporter in Idaho, then was an eCommerce Director for 10 years for brands ranging from Gold & Silver Coins to Women’s Plus Size Clothing.

He then created My Amazon Guy, an agency with 500+ employees on growing traffic and sales on Amazon. He not only owns MAG but also My Refund Guy, My Warehouse Guy, 4 Amazon Brands: Momstir & Age of Sage, HOLSTIT, and Lilly Posh.

He has been viewed by millions of people on YouTube in thousands of videos where he shows how to handle ANY problem faced on Amazon.

Connect with Steven on LinkedIn and follow My Amazon Guy on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How Steven scaled his agency (500+ employees)
  • How he built his Amazon Agency

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Steven Pope with my Amazon guy. Welcome.

Steven Pope: Hey, thanks for having me on, Lee.

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

Steven Pope: Uh, so I run a 500 employee company called my Amazon Guy. And we help brands grow their business on Amazon. So that’s why they call me the Amazon guy.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your back story?

Steven Pope: I used to be a TV reporter overnight in Wisconsin, and then I was doing a live weather hits in, you know, Madison, Wisconsin, biggest blizzard the state had seen in a decade. And, uh, 10:00 at night missed my cue to go on the air. And I had hair back. Back then, uh, my hair froze over. I missed my cue. It felt like an idiot. And everybody was else was home in their pajamas. And I said, you know what? I would rather get into this e-commerce game where I could work from home. And so I actively transitioned my career and have been doing that since the past 15 years. Uh, so I’ve done everything from women’s plus size clothing to kitchen equipment to gold and silver coins. And, uh, after I got laid off about six years ago from a lighting company, I said, you know what? I’m tired of growing these e-commerce brands and making these guys millions of dollars. I’m going to go do it for myself and the true entrepreneurial spirit. And it’s been a it’s been a really good big growth since then. And, and, you know, we run $20 million in, in, uh, gross every year now as an agency that what clients pay us. And it’s been a good ride. So I accomplished my mission.

Lee Kantor: So do you still have brands that you’re selling yourself?

Steven Pope: I do. I grew a brand called Age of Sage. Uh, you know, selling some soaps. Uh, we have a brand called Whole State that sold holsters. We’re a manufactured holsters from scratch over in the Carolinas. Uh, some things went well. Other things were a disaster. And, uh, turns out nobody wants to buy an American made holster when they can buy the Chinese version for half the cost.

Lee Kantor: So, um, but you’re still keep kind of, uh, a toe in that water just to keep fresh or to try your own things, uh, on behalf of your clients? Or is now the majority of your work helping other people be successful on Amazon?

Steven Pope: So I did sell one of my brands so I could go back and focus on my agency, and I ended up losing a quarter million dollars in stock or inventory. And, you know, a lot of people, if you go on YouTube right now and you listen to some gurus about selling on Amazon, they make it out to be this easy thing. Oh, it’s passive income and it’s so easy. All you gotta do is follow my course and buying my course for $1,000 or whatever it might be. And I have kind of an opposite experience where I think it’s incredibly difficult. And, and sometimes you need an expert to help you along the way. And obviously I’m biased to say that, but, uh, it’s it’s been the biggest wealth transfer in my lifetime. It’s it’s made me a millionaire. And I’m open about how how it’s helped me and selling on the platform. And you know, we felt, you know, thousands of other brands do the same thing, but it’s but it’s extraordinarily difficult. You have the Chinese hitting you from the left, and they’re lowering their prices and making margins difficult. You have aggregators hitting you from the right, where they ingested $7 billion into the space in the last three years, buying up brands and making it more complex because they’re adding techniques, they’re adding tech, they’re adding AI. And then from so you’re getting hit from the right, from aggregators, and then you’re getting hit from the top, from Amazon, because they’re making it harder to sell on the platform. They’re adding regulation, they’re adding fees just if you have low inventory. So there’s a lot of complex dynamics going on in the Amazon. Seller is squished from every side in a box right now. But you know, at the end of the day, the consumers that get those brown boxes shipped to their their house and you got prime. Now, you don’t even have to wait a full day to get a shipment and get a box. I got to say, it’s a great consumer experience, but the seller gets the shaft in many instances.

Lee Kantor: So now is there kind of a. A type of seller that, um, that this works best for. Or is this something that, like you said, you started? Hey, I got this idea, and I’m going to be this guy, and I’m. I can do this out of my garage. Like, is that really a path for somebody that doesn’t have, you know, the resources you described? Or is it now kind of matured to a point where, look, if you don’t have, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in this venture, it’s going to be difficult for you to be successful.

Steven Pope: It’s going to be a mixed bag answer here. So what’s what I love about Amazon is that if you have 4 or 5 $6,000 to set aside, you wouldn’t lose your shirt. You could still pay rent if you lost it. That’s enough to get started. Uh, a lot of people will start with certain models, like retail arbitrage. You’re going over to the toys R us when they go out of business and buying some stock and then, you know, reselling it on the platform. Um, I specialize in private label, and that’s where you make a brand, and it’s very possible for somebody to do it out of their garage, do it out of their closet, whatnot. Um, that’s how I started. And you’ll you’ll find thousands of those stories online. It’s harder today than it was five, six years ago. You know, I was in the beta program for advertising on Amazon, and I was getting PPC clicks in position one for $0.02 a click. And that’s unheard of today, where, you know, if you sell a supplement, you’re paying $5 a click. The nice thing about Amazon is that the average conversion rate is 10%. So one out of ten people that go to your listing is going to buy.

Steven Pope: That’s an incredibly high conversion rate. Compare that to a Shopify or any sort of web store where their average conversion rate is closer to 1%. So Amazon has solved a lot of problems, which makes it easier for you as a marketer or as a product. Sourcer to to have a chance at, at, at launching a product or launching a brand on Amazon. That’s why you hear of the concept native born Amazon brands. You won’t ever hear that about Walmart, right? Because Walmart’s not really a marketplace. It’s a retailer that’s kind of allows you to sell on their platform, but they still cheat the in retail products. On the top of the search results, Amazon is very much a fair, open marketplace. It may not feel like that at some times with some of the policies, but in reality it is because you can launch something and know within six weeks and you could have 40 $50,000 in monthly sales within, you know, a couple of months. It’s not guaranteed. It’s an investment, but it’s possible. And you can’t say that about any other platform in the United States today.

Lee Kantor: Now. Um, like in in any marketplace, you’re kind of beholden to the marketplace like you. These are your customers. They’re Amazon’s customers. Is is part of your strategy to help these, um, brands get the business out of the platform and, and into the lease their database so they can market to them without having to pay. Because like any, any marketplace, when you have, um, you’re the place where business gets done, then you control who is seen first, and then it becomes a lot of times a place where, oh, you want to be first you have to pay, and then you’re ending up paying the marketplace to be seen. Whereas at the beginning, like you said, it was $0.02 a click to be seen. And now it’s, you know, whatever, five, $10 a click depending on what the product is. So now you have to pay a more and more money. Like that number is not getting less. It’s only going to get higher.

Steven Pope: Amazon is about a one third partner. So if you sold an item for $100 on Amazon, they’re going to take $33 of that, give or take. And it’s a 15% referral fee right off the top. After that you’ve got logistics and advertising. And that usually comes out to be right around 33% depending on the category. It can go up or down a couple of points. Uh, is there incentive to go off the Amazon platform? I think there could be a case to be made about that, I think I think you’d hear arguments for both sides, but why would you want to send the consumer to your 1% converting Shopify account when you get 10% conversion on Amazon is generally the default position that I hold. Uh, yes. You don’t get control of the customers. That’s a downside, and it’s a pretty major one. But there really isn’t any incentive to try and collect that data. Amazon is basically encrypting that data now. You can’t even send email messages without getting in trouble unless it’s about a shipment, so you can’t market them at all. That’s a fact. But the nice thing about Amazon, though, is you can acquire new customers and the lifetime value is still very apparent. So they have a program called Subscribe and Save. Well, if you’ve got a supplement that you sell and maybe it costs you more than the product to acquire the customer, but they hit that subscribe and save button and then all of a sudden your lifetime value of that customer is five x or ten x. That’s where people are making their money. And and so subscribe and save program. That’s very common for for customers. They’re they’re acquainted to it. There’s a 10% conversion rate on the Amazon platform. When you add all those things up. A lot of brands that I work with, out of the 400 brands I work with, at least 300 of them only sell on Amazon or have 95% only sells on Amazon. So. So a lot of Amazon native born brands don’t have to go anywhere else to have enough to run their entire company.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that, um, you know, the end customer is Amazon’s customer. It’s not your customer. Um, I don’t know if this is true. Maybe this is one of the myths, but if something is being successful, I’ve heard that Amazon has all the data and says, oh, that brand is is killing it. Why don’t we have an Amazon Basics brand of that? And then we take all this market research on the back of all these people who have products out here, and then they say, okay, let’s us handpick and manufacture just this thing because we know that it’s working in the marketplace because we have all the data.

Steven Pope: So the FTC is actually suing Amazon for literally doing exactly that. Um, it’s kind of a farce of a lawsuit, in my opinion. Uh, I don’t think anything meaningful will come from that, but I do think that Amazon will give us a sacrificial lamb, so to speak, where they’ll be like, oh, we’ll cut out some of our private label brands we’re losing money on anyway. Uh, and they’ll sacrifice them. But at the end of the day, uh, Amazon did do some corrupt things. Uh, we I’ve heard the personal stories. I’ve met the people that have gone through it where where they own where a brand would own the manufacturing facility in China. And the only information about that manufacturing facility was because they submitted a CoA document, certificate of analysis document, um, into Amazon and Amazon, reverse engineered it, and then called the manufacturer to try and cut them out. So I’ve seen the stories, I’ve talked to the brands that have experienced it. Uh, yes. Amazon has a problem. Uh, there’s there’s a culture of corruption with the monopoly. And this is inevitable with any monopoly ever. Uh, but but overall, it’s also, you know, while it is the elephant in the room that we all have to talk about, and it’s a nice big, fluffy pink elephant, it’s also the elephant you have to work with. Right. And so, uh, there’s things you can do to try and protect yourself. But but really, you could be ripped off by the Chinese just as easily as you could be ripped off by Amazon. And so you just have to build a really powerful brand. You just have to focus on your marketing and your customer delivery, and that’s what can protect you from some of that corruption.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, do you mind doing some kind of on air consulting? I’ll give you a product, and then you tell me what you think. Um, so a friend of mine is, um, got into the Amazon business. This true story. He developed a product, and it’s called firewater. And it’s a tea that has, like, cayenne pepper in the tea. And it started out as a gargle. Now it’s a tea. And he’s been on Amazon and he’s just a guy. You know, he is an experienced uh like you in, in the platform. But he, he’s just went through the process I guess like you were at the beginning and he’s getting some traction. But it’s not he’s not he doesn’t have escape velocity. What would you do if you were him to achieve escape velocity?

Steven Pope: So the price of his item. I just looked it up on Amazon. So he’s selling it for about $8. It’s firewater for a sore throat. I think he has a challenge brand name because when you type in firewater what comes up is fire extinguisher products. And so he’s made a unique, uh, brand name position. Uh, that will be challenging for search engine competition. Uh, so that’s a challenge. Uh, I see that he’s built a brand store. He’s got some mild A+ content, but a lot of the optimization techniques that I preach haven’t been done yet. So there’s no humanization. There’s not a single picture of a human anywhere on his listing. Uh, there. There’s not a video. Uh, he doesn’t have 500 words of copy in his A-plus content. He doesn’t tell his brand story. And and so if I were to order this right now, there’s no subscriber. Well, actually, actually, there is. Subscribe and save. So that’s good. So that one’s enabled. Um, but he probably needs to fund it a little bit. So instead of it being like the standard 5%, subscribe and save might need to go to 10 or 15% to try and incentivize that. Uh, he’s only selling 20 statutes, is what he’s calling them. Um, and I would probably try and create a bulk box deal and offer a further discount to try and increase that AOV.

Steven Pope: I would add a video of somebody stirring the tea and maybe making some jokes about how how his throat’s on fire or how it makes the throat feel better after, you know, whatever, you know, it’s firewater. You got to make some jokes here. But there’s really like this one very much needs the dude wipes treatment to to go viral. Right. Like make it funny. Have a TikTok video where somebody’s drinking firewater and it’s all of a sudden it’s the 15 year old Cinnamon Channel challenge again in the kitchen. Um, so there’s a lot of things that could be done to take this brand. But, you know, with a 3.9 star, uh, review brand, it’s it’s polarizing. Right? There’s 50 reviews average 3.9 star. And because it’s polarizing, I think he’s going to have to embrace that. Right. So if you look down at the reviews, what are people saying. And the people that don’t like it make fun of it. Right. The people that do like it, why do they like it? And using the language that the consumer speaks. So I’m just looking at a random review here from from Rebecca, who was a vine reviewer, which I wouldn’t recommend doing. Vine review, by the way, um says smells Great gave it a three star review, unsure of its reliability.

Steven Pope: Right. And so having to come speak to that reliability and explain why it is what it is. And the tea is a light yellow green color and it smells delicious. However, even after six minutes, the tea doesn’t have an abundance of flavor that I would imagine with all the bold ingredients listed. And so there could be, uh, some product best practice use instructions that need to be included or or explaining that another person writes a two star review. Okay, this doesn’t have much flavor besides spice. A few members of our household tried it and agreed. We all also agreed it didn’t help with the sore throat. So there’s there’s some challenges where people have expectations versus the delivery of the product. Um, and even another person wrote one star weak flavor. So there’s probably some really big branding emphasis, but also some general best practices the listing needs to do to kind of collect its demographic. Right. There’s no customer avatar to say, like, yeah, this is the perfect customer. So for example, if I was selling a Russian mail order bride right now, my perfect customer would be a three time divorced truck driver. I don’t know what the equivalent is for a firewater sore throat tea, but we need to identify that and it needs to be present on the listing to get that velocity.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody if he wanted to work with you or your firm, like what does it take to get into the queue to get your team helping.

Steven Pope: I love the fact I get to pitch myself, but it feels weird. My Amazon geek.com anybody can come over. And by the way, you can. There’s a bunch of free content I put out there on YouTube, and my LinkedIn guys are welcome to follow me. Um, a lot of times when I work with somebody, they’ve watched 20 of my videos. We get on a phone call together and they’re like, yeah, I want exactly that. Just give me that. And I say, cool, no problem. And then I give them what they ask for. Um, but we do have some a la carte options. You know, if somebody wants to get a coaching call or they just want to get a specific design made, we’re happy to help a customer anywhere we go. Um, we even filed trademarks, basically, kind of the concept as an entrepreneur is I like to never lose a customer, and I like to give customers exactly what they need. And so I’ve built my entire business to do that. Uh, and, and I like to joke. I’m an education company that happens to be an agency, and that’s done well for me. It’s made me a lot of money. And not everybody that, you know, watches my, my content will become a customer. But if 1% of them do and I have 5 million people watch my content, I’ve got a lot of customers and I’m pretty happy with that.

Lee Kantor: And then what’s a reasonable expectation like how quickly if something works, is it something like it flips a switch and it works, or is it something that has to slowly build over time?

Steven Pope: Certain elements are flip switch. So for example, if you switch your main image on Amazon, you’ll see the sales impact within the first 5 to 7 days. Other things like search engine optimization could take three months plus because you’re jockeying for competitive position. But the nice thing about SEO long term investment, it doesn’t cost a whole lot and it pays dividends for years. Other things like PPC somewhere in between, maybe like 2 to 4 week turnaround on on advertising. Sometimes it could be a little bit faster, sometimes it’s harder depending on what level somebody’s at today. Um, but but there are elements of short term wins, long term gains and just depends on what the goals of, of the brand are and what you’re trying to do.

Lee Kantor: Now, is it something that like you can tell like, okay, this is not going to work, or is it something like, well, it may work. Let’s just keep throwing money at it and we’ll see. We can turn it around.

Steven Pope: So so here’s the best part about this is that even though I’ve done this thousands of times, I’ve worked with thousands of brands. I personally have some preferences. Like I love working in kitchen, I love working in home goods and obviously this tea would would be right up my alley way. But there are a lot of products that I think will work and fall flat, and there’s a lot of products I’m like, oh, this is a slam dunk and we can’t do jack for and and so I have I’ve got enough road rash to know that my, my best practices will work 75% of the time, but one out of four products will not. And and and it’s been very interesting to find out. Like, I’m not as good at guessing as I thought I am, even though I’m an Amazon expert. So the reason I share that is because you really can’t get a gauge on whether it’s going to work without going through the motions. And even if you have the perfect data set, the simple form of action in business is more important than having it perfect. So for the people that are listening to this that are high detail perfectionists, you’re not going to like that answer. And I totally understand. Um, but for the guys that are more big picture and they just they, they’re high drive and they love winning, Amazon is an easy platform for you to work on because you get fast results. So if you if you embrace that hummingbird methodology where you flap your wings really fast, you don’t need to measure twice and cut once, you just go from from nectar to nectar and you move really fast at agility is rewarded on this platform. So making a lot of micro adjustments adds up really fast.

Lee Kantor: So now when, um, when a process like yours that requires a lot of tweaking and a lot of iterating, is that something you do or is that something that your client does?

Steven Pope: So we’re full service. We do everything, um, everything from SEO, PPC, design, catalog work, a lot of people who are buyers on Amazon and then become a seller are usually, uh, thrown off by how much catalog work there is. Uh, and troubleshooting, like, your listing will just be yanked off the platform one day and Amazon’s a shoot first, ask questions later type of platform and it takes them, you know, weeks to get it back up. And and we see that on like a by the hour process on our side with with the amount of clients we work with. So we’re always constantly reinstating listings and troubleshooting and all those challenges. Um, the one thing that you can count on when, when selling on Amazon is that it’s going to be, uh, never ending changes. And, and you need to always be optimizing. So it’s kind of circular logic and all ships rise together at the same time. So if if you focus on one key element, you can see some improvements, but you’re going to have to come back to that key element later. So if you set your title on Amazon and then never change it for five years, that’s not good. If you set your price, but never move the price up or down and it’s static, that’s not good. You have to consistently come back and back again and rotate all of the copy, rotate all the keywords, rotate the PPC, rotate the imagery, and and for whatever reason, we find that Amazon rewards that dynamic approach. And it’s important to always be optimizing.

Lee Kantor: And when you say always is that daily? Weekly? Monthly?

Steven Pope: Yeah. It depends. It depends on which thing we’re talking. So something like search terms optimization somewhere between a month to three month rotations, something with with pricing. You know, if you’re exiting a high season you probably need to lower your prices prices shortly thereafter. So some things are timing dependent and goal dependent. Right. So if if we ask a brand like on a scale of 1 to 10, one being profit, the cost of growth ten being growth at the cost of profit, what’s your number. And they say I’m a ten. And I’ll be like cool, let’s lower your price. Spend $100,000 on ads and let’s go. Right. But if somebody said I’m a I’m a five, then a measured approach, okay, so we need to grow and be profitable at the same time. Very, very difficult to do that. Um, then we’re going to take a very different approach. So depending on the goal the outcome can be affected.

Lee Kantor: So um, who was your ideal client? I know that you say you have, um, hundreds of clients or hundreds of brands you represent. Is that is it the brand that’s spending $1,000 a month on ads, $1 million a month on ads, like, who is your. What’s your sweet spot?

Steven Pope: So the small mom and pop business owners are my favorite. If I had to tell the truth, uh, and it’s the people who are really good at sourcing but may not have a marketing background. So. So I’ll give you a couple examples. So I worked with a guy who made license plate, um, holders. And, and I also worked with a guy that did aftermarket Harley-Davidson motorcycle bars. And these guys were already, you know, doing somewhere between, you know, 20 and $100,000 a month. I would come in and blow them up in 90 days and double them because their product was good, but they didn’t have lifestyle imagery. They didn’t have the demographics showing up. They didn’t identify their customer avatar. They didn’t run ads at all. Uh, they didn’t have all of the, the the nice nifty a plus content enhanced brand content designs on the listing. And so when we come in and take somebody from a good product with no marketing to some marketing, the results are instantaneous. It. I obviously do want to go upstream and work with the enterprise brands. Um, but they’re a lot harder. It’s like way harder to go from good to great, which, by the way, from Good to Great is a great book in the business world.

Steven Pope: But it’s it’s more challenging. So that’s why I like to say, you know, working with the small mom and pop businesses, um, it’s more rewarding. They typically have never worked with an agency before. And so having a good experience with your first agency and setting them up right to begin with is pretty rare, uh, because there’s just so many people out there that that help with Amazon. There’s a ton of boutiques, uh, you know, one man bands and consultants and all that, but everybody specializes in something else. And, uh, and so you never know, you know, what you’re going to get. But but I just, I so fun to just see the, the look in somebody’s eye when you come in and double their business and, you know, their relationship dynamic is just so rewarding when you when you help somebody. I don’t say babies, but I do make livelihoods and and that’s and they have families. Right. And a job is temporary. You know, you might have 20 jobs in your lifetime, but families are forever. And if we can help somebody build their family business up, there’s just nothing better than that.

Lee Kantor: Now, when someone’s marketing their brand, is it best to just stay within the Amazon ecosystem or is it should you be, you know, running ads on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or other platforms?

Steven Pope: There’s no wrong answer to that question. I’m going to be biased and say, stick to Amazon because I’m my Amazon guy. But what I would say is it’s just simply more cost effective to stay within the Amazon ecosystem. There’s less complexity. That’s where half the economy is. Uh, they’re like 80% of the households in the United States are prime members, which is an absurd stat. You can’t say the same about any other membership program in the States as it relates to e-commerce. And so you could put the same amount of effort into another platform like Walmart and get 1/100 result. If you could do the same thing with eBay or Etsy or Target or some other platform or Shopify. And so for for the best, bang for the buck, there’s no question Amazon is the place to be, no matter what size you are today.

Lee Kantor: So somebody again wants to learn more. Um, you know, check out your videos, uh, hire you. What’s the website again?

Steven Pope: My Amazon guide.com. And we do have a lot of, you know, try before you buy content so you guys can check it out if you’re interested. Uh, we look forward to serving you.

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

Steven Pope: Thank you so much.

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

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Lauren Fernandez With Full Course, LLC

by

Lauren Fernandez is the CEO and Founder of Full Course, a restaurant development and investment firm which incubates and accelerates emerging fast casual restaurant brands.

Full Course guides restaurant owners through a process of optimization, strategic growth planning and development, and supports investment for rapid expansion.

Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Full Course
  • The challenges and benefits of starting in Atlanta
  • Advice to restaurant owners who dream of taking their brand national

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor. Here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Lauren Fernandez with Full Course. Welcome.

Lauren Fernandez: Thank you so much for having me.

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

Lauren Fernandez: Full course is the restaurant industry first and only incubator, accelerator and investor in early stage, fast casual restaurant brands. We partner, usually with founders, to help their brands grow rapidly with non-dilutive growth capital, operational support, mentorship and development expertise.

Lee Kantor: Now I’ve seen an interview, quite a few people in the startup community, and there’s been incubators and accelerators and a variety of industries. Why do you think that the the food industry has been kind of slow to move in this space and allow you to be kind of an innovator?

Lauren Fernandez: You know, I, I think that’s a wonderful question. I indeed spent most of 2019 trying to answer that question myself. And from my own experience as a multi-unit franchisee and the chicken salad chick system, looking at that founder’s journey and seeing some of it, and also my own journey as a co-founder and, you know, growth accelerator within that brand, we saw a few things that just didn’t add up. You know, there’s a lot of capital that comes into the restaurant industry, but it tends to be kind of stuck at a lower to middle market private equity level, where deal values are north of, let’s say, 40 million. The next available capital to you, if you’re an independent restaurant owner is probably either self sourced, but you’re going to friends and family, you’re crowdfunding or an angel investor. So with glaringly obvious to me is where’s the venture capital? Right? You might be asking yourself the same question. The reason that venture capital is missing from this part of the industry, and although by extension, incubator and accelerator opportunities is simply put, you need operations and development expertise and a very hands on attitude as an investor to be able to invest at this stage. If you can pull that off, the returns are amazing. We see brands jump from about a one and a half to two, turn on EBITDA all the way up to ten. If we can bridge this gap successfully and get them to scale.

Lee Kantor: So when you said, okay, I’m going to be the solution to this problem, I see. I see there’s a lot of opportunity. How did you go about kind of identifying who would be that, you know, kind of these first guinea pig like, uh, investments to make.

Lauren Fernandez: With a lot of very careful thought and deliberation. So first, we defined who this solution needed to be for. 70% of all restaurants in the United States are a single unit location. They are overwhelmingly independent as opposed to chain. Indeed, the industry as a whole is independent to chain ratio is 2 to 1. And so when you’re thinking about those founders that you want to invest in, one of the things to understand is that of those 700,000 restaurants, first of all, not all of those founders want to grow. They’re very comfortable where they’re at. That’s fine. But what also happened in that segment is it’s remarkably an overwhelmingly where all of the diversity of faith is and flavors are in our country. So the restaurant that you go out to eat at that are a single unit, tend to be more culturally representative. They are more likely to be run by a woman, a minority, an immigrant, a veteran, any sort of underrepresented entrepreneur. Right. And so when I formed this company, it was with the purpose of approaching those founders and saying, can we come along with you and partner with you on this journey? And we knew we wanted to be in the fast casual segment as compared to the restaurant industry as a whole.

Lauren Fernandez: That segment is remarkably resilient when it comes to economic contraction. So when we see consumers changing their behavior patterns on what they’re consuming away from home, fast casual is fairly resilient. And as a segment in the restaurant industry, is slated to grow 11% a year over the next five years. Now, when we think about investment in this space, for us in particular, we’re really looking for founders who represent our values and who are able to really be seen as the next generation of leadership in this industry. And as such, the first two investments we made, I think, are really well representative of individuals that we feel will be the next generation in this industry and help take us forward. Um, you know, for me, I look at brands that are not just restaurants already, obviously, but we also invest in food brands that can become a restaurant. So our first two investments in both flippers and in nonstop represent those two styles of investments, I think, very well. And the new investments will be announcing later this year. I think we’ll also equally represent this point of view.

Lee Kantor: Now, is Atlanta kind of a really good place to start because there are so many franchise owners here and there are so many brands and there’s so much talent already inside kind of that ecosystem.

Lauren Fernandez: I love Atlanta for this company and we thought long and hard about it. I, um, have lived here for over 22 years. I’m very familiar with the industry, both on the food manufacturing and development side and also on the restaurant side. And what I will tell you is you are dead on. This is an enormously rich talent pool here in Atlanta. We have a bit of an uncredited and understated food scene, which is now getting a little bit of traction thanks to Michelin stars popping up here and there in our neighborhood. Um, but I think we we do look nationwide for investments. I do like Atlanta for its positioning, not only on the East Coast, where I think we have a lot of work to do and the type of investments that we make, but it’s also a very target rich environment, not just in talent but also in restaurant brands.

Lee Kantor: Now, how does an area in Atlanta like Buford Highway fit into this?

Lauren Fernandez: That’s my favorite place to go for lunch. Well, you know, it’s it’s it’s just such a wonderful example of what we all know to be true, which is the gem. Little restaurants are usually family owned and operated that are culturally representative, tend to shine out like stars. And if you are in the know in any market, whether it’s Atlanta, Birmingham, you know, Charlotte, Chattanooga, you know, that amazing dim sum place, you know, that amazing Filipino joint. And it’s what we’re here to do is to take those one off and really make them something that is approachable for Americans at scale. Because we live in larger cities, we get, I think, better representation of some of those cultural brands, and they should be available to Americans nationwide. Because guess what? That’s actually what Americans do want to eat, though it’s not just the right thing to do philosophically to level the playing field and give those founders investment support and growth opportunities. But it’s also just good business.

Lee Kantor: Now. I mean, I’m with you 100%, and I’m kind of shocked that this hasn’t been done before because I’m a bit of both. I’m a bit of a foodie, and some of the things that I do around town, um, you know, I’ll go to a place and I’ll be like, like, for example, a ban me place and, you know, Ban Me is a sandwich shop, right? Like in, in essence. And, um, but a lot of people aren’t familiar with the ban me and on Buford Highway you can get a ban me for like 4 or $5 and, uh, you know, that’s an affordable meal for pretty much anybody. And it’s lower than a lot of the chain. The hamburger sandwich places out there. And it’s just there’s kind of a lack of awareness as that, as even a choice.

Lauren Fernandez: And I would, I would say lack of awareness and accessibility. So one of the reasons that Americans in particular, as opposed to other countries, gravitate toward chain restaurants and look at it as a solution, is not just affordability, but it’s also accessibility. Right? There’s some serious density in the availability of those restaurants, and we can just point to chick fil A as a great example of that. But there are plenty of others right behind them. Certain types of restaurants which we would commonly call quick service or QSR restaurants, you know, their play is volume, right? And so the cost of the food is lower. But one of the things that happens when you migrate into the fast casual or limited service space is the food quality tends to go up and you can maintain decent price control. So you’re still capturing some of that quick service buyer and that customer, but you’re also just stapled really well into this, you know, clearly delineated space of premium food at a reasonable and affordable price. That value play that exists for fast casual is why one of the reasons why fast casual absolutely wins when consumers are clutching their wallets a little tighter. I would submit to you that a lot of the culturally representative brands in particular, have really great food control and cost, and so they actually are built for scale in ways most people haven’t even thought of, especially when you consider that some of the items on that menu might be able to benefit from manufacturing. Like maybe we could take the dough for the bon me and have it pre-mixed so that when it arrives at a restaurant, it’s much easier to actually make the dough fresh every day. So we look for a lot of efficiencies in these menus, not only in where the food is sourced from and making sure that it stays culturally representative, but also what can we do with our expertise to help streamline operations and make the business more efficient to maintain that value? Price point to the consumer.

Lee Kantor: Now, is our food trucks or these, um, restaurants that are in like storage containers? Is that part of, um, some of the innovation that you’re seeing as going forward, as a way to kind of have an easier, lower cost entry into a market?

Lauren Fernandez: Actually, you know what’s going on. The reason you’re probably seeing more food products and modular builds that may or may not be like, for example, in a shipping container, if there is a serious lack of available restaurant real estate right now, it is just a result of construction, um, shortages during the pandemic. And we’re seeing the effects of it. Right now. We are at one of the lowest recorded vacancy rates for available restaurant space in recorded history. It’s below 4%. So what’s happening is a lot of brands that are looking for an overall total occupancy cost of about 10% of their sales really cannot afford rents that are over 50, 60, $70 a square foot. So be that as it may, we’re having to innovate quite a bit around where we put brands and how we grow them. For us as investors, it’s one of the primary reasons we focus on what is called an omnichannel development strategy. So we, yes, are building company stores that we own and operate as restaurants. We are also franchising and helping our franchisees pick real estate, but we also develop products that can generate revenue for the company. We also do licensing deals into airports, stadiums, arenas, etc. so we have a number of places we can grow brands and their revenues when economically the real estate is a bit of an issue, which it very much is right now. Um, we do look at modular. We like our licensing deals as well that we can move forward on, because those are usually fixed real estate decisions that exist inside of a stadium, a hospital, a college or a university, for example. And, you know, I think you just got to get creative. We’ve looked at some spaces and said, can we split this in half and and lease it separately to two of our brands? You know, we’re we’re doing everything we can to make it happen up to and including actually making investments in real estate ourselves.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it comes to, um, you know, being part of this, if I’m a restaurateur and I have that kind of one off and I’m, I’m successful, how do I, um, kind of plug into your ecosystem and like, how how does that work from that standpoint? Or are you the one just choosing and you’re finding these gems and then approaching them?

Lauren Fernandez: We are very fortunate that most all of the founders that we work with came to us. We are very respectful of founders who are not interested in growth and what we have found over time. Doing this nearly five years now is that we are out in the community. We are aggressively supporting the segment of the independent restaurant owner through our nonprofit, the Full Course Foundation, where we provide a number of educational and mentorship opportunities at low or no cost to anyone in the restaurant industry. From whether you’re in the dish pit, you’re a manager, or you’re a multi-unit owner. And for us, that goodwill does get our name out there. It does make people aware that we are an educator. We are operational and development consulting support. Our team has over 250 years of experience collectively in every area of restaurant growth and operation. But yeah, we’re also a very fair and equitable investor in this space. So we like to be very open door to any founder who needs support. And if that means that investment is not right for you, we can still coach. We can still consult with you on your growth. We can part you pardon you or refer you out to other debt or equity sources. And we really just want to help elevate and be a good partner to founders who are looking to grow. Because I believe that when you are that young of a brand, it only takes one misstep to cause a pretty catastrophic failure to the business. And if we can help you avoid some of those potholes, the industry as a whole will better itself by looking more representative. And to me, that is not just about the brand, but the founders who created them.

Lee Kantor: So now, can you share any advice for that restaurant owner who, you know, maybe it wasn’t top of mind, but maybe they’re getting to an age where it’s like, I’d like an exit. Or maybe there are kind of, um, bigger mountains to climb here. Um, is there any advice you would give to that person that maybe is on the fence and is is kind of weighing the options?

Lauren Fernandez: I would suggest you immediately reach out to somebody who understands and had done multiple exits and having exited a successfully a deal myself in this space as an owner, I will tell you, we were incredibly prepared for the due diligence. We were prepared for the transaction. We were prepared for the transition. It took me about, I’d say, about a year to maybe 18 months to get there before we started shopping our deal. So the first thing I will say is prepare, prepare, prepare. You will shoot yourself in the foot if you go to the table and try to negotiate from a place of of dire need of urgency because something happened to you or to the business. And so there’s a lot to do, um, that will actually probably improve your business in the interim if you can get ready. And a lot of that is typically around finance, accounting and some operations documentation. It’s achievable. You can do it on your own. I actually teach this class pretty regularly through our foundation and it’s free. So one thing I would suggest is just preparation, right? It’s just worth every penny and second of your time to be prepared. The second thing I will say is there are a number of ways to successfully exit a business and understanding what all of those options are and their relative return structures to you as a founder are very important to understand. And I don’t think, and this is just my opinion, that many founders understand what the typical valuation is on a single unit location. The person who’s going to buy that is stepping into your shoes.

Lauren Fernandez: They’re going to become an owner operator just like you were. And there’s not necessarily as much value unlocked as many owners realize. And that’s sad to me, but it’s also one of the reasons you might want to consider some short term growth as a goal before you go to exit. Um, I think which leads me to point number three is, you know, if you’ve done your homework and you kind of know that it’s coming, you got to think about what the end game looks like and sort of build your strategy to get there. A lot of times as restaurant boards, we’re just drinking from a fire hose every single day, right? And just making it happen. And we don’t think about the long run. And we are pretty opposed to building any kind of restaurant growth that does not have the end game in mind. And indeed, that’s one of the first questions we ask founders when we sit down and we design their growth plans, we say, look, where do you want to be in five years? The transaction is done. You’ve got a big pack. What does it look like for you? And when we get those answers, it tells us an awful lot about what their personal goals are. And then we peel back the layers on that, knowing that helps us build better growth plans for them and for the brand. And I think not enough can be said about knowing what you want your end game to look like and what it’s going to take to get there.

Lee Kantor: Now. Is there any resources for that? Maybe executive chef that feels like, you know, I’m a cog in someone else’s machine, and I really want to go out there and do my own thing and, you know, and maybe I hadn’t thought about, um, you know, moving in the direction you’re describing with a building, a national brand, but maybe just they thought of doing their own thing, but, uh, you know, they didn’t even consider even the possibility of doing something as to the scale you’re describing.

Lauren Fernandez: Yeah. You know, it’s not for everyone. There’s a lot of skills that you need as a chef, and that is a defined skill set. And running a business is a completely separate skill set. But if it is something that is in your dreams and you want to achieve that, one of the things that we run through our foundation is a program called launch. It is a series of courses that are designed to take you from an idea a food truck, a pop up, a catering business, something that doesn’t have a physical brick and mortar location, and to help you work through that and develop all of the pieces that you need to get to a place where you can go get the right kind of funding, which may or may not be full course. It often is other sources, but we can assist with that. And the idea is to help you avoid a lot of common mistakes. We see for the people who are opening that first location, some easy examples of those potholes, if you will, would be the wrong the wrong real estate. It’s the it’s a great menu.

Lauren Fernandez: It’s a great idea. You’re not matching the product to the consumer and where they’re at. So that’s just one example to give you, but also helping them understand the business economics of how much money they’re going to need, what how fast they’re going to consume it, how to do things on a budget. And we’ve got this great course on how to run a grand opening on ten grand. And most, most restaurateurs would want like a $50,000 budget. Of course, you can’t do that as an entrepreneur, right, unless you’ve got unlimited funding. So one of the things we are trying very hard to do through our nonprofit is to flatten that learning curve for that first time restaurateur, because, man, that learning curve is steep. I can speak from experience and that’s where the mistakes are made, right? And if you are running on a very limited capital budget, making sure that you are less likely to make those mistakes, it’s very, very helpful for them. And we do offer that at least live once a year. We also have it available for asynchronous learning through our foundation.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, connect with you or somebody on the team, you know, plug into some of these free resources or, you know, take their brand to a new level. What is the website? What is the best coordinates?

Lauren Fernandez: Yeah. Full course. Com there’s a link at the top to book a call. We’ll ask you a few questions about where you’re at in your journey, whether you are a vendor supplier. Excuse me, a an investor, a potential restaurateur of the future or a current restaurant owner operator, we’re able to ask a few questions and understand what your needs are, and it links you over to our calendar to book a call with our team directly. And what most people don’t understand is it’s our team that are talking to you live, so no one’s guaranteed you’re going to get an industry expert when you go and book that call, whether you like it or not. And we want to talk to you. This is what we do. So do reach out. We’re at full course. Com and on most forms of social media as a full course official.

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

Lauren Fernandez: Thank you so much for having me. I do appreciate the opportunity.

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

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