Business RadioX ®

Al McRae With Bank of America

by

Al McRae
Atlanta Business Radio
Al McRae With Bank of America
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BofAAl McRaeAs President of Bank of America, Atlanta, Al McRae serves as Bank of America’s leader in the local market, responsible for delivering responsible growth for shareholders, clients and communities. That includes driving business integration and local market share growth by connecting our capabilities across our eight lines of business to people and companies. It also includes deploying Bank of America’s resources to build strong communities. And it includes making our company a great place to work by connecting employees to the broader enterprise, championing our culture of diversity and inclusion, and fostering opportunities for our employees to develop and grow.

In addition, Al currently serves as Managing Director and Diverse Segments Business Development executive for Bank of America’s Private Bank. He has held various positions with Bank of America focusing on the wealth management needs of high-net-worth families in the areas of investment management, estate planning, banking, and credit.

He is responsible for identifying and implementing strategies for the Private Bank to drive responsible growth within the diverse high-net-worth client segment. Key areas of focus include data analysis to cultivate marketplace opportunities, creating business development strategies, developing marketing plans tailored to diverse communities, and establishing partnerships with key internal and external stakeholders.

He’s an active leader in his community, serving on the boards of the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Bankers Association and Georgia State University Foundation. He’s also an active member with the Rotary Club of Atlanta, 100 Black Men of Atlanta and is class of 2023 participant with Leadership Atlanta. Al earned his undergraduate degree in finance from Georgia State University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA® ) designation and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®).

Connect with Al on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • History of Neighborhood Builders
  • His background and role at Bank of America
  • Other ways that Bank of America serve Atlanta communities

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Al McRae with Bank of America. Welcome out.

Al McRae: Thankfully. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, we’re here to talk about Bank of America’s kind of initiatives in and around serving the Atlanta communities. How important is it for Bank of America when you are in a locale like Atlanta to really immerse yourself in serving the local communities in a variety of ways?

Al McRae: Well, this is one of those situations where as an organization, our company that has such a significant footprint in a city like Atlanta, we have there’s a business imperative and a moral imperative to say that for our existence, we want to understand that communities that do well in our very it’s in our best interest to make sure that communities do well and we support and address help address some of the challenges that that may exist. Because once again, this is a situation where a rising tide lifts all boats. And for us, we want to be a great corporate citizen and partner in a city like Atlanta that does have some challenges. It’s incumbent upon us to be a participant in the solution.

Lee Kantor: Now, as the leader of the Atlanta market, how do you go about kind of choosing which are the appropriate partners and which is going to give you kind of I don’t want to say the most bang for your buck in terms of anything other than doing the most good for the community? Like because I would imagine there’s a lot of folks out there, a lot of organizations that are doing good, and it must be difficult task for you to choose the right ones to partner with.

Al McRae: Yeah, completely. So to your point, there’s a there are a number of challenges that our communities face, and some of those are not so unique to just Atlanta. It’s across the country. And the way that we go about it is we, as we say, where can we have the most impact? And for us, it’s really trying to bridge that gap that we see. I mean, we recently have some articles that were published in some local periodicals talking about the the income equality gap, the gap between the the most achieving and least achieving in our in our city and also the affordability of housing issue. And so those are some those are just two examples of when we think about our investments, and I use that word very intentionally because this isn’t for us, this isn’t charity, this isn’t a giveaway, this isn’t donation, this is real investment with the expectation that our return is not necessarily a financial one, but one of societal return. We want to put it towards one of those those most pressing issues. And so the understanding that having a community, yes, that’s healthier, but also from an economic perspective can thrive is where we, we we direct those. And I know we’re going to talk a little bit about neighborhood builders. And when we make those selections, it’s definitely in the vein of saying the laser focus around making sure that from an economic or resource and a wealth building perspective, we’re doing our part and helping drive those results for our communities.

Lee Kantor: So let’s start talking about neighborhood builders. For those who aren’t familiar, can you tell us a little bit about, you know, mission of neighborhood builders?

Al McRae: Yes. So this is actually an effort across Bank of America, across all of our our markets, where we are looking to be a participant in helping lift both from a philanthropic I’m sorry, from a financial resource perspective and from technical expertise, those organizations that are doing the great work in our communities. And so Neighborhood Builders is a program that’s been around since 2004 with Bank of America. And so since the inception of this, we have contributed over $300 million across 92 markets, our money to communities, to the to the goals of advancing and addressing some of the most pressing challenges. So for the winners of these particular awards in Atlanta, we have to each of the organizations receives a 200,000 unrestricted grant that they or maybe they use for flexible funding for their organization. And in addition to that, to that financial support, they also receive leadership training. And that’s for two of their usually the executive director and an emerging leader within the organization, because we have a vested interest in ensuring that these partners and the winners of these awards are sustainable. So we not only invest in them, right, with the understanding that they’re going to contribute to solving some of the biggest challenges in our community, but we also want them to be sustainable and want them to grow. We want them to grow in their impact. And the way that we do that is not only, yes, providing them with financial resources that they can leverage, but also that technical expertise and training, which is key. A key component of this and one of the largest philanthropic efforts that any corporation or organization have in our country now.

Lee Kantor: So it sounds like not only are you trying to address the situation today, but you’re also trying to create some continuity for tomorrow as well. So you’re trying to grow maybe the future leaders as well as the current leaders.

Al McRae: That’s and that’s that’s a great that’s a great comment, Leigh, because it’s about sustainability. When we think about sustainability. We understand that there’s going to be an evolution of over time and we want these organizations that we select as these neighborhood builders and neighborhood champions to have an existence, an impact that grows. And that is going to be a key part of the community. So effectively, when we think about the prior awardees, we create this community and this family within that subset to say, Hey, how can we leverage with even within this group, how can they leverage each other so they can continue to grow and expand? So some of the past winners, we’ve been proud to see their influence grow within the community, and it’s because of the support that Bank of America and quite frankly, other Atlanta based corporations provide. And we see them continuously having a larger and larger influence to do the work to provide that positive societal return that I talked about earlier.

Lee Kantor: Now, when did you first have a clue of the impact that your contribution and your efforts were making? Did something kind of speak to you in terms of, Wow, you know, that story is really compelling or Wow, I didn’t realize the impact we were making. Did something Can you share a story maybe where this came alive to you personally? Were you able to see how important this is?

Al McRae: Yeah, I think and it’s probably not just one example, but I can tell you I’ve been in the market president role for just over a year now and having the opportunity to have the proximity to these organizations and seeing how transformational it is for them to receive both a grant of that amount, which is which is spread over two years. But the the size of the grant for these organizations, which a lot of them are relatively smaller, you see the size of that. And then also to the lift that they receive from the training. You know, it’s just in the in the conversations of talking to the folks in leadership. And for some of these nonprofits, you get the sense of the impact and the change that it makes, because to be a winner of one of these awards is not just, you know, and within like Bank of America providing that. But then the word gets out and I’m sure the periodicals and all the all the write ups and it gets the attention of our corporate partners in the market to say, okay, that organization must be doing something well. And then once again, it kind of leads to kind of a snowball effect for them. So when we talk to those folks one on one and we invite them in for their training and we and we make sure we keep in contact with them, they are able to give us testimonials around the impact that they were able to to achieve. Some of the things that they were able to do knew as a result of the funding and the text and technical expertise and all of that for me is something as an individual, I guess, both personal satisfaction and satisfaction for the organization.

Lee Kantor: So how are the organizations selected?

Al McRae: So we have to go through a process where it’s an invitation only process where we invite a select number of nonprofits to apply. And it’s a very rigorous process, as you might imagine. But we receive these applications and the way that we review those, we have both an internal team, but then we also invite previous winners in our external community and our partners to come in and give us their views and who they believe might be worthy of receiving our award. And once again, it’s a rigorous process. We have great, robust conversations when we think about this. And and for us, it’s looking at it and saying, what organizations do we want to place our next investment? Who do we want to invest in next that has a level of scale that can be impactful in our community, but then also that has a level of sustainability that as we look at some of the challenges that we focused on in this particular arena, who who are the people that’s going to move the needle and move the Dow and really make a difference and change. And so I’m proud to say that we have great excitement with the external partners that join us in this process, and they’re always happy to do it. And it’s a very rewarding process at the end when we make those announcements and those selections.

Lee Kantor: So who are the latest organizations that were selected?

Al McRae: But we have to. So we have the Automotive Training Center and East Lake Foundation. And so these are two organizations. Once again, all of our applications were impressive and we saw a great need and work. But these two stood out for us for 2022, an award was awarded. We’re awarded our neighborhood builders. The Automotive Training Center is a program that provides technical training for entry level entry level employment and the automotive repair industry. And so you think about them providing students with opportunities and around technical and entrepreneur skills. I don’t know. Lee A lot of your listeners probably have gotten a car repaired in the last 12 to 24 months, and you know how hard it is for us to find capacity and and also the expense of it just because of where we are right now with things like inflation and our supply chains. And so if you think about jobs and places where people can earn a really good living, automotive repair is a great is a great area for for our young people to go into. An automotive training center is an innovative program that not only teaches that but also provides a great learning environment. So they’re going to leverage their funds to build a new facility and also purchase new equipment to train their students. So getting back to that, you know that trying to soften some of the income disparities we see in our city, we can do that by having partners that promote skills, that allow people to go into jobs, that pay above minimum wage.

Al McRae: Eastlake Foundation, I’m sure a lot of your listeners are very familiar with East Lake, the Foundation. We have been a founding partner since the existence of this foundation and also was one of the first corporate members for the East Lake Golf Club. And, you know, the work that East Lake provides is kind of wraparound services. They do a lot for their community and a residence there. But this particular effort that they apply for with around their initiative to provide mixed use, mixed income housing and affordable housing in the East Lake area. So housing continues to be a challenge. Housing affordability continues to be a challenge for a lot of residents of the city of Atlanta. And organizations like East Lake are looking to solve for some of that. And they’re working in partnership with the Atlanta Land Trust to provide 40 units of townhomes for sale. These are not rental units. These will be for sale so that their residents can participate in the appreciation and the wealth building activity that you and I know home ownership affords a lot of folks that are able to own their own home. And so it’s been a great partner of ours for a number of years, and we were very proud and happy to see them as a winner this year for our Neighborhood Builders Award, which will grant them that $200,000 over a two year period and also the leadership training.

Lee Kantor: Now in order, like you mentioned, that this isn’t something you apply for, that you’re selected for, how do organizations get on your radar to even be considered?

Al McRae: So, you know, the good thing is that we have a vast list of partners in the market that we already have relationships with. So we take a look at those folks. And then also we take introductions from individuals that are looking to tell their story, particularly as it pertains to their work around economic mobility and economic opportunity in the market. And so usually when we look at our list of partners and we and we take a select few from there and maybe either we’ve been introduced to some throughout the year that we also want to include in that process.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. So if somebody wants to learn more about this program, what’s the website? What are the ways to connect with you? Somebody on your team?

Al McRae: So it’s very easy to to to look into the process or looking through the website Bank of America, just Google Neighborhood Builders, Bank of America, and it’ll take you to the site where it explains the program. And like I said, this is a national program, so you’ll get all of that explanation on the existence of the program, the the the operations of it. And then it provides contact information which can be leveraged there for for understanding how those organizations actually get more information when it comes to this.

Lee Kantor: Well, our congratulations on all the success. And you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Al McRae: Well, thank you so much for the platform, Lee. And once again, we are happy to be participants and solving for some of Atlanta’s largest challenges and we will continue to do so. I thank you for the time today.

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

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Kirk Brown With HANDY, Inc.

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South Florida Business Radio
South Florida Business Radio
Kirk Brown With HANDY, Inc.
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DTLLogo-Blue-Bannerv2Kirk BrownKirk Brown is the CEO of HANDY, Inc., an organization dedicated to the education and betterment of marginalized and at-risk youth in South Florida. Brown has been with HANDY, Inc. since 2018 and is responsible for leading the $4M non-profit organization.

Brown is a transformational leader that navigates diverse business challenges to power revenue gains and strengthens operational performance through inspired solutions, empowering teams and enhancing performance. With over 20 years of experience, he is an accomplished management professional who has worked with a broad range of organizations and individuals, from privately held middle-market companies to government, and nonprofit organizations to community-based committees focused on impacting change.

He has proven ability of working with executives and community leaders to analyze complex statewide issues, to develop sound business strategies and successfully implement large change initiatives.

Connect with Kirk on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Good social leadership
  • Strategic way of leading social superheroes
  • Motivate a diverse team with lived experience in a social work setting

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of South Florida Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Diaz Trade Law, your customs expert today on South Florida Business Radio, we have Kirk Brown with Handy. Welcome, Kirk.

Kirk Brown: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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

Kirk Brown: I’m Handy is a nonprofit that was established in 1985 to serve foster care, relative care and homeless youth in our community. We are basically here to fill the gaps of services for normalcy for young people. We provide workforce development, youth development, mental health services and educational transitional services to young people who are victims of abuse, neglect and abandonment. We serve 1200 young people for year. And basically, we, you know, 9 to 5% of our young people graduate high school, 78% finish a post-secondary experience. But we’re very proud to say 100% of our young people are happy to partner with us in communities of need.

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

Kirk Brown: Well, social work chose me. I was finished college on my way to law school and basically saw homeless youth and decided, you know, in a wonderful lived experience that I may have a solution within me to impart into the world because I grew up in those situations as a youth and, you know, God blesses you with knowledge and wisdom and opportunity and abilities. And I just decided that maybe I have an answer within me that could solve that problem.

Lee Kantor: So is this version of the answer what it was when you first started.

Kirk Brown: This version of the answer? No. It’s morphed. It’s morphed because our clients have more team. The people we serve, the communities that we’re in poverty has always had a dynamic of leaving scars on communities that are long lived and therefore will take a longer period to solve.

Lee Kantor: Are you finding right now is a good climate for some escape velocity to get beyond that kind of spiral that happens, like you mentioned?

Kirk Brown: Yeah, there is. There’s a lot of self-awareness at a macro level within communities to say we cannot continue to do the status quo of the haves and the have nots. We have to reach into our communities, look at our social services sector, and empower social services sector to build stronger, more, you know, enthusiastic and self actualized communities.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you finding that corporations are more open to participating in a way that maybe historically they haven’t been in, that there’s almost a trend towards some sort of I know one organization is called Conscious Capitalism, where it’s trying to elevate capitalism and be more empathetic to not just their shareholders as their constituents or their employees as their constituents, but also the community. As a constituent.

Kirk Brown: I think we all have a shared equity in the conduit called trauma at this time. I think the corporate community and before now individuals were able to drive around a concept of trauma. Right. But the entire world went through what I would say, two and a half years of constant repeated trauma as a result of COVID. And so we saw a social shift before COVID as it relates to corporations becoming more socially involved in the mechanisms of social work to say, yes, we can do a greater job, we can have greater input, we could add our brain trust to improve the lives of people in fractured communities. But I think everyone gets it now. Before, you would have to take maybe 25 minutes to explain and the aftereffects of trauma. I think everyone gets the after effects of trauma now because we’ve all lived a macro level of trauma existing through COVID.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are you have any advice for business owners at all kind of stages of their their kind of life cycle regarding how to exhibit good social leadership? What are some kind of baby steps organizations can be doing to really help alleviate some of that trauma you speak of?

Kirk Brown: I think it starts with three basic, you know, premise and approaches. I think the first is establishing a human connection with the people that work for you and with you, You know, designating collaborations within the workforce. There’s no soloist and getting a task done and really having open. Transparent, empathetic communication patterns with your team. It’s real simple, you know? How are you doing today? Just as a passer by conversation are or how are you doing today and really looking in the person’s face when you say it, Look at their affect. Look at their response. Challenge your management and your executive teams to use their intuition to kind of like really become self aware about the people that they’re leading just from the income point of who you’re lead in. So in social work currently, I would say I know what my staff makes financially because we are the payee. And so taking a macro look at what does that life does or can afford in economic climate of the community that you’re in is very important for you to be able to have the human connection and the human communication strategies with the individual right. What are their challenges based on what they make? What are their challenges based on who they are in the community that they’re in? I’ll give you a basic example. I have 34% Haitian staff at this moment. I know their their homeland is in turmoil at this moment. So to pretend like they’re not coming in to the work environment with those wounds makes makes me a very distant leader. You know, having those conversations, how were you doing today? How is your family as your extended family in Haiti? How are you guys coping? You know, that that, to me shows that you care. And that’s what social leadership is about.

Lee Kantor: So the first community and organization could work in is their own and work within their own people, their own people’s families and the and the people that are most important to them. So that’s the starting point you find.

Kirk Brown: Yeah, that is a starting point. Make your make your employee your first customer.

Lee Kantor: So when you do that, you’re improving the culture of your organization. You’re showing your people you care. You probably you probably have some stats and research that supports that. This level of empathy and care for your own employees leads to more productivity and a better outcome.

Kirk Brown: Yes. The I think the professional workforce term for that is principle based management. And on the principle based management, you find a lot of transformation happens when humility and knowledge is imparted onto the individual. With empathy, it leads to self-actualization. And self-actualization is our highest data point of really someone being productive in a work environment.

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

Kirk Brown: Support. Of course, we’re a nonprofit and we serve young people ages 10 to 25, all along the spectrum of transition from middle to high to postsecondary to placement into employment. And so as a nonprofit and a nonprofit CEO, the first thing I have to ask is please financially support your nonprofits and your community that’s doing the ground level work to correct trauma in your community. And secondly, partnership. We we have found unique ways to partner with our corporate partners, whether it’s a sponsorship or provide employment for our young people or volunteerism for our young people. We’re very big on meeting the corporate partner or the corporate world where they are in their ability to give.

Lee Kantor: Can you share an example of how you work with maybe a large corporate partner?

Kirk Brown: Okay. So for example, Brand Smart approached us and said, how can we help with Christmas and how can we help with our holidays? And we literally tomorrow we are hosting they are having 100 of our young people shop at Bryant Smart at $150. But we have also turned it into a volunteer activity and a money management activity with the brand smart employees that will be shopping with our young people. And because we also have a relationship with the FBI and Broward Sheriff’s Office, we’re including FBI personnel and the sheriff’s office in the shopping experience to build communities. So now we have four different industries in one store serving a life of one youth, breaking down a lot of community barriers.

Lee Kantor: And this is a situation that these companies that you partner with, they don’t have to have an answer of how to do it. You’ll help them or you’ll work together and brainstorm together on how to connect all these different parties together to create a real robust, meaningful sponsorship and something that’ll create a win win win all the way around.

Kirk Brown: Yes, that is our job. We already social interpreters of hope, and so you don’t have to come to us with an answer. You just have to come to us with a desire.

Lee Kantor: And then the size companies, I mean, brand smarts, a large organization. Do you work with small like startups as well, or is it primarily kind of the bigger brands?

Kirk Brown: So we have some no, we have small and medium sized companies that partner with us daily. We have individuals who have their employees here tutoring our young people in the afternoon and Algebra two, we have small, medium, medium sized employers who host a cookout here once every other month to expose our young people to industry. And we expose our young people to eight different industries per year, eight high demand industries. And basically we have everything from roofers to electricians to construction to manufacture and hospitality industries, no matter the size coming in to impart their knowledge of their industry to young people who do not know their industries exist in their backyards.

Lee Kantor: So you’ll work with companies of all sizes. There’s always something to do and some need to be met.

Kirk Brown: Yes, we fit the need to help. Basically, if they come with a desire to help young people see a future, move towards the future and to live their future, then we’re we’re the nonprofit for you. We will figure it out together.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have a story you can share regarding maybe a child that went through the program or one of your programs that was able to escape?

Kirk Brown: So we have a lot of those stories.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, you don’t have to name their name specifically, but maybe tell their story of how how they got to you and then where they when they left you, where where they went.

Kirk Brown: So we do have a young man that comes to mind, literally came to our program as junior year of high school family. All of his family was incarcerated for the murder of a family member. And he had, you know, the the streets were trying to direct him in the path of his predecessors. Right. Of his family structure. And basically, this young man, we surrounded him with our 67 services, our life coach, and a plan navigated him to Broward College. And what is individual, what is independent plan and his education plan. You started with Broward College, by the way. Broward College makes it significantly affordable for a young person to achieve a college education in Broward County. So he attended Broward College and transitioned to another four year institution, received his degree, and one of our mentors that comes alongside our young people in our community gave him his job offer on his graduation day. And so that young man is currently a junior executive at this firm, which is a large firm that serves the Southeast United States at this time. And he comes back here on a weekly basis to talk to our young people about it’s possible, you know, it’s really possible to achieve the goals that we would consolidate our thoughts and our efforts on.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s amazing when you have that laser focus on really helping and serving what what can happen. It’s just it’s probably every day you’re probably just so proud. And to see the impact you’re making from that initial thought, you know, to where it is today, it must be very rewarding for you.

Kirk Brown: It is rewarding because I work with lived experience individuals. 80% of our staff has been the kid or has resided in a family that experience a trauma that we’re seeking to seek and to answer as an agency. And so I talk about lived experience a lot because lived experience separates the vigor and the desire to answer the phone at 1 a.m. in the morning for a homeless kid, if you’ve been a homeless kid or you were in a family with a homeless kid, that phone call, you know what that phone calls I want at 1 a.m. in the morning means. And so 80% of our team here, including myself or our products, have lived experience in the communities that we’re seeking to serve. And so we take it quite seriously.

Lee Kantor: How do you, as a leader, keep the morale and the energy up and not feel overwhelmed by the task at hand?

Kirk Brown: Admire the greatness of why we’re here. Always focus people back on the why and the why. Is is this beautiful? You know, I have a team that, you know, gets upset when we only hit 90% on a success ratio, because to them, that 10% means, you know, there is someone who is suffering. And so it’s easy to match the why and the desire and motivate the team from a place of humility. I think humility is important. And, you know, social leadership, you have to have a level of humility and approachability where your team can come into your office and say, okay, we’re trying this and it’s not working. I think we should do it this way. And you should not be tied to the genius. You know, you should be able to say we’re all the genius because we all have lived experience. And those diamonds that we could impart into a mechanism that at the end of the day can shift the trajectory of a life.

Lee Kantor: Right. But I can see when they’re so immersed in the task at hand, when you you know, that 10% when you said 90% they’re frustrated with because that that 10% that they didn’t achieve is a human being that they know personally. And so it stings that much more.

Kirk Brown: And that is that is that is resilience, right? That is that that resilience of. Okay. But we can get it. We can we have another day to do it again. And so the lived experience people always focus on, we can get over whatever the challenge is. And I also equate social work to other industries when I talk to my team, right? Car companies come out with a new model every year. And so we have to come out with a brand new model every year or we’re not really we’re not really thinking. And so our goal is to think of this as an industry, treated like an industry so that the finished product has a level of transformation and innovation to it that our clients will get excited about it.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, right. You have to be adapting and changing as fast as the people around you are.

Kirk Brown: Yeah. And you have to have the courage to fail.

Lee Kantor: Right? Fail fast and move forward. Just keep. I don’t even look at it as failing. It’s learning.

Kirk Brown: Yep. Who said that? Who said we’re going to fail first? What’s that? Jobs.

Lee Kantor: Fail forward fast, I think is in the startup community. That’s what they’re always trying to do.

Kirk Brown: Fail forward fast. Yes. And so it takes a lot of courage to do it. But that’s why you hire courageous people.

Lee Kantor: Right? But you need to be led by somebody who really can motivate them and inspire them, which it seems like you’re doing a great job at.

Kirk Brown: So thank you.

Lee Kantor: Now, for the folks out there that want to connect with Handy, and I know you’re in search of those local social superheroes, whether they’re volunteers, whether they’re companies, whether they’re enterprise level companies. What’s the website? What’s the coordinates to connect with you to either volunteer, financially support or do anything to help you achieve your goals?

Kirk Brown: Ww dot handy inc dot org. H a, n d. Y and c dot org.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff, van. Is there a social like? Are you in social media as well? I know that’s the website.

Kirk Brown: Where we are on all social media. We’re on Facebook or on LinkedIn. We’re on Instagram. We’re on all the social media platforms. And once you get to our website, it should lead you to all our social media handles.

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

Kirk Brown: Thank you. And Lee, if I could impart to your listening audience, it is not for you to figure out exactly what you want to do to help another human being. That’s why we exist. We can figure it out together, right?

Lee Kantor: You just have to have the desire to help. And then Kirk and his team will. We’ll take it from there. Good stuff. Well, thank you again, Kirk. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on South Florida Business Radio.

Peter Angood With American Association for Physician Leadership

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Dr. Peter Angood
Association Leadership Radio
Peter Angood With American Association for Physician Leadership
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AAPLDr. Peter AngoodDr. Angood, MD, FRCS (C), FACS, MCCM, FAAPL(Hon), has provided senior executive leadership for all sizes and types of healthcare organizations. Since 2011, he has been a chief executive officer and president of the American Association for Physician Leadership; the only professional organization solely focused on leadership education and management training for the physician workforce. The organization has members in more than 45 countries.

Previously, he was the first chief patient safety officer and a vice president for The Joint Commission where he oversaw the National Patient Safety Goals and other enterprise-wide, international patient safety initiatives. He also completed a two-year engagement with the National Quality Forum and National Priorities Partnership as Senior Advisor for Patient Safety before assuming the role of Chief Medical Officer with the Patient Safety Organization of GE Healthcare.

During these engagements, he continued intermittent work with the World Health Organization (WHO) Patient Safety initiative after helping lead the early development of the WHO Collaborating Center for Patient Safety Solutions.

Earlier in his career, after initially practicing with hospitals of the McGill University system, he was subsequently recruited to surgery faculty and hospital administrative positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his formal academic career as a Full Professor of Surgery, Anesthesia, and Emergency Medicine. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (Canada), the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Critical Care Medicine, which also recognized him as a Master of Critical Care Medicine.

He has a history of active involvement with numerous professional organizations and served as president of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. His research interests have addressed leading-edge problems; he has authored nearly 200 publications and is a well-recognized international speaker on the host of issues related to physician leadership. He is also a Fellow of the Explorers Club in New York City.

He received his medical degree from the University of Manitoba in Canada and completed his general surgery training at McGill University in Montreal and fellowship training in trauma surgery and critical care medicine at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida.

Follow American Association for Physician Leadership on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Peter Angood with the American Association for Physician Leadership. Welcome, Peter.

Dr. Peter Angood: Welcome as well. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you.

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

Dr. Peter Angood: Sure. Well, we’re in health care, obviously. American Association for Physician Leadership is almost 50 years old. And what we predominantly focus upon is basically professional development, leadership, education management, training for the physician workforce and for a large number of the places where physicians work, whether it’s in private practice settings or inside of hospitals and health delivery systems.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was the genesis of the idea? What started the association?

Dr. Peter Angood: Yeah. Many, many years ago, there was a recognition that physicians really don’t have any skill set in a formal development way as it relates to management or leadership. And so the originating CEO of the organization really focused in on mid-career physicians who wanted to do administrative roles inside of hospitals. And so they had a focus on physician executives for the first good number of years with the association’s development.

Lee Kantor: So now it’s something that was lacking, like in medical school or in their own kind of as they were kind of growing their career. This was information and skills that weren’t kind of talked about, or they just were assumed that the physician had them.

Dr. Peter Angood: It’s interesting, You know, to this day, there still is a paucity in the medical schools and the specialty training environments for leadership, education management, skill set development, all those sorts of things. So it’s a it’s a vacuum for physicians. Now to your question as well, though, the medical profession is viewed very positively by general society. Physicians are often viewed as leaders just by the nature of being a physician and in the medical profession. So historically, there’s been this presumption that physicians just know how to lead and how to manage things, and that’s an erroneous presumption.

Lee Kantor: Right? So they’re placed in a position of authority and respect, and then people just assume that they know what they’re doing. And so without an organization like yours to kind of give them the skills, I mean, that could be kind of dangerous in some ways.

Dr. Peter Angood: Well, not dangerous in the clinical care sense, right?

Lee Kantor: Not in that case. But just to assume that a person has those skills just because they have the credential is not optimal for anybody, I don’t think.

Dr. Peter Angood: Yeah. You know, it’s like pick any professional sport as an analogy. Just because you’re a good professional athlete doesn’t mean you know how to coach the team or run the professional team’s business enterprise. Right? You can be a great player, but not necessarily a good leader or a good businessperson. Same in medicine.

Lee Kantor: So when you were getting involved with the organization, was that something that you were hungry for more information and you you recognize that gap as well?

Dr. Peter Angood: You know, it’s interesting. I, I am a physician. I trained as a surgeon, practice for many, many years. And then I found myself thinking more about systems development and creating larger scale change. Before this job, I was very fortunate to be able to participate in a couple of high profile national and international organizations. But what I recognized in that was there is a gap between those influential organizations that sort of determine the trends in health care and a gap to the front line of care. So I was interested in working in that gap zone, if you will, and this particular organization does exactly that. We are an influence group and a thought leader inside of organized health care, and we stayed very much tuned in to what’s going on in the industry. And we create some influence, but we also directly influence physicians and the organizations where they work on the front line. So it’s a very gratifying type of role for me, and it’s a very pivotal and important organization for the industry because we really serve as that bridge for physicians to acquire those management and leadership skills.

Lee Kantor: Now is the learning that’s taking place. Is this part of their like continuing education learning, or is this kind of voluntary for that physician to say, you know what, I’m going to raise my hand and I want to get better at this?

Dr. Peter Angood: It’s a little bit of both. It’s a little bit of both. You know, physicians, like most professions, have continuing education requirements to maintain licensure. And there’s a certain number of hours per year that are required. And so oftentimes the physicians who are interested in leadership and management skills will look for our organization’s programs and products to get some of that continuing education at the same time as developing a new skill set. The other side of it is that some organizations, whether it’s a private practice or it’s a hospital or a delivery system, will sponsor their physicians into our programs as part of the needs of the organization to better develop physician leadership and management skills overall.

Lee Kantor: Now, was the pandemic that level of disruption, was that something that brought this need for leadership that much more obvious and it was more urgent to solve?

Dr. Peter Angood: Know, that’s a great question. And I think there was an increasing recognition inside the industry before the pandemic that physician leadership really creates positive change in the industry. And it’s a debatable survey. But if you look at, for example, US News and World Reports annual rankings of medical systems, they always have an honor roll the top 18 or 20 systems in the country. The vast majority of those places are led by physicians. Similarly, when physicians are in CEO roles, oftentimes those those systems will perform 25 to 30% better on a variety of quality metrics. So there was recognition that physician leadership and key role is important for organizational performance. What the pandemic helped everyone to better appreciate was that as the pandemic came into play, as the public health, as the clinical delivery systems and as a governmental agencies all looked, holy smokes, how are we going to manage this pandemic? What did they do? They looked towards physician leadership at the highest level of government, all the way down into a whole variety of medical practice settings hospitals, hospital delivery systems. Overall, a lot of the emergency response teams inside those delivery systems were led by physicians. Obviously, coupled up with a variety of other clinical disciplines and non clinical administrators as well. But more often than not, the physicians were the leads.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it comes to your education, did any of that change because of the pandemic?

Dr. Peter Angood: I think what we did as an association, we’ve got a wide array of information resources, a wide array of educational topics, all of its competency based. What we recognize is that we needed to expand the range of topics in order to help different individuals and different organizations get through the pandemic. And these are translatable skills and knowledge into other development areas of the industry. But the other thing that occurred for us, the pandemic was good for us in a sense, is it really helped us refine better how to deliver all of our offerings in an online virtual setting and to get really good at it. And the satisfaction scores that we get on our feedback tools is very high. For all that remote online learning strategies and the consumption of our information resources.

Lee Kantor: Now part of your association is kind of connecting physicians, I guess, together so they can learn from each other and mentoring the next generation of leaders. How has that changed in this virtual world? Has that expanded? Because now you can make connections everywhere rather than kind of face to face.

Dr. Peter Angood: Yeah, No, that’s a great question. And part of what we’ve done as an association has been to take on the challenge of building out our own technical infrastructure to help support this learning and networking. Yes, we could have gone to a variety of learning management systems and account management systems and a variety of other off the shelf things. But we chose to go with a custom built system and with the specific intent that our participants would not only be able to more simply and easily consume the education, consume the information, but they would able to be able to network amongst their peers, both within their organizations, but also outside of their organizations and all around the country. And, you know, we’re an international organization. We’ve got members in 45 to 50 different countries at any one time. So that online networking and learning has really been facilitated as we leverage that online delivery platform.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a story because you were talking so much about the individual physician. Is there a story that comes to mind where you’ve seen somebody take kind of the next step in their maybe not necessarily the career, but just maybe in their worldview of how to be a better physician leader?

Dr. Peter Angood: Yeah. Let me let me do it this way. You know, because physicians don’t have that leadership and management skill training through their early stages of not only their medical education, but even their careers, oftentimes in hospitals or health systems. What occurs is you’re a wonderful doc staff like you, patients like you, your outcomes are good. Hey, congratulations. You’re a chief medical officer for us, and we want you to go take these courses with APL. Well, that freshly appointed CMO is kind of got that deer in the headlights look like. Holy smokes. Now what am I going to do in this job? So they quickly scramble to take on a variety of our courses and information. We do have this curriculum strategy where we’ll take them all the way through to a credential called the Certified Physician Executive. That’s about 170 hours of coursework. But the pivotal piece in there is a three and one half day capstone weekend, which really drives home how do they refine and own their own leadership style. It’s a it’s a capstone where they have to do a project. But to a person, as they finish out that capstone, it’s a transformative three and a half days for them. They feel confident, they feel enlightened, They feel like they can really take on any challenges. And many of those participants then go on, let’s say it’s the CMO role. They will go on to become chief operating officers, they will become CEOs, or they may even shift into other sectors of the industry and develop up leadership roles excuse me, inside of the financial services sector or inside of a device company. So so the benefits of this type of an approach is, as I say, really transformative for these individuals. And ultimately the organizations where they work benefit as well. And that’s a repeatable story. It just happens all the time.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it must be so rewarding to see that kind of transformation.

Dr. Peter Angood: Oh, absolutely. You know, and I’ve been with this organization ten years, and every time I go and hang out at our capstone events and watch these 65, 70 different people get transformed over the weekend, it’s just so enriching. And it really gives us pride as an organization, gives me personal pride, and our staff love it, you know, and we get lifelong learners and lifelong alumni because of that experience.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you can give other association leaders when it comes to working in an industry that is just evolving so rapidly and has changed dramatically, I’m sure, in your lifetime, how do you kind of stay ahead or at least up with kind of what’s happening? Because your industry is just and it seems like almost constantly in a chaotic place?

Dr. Peter Angood: You know, it’s been said by many who are not even in health care, but many of us inside of health care as an industry, health care is arguably the most complex industry that there is up there. It’s complex because of the rapidly changing information related to clinical delivery, but it’s also exceedingly complex in terms of how that clinical decision making is delivered. And then the financial structures, the insurance structures, the organizational structures that help to support all of that and support the processes of delivery. And if any of your listeners think of their own personal experiences, they’ll reflect that not all the time. Is it a perfect experience when they go to see their doctor or go to their local hospital? And so we are continually trying to make those changes. So for us as an association, yeah, we have to be paying attention to what’s going on at the policy world, need to know what’s going on in the financial side of it and the payment side of it. We need to pay attention to what’s going on in terms of leadership and management practices and how are those are evolving. And we need to keep an eye on the clinical delivery side of things as well. We’re not obviously in this day and age, we’re paying attention to workforce wellness, we’re paying attention to work life balance. And really, how is it that people are individually evolving in their professions, but how are they collectively as individual professions? I meant to say disciplines inside the profession. Are they evolving? So there’s a lot of moving parts in there. There’s a lot of moving parts. And so the onus on us as an association, on me, as an individual is to really stay up to that as well. Then overlay that on a rapidly evolving association industry world, right? We’re all busily trying to figure out digital delivery. We’re all trying to figure out membership satisfaction, We’re all trying to figure out how do we grow our community and engage our community and how do we collaborate and partner. So it’s just fascinating, but very enjoyable.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I mean, if you like that three dimensional chess, you’ll you’ll you’re in the right spot because there is a lot of moving parts and to layer even more complexity in your situation. You’re dealing with a global membership. So every country has different kind of needs and ways of doing business, so it makes it even that much more complex.

Dr. Peter Angood: Yes, absolutely. So as a leader or a manager in the association, you’re got to be recognized. So you’ve got to be comfortable with a certain degree of ambiguity at times. So you’re kind of reading the tea leaves or is everything going. A lot of uncertainty at times. But then you really got to be able to figure out how best to set the priorities of the association and then how to implement on those priorities so that you’re satisfying what your constituency wants. And the trick I’m sure many of your other participants and listeners recognize in the association world, it’s that balance, right, of listening to your members and doing what they want, but also taking your members to where they need to be as an association. And that’s that’s the trickier part. How do you participate in predicting the future and then being on the leading edge of doing all of that?

Lee Kantor: Right. And I find that the associations that are thriving are kind of the role models for the the people that are most important to them. They have to have a true north that everybody kind of believes in the why behind things.

Dr. Peter Angood: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And for us, there’s two true north, actually. And one is at the end of the day, altruistically, we’re really trying to help create positive change in health care. And we’re privileged that we have the platform of physician leadership. The second, though, is because society looks at the medical professional profession and trusts it with high levels of respect. As you say, we consider at some level all physicians are leaders. And so how do we help those physicians embrace their responsibility of leadership?

Lee Kantor: Right. Well, it’s a big, big challenge. And congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to connect with you, learn more about your association or maybe just kind of pick your brain. When it comes to leading an association, what is the website? What is the coordinates to get a hold of you or somebody on your team?

Dr. Peter Angood: Sure. Happy to have any further interaction with your listeners. And our website is physician leaders. All one word dot org so w w w physician leaders dot org. And then my email address I’m happy to speak with people is first initial last name. So pang0d. Physician leaders dot org.

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

Dr. Peter Angood: Thank you. It’s a pleasure talking with you. And it’s a great broadcast that you got going here. I look forward to listening further on as I now know more about you guys. Thank you.

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

Leslie Ellis With Meaningful Change Consulting, LLC

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Leslie Ellis
GWBC Radio
Leslie Ellis With Meaningful Change Consulting, LLC
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MCCLeslie EllisLeslie Ellis, Certified Change Management Professional, Founder and CEO of Meaningful Change Consulting, helps visionary leaders navigate the complexities of transformational change using human-centered approaches to achieve sustainable results while minimizing the cost of unnecessary work.

For over 13 years, Leslie has led and managed change with various government agencies and Fortune 500 organizations worldwide, such as Bank of America, Ingersoll Rand, Rentokil, NESTE and the State of North Carolina. She now uses her expertise to equip leaders with the confidence and tools to solve complex transformation in their organizations and communities.

She is a frequent speaker on Change Leadership and how to minimize rework while in transformation.

Connect with Leslie on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn On This Episode

  • Why more than 60 % of business transformation doesn’t succeed
  • Common pains that happen when transformation isn’t set up for success
  • Cost of not setting up transformational changes for success
  • Ways businesses can avoid those costs and minimize unnecessary rework in large complex changes
  • The evolution of change management

Anastassia Laskey With Ground Control Research

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Startup Showdown Podcast
Startup Showdown Podcast
Anastassia Laskey With Ground Control Research
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GroundControlResearchAnastassia LaskeyAnastassia Laskey has spent her career helping startups and entrepreneurial teams make better and faster decisions by effectively applying customer insights to the way they operate. She has a unique perspective on all things entrepreneurial. She has held leadership roles at multiple startups, founded multiple companies, worked with venture capital and private equity on due diligence, and advised numerous high-growth startups.

In her current role as President & Founder of Ground Control Research, Ana spends her time helping companies gather and apply right-sized insights to their business decision-making, resulting in greater in-market traction, faster scale, and improved organizational efficiency.

She lives in the Atlanta area with her husband, dog, and cat. When she is not working, you can find her gardening in her backyard.

Connect with Anastassia on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Finding product-market fit and the #1 thing that holds many entrepreneurs back
  • Defining and explaining your target audience and the problem you solve (for funding purposes, and for in-market growth purposes)
  • Using right-sized customer insights as a speed accelerator and confidence booster, as opposed to a confusing bottleneck
  • Growing beyond the effectiveness of “growth hacking”
  • Making high-risk business decisions with certainty
  • How and when to pivot
  • Staying on top of what your customers want as you scale

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the Startup Showdown podcast, where we discuss pitching, funding and scaling startups. Join us as we interview winners, mentors and judges of the monthly $120,000 pitch competition powered by Panoramic Ventures. We also discuss the latest updates in software Web3, Healthcare, Tech, FinTech, and more. Now sit tight as we interview this week’s guest and their journey through entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:39] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Startup Showdown podcast, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor Panoramic Ventures. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Startup Showdown, we have Ana Laskey with Ground Control Research. Welcome.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:00:59] Hey, Lee, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about ground control research. How are you serving folks?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:01:06] Absolutely. So my firm Ground Control Research basically operates as a, we call it a growth accelerator for startups and entrepreneurial teams. So and we do that all through the lens of customer insight and using the needs, wants, desires, goals of your customer to actually inform how you’re going to accomplish your growth goals as a startup. So it’s a pretty fun world and we learn a lot of interesting facts about what people want and what they like.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:38] So and then having research in the name of the firm would suggest to me that research is an important component about how you go about doing what you do.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:01:49] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, what I found in working in startup environments for many years now is a lot of times folks have some ideas about what their customer wants or they have a sense of it. But what we’re able to really do is, is put hard data behind it and actually go out and speak to customers or target markets or whomever and actually put some rigor around it so that companies can make better and faster decisions with that, with that insight.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:20] Now, what’s your back story? How did you get involved in this kind of work?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:02:24] Yeah, it all happened in sort of an interesting, organic way. I started my career actually at Nielsen, which is a big insights innovation firm, and I was working with large multinationals on new product innovation and new product introduction, and it was a really, really great experience for me. But I was doing that based in San Francisco. That’s just where they assigned me. You know, when I when I joined right out of college and as I got more in the San Francisco sort of community, I started to get really interested in startups. And I wanted to work at a startup and I wanted to be a part of that, that innovation and that sort of big rapid change. And so I moved over into that world, and that’s where I’ve been ever since. And about six years ago, I was kind of at this career decision point, and I could stay inside working in startups, or I could maybe start my own practice, my own consulting firm, and try to actually reach more companies and help more companies with the same types of things I was doing in-house at startups. And so that was how I got my start, and that’s how ground control research was born.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:37] Now, are you finding that in the startup community, I mean, they they talk always about, you know, product market fit, customer discovery. Those are elements of research.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:03:49] Yeah, absolutely. That’s, you know, 80 90% of of what we help companies with is really establishing the product market fit. Or, you know, companies might say, well, I see the signs, I see the indicators that, you know, either things are stagnant or we’re getting some engagement. We don’t really know what are we going to do on it. And I kind of break it down for them in a very stepwise process of, okay, these are the pieces of information that you don’t actually know about your customer, and this is what’s holding you back from product market fit. So let’s close those gaps. Let’s get you that insight. Let’s help you actually blow it up in a good way. Let’s help you. Let’s help you really dial in what you’re doing and the way you’re able to communicate with your customer as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:36] Now, when you talk to an early stage leader or founder, they, I would assume, have some assumptions about who the ideal customer is. And, you know, and the plan to at least reach them kind of based on their gut and based on kind of their understanding of the market in their mind. How often is that accurate?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:05:03] Yeah, it’s interesting because I would say it’s it’s accurate, but it may not be precise. And here I’m going to go a little nerdy. Right. So accuracy means that you’re like you’re hitting the dartboard. Precision is I’m hitting the exact same spot on the dartboard over and over and over again. And what I find with startup founders that I work with is they have a great sense generally of the problem that they’re solving and who the customer is. But when it comes to actually going to market and being successful in market. It’s not just about knowing that in an abstract way. It’s about actually knowing the language that that customer uses to describe their their problem. Right. And it’s about actually knowing of these 27 features that you could offer, which are the three that are that are actually going to move the needle, that are actually compelling. And how do you simplify what you’re saying while increasing the precision of what you’re saying? So I think I answered a question, but they’re mostly like 80% there. But that last 20% is what what we see drive a huge difference in market.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:11] So that by being by being more precise helps them grow faster with the limited resources they typically have.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:06:20] Absolutely. And that’s that’s the big thing that I work with startups on is you could figure this out the hard way by trial and error. And a lot of them come to us after doing that for many months. And, you know, it’s not like I’m trying to say I told you so, but my whole philosophy is like, why wouldn’t we just spend two weeks, three weeks now getting those answers, getting that level of precision, getting you the actual language and the messaging that you need that’s going to resonate with your target audience. And then you can just start using that. So we’re not we’re not bumping into it on accident, which is what happens a lot of the time in that very fast paced startup kind of scale up environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:04] So this isn’t something that takes months or years to get enough data to make these kind of precision kind of results that you’re looking for. This is something that is just a matter of weeks or a month.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:07:19] Yeah, absolutely. And that is really, again, why I founded my firm, because there’s this huge misconception that research takes a long time and it’s multiple quarters and it’s like this huge thing and it’s super expensive. And you can do all that for sure. And we do have clients that are a later stage startup or they’re more of a corporate client, and they do that large scale research. But I think what what I’ve sort of been teaching and preaching philosophically is there is a way to balance getting what you need to increase your level of precision in market while not drawing yourself away from everything else that has to happen and doing it in a short order. So a lot of what I’m doing in very practical terms is like, okay, now you’re going to go talk to five of your customers and I just have you ask these questions, right? So they’re very focused, very precise, and the answers to those kinds of questions are going to give us the answer. So it’s I like to make it into baby steps and and bite sizes so that a startup that’s an early stage startup can actually do it. Right. Because if it’s a huge thing, it’s, it’s it’s distracting versus helpful.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:28] So now let’s maybe share some tactics or advice for folks listening now that are in this stage that maybe aren’t ready to hire you and your firm. Is there any work they can be doing today that will help them kind of identify that target audience?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:08:47] Absolutely. Is.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:47] There are some some things that, you know, are that maybe aren’t you know, doesn’t require your expertise, but is something they can do to get a little more precise for sure.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:08:58] Yeah, absolutely. So I have a few main areas of advice. One is always be talking to your customer. And I think this is everyone in the startup world is like, yeah, talk to your customer, talk to your customer, but have a structured way of talking to your customers. Don’t just talk to them about, Oh, hey, we’re considering launching this new feature. What do you think? Which is a lot of what I see having happened in a company have a structured way of talking to your customer that’s really about you maintaining a pulse on what problems they’re trying to solve, what it is that your product is or isn’t doing to help them with that. Some of these broader conversations with with customers and have in doing that, let’s say you’re a startup founder, you block off 3 hours each month to just have four or five conversations with customers like that. You’ll stay way more in touch with the market and what the market needs by doing that versus just focusing on like product or how are we going to how are we going to build the thing? How are we going to scale the thing? So yeah, that’s that’s one piece of advice.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:10:04] And then the other piece of advice that I would offer is don’t just talk to your current customers and don’t even just talk to prospects. Try to get outside of of your bubble and try to talk to members of this broader target audience that have nothing to do with you currently. That’s a great way to make sure that we’re not just sort of targeting a bubble within a within an audience. And we’re actually making sure that what we’re offering is reflective of that bigger group of people as well. And there’s some really great tools that founders and. Early stage teams can use, such as Deep Bench. It’s a tool where you can essentially go to them and say, Hey, I need to talk to 27 SAS founders over the next three months and they will help you pull together a list. Yeah, you do pay for it, but the cost versus the benefit there is is disproportionate. So I recommend doing that versus asking for intros and having all this kind of swirl around it. Just go talk to people, pay a few hundred dollars and get their insight.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:13] Now, when you’re working with a founder and they feel like, okay, we’re kind of honing in on this, how do you maybe protect them from some of these? They make it seem so easy, these kind of growth hacking. Here’s the secret to really growing quickly and almost magically. How do you kind of help them work through that in a way that is going to get them the outcome they desire?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:11:41] Yeah, absolutely. This is something I encounter all the time, and I’m glad you brought it up. One of the things that we often see is that clients will have hired some growth hacker people, whether they’re in-house or whether this is like a firm they’ve brought on and they’re not actually getting results. And that’s actually the triggering event that they come to us and say, hey, like, something’s going on. We don’t know what it is. And what I’ve learned after dealing with that experience many, many times is, you know, there are some amazing sort of operational principles of growing a company that are very important, that startups understand that they use. How are you going to scale up your advertising? How are you going to scale up production of all these materials? Like, how are you going to all those questions? And what we really focus our clients on and where we speak with them is about the why questions. So why are you even targeting that group? Like, why is this message going to land? And so that’s the big difference that I try to push into. And our work it it really is a playbook or a companion or a guide for them to use with all of the growth hacking, quote unquote, activities that they want to do. Right. You’re going to be much more effective at implementing some of these strategies if you can customize them to what your business needs, to what your customer needs to, what you can actually do as a business. And that’s where we really feel the client, our clients get such a benefit in pairing those two types of activities.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:24] Now, most startup founders or anybody in this business for any length of time knows that pivoting, if not is pivoting, is something that invariably is going to happen. How do you help your clients know when it’s time to pivot? Or maybe they’re on the right track and they just have to kind of grind a little longer?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:13:47] Yeah, absolutely. That’s something we work with clients on all the time, and it really comes down to the sense for the customer. And then also like, how are we measuring this pivot? And I think I think typically or historically a lot of the focus is on measuring, let’s say, very particular external KPIs, such as what was the click through rate on this ad that’s like launching a different thing or let’s do like a dummy door test or let’s do all these different things. And one of the things that we work with clients on is what are some of the customer criteria, not just like what clicks and all that, but like what are some of the metrics that you can be measuring on appetite, appeal, interest, intention, consideration, etc. around this, this idea you’re considering, this pivot you’re considering, and how can you do that as part of doing these experiments, these in-market experience experiments? Because we’re all I’m all about like test and market. It’s most efficient way a lot of the time, but we have to find a way to measure that beyond just the numbers that would appear in your Google Analytics.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:02] Now, what for you is the most rewarding part of working with folks at this stage of their business lifecycle, you know, the startup and the early stage?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:15:14] Yeah. So for me it’s really about seeing them succeed. I just as a person, I tend to be more of that. I consider myself to be an entrepreneur and founder. I founded other businesses prior to prior to this business and I just I get so excited to see any business succeed, but especially some of these early stage startups where what they’re doing. It’s really disruptive. What they’re doing is really solving a huge pain point. And I just love the fresh thinking that comes with that environment. So for me, the reward is really just seeing them move to the next stage, whatever that might mean for them, whether it’s three X revenue, whether it’s ten X in revenue, whether it’s preparing and successfully getting the next round of funding, whatever their milestone is, whatever their goal is, I just love seeing them succeed.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:06] Now, how did you get involved in mentoring with Startup Showdown and Panoramic?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:16:11] Yeah, so that’s a great question. They reached out to me, so I have no idea if someone referred me to them or how it all went behind the scenes. But they reached out and I got the email and I was like, Oh, this sounds really, really cool. So it was a no brainer for me to sign up. And mentorship is something I’m really passionate about in general. So yeah, it’s been a great experience so far. Being a mentor with Startup Showdown.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:39] Now, is there any advice for folks that are involved with Startup Shutdown or any of these type of events to get the most out of their experience? Is there anything that you would recommend they do, maybe pre homework before they get there in order to really wring out the most value from this experience?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:16:56] Yeah, one thing that I would say is if you are accepted into the program and you are going to be participating in Mentor Day, take some time to look up the mentors that are going to be mentoring you or kind of figure out or ask at the beginning of the mentor session like, Hey, where is your area of focus in business? Because what I’ve learned over time is that, you know, there’s all these different mentors that I’ve met and they all have a very unique experience. They have a very different way of seeing the world, and they can provide a really valuable perspective that’s based upon that lens that they see it. But sometimes when companies come to the 30 minute mentor session and they’re in my case, they’re like asking me about the financial terms of the deal. I’m like, Yeah, I understand that as a business person, right? But like, my focus is actually helping you better communicate who your audience is or make sure you’re latched into the right audience or that you’re really articulating the pain that you solve, the problem that you solve. Right? So I guess my long winded advice is, is really kind of know your audience as a startup when you go into this process, I think it will make it a much more valuable experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:14] Now for you moving forward, is there anything that you need that we can help you with? What do you need to get your firm to a new level?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:18:23] Yeah, absolutely. So we just launched. We’re in a soft launch kind of phase with it right now, a new way of working with companies. And I think this is potentially really appealing to the smaller or growing startups where we’re actually offering a problem solving series, a workshop series with these with these startups. And we say, hey, come with a problem that you have, whether it’s a it needs to be growth related, right? Like, hey, we don’t know how we’re going to we’re going to ten X our growth. Hey, we don’t know how we’re going to increase our repeat or our retention. Hey, we want to launch or pivot into a new area. What are we going to how are we going to do that? And we’re working with startups to go through this four workshop series to actually as a team, get them aligned around this and teach them through that process how they can gather those insights together. So it’s a facilitated problem solving that gets them the answer. And we do that over a period of about 4 to 6 weeks. So it’s also very fast. So I guess my message is, if anyone’s interested in that, please reach out to us. Go to ground control research dot com to learn more.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:34] Now can you share a story where you helped the startup get to a new level? Maybe share what was the problem that they were kind of struggling with and how you were able to come in and help take them to a new level?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:19:46] Yeah, absolutely. So try to go through and think of a concise example for you. We. One of the one of the startups we worked with a couple of years ago, maybe a year ago. They’re an education technology company, and they have had a consumer business and an enterprise business for a number of years. But their goal was, how are we going to problem? They came with us, came to us with was how are we going to grow our enterprise business? Here’s what we’re saying now and here’s what we think we might need to say and here’s what we see as working. And do we need to pivot? Do we need to launch something new? Right. So you can see it’s a very complex problem. It involves marketing, it involves sales, it involves product, it involves like the whole organization. And we worked with them to essentially gather insight from all of the possible target audiences. So in their case, they had three or four different possible target audiences evaluate that and help them start to reflect changes in their business. And this range from hey, on your on your website. This is the messaging that lands like these are the key messages to use all the way into hey, in your sales process, you can actually optimize that down into instead of six meetings. Like you can get that down to three meetings and here’s the content that you need to cover at each step of the way. So the result of us doing that was, one, simplifying their business operations in a lot of ways, right? Instead of us guessing and having a bunch of meetings, we’re just getting the answers, applying them and let’s go. Right. And then to in terms of like a business effect, they were able to significantly multiply their net new net new customers and net new logo and they really, really strongly increase. I think it’s like three X or four X increase to their average client value. So their average transaction value, so good on them for implementing all of these insights and to how they worked.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:55] And then the amount of time that took was how long about.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:21:58] Yeah, with that client, I would say we started getting initial insights to them within three or four weeks. We worked with them for a considerable period of time that we work with them for over a year to do all the breath that we did with that client.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:16] But the impact was real and it was pretty quick.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:22:19] Yeah, yeah. And that’s the cool thing about working with me or with us is like, I can’t stand to hold back, like I can’t keep it to myself. So we always end up, you know, my team and I, we end up sharing stuff as soon as we can and we want to really we understand how fast start ups move. So that’s why our business is designed around not waiting until some long period of time has passed. Right. Let’s break it up. Do it. Small, iterative. Let’s go.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:44] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success. And thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:22:51] Yeah, thanks, Lee. Appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:52] Now, one more time before we wrap, what is the website coordinates and the best way to get ahold of you?

Anastassia Laskey: [00:22:58] Absolutely. So our website is ground control research dot com. And then folks can find me on LinkedIn. I’m pretty active and present there, so feel free to reach out anytime.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:10] All right. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Anastassia Laskey: [00:23:14] Thanks, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:15] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:23:21] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup Showdown Pitch Competition Visit Showdown VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. All right, that’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

 

Anna Yudina With The Toy Association

by

Anna Yudina
Association Leadership Radio
Anna Yudina With The Toy Association
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The Toy AssociationAnna YudinaAnna Yudina joined The Toy Association in February 2015 as the Director of Marketing Communications. Ms. Yudina is spearheading the Association’s Genius of Play™ initiative to raise awareness of play as a crucial part of child development and encourage families to make time for play in their daily lives. Since its launch in June 2015, The Genius of Play has reached millions of parents, caregivers and educators, providing research-based facts, expert advice, and a host of play activities through its website, social media channels, live events and various media.

Ms. Yudina has also been leading The Toy Association’s strategic STEAM initiative, which culminated in the development of the comprehensive “STEAM Toy Assessment Framework” and the launch of industry’s first official STEAM Toy Accreditation program.

Connect with Anna on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About The Toy Association and the work they do to support learning through play
  • Holiday 2022 STEAM Toy Guide
  • STEAM Accreditation helping parents and anyone who shops for toys
  • The Toy Association’s Genius of Play initiative

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: We’re broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Anna Yudina with the Toy Association. Welcome, Anna.

Anna Yudina: Hi Lee, thanks for having.

Lee Kantor: Me. I am so excited to learn about what you got going on. Tell us about the toy association, how you serve in folks.

Anna Yudina: Absolutely. The toy association is a not for profit trade association and we represent hundreds of companies all in the toy play and youth entertainment industry. So it is a fun industry, as you can imagine. Our members include toy manufacturers, retailers, licensors, inventors, designers. So pretty much anybody who is involved in creating and marketing toys and games for kids of all ages. That’s what we do.

Lee Kantor: Now, are your members. I would imagine there are some kind of enterprise level members, but are there also kind of that lone inventor or creator of a game or a toy?

Anna Yudina: So our members are companies. If a lone inventor or designer, they have their own company and a lot of them chew, they can absolutely become a member of the toy association. We have different levels of membership, so probably the best way to find out is just visit our website Toy association dot org and talk to our member services. I know that a lot of companies are members, but also a lot of solo entrepreneurs. It’s such an entrepreneurial industry. So while everybody knows Lego and Mattel and Hasbro and all of those big companies, the majority of our members are actually much, much smaller. And a lot of them, they they started their own company and then did their own game or came up with a really good idea.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your work, as I understand it, part of the mission is to support learning through play. Can you talk about how important play is to learning?

Anna Yudina: Absolutely. That is a huge part of our mission at the toy association, and we do that in many ways. But the major way in which we do that is our genius of play initiative. And the Toy Association started the genius of play in 2015. And so we have been doing that for for several years. It is consumer facing. So our audience is parents, caregivers and it’s also educators. And really the goal of the initiative is to support learning through play and all benefits of play and developmental benefits of play. So in the beginning, we started by working with a lot of experts in child development and education and disseminating important research that talks about the benefits of play, making sure parents are aware of all the wonderful things kids are learning to play. So that was in the beginning. And then over the years, we really saw the demand from families as well as educators for play based resources. So a lot of parents understand the benefits of play and definitely the educators too. But it’s what to do with the kids. How do I promote this learning through play? How do I foster social skills in my child’s play? So we provide tons of play of play ideas, ready to use activities. You can find it all on our website. The Genius of play dot org. And for educators, there are also a lot of needs for play based lessons, play based learning activities that they can show in the classroom or in the after school and the camp. Whatever is the educational setting, it can be formal or informal. So we have a special section for teachers as well on the website and we provide a lot of those resources. So those are the ways in which we help families making it easier for families to bring more play to to kids, to their lifestyle and also in schools making it easier for educators to teach kids through play.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you were doing this kind of research and seeing kind of the demand from parents and kids enjoying this kind of thing, was that something that the manufacturers were like, Wow, this is really something we should be leaning into? Did you see kind of an increase in the amount of creativity and maybe attention to including learning as part of the play that these toy manufacturers were doing?

Anna Yudina: Yeah, I definitely have seen that over the years. I worked in the toy industry before for a toy company, and then I came back, joined the toy association in 2015. So really have been watching that for a while. And I have to tell that, yes, the educational component connecting play to what kids are learning. That has been a growing trend over all of these years. And Steam toys, that is a good example of that. They stand for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. The toys are educational in nature. They are supposed to teach kids exactly those subjects. They’re supposed to teach them about chemistry and other sciences and building and technology and things like that. But even apart from and that has been a growing trend, really, really taking taking a lot of a lot of space in product manufacturing, in toy manufacturers line, but also even separate and apart from steam toys, just connecting toys to emotional benefits, for instance, doll play and nurturing empathy, connecting play to physical and cognitive benefits to creativity. Definitely that has been happening.

Lee Kantor: As well as representation. You’ve seen a lot more of that as well.

Anna Yudina: Absolutely, yes. Diversity and inclusion and making sure that the toys that kids play with, they reflect the diversity of the world that we live in. And that, again, goes back to also what parents are looking for. A lot more parents are aware of the social issues and they want to teach kids about those social issues early on, diversity being one of them, diversity and inclusion. But there is also environment and sustainability is so toys that address that and teach kids should be respectful of nature, of animals, of the world that we live in. That has definitely been a growing trend as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned steam. I know that your association releases a holiday toy guide for Steam related toys. Can you talk about that?

Anna Yudina: Yeah. So we actually did that for the first time this holiday season. We issued our holiday 2022 Steam Toy Guide and all of the toys that are featured in the Guide. They have been independently reviewed and accredited. So the toy association now has the STEAM accreditation program and we do it in partnership. Our accreditation partner is the good play guide. They have decades of experience in the toy evaluation space, so they are the ones who review and test and evaluate all the toys. So only toys that pass the accreditation were eligible for inclusion in our holiday guide. And beyond the accreditation, of course, we looked at toys that address a variety of ages. So there is a toy in the guide that’s good for kids as young as 18 months old or young. But there are also toys that are good for kids that are much older tweens, teens and pretty much any age group. So that was an important consideration. And also we look for toys that really cover the whole spectrum of steam. So it’s science, technology, it’s a lot of other disciplines. So we have a chemistry set, for example, but we also have a robot that kids can use to learn how to code. We have a lot of construction sets, but we even have a butterfly garden kind of toys. So really the variety of toys that address all the different areas of steam. That was an important consideration for putting together this holiday guide. And we also have a partnership with Amazon now. So in addition to the holiday guide which people can find at toy Association dot org, there is also a theme accredited toy store front right on Amazon and people can access it from Amazon’s toys and games page and that includes all of the products that have been accredited so far that are sold on Amazon. So if you’re looking for even larger selection of toys, steam toys specifically, that’s a good place to check out.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And for those who aren’t aware, the importance of kids embracing steam when it comes to education is critical. I mean, that’s the future of education, of kids jobs later on. So if you can start building interest and desire and love of those kind of things early through toys, you can be putting your kid on the right path when it comes to a really important career. And in areas where they’re hungry for talent, I mean, the unemployment rate for steam jobs is probably zero right now because they’re so hungry for for people that have that kind. Degree in education.

Anna Yudina: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And again, parents understand that. We did a survey with parents and we asked them what is the ideal age for a child to start exploring their future career? And you know what they told us? Five and one half. Five and a half. That was the average age. So that is a really young child. So what is the best way for kids of that age to explore a career or to explore anything? It is absolutely toys and play because that’s the language that these kids understand. That’s something that they can relate to. So toys and play absolutely are critical to sort of spark that early interest and help a child become interested and start forming that healthy relationship with science and math. So instead of like, oh, it’s complicated, oh, I’m afraid of math, or I have this fear or it’s abstract. I don’t really get it. I don’t know what it’s used for. Toys help kids relate those disciplines to the world around them and make them real for lack of a better world.

Lee Kantor: Right? And they can actually participate in it. It isn’t like theoretical or hypothetical where they have to imagine things. This is them actually touching things and and using things. So it comes alive. And some people learn better by doing things like that rather than just watching someone right on the on the on a whiteboard.

Anna Yudina: Right, Exactly. You learn by doing and being hands on and active involvement. Those are actually some of the criteria that are used in our toy assessment framework. So when we accredit toys or rather when the good play guide evaluates toys for accreditation, this is something that they evaluate. Does the toy promote that active hands on involvement in seeing?

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned earlier this genius of play initiative. I know that you were kind of a champion of that. Why was that so important to you?

Anna Yudina: To me personally, I as I mentioned, I worked in the toy industry before. So I come from this industry. I have this love for play and products and for our little customers. So it was great to come back to the industry in a different kind of role. But also I saw I saw a lot of potential and I saw a great need for an initiative like that. And back in 2015, things were a little bit different. That was pre-pandemic. So people were very, very busy as they are today. But I think pandemic just changed the lot and help those look a little bit differently at work life balance. But back in 2015, kids were just as busy as adults and they were going from one activity to the next. And families were placing a lot of emphasis on formal education, on tests, on studying for testing and studying for college, and mastering those skills that are taught in the classroom. And that’s all great, but it needs to be balanced with play. And play usually is less structured. It’s fun. It’s it’s learning. You’re learning things, but you’re learning them almost inadvertently. A lot of times you’re not even a child doesn’t know that they’re learning to play and they just look like they’re having so much fun. So there was a need to kind of like market play a little bit better and really connect those dots between play and learning and help parents understand that, that even though it may not look like they’re learning a whole lot, they actually are practicing important skills. So that initially attracted me to the genius of play and the toy association. And then, like I said, over the years, the initiative has evolved so much it has become more of a resource of free play ideas and downloadable activities and all the fun stuff that you can do with the kids or in the classroom as a teacher. So I would say that I have grown, continue to grow with the initiative and evolve, and that has always been interested in this.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s funny. I think it’s just reminding people of their youth when there was much less structured play and people were went out to play and they were on their own and it was chaotic and they were learning on their own by doing and we went, the pendulum swung to the other side where everything was structured. You had a coach or a teacher and everything was very in in a box. And I think encouraging people to have this kind of unstructured play is critical and it reminds people of possibilities you can’t kind of plan out. So and there’s so much there for kids, and I think kids are hungry for that.

Anna Yudina: Absolutely. Yeah, kids. And I think a lot of adults are hungry for that, too. One of the trends that we see in the toy industry is a lot more adults are interested in toys, buying toys for themselves and pursuing all kinds of hobbies and activities that are playing basically.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more, what is the website? What are the coordinates to get the guide to? To learn more about the toy association, if you can remind us one more time.

Anna Yudina: Yeah, absolutely. So if you’re a parent, caregiver or educator, I would suggest you head over to the genius of play dot org. This is our consumer facing website. That’s where you can find all the resources that I mentioned. You can subscribe to our email list on the website. You can also, if you’re active on social media, you can find us on Instagram, on Facebook. It’s at Genius of Play. We also have a steam section on the genius of play dot org and you can see all the products that have been steam accredited so far in that section. But if you are looking to learn about the toy association as an organization and everything that we do, because obviously we do a lot more than just the genius of play and Steam accreditation, you can go to toy association dot org and that’s where you can also find out what our members are and how you can become a member if that’s something that’s of interest to you. So basically learn about everything Toy association does. Toy association dot org.

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

Anna Yudina: Thank you, Lee. It’s been a pleasure.

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

 

Rick Krebs With Business Sales Group

by

Rick Krebs
High Velocity Radio
Rick Krebs With Business Sales Group
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BSGRick KrebsRick Krebs brings a unique blend of sales, entrepreneurial, and financial experience to the Business Sales Group. He began his career as a CPA, working in Nevada and Utah where the valuable financial experience was gained. He uses those skills every day. He graduated with a Master of Science Degree and a Bachelor’s Degree from Utah State University.

As a business owner, he started Liberty Mortgage, a mortgage bank licensed in 23 states nationwide. He eventually sold the successful company to an investor from California. He has been in the M&A space helping people sell their businesses since July 2010. During his first year with BRC, he listed and sold more businesses than the entire office combined.

As a sale-side and buy-side advisor for Mergers and Acquisitions transactions Rick’s advisory, accounting, and management skills are invaluable when advising sellers as they maneuver the intricate details of the deal through closing. Rick is also a CNA (Certified Negotiation Expert) which helps him negotiate the most favorable terms for clients in a transaction.

He was quoted by FORBES as an expert sales-side advisor who helps Sellers avoid the pitfalls of selling a business.

Connect with Rick on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Current Landscape for Selling a Business
  • Advisor Types and Specialties
  • 3 Things You Absolutely Need to Address in Your LOI
  • Taxes – How to Minimize Taxes When You Sell a Company
  • IRS Form 8594 – How Knowing About This Saved My Client $80,000
  • The First Step to Selling a Business
  • Common Mistakes Business Owners Make When Selling

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Rick Krebs with Business Sales Group. Welcome, Rick.

Rick Krebs: Thank you. Good to be here today.

Lee Kantor: I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about business sales group. How are you serving folks?

Rick Krebs: Sure. So business sales group specializes in selling businesses in the lower mid-market. So those are businesses typically between 2 million and enterprise value up to $30 million in enterprise value.

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

Rick Krebs: So I started as a bean counter. I started as a CPA, strong financial background, and I just got tired of counting other people’s money. I started a business on my own and I ended up selling it without any help and sold it the wrong way. I really should have had some help and I ended up hiring attorneys to get paid and it was a horrible experience. So I learned how not to sell a business by selling my business the first time the wrong way and decided to go out and to help other people to not make the same mistakes that I did.

Lee Kantor: So what are some ways people sell it the wrong way?

Rick Krebs: I made the first mistake of not hiring someone. I didn’t know that there were M&A advisors or business brokers or investment bankers out there, and so we tried to do it on our own. Myself and my and my partner. And that was the first one not hiring the help which we needed. And to I would say not not planning. I see a lot of people that come to me and they want to sell their company and they just aren’t quite ready or they they are waiting till the gas tank is empty. They don’t have a lot of energy to run the business. And so I would say if you’re going to sell your company, start planning for that exit early. Don’t wait until the last minute because the earlier you start to plan, the more money that we’re going to be able to get you when you do sell.

Lee Kantor: Now, how are you defining early? Is that a year? Is a five years? Is it when you start the business?

Rick Krebs: Yeah. So I would say when you start your business, start it with the end in mind, you would look and say, okay, this is and it’s kind of counterintuitive, right? It’s kind of like the prenuptial agreement on again, when you’re getting married, it’s the last thing you want to think about, but it’s absolutely the first thing that you should be thinking about how am I going to exit? How long a time horizon do I have? And and you start building it in a manner which will help it make more, help it make more attractive to buyers when they when they do buy.

Lee Kantor: So let’s assume we have a person that’s your ideal client. They come to you say, five or six years ahead of time, and they say, okay, I’m going to I want to sell my business in five or six years. How do you help me today? So I get the most valued, you know, down the road.

Rick Krebs: So the first thing that I would recommend is we do a valuation. Let’s look and assess your value. And as part of that valuation process, we would look at weaknesses and I’m strong into financial items. And so I think we would take a look at your books. Where are your books at? Or do you have good books or the things that we can do to make your books better? A lot of times what I see is people only do financial reporting at the level at which they have to, which is for tax returns. But there’s a lot of things that you can do with your books and your financials to make them to be better tools to help you manage your business. So valuation is number one. The second thing I would say is let’s let’s get with a financial planner, and I’m not a financial planner, but I would recommend getting with a good financial planner and looking at your overall financial plan as part of this exit. It takes a team of people to help these people exit in in the best manner. And so I would get a financial planner to look at their overall financial plan, their debts, where they want to be, how old they are, their life expectancy, their cash flow needs. And then the third thing I would do is I would get with an M&A advisor or business broker or banker, depending on the size of your business, and I would start a conversation with them. I’m planning to sell. And what do I need to know? What do I need to do to get this business ready? And these people will tell you.

Lee Kantor: Now are most people, when they come to you and say, I’m looking to sell. Let’s do that valuation. Are they pleasantly surprised with the number when you do the valuation? Are they negatively surprised? Like what? What is? Have they overestimated or underestimated the value of their business?

Rick Krebs: Well, believe it or not, most people overestimate the value of their business, right? You and I see that with their with their houses or anything. A lot of times we think that it’s worth more than it actually is. Once in a while it will be worth more than what they think it is. But most of the time they they tend to overestimate the value. And what I would recommend is we we do an assessment of value from an independent third party person. And I’ve got a company. We do those. It doesn’t cost you a lot of money. And then once you have that and you have a realistic number, then you start to reverse engineer and say, okay, my company is worth 5 million today. I need to be at $15 Million for my exit. What do I need to do to get it there? And then I would recommend hiring a business coach as well, someone that’s going to help you move the needle, scaling your business, get it prepared, get your financials where they need to be, and get you operationally where you need to be. These businesses need to run better in the owner’s absence than they do the owner’s presence. And so that’s one of the things that I would include in this in this overall exit plan.

Lee Kantor: Now, is the business valuation just strictly math? Is it like, okay, it has this much revenue or this much profit, so therefore it’s worth X?

Rick Krebs: So a formal business valuation will include both financial metrics, which is the math, right, and non financial metrics, which include things like risk. What is your industry risk? What is your customer concentration risk? The risk of losing management? How is that going to impact business? Those are at a minimum, those are the things which the valuations that include. There’s a lot of other things that that can move the value of your company. For instance, we have companies that that are on the lower end of the scale. When we pull comparables, like with real estate or the business, we have comparable sales and some will sell for say a three multiple of EBITDA and some will sell for a six multiple of EBIT in the same industry. So you want to look at your business and say, okay, what about my business? Would make it sell for double than it should make it sell on the higher end of the spectrum? And so we really get into the financials, we get into the operations, we get into the management and get into the things that and we start planning it early. The things which should get you a higher multiple and a higher ultimate selling price when you’re ready to sell.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with clients, how important is the kind of tax mitigation? Because I would imagine if you structured the deal in one way, you might have a more beneficial tax situation as if you do it just haphazardly.

Rick Krebs: You know what? That’s a that’s a really good point. There are tax saving strategies for taxes, both in the structure of the deal and in the planning for a business setup. So, for instance, if you if you’re getting ready to sell your company and you’re going to want to have a really good CPA that has has done this before, that understands there’s an IRS form called 84, 85, 94, which you have to allocate the assets of the business and you want to get someone who understands that allocation. Most people don’t because they only do it once in their life. Right? But you want to make sure that you understand how that allocation works, because it can certainly flip your tax bill hundreds of thousands of dollars. The second thing is you want to look at some other structures, tax saving structures, I’m going to call them number one. There’s something called an asset exchange or tax trust, which allows you to defer. You don’t eliminate, but you get to defer the taxes. The other things that you can look at are donor advisory funds. The third is there’s something called the CRT Trust or a credit. And those are three tools which off the top of my head would help people or could help people reduce their taxes, because if you don’t do it, you’re looking at a 30 or 40% tax bill. And so this is the single largest financial transaction of your life. You want to make sure that you get it right and that you hire the right people to help you with that. And if your accountant is not telling you what you think, what you think is right, don’t be afraid to get a second opinion. Get some advisors, some people that are professionals that can help you with this.

Lee Kantor: Now, is this a good time right now in this kind of, I would say, uncertain, chaotic economic situation we’re in right now? Is this an optimal time to sell or is it something that you should just kind of pause for a bit and let this play out a little bit, see if there’s a recovery into next year? What would be your current thinking right now?

Rick Krebs: Yeah, you know what, That’s a great question. And I would say it’s a really good time to sell. The reason being a lot of money has been moving out of real estate. People are feeling like real estate is overvalued. They’ve been selling their real estate and so they’re sitting on cash. That cash has moved over into private equity hands and those guys are looking to deploy that capital that they’re sitting on, and most of them are wanting to deploy it and to buy businesses. So as far as the landscape for selling a business right now, the environment is very good. I don’t see it quite as good as last year because interest rates are increasing SBA loans, interest rates have gone up from 4% to about seven and one half percent. And so that does tend to erode prices. But for good businesses, they’re bringing top dollar still, and I would anticipate that’s going to continue for the next two years.

Lee Kantor: Are there any industries that are better than others right now?

Rick Krebs: Yeah, tech businesses are really hot. I sold two SAS companies this year. Sas stands for software as a service company, so their software businesses, domestic manufacturing is very hot. Real estate was hot, but I’ve seen that cool off just a little bit. So I would say tech companies and anything in domestic manufacturing is really strong right now.

Lee Kantor: So any advice for that person that is on the you know, maybe he hadn’t thought about it. Maybe he’s thinking about it now after hearing you speak. Other than get the valuation, is there anything they could be doing themselves right now to prepare for an exit?

Rick Krebs: So what I would do, I’m part of an exit planning group. And this is a this is something that’s sweeping the nation right now. And this is the notion that business owners need to plan for their exit. I call it Minding Your exit, not blinding your exit. I would get with a good financial planner and a good exit planner in your area. If you’d like to reach out to me, you certainly can. Do you share the emails and the information?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, sure. But you can say it also.

Rick Krebs: So. So my my website or my email is Rick at B for business record B sales group. And you can certainly email me and I can align you with someone in your area. We have a we have a nationwide group of exit planners I would give with an exit planner because they will be able to align you with with people that are like myself, that sell businesses. They’ll be able to align with business coaches, but understand that it takes a team to help you with this transaction and start assembling that team, get you an exit plan or get you a business coach, get you an M&A advisor, business broker, investment banker, depending on the size of your company and start talking to these people early. Start asking them questions. Start. Some of these exit planning groups allow you to go to their meetings and talk to other business owners who have recently sold. The name of that group is the Exit Planning Institute. And I would can get on their website that API is the is the acronym that you use, but it’s the Exit Planning Institute. I would look at them and look at your local chapters and start attending those meetings, learning all you can. I also have a book. If you get on w w w dot design my sail dot com. There’s a lot of good information in there. You can. The book’s really inexpensive. Is one of Amazon top sellers. For $20 you can buy a book audible or Kindle version or a paperback, whichever you’d like, but just start learning, getting all the information that you can now start learning about the process, talking to people that have done it in the past. Attending these chapter meetings of the Exit Planning Institute will be very helpful to you and feel free to reach out in, get my email address, feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I’m happy to answer those questions and help you with this process to give you the ultimate exit.

Lee Kantor: Now, before we wrap, can you share a story of maybe a company that you helped exit and you don’t have to name the name of the company, but maybe come to share, You know how they came to you and maybe not so great shape and how you were able to put them in a position to get a selling price. Maybe that was I don’t want to say surprising, but maybe it was a little bit like, Wow, that was just like you promised.

Rick Krebs: Yeah. So I’m going to tell you the story of the last one that I just sold. These guys came to me a couple of years ago. I had a software business and we did a valuation and I knew the number that they were trying to get and they they weren’t ready. Right. I call it. They were more in the incubation stage than the final stages of of being ready to sell. And so I aligned them with a really good business coach. A friend of mine has an interest. Christianson and Rich helped them grow their business and help them clean it up. It’s just like when you’re selling a car, you know, you got to go out and get a wash it. You got to fix the dents. You got to make it look look as good as presentable as you can. It’s the same with businesses and it takes an outside person to do that. And we got them with a good business coach. We were anticipating up the business ready. We spent a couple of years helping them, working with management, working with the owners, fine tuning it, and then we brought it to market. You know, we thought we were going to get an $8 million price tag and we ended up getting more than half, more than double that. So that was because we ran the process. We took the time that we needed to get the business ready. And in that two years that we worked with them, we were able to double the value of their business more than double the value of their business. So it’s so important that you get with a good advisory team, you give with a good exit planning team because your your numbers increase and the value can be exponential, as we saw with this one.

Lee Kantor: Right? It’s one of those things where you have to surround yourself with trusted advisors in this area because as you mentioned, you’re doing this, you know, one time, two times in your entire life. And these people are doing it every single day. They know where the problems are, the landmines, where the opportunity lies, and you don’t know where you don’t know. And these people do know. So you have to surround yourself with these trusted advisors. If you want to get a selling price that you’re going to be happy with.

Rick Krebs: That’s that is right. And and a lot of us, I think as entrepreneurs and business owners, we try and take on things ourselves. We’re like, you know what we’ve got? And we and the problem is, it’s that that’s worked very well for us, right? We’re able to tackle problems. We’re able to do things that other people are not. And this is something you do not want to do on your own. You absolutely want help and you don’t just want mediocre help. You want the best help that you can possibly get. You want people that have done this many times, that have been down that road that can walk you through this, because we joke about a little bit and say it’s a knife fight. Right? If you go in, you go into a knife fight, you got to have a knife and you got to have someone that’s going to help you tell you what’s going to what’s around the bend, what’s going to happen, what to expect, and help you get your business ready. Like I’m the one we just sold. You know, they took them from we doubled the price of that business by doing this work over two years. And you definitely want a great team to help you with that. Good point.

Lee Kantor: Right. And also the person who’s buying it, they probably have trusted advisors helping them. So you want to, you know, like you said, arm yourself at least to have the same type of knowledge as you as the person buying.

Rick Krebs: That’s right. And in oftentimes we’re on those calls and there’ll be four or five of us on the cell side, but sometimes there’ll be 15 people on the buy side. Right. And you go in there outnumbered. And so you’ve got to get your team together and your team of people that are going to help you with this team of professionals. I call them deal guys, people that have done this time and time again, that have that have swam with the sharks before and understand how to maneuver and what to do to to help you sell your business in the best way.

Lee Kantor: Well, Rick, thank you so much for sharing your story. The website one more time for business sales group.

Rick Krebs: W w w dot b the letter B sales group. And the website for the book is w w w dot design my sail dot com.

Lee Kantor: Well, Rick, thank you again for sharing your story, doing important work. And we appreciate you.

Rick Krebs: You’re welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it today. Appreciate your time. Thank you.

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

Tracy Hale Clark With Louisa County Chamber of Commerce

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Association Leadership Radio
Tracy Hale Clark With Louisa County Chamber of Commerce
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TracyTracy Hale Clark, Executive Director at Louisa County Chamber of Commerce, and the Louisa Forward Foundation
A walking excitement seminar focused on making an impact.

Tracy’s sales and marketing expertise, coupled with her passion for people and fun, inspires others to overcome their fears, believe in possibilities, and build partnerships to lift the community.

Prior to joining the Louisa Chamber, Tracy traveled the country working with various Chamber of Commerce organizations, the US Junior Chamber of Commerce, and more than two hundred local, regional, and national nonprofit programs and over one-thousand events developing strategies and programs for volunteer engagement, event management, and increased FUND raising.

Tracy’s journey with the Louisa County Chamber of Commerce (Louisa) began in January 2019 and she has faced challenges beyond her control, including a global pandemic and a devasting winter storm. Despite these challenges, she led with a spirit of possibility and enthusiasm while creatively transforming the Chamber’s value proposition, impact, and credibility in the community. In three years, the Louisa Chamber has grown by 17% with a 30% increase in new members, received over $65,000 in grants, purchased their first permanent office and most recently celebrated 95 years.

Tracy holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Virginia Commonwealth of Virginia. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Virginia Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. She loves being an aunt and grand aunt and travels with family and friends as often as possible. She is always on the go, curious to meet new people and gain new experiences.

Connect with Tracy on LinkedIn and follow Louisa County Chamber of Commerce on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Louisa County Chamber of Commerce
  • Grew membership by 17% with a 30% increase in new members
  • Louisa Forward Foundation

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: We’re broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Tracy Hale Clark with the Louisa County Chamber of Commerce. Welcome.

Tracy Hale Clark: Tracy Hello. Hi, Lee. Thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about the Louisa County Chamber. How are you serving, folks?

Tracy Hale Clark: Oh, gosh, we’re serving them in a number of ways. Whichever way is possible, we can do. Not sure the familiarity of a Chamber of commerce. So I’ll just give a brief about that. We are the voice of business in our community where the center of the business community and we work to lift up and strengthen our economy, our community through education resources and just overall promoting and engaging the businesses so that they can thrive and grow.

Lee Kantor: What’s your back story? Have you always been involved in chamber work?

Tracy Hale Clark: Gosh, it’s I would say that I’ve always been involved in some capacity with chambers of commerce across the country. Going all the way back to my early twenties. I worked for a publisher actually traveling the country, and I sold pages in a coffee table style book that was used for economic development, and that was done in partnership with Chambers of Commerce. So that was really my first initial introduction to Chamber World, and it was fascinating to see the work that they were doing that crosses a lot of lines, not just in visibility for business and support, but economic development, serving their community. It was just a really interesting and fascinating environment. I then went on to serve actually in the non profit community, predominantly with your disease related type of organizations, working with them on fundraising campaigns and strategies across the country. But when you’re doing that kind of fundraising, you’re always involved with Chambers of commerce. So it’s just been a part of my life for 30 plus years.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think the Chambers of Commerce are one of those unsung heroes that are in kind of in the background, but they touch pretty much everything in the community. And when you have a good chamber of commerce, you’re really giving your community a superpower.

Tracy Hale Clark: Yeah, absolutely. I describe it a lot to people that don’t know or aren’t familiar with the Chamber of Commerce is I use kind of the visual of a bicycle wheel. And at the center of that wheel is your Chamber of commerce. And we we are connected to all things related to the community. And so we’re always a great resource to kind of make that first phone call of who do you know, who can you connect me to? And that’s really how I vision or how we function here in Louisa is we are that connector. We we look to build collaborations and connections across all community environments, government, nonprofits, community service, you know, the citizens. It’s it’s pretty exciting Now.

Lee Kantor: When you’re a leader in a chamber, how how do you kind of prioritize what is the efforts that we’re going to be focusing in on in a given period of time? Because there’s so much to do?

Tracy Hale Clark: You are you’re exactly right. There is a lot to do. And my role here in Louisa started in 2019, and as soon as I got through the first year COVID hit. So when you ask me the question about how do you prioritize and determine, you know, I was thrown a massive curve ball rather early in my involvement with the Louisa County Chamber, and we were determining priorities really by listening to the needs of our businesses and the needs of our community. And we just did the best that we could to lift them up and connect them to resources, information, while also maintaining a level of calm and positive that we would get through it. So as we’ve gotten through those couple of years, it’s a new it’s a new environment, particularly in our community. But I would say that listening and really communicating with our membership, being aware and engaged with our community to understand the needs, that’s what determines a lot of our priorities. And every. Chamber is different in the list of priorities because of that reason. They need to pay attention to what the needs in their specific community might be.

Lee Kantor: And how do you balance kind of the needs of the different levels of business that are in any community? You have some kind of mega businesses that are maybe the household names that people know, but probably the majority in quantity are these small to midsize businesses that should be members and would benefit from being members. But you can’t really serve them in exactly the same way you would serve kind of these big enterprise level organizations.

Tracy Hale Clark: Yeah, you’re exactly right. Diversity in our membership is really important, and that’s one of the things that I really love about being a Chamber of Commerce is that we have something to offer no matter what size, no matter what industry, no matter what priorities you have as a business. And I think our job and especially being a leader of the chamber, is to really understand what those priorities and objectives are for the particular businesses in our community. I’ll give you an example of kind of the comment that you made about how do you serve the big mega businesses versus the small local mom and pops, retail, small business, restaurants and so forth. You know, on a daily basis, those B2C type of businesses that are all about bringing people in their doors. Right, getting those customers, that awareness, we do a lot of campaigns related to lifting them up and generating visibility for them, whether it’s with tourism campaigns or right now we’re running a hometown holidays campaign. Of course, the shops, small campaigns that are offered nationally, we we tap into those to help lift up our small businesses on a regular basis. But some of our larger businesses in the area, you know, our utility companies in particular, they are businesses that don’t necessarily need the resources that the chamber offer on a day to day basis. However, they are very community minded and they are great resources.

Tracy Hale Clark: They’re always looking for opportunities to support local and to support what’s happening at the community level. We have great involvement from these larger businesses in that capacity, whether it’s sponsoring events, whether it’s engaging and lifting up small businesses by just supporting purchasing locally, using them with their programs for employee recognition and things. But I would even like to cite, you know, somebody like a utility company that, as I mentioned, we don’t typically get the opportunity to kind of give back to them. We faced a very unique year in January. We were hit with a devastating winter storm. And as a chamber, it impacted our entire community from retail, small businesses to our utility service providers, as well as essential workers. And one of the things that I love about Louisa is we’re so community minded that the Chamber we led this rally cry to support the essential workers that were out in devastating conditions away from their families, trying to get the lights and the power back on to serve the entire community, not just the businesses. And it was really a way to demonstrate, Look, the chamber is here to support you as well as a mega business, even though you’re not looking to drive customers necessarily into shop and buy product from you. We can still be a resource to your business as well.

Lee Kantor: Right? Because you’re in that unique seat of of serving the entire community. And you you have relationships with folks in disparate places that any other individual entity would have a difficult time, you know, rallying all the troops like you can.

Tracy Hale Clark: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s that’s probably one of the things I personally enjoy about my role with the Chamber of Commerce is being that connector and being aware. I describe a lot of times I’m not an expert in a lot of things, but I know enough that I can get the right people to the table. And that’s where the real beauty happens. That’s where the real magic happens. If you can bring together people in a room and discuss, that’s where you can come up with some amazing solutions to tackle problems like workforce or. Emergency situations or even just how do we. We’re launching a program right now for our Main street to revitalize and rebuild our town. Main Street area.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s it’s funny that people don’t realize themselves and their typical life going about their business, their network is kind of siloed in some ways. You know, they don’t know what might be happening, you know, a few blocks down because they’re so into their world. But a chamber kind of knows where what’s going on in all of those kind of entities. And then because of that, you can be that matchmaker and make connections with people who should know each other but may never run into each other in their normal lives.

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely. And that’s what I love, too. It’s just, you know, you have to be as a as a chamber director, you do need to immerse yourself into the community and be engaged. And that is one thing that I really do love this community. From the moment that I got here, there’s a unique spirit that people want to work together. They want to help each other. And but just just like you said, they don’t always know where to go or who to talk to. And so just being knowledgeable and getting to know people and network, we’re able to foster a lot of those relationships. And that’s what we do in our programing as well, is we really try to foster those opportunities for people to get to know potential partners and build relationships to solve problems.

Lee Kantor: Are you finding that people are kind of joining chambers or your chamber specifically and leaning into that, knowing that, hey, this is an important, not only important community builder within our community, but it’s good for my business to kind of invest time, energy and resources as being a member and not just kind of writing a check and just like I’m done, but really doing kind of the the work that needs to be done, the volunteering, the showing up and things like that.

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely. Our chamber since since the time that I’ve been here, we’ve had phenomenal growth. Our membership is up over 17%. We’ve got a 30% increase in new members. There’s definitely an interest in engagement, especially our reputation as a chamber has grown as being a source prior to, you know, prior to 2019 and certainly prior to COVID. I wouldn’t say that we had the the same level of respect in the community as a resource. And it definitely when COVID hit, it really transformed. And I had businesses prior to that. That we’re not engaged with the chamber. But immediately when we started taking action, they were getting involved and it just continues that way. And as more collaborations and as members are satisfied and getting value from the organization, that’s where the true momentum and growth happens because businesses talk to other businesses and, you know, just like keeping customers happy. If you’re keeping customers happy, then they’re going to talk about you and they’re going to bring more people to your business. It happens the same way with the Chamber of Commerce or really any other organization. If your existing membership is happy and getting value, then they’re going to talk and speak well and refer people to your organization.

Lee Kantor: Right. And markers to determine if you are providing value are the ones that you’re seeing kind of growth in membership, sponsorship, things like that. You’re seeing folks raise their hand and write checks and show up to demonstrate that they are getting value because people just can’t afford to invest in organizations, even the chamber, if they’re not going to get something out of it at the end of the day.

Tracy Hale Clark: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the community at large, the sponsors, as you mentioned, sponsorship dollars and involvement with our chamber has increased immensely. And I hear the reasons behind that are because they are seeing the return and what the chamber is doing and the impacts that we’re making in our community. We just celebrated this is our 95th anniversary and it was it still is. We’re in the middle of fundraising. We we initiated a capital campaign, a legacy campaign to raise $95,000 this year to help us pay off our first ever office. That’s right on Main Street. And the support that we’re getting from our businesses and our community at large is just been so heartwarming. It’s great to see that they do support us and our organization and they do feel the value and the contributions that we’re making to lift up this entire community.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice for other maybe leaders of chambers in order to kind of grow the next generation? Are you doing anything that can help the next generation of leaders, you know, not only get involved but also kind of add to their arsenal as they kind of grow their career?

Tracy Hale Clark: Specific to chamber members or.

Lee Kantor: Just in general to the business community. Is there anything happening regarding leadership?

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely, we did. Louisa I know that there’s leadership programs in a lot of communities that are started from Chambers of Commerce in a lot of situations, but Louisa, up until last year did not have one. So we initiated our Leadership Louisa program, which is about lifting up business folks to be potential community leaders. We’ve gotten a great response. Our first year was wonderful. We’ve doubled the number of participants this year. Beyond our community and being a leader in developing for the future growth. We also I personally participate with the Virginia Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, and we’re involved with training and engagement to help lift up and educate and provide resources for the leaders of other chambers across Virginia. It’s very rewarding. One of the things I’m a big fan of is what I would call R&D, which is basically rip off and duplicate. You know, there’s chambers out there that are doing some phenomenal things and we get a chance to share that as a peer to peer group. And I can adopt that and bring it back to my community for what works here. And I like the ability to be able to do that and help other communities as well, to share what’s going on in our community, to help lift up other parts of the Commonwealth as well.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’s so important to have some mechanism that can share best practices and and just transfer that knowledge because everybody wins when you share.

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely. I mean, that’s what’s about. It’s the spirit of collaboration. I tend to function from a mindset of abundance versus scarcity, and it pays off every time if you are willing to share, you know, a lot of times competition scarce people, but when you come from a place of there’s enough to go around, it helps. There’s just a greater impact that way.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’s I think that anybody that’s been in business for any length of time kind of realizes that that’s the better course of action is is with that spirit of generosity and sharing. And there is plenty to go around in life doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely. Yeah. Collaboration is is always better than trying to fly fly solo, you know?

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

Tracy Hale Clark: Oh, wow. What do we need more of? Well, I would say that I want to remind the individual community and businesses that even though we have made it through the last few years, what I’ve seen is. A bigger struggle this year than in the past two years. I’ve seen more businesses, small businesses, be impacted by raising costs and expenses. Supply chain issues, workforce issues. And unfortunately, I’ve seen more businesses closed this year than in the past two years. And it’s. It’s unfortunate. At the same time, I’ve seen a lot of new businesses open their doors. So my plea to the community at large is you need to continue to support the business community as you did in the past. They need compassion and understanding because these businesses owners are facing enormous challenges right now. And what I’ve noticed is there’s less compassion from the general public as it relates to businesses. And I can understand we’re all frustrated, you know, raising prices and things are more expensive. You’re you’re not getting as much as you did for the same price. And that can cause a lot of angst with people. But I just ask people to remember that the businesses, you know, the business owners are being squeezed in the middle. They are getting increased pricing challenges with work force, not enough people to work. You know, in some cases, they still have to close their doors because they don’t have enough staff. They have to change their services because they don’t have the staff and employees that they need. So we are still in this transition and and learning our way and compassion from the community at large is still so very important to support our businesses because these business owners are tired. They’re struggling in a lot of ways.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I see that as well. That’s what I do every day is talk to business owners and it’s just they don’t get appreciated enough. I don’t think people understand the risks that they have are taking and understand the pressures they’re under. And a lot of folks, unless you’ve had a payroll and are responsible for other people, you don’t really understand that life of the entrepreneur. You know, you see these stories of maybe some of these mega entrepreneurs that have, you know, billions of dollars. But that’s just not the case for 99% of folks out there that have businesses. They’re just battling every single day just to kind of survive.

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely. I mean, and it is a challenge because the business owners that I know, they really do care about their employees. They care about the community. And it’s it’s hard to not take it personally when somebody complains, oh, I didn’t get my food and enough time or they don’t offer this favorite dish that I used to love, you know, And they in some cases give a bad review or something like that when some of these situations are just beyond their control. Right. They just can’t control that.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with especially in the restaurant business where you read a one star review of they’re so busy like it is has nothing to do with the quality of the food or anything like that. It’s just they’re their busyness is somehow offensive to you. So you’re going to give them a one star review. And it just boggles the mind. And they don’t understand the kind of the ramifications of that and how fragile, especially a restaurant is with a handful of one star reviews. No matter the reason, it just a lot better. I find to if you’ve got a problem, just talk to the manager. They want to know the problem. They’re not, you know, these evil, greedy, exploitive people that the media sometimes makes them seem to be. They’re generous people, that without them your community would suffer.

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely. I mean, you hit it with the word generosity. I mean, your small business owners in particular are probably some of the most generous people that I’ve ever met, because they really they are they’re following a passion to support their family and make a living. But they really care about the community in which they chose to do their business. And it’s just just putting that face on a business owner is what I employ. The are ask plead the community to do at large is to have that level of grace and understanding and appreciation that these are people to. They’re your neighbors, they’re your friends. Yeah, they need.

Lee Kantor: Support and they’re the ones, you know, that are are in the background funding your church, your schools and a bunch of other stuff. You have no idea about that. They’re just doing it, you know, because they were asked. And without them the community suffers. So I’m that’s my mission in life is to be that voice of business around the country for small and midsize businesses, because I don’t think that people really understand the pressure. The risk that they’re taking every single day to do what they’re doing. And it’s it’s just hard out there. It’s it’s much harder than it looks. I think the media is it gives a disservice to business by focusing on a handful of these mega celebrity entrepreneurs that make it seem like every business owner out there is like that with private jets and billionaires. And that’s just not the case. Most business owners are just trying to survive, you know, another corner.

Tracy Hale Clark: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect with you, what’s the website? What’s the coordinates?

Tracy Hale Clark: Yeah, communicate. Connect with us. We’re on Facebook, LinkedIn. You can go directly to our website, which is Luisa o U is a chamber dot org. Phone numbers 5409670944. We’d love to connect with anybody that’s interested in assisting Louisa County, getting involved here with supporting the businesses and just what we’ve got going on. It’d be great.

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

Tracy Hale Clark: Thank you so much, Li. I appreciate the time and all that you’re doing to shine a light on organizations like ourselves and those that are serving the community in the greater good.

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

Kip Morse With International Association of Better Business Bureaus

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Association Leadership Radio
Association Leadership Radio
Kip Morse With International Association of Better Business Bureaus
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Kip MorseWith 32 BBB experience and 22 years as President and CEO of the BBB in Columbus, Ohio, Kip Morse was tapped to lead IABBB in early 2021. Kip is known for his commitment to integrity, and has launched programs such as the BBB Torch Awards for Ethics, the BBB Spark Awards, the Center for Character Ethics, the BBB TrustScore, and other programs that focus on the role of honor and truthfulness in personal behavior and in business performance.

Kip served on the boards of the Council of Better Business Bureaus and the BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust, as well as a number of other committees and leadership roles within the organization.

Connect with Kip on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Standards of Trust
  • Leadership Character
  • BBB Impact
  • Stakeholder Involvement
  • Collaboration

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: We’re broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Kip Morse with the International Association of Better Business Bureaus. Welcome, Kip.

Kip Morse: Hey, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to talk to you and learn more. Please tell us a little bit about the International Association of Better Business Bureaus. For the folks who aren’t familiar. I’m sure everybody’s heard of the Better Business Bureau, but the Association for Better Business Bureaus is exciting, and I’m excited to hear about it.

Kip Morse: Yeah, so better business girls have been around for 110 years now. We’ve got 95 babies and 165 different locations in North America. And so we have an international association that does fairly new. We’ve always had an umbrella organization, but we broke away from a much larger association. And so for our line of business, this is the association that that runs b v dot org and serves the stakeholders of the biz and provides resources and brand alignment across North America to help those babies have the biggest impact in their communities.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you educate us a little bit about the history of the b b? How did that get started?

Kip Morse: Yeah, really, one of the first babies was out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and they were really formed for business owners getting together and recognizing that in the free market, free enterprise system, there’s a responsibility required to operate a business and that we should set standards so that the government doesn’t have to come in and and provide all sorts of regulations. And so it was really around responsibilities. There was Rotarians oftentimes were a big part of the first VBS that were getting started, and then it kind of just moved across the country and local communities decided to start their own lives and set those standards for how to operate and separate themselves from those businesses that that were taking advantage of the system and taking advantage of consumers now.

Lee Kantor: So we’re kind of organically grew at the beginning.

Kip Morse: At the beginning it did. And then then they felt as though the need was to have an association. So there’s been a number of variations of of the association, but yet it organically grew. I knew I started with a and down in northeast Florida, and that actually started within the Chamber of Commerce as a better business division. And then once they realized that the missions were very different and that we were evaluating businesses based on standards, they separated from the chamber and became a better business Bureau. So some are 110 years old and others are more like 50 years old. But yeah, the collaboration of communities that move towards having a better Business Bureau.

Lee Kantor: Now, once you’re in a market, how does that work in a given market? So you have your you have overarching kind of standards, right, that you’re saying this is how we recommend businesses you serve and these are kind of the rules of the game. And then you look for local business people to raise their hand and say, I agree with that.

Kip Morse: Yeah, pretty much so. But because we have robust data and we build profiles on businesses and and businesses come to us because we have a rating system, it’s around introducing businesses to what all the value of the Better Business Bureau is. We consider it a community of trustworthy businesses. So in the older days it was more of the guardian of public trust and and businesses would support us because they’d say, yes, we want there to be a better Business Bureau. We love the work you do. On protecting the community from scams and and evaluating businesses that are aren’t operating properly. But then it kind of shifted more. And our focus is much more now around building better businesses. And so when a business is in a community and they need help and they know that trust is the the number one component that’s going to drive success, they want to understand what what trust means. And so that dives into customer service and dispute resolution and leading with high character leadership and ethics and and and involving yourself in the community. And so we set those standards and then try to convey those to businesses and help them if they’re not properly licensed and they want to be a part of our community, we help them get properly licensed, work with them in any way, shape or form that they need assistance.

Lee Kantor: So it sounds like over the years it’s evolved and but it’s always around standards, standards of trust and character, things like that.

Kip Morse: Yeah, we always say standard based organization. We’ve got we’ve got the standards that we evaluate businesses on in order for them to become accredited with us. And if they become accredited with us, it opens up the opportunity to work with us on a lot of different initiatives. And then we’ve got even higher level standards where we just finished up our internal International Torch Award for ethics. And we evaluate businesses based on character, culture, community and customers. And so those businesses really kind of highlight what we stand for and what the brand stands for. And so we utilize them to, one, honor them, but then also showcase this is what it looks like. These are businesses that that put a lot of are very intentional around how they build out those four quadrants.

Lee Kantor: Now what are some of the challenges in the in the markets that you serve it Is it do do companies embrace the b-bbee as they once did? I remember when I was younger, that was like kind of that stamp of approval that this was a b-bbee organization. So I knew I can kind of trust it. And in today’s world, with so many, you know, online Yelp reviews, things like that, people are going to other places for, you know, kind of at least a glimpse of what trust could be.

Kip Morse: Yeah, that’s that’s why we do a lot of collaboration because absolutely, we encourage them to go to lots of different places because there’s a lot of different aspects of trust. We want to build more into our business profiles and we’re doing that, but we’re still looking at upwards to 20 million people coming to our website every single month and and looking for businesses they can trust. And the fact that we have 165 locations. So I refer to it as boots on the ground. We know the players in the communities and we can we can have a lot of data on them. And so if a company, let’s say a company is going south or has an F rating and they they know that that’s it’s very difficult to operate with an F rating if consumers are coming and finding that out, if they decide to shut that down and open up another company to try to get a better rating, we have that information in our database. And and we can tie that to their their business practices and vice versa. If they are operating a fantastic company and they open up another company, we know the type of a business that they’re going to operate. So it’s it’s a matter of using the data and then engaging in the local communities and and working with those businesses. And when you say that that seal, it’s really the sign of a better business is what we’re there monitor it and it’s it’s still incredibly valuable to businesses so that they can they understand that consumers are looking for businesses they can trust and they know that we’ve evaluated them based on standards. And if they decide or if there’s something takes place where they all of a sudden decide they’re not going to respond to complaints and resolve them satisfactorily or they’re no longer licensed or they end up with a government action, then they lose that accreditation and it affects their ratings. So it’s an opportunity to to work with the business and try to understand what they might be struggling with.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your role as the CEO of the International Association of Better Business Bureaus, the you’re helping those people in the local markets kind of serve their community better and giving them best practices, giving them tools that they can use and implement locally.

Kip Morse: Exactly. The goal of the international association is how how would an enterprise level can we can we take the responsibility of whether it’s whether it’s marketing, whether it’s the infrastructure in the in the website, the user experience coming to the website, consistency on the website for our business resources and content. How can we deliver that so that the local VBS can spend their time with their expertise of working with the businesses and, and really having the most impact that they have? So we don’t we don’t want to build a system whereby local B&Bs have to do so much data integrity work that can be done at the enterprise level. We want to give them the resources so that their marketing to businesses and their marketing to consumers is effective and done at the at the level that a brand like the B-BBEE is required.

Lee Kantor: So you’re trying to take kind of the back office heavy lifting from technology and data management off their plate so they can focus on that kind of, like you said, boots on the ground shaking hands and kissing babies, part of the the networking and marketing locally.

Kip Morse: Yeah, exactly. But. But the shaking hands and kissing babies is is a lot more intensive. They do a lot more of dispute resolution answering calls from consumers, working with businesses, evaluating them based on standards, having they all have their local boards of directors. And so they’re really having to evaluate whether a business is still worthy of accreditation. And then they’re engaged in collaborations and partnerships, whether it’s with the SBDC, the SBA or other associations that that trade associations that really have high standards of trust for their own members. So there’s. You know, they’re never at a loss for a work to be done at the local level.

Lee Kantor: But it sounds like over the years, their role has evolved from not just being a directory of these are accredited resources, but you’re also trying to help those local businesses, you know, maintain and stay trustworthy and give them tools themselves to serve their clients better to uphold the standards of the Beeb.

Kip Morse: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the best case scenario case study is Phenix, San Diego and a couple of additional locations. They actually have incubators, co-working spaces, Kiva hubs, where they have small business loans that they provide. And so they’re working with really new young entrepreneurs that are catching them early on and helping them build their businesses out. That’s been kind of a wave across North America where there’s going to be more of those co-working spaces. Some of it started before the pandemic, but the pandemic obviously was with opening up some of the spaces and people working from home on the on the back rooms areas. It opens up those spaces to be collaborative spaces that businesses love, and that enables us to have those conversations with businesses like we’ve never had before.

Lee Kantor: Now, you’ve been with the Beeb for quite some time. Is there a story that stands out to you of maybe a local business that joined and really was able to take their business to a new level because of that, you know, stamp of approval via the BPP.

Kip Morse: Well, I mean, there’s there’s all sorts of there was there was one. And so I ran the Columbus V for 20 years, and there was one in Columbus that was already a really good company. It was a bank. And and we really worked with them on taking it to another level with some of the programs that we have with the Trust Store and and the Student Integrity Awards and the Torch Awards. And so they became very intentional about wanting to develop a culture of high character within their organization. And they used a lot of our resources and it ended up becoming a torch award for ethics recipient. And and it was we used that as a case study for really taking it to another level. But then there’s stories where you have a business that has a all of a sudden has a C or D rating and they’re in the roofing industry and and they’re upset that they have that rating. And we we bring them into the office and we say, okay, we reviewed all these all the complaints. And it seems there’s a common thread here that that delay in responding to those complaints and the light bulb went off for them and they said, you know, we give bonuses to our to the to the leads at the team leads on the different jobs if they don’t get any complaints.

Kip Morse: And so what’s happening is they’re making sure those complaints don’t ever make it to the Home Office. And so they’re kind of doing what they can, but it’s not sufficient. They change their entire model based on the data that we had. And and they no longer saw those complaints and their rating began to improve. So it’s insights into business models that people might have. And if we say there’s a pattern of complaints and this is what it looks like, it might be their advertising, it might be that they they’re promising something that they can’t deliver. And and so we can help share with them that this is deceptive and misleading because you can’t deliver on it. And so they make changes. And and we help them understand what causes that rating to go bad.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice for other leaders of associations when it comes to you know, when you’re working, it’s almost like a client’s client, like your people are working with business people locally. So when there’s organizations out there that have chapters may be and then they’re dealing with members, is there ways that you’ve learned that can help the communication and the sharing of best practices get disseminated quickly or efficiently throughout the network? You know, in a in a way that, you know, kind of gets those learnings out of the hands of maybe one person that’s doing an innovative thing into the hands of others.

Kip Morse: Yeah. I mean, really around collaboration. I mean, whenever I talk to businesses, I’d say, you know, you get to cover your ABCs, you should be a part of it at your trade association. Part of the Better Business Bureau and a part of your Chamber of Commerce. Now there’s lots more as well with the SBDC and the SBA and and, and different groups to work with. Now, with young entrepreneurs, there are so many different incubators and work groups that we are we can we can go to those and we can present modules or trainings on building trust within your customers, whereas they might be doing everything from finance to accounting to budgeting or whatever else they’re working with the business on. So it’s a matter of collaborating and finding what is really your niche in terms of educating a business. And and let’s let’s work together on that. And so we’ve got, we’ve got a national MOU with the Sbdc so that we can share what resources they have and then vice versa, they can share the resources that B2B have.

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

Kip Morse: Well, I think we we need more businesses to to understand and seek out the B2B and understand that we’re much more like you said, we’re much more than a a website for consumers to check on businesses. It’s really more about businesses finding out how their local Better Business Bureau can walk hand in hand and helping them grow their business, develop trust within their community, and and use a lot of the resources that we’ve developed and the cost savings alone on on a number of the partnerships that we’ve got is immense. And so I think it’s. Explore your local Better Business Bureau. It’s not your grandfather’s breed and and see what you find out.

Lee Kantor: And for those who want to learn more, what’s the website?

Kip Morse: You can go b-bbee dot org and and the way that our website works is you will based on where your IP address is coming from, you will be open up to your local communities view site and then you can change that. If you’re if you’re wanting to check out other sites and other locations, but go to that org and that’s there all centrally located right there.

Lee Kantor: And then once you do that you can drill down to the the b-bbee nearest you and then reach out and contact the person running that.

Kip Morse: Yeah. You can contact the person running that you can we have a live chat built in so you can do a live chat right there on the spot. And there’s a section on that site that says for businesses. And so you can even just kind of do your own little review and see what they have for businesses and and get a sense of all the different resources that are available.

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

Kip Morse: Thank you very much, Lee. I appreciate being on.

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

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