Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Katrina Butler With KRB Executive Services

November 2, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Richmond Business Radio

Katrina Butler With KRB Executive Services

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Based in RVA, Katrina Butler is the founder and CEO of KRB Executive Services LLC – a virtual support agency that works solely with women entrepreneurs. Starting her business right at the beginning of the pandemic, this self-proclaimed “chaos organizer” has been sharpening her skills and has joined the ranks of Dubsado Certified Specialists and Asana Services Partners.

She spends her days helping her clients increase their productivity & smash their business goals. She is known for her kind-hearted yet no-nonsense approach to organization, creating & implementing systems, and pre-planning. She enjoys taking the vision and ideas that her clients have and helping them become a reality.

Connect with Katrina on LinkedIn and follow KRB Executive Services on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Mindset when moving from Employee to Entrepreneur to Business Owner
Business Systems & Automation
Budget-friendly small business resources

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Richmond, Virginia. It’s time for Richmond Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor here another episode of Richmond Business Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor War Cry Consulting Solutions, supporting women to lean into their purpose, craft their vision and crush their goals. Today on Richmond Business Radio, we have Katrina Butler and she is with KRB Executive Services. Welcome, Katrina.

Katrina Butler: [00:00:44] Thank you, Lee, for having me. How are you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] I am doing well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about KRB Executive Services. How are you serving folks?

Katrina Butler: [00:00:53] Sure. So Crab Executive Services is a virtual support agency for female entrepreneurs and business owners with service based businesses. So basically, we kind of offer online business management, which is kind of handling those day to day operations and of course like helping them with invoicing or emails or scheduling or recruiting new team members, helping them with events and social media and those things. And then of course also offering project management for some of my monthly clients. But usually I just have those for people that are having either a product or an event launch or things like that to help them get things in place.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Katrina Butler: [00:01:41] So I actually started my business a few years ago, though it wasn’t a business, it was just something I was doing on the side, you know, helping my mom, actually, with her own business while I was still, you know, employed regular 9 to 5. And then a bit before the whole lockdown part of the pandemic happened. I’ve actually laid off from my job. And so I was actually encouraged to really, like, go for it full time, just putting everything in here and, you know, just trying to figure out like what I can do in that space because in that virtual assistant space, it’s really a broad term. There’s so many things that people can do remotely to be of service and figuring out who it is that I really want to serve. But yes, so that was February of 2020, and I’m still here going full time in my business.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:34] Now, when did you start getting clues like, Hey, this thing’s going to work out? I think I have what it takes and I think there’s enough business out there to keep me and my team busy.

Katrina Butler: [00:02:45] So I would say probably in there, maybe like December of 2020, I was like, okay, this is going to work. Because I think also at the beginning, you know, I don’t think any of us realize how long this pandemic was going to last. And I was like, Oh, it’ll be over soon, and then I’ll just find a new job. So I was just doing temp stuff. And then in May of 2020, I was in a car accident and totaled my vehicle. So I was like, okay, well there goes going out to work, so I’m going to be stuck at home. So there’s no, you know, I really have to go after it. So in that span of like seven months of figuring out, okay, how do I get my first client to actually be like, okay, I’m really booking people now. So maybe about December of 2020, January of 2021, I was like, okay, yeah, I can do this.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:32] Now, how was that early time when you before you had kind of a steady flow of business? How do you how do you start an online virtual assistant executive service business without, you know, having kind of a, you know, not being a celebrity to have a whole pool of people to tap into? How do you get the ball rolling at the very, very beginning?

Katrina Butler: [00:03:54] So the first thing I did after, you know, of course, looking online was I found some groups on Facebook of other people that were already in this industry and, you know, learning, okay, what do I need to do first? Okay, start, you know, the basics, get a website, you know, start creating a portfolio of things that you’ve already done, getting a business license, as you know. And Virginia didn’t really, you know, cost as much as, you know, most people think it would. Getting registered, just taking those steps of what to do. It definitely helped to get a score mentor to help with those initial steps of starting a business because you know you want to be above board and then just learning from other people, you know, asking questions and groups and learning from others mistakes and figuring out, you know, what works for me and what doesn’t. And it’s definitely been it’s definitely been a learning experience, figuring out, you know, who I want to work with, what I was going to offer, you know, what are you going to price things at? Because I never run a business before. And unfortunately, it’s not exactly something that they teach in like school. So you just kind of have to learn as you go.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:08] Now, how important was it kind of shifting the mindset from going from somebody who worked? Or somebody else to being your own boss, to now having clients or a team you have to manage. Those are all slightly different kind of ways to approach the mental part of the equation.

Katrina Butler: [00:05:27] Yeah, so actually I would say that was kind of the hardest part for me, honestly. One, I’m a really big introvert, so having to like, put yourself out there and be like, Hey, this is what I can do and I can help you, you know, do this. Like pick me with that. Just kind of having to learn how to sell yourself without looking like you’re selling was definitely a big thing, but also trying to shift away from that employee. Mindset, I guess, of, okay, well, these are the hours that I work. Usually, you know, you’re at a job, they set your hours, they tell you when you’re going to work and how much you’re going to make and what your benefits are. And then you agree to that for your time versus and this you’re letting them know, this is what I charge. This is when I work, when I’m available, and having to be bold and then keeping those boundaries, you know, telling yourself, okay, I don’t work for them, I’m working with them, providing a service. That was honestly one of the hardest shifts for me. But once it clicked, it, it clicked.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:36] Now, once once you kind of made that shift in your mind, did it change how you approached kind of the day to day thing? Because, like, if you’re working for somebody else, one way to look at it is my boss is my client, and I am providing a service for my client, which is my boss. Or if you’re an entrepreneur, you know, you now have 20 bosses because each of your clients or your boss.

Katrina Butler: [00:07:03] Um, yeah. So when I when I approach it, I don’t think of my clients as my boss. I kind of approach it and approach them, like from the very beginning of like, you know. It’s kind of like having a part of their business without being a business partner. Like, my goal is to help you succeed and be great and, you know, increase your productivity, increase your revenue and things like that based off of, you know, whatever systems they have in place or if they’re honestly just starting to delegate. Teaching them how to build both systems. So I think of it more of a partnership than, you know, my client is my boss.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:49] Do you. So your superpower became kind of how to develop and execute business systems and automation.

Katrina Butler: [00:07:57] Yeah. So my background initially is in hospitality. So I actually have a degree in culinary arts. So I don’t know if you ever seen a behind the scenes of a kitchen. It kind of like flows. And the first thing that they teach you on your first day of culinary school is about mise en place, which means everything in its place. And so I’ve always been a planner, like as a personality train organizer. I love spreadsheets and having things in order, things having a flow, everything having a place. And so when I learned that that was something that you could do in this virtual industry of helping people get their business processes in place so that things can be repeatable without always having to be hands on. And I was just like the light bulb went off and I was like, okay, this is what I want to do with this.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:47] Now, any advice for business people out there right now? What are some easy kind of systems they could put in place, or at least some of the foundational elements that if they were to do this, they would at least they would be prepared to have a good conversation with you if they needed more help, but at least would get them off on the right foot.

Katrina Butler: [00:09:06] Yeah. So I do have like a page of resources on my website, but off the top of my head, my main two or actually I’ll give you three that I use in my business are DeSoto, which is a CRM and it doesn’t cost a lot per month. I use a sauna which even has a really great free plan, and that’s a project management tool for organizing and planning events and launches and tasks that need to be done repeatedly. And then I also use planner Lee, which is kind of similar. It’s a social media scheduler and planner, which, you know, a lot of people use. Metta Business Suite. The reason I use Planner Lee is because not only can I post to Instagram and Facebook, but also Twitter and Pinterest, and they also just in these past couple of months have added the feature where you can auto post your reels, which is a really big timesaver as we know that Instagram is shifting away from images to video and these past couple of years. So I would say having at least some of those things in order having a CRM, a project management tool and a system for scheduling your your content and things like that are some of the things that you can do when you’re just starting out that don’t cost a lot of money.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:30] And then you decide as part of your business to not just start using certain tools, but you become kind of deeper in their ecosystem. You become a certified or you become a partner with them.

Katrina Butler: [00:10:42] Yes. Yes, I did. So when we were talking about how I was getting started in this business and those Facebook groups, one of them had this training like Vault, and you could go in there for, you know, a flat rate each month and go through trainings. And that’s where I learned about DeSoto. And I was like, okay, I need this for my business. And as I was learning it just by doing, I was like, okay, I love this. And so I went through their certification process and exam to become a certified specialist. And then I was using a sauna. I’m like, Oh, this is great. You know, let me go through their thing. And they used to be called certified pros. They’re now called Asana partners. And I would be either for services or solutions. So I just was like, I love this so much. I was like, I can teach people about it now and help them implement that in their business, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:36] So now can you share can you share a story where maybe you started working with someone and they were in a state of chaos and you were able to come in and help organize them and put them on a better footing and maybe help take their business to a new level. You don’t have to name the name of the business, but maybe share the challenge they had and how you were able to help them.

Katrina Butler: [00:11:57] Yeah, so I had a client that kind of had a few different brands going on. Of course, you know, women that are juggling, especially with kids as well too, and trying to have, you know, get these businesses off the ground. I actually met her in 2020, like in the summer, so during the middle of the pandemic. And just. Needing some help with taking her business virtual. As a lot of businesses we’re doing and then just kind of separating out those brands to say, okay, so this is what you need for this business. So each brand has to have their own social media account for Facebook and Instagram, not all together, and this is how you can get things scheduled and this is where we can go and plan the events that you have ahead of time and what needs to happen before these events take place, like booking a location or, you know, a food menu or how much you’re going to charge. And do you need to create a registration form or landing page, really just trying to get those in order so that it can be repeatable. So if you have a workshop one time, once you have it planned out, you can do it over and over and over again. And so that’s something that we have been working towards these past couple of years together, getting those three businesses together.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:15] And is that part of the deliverable you offer your clients as not only do you do the work, but you give them kind of a playbook on how to replicate this in the future?

Katrina Butler: [00:13:23] Yeah, so I take what they have or what they want and then build upon it. So some people may or may not be familiar with the term SOPs, which is your standard operating procedure, kind of like writing that out. So if something were to happen, you know, down the line and we’re not working together anymore, you still have basically a playbook for your business. You can tell people, This is my business, this is how it runs so that they can get into it’s kind of like a training manual, but digital.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:54] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about your work, get on your calendar or just peruse some of the resources you have. Is there a website?

Katrina Butler: [00:14:03] Absolutely. They can go to my website, CRP, Executive services dot com, where they can view services, they can review my resources page and they can book a consultation call with me, which is, you know, a free call just to learn more about what we’re doing or if they already know that they need help with their business, then we can chat about that too.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:25] Well, Katrina, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Katrina Butler: [00:14:30] Thank you, Lee, for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Richmond Business Radio.

Ted Rupp With Kovitz Investment Group

November 2, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Chicago Business Radio

Ted Rupp With Kovitz Investment Group

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Ted Rupp currently serves as Co-President of Kovitz. In this role, he oversees the firm’s strategic initiatives, as well as its corporate development efforts.

Previously, Ted has worked on the firm’s private equity offerings and served as Chief Financial Officer of both Kovitz and a regional coffee and tea distributor. Ted is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and serves on the board of Social Venture Partners Chicago.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree from DePaul University and his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Connect with Ted on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Firm growth
Culture and community
Differentiators from other wealth management firms

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the business radio studio in Chicago, Illinois. It’s time for Chicago Business Radio. Brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:21] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Chicago Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor firm Space. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Chicago Business Radio, we have Ted Rupp with Kovitz Investment Group. Welcome, Ted.

Ted Rupp: [00:00:40] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:41] I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to tell us about Kovitz. How are you serving folks?

Ted Rupp: [00:00:46] Sure. So Kovitz Investment Group is a full service wealth management firm that’s been around for nearly 20 years. We manage about 7 billion in assets for around 2200 different clients and doing everything from individual stock selection and fixed income selection all the way through kind of full scale financial planning.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] Now, at the beginning, was it always that way, a full service firm, or was it something that evolved over time as the needs of your clients grew?

Ted Rupp: [00:01:17] It’s actually evolved quite a bit over time. When we first launched back in 2003, we were primarily just a stock and bond firm, just doing pure kind of investment management for our clients. Shortly thereafter, about a year later, we had an individual join our firm that had a much more kind of detailed financial planning experience from his time at Deloitte and another company called ACO. And he really kind of turned us into kind of full scale financial planning firm moving beyond just kind of investment management.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:51] On your website, the headline is Covets is a value based wealth management firm. Why is value based important enough for you to kind of headline your website with that language?

Ted Rupp: [00:02:03] Sure. So it’s it’s a bit of a play on words to a certain extent, given that we’ve always had kind of a value tilt in kind of how we select public stocks. But that being said, we feel it goes beyond just stock selection into kind of how we value our clients, our employees, and how we portray that in kind of our everyday actions.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:25] So what some examples of how it plays out in the culture of your firm.

Ted Rupp: [00:02:30] Yeah, so great example, kind of more recent example is we actually participate in the Crain’s Best Places to Work initiative. So that came out just a couple of weeks ago and we’ve only done that for the last couple of years now. But it’s been a great tool both in terms of kind of benchmarking ourselves against our peers. But I’d almost argue more importantly is we get a great survey of our employees that comes along with it on an anonymous basis, and the results of that survey are really utilized to help us drive value to our employee base, listening to them, making sure that we’re competitive on benefit packages, pay, communicating things properly, that sort of thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:10] And in today’s tight kind of job market, having a culture and a big why is really compelling when people are choosing where to work and where to spend their time.

Ted Rupp: [00:03:21] Yeah, exactly. It’s an incredibly competitive market. Maybe softened a touch here in the last few months, but still at that point where we need a lot of different aspects to appeal to prospective candidates, particularly given that while we are nearly 100 person firm that’s still small compared to a Goldman Sachs or other people in our space that have a much more well-recognized brand name.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:48] Now when the economy is kind of chaotic like it is today and there’s so much volatility, is that a good time for firms like yours?

Ted Rupp: [00:03:58] Definitely. That’s how we’ve really grown in the past. It’s during times of market turmoil like this where I’d say both kind of from the employee aspect, where there are kind of really good candidates out there that are typically available that are might not have been available before that we want to kind of pounce on. But really in terms of gaining new business as well and new clients, this tends to be a time where some advisors will free will kind of freeze up when speaking to their clients and are more apprehensive about actually reaching out because their clients might not be happy with how their portfolios have performed during this period of time. But we on the other hand, really try to take a much more proactive approach and really kind of make it known what exactly is happening, why it’s happening, our belief in kind of where things are going from here. And luckily that’s really kind of proven out that once those customers are clients, get comfortable with what we’re telling them, that’s when they’re sending referrals our way as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:09] Now, is it a time when, you know, when the market’s going up and up and up and it’s a bull market? Everybody’s system is kind of working, but when there’s turmoil like this, then all of a sudden, you know, yesterday’s plan isn’t so great anymore. Are people kind of self-aware enough to say, hey, you know, maybe that I was just kind of riding this wave and that it is better to have kind of a trusted advisor like covets on my team to protect me from myself. Because a lot of those people that are individuals that are going out there, you know, with their gut or their system, you know, this takes a steady hand during this time in order to really benefit, you know, down the road.

Ted Rupp: [00:05:52] That’s exactly right. It’s I often say that I think that the biggest value that we provide to our clients is actually kind of in the behavioral finance world of really just kind of keeping our clients from doing something that they they shouldn’t be doing because they’re acting based on emotion, not based on kind of rational business sense. And because of that, it’s it definitely puts us in a position where we’re able to capitalize on things. And a perfect example could be on a day like today where you have certain stocks where earnings are coming out and the certain stocks might be getting decimated and it would be very hard to go buy those stocks at a time like this when a lot of people are getting out of them. So it’s it’s really allowed us to have kind of a much more open dialog with our clients and help them understand exactly why we’re doing things.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:49] Now, is that just built into the service with covets that you are going to do these kind of wellness checks maybe throughout the year so you can kind of remind people, Hey, we have a plan here, and I’m not going to just make knee jerk moves because of a headline.

Ted Rupp: [00:07:08] Right. It’s it’s all about creating that initial financial plan and managing the portfolio to perform against that plan over time. And even in times of turbulence like this, just reminding everybody of why they have the plan and what exactly we’re doing in order to make sure that that can still be achieved.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:31] So how do you kind of keep those lines of communication open? You mentioned that you that your firm is reaching out to people proactively during this time where some firms are, you know, just hiding under the desk and hoping it goes away.

Ted Rupp: [00:07:45] Yeah. So it can be done in a variety of ways, I think. Clearly, as of the last several years, more and more firms are leaning heavily on communicating through just electronic means and whether it be emails or newsletters or anything like that. But really, I think what matters most now is just picking up the phone and having that that live conversation with someone rather than relying on them reading something that’s just kind of been published to them. Well, it’s great to have both. At the end of the day, I think the the live conversation matters the.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:23] Most because at the heart of this, it’s a relationship, right? This isn’t they’re not just kind of lines on the spreadsheet. These are human beings that have needs and they have an outcome they desire, and they’re hiring you to help them achieve that.

Ted Rupp: [00:08:37] Yeah, exactly. It’s it’s something that needs to be revisited often and probably reinforced even more often than it’s being revisited. So it’s just a constant process.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:49] Now, part of we talked a little bit about how the culture of the firm is important and immersing yourself in the community seems to be important also for covets. Can you talk a little about your work with the social venture partners of Chicago?

Ted Rupp: [00:09:07] Yeah, so I got involved with social venture partners about seven years ago and it takes a venture capital style approach to investing in the nonprofit space. And I’d say kind of similar to my involvement in that a lot of our other partners at the firm had kind of their own causes that they were actively involved in. And so about three years ago, Mitch Coates and I were actually attending a function and we just kind of said to ourselves, Why can’t we do something like this? And so what we actually did is we put together an organization called the Coates Cares Foundation, and the thinking there was that it would be a good way for us to get our employee base kind of involved in thinking about the nonprofit space, but at the same time kind of leaning on a lot of the people that we work with in the business community raising dollars that way. Holding an event to raise additional dollars and then using kind of a similar approach to what we do with social venture partners, where we actually then go invest in non-profits in the Chicago area.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:21] So how has that worked for you?

Ted Rupp: [00:10:25] It’s worked out very well. It probably could have gone better if COVID had not kind of derailed our event, I think, two different times. But luckily we appear to be back on track. We have. So we’ve held one event so far. We have our second one planned for May of next year. It’s a casino night at theater on the lake. And so first event went great. And we all know that you kind of work out the kinks on that one. And so I expect the second one to be even better.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:57] Now, how is the nonprofit community? Are they gravitating towards this? Is that, you know, kind of treating a nonprofit or like a startup? Is that idea at least resonating with folks?

Ted Rupp: [00:11:11] Yeah, it’s it’s a strategy that’s been employed by or deployed, I should say, by by several organizations, kind of like social venture partners. But yeah, it’s something that I think is is great because it gives people like our 100 employees a look at what’s going on in the nonprofit space, allows them to then either volunteer their time or donate their dollars to those causes. And at the same time being part of something that’s a bigger initiative that can have kind of a more material financial impact on a firm.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:49] Then. Are the nonprofits open to the that concept, though, of iterating, you know, kind of cutting loose the things that maybe aren’t working, Maybe they have to kind of mash up or maybe they have to consolidate. Is that because that seems a little not like typical nonprofit thinking?

Ted Rupp: [00:12:09] I think it depends. And yeah, I think that there are definitely those that are open to a lot of that. That way of thinking, those tend to be the ones that I know, at least through social venture partners that we’ve gravitated more towards. But yeah, it’s, it’s a constantly evolving space and it’s it’s a very fragmented space as well where you have a lot of groups doing similar things, but kind of in their own unique way and just making sure that they can kind of work together well enough to have the biggest impact right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:47] I think that’s fantastic. I wish more nonprofits would take that kind of mindset of let’s join forces instead of each of us just, you know, kind of touching one little point on the elephant. You know, we can all grab the elephant if we all do work together.

Ted Rupp: [00:13:03] Right? Yeah, exactly. I think a big challenge is typically you have a very strong nonprofit leader that that ultimately is incredibly passionate about what they do and how they do it. And it’s not always necessarily the easiest thing in the world to to kind of meld those together. But yeah, certainly there’s there are examples of where that’s happened and had just a really outsized impact on the community.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:34] Yeah, I, I especially during a downturn in the economy, this is where they should be joining forces and kind of working together instead of kind of being splintered.

Ted Rupp: [00:13:45] Correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:47] Now, getting back to. Can you talk a little bit like walk me through the onboarding. Are your clients? I would imagine they are. They’re moving if they’re coming to covets. They’ve had a wealth management firm and they’re moving to you. Is that accurate?

Ted Rupp: [00:14:02] Oftentimes that’s the case, not necessarily all the time. Particularly, our Orange County operation tends to have a lot of kind of more of the do it yourself camp. But yeah, for the most part, a client typically coming to us has been with some other sort of wealth advisor in the past.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:24] And is the reason they’re moving is that what we discussed earlier, there wasn’t those lines of communication weren’t open, they were frustrated. Maybe they wanted to do something and they weren’t getting their attention they felt they deserved.

Ted Rupp: [00:14:37] I think that’s a big reason. Sometimes it’s it’s purely just investment performance related as well. I think one of our biggest differentiators is a lot of what we do on the investment side of things are our own proprietary strategies. So I think we can speak very well to the investment piece of the equation rather than just kind of relying upon kind of more high level either asset allocation pieces or I guess I would say just kind of particular managers that somebody is selected, whereas we can speak to the individual stocks selected or particular strategies that we’re in charge of.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:20] Now, when you come when they kind of choose you to be part of their trusted advisory team at that point, are you kind of quarterbacking this or are you just a role player on their team? Because I would think that kind of the wealth is is at the heart of a lot of the decisions they’re going to make as a family regarding legacy, regarding health care insurance, not just, you know, the investment dollars.

Ted Rupp: [00:15:49] Right when we onboard the client, there’s a very lengthy questionnaire that they complete for us, the kind of details as much as they can on their financial situation. And we’ll go through and evaluate that in a variety of different levels, whether it be something that may be kind of on the more basic side, like insurance all the way through kind of tax and estate planning. And then based on kind of the outcome of that and the financial planning work that we do in terms of kind of what they’re looking to accomplish, we’ll then help coordinate with the various outside parties, whether it be tax accountants, estate planning attorneys or or something along those lines to really kind of help bring everybody together.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:36] Now, are your clients like what is the profile of an ideal client for you? Is it a business owner or is it somebody who’s inherited money or are they celebrities, athletes, all the above?

Ted Rupp: [00:16:49] Yeah, we’re we’re definitely more in the all of the above camp. I would say our our current base of clients tends to focus more on kind of executives, business owners and professionals. But yeah, certainly kind of our typical client really just kind of looking at the numbers has about three and one half million under management with us. We do have $1,000,000 minimum. And so really kind of anybody that’s that fits that profile that really does want to get kind of very hands on. Financial planning seems to be a good fit for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:27] So what do you need more of? How can we help? Do you need more employees? You need more clients. You need more nonprofits to serve. How can we help you?

Ted Rupp: [00:17:38] Yeah, well, ultimately, I think just being on the show here and getting our name out there helps with all of those things. You never know which one you’re going to need at a particular point in time. So yeah, it really just kind of being on here is great. And for anybody that’s listening that would like to hear more, just feel free to visit our website and we’d love to talk to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:59] And then what’s the URL for the website.

Ted Rupp: [00:18:02] Is W-w-what that’s k0v is and Victor I is and Tom Z is in zebra dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:11] Well, Ted, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Ted Rupp: [00:18:16] Yeah. Thank you very much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:18] All right. This is Lee Kantor Will next time on Chicago Business Radio.

Intro: [00:18:23] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.

Richard Lee With Supercopy

October 28, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Richard Lee With Supercopy

00:00 /

From the island of Guam, Richard Lee is an engineer/designer and now cofounder at Bettersum building Supercopy where we believe marketing should communicate to people in the manner they want to be communicated to.

Connect with Richard on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Favorite part about building a startup
Favorite growth hack

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] 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 the Atlanta Business Radio, we have Richard Lee and he is with Super Copy. Welcome, Richard.

Richard Lee: [00:00:43] Hi. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about super copy, how you serve in folks.

Richard Lee: [00:00:51] Yeah. Yeah. So super copy was created about four months ago to help people market and create a lot of content quickly and create content that matters in the faster way than what we’ve been doing recently.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:03] So how do you do that magic trick?

Richard Lee: [00:01:06] Yeah, so we use A.I. for a lot of the content, like contextual information, and we use that to create a lot of words that come out in the format and sense that comes out in. But it’s up to the marketer to put in the right information, such as What’s the goal of it? What’s the context? What brand are you pushing? What’s the tone with the language? So we’re essentially augmenting and compiling a marketer’s current progress.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] So now is this something that once I start working with super copy, it’s going to kind of learn with me and start understanding my tone and my voice so that I can, you know, create more content faster.

Richard Lee: [00:01:44] Yes. So that’s something we’re working on right now. So right now it’s partially a manual process and partially an automated process and the future. We want this to be something that learns a few, but also like something you get to edit into, something you want it to become.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:57] So now what is the way I would be using this today?

Richard Lee: [00:02:01] So right now the way it currently operates is we have a quick interface where you could put in your brand, your company, your company’s website or digital link of some sort, and then discuss what kind of goal do you want? So is it convincing people to tune into the radio or is it convincing people to check out this new product that we just launched? Or is it discussing the value of a new feature that just got launched for a product X, Y, Z? And then you get the tone as well as the audience who you’re talking to.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:30] And then what happens?

Richard Lee: [00:02:32] And then you click generate, there’s a button that comes up and then it just generates you a couple of options for you to consider. Right now, we’re figuring out the best way to measure, measure the impact before you can post it or shared or send it to a friend.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:44] Now, is it something that I can just like, say, for example, I want to come up with a bunch of subject line for an email marketing campaign that I want to test. Is that something that I could use this with?

Richard Lee: [00:02:57] Yes, absolutely. We actually had a couple of sales people use it either to prototype out a couple of sales headlines, but or also like test out some things a lot faster instead of like brainstorming as a team together.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:09] So I could use it not only for the subject line, I can have the kind of the copy for the email marketing campaign as well.

Richard Lee: [00:03:17] Yes, that’s absolutely right.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:19] And then is it something that okay, so say I come up with a five email cadence and I send it out using super copy? Is it something that it can learn and say, you know what, We weren’t getting the open rate. We anticipated our number two. Let’s try to optimize that for a better result?

Richard Lee: [00:03:42] Yes, definitely. So right now, super copy doesn’t send it out for us, but we do have people copy pasting into their emails and editing, of course. So we do see people doing A, B testing and seeing which one goes well. So super copy allows you to adjust your tone and your demographic really quickly, as well as adjusting a lot of the nuances early on. So when you set up your AB test, you have a little bit more of a direction on each one that you’ll be doing. And in the future, of course, we want to integrate with the email and texting system that people already have to see those responses real time.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:13] Now, at this stage, is it primarily just kind of a a thought starter for a better first draft? And then I’m going to go back in and edit it and tweak it? Or is it something where it can take my first draft and make it better?

Richard Lee: [00:04:28] Yeah, so we actually do both. So we do our the initial product was generating the first draft really quickly. So we’re getting you to the red zone, right in the football term, we’re getting to the red zone and you just have to finish up, which that’s the harder part, right? And that helps you focus on the important part, which is the nuances and the jargon and the things that just makes it a little bit more for the audience. But we also have a tool that use AI to make things a little bit more engaging. So we have an Engager tool that if you put in the the copy, you could click on it and it’ll generate a slightly more engaging version of the post.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:01] Now, when you say engaging, if my tone like say, I think you mentioned earlier, my tone is persuasion, which is different than maybe entertaining, which is different than educating like, are you pulling if I say persuasion or have you taught it like some persuasion strategies and inputted some persuasion language in order for you to to be to actually persuade?

Richard Lee: [00:05:29] Yes. So it does take into context of the words I use to convince it. So if you use persuasion, it will use persuasion type words. So essentially persuade the user or audience member to sign up for X, Y, Z.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:44] But if you say entertaining, is it using like comedic words? Is it using friendlier tone, more conversational?

Richard Lee: [00:05:52] Definitely. So it really takes into consider the words you use if you entertain or convince or discuss like the tones of the words will change based on the word.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:03] And then if if I say entertaining over time, is it going to kind of take on a the avatar of some person that’s entertaining?

Richard Lee: [00:06:18] So that’s the ultimate goal for us is how can we get it more and more tuned into something that’s more entertaining And like deciding on what’s more entertaining and entertaining is a broad word, right? So the initial term is it gets the basic going, but the future term that we want to build up is how can we how can we know what’s entertaining? And also what demographic is this entertaining to and adjusting that to the entertainer itself.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:42] So it could over time, like if I say I want to have a tone like Jerry Seinfeld, it would have a tone like that more so than a tone like. Bill Burr.

Richard Lee: [00:06:55] Yes. So right now you could actually try Jerry Seinfeld because he has enough content online to refer from. Like, we could see some of the cadences. But if it’s like a completely new comedian, that’s like just started out, their cadence and style will be a little harder to pinpoint.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:12] So could you could this be a tool for an entertainer like, say, a comedian wanted help in writing jokes or or stories? Yeah. So it can work in nonfiction as well as a fiction environment.

Richard Lee: [00:07:27] Just because the information pulled from it doesn’t really know what’s true or not. Like, it’s kind of like the Internet in a nutshell, right? Like it’s really hard to dictate what’s true or not because there’s information on both sides on any topic. So it just gets on. It gets especially asides with, you know, which way you’re thinking. So if you think blue is the best color, like, okay, blue is the best color because you say red is the best color. And they’re like, Oh, yeah, red is the best color. So it just depends on how you dictate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:56] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved in this?

Richard Lee: [00:07:59] Yeah, Yeah. So I’ve been I come from an electrical engineering background here at Georgia Tech, graduated and had a corporate job. And at one point I’m like, cool. I want to pursue start ups. The the pandemic hit now is a perfect time for me to just start pursuing that. So be. I’ve been in entrepreneurship for about three years, full time, and I’ve gone through multiple iterations, and the last iteration was essentially a digital product studio where we work for our clients and I’m like, okay, we want to make you more money. Essentially, that’s what our products do, right? So we create a bunch of products for our clients and we just realized. They had a far bigger budget for their marketing that they were spending like all over the place, and then a super small budget for any product. They want to create it to make the marketing make sense. So really, okay, you’re spending. 100 x all you’re spending on us. Why don’t we just do the marketing? Because we also are the best marketers of our own studios. So, okay, you’re essentially creating a problem for ourselves because we just didn’t know how to market effectively. Okay, what can we do to do that? Because like right now, what we were saying is that you got to post everywhere. You have to everywhere at all times. It all has to be good. And that’s what we saw. Okay. That doesn’t seem humanly possible. How can we make that a little easier? And that’s where super copy came from.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:17] So now have you pivoted your business or this kind of aside thing right now?

Richard Lee: [00:09:22] So Supercoppa is the main business. Essentially, it’s a technical startup and and everything else has been to the wayside and we’re not really focusing on it.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:31] So are you still. So you’re not doing any kind of help. You’re not a marketing company. More. You’re a startup that’s trying to roll out the super copy. Is it an app or a software or software is a service? How is it going to be marketed?

Richard Lee: [00:09:47] Yeah, that’s I think that’s a really good question. So, yeah, like definitely not doing anything else. We are now a tech startup in most traditional sense and it’s a SAS, so you could use it online. It’s a web portal so you could go in and anyone with a log in access could access it, and it works off internet. So if have an access and a website, you could access it.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:09] Now, is it something that in order to try it out, I have to buy it? Or is it something that I can kind of You have a freemium model?

Richard Lee: [00:10:19] So right now we are we do not have a free child. We’re currently building that right now. So everyone that we signed up in the last few months, they’ve all paid day one. But yeah, we are definitely looking to premiums for people to try to for us and we want to create a premium product to over time we’ll be adding features and anyone that signed up in the last few months will be inheriting those features over time.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:40] So now that you’re have this start up, is there any advice you can share for other startups to maybe launch or to grow quickly?

Richard Lee: [00:10:49] Yeah, Yeah. So I think a funny story for us, We built this product in a day. We built essentially the prototype of day and sold that prototype the next day. So I’ve, I’ve been in the startup game for a couple of years and I’ve been affiliated. We’re working for like living in that world for about ten. My biggest advice is just get it out there as fast as you can. Customer discovery is fantastic, but you really need to see where people’s money, where they’re willing to spend money at because it must be a problem we’re solving at that level. So yeah, I would always encourage speed and also like taking the risk when you can.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:26] So to layer on top of that, how did you come up with a pricing structure that could work for you and would be kind of an easy in for the client?

Richard Lee: [00:11:37] Yeah. So initially I think this is what lost our founders do is they kind of get like what people think they are. So we start off with $100 based on like and just saw a reaction. So especially we’re onboarding people manually, right? So we could tell from their face whether they’re like, Oh, that’s way too high, or they’re like, Oh, that’s an easy decision. So we always go based on that type of feedback and we see what type of customer like pushes away from a certain price point. And so in people that don’t even consider that like being an obstacle, So we do look into that. So I would say if your product is SAS, you could easily be in the realm of like 20 to 100 to 1000 depending on what your product does and what what kind of critical problem it solves. Right. Like if I could ten extra business with this SAS product, I’m like, usually people are willing to spend a lot more if I’m helping your business by 10%. Is there like a band aid you’re selling? Is it a vitamin? Is a painkiller? So it depends on what kind of category you go into.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:34] Now who is the ideal purchaser of this?

Richard Lee: [00:12:37] So we’ve been working primarily with marketing agencies and sole marketers because they tend to use the product the best. We work with business owners, but we just noticed that they’re very their hands are full with 20 other things all at the same time. So like marketing might be the last thing that they’re considering, but they still want it. So we’ve been seeing various different types on a like once 20 person team scale and we also been working with 100 plus employee companies and seeing how that works for internal marketing.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:07] Now how is your experience been in the Atlanta startup ecosystem.

Richard Lee: [00:13:13] The last year? Because it’s really nice. I really like it. It’s one of the reasons I stayed after college here in Atlanta. Everyone’s really supportive. If you have a question and if you’re genuine about it, people will reach out to you and people will help work with you. I really love the bootstrap energy that Atlanta has. Like it’s not Silicon Valley, but it is throwing money around for no reason and that’s kind of you have to earn it. I do like that. So it helps us focus on bootstrapping and making revenue a lot earlier compared to like going to go get funding earlier, which is I would say not the best practice, especially in a professional model.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:47] Now, what about if you were to educate people on artificial intelligence and how you’re using it? Some people are afraid. Some people can’t wait. What would you you know, what are some of the myths you’d like to dispel about A.I.?

Richard Lee: [00:14:03] So I would say for AI is really good at helping people get to where they are there. It’s kind of dumb if you leave it alone. Right. Because it’s it’s it’s just recognizing what it sees. And often what it sees is often wrong. So that’s something we do see in the market. And A.I. requires some kind of copilot, Like it’s like you’re the goose and maverick and maverick goose type model where without it, you still need A.I. to replicate things on scale. But without the human, the AI’s kind of stopped replicating very old things or mundane things. It just doesn’t really understand it. It’s not going to go for your job unless it’s super repeatable. If your job is super repeatable and doesn’t require a lot of creativity. A.i. is probably going to take over that spot primarily because it’s such a repeatable test that humans shouldn’t be doing. But in jobs that are far more creative, it will have more of an augmenting experience. They’ll help you get to your place where you want to go. They’ll never replace you.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] Yeah. What I’ve heard is if you if your job can be done with a checklist, you’re probably going to be replaced.

Richard Lee: [00:15:10] Yeah. Yeah. But we’ve seen that with technology over the last hundreds, hundreds of years.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:15] Right. It’s nothing personal.

Richard Lee: [00:15:17] Yeah, it’s nothing personal. It’s a repeatable test that shouldn’t be done by a human. That’s overkill, right? The number of energy you have to put into it. But if it’s just like. Like writing something creative. Yeah, like, I will help you, but I won’t do the thing for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:33] Now, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Richard Lee: [00:15:36] Yeah. I would love to meet with more marketers in Atlanta. Meet with Mark Agency in Atlanta and just listen to you like what are your pain points and help you solve those problems for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:46] And if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go?

Richard Lee: [00:15:50] You can hit me up on my email at Richard. I better btr sue dot com or email me there or check us out on our site. I’m also very active on LinkedIn, so I’m there. Richard Lee. You can find me on that handle as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:10] And it’s super copied that I Oh.

Richard Lee: [00:16:12] Yes, super copy that.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:14] Oh, and that’s the website. They can go and they can check it out. They can look at it and then buy it if they were interested.

Richard Lee: [00:16:21] Yes, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:22] Well, Richard, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Richard Lee: [00:16:27] Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:30] All right. That’s Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on the Atlanta Business Radio.

About Our Sponsor

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Robert Schoenberger With Messe München GmbH

October 27, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

South Florida Business Radio

Robert Schoenberger With Messe München GmbH

00:00 /

Robert Schoenberger, Director of transport logistic exhibitions at Messe München GmbH.

He studied at the Technical University of Darmstadt – with stays in Buenos Aires and Atlanta – and earned his doctorate under Prof. Hans-Christian Pfohl. After stations in Bremen, Frankfurt and Augsburg, the “logistics networker” has been responsible for the two theme clusters of the transport logistic and ceramitec trade fairs at Messe München for 7.5 years.

Connect with Robert on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Messe München as company
Trade shows after the pandemic

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] 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: [00:00:14] 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 Robert Schoenberger with Messe München. Welcome, Robert.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:00:34] Thank you so much for having me. Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Munich. How are you serving, folks?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:00:41] Well, Messe München. It’s a publicly held company here in Germany, the free state. The owners are the free state of Bavaria in the city of Munich. And we are one of the largest trade fair organizers in the world. We are we have an own venue here in Munich with 18 exhibition halls. Right now there is the world largest trade show running and, I don’t know, 150,000 square meters of exhibition space. And we expect more than half a million of visitors during that show. This is really huge. Other topics are transport, logistics and air cargo. So these shows are coming to Miami.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:25] Now, what attracted you to Miami?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:01:29] Well, actually, first of all, there is the Miami based association, the air cargo and the International Air Cargo Association. And they did run the show for more than 40 years now. And the show was rotating all around the world. And then they decided, well, we should give that show a permanent home. And they actually decided on Miami. But with this decision, they also said, well, it would be easier to have a professional organizer next to them to support the operational part of the show. And they actually asked us, because we run several air cargo events and transport logistics events, not only really but all around the world and have a road network and some experience with that. And so they asked us if we can support them and we were more than happy to to do so. And now we will have we’ll see the launch of that event in Miami early November.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:26] And then what can someone expect at this event? Is it going to change from previous events or like, are you putting your kind of special secret sauce on this or will it be like previous ones?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:02:39] Well, of course there is some secret sauce. And but the biggest difference probably probably is that we not only do air cargo, so one kind of transport mode, we also invited exhibitors and customers from what are the transport modes. That means rail, sea and road and logistic logistic service providers to exhibit in the Miami Beach Convention Center. So if you’re, let’s say Carmen Carmen Electra from South Carolina or maybe a retail guy from Georgia or doing better housing in Florida, then it’s really like a one stop shopping because you can find an answer to all your transportation needs. All your logistics questions can be answered in that show because there are exhibitors and the food industry will be present.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:30] And then if you’re attending the event, there’s going to be education, there’ll be speakers. What are some of the things exhibitors, What what can an attendee expect like from attending?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:03:43] Yeah, well the event itself is really a trade show, so this is what is very popular in Europe. Of course, that means we have exhibitors on the show floor. We expect more than 220 exhibitors actually. But next to that, of course, we have accompanying conference program. That means on all three show days we have a full set up of hot topics and industrial knowledge and room for our exchange. And the beauty of this event is for visitors, it’s complimentary. So you can enter the event, you can enter the show floor and you can inform yourself at the exhibition, but you also can attend the conference and get know how for your next day business life to implement any news and things you just learned.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:41] And so this like if you’re involved in any aspect of logistics, this is some this is a conference you should be checking out.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:04:51] It’s really a must attend event. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:54] And then do you see the attendees primarily from Florida, or you’re want to attract people from really all over the world to this?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:05:03] Oh, well, we really track people all over from all over the world. Our exhibitors are very international. So we have airlines, airports, company agents, we have service providers, we have cohorts from all around the world. So the exhibition, whether exhibitors come from these sort of respects, where visitors come from, we expect a big part, big picture of international visitors. So it’s really interesting to meet those companies, but also to extend your international network and meet other participants within the show from all around the world. If you’re from Florida, for example.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:47] Now, from a speakers standpoint, were you able to attract a high caliber level of speaker?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:05:54] Yes. We will start with an opening ceremony where, for example, you expect the kind of vice minister from Germany. Will bring a big chin from from from Germany. But next to that, we will have other speakers also from the Florida region will do the ribbon cutting that we will have a CEO session where different CEOs from airlines, logistics service providers will discuss the latest topics within the industry. But during the three days, there will be really a top class program organized by different partners organizations. Of course, the already mentioned association will do all the three days they will do the morning sessions. But later we have other partners also from Florida, Miami, but also from all around the world hosting those sessions and giving insights into the latest topics.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:56] Now, is there an opportunity for sponsorship or is it too late for this one?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:07:01] Well, the shop floor actually is pretty well booked and we are more than happy about the response. But if there is someone out there interested in booking a small booth for doing some on site static sponsorship, then of course we would find a solution for that.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:21] And so what do you need more of? How can we help you? Just trying to get more attendees.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:07:27] Well, this is a long term thing. We want to return to Miami in 2024, of course, So everybody is invited to visit the show to get an impression how that concept works and yeah, to spread the word and hopefully to make it a success for everyone involved. And so to make it kind of the Art Basel for logistics in Miami in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:54] And the dates again, are our November 8th, ninth and 10th at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:08:01] That’s correct, Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:02] So if somebody wants to learn more about the event and maybe is there a web website for this?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:08:11] It’s of course it’s there for dot org.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:14] Air Cargo forum, dot org is the website.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:08:19] Yes. Correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:20] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success. It must be exciting to get back out there in person, you know, after this pandemic, right?

Robert Shoenberger: [00:08:29] Oh, absolutely. And we are more than happy about the response not only in Miami, but worldwide and also here in Munich. As I mentioned in the beginning, it shows people want to meet, people want to interact and meet on those events. And yeah, we got all locked down in our house for a long time. And in the very beginning, a lot of people said, well, life events, life communication actually is dead and it will be transformed into Zoom and meetings and it’s not necessary to meet any anymore, but it really proved. Events are very well appreciated by the customers, and it’s more important than ever to shake hands and maybe also have a beer somewhere in Miami and enjoy the opportunity to meet.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:27] I agree 100%. We’ve had the opportunity to broadcast it. Several events now since the pandemic has broken here in the US, and people are hungry for that face to face. I mean, they can’t wait to hug each other, shake their hands. It’s really we’re human beings, we’re social creatures. And, you know, Zoom is great. And sure, it maybe saves you some money on travel, but people are hungry for face to face interaction and people do business with people and they want to look you in the eye and shake your hand. And and there’s no substitute for that.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:10:03] Absolutely. And especially the logistics industry, it’s supply chain management, all the parties involved. It’s it’s something it’s not just the product which you can Google online and find, okay, I take this and that it’s service. So it’s very customized. It’s about personal relationship you have with your supplier or the vendor. And so it really needs those moments to both meet by coincidence maybe, but also have a personal meeting and discuss these tradeshows are perfect platform to. Give this opportunity to to all parties involved.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:46] Yeah, it’s a very efficient way to meet everybody in your industry, all in one place, and get to know them better so you can do business down the road.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:10:56] Absolutely. That’s what we plan to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:59] Well, it’s exciting stuff and congratulations on all the success. The website, again, if you’re interested in attending, is Air Cargo Forum dot org. Robert, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Robert Shoenberger: [00:11:14] Know, thank you very much for the time and having me as a guest here and looking forward to meet you in person as well, of course, in two weeks in November.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:22] All right. All right. This is Lee Kantor Lucille. Next time on South Florida Business Radio.

Kathy Kowalski With SCORE

October 27, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Richmond Business Radio

Kathy Kowalski With SCORE

00:00 /

Kathy Kowalski, Retired Executive from DuPont with over 30 years of experience leading global consumer and industrial businesses with a keen focus for customer insight driven marketing. Innovative leader growing start-up’s as well as transforming existing businesses to grow cash and earnings while motivating teams and growing talent.

She has a strong passion for brands launching new refresh platforms for top DuPont brands including DuPont Kevlar(R), Nomex(R) and Tyvek(R). She is now servicing the Richmond Chapter Co-Chair of SCORE, providing strategic direction to build the SCORE brand so they mentor more small businesses to help them achieve their dreams.

Follow SCORE on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About SCORE
SCORE ways in helping small business owners
Business owners biggest challenges
SCORE in helping the local Richmond business community
Kathy in becoming a SCORE mentor

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Richmond, Virginia. It’s time for Richmond Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor here another episode of Richmond Business Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor War Cry Consulting Solutions, supporting women to lean into their purpose, craft their vision and crush their goals. Today on Richmond Business Radio, we have Kathy Kowalski with Score Richmond Chapter. She’s the co-chair. Welcome, Cathy.

Kathy Kowalski: [00:00:43] Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to speak to your community of listeners.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:48] Well, I’m excited to talk to you. I think score is one of those best kept secrets and we’re doing our best to make sure it’s not a secret. But for those who don’t know, can you explain what score is and how it serves the business community?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:01:03] Absolutely. So when you think about score, think about free mentoring. To small businesses, the only investment is your time. And we we take the opportunity to meet with any small business owner. If you have some ideas about us starting a business, if you are a business and you’ve come up against some challenges or you’re ready to sell your business and retire or invest in a new business, score can help you for the entire lifetime of your business. We are very fortunate in the Richmond area. We have about 50 mentors that come from a variety of different backgrounds, all kinds of industries with deep bench strengths in areas such as legal or supply chain or finance. And then you have other folks that are mentors that have owned their own businesses. So they’ve lived that experience that can relate to what small business owners are going through. And then you have senior executives such as myself who worked at DuPont running global businesses for over 30 years. So all that expertise we have to lend to small business owners in the Richmond area to help address whatever challenge you might be facing. And if that’s not enough, we are nationwide with about 10,000 mentors so we can tap into expertise if we don’t have it here for you in the local Richmond chapter.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:21] And then what is the fee for those kind of mentoring and those services?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:02:25] It’s completely free.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:27] Completely free.

Kathy Kowalski: [00:02:29] Absolutely. Now we do offer some workshops. It might have a nominal fee, but that mentoring is is totally free, that we’re there to offer our services and our experience to make an impact on the community. So we’ve all stepped up and this is our way of giving back.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:45] Now, in your experience, are you seeing business owners come to you too early or too late?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:02:55] It varies sometimes, especially through the pandemic. We had some folks that kind of got into a pinch because it was such a dramatic shift, and pivoting the business quickly was really, really important. So some came and they were in a bit of a bind, but we were able to help them work through some of that. Others hedged and anticipated some of those trends and issues. Sometimes we’ve have found some people have great ideas about going into business, but they haven’t perhaps had somebody to kind of bounce ideas through with them or talk to the marketplace to test their value proposition. And so they might get into it a little bit and then step back and say, I need to reach out to score and really get some mentoring and coaching. So it really varies.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:42] Now are you seeing any trends in the local market regarding small business?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:03:47] Yeah, So I think that there are a lot of headwinds out there that small businesses are really needing to pay attention to. Certainly coming post-pandemic. We’re now facing inflation, recession, all those challenges that small business owners need to be mindful of. And so really paying attention to supply chains, really stepping back and perhaps reconfiguring the products and services you offer or the price points you offer or look at dealing with different suppliers If you’re not getting what you need and it’s impacting your business and ability to deliver what you promised to your customers. We’re also seeing where where the small business owners are having to retool their products and services and refine their value proposition and talk about their business differently or bring forward some new innovative products to stay current and vibrant. Certainly, supply or labor is another big area. In addition to supply chain, acquiring good employees and retaining them is now even more of a challenge given what’s going on in the country with the labor market and the wage rates. So all of those are really new kinds of things that small business owners are having to deal with and score can help help them work through and navigate through some of those extraordinary challenges.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:12] Now, should a business owners relationship. What score or their score mentor Is it something they’re they’re going into triage, some urgent issue? Should it be kind of an ongoing checkup, like a wellness check just to say, hey, this is where I’m at, This is what I’m thinking. What do you think?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:05:30] Yes. So ideally, stepping up and getting a score mentor along the way. So from the onset of your business or your idea all the way through, the life of the business is ideal. I mean, you can set the frequency. It could be once a year, it could be once a month, it could be once every two weeks, depending on the challenges along the way. That’s ideal. Think about score as a trusted partner or resource you could reach out to and bounce things off ongoing because businesses ebb and flow and challenges are out there. Sometimes when things are running smooth, maybe you don’t need a score mentor or you want to start thinking about your vision for the next five years. Tap into a score mentor. That’s ideal. But certainly we we take on any challenge if we’re about putting out fires as much as an ongoing coaching and guiding a business along the way.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:21] So for someone who’s never worked with a score mentor, can you walk us through what that may be initial conversation looks like and then what kind of those ongoing conversations look like as you move forward?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:06:34] Sure. So what we do is ask folks to reach out to Richmond, score Richmond discord or call on phone, or go to our website and just acquire. Ask about having a mentor. A couple quick questions, but when I am assigned a client, I really like to understand if they have a draft business plan or they have a website. Just so I get a little bit of context of what they’re thinking about doing going into that first meeting. But it’s not necessary. So that first meeting, a lot of times we’ll talk about what the vision is, what their ideas are and talk about then what’s that next step? Helping them crystallize their idea. If it’s a new business, if they’re looking to get into business to really help them hone their value proposition, talk about some of those milestone goals. And then also we have some all kinds of tools and templates to help them work through things. So if they haven’t put a business plan together, you know, I’d have them do a one pager just quickly jot ideas down and lots of different buckets of helping them shape their business plan. And then the next session we’d come back and we talk about that and work through it to help them really hone what their business idea is so that they can get into the next steps of trying to put the pieces together, setting, setting three, six months, 12 month goals, working on their cash flow, working on their products and services. So we try to bite size it so it’s not too overwhelming and take it in a methodological order so that they can really feel not overwhelmed because many times a lot of the small business owners, especially early on, they might be having a full time job doing something else. And so they’re trying to juggle both.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:18] Now is the relationship. You know, sometimes in life you need help and sometimes you need a helper. Is there kind of a line that score mentors draw in terms of rolling up their sleeves and actually doing work? Or is it more of asking questions, pointing in the right direction, and then giving that owner kind of a place to go to find answers or to or there’s work for them to do rather than the mentor to actually do work?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:08:46] Yes. So very much so. We provide templates and tools for them to fill out. For example, we’ll look at their websites and give them feedback, and guidance will help them navigate through their cash flow and ask pointed questions to help lead and guide them versus doing the work. That’s really the responsibility of the small business owner to put their their thoughts and ideas and heart and soul into shaping the content. And then we can ask those probing questions to help guide them to achieve what goals they’re trying to set out to go after.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:21] Now, is there ever is it appropriate, like if you have like, say, your your day job work or your previous life work was in a certain industry? I’m in that same industry. And is it appropriate for you to connect me with somebody that you know in your network? Or is it something where that’s kind of a again, another line that that separates what you’re doing in your role rather than, you know, kind of making a connection? You’re just telling me you should contact blah, blah, blah.

Kathy Kowalski: [00:09:53] Yeah. So many times we do team mentoring. So for example, I start with a client and I find that their need expertise in a particular area like patent law. Well, I have some expertise in that, but, you know, I might have to draw from the other experience in the chapter around legal patents franchising as an example, and bring them into the team meeting as well and or reach out to somewhere across the nation in score in the score network to bring in that expertise. We do that quite a bit. If we have somebody that is deep entrenched in a particular area like supply chain and perhaps I as a mentor or some other mentor doesn’t have that rich experience, we will bring them into the conversation so that client gets a rich understanding and gets the benefit of the bench strength from that other mentor.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:45] And then you mentioned that there’s score mentors around the country. So if somebody said, You know what, I’d like to open, you know, an office in Detroit, Michigan, you might be able to go, Hey, let me contact the score person in Detroit, Michigan. And maybe that could be a starting point.

Kathy Kowalski: [00:11:03] Absolutely. Yeah. We’re highly networked and leverage, so we would absolutely do that, connect them with the right folks in that particular region if that is the situation. But a lot of times, particularly here, it’s a lot of virtual and or local Richmond small business owners.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:21] Now for you, do you have a story you can share that maybe encapsulates what that relationship could look like and the impact you can make on a on a company or a person. You don’t have to name the name, but maybe discuss their challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them overcome it.

Kathy Kowalski: [00:11:40] Sure. There was one wonderful example of someone that had an idea, and so and she was working full time doing something else, had a very professional job. But she had such passion for this, this particular business concept. And so I worked with her from the very beginning to work with her to put her value proposition together so that she was talking about her business in the most compelling way possible. We I had her do some analysis to look at competitors out there, direct competitors and or adjacent, so she knew what the competitive landscape looked like and how they were positioned so she could position her business. We worked on her product line and her pricing so that she was pricing not cost plus, but pricing to value what the perceived value was of those products. She had to have a mobile unit for her business. So we worked on how she might go about doing that in a very cost effective way. Permitting, we talked about permitting because it was a situation where she would be going to events to take her products there. So we had to look into the local ordinances for permitting and selling goods into events. And then we worked on the marketing plan, how to get her voice and her products out there and known among the right audiences, because this product wasn’t for everybody. It was a very finite group of folks that these products would be suited for. So we wanted to very get very focused in market to those individuals. And so I’m excited today. Now, year two, she is doing very, very well and flourishing in the Richmond area, looking even to expand.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:24] So what do you need more of? How can we help? Do you need more business owners to get mentor? Do you need more mentors? What do you need more of and how can we help you?

Kathy Kowalski: [00:13:34] Great question. Well, we’re always, always looking for mentors, people that want to give back. Largely our population of mentors are retired, but we’re finding more and more mentors that are signing up are working professionals that want to give back as well. So always looking for for new mentors to join, score to go through. We have a process. It takes a couple of months to get certified, not full time, but certification and classes to take online just to to so they get familiar with our methodology and our processes. And always and I appreciate this opportunity getting that score brand out there so small business owners coming into the market or an existing business owners know about score and can tap in to our resources. And then we also do a lot with partnerships in the Richmond ecosystem. And so we’re funded in part by the SBA, but then we do our own fundraising and have sponsorships. So we’re also always looking for any sponsorships that wanted to to provide some funds to help support this this valuable entity. We’re we’re all about impact, as I mentioned. And last year we were so proud to be able to provide over 3000 services. That means workshops, webinars and mentoring services that helped start up 140 new businesses that contributed to 267 new jobs and the Richmond area. So that’s our that’s our value proposition. That’s what we do and why we do what we do. So we’ve been around for over 50 plus years and so any support to keep us thriving and help the small business community were all about it.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:17] And one more time, the website for people who want to connect with you, whether it’s a mentor, whether they need mentoring or if they want to sponsor something.

Kathy Kowalski: [00:15:25] Absolutely. It’s Richmond score dot org.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:28] Good stuff. Well, Cathy, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Kathy Kowalski: [00:15:35] And thank you all for what you’re doing and helping us get the word out about score.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:39] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you next time on Richmond Business Radio.

Rita Brooks with Palmly

October 27, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Startup Showdown Podcast

Rita Brooks with Palmly

00:00 /

Rita Brooks is a dynamic leader, speaker, and tech founder. Through her personal faith journey and years of serving in ministry, she and her husband, John recognized a need for people to build authentic relationships both inside and outside of the church.

They also recognized the opportunity for churches to leverage technology to make a greater impact. As a result, they co-founded Palmly, a mobile platform where people go to build community and grow in faith together.

Rita is also the author of the book “Becoming a Good Thing Before the Ring” and founder of Hidden & Found- an empowerment platform where she gets to impact women all over the world through her writings, coaching programs, and live events.

When she’s not building her company or helping women grow and thrive, you will find her spending time with friends and family, including her two girls Isabella and Eden.

Follow Palmly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

About Palmly and Rita’s background
Rita’s experience as a female founder in tech and in the Atlanta tech ecosystem
Her Startup Showdown experience
Rita’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the start of 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: [00:00:38] Lee Kantor here another episode of Startup Showdown, and this is going to be a fun 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 Rita Brooks with Parmly. Welcome, Rita.

Rita Brooks: [00:00:55] Hi, Lee. Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:58] While I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Parmley. How are you serving folks?

Rita Brooks: [00:01:03] Sure. So Parmley is a mobile platform that helps people find and build community. It also helps them to grow in faith and ultimately get plugged into a local church in their area through our sophisticated matching system that we call tight end so our users can deepen their faith through our growth segments, which are these curated live stream content from our community creators covering a range of topics from a biblical perspective. So think parenting, relationships, health and wellness, all the things. And then we also facilitate learning and deeper connection with our faith spaces. And these are virtual small group sessions with curriculum based learning and interactive discussion. So everything on our platform essentially is helping people connect, engage and grow together.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] So what was the genesis of the idea? Did you start out in faith and in community building and said, I wish there was technology that helped this? Or did you start out in technology and said, hey, this would be a good fit for the people in the faith community?

Rita Brooks: [00:02:04] So the former, like many ventures, Kami was basically based birth out of my own experiences. So there was a time in my life when I had just moved to Atlanta. I wasn’t in a very good place and I was just looking for a fresh start, you know. So I was in the same position as many of the users on our platform. So I was a Christian, but I was not doing much to to learn or grow in my faith. I was what you would call a non-practicing Christian. So I didn’t go to church or anything. But one day I met this group of people randomly. They came up to me, they introduced themselves to me. I was at a Chick fil A and we started hanging out. We started going to church together, doing fun things in our community. And that really catapulted me in my faith and in life in general. So eventually I became involved in ministry myself where I began to help people grow in their faith. And I noticed a trend where the people who thrive the most in their faith, they had this community as well. So my husband and I, we set out to make community and growth more accessible to everyone, and that’s what we’re doing through Parmalee.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:03] So how did you kind of conceptualize the idea before it touched the technology, like you wanted it to be a community in real life? Right. That was an important component of this.

Rita Brooks: [00:03:15] Exactly. For sure. We noticed that most of the things that we do in real life, we can basically transfer that to technology. Right, because that’s where most people are gathering, which is online anyway. And so for myself and my husband, we used to lead these small groups. We were a part of the head of the singles ministry. And so we would put together these fun events. We would help facilitate growth and learning ourselves. So we just really translated that over to the technology portion to try to do it on a larger scale.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:42] So were you or your husband? Were either of you technologists like you knew how to build these things or did you have to go and find a team to do that part of it?

Rita Brooks: [00:03:52] Yeah, not at all. So my husband did work in technology sales, but I wouldn’t necessarily say he is a techie. We did go out and find people who could help us with the actual technology portion as far as building and developing and things like that.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:07] So what was that experience like to, you know, because now you have to find a community within a community, right? Like you have to find people that kind of believe in this mission and want to participate and help build the community around this community.

Rita Brooks: [00:04:22] Exactly. And let me tell you, it’s been a journey. It has definitely been a journey. But you definitely find these pockets of people who both know about the technology world and they care about the mission and they see the vision. And that’s why I’m so passionate about getting connected to different programs and resources and then talking to other founders as well, because you do find people who could help you come across on this journey. But it hasn’t been easy at all.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:47] Has it been? Is there any mentors or anybody that has given you some some advice that you’re like, wow, that was really great that this person came into my life because that helped us, you know, get to a new place for sure.

Rita Brooks: [00:05:02] So I was fortunate to be a part of a Techstars program, a Techstars founder, Catalyst. And in that I got connected to many mentors and many different resources. There is one in particular who happens to be the entrepreneur in residence, and she really believed in the vision. She believed in me as a founder and we continue to connect today. And so she’s been a huge resource in our journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:26] Now being a founder is hard. Being a female founder is hard. Has it been difficult being a female founder in this faith? I don’t want to say faith industry, but the faith niche.

Rita Brooks: [00:05:41] I think it’s been harder than being a male founder. Not necessarily in the face, but just being a female founder in general. Because I do believe there are these extreme expectations that are on female founders. However, I do believe that we are kind of in a really good time because there are more resources and more programs and more people rallying around the female founder. Now, whether they are in my industry and the religious tech industry or industries across the board. And so I think it’s there’s this interesting dichotomy where there’s still these expectations that we have, but there’s also help and resources like never before.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:22] And I would think that your solution is really could be part of a bigger solution in this regard in building community around that or that group as well.

Rita Brooks: [00:06:33] You know what? I’ve actually never thought about that before, but I can certainly see that the that’s the power of community, right? Once you have a mission that you’re rallying around, it kind of drives further missions from there. So I can definitely see that within a community, within the community.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:50] So now how did you hear about startup shutdown? How did that get on your radar?

Rita Brooks: [00:06:57] My team, I have actually been following sort of showdown in panoramic for a while, especially on social media. And just in the Atlanta tech scene in general. We certainly admire Paul and Mark in the entire pandemic team for their work in the tech world. So we decided it was time to finally apply because I had just completed that Techstars founder college program. We have made some great progress and we decided, hey, we’re going to shoot our shot. So it was pretty surreal to actually be a part of the process and on the stage to pitch the judges in front of this massive crowd, because we had witnessed several shows before. And so to be there was pretty amazing.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:31] So you had seen other people do this in the past and now it was you shooting the shot. What what was kind of your biggest takeaway? What were some of the things that you found most beneficial?

Rita Brooks: [00:07:44] Oh, several things. Several things. Mentor Day was really helpful. I had the opportunity during Mentor Day to allow my pitch to be heard. You know, it was four different people from four different backgrounds. And it’s always really valuable to have different eyes and ears on what you’re building, especially in the space that I am. It’s so unique. And so they each brought their feedback based on their expertize. What was especially helpful for me was my one on one with Paul Judge. So to have him to listen to my pitch and to give me advice on how to present it to a VC who would better understand it, that was pretty incredible. And then lastly, the exposure. So Lee, I cannot tell you how many people who’ve seen me at different tech events and come over to talk to me because they saw me on Startup Showdown and the people in the organizations who’ve reached out to me for different opportunities, just simply based on my time at Startup Showdown. So the more eyes and ears of my company, the better. The exposure has been really great.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:37] So let’s get in the weeds a little bit with Parmly. What exactly is the service and the how? Like, who is the consumer? Is it the individual that, like you said, I come to a city and I don’t know anybody and I just kind of plug into Parmley and I can kind of get the lay of the land. Is it for churches to say, hey, check out our church? These are some of the events that we have going on, like who is the users and and how does it work?

Rita Brooks: [00:09:03] That is a great question. So we like to think of it as a double sided marketplace. So it’s for the individual and not just an individual who’s moving from another state to a different location. That’s part of it. But really, it’s for the individuals who are like myself, so they consider themselves Christian, or maybe they’re exploring Christianity. They’re not even sure if they’re Christian, but they’re wanting to explore. They’re wanting to listen in on topics or wanting to grow and learn more. And so we’re catering to those individuals. And then on the other side of that, churches as well. So the church landscape has shifted and has been shifting for some time now. And churches are really looking for this innovative way to grow their congregation, especially since the pandemic. They were forced to go online. And so I think it’s a really great time for them because whereas before, they kind of would have shrunk back at the thought of technology, now they’re really embracing it. I think they realize that they need it. They need it to survive and they need it to ultimately thrive. Right. And on the other side of that, with the individuals, now more than ever, people are looking for hope, they’re looking for faith, and they’re needing a community to explore these things with. And so they’re turning to technology to do these things. There’s apps already out there like Halo or Glorify that are helping people do this on apps. And so we’re helping both parties and this double sided marketplace effect as we’re building an online community around a common interest and then matching them with the local church that will help better serve them.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:29] Now, are some people finding a church that may not necessarily be close to them if they really resonate with the message and the people and the community? But they just participate virtually. They don’t ever, you know, enter the building.

Rita Brooks: [00:10:48] Yeah, that is certainly possible, especially in today’s landscape, because most churches are online now. We do try to get them to connect locally though, but that’s a part of some of the questions that we ask them what they prefer online, what they prefer in person, or is there no preference at all? If we have our way, we would have them to connect locally. But online is certainly an option, especially right now in today’s church climate.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:10] So how does it work from the monetization side? Is it the church pays to be part of this?

Rita Brooks: [00:11:18] So the church pays a subscription, either an annual or monthly subscription in order to have access to Titan, which is the church matching system. And so sort of partnered with us and become a part of that database. So right now they’re using things like billboards or paid ads in order to bring people into their doors. And so this is an innovative way to get people who are actually looking for church like theirs because it can be hit or miss. So we can go visit the church, we can get recommendations from friends or family or Google. But what we’re doing is we’re we’re kind of like a Match.com. We’re actually asking you for your preferences, what you’re looking for, and kind of matching you to a church that fits your culture. And so churches. Really can benefit from that.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:57] So then the parishioner doesn’t pay?

Rita Brooks: [00:11:59] No.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:00] So this is just so then it’s a double sided marketplace. But the way the church benefits is they get a congregant who might pay them, then they become a congregant there that is tithing and doing all those things that they do.

Rita Brooks: [00:12:16] That is correct. For the for the churches and the pastors, it’s about impact. Obviously, they do this because they want to see life change. And then. Yes, so it’s a part of the tithing and the giving of that. This is part of the the church culture. So, yeah, they definitely get a benefit in that way as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:30] Now, is it out in the wild? Like, what stage are you at right now?

Rita Brooks: [00:12:34] So we actually just launched about 4 to 5 weeks ago now. And so we actually are in the marketplace. If you go to WW, we are Palm Lidcombe, anyone can join the community, get connected at church, can connect with us, partner with us. And so we have launched as of late.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:52] So do you have churches that are using it, their customers?

Rita Brooks: [00:12:56] We actually have ten people that have asked to be matched to a church. And so we’re in the process of matching them to churches right now. So we’ve been in contact with several different churches and the locations that we’ve gotten users yet that are wanting to be matched.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:09] So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Rita Brooks: [00:13:12] We are looking always looking for churches to partner with. We’re always looking for individuals who are looking for a community like ours. And so and this double sided marketplace, that’s really what we’re looking for, the churches as well as the people who are looking for a community like ours.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:25] Right. And having a double sided marketplace. That’s always the chicken and egg. Right. Like you have to kind of work on both simultaneously. But is there did you are you attacking them both simultaneously or is it more important to get churches first and then the congregants will come or vice versa?

Rita Brooks: [00:13:43] We are attacking it simultaneously, but it is about supply and demand, right? As long as we have the people there, the thriving community, the engaged community, the churches will definitely come because this is something that is a need for them. So we’re doing it simultaneously right now, but we’re also more focusing on the community and building it up and getting the people engaged.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:04] So what are some of the things you’re doing in that regard to to make the community want to be part of this?

Rita Brooks: [00:14:10] Our growth segments are a really huge part of that. And so with our growth segments, we do have Christian content creators who host these weekly live segments across the board on those different topics. And so they’re helping the community to learn more, to engage more, and it helps them to actually stay in the app and have these hours of watch time and want to be here in the community.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] So then that must be another thing that you need more of. Right.

Rita Brooks: [00:14:36] Creators as well. That’s a good point. Yep.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:39] Well, congratulations on all the success. Once again, if somebody wants to learn more, what is the coordinates.

Rita Brooks: [00:14:47] So you can visit us at W WW get parmley dot com. If you want to learn more about the community. If you want to partner with us as a church or to lhis point, if you want to get connected with us as a Christian content creator.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:01] Now before we wrap up, any advice for other founders out there? Anything do’s or don’ts or things you must have, must do or must not do?

Rita Brooks: [00:15:11] Ooh, a couple of things, Lee. So, first of all, buckle up and buckle up. You are going for a ride, but make sure you’re committed to the ride for the long haul. Sometimes this right actually feels like a roller coaster ride. There can be these really low lows, right. But there can also be incredibly high. High. So always remember why you started. That’s one of the the main things that I always go back to remembering how I started and then work every single day to make your business as successful as you want it to be. And then don’t be afraid to fail. You know, there are also lessons in those failures, is what I’m learning. They equip us and they’re doing more for us than we initially understand to help move the needle forward. So don’t be afraid to fail. And then finally, this is really important. Get mentors or at the very least have conversations. Take someone out for coffee. Just talk to people who’ve been where you are and who have achieved some level of success because they more they know more than we do at this point and could really be instrumental in the journey to the top. Other founders who are up and coming, they have their place as well. I love surrounding myself with other up and coming founders, but the people who have been here before, they carry a special wisdom that can really help to serve us in our business.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:20] And I’m sure you you realize that every entrepreneur is in the faith business.

Rita Brooks: [00:16:27] You have a really good point. That is true. We are having faith that our business are going to succeed, they’re going to thrive and that we can actually make a difference in the world. That’s a really good point.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:36] Lee Well, Rita, once again, thank you so much for sharing your story and the website one more time.

Rita Brooks: [00:16:42] Ww W dot get Parmelee dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:46] And that’s Palma y.

Rita Brooks: [00:16:49] Palma Y correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:51] All right Rita thank you again. This is Lee Kantor. We will see all. Next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:16:58] 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 D.C.. That’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

Heath Wilson With Aro

October 25, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Heath Wilson With Aro

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Heath Wilson is the co-founder of Aro Technology, Inc., a tech company that aims to help people put their phones down and live life uninterrupted. An entrepreneur, visionary, culture builder, and idea generator, Heath co-founded eVestment prior to Aro, and sold the company to NASDAQ in 2018. His experience in data-driven solutions coupled with his role as a husband and a father of four led Heath to help develop Aro.

As co-founder of Aro, he is committed to helping people, companies, and families create healthy relationships with their technology through passionate leadership and expertise.

Connect with Heath on LinkedIn and follow Aro on Facebook and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Aro Technology, Inc., and their product Aro
Background and time at eVesment
His experience in preparation for co-founding another tech start-up
Product Aro in helping other entrepreneurs and business leaders
Advice for other entrepreneurs and business leaders

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] 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 the Atlanta Business Radio, we have Heath Wilson and he is with ARO Technology. Welcome.

Heath Wilson: [00:00:45] Lee, good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Aro. How are you serving folks?

Heath Wilson: [00:00:52] Well, Aro is a technology company that helps make it easy for people to put down their phones and engage in real life.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:58] So putting down their phones is you need a device to help you put down your phone.

Heath Wilson: [00:01:04] Unfortunately, that’s the case. I can speak from many years of personal failure. So it was a product and a business born out of frustration with my inability to put down my devices. And I kind of grew up through, you know, through the first BlackBerry, through all the various versions of the iPhones. And I just found that in spite of my best intentions and in spite of having shoeboxes in drawers and baskets, I just wasn’t doing an effective job of disengaging from from from work primarily and engaging with those that are closest to me.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:35] So how does this work?

Heath Wilson: [00:01:37] Well, what we’ve done is basically a lot of this follows the science of habit formation. So if you think about habits, you know, typically starts with the visual cue. So as we thought about ARO, we said, look, we have places for most things in our lives. We put our clothes in the closet, we put our silverware in a drawer, our car in the garage, but we don’t really have a place to find our phone. So as a result, we put it in our pocket, we put it on the counter. And I don’t know about you, but if I had my phone on me, I’m going to use it. So really, it starts with the place. So we define this or built this beautiful container that lives in, in a home that serves as a visual cue. And then we gamified the whole experience to make it rewarding. So there’s an app. It’s really the center of the platform that as soon as you put your phone in, in the row, it starts tracking all your time away. And really that’s what we’re trying to to quantify and to encourage. Is time off your phone, not, you know, kind of the opposite of the weekly screen time report.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:33] Now, it’s primarily geared towards a family.

Heath Wilson: [00:02:37] You know, today it is, though, I will tell you this. This idea was born actually, you know, in an office context. So I had a company in Atlanta, actually, I love Atlanta. And I would have given anything to have something in our conference rooms that allowed us to better focus when we’re in meetings. You know, the still glances under the table where we’re frequent. So I do think there’s an element of or an aspect to this that could be very appropriate in a corporate context. Also, as an employee wellness benefit, we’ve also got inquiries from hospitality sectors. So there’s a bunch of different ways this could go.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:09] Yeah, to me the first thought was restaurants. I mean, what a better way to encourage conversation than a central place on the table where everybody just puts their phone on it. It’ll just be part of the. That’s how we do restaurants now.

Heath Wilson: [00:03:26] Yeah, and you’re right. And you know, we see it. I mean, you see it when you go to a restaurant. There’s there’s too many times where you see a couple or family or, you know, looking on their phones instead of looking at each other. So, yeah, I think there could be an application there as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:39] So now when you came up with the idea, was that initially just kind of that place and then evolved into, Hey, let’s make this a membership so that it is a, an ongoing gamified reminder that this is a best practice when it comes to just living a more mindful, more productive life.

Heath Wilson: [00:04:02] Yeah, you know, I started iterating on the idea back in 2016 and I had a bunch of life experiences that came together where it just dawned on me that, you know, in other areas of my life where I have created habits, you know, there was a system to to encourage those or to motivate me to keep doing those. And with RO, you know, the idea was, hey, can we outsmart the smartphone to a degree? Let’s take all the tech tips and tricks that they used to hook us and let’s use those to hook us to getting off our phone. But I quickly learned that you can’t put the solution inside of the problem. So it can’t be an app only system. You really need that place. You really need that that that calling. You know, when you walk into your house as an example, the RO, you know, in many ways kind of is personified and said, hey, look, this is the place where I go this to your phone and it serves as that reminder like this is, you know, if I want to live a life of best intentions, this is the place that it goes.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:58] And then so when did you when you had the concept, like were your was your family the first kind of beta testers of this or did when did you kind of bring it from concept idea to, Hey, let’s test this in the wild to see if this really works as we envision?

Heath Wilson: [00:05:16] Well, that’s exactly it. So again, I said on a personal front, I failed many times over and I have four children. Three of them were in middle school at the time and they were approaching that age where you give them infinity in your pocket. And I just thought to myself, Wow, you know, if I’m failing and I’m fairly disciplined, then I haven’t taught them well, I haven’t modeled well, I haven’t really given them the tools to be successful with this. Again, infinitely powerful device. So yeah, that’s where it started. Actually, I first got a shoebox, cut a hole in the back and put some cords in it charging cables. And I said, Hey, I just want to see if like intuitively, if we start putting our phones there almost like a very basic charging station. And that worked. But what I noticed was, you know, you didn’t get any credit for doing so. And that’s where the whole idea of gamifying the experience came into play. So then we started running betas with other families and, you know, the box got a little bit nicer along the way. But yeah, that’s where I initially started was with my family.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:13] And then the gamification. How does that work? Like what is the reward for having a more robust conversation with your family?

Heath Wilson: [00:06:23] And ultimately, we do say that the reward is what you do when you’re off your phone, but from a from a from an app standpoint, you know, everything from streaks to nudges to encouragement to to keep going, even the interaction between the app and the box, We have this beautiful piano sound when you connect and when you disconnect. So we’ve gamified even the experience of putting it into, putting it into the own or moving it and really just trying to make sure that it creates a sustainable lifestyle and makes it fun. You know, it’s easy to fill every bored moment, every waking moment with, you know, another scroll through through the phone. And we just think if we can make it fun to actually put it down for periods of time, that you may actually engage in that conversation with your spouse or your child that you you’ve been putting off, you might actually have a family dinner where you’re not looking at your devices, even if you just watch TV without a second screen. We think that’s a win as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:20] Now, when you came up with the idea, you decide to make it kind of a nicer box than a shoe box and more elevated experience as part of the membership, how did you land on the pricing and when did you realize? Hey, this pricing can work. We can build a business around all of this.

Heath Wilson: [00:07:41] Yeah, well, we didn’t want to transaction. You know, this is this is a lifestyle. We always say, you know, it’s going to get easier to put down your phone, but it’s never easy. So we knew that we needed to create a kind of a lifetime relationship with our customers. And that’s why we we built a subscription model. But the tech and I mentioned earlier, you know, we’re a tech company. You know, the tech is pretty complicated. You know, to be able to recognize a phone in this small contained area and to connect and disconnect reliably. You know, it took us quite a while to pinpoint. So we patented that technology. And, you know, that makes it a bit more expensive to create these things. But we also knew that it did have to be beautiful. You know, this needed to be something that that lived in someone’s home. It needed to blend in, but also stand out. So everything from material wise, from the bamboo lid to the fabrics were well thought out. And we even worked with interior designers to make sure that this is something that could fit within the normal design layout of most homes.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:40] Now, this isn’t your first rodeo. Can you talk about how that maybe impacted the way you went about doing this adventure?

Heath Wilson: [00:08:52] Yeah. So my first rodeo was in Atlanta. Love Atlanta. I was there for 23 years. Started a company back in 2000. Very different company. It was a software and a data company. But what you learn in that experience, the underpinnings or the foundation of of starting a company and building a company are certainly applicable to the next one. Probably what I took from that experience more than anything is that it can be done. Risk is worth it, especially if you have the appetite for risk, which I do. Also kind of leaned into hiring people that had different skill sets, and I did so making sure that as we interview folks that we we fill in gaps of, you know, deficiencies that I have and others on the team have. So just really be more strategic about building out the team. And, you know, in some ways, you you gain a little bit of confidence. You know, you’ve done it before and you feel like you could do it again. So that helps you kind of push forward when things get a little bit more difficult.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:55] Now, what about your co-founder? How did that come about? Were you both on the same struggling with the same thing? How did your co-founder get into this?

Heath Wilson: [00:10:07] Well, I would argue that most of us are struggling with that, but I assumed he was for that reason. I called Joey, Joey Odum, because I knew that his values were aligned with mine. And ultimately, this is a values business. You know, what we are trying to encourage is somewhat countercultural. What we’re trying to motivate people to do is to look at each other, to look up to to be more relationally oriented. Look, the reality is technology has made almost every part of our life better, more convenient, easier, faster. But I would say the one area of our lives where it’s been detrimental is with relationships. So we’re kind of leaning into that. And we believe that everything that’s been created in this marketplace now is all about rules and regulations and restrictions. And we feel like we’re the first provider that’s actually addressing the relationship with the device, which is most important.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:56] And you’re encouraging more real life, real time face to face conversations.

Heath Wilson: [00:11:02] Absolutely. And we look, we all crave connection. I crave connection. You crave connection. In fact, that was the that was the promise of social media when it was first created. But we also know that face to face connection is way better than behind a screen.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:19] Yeah. And going through a pandemic, everybody’s hungry for it. You know, why is it broke? You can see that people were just kind of going out of their way to hug people. It was a big deal. They were sharing that on social media. How big of a deal was That’s how big of a deal.

Heath Wilson: [00:11:33] Yeah. I mean, you think, you know, at one point they said we’ll never shake hands again for, you know, this this this fear factor. And I mean, that went away almost immediately. We were shaking hands and hugging and which is great. I’m so thankful we’ve we’ve kind of moved to more of a steady state there.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:47] Now, talk a little bit about your experience with the Atlanta technology ecosystem. How have you found that to be? Have you enjoyed it? Has it been as far as you’d like it to be, and what would you like more of in it?

Heath Wilson: [00:12:04] Well, L.A. was amazing city. You know, I met my wife there, I got married there, raised my kids, started a business there. So I can’t say enough good things about Atlanta. I do believe Atlanta is the technology center of the southeast. As we were building our business in particular, you know, there’s a lot of competition for for talent. And that just speaks to the level of innovation that’s happening in the marketplace. So I think Atlanta, you know, continues to be, you know, kind of the tech epicenter. And we were just happy to be a part of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:35] Now, is there anything that it’s lacking? Is there something you’d like to see more of?

Heath Wilson: [00:12:44] I think you’re starting to see more institutional investors enter the marketplace. You know, a lot of times from a venture capital or a private equity perspective, you were having to go out west or to the northeast. And it feels like and it seems like some of those players have even opened regional offices and others have, you know, headquartered in Atlanta. So it feels like Atlanta is on the up and up when it comes to having, you know, the right base of investors, you know, in your own backyard.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:11] Now, do you have any advice for the maybe the people that are in a more corporate role but have this kind of idea that’s been back? Bernard And it might be kind of similar to yours with Arrow in that, hey, I got this idea. There’s this problem. I think it could work. How do how do you get encourage them to, you know, take action on it and to, you know, even at the minimum just, you know, put that shoebox together with a bunch of cords hanging out the back, like to scratch that itch a little bit and maybe expand what a career could be for them.

Heath Wilson: [00:13:47] Yeah. You know, the one thing I would say, and I’m actually not that good at this, but I for whatever reason, I did it this time around. Write it down. You know, Aro started, as I call it, the Jerry Maguire manifesto moment. And I realized some people may not know who Jerry Maguire or the movie was, but I basically went home one night and I had a job, right? I was building a company, but I went home one night and just wrote a couple three pages of all the things, all the problems that I saw with with our relationship with devices and in particular my relationship, and then all the things I thought that I could could, you know, create a solution for. And it was a bunch of ramblings and musings. But at the end of it, it it kind of coalesced into a to a concept and maybe even a quasi business plan. And then I put it away and I put it in an email email folder and I forgot about it for three or four years and then dug it out when when some life circumstances kind of aligned. And there it was, you know, it it changed certainly from that initial manifesto, but a lot of the foundational stuff in that document that night became part of the business. So, yeah, first and foremost, if you have an idea, write it down, sketch it down. And yeah, if you can do a beta test, whatever that beta test looks like, if it’s a shoebox, even better.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:00] But you have to at some point take action. It’s, you know, those kind of back burner things can live and die on the back burner if you don’t take action.

Heath Wilson: [00:15:10] Yeah. So I. Completely agree. And and on that front, I would say fail quickly. Do do small tests. You know, don’t don’t bet the house on it. You know, talk to some friends about it, even see what they think. Now, you will have to get a couple standard deviations outside of your network to make sure you get unfiltered feedback. But yeah, I would I would test it in conversations. You know, if you can’t test the thing, if it is a thing, you know, do that as well. So, yeah, you can’t just you can’t just sit around and think that it’s just going to happen. You have to, like you said, take some action.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:47] So if somebody wants to learn more, maybe check one out. Are they available in stores? Is the only online. How can someone get an arrow and bring it to their home or their office?

Heath Wilson: [00:15:58] Yeah, we are selling direct to consumer online. It’s go rogue. Oh. Ah. Oh. We actually just started shipping this week. So, you know, it’s been three years in the making and we’re we’re happy to happy to finally get them in customers hands.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:14] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success and thank you for doing what you’re doing and we really appreciate it.

Heath Wilson: [00:16:21] Yeah. Thank you, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:22] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Mickey Leech With Schumacher Electric Corporation

October 25, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Dallas Business Radio

Mickey Leech With Schumacher Electric Corporation

00:00 /

Mickey Leech is the Chief Executive Officer of Schumacher Electric Corporation, a power conversion company that specializes in creating, patented, award-winning technology that serves professionals and consumers in all parts of the battery charging, boosting & portable power market, including automotive, recreational home, and garden and more.

After leading several divisions at MTD for more than 17 years, Mickey joined Schumacher in 2021, as it approached its 75th anniversary. In his new role, Mickey has been working to expand Schumacher’s line of products into new and upcoming areas of the market. He hopes to continue Schumacher’s legacy for innovation by entering new product categories and channels of distribution.

Connect with Mickey on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Schumacher’s 75th anniversary – years of innovation
Recent products
Cater to all lifestyles (automotive, Overlanding, RV, boating, etc.)
Tips for car maintenance heading into winter
Discuss the future of the company

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Dallas, Texas. It’s time for Dallas Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Dallas Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Mickey Leach with Schumacher Electric. Welcome, Mickey.

Mickey Leech: [00:00:28] Hello, Lee. Good to be with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:30] Well, I’m so excited to learn more about Schumacher Electric. Tell us a little bit about what you’re up to. How are you serving folks?

Mickey Leech: [00:00:37] We are serving folks in a lot of different ways, but primarily around power conversion. We are celebrating our 75th anniversary as a power conversion company. And we we essentially empower people to enjoy the benefits and freedom that comes with mobility. And we make sure that everybody’s vehicles, no matter what type of vehicle or what type of power needs they have, they can meet them. And for example, jump starters for cars, battery chargers, for motorcycles, ATVs, boats and so on and so forth.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] So 75 years ago, was that the business that you all were in, or is that been kind of an evolution over the years?

Mickey Leech: [00:01:17] It’s always been power conversion, but it’s been an evolution as to how we apply that. We were based in Chicago on the Schumacher family founded this business. You may be familiar with Don Schumacher, the Hall of Fame race driver. Drag racing particularly. And we were primarily in power conversion for the television and audio industry back in Chicago. And then when that industry and technology changed, Don transformed the business into an automotive power conversion company. And that’s really when we got we’re ubiquitous when it comes to jump starters and battery charges for all types of cars. And I’ve been with Schumacher now a year and a half, and Mr. Schumacher sold the majority interest to a private equity firm in 2021 and brought me and leadership team in to transform the business into a power conversion around energy independence and electric vehicle charging.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:15] Now, are you seeing is the level of adoption of electric? Is it at a pace that you anticipated or is it faster or slower?

Mickey Leech: [00:02:24] We are developing as fast as we can because there are opportunities everywhere. So the market opportunities for EV is accelerating very quickly. And I think what we’re going to find is consumers are going to adopt the cars as they become more available and more affordable price points. And the automotive OEMs are making sure that that happens. So really there is the foundation is being built for it, and I think you’re going to see some really tremendous acceleration in 2023 and 2024.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:57] In terms of individuals buying electric cars or electric vehicles.

Mickey Leech: [00:03:02] Yeah, Yeah, exactly. And we’re Schumacher’s role really for the community and for the environment is really to help improve the adoption of an electric vehicle. All right. So we are focused on developing chargers for people’s residence so that essentially like your cell phone, when you go go home at night, you plug in your cell phone and it’s ready to go for the next day. And we provide a range of chargers for your home that will provide you fast charging and then a slower charging, if that’s what you want.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:35] And then it’ll be kind of vehicle agnostic.

Mickey Leech: [00:03:38] Correct? Correct. Yes, a vehicle agnostic. There’s just really there’s Tesla has a type of adapter and then everybody else has their own. And then our business in Europe, it’s actually one type of power adapter to the car for all vehicles. So you’ll start seeing more consumers in your neighborhood driving electric vehicles and enjoying the benefits of that comes with it.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:01] Now, our other vehicles and other kind of modes of transportation, at least using electric a little bit are they’re electric boats or they’re electric, you know, ATVs or RVs. Are there other kind of vehicles that are moving towards electric?

Mickey Leech: [00:04:18] Absolutely. And as an example, I spent 17 years at a company called MTD Products, which makes brands such as Cub Cadet and Troy built. And over the last probably ten years, we were developing lawn mowers, riding tractors, string trimmers, leaf blowers that are battery powered. So the outdoor power equipment is definitely electrifying. Here in town, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, there are entrepreneurs and businesses, electrifying boats to make actually boating more safe. If you think about all the issues about personal boating, it can get dangerous out there. And there’s really a use case for using technology to improve that. So we’re collaborating with a group who’s a. Electrifying boats. And then there’s a big company here in the area that’s also electrifying motorcycles and ATVs.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:11] Now, do you see a point in time or maybe you’ve identified a point in time where, you know, like kind of electric charging stations will be as ubiquitous as gas stations, or will it be different where they’ll be? Because it takes the time to charge that. It’ll be like maybe they’ll be at coffee shops rather than standalone convenience stores or gas stations. So you have something to do while you’re charging.

Mickey Leech: [00:05:36] Yeah. So our our perspective is that we’re only going to get busier and our calendars are going to be filled with more to do. And we are all consumers and creatures of convenience. And we we see that charging at home is going to become more prevalent and actually going to be part of a grid ecosystem. So here in Dallas two years ago, we had a huge storm and, you know, everybody lost power for or most people lost power for days, if not weeks. And there’s a way to be able to create some resilience in complement the grid. When you when you connect your vehicle, which is a basically a huge energy storage device with your home power, you may have a home power standby generator, you may have solar panels and a battery bank. So your vehicle connected to your home power connected to the grid becomes this ecosystem that creates a little bit more resilience. So we really see it going to home charging and not so much. They’ll definitely be public charging, but I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about standing around coffee shop for 20 to 30 minutes.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:53] So the range for these vehicles will be such that you’ll just charge in the evening and that should be good for 90% of the people that are using electric vehicles.

Mickey Leech: [00:07:04] Right. Right. So much has been talked about with road trips and that is going to be solved. Right. There’s a lot of government investment going in that to make sure that you could go on a road trip in your electric vehicle. You know, that’s that’s a minority of the big minority of the time you spend with your car. So if you get to 300 miles on a charge, you’re easily going to meet all your needs from charging at home.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:30] Because most people during the course of their day or are driving well under that. Right. It’s probably 100 ish at the moment.

Mickey Leech: [00:07:37] Dallas-fort Worth area.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:38] As far as probably bigger because you’re so spread out, Right. So you’re probably pushing it 200.

Mickey Leech: [00:07:44] Yeah. Yeah. And you know, whether or not you have to go from empty to full is, you know, you just quite easily top it off. Every night when you get home, you get out of your car, you plug it in and you’re good to go, right.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:56] It’ll just be just that’s how you handle arriving home and leaving.

Mickey Leech: [00:08:01] Mm hmm. And, you know, we’re we’re introducing a lot of technology that, you know, you hear a lot about smart homes and home automation, and we’re creating a lot of technology and partnering with firms who are providing more. You’re putting more tools into consumers hands so they could manage their own home in the sense of a lot of areas or regions charge for electricity at different rates throughout the day or at different demand levels. So we’re creating smart tools. You know, the in our case, an EV charger that would say if you’re doing your laundry and charging your car, you know, you’re going to be maxing out on power. We’re going to be able to to spread that demand out so it evens out. And you get your car, your car charged at a time when you’re not using your laundry.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:51] So you have your own kind of bank, your charging bank that you can use as you needed in your own home.

Mickey Leech: [00:08:59] Yeah. So we sell the wall mounted EV charger and then technology that then integrates into a lot of the smart power systems that are coming into homes these days.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:11] Now, does it work kind of where like say, there was a power outage? Could you use your car to like, power your refrigerator?

Mickey Leech: [00:09:19] You you will in the future? Not today, but you definitely will in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:25] So everything will work symbiotically because you know it’s the same. Do you have the charge? You have the electricity. It’s just in a car rather than in your home at that moment.

Mickey Leech: [00:09:35] Yeah. And of course, you know, then you’re like, Well, wait a minute, now I have I still have my cold beer in the fridge, but my car can’t go anywhere. Right. So you still are going to need to recharge your car when the storm is over. So, you know, you may need a standby generator or you may need solar panels, but at all, it’s going to work together.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:52] Now, are you seeing more people embracing solar?

Mickey Leech: [00:09:56] We’re seeing it in a lot of the regions where we’re seeing higher EV adoption and it’s really around that ecosystem between being able to generate solar electricity through solar stored in my battery and then when I get home at night plugging that into my car and not using the grid to charge your vehicle.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:17] So right now is the adoption like primarily like a certain person of a certain mindset? Is is that kind of I’m the solar person. It’s not gotten to the point where everybody that has good clear view of the sun is saying, hey, this is a no brainer. Let me just pull the trigger on this.

Mickey Leech: [00:10:35] Right. Well, there’s a couple of things. There’s. Local building ordinances are some markets where new homes have to have solar. So that is a requirement, some areas, particularly in California. And then also they’re cost prohibitive for many people right now. But that’s going to continue to improve and you’ll see a higher adoption of it. So right now you’re seeing most electric vehicles are out of the price range for most of the market. And I think in a lot of cases, so is the solar battery ecosystem. But that I think is going to continue to change as time goes here.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:15] So now for you, what is the most rewarding part of this job? It must be exciting to be kind of on the kind of the edge of technology here. Like you can kind of see the future that other people aren’t really participating in yet.

Mickey Leech: [00:11:29] Well, what’s most exciting about this is. Really preserving the core business that we have. We have a tremendous rich legacy with the business and our traditional automotive charging, jumpstarting and so on, and leading leading the organization with working through automotive aftermarket and continuing to serve our base customers while we go and try to create the future comes to home electric vehicle charging. So working with the team is really the most exciting part of that because there’s this natural tension between keeping the old going and improving the old while we really participate in creating the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:13] Yeah, you don’t want to forget who got you here.

Mickey Leech: [00:12:16] It’s it’s a tremendously successful business and we’ve got a lot of customers who rely on us to keep very safe, high quality, very reliable products to keep vehicles on the road.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:30] Speaking of which, do you have any kind of advice or tips for folks as we head into winter when it comes to car maintenance?

Mickey Leech: [00:12:38] I would say, and this is not a plug for us, I would say every person for the account of safety and security in your vehicle should have a lithium powered jump starter. These devices are no bigger than maybe two books from the library. And well, for those younger people, the library is a place where you used to get paper books. But so you have a lithium jumpstart. It’s pretty small. It’s like size. Let’s call it two cell phones and it’s got jump starter cables. And you’ll never be in a position when your car doesn’t start when it’s cold or your battery has failed you. You can start the vehicle without relying on somebody to come help and some stranger come to your vehicle and help you jumpstart or sit in there waiting for a tow truck driver to arrive. So my advice is get a portable, lightweight lithium jump starter and put it in your trunk.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:32] And for parents listening out there, that’s a nice gift for your kid when they go away to college or leave the home.

Mickey Leech: [00:13:40] Great point. Great point. I’ve got two adult daughters and that was exactly what they got for Christmas last year.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:46] So what’s next for Schumacher as you kind of grow in the Dallas Fort Worth area? Is do you need more talent? You need more opportunity in the automotive space. I mean, you’re a household name there. I would think. So. What do you need more of and how can we help?

Mickey Leech: [00:14:04] We there’s a couple of areas. I think one is, you know, how can we help? Right. We’re we’re the new kids on the block. And I think this community has worked, works really well together. And it’s a very friendly business environment. So we’re here to participate and be a good corporate citizens. And one of the things that attracted us to the market is the growth and the growing number of people in very talented positions. So we have a design engineering center here, our customer service organization, marketing finance and our corporate headquarters, essentially. And, you know, we’re continue to grow and we continue to looking for talent and helping us develop products in in the electrical conversion space.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:47] And if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team. What’s a website.

Mickey Leech: [00:14:54] Schumacher electric dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:56] Well, Micki, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Mickey Leech: [00:15:01] Thank you very much. It’s nice being with you today.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] All right. That’s Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on Dallas Business Radio.

Dr. Guy Hadden With CSL Plasma

October 21, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Richmond Business Radio

Dr. Guy Hadden With CSL Plasma

00:00 /

Dr. Guy Hadden, Center Manager at CSL Plasma.

CSL Plasma is one of the world’s largest collectors of human plasma.

As a leader in plasma collection, CSL Plasma is committed to excellence and innovation in everything they do. Their work helps to ensure that tens of thousands of people are able to live normal, healthy lives. They are committed to their work because their lives depend on them.

CSL Plasma operates one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated plasma collection networks, with more than 300 plasma collection centers in U.S., Europe and China and employs over 12,000 employees.

CSL Plasma is vertically integrated, meaning plasma collected at CSL Plasma facilities are used by CSL Behring for the sole purpose of manufacture and deliver its life-saving therapies to people in more than 100 countries.

Connect with Dr. Guy on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Richmond, Virginia. It’s time for Richmond Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor are here, another episode of Richmond Business Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor War Cry Consulting Solutions, supporting women to lean into their purpose, craft their vision and crush their goals. Today on Richmond Business Radio, we have Dr. Guy Hadden with CSL Plasma. Welcome.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:00:40] Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

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

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:00:48] CSL plasma is a biopharmaceutical company is what we are. The plasma portion that I’m affiliated with is a division within the larger parent group. We’ve been collecting human plasma for the manufacture of different serums and therapies for treating just a variety of diseases, mostly rare diseases, but nonetheless diseases with for thousands and thousands of people around the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] So is donating plasma the same as donating blood?

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:01:27] Sort of. When you go in and you donate blood, they take the whole blood from you. That part is the same here. Where it differs is when you donate whole blood, they’ll take a pint or a liter of blood from you and then they’ll keep that entire amount of blood. And then you can’t donate again for another 56 to 60 days because it takes that long for your body to regenerate it. In the plasma process, we take the whole blood just like, say, the Red Cross would, and we run it through a centrifuge or a four rhesus machine. We separate the blood from the plasma. When I say blood, I should say we separate the red blood cells, the white blood cells and the platelets, because those three items and the fourth item being plasma is what comprise comprises all of the blood that’s in your body. All right. And so what we do is we separate the plasma from those other elements. We give those elements back to the donor IV group, goes right back into the donor, and we only keep the plasma throughout this process. You can actually donate two times a week. You can donate as long as there’s a day in between. So if you donate it on Monday, you can donate again on Wednesday and you can donate up to the two times in a seven day period.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:57] And that’s because you’re putting the less the plasma, everything else is going back into the donor.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:03:04] That that is correct. We also supplement with just normal saline. So you’ll get that upon leaving or finishing your your donation procedure. So, I mean, technically, when you walk out of the building, you’re walking out of the building with the exact same of volume of fluid that you walk into the building with. So and then within 24 to 48 hours, your body is going to replenish every bit of that plasma that was extracted.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:36] And then so a donor could do this more often. And then you’re getting that needed plasma more frequently.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:03:44] Absolutely. A donor can donate up to two times every seven days year round.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:51] And then is the experience from the donor side pretty similar other than the kind of getting the IV back and getting the fluids back into them.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:04:03] Yeah, it’s the you know, if you’ve ever given blood, then the experience is virtually the same. The the cells and everything that are going back into the body are not going in through a different tube like a second needle, any of that kind of stuff. It’s going through the same process. And so through the same tube, the same needle, you only get stuck once and the whole process will actually take a little bit longer than it would for you to donate blood. You could probably donate blood in anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. It really depends upon how hydrated you are. The process here is going to take you anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, depending upon the how hydrated you are and whether or not you’re really prepared to donate.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:58] And that’s an important thing also. So if somebody is interested in donating, how would they go about being kind of optimally prepared.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:05:08] As far as as far as the the donation process, being prepared really means nothing more than being properly hydrated, you know, eating, eating a decent, well-balanced meal. Obviously, if you eat it in the morning and you come in the afternoon, that meal isn’t going to help you because that meal hasn’t even been absorbed through your body. So it’s one of those things that, you know, for a day or two prior to donating, you know, if you’re eating a decent meal, you’re keeping fully hydrated, then the process goes smooth, it’s fast and you know, you’re in and out of here within an hour to an hour and a half.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:53] And then why should someone consider doing this instead of or in conjunction with donating blood?

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:06:05] Well, I mean, that’s a great question, and I don’t want to talk to anybody out of donating blood because blood is very much needed as well. Our parent company, which is CSL Behring, and they use the human plasma that we’re collecting and they use it to produce different therapies and pharmaceuticals to treat numerous diseases, you know, that are all around the globe. All right. We we provide these different medications in over 100 countries around the planet. The therapies are different types of bleeding disorders, such as hemophilia, von willebrand’s, disease, primary immune deficiencies, head, a hereditary angioedema, respiratory disease, neurological disorders, autoimmune diseases. Plasma is also used in cardiac surgery, organ transplantation, burn treatments, cancer treatments used in trauma. And then it’s also one of the big things is to prevent hemolytic disease in newborn babies. So the need is there and. The majority of these diseases. It doesn’t necessarily cure the disease, but it provides a much better quality of life for these patients around the world. I’ve spoke with I can’t tell you how many how many different patients that I’ve spoke with or people that are that are actually using these different types of of drugs and therapies to allow them to do the things that you and I normally do and we don’t even think about and don’t don’t consider. So that’s why it’s such an important. Important topic and issue and that we really push for and try to help.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:08:09] Unfortunately, to one person that has, say, von Willebrand’s disease, all right, that one person requires up to 1200 donations of plasma just for that one person per year. So, you know, I mean, it’s we can’t make enough of it. All right. Let me rephrase that. The body makes it, but we can’t store enough of it to treat everybody who actually needs the product. And so that’s why there’s just such a push right now to to help as many people as we can. And of course, coming out of COVID, you know, there was a lot of people with the lockdowns and everything that the donations slowed way down and but the need for the product didn’t. And so that’s kind of where we are now, where it’s just created a a supply issue, much like groceries and everything else. And probably the biggest thing between donating blood and donating plasma is when you donate plasma, you have that knowledge that you’re helping somebody. But you’re also getting paid for it. So that’s a nice little perk that and that’s why we say that, you know, it’s it’s good for the great for the individual and good for you because, you know, they get the medication they need and then, you know, you get paid for your time to come and do it.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:46] Now, for folks who are suffering from one one of those diseases, are they typically the first move is to go to family members? I would imagine that’s the first thing that the family reaches out to everybody and say, hey, this is important. Let’s all do this for the sake of, you know, our niece or our cousin or whatever. But like you said, this is something that the general population should be thinking about in order to just do good for others. But also you can get paid. So it’s kind of a win win win all the way around.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:10:18] Absolutely. And to be honest with you, that’s what really got me into this in the first place is because of my own daughter. You know, she’s got an autoimmune disorder. I don’t know where it came from. Does it run in the family? But it’s just one of those things that out of the blue she ended up with it. And she’s currently taking some of the medications that that I personally don’t make because I’m on the plasma side. But our company makes and let me tell you, it’s a world of difference between before she started and where she is now. I mean, it’s not going to remove that condition from her. She’s going to have that till she dies, but at least she acts and feels like she did before, before the whole thing happened. So, yeah, absolutely. And when anything hits close to you, you know, it becomes bigger. You know? I mean, it’s crazy that I would venture to say that most people, if you talk to them about plasma, you know, and donating plasma, they really don’t even know what you’re talking about. I mean, this is not one of these these things that have been widely publicized, publicized like donating blood. So that thought really just isn’t automatically their right.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:38] It’s not top of mind, but the need is there. I mean.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:11:42] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:44] So if somebody wants to learn more about this, find to see if there’s a place for them to donate, what is the website? What’s the best way to go about getting involved?

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:11:57] The easiest way to do is just I mean, if you have access to a computer or a phone, just go to CSL and that’s really all you have to put in a CSL if you want. You can put CSL plasma, which is our specific department of CSL. But either way I’ll get you to it right there on that website. There’s a spot in there, you know that you can see all of the different centers. We have over 300 centers in the United States, we have over 900 centers around around the globe. You can pick a state, a city and all of the places within that geographical area and get addresses, phone numbers and everything to that particular CSL. There’s even a link on there. You know, for careers, if you’re looking for a job, you know, if you want to be within this industry, you know, and the jobs are listed the exact same way, so you can do it by state by city and, and just kind of go through right here in the Richmond area. We’ve got two two centers, one in Henrico and one in Richmond, and then we’ve got one down in Norfolk. So if you’re in the Richmond area, we’ve got one one within an easy driving distance to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:15] And like you said, you know, if you want to do this, to do to do good, sure do that. But if you want to do it to earn some extra money, I’m on the website right now. It says you can earn up to $1,000 in your first month.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:13:30] Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and every month you see once you once you become a new donor. All right. Basically your first eight donations is what’s considered a new donor. All right. So you can make anywhere from 800 clear up to 1200. All of the centers have different promotions going on each month. Then once you become a qualified donor, then obviously those those numbers drop a little bit. But you go from making $800 in your first month to making five or $600 in your second month. And virtually you can do that year round. So I mean, I have a lot of donors that come in and they basically treat this as a second job. You know, I mean, it’s a couple of hours of your time, you know, two times a week. And you make five, $600 a month. I mean, it’s pretty hard to beat.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:30] Yeah. One more time. The website I was on CECL plasma dot com. That’s where I found this information. Is that kind of a clearinghouse for this?

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:14:39] So that one more time I’m sorry.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:41] I was at CECL plasma dot com. The letter C, the letter S the letter L plasma plasma.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:14:50] That is correct, yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:53] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dr. Guy Hadden: [00:14:59] Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and even talk about it.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on Richmond Business Radio.