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Michelle Canale With Florida Association of Nurse Anesthesiology

December 2, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

MichelleCanaleDr. Michelle Canale is the President of the Florida Association of Nurse Anesthesiology, as well as the USF Nurse Anesthesiology Program Director. Her passion is professional advocacy and educating future CRNA professional leaders. She models evidence-based advanced nursing practice, service, scholarship, and leadership to her graduate students.

Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn and follow FANA on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists – who we are, what we do
  • Veterans Care and Wait Times
  • ICAN Legislation
  • CRNAs in the Military

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Michelle Canale with the Florida Association of Nurse Anesthesiology. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Canale: Thank you so much. Lee Thanks for having me.

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

Michelle Canale: Well, Fana was founded in 1936. It is the professional association for 5400 Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist in Florida. We advocate for patients and members in legislative and governmental affairs and serve as a resource for CNAS, the nursing and medical profession, hospitals, health care facilities and other interests, other people that are interested in anesthesia care.

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

Michelle Canale: Well, I have been a member of Fana since I was a student in my anesthesiology training program, and after that I just started serving on a committee. I first served on the Government Relations Committee of Fana and then ran for an office. So I became a director and I served in that capacity for a couple of years and then just kind of progressively took the next steps. I served as vice president for a year and then president elect, and now I am the current president of Fana.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you started your career, was this something you aspired to be doing or is this work that as you started kind of getting more and more involved, that just became a passion area for you?

Michelle Canale: Well, I think I was inspired during my education and training in anesthesiology. My mentors in my academic program really highlighted the importance of professional involvement and advocacy, something that I modeled to my own students today. And I think that that’s where it all started. And I just became very passionate about advocating for our profession and for patients.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you seeing young people also following that path, or is this something that you wish more young people would kind of go down that that road?

Michelle Canale: We are absolutely seeing our up and coming future seniors involved in advocacy. Fana does a tremendous job of involving our student registered nurse anesthetists in advocacy. They’re meeting with legislators and educating the public on what Sierra’s are, who we are and what we do. Of course, we always welcome more membership and more involvement, and there’s plenty to do on our committees as well as in our office positions.

Lee Kantor: Can you talk a little bit about the RNAs in the military? How has that role changed maybe over time?

Michelle Canale: Yeah, So syringes were the original anesthesia experts providing anesthesia for more than 150 years as far back as on the battlefield of the Civil War. They are educated and trained to practice independently on day one coming out of their program, just as their physician counterparts are. They’re the only providers of anesthesia on the battlefield in forward surgical teams still today, whereas physician anesthesiologists are not deployed into combat zones like CNAS are, They practice in every setting in which anesthesia is administered, including traditional hospitals, labor and delivery suites, interventional pain management, critical care units and ambulatory surgery centers. And they are able to care for patients before, during and after their procedures as their sole anesthesia professionals in rural hospitals and medically underserved areas. So they really play a critical role in maintaining access to care all across the US. And 100% of Sierra’s are board certified.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there something that you would like to share regarding maybe some misconceptions of Sierra names? Or maybe there’s something the public needs to know about the importance of this? You mentioned how how critical their services. Is there a shortage of them? Do you do we need more of them?

Michelle Canale: Well, we really don’t have a shortage of anesthesia providers. We have a shortage of providers that are performing anesthesia. In many instances, the anesthesia services are duplicated where a physician anesthesiologist supervises a certified registered nurse anesthetist, when in fact, the RNAs are trained to the full scope of anesthesiology services and can practice independently on day one. So that is a very common misconception about anesthesia care in the US. It does vary by state law, but over. All Sierras can practice independently and create a very cost effective and high quality way to deliver anesthesia care.

Lee Kantor: So that’s something that’s happening. It’s almost like a duplication of services sometimes.

Michelle Canale: Yes, exactly. It’s a duplication of services. The supervision is often superfluous and is not really required. For example, in the Veterans Health Care Administration, there’s a lot of supervision of certified registered nurse anesthetist, which is causing a delay in care and decrease access to care for our veterans.

Lee Kantor: And that’s something that could easily be alleviated by just having more C.R.A. kind of do that kind of work, rather than wait for the one physician who’s probably in charge of a whole bunch of stuff.

Michelle Canale: Exactly. So interestingly, 23% of veteran households report delays in getting VA health care appointments and surgical procedures, and 88% of veteran health households strongly support legislation granting veterans direct access to seniors in the VA health care system. So the VA is currently considering a proposal to give veterans direct access to CNAS, but that is likely to take years. And as you know, our veterans are waiting for care right now. They’ve already sacrificed so much for our country, and they really shouldn’t have to sacrifice their health waiting for surgical care that they deserve. There are currently 1000 Syrians currently serving in the VA health care system today. And so the glaring question for policymakers remains what changes when crowds leave the battlefield and come home to work in the VA health care administration? Why are these autonomous, independent, qualified providers able to be independent in the most difficult situations but then need antiquated supervision when they’re here practicing in the VA health care administration?

Lee Kantor: Is that a situation where kind of a bureaucracy has just taken hold and it’s hard to kind of get rid of some of the status quo of this is the way we’ve always done it. So this is the way we do it.

Michelle Canale: Yes, that is part of the issue. Another part is just the lack of understanding of the public. And, you know, C.R.A. provide most of the anesthetics around the country. But we are called the best kept secret in health care because our patients are asleep while we’re taking care of them. And patients don’t often remember or they don’t realize that a CRNA even exists. But we’re often the ones who are in the surgical suite or in the labor and delivery suite taking care of the patient the entire time.

Lee Kantor: Right. It’s I don’t think anybody aspires to be a best kept secret. Like, there’s always. That’s not. And it’s a backhanded compliment.

Michelle Canale: Yes. If you’ve ever had surgery or for those who are listening, who have ever had a baby, you were most likely taken care of by a CRNA.

Lee Kantor: Right. And like you said, they’re allowed to be in in a combat situation and nobody blinks at that. And then they go into a, you know, a hospital here in America, a VA hospital, and then all of a sudden they’re kind of put on the bench and it just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, if they can handle that chaos in a crisis mode every day, why can they just handle what’s happening inside of a VA hospital on American soil?

Michelle Canale: That’s exactly right. And additionally, C.R.A. have been working on the front lines during the COVID pandemic. They were leading their have been leading the critical response efforts, working in some of the most difficult situations. And for the last two and a half years, Medicare has temporarily waived practice barriers, allowing serenades to practice to the full scope of their education and training.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think this is one of those times where, I mean, when it was good enough for a crisis, why isn’t a good enough or when there’s not a crisis? I mean, if it’s already been proven and it’s successful there, I mean, it just the red tape has got to stop. I mean, it’s just we’re hurting ourselves by not leveraging the skills of these talented cronies.

Michelle Canale: That’s exactly right.

Lee Kantor: Now, for you as a leader of an organization, is this something that, you know, you just got to get the word out for the general public to understand? Hey, you don’t have to tolerate this. You know, we’re going to there’s a better solution here. You don’t have to wait for the one physician. There’s there’s a bunch of qualified and skilled is just waiting here to speed up that wait time so you don’t have to wait any longer is that you need. Kind of a ground up kind of approach to get more and more people clamoring for this so that policy can change.

Michelle Canale: Yes, that’s true. We are constantly needing to educate policy makers, both at the federal level, the state level, as well as the local level and even at the facility level about who C.R.A. are and what we do. Again, it’s sort of a big secret that Sierra’s even exist. And even though we we were the original anesthesia providers, even before anesthesia became a medical specialty. So we are constantly engaging in grassroots efforts to educate our legislators. We continue to educate, educate, educate. And when they term out, we start educating their replacement. And it’s a constant process to try to educate stakeholders about who we are and what we do. And it’s a big misconception that somehow the care is inferior to that provided by a physician anesthesiologist, when in fact there are multiple landmark studies out there showing that the care is equal to that provided by a physician anesthesiologist and at about a 25% reduced rate.

Lee Kantor: Right. Like, it doesn’t make any sense on multiple level. Not only will it be more affordable, it’s you’re getting the same outcomes and it just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, this is what frustrates people with bureaucracy, you know, where there’s a better solution, just clear as day in front of you and then it still can’t be implemented because of a bunch of red tape.

Michelle Canale: Yeah. The good news is, is that there is the I Can Act, which stands for improving care and access to nurses. It’s legislation that will ensure access to health care for millions of Americans by removing unnecessary barriers to high quality health care services. Specifically, it will provide access to syringe services under Medicaid and remove illusory and superfluous physician supervision of CNAS. This will help health care facilities avoid costly duplication of services and use their resources to further improve patient care in other ways. This legislation is consistent with the recommendations from numerous health care stakeholders, including the National Academy of Medicine. In their report titled The Future of Nursing 2020 to 2030 Charting a Path to Achieve Health Care Equity. The National Academy of Medicine recommends that all state, federal and private organizations enable nurses to practice to the full extent of their education and training by removing practice barriers to improve health care access, quality and value.

Lee Kantor: Now, is this something that it’s. Have they voted on this or it’s it’s they’re still debating this or looking at this, but a vote hasn’t occurred yet to put this in place?

Michelle Canale: That’s correct. A vote has not occurred yet. It is simply been legislation that’s been introduced and sponsored by several legislators. It’s important to note that this is a bipartisan legislative effort that has sponsors on both sides of the aisle.

Lee Kantor: So that’s encouraging. Is this one of I guess this is where an opportunity and a frustration is as a leader of an organization like this is that you can see the finish line. It’s just a matter of getting people just to kind of take the ball into the end zone here. It just requires probably relentless, tenacious work on your part in order to get people to take action.

Michelle Canale: It does. And as you can probably imagine, there is our physician counterparts are constantly doing the same thing from the other side and trying to make a case for why physician anesthesia is somehow better, even though the research does not show that. So it’s a constant battle, know the physicians have a lot of money to be able to fight the battle. So, you know, it’s just about continuing to educate those and providing the real research and, you know, showing them how we are the answer to quality care at a cost effective price.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And let’s let’s see them get in the front lines. Let’s see him line up for that part of the equation.

Michelle Canale: Yes. And there’s plenty of work to go around.

Lee Kantor: I’m sure there is. There’s no shortage.

Michelle Canale: Yes, we need them in the operating room doing cases as well so that we have greater access to care for all of our patients.

Lee Kantor: Right. It’s an and it’s not nor.

Michelle Canale: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Sometimes you know, you get into. These zero sum games. And it just it doesn’t help the consumer at the end of the day.

Michelle Canale: Right.

Lee Kantor: Now, what can we be doing more for you? It sounds like this is a battle that’s been going on for a hot minute and it just requires kind of tenacity to to get this done.

Michelle Canale: Well, so listeners can contact their legislators and ask them to support the icon legislation that is currently being sponsored in a bipartisan fashion from both sides. It’s a win win for patients, for health care costs, for reducing the strain on the health care system, for health care equity. It’s a win win for everybody. So if those who are listening want to help with this, they can contact their legislators and ask them to help with the I Can Act legislation that’s at a federal level. Now, you can also contact your state legislators, your senators and representatives on the state level to ask them to to support CRNA practice at the state level as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for other leaders of associations when it comes to this type of advocacy where it’s a it’s a battle that’s, you know, takes a while and to just stay the course and to stay focused. Is it a matter of just getting as much data and research as possible to make your case? Like, how do you keep everybody engaged and committed to something as important as this over a long period of time?

Michelle Canale: So I can tell you that Fana works very, very hard at this all the time. We are just one state, one member state in the American Association of Nursing Anesthesiology, which is the national professional organization. The AMA was founded back in 1931, just five years earlier than Fana, and it represents nearly 59,000 Sierra’s and student registered nurse anesthetist nationwide. We work together with our mother organization, if you will, at the national level, the ANA, and they provide a plethora of resources to help the states and the state associations with educating legislators, with monitoring upcoming legislation, efforts that may be for or against our our mission. So I would advise other state organizations to look to the ANA for assistance. They’re incredibly helpful. They have a lot of resources, and they’ve been a huge help to the Florida Association of Nurse Anesthesiology.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website? What’s the best way to get ahold of you or somebody on the team?

Michelle Canale: Well, you can reach us at our website, Fana dot org a and a dot org. And there’s a bunch of resources there as well. You can learn all about the different nurse anesthesiology programs in Florida. There are announcements posted from time to time about different legislation that’s going on or resources Q&A, things like that on the website. It’s it’s really there’s a lot of information there for anybody who wants to go to Fana dot org.

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

Michelle Canale: Thank you so much, Lea.

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

Madison Long With Clutch

December 1, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Madison LongMadison Long is the CEO and Co-Founder of Clutch where she drives the company’s vision of building a world where authentic, engaging work supports a more sustainable, equitable lifestyle.

Her passion for entrepreneurship and helping the next generation thrive began in childhood including spending her high school summers creating a math mania programmatic instruction class for middle school students in need and working with youth advocacy programs in college.

Prior to Clutch, Madison was a Program Development & Analytics Lead at Lean In where she led multiple initiatives including the foundation’s 2020 Women in the Workplace report along with their first project focused on empowering youth girls.

She was a Finance Rotation Program Analyst at Microsoft prior to her time at Lean In. Madison’s overall goal is to create opportunities for the next generation to thrive in life and work.

Connect with Madison on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Gen-Z
  • Creator economy
  • How Tiktok is transforming digital marketing for small businesses
  • Crowd-sourcing talent platforms and the future of work

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the Startup Showdown podcast, where we discuss pitching, funding and scaling startups. Join us as we interview winners, mentors and judges of the monthly 120,000 pitch competition powered by Panoramic Ventures. We also discuss the latest updates in software Web three, health care, 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 Start Up Showdown podcast, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor Panoramic Ventures. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Startup Showdown, we have Madison Long with Clutch. Welcome, Madison.

Madison Long: [00:00:57] Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:59] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Clutch. How are you serving folks?

Madison Long: [00:01:03] Shortly. Yes. At Clutch, we’re elevating emerging brands, digital marketing presence by connecting them to next gen creators. Our creators specialize in graphic design, social media and video content creation. And as we know, the fractional workforce is rapidly growing. So with Clutch, we’re really creating opportunities for both emerging brands and young creators to thrive within it.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] So what was the genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Madison Long: [00:01:31] Oh, yes. Well, we’ve actually been working on this idea for about a little over two years and actually pivoted quite a bit. But it always has had the initial focus on empowering the next generation. We know that there is a massive opportunity to lean into the future of remote work and doing work that is more joyful and more aligned with who you are as a person. And so now that clutch has evolved and what we’ve been able to bring to market not only propels that goal and vision, but also really resonates with both sides of our audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] So when you have a two sided marketplace like you’re working right now, how do you kind of build up both sides simultaneously? You have to have the creators right. There has to be kind of a good variety of creators. And also you need the people with the money that are hiring them.

Madison Long: [00:02:22] Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s tricky. And I think that’s a huge testament to Marketplace founders who’ve come before to be able to hack that. But what we first noticed was that the supply side of the market was the creators with the talent, and they were coming in droves. We were able to get thousands of sign ups on our waitlist within 12 weeks. We still have about 400 creators coming into our pipeline and applying every time we post something every single like in just under a week. And so we luckily have a really great pipeline to go on board and find fantastic creators on the other side of the spectrum that the business is looking for this digital marketing help and looking for these resources, they often do require a little bit more cold outreach, and we’ve been able to do that successfully as well as most of our businesses have come in through organic channels. And as we continue to hack on our growth and customer acquisition, we are intently focused on channel partnerships and other opportunities to grow the client side of the platform at the same scale as the creator side.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:37] So what is kind of the ideal channel partner look like?

Madison Long: [00:03:42] Yeah, we think it can look a lot of different ways, but we’re actually partnering with some marketing agencies right now. A lot of times marketing agencies struggle when it comes to expanding into new digital marketing offerings, namely Tik Tok. But they know that their clients and the businesses they represent are desperately earnest to expand their reach and go out of the scope of just Instagram and traditional Facebook advertisements to also building a presence on Tik Tok. But Tik Tok requires first person point of view, authentic and very active and daily engagement with that audience to really have a presence. And so that requires resources and talent that it has that time, has that ability and can come in at a capital efficient point, cost point. And so that’s where we think being able to partner with folks like those running marketing agencies and wanting to expand their offers and product line to their clients could be a really great opportunity to introduce them to dozens of our creators.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:47] Now, when this occurs, have you had like what stage are you at or do you have these interactions happening right now? Or are there marketing agencies, you know, reaching out to these creators and they’re doing business? And you have do you have success stories in that regard at all?

Madison Long: [00:05:05] Absolutely. So this is something that we only started really exploring in the last month. Just for context, we launched this business model with Klutch in January and really wanted to understand our ideal end user and our customer persona there before looking for partnerships just so we know exactly who we’re partnering with. So at the top of the second half of the year, in June, we decided to start broaching this conversation with marketing agencies and do have partnerships in the works with three. One of them is already onboarded and is starting to work with students directly and the other two, we’re in the process of bringing them on board. Why we think this is so unique is because these the small brands we represent directly on Clutch, they might not be household names, but the marketing agencies we’re working with are representing products that we all. Have in our home and use regularly. And that’s really fun for these creators to be able to work with and create content for. So it’s it’s really been well received by both sides. But yes, we’re definitely testing it and our starting with a small cohort of agencies.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:10] So what’s your background in startups? Is this your first startup or have you been doing this for a bit?

Madison Long: [00:06:16] I have one experience running a startup and it is this, but I would say in running this one startup, it’s taken life three different times and so I feel like I have quite a breadth of experience so far, but I’m very, very green and learning every day. Prior to running the startup full time, I worked at Microsoft in a financial rotation program where I was able to not only like travel and see different parts of the business, but learn different skill sets that helped with the tool kit before starting clutch. And then after that, I actually went to a nonprofit run by the former CEO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, called Lean In, where we were able to where I was able to learn how to scale projects and launch global initiatives and research in a way that required massive partnerships and collaboration. And that also allowed me to feel even more equipped to be able to go out on my own and do clutch full time, which I’ve been doing for a little over a year.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:15] So now when you made the leap to entrepreneurship and a startup, was that kind of like culture shock, like, oh, you know, when you were with these larger organizations, you know, there’s a lot of support, there’s a lot of team members. Everybody kind of knows the deal. But when you’re doing this, you got to kind of build your own team. You got to get other people excited about your dream. Was that transition difficult?

Madison Long: [00:07:38] Yeah, I think that’s why I actually left Microsoft to join Lean In, even though it is a nonprofit, many nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area are truly run like startups. Most of the employees are Xstrata employees or have a startup themselves. And in a lot of ways that really equipped me to being in this position where the culture shock wasn’t so severe.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:04] So you were able to kind of make that transition pretty easily?

Madison Long: [00:08:09] Yeah, I think that was that middle step of working at the nonprofit helped with that transition. Now, is it still there? Is it still a shock every day just how different this world is? Absolutely. But at least from an internal operations perspective, I do feel like that experience right before this equipped me to be ready.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:28] Now, any advice for other founders out there? When you’re building a team, how do you kind of transfer your passion and your vision, you know, to other people?

Madison Long: [00:08:39] Yeah, I think that can be very difficult and I think it’s twofold. I think, one, having realistic expectations that when they’re applying and going through that process, their passion might not be 100%, and that’s okay. But are they showing kind of that intellectual curiosity and deep desire to be able to get on the same page? And if the answer is yes, then I say take the take the leap, bring them in the fold, especially if they have all the qualifications. Obviously, that’s a no brainer. But what I’ve seen is. We lead by example here at Clutch. No matter what you see on the marketing website or what you might read in an article until you’re on the team internally or until you’re even a creator on our platform, we want you to feel our values, and our values are balanced safety and transparency. And I think the future of work requires more balanced safety and transparency in what we and what occurs, and that is how we operate internally and with the people that operate on our platform. And so knowing that, you might need to continue to convince new employees of why it’s such a great place to work, but being open to that and being vulnerable with them and letting them get on board as they are onboarding, I think is the best strategy and we’ve seen that work really effectively.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:04] Now, is there a habit or a trait or characteristic of you and your makeup that is a superpower that you think separates you from others?

Madison Long: [00:10:14] Yeah, I think there’s two. One of them is the fact that I’m very, very, very open to feedback. We’ve pivoted three times because we are constantly listening to our customers, listening to experts in the industry and listening to the market conditions and doing research on what we think our solution is and what the solution actually needs to be. And so having taking the ego out of the way of being a founder is essential for me and my co-founder, because we’re not building a solution to make ourselves feel great. We’re building a solution to really change the world. And that can happen with or without my co founder at the helm of it. But we need to make sure we’re fully equipping that solution to be what it needs to be to be able to operate independently as a full fledged startup. The other thing is a characteristic of delayed gratification. I think that I have from a young age, I was a long distance runner and just even how I grew up with my parents and stuff, there was always an emphasis on. You know, you really can’t have your cake and eat it too. And some things are better appreciated when waited for. And so the sacrifice that comes with being a founder and understanding that it’s worth it in the end is something that I am very comfortable with. And so this transition to being a founder and everything else has been tough. But I always know that the bigger goal on the other side will be worth it once we get there.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:45] Now, you mentioned pivoting several times in this journey. What are some of the clues you have now that you’re on the right path and that your startup is going to be one of the ones that make it?

Madison Long: [00:12:01] Yeah, I think that the fact is we when we pivoted the last time, we pivoted from students to connecting the other students with their side hustles. So let’s say you need a student to take your grad photos. You could connect with another student to actually opening it up to those local small businesses and emerging brands. Things started happening organically, rapidly, rapid organic growth. The word of mouth has been phenomenal for us. We’ve even had customers who were like, Hey, I just have a short little project, you know, maybe one month of work for a creator to do. We set them up on that. But that client for the last six months has introduced us to three or four new clients who are doing 4 to 6 month long projects with these creators. So it’s such a massive testament to the fact that we are meeting a really, really tough pain point for people. And as we all know, like Google’s coming out with a lot of data and HubSpot about how short video content creation is truly the future of marketing. And young people are making 40% of their buying decisions based on Tik Tok before they go to Google. So it’s really a this sense of urgency when it comes to being able to keep up with the digital marketing trends that I think people are desperately looking to solve.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:28] So how did you hear about start up Showdown and Panoramic?

Madison Long: [00:13:32] Absolutely. So I’m actually part of the capital factory network, which is the largest active investor in Texas, and they expanded to Houston last year and we got looped in into the fold and became a portfolio company and capital factory and panoramic partnered on the startup show Showdown in Austin. And the yeah the network I have with Capital Factory, they put it on my radar and I was like, Oh, this would be great. And I reached out directly to learn more and then was able to apply and become a finalist.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:05] So what do you find was the most beneficial aspect of going through that process?

Madison Long: [00:14:11] Yeah, I think that there is a couple, but I think the biggest one is being able to really refine my pitch with the coaching that I got directly from the partner. We had a call prior to a few days before the pitch competition actually happened, and the way that he walked me through my pitch deck was just, you know, with the pure intent of just making sure that I was clearly articulating what our business does and how effectively we do it right before presenting to that big audience. And I feel like a lot of feedback that you get on pitch decks can vary, but I’ve never had feedback that was just so specific and detailed and swift for what we needed in the moment. And that was really, really helpful.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:58] Now, any advice for other startup founders out there since you seem to have your finger on the pulse of digital marketing and especially tick tock maybe on how to leverage tick tock?

Madison Long: [00:15:10] Yeah, I think that the first thing to do is start whether there’s a lot of data out there that says both or B2B companies actually have a higher ROI using tick tock than even B2C companies. But we already know B2C companies definitely need to have a presence on all social media platforms. So just for context, any sort of startup, in my opinion, should have a presence there, whether it’s just showing off your internal team to build up a rapport with your audience who maybe want to eventually work there or actually showing talking about your product or service, I’d say just get started. There’s a whole slew of startups that I see on TikTok that are just educating the public. Maybe they’re an insurance tech startup, but they don’t focus on selling you that technology. They focus on educating you on insurance trends and how to make sure you’re fully covered in the ways you need to be. And then eventually customers will come in and look to them as a resource and guide and eventually turn into customers. And so the fact that people are using short term video content as a way for information and news and culture and everything else means that any business could thrive by using the platform.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:24] And if any business needs help in this area, they may want to get on to clutch and find some creator that can do it for them.

Madison Long: [00:16:31] With and that’s clutch. Com Don’t forget it. Yes. Because it does take almost daily content to really be able to beat the algorithm. And that’s not a good use of your time as a founder unless you’re, you know, really, really like strapped for cash. But because our creators are college age young, 18 to 25, their rates are super affordable and reasonable for even the smallest business to be able to start getting out there.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:57] Well, Madison, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website?

Madison Long: [00:17:06] Yes, of course. So it’s that’s clutch to a it’s clutch. Tc And you can also reach out to me directly on LinkedIn at Madison Long and of course follow me on Twitter and everything else that Madison Long and long is spelled L, zero and G because regular Madison, Wisconsin. Well, get in.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] Touch. Well, Madison, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Madison Long: [00:17:35] Thank you so much, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:37] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:17:42] 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 vs That’s Showdown dot B.C. Alright, that’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

 

Tamela Blalock With NCBA CLUSA

November 30, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

NCBA CLUSATamela BlalockTamela Blalock serves as the VP, of Cooperative Relations with the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International, where she enhances engagement and impact with the trade association among the cooperative leadership community.

She has served several Washington institutions including the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington D.C. NFL Football Team, The Washington Post, and George Washington University. Prior to joining NCBA CLUSA, Tamela most recently served as the Executive Director of the Academy of Pelvic Health Physical Therapy, and the Senior Director, Membership Services for the National Association of Wholesalers-Distributors.

She has served on the PCMA Board of Directors and is an alumnus of the ASAE 2016-2018 class of DELP Scholars. She has a B.S. in Marketing from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from The George Washington University.

Connect with Tamela on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Sponsorship vs. Mentorship
  • Intentional careers in trade associations
  • Bandwith management, staff burnout, EI & team motivation
  • Being a change agent while serving on the SLT/ELT

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Tamela Blalock with the National Cooperative Business Association. Welcome.

Tamela Blalock: Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for welcoming me.

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

Tamela Blalock: Okay, so NCBA, we are the National Cooperative Business Association. We are the Apex Trade Association for all cooperatives. Cooperatives are organizations that are owned and governed for their users, which are their members, and good examples that everybody is aware of cooperatives and that every credit union is a cooperative. So that’s an example of cooperatives. There are a lot of famous ones that people don’t realize. Our cooperatives, like the Associated Press, Land O’Lakes, RTI, Organic Valley, Blue Diamond, etc. So there are a lot of wonderful cooperatives out there. Most of the ones that people encounter would probably be grocery cooperatives.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is the thinking behind an organization structuring themselves as a cooperative as opposed to a more traditional, you know, whatever the normal corporate structure would be an LLC or a subchapter S or C?

Tamela Blalock: It’s a great question. I’d say what’s happened in business education is that cooperatives are just no longer taught or shared in that. What makes cooperatives unique is that nearly every co-op that existed didn’t start as a way to become wealthy or become rich or secure. The bag cooperatives were created to solve a need to fix a problem in the community. Having financial resources that can fund new ventures or even small ventures are why a lot of credit unions were created. If you live in a rural or exurban area. Your utilities are usually serviced by a rural electric cooperative. You may not even think of it that way. For example, Mutual. If it’s a mutual insurance company, then it is also a cooperative and is there for disaster recovery and support for entities that did not have access to that. A lot of cooperatives are at least 50 plus, in some cases over 100 years old. My organization is like 106 years old, so that’s why coppers are created. The real question is why are they not as superfluous as they should be when you consider particularly their value ties to millennials and Gen Z? And that’s because it’s no longer taught and it’s not promulgated as a solution to leverage the economy, to create inclusive economies that are owned by the members.

Lee Kantor: Now, for something that’s been around for so long, like you said, it’s not being taught, but there are some organizations like B Corp have kind of bubbled up recently that have this kind of mission associated with it. Is that something that is I don’t want to say in competition, but has kind of taken some of the attention away from cooperatives as this new type of way to do? Well, by doing good, by being a B Corp?

Tamela Blalock: A, B, B Corp benefits from having an excellent marketing branding campaign. I, you know, I and with cooperatives, that’s something that has been a concern and a challenge. And I look at it as an opportunity for know how better to tell the message and what can happen with organizations particularly that are so values based like cooperatives, is that there’s a desire to fully evangelize and get like a full heart commitment and to the organization and to the cooperative community, you know, rather than focusing on conversion awareness right in that space. So let’s say a focus that we have for the next five years is to look more at. At making it very accessible for people to come to enter into cooperative communities, either as an entrepreneur or entrepreneur or in membership, or also to be able to shop cooperatives more intentionally. And whether it’s casual, like the same way that I started to go to Trader Joe’s, because I heard about it and not necessarily because I knew exactly what all entailed. A trader Joe. Same thing can happen with cooperatives. You might start going to a grocery cooperative that is near you for a host of reasons, and then that learned that the dollar recycles 10 to 15 times within a community. When you do it within a cooperative, that if you were to, for example, go to a Trader Joe’s, where it might recycle at most five types within a community.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your work with the CBA, are you how do you go about serving the membership? Is it more to give them tools to become just more efficient and better at at being a cooperative? Or is it to spend some investment into educating the outside world about why this might be something for them to consider?

Tamela Blalock: That is a great question. We are a 506 trade association where Apex Trade Association. So just like the National Restaurant Association and National Association Manufacturing, our mission is the same as to develop a brand to protect the cooperative enterprise. Our vision statement is to build a better world and a more inclusive economy that empowers people to contribute, to share prosperity and well-being for themselves and future generations. Like most of the trade associations in our country, a lot of it was started around government, government relations and advocacy. It’s having a regulatory and legislative system that protects, defends and advances cooperatives so that GI advocacy is our primary focus within that. For membership support, a key opportunity when you are apex association is collaboration with partners and not competitors. There are seven cooperative principle. The six cooperative principle is cooperation among cooperatives.

Lee Kantor: It’s like Russian Russian nesting dolls.

Tamela Blalock: And that, I would say, is a chief focus there because cooperatives, of course, want to work most with each other. But the number one opportunity to do so is to know where the other cooperatives are in your state or in your region, or that is in the vertical that is related to what they’re doing. And that is, I would say, a chief area of focus and interest for our current members and new members is to meet each other and also find activations that they can work with each other to further create inclusive economies and to solve for their needs in their communities by working with each other.

Lee Kantor: I’m sorry to get in the weeds with this is just I’m fascinated by it. I’ve run across, obviously as I interview lots and lots of business people. I’ve run across some people who are part of cooperatives, but it’s such the minority. And each time I’m talking with that person, it’s very interesting. And I always wonder like, how is this just not more of this out there when it’s such a it seems very congruent with the values of today.

Tamela Blalock: We’ve done research on like an ABCs of cooperatives, and about one out of 12 Americans is probably more so now you are involved with the. They may not realize it. For example, I’ve only been for credit unions my entire life. A lot of that has to do with the fact that my family is multigenerational military. But. There are if you are involved, if you’re a member of a credit union, if you’ve gotten a home or car loan from credit union, you are engage in a cooperative. If you’re with Nationwide Insurance, you know you are part of a cooperative. If you have organic valley in your fridge, if you’ve ever been to a Piggly Wiggly, you can engage. But the cooperatives may not be aware of it. If you read the Associated Press or follow them on social media, you like, you’re connecting and engage with the cooperative. It just may not be in your face.

Lee Kantor: Right. But you’re not. As I mean, let me reframe my situation is that I talked to business people that have started business entrepreneurs, all kinds of business people every day. That’s what I do. And I don’t hear a lot of talk of, hey, I’m structuring my business as a cooperative that’s not on their radar, even though they might have a business that would be appropriate and might thrive and might benefit from structuring in that manner.

Tamela Blalock: But the way I see that that is a focus that we are having there, and that’s really through co-op conversions. And that’s like transitioning a business into a cooperative. An example is Ace Hardware, which is a cooperative. So the individual stores, maybe owned by a few people or a family. And what the retirement, you know, it can convert into like a major big chain or the workers can purchase it through a conversion and start a workers cooperative. There also are different types of cooperatives that. Would include the vision that current entrepreneurs have now, a great example of that are purchasing cooperatives. So Ace Hardware, I said, is a cooperative. It’s also a purchasing cooperative. And actually Yum Foods that does like KFC and Taco Bell, they do their purchasing for their purchasing cooperative. And that’s where. Independent businesses, they don’t have to be cooperatives. Usually they are not. Create a cooperative to purchase share. Good and often are able within that to create other services for their members. From health care to admin training. It expands now depending on the industry and they’re all over in others. One for VC, they are those for boats, you know, for veterinary clinics. So. My personal belief and bias is that probably purchasing cooperatives. Which used to be one of the more covert cooperatives might be the most accessible type of cooperative to create for the current entrepreneurial spirit that exists right now.

Lee Kantor: So let’s talk a little bit about your backstory. How did you get involved in association work?

Tamela Blalock: Like so many of us, it’s never I never knew. That’s what I always wanted to do was to be an association executive. A lot of it started actually. I had Dan Snyder, of all people, to thank for entering the association world while I was in grad school getting my graduate business degree. You know, I had the goal that I was going to be the first woman and first black person to be general manager of an NFL team. And at that time I was with I guess they’re now the Washington commanders while I was in grad school and. Well, I mean, people have read the news on that. The environment is, as it’s been written about in major publications. And in looking at that, there are only 32 NFL teams and it’s like, why would I limit my career to 32 teams, of which six of them had relatively healthy environments. At that same time, Destination DC had lunch or breakfast for people who were in my program and I went and I actually ended up in a CVB job right after that. But while working in CVB Convention Visitors Bureau, I realized I was more in love with what my clients were doing than what I was doing. And then that’s how I transitioned into trade associations and have been there ever since. I would say my favorite is anything in supply chain for sure, but where businesses or organizations are members. I just love that space because it’s about advancing an industry. It’s about innovation within an industry and the impact it has not only to the employees but the communities that those organizations serve is just so vast and just so impactful that I just I love what I do.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think it’s a wonderful career path. And like you said, a lot of people kind of accidentally kind of stumble onto it rather than plan a career to be in it. Any advice for the young person out there that’s listening or might be at a point of deciding what career path to go on? Can you kind of maybe evangelize to that person about the value of going into association work? Because I think it is so important for young people to at least consider that as a path for them, because I think it’ll be rewarding and the impact is real and you can really accelerate your career by going into this direction.

Tamela Blalock: Yes. Before I evangelize that group, I want to evangelize to my fellow association leaders and that we need to continue to do very good jobs recruiting and visiting our colleges and high schools and trade schools. Talk to our military veterans if if that’s the case, what have you, and create more interesting demand for talent, for amazing talent, for what we do and the impact that you can have, and that there are a very strong and healthy income range that’s in our space. So I encourage us to be more open to create internships and externship and those type of opportunities to actively recruit.

Lee Kantor: So you say you think that the association leadership might not be framing the opportunity, right? Or they’re not looking as broadly as they could be. They’re kind of going to the same old places to get the same old results.

Tamela Blalock: I don’t I have not seen, like, sustained continual effort. You know, that there are some independent associations that are doing it on their own. And I don’t in terms of future planning, I don’t see a sustained effort to really educate on what it is that we do. Like, I always have this really governance nerd thing that I do when I always speak up about nonprofit industry because 500 1c3 is doing an amazing job, you know, recruiting. You know, people may think nonprofit, they exclusively think 5c3 is a lot of us are C, C sixes, but they’re also like C fours and C sevens and C eights out there. Like credit unions are viable. Want a lot of them are C ones, you know, and even like that bit of education helps them understand like what their possibilities are in a nonprofit world and and that it’s not only C three, C three some amazing work and you know that they’re even within C six. We have the professional societies and the trade associations know so there’s so much wealth and nuance there. And similar to cooperatives like you are aware of associations like you just don’t think about it. Like if you brush your teeth with toothpaste, like the ADA, you know, on the back of the label. So you’re aware of associations, like you’re aware that lawyers are there, certification for American Bar Association, you’re aware that doctors are licensed, and that’s usually through the AMA, like you’re aware of it. Is it that you haven’t thought about it as a career and job opportunity? So I would love for us to do that and for usually the message I use when I go to my alma mater, Georgetown Hoyas, is that it’s a mission driven organization where you can have an amazing impact and you also can have be able to have a healthy enough income to have a good life. So it’s like there’s not any area of passion, desire in your life or the sacrifice that you get to focus on a mission and create a good life for your members, their community, their industry, and also your family.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you find that associations as part of their mission is to help their members obviously become more successful? Is this an area where they can be helping educate their members on how to leverage the association better, like how to include, you know, maybe members of their of their team at all levels rather than maybe just the executives, but to just use the association as kind of that lever to immerse their employees into the industry, into the mission, into the kind of the bigger picture, and give that employee the opportunity to show leadership by volunteering and to get involved deeper and and then by extension, would become more active in that association.

Tamela Blalock: Oh, yes, absolutely. That is one of the things I’m focusing on with our members and that we definitely need engagement from. Senior level executives, because for us, the whole organization needs to join, which means it’s usually a decision. Between the CEO and the CFO in most cases. Uh, so if you definitely need their buy in, however, you also need stickiness. The. Metaphor that I use is like holding a pit in your hand. Like if you’re only connections with one employee, that’s like trying to hold on to the pin with the finger. If you lose that connection, then it drops as many fingers You can wrap around that pin. It’s the stickiness that you have with your members, and that is getting them engaged not only on a senior leadership level, but also as far into the organization as you can reasonably consistently support. So if that many staff members of that organization are engaged in your Association for Professional Development, I think volunteer leadership is be. Um. Best ROI that we have and that so many of us learn governance. So many of us learn leadership. So many of us have the opportunity to practice and develop their skill sets through those roles. And it’s also contributing to the health of the industry in doing that. That is the best ROI that we have and also for what we’re doing, the work we’re doing within the association. Having that volunteer bandwidth allows us to give a bigger return to not only our members but to the industry as well.

Lee Kantor: Right. To me, it’s that righteous circle of winning, winning and winning all the way around. Everybody benefits the the volunteer benefits by showing off leadership to people that they may not have been and might not have known. And they get practice and they get skills. And the the association benefits obviously by having more warm bodies out there helping and getting the word out and helping accomplish whatever it is mission that they’re working on at the moment. And then the business wins by having a more successful, robust association and more skilled employees. Like it’s just everybody wins at every turn.

Tamela Blalock: Absolutely. I could not be more evangelical about that. And also it helps to destigmatize board service and the stigma being that it’s very hard to do. Only a few people can do that. It’s a very accessible and necessary leadership organization. And I think more people should be enthusiastic about looking for volunteer leadership positions, but also board service, because we do need a plethora of different experiences on board.

Lee Kantor: Right. And that’s also from the association standpoint, it’s important to, you know, cast a wider net and to not have the same people doing the same thing. And a lot of the times it’s because they’re the only ones who raise their hand to help and you need more people to raise their hand.

Tamela Blalock: Right? I don’t remember which organization I really want to say it was AC, but I could be wrong. Now that found that like over 70% of volunteers, the number one reason why they did it is because someone asked them to. I’m one of those folks that but it’s effective. So like recruiting it’s I think so many people who. It’s not that they haven’t consider it. I think they are intimidated that they won’t be accepted. But when you’re invited to apply or when you’re invited to a position like it has a whole different disposition. We are creating more volunteer opportunities in my organization and the response to inviting people to become a co-chair. It’s like, you think I’ve given them a Grammy, you know. So but it’s also amazing to me on the other side of that, you know, part and what great leadership will come from emanate from those people in their network because we’re doing that. So.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s funny that it’s the framing matters a lot, you know, where it’s like if it’s just an email that goes, Hey, we’re looking for help. You know, people might ignore it, but if you go, Bill, we need your help. Bill will probably say, okay.

Tamela Blalock: Right. It becomes very different, you know, and also what we’re doing for co-chairs because it’s a new council, is that nearly every council has four co-chairs, which seems like a lot. But when you think about what people are managing, if it’s two co-chairs and they’re both really busy at the same time, you have no co-chairs, right? It’s unlikely that four people are at the same level of busy at the same time. So that ensures that you should have at least two co-chairs who are operating there. And then within themselves they create like a tight sibling group. I’ve noticed watching them bond so that it’s really great. And it has another benefit, which wasn’t even my intention when we designed it as such, which is that it spans how many leaders that we have already for creating these councils.

Lee Kantor: Right. And and for those people who get the opportunity to lead for the first time, that could be helping the acceleration of their career.

Tamela Blalock: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a little bit? I know this is an area of passion for you. Explain the difference between sponsorship and mentorship. A lot of people use those words maybe interchangeably and they’re really, really different.

Tamela Blalock: Yeah. I thank you for asking, actually. I was writing a small group of people where I send out what used to be daily affirmations. Now I did it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and today I really happen to be writing about that in context of the recent passing of Irene Cara. A lot of people may recognize a name from a theme song to Flashdance. What a feeling. And also from the soundtrack to the movie fame. And when people pass away, you know, pretty much like every interview they ever did comes to light. And from hers, it was essentially how the music industry, which is heavily deregulated, made it really difficult for her and that she essentially kind of blacklisted out for a long period of time. And she came up during a time where there wasn’t SoundCloud, other ways to get your music published and to develop a relationship with that audience and I like that is a perfect example of what would have happened or what could have been different if she were sponsored and not just mentored and mentoring. It’s not that it doesn’t have value, it’s just that. We are in a place where we need a lot of impact and mentoring. The only requirement of it is information, given. It’s very passive, so it’s words only and no action.

Tamela Blalock: Sponsorship is action driven. If you get any advice through sponsorship, that’s an additional benefit. But sponsor sponsorship is using your leveraging your privilege, your access, your network to achieve a result for someone. It’s not telling them about an organization, it is leveraging what we can to see if we can get them the first interview or if you know someone who’s a port has to appoint a board member. It’s putting their name in there. It’s getting them in to an opportunity or. At least. Negotiating that they can get as quick, as close to an opportunity as possible through actions and not only giving that person individual advice. Because I long for the day that started with the United States that we actually have a true meritocracy. But the reality is that it’s really structured. Like oligarchy, where there’s a central group that has most of the access to privilege and power. And it’s. Finding your way to be connected to that that we have. That we get access ourselves. So the more people that we can put into that oligarchy, the more we actually start. We’ll start to see a meritocracy. And the most impactful way and lasting way that happens is through sponsorship, which is leading through action. And not only just giving people advice.

Lee Kantor: Right. And it’s risking political capital for someone else.

Tamela Blalock: Absolutely. Absolutely. So sponsors definitely choose their responses to dishes judiciously. However, when you see major things happen, like particularly when you see people who are able to achieve things that are young, like a big faux pas, something that I think is just a bad form, you know, when people have success stories and their success stories only involve them achieving everything by themselves, like it’s it’s it’s a lot easier to pull yourself off higher bootstraps. So all of us have achieved success through help, especially if we’ve been able to do it at a younger age, wherever that help came from. So I encourage us to name our help and to identify that, because it’s also people who. Decided to leverage their political power or what have you to achieve our success. And that’s the way things happen. That preparation is met with opportunity and a sponsor who made that sure that opportunity was successful.

Lee Kantor: But also the sponsor has kind of taken in action and demonstrated value to make that sponsor a lot more confident, to sponsor them to whatever the position that they want. So it’s not something that I think that people can just wait for and hope happens. They can be taking actions like volunteering, they can be getting involved and doing things that make other people aware of how talented and and valuable they are. So they would be willing to risk that political capital on their behalf.

Tamela Blalock: Absolutely. But I will say sponsorship is also a lot like volunteerism. Very few potential sponsors will have the idea on their own to become a sponsor. All my sponsors and all the sponsor relations I’ve seen have started with the sponsor asking the sponsor. And sometimes it’s like selling Girl Scout cookies. You know, they’ll be you’ll find everyone who wants Thin Mints, or you just have to find that one person who wants to smoke. So you have to. You know, be strategic and ask, but it may take a while before you find sponsors. And sponsors have the same thought about sponsors the way we have about mentors. You don’t have just one. You have several that you have. Right. Similar to what you’re saying is that you also have to realize that it is a mutual beneficial relationship. So also look at ways where you also can support your sponsor as well.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, but I think that that is the it’s like the old saying it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, the who, you know, part is extremely important in the process. And the more people, you know, you’re increasing your odds of that building that right relationship with the sponsor, that’ll help get you to a next level faster.

Tamela Blalock: Yes. Another thing I have to say about sponsorship is a mistake. Some people make are looking for sponsors that have obvious, I would say, visual cues to who you are, like someone who looks just like you or someone whose story is just like yours. A lot of my sponsor relationships, you know, we may have something in common. Like, for example, I’m from Ohio, I am in the Ohio State Band and yes, I am very much in mourning today after the events of this past weekend. I definitely look for people who seem that they are different than you, because I’ve noticed in sponsoring, you know, there is an interest in they’re looking at their legacy and, you know, to have helped a wealth of people and not necessarily people who are the carbon copies of themselves. And another way that you’ll stand out is that if a lot of people around them are carbon copies of themselves, I mean, you will stand out that way. But I will encourage in looking for sponsors, don’t look for a carbon copy of yourself. Look for people who seem like they may be different than you are, because also that’s different networks, different circles, no different focuses in there. So when you look for sponsors, like diversify that list as much as you can.

Lee Kantor: Right? And don’t be afraid to make the first move and take action.

Tamela Blalock: Absolutely. And when you do request for a meeting like 15 minutes, what they want, I think about myself now, like if you want to meet me for half an hour, like I already cringe at the thought, let’s have a 15 minute chat. Right.

Lee Kantor: And you better be organized. You better have some agenda. Kind of worked out already.

Tamela Blalock: Yes, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to connect with you, I’ll learn more about NCBA. What’s the website? What’s the best way to have a conversation with you or somebody on your team?

Tamela Blalock: Oh, I love that. So our website is n, c, b, a, Clutha, c USA Co op co-op, and then I am t Blaylock t b as in boy le LOC k at NCBA co op.

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

Tamela Blalock: Well, thank you for the opportunity to be able to talk associations and call us at the same time. All right.

Lee Kantor: Well, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Association Leadership Radio.

Tony Kitchens With ARK Enterprises

November 23, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Tony Kitchens Ark EnterprisesTony KitchensTony Kitchens, owner of ARK Enterprises

Tony is the author of a book entitled “The Gift of Pain”, an entrepreneur and philanthropist. The companies Tony founded have generated more than $100 million in revenue and serviced the largest multinational corporations in the world. Tony is on a mission to help as many people around the world through the wisdom he shares using his various platforms. Tony Kitchens has experienced highs and lows in both his personal life and his business. He believes that everyone can change their perspective on fear, pain and current circumstances and use them as fuel to create an amazing life.

Connect with Tony on LinkedIn and follow him on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The Gift of Pain

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 Atlanta Business Radio, we have Tony Kitchens with ARK Enterprises. Welcome, Tony.

Tony Kitchens: [00:00:43] Hello, Lee. How are you doing today? Thanks for having me.

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

Tony Kitchens: [00:00:52] Thank you very much for that. I’ve been an entrepreneur for 31 years. I’m 51 right now, so you can see the majority of my life I’ve been in business. Currently, I’m taking all of the life experiences I’ve had and the wisdom that I’ve gained from mentorship and coaching and business partners and taking that information and sharing it with whomever is looking to start a business or people who are in emerging businesses, meaning they recently started businesses and they’re looking for guidance and perspective throughout their journeys. And I’m helping people through speaking engagements. I do that nationally and internationally as well as one on one strategy sessions with entrepreneurs. Beyond that, I offer free content on YouTube and LinkedIn and Instagram, various platforms, just to get information to people and to help them along their journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] So what is your back story? What you mentioned a long history. What what were you doing during those years?

Tony Kitchens: [00:01:58] Absolutely. Right out of college, I started technology firm, and throughout those 29 years of having that firm, we had hundreds of employees. We work with some of the largest technology companies on the planet, and that was really geared toward large corporate customers as well as government agencies. I also had a charter boat business down in the Caribbean. We lived in Puerto Rico for nine years. We had a charter boat that sailed in the Spanish and US Virgin Islands, as well as the United Kingdom, Tortola in that area. And during that time, I’ve just learned a lot about myself as an individual and what it takes to succeed and the lonely times that you have, as well as the times that you have, where you can be very generous and charitable to other people and other organizations. So I’ve developed myself a lot over those years through hard knocks. I think one one important thing to remember for all of the listeners is whenever you’re going to achieve a goal, whenever you’re striving to dream big and reach those goals, the end result really doesn’t satisfy you. It’s the journey. People probably hear that all the time, but that’s where you learn who you are and what’s important to you. That’s where the magic happens in the journey. There really isn’t an exit point where your dreams are just all of a sudden going to bring this bliss and utopia. It’s the journey, the ups and downs.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:31] Now, throughout your career, you’ve obviously had a variety of roles. When did you kind of pivot to this role as author, speaker and not? I mean, I’m sure you’re running your own business now, the author, speaker business, but from having kind of a business where you had employees and you had a product or service to, now you are the product and service.

Tony Kitchens: [00:03:55] Great question. And I don’t want to say it was a midlife crisis, but it was back in 2019 and right before COVID hit. And it was, you know, I felt this urge to really take what I knew and share it in a more organized manner. And I would often get people, especially friends and family members, who had questions about business and things of that nature. And I actually sat down during COVID and wrote a book, and it was really more of a healing process for me, more of a journal. But I looked at all of the things that I had to overcome in life, and I put those in the book as opposed to talking about the success and the things that you accumulate during that time. So it’s really in 2019 when I sat down, everybody else around the world was was, you know, we were all stay ordered to stay home in early 2020. And it was a reflective time where I got to look inside and figure out what I really wanted to do. And I didn’t want the responsibility that came with hundreds of employees and hundreds of vendors and all of that. I didn’t want that anymore. I had that for so long. I knew what it was, but it just wasn’t fulfilling. So the fulfilling thing for me is really seeing these young entrepreneurs, not just young and age, but young in the phase of their life where they’re starting businesses and that energy and that passion and just tuning in to that and being able to help and to provide some guidance, it’s this is probably one of the happiest points of my life out of all of my business life, because now the work is meaningful. Before it was transactional, but now it’s meaningful from a heart to heart connecting standpoint.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:54] Now you’re talking about your book, The Gift of Pain. Can you talk a little bit about kind of what does that mean, the gift of pain?

Tony Kitchens: [00:06:04] Absolutely. Again, it was it was in late 2019. I was just going through a tough time. I just shut down that business that I have for 29 years, didn’t really want to, but it just it had run its course. And I remember being outside and and just thinking to myself how difficult the time was for me personally. And I just thought I thought about, you know, the pain at that particular point. And and I told my wife, I said, the gift of pain. It just it it gives you a burning fuel, the cleanest burning fuel that you can ever imagine in life and in business is pain. Whether you trying to avoid it or whether you’re in the middle of it. But it gets you up early in the morning. It keeps you up late at night. It forces you to do the things that you’re uncomfortable doing. So it’s a gift. And then in the book, I talked about a lot of different scenarios, you know, throughout my life where there was pain there, whether it’s the loss of my parents at a certain point. Again, business ups and downs and just different things. And as I look back on those things in retrospect, at the time I wrote the book, there were so many gifts that came from that pain at the moment. During the process, I didn’t feel that it was a gift, of course, but later in life I realized the endurance, the stamina, the friendships and relationships that are built out of some of the toughest pain that we do, we deal with. So I chose to change my perspective on pain and then look at it now as a place of hurt. I looked at it as a place of possibilities.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:58] That’s an interesting point about reframing pain. And instead of looking at as something maybe to avoid, it’s something that when you’re going through anything and there is pain, that’s something that maybe you embrace. And then you look at it, look at it as part of a growth process, the beginning of a growth process rather than some penalty or seeing yourself as a victim of it.

Tony Kitchens: [00:08:26] Absolutely. And it makes you a better person when you can get to a point where when things happen that you aren’t necessarily happy about or excited about. The thing that I keep in my mind now is this too shall pass that it’s not going to be here forever. And in the moment, I think there’s a lesson here, and I may not learn that lesson for a year or two years or down the road, but let me not have a very negative outlook. And don’t sit in misery and don’t sit and wallow. Continue to move forward knowing that whatever lesson I should learn throughout this particular time, during this pain, it’s going to propel me so much further down the road toward my goals and dreams because it’s going to give me probably a level of resilience that I didn’t have before it. So the book is not a dark book at all. As a matter of fact, there are a bunch of funny, interesting stories in there and very motivational and uplifting, and it shows people what an average person can do. I know you and I have probably heard a thousand times people say, Well, I’m just the average person next door. I truly am just an average guy. A little boy from the South side of Chicago who had dreams at a certain point. And if you would have told me then that I would have exceeded those dreams far more than I ever imagined. I probably would have said, okay, that sounds good, but. And I was able to and everyone else listening to this can do the same. You just have to be around people Surround yourself with people who can get you to where you want to go, and they’re not going to be in your life for your entire span of life. But there are times and seasons where people come in and out of your life and they are there to help you and to push you along towards your journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:31] Now, I believe that mentorship is important along the way. I’m sure you’ve had people, whether they’re actual people that were in your life physically or they were authors of books or podcasts or blogs that you have read or encountered throughout your life that helped you along the way. I see you on this journey that you’re on to share the lessons that you learned, maybe some the hard way with others that you can learn from a lot of different people and a lot of different ways. Is there some people in your life that you look to as mentors or have mentored you, whether it’s in person, you know, human to human or through a book or through some other means?

Tony Kitchens: [00:11:17] Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I was just on a call a few days ago with one person in my book, George Gower, and he was a marketing rep at IBM when I first interned at IBM. And, you know, we hadn’t spoken in a little bit, but we went back, you know, 20 something years and we kind of relived how it all started. And he would take me. He showed me how to dress for the corporate world. He told me how to talk to clients, and he showed me so much. And I just really appreciate him. Besides people that I’ve met in my life, I’ve read a ton of biographies and autobiographies. I’m attracted to people and their stories of how they went from a place of of mediocrity being an average people to extraordinary in whatever it is that they do. Extraordinary husbands and fathers and business people and leaders. And I’m just fascinated with how they went from A to Z. So, you know, I’ve read a ton of books. I continue to read books at least one a week. And there are people who are my mentors from afar who would probably never know because I may not have the opportunity to meet them. But in today’s world, there is so much more access to mentors, There’s so much more access to the stories of people who have done exceptional things.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:52] Now, you mentioned that helping kind of the next generation is important to you. Can you talk about some lessons from the book that maybe a young person can incorporate in their life today? What some low hanging fruit for any young person if they want to lead a life, a successful life like you have?

Tony Kitchens: [00:13:12] Great question, Lee. The one thing that I would tell you about success or this business family, whatever it is, it really is a mindset. It’s an attitude. It is a it’s an understanding that no matter what’s going on around you, that to build something that’s sustainable takes a very strong foundation. There are no shortcuts, although society today kind of tells you that there are, especially with social media, I would tell a young person there are no shortcuts. Start out. You have to invest in yourself. By taking classes. You have to invest in yourself by reading. Have to invest in yourself by spending time with mentors and coaches. And you have to be the best that you can be in any particular area. I would also say you have to have a level of focus to block out the distractions when you are starting in a new endeavor, and that can include friends and family who don’t see your dream. They don’t see what’s in your heart. And they may not see what it’s going to turn into. And you want to isolate yourself from people like that early on, because people can talk you out of your dreams and tell you what isn’t possible.

Tony Kitchens: [00:14:34] So I would tell the young people, focus, get a mentor right away as soon as you can. Read about people who have done what you’re looking to do, particularly in this space, the area that you’re that you’re interested in. When I was young, I read a lot about Bill Gates. Like him or not. He built an exceptional company that’s still here today that all of us use and one of their products somehow, someway, all of us do. And I learned a lot about him when his mom passed and how his father was there for him throughout the years when he first started his company. And that inspired me. But it’s the mindset. It’s the understanding that nothing comes quickly. Those are the things that young entrepreneurs, again, young and age and young and in phase in their life should really be grounded, knowing that if it doesn’t happen in a month or six months or even a year, continue to work toward it because it will happen as long as you don’t give up.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:37] Now, any advice in and around resilience of how to take that punch in the face and keep going and not letting a setback be the end of the journey and knowing when to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and just keep going boldly forward.

Tony Kitchens: [00:15:57] Absolutely your dreams, whatever is in your heart. Will not go away. It’s either going to be continued to be a dream and you’re going to pursue it or it’s going to be a nightmare later in life. Meaning that. If you give up on your dreams. They don’t give. They don’t go away. Your dreams don’t give up on you. You can only give up on them. And later in life, you’re going to have this little feeling in your stomach, down in your gut. And it’s it’s going to be there reminding you. That. There’s something that you’re called to do. There’s something that you want to do, and it’ll eat you up if you don’t pursue it. So as far as motivation and inspiration is concerned, I would say that in resilience is. If you get hit in the face, you know, you got to keep going. If you get knocked down, get up and keep going. That’s the mindset of of of what it takes to be successful. Don’t look at it as being something personal, although it will happen to you personally. Right. But it happens for you. It doesn’t happen to you. Any financial challenge that you may have, any business challenging may have any challenge in your life. When you really look at it and I view things as tests and when you’re faced with a situation I look at and say, okay, this is a test.

Tony Kitchens: [00:17:26] It’s a test of my attitude. Am I going to remain positive? It’s a test of my resilience. Am I going to continue to follow my dream? Although something is happening right now that is uncomfortable for me, and you have to keep going. You have to think of riding a bike. As soon as you stop, you fall. As soon as you stop. The same thing is true in life and true and business. Wake up every day. Take three steps toward your goal. You want to be a better parent. Every day you wake up and ask yourself, How can I be a better parent? Every day you wake up. What can I do today? Give me three things I can do today that are going to help me with my business. I need to make more calls. I need to send more emails. I need to connect with three prospects. So resilience is nothing more than being faced with the challenge in not sitting down. And giving up. It’s moving forward. Is that is that for momentum? And that’s really all it is at its core.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:38] Now, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Tony Kitchens: [00:18:42] I would love to connect with anybody who’s considering being in business, who is in business, and who may not necessarily. Know how to navigate some of the obstacles that they’re dealing with today. I can definitely help with that. I love to talk about business and again, life, because life and business are intertwined. You can’t be a very successful business person. If you don’t have your personal life in order. And what I mean by that is, is you have to know who you are as an individual. What’s your moral and your ethical values are. So I’m looking to connect with anyone in your audience who is looking to achieve their goals, achieve their dreams in life. What is business or just life goals?

Lee Kantor: [00:19:34] And if somebody wants to learn more, get a hold of you. Learn about the book and your work. What’s a website?

Tony Kitchens: [00:19:41] The website is Tony. Or as in Robert Kitchens dot com. So Tony, are kitchens.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:49] Well, Tony, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Tony Kitchens: [00:19:54] Thank you. Lee. You are as well. I really appreciate you and the station and all that you’re doing to help the community.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:00] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright With MGMA

November 23, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

MGMA

Dr.Halee FischerHalee Fischer-Wright, MD, MMM, FAAP, FACMPE, is the President and CEO of Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), a national organization that has been leading change in the business of healthcare and medical practice management since 1926. Representing more than 55,000 members across the nation, MGMA helps its members improve profitability and sustainability, develops new business solutions and advocates on their behalf regarding regulatory and policy issues.

Prior to her current role with MGMA, Halee was a practicing pediatrician, the owner of a medical practice, the leader of a medical group, President of Rose Medical Group, Chief Medical Officer within Centura Health, and a consultant on culture and innovation. She is a frequent public speaker at business and healthcare conferences around the nation, and the recipient of multiple awards for leadership in innovation, health care, business and women’s leadership.

Halee is the author of two national bestsellers Back to Balance: The Art, Science, and Business of Medicine, which presents a unique prescription for solving America’s health care woes based on her 30 years of experience as a physician and health care leader, and Tribal Leadership, a New York Times bestseller about leveraging natural groups to build a thriving organization.

Halee holds a bachelor’s degree and an M.D. from the University of Colorado, a master’s degree in medical management from the University of Southern California and a certificate in executive leadership coaching from Georgetown University. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado. Learn more at www.drhalee.com

Connect with Dr. Halee on LinkedIn and follow MGMA on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The main challenges in healthcare today
  • What do associations need to do to survive the next decade
  • How products like Data Dive helped practice leaders navigate the industry
  • MGMA bucking trend with its focus on product innovation

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright with the Medical Group Management Association. Ama, welcome.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:00:34] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate the invite.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about MGMA. How are you serving folks?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:00:42] We are a 95 year old health care association where one of the institutional brands up there with the American Medical Association and American Hospital Association. But we represent the business of the medical practice as an organization. We focus on the care delivered in the medical practice and how to derive business from that. And we touch about half of the health care delivered in the United States.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:13] So 95 years ago, it probably looked a little different, huh?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:01:18] Yeah, 95 years ago when this organization was founded. And basically what ended up happening was a group of office managers got together in Wisconsin and decided to share best practices. So it was really more, I think, of a probably men getting together to have a fun weekend than anything else. And that has evolved over 95 years to one of the preeminent health care associations in the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] Now, since you’re kind of on the front lines of this health care situation today, can you share a little bit to the audience about some of the challenges that health care is facing? I find I interview business people every day, so health care comes up, but it’s not always health care. It’s health care insurance. You know, I think there’s a conflation between health care and health care insurance, and maybe you can share some of your thoughts on that.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:02:16] Absolutely. As I mentioned, M.G. May is the intersection between business and care. And so we’re when we talked to business leaders in the United States, we’re often talking about kind of high level leaders. Where we intersect is actually at that front line in care. And what we’ve seen over the past 2 to 3 years is really a almost transformation of how businesses practice. And by business I mean patient comes into a medical practice. We’ve seen a transformation as far as expectations, what kind of care they receive during COVID, the willingness of the patient to come in and receive care, especially after two years of a global pandemic. And then the other thing that we’re seeing on the business end is our staff, meaning our front line staff are back, office staff are exhausted, and our providers, meaning our physicians and allied health professionals are also exhausted. And so the irony in this entire situation is we’re about to go into this fall. We’ve already heard people talking about the triple demic of influenza RSV and COVID. We’re starting to see that impact on practices. They’re already overwhelmed, exhausted and at a breaking point.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:46] And then from the consumer standpoint, they’re just kind of there’s like a fatigue of. Absolutely. Of when is this going to end? You know, it doesn’t seem like there’s something happening, but it does seem like there’s just so much information and confusion out there. It’s just I think everybody’s frustrated.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:04:08] Agreed. And I think health care is not unique in that regard. But I think health care is probably as a result of the pandemic is really on the brink. And then add in, you mentioned the consumer’s role in all of this health care. We are just starting to see the impact of consumerism and consumer expectations on the patient care delivery model in health care. And we’re still struggling on what does a consumer friendly model at a time that our providers are exhausted and burnt out look like. And so having to navigate that, I mean, it really is a time of change in health care.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:55] And it’s one of those situations where other associations, you know, obviously touch a lot of different people. But your your world is life or death like this. The stakes are the highest that they can be in anything. So how do you handle that as a leader to kind of manage all of the. Who wins in this chaotic, complex environment that you’re leading?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:05:22] You know, that’s a great question, Leigh. I think the so it’s going to sound a little strange, but I think the best way to approach this is with rigorous empathy, meaning that there’s an awareness that the stakes are incredibly high because we’re navigating the business of health care, not health care itself. The it is the business consequences of life and death decisions, but we need to make sure that we’re providing some business practice so that we can provide that life saving care. And so it’s with the empathy of meeting people where they are, not where we think they should be, that I think leadership is the most effective right now. I think there’s an acknowledgment that not just the people in health care, but everybody is exhausted and burnt out at this point in time. And so asking people for their discretionary effort without clear reasons why and without a break, you know, we we use the metaphor of we’ve been pushing basically standing on the gas pedal for two years. And so we need to be able to pull our foot off a little and coast for a little and then push and kind of get back to a more normal cadence, if you will, in the business domain. But I really think it is about empathy at this point in time. What I talk about in my own organization is empathy with outcomes.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:59] And how do you deal with the burnout of some of the medical professionals that are out there that have just said, okay, you know, two years, I’m enough is enough. You know, when is enough enough? You know, and I’m just I’m done. And then how do you attract kind of this younger generation to take the baton and continue to fight the good fight?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:07:24] Yeah, I think there’s generational norms that both help and hinder in this. So our baby boomer physicians who are on the cusp of retirement prior to COVID. Covid has kind of pushed them into strongly considering retirement. So it’s not necessarily early retirement, but for those physician band between 60 and 70 that may have practiced for a couple extra years, they have been they really have chosen to retire probably a few years sooner than they would have the financial markets when the stock market was gaining 15 to 20% a year. That encouraged people to retire early. That has changed in the last six months. We’re not quite seeing the mass exodus of retirement that we were, let’s say a year ago. But the best way to look at how you navigate burnout is looking at what you can control. And a lot of burnout is based on lack of autonomy and lack of independence because we feel like things are being done to us or forcing the situations. So from our perspective at MDM, we’re really looking at where are the domains that we can decrease the burden of management operations that add to burnout to individuals. So I think there’s a huge role in health care where we acknowledge that there’s 15 to 30% waste in in health care. There’s a huge role in lessening the burden that is present that in the management operation domain, kind of all the regulatory and insurance and things like that, the duplication of things, having the right staff member do the right level of work. One, when we are effective at really looking at the workflows and management operations is when we see burnout lessen in medical practices.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:32] Now, are you seeing a trend in the right direction when it comes to using all of the data efficiently and effectively? In one hand, the data has to be protected, obviously from a privacy standpoint. And then you also want to balance that with making wise decisions with the information that’s out there that maybe can affect a community. How do you kind of thread that needle in terms of managing the data efficiently and effectively and helping your your practice managers, you know, not get burnt out by this overwhelm and the, you know, having to, like you said, kind of have duplication of efforts, you know, multiple times in. In a process.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:10:17] Yeah. So. So where the days of practice managers have long gone, we’re now looking at practice executives that have really complex responsibilities and a much higher level, much more sophisticated executives. So do we use data? Absolutely. And we use it in ways that I think are really innovative and far different than we would have five years ago. I think the business and clinical systems have significantly improved over the past couple of years. I think one of the cardinal sins, though, that we are still navigating is we like to add things, but we forget to subtract things. So we’ve added this tremendous muscle of data analytics and practice practice analytics, executive really executive oversight of complex business entities. What we have not done is strip out the things that no longer serve us. So on one hand, we’re really, really effective at looking at where we can apply data to really drive successful business outcomes. But in any practice, I think that we haven’t really been effective at culling out those things that don’t add value. And I think that’s probably our next business opportunity as an association.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:54] And that’s I mean, that’s across the board and a lot of association, a lot of industries. The pruning is the challenge, the, you know, getting rid of some of the status quo. You know, that’s that’s tricky politically.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:12:07] Absolutely. And, you know, it’s funny, I’ve been CEO for almost eight years, and I would say people fight much harder to keep things in place than to put new things in place. In other words, there’s much more of an emotional sense of loss to eradicate something that’s been longstanding than there is any type of emotional backlash to add new things to an organization. And I think that’s also true in almost every industry. It’s what it’s it’s what, you know, versus the unknown, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:12:44] I mean, that goes back to an individual human being. I think that’s how they feel as an individual, that their loss is more painful than, you know, a possible gain.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:12:55] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:57] So now what is kind of the most rewarding part of you leading this mission? Is it is it something that, you know, when you started what you said eight years ago, is it how you imagine it to be?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:13:12] Oh, gosh, no. I don’t think any leader, if they’re really honest, says eight years later, it’s what you thought. You know, I went into medicine over 30 years ago because I wanted to make an impact and I practiced for almost 19 years. And what I figured out for myself as an individual is that that what I wanted to do is make impact on a larger scale. The thing that has attracted me to energy me and keeps me reengaged and re-energize is as time goes on, the scope and the amplitude of our impact continues to increase. And that’s when you ask me, Is it what I thought it would be eight years ago? No, I think the the level of game that we’re playing in right now is so much bigger than I ever imagined when I took this position. And in a great way that we’re making meaningful impact to little over half of health care. I mean, and that’s not me as an individual. That’s that’s the organization and all the members and all the individuals, our vendors, our entire communities are making that impact. And to me, that is somewhat awe inspiring. Sometimes I try not to think about the scale of what we’re doing because it becomes a little overwhelming.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:43] Now, when the pandemic was in its full swing and things had you had to make kind of drastic moves, did that propel you forward in a way that you think that that’s that you’re more optimistic about a future? Or was it something that you’re like, Oh, wow, this exposed some things that now we got to you know, I’m less optimistic how you know, now that as we’re hopefully coming out of it. I know you were mentioning some other challenges, but hopefully the the really, really bad. Stuff is behind us. Are you more optimistic that that change and disruption caused or are you more cautious?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:15:23] So let me put this. I think this says more about me than my organization. I love disruption. I love change. And what I mean by that is that I’ve always when I was a management consultant, one of the things I would talk about in the books that I’ve written, I talk about that crisis is a time of imminent change. It doesn’t necessarily have a negative connotation. The pandemic was a crisis and the I would say the muscles that we were building at MGM, the infrastructure that we had spent five years building. It was like the perfect timing, the perfect storm that we were able to execute at the onset of the pandemic. And so not to minimize anyone’s suffering or pain because of the pandemic, nor the financial consequences that we’re going to experience as a country for generations to come. But it was incredibly good for MGM. It was we were able to execute against everything that we had been planning for years and years in a very high velocity, high quality way. And it created new opportunities for us. So not only am I optimistic, I think the number one thing that keeps me up at night as CEO of MGM used to be, what is our relevance? And now the thing that keeps me up is how do we continue to deliver on the promise that we made during COVID?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:01] So it sounds like you were the perfect person to be leading the organization during that crisis.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:17:08] I don’t I don’t know about that. What I would say is during during the first eight weeks of the crisis, medical practices shut down across the country and we were suffering. A lot of it was forecasted that 60 to 70% of medical practices could have gone bankrupt had there not been a governmental intervention. So I don’t think there was an assessment of was I the right person? What I would say is we had everything already underpinned, that we could provide the real time information. We have an amazing advocacy arm that was able to really communicate the needs of health care in a way that could be heard. And so I think what I would say is I was proud to be the leader of an organization that was so influential during that time.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:12] And then now moving forward, what are some of the initiatives that you’re looking forward to implementing or that you’ve implemented that you’re looking forward to kind of continue to grow?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:18:22] Sure. I think one of the things that has come out of the pandemic well, first of all, what I’ve talked about for the last three years is there is not two years. There’s no trend in health care that showed up during the pandemic that wasn’t present before the pandemic. But what happened is the velocity dramatically increased. So now one of the things and I mentioned at the beginning of this interview is the rise of consumerism. We’re definitely seeing the impact of consumerism in how individuals intersect with medical practice. And we see that as a massive opportunity to recreate a patient care model that is more effective, more efficient and much more rural, higher quality and higher satisfaction, both for the patient and the provider. So we view that as a massive opportunity. Number two, we’re always looking at how we can decrease administrative burden. And as we look at how we can remove costs from the health care system, that administrative burden is really where we have our eyes fixated to decrease costs within health care. And then the other thing, which is very counterintuitive for for health care in particular, is we’re looking at how do we socialize a business model that is not a zero sum game. So traditionally, when you look at and you mentioned insurance, insurance contracts at the top of this interview, how we look at insurance contracts, is there winners or losers now that we’re moving into a much more value based care type compensation model for the future? How do we create win wins as opposed to winners and losers? And so we’re we’re excited to be at the Nexus. Of those conversations and really driving those outcomes for American health care.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:21] Now, are you seeing young people wanting to still be doctors and being involved in health care?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:20:27] You know, there it was funny, we were seeing a trend prior to COVID with a decrease in applications to medical school. We’ve now seen that increase over the last two years. So I think particularly this Gen Z that’s coming in is much more interested in being caregivers, whether that be allied health professionals or physicians, doctors, nurses, etc.. That being said, I think their expectations of what it means are very different than, let’s say, physicians of my generation, and we’re going to have to navigate those expectations as time goes on.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:07] Are you finding that those younger people are looking more like an American rather than just some subset of of what an American looks like?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:21:20] If you’re talking to me about D-ii. Absolutely. And that trend in medicine started about 20, 25 years ago. But I think medical schools are being much more thoughtful to really look for candidates that reflect the communities they’re going to serve.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:41] So what do you need more of? How can we help as we move into 2023?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:21:47] You know, I think my request is we’re looking for we’re always looking to expand our audience. And what I mean by that are people who are aligned with what we’re talking about. We want to talk with them. We want to share experiences. We want to learn from each other. So please feel free to reach out to our organization. And then the other thing that I always encourage people who listen to me in interviews is my request of person to person is to really be better health care consumers. I think that’s the next leg. I think we I mean, my generation Gen X was socialized that you had health insurance and health insurance will take care of you. I think as more and more costs for health care are being shifted to the patient, the one thing we haven’t done very well is educate people on how to be good consumers and be good stewards of their health care dollar. So my recommendation is to take that on. I think it will really enrich, not like I think it will. I use the term enrich. I think it’ll really enrich your understanding and improve your relationship with your health care provider. But I also think it’ll have a financial outcome that most people will appreciate.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:09] Well, if somebody wants to learn more about Magma, what is the coordinates to go there and maybe connect with somebody on your team?

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:23:19] Absolutely. So you can reach us on our website at w w w dot MGM a dot com. And you can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and at gmail.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:39] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright: [00:23:45] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate your time as well and great questions.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:49] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.

Amber Lawrence With Mortgage Bankers Association

November 22, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

MBAAmber LawrenceThe Mortgage Bankers Association appointed Amber Lawrence as Associate Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, responsible for advancing DEI programs for the association and overall real estate finance industry.

Previously, Lawrence served as Associate Director of Career Development Programs. In that role, she was a core member of MBA’s education leadership team, where she managed its professional certification and designation programs. Notably, she managed the Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB®) program, responsible for candidate matriculation, curriculum development and the examination process.

In addition, she was responsible for the management of the Certified Residential (CMS) and Commercial Certified Mortgage Servicer (CCMS) designations; Certified Residential Underwriter (CRU) designation; and Accredited Mortgage Professional (AMP) designation. She also provided oversight on facilitation of several MBA Education courses, including MBA’s premier classroom program, the School of Mortgage Banking (SOMB). She is also an active participant in MBA’s DEI internal and external efforts, and serves on MBA’s DEI Advisory Committee.

Lawrence holds a Bachelor of Arts in legal communications from Howard University.

Connect with Amber on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • MBA’s DEI Leadership Award Process
  • MBA’s DEI Playbook
  • Other MBA DEI Activities

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Amber Lawrence with the Mortgage Bankers Association. Welcome.

Amber Lawrence: [00:00:29] Amber Thank you. Lee Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] I’m so excited to get to learn more about your association and tell us a little bit about Mortgage Bankers Association. How are you serving folks?

Amber Lawrence: [00:00:39] Sure. So we represent both the single family and commercial Multifamily Industries Trade Association, leading in educational and professional development. And from the seat in which I sit, I help with our strategic initiatives with regards to diversity, equity and inclusion. I myself have been with the organization for about 16 years now.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:03] Now, how have you seen DTI evolve over those years?

Amber Lawrence: [00:01:07] Quite a bit, honestly. But from the inside of the association as well as externally, the members in which we serve, the communities in which our members are placed, there’s a demographic that’s changing and it’s our part of our responsibility to be on the forefront of that change. And so I’ve seen it evolve in the sense of one of the initiatives in which we’re hyper focused on, in which we’re bringing those who look like the communities we serve into the industry and helping develop them through leadership positions and also changing our strategies and our focus to better serve those customers.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] Now, are you seeing the association kind of leading the way here or are you seeing some of the members that are kind of doing innovative things to help the cause?

Amber Lawrence: [00:01:54] I see it both. I see it as a partnership, honestly. But obviously our members are are leading in the communities in which they’re serving us kind of at the top level, being able to see all and bring those members together. While some are in competing spaces, we do understand there’s a lot that we can do when we’re together, and that’s essentially the message that we’re that we’re spreading, that we’re better together. So while again, yes, our members are leading a lot of the initiatives within their own communities in which they have a presence, the MBA is bringing all of that thought leadership together at the top levels.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:34] Now, what are some of the things that MBA is doing to help those members kind of maybe accelerate the pace of change?

Amber Lawrence: [00:02:42] Sure. And it’s very timely. Much of what I want to talk about right now is our DEI playbook. We’ve been in development with it alongside of a consultant to Juan Williams and her team at Williams Consulting, and we provide a comprehensive guide for our members that provides detailed instructions and resources for creating, developing and growing internal DEI programs, as well as providing strategies for products, as well as initiatives within the community and across the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:17] Mm hmm. Now, what’s maybe can you share a little bit of that playbook? Is there any low hanging fruit that any association could benefit from learning about?

Amber Lawrence: [00:03:26] Sure. Not just associations. It’s. It’s really a touchpoint for everyone within the process. Even if you are a practitioner within an organization or someone who is tasked with leading initiatives or someone who just maybe has a passion or is interested. So it touches out points, entry points from a foundational level. So we have basic definitions. What is diversity, what is equity, what is inclusion all the way up to recruitment and development and retention of an internal workforce, fostering workplace culture, reputational equity, a lot of strategy. So it’s all encompassing and it’s a very robust how to guide, if you will.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:13] But are there things like any organization that maybe has been considering this or maybe hasn’t said, I’m ready to take the leap into this world just yet, but what are some of the kind of foundational things they can do to start at least to get the ball moving a little?

Amber Lawrence: [00:04:31] Yeah, So exactly. So we understand that a lot of our members may not have an opportunity to employ someone who will lead DEI initiatives. So that’s where the NBA in this playbook comes in. So it helps assess if your current systems are improving or impeding your organization’s progress helps you evaluate what your current DEI competency is and your own position in that journey. So again, it’s not just for those top level executives, it’s also for those who may be at an entry point or just have a passion for it and not really tasked with doing anything specific. And then, like I said, all the way up to creating a scaled and purposeful strategy. So it helps you on your journey at each step of the way from the beginning and all the way through an ongoing development. Because DEI is a journey and not kind of the end point in which we’ll find a final solution. So we have to be able to evolve and be able to pivot whenever we have changes within an organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:30] Now, is there any research that kind of backs up the hypothesis that this is not just something that’s nice to do, this is something that’s good for the business as well, or the association in that, especially in this competitive landscape when it comes to hiring, that you want to look everywhere and you don’t want to exclude anybody. It’s just in the best interest of the organization.

Amber Lawrence: [00:05:53] Oh, absolutely. And I think that that’s something that is you can find in pretty much any data set that’s been put out there. I don’t have anything specific to point to. But the messaging is that it’s a business imperative and not just the right thing to do, as you mentioned. And the data is tell us data tells us that it’s crucial. And within that, data sets are real people. So the employees within an organization saying that working for an organization that not only professes to promote inclusivity and belonging, but also is walking the walk is imperative. And also the data tells us that the connection between DEI and business success is basic. Almost every leader wants to improve employee engagement, attraction and retention. And there are also the ways that leaders saw their efforts contributing to the success of their business and their bottom line. So what that says to me is that DEI initiatives and programs is not, again, not just the right thing to do, but organizations will be more profitable while workplace culture improves and flourishes.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:00] And I think the opposite is true, too. If you’re not really leaning into this, you’re really hurting your organization.

Amber Lawrence: [00:07:07] Oh, absolutely. I concur with that 100%.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:10] Now, let’s talk a little bit about the MBA’s Leadership Award process. Can you share about that?

Amber Lawrence: [00:07:16] Absolutely. We actually just wrapped up our 2022 residential D-I award, D-I leadership award cycle. We highlight members who are within a few categories. We do we highlight those who are proficient and very successful within their own organizational culture is where well, as those who have a strong emphasis and strong presence with within their market. So that market outreach, strategy, culture. And then also we have a category in which we highlight those who are in the non lending and servicing space, so vendors. And so for this year, if you’ll give me an opportunity, I’ll I’ll, I want to highlight those who did win. We have Synovus mortgage. We have new American funding Embrace home Loans, Experian, JLL and our commercial multifamily space. And those are just to name a few.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:17] Now, how long has this award been going on?

Amber Lawrence: [00:08:21] I believe, since about 2017 or 16. So we’ve had it evolve since then. We’ve had more categories added. We’ve had significant, more members participate in that process. And what we’ve seen throughout the course of the years in which we’ve highlighted our member companies is that we’ve seen real data that shows success and how they’re able to implement initiatives that really forward progress throughout their organization and not just internally, but also within the communities that they serve.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:54] Now, when you started out doing these awards and you’ve been doing them obviously over the years, is this something that you’re kind of bubbling up, these best practices that some of these organizations are willing to share, that is kind of then gets to be disseminated throughout everybody in the industry so then everyone can learn from what kind of the people that have got some things figured out or doing.

Amber Lawrence: [00:09:18] Oh, absolutely. So we have various touch points throughout the year. Most recently at our annual convention, we did have a success story panel in which we highlighted all of our winners from the 2022 residential awards cycle. But we also have webinars throughout the year in which we do feature those members and have them come on and we have them talk about their programs, we have them talk about what works, what didn’t work, some of the things that they’re seeing. And so yeah, we definitely share that across our membership base.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:49] Now are you finding that this DIY community that’s being formed here is very collaborative? Is it is it a situation where everybody just wants everybody to win so they’re trying to help out in this area? Or is it competitive that, hey, this is our secret sauce so we’re not sharing it? How do you how do you find the the community?

Amber Lawrence: [00:10:12] It’s highly collaborative. And what I’ll say is for any competition, it’s it’s it’s a very jovial, competitive space in which not only are they feeding off of each other, they want to see each other succeed. Our members want to see each other succeed. So if anything, there’s no negative competition in which no one’s trying to keep their own secret sauce. As you mentioned to themselves, people are willing to share it. But I think what happens is that it encourages participation and it encourages other members to say, you know what, hey, let me get in the game. Let me figure out what will work for our organization, what would work for our constituents and our customers. So it just fuels kind of that positive competition, if you will.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:59] Now, how do you feel that the real estate finance industry is doing as an industry compared to other industries out there that are, you know, working in this space?

Amber Lawrence: [00:11:10] Well, I think across the board, a lot of industries are struggling with some of the same things hiring, retention, some of the things that you hear about kind of from a general national speak. But what I’m finding with our industry is that when there are economic hardships in times where volume is low and when we’re struggling to keep a customer base and when there isn’t a lot of inventory and housing, I think that’s the right time to really dig in and focus on internal culture. Not that we can be hiring all the time and not that we can be promoting all the time. So I think being able to be agile and be able to see where you can really focus when times aren’t necessarily positive or when volumes again aren’t high. That’s the really that’s the best opportunity to really focus on your internal. A culture and those who are already within your organization so that you can elevate your initiatives and your strategies with the people that you have in place. But ultimately, I think what’s important is making sure that we have people within the industry that represent the communities and the customer base. So that’s always going to be something that Mbaye is passionate about and looking to see our members collaborate on.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:36] Is there a story you can share about maybe the something that’s been rewarding or impactful since doing this kind of work where you’ve seen real change? You don’t have to name the name maybe of the organization, but maybe, maybe share what they what their challenge was and how they were able to overcome this and lean into this and then maybe take their organization to a new level.

Amber Lawrence: [00:13:03] I’m not sure I was prepared for that particular one. But what I’ll say is this What I think I find most rewarding is that and this kind of replicates itself across the industry and not just one specific organization. And mentioning that we’re looking to foster a very diverse workforce. We get an opportunity to work with students, those at campuses, historically black colleges and universities, HBCUs or Hispanic serving institutions, or even predominantly white organizations and universities where there’s large students, large populations of students of color, and being able to see kind of on the ground before they enter into the industry the excitement and building that awareness. A lot of students don’t have any idea what the mortgage finance industry is. They know that there’s houses and they know that there’s commercial buildings, but not really seeing up close and personal how they can enter and how they can affect change. And so being able to see that kind of upfront and up close and personal and I’ve seen our members interact with students and just be really encouraged by a lot of what’s coming out of those campuses. There’s a lot of dedication, there’s a lot of bright stars, there’s a lot of a lot of students who are looking to get into it to really affect change and to really be that catalyst to drive our industry forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:27] Well, you’re doing important work and it must be very rewarding to see that change starting to happen.

Amber Lawrence: [00:14:35] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:38] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about the D-I leadership Award moving forward or maybe just to learn who’s been winning, is there a website? What’s the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team?

Amber Lawrence: [00:14:52] Sure, absolutely. We have a whole website, a web page dedicated to all of our strategies, our awards. We offer a scholarship as well, a path of diversity scholarship. So that’s emba dot org forward slash d. E i.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:09] Well, Amber, thank you so much for sharing your story. It’s I mean, you’re doing such important work and we really appreciate you.

Amber Lawrence: [00:15:17] My pleasure. Thank you for having me on today, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:20] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.

Aundrea Dumas With Legends Food LLC

November 21, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Legends FoodAndrea DumasAundrea Dumas, CEO of Legends Food LLC.

Aundrea is a native of Savannah, Georgia and was greatly influenced by the culinary designs of her grandmother, Isabelle “Mabelle” DeLancey Cuyler-Alston, and her mother, Shirley Ann Morris. She is also the inspiration behind Mabelle’s Low-Country Brand. In addition to her business interests, Aundrea has served her community in many capacities; Peer-Proof Counselor, DeKalb County School System; DeKalb County Superintendent Advisory Committee, KeKalb County School Board; and Business Plan Advisor, Georgia Pacific (YEA), Youth Entrepreneurs of Atlanta.

Aundrea is a 2007 graduate of FastTrac Growth Venture Program at Georgia State University’s J Mark Robinson College of Business. She is Certified by the Women Business Enterprise National Council. Aundrea has been featured on numerous media outlets including; Chef and The Fatman Food Talk Radio Show, 1150 AM; Michael & Joi Radio Morning Show; WEAS 93.1 FM, Savannah Gospel and Afternoon Drive Radio Show; WSAV-Channel 3 NBC, The Bridge, Savannah Morning Show; WTOC-Channel 11 CBS, Bounce, Savannah Afternoon Show; WAGA-Channel 5 Fox, Good Day Atlanta Morning Show; the Savannah Now Newspaper; the Atlanta Journal Constitution; the Savannah Tribune; the Atlanta Daily World; and Gospel Today Magazine.

Aundrea’s company was recognized by the Atlanta Tribune Magazine as one of Atlanta’s Top 25 Black Owned Companies. Additionally, Aundrea received a VIP Board nomination by United Way; Recognition as one of the 25 Most Influential Women In The World by Rolling Out Magazine; Nominated as 1st winner up for Supplier of the Year by Georgia Minority Supplier Diversity Council; Featured Artist at the Savannah Black Heritage Festival; and Nominated by Coca-Cola for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Among Aundrea’s other recognitions are the Governor’s Citation Award; GE Capital Spotlight of Excellence Award; and Yesterday Story Today’s Legacy Award.

Aundrea is also the author of three books, The House That Cooks Love, The Hourse That Cooks Love Too and Recipe 2 Retail. Aundrea was also featured as a celebrity rotating judge on TV One’s reality cooking show, My Momma Throws Down.

Connect with Andrea on LinkedIn and Legends Food on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn On This Episode

  • Being a Woman Pioneer
  • Taking a product from concept to shelf
  • The importance of working on your business and not in it
  • How being certified has played such a pivotal role in my business
  • Inspiring others
TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Aundrea Dumas with Legends Food. Welcome.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:00:31] Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me. How are you today?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] I am doing well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Legends Food. How are you, Southern folks?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:00:41] Oh, look, you know how we Southern folks do it down here in the South, the Deep South. But everything’s well. Legends Food is a food manufacturing and manufacturer, and the product that we actually manufacture is a product that’s first in category called Eazy Peazy Cakes.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] Eazy Peazy Cakes. What is an Eazy Peazy Cake?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:01:05] So, Eazy Peazy Cake, let me tell you how it all started. Eazy Peazy Cake started as a promise I made to my mom that if I survived her, I would keep her memory alive. And when she passed from a very rare blood cancer, I decided to keep her memory alive by starting an online bakery back in 2012 called Shirley Cakes. It grew from there and went from online to brick and mortar and started there with monies that I thought I had enough of till so many of the zonings and all of those different companies came in to tell me what I needed, what I thought I’d had enough of. And I exhausted the funds. And then exhausting the funds, I end up running my bakery from the front to the back, and I did from cupcakes to cakes by myself.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:01:56] And so, what I can recall my mom saying, you’re working hard, not smart because it was very stressful. And so, what I did was put all of my batters, at the time it was 12 flavors, in containers and bottles. And when people would order cakes or we would run out of cakes or cupcakes, all I did was shake, pour and bake, and this product just became so big. My customers love it. Kroger found out about it. And so, Eazy Peazy Cakes is a cupcake slash cake batter in a bottle, first of its kind and first in category.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:31] So now, were you the first baker in your family, or is this something that you learned from your mom and she learned from her, like, was it passed down or was this like you as figuring all this out?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:02:42] No, I didn’t figure it out. It started from my grandmother to my mom. And so, that’s what I did. I took my mom’s recipes and used them to start the online bakery. And so, again, what you have, Eazy Peazy Cakes is a product of the promise I made to my mom by using her recipe. So, I started baking when I was about eight years old in Savannah, Georgia, because that’s my hometown. And so, I learned a lot of all that baking and the tricks of the trades for my mother and my grandmother. And this is what we have here, Eazy Peazy Cakes.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:17] Now, I think baking and cooking is such a wonderful way to pass down memories and kind of the DNA of the family from the stories and the bonding that happens in the kitchen between a child and the parent and grandparent. Is that how you feel as well?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:03:36] Oh, sure, certainly, because I’ve written three books and one of my first books I wrote was a cookbook. And the cookbook was telling stories along with my childhood stories that I remembered and related it to the recipes when we were in the kitchen, either cooking or baking in Savannah, and how I used to go crabbing with my grandmother and the baking I used to do and how I learned how to cook, how I learned all these things. So it all started in the kitchen. You know, conversations, that’s where they happen, in the kitchen. Everything, things got hashed out in the kitchen. Everything happened in the kitchen. It wasn’t just about eating.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:04:13] People’s problems happened and were resolved in the kitchen. So, it’s about food. You know, to say food is a part of our, like you said, our DNA. And it comforts us. That’s what food does. And just not the food, but the preparation of the food and the baking, that all comes with that comfort that we get from it. And that’s how we do things here again in the South.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:39] And that’s how you put your own spin on it, where you take a recipe, maybe that a parent or grandparent shared, and then at some point, you put your kind of secret sauce and you add your personality to it, and then it evolves over time.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:04:54] Oh, yes. And that’s how it gets passed down. You know, that’s how we do it. The grandmother or the mother may have taught it one way and you may have added – just as my grandmother said, if you add anything different or replace it with anything, it now becomes your recipe. And so, that’s what I have done. I’ve tested it, “Okay, let me try this with it.” “Oh.” and it becomes a whole nother different recipe. But, of course, the foundation of it is my mother and my grandmother. So you’re right.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:26] Right. And that’s kind of foundationally they create kind of that true flavor profile and you’re adding your kind of special thing that makes you unique to the process that makes it yours, but it has that kind of foundation of the past.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:05:43] Right. And that’s why it’s called Legends Food because I feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of my mom and my grandmother because they are the foundation.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:52] Yeah, that’s very inspirational, I mean. And it’s such a great lesson for people out there. And even if your family cooks together or shares recipes together, you don’t have to turn it into a business. But it’s such a great opportunity to learn more about each other and the family and the history.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:06:12] And this is true. And I just feel like because it’s a part of my DNA again, it was already there for me to take it and go other places with it. I never would have thought that I would have made a career in baking and cooking. But, again, it’s a part of my DNA and it’s what I do and it’s what I do well. And it’s a passion of mine. It’s what I love doing. It’s not work for me because of what I love to do. And I love to see people smile. I love to see people happy. I love to hear, you know, the compliments that I get from, you know, when someone tastes my baking or my cooking and how it makes them feel inside. So, yeah. So I look at that. This is a gift that was left behind for me by my mother and my grandmother.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:59] Right. And you’re creating memories for the people who are buying your stuff. Those are usually going to family events as well. And then, that is part of their experience.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:07:10] Creating memories and time, you know, because in these days in time, everybody is starved for time, time consumed. So one of the things about this product is because there is no prepping, you know, there is no – you don’t have to go to the store and buy any extra ingredients. There are no eggs. It’s actually a prepared batter already in the bottle along with the frosting. So you get some company that comes over. You want some desserts with your dinner, or you just want to have fun with your family because it’s family-friendly fun. You just simply shake, pour and bake it and you have all these different varieties of desserts that it makes from cakes to cake pops to cupcakes. It’s just a very good product that, hey, I would have never thought that working-hard-not-smart would have brought on this type of product. But it did. But again, the foundation of it is my mother and my grandmother.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:09] Now, when did you – when you had that pivot of, “Hey, you know what? Instead of baking all the actual stuff, I’m going to just sell the batter.” When did you start getting clues that, “Hey, I might be on to something here? This is something that might work.”

Aundrea Dumas: [00:08:25] Look, I actually did – I tell people I’m like, this is a God-given product because I just didn’t feel like, I’m like I’m not that smart to come up with something so simple because so many people are like, “Why don’t I think about that?” And it was just in the moment that I was in the bakery where it was just so, you know, I was just so overwhelmed. The bakery was doing well, but I was just so overwhelmed with what was going on that I know I had to come up with something that would be, that would take me to another level, take me, take this product where I can still continue to do what I’m doing.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:08:59] And so, it was again, I heard my mom’s voice saying, “You’re working hard, not smart.” And I’m like, “What do I do?” And it was like my mom was the one that would do things ahead of time, and it was, get the batters and put them in bottles and containers, have them made up already ahead of time, prepare two, when you ran out you just shake, pour and bake. And so, when I did that, it was like, “Oh, my.” It was a light. It was a light bulb. Like, “Gosh, I cannot believe that this is so easy and it’s working.”

Aundrea Dumas: [00:09:29] And so, one of the things was my customers will always ask me to teach them how to either decorate or to bake. And I had a couple of them say, I want my house to smell like your bakery. So when that idea came, I gave some of the product to them. “Take this home. Try it. Let me know how does it bake up? Does it still taste like you came from the bakery? Does your home smell like my bakery?” And so, it was about ten of them that I chose. And they came – they did parties. They just bragged about it and it was like a light bulb. This could be a product that, you know, I know it wasn’t anything like. I didn’t know – I didn’t know if anything was like that out there. But I’m like, could this be a product that I can sell in the bakery? But then Kroger found out about it, and when they found out about it, this is when they told me there’s nothing like it on the market. This is innovative. This is baking revolutionized. They gave me all of these different terms and they thought it was just a great idea and it just took off from there.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:10:27] And, you know, I’ve done QVC. We’re at Macy’s. I just got a contract with Walmart. I just have so many things going on with this product that it has just escalated, I just didn’t see. I never would have seen this as a future for this product and this product even having a future. But it has just escalated to the highest and it’s still climbing, climbing up and up and up the ladders and, you know, making more interaction with different people and buyers that are loving the product.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:11:03] And as the buyers, what they’re telling me, this is a disruptor. They call the product a disruptor. And I’m like, “Okay. But this is what this product is about.” And so, we came out with the frosting because we would have a lot of customers like, “Where is the frosting?” And what we did in the beginning is we put the frosting recipe on the bottle. And so, we had a customer, a couple of customers – well, this one, in particular, she said, “Well if I can get the ease of the batter, I want the ease of the frosting. I don’t want to have to make the frosting [inaudible].”

Lee Kantor: [00:11:40] Why not?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:11:42] Yeah. And so, Kroger was like, “You’re gonna have to do the frosting, frosting.” And then, they didn’t want to go and buy anybody else’s frosting. That was the other thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:49] Right because they wanted to keep it the same.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:11:52] And when we’re doing demos – you know, we did the little demos with the little mini, so we had our frosting on and it was like, “Where’s the frosting? Where’s the frosting?” And it’s like, “You know, you can go down that aisle and get that for” – “No, I don’t want that frosting. I want your frosting.”

Lee Kantor: [00:12:04] That’s right.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:12:06] So, we tried many things, but now we have the frosting. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:10] Now, it’s just a great – it’s amazing the story when you think back, right? Like, you had that all along, but you never thought to sell it and then all of a sudden you sell it and now it changes your whole life.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:12:24] It has. It has really changed my whole life. I’m trying to keep up. I would have never – again, I would have never thought, you know, as so many people who’ve actually come across a product, it was like, “Gosh, you know, I never thought of this.” Even Kroger was like, “Nobody ever thought of this.” And again, I guess because it wasn’t in the time that I was going through, I wasn’t thinking of it. I wasn’t trying to think of a batter in a bottle. I was just trying to think of how can I make my life less stressful and not lose my bakery because, you know, we’ve invested too much money in it to get it started, to build it out. Now, what can I do to keep this thing going? It’s like you say pivoting and, you know, finding something to do to make sure that I don’t have a loss there. And this is what happened. It was like put it in the bottle, to put it into containers. And when I say that, you know, it’s in the cute little bottles and containers now. But back then in the bakery, it was like, you know, whatever, I can go buy and put them in just to shake, pour and bake it. And then, come to find out not only that, Lee, it has the shelf life for it. Refrigeration is 90 days in the freezer. You can freeze it as well for six months. So that’s the other thing that the buyers love about it and the customers. They like that I don’t have to bake up a whole bottle. They feel like they’re cheating. I could bake one little mini. I could bake one little cupcake and I don’t feel like I’m cheating. And so, that’s the other thing. That’s a great part about it.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:48] Now, when you’re working with these large companies like Kroger, do they help you at all? Do they say, “You know what? I need it to be in a bottle this size or I need a label that looks like this”? Or are they giving you any guidance when it comes to the packaging and what it’s going to look like on the shelf? Or are they expecting you to already know all this stuff?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:14:09] You know, I’ve been in this industry since 2005, in the food and beverage industry, because this is not my first product. This is the first bakery product, and I had to learn a lot on my own back then. And, you know, they’re not – when you come to them, they expect for you to know it. They expect you to know what you’re doing. You know, you approach them so obviously, you must know what you’re doing. So, you must know the appetite of the buyer. You must know what they’re looking for, how – you know, how is your product going to stand out because you’re with the competition if you know when you’re bringing a product there. They’re providing the foot traffic, but you have to get the customer to buy that product.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:14:45] So, they’re expecting you to bring brand awareness to the product. They’ll help you just, you know, just a little bit, you know, give you just a little bit of advice. But that’s all on you. And so, just me teaching myself learning, researching about the food and beverage industry, you know, about the competitor. You know what – who is my audience and, you know, what is my product? Does it solve a problem? You know, does it already exist? All of these things that I had to learn, of course. Of course, these are my teachable moments now and my camouflaged obstacles. I like to now call stepping stones, not just for me, but for others. But these are things that they want you to already know when you approach them. And I call it the bias, the appetites of the buyers, what they’re looking for, their presentation, all of these things they expect, and, you know, for your product to be a, you know, a sell-through, not, you know, get there and that doesn’t sell out at all.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:15:42] And so, these are things that you must know when you approach these big stores, these buyers. And again, they’re looking for disruption because they’re looking for something that’s going to affect their category’s profit margins. So, they are not just going to bring anything in there and they want it to look good. They want it to taste good. So it’s all of the senses that must be involved in them buying a purchase in this product.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:16:06] What makes the customer buy your product over your competitor, what’s already on the shelf? So, these are things that you have to be ready to tell them, to be ready to – that you must know and have researched. So, you just can’t come in. There are all kinds of ways. So, to answer your question, no, they’re not going to help you like that at all. You must know this information.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:28] Now, how did being a member of GWBC and being certified help you kind of get to this new level, or did it?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:16:37] Oh, my gosh, es. Being certified woman-owned, it’s just a pivotal moment for me in my life because, with the Walmart contract, that was because of GW, the woman-owned certification. Because of Macy’s, that was because of Greater Women. I got an award through UPS and it was a grant. That was because of GW. So it was a lot of things. And what people also – I want others to understand is certification is important. It’s important to me because I had to learn a lot because in the beginning I didn’t know about certification. But it’s very important because it does a lot for so many women-owned businesses and it gets you to, I said, it gets you into doors that others can’t get into. So, it’s like we have a secret door, another door that we can get into. And so, it’s important to have that certification because I say, look, what it has done for me. It has really pivoted or taken my product, my company, my brand to the next level by having that certification.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:56] Right. And then, the success you’re having, it just creates more and more success because now they feel a lot more confident that it’s going to work in their area because it’s worked before. And then, now you have these doors opened that –

Aundrea Dumas: [00:18:08] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:08] So it just kind of really can mushroom pretty quickly, I would imagine.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:18:11] Yes. And, you know, it has become almost a mantra of mine to tell people, because I’m just so in shock to know how many people that don’t know about certification. And it’s like I’m always directing somebody over to GW like you all need to know about, you know, if you’re in a Georgia area because not everybody that I talk with in the Georgia area. So you must know what area you’re in and, you know, which one you would fall under, or just go to WBENC to see in your area which area you would fall under.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:18:45] So, I try to – this is like almost an everyday thing of mine to – because I have people approaching me a lot about getting products to market. And one thing like, are you certified? What is certification? I don’t even know what that is and it’s like, “Oh my goodness, you’re missing out, you know, what they can do for you and what they can do for your brand and how they can take you to the next level, just catapult you to the next level.” And so, it’s like that’s what it has become for me that I must tell people. I must – it’s like I’m preaching and teaching at the same time. Learn, go learn, go become certified, and learn more about and see how these certifications will take you to the next [inaudible] – how being a woman certified will take you to the next level.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:29] Right. And, it’s one thing where you can meet those enterprise-level companies that can, that are looking for companies like yours so they can, you know, do business with certified women-owned businesses. But it’s also a community of like-minded people that are all in it struggling together and can help each other. You’ll find other people that are doing work in the community and say, “Hey, you know what? I went through a similar problem or this is how I solved it.” It’s very collaborative. It’s a bunch of people that are really trying to help each other be the best them they can be.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:20:09] It’s a community.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:10] Yeah.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:20:11] That’s what it is. It’s a community. And you need that. You need that community. You need that where you’re held accountable, where when you’re looking to, you know, how do I do this, how do I do that. That’s what they’re there for. So to me, that’s what it has become for me, a community of, like you said, like-minded folks that can help and take you and take your company to the next level. But it’s just – it’s important to me, certification and being a member of the WBENC, the Greater Women’s Business, and it’s very important to me because I know again how and where it has taken my company.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:20:55] And then, the thing about it is with these companies that come to you about it, they reach out to you because they know that you’re certified. It’s like they’re looking for us. And that’s the other thing I tell them. They’re looking for you. They’re looking for you. And it’s like they don’t understand, you know. So they’re looking for women-owned businesses that are certified. They’re looking for those. And it’s just too many of us out there that don’t know about this. And it’s like, how else can we get the word out?

Lee Kantor: [00:21:22] Yeah, believe me, that’s what I’m trying to do with this show, is to tell people, to give them examples of successful women-owned businesses that are certified, that are benefiting from GWBC, and to let other people know that you should really consider. If you’re going to go to the trouble of opening your own business, go to the trouble of being a certified women-owned business and take advantage of that because it’s hard, you know, and why not have some help and become part of a great network that can really help you grow?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:21:53] Thank you. And that’s the thing, the networking, because it is hard already being a small business owner. And then, on top of it, it’s harder, even harder being a woman-owned small business owner. So, it’s like if you have that the help out there, if you have the resources, and GWBC is one of those resources, why not take advantage of it, you know? And I’m so glad that you say that, what this show is about, about letting people know that these resources are out there. And, look, hey, you know, go and learn from it. You know, see how it would benefit you and would take your company to the next level.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:22:30] I am a living witness, you know, that this is what has happened with my company because of GWBC. You know, whatever they would need for me to tell me, you know, for me to tell them, you know, to prove it, again, I’m a living witness that this is what has happened for me, you know. Walmart is big, you know. Walmart is big. And I’ve never, out of all the stores I’ve been in, I’ve never approached Walmart. I even thought, “Hmm, I just never did.” But when GWBC sent me over the information and I saw it, I was like, “Okay, yes, all right.” And so, I kind of let it slide to the side. And then, they sent another email that, you know, don’t forget about the Walmart. And I was like, “Okay. I’m just going to, you know, try it.” And I did. And I cannot believe it was over 14,000 businesses. And out of 14,000, I think they chose like 1100. And my business was one of them and the products. And then, I got a deal with them. Not only did they invite me to the corporate headquarters, I got a deal. In fact, I have my third call with my buyer tomorrow.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:23:49] And I like it because they look for partnerships, they’re looking for ways to create jobs and the things that they do and they’re about so I’m learning a whole lot besides what I thought I know. I’m learning so much more about Walmart because of GWBC as well. You know, it makes me, you know, want to know more about the companies. Of course, I’m learning. I research them before I get involved with them. That’s the other thing too, know who you’re getting involved with. You know, know you’re getting in bed with before you get in bed with them because everybody is, you know, you can’t be all things to everybody and everybody can’t be all things to you. And you don’t want that way because if you’re going to say – if you say, everybody is my customer but nobody’s your customer, so you need to know who that is. But again, I thank GWBC for all of this. Like I said, even Macy’s, you know, being with Macy’s. It’s just been a great ride and everything is happening at all at, you know, in the same year. It’s all been happening, like happening, happening, happening.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:49] Well, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:24:53] I just want to be able to help those who don’t know that an organization like GWBC exists or – like I said, I just want to be able to be the mouthpiece to help people, to understand how to get certified, what certification is about, how it would benefit, you know, your company because it’s benefit – here’s the thing. It’s just not for me. You know, it’s not just for me. It’s for everybody who wants a piece of the pie. So, it’s enough for everybody to go around. And it’s just to be able to tell my story and for others to hear my story and say, “Okay, you know what? I want to learn how she learned. I want to be able to get the benefits, get into the stores, know more about these things because it was done for her. If God did it for her, he can do it for me.” That’s what I look at. And so, that’s what I want to be able to do, to be able to just continue to spread the word about how great of an organization this company, this organization is, GWBC is.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:55] Now, if somebody wants to connect with you, what is the website? What are the social media coordinates to get a hold of you or learn more about your products?

Aundrea Dumas: [00:26:06] So, I have two. So, they can go to Aundrea, www.aundreadumas.com, and that’s A-U-N-D-R-E-A, dumas.com. Or the product is www.eazy, E-A-Z-Y, peazy, P-E-A-Z-Y, cakes.com, and we’re doing some recipe giveaways there and some other things we’re doing for the holidays. So those are the places. And then, on social media is – the handle is Shake. Pour. Bake; Shake. Pour. Bake. They can get in contact with me there.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:40] Well, Aundrea, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Aundrea Dumas: [00:26:46] Thank you so much, Lee, for having me. I appreciate you and thank you GWBC for having me as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:52] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GWBC Open for Business.

Marc Aptakin With MAD Arts

November 19, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

DTLLogo-Blue-Bannerv2MAD ArtsMarc Aptakin

As founder of MAD, MAD Studios, and MAD Arts and cofounder of MAD Dev and MAD Labs, Marc Aptakin has plenty of avenues to pursue his love of innovation, pushing boundaries, and creativity. He has taken a unique path to get where he is today, so he takes a unique approach to each challenge that arises, never settling for the easy or traditional answer. He prides himself in providing his clients with work that is honest, compelling, and consistent.

Marc grew up in Miami, a city known for its distinct design sensibility. This instilled in him a deep appreciation for everything visually aesthetic, anything from architecture to product design to fine art. He was first drawn to photography, an infatuation that was fed while he was working in the print industry. He took a few courses but kept coming back to the same two photography classes so that he could have access to the darkroom.

After experimenting with different mediums, Marc began combining photography with digital technology in 1993, ultimately leading him to graphic design. This, in turn, would be his gateway to marketing, advertising, and all things MAD.

Marc started MAD with just a laptop and a bit of grit and built it into a full-service creative solutions company with over 100 full-time employees, providing results-driven marketing, design, development, production, and PR. Based in Dania Beach, Florida, the organization includes the agency, MAD Dev and MAD Labs, and MAD Arts, with offices in multiple cities. Not content to stop there, Marc has also acquired other companies and interests in industries ranging from coffee to eyewear.

In 2016, inspired by his love for the arts and dedication to passion over profit, Aptakin founded MAD Arts to pay it forward. The studio space provides emerging artists with a workshop, providing them with free space, tools, education, and expertise as a resource to help them create their vision and ultimately succeed. Depending on each artist’s vision, he will finance the tools they need to shape it.

To date, the gallery has featured notables, including Maggie Steber, world-renowned photographer and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, internationally acclaimed designer David Carson, and more. He has been with credited with producing, exhibiting, and finding the celebrated artists for IGNITE, the highly acclaimed new Broward County family-friendly immersive art attraction.

Marc is a hockey enthusiast, breakfast lover, and admittedly stubborn. He is constantly seeking out new creative content – reading and absorbing information and sharing what he learns in order to drive new ideas. Of all his achievements, he is most proud to be able to provide jobs for so many people through his various ventures.

Connect with Marc on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About MAD Arts and MAD Labs

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Marc Aptakin: Thank you.

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

Marc Aptakin: We’re kind of a strange full service agency with a heavy, a heavy avenue toward tech. We do a lot of motion capture, 3D volumetric studios. We’re just kind of all over the place on the tech side, heavy into Nfts, as well as all your kind of everyday advertising.

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

Marc Aptakin: I just kind of fell into it. I was a fine art photographer and I was working at a print shop while I was in school and just kind of started. The owner of the print shop would let me play with the computer at night. So with that, it kind of led into graphic design and the print industry. And in the mid nineties, a lot of the big print shops were trying to have in-house ad agencies. And so that’s kind of when I got into the business and learned about advertising, always had kind of a love for data and tech and kind of went from there. And then other than that, the business just kind of grew by opportunity when one of our clients would have something that they wanted to get into, we would kind of pilot it on ourselves and then prove that we could do it and then come back to them with what we’ve done. And a lot of times that opened the door for us to be able to do it for them.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about your lens of coming at this through the eyes of an artist into the world of using art and creativity for commerce?

Marc Aptakin: Yeah, I mean, it’s really the backbone of everything we do, right? So I think we look at everything that anybody brings us as a problem to solve. And so we do it through creative thinking. So everything is solved from the creative process, and that even comes down to hardware solutions. Or we, we did a photo booth for Southeast Toyota Jam family and they came to us really for software. And as they talk to us about it, they wanted someone who could actually do both a hardware and software solution and through some of the manufacturing and printing things that we did, I explained how I kind of do what they do, but on a smaller scale with some stuff we do for the telecom industry. And we had to get super creative with the footprint, with the speed that they needed to do things and everything like that. So for me it was just sitting down with surrounding yourself with super smart people and having creative conversations to solve problems.

Lee Kantor: Now, part of your work is through this Mad Art and Mad Labs. Can you tell us a little bit about how that works and how those were born?

Marc Aptakin: Sure. So Matt, Arts was something that we’d done for quite some time, and it was really a nonprofit part of the business that was like a pay it forward. It was based on something that was done for me while I was an artist that had an influence on basically everything that I’ve ever done. And the the gallery that used to show my work, the gentleman who ran it, Brooke Dorsch, he he would give me space, like inside the gallery to go play and just things that I wouldn’t have had access to because I had no money. Right? So space resources, time. So with that, that had such an impact on everything that I ever did. That understanding and that ability to play. We when we were in a position to, we decided to create mad arts as a pay it forward and we would give artists space and resources that we had within the agency or the print shops or friends or whatever we could give them to help them complete a project that they were having trouble bringing to life. Through that. A lot of the things that we were doing on the tech side, so a lot of the D stuff now Nfts but just the technology side and a lot of the technologies that we were using, which was turned into the Mad Labs division of our company. So now we’re about to open a museum on the second floor of our building. That’s going to be kind of an extension of both mad labs and Mad arts. It’s almost like a mash up between the two.

Lee Kantor: Now, how important is it to have that type of a community where artists can collaborate, mash up, you know, help each other, but help themselves in the art world? I would think that something like that is critical in terms of building an ecosystem that supports artists.

Marc Aptakin: Yeah. I mean, it’s not I know that there’s lots of organizations that help artists like that. I don’t know of one that does it in the same way. A lot of times it’s they apply for a grant and they just get money, right? And then they’re still left to kind of just figure it out.

Lee Kantor: Right. Like they’re still on their own, like they’re isolated. This is kind of sounds like it’s fostering community and you’re trying to help everybody help each other, but also help the community.

Marc Aptakin: Right. So when we put on a show for the artists, the we only take 25% of a typical gallery would take 50 or 60%. So we take that 25%. But we make the artists choose. We donate that 25% to the next artist or an artist of the artist choosing. So we kind of force them to pay it forward, kind of like we are and create that niche. Some you just see it makes the artist look at it a little differently and you know, it took a little while actually to get it going. When I first tried to do it, there was a lot of skepticism with the artists that I was trying to talk to to get it done. And once once you got it rolling, then you just saw really a community build behind it. And a lot of the artists that we help you, you you find that they find each other, you know, either through events here at the building or they just learn that, oh, you’re one of the we used to call the space battle space. And they’re like, Oh, you’re one of the bad space artists. And yeah, it’s it’s honestly, it’s one of the most rewarding things that, that I do. But I also think. You know, we get creative energy from it being around super creative people with whacked out ideas. It couldn’t be better for or for for what we do on the business side.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a story? Maybe that origin story where there was an artist that kind of the light bulb went off and they’re like, Hey, I get this. And then maybe they were able to bring on another artist or they were able to support a different artist and give them an opportunity.

Marc Aptakin: Yeah. So when I originally took the space, I was I just wanted artists to come in and use the space. And every artist that I brought in, the first one that I brought in or told about it, he came by and I was still cleaning out the warehouse and it was it was super dirty and we kind of called it the. For for the type of space it was. I called it the right amount of shitty. It was just right. It was a dirty warehouse that you see an ironworks factory. A lot of the stuff was still in there, but so he came in and I was telling him I was like, Yeah, I’m just looking to give a space away. Sort of like back and back in a way for the door. And he was we had friends in common and I had known him over the years. He had done some album covers for some musician friends of mine and just he, he just didn’t believe that it was really free. Right? So there was an architect friend of mine who had decided he was going to stop doing architecture and try and be a full time artist.

Marc Aptakin: His medium was ceramics, so I brought him in and I’m telling him, I’m like, Hey, this is what I’m trying to do. And, you know, come bring your your wheel and all your tools and just set up here, man. And he’s like, It’s free. And I’m like, Yeah, it’s free. And we kind of went back and forth, free, free, free, you know? And so finally I was like, Scott, just bring your stuff. And so once he was in there and then other people would come and he was kind of like this good. He was a little older. And so I think he was a good kind of safe mouthpiece that, hey, this is a legitimate place and they’re doing good and they really just want to help artists. And from there, in a pretty 2000 square foot warehouse, we ended up with about eight artists working, and I think they really collaborated in some of the work that they did was really that they were able to do in that space, really kind of push their career pretty far. You see that some of those are kind of top emerging artists in South Florida right now.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned Nfts. First off, can you explain Nfts for the folks that aren’t familiar with that? And I know it’s in the news a lot, but some people still don’t know what it is. So if you could explain kind of foundationally what it is and then how you’re able to kind of leverage that for the art world.

Marc Aptakin: Sure stands for Non-fungible token. It’s more or less just the digital asset of any kind is really what it is. The way it’s used in art world is it’s it’s a digital piece of art sometimes with a utility attached. So, you know, an artist can create much like a print, they can create a series, right? So it could be a one on one or it could be a one of 1000. And so it’s mostly I shouldn’t say mostly it’s collected using cryptocurrencies. So it’s when someone buys an NFT, that transaction is reported on the blockchain. So it’s an absolute proof of authenticity from the artist as well as a forever record that you purchase this in what price you purchase it for. Everything on the blockchain is super transparent, so you can look up how many times that piece of art has been sold. You might not know who bought it exactly, but you’ll know what digital wallet had it. So we got into it. We’re not really crypto people, but we love the blockchain and the power of what it can do and then the the ability and things that you can do with NFT art, such as have it intersect with data and be a constant piece of living art that changes constantly by letting it have a data feed or just one of the pieces that when I was first exploring it that I loved and artists said, Hey, in eight months this piece is going to change.

Marc Aptakin: And he wrote that into the Smart contract, which is basically the code that makes up the NFT. And eight months later he changed it to something else that he had a vision for, for the piece. We ended up getting heavily involved with Nfts as they intersect with public art, and we recently created a NFT platform called COTA made where we’re helping municipalities create and sell nfts from the public art that they do within the community and are able to pay for a lot of the like the maintenance and the conservation of these pieces as well as other pieces in the community, and then also be able to create additional pieces of public art with the hopes that one day the public art agencies will be able to self-fund and not take taxpayer dollars for public art, but be able to almost be kind of a self funded agency.

Lee Kantor: So I understand like a piece of art could be a painting, and I understand that if I buy a painting from an artist, I can put that painting on my wall and I see it how if I own an NFT, what am I? What do I have and what can I do with it?

Marc Aptakin: So the actual NFT lives in your digital wallet. And that’s that’s where I think a lot of the the question has come. Certainly I had the exact same question when I first started. Oh, that’s weird. I just have this digital file. But any smart TV can display your. Any scream can do it. So with made that we got into we have a hardware component where we’re doing hardware sales. Anything from LED walls to simple screens that can display it in your house or projectors. You know, since we do, we do a lot of projection art and a lot of the artists that we work with do projection art. There’s ways to do it with projectors. So it can be on your computer, it can be on your phone and it can be displayed any way. It’s just it’s just digital art at the end of the day.

Lee Kantor: But if I have this painting that’s on my wall, that painting, if it’s not a print, if it’s the actual painting of the original, I have that on my wall. If I have an NFT and I’m projecting it on the wall, like how does somebody could have a copy of that or a print of that and wouldn’t it look exactly identical to what I have?

Marc Aptakin: Yeah, yeah, 100%. And you know, it’s it’s hard to make an argument one way or the other, depending on what your view is on it. Right. So I could say that I can go into a poster store and buy a Gustav Klimt poster for $10, but yet the actual paintings, millions of dollars, if not priceless. Right?

Lee Kantor: Right.

Marc Aptakin: So but lots of people have those Gustav Klimt paintings framed and in their house, you know, recreate recreated recreations that are not very expensive. So it’s at the end of the day, there are recreations of something that’s worth a lot of money. You know, the authentication here is your your your asset is that digital file that sits in your digital wallet. You can have prints of it. You can you could print it and frame it. You know, there’s there’s nothing saying you can’t do that. You can project it. You can put it on an LED screen. It’s just a different medium. You know, people have been doing digital art for a long, long periods of time, you know, And we we we helped an artist named Edison Pena, Phil, and he did a 12 project and he had a solo show in Madrid at a at a gallery there. And he had it was 12 projectors that took over the whole gallery. But how does he sell that? And that was a big problem, right? It was this amazing piece of art with actually a lot of thought and effort put into it, and it had a social statement attached to it. But how does he sell a 12 projection installation? And so utilizing Nfts, you can and somebody can display a portion of that that so a collector that would buy it unless he set up those projectors at his house or in a warehouse or somewhere else. He just owned the intellectual idea of that show. So this is a way that he can display and show portions of it. So that’s that’s one aspect of it.

Lee Kantor: Now, is it? It feels like we’re at the very beginning of the beginning for Nfts 100%.

Marc Aptakin: It’s like the Wild West. I love it as a medium. I think as a photographer prior there was a time where photography wasn’t considered real art, right? Anybody can press a button. It had no value artistically. Painting and sculpture and all these things were real art and photography wasn’t. And that changed over time when people saw the creative things that were done with it. And, you know, you could you could say a lot of the things that you’re saying about NFT is about, hey, anybody can have it is very true with prints, right? So if I had a photograph even prior to the digital days that we’re in now with a darkroom, I could just with my negatives, make hundreds, if not thousands, of prints and lessen the value of my art. Right. Because it’s it’s out there. So I think the nfts, it’s just a new medium and kind of what the artists end up doing with it is where the value is going to be created.

Lee Kantor: And and we’re just at the beginning. So right now it’s just clunky and chaotic because we’re all learning together in real life, in real time.

Marc Aptakin: Yeah. And you know, a lot of the early day nfts were were like these apps, which is a picture for profile. I wouldn’t say that. And again, I’m not going to judge it one way or the other, but for my liking, I don’t think a lot of the art was amazing. And then kind of with the downturn and some of the things that have happened with the cryptocurrencies, you saw a lot of the artists that we’re doing just amateur type work, they kind of fell away, but artists that were doing real work, the value of their nfts stayed right, because they’re professional artists doing professional grade work. And you know, Rafiq and Doll, somebody that is in the public workspace like, like where we are. He had two nfts recently that sold at Sotheby’s, one for $1.3 Million and another one for 1.8 very unique pieces. You couldn’t really do his pieces any other way. So I think he’s someone who’s kind of at the forefront of finding. Really exploiting the medium for what it can do right now.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those things I remember at the beginning of the Internet, they were saying that if you’re not in Web one, you’re never going to be ready for Web 2.0. And it sounds like it’s the same thing here. If you’re not playing around with this space and experimenting, you’re not going to be ready when it starts maturing and then it it’ll leave you behind.

Marc Aptakin: That’s 100% the way we’re looking at it. Again, it’s I don’t think being attached to cryptocurrencies is a is a help for it. Currently with the existing art market, you do have the current NFT community, which isn’t ginormous, but it’s big that that likes it that way. But I think really what they’re doing is commodifying something in a way, much like the sneaker community commodified sneakers. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I just think it’s it’s missing the mark for fine art is And I think that’s going to have a correction over the next 3 to 5 years.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those things when it paired with crypto, you’re getting two new chaotic, confusing entities together. And that didn’t bring more clarity. It might have created more confusion.

Marc Aptakin: I think it did. And all the all the all the NFT marketplaces, particularly, I’m not going to say all but the the ones that are that have a lot of art on them and that are well known. Opensea, which does about 80% of the NFT sold sell on Opensea. They now accept credit card payments and they put the value both in US dollars and in the value. Right, Right. Nifty Gateway Foundation, Rarible. Superrare All these NFT marketplaces all followed suit. They all take credit cards now. So that’s going to be a big change for it. And that’s going to make it that’s going to open it up to a lot more people. But kind of like what you said, it’s early days and it’s if nothing else, it’s been a learning curve and a lot of fun.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned card named and and talking about public art. So are you finding these the the public art is a group that is open to this.

Marc Aptakin: Very much so. So, you know, you have when you talk about the public art artists, these are a lot of the time it’s high value pieces that they’re doing and they’re large scale pieces, right? So there’s a piece where I am in Fort Lauderdale. An artist named Susan Ardley had gotten commissioned to light two of the bridges here in Fort Lauderdale that are about three blocks apart, you know, And so when she talked about what can I do to to do this, you know. It was like there’s a sense of community behind it, right? So I can’t take her work home with me. It’s on this giant bridge, right? So the idea of that that people within the community could own a piece of the work that’s represented that’s represented in such a large way within the community, there’s been an immense amount of interest in it, both from the artists, from the public art agencies, from the fabricators that help that help the artists with a lot of these things. It was it was a community that really opened its arms to the idea of it.

Lee Kantor: And it creates another path to monetize an experience.

Marc Aptakin: Yeah. I mean, there’s I think with Nfts, there’s a lot of different ways to look at it, right? It can absolutely be monetized. There’s utilities that could go with it, right? So there’s something called the Poe app, which is a proof of attendance. Nft, which generally are not it’s not a monetary transaction. It’s proving that you were at an event. So if there was a grand opening for the the the unveiling of a piece of public art, you can have this proof of attendance, NFT that was given away to everybody that came. You’d scan it, you’d scan a code and you’d receive it and you transfer through your digital wallet. Now you’ve gotten this, you know, it’s think of it almost like your ticket ticket stub back in the day, right? This it’s this memorialization that you were at this event and you’re taking pride in art that’s created in your community and it’s and it’s building again. And I think like most things with Web three, there’s generally a sense of community that’s behind it. Most of the NFT artists, when they when they do sales, they have a certain percentage that goes to a charity. So you see that almost 100% of the time.

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

Marc Aptakin: Awareness, really just we’re not real good at touting what we’re doing. And I think just an awareness to what we’re doing and the community that we’re trying to build here.

Lee Kantor: And that’s for the arts community.

Marc Aptakin: Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So you’re looking for more artists and you’re looking for more folks to kind of support these artists.

Marc Aptakin: Yeah, you know, just to be aware of what we’re doing and, you know, even if it’s just coming out to see what we’re doing, you know, that that’s great. That supports the artists when they come and they see how the shows are already busy. But, you know, the more people that come and see it and that are aware of the artists, that that always drives more things.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect with you or learn more about this, what’s a website? What’s the best way to plug in?

Marc Aptakin: Yes we are mat arts dot com and then if they want to check out Kota and the things that we’re doing with with the public art, it’s kota made.

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

Marc Aptakin: All right. Lee thank you for having me.

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

 

Chris Johnson With Nation’s Finest

November 19, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Chris JohnsonChris Johnson is the President/CEO of Nation’s Finest, a 50-year-old non-profit providing housing, health, and other critically needed support, to over 7,000 veterans and their families annually in California, Nevada, and Arizona.

For the last 30-plus years, prior to joining Nation’s Finest, Chris served in leadership positions for a variety of other non-profits including Evergreen Treatment Services, Mending Kids, and the National Kidney Foundation, and was promoted to a variety of local, regional, and national positions during his 12 plus years with the American Red Cross.

Chris’s career has afforded him a diverse variety of opportunities with three key skill strengths in common: communications, resource development and team building. He has been blessed to have had the fortune to actively participate in humanitarian and community support initiatives at the same time. He has served on no less than 20 different boards of directors and has been an active volunteer since the age of fifteen.

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn and follow Nation’s Finest on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • 50th Anniversary
  • Recognition of those who support veterans competition “Nation’s Finest 50”

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Chris Johnson with Nation’s Finest. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Johnson: Glad to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about nation’s finest. How are you serving folks?

Chris Johnson: Well, nation’s finest is a 50 year young organization this year, and it was founded by some Vietnam veterans that felt that the Vietnam era veterans were not being treated the way they needed to be and stepped up and stepped forward to make sure that that change occurred. So for the last 50 years, we’ve been doing whatever is needed to ensure that veterans have a place to live, get the health support they need, and can manage the the challenges that sometimes come up in seeking VA support and help, just the knowledge of how much is available and where to go and how to get it. So right now our focus has been on veteran homelessness as a priority, but we also were looking into all of those other issues just describe because we want to make sure that those who have served and have earned the support are getting it now.

Lee Kantor: Can you educate our listeners a little bit about what that transition looks like when somebody leaves the military? What is there for them to help them transition?

Chris Johnson: And that’s actually evolved positively a lot over the last few years. They’re now getting actually a person to connect with as they transition, but that disappears shortly after their departure from the military. And as you can imagine, the military has a very structured style of operation. You get in there and you get trained in how the military doesn’t matter which branch does business. And then there’s an expectation that once you leave the military, whether through retirement or you’ve served your term, etc., that you now go back to what we call normal living and there’s an expectation you’re going to evolve back quickly and easily. And that isn’t all the case, always the case. You sometimes, as you can imagine, those that have served overseas and and especially during times of conflict, you’re seeing things, you’re hearing things you’re dealing with, things that could create some sort of post-traumatic stress syndrome or or trauma. And you’re now out in the world having to find a job, having to do things. And all of that hitting you at the same time sometimes creates a challenge. And we’re here to help manage and maneuver you through that challenge so you can get back to heading toward being the best you you can be.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re working with a group that is so well trained and so mission focused, is it difficult to get them to ask for help or to identify those who are of need?

Chris Johnson: That’s a very perceptive question because, yes, one of the biggest challenges is they’ve been trained and are very proud of the fact that they can do a lot of things on their own and they don’t need help. And they’re very proud of who they are and what they’ve done. And as individuals, asking for help sometimes seems like it diminishes their importance, etc.. So our job is to go meet them where they are, build levels of trust, get them whatever support they need, so that then when they feel comfortable and trust us that we’re there for them, they come out of that shell as so use for a term and look forward to finding their way and their path back home.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that you’ve been doing this kind of work for 50 years now. Can you talk about how or what you’re doing to celebrate that 50th anniversary?

Chris Johnson: Well, what we’re doing is we decided we would take the 50th year because we realized we’re not alone in the world. There are tens of thousands of organizations out there and individuals out there supporting and doing their best to make sure that those who serve get the support they need. So we decided we’re going to create a we’ll call it a competition, but it’s more of a recognition. And we’re going to identify through nomination process 50 individuals that they’re not seeking recognition but deserve to be celebrated for the amount of success they’ve had stepping forward on behalf of others. So we’re calling it the nation’s finest 50. And we’re hoping people will nominate individuals that have helped them, individuals that started companies that are helping and making sure that veterans find their way home. That’s our best way of reminding everybody that there are people out here that are committing their lives and their finances in a lot of cases to making sure that those who have served are getting the support they need.

Lee Kantor: And this is kind of goes along with your mission to help support these veterans where they are and whether it’s through you specifically or just other organizations that want to help the veterans, you want to make sure that those folks are recognized and they’re part of the community that’s trying to help.

Chris Johnson: Absolutely. Couldn’t have said it better myself. We’re trying to make sure that the world at large understands that there are a lot of people out there doing amazing things to support these groups and hopefully encourage others to do the same.

Lee Kantor: And your work primarily takes place in the West.

Chris Johnson: But currently our footprint is predominantly in the Western United States. But we do help people all across the country in all 50 states. But our physical presence right now is in the western United States. We are getting asked to come support other states as far away as Florida and DC and Hawaii. And we’re wanting to walk to make sure we continue the excellence we’ve had for 50 years as opposed to run to support those. But we do a lot of long distance phone calls to help veterans in need and families of veterans who are trying their best to support their family members as well.

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

Chris Johnson: I’ve been involved with non-profits for my entire adult life. My father served in the Air Force for 33 and a half years, went through the Korean and the World War two conflicts in the very beginning of the Vietnam conflict. And so I have had a passion and been supportive of veterans my entire life. I was number 32 back in the day when they had the draft, the year they abolished the draft. And so I’ve had some friends that didn’t come back from the Vietnam War. And so I’ve been committed to supporting veterans my entire life and have been very honored and blessed to be given this opportunity to lead. Nation’s finest. My predecessor, Peter Cameron, who founded this 47 year, he founded it 50 years ago. He was the CEO for 47 and one half years. That shows you the commitment that he had to supporting. And I’m honored to try to continue his legacy.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for other association leaders out there that are taking over from a founder? Is it a different type of challenge when you’re dealing with that type of a transition from somebody whose vision is kind of imprinted in the DNA and culture of the organization to now you being the fresh blood in the in the group?

Chris Johnson: Well, that’s an hour conversation there. But the but it’s a very, very observant. You have a challenge because you’ve got a company culture and a style and a way of doing business all the way up and through your board of directors. If you’re a nonprofit or a corporation that’s been in place for a long time and no two people do everything alike. So the tough challenge and I’ve been fortunate in my career to have done this a couple of times, your your challenge is just making sure you embrace the legacy and the work and all the great things that have been accomplished by the individual before you celebrate the way that that individual did business in the areas that work and look for areas that need to be tweaked a little bit or wholesale changes that need to happen so that you can evolve because the world changes. And the one advantage and bring in somebody in after somebody has served that long is you do get a different look and a different perspective on it. But be prepared. If you’re going to go through this as a leader, you’re going to encounter cultural company, cultural dynamics. You’re going to have people that are outstanding in what they’re doing, but could be even better in another position in the organization. And you’re going to find voids and challenges that need to be fixed.

Lee Kantor: Now, Do you have any advice for young people who are maybe at the beginning of their career about the importance of joining associations and nonprofits and leaning into volunteer and leadership roles?

Chris Johnson: Sure. I think it serves two very important purposes. One is you do get to see how the business dynamics work in a nonprofit world, which, even though they’re a business and sometimes focus more on mission than on the business side of things, it does show you a different way of doing business. That can be it allows you to have the freedom to get involved in something that you’re passionate about and support something you’re passionate about without having to necessarily be the day to day person doing that activity. And what I mean by that is serving on a board, serving as an advisory person for a nonprofit. And what I find a lot of folks in my 35 plus years of doing this, a lot of folks use it so that I’ll use accounting as an example. They spend their entire day and their career starting out in accounting, and they would love to do something other than accounting and getting involved in some. An area that you’re passionate about allows you to maybe learn about marketing, get involved in fund development, get involved in business operations, and learn a little bit more about that. I will pretty much guarantee you, though, you’re going to enjoy the challenge and you’re going to feel good about what you’re doing. It’s just hard not to feel good when you realize and get the opportunity to meet those people you serve and just see in their eyes how much of a difference you’ve made in their day and hopefully their life.

Lee Kantor: And these organizations are hungry for volunteers and people that want to be involved. There’s you’re I’m sure, not saying no to a lot of volunteers.

Chris Johnson: So, in fact, just like you’re hearing now, the the business world is struggling to find staff, volunteers and organizations such as ours are no exception. The world has changed. We do a lot more things remote now and getting active volunteers to physically be present has been tough and we’ve had to evolve. So we’re even using volunteers to help us with remote activity, meaning you can be in any state or any any area of the country and still help an organization. Please reach out to them because I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised in how anxious they’ll be to utilize your talents.

Lee Kantor: And there’s probably a group out there that is doing work that you’re passionate about. You just don’t know about them yet.

Chris Johnson: You’ll be amazed if you type in to to the search engines. An interest you have, you’re going to see hundreds of non profits pop up. And I would, if it’s okay to mention a couple of places to go, or GuideStar and Charity Navigator and you can type in what it is you’re interested in, You’ll see where the charities are from. You’ll even be able to see whether or not they’ve had challenges or successes. And that’s not a bad way to go to kind of narrow the list of available charities to serve for.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect, connect with you, what is the website? What’s the best way to get ahold of you or somebody on your team?

Chris Johnson: Well, if you want to nominate somebody for the award or you want to just reach out to any of us, go to nation’s finest dot org all one word nations, finest dot org. And there’s access to all of us there, the nomination form. And if you want to reach out to me, you can just click a button and reach out to me.

Lee Kantor: And then that list of the nation’s finest 50 is that only for the folks in the areas you serve? Or that can be anywhere.

Chris Johnson: That’s anywhere. In fact, if you went to the site now, you’ll see some fairly prominent folks that you’ve seen involved in supporting the military and in particular veterans. And you’re going to learn a lot of stories already from I think we just started accepting nominations on the 11th, and there’s always already been quite a few that have come in. But yes, any time in the last 50 years. So if somebody was a tremendous help and they have since passed, please nominate them. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to recognize all of the nominees, but we’re going to give a special award to the 50 that are chosen by the blue ribbon panel. And if you look at that blue ribbon panel, it’s some pretty impressive people on that list. But you’ll also find access to some of the service. If you’re a veteran in need, reach out to us. And if we can direct you to a support in a state or a city close to you, we’re happy to do that. If we can provide support, we’re happy to do that as well.

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

Chris Johnson: Thank you for allowing me to share it. That’s what we’re all about. Get the word out and let’s help those who need it.

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

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"Our weekly show offers useful information and helpful hints to small business owners, which is the market we serve. I've received positive feedback from our clients while also opening doors to prospective new clients."

J. Moss Embassy National Bank

"Thanks to our weekly radio show we have been exposed to businesses from all over the country, and even in other parts of the world. We now have clients in South America and the Philippines as well as across the U.S.. This would not have been possible without Business RadioX®."

Sterling Rose Consulting Corp.

“Our partnership with Business RadioX has given Subaru of Gwinnett great awareness within the business community and we are excited about our continued partnership.”

Steve Kendrick Executive General Manager, Subaru of Gwinnett

“If you have a concept for a show or a message you want to convey, you can count on Business RadioX® to be your creative and steadfast partner, with unparalleled professionalism and attention to detail.”

Dan Miller Wealth Horizon

"Thank you, Lee Kantor and Business RadioX® for giving small businesses a platform to share our stories!"

Maryellen Stockton Work Well Wherever

“Our show on Business RadioX® has not only provided a positive and memorable way to engage with our current and potential clients, but our return on investment has fast tracked our growth. Our initial 90 days of the show netted >$500,000 in new business agreements, and we were able connect with many higher level clients than previously. Thanks Lee, Stone, Kevin and crew!”

Tanya Mack, President of HealthGate

"Our own local zoo crew right here in Gainesville, Georgia! Love this bunch of loyal North Georgia business advocates! They love what they do and shine as they do it, all while promoting business leaders and our lovely community! Listen in to their podcasts, give their page a and share with your friends!"

Kat Reinacher Wofford

"Great people and a terrific local business here in N Georgia"

Bernadette Johnson

" Thank you for inviting Level Up Haircuts to your show. We had a fun and great time"

Angelica Tabor Fells, Owner Level-Up Haircuts

"Love what North GA Business RadioX does for the business community"

James Barber

"Thank you so kindly for allowing me to be on GWBC Radio! You really put me at ease and this was an amazing experience."

Bianca Thrasher-Starobin CEO, 23 Consulting

"Gary and Stone are an incredible duo on Business RadioX's Good Morning Cherokee. They made us feel so comfortable and at ease about being on air.  Conversation was organic and natural.  These two guys are true professionals and focus on helping lift and support local businesses.  We are looking forward to connecting with them again soon!" 

Maggie Clifford & Cindy Austin Allee and Main

"Thanks again for being a part of the "Podcasting for Beginners" class. The feedback from the participants was clear that they got a lot out of the session. We would love to have you be a part of the more advanced class "Podcasting for Profits"

Alicia Johnson Program Coordinator, Georgia SBDC

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We help local business leaders get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession.

We support and celebrate business by sharing positive business stories that traditional media ignores. Some media leans left. Some media leans right. We lean business.

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