Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Dr. Joseph Pecoraro With Your Vibrant Life Now and Hearts Afire

October 1, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Dr. Joseph Pecoraro With Your Vibrant Life Now and Hearts Afire

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Dr. Joe Pecoraro is known throughout the world as “Dr. Joe.” He earned a BA in zoology, followed by an MD degree from the University of South Florida, and is board certified by the American Board of Surgery. While practicing general and vascular surgery, his articles appeared in numerous surgical publications.

Dr. Joe is a devoted husband, father, entrepreneur, and Christian leader. Both his interest in science and his desire to help relieve the suffering of people compelled him to become a surgeon.

Currently, Dr. Joe and his wife Rhonda are entrepreneurs, helping thousands of people to achieve both physical and financial health in their lives. He personally has lost more than 120 lbs and has maintained his current weight for 15+ years. As a Certified Health Coach, he mentors other coaches and this mode of business gives him the opportunity, in his “downtime,” for exercising, hiking mountains, and reading. He roasts his own coffee from organic beans that he obtains from the countries to which he travels with Hearts Afire.

His humanitarian drive expanded to the mission field and led him to become one of the three co-founders of Hearts Afire, Inc. Presently, he serves as a working CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board for Hearts Afire. On his first mission trip, Dr. Joe saw the hopelessness in the eyes of the people and realized that inspired by the compassion of God, he had the opportunity to help restore hope, both spiritually and through physical healing.

Tireless, visionary, and casual but focused, Dr. Joe is known everywhere as someone “who gets things done.” He has not only been the directing force on the fifty+ mission trips which he has led, but his cultural awareness brings comfort to the leaders in the nations in which Hearts Afire serves.

He is an author of Serving with Hearts Afire, has preached in nine different countries on four continents and has provided medical education in three countries. Most recently he’s been the driving force in building a hospital in a remote area of Kenya.

Connect with Dr. Joe on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Health Coaching
Hearts Afire

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Dr. Joe Pecoraro with your vibrant life now and hearts Afire. Welcome, Dr. Joe.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:00:47] Hey, thanks so much. Glad to be on Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:49] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:00:54] Well, my practice is is long gone. I am a vascular and general surgeon by trade, but approximately 16 years ago, when I discovered a health program that empowered me to be able to lose one hundred and twenty pounds, my wife 20, it made life so much easier. And as our income began to grow, we really shifted our attention to health coaching full time. So now my wife and I worked full time as health coaches from home and business coaches. And it’s it’s a great life. It’s so much different than having surgery. Control your time and your income and so much third party payor control over your life.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] Now, was that a difficult transition since you know you invest so much time in becoming a doctor and surgeon to make that shift away from, I guess, kind of the the flywheel of medicine to the flywheel of coaching.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:02:04] I think the most difficult part was releasing my identity from my identity, being my profession to my identity, really being me. And when I began to also recognize that not everyone needs it needs surgery, but certainly at least ninety five percent of people in this country, and I would guess even higher around the world are looking for more income, and at least two thirds of our population is in need of better health. I realize that changing direction in life isn’t such a tragic thing as long as you’re still doing something of value and you’re adding value to others.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:46] So now when you kind of had that mindset shift, was that freeing or were you nervous? Like, like, what was it kind of like to go from? You know, you were probably part of a larger, much larger organization that was more complex to what you have now.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:03:03] Yeah, and all change is different and. I don’t know if I could say that it was necessarily difficult because some people don’t embrace change, but I have always embraced change. So for my wife, Rhonda and I, it was it was very exciting because we were looking at new and different adventures and most importantly, as the awareness of how valuable time is in our lives becomes. I begin to realize that you can always make more money, but you can never make more time. And what coaching did was it gave us the time freedom to be able to not necessarily make more time, but to be able to control the time that we do have.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:55] Now how has it kind of changed you in terms of how you relate to an individual client now?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:04:03] Well, I started out. Let’s look at where I was first is I was overworked and in a very changing environment that was controlling my income. And even though I had a high income with no control of time, physically, I was a mess. I was 120 pounds overweight. On couldn’t really get sleep, because when the alarm goes off in the middle of the night for a surgical emergency, you’re expected to be 100 percent on your game immediately. Whereas I was thinking the other day as I haven’t woken up to an alarm in close to 10 years, and that’s really a nice way to live. And when you realize that you’re doing well by helping other people do good things in their lives and improve their health and improve their finances and relieve them from stress and help them have an opportunity to work from anywhere. It’s it is liberating in the sense that you you always want to be able to do for other people what you can do for yourselves. And as we also have a nonprofit which we’ll talk about in a minute. But the issue is that the best way for me to explain it is that when I took my children fishing for the first time and they caught the fish, I was excited for them. I didn’t think to myself, Wow, I wanted to catch that fish because there’s so much value in helping other people be able to do for themselves. And that’s what coaching has done. I couldn’t do that in surgery. All I could do is remove body parts and help keep people alive longer. Whereas now what we’re doing is we’re giving people an opportunity to live a more abundant life and a healthier.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:01] So now when people are coming to you, what kind of state are they in?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:06:08] There’s the full spectrum, there’s people that are entrepreneurs that are just looking for an ideal business with a low investment. There’s people who are morbidly obese like I was, and they’re just looking to get healthy. There’s people that are looking for both. There’s women who are in the perimenopausal age that just need to lose about 10 or 20 pounds, but it’s been difficult for them to shake it. There’s people like I was who are on the roller coaster of gain weight, lose weight and don’t really have the tools like we do with a multi-pronged approach to be able to give people the opportunity to have lifelong transformation.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:50] So now just walk me through what it’s like that first conversation when someone reaches out to you or your team.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:06:58] And it’s it’s always interesting because people are thinking that we’re going to start them on a diet, and one of the first things I really try and help people understand is that if they’re thinking diet, which has a beginning and an end, and I tell them, think about what the first three letters in diet are die, that’s what most people feel like. I say that’s not us at all. So let’s find out what your health goals are. Let’s find out what you want to accomplish. And then we’ll share how our program works and see if it’s a fit. So we want to find out how people sleep. We want to find out what their daily activity is like, what their eating habits are like. Because what we’re going to do is we’re going to put together a program for them where while it will have a personalized nutritional plan, it also will address the issue of being in a healthy community that we can plug them into. It will address the issue of helping them learn how to change their habits. And it’ll give them a personal health coach to guide them through the process.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:07] So now, once they start and they get this kind of intellectual knowledge, is it that simple that once I know this, then I do. This isn’t the hard part, kind of the day to day sticking to it, part the support and accountability part.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:08:22] It is. And first and foremost, people need to be ready because timing is so critical. When I first got started, like I said, I was up and down my entire life. And then when I when I realized that it was impairing my opportunity to do mission work, my mindset was shifted in such a way that. If I saw something that was going to work and was going to help me full time, I was ready. But the value of the health coach is this the health coach doesn’t drive the car for you. What they do is they’re sitting in the passenger seat and they’re helping you by empowering you with the tools necessary for you to be able to learn how to control your own life and your own health through mindset shifts.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:13] So, but is it as simple as a mindset shift? I mean, you’re talking about I’m an intellectually by now. Most people have to understand the benefits of healthier eating, moving a little bit, you know, exercise. Don’t they know this? It’s like smoking. Like, everybody knows smoking is not good for you, but still lots of people smoke.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:09:34] Well, they do. And surprisingly, we generally encounter three different types of people, those who have tried everything and just feel like they haven’t been able to do it. And largely it’s because they don’t have the help. And I think that’s one of the big factors is the coach, because it’s always easier to change your program from day to day and to think if no one’s looking, there’s no accountability. But when you become accountable to someone else and you learn to become accountable to yourself. And in fact, many of our clients become coaches and then they’re accountable to their clients. It does change it a little bit, and there is a second subset of people that they just don’t care. They know that they’re unhealthy. They’re going to eat whatever they want, just like they’re going to smoke. They’re not even going to try and quit smoking some subset of people. But then there’s also those people that will while you and I recognize that the vast majority of people should know that eating healthy is important. A lot of people really have a skewed concept of what eating healthy really is.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:54] Now, people eat for a variety of reasons, and I would imagine if you look at the waistline that most people in America specifically, it isn’t just for fuel to get them through the day that there’s, you know, maybe some emotional components, psychological components that have to do with their eating is does. Is any of that address or is this as simple kind of mindset shift?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:11:21] Which is a yes. The mindset shift will lead people to us and we can show them the road. But what you’re talking about is is so important because, yeah, you can shift your mindset, but you still have to go through the motions. And that’s really where the coach comes in. Because oftentimes and you may have heard this phrase that people are overweight, not because of what they’re eating, but because of what’s eating their. Right, in many times that may have to do with just thinking that people don’t care and that they have no value. And so really what we also try to do is help people understand that we do care because we’ve experienced it. We have seen how other people’s lives have changed and we know how their life can change. So we do care. And oftentimes that’s enough to start moving people in the direction of. Caring more about themselves and then as they do care more about themselves and they see success, all these things more or less snowball and they develop momentum in their life in so many ways, including their personal development and being able to actually, in a sense, hold the pen that writes their health future.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:51] And then so once they’re on this kind of the healthier path, is there kind of like, is this am I like going, OK, now I need a coach for life or is it at some point, do I kind of own this? And then I get it now and then I have the priorities and I have the self-discipline, and I have that maybe greater why that is enabling me to do maybe make wiser choices on a regular basis or more often

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:13:22] I would say any and all of those. In other words, we do have people that they come to us and they get empowered and they oftentimes either don’t need us anymore or they stay connected to the community. But more loosely, we have those that say, This is so awesome. My life has changed so much. I have to pay this forward and they become coaches and they start helping other people. And then there’s those that that we stay connected with, but it’s a different relationship, much the way that when you have children, you start out doing everything for them, then you do for them only what they can’t do. Then you teach them what to do and then you watch them do it. But you’re still there for them as a consultant, as someone who cares for them, as someone, as a guide. So really, we’re there for people at whatever, whatever level of need they have.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:29] And then that at some point this kind of goes beyond the health point and then it kind of affects their finances as well.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:14:38] Well, for those who choose to pursue health coaching themselves, number one, it gives them great accountability. Number two, it allows them to work not just from home, but from anywhere in the world. I mean, sometimes I’ve made calls from the top of mountains, from the middle of the Serengeti, from out kayaking in the ocean, and people say, Well, I don’t want to work like that and I say, I just do that so that you can see that we can do it from anywhere. But to be able to control your hours is also important. To be able to empower other people is also important to be able to develop a walk away type. Income is important to not have overhead and still be able to generate whatever income you’re willing to work towards without a ceiling is something that a lot of people desire. So, yeah, we do. We we help people that are ready to change their lives. Because let’s face it, when someone starts having great results and they have high energy and they look better and they feel better, and you can tell they just have that healthy glow about them, people want to know what they’re doing. And so we offer at that time to be able to take care of their friends and family as referrals. Or we show them how to coach themselves, and there’s really great value in that as well, because then we are able to see others succeed. Oftentimes people that don’t have any other way that they can achieve the type of incomes that are available for coaches who who have good work ethics.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:24] Now does the coaching take place one on one? Is it in group form? Is it kind of on demand like on an online basis?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:16:36] Most of the time it’s a one on one basis by phone. We connect with people by text Facebook Messenger. Rarely, there’s situations like sometimes in physicians offices, they’ll do group coaching, but people tend to share better as an individual. If if, if you’re in a room with even two or three other people and they’re talking about how great they did during the week and you had a little bit of a stumble, you probably don’t want to share that. But if you know that you’re connecting with a coach who cares about you and wants to see you succeed, you might be a little bit more willing to share knowing that they’re going to help you make the adjustments necessary in order for you to be able to proceed in a more effective manner.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] Now are are the people who go through the program and decide to be coaches? Are they typically people like you, former people in medicine? Or can this be a layperson like, do you need have to have special credentials in order to do this?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:17:46] Great question, because a lot of people, a lot of times people will say to me, Well, you’re at an advantage because I’m at a physician and I say, Well, you just prove that I’m at a disadvantage because if you think you have to be a physician to do this, then that really lowers the ability for people to see that you can do it. Whereas if somebody is in construction or they’re a choir director and they have success, then you know that anyone can do it. So absolutely do not have to be a health professional. Only about 20 percent of coaches in our organization are health professionals. Most of them are people who are just passionate about health. Passionate about helping others. They want more out of life. They’re willing to do what it takes to get more out of life without sacrificing morals, without sacrificing family time and without really having to do any of the things that so often the world associates with success.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:49] Now, do you find that in general, whether it’s your health coaching or your finance coaching, whatever the coaching may be, that really in order to have that mindset shift, there has to be kind of a true north or a mission that’s worth going on.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:19:06] Always, if a person, if they don’t know where they’re going, then any road will take them there, I think that might have been one a Yogi Bear is. But yeah, they have to know what they want because otherwise what you’re doing is you’re shooting arrows at a target that doesn’t exist. So that’s part of the what we call the health assessment when we sit down with them and and we find out what it is that they really want to achieve in their health and in their life. And oftentimes it takes some introspection and it takes some thought for people to really look into that because so many people think more about their two week vacation than they do about their health and their life.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:55] Now, share a little bit about, and I’m sure this organization is important to you, the hearts of fire that I’m sure contributes to your why you wake up in the morning every day.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:20:08] Oh no question. Hearts of Fire is a nonprofit Christian organization. My wife and I and another physician are co-founders, and we’re dedicated to meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of under-resourced people worldwide. And so our our current hashtag, which is really what our goal is and it really spills over between our coaching business and our ministry or nonprofit, is that the hashtag is igniting a culture of selflessness. And so many people have heard Zig Ziglar, 101, that when you do, when you help help enough other people get what they want, you automatically get what you want and that is part of what hearts afire does. I mean, we’re out there and we’re we’re helping people with wells, sustainable projects. We built a hospital in Kenya that we’re still seeking full financing for during the pandemic. We were able to not only feed people, but we were able to help people start projects so that they can feed themselves. And this was not even a situation of teach a person to fish and they eat for a lifetime. This was more of a situation of given the fishing pole because they already know how to fish. They already want to, but they just need a little bit of a boost in resources. So we currently we’ve built wells around the world Peru, India, Swaziland, Kenya. Our current focus is Kenya, where we’re building a hospital. We’ve built schoolhouses there and in India, we’ve started a dairy project that’s self-sustaining, a poultry project, a flour mill. And all of these projects are not just to self sustain, but they’re all designed to give back as well.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:22:17] So, for instance, our dairy project provides milk for an orphanage with one hundred and eighty girls. Our poultry project teaches children in a nearby orphanage how to care for the poultry. And it also provides them the eggs and the and chicken for protein are our mill project provides flour, corn flour for widows and families at risk in the tribal Maasai area of Kenya. So our goal again, it’s it’s so parallel to what we do here in coaching in that we we really want to empower people to be able to do for themselves. But sometimes people just need a coach. They just need to know someone cares. And I don’t know who was that said, but you haven’t lived until you’ve done something for someone who can never repay you. And that really is the goal of what we do in hearts of fire as we’re not looking for accolades, we’re not looking for a pat on the back. What we’re looking to do is really follow the plan that God designed for us, which is to those who have more, they should do more. More is required of them. And if we’re given these resources, I think it’s our obligation to be able to help them to utilize those resources for other people. Because let’s face it. The view from the top of a mountain by yourself is really not the same as if it’s shared with other people. So what what value is it to put yourself on a pedestal and have people point towards you? It’s so much more rewarding to be able to see other people enriched in their lives.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:18] Now, part of the reason we do this show is for coaches to learn from each other. Do you mind sharing how you got your last client? How did the last client you got? How did they come to you?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:24:34] Right now, the most common way we get clients is either direct referrals, because so many people are so successful on our program or through social media. People see the lifestyle that we lead. They see the they see how healthy we are. And I mean, my wife and I are in our early 60s and it’s hard for a lot of people to really believe that because neither one of us. Is on medication. Neither one of us has ever been on medication and we lead an active lifestyle, and it’s easy to look at that and say I could never do that. But when they look back and see where we were at five, six and three hundred plus pounds, I was not climbing mountains. I was not in a kayak. I was not hiking or jogging. And I didn’t lose the weight because I do those things. I do those things because I lost the weight and got healthy.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:36] Good stuff. Well, if somebody wants to learn more, I have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team. What’s the best website for them to connect with you?

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:25:46] Well, they can from the ministry. They could go to WW hearts afire. That’s H.E.R. Rtx, a fiery, not US like United States for coaching. I mean, I don’t know if it’s OK for me to give my cell phone because that’s the best way for people to connect with me is nine four one seven one eight zero three four one, or they can go to Dr. Joe and Rhonda. That’s Joey and RH and A. Dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:28] Good stuff, Dr. Joe, congratulations on all the success you’re doing, important work and we appreciate you.

Dr. Joe Pecoraro: [00:26:34] Hey, thanks so much. Great talking with you today, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:36] All right. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Sheryl Guarniero With GreenHer Earth

September 30, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

GWBC Radio

Sheryl Guarniero With GreenHer Earth

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At 31, Sheryl Guarniero died and had to be revived. She’d had two grand mal seizures and went into cardiac arrest.

This unexpected and life-altering event made her evaluate what her legacy was meant to be for her lifetime.

She realized it was time to step into the big life she is meant to live. To nurture a healthy connection between business and the planet which focuses on preserving the planet, the community, and their employees all while creating a highly profitable business.

With almost 20 years of experience as an Environmental Scientist and consultant and 12 years as a business owner, Sheryl knows how to help businesses flourish in this new environmentally and socially conscious world through measuring and improving their Impacts.

Connect with Sheryl on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Reducing Your Carbon Footprint and Profiting
Embedding Sustainability Within Your Organization’s DNA
The Future of Business Within an Increasingly
Impactful & Sustainable World
Launching the Corporate Sustainability Unit
Your Organization’s Carbon Footprint
Managing Sustainability

About GWBC

The Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®) is at the forefront of redefining women business enterprises (WBEs). An increasing focus on supplier diversity means major corporations are viewing our WBEs as innovative, flexible and competitive solutions. The number of women-owned businesses is rising to reflect an increasingly diverse consumer base of women making a majority of buying decision for herself, her family and her business.

GWBC^® has partnered with dozens of major companies who are committed to providing a sustainable foundation through our guiding principles to bring education, training and the standardization of national certification to women businesses in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for GWBC Radio’s Open for Business. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business, and this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Sheryl Guarniero with GreenHer Earth. Welcome, Sheryl.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:00:31] Hi, Lee. Thank you so much for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about GreenHer Earth. How are you serving folks?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:00:39] GreenHer Earth, we are a sustainability firm. So, what we do and what that means, because sustainability has lots of definitions nowadays, is we’re working with businesses and companies to help them measure their impact on the planet and reduce their carbon footprint. And then, also, continue to improve that throughout the years and incorporate that, also weave it into what they do and how they do it, and really tell their story to the public and their employees. And if they have a board, their board.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:17] Now, how did you get into this line of work? What attracted you to sustainability?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:01:21] Well, I’ve been in the environmental industry for, gosh, just under 20 years now. Originally, when I went to college, I was like, “I want to go save all the wild animals,” and very much that conservation space. And in the real world, that’s a volunteer position, which I very much still do volunteer work. But I got into the field of environmental consulting and a lot of it, up until recently, was mostly just kind of cleaning up other people’s messes, I call it.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:01:56] You get some companies that were just irresponsible with the planet, and we’d have to come in and fix what they created a mess of. And then, while we were in there, we would start giving them tips and feedback and really helping them navigate the waters of being more proactive to prevent these messes later.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:02:19] And as time has gone on, especially within the last two to three years, a lot of attention has come forward to climate change in our carbon footprint and being more responsible human beings, and that has really turned into its own space now. And that’s when I am feeling the push and pull now of individuals who don’t even know what this means are finally recognizing its importance.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:02:45] So, now, it’s really time to let it spread its wings on its own and be what it needs to be to help them, you know, be more proactive. There’s a lot of companies now that want to be responsible and do the responsible thing ahead of time versus just let’s do what we can to make as much money and deal with the consequences later.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:03:07] So, that’s really what caused me to pivot more into this individual sustainability piece, which was always there, but it never had a name because these larger companies didn’t see a monetary value behind it. And now they do, which is a great thing for us. But that’s really how I stepped into creating this space. And now I get to really work with some amazing individuals and companies who are here to do really, really good things

Lee Kantor: [00:03:37] Now, for the listener who isn’t as familiar with these terms as you are, can you share a little bit about how sustainability is a little different than just environmentally conscious? It kind of bleeds into socially conscious. So, if I think sustainability means environmental stuff that I can in my head go, “Well, I’m not manufacturing anything. So, really, does it pertain to me?” But, to me, sustainability is not just kind of environmental and maybe just carbon footprint. If you’re a services firm, you still can have a sustainability program.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:04:19] Absolutely. Interestingly enough I like to throw in tidbits of statistics because I feel like they resonate really well with people and it’s easy to understand. So, for example, a lot of pushback I get is from firms that are remote or they’re like, “We don’t make anything, so we don’t really have any waste.” I mean, we all have waste, of course. But what I think a lot of individuals and companies even now don’t realize is the carbon footprint behind technology.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:04:53] And that just within the last year, the carbon emissions that are associated with just using computers, and technology, and social media, and using the software and such to run your company, the emissions on that was higher than the airline industry. So, there’s this level of importance across the board that we all not only pay attention to our environmental footprint, you know, what you’re throwing away, or are you recycling, and all the basics that I think many of us know already.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:05:32] But they’ve discovered and there’s been studies done by Yale and Harvard that the environmental piece, the social piece, and the environmental pieces are intricately interwoven with each other. So that you need to have both in order for them to really, truly work. You need to be taking care of your community and be taking care of the individuals that live there, whether they’re customers, clients, or employees. Because if somebody is worried about where their next meal is coming from or how they’re going to pay for their health insurance, they can’t possibly be concerned about their carbon footprint or what’s happening to the planet. And so, that’s a huge integral piece.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:06:20] I will stop there because I’m sure we’ll get into it a little bit deeper. But it’s a huge benefit to companies, to their employees, to their retention rates, to a number of things. It’s a very big money saver and money maker being holistically sustainable, as I call it.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:39] And then, especially in today’s competitive environment when it comes to attracting talent, especially if your talent is young people, if you don’t have kind of a why associated or a mission that’s worth kind of being part of, it’s going to be hard to attract young people to be your employees. So, I think sustainability is an area where a lot of organizations maybe have underinvested in terms of attracting talent. And then, if you can kind of put a good sustainability story together for your company and really walk the walk, then attracting quality talent becomes a lot easier.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:07:22] Definitely. There’s been a ton of studies done. One of the statistics that’s out there – and this one’s actually a little bit older, it’s a couple of years older, so this might have changed and become even a better number – employee retention rates on a company that focuses on their sustainability, and their mission, and their vision, and how they’re impacting the planet both environmentally and socially, they have a 98 percent retention rate of their employees. So, 98 percent of their employees stick around year over year versus a traditional business that isn’t focused on that. And you’re looking at that number anywhere from 80 to 85 percent.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:08:08] So, to make it simple, as a business owner, if you’re spending $10,000 a year on training an employee, if two of those employees leave, that’s $20,000 out of your pocket. But if 15 of those employees leave, that’s $150,000 out of your pocket. So, you’re saving $130,000 just by focusing and growing your sustainability of your organization, both from an environmental impact as well as a social impact.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:45] Now, can you talk a little bit about how you work with organizations? Is this something that they have zero sustainability? Or they have kind of just a minimal and then you come in and say, “Okay. Where are areas we can really lean into this?” Or is it something that they’re already doing a decent job and they’re just trying to get to a new level?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:09:04] I think most organizations now it’s pretty standard to have some kind of environmental policy, whether if it’s an office just recycling or purchasing somewhat responsibly through your standard supplier. So, I think most companies have this bare minimum basic foundation, which is fabulous. And something is always better than nothing.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:09:29] But, yes, most of the companies that I come into, you know, the larger organizations depending on the industry, can have a pretty comprehensive – what they call – an environmental management system. And they are trying to do the right thing within the organization socially with making it diverse and making sure they’re paying well and such. But there’s always room for improvement, just like there’s always new technology coming out.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:09:59] But most of the time, I want to say most of my clients, they’re doing basic stuff that they’ve read about. And they don’t realize a lot of the additional things they could be doing or how accessible things are. Because being sustainable and dealing with things like renewable energy, like solar panels, or updating fixtures within a building from a physical standpoint, it’s gotten much cheaper.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:10:24] And especially even in the packing industry and shipping as well as the restaurant industry, a lot of those items that you’re using to mail things out, bubble wrap, the Styrofoam containers people are using, there’s still this old thought process around, “Well, anything sustainable, compostable, anything made of paper or anything like that, so it’s going to be more expensive.” And it’s actually not. It’s actually just as comparable in price or cheaper. And so, that’s a big thing coming in and kind of blowing these old myths out of the water that are still sticking around is a lot of what usually ends up happening on my end.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:11:06] And from the governance perspective – governance meaning how you’re handling the internal company culture – that is a big one that I think a lot of my companies, especially right now with what was happening with cancel culture and a lot of things being very public with social media nowadays, it’s a huge piece of the puzzle that they just kind of stand there and, “I have no idea what to do. I don’t want to do anything because I don’t want to offend anybody. But I want to do something because I don’t want to look like I’m doing nothing.”

Lee Kantor: [00:11:40] That’s a tough balancing act.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:11:44] Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:45] Now, do you have a niche in terms of types of company you work with? Are they manufacturing? Are they kind of in supply chain? Like, do you have an area that you specialize in?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:11:58] Interestingly enough, my niche is not necessarily specific, like a fashion company or a company that produces widgets and mails them out. It’s actually more around the individuals that own the company. So, my niche is around individuals who are owners who are ready to be responsible. They tend to be more forward thinking. They’re like, “All right. I don’t want the traditional corporation.” I know you and I had this conversation before we started recording. But they want to be out of the box. They don’t want that traditional corporate feel. They don’t want the traditional corporate offices.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:12:37] And not to say that everyone can’t do this, but that tends to be the people that I work with and that seek me out are the ones that are ready for change. They’re ready to make the change. And they’re already there ready to think about working outside of the box. Because going through the process with me through, you know, an overall audit as well as progressing to a B Corp certification, if that’s something that they would like to do, it requires a lot of change and a lot of being open minded. Because maybe there’s hard things that need to happen, things that might require a little bit of investment.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:13:22] So, you know, typically that is somebody who has the most success and usually who I tend to work more with. It kind of comes across like any other business. We get people from other areas coming in and going, “What are you doing? Can I be a part of that?” even if they’re not necessarily ready.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:42] So, now, let’s talk about what an engagement looks like. So, I can have any type of business. I could be a law firm. I could be an owner of a restaurant or six restaurants in my area. And I can say, “I want to do a better job. I am going to call Sheryl and her team.” Kind of what’s the initial conversations look like? And how do you kind of help me, you know, be the best me I can be?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:14:12] So, initially, what I always start off with is just what I just said earlier, that, there’s going to be a lot of change happening. So, to to be prepared for that and step into it with an open mind. If there is more than one individual involved, for example, if there’s a board or something like that, I always request that everybody who’s going to be involved in making these decisions is present for this. And that we do have one person kind of like a champion within the company that once we get the ball rolling, I can communicate with so that we don’t have 85 cooks in the kitchen and then things get hung up and we don’t get anywhere.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:14:53] But, typically, what I’ll do is I’ll come in and sit down and we’ll go through what you’re doing currently, how things are going, what they think their problem areas are, or what they feel they need assistance with. Because usually people do come to me, you know, as businesses, not just myself, but we provide solutions to problems. And so, we’ll kind of deep dive into that.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:15:18] And then, typically, I ask them to walk me through their processes. So, what exactly is it that you do here? Law firms easy, “We’re just practicing law and we have offices here, here, and here.” Versus a manufacturing facility where they take in X and produce Y. But I need to understand the bigger picture of what exactly is happening on an operations level in order to take a look at that, as well as taking a look at the HR piece of it, so that dives a bit deeper.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:15:51] But that’s something that we take a look at all of the policies that your organization has, which, again, it involves allowing your individual employees, not only to be paid well, but also to be able to go out into the community and give back and promoting that also. And then, looking at how they’re weaving what they’re doing into their company. Honestly, the biggest conversation I have to have with anyone that I speak to, regardless of how long they’ve been in business is, “What is your mission, what is your vision, and why are you doing this.”

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:16:29] And you’d be surprised, you know, sometimes people who are new feel like they’re behind the ball on that. And you’d be surprised at how many very well-established, not only experienced owners, but well- established businesses, don’t have a clear mission, vision, and why behind what they’re doing. And that then translates into everything across the company. And then, that allows me to ask, “Well, why do you want to work with me? Why do you want to do this for your company?” Because, truly, that is going to be the driving force behind everything we do.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:17:07] The little ticking off the boxes, and the audits, and the checklists, and stuff that we do when we work together, you know, I can go through a company soup to nuts, and that’s all the how of what we get it done. The bigger picture is the why they’re doing that and making sure that they’re behind that. That the board is behind that. You’re all moving the ship in the right direction. And communicating that with, not only the employees, but also the customers and clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:36] Now, in order to work with you, is my firm have to be of a certain size? Can you do a startup? Or is this something you have to have like a million dollars in revenue or ten million? Is there kind of a financial investment that I have to be aware of that if I’m going to go down this path, I’m going to have to be prepared to invest, you know, a certain amount of money in order to solve this problem?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:18:01] Absolutely. So, typically, from an operations standpoint, I’m working with companies from an employee size anywhere from five or more employees, that’s the tiniest. Two companies that I’ve worked with that have hundreds of employees. So, that’s more of we’re going to come in very in-depth piece of the puzzle and look at everything you’re doing and everything I just explained. I also have had startups come to me and just kind of go, “I want to do things right from the beginning,” so I can kind of guide them. I have content for that in such that I’ve created to help them get on the right track.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:18:49] And then, depending on where they’re at, I’ve had people that have come to me who have had the revenue from another company. So, their current business that we’ve worked on and they’re like, “I want to start this other thing.” So, technically, it is a startup, but they want to get it right from the get-go so that they don’t have to backpedal and try and fix it later, and maybe potentially cost themselves a little bit more money than they anticipated trying to resolve the issues they’ve had.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:19:15] But, generally, the companies that I’m working with have been well- established. They definitely have been in business for at least about two years and you’re looking at revenue not in the millions per se, but about, like, a quarter to a-half-a-million is about where a lot of this comes in and people start to feel like they have it. You know, they’re like, “I can’t manage this anymore. I’m not really sure where things are going.” So, generally, that’s where it’s at. But I don’t discourage startups from reaching out to me simply because it is better to do it right from the get-go. And I definitely have resources for them for that if they choose to go that route.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:00] Now, you mentioned benefits corporation, can you share a little bit for the people who aren’t aware what a B Corp is and how that is a kind of a nice thing to think about if you’re thinking about getting into, “This is important to you. If sustainability is important to you, then educating yourself about being a B Corp might help you do this.”

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:20:24] Yes. B Corp is my heart and soul. So, a B Corp, a simple way to put it, it’s a stamp for your company. So, it’s simply very similar to almost the organic stamp that they put on food. Or if you’re familiar with construction, like the lead stamp that they give you for a building showing you that building is doing all of the right environmental things and they’ve made it so that it’s very efficient and et cetera, et cetera. So, B Corp is that stamp of approval, very simply.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:21:03] But when you dig a little deeper into it and the benefits to it, I mean, there’s lots of tangible benefits. But, really, it’s this amazing space where it is a form of an audit, but it is very well contained. So, they look at five different areas of your company, which is part of what I look at as well, your governance, your employees, your community, the environment, and your customers. And so, it’s making sure that you’re doing everything that you possibly can. And there’s scores involved around it, you have to meet a minimum score. B Lab is the one that helps run and audit this B Corp certification.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:21:53] And there’s a beautiful community around it, some of the larger companies that are B Corp certified, like Patagonia, Allbirds, the shoe companies B Corp certified. I believe that Avon is going through their B Corp certification as we speak. So, there’s a lot of notable companies that are doing this. So, definitely, this isn’t just a passing phase. It’s going to stick around.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:22:20] Part of being a B Corp that I think sometimes gets lost in communication, but is one of, I believe, the biggest benefits, is, there’s a legal status. So, most companies, you know, you’re either an LLC or C Corp or an S Corp, in order to be a business you have to have paperwork saying, “I’m a business.” So, part of being a B Corp is legal structure of a benefit corporation. So, that looks very similar to a regular corporation, whether you’re an S Corp or a C Corp.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:22:53] So, a regular company, if your designation is not an LLC, but a corporation designation, the benefit of being a benefit corporation is that you’re allowed to preserve what you’ve created and make decisions around the company based on the company culture that you’ve built, or the benefits you provide, or the environmental sustainability from making sure that you’re using packaging that is biodegradable or compostable. All of those tiny details that you’ve poured your heart and soul into when you’ve created your company, those get to be preserved.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:23:32] Because as a C Corp, if you’re going to sell or if you have a board, you have to follow the money. I like to call it follow the profit. So, they’ll do whatever they need to do as long as it’s focused towards the profit. You have to deliver the highest profits to your shareholders. Or if you’re going to sell, you have to sell to the highest bidder. And if those shareholders or that purchasing company or anything of that nature wants to gut your company and just use the brand, wants to fire everybody, wants to sell off to a larger corporation that is going to potentially deconstruct everything that you’ve just spent your life creating, you can’t do anything about it.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:24:16] In fact, legally, as a regular corporation, if you try to, they can sue you and you can get into a lot of trouble. Versus this Benefit Corporation designation where you get to call the shots. And you get to say, “No, we’re not going to sell to that company.” Or, “We’re not going to do this board of shareholders because it’s detrimental to the planet, it’s detrimental to our employees within the company.” And there’s nothing they can really say to that. Nobody can sue you. And it’s a larger conversation that you get to have and no one can force anybody to do anything.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:24:56] And so, the B Corp certification allows you to create that beautiful company, and also retain it, and hold it, and keep on to it, and make sure that it lives on as a legacy beyond you as an individual. So, it’s a very comprehensive certification.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:16] Right. But it’s not a nonprofit. You can be a for-profit business and be a B Corp.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:25:21] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:21] Like, it’s different than a nonprofit. So, I think that’s an important distinction. And a lot of folks kind of lump them together. And it’s not the case. There’s no shame in making money or making a profit. It’s kind of where your heart is and your intentions, I think.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:25:39] Yes. Actually, you cannot get B Corp certified if you are a nonprofit. They are for for-profit companies only. And if you want to kind of sum it up, it helps you make money responsibly. Make sure that you’re taking care of the planet and the people that are living on it. And you still get to make profits.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:26:02] I mean, one of my clients, we cut their carbon footprint in half, literally in half. And in that same year, their sales and revenue increased 704 percent. So, they went from making a little over $100,000 a year within one year. Within that year, they made just over, I think, close to 1.1 million.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:29] Right. So, that’s why it’s important. You can do well and do good. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:26:38] Yeah. Not at all.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:38] And that’s one of the things I think is important for business people to understand. And I’m sure that you help educate that with your help, they can kind of have it both ways. I mean, they could serve their community, they can serve their people, they can grow as an organization and a company, and be more profitable. So, it’s a win-win-win all the way around. And it’s, I think, really important for folks to understand that there is kind of a better way out there. And I’m sure with your help, you can really take companies to new levels that they didn’t even think was possible.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:27:15] Yes. Yes. What we do helps provide, not only a lot of the things I mentioned, but it’s a level of security. It’s actually much more secure than the corporate model of for-profit all the time. I think we’ve all shifted out of that.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:27:34] Back to the startups, like, I’ve had companies that in their kind of VC phases, you know, for tech companies, when you’re raising funds for investors and things like that, they do have employees at that point helping. Some might be working pro bono because they believe in the mission. But having a lot of these individual things set in place and you can be a pending B Corp, actually, and have a designation, have that stamp to show that you’re already starting to do the good things. You’re just not fully in business yet.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:28:12] And having all of that spelled out and starting to implement it actually made them a better investment to VCs and investors who they were looking to get money from. These investors saw them as more secure, less of a liability, less of a risk. And they really, truly connected with what they were doing and had this amazing appreciation for everything they were starting to do.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:28:36] So, whether you’re a startup looking to get that funding or you’re somebody who’s already established and looking to even get more money to infuse into the business to expand or grow, being a B Corp or even just instilling these items that I do within my audit when I come into companies, that’s a huge benefit as well being incredibly secure to the people that are going to invest in you.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:29:04] And just for your own personal well-being, being able to look at your finances within your company and what’s going in and what’s coming out monetarily-wise. And knowing like, “Wow. I’m in a really great place and this is all working well.” And you can almost, in a way, set it and forget it for a little while. And then, you know, revisit and retool every once a year or once every two years once you’ve really got a solid foundation set in place.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:32] Now, we’re talking a lot about community collaboration, things like that at the heart of your work. Can you talk a little bit about why it was important for you and your firm to be part of the Greater Women’s Business Council? Was there something that you saw in that group that attracted you? I know you mentioned to me that you moved from the north to South Carolina. Now, can you talk about how getting involved with GWBC has helped your organization?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:29:59] Oh, gosh. Well, it helped me immensely. I belong to many others, not necessarily women business focused, but just overall. In my years of business, I’ve joined groups and organizations. And the level of giving back that the organization does, there’s always, always some kind of event, whether it’s in person or virtual. Talking not only about a specific item in your business, whether if you’re a retail provider helping increase your retail sales, things like that, but they’re connecting you.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:30:40] The biggest thing is the community, the connections I’ve received just through participating in events or virtual events, even just making these connections with individuals across the board. Not only are all the women I’ve met been wonderful in helping and collaborating and wanting to help, but also just the individuals coming in and teaching these courses that the organization is promoting, or the pop-up marketplaces, or the specific networking events. And that was a huge draw for me was that level of community, and support, and knowing. The resources were a huge bonus.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:31:28] But when I originally saw all of the website and looking through everything and going, “Oh wow. I really want to join this organization. Let me make this happen.” You know, a big piece of it was that level of community that I was seeing that was there.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:43] Well, Sheryl, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more about what you’re up to and get on your calendar or just kind of explore some of the resources you discussed, is there a website?

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:31:54] Yes. Absolutely. Actually, our website is greenher.earth. Which just worked out, I didn’t even know dot earth was an extension, but it is. That’s our website. And through there, you can contact me directly via email. And we also have links to our social media, too, if you’re a little bit more inclined to pop on Instagram and send a DM. I know I’ve gotten contacted that way quite a few times.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:32:20] And, also, our social media, especially Instagram, we’re always updating it and not only providing tips and tricks and showing people new technology that’s coming out that’s really cool, but we’re also updating that and connecting people through through that. Featuring businesses that are doing good, we love to do features. And just really focusing on creating community there so that everybody who wants to be involved in this doesn’t feel like they’re doing it on their own.

Lee Kantor: [00:32:53] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Sheryl Guarniero: [00:32:57] Thank you so much, Lee. Thank you for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:33:00] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on GWBC Open for Business.

Andie Monet With Strategic Solutions & Development International Inc

September 30, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Andie Monet With Strategic Solutions & Development International Inc

00:00 /

Angelica “Andie” Monet is a best-selling author, speaker and Business Optimization Expert who has advised Fortune 500 companies, foreign and domestic governments, and over 1,000 small businesses for over 3 decades, in 22 industries, and 10 countries.

The clients who have counted on her expertise include: Monster Energy Corp, Coca-Cola, Costco, United States Department of Defense, Berkshire Hathaway, and Hollywood actors & producers.

With humble beginnings, she started college and her first business at 16 years old, when her mother abandoned her and was left homeless. Yet despite many challenges, she teaches small business owners around the world how to explode their profits with her “Blow Up The Box” system, philosophy, and mindset.

When she’s not training for triathlons or serving at her church, Andie can be found building her non-profit to support youth leadership and entrepreneurship and indulging in sci-fi and adventure movies with her son Luke.

Connect with Andie on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Three strategies to tripe your profits
Difference between growth and scaling
Blow Up The Box strategy

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no-cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Andie Monet with strategic solutions and Development International. Welcome, Andie.

Andie Monet: [00:00:45] Thank you so much. Lee, I’m super excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:48] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Andie Monet: [00:00:53] Oh gosh, I love it. That’s the best thing ever. I’m a business consultant. I’ve been doing it for 30 years. But you know the fun thing I know you didn’t ask me this, but the fun thing about what I do is there’s a passion to it and making knowing that you can make a difference in somebody’s life is so important. And I do that by really tailoring customized solutions for growing businesses where their revenues are growing, but their profit is not.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:23] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved in serving this kind of these folks that want to grow?

Andie Monet: [00:01:32] You know, it was by accident, and I feel like, you know, there’s a lot of people that actually happens to, but early on, I I actually my first business started at 16 years old because my single mother had abandoned me. And now all of a sudden, I had to figure out how to survive, right? And for some interesting reason, my solution to that situation was to start a business. And I don’t know if that would have been anyone’s response, but that was mine. And so I had to learn everything from scratch didn’t have support or mentorship or any kind of support. So I really learned the hard way, as they say. And you know, the the one thing in that process that I really value was because I didn’t have the answers and I really didn’t have a an option to fail. I had to create solutions. And the more solutions I created for myself, which really meant the more solutions I created for my clients, the faster the easier it became. To the point where I was improving operations, I was improving finances, I was improving marketing, I was improving processes, I was optimizing systems. And I didn’t realize until decades later that I actually have a really great gift for problem solving and seeing challenges that are not really obvious to the average person.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:08] Now how did you kind of evolve your practice from, you know, solving these maybe problems for yourself to then going out and helping the folks that you have? I mean, you’ve you’ve worked with thousands of companies from all different sizes, I mean, from smaller to the largest companies on the planet.

Andie Monet: [00:03:27] Yeah, it was. I started out in accounting and finance. Well, really accounting. And that was kind of I I’m a numbers person. So it’s a longer story which we don’t have time for is my original background and interest is in engineering and physics. And so I’m I’m good with numbers, I’m good with math problems, formulas, finding solutions. And so when it came to businesses when I was 16, I really only started, you know, in not actually not that at all, but more office stuff, you know, copying, printing and people slowly but surely gave me the opportunity to do more. And I say that because my mindset was more, I pretty much can do anything, give it to me and just give me a chance and I can do it. And so that just grew and grew and grew and into, you know, I was or by the time I was 20, I was an accountant for one of the big five CPA firms as a manager, which is almost unheard of. And it’s really part of that is is commitment and drive and confidence that I know I can do it. But.

Andie Monet: [00:04:39] What how it ended up becoming management consulting was, I would just notice things like, Hey, I noticed people are having problems with this or complaining about this or something takes three times longer to do and management wants it faster, as we all probably are familiar with. And so it’s finding ways where that wasn’t the case. And so, yeah, I’ve had several fortune five hundred clients where I can be streamlining that, streamlining their processes or giving them solutions that they like. You can’t think outside of your own box, right? You can’t. It’s that whole. Fourth for the trees thing, right? If you’re in this every single day and this is just what you do, it’s so much different when somebody who doesn’t do this day to day in that particular company comes in and says, I notice this and I notice this, and this is how you do things. But if we just move it around this way, it can make a really big impact. And that again comes from the from. Other people wanting either not liking the situation that they’re in or having troubles or challenges, whether it’s specifically

Lee Kantor: [00:05:49] And then having that framework of having good foundational financial structure helps you, I guess, identify these areas and then put it back into the business setting of, OK, now if you fix this here and solve this here, maybe move this piece here. Now we can really grow or scale the business.

Andie Monet: [00:06:10] Yeah. And you know, it’s really it’s hard for, I think, a lot of people to come to terms with that your financial statements and the metrics that come out of your company are a a result of something going on in the company, whether good or bad, right? It could be wonderful. It could be not wonderful, but it’s all a mirror of what the result is. It’s a symptom of something. And so if there’s it’s like, OK, well, if you grow an apple tree, you’re going to have apples. But if you’re trying to grow an apple tree and you get oranges, well, that’s something considerably deeper, right? And so how do you go from symptom backward into where can we make the biggest impact with the least amount of time and the least amount of cost, which is what is what I love to do?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:04] So then the way that you work with folks is that you have to kind of have a discovery period where you’re understanding the lay of the land. And then I would imagine with your background, things become obvious to you that maybe aren’t so obvious to the client.

Andie Monet: [00:07:20] Right, exactly. So the bigger the project, the more discovery there is, right, but there is a discovery in every project because you have to know what you’re working with, like if I say, Hey, let’s go to New York, but we’re in Los Angeles, that’s going to be a long journey. But if I’m in, let’s say, upstate New York and I’m going to, you know, Manhattan or whatever, that’s not the same trip, right? So you have to know where you’re starting and that’s starting point is the data that you have that exist in your business today. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, it doesn’t matter if it’s bad. It doesn’t matter how comprehensive it is or you barely have your systems in place. You’re always starting somewhere. And then where do we want to go from there?

Lee Kantor: [00:08:06] Now, when you since you have worked with such a variety of clients, can you share maybe some of the maybe low hanging fruit or some basic strategies that can help? Pretty much anybody or places to look if they want to increase their profits?

Andie Monet: [00:08:24] Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that’s really easy to skip that I think is really powerful, but it takes discipline to to really dove in is your processes. And I say that because for one example, this one person solopreneur who had five contractors, he called me one day and he says, Hey, I need you to fix my excel worksheet. And I thought, Why on earth are you calling me to fix your Excel worksheet, right? And I said, Well, why don’t you tell me about this situation? He’s like, Well, I use this Excel worksheet to bill to bill my clients, and I said, OK, well, why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me more? And he said, Well, all my contractors are on site. They’re project managers for big hospital construction projects. They put in their time into this mobile app. The mobile app uploads to SharePoint, SharePoint downloads to excel, and then when Excel work, she goes into 17 Excel worksheets and then I build a client by our end person and all these things. And I said, And how long does that take you to build clients? And he said, three weeks. And I said, Well, let me tell you this, I’m not going to rebuild your Excel worksheet, but I will give you a better option. And instead of three weeks, it became two days and his income tripled within two months because now we had three more weeks plus to do business development, to find clients, to take on projects. And since he’s not actually on site himself, his revenue stream is almost limitless, obviously within his industry. And so something so small as billing your clients can make a big difference. And I did the same thing with Monster Beverage. In fact, although not billing, but they have only so many days report to SEC and you only have so many people in that department and you can’t just hire people one week out of the month regularly, right? So by streamlining their processes, we I saved them millions of dollars and thousands of hours just because I found better ways to improve their process to to do financial reporting.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:37] So how does like what’s a symptom of somebody who might have a bad process? Are there things that right now that our listeners or coaches and our business folks that are listening to this? Maybe they everybody has processes. It’s like one of those things where you know you have it might be clunky. It might be inefficient for you. Some things are getting done. How do you know that if your process isn’t as tight as it could be?

Andie Monet: [00:11:03] You know, I this is on my recommendation for people all the time is when you’re sick and tired, you will find an answer. So something that might work and I wanted to work for you. But as you grow and as you grow as a person and grow as a business and grow, you know, because of course, owning a business is a journey. As we all know who own a business, you find that you start getting constrained in certain areas that you just run out of time, run out of energy, run out of whatever. There’s always there’s always a catalyst and sometimes it’s fast and sometimes it’s slow. But the processes will at some point not work. It may not be today. Maybe it’s next year, but eventually they won’t work because your business grows. And when that happens, my question always is what is frustrating you the most and or what is taking you more time than you think it should? And I know that’s really vague, but that is a great place to start, because if you’re unhappy with something, there’s a solution to it. If you’re not unhappy, then it doesn’t need to be fixed today, but it may be it’ll be fixed next year. Or maybe there’s something else that is more of a priority to fix now than than one single process. Maybe it’s a different process.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:17] Now, say you’re frustrated, maybe by the speed of growth or that you’re not. You were growing and now you’ve stopped growing. You mentioned kind of coming in and being that fresh eyes on the situation. How does a company or a leader know if it’s time to not just think outside the box, but to blow up the box?

Andie Monet: [00:12:39] You know, I’m big on it starting internally because I can’t tell somebody when it’s time for them to do something. It’s more coming from them. So if they feel like it’s a problem, or why is something happening? And it’s really a critical question, right? Like, OK, well, I’ve been growing, what, five percent a year for the last five years. And now all of a sudden, I’m not. Well, if that’s something that you want to know about, there is a way to fix it, or at least to address it and understand why it’s happening and then a way to fix it. Because one of the things I love to do with with small businesses is give them ways to grow their business without any cost because as a small business owner, it’s really scary, right? You don’t know what to spend your money on. You don’t know who to trust. You don’t know if it’s going to work all these things because you have limited financial resources. And so there are many, many, many ways to grow your business without adding any marketing costs, without adding any new people and really building a really solid foundation. Because you’re not going to say, OK, well, I’m going to build a house and I’m going to get all the materials, and I have no instructions. And so I’m just going to let’s I know how to build a frame. Let me do that first. Well, you know, obviously that’s not going to last very long, but I only say that to say. Whatever is going on in the business, it doesn’t take too much effort to move you forward. You just have to have the right tools and the mindset to move you forward. And that’s why one of the reasons I love what I love because people have these. Hmm. These incorrect thoughts of how to grow a business incorrect in the sense of they’re limiting. And so once you get past that, it’s so much easier to feel confident about growing your business no matter where it is, whether it went down or it’s not going fast enough. There’s always ways.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:37] So now what are some of? Is there any kind of tactic or any exercise a listener can do right now that can help them kind of maybe change their mindset or kind of rethink their business?

Andie Monet: [00:14:52] Yeah, there’s a lot. But one of the things that I teach, which is hard to explain on the phone, I mean on the phone, on the radio is. That I have this system called a 10:10 mapping, and really it’s a it’s part of a brainstorming activity where you where you have your business and then you decide what are all the ways that. Not me specifically as a business, but me as an industry reach potential customers. For example, I had a client who custom made athletic gear for women. But they were they weren’t just any athletic gear they were they were geared towards. It’s called cause play, which is like costumes. But anyway, they I said, Well, what do you want to do? Do you want to grow? And she said, yes. I said, OK, well, we have to decide or you have to decide with, you know, the tools that I help you figure this out with is, do you want to be in in brick and mortar stores? Do you only want to do e-commerce? Do you want to do you know, joint partnerships with with local gymnasiums? Do you want like, there’s all of these things that you can do? And once you have them on paper and draw it out, not only does that help you open your mind to other opportunities because you have in the way I do and you have to do 10 and then you have to do 10 subcategories to the main category.

Andie Monet: [00:16:23] And part of that is just to open your mind up to opportunities. Whether you want to do them or not is not the point. The point is OK, well, let’s get you past your five feet in front of you. And then if you want to go further, there’s this. There’s this mathematical analysis that determines which ones you should focus on, but I think the brainstorming piece is really important. So no matter. For example, another if you’re if you do nails well, you can work with hair salons and you can work with massage masseuse and you can work with, you know, lots of different complementary industries. You can do them together or as bundles or as referral partners. And so there’s just a lot of opportunities, both for product and service industries.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:11] Now in your career, you decided to write a book in order to help, folks. Can you talk about why it was important for you to become an author?

Andie Monet: [00:17:22] Yes, I am super, super big on education. I’ve always been that way, I always feel like if you don’t know, you don’t know, and it’s such a cliche term, but I think it’s so important and then that owning a business is a journey, right? And I never had. If my my sense is I want to be the person that I didn’t have going through my businesses, which, you know, the first several failed until I figured out how to do what I do. But the book is one way that I can reach more people to have hope, to have inspiration, to have motivation, but also tools and tips on what they can use to grow their business. And so it was really a labor of love to tell people and show people all of the possibilities there are with your business to grow. And it took a long time. I mean, of course, but because it’s like, how do you reduce thirty five years of business experience into one, a few hundred page books? Right? So but I the whole purpose was that somebody somewhere is going to read this and really gain some really helpful knowledge.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:41] Now, in your career, you’ve been part of, sure, several maybe networks and groups that have helped you grow. Is there any kind of advice you would give leaders to choosing the right group and being part of the right community in order to grow?

Andie Monet: [00:19:01] You know, I didn’t have great success in the beginning with that, just because I didn’t I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t know who would who. Which which groups were good or which ones were not a fit. But I. In a really vague answer, feel like if you find a group that you like, I think go with your gut. I know that I’ve done work with Benny before and they have a great organization. But every organ, every group has a different dynamic and sometimes even a different focus. Whereas some and groups are more professional like attorneys and lawyers and CPAs and other groups are more real, you know, personal business to consumer like hair stylist and real estate agents and those sorts of things. And then the personality of groups really make a difference, too. And so for me, which is a little counterintuitive, like I’m a little bit goofy and I don’t take myself seriously. And so it’s really uncomfortable for me to get into a group that’s all one hundred percent serious because it’s just not me, right? So building that relationship with people who are on a different personality basis makes it hard to to build a solid relationship. So be in a group that really supports you as a person and your industry as well. And there’s several there’s there’s little tip, which I think that they change their name. There’s be an I, there’s a Chamber of Commerce, there’s lots of organizations, and SBA score is a great resource as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:42] Now in your career, can you work with, like you said, you know, large companies like Monster and then smaller folks as well. Is there a story that kind of is the most rewarding that you can share that you helped maybe, entrepreneur? There was struggling, maybe frustrated that you came in and were able to take their business to a new level that you can share. Don’t name the name of the person or the organization, but just kind of illustrate the challenge that they had and how you were able to come in and help them maybe grow or scale their business.

Andie Monet: [00:21:17] Yeah, for sure. I actually have several, but one of them that was one of my favorites is there was a woman and she was retired and she had a little boutique in a really touristy area and she was literally going bankrupt. And I called her or she called me, and she’s like, I want to file bankruptcy. I said, Well, why are you calling me? She said, Anyway, that was a funny conversation. She got my phone number by accident. But. I said. Yeah, you know, shortening the story, of course, but I said, what, why did you start the business? And she said, Well, I’ve always wanted to own that little boutique. It’s near and dear to my heart. And when my husband died, I used all my retirement money and I created this business. So her entire life now is in this business and she’s, you know, over 60 years old. And I said, Is this still a dream of yours to have? And she said, yes. And I said, Well, if this is something you want to do and this is one of your hopes and dreams, why are you going to claim bankruptcy and then just let it die? She said, Because I don’t have I don’t have any idea what to do, and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. And long story short, I said, OK, listen, I’m not going to charge you because obviously, if you’re claiming bankruptcy, you don’t have the money.

Andie Monet: [00:22:53] But let me help you build your business. Give me 30 days. And if you’re not happy in 30 days, you can just if you want to claim bankruptcy, go ahead. All I need is 30 days, and in the 30 days she went from not bankrupt to tripling her income and having many, many, many hundreds of people coming into her store. And she’s still in business today. Actually, she she passed away and and left it to her daughter, who I also know and and it’s been it’s been going wonderfully. But that was. And that takes a lot of work. And the reason I mentioned that particular story is because. Anything is fixable if you have the right tools in place, and more importantly, that it’s not just one thing in that particular instance, there’s multiple things going on and it was important to me to help her live her goals and her dreams that she wanted to live. And there’s always a way. There’s always a way. At least that’s what I have found with the clients that I’ve worked with. There’s always been a way, and I have had many of those clients where in the beginning where they were literally at the end of their rope and they had no idea what to do. And you know, we’re talking about homelessness and, you know, losing your business, not selling it, but losing it. Just lots of situations and all of those businesses are still opening and running today.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:26] Well, now part of the reason we do this show is to help coaches learn from each other. Can you share with our listeners how you got your last client?

Andie Monet: [00:24:37] Because I don’t do a lot of marketing, but what I do, there’s two things that I do every client that I have knew or not knew. I always say, Hey, this is the range of services that I offer. Feel free to send, you know, send people my information. Or if you want, I can give them a call because you know you don’t. I don’t think customers realize that you they can be a benefit to their friends and family, right? And so technically, it’s a referral, but you have to educate people that referrals are possible. And then there’s discounts for referrals, which I don’t usually do, but that works wonders. And for my last, I don’t. I have to think of who my last client new client was. But usually it’s Hey, do you know anybody got, hey, do you know anybody that has a small business or who has a small business? Do you know anybody who is having challenges with revenue? Do you have any clients who struggled during COVID, which, of course, that’s almost everybody. Do you have a do you have a you have a business owner friend who is in the same city, right? So narrowing down your question helps people to think of specific people not to say, you know, anybody who owns a business, but do you know anybody who owns a restaurant in the city of Los Angeles? You know, because specificity really makes a difference for referrals?

Lee Kantor: [00:26:13] Good stuff. Well, Andy, thank you so much for sharing your story today. If somebody wants to learn more about your practice and maybe get a hold of you or some of the resources you shared. What’s the website?

Andie Monet: [00:26:24] The website is W W W Dot S S D Hyphen A.L., which is the acronym for my company. But you can also find me at Andy Monico as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:42] Good stuff and its and i m o n e t yes.

Andie Monet: [00:26:47] Yes. Two slightly bizarre so names.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:52] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Andie Monet: [00:26:56] Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:59] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Daniel Hadgu and Michael Gizachew With EthioPay

September 28, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Daniel Hadgu and Michael Gizachew With EthioPay

00:00 /

Ethiopay is a platform that meets the payment needs of Ethiopians in the diaspora. While other platforms are a one-size-fits-all, Ethiopay isn’t.

They support the unique payment needs of Ethiopians including payments for school fees, telecom, utility bills, and other needs that are close to your heart.

Daniel Hadgu is in charge of any financial piece of the companies as well as brand development.

Connect With Daniel Hadgu on LinkedIn.

Michael Gizachew is business strategies and international relations development in Ethiopay.

Connect With Michael on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Mobile Money in Africa
Remittance in Africa
How FinTech is rapidly spreading into Africa

About Our Sponsor

OnPay’s payroll services and HR software give you more time to focus on what’s most important. Rated “Excellent” by PC Magazine, we make it easy to pay employees fast, we automate all payroll taxes, and we even keep all your HR and benefits organized and compliant.

Our award-winning customer service includes an accuracy guarantee, deep integrations with popular accounting software, and we’ll even enter all your employee information for you — whether you have five employees or 500. Take a closer look to see all the ways we can save you time and money in the back office.

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, but this is a very special one, because these are the ones we do with partnering with GSU ENI program at Georgia State University. And today on the show, we have Daniel Hadgu and Mike Gizachew with Ethiopay. Welcome, guys.

Michael Gizachew: [00:00:45] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about Ethiopia, how are you serving, folks?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:00:51] Yeah. So if you’ll pay is our platform that allows us to connect Ethiopian diasporas in the United States to Ethiopians in the Ethiopian. And we will directly allow users to invest in the US capital markets, directly pay bills, transfer funds and reload and redistribute airtime minutes and data.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:12] So this helps folks in Africa kind of get money in and out of Africa, from the United States, from their relatives or friends or family.

Daniel Hadgu: [00:01:21] Yeah. So we will say predominantly there, but as well as the diaspora here in the United States, we’re just trying to really kind of be the bridge that allows individuals to be able to support financially their loved ones in Ethiopia due to a lack of convenience, affordable options or just overall transparency.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:41] So how is it being done now? How are they dealing with it?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:01:45] Yes, I’ll say right now, at least the way it used to be. People would go to these long manual places like Western Union. You know, my mother and I and even Michael used to do it as well. You would have to stand in these lines. And so really, for my mom, especially with the pain in her knee, it was especially painful for her to stand in those long lines. And then you would have to deal with the individuals, you know, the agents at the, you know, respected entity like Western Union fill out the slip and then they ship it over. But that whole process can take close to hour and especially with your busy day or with paying your knee. It just makes it that much more painful to kind of go through. And so that’s how we kind of came up with this, a centralized platform that allows individuals to do it through a web application or mobile application, so you can do it from the click of a finger.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:39] So you could do it from your house and it will go to the house of the person in Ethiopia.

Daniel Hadgu: [00:02:44] Yeah. So either you can transfer through peer to peer and send it directly to the individual’s wallet or something that we’re bringing in, which is a unique feature, is we’re partnering up in the private sector and public sector. So instead of us just giving the recipient the money directly, you just tell us what your bill is. Give us your account number and we can just pay your bill.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:05] Oh, so like if they have a power bill or, you know, any type of bill in their home, you can pay it here from America.

Daniel Hadgu: [00:03:15] One hundred percent. And so that does allows, you know, that the individual bills get paid. So you get the confirmation, the statement and allows just for a more seamless process.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:26] And then I would imagine the the bill company doesn’t care. They’re happy to have it. They don’t care who’s paying it right?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:03:33] 100 percent, you know, at the end of the day, it’s what’s they just want to make sure that they’re getting paid each month. And I think when they can get it directly from the individuals that have the funds because majority of the times, the individuals that pay it and it’s the Opia are getting the funds from a diaspora such as Michael or myself. So it just makes the process easier for us to pay it directly for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:56] Now what stage are you at in this adventure?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:04:00] Yeah, so we’re pricey. But post product to the point that I said right now, we’re currently on a fundraising campaign to be able to raise our seed fund. However, we already have built out the first phase of our project, which is available on the web based application and mobile application so you can find in the iOS store or in the Google Store as well. And so. Right now, we’re just trying to kind of gain a little bit more traction so that we can show a little bit more solidity to our customers and to the individuals who are raising the capital from.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:37] So is it possible right now if I had a relative in Ethiopia that I could pay a bill today?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:04:44] From a technological standpoint, yes, the app does work and you could. However, it’s not that simple. I think when you’re dealing with mobile money, you know, legalities and regulatory things play a factor. So doing your due diligence on your customers through KYC, AML, SaaS, things that sort. And so right now, we’ve been consulting with various amount of law firms to make sure that we have all that together before we officially launch on the platforms and allow people to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:16] Now, could I send money directly to someone in Ethiopia?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:05:22] You would be able to yes, that would be one of the features that we would have on our platform where you can send money over there and have instant deposit into their wallet. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:31] So is that available now or is that going through the same regulation

Daniel Hadgu: [00:05:36] That’s still going through the same regulations when you’re dealing with, you know, the moving of money, mobile money, things out of sorts?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:44] Ok, so anytime you’re moving money, I guess internationally, then there’s more regulations involved.

Daniel Hadgu: [00:05:51] Yeah. So like here in the states, you know, you have your money transfer licenses and things of that sort. But then even in Ethiopia, there’s a license that you need for any mobile money movement of banks. And so, you know, we’re kind of dealing with the legal side of of both of those, whether it’s domestically or internationally.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:11] But you have the technology to transfer the funds. It’s just all this regulations is kind of you want to make sure that you’re doing that all perfectly legit. So everybody feels comfortable with the transaction.

Daniel Hadgu: [00:06:22] One hundred percent to that point that you just said, on the technical side of things, things are up and running and ready to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:30] So like right now, could you use your. Could I use your? Could I pay you something right now if I wanted to? Like with your system, or it only works internationally?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:06:42] Yeah, no. You can do it here as well. And so we’re trying to build an ecosystem of sorts and offering a variety of products, not just to kind of do dashboards and, you know, in the states, to Ethiopians and Ethiopia, but we want to even have user engagement in the states. So similarly to Venmo or a cash app where you can do peer to peer transactions. That’s something that you would be able to do as well on our platform.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:05] Now what was the kind of I heard that you say that this was a pain your mom was having her, you were you felt felt there was a better way to do it based on what your mom was struggling with. That’s where the idea kind of started, I guess. But how did you move from having that idea to actually now having kind of a working app and then obviously now build a business around that concept?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:07:29] Yeah, and I think even Michael would have a better shot at this. You know, the pain with my mother and her knee, that was my reason for joining on. But even Michael, I think his the genesis of it came from his visit to Ethiopia. So Mike, if you want to jump in and tackle that question.

Michael Gizachew: [00:07:51] Yes, so to add on to what Daniel was saying essentially came from real life situations where we personally experienced the hardships of trying to financially assist or support loved ones in Ethiopia. And you know, there were stages for Ethiopia initially started off as a web browser or a web based application, and from there we transformed it into a mobile application, understanding the market over there. There were way more mobile phones available to people than actual computers, so we just try to match the product with the market and apply it in that sense where we want it to be as successful as possible for our market.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:35] And then once you started kind of playing around in this space, is that when you realize, hey, there’s a lot more regulation, it’s not just technology, there’s a lot of kind of regulatory hoops I’m going to have to jump through. I better get some expert help here.

Michael Gizachew: [00:08:49] Yes. Absolutely, right. There’s more. I mean, I guess what I’m trying to say is that the regulatory side is a little more complicated than the technology side because, like you said, we’re talking about moving money across international borders and not just from America to Ethiopia, but obviously across other markets as well where we want to offer our services. So there there’s Ethiopians that live all around the world, not just in America, and we’re trying to service all of them. So we want to make sure and with money, obviously it being such a serious matter when it comes to being able to track it. Every government wants to make sure that we’re doing it by the books because there’s so many other things that can be involved with moving money around if you’re not compliant in all their rules.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:33] So now how did kind of the GSU, any program help you with moving this from idea to an actual, you know, product?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:09:43] Yes, I’ll say, you know, when we joined any, we already kind of had a product built out, but with the funding that they were able to provide us and with the the mentorship that they constantly giving us allowed us to kind of scale to the next level. So with the funds, we were able to, you know, start phase two of our technology application. And then in terms of the the mentorship we’ve been getting, it kind of gave us a perspective on things that we didn’t necessarily think of, especially with these seasoned veterans in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. So it kind of gave us value on both sides.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:23] Now, have they helped you kind of with the fundraising because, you know, raising funds is a totally different business than, you know, building an app or even getting the regulatory issues taken care of.

Daniel Hadgu: [00:10:35] Yes, I think what they’re doing, you know, keeping the end goal in mind, my dad always says is, you know, the uncle was Demo Day and I think they’ve been prepping us from, you know, the beginning of the Main Street program up until this point and leading to Demo Day to be able to be ready to pitch to investors and have the opportunity to get that exposure. So I would say yes, they they have been contributing through this, you know, breeding us and making sure that we have the right store. We had the right material and then we have face time with these investors.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:09] Now what’s the most rewarding part of this adventure for you guys?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:11:14] Yeah, so I think it’s just the journey itself. I think that, you know. Just being able to kind of start from ideology and, you know, being able to get it to where we were going right now and having people believe in us and allowing us to join the program and keep on scaling, I think that’s been the most rewarding thing to me. So having people buy into your your story and walking this journey with you

Lee Kantor: [00:11:44] Now, has it been frustrating having a product that works and not being able to use it to see if you know, the public will buy into it?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:11:55] It could be a little bit, but, you know, to the point, it’s just part of the process. So I think when you know that in the back of your mind, that is part of the process. A lot of people, I had great ideas and they had to go through the journey. Then it kind of humbles you and just lets you know that you’re on the right track. Just keep on moving forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:18] Now, any advice for other maybe students in college or folks that are considering being an entrepreneur rather than go the more conventional route of getting a job and working somewhere?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:12:31] Yeah, I’ll say this. Dream big. I think honestly, the only barriers that are here in our everyday lives are the artificial barriers that we put on ourselves. I think if you I’m full believer, like manifestation and, you know, daily affirmation and rooting for yourself. So I think honestly, as long as you can dream big, you write it down. Be vocal about it speaking into existence. Anything and everything is possible. So, you know, take big chances.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:05] Now tell me about the folks your peers are. Do they have that same philosophy or are they kind of more conservative in taking a more? I don’t want to say safer, because in today’s world, any job you think you have meaning you may not have, so you know, the rather the more conventional route?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:13:26] Mm hmm. Yeah. So I’ll say that, you know, there’s different groups of friends. And so, you know, I have group of colleagues that, you know, work, you know, the Wall Street job or the corporate job and that perfectly, OK. You know, my parents done it, you know, I done it. So that’s fine. But I think there’s another group of people that, you know, have bigger aspirations for themselves, and we have that group of friends, too. So it’s kind of just having different groups of people that have different ideologies and and different beliefs, and you want to be able to hang out around them because you are who you hang out around. And I think most recently, I’ve been hanging out around a lot more entrepreneurs.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:10] And if somebody wants to learn more about your venture, I would imagine right now you’re open to having conversations about funding. You’re open to having conversations about help with the regulatory if somebody wants to learn more about your product and service. Is there a website that exists right now that maybe they can get on the wait list or maybe contact you?

Daniel Hadgu: [00:14:31] Yeah, 100 percent. So you can connect with us on our website, which is the OPay Center. You can also connect with Michael and myself through our email. So for me, it’s Daniel at Ethiope center, and Michael, it’s Michael at your pace intercom. And you can also connect with us on LinkedIn as well, which is our full full name as well. And we’re more than happy to have discussions, whether it’s funding everyday advice or just an overall good conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] Well, congratulations on all of the success. You should be very proud of yourself. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Daniel Hadgu: [00:15:10] Thank you so much. We really appreciate that.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:12] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GSU ENI radio.

Brittany Driscoll With Squeeze

September 28, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Franchise Marketing Radio

Brittany Driscoll With Squeeze

00:00 /

Brought To You By SeoSamba . . . Comprehensive, High Performing Marketing Solutions For Mature And Emerging Franchise Brands . . . To Supercharge Your Franchise Marketing, Go To seosamba.com.

Brittany Driscoll is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Squeeze, a way better massage experience from the founders of Drybar.

She also Co-Founded and leads The Feel- Good Company, a service agency set out to transform the way people experience retail by building and scaling a collective of female-founded wellness brands dedicated to bettering the mind, body, and soul for good.

Brittany is also co-host of the Girlfriends & Business podcast.

Brittany spent four years running marketing for Drybar where she helped take the company from $30M to more than $100M, and prior to that Brittany spent over a decade in marketing and advertising.

As a female entrepreneur, cancer survivor, and wellness advocate, Brittany has a strong passion for supporting other women in business and has become a thought-leader in her community.

She believes in speaking up for what you believe in, empowering people to use their voice, and that we all have the ability to change the world for good.

Connect with Brittany on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

History behind Squeeze
Squeeze franchise opportunity
What the ideal franchise partner looks like
Current growth plans for the brand

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by SEO Samba Comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands to supercharge your franchise marketing. Go to seoSamba.com that’s SEOsamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and you listeners are in for a treat today on the show, we have Brittany Driscoll with Squeeze. Welcome Brittany.

Brittany Driscoll: [00:00:43] Hi, Lee, thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m so excited to talk to you. Tell us about Squeeze.

Brittany Driscoll: [00:00:50] Sure. So Squeeze is a new massage concept from the founders of Drybar. For those who don’t know Drybar, it is a blowout bar where women go in and get their hair washed and styled. There’s over one hundred and fifty locations around the country now. I helped run marketing for that brand for four years, taking the company from 30 million to over one hundred million, and I partnered with the founders to launch Squeeze. And so really, how we view ourselves within the overarching massage landscape is right in the middle on one. And we feel like the low end discount chains which made massage accessible to the masses lack a lot from a consumer experience standpoint, although they’re very affordable. And then on the flip side, there’s the high end hotels and stores, which have a lovely, luxurious, sophisticated experience but are often unattainable from both the time and financial standpoint for people. So what we’ve tried to do is bring in that luxurious, sophisticated feel, but at an affordable price point. So we like to say we sit in the affordable luxury category and in addition to that, the biggest differentiation of our business. And I would argue not just within the massage industry but within the retail services industry, is the fact that we’ve built out an end to end technology platform that enables our guests to do everything from book their appointments, that all of their personalized massage preferences through the app or online all the way through to like Uber and Postmates rating, tipping and reviewing after their massage.

Brittany Driscoll: [00:02:21] So there’s no actual transactions that take place in our location at all. We like to say our guests get to walk in and flow out. I get to stay in that relaxed state of mind. No clunky checkout lines or awkward tipping exchanges. And then the one other thing just to carry through that idea of convenience and personalization. When our guests get into our space itself, they can adjust lighting within their room. We have six different music playlists that people can choose from anything from a traditional Zen massage playlist to piano to reggae. We even have seasonal playlists for holiday. And then we’ve also added a ready button to the table. So you, as the guest, let the therapist know when you’re ready for them to reenter the room after you’ve gotten undressed and on the table. So really, we’ve just tried to eliminate a lot of the clunky experiences that exist today and just make it much better now.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:18] As part of the clunkiness is the ability to make this a regular part of my routine rather than a special occasion. Like, are there things in place that encourage kind of regular massages?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:03:30] Absolutely. We have a membership program and in fact, 50 percent of our revenue comes from memberships, and that was just within the first year alone. We launched in March of twenty nineteen, so we were open for 11 months before the world had different plans for us. But in any case, our membership program is twofold. There’s a 50 minute and an 80 minute option that guests can choose from. And yes, it’s a very popular one because most people know that the benefit of massage comes from a regular routine, so the majority of our guests are coming at least once a month.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:07] Now, do you mind if I pick your brain a little bit your marketing brain? We have a lot of listeners that are part of emerging franchises, and you’ve done an amazing job in kind of taking a franchise that at one level and taking them to a much higher level. Any advice for those emerging franchise laws out there that are trying to do the same thing? Or are there some do’s and don’ts you’ve learned over the years in order to kind of get that escape velocity?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:04:37] When I was at Drybar Running Marketing, I used to say that I was trying to work myself out of a job, and what I mean by that is I believe that the strongest marketing. Tactic is a great experience and what a great experience. Results in is organic word of mouth and people loving your brand so much that they can’t help but tell their friends. So I would say, first and foremost, you know, your energy and focus should be around creating an amazing brand, a beautiful brand that people can feel emotionally connected to. So there needs to be a really strong point of view on the tone of voice and the look and feel. It should be consistent across all channels and then the experience should be thoughtful. One of our values at Squeeze, which we call the feels since we’re obviously a feel good brand and experience is little things are big things. And so we place a lot of emphasis in just ensuring that every aspect of the consumer experience is whimsical and there’s surprise and delight moments throughout throughout it, which again, I always like to say that those little things, if they didn’t exist, people wouldn’t know that they weren’t there. But because they are again, it just resonates with people on a different level and it becomes memorable and something that stands out. So I would say, first and foremost to really focus on the brand and the experience and then in terms of really scaling. The most important thing, especially in franchising, but really in retail across the board, is strong systems and documentation for training and your operational protocols. You know, we always had the goal at Drybar and similar with squeeze. Like Starbucks, lattes taste the same in San Francisco as they do in New Orleans. You want to make sure that the experience is consistent across the board, and that just comes from really strong communication platforms and training systems that ensure people can adhere to them no matter where they are.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:47] Now, how do you recommend the training of the employees? I know that obviously as a franchise, those aren’t your employees, but you’re probably helping them identify who would make a good employee and maybe giving them the playbook to, you know, going to get the most out of their employee. So can you talk about how and especially in this kind of economic place where in regarding employees, how do you identify kind of good candidates and how do you kind of get them to deliver on that value proposition when it’s, you know, everybody kind of is doing their own thing their own way and it’s hard to really have that much control. Your business is so human on human, it’s not like making a latte. They’re like the whole process is is touching someone. So how do you get that kind of, you know, true replicable experience?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:07:41] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to your original point, it does come down to having a playbook for each aspect of the recruiting and hiring and onboarding and training process, which we do and we document everything down to. We’ve got a cultural interview first and foremost, where we really try and get to know who people are, not just evaluate their skill set and their experience, but ensure that they’re aligning with our company values and they have the same perspective on the quality of our customer service experience. So we we definitely document all of that and make it a very, you know, important aspect of the the the franchisees training so that again, we’ve got that quality because to your point, we really are just selling people’s time. And then I think as it relates just to the landscape in general, from a hiring standpoint, what we’ve placed a lot of focus and value on in our company is our culture. And I know that’s an overused buzzword, but we really have incorporated our values and what we stand for as a company into all aspects of our daily operating operations and how the team communicates with each other. And really, what that does for the team is it makes everyone feel unified number one and number two a part of something bigger than just themselves.

Brittany Driscoll: [00:09:09] We have a vision at squeeze to transform communities for good, and we’re doing that through the thoughtfulness in our experience, not just in how we’re giving massage, but how we’re greeting guests. If we know someone’s having a hard day, the team will go above and beyond to ensure that person’s experiences is wonderful. In addition to, we’ve partnered with a philanthropic company called Canine Companions, and they’re the largest provider of service dogs to people, adults, children and veterans with disabilities. And for every membership that we sell, we’re helping to provide a day of canine support to a person with a disability. And you know, ultimately what that does is that it makes both the guest. And the team feel like not only are they making people feel good and or getting a feel good experience, but they’re also doing good. And so I think that if you can position your business and your brand as something that is purpose or purpose or mission driven, something bigger than just what you’re offering day to day, people want to be a part of that

Lee Kantor: [00:10:08] By helping them kind of focus on the bigger why like a truer North Star rather than just doing a massage or making a latte like you were saying.

Brittany Driscoll: [00:10:19] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:21] Now, when it comes to to back to the hiring, I interviewed somebody in this regard and they work for a very large franchise. The franchise owner of a large fast food or QSR, and they said they only hire people who naturally smile. And they said that it’s easier to train a person that naturally smiles to be kind of that personable person rather than teaching non smiler person to smile. Yeah. Do you have any kind of little tips and tricks that you use when you identify, like, is there a certain red flags for you? Like to see a behavior or something that stands out for you when you’re trying to find a good team member?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:11:03] Yeah, I love that and I couldn’t agree more. You know, I think soft skills in our business is so imperative. You know, you can you can teach the the tactical things, but someone’s demeanor and just their general desire to create a feel good experience has to come from within them and who they ultimately are. So couldn’t agree more with that. You know, I would say our approach is to that notion is baked into our cultural interview process. So we really do have a two step process. We don’t evaluate anyone on their skill set until their second interview. The first interview has nine questions where again, we’re really digging into who they are, what’s motivating them, not only understanding their experience but understanding how they’ve treated customers in the past. We have role play scenarios that we ask people about, and it is very apparent, very quickly people’s natural inclination to providing a feel good experience and wanting to do so or feeling that it’s forced. So I would definitely say that that comes to light very quickly. And then we also have one of my favorite questions that we ask people is if you could see one thing changed in the world within your lifetime, what would it be and why? And that’s obviously a very big question, but it really does just get to who you are on a human level. And oftentimes, you know, people will talk about personal experiences or things that again motivate how they show up in the world. So, yeah, so you know, I couldn’t agree more with that notion. And I think we’ve we’ve got a unique way in how we try and get to the core of who people are through some of those initial questions.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:49] Now let’s talk a little bit about your ideal franchisee. Is that person somebody who has a complementary business and they’re adding this to a portfolio? You’re seeing a lot, a lot more kind of franchisees building portfolios of complementary brands, you know, targeting a similar customer. And that way they can kind of get more bang for their marketing buck when it comes in terms of marketing to somebody. Are you seeing that or is it that kind of the classic second act person that just got laid off or is looking for something in retirement to generate revenue?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:13:24] Yeah, we’re definitely it’s a mix of both, but I think what’s exciting for me, Squeeze is my first true entrepreneurial venture, even though I had the great fortune of being with Drybar through their rocket ship years and prior to that worked with great brands. We really love the idea of giving small business owners and or new entrepreneurs the chance to bring this special experience to their community. So we definitely are speaking with a lot of people who this is their second act, their corporate refugee, or they’re just really looking for something that they can take their own future into their own hands, type of thing, but definitely open to the larger players. As you were mentioning people who own fitness concepts or like minded businesses that can be very complimentary, for sure. So a mix of both. I mean, for us, it really does come down to someone’s desire to build a people centric business. We really, when we started, squeeze the insight not just on the consumer side, which I was mentioning earlier, but the insight in terms of our ability to scale comes down to the employer brand piece of the business and really how we’re treating our people. I always like to say we’re not in the service industry, we’re in the people industry. So that’s really what we’re looking for. First and foremost, in our operating partners, which which is what we call our franchisees, you know, and whether their experience comes from franchising or the business world, it doesn’t matter as much as their inclination to wanting to create a great experience in their community for both guests and their team.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:02] Now you have an interesting history in this in that you started pre-pandemic, then you had to deal with the pandemic. And now hopefully as we are leaving the pandemic, did anything happen during that kind of pause that had you, you know, stumble upon something new? You had to dress because of it, that’s going to kind of have legs after.

Brittany Driscoll: [00:15:24] Yeah, interesting is one way to put it, that’s for sure. You know, I think what’s exciting being on the other side of it now? Certainly, it was challenging in many ways, having to kind of put the business on hold. As I mentioned, we launched in March of twenty nineteen, so we were open for 11 months and being in Studio City in Los Angeles, you know, we were closed pretty much the entire year. There was a lot of opportunity that we had during that time to cross our t’s and dot our eyes on the documentation side of things. Again, just going back to systems being so important as you scale. So there’s always a silver lining, and I’m grateful for that. But I would say that I’m more excited and more bullish about our potential now than I was even pre-pandemic. Because if history is any indication post recession or something like this, franchising grows. The massage industry actually grows in terms of the number of therapists entering the market wanting to become massage therapists, which you know again, is the biggest win in this business. And then also, there’s so many staff out there which I’m sure you’ve seen and a lot of your listeners have as well, which is something like 80 percent of Americans are focusing more on their self-care post-pandemic. So I actually think we’re positioned being in the right place at the right time to scale this business.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:48] Now, do you have that kind of forward thinking of the financial element of the payment and things like that all happening on the app? Was that pre pandemic? Did that happen or was that something that during the pandemic you’re like, Hey, we can make this whole thing just live on the app? Why don’t we do that? And we have this time now to kind of really build that out in a transformative manner?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:17:09] No, that was our that was our go to market concept. I mean, that’s exactly how we built the business. So certainly we are very well positioned on that point alone post-pandemic. But our insight really there was again, just the clunkiness that existed within the current space of having to call multiple locations or not being able to read a therapist, bio or other guests ratings and reviews. You know, the great thing about our app is at the touch of a button, you can sign up for a membership, so there’s no sales team or paperwork. There’s again, it’s just, you know, we really tried to hone in on every aspect of what the experience was prior to squeeze and just, you know, really drill down to make, you know, every interaction as seamless and convenient and personalized as possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:54] Now are there certain territories that you’re kind of looking for growth in in the coming year? Or is it just kind of a free for all in America and beyond?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:18:05] I would definitely say there’s certain markets that we would love to be in, and I’m sure no surprise places like Dallas and Atlanta and Charlotte and New York and Chicago. We’ve got franchisees that are currently looking for a location in Scottsdale. We would love to continue to expand in California, Denver. But ultimately, again, you know, I think that our potential is between three hundred and 500 units over the next three to five years. That’s what we’re targeting in terms of scale and the real. The real thing that we’re looking for, particularly in our first 20 franchisees, is, again, that commitment to the feel good experience, really trying to differentiate the employer brand side of things first and foremost. So it’s going to come down to the people over the location for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:58] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success, Britney. This must be such a fun ride for you to, you know, kind of run your own show now and take all that you’ve learned and put it into this new venture. Congratulations.

Brittany Driscoll: [00:19:12] Thank you so much. It is. It’s a very exciting place to be. I appreciate you giving me the chance to share more about it.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:19] And if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity or just, you know, book a massage, maybe in a local market, what’s the coordinates?

Brittany Driscoll: [00:19:26] Absolutely. Squeeze massage franchising is where you can learn about franchising. We’ve got a great app on the iPhone. It’s just squeeze massage. And then you can also follow us on Instagram at Barclays.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:38] Good stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. Today you’re doing important work and we appreciate you. Thanks, Lee. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Barry Cohen With AdLab Media Communications

September 28, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Barry Cohen With AdLab Media Communications

00:00 /

For over 40 years, Barry has plied his trade in the media and publishing field. For the past 20 years, Barry Cohen has served as principal of NJ-based AdLab Media Communications, LLC, a firm specializing in natural consumer products.

His current activity involves elevating the status of entrepreneurs and professionals through thought leadership/authority marketing. Prior to that, he held positions with New York radio stations WPAT and WOR, and served as General Manager of WKCW, a Virginia radio station.

Barry is the author of a widely reviewed advertising guide book for smaller companies, entitled 10 WAYS TO SCREW UP AN AD CAMPAIGN. He is co-author of the books Startup Smarts, and Comin’ Home.

In addition, he has edited and/or promoted two dozen books for other authors. Barry has also written guest columns for Floorcovering Weekly, Radio & Records, Radio Ink, and Professional Performance, New Jersey Business, magazines, as well as Tiempo de Mercadeo in Colombia, South America.

A familiar speaker on advertising, publicity & publishing, Barry has addressed national and regional organizations, including the Radio Advertising Bureau, Interep, the Concert Industry Consortium, the Mid-Year Radio Symposium, the Natural Products Expo East, the US Small Business Administration, The Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, the NJ Florists Association, the Financial Institutions Marketing Association, the Mid-Jersey Business Expo and the Gateway Small Business Expo, in addition to the American Marketing Association, TD Bank, Lakeland Bank, The New York Marketing Association and guest lectures at Seton Hall & Kean Universities, as well as the County College of Morris.

He is the recipient of several creative awards, from the NJ Ad Club, the Dynamic Graphics Foundation, Association of Graphic Communicators and the Silver Microphone Awards.

Connect with Barry on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Why coaches and consultants should write and publish
Is writing a book difficult and time-consuming?
Does it cost a lot to publish?
Does publishing really work for unknown authors?

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be an interesting one, everybody, so make sure you got paper and pencil ready to take some notes. This is going to be good stuff today on the show, we have Barry Cohen with AdLab Media Communications. Welcome, Barry.

Barry Cohen: [00:00:50] Welcome. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] Well, I’m excited to get updated. What’s going on at Ad Lab Media Communications?

Barry Cohen: [00:00:58] Well, we’re doing it. Ad Lab is working with coaches and consultants to help them become thought leaders perceive thought leaders in their industry. I mean, how do we do that? We do that by helping them create and promote their intellectual property.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] Now, a lot of coaches out there really struggle in this area. They know they know some stuff, but they have a difficult time of getting the folks that are trying to get as as clients to really appreciate how much they know. So how do you work with a coach to get kind of some of that intellectual property out of their head and in either into a book or an audio book or whatever form you help them kind of repurpose it into?

Barry Cohen: [00:01:36] Yeah, great question. And that’s exactly what we do. We get it out in as many possible ways as we can because people are consuming their content on multiple platforms. So there’s a variety of ways to do it. So one way, of course, is if you’ve got somebody that really can take it and run with it, you know, we’ll just work with them and publish their work and take it from good to great. But then, as you said, not everybody can do that. Some people struggle. So one of the ways that we can do that is, of course, ghostwriting. I call it collaborative ghostwriting. And what we’ve found to be successful is today, again, with technology, we will interview somebody like you’re doing with me right now on Zoom will record the audio right. We’ll have Zoom process and then we’ll run it through transcription software. And then we’ll take the speech to text transcript and edit that and create a book from it. We’re actually doing that right now, so that’s one way. All right. You know, other ways are, of course, you know, giving people just the, you know, guidance and the critique and the hand-holding. But here’s what people need to know. What coaches need to understand is that, first of all, there’s still a great cachet to publishing. I like to say that Publisher Parish is the new business manager. You know, in academia, that was always the mantra. If professors didn’t publish, they didn’t get retained, tenured, promoted, but it’s fast becoming the standard in business. If you think about it all the business leaders, you know, love him or hate him. Donald Trump. Jack Welch, the late CEO of GE.

Barry Cohen: [00:03:07] You know Robert Kiyosaki, the rich dad, poor dad, real estate guy, Guy Kawasaki. They’re all authors. But again, you don’t have to be famous to be an author. In fact, it works the other way around. The authorship will help you to become famous. So, yeah, again, it’s not as daunting a task as you think. I have one coach right now that is doing it where I would say the tail wagging the dog. We’re first creating the articles and the podcast, and then we’re compiling that into a book. I’ve got another one that has done a course and now is sending me the transcripts of the course. I’m turning that into a book. So, you know, think of it this way. Everybody knows somebody whose kid wants to be the next American Idol, right, so in order to do that, they need three things. They need airplay. They need a record deal and they need public performance. It’s the same thing with coaches and consultants. You need public speaking engagements. You need product, the book and the intellectual property, and you need publicity. And that’s where we come in. It’s not as daunting a task as people may think and again today getting published. The barriers to entry have come down. You know, you no longer have to have a big legacy publisher behind you. There’s a lot of great self-publishing options out there. And again, technology, for example, print on demand. You don’t have to have a garage full of 5000 books today. Every single one of our clients books is printed, bound and shipped as ordered, so they have no physical inventory to maintain.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:38] Now, you mentioned a word earlier and the word was famous, and a lot of folks think that that’s the objective is to become famous in some manner, and my counsel to people in this regard is you just want to be famous to the people who hire you like you don’t have to be famous to the world. But if you’re a coaching dentist, you just have to be famous among dentists. You know, you don’t have to have the same strategy as somebody who wants, you know, worldwide fame. You just want fame in your niche.

Barry Cohen: [00:05:11] And so true.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:13] So now how do you kind of help your client understand that? Because then when your audience is kind of has more parameters like that, then everything becomes easier, the marketing becomes easier. Everything, the writing becomes easier. You can go kind of inside baseball and talk really the minutia of what you’re doing and show depth in your knowledge, rather than kind of general generalized content that most worldwide famous, you know, people have. It’s not really specific. It’s just general kind of life advice.

Barry Cohen: [00:05:47] Yeah. Leigh, you hit the nail on the head. The key word is audience. I always tell all of my authors, all my clients, that you have to start by defining, defining and refining your audience to really understand exactly who they are. When you know who they are and you know what interests them. Then you know how to write for them. You know what the tone should be. You know the style that you should use, and you’ll also know then who to promote it to, and we will know how to help them find that audience. You know, in other words, where does that audience live? What content do they consume? You know, what publications do they read? What programs do they listen to or watch? And you know, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about shaping that. You know, I can’t help but emphasize again the importance of if you want to become the expert in your space and not just the practitioner publishing will help you get there. It will raise your profile and credibility and make you that perceived thought leader in your arena. It also will help you to attract speaking fees and higher speaking fees if you’re a published author. You know, again, I did this myself, so whatever advice I give, I’m just following the path that I took myself.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:05] Right, and that’s one of those things where when you have a speaking opportunity, you can include and everybody gets a book and, you know, if I’m going to go and do training at your at your office, everybody gets a book like you can build this into your pricing, into your offerings.

Barry Cohen: [00:07:23] Exactly. And there’s still a great cachet to being a published author. And again, the very definition of publishing has changed. So, you know, let’s clarify that for a minute. The book may become the centerpiece of what should become whole product line. You know, somebody very wise who’s done a lot more books than I did said to me early on in my publishing journey. He said. You don’t make your money on a twelve point ninety five paperback, and it’s true. Most of us that are writing are not writing in order to sell a million books. But what he emphasized to me was the importance of building out the product line, and I’ll explain what I mean by that. You take the book, and as you said before, the key word is repurposing the content, so when you have the book, the e-book, the audio book, the podcasts right, the live speaking engagements and the CDs and DVDs of the lives speaking engagements, you know, eventually you’re going to have we in a box for two hundred hours instead of twelve ninety five for one paperback. And while you sleep, you sell a couple of those and you’re certainly making your money. But again, for the most part, people are using this to attract attention to them, not necessarily to to generate income from it. It’s to, you know, to get people to notice them and to hire them. And, you know, let’s go back to what I said before about those three things. You know, the public performance, you know, the product and the publicity.

Barry Cohen: [00:08:47] Each one of these feeds into the other. So if you’ve got a book right, you get speaking engagements. And if you get speaking engagements, you get publicity around them, you get publicity and you know, because you’re getting media attention, then right away, you’re the star, you’re the expert, you’re the person up on the dais that knows what’s going on. And then people are attracted to you to do business. And we’ve proven this, you know, we’ve had clients that have become very successful and they were never published before. Some of them hadn’t even done public speaking before. We’ve got a couple of them that, you know, we’ve gotten really good media coverage because part of what we do is to shape that product so that it stands out from the rest. You know, I’m known for coming up with titles and, you know, don’t let anybody tell you you don’t judge a book by its cover because you do. You know, how many seconds are you going to spend looking at the thumbnail on Amazon before you decided you’re going to buy it? If you walk into a Barnes and Noble and you’ll look at the spine of a book, how long are you going to look at it before you decide to pull it off the shelf? So know part of that is I bring a marketing perspective as an advertising guy to publishing. I look at the book as a product. I look at the at the author as a product that has to be marketed

Lee Kantor: [00:10:02] Right and everything has to holistically work together so that you get the most bang for your buck. Because all of this, it is an investment of time and resources in order to pull this off. Now let’s take. I’d like to go down a couple of different paths. Sure, let’s go. I’m I’m maybe saying I’m an executive and I just got laid off and now I’m going to be a coach. Ok, so I’m kind of unknown. I don’t have really a body of work yet, but I believe in what you’re saying. I believe what you say is true. So I I don’t really have a pile of content other than, you know, I know a lot of stuff, but it’s still just kind of, you know, not on paper and pencil pencil yet. So how do you work with me in my path? Like what would my journey working with you look like in order to get some of the the brilliance I have out of my head and then launch me into the coaching world?

Barry Cohen: [00:10:55] Yeah, excellent question. What I usually do is I have a what I call a thought starter questionnaire, and I’ll send that to people. And if they’re serious, they’ll take that questionnaire and they’ll answer those questions and then share their answers with me. That questionnaire will become the basis for an outline, and then the outline can be fleshed out into a book. And then, as we said, the derivative works can be backed out of that. Now we’ve taken excerpts from clients books and turn them into articles, turn them into blog posts, turn them into guest columns and guest posts.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:27] So that kind of engagement where it’s kind of starting from kind of blank sheet of paper. What’s the time and like a ballpark of the cost to get me, you know, a finished product and now on my way, like some escape velocity?

Barry Cohen: [00:11:42] Ok. Yeah, good point. Provided the back and forth is is timely, right? You know, we’re each sending work back and forth to one another because I’m going to be critiquing it and shuttling it back to you and and you’re going to be then, you know, revising and sending it back to me provided that that rhythm is in place. It shouldn’t take more than, you know, in most cases, three to six months to have a finished product, depending on, you know, how much content we’re talking about the weight of it. I mean, you know, I’ve done books that are 150 pages of done books that are 450 pages, but it shouldn’t be that daunting and should really be, let’s say, you know, three to six months of the outside process, in some cases, even less. We just did one for a Stony Brook University professor recently who does process improvement, and he moved through it in record time. I believe that we probably did it in under three months. And in terms of cost, again, depending on what we working with, if we’re working with a draft that just needs to be taken from good to great. You know, it’s one cost structure.

Barry Cohen: [00:12:50] If we’re taking something from ground zero, as you described before, you know, and basically pulling it out of your head, you know, then it’s a different arrangement. So again, to not be evasive, to give you an idea, you know, let’s state it in ranges. Generally, if somebody sends me a draft, right, it just needs to be improved. You know, we’re looking at some not in the stratosphere, you know, something and maybe the two to 3000 range to complete it and have a, you know, ready to go manuscript when it comes to something that we have to do really a lot of hand-holding. And like I said, either, you know, either start from nothing. Develop the outline with them and flesh it out. Or as I said before, do the, you know, the Zoom brain dump. Then you know, we’re more likely to to want to do a monthly retainer. We don’t do our ways because it’s a blank check. I like to have a predictable. In that case, it’s probably going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe a thousand to fifteen hundred a month and usually that’s completed again within a six month time frame or less.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:56] And then at the end of the day, the person their books on Amazon, their books exist.

Barry Cohen: [00:14:02] It’s not so. So this takes you to the to the point of having a completed manuscript now to go from there. Then they have to decide we’ll give them options. They have to decide, do they want to use one of the self-publishing programs out there? Right. So the return key services that can do everything from designing the cover to, you know, setting the, you know, formatting the interior of the book to getting the ISBN barcodes and putting it up on Amazon. So those services usually if it’s a color cover black and white interior book, those services usually range around, maybe give or take several hundred dollars one time fee. And that’s done now. On the other hand, if it’s a book that we feel is really worthy of it, we now have our own publishing imprint. And if if we put it through there, then it’s not self-publishing, they’re not paying for it.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:58] And then it’s it’s more traditionally published at that point.

Barry Cohen: [00:15:01] Yes, but by a small, independent publisher, but it’s more traditionally published, correct?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:06] And so the elements that I’m hearing are the creation of the content. That’s one, you know, maybe the first phase of the launch or the rocket ship. Then you have the actual kind of distribution through an Amazon or a publishing firm of some kind. And then the third part would be the publicity and the marketing around it.

Barry Cohen: [00:15:26] Correct. Exactly. And publicity and promotion is again usually done like a standard PR firm on a retainer basis. You know, we’ll establish again a predictable, fixed, you know, retainer for a period of usually six months, and then the author can reevaluate and decide if they want to do anymore or not. And that involves doing everything from, you know, collaboratively drafting press releases to coming up with a target media list again, collaboratively to us, aggressively pitching and following up. We don’t just spam it out there and leave it until we get an answer, and it takes usually six touches before you get a yes or no from a media outlet. And they’re we’re soliciting everything from book reviews to articles to feature stories to excerpts of the book.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:18] Right. So then I mean, so the bottom line end of the day of this, it’s like golf. You know, you can spend as little or as you as much as you want on your clubs, right? So it’s the same thing here. Like if you do a lot of the work, the author does a lot of the work and does a lot of the legwork. It’s definitely in the thousands. If you want to do the whole white glove, hands off thing. You’re talking tens of thousand ten twenty thousand at the end of the day.

Barry Cohen: [00:16:44] Yeah, but probably not more than that. It’s like I said, it’s not in the stratosphere. It really isn’t

Lee Kantor: [00:16:49] Right. I mean, I think that anybody that is has a practice or is coming from corporate, that number shouldn’t scare anybody. But but it just you go ahead.

Barry Cohen: [00:17:00] It’s good that you mention that because, you know, it’s the perfect vehicle for somebody transitioning out of corporate and into consulting and coaching because so many people that are going into that space don’t have an entrepreneurial background and they’re going to need that extra rocket fuel to make themselves credible. And what they have to realize is that when you hang your shingle out, you’re starting all over again. Doesn’t matter what you did incorporate. People are still going to look at you and say, But what can you do for me now, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] Like when you had Deloitte at the back of your email address, you were getting people returning your call. But when it’s, you know, Bob Smith, not so much. And that’s a harsh reality for a lot of corporate people. I think they think that they still have the same cachet when they had the corporation behind them.

Barry Cohen: [00:17:47] Yes, it’s true. And you know, I just dealt with somebody recently that was in that position, and he thought that he was going to go after the same size clients that he did before. And I said, no, I said, those folks already have McKinsey or Booz Allen Hamilton, you know, on retainer. I said, You know, you’ve got to you’ve got to move down a tier, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:18:07] You’ve got to earn your way back up the ladder under your own kind of umbrella. And that’s where the book is so useful. Now we’ve been talking about people from scratch. What if? And I would imagine this is good advice for anybody that is maybe a year or two out and sees like, Oh, you know, there’s a reorg in my future and I might be laid off at any point now. It’s probably a good idea for that person to start a blog, I would imagine. So they have some content. So when they do get laid off or they retire, they already have kind of a framework or a, you know, kind of some content to pull from so they can accelerate this whole process. And so you’re not creating a book or a concept or course from scratch, you’re already kind of developing the bones of it. Do you work with folks at that stage, you know, to help them kind of plan out, like maybe to come in and say, OK, we’re not going to do much work here, just strategize and say, OK, you know what, in two years you want to retire. Why don’t we build at least the, you know, the scaffolding now and start? Get you working on some of this without my help, but I’ll just give you some guidance at the earliest stage and then you go off. Then when that time comes and then we reconnect back again and then now we’re going to ready to take this and then compile it and repurpose it.

Barry Cohen: [00:19:21] Yes, you know, the answer to that is a simple yes. You know, I have worked with people that way and we can work with people that way and we will work with people that way. And, you know, we’ll also give them some of the hacks and the shortcuts, so to speak, and and give an idea. Ok, here’s you know, here’s a podcast platform that you can start on. You can take your blog post now and turn it into a podcast. You know, we’ll give them some, you know, general direction on, you know, like how to, you know, how to position an article so that it’s going to resonate with, you know, with an editor or producer or reporter? Yeah, you know, we’ll give. And that kind of a launch pad.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:00] So now if somebody wants to learn more about your offering, get a hold of you or somebody on the team, what’s the best way to do that?

Barry Cohen: [00:20:08] Well, email is publicist seven four zero at gmail.com and they can look at the website publishing mentors, and I can give you a phone as well. All right. Daytime phone on Eastern Time is Area Code nine seven three five eight zero three five three four.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:30] Good stuff, Barry, and congratulations on all the success you’ve helped so many people, you know, take their practice to the next level.

Barry Cohen: [00:20:38] Thank you. That’s what we do.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:40] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Special Episode: Wealth and Wellness Coach Leah Davis

September 27, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Special Episode: Wealth and Wellness Coach Leah Davis

00:00 /

Leah Davis is a dedicated wealth and wellness coach for women of color and she is committed to helping her clients achieve economic stability.

Leah has a profound awareness of the unique challenges women of color experience as they transform their wealth legacy.

Leah had more than five years of experience as a financial advisor before beginning her career as a wealth and wellness coach. In her role as a financial advisor, Leah guided her clients as they navigated the challenges of planning for their financial future and establishing intergenerational wealth.

Leah is a certified domestic violence advocate and brings a trauma-informed approach to her work with clients. She understands the complexities of gender-based violence, addiction, substance abuse, and recovery.

Leah creates a safe space for her clients to feel seen and heard as she guides them towards wealth-building.

Connect with Leah on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to B.R. Ambassador to learn more. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:33] Welcome to this very special edition of Coach the Coach Radio Stone Payton Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I have so been looking forward to this particular interview. We’re going to get a chance to visit with a young lady who has just had a marvelous impact on our organization and with and through the work that we’re doing. Brought that to the West Coast and out to the Bay Area. So I look forward to speaking with her in just a moment. But while I have you, let me ask you a question, man, you have been interviewing a lot of coaches for some time now, and I know even more so in the last several weeks. How’s it going, man? Are you having fun? Are you still learning stuff from these practitioners?

Lee Kantor: [00:01:16] Yeah, this is one of the my favorite shows that we do because it is such a collaborative giving group and these are folks that are out there trying their whole job every day is to helping other people be better. And I’m a big fan of that, and that’s what we’re trying to do. A Business RadioX is help our clients and guests be better and give them something of value that’s going to help them in their career in some manner and then in their life. And what I’m hearing from a lot of folks is, you know, they’re all doing kind of coaching in some form or fashion, but they each do it kind of in their own special way, you know, in their own kind of they all have some secret sauce. And what I like about this part of the series that we’re adding to the mix is in this episode that we’re producing, we’re trying to get kind of granular and tactical and really focus on how our listeners and how our coaches can really improve and get more out of kind of the marketing work they’re doing because that’s kind of our expertize. And so that’s why I love doing the show. I love talking to coaches every day, and I love doing this particular episode of the show where we’re really kind of getting in the weeds and getting granular on how to help them help themselves to get one more client.

Stone Payton: [00:02:40] All right, well, tear up, Lee, who are you going to be interviewing today?

Lee Kantor: [00:02:44] Well, today on the show, we have Leah Davis, and she’s with Leah Davis coaching, and her tagline is inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy. She’s also the full disclosure of the Business RadioX ambassador for the Bay Area. Welcome, Leah.

Leah Davis: [00:03:01] Hi there. It’s so good to be here with the two of you. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:05] Well, Leah, before we get too far into things, tell us about your coaching practice. You know, for our listeners, let people know who you coach and kind of the a little kind of elevator pitch about your coaching practice.

Leah Davis: [00:03:18] Wonderful. Thank you. Yes. So as a wealth coach, I enjoy supporting diverse women entrepreneurs as they get crystal clear about the dream. So it’s a lot of discussions about their money management habits that they may or may not be doing. That’s moving them towards the vision they have for their future. And throughout the coaching process, it’s really important to me that I provide education about the women’s wealth gap and how they are being impacted the most as women of color we are. And we’ll work together on a doable plan of short term and long term financial stability things so that they can build and protect the wealth legacy and overcome those barriers that are common with women who are experiencing this. And when we’re furthest behind in the wealth gap. And then on the wellness side, that’s more of a holistic process. So most of us have experienced trauma at some point in our life and being a person of color in this country, we definitely have. So I really focus on the impact that childhood domestic violence and intimate partner violence affects their physical and emotional responses to managing their finances. And so because most women that have experienced violence towards them have a harder time envisioning their future because we’ve been in survival mode for so long. So with this holistic approach, it’s a physical, emotional and even a spiritual focus to guide women towards feeling safe with their money. And then they can no longer second-guess the decisions that they make learning to trust themselves and others and life in general.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:37] Now for our listeners, can you share maybe one story of kind of the before and after where somebody came to you and maybe was struggling and maybe was frustrated and then they started working with you? And then they were able to kind of kind of right the ship a little bit.

Leah Davis: [00:04:54] Yes. Thank you for that question. I have a wonderful story of actually one of my first clients when I started my business and she had approached me wanting to overcome this habit that she had, where she kept giving her money to women that she was supporting. So she works in the management at a nonprofit, and she also has experience of domestic violence advocate. And she’s also a survivor herself. And so she found that she would be supporting women outside in the community by sending the money. They would hit her up and say, Hey, you know, I need a place to stay. And so she sent her like a thousand dollars or something, and she would do this automatically without taking a look at her finances. And she realized she was driving herself crazy because then she was pulling money out of her own savings, giving it to other people. But she felt this inherent need to make sure that they were OK, and she also had a lot of trauma around money and her family. She had an older brother who had unfortunately committed suicide when his business had failed, and he was no longer, I guess, believed that he was someone to be feeling proud within their family. And so that really took a toll on her family. And so the conversations about money and success, it was all just really, really dark for her. And so when she came to me, we really just started chipping away about her experience with money. Her relationship with money. She’s also survived domestic violence, like I mentioned.

Leah Davis: [00:06:14] And then one of the key components, though, is that she really wanted to also buy a house and be able to have conversations with her partner about, you know, purchasing a home together. And so she had so much fear around meeting with other friends of hers that could assist them with applying for a loan because she didn’t want to talk about her credit. She couldn’t talk about money. And so we started unpacking that throughout the coaching. And it turns out when she was able to send over her Excel spreadsheet that she had it took. We had a 12 week coaching session, and I think it was around the seventh or eighth session where she finally sent that to me. She had kept saying she was going to send it to me from the beginning, and she sent it to me and it was, you know, about twenty thousand of debt. And to her, that was just so much and there was so much pain around that and a shame. And she had not ever talked to anyone about this, that she experienced just with me. And in that session at the end, she just realized how difficult it was, but how much better she felt and having that conversation with me. And so shortly after, she explained to me that she’d been carrying that for about 13 years, that her previous partner, where she had experienced that domestic violence, there was financial abuse and her credit had been ruined by this individual who had taken advantage of her. And so that was a lot of pain for her over 13 years carrying that.

Leah Davis: [00:07:33] So once we went through that process, then she felt so free and able to talk to her partner about the debt that she carried. And she explained to me at another session that he looked at her like that. It, you know, he was thinking it was like hundreds of thousands of dollars the way that she had not wanted to talk about it, and so together they began working on a plan. She’s sort of paying down that debt through the coaching. We worked on how she could respond to those phone calls she was receiving from women in the community looking for her support, and she learned how to pause. Waited twenty four hours, let them know and to think about it. And then we also worked together. So she created her buckets of money. So she really wanted to make sure she could continue supporting these women but have her limits a cap on it. And so she had a designated fund, and so she felt really confident now where she can look at that and say, OK, I may or may not be able to support you and then transfer the money to them. And then now she’s moved, and they’re in the process now of buying a home, her new partner. So she’s learned some amazing money management habits, communicating, setting up boundaries and still being able to do what she really wanted to do, which was to be able to support other women so they can get some stability as they’re recovering from domestic violence.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:45] Wow, that is a powerful story, and it shows you that you probably relieved so much stress you helped her kind of, you know, kind of dissipate a lot of the angst and stress and, like you said, shame that maybe she was having and then reframe it in a way that she’s probably living a more balanced life.

Leah Davis: [00:09:06] Yes. Yes, I mean, I she she also works in nonprofit world as far as fundraising, and it also really impacted her ability to have conversations with her team about going out there and raising this money to support other women of color because she got shamed. She also said she knew that it was impacting her role, and she wanted to be able to bring more money. And they’re bringing in the dollars now. The organization where she’s at because her energy has shifted her relationship with money has shifted her relationship with herself and others. She’s doing amazing now and I’m so proud of her.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:41] And that’s the kind of ripple effects that good coaching can have on an individual. You think you’re just helping that individual, but actually you’re helping all the folks around that person as well as they learn the skills they need to kind of level up, then that is permeating their network and their community. And that’s where change really can happen in a powerful way. Congratulations on that.

Leah Davis: [00:10:03] Yes, thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:04] Now, in this episode, we’re trying to kind of help our coaches get one more client in my head. That’s what we’re trying to do is help everybody get one more client. And the way that we’re doing that is trying to help our coaches learn how to get the most out of an interview or some of the social media that they’re doing. A lot of folks nowadays are being interviewed on different kinds of shows or podcasts and and they think that a lot of them think that, Oh, I just do this interview and then I’m done and then business is going to come my way. So that’s all I have to do because I’m doing the work of doing that interview. But the the most successful coaches, I think, take it one step further and say, You know what, now that I have this content, there’s going to be other ways that I can leverage this content, and I should kind of wring out as much value as possible from any piece of content that’s created, whether it’s me as just the interviewee or it’s me as the interviewer or the person that’s involved in the creating of the content. But I’m going to kind of get the most out of any interview experience, and you’re someone who does a great job on social media. Can you share a little bit about how you kind of, you know, use social media and use kind of interviews or shows as a way to kind of grow your network, serve your network and maybe support and celebrate other people in your network?

Leah Davis: [00:11:28] Yes, I can definitely share that. First and foremost, it was important for me to hire somebody because this is not my this is not my jam. I, you know, when I first started out with my coaching, I was like, OK, I’ll push a little here on Facebook and let me try to create my own little social media calendar. And I couldn’t stick with it because, you know, my mom, I’m working and running a business, and I didn’t know what I was doing. So what I did was I had already previously met with a gal who had originally done my first web site and I met with her and I said, You know, how much does it cost for your services? And at the time, I didn’t have the funds for it. So I said, You know what? I’m just going to sit with this and the money’s going to come eventually somewhere. And so what I did do is I applied for a business loan through a seed fee. And once that was approved, I use those funds specifically for my marketing team and to get me out there. That was the first and foremost because, like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing. I got to hire somebody. And so with that, it’s been an amazing journey and it’s been a learning one for me, too. So when it comes to like repurposing the content in their interviews, it’s actually a step back getting out there. So I will proactively reach out to other shows.

Leah Davis: [00:12:39] Send an email and say, you know, these are topics I’d like to cover or are you interested? I may or may not get a response, but they’re in my pipeline now to continue following up with them. And for those that have then I can have a conversation with them if that’s the process that they have and then do an interview with them. And what I do enjoy doing, what my marketing lead has done a great job at is cross promotion. This is all new to me. I have no idea what this is because I’m the worst since social media. I’m learning, though. And so whenever there’s an interview, an opportunity to have, we make sure we have a plan to cross-promote on our social media platforms, which is for me is LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. So, for example, I’ll use Bay Area Business Radio as an example for this. When there’s a guest who’s going to be on the show, we just check if they’re interested in cross promoting. My marketing lead has put together the content for this. We have a link. So when someone confirms their date that they’re going to be on the show, then they use that link. And once they complete their name and some basic information and their headshot, it gets funneled to our marketing, my marketing lead, who then has the timeline to go ahead and create the graphic that we then use on our social media platforms. And we also make sure that we cross, promote in email using newsletters.

Leah Davis: [00:13:58] So I will send out on my email list when the show is done with the link for that interview, for that individual, and then they will send it out to their email list as well. And a link to that and also invite and encourage anyone on their email list to reach out to me if they’re interested and being on the show as well. So that’s been a wonderful way in which we’ve been doing the cross promotion and getting the content out there. And as far as repurposing for myself on my website, my marketing lady, she went ahead and put in like a clip on my website of my interview from Business RadioX. I first came on board and so when you go to my main page at Coach the Coach, there’s an actual clip on there where you can click on it and listen to it. And it’s me talking about the work that I do. And I love that because it’s me, it’s my voice. It’s authentic, it’s real. And it’s not just maybe a picture on a screen with a little bit of content of my bio on there. So I think it’s just a really nice touch that she’s put on my website for that. So that’s some of the things that we’re doing when it comes to the promoting and using the social media platforms to get myself out there more as well as those who are interviewed.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:07] And I think you brought up an important word, and I think that this is something that a lot of folks maybe take for granted and you use the word authentic. I think folks out there are a little kind of more marketing savvy nowadays, and they don’t like the slick, perfect content that they prefer an authentic human to human interaction, rather than something perfectly polished and slick. It just creates more listen ability, more relatability, and it is more authentic. And I think that that’s what folks are hungry for nowadays. Do you find that as well?

Leah Davis: [00:15:45] I completely agree. There’s one thing that we have noticed is that I will get more traffic to a post if it’s an image of me and it’s just authentic and real. I can put other images out there of, you know, other graphics out there, you know, all my social media and some content on there. But it’s just not. It just doesn’t get as much traffic onto that posting, but whenever it’s me, for whatever reason, like you’re saying, I think it’s just authentic. We get more traffic and responses that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:17] So now you mentioned you mentioned that this is kind of at this point, it’s almost like a machine you have, right, you have a way to reach out to folks to get them to interact with you and possibly interview you. You have a way to take the content and then repurpose it on a variety of platforms. You have a way to cross-promote with any of the people that you’re working with, so you create these Win-Win conversations. And then at the end, you have a way to kind of put all the content in a place where it can be found, you know, in the future, so it becomes evergreen content. Has that just happened because you hired these experts to help you build this and then any advice for folks out there if they are trying to build their own kind of content machine that you’ve kind of built?

Leah Davis: [00:17:03] Great question. I would say it’s a combination of me hiring also my experience, so I took my experience as a financial adviser. It seems like eons ago and what I learned out in the field and how to do some of the sales outreach, but I just wasn’t experience the marketing side. So I have my experience combined with the team that I hired on the marketing side and we piece it together. And I’m glad that you said it sounds like it’s a machine because for me right now it sounds like pieces, and I honestly just hired somebody else to help me on the business development workflow side. So I’m working on that now where I’m going to have things more automated from the start when I’m contacted through my website with a phone call or through email. And from there, we’re working on a system and a workflow process to be able to follow up to keep track of the system to where this lead is at so that I can keep track of it and get that into an interview or potentially have that person’s interested in becoming a client, then I’m going to have that in a workflow as well. So the the machine is kind of an infancy stage right now, but it’s about to get really slick with the expertize of the other individual that I recently hired to help me on this business development side, which I think is so important because I don’t have that. I mean, I I’m great at coaching, I’m great at talking, I’m great at listening. When it comes to business development and marketing weak points here for me. So I’ve realized I really got to rely on other professionals that they’re going to see things that I don’t even know or aware of. And then together, between my experience and my vision and their expertize, I think this is really going to take us somewhere far.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:48] And then when that’s in place, then you’re going to be able to really, I think, benefit from the fact that everybody’s in their lane doing what they do, right. You’ll have this machine that’s bubbling up prospects and leads for you so that you can focus on what you’re great at the coaching and they interacting in the human to human relationship. So I think that if you can build that, that would be great. And maybe you can come back on to let us know what are the components to share with other people so they can kind of accelerate their learning curve and maybe smooth out some of the the hiccups that they’re finding in their career? Because that’s what all the coaches that I find that I talked to every day are just super passionate about what they do. And then sometimes they get bogged down on some of the stuff, like you said that they’re not that’s not their superpower. And then it frustrates them and they feel like maybe this isn’t the right calling. And a lot of times sometimes you just need a little guidance from somebody who’s been there and done that to help you kind of get back on track in terms of living into that mission that you you intended to.

Leah Davis: [00:19:50] Yes, I completely agree with you on that end, you know, even through the certification program I went through, there was no training on marketing or business development is purely coaching. So that’s something that I think hopefully will change with this particular certification that I received on the financial coaching side at some point because I think that is something really, really key, a key ingredient for a successful coaching business. And I understand the feeling of getting burnt out. I mean, just recently, right before I hired this gal for the business development side, I was feeling really bogged down and I was feeling a losing a little bit of inspiration and just kind of avoiding like, Oh, I got to do something like this and what am I to do here? And just feeling overwhelmed? But once I had my sessions with her, it’s like, Oh my goodness, I see the light, you know, because I don’t want to be doing things that I don’t enjoy doing. I understand there are some aspects of running a business, but yeah, it’s not all beautiful and we do need to do the work, but the percentage of my time does not need to be spent doing the things that I don’t love doing. So I really want to be able to focus on doing what I love doing outsourcing to those who are experts and things I don’t really enjoy because I want to keep my energy and joy up so that I can continue doing what I love, and in turn, that is going to be received and seen by those that I’m reaching out to serve.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:15] Good stuff, Leah, now if somebody wants to get a hold of you for coaching, what is the best way to do that?

Leah Davis: [00:21:21] They can go to my website, the best place, which is Leah coaching. That’s LDH CEO. And if you don’t know how to spell coaching, I’m also on Instagram at leea coaching.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:37] Good stuff, so you learn something there.

Stone Payton: [00:21:39] Well, I did, and I had one more question before we wrap it, it’s kind of related to this burnout, this burnout business, when someone is like you, Leia. And candidly, in my experience like Leia and may I mean like Lee and sometimes maybe even like me, when you pour this much of yourself into your profession, into your calling. I know that you can that we can all become a little bit susceptible. We can get tired. Do you have any discipline or do you have a place beyond sessions like you were describing where you go for inspiration or where you go to get recharged?

Leah Davis: [00:22:15] I am very disciplined when it comes to my self care. I get up, I would say, Monday through Friday. I train hard and CrossFit, so but prior to getting up in the morning, I pray and meditate every morning, even on the weekends. That is my go to to give me that inspiration and to keep me grounded and motivated. And you know what, when there’s when there’s times when I’m having a sleepless night, I’m going to listen to something inspirational where it is going to remind me there’s there’s more involved in the work that I’m doing. It’s not just about me, it’s about doing my part to help others heal and to move forward in their lives, and it will help their families in the community. So listening to different audio books, I have a bunch of different folks I listen to that are inspirational, some spiritual leaders, and that’s what it is that I do on my end. To do that and also I will, I will step back. I have no problems. Just realize, like, you know what? I’m not feeling it today, so I’m just going to, you know, focus on something a little bit less energy output and take care of myself and eat something yummy and roll up my sleeves tomorrow and see where I’m at.

Stone Payton: [00:23:25] Well, I’m not nearly as disciplined as you are, but I certainly feel like I can intellectually understand the value of it. As I strive to be more disciplined, I can promise you and our listeners this I one of the places I’m going to go for inspiration and to recharge as Bay Area Business Radio as I’ve got, I’m going to go there. I’m going to continue to go to Coach the Coach radio. This has been an absolute delight having you on the show one more time before we wrap best coordinates for people to reach out and connect with you. Maybe have a conversation with you about any of the topics that we covered today or anything else they want to talk about.

Leah Davis: [00:24:03] Take me out of my website. It’s Leah Coach the Coach Leah coaching, I’m also on Instagram at my handle, Leah coaching Find you there.

Stone Payton: [00:24:14] Fantastic. All right, this is Stone Payton for Lee Kantor and our guest today, Leah Davis and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Jodi-Kay Edwards With Alignment Is The New Hustle

September 24, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Jodi-Kay Edwards With Alignment Is The New Hustle

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Jodi-Kay Edwards is the founder of Alignment Is The New Hustle, a business strategy and personal development brand helping creatives & CEOs improve their performance mentally and strategically.

Her mission is to empower entrepreneurs worldwide to create lucrative lives and businesses so they can grow their impact and income in a way that is unique to them.

Connect with Jodi-Kay on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Building a better brand Simplifying the way you do business

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Jodi-Kay Edwards with alignment is the new hustle. Welcome to Kay.

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:00:44] Hi, Lee, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:00:50] Right now we are offering personal development and business strategy sessions. The whole idea is to fall into alignment with your authentic self and find your messaging online so people can learn more about the brand itself.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:02] So what’s your backstory? How did you get into this line of work?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:01:06] Backstory, born in Jamaica, moved to America, just caught up in the whole American dream. The hustle, right? We we were the hustle from a very young age, and I realized very quickly that hustle led to burnout. It leads to a lot of really great opportunities and money and things like that as well. But I was like, You know what? There has to be a better way, and I realized that when you can align your mind and your thoughts first, instead of just always taking all this action, if we can put some intentionality behind it, it’s a little bit easier to get the same level of success or same version of success that we’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] Now, do you kind of have a sweet spot in terms of the type of client that you serve? Is it focus, you know, on creatives or is it on makers or on, you know, executives, leaders like who? Who do? Who is the folks that really resonate with your message?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:01:52] So a majority of my clients generally have some type of spirituality, background, whether they’re interested in law of attraction or they understand this whole realm of personal development. A lot of my marketing copy speaks towards that, but I do primarily focus on creatives and CEOs. So I do brand management for some artists who are in the music industry as like our higher level packages and coaching services and then people like myself who are, you know, just want to do the coaching at this level. And then artists, it just really captures the creative side and then the CEOs when it comes to corporations, small businesses of mind, but large businesses as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:30] Now what’s the pain that they’re having, where your team is the right answer for them? Like, what are they going through? What are they frustrated with? Where they kind of raise their hand and say, I need some help here?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:02:42] I love this question, and I always believe that as coaches, we should be the product of what we’re selling. So my ability to just hop on this interview and not even prep for it and just know my unique selling point, my value proposition, my niche, my industry have a clear understanding of my messaging and my marketing and how to explain that. That’s the biggest thing and the biggest transformation that our clients go through. It’s by taking them through the various exercises so they can see their worth, they can see their value and of course, communicate that value so they can show up online, get seen and get paid. So without communicating that they’re not getting paid. And then content marketing and social media marketing feels super confusing when it can really just be as simple as understanding the value that you provide and being able to communicate that online.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:27] So can you share some some advice for these folks that are struggling or are there some things they can be doing right now without engaging your services that maybe low hanging fruit for them so they can kind of get some momentum?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:03:41] Yeah, absolutely. There’s so much free content out there in the world, and I always say information without implementation is just information. So even in my free content, I’m showing your free content or other people’s free content. It’s really just looking at what you need right now. What does your business need right now? What do you need right now to move to that next level to bring you one step closer to success? And it’s not consuming more information. It’s being hyper intentional and creating almost like a free blueprint. We’re all selling some type of blueprint, right? So it’s creating your own unique blueprint based off of what you feel. Your pain points in your business are right now, and you can go ahead and take that free information that’s out there. It’s part of our sales funnel for us as coaches, but we put it out there because it really actually does help people. So if someone was able to shift their mindset from just all this free content, I don’t know how to do with it to like, Oh, here’s another free training. Here’s another thing during that webinar listen to that podcast and don’t just consume the content. Listen to how they sell. Listen to the marketing phrases or the keywords that they use. And if that’s applicable in your business, go ahead and write those down and start using those things in your business right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:51] Now, have you any examples where you can talk about maybe a client that was struggling or maybe plateaued or was frustrated and you’ve been able to help them get to a new level? Obviously, don’t name the name or the company name, but just maybe the challenge they were having and what you did to help them kind of get to the new level?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:05:11] Yeah, absolutely. I have lots of different creatives, so I’ll give you one of my creatives. I’ll put like my website designers and developers in that area. And she was stuck at around two hundred to five hundred dollars per month, and we were able to scale her business after just about 90 days of working together to about five thousand dollars per month. And really the biggest thing she came to me with a brand, so a lot of people might think, Oh, well, I don’t need a coach, I don’t need this. I don’t need that. Well, a lot of people can’t even explain the difference between branding and marketing. So then, of course, when we can take a look at tightening up a brand, how do you want people to feel? How do you want people to engage? What do you want people to think about your business? And then we pair that with an actual marketing campaign or marketing strategy. We can start to fine tune the ways that we promote our offers. So by officers getting together and figuring out a few of her, her branding elements and putting an actual marketing campaign behind it to push her branding elements out into the world so she could be the go to expert in her industry. She was able to see a return on investment, mostly from her social media, expanding, reaching new people and, of course, being able to book more sales calls. And then, of course, in the sales training that we do, being able to close more leads and raise her prices.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:31] Now you mentioned you mentioned a couple of phrases, and you’re right, most people don’t understand kind of the nuance between them. But can you explain to folks the difference between branding and marketing?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:06:41] Yeah, I’m actually coming out with a webinar on this because it wasn’t until this year that I realized there’s so many people were were confused on that. But something that is that makes it a little bit easier is the brand isn’t just the logo that’s an element of your brand. A lot of people think I’m working on my branding, I’m going to rebrand, I’m going to do my colors, I’m going to do the logo, I’m going to do all those things. And while those do play a great, huge role of your brand, that’s not your brand alone. So when you think of a brand, think about Wendy’s and think about Taco Bell or even think about Wendy’s, and let’s pick a fast food. Maybe Sonic. We might have noticed that one DS has this personification to their brand. Wendy’s always kind of talk smack about Taco Bell. If you look at Wendy’s Twitter, it’s hilarious. So what sets them apart and their brand apart from other fast food chains and other fast food brands is that they have this memorable experience. They incorporate humor into their brand. So then of course, they have their logo, they have the little red headed girl with the freckles, and that logo has evolved over time, like many of our locals do as entrepreneurs.

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:07:47] But that part alone doesn’t do anything. Now what does Wendy’s do? They take that, and they have these marketing campaigns. We see the commercials. They might work with influencers and we might see someone biting into a juicy burger. Now, all of a sudden, we have the branded elements that increase the like, know and trust. We like, know and trust Wendy’s for x y z reasons, which we don’t have time to go into detail here today. But then the marketing campaign pushes it out at hyper relevant times in the industry for them to generate sales. And those two things coming together create brand awareness. And also, like I said earlier, increases the like non trust factor, which also feeds into the business cycle and the sales cycle of our businesses so we can generate sales, not just generate content and burn out on free content and not just sell, sell, sell all the time. It’s a powerful combination when we know how to make the branding and the marketing together.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:44] Now in your work, are you also helping your client kind of land on appropriate pricing?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:08:51] Absolutely. Pricing, definitely for me, I can speak personally stems from this intrinsic value, and there’s so many people out there that say charger with charger worth, and I do believe in that. It’s something that I have said as well. But if you’re just new and you don’t know how to facilitate a transformation for someone, there’s going to be this disconnect between you charging ten thousand for a package where you’re really just in it for the money versus you knowing this is a ten thousand dollar transformation and I can talk about it like it’s a hundred thousand dollar transformation. So when it comes to pricing, I’m really helping my clients and say, Hey, I want to make sure that you eat. I want to make sure that you’re charging your value, and I want to make sure that you feel confident enough about this offer that you can communicate that value to someone else. What becomes a no brainer for them? And then behind the scenes, because I believe in ethical marketing that you actually know how to get that person, all the things that you’re promising them.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:48] Now, do you find that some people when you start talking about marketing, you talk about pricing, they start feeling kind of icky that they, you know, they’re trying to serve people, they’re trying to help people. And the money kind of complicates things and it makes them uncomfortable.

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:10:03] Yeah, absolutely, and I always say, if you understand how to provide a service before the sale, those should not be any of my clients who are feeling icky or feeling like they don’t have any value where they have to give away their best stuff for free all the time. Generally, the people that feel sleazy when it comes to selling are the people who haven’t taken the time to understand if they can even help that person, so they’re pushing the sale forward. Now, if it’s me and I’m talking to someone, I have no problem selling because I know through my framework I’m trying to identify their problems. I’m looking within my company and saying, Hey, you know what? I actually have the right people in place. I have the right trainers, I have the right coaches, I have myself, I have the right courses, tools, resources to actually help me with that problem. Do you want to hop on a sales call? But I’m not going to offer someone something based off of the fact that they have money just because someone has money to pay those prices does not make them a, we call it, NCLH marketing qualified lead. So you have your leads and you have your qualified leads, and we need to spend a lot more time qualifying our leads for our product suite versus just putting offerings out there and saying no one’s buying well, you have to identify who’s who’s an actual buyer and who’s someone who’s just a supporter in your audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:20] Now do you have an exercise you can share for our listeners to help them identify who that ideal prospect looks like?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:11:27] Yeah, absolutely. There’s so many different ways we can do this, but when we start at the top of our funnel, so that would that might be someone engages with our social media content and we say, Hey, tap a link in my bio, go ahead and download this thing. They put their name in their email and right there they’ve they’ve said yes to something. They’ve said yes is something that you’re promising. Now, let’s say that funnel is like a simple three step email funnel. You, you do email number one. You give them the thing that you promise you introduce to your email number to you, trigger a pain point or remind them of a pressure point, something that they want. And email number three, you solve that pain or pleasure point, and you’re able to fill the gap with your specific offer there. And maybe instead of sending them to a landing page, you’re actually just inviting them to hop on a call with you. Now, the people that say yes and open your emails right then and there, they’re qualifying themselves. They’re interested because before they open the email, they had to look at the email subject line. And then from there they had to actually read the content of the email. And then from there they actually had to click the link. And maybe you can if you’re looking at your analytics this deep as we all should, and so we can understand if our marketing is working or not, maybe that person has or has actually clicked the link.

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:12:38] Now, if you have it a little bit more advanced, you’re retargeting people who click that link with a Facebook ad or something like that. They might be targeted and tagged and all those things with the Pixel. But for you at like the basic level, you might just be saying they said yes to me multiple times. Let me go ahead and connect with them on a deeper level. They’ve already been qualified. Now what? A lot of us are maybe taught to do at the beginning, which I don’t necessarily agree with, is go to your Instagram DM. A bunch of random people do the cold calling, and while that works for some people, it doesn’t work for a majority of us because we’re super in our head about the sale and it’s confusing and it just leads to a lot of rejection. So if you find that what you’re doing right now, you’re getting a lot of no’s. Take a look at are you actually qualifying those leads with your content? Are they actual? Are you giving them a chance to say yes to you? Or are you just assuming that they’re lead because they have a pocket book and a beating heart?

Lee Kantor: [00:13:37] Yeah, that’s great advice. That’s so important if you’re not aiming this right, it’s going to be a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety on your part. You don’t have to work that hard if you’re doing this right.

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:13:51] Through that to that

Lee Kantor: [00:13:52] Now on this show, one of the reasons we do the show is to help coaches learn from each other. Can you share with our listeners how you got your last client? How did the last person that wrote you a check come into your world?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:14:06] It was the easiest last client. I do something that I will give you guys here is I borrow other people’s audiences like I’m doing right now. I either get pitched to be on podcast or teach a lot of different summits. I also am speaker. I speak on stages, so while I have my marketing going on in the background, I have this strategy that I believe it’s never too early to implement where you collaborate with other people in your industry. And I was actually able to be fully booked out a few months ago just by being on a really large podcast in my industry. And then my last client that came on board actually found me from that podcast interview that was out earlier this year.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:46] Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, what is the website?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:14:54] You can find me at w-w-what jodi handlers dot com. I’m also on all social media at Jodi had rates.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:01] And that’s Jodi K a y e d debit cards, right?

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:15:08] Yep. Yep, Jodi I K-Y Edwards. You got it.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:13] All right. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Jodi-Kay Edwards: [00:15:17] Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Have a good one.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:19] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Dr. Julianna Hynes With Julianna Hynes and Associates

September 24, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Bay Area Business Radio

Dr. Julianna Hynes With Julianna Hynes and Associates

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Dr. Julianna Hynes is a global leadership development and advancement strategist, coach, facilitator, and author. She is known for her expertise in women’s leadership.

Dr. Hynes earned her Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology and focused her dissertation on successful Black women leaders. She learned that having professional savvy, being a continuous learner, garnering the right support and accountability, and drafting and executing an actionable and measurable plan was the secret to advancement for any leader.

In her latest book, Leading on Purpose: The Black Woman’s Guide to Shattering the Glass Ceiling, Dr. Hynes springboards off the lessons learned in her research and shares the principles, insights, and strategies needed to thrive professionally. This book is for diverse talent and their champions alike.

Dr. Hynes enjoys working with various professionals at various levels in their careers, from high-performing individual contributors to seasoned VPs, in industries such as healthcare and technology

She works with clients on developing key skills, building confidence, and shifting their mindsets to a more intentional way of leading.

Connect with Dr. Julianna on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow her Facebook Page.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Leading on Purpose: The Black Woman’s Guide to Shattering The Glass Ceiling
Key skills/techniques for women to work on development in order to maintain momentum in their career while working remotely
Strategies for women looking to successfully pivot their career
How women can overcome lack of confidence or feelings of imposter syndrome in work settings
Maintaining work/life balance and how to manage self-care

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:06] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in the Bay Area. It’s time for Bay Area Business Radio. Now here’s your host

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Bay Area Business Radio and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Leah Davis, coaching inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy. Today on Bay Area Business Radio, we have Dr. Juliana Hines with Julianna Hynes and Associates. Welcome, Julianna.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:00:40] Thank you, Lee. Pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:42] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:00:47] Yeah, so thank you for that. I really this really started. It was birthed out of my own early career experiences. When I went into the workforce, I was a lot younger, female, black, new college graduate, and I worked with a lot of older white men, made tons more money than I did, and there was just a mismatch between leadership, them and those being led like me. And so I got to a point that I really just consciously thought there’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be a better way for me to develop as this young, ambitious person, person and professional. And there’s got to be a better way for them to lead as leaders and particularly someone that’s a person of color female just different from them. And so I started my business, Julianna Hines Associates, to address that challenge, and I work with business execs of all the way throughout the organization. If you consider yourself a leader, I work with you and on more interpersonal skills such as influence and communication and showing up as an executive.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:09] Now, when you were starting out in your career and you had this thought, Hey, this is this is a happening to me, I think it’s probably impacting other people and I’m want to solve this kind of complex problem. Sure. What were some of the baby steps you took from that kind of epiphany? Hey, there’s a problem here, too. Now where you are today launching this, you know, kind of global leadership program that you have. So obviously that was a journey and it didn’t happen overnight. But what were some of the steps you took so others can learn from that journey?

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:02:43] Absolutely. So from the time that I had the revelation, I was in grad school and I was getting my degree in clinical psychology, a master’s degree. And from these experiences, I shifted my focus to organizational psychology. And I often joke that those that needed the therapy weren’t going to see therapists. They were still in the organization. So that’s where I want it to be. And so I got a little bit more education and experience under my belt. And then when I started my business, I was working full time at another company. By then, I had just got remarried and had a baby and I was in my PhD program. So that seemed to be the ideal time, if you will, to start my business because I was juggling a lot and starting my business would have been advantageous and was advantageous for my family so I could be home when I needed to be. And so that’s those were the beginnings, the steps I took, and I am actually walking my 16 year old daughter through this. Now she’s starting her business, and I first decided I had to legitimize my business. So get a fictitious business name, get a license and do all the things that were required of me by the state and county to be an official business. I got the website and business cards and all of that good stuff, but I would say the biggest thing that I did and I recommend whether someone’s starting a business or growing their career or just want to do more with their life is building relationships and networking. And I did a lot of that just calling people being introduced to people having lots of lunches, and I like to eat. So that was fun or coffees and just sitting down and talking with people about their perspectives, their companies, what are their challenges? And the more I did that, the more that informed the work I’m doing now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:53] Now, a lot of people believe that their network is their net worth, and it sounds like you’re a believer of that as well. Any. Hips for the young people out there who may feel like they don’t have a way to reciprocate and that it isn’t peer to peer that they’re looking for help and they don’t have much to offer, this person that has is more seasoned than them. Do you have any advice for them on how to kind of, you know, kind of improve their network?

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:05:20] Absolutely. So a couple of things. First, I definitely get you want to give back in some way. And it doesn’t have to be necessarily quid pro quo in that they you have as much experience as the person you’re talking with. You might be able to share some things with them that they don’t know. Being a younger person, they might. You might be able to help them figure out something like technology or social media. You might come across an article that you just share with that person and let them know, Hey. From our conversation or just thinking about you. Here’s an article I thought you would find helpful. And then in terms of expanding the network, I really am a believer of talking with the people that are in your closest circle and finding out who they know because they have their own networks and asking for a warm introduction to another person. And even if that’s a little bit scary, then practice on some of the other people. Think about what? What are you going to say? What questions do you have and what do you really want the result of the meeting to be? Oftentimes, especially if someone’s in job search, they’re thinking, OK, I have to get a job, but that’s not really the intent of sitting down with someone. They might not have a job for you, or they might not have something for your business if you’re a business owner. But just having that relationship expands your ideas and also opens doors to meet other people.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:53] Now I’ve found that I from talking with a lot of different people that kind of getting involved in associations and groups around your business or whatever you’re doing and then volunteering, taking leadership roles that really kind of can change the way people see you. And it’s something that young people. I don’t know if they really appreciate how much value that that provides not only to the association, but how it elevates them and their position in the minds of the leaders that are also members of that group.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:07:26] Absolutely. And that visibility is so important because then people get to see you in action, so to speak, without any pressure or without them having to be concerned about, was this person trying to sell to me? They just see you doing your thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:45] Now you decided to write the book Leading On Purpose, The Black Woman’s guide to shattering the glass ceiling. Was this something that came about because, you know, you’ve just been gathering all this information and you’re maybe frustrated at the speed of which change happens? And then you just wanted to share everything you’ve kind of learned thus far in this book and get to get it to as many people as possible.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:08:10] Yeah, exactly. So the book was birthed out of the outcome or results of my doctoral dissertation. I study successful black female leaders and learned some of the strategies that they use, the challenges that they face. And it was just such a gift for me to sit down and have the conversations. I wanted to afford anyone and everyone the opportunity to have the experience that I did, and so the book was the best way to do that. And yeah, it really is. For those who are starting out in their career, how how do you want to think about building your career, but also for those that are already more seasoned than their career? There’s some great nuggets and reminders for them as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:01] Now, do you find that some folks kind of don’t approach their career strategically, that they kind of are just floating around and then of someone offers them a job and then they start doing that and then they get frustrated and they look for another job and they leap over there and then they get frustrated. But because they’re not really kind of leading, you know, kind of living on purpose, they’re kind of just kind of exactly.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:09:24] That’s what. Yeah, yeah. So. And that was me. I thought I was going to be a therapist until I had this experience and I took a what was called a visionary leadership class in one of my grad school classes. And it really opened my eyes to having a vision, having a strategy, being intentional. And in that class, I had the opportunity to do my first vision board and really dream and think about what do I want my life to look like and what do I want it to be? And it was amazing. I mean, there’s this thing called the reticular activating system, and all of this stuff gets stored there, even though we don’t remember. But having that vision really put me in on track to where I am today. At the time I did my vision I was I was in a graduate program, not my PhD, so I hadn’t had that, but that was on my vision board. I wasn’t in a house. I’m in the house I bought now and that was on my vision board. I wasn’t married at the time. I’m remarried kids. So everything that I wanted my life to be just by putting it on paper and putting it in front of me really made a difference and help me to really help me to realize that being intentional, deliberate living your life leading on purpose can really be not only advantageous for us as individuals, but our communities, our organizations, the businesses that we want to bring about.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:57] Now do you find that? I don’t know if this is just black women, women, just the human beings, just as a whole that a typical person doesn’t aim high enough, that they’re they’re just kind of almost selling themselves short, that there can be so much more. But for whatever reason, they don’t want to dream big enough. And that I would imagine that that exercise of the vision board really almost forces you to dream bigger.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:11:28] It gives you permission to dream bigger. When I was about a week or so ago, I was working with my daughter on hers and she wants to go into the beauty industry and I said, Who would be your ideal client if you were to work with anybody that you could? And she named Rihanna, and I thought, that is such a big vision in that it’s so great. And my daughter was like, Well, I’ll probably never work with her. You never know just by you putting it out there and by you having that idea of who you want to work with, it’s going to draw you down that road. So yeah, I encourage people to dream big and don’t censor their their dreams or their vision. There will be plenty of time to do that. But just to start, just think dream idealize, whatever it is you need to do to to dream as big as possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:27] Now, do you think that the reason a lot of people don’t dream bigger is that maybe when they were younger that people kind of squashed some of those dreams early? And then just kind of they just people kind of learned that, hey, that’s silly. That’s impossible. And then they don’t. Then it’s almost like they’re cutting them off at their legs. They don’t. They stop trying because what’s the purpose?

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:12:53] Right? Absolutely. So mindset is what you’re really speaking to is big for someone if they’re going to go after a dream or a goal. And especially as a business person, because they’re going to be a lot of ups and downs as they go through this journey. And so having that North Star, if you will, having that confidence in yourself that you can do it regardless of what anyone else is telling you. When we first started this part of the conversation I quote came to mind by less I think it’s less brown. That said, if you shoot for the moon and miss, you’ll land somewhere among the stars. And I thought that was so great because it just opens up opportunities that you never know. You’ll you’ll make if you’re not or get an opportunity to do certain things if you don’t even shoot for that goal that you want.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:50] Yeah, that’s being a parent myself. I know that was something that I was being very mindful about with my child is that I didn’t want to be the one to tell him he couldn’t do something. I was always trying to say, Why not you? Why not you? Because life is hard enough. And a parent, I think, shouldn’t be the the dream killer. They should be the one that’s enabling as many dreams to come true as possible.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:14:18] I agree. I tell my kids I’m their biggest cheerleader, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:14:22] And they can count on me to be rooting for them and I and that’s and that gives them the security to kind of be bolder, I think.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:14:30] Yes, yes. And you’re right. And that’s part of the intentionality as well is I speak into my children’s lives as often as I can. There’s the discipline side, but there’s also the side that saying you can do it and I believe in you. And how can I support you or do I? What do I need to do to invest in you? And also encouraging them to learn the lessons along the way. I can’t do everything for them, but I’m here to definitely be that that wind beneath their wings, so to speak right?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] And give them places to kind of fail safely. It’s better to fail, like in a lot of ways younger where the stakes aren’t as high as opposed to never failing. And then all of a sudden something big happens and then you fail in and then people don’t have kind of the resilience to handle it.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:15:22] Absolutely. I wholeheartedly agree.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:25] Now are there any kind of key skills that you’d like to share for women to work on in order to kind of have that escape velocity in their career to make it the way they would like it to be?

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:15:37] Yeah, great question. Thank you. So from my dissertation, I really teased out and found a few things from talking with these amazing women, and there were really three pillars that supported their advancement. The first was professional savvy, and that’s where you find all the interpersonal skills, influence, executive presence, communication, all those things. So how do you know what to develop? I always encourage leaders to do an assessment, ask for feedback, do a three sixty, whatever they need to get the information from others about how they’re showing up. How what are their strengths? And then also, what are their development opportunities? And that’s. Are a lot of professionals stop and often get frustrated because they’re doing all these things and still not getting the opportunities. So the second pillar is around support and accountability and finding the mentors, the sponsors, the coaches, friends, family, colleagues, whomever to provide that support to you that you can talk to, brainstorm with ask questions of. And then with that, the accountability piece that you’re sharing something with someone like that dream we were talking about. Once you share it with someone, it kind of puts a little bit more pressure on you to accomplish it. So you have that person being really encouraging and saying, Hey, what’s going on with this? Or How can I support you? And so that’s the second pillar and then the last pillar a lot of professionals don’t think about as well, which is a strategy. So putting a plan in place, one that’s measurable, one that’s actionable, one that is going to keep you motivated to advance to those those levels wherever you want to go in your career or to build a business. So I always speak about those three pillars when I share with leaders really what is their success strategy around advancement or starting a business?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:56] Now, can you share a little bit about who that ideal client is for you? Is it that kind of high achieving woman that is kind of rocketing up the corporate ladder? Is it the person that’s frustrated or plateaued and doesn’t know what’s happened and seeing other people be promoted around them? Or is it the organization that says, you know what? We have to invest in our people and then put a program in place to help them be the best them they can be?

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:18:25] Yeah, so all of the above is who I work with. My ideal client is that first one, the high achieving woman black woman who really just needs a safe space to share challenges and difficulties to brainstorm ideas around how to overcome one thing or another. And typically, the organizations bring me in. So they’re identifying this person as a high potential to be in the C-suite, and this person needs a little bit more development in a certain area. So they’ll call me in to work with the executive women and help them shore up some of the skills that they will need to be more successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:16] Now, are you finding at the corporate level that having a coach or investing in their people in terms of coaching is something that’s more accepted and is kind of moving further down the food chain, if you will, when it comes to more and more people having access to this kind of service because it seems like there’s a lot more acceptance accepting of coaching nowadays than maybe there were, you know, 10 years ago.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:19:44] Yes, absolutely. I firmly believe in coaching. I was first a trainer when I was in HR and then I became a trainer and training’s great. And sharing new concepts or perspectives or ideas with a group of people is an amazing opportunity. What I found, though, is that someone will go to training, they’ll learn all this good stuff, they’ll leave and all. They’re all excited about it, and then they’ll go back to their group or team or company that hasn’t taken the training and they get indoctrinated again back into that culture. If the culture doesn’t change, it’s really hard to bring different mindsets or a new attitude back. So coaching really ingrained those lessons so I could teach communication in a class to 10 people in a year or even six months. Those 10 people, it’ll probably be very little they retained. But if I coach someone on communication for six months and I go back to them another six months, typically they’ve now incorporated those behaviors. I fully think coaching should be offered at every level. I really do see an opportunity for organizations to offer it further down the pipeline because then they’ll see more a more robust, stronger pipeline of leaders, people that are ready to take on those roles because they’ve already prepare for them earlier in their careers.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:27] And I would I would also believe that that you’re going to change the culture of the company. If you believe in your people that much, you’re investing that much in them.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:21:36] Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and go ahead.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:40] I’m sorry.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:21:41] I was just going to say it’s a great way to show your key talent that you believe in them. That investment really goes a long way for I’ve talked to leaders and they are so excited to get a coach and they don’t want to let the company down. They don’t want to let their manager down because they understand the investment that’s going into it.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:04] Well, Julianna, congratulations on all the success you’re doing. Important work and we appreciate you. If somebody wants to learn more about your book, about maybe getting on your calendar to have more substantive conversation. Is there a website they can go to?

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:22:22] Yes. So my web address is the same as my name, Juliana Haines dot com, and I have a gift on the website for anyone who is interested. It’s leading on purpose tools for getting unstuck, focused and in action. So as for those that do feel like they’re plateaued and they’re trying to figure out what’s next, it’s a great book for them and my contact information and calendars on my website, as well as the books that I have produced already.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:57] And that’s Jli A. and a h. Y. Juliana Heins, thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Dr. Julianna Hynes: [00:23:07] Thank you for your time and for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:10] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see next time. Bay Area Business Radio.