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Mike Lenard With TaKorean

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Mike
Franchise Marketing Radio
Mike Lenard With TaKorean
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MikeMike Lenard has been a leader in business operations, leadership, retail, and food service for the past 17 years. In 2010 Mike founded TaKorean, a DC based Korean Taco and Rice Bowl concept in a retrofitted 1985 Ford Box-Truck. TaKorean has since grown to as many as 5 locations in Washington DC and Philadelphia and currently operates 2 locations. Mike co-founded the DMV Food Truck Association in 2011 and served as its Assistant Director and Treasurer until 2014.

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn. 

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Worker issues including; paid time off, compensation, workplace culture.
  • Use of technology for administrative operations – making the restaurant office run itself so leaders can lead
  • TaKorean’s launching a franchisee program that it has been working on for

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Mike Lenard with TaKorean. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Lenard: [00:00:42] Thank you. Good to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about TaKorean and how are you serving folks?

Mike Lenard: [00:00:49] Yeah, so TaKorean started about 12 years ago in Washington, D.C. It’s a quick service, fast casual restaurant chain, and it served down the line in front of customers, Rice Bowl and taco concepts. So very much in line with the build your own bowl concept that we’re seeing a lot of. And it’s a Korean inspired with kind of a Latin American twist in terms of flavoring.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:13] And right now you started are you the founder of it? Did you start it or you’re the current CEO?

Mike Lenard: [00:01:21] Yes, I’m the founder and I still run the company today. We actually started out of a food truck back in 2010. And then by 2012 and 2014, we opened our first two fixed locations and in 2015 we actually retired the food truck and continued to to pursue inline and brick and mortar restaurants.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] So when you started it, did you envision it at some point to be a franchise and you were just kind of testing the waters with the food truck? Or is this something that just kind of organically grew over time?

Mike Lenard: [00:01:53] Yeah, franchising is something that was not on my mind when I very first started. However, in the early days in 2011, 2012, I did have conversations with some people in the industry about franchising, so it was always in the back of my head. At that time. I wasn’t ready to get into it. And you know, there are a couple of different growth models for companies and and for a while I sort of dabbled in which way we wanted to grow. Obviously, there are quick service restaurant companies that are all privately owned or they’re publicly owned and traded. And then there’s franchise companies and there’s pros and cons to both of them. And I think that with all the experience I have now, it really made sense to teach people how to help me run the business in a sense of the franchisee relationship. And that’s really where it came back around during the pandemic. I was doing a little bit of consulting on the side and I was like, What am I better at consulting it than anything in the world? How to run a Thai Korean restaurant? And I was like, Gosh, I need to look at franchising again. And and I think that we can really make a splash. And I think that we can sort of update the way franchising is and really keep a lot of quality control and and a lot of support.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:07] Now, when you were having those kind of thoughts and conversations, were you thinking, I’ll just take the food truck and franchise the food truck as the franchise? Or were you always looking, okay, now we’re going to have to get into brick and mortar here and do it that way?

Mike Lenard: [00:03:21] Yeah, the transition to brick and mortar didn’t have that much to do with any franchising ideas. It was more just food trucks are hard, man, you know, they’re hot, they’re sweaty, they’re not dirty from a health code standpoint. But, you know, there’s just a lot of grease buildup and stuff you have to clean every day. And I really enjoyed those days. But it’s actually more difficult, in my opinion, to create standard operations around a food truck and to have a general manager of a food truck, in my opinion, has to be a much higher level person than a general manager of of a quick service restaurant, because, you know, you’re going different places every day. You’re parking different places every day. You have to know how to troubleshoot a generator and fix a water pump and all these different things. So I actually found it getting into the larger restaurants, which are also higher volume to be easier. And I think that that was really what paved the way for that growth. So the food truck was never really a thought for that. We’ve thought a little bit about offering a food truck type license for college campuses, food programs and things of that nature. So you might see a little bit of that, but that’s not a huge push with the franchising.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:35] Now, you mentioned that your expertise was around kind of running this type of a restaurant. Is that something that you were able to quickly transfer the knowledge to people, maybe not as passionate or as skilled or as you? And then you were realizing, hey, maybe I can replicate this. If I can do that, then, you know, I’m almost there.

Mike Lenard: [00:05:00] Right? I mean, so I was doing consulting, restaurant consulting. But for for other people, not this was just some side stuff I was doing and I was helping them with leadership, culture and standard operating procedures and things of that nature a little bit with marketing. But to be clear, we actually have not sold a franchise unit yet. We’re just launching, we just finished our PhD. We’re out to market really just in the last couple of weeks. So we’re obviously. Really excited to get someone on board and give them give them a lot of support. And I think that passion’s a little bit of an overrated word. It’s starting to mean less these days. I think that you just need good people who want to run a good business. And and I can we can teach those people exactly what to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:50] So where do you think the opportunity lies when you have kind of a workforce that is a little persnickety at the moment? You know, you have a lot of folks that don’t want to get into this kind of work. And how do you create a culture that makes your place of work a place that they want to be part of and, you know, a hill they do want to climb and be part of a bigger mission.

Mike Lenard: [00:06:17] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to Korean, conceptually, is is simple, right? We have a limited amount of gas equipment. We don’t do deep frying. We have a limited amount of SKUs and prep work. So from an environmental standpoint, a lot of our employees find it simpler and easier to execute our food and it enhances the quality of the work environment. Know, a lot of the people that we have have also worked at other quick service restaurants. And it’s not that it’s easy. I mean, restaurant work’s always going to be hard, but a lot of it’s about creating a concept that’s not unnecessarily complicated. The other thing is our administrative processes and the technology we use for everything from invoice processing to scheduling and everything else. You know, the managers can spend a lot more of their time working, working in the shift shoulder to shoulder with everyone. They don’t have a lot of administrative work to do in our system. That also leads to a really good work culture. And then, you know, I can only speak for our company stores, but I think it’s a lot about leadership skills. And and this is a place where I have done leadership coaching before and we can bring that to our franchisees to create the environment we want. Our company stores, we’ve been very successful with staff retention and we haven’t had a lot of the issues you’re seeing out there right now. Obviously, those issues are real and it’s, you know, because restaurant work is kind of sucks sometimes, right? And it’s all about reframing the conversation, you know, and just creating a concept that sucks a little bit less and trying to have fun while you’re there really is how we see it. Compensation is another aspect to compensate people correctly. You know, with a franchisee, we don’t dictate that because that’s not part of the franchise process, but it’s certainly something that we want to align with people who believe in. You know, it really comes out. It’s a business decision, really, and we feel like it pays off.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:26] Now, you mentioned that like leadership and culture, it’s an important part of of what you’re offering potential franchisees. And you use the word coaching. Is coaching part of what the franchisee is going to get? I noticed a lot more franchises offering some sort of regular coaching sessions, whether it be individual or group to their franchisees. Is that something that you’re going to employ as well?

Mike Lenard: [00:08:56] Yeah. So as part of our our manager training, which every franchisee would go to, we actually have a huge section on leadership methodology, which I think is unique. I’ve read a lot of other people’s manuals and they don’t touch on this enough. I don’t think so. There’s going to be kind of a core tenor throughout the entire relationship that’s going to be based around what we expect in terms of of how we want to lead our operations, in terms of the ongoing coaching. Yes, we will do. But it’s going to obviously be on a case by case basis because some people are going to need more than others. You know, another thing with leadership coaching is it’s not all about kind of teaching and managing people. A lot of it’s almost almost akin to therapy, right? I mean, you’re talking through issues at their store. There’s interpersonal issues between people. Okay. Like what are the nuances here? You know, how do you deal with it? And in that sense, yeah, we would we would provide a lot of support for that.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:54] Yeah. I think that one of the key things to implement any type of coaching program is to reframe it from something punitive to something as almost as a perk, that this isn’t something you have to do, this is something you get to do. And it’s only going to help you grow faster and and help you improve your, your workforce and you personally. So that’s the way I’ve seen it work best. If you can reframe it from something that is that you’re trying to fix somebody, you’re just trying to help somebody be better.

Mike Lenard: [00:10:28] Yeah, that’s right. That’s absolutely right.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:31] Now, since you don’t have any franchisees right now, have you developed an idea, at least around a persona or an avatar for that ideal franchisee? Is he the person that’s getting one area or she getting one territory and that’s it? Or are you looking for empire builders? Are you looking for professional? Franchisees where this is just another brand in a portfolio.

Mike Lenard: [00:10:54] Yeah, I mean, ideally and look, we’re there’s a lot of different types of people out there that I believe could successfully run a Taco Ryan store. So, you know, just to start with that, we’ve thought about this a lot and we have all kinds of whiteboards on the wall with different things. And yes, I mean, I think ideally to just to start, we’d like a couple of individual unit franchisees, you know, that we can really give a lot of support to people who are likely first time franchisees just because of the nature of the fact that we’re unproven and we’re aware of that. And yeah, I think the important thing is that, you know, they’ve got the finances where they can open it comfortably. They’re not spending their last dollar doing it. They potentially have the finances where if it does if it performs well, that they can expand so that there’s at least a trajectory there. And then in terms of who they are, I think that we want to have a good relationship. That could be a lot of different types of people, but they need to be basically good hearted person. And in terms of experience, we just want people who are familiar with being on their feet and facing customers. So it doesn’t have to be that they worked in a restaurant. It could be that they worked at a shoe store, could be that they were a pharmacist. It could be a lot of different things. But we want someone who at least knows what it’s like to stand on their feet and face customers, just so that we understand that they they are aware of those demands. And other than that, there’s really a lot of different types of people who could be successful in terms of empire building and multi unit. Yeah, of course we’d love to. To have the right partner, build lots of stores. Everybody wants that. But I think you have to be careful when you’re starting out and you have to create a nice base and a pad to build on. And so I think we’re just trying to start a little bit slow.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:47] Now, what about location? Are you looking at college areas? Are you looking at the exurbs? Is there a certain kind of population or demographics that you’re looking for where successful units can operate?

Mike Lenard: [00:13:02] Yeah, I think that second tier cities like in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, we’re interested in getting into Maryland and Virginia, but we’re not yet registered in those states. You know, those are the types of areas where I think we’d like to to kick it off. We’re also open to up in New England, Massachusetts. And if we found the right partner, we potentially be open in a lot of places. But I think we’re going to focus our energy in terms of marketing to the mid-Atlantic region and in terms of the real estate itself. You know, there’s a lot of types of real estate we can do well in. And I think suburban strip centers, modernized suburban strip centers are really, really good for concepts like this. And then I also think that in more urban areas they can be. But things have changed a lot in the last couple of years with central business districts being, you know, they used to be five day markets, now they’re three day markets. Right. So, you know, the office that we used to look at in real estate has changed a lot. So it’s a little bit of something to to sidestep and just kind of figure out what else is there. Ideally, we want centers where there is office and residential and experiential things going on. And you know, everybody wants that. I’m saying I’m describing the perfect real estate. I realize that. But, you know, I think it’s important to bring the product to where the customers are going to interact with it best.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:36] Does it work best in areas where, you know, people are focused on their health and wellness, like, does it work well in a strip center that has maybe a fitness center? Or is it does it have to have a grocery store? There are certain kind of markers that make one location better than another.

Mike Lenard: [00:14:56] We perform well around fitness centers. We think our food is really well balanced and eats relatively light. We don’t market ourselves as specifically healthy because we don’t want to border to disingenuous, but we do think that it’s the type of thing that’s light that doesn’t weigh you down for the rest of the day. It has a lot of vegetables in it. So there is some appeal there, there’s no question. But the grocery store thing is actually huge, right. The biggest thing is that we we know that we’re not Chipotle. Right. So we need to be somewhere where people come there on a routine basis and we get that kind of exposure. So, you know, coffee shops like Starbucks, particularly grocery stores and then gyms are good because it’s really part of someone’s routine. And so those are all very good things that we look for and also that we’ve experienced in our own company.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:49] Stores now in the growth of the company. And I’m sure the pandemic might have kind of spurred some of this. Do you have like an easy ordering app for pickup and curbside and things like that? Or is that almost table stakes in today’s world?

Mike Lenard: [00:16:04] Yeah. I mean, everyone should have that. We we have integrated online ordering for pickup or delivery. And then obviously we’re on the third party apps as well. But we encourage people to go to CNN.com for you can also order delivery through there. We also integrate directly with a third party where they actually deliver our white label orders, which operationally makes it really easy for us because we get to retain all the customer data and obviously we pay a flat delivery fee instead of a percentage and we get to own our customer experience. So if anything goes wrong, it’s easier for us to refund them or give them credit for next time. Whereas if anything goes wrong with a third party order, we we’re not the ones that took their money. So it’s hard for us to service those customers. So yeah, it’s fully integrated and from an operator standpoint, it’s all integrated into our point of sale and into our accounting system. There’s very little manual entry, if any, that’s required with that system.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:05] So if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity, what’s the website.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:10] It’s going to launch this week? And it is well, take and you can obviously get to it.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:17] And then from there there’ll be a way to get into the franchise if you’re interested in the opportunity.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:24] But we’ll be talking in just double check taker and franchise. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t talking franchising. Yes. So it’s Takara and franchised also. You can get there from Taco CNN.com as well where you can see our core business.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:40] And that’s Taco Orian.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:44] That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:45] Well, Mike, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:51] Thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you again.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:55] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

 

Josh Hettiger With Fitness Premier

by

Josh
Franchise Marketing Radio
Josh Hettiger With Fitness Premier
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FitnessPremierJoshJosh Hettiger, COO at Fitness Premier.

After a successful football career at Saint Xavier University and a short run at the NFL, Josh Hettiger met with Jason Markowicz and Rick King to discuss life after football. After seeing how Jason and Rick had navigated the transition from college athletes to business owners, he joined forces to help grow their brands.

Josh became an owner/operator of Fitness Premier Cedar Lake while working on the development of the Franchise. As the brands began expanding, Josh moved into the COO role, meeting with potential franchisees and growing the footprint of Fit For You Franchising.

He believes that the team and systems they have in place will give potential business owners the tools they need to become successful business owners.

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Josh Hettiger and he is with Fitness Premiere. Welcome, Josh.

Josh Hettiger: [00:00:43] Hey, Lee, how are you doing?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] I am doing great. Before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about fitness premier.

Josh Hettiger: [00:00:50] All right. So Fitness premiere, we are a hybrid concept fitness model. So our clubs range from 7500 to 12000 square feet. You kind of find us in the middle of an orange theory and a la fitness. We kind of take the best of both worlds, combine it into one hybrid fitness model and serve underserved communities, you know, typically 15,000 people or less. And we provide them with the absolute best fitness facility that we can.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:19] So what are you seeing in the fitness world now? There seems to be so many choices for the consumer. There are so many things they could be doing at home. There are so many boutique clubs, there are so many kind of low priced, you know, opportunities. Where is the opportunity for fitness, Premier?

Josh Hettiger: [00:01:37] You know, I think it’s great that there is so much opportunity for people to invest in their house because that’s really what it is. You know, we typically only need to tap into 10 to 12% of our markets, which we do in all 17 of our locations currently. If that number rises, obviously profitability rises as well. How we kind of tap into that is we give a we the markets, we go into it. Typically, we don’t deal with more than 2 to 3 competitors and we tend to believe that we do what we do better than them. So when we get members in the door, we’re providing them with a solution, not just a treadmill to, you know, walk on a couple of times a week, but we’re providing them a full plan that includes recovery, nutrition, training, and it’s just all encompassing. And it provides a really, really easy way for that individual to make a healthy choice in their life.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:27] Now, is your customer typically the person who is sedentary that is moving maybe to their first or one of the first gyms that they join? Or is this somebody that is kind of been around the block a little and this is offering them something different that’s more customized to the outcome they desire?

Josh Hettiger: [00:02:44] You know, it’s definitely a combination of both. I think the main kind of our main mission is that every person who walks through the door receives the just the absolute best everything. We have a saying like we tell people on their first tour, like, hey, 95% of the people who join gyms don’t get what they joined the gym for. We don’t want that to be you. We don’t want that to be us. So, you know, we’re going to hold your hand. We’re going to make sure you’re accountable to everything you tell us. You’re coming in here for today. We don’t want to see you fizzle out after a month and not achieve your results. So, you know, that could resonate with the person who’s been to five other gyms and hasn’t really seen progress or hasn’t ever achieved what they join the gym for or the person who’s never went into a gym and they don’t really know what to expect. We’re going to hold both their hands and make sure that they give us some goals on that first day that they want to accomplish. And and we’re going to hold them to that the whole way through.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:32] So how do you do that? Do you employ technology to help them stay compliant with their wellness and workout program?

Josh Hettiger: [00:03:40] It’s a mix of both. So obviously a lot of personal contact in that first few visits. Typically they come in for a tour, they might buy up a membership ranging from 24 to 39 bucks a month, super affordable for any consumer. Then from that first meeting, we’re going to we’re going to schedule a one hour consultation with one of our managers or trainers at the facility. They are going to decide and develop a plan together that fits both their monetary and their financial and their time kind of restrictions. Once they do that, we do incorporate technology with weekly checkups, text messages, as well as we have a app that integrates trainer eyes which can actually show them exactly what work out they’re doing each day on their phone. We have an app live attachment that kind of goes with that. So think like less mills or any of the other at home virtual workouts. Any members with us do receive FP live, so if they can’t make it into the gym one day, you know, we’re based in Chicago, so if it’s snowy and they don’t want to get in the car, they don’t want to shovel, they can they can turn on one of the virtual workouts and do it right from the comfort of their home.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:54] And when what do you find? You’ve been in the fitness world for a minute, and historically, the difficulty in an individual being compliant and sticking with the program is is really low and it’s probably much lower than the average person thinks. Why do you think that is? Is it just that the the facilities or the program that they’re with is just not keeping them interested over time? Or is it just kind of how humans are that we’re just it’s just a difficult thing for us to stay compliant with? Like, what’s your kind of theory on why it’s so hard for people to stick with? Any type of wellness, nutrition or exercise program.

Josh Hettiger: [00:05:35] I think it’s a mix of both, right? As humans, we don’t like hard. Obviously, everything we do and today is designed to make our lives more easy, more efficient. So I think someone putting in an hour of work 3 to 4 times a week, that’s that’s grueling to some people. Like that’s hard. And then I think there’s a lot of people who are in the fitness industry who do a poor job of holding those people’s hands and keeping them accountable. Not to say that we don’t lose members and lose people off their plan, but I definitely think it’s human nature to kind of want to stray away. And then I think it’s it’s a downfall on some of the people in the fitness industry who kind of let them walk away. There’s definitely a misconception with like a lot of people have a fear of their gyms kind of trapping them and not letting them in. So I don’t want to say, like, that’s what we do, but we really are personable with our members. We have a we have a program called Team Training where we actually spend hours outside of the gym with our members. We we go to kids baseball games. We sponsor the youth ministry project or whatever the case may be. So we kind of want to become a staple in their lives. So when their lives get hard, they don’t run from us. They’re kind of already integrated with us. So yeah, it’s definitely a combination of both human and downfall on the fitness professionals in the industry, but that’s just one of the hurdles you have to overcome when you’re in this industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:03] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved with Fitness Premier and in the fitness world?

Josh Hettiger: [00:07:09] So I kind of came, you know, completely it was a completely random decision. I graduated college in December of 2019, right before COVID hit. I was a two time all-American football player and had a decent shot at the NFL, worked out for a few teams, went through the whole process. And then March of 2020, COVID shut everything down. So I was kind of stuck in like a standstill. Do I continue trying for football? Do I go into work? And that’s when Jason Markowitz, who is the founder and CEO of fitness premier, who was also an alumni for my college, reached out to me and he said, hey, let’s let’s meet, let’s talk. He kind of presented me with this. They just started franchising a year or two earlier. He had a vision of how many locations he wanted to take the brand to, what he wanted to do. And I kind of just resonated with his competitive spirit, you know, his vision, what he wanted to do, the culture of fitness premier and kind of went out on a whirlwind. It wasn’t my major in college. I always wanted to get into business, never knew what it was, but I kind of seen that vision with him. I started as a franchisee and then elevated into a role where now I had the franchise development of the brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:22] Now what do you find the qualities or maybe the personalities of a successful franchisee with this brand? Are they kind of people like you that maybe had a you know, was in fitness in some form, maybe not the business side, but you were an athlete? Or are they kind of these new professional franchisees where they have several brands and this is just a complementary kind of brand in their portfolio?

Josh Hettiger: [00:08:51] So we actually have a very wide, very wide array of franchisees on our team right now. And I think it’s a testament to our back office support team and being able to work with anyone. I think the biggest standout component that you need for to be a franchisee with us is to just want to help your community. We go into, like I said, communities that are 10 to 15000 people and typically they’re underserved when it comes to the service industry. So to become a staple, that’s a that’s a special type of person that wants to show up to the to the league softball game or to show up to the commerce meetings with ten other business owners. I think really just wanting to help that community thrive is is a component. You need to be successful with us. But we have franchisees who are like myself, former athletes, kind of been around fitness their whole life who have found success. And we have franchisees. We have multi-unit franchisees who’ve never really I don’t even know if they’ve played a sport and they have success as well. I think our back office support team does an excellent job with tailoring their service to the needs of the franchisee because frankly, we have some who operate their business day to day. They’re in the training sessions, they’re in those first appointments and tours. And then we have franchisees who are just in the club once or twice a month, and they rely on a general manager or operating partner to do most of that day to day. So. The biggest like I said, the biggest component you need to be successful with us is just to want to make a difference in that community that either you’re from or that you find that we fit the market.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:36] Now, any advice for maybe former athletes that, you know, they finish? You know, they went as far as they can go in their sport and now they’re in that point of transition. And that’s a difficult time for an athlete, especially that is achieved as much as you’ve achieved where a lot of your identity is in that sport. You are a football player and then all of a sudden you’re not a football player. And it might seem like, well, what can I do now? You know, it’s a difficult transition for a lot of folks. Any advice for those former athletes when they’re looking for their next move to consider franchising or to consider a fitness franchise where it is kind of tangentially connected and you are serving people and you are, you know, creating that team atmosphere that you probably enjoyed in your sport. But it also you have the skills to be a successful business person in terms of having discipline, you know, believing in the team, like all these kind of qualities, maybe the softer skill qualities that that are the intangibles of what it takes to be successful in business.

Josh Hettiger: [00:11:41] So I feel like you just took all those lines straight from me because I can’t say that that’s all true enough, you know? I came everyone always is always shocked how young I am. And they’re like, Oh, you’re doing all this at a young age. But I’m like, Honestly, I’ve been doing all this for years. You know, the time management, the work ethic, the drive, the discipline you need to be successful in a sport I think goes hand in hand with business ownership and franchising. So when I kind of fell into this opportunity, like I loved it, I was like, All right, I’m building a culture with my team at the location as well as the corporate team. You know, if stuff goes wrong, it’s on me, stuff goes right, it’s on me. And I think that’s the best thing. I didn’t want to be a part of a chain where I really didn’t make a difference. I think being an athlete, you kind of you kind of always strive to make a difference. You’re always looking to make a play per se. And I think franchising small business ownership gives you that ability. And, you know, if you have if you have those those qualities, like we said, if you’re willing to show up early, you’re willing to stay late, you’re willing to put in whatever work is necessary to make that business succeed. You will find one a more fulfilling career path in this industry and to just, you know, better outcome for yourself, because at the end of the day, no one’s going to work as hard for you as you are when you’re on the field. It’s a really easy analogy. For whatever reason, it gets lost in the professional slash workplace, but I really think it’s something that more athletes need to consider because they do have, like we said, the qualities that it takes to be successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:19] So what do you need more of? How can we help? Do you need more franchisees? You need more people on your team to grow the franchise brand, more customers for fitness. Premier, what do you need?

Josh Hettiger: [00:13:32] All the above. Now, honestly, we’re at a we’re at a point of growth right now. We we mapped out we just went through the iOS implementation for the second time as a company. You know, we’re really we’ve dialed in what our growth looks like and now we’re just, you know, we’re executing what we need to to be successful. We’re at 17 locations now. We predict we’ll be at just over 20 by the end of the year. We have four in progress. We’ve signed we recently signed a franchisee in Georgia. We have some plans in Wisconsin right now. So we’re we’re we’re expanding to a few new states. We’re adding people to the team, and we’re constantly looking for franchisees. You know, our process is super diligent with who we kind of let into our team because we are so culture, community based. We want to make sure everyone’s the right fit for us. So all of the above, to answer your question and you know, we’re on that path.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] Well, if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity, what is the website for fitness premier and or the best way to get a hold of you or somebody on your team.

Josh Hettiger: [00:14:40] So they could go to fitness premier clubs dot com or 1851 franchise fit for you franchising dot com. My my personal number is 7082891681. Feel free to call text email me any hour if you’re looking for any of that information, whether you’re looking to come join one of our clubs or come build a club of your own, I’m always available.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:06] Good stuff. Well, Josh, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work. We appreciate you.

Josh Hettiger: [00:15:12] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to come on and talk.

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

 

Matt Riley With ICS

by

MattRiley
Association Leadership Radio
Matt Riley With ICS
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MattRileyMatt Riley, CAE, is the Director of Associations for ICS, an internationally recognized full-service professional conference organizer (PCO) and association management company (AMC) with over 40 years of experience managing medical, academic, and scientific conferences and clients all over the world.

A Certified Association Executive, Matt has served in senior leadership positions in numerous associations including the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the National Court Reporters Association, and the Shop Environments Association. He was also the CEO of The Conference Agency, based in London England, providing event management and strategic planning services to European and North American clients. Matt has also volunteered to write articles, give presentations, and serve on committees for numerous industry organizations including the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), the Association of Association Executives (AAE), the International Association of Professional Congress Organizers (IAPCO), Conference News, and others.

He lives in New York City with his wife, Jacque, and when they’re not working or traveling the world, they enjoy amateur motorsports racing in a spec Miata named Kristen.

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Top challenges facing international associations in the 2020’s

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: [00:00:20] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Matt Riley with ICS International Conference Services. Welcome, Matt.

Matt Riley: [00:00:33] Hi, Lee. Thanks for having.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] Me. Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about ICS. How are you serving folks?

Matt Riley: [00:00:40] Sure. So ICS is both a professional conference organizer and an association management company. We’ve been in business for over 30 years and we’ve got clients all over the globe. So just kind of helping with running their conferences, running their association’s strategy and everything in between.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] So how did this come about? I’ve been talking to several folks that are in that same space. Does it typically happen with they start running one association or they’re working with one and it just kind of organically expands from there, like, what was your history?

Matt Riley: [00:01:10] Yeah, correct. We were a PKO first and really kind of became known for that and then over time started to have clients who were looking for association management help. And that was when our association management department was started. My teams started to build up, so and now we have about 15 clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] So now when you’re building up, you’re the director of associations. Can you talk about what a day in the life is for you?

Matt Riley: [00:01:36] Sure. So I lead a team of about 12 people. They’re all executive directors of different associations. Our focus is international. We work with a lot of medical and scientific societies. So my day consists of helping clients just kind of navigate the waters of association management, a lot of sort of mentoring with the team and providing resources and ideas and that sort of thing. For all the different challenges that our clients are facing right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:05] And an association kind of leans on an association management company like yours because a lot of times they’re volunteer organizations and maybe their vision is is bigger than the kind of the team that they have around with around them. So they have to, like hire a professional to help them kind of expand and grow and serve their members.

Matt Riley: [00:02:27] Yeah, correct. Most of our clients actually don’t have their own staff, so they are doctors or scientists or commissioners or some, some they’re focused on their profession. So they’re the subject matter experts. They kind of have a handle on on content and on whatever that industry is. But they’re really looking for association management knowledge and best practices and sort of the business side of running the organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:53] And I would imagine when you put a professional group like yours in place, you can really accelerate their growth because you’re kind of getting the best practices from all the other folks that you’re serving and you can really institute some efficiencies quickly.

Matt Riley: [00:03:08] Absolutely. And it’s become especially important in the last few years. The pandemic really sort of shined a light on a lot of practices. And if, you know, if you weren’t looking to the future, if you weren’t thinking about revenue diversification, if you were relying on one big conference for basically all of your business operations, then those were the associations that really kind of had their eyes open in terms of needing to diversify a little more, needing to look at some other options. And that’s something that’s really a strength for us now.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:35] Are there certain challenges that are facing international associations that maybe aren’t as prevalent for ones that are just kind of in America?

Matt Riley: [00:03:47] Absolutely. Yeah. You know, we’re seeing domestic conferences starting to come back. I would say I think it’s safe to say they are back for the most part, but international, there’s still a lot of there’s still barriers to travel, there’s still political instability. There’s still a lot of economic volatility in the world. So a lot of our international conferences are not still moving forward and we’re just still seeing a lot of barriers to our our international associations still kind of lingering.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:16] Now, are you or can you share some maybe some solutions or some opportunities that you see in that space?

Matt Riley: [00:04:24] Sure. Absolutely. I mean, I think one big opportunity right now is this is really an opportunity for innovation. So like I was saying, if maybe the association was kind of in we’ve always done it that way. So that’s sort of my my least favorite phrase in the association space. I really think there’s a lot of permission right now to experiment and to innovate. So just because maybe maybe that you thought the conference was your main driver of of member value. And it may well be like I say, we’ve really kind of been made aware now in a painful way of the need to have other other. To hang your hat on, you know, other sources of revenue and other drivers of member value for the association. So if you’re not already looking at publications or digital content or some, it all depends on the industry and the member and what their challenges are and what their needs are. But we really kind of have to get a little more diligent and a little more creative and looking at how can we how can we serve members in a different way from that. We’ve always done it that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:26] Mindset Yeah, I guess the pandemic really forced that, right? So you have a period where a lot of organizations were saying, Hey, it’s our big event and that’s why we’re here for the big gala or the big event conference. And then when the pandemic shut that down, now you’re like, Well, why are people still members? You know, if our whole reason of being was this big event.

Matt Riley: [00:05:46] There’s you know, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Like I say, we’re a conference company. So we we we live and breathe that. But it’s just, you know, it’s kind of thinking bigger than that, you know? Yes, you need a world class event, but it’s kind of like what else, you know, what have you done for me lately as sort of the member the member opinion? So if you’re only engaging one time a year, no matter how good that conference is, you’re going to struggle to kind of keep keep front of mind with your audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:12] Right. It’s like you said, diversify your portfolio a little bit. Don’t put all your eggs in that one basket. Let’s see what else we can do and see. Be creative. Yeah, absolutely. Now, when you’re working with an association and you’re having this, this is a tough conversation, I would imagine, for some folks, because, like you said, that inertia of the status quo is a tough one to to really move off of. But I guess the pandemic helped that in that it just kind of forced their hand. They had to do this. They had to make some moves.

Matt Riley: [00:06:45] Yeah. Forced a lot of conversations among leaders. And then like I say, I think it also gave us a lot of permission with with numbers, with conference attendees, with whoever needs to sort of approve some sort of change or give a little bit of a little bit of patience or a little bit of permission. I think we’ve really got that right now because, you know, we’re hopefully emerging from a time of disruption. But the upside of that is you really get a chance to kind of create something new. And I think a lot of people, especially if they maybe haven’t been super engaged or they haven’t been really sort of wowed by the experience that they’re getting out of their membership, they really are more willing than a lot of people think to, you know, to give you time and space to experiment. And maybe you try some things and it doesn’t work. That’s not the end of the world. Like know people I think are not as critical as maybe they would have been before.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:39] Now, are you seeing younger folks being drawn to associations or is that something that associations need work to attract younger people to not only join but also to take have a path to leadership?

Matt Riley: [00:07:54] Well, it’s certainly a big focus. I mean, I don’t you know, we do a lot of strategic planning with our clients. And I don’t think I’ve had a strategic planning session in the last three years that didn’t come out with some kind of goal, focusing around engaging younger members and the next generation of leadership, and also looking at diversity as well and broadening broadening the membership in that way. So it’s a really key area of focus. I would say. I’m seeing different levels of success and it really depends how much are you really willing to put your money where your mouth is as an organization and really invest in in driving real change that’s going to going to attract both younger and more diverse numbers and leaders.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:34] Is there any advice you can give in that area? Because that is an area of concern for a lot of folks struggling with the same issues.

Matt Riley: [00:08:43] Well, I mean, I think my advice would be it has to be more than lip service. A lot of organizations are coming out with a diversity statement or maybe they’re creating a young member committee or something along those lines. And that’s great. It’s definitely a starting point, but I think it has to be more substantial. You know, those those efforts have to have some kind of real impact on the organization. It has to be visible. One thing that we say a lot in diversity is that if I’m coming into the organization and there’s no one who looks like me in leadership, then that’s a big red flag. And it kind of sends a message that either I’m not really fully welcome or if I am, I’m not. I don’t really have a seat at the table in terms of decision making or how the organization is run. So I think it’s not just sort of creating something to check a box. It’s really sort of creating change in a way that we’re bringing new, new voices in and we’re making sure that the leadership looks and feels like the community that we’re trying to create, if that makes sense.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:43] Yeah, it does. I mean, you go to some of the websites of some of these associations and then you check out the leadership and it doesn’t always reflect the the membership.

Matt Riley: [00:09:53] Yeah. So the organizations that are seeing success are not the ones that sort of create a committee for four young members and put. Set off in a corner and kind of do that. It’s the ones that they create a board position for a number that’s sort of reserved for that purpose so that that voice is in the meetings and the thing that nobody else sees, because a lot of these organizations, you have to be around for 50 years to get into one of those leader leadership positions. But getting somebody in the room or on the Zoom call these days, you know, who who understands what the next generation is looking for. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about that changes the thinking and that that leads to different decision making.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:32] Right. So then they have kind of that seat at the table and they have a voice in these kind of conversations when people are making the decisions, especially budgetary decisions.

Matt Riley: [00:10:41] Mm hmm. Yeah. It kind of addresses both the symbolic and the substantive at the same time.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:45] And that probably gives you a quicker means to be successfully making that happen and moving the needle, if that’s really, truly important. You are kind of walking the walk at that point.

Matt Riley: [00:10:58] Yeah. Yep, I would say so.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:01] So what’s next for you? How does the rest of this year look and in the coming year?

Matt Riley: [00:11:08] Well, like I said, I mean, we’re really trying to get sort of international events back off the ground. I hope we’ll be more and more able to do that. I just I was supposed to have a conference in Taiwan this year. They still have a three day quarantine. The last that I looked, which is really kind of anathema for for a conference. So we’re still trying to move forward with that in the best way that we can. We’re trying to choose destinations that are resilient and hedge against all of the the sort of risks that we’re seeing out there. And then at the same time, like I say, push forward with a lot of the new experiments that we’re trying out, whether it’s restructuring membership categories, this is a good time to be doing that. If you if your membership categories haven’t changed in in 50 years, the industry probably has. So looking at that kind of restructuring, revisiting dues, a lot of dues for we’re sort of stagnant. And if you’re not increasing in to keep pace with inflation, then you’re not really taking care of your business in that sense. So just trying to keep keep our head on a swivel and look out for all of the opportunities that this time provides and at the same time, all of the ways that we can protect ourselves from sort of ongoing uncertainty that’s out there.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:22] Can you share an example of maybe one of the associations you work with? You don’t have to name the name, but maybe explain what the challenge that they were having before they they started working with ices and then you coming in and helping them solve it and maybe getting to a new level.

Matt Riley: [00:12:38] Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we have we have one association in particular. It’s the International Association for for that for that scientific field. And there’s a lot of strong national and regional associations for the field as well, because it’s a it’s an important medical field. So with all of these challenges, with the sort of added complexity of operating internationally, I think they they a little bit fell into a rut of more trying to compete with the regional societies, going to the regions that had a lot of members that had a lot of money and sort of trying to to rest their laurels on that because it was the it was the low hanging fruit. And it worked to some extent, but it created competition with the regional associations and it was sort of it was splitting the pie to many different ways. And they they would have very good years when they were in those regions and then they would have bad years when they tried to do anything else. And they sort of took that as, let’s stop trying to be global and let’s kind of try to be what already exists in these regional associations. So we did a strategic planning. We, we did surveys, we did targeted conversations with a lot of the different leaders. And that was the conclusion we came to was we sort of fallen into this strategy, not really meaning to where we’re not truly we’re not truly a global association and we’re not we’re not taking advantage of that that unique selling principle that we should have as an organization and where we’re sort of trying to play somebody else’s game.

Matt Riley: [00:14:13] And what we did was we started to really look at how are we choosing where we engage in the world, how are we selecting destinations for the conference? How are we choosing partners to work with other associations to partner with, even sort of how are we finding influential members who can help us in different regions? So for instance, South America was very underserved. So we basically just kind of across the board started to change how we thought about the identity of the organization. And now they’ve had some very successful conferences in some less traditional regions, and they’re really sort of, I guess, just embracing a new identity and really thriving with that. And that’s something that I really talk a lot about strategy and the importance of doing. Strategic planning. A lot of the smaller organizations that we work with, they don’t necessarily think that they have the resources or they don’t know where to go to find that. And that’s something that we bring to the table that I think is really, really helpful.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:12] Yeah, you have to invest in that because if you don’t know what you’re aiming at, how do you know you’re never going to get there? You know, it just it makes sense.

Matt Riley: [00:15:20] What tends to happen is, is sort of management by crisis. In that case, you know, you’re very reactive. And what whatever happens to you, you sort of try to react to it. But that’s I think we all know that’s not the way to get ahead of the ahead of the curve. If you really want to be leading in our industry, then you need to be looking ahead and you need to be preparing at least three or five or ten years out and really kind of looking where your industry is going and trying to be the the resources that is where your members want to go, that you’re helping them kind of create create the industry of tomorrow or the or the scientific field of tomorrow.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:53] Right. Which is usually at the heart of the mission of most associations. Yeah.

Matt Riley: [00:15:58] Ironically, it kind of, it’s kind of the opposite of the. We’ve always done it that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:01] Right, exactly. They’re supposed to be leading and being the role models for the industry, not the laggards.

Matt Riley: [00:16:08] Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:09] So what do you need more of? How can we help? Are you looking for more associations to serve? Do you need more talent? What do you need?

Matt Riley: [00:16:17] I mean, yeah, absolutely. I think there are so many associations that could use help. So I think just having people know that there that association management companies are out there and that it’s, you know, it’s an alternative to maybe if you don’t see having the resources for a full time staff, I think that’s a great thing for for people to know. And we’re always looking to partners. So anybody who’s interested in what we do, I’m always open to a conversation. You know, travel industry right now, hospitality industry I know has really just had so much turmoil. And they’re trying to start back up and they’re trying to find good talent. So we’re really looking out for our our hotel and our destination partners and everybody in that world where we’re trying to support however we can. But really any industry, you know, we work with technology quite a bit. Association management software is really important to what we do. So there’s there’s a whole a whole bunch of different worlds. And as I say, there’s an association for everything. So we do a lot of medical and scientific, but we really are sort of conservatively looking for other other organizations to work with as well. So I think the sky’s the limit for associations. I really do, yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:22] I think that there’s a lot of opportunity, especially coming out of the pandemic. The need is so great at this point.

Matt Riley: [00:17:30] Yeah, I.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] Agree. Now, if somebody wants to learn more about this or maybe get on your calendar, what is the website? Best way to get a hold of you or somebody on your team?

Matt Riley: [00:17:40] Yeah, our website is ices events dot com. Check us out. We’ve got a great website with a lot of information and my email address is. Riley. Riley. That’s m as an matt Riley Y at ices events dot com. So I’d love to hear from any of your listeners who are interested in working together.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:57] All right, Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Matt Riley: [00:18:02] Thanks a lot, Lee. I really appreciate.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:03] It. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.

Brian Lanehart With Momnt

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BrianLanehart
Tech Talk
Brian Lanehart With Momnt
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This episode is brought to you in part by our Co-Sponsor Trevelino/Keller

TKNewLogosv002-02

Brian Lanehart is the President of Momnt, an embedded financial services platform for digital, point-of-need lending and payments. Lanehart is responsible for the company’s adherence to its vision, mission, and strategy. He provides leadership and oversight across many different verticals, including finance, fundraising, product and technology strategy, compliance, analytics and AI/ML, marketing efforts and strategic selling.

As an industry veteran, holding many executive leadership titles and starting his own consulting firm, Lanehart is an expert in strategy, technology, and product execution. He’s applied keen decision-making skills to create joint ventures and alliances to improve operations and performance for clients in the legal, technical and financial industries. Lanehart continues to contribute to an environment of success, having a pulse on market trends, competition as well as executing strategies to benefit Momnt stakeholders.

Before joining Momnt, Lanehart was the senior vice president of global innovation at Brightwell, where he created their global go-to-market strategy and technical vision for a new initiative. He was able to establish and manage a way for migrant workers to transfer money across borders and currencies in real-time and hold multiple non-virtual currencies from a single account. In doing so, he formed strategic partnerships, performed competitive analysis and managed the innovative practice by creating long-term value adds to the platform.

Lanehart also led the strategic vision for growing another FinTech into the consumer lending space, where his VC decks put this company on the acquisition watchlist for Google, Citi, and others, as well as closed a $5 million Series B round.

Much of his recent career was at GreenSky, where he was the director of business services then transitioned to director of product. Due to his detailed industry and competitive intelligence, the company awarded him the product owner position of the company’s core platform where he created and implemented improvements for Finance & Compliance, Data Analytics, and chaired the API Governance team.  Also charged with re-monetizing the company’s platform, he orchestrated and strategically planned a new go-to-market strategy for the API offering, growing revenue of this channel from 11% of total revenue to over 35% in total revenue over 24 months.  He also chartered the company’s eCommerce and Speciality Retail offering, growing a pipeline of $120M in net new lending under 12 months while also cutting the operating cost of the eCommerce program by over 50% which resulted in creating the most profitable program in the company’s portfolio.

Lanehart graduated from Samford University with a bachelor’s degree in finance & entrepreneurship and computer science and minor in philosophy and music performance. He attended college with a music performance scholarship. He currently resides in the Dunwoody area north of Atlanta, where he spends his free time reading, going to concerts and movies, watching and playing soccer and tennis, reading and traveling.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn.

Matthew Schmidt with Peoplelogic

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Matthew-Schmidt-feature
Startup Showdown Podcast
Matthew Schmidt with Peoplelogic
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Peoplelogic-logo

Matthew-Schmidt-PeoplelogicMatt Schmidt is Founder & CEO of Peoplelogic. As a lifetime serial entrepreneur and technologist, Matt was formerly the co-founder of DZone Media and AnswerHub where he helped grow the company from two partners on a couch to more than 50 people and a successful exit in 2017.

He realized that the tools that the teams used every day held a wealth of information that could be used to make sure the organization had a way to measure and optimize its organizational health – from the board room to the individual team members.

He left DZone in 2019 to found Peoplelogic and ensure that growing companies had the visibility and actionable insight they needed to scale with reduced risk.

Follow Peoplelogic on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Future of work
  • Burnout
  • Organizational health

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] Lee Kantor here another episode of Startup Showdown, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get into it, 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 Matt Schmidt with PeopleLogic. Welcome, Matt.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:00:56] Hey, Lee, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about people logic. How are you serving folks?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:01:03] Yeah, fantastic. Great question. So people logic is all about helping make companies organizational help be simple enough to be actionable. And when we talk about organizational health, we’re talking about all the messy things around your people and your processes, helping you predict attrition and burnout and where you’ve got people working on things that don’t necessarily move the business forward and help you strategically plan and all those fun things that help businesses grow more effectively.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:32] So if they don’t have people logic, how are they going about that right now?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:01:37] Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question. Usually they’re getting surprised when people are when their best people are leaving or when they find out that they’re somebody they thought was a high performer, was was not being as effective as they thought they could be. And if they’re doing strategic planning, they’re usually taking a best guess and using their expertize and their their gut feelings around the things that they’re doing. A lot of companies are relying on surveys and those types of things, but we found that our customers tend to be more data driven than that and find see all the pretty well known problems that exist within beating your team over the head with more surveys.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:19] So how does it work? Like where are you gleaning the information? Where are you getting the data so you can make these informed decisions and assessments?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:02:29] Yeah. So we connect right to the tools that that your team spend their day using. Right. So it’s your zooms, your salesforce is your HubSpot, your JIRA is your GitHub. And we’re just consuming the exhaust data from those tools, the things that are left on the floor from the usage. Without getting into the specific details and content of those things, we’re able to glean really useful insights about how your teams are interacting and where there’s potential risks to the business.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:02] So from looking at those kind of breadcrumbs, you’re able to see, Hey, Bill is, you know, we think Bill’s a top performer, but maybe it’s Mary who’s really the top performer.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:03:14] That’s certainly one of the insights. One of the more common things that we also see is where you thought that a team was actually distributing the work across the entire team. But really, you’ve got somebody that’s standing there at the bottom of an inverted pyramid holding everybody up, that they’re doing all the work and or an outsized amount of work, which puts them really at a risk for burning out and for also for feeling like they’re carrying more of the team than everybody else, which can lead to a toxic culture as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:48] And and the other side of that is that somebody might be kind of a gatekeeper, that maybe you don’t want them to be a gatekeeper.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:03:57] Exactly. Exactly. There’s very often as organizations scale, you get somebody who was was the person that everything had to go through when you were ten or 25 people. But as you get to 50 people, that person still being that bottleneck is no longer effective. It doesn’t help the business. And so you sometimes forget that those things are still in place because organizations move so fast that that you don’t pay attention to it until it’s too late.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:27] Now, is this solution like a nice to have for smaller organizations? But as you get to x number of employees, it becomes a must have.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:04:36] Yeah, that’s what we started to see it. As you start to become a growth company, moving from a startup to a scale up as you go past 50 people into 75 to 100 and up to probably 1000 or so, it becomes much more of a of a need to a must have. Right. As you get bigger than that, then we begin to see it break down into the individual departments and the teams and those sorts of things that operate much more like companies. And then there people begin to use this for things, for understanding a baseline, for changes that they want to make, or for doing a planning around whether they have enough of the right kinds of people to do the work that they want to do. Those types of things, it becomes bigger, more here’re problems as you as you get bigger.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:25] Now in your career you’ve worked on several startups and and scaled several businesses. Were they always in this space?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:05:35] No, this is. It’s my first one. And what I think now it’s safe to call it the future of work. My last business was a design and answer hub and we were in the developer engagement, developer community space and so very different. But at the end of the day, business is how businesses grow and how they run. Have a lot of similarities and so you’re able to apply your learnings from one into the next.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] Now at the beginning of your career where you always on an entrepreneurial track, or did you work for a large organizations and then kind of pivot to startups and more entrepreneur?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:06:15] That’s a that’s a great question. I think I started my first business when I was 12 or 13 doing web development. Back before everybody had the Internet and you could remember where to go on the Internet by remembering the domain. And there were only a handful of them. So I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. And this is I tend to to go all in on my startups. And this my last one took about 15 years to navigate its way, bootstrapped to an exit. And this one, we’re on a very different path in venture back and choosing to go at it much more aggressively.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:53] Now, what was the learning there from, you know, going from bootstrap to exit now going to venture backed to hopefully eventual exit.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:07:04] So I think the biggest learning there was that. When you’re bootstrapped, you’re very, very focused on making sure that you’re funding everything with the cash flow from adding customers, and that you do need to solve a problem immediately versus trying to. Here we’re very much focused on we see the problem, we understand how to solve the problem. But we’re also we’re building something that hasn’t been done before and there’s intellectual property behind it and that is allowed. We needed the additional funding to be able to really bring that bigger vision to to work. Right. And so the big learning, I would say, is that you when you’re bootstrapped and when you’re somewhat more cash strapped in that way, you make different decisions about the things that you prioritize that maybe don’t serve you best for accelerating the business forward. Whereas when you’re down this path now with having raised a small amount of money here, people logic, we’re making choices around how do we hire the best people for the job to be able to to get us to where we’re going as quickly as we can.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:23] Rather than just hiring the person to solve the problem today.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:08:27] Yeah. And then what’s going to take us into the future, which is what we’re looking at now and aiming for something that is going to have a much larger impact on the business. And so that’s we are we’re very focused on. And the other difference being that when you’re funded and you’re backed, when you’re using other folks as money, you’re very focused. You’re always thinking about how you’re going to build the right relationships that are going to get you to an exit. And when you’re bootstrapped and it’s your own money, you’re not necessarily thinking about that. You’re going to look for an exit. You’re happy when one comes. But that’s not ultimately for most folks the the way that they run their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:16] Now, what about from as a CEO, as a leader, the feeling when you’re bootstrapped, you know, kind of the buck stops with you. But when you’re using other people’s money, now you’ve got other people yelling at you.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:09:31] Well, you know, ultimately with the team, the buck stops with me. And and it’s now not only do I feel an obligation to my team to make sure that I’m doing everything that I can to to clear the roadblocks for them. I’m also very aware of the obligation that I have to our investors to make sure that we ultimately get them a return on their investment and that we’re incorporating them into the processes where it makes sense with our own business and keeping them updated. And so you really now are beholden to two different groups of stakeholders within the business. When you when you’ve taken other people’s money and there is a saying that that used to that I was used to know and it was you spend your money differently when it’s other people’s money. But the truth is, when it’s other people’s money, you are actually accountable to them for how you spend. And so it’s for me, it’s important that we do that in a in a way that is conservative and appropriate for what they expected to get out of their investment in us.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:47] Right. And aggressive enough to get to the milestones you need to get to.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:10:51] Exactly where we are certainly beholden to the model that we put in front of them in our projections for where we expect to get to, that’s for sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:00] Now as a leader, is there a mentor or an advisor or somebody that’s kind of your true north that you aspire to be? Or is this something that you have just been kind of picking up on your own and, you know, just figuring things out on your own?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:11:17] Yeah, that’s. Until recently, I was not someone who really took advantage of having coaches and mentors and advisors. Over the past couple of months, I’ve made a pretty concerted effort to start to incorporate more of those types of people into my into my world so that I get different perspectives as I try to figure out how to run the business and that I have people to turn to when I’m looking to figure out how to solve problems. And so I have different coaches for the different types of challenges that might come up in my world. Some are useful for helping me understand challenges around product market fit and go to market, and others are useful for helping me just understand the day and day out stressors of being a CEO and I think I have begun to see how that why people turn to those. And I’ve had some great other CEOs that have leveraged both of our both of my coaches and others to. Have them be able to tell me the value that they’ve seen from from working with people like that and how it’s helped them accelerate their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:33] So what was the kind of reason for taking that leap into coaching? Did something happen or was there something that you were like, other people are doing this. Am I missing something that’s like right in front of me that I should just be checking out?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:12:48] You know, that was I probably started down that path in a moment of self doubt of whether I was doing the right thing as a CEO. And so they in speaking with some other CEOs and to some of our customers who actually referred me to one of my coaches, they they spoke of similar problems and how that had helped them. So I don’t know that there was any one thing other than that I knew that I wanted to be a better CEO and a leader and that this was a way that had worked for others that were at our stage in place to be able to get there.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:27] Now, where do you think your your superpower is as a leader?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:13:34] That’s a that’s a great question. I think that typically my superpower is being able to see around corners and to see the whole picture. That tends to be where I had the most value and which gives me a different perspective than the rest of the team has. And being able to understand where we need to to make changes and do that in a way that’s not going to just disrupt the entire organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:05] Now. Any advice for other founders out there on building that team of eight players? The team of people, they can kind of take your vision and make it real.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:14:18] I think you can’t stress enough how important it is to have a players on the team and to go and get the best players that you can. I’m a sole founder here and people logic, but the people that I’ve put around me on the executive team are people that I’ve known forever and who have been important into the growth of of people logic. And so if you you’re going to have a much harder time if you don’t figure out one way or another how to get those players in at the moment where they have an impact, it may stretch your exit or the ability to get another round of funding by months or years if you don’t bring those people in at the right time. So my advice is definitely one way or another, figure out how to bring those people in, to get them to buy into your vision and get them to help you make it real.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:18] So it sounds like you’re saying that those are must haves. Not nice to have.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:15:23] I have come to the position that having those eight players, particularly around you, on your senior leadership team is a must have.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:32] Now, how did you hear about Start, Showdown and Panoramic Ventures?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:15:38] Oh, gosh, it’s it’s been a couple of months. I think know in this case, I think I was. There was an outreach from Panoramic Ventures. We were in the middle of raising our our pre-seed round. And I think they invited us in to fill out the application. And we went through the process and went through the first stage and the second stage and then were eventually selected as a finalist and got to present on the stage, which was fortunate that they had moved back to to being in person. And it was in Charlotte here where we’re based in Durham, so we North Carolina. And so we were able to go and be a person and present as a finalist for their second ever event, I think.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:25] Was there any aspect of the process that was most beneficial or that you felt like that was a good use of our time?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:16:33] You know, just getting to basically the first couple of stages of it are really basically lightning pitches. 2 to 5 minutes. Getting to do it over and over again. And that part was super helpful. After that, being a finalist. The getting to see the other founders and hear how they talked about it here, that they were having the same challenges and being in the same stage that was that part was also super helpful. The actual presenting in person in front of other people was entirely too nerve wracking, particularly after having been virtual for the last two years. Right. So suddenly going back and being in person and presenting and doing your pitch and walking down a stage and you forget how different that is from just being a head on a zoom screen.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:28] Yeah, I think we’re all relearning that nowadays. We’re all relearning that in real life experience.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:17:34] Exactly. Your real life social skills of having to get dressed and put on and actually interact with people is is something you have to relearn. So. But the act of I was appreciative that they pushed for that in person and we’re able to do that in such a way that we were able to get out and pitch to an audience and really got some really great feedback even though we didn’t.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:01] So what’s next for people? Logic. How can we help?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:18:06] Yeah, the next we’ve just finished our our first round here of funding and we’re really very focused on adding new customers and growing the business that’s getting that revenue in the door is really the thing that we’re most focused on now. We’ve got a great team in place and now if there’s companies that that have the problems that we solve around attrition and burnout and ineffective processes, where we’re here to help and always looking to find ways to work with great companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:39] And those companies are what, 50 plus people with that are growing rapidly.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:18:45] Yep. 50 plus growing rapidly, usually in the tech space.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:49] And then what are some symptoms that they might have a problem that you can solve?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:18:54] Yeah. Usually they’re worried that they’re going to lose team members or they’re starting to hear people talk about burnout. Those tend to be two quick signs that they need to do something.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:07] Well, Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story today. If somebody wants to connect with you or learn more about people logic, what’s a website?

Matthew Schmidt: [00:19:15] Yeah, it’s people object I. And you can also reach me at math and people object I.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:23] All right. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Matthew Schmidt: [00:19:28] Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:29] All right. This Lee Kantor. We will see all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:19:34] 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 Dot VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. All right. That’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

Stephanie Whyte With Aetna

by

Stephanie
Atlanta Business Radio
Stephanie Whyte With Aetna
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CVShealthStephanieDr. Stephanie Whyte is a seasoned physician executive and transformational leader known for building teams and leading innovative, large-scale initiatives. A senior medical director for Aetna Medicaid, she oversees the medical team for a region of three states. Dr. Whyte joined Aetna in 2015 and has served as a medical director and interim chief medical officer for two Aetna Better Health plans.

Dr. Whyte led the pediatric strategy for COVID-19 vaccines in for the 5-11 population in CVS stores, training pharmacists and immunizers. She has represented Aetna Medicaid and CVS Health in efforts to address vaccine hesitancy.

Prior to Aetna, Dr. Whyte was the inaugural Chief Health Officer for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) district establishing a new office to focus on student health and wellness. Before CPS, she was Medical Director of Mobile Care Chicago, caring for children with asthma in Chicago’s most underserved neighborhoods on a mobile medical unit for over a decade.

Dr. Whyte is a board-certified pediatrician and honored “Distinguished Alumnus” from both the Chicago Medical School and Illinois Wesleyan University. She also holds an MBA in Public and Nonprofit Management; is a certified health care insurance executive; and board-certified in Health Care and Quality Management.

Connect with Dr. Stephanie on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The Health Care Insights Study
  • CVS Health increasing access to affordable, convenient health services
  • CVS Health addressing consumers’ mental health needs
  • Future plans in the works for CVS Health

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at on pay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] 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 Dr. Stephanie Whyte, senior clinical medical director with Aetna, a CVS health company. Welcome, Dr. Whyte.

Stephanie Whyte: [00:00:53] Thank you for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Can you tell us a little bit about CVS Health at number one and we’ll go from there?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:01:06] Absolutely. Well, CVS Health is a leading health solutions company. We’ve reached more people and improve the health of communities across America through our local presence, digital channels and over 300,000 colleagues, including more than 40,000 physicians, pharmacists, nurses and nurse practitioners. We have more than 85% of Americans living within ten miles of a CVS pharmacy, 9000 CVS pharmacy locations nationwide. So in a nutshell, we help people navigate the health care system and their personal health care by focusing on quality of care, convenience, improving access and lowering costs.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] Now, I would imagine because CVS Health has such a broad kind of I guess you touched so many people in in the in health in their health kind of journey. You recently had the opportunity to do a survey and you were able to glean some interesting insights. Can you talk a little bit about that health care insights study that you guys kind of put together?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:02:18] Absolutely. So the health care insights study by CVS Health is now in its fifth year. And the goal of this study is to understand the needs and the mindsets of consumers as they pursue their individual health care journey. So Atlanta was one of the regions that we focused on in this year’s journey this year study oncology. And so the study finds that people have embraced the holistic outlook on health and they want more meaningful and engaging relationships with the health care providers. And they’re increasingly searching for a new kind of health care experience that’s simpler, less costly and efficient.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:57] So is there anything actionable that companies can take regarding that? Like, is there anything that medical practitioners should take away from that or anything that the consumers can take away from that?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:03:08] Oh, absolutely. So accessibility and affordability of health care services were a prominent theme among the respondents. Right. So one of the things that we’re doing is making certain that we’re accessible and available. Again, 85% of Americans are within ten miles of CVS Pharmacy 400. Sorry, let me restate that. There are 200 CVS pharmacies in Atlanta metro area. There are nearly 40 with MinuteClinic and Healthhub locations. So we’re creating access to our locations as well as the survey results so that nearly one in four Atlanta respondents preferred using the pharmacy over the E.R. or urgent care center post-pandemic. So they were looking to their local pharmacy as their source of care. So we’re providing that access and that route of service for them. So. Well, sorry.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:26] So do you think that because of that, there’s going to be more opportunities for people to go into a CVS pharmacy to get kind of a little more care than than maybe historically pharmacies have offered?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:04:40] Absolutely. Our MinuteClinic locations offer a wide range of essential women’s health services, such as treatment for yeast infections, pregnancy, UTI testing. We also offer minor injury and illness treatment at our health hubs. We’re also committed to addressing social determinants of health and focusing on key challenges within the community. So among the things that our Atlanta respondents identified was an issue for them was transportation. So we’ve partnered this year with Uber and local community organizations and kicked off health zones Atlanta as an initiative. And this initiative provides free transportation to residents live. In a30318 zip code so they can more easily access health facilities, food pantries and vaccination appointments.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:38] Now, or is there an initiative that is going to target telehealth?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:05:45] We are expanding our telehealth. We have a CVS Virtual Primary Care Health, which is a evolution of a physician led, comprehensive primary care model that brings together a multidisciplinary team to offer patients coordinated care. And in this model, patients get the opportunity to have a continuous relationship with on demand care, chronic disease management and mental health services. And absolutely, virtual health is an offering there.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:25] So now let’s talk a little bit about mental health that seems to be very popular nowadays. Is there an opportunity there to address the consumer’s mental health needs that seem to be really prevalent, especially, you know, as we get through the pandemic?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:06:45] In the Lancet metro area, there are nearly 40 CVS Health Minute clinics and health hub locations. At these locations, we have licensed therapists to provide onsite confidential mental health counseling, and we’re looking to expand access to mental health, wellbeing and telehealth services. But anyone can visit the Minuteclinics to find a location near them. And what’s really important here, and I’m glad you highlighted this since 2019, our nationwide virtual visits for mental health ballooned from 10,000 to over 10 million last year. So that’s like a 1000 fold increase. And that just punctuates our ability to meet the need and the scale of what is clearly a critical public health increase. And what the data actually showed is that the Atlanta respondents were concerned about the mental health will well-being of their loved ones, and that was one of the stressors that they identified over the past year in the survey data.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:56] Now, do you think that this influx of mental health requests, is it something that all of a sudden now there’s more people suffering or is it now there’s less maybe shame in getting help?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:08:11] I think that people are looking for the opportunity to have a conversation and relationship with their providers that they can discuss stress, they can discuss happiness, their health levels, and have a holistic approach when dealing with their health care provider. And that’s what the data actually show. They’re seeking higher levels of engagement and communication, and that is what the data is reflecting, and that’s what our offerings are trying to provide. And that’s why you will find therapists in our MinuteClinic locations. We’re expanding services for telehealth. We’re doing the virtual care with the physician led teams that are engaging with both a virtual health option and care as it needs to be at home when they need to be.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:09] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved with CVS Health?

Stephanie Whyte: [00:09:15] I am a pediatrician by training. I joined the company after being non-clinical and leading the Chicago Public School District Health System Health there. And I just have a passion for care and making certain that we address the needs of those who need services. And that’s a beautiful segue, and I’m glad you added that to ask me that, because there’s one more thing I want to punctuate that we’re doing that speaks to why I’m here, and that is our project Health Initiative, that’s addressing some of the social determinants of health. That’s really my passion. And CVS Health is doing a wonderful job of this project Health Initiative, which brings community health services to those who are under resourced. And that beginning mid-August, our mobile RV units will serve several Atlanta metro areas, providing screens to our project Health Seniors. And these screenings identify those who have high blood pressure, blood pressure levels, glucose levels, cholesterol levels. And in my prior life, I’ve done screenings like this. And you are surprised at those who are walking around with malignant, life threatening, high blood pressure levels, cholesterol levels, leading them on the path to coronary artery disease, and they have no idea. So screenings like these are wonderfully helpful. We have more than a dozen lined up and the Atlanta metro area between now and the end of the year. Those interested can contact CVS.com slash project hyphen health to find out about an event near them. Cvs.com slash project hyphen health. To find out about an event near them. But we’ve done we’ve provided $7.6 worth of free medical services and just the Atlanta Atlanta area via Project Health since 2006. And this type of work really drives the passion and speaks to us getting out there. And that’s my story of how I came here to do things like this.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:34] Now, can you share a story maybe of your time working with folks kind of boots on the ground that these kinds of screenings are can save lives? This is catching things, knowing your numbers are things that are important to catch things before they become real, really problematic. I mean, I think that a lot of folks don’t take the initiative in terms of knowing their numbers and getting checked out and doing some of these screenings in order to catch things before they become very big problems and maybe even, you know, kind of end of life problems if you wait too long. Can you share a story, maybe a personal you don’t have to name their name, but just explain what it was like for this person to go through a screening identifying this and really nipping something in the bud.

Stephanie Whyte: [00:12:20] Oh, absolutely. So I did a large screening like this in the Chicago area at Navy Pier, a huge convention center, and they were offering the exact same things glucose, cholesterol, hypertension, blood pressure, checking for your bone. And as the people went through, they were offered. They then got they did lung function as well. They then got to sit with the physicians that were there to do an interpretation of the results and explain what that meant. So I was one of two docs there on site doing it, and one of the gentlemen who came to sit with me was someone who was uninsured, who said he had no symptoms. He was just it was free. He got in line and said, why not? Had not seen a doctor in at least ten years. And the level of the magnitude of his hypertension, the level of his blood pressure, how high it was, was what we would call malignant hypertension. It was extremely high. He’d said he had no headaches. He said he didn’t have any dizziness, he had no problems. He denied any of that to the point where he didn’t believe me when I was like my heart was palpitating on his behalf. And so we talked to him. We asked about family. I asked about family history and other things. And there was some things there that were triggers but actually called an ambulance for him. He could not leave. I could not have him leave the convention center like that. So this is how we go. You need to follow up with a doctor. We need to link you with somebody. No, we need to call the ambulance. And you need to immediately be sent somewhere for care. It was that bad.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:04] And that’s the thing to the person they may not even notice. And then they’re dead. Like, it’s that dramatic. And I’m not.

Stephanie Whyte: [00:14:12] Hypertension. It’s called the silent killer. So. Yes, so. So when you take these to communities that lack regular access to health care resources, the impact is critical.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:24] Yeah. And this is something that when you are if you haven’t been to the doctor in any length of time and you have an opportunity to get a screening, these are things these aren’t nice to have. These are must haves.

Stephanie Whyte: [00:14:37] Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:38] So one more time, if somebody wants to learn more about, you know, these clinics and these screenings and things like that.

Stephanie Whyte: [00:14:45] Project health events. Cvs dot com slash project hyphen health.

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

Stephanie Whyte: [00:14:59] Thank you so much, Lee. It was a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:01] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Intro: [00:15:09] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll in HR software anywhere. Get one month free at onpay.com.

About Our Sponsor

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

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

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Stanley Rigaud With Miami-Dade Beacon Council

by

South Florida Business Radio
South Florida Business Radio
Stanley Rigaud With Miami-Dade Beacon Council
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Stanley Rigaud is the Vice-President of Economic Development of Miami-Dade Beacon Council. He is responsible for attracting job-generating business investments to the Miami community and maintaining active working knowledge of the economic trends of Miami-Dade County and the State of Florida.

Mr. Rigaud leads Miami-Dade Beacon Council’s Small Business Committee efforts in building inclusion into their Small Business programming and seeking diverse perspectives in industry strategic discussions to expand industry activity among underrepresented demographics and targeted County commercial submarkets. He also leads the Beacon Council’s Trade & Logistics industry in Miami-Dade County helping to create a business climate that encourages the promotion and growth of this targeted industry sector.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Rigaud spent 25 years at FedEx leading multi-functional teams that provided integrated logistics solutions for FedEx customers with high-value products and complex supply chain requirements in both air and ground operations.

Volunteer Activity
Mr. Rigaud is currently a Board Member for the Freight Transportation Advisory Committee (FTAC) which is the industry’s advisory panel to the TPO Governing Board on freight movement and truck traffic needs. He is also a member of the Transportation Committee for the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce working to leverage partnerships and dialogue between the business community, transportation officials, and local, state, and federal governmental agencies in order to improve transportation infrastructure and mobility through educational forums, legislative and policy initiatives, and improved ridership in mass transit. He is also a member of the Perishables Committee at PortMiami, Steering Committee member for the Florida Supply Chain Summit, and Advisory Board Member for FIU’s M.S. in Logistics Engineering Program.

Mr. Rigaud is also currently a Board Member for Rebâti Santé Mentale dedicated to strengthening capacity and awareness of mental health issues for underserved communities. He also serves on the Advisory Committee for the Little Haiti Eco-District committed to urban development and rooted in Equity, Resilience, and Climate Protection for sustainable neighborhood development. Mr. Rigaud is also a Year Up South Florida mentor to disconnected young adults seeking to navigate new experiences and shape their careers.

Connect with Stanley on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Miami-Dade Beacon Council Mission and Vision
  • Job responsibilities as an Economic Developer/Project Manager
  • Trade & Logistics Industry and Committee
  • Small Business Committee and SBX
  • Lead Generation Activities
  • Community Outreach
  • Community Engagement
  • Partnerships and Relationships

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here another episode of South Florida Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Diaz Trade Law. Your customs expert today on South Florida Business Radio is Stanley Rigaud and he is with the Miami-Dade Beacon Council. Welcome, Stanley.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:00:35] Hey, Lee, how are you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] I am doing well. I’m so excited to be talking to you. For those who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about the Beacon Council? How are you serving folks?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:00:45] Yeah, sure. Well, the Beacon Council is Miami-Dade County’s official economic development organization or partnership where public-private partnerships we’re governed by and led by a volunteer group of board of directors who are both business and government leaders in the community. A subset of the board makes up our executive committee and they are delegated with decision making authority for the board annually. I guess you could say too that the organization helps to market the county as a world business class destination. So our job is to attract and retain companies that invest in and create high value jobs in this community, driving long term economic prosperity and inclusive growth.

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

Stanley Rigaud: [00:01:31] Yeah, so the organization was founded in 1985, and the focus of this organization was to focus on Miami-Dade County, which is one of 67 counties in the state of Florida. Interestingly enough, people tend to think that Enterprise Florida, which is the state agency that does economic development for the state, preceded Beacon Counsel. But Beacon Counsel was actual was actually the model that enterprise use to create Enterprise Florida. So we’ve really been sort of ingrained in this community for the longest. We are we’ve been recognized as one of only 62 economic development organizations in the country that is designated by the International Economic Development Council as an accredited economic development organization. And all that mumbo jumbo means is that we are audited on a regular basis on the work that we do here.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:25] Now, what is kind of a day in the life for someone at the Miami-Dade Beacon Council?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:02:31] Yeah, every day is different because of the number of companies that were were assisting the different industry sectors that the team here focuses on. I personally, I’m responsible for the Trade Logistics Committee and, well, the trade logistics industry sector. We focus on six targeted industry sectors outside of hospitality and tourism, which we typically see to the Greater Miami Convention Visitors Bureau. But the six targeted industry sectors are aviation, financial services, creative design, which we now call creative industries, innovation, technology, life sciences and health care and trade and logistics. So those are our six targeted industry sectors. And you can imagine for each of these industry sectors, there are just a host of subsectors in those. So no day is the same.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:28] Now is your work trying to attract businesses from around the world to headquarter or have a presence in Miami-Dade? Or is it to help businesses within Miami-Dade to help kind of grow their businesses within Miami-Dade and the world? Does it work both ways or is it are you doing one more than the other?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:03:49] Yeah. No, definitely. It’s it’s our focus is on foreign direct investments to Miami when it comes to especially on the trade logistics side, when it comes to exports or work with some of the delegation or some some of the trade offices, we we partner with the International Trade Consortium at Miami-Dade County, but definitely defer to them as the lead. Our focus is in bringing foreign direct investments to Miami and helping other companies within the United States that understand the value that Miami brings to this community, particularly as we are the gateway to the to Latin America and the Caribbean, as an opportunity for them to have a regional headquarter here in in South Florida or Miami in particular.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:37] So what’s kind of your elevator pitch to them?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:04:41] Yeah, I mean, my I mean, the data shows this is I guess the easiest elevator pitch is that we market Miami as a world business class destination. We help local companies grow. And the work that we do is really focused on helping to shape the direction of our economy.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:01] And then has it been working like you’ve been around since 85? I imagine it’s worked pretty well. But can you share some of the stats to, you know, for our listeners to understand the impact? You’re all making?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:05:14] Absolutely. Well, for for one thing. As you said, we’ve been around for, I want to say, 37 years now, if I’m not mistaken, since since 1985. Since then, we have assisted over, I want to say, 1000 companies. There’s, I think, close to $7 billion in capital investment. I should have had some of these numbers.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:43] Yeah, but it’s billions of dollars that are being generated through the efforts. And I’ve been not solely through your efforts, but the impact that you’re making is real on the and I would imagine in all the sectors that you’re focusing in on, those are all growing as well.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:05:59] Yes, they are. We have I think we’ve seen continuous growth even throughout the pandemic, both in the financial services and the tech industry. The cargo industry has been just exploding since even before the pandemic. But even throughout the pandemic and since the pandemic, the numbers have really not not stopped to grow. And and it’s it’s it’s interesting because you would think, especially since we’re in this sort of inflation mode, that we would have seen a dip in some of the numbers. And I think maybe this week or within this month, we’re starting to see a slight decline. But nothing that suggests that we’re there’s there’s a there’s a recession around the corner now.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:53] How has the ability to help the people who do kind of move into the Miami-Dade area finding talent? Are you having a challenge there or do you have a good pipeline for them to have the right folks in place to help them?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:07:12] Yeah. You cut out just a little bit. Lee, can you repeat that?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:16] Sure. Can you talk about how you help the people who, when they do relocate to Miami to help them find the talent that they need to be successful?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:07:27] Yes, absolutely. So. We’ve got a team of experts here that are very familiar with the trends of our industry sectors and some of the sort of key services that we offer here. They vary between some of the finance financing programs that we have here. As you mentioned, we we assist with recruitment and training in collaboration with some of our partners, like career South Florida. We’re very adept at helping to expedite the permitting process or anything with permitting and regulatory issues. We certainly partner with our real estate community in helping with site selection. Some companies that are relocating here, if they need employee assistance, relocation, we have a program for that as well. And I think the biggest value that we bring is our customized research. So we can create customized reports to include demographic profiles of Miami-Dade County, whichever municipality that they might be interested in, outlining the different firms by industry that’s that’s here any employment by industry, the percentage of distribution of employment. So there’s some really good data points that can help a company in making that final decision about coming to Miami.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:49] And it sounds like that the the business environment is very collaborative where you have these public private partnerships that can really accelerate a company’s ability to be successful faster.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:09:05] Yes. And I think aside from the research piece, I think the other sort of biggest value that the Beacon Council brings because of our how long we’ve been around, is the relationships that we have forged over the last 35 years, both in the private and public sector. So when a company comes here and whether or not they’re part of a cluster, because we’ve had these really deep relationships with private companies, the public sector as well, that allows them to really get to know the community, get to know the industry in as part of the Miami-Dade area and how they can begin to move the the company’s growth and progress a lot sooner than they than they could have without the Beacon Council.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:58] Now, is there a story you can share, maybe a success story? You don’t have to name the name of the company, but maybe explain the challenge that they were facing when they found the Miami-Dade Beacon Council and how you were helping help them get to maybe a new level once they kind of got plugged in with you and your team.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:10:17] Yeah, it’s interesting. I get this all the time when I when I meet someone that either found out about us three months later or six months later or even a year later, they go, Gosh, had I known about you guys, you guys, you would have saved us so much time and effort. So that’s that’s that’s really a common theme. And I think part of it is really because we we’re very familiar with the industry sector. We know all the players here and the committees have really helped for each of our targeted industry sectors. We have a committee that comes together quarterly, in some cases monthly to talk about all of the sort of impending issues that an industry could face in terms of potential impediments, but also opportunities for growth. So all of our industry sectors has a is tied to a committee, and each of these committees, they serve as a as a platform for not just for industry intelligence, but also for communication of industry knowledge. And and as a result of that, when a company comes here, we start to make those introductions. It really helps to expedite how quickly they establish themselves here in Miami.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:11:37] So, I mean, it’s hard to kind of pick one because we get this on a regular basis. But you can tell when we meet with the company, they are just elated that that there’s an organization that’s here that’s able to kind of help them sort of leapfrog a few months rather than than having to do this by themselves. And the other sort of major point that I want to make sure that I bring up is that we operate under confidentiality. And, you know, and because of the sunshine laws here in Florida, when you when you’re dealing with either a municipality or with the county itself, any kind of exchange of information is subject to to public record. And in the case of the Beacon Council, because we are. Under confidentiality. It really does allow private sector companies to come in and and do business in a way that they know that nothing will be shared until they’re until they’re ready to share that information, whether it’s through a press release or however they might choose to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:42] Now, what are the size of the companies that are kind of coming to you at the Beacon Council and coming to Miami-Dade? Are they kind of of all sizes? Are startups kind of knocking on the door or these enterprise level companies may be in another country that are looking to, you know, get into America and use Miami-Dade as the launching point, like what is the typical size of the company that is coming in?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:13:11] Know. That’s exactly right. It’s a great question. It really runs the spectrum. I think other than maybe perhaps before the or during this this pandemic period, we really focused on small to midsize companies all the way up to your large multinational corporations. But during the pandemic, we’ve begun to work with some of the micro businesses, and that’s really had to do with especially in the hospitality area, where a lot of the businesses that were struggling the most were some of those micro businesses. But traditionally it’s been small businesses of 2 million, $3 million in revenue to your your biggest companies that are out there. So it’s not unusual, for example, for me to be working with a maersk or a CMA CGM on the shipping side or a rider or FedEx, but also a very sort of local Miami company. So it runs the gamut.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:19] So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work? It sounds exciting and very rewarding.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:14:26] Actually, it truly is. And I think the best part is just meeting people in every walk of life. So my background, I actually I worked for FedEx for 25 years. So I know a little a little bit about logistics. And and at the time, they were looking for somebody who had some background in in the trade logistics sector. And and I got hired at the Beacon Council. I’ve been here for just under eight years and have really just developed some great relationships, particularly at the at the airport and seaport, which are two of the key intermodal for moving cargo. But we’ve got some just tremendous assets here. When you when you think about both the seaport and the airport, whether it’s on the seaport side, whether it’s the crew side or the cargo side, just truly an economic engine. Same thing goes for for for our airport here at Miami International Airport, both on the passenger side and cargo. Just some serious assets that we have here. I think for for my for this industry, sector and trade and logistics, we’ve really done a phenomenal job in in investing in this community, investing in our seaports and our in our airport. And as a result of that, tons of companies have benefited from from that investment. So it’s it’s it’s every day is fun. Every day you meet great people. People are excited to to come to Miami. Even the startups. I mean, I can’t tell you how many logistics companies or or logistics I.T. companies that are that are here and they’re here because the infrastructure is here and it allows them to grow. So always, always exciting.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:10] Right. But it’s one of those things where you’re kind of a best kept secret. And we’re trying to help get the word out to make people know that you exist and that they should be partnering with you and getting to know you because it can accelerate their growth, it can flatten their learning curve. And it’s just silly not to. I mean, you’re a resource there that’s meant to be helpful and available. So I’d like, you know, more and more firms that are coming or thinking about coming to America and Miami-Dade specifically to get a hold of you and learn more about the Beacon Council.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:16:43] Yeah, I know. That was that’s well said. You know, this is a diverse community. We were we’re in a region of of over 6.2 million people. When you think about South Florida in general, I mean, South Florida is these three counties I often refer to South Florida as the anchor of the state. To think that just three counties represents almost a third of the entire population just tells you how important we are to the state of Florida. Most people know that we are now the third largest state in the country. But I think what they don’t know is that we are we have more than 1400 multinational corporations that call Miami home. They don’t know that we are the fastest emerging tech hub in the United States. A lot of people don’t know that. Even Miami leads the nation in tech, talent, migration, where we have we’re creating an ecosystem where everyone is welcome. The government is actively supporting the growth here. And we you can see it in the numbers at the airport, at the seaport, whether it’s the cruise industry, our airlines are just seeing just incredible growth. So Miami is a unique geographic location where we’re internationally trained work workforce with what I think is a very modern infrastructure that really enables business leaders to to make Miami a base of operations. So it’s, you know, when people come here, they go, wow, we just thought this was just great weather, beautiful beaches. And little did they know that we are for example, we’re the number one cruise port in the world. We’ve got we’re probably the number one container port in the world. I know that we’re for international cargo. We’re number one in the United States. I think we’re number two in US airport for international passengers. And so the list goes on of of some of our really great rankings. And, and until and unless you, you reach out to organizations like the Beacon Council, you’re just really unaware of some of these great statistics.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:03] Right. And it’s one of those things where trade and logistics is kind of invisible to the average person. It’s not on their radar until something bad happens. And we’re here to talk about all the good things that are happening and how important the trade and logistics is to not only South Florida, but Florida and the country in the world you have. You’re at a hub, and it’s important to recognize that. And it’s important that organizations like Miami-Dade Beacon Council exist to help make business go. I mean, without your help, it would be a lot harder for these companies to integrate themselves in the community and really get the the level of success that they’re able to get with your help. So I think that more and more companies should be reaching out to Miami-Dade Beacon Council. And if they are interested in learning more, Stan Lee, what is the coordinates? What is the best way to get a hold of you or somebody on the team? Is there a website? Is there social media coordinates that people should know about?

Stanley Rigaud: [00:20:04] Sure. Yes, absolutely. We are very much on social media. So but the website is Miami-Dade Beacon Council or just Beacon Counsel dot com. You’ll definitely get a great overview of of of the organization who’s here. If you go into the search bar you can just you put in staff or when you scroll into the website you’ll get all the information. Obviously my name is Stanley Rago, all of us, its first initial last name. So in my case it’s S3 go at beacon counsel dot com but easily reachable through our website and I think our phone number is I should know this but I think it’s 305 579, 1300. My specific line is 3055791346. So yes, we’re all on LinkedIn. Oui, oui, oui, oui, oui. Post a lot of stuff on on LinkedIn as well. So very easy to find.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:11] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Stanley Rigaud: [00:21:17] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate that. The time to come and speak on your show.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:21] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on South Florida Business Radio.

 

Kesha Aycock With Catering By Design, LLC

by

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Kesha Aycock With Catering By Design, LLC
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Kesha Jefferson-Aycock, Owner & Personal Chef at Catering By Design, LLC

She is a locally known Personal Chef and Caterer in the metro Atlanta area since 2005. Catering to numerous companies for various events, she has gained the reputation of displaying professionalism and culinary craftmanship to every client.

Connect with Kesha on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Catering By Design, LLC
  • Type of dishes they offer
  • Type of events they cater
  • About the $25,000 enhancement grant they won through the Coalition to Back Black Businesses

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 Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at on pay.com. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] 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 Chef Kesha Aycock with Catering by Design, LLC. Welcome, Chef Kesha.

Kesha Aycock: [00:00:55] Hello there, Lee. How are you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] I am doing well. I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about catering by design. How are you serving folks?

Kesha Aycock: [00:01:04] Oh, my goodness. We are serving the metro Atlanta area as well as surrounding counties and out of the state. We are serving up some of the best southern and American cuisines that you can put your hands on.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] So how did you get into this line of work? Have you always been interested in, you know, chef-ing and being in the food business?

Kesha Aycock: [00:01:31] Yes, I have. I started off watching my parents and grandparents. My father was a chef in the military, so I had an awesome experience watching him make beautiful few food in the presentations as well as my grandparents. They used to feed a lot of people from the church and within the community, and I think I was one of the grandchildren that actually was involved and wanted to know more about it. Because I saw the togetherness, I saw the friendliness, I saw what it brought to the family, how we got together, and the good times were amazing and the food was more awesome that you can possibly imagine. So that’s one of the ways that I really was intrigued in getting into the business.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:20] So what was your kind of first foray into the business? Did you work at other places and then eventually started your own business? Or like, Well, what was the path?

Kesha Aycock: [00:02:29] Well, first I started catering, caring for close friends and family members, you know, just getting together barbecues, birthdays, celebrations, things of that nature. And my husband and I looked at the overwhelming response of the people that was not basically related to us, but wanted to say, know, wanted to ask, hey, do you guys do this full time? What are you doing? My husband and I was like, No, we just do it for close family and friends. And it was like, Well, I have a wedding or I have a birthday party and I would love for you guys to do it. And we were like, Okay, so we kind of got our feet wet that way. And then the best form of communication was word of mouth, as well as actually being at an event where we catered and it just exploded from there.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:17] So what happened at that event? What made it so special that people couldn’t stop talking about it and referring you out?

Kesha Aycock: [00:03:26] Well, it was the food, honestly. And not only the food that we that we made made it very tasty. It was the experience with it. It was the love and the passion that we have behind it. It was something that it was it’s in us. So if something is in you, it’s going to come out. And the way that it came out, it came out phenomenally. So people started asking us, hey, you know, can you do this for us? And we were like, Sure. So that was the passion behind everything. That’s how we originally got started.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:03] Now, what were some of the dishes you were serving then, and what was your kind of unique spin on them, though? That was so awesome.

Kesha Aycock: [00:04:14] Well, we started doing things that we were familiar with some of the ingredients and recipes that we grew up with, like the Southern style macaroni and cheese, smothered chicken, collard greens. And then some of the American dishes came a little bit later as we kind of ventured into creating a certain spin on some of the classic American dishes, like the miniature hamburger sliders. We kind of made our own little recipes from those dishes. The lemon Herb Selman, the lollipop and lamb chops, grilled asparagus. I mean, the list goes on and on.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:53] So how does it work when these events contact you? Do they, like, have a menu that they’re picking from or do they tell you, hey, we would love for you to do this? And they they’re kind of kind of giving you the menu or does it work both ways?

Kesha Aycock: [00:05:07] Yes, it does for both work. Tai Tung today. Work both ways. We do cater to your expertise. Maybe there’s a family tradition dish that you may want. Or you may go to our website at WW. Catering by Design LLC DOT and from that website you’ll see the menu selections and you can kind of pick from there. And we kind of cater to what you what you really want, what you may want to experience at that time.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:39] Now, is there a sweet spot in terms of the size of the event or does it really matter? Can it be like for ten, 20 people or does it have to be 100 or 500 or 1000?

Kesha Aycock: [00:05:51] No, not at all. It can be any size. We do intimate private dining. Sometimes it’s just a husband and wife anniversary, or it may be a corporate event where they have in 304 hundred people. It could be 100 people. Really? There’s really no size. We even do personal dining, such as during the height of the pandemic, we decided to reinvent ourselves to be available to all of our clients as well as the new clients. Because during the pandemic, everybody was cooking and nobody wanted to go to the store. So they reached out to us and say, Hey, we have a family of four. We want to eat for two days. So can you create something like two meats, three sides, your bread rolls, beverages, just so that we can get through the weekend? I don’t have to cook all week. So that was a phenomenal opportunity that we had during the pandemic. It actually exploded because we were getting text messages and calls and emails and the clients were going through our website saying, Hey, we need food. Can you please cater something for us? So that was that went over very well.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:02] So you were kind of doing like meal prep for your clients that they had, you know, kind of probably better, much better quality than they could get on their own. But it was done by a professional chef.

Kesha Aycock: [00:07:14] Yes, that’s correct. Because as you already know, during the pandemic, a lot of the grocery stores were bare. So being a personal shopper, licensed personal chef, you have access to a lot of companies and grocers that are not privy to the public. So we were able to get food and prepare these food, these dishes, which a typical person wouldn’t be able to have access to.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:42] Now. What’s the most rewarding part of your work? It sounds like, you know, these events that are catered by you, you’re really making an impact to making a difference.

Kesha Aycock: [00:07:54] The most rewarding part of our work is at the end of each event, the look on their face, the gratitude that they show, the happiness and joy that they feel, indicating how well they were treated and how honored they are. Well, how honored we are to be a part of whatever event it was. It’s the look on the face and the satisfaction at the end of each event that we get from our clients that says it all. That is way worth more than any dollar amount that we can ever receive coming from our business venture.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:34] Now, can you talk to us about the Coalition to Back Black Businesses? How did you get involved with that?

Kesha Aycock: [00:08:42] Oh, my goodness. Okay. So this experience was I was in ah, and I’m still in on this has been a couple of months now, but the Coalition to Back Black Businesses, I’ll receive information from them through a platform of the Eureka Entrepreneurship Mentoring Ship Program. I became a member of this. You can sign up for free. They offer mentorship for entrepreneurs that are in need of going to the next level or becoming more successful than they are. A lot of small businesses don’t know where to turn when it comes to trying to get their business to the next level. So during the course of the mentorship, they the Coalition to Back Black Businesses, along with their founding partner of American Express, offered a $25,000 grant and also continued mentorship coaching through their 2021 grant program and catering by design applied for the grant, and we were one of the 20 recipients that received the grant. It was an amazing experience and we are forever grateful to all of the organizations that was involved. And those organizations consist of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, the National Business League, US Black Chambers Inc, Walker’s legacy and of course, the Eureka Entrepreneurship Platform.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:10] So you apply for this grant and then ended up getting it. What was the criteria to get it? Was it. Had they choose you?

Kesha Aycock: [00:10:20] Well, the the criteria was first and foremost, you had to be a small business. And they have a financial you have a financial obligation to not make a certain amount of money. And I believe it’s like under 1 million. I can’t remember the exact amount, but they can. The United States Chamber of Commerce recognized small businesses based on the amount of money that you currently make. And so that was the first criteria you had to be licensed in your business, whether it was whether it was a catering company, whether it was a any type of business, honestly, just any type of business, you had to be licensed. And third, you had to go through the mentorship program, through the Eureka platform. And during the course of the mentorship, a coach would have to recommend you to to be a part or recommend you to be awarded the recipients. And I was told that many participants were a part of I think it was well over maybe 100, maybe 200 people applied. And from the referral that the coach gave, along with your dedication to being a part of that mentorship program, you apply for the grants and you just kind of hope that you won. And I think what really put us on the edge to be one of the 20 recipients is the the what do you call it, the referral from the coach. You build a relationship with your coach during the course of X amount of months.

Kesha Aycock: [00:12:05] You go online, Zoom conferences, you ask questions, you do homework. And I had an amazing coach by the name of Priya Gopal. We built a relationship so strong that she saw the dedication, hard work and the drive that we had to become successful. And she knew that the $25,000 grant will be the seed money that we would need to help open up a restaurant in the future. So it’s the dedication that she saw, along with how hard I was working and how hungry I was so that, you know, I was able to apply for this grant. And when I received a phone call I was in complete. I just I didn’t have any words. It was just absolutely amazing. So those were some of the requirements that you had to have. You had to be dedicated and you can’t just come on and I’ll just look at it another day or I’ll just do the homework when I get ready. Any time you want something, you got to work for it. It’s not always easy, easy. But when you have people that’s behind you and they see the potential that you have, they’re going to push for you just as hard as you push for yourself. And that Eureka platform, they saw everything that we want it to be and more.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:34] Now, that’s a very important statement you just made, and a lot of entrepreneurs really should listen to that. There are places that want to help you, but you have to take the action and get involved. You can’t just sign up for stuff and hope things go your way. You got to do the work. You’ve got to kind of be the person that these mentors are kind of pushing you towards. So any advice for a business owner out there that maybe, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs think, I got to do this on my own or it doesn’t count, but there’s so many people out there that want you to win and succeed. There’s places that want to help you be the best you you can be. Any advice for that entrepreneur to take that step and ask for help and get mentored and find those things like Eureka that can help take you to new levels?

Kesha Aycock: [00:14:24] Yes. The advice that I give to anyone that wants to do it is you got to you got to make sure that you’re hungry when you’re hungry. Just imagine your meal, right? You’re hungry, your stomach is growling and you’re ready to eat, right? So you have to prepare to eat. So first of all, you got to find out what you want. Do I want a burger? Do I want a pizza? Do I want a good old dinner from Red Lobster or whatever it is you decide on what you want. That’s number one. Number two, prepare for that meal. I need a fork, a knife, a spoon, and I have to sit at the table. And if you’re not sitting at the table or wherever you. Wherever you are, you cannot prepare for this meal. You cannot. And my my advice to give to anyone that wants an opportunity to be heard or to be seen or to get to where they want to go is. Be your best. Dig, dig, dig into anything and everything that is surrounding you. Yeah, I have to take away a lot of the negativity because the negativity that we received through the whole process, not from Eureka, but from other people that we knew that we thought that was going to help us. They actually told us that there is no funding or there is no grants for you to succeed your your business. It’s not out there that’s just make believe. And the first thing that I did was I killed off the negativity. I was like, there there is funding. You know, we may not have the funding to get started because, you know, you might you know, you work a regular job and you just you don’t know what to do.

Kesha Aycock: [00:16:18] And the money is just not always there. The government, the United States government has given so much money toward small businesses, not just black businesses, just the small businesses, because we’re the ones we’re the bread and butter of the business industry. It’s the small mom and pop businesses that’s trying to get to where a lot of the multimillion dollar businesses are. But we’re the ones that makes America thrive. So whenever you receive negative information, don’t receive it at all. Just kill it out, take a breather, start digging, started looking, asks questions. And that’s the one thing that I do. Everybody that knows me, I ask tons and tons of questions and I don’t stop until I get the answer that I need. I’m up early in the morning. I’m late, I’m up late at night looking on the Internet, finding out what website can I go to, who can I ask? Who can I meet with just to find out where can I go to get what I need to become successful? So if you’re listening to this broadcast, it is not by an accident. It is not by just some coincidence. It’s because you’re there’s something great in you. There’s something in you that’s motivated. But you have to push the button to motivate yourself to keep going. Nobody’s going to do this. But you. You can have a team of people behind you, but if it’s your dream, nobody’s going to see your dream come true unless you push through. So keep going. Don’t stop. Ask questions. Do what you got to do. Go where you got to go. And I promise you, I’m a witness that there is funding out there for you, so keep going. Don’t stop.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:10] Well, Chef Kesha, a very inspirational words. If somebody wants to connect with you and learn more about Catering by Design LLC, maybe book some catering, maybe just talk about business. What is the website? What is the best way to get a hold of you and your team?

Kesha Aycock: [00:18:26] Okay, so they had this. We have several platforms and where you can reach us first and foremost is Catering by Design LLC. That’s our website. There’s an inquiry tab under the label where you can reach out to us about that. Or if you want to see some of the work that we’ve done, we’re on Facebook, which is at one catering by design and also Instagram catering by design underscore. And if you just you can reach us through Messenger, Facebook or just an instant message or DM from Instagram to get in touch with us. And again, that’s WW Catering by Design LLC or for Facebook at one Catering by Design and DMS for Instagram at Catering by Design Underscore.

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

Kesha Aycock: [00:19:26] Thank you so much for having me, Leigh.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:28] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Intro: [00:19:36] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll in HR software anywhere. Get one month free at on paycom.

 

About Our Sponsor

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

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

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Christabel Ghansah With Curlnalyzer

by

christabelghansah2
Atlanta Business Radio
Christabel Ghansah With Curlnalyzer
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christabelghansah2Christabel Ghansah is the Founder of Curlnalyzer. Curlnalyzer is a platform/app using AI technology to assess hair types/textures and customizing products and hairstyles for users.

Their goal is to promote accessibility to products and resources for people with naturally curly hair and challenge Eurocentric standards of beauty and professionalism.

When Christabel isn’t working on Curlnalyzer, she can be found at her 9-5 working in economic development for a city in Gwinnett County. She is a 3x graduate of Georgia State University and is currently a member of the Main Street Entrepreneurial Seed Fund cohort 3.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The story of Curlnalyzer
  • MSESF and how others can get involved
  • The importance of accelerator programs

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:00] So. Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at onpay.com. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. But this is a very special one. It’s the GSU. Any special interviews where we’re interviewing folks that are coming out of that program and involved in the Main Street Fund? Today on the show, we have Christabel Ghansah with Curlnalyzer. Do I say that right Curlnalyzer correctly?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:00:54] I know it’s a mouthful. Yes, that’s correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] Well, Christabel, congratulations on developing Curlnalyzer. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is and how other folks can learn about it?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:01:06] Absolutely. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So, Curlnalyzer, we are still very much in the ideation stage and Main Street has been helping us, helping out with fleshing out that idea a little bit and turn it into a product. But the main goal really is to promote accessibility to hair care products and hairstyles for black women, specifically individuals that have a little bit more kinky curly hair that have difficulty finding products for their hair texture. That’s what we’re doing here at Colonel Kaiser.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] So what was the genesis of the idea? Was this a problem you had or your friends had or family members had? Like, how did you say, you know what, this is a problem I think technology might help us solve?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:01:47] Yes, all of the above. But yes, primarily because it’s a problem I have in speaking with friends, family members, sisters, I have three older sisters and we all keep natural black hair. It’s an issue that we all face. And actually, I was taken a class, I was enrolled in the MBA program at Georgia State, and I graduated last December 2021 and taken a class with Dr. Pinn in Digital Innovation. And that was the basis of the class really encouraging us to think outside the box a little bit and find problems that we’re all facing individually and how we can create innovative ways to solve those problems. So that’s how we came about initially.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:30] So when you were younger, did you think, Oh, one day I’ll be an entrepreneur?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:02:36] I don’t think so. I don’t think I ever had that idea. I actually didn’t know what was involved. I mean, I’d heard about it seeing individuals submit people that work full time as entrepreneurs. But that has never been my goal. It just sort of fell into my life. I guess that’s not really a good way to put it, but I didn’t think I was going to be an entrepreneur growing up. But here we are.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:03] But here we are. And I mean, part of it is you’re involved with Georgia State, right? You graduated at Georgia State and multiple degrees. Right. And and one of the things JSU does a great job with is to at least explore entrepreneurism in in almost all, if not all of their majors. Right. Like there’s a little bit of entrepreneurship you can glean in, in wherever you are in that university. And maybe that contributed a bit.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:03:35] Mm hmm. Oh, absolutely. I would say that digital innovation class that I took contributed a lot because we did have entrepreneurs, individuals that have started their own businesses and had ideas while they were enrolled come and speak to us in the class. And so even there was an idea that I’d been sort of thinking about a little bit. It was through that class that I realized that maybe I can turn this into something that everybody else can find useful and not just me. So I would definitely say being a student multiple times at Georgia State and having the opportunity to network and speak with other entrepreneurs like definitely played into me wanting to turn this idea into a product.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:17] Now, are you a technologist? Like, how are you kind of handling the technology part of this? Because it’s one thing to go, well, my hair is really curly, and that would be great if there was an app that would just kind of tell me what to buy. Right. But like, how do you make the technology you do that?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:04:35] Technology background. Unfortunately, my background is very much in public administration and the social sciences. So not a field that I’m very familiar with technology, but actually through the Main Street Fund, I’ve been able to connect with other individuals that have the background that I can find their services. I haven’t committed to anyone just yet. I think it’s a very important decision that I have to take my time and make. But I’ve been through the program, met different people that I’ve spoken with and still like vetting and seeing who I would eventually have on my team.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:14] Now that is a big decision and you want to hopefully get it right or close to right. Is there any advice for other non tech founders out there that are doing what you’re doing of like what are kind of some of the red flags? You’re meeting somebody, you’re like, oh, this is not going to be a fit or, hey, this person. Potential. Is there anything you’ve learned thus far on how to kind of hone in on the appropriate technology partner?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:05:38] Right. I mean, I think the the main Seed Entrepreneurship Seed Fund, that’s something that we’re all learning. We have different sessions and they teach us different things that we should look out for and how we should build our team and things like that. So I would say just talk to as many people as you possibly can and don’t make the decision like right away. Because for me personally, I’m looking for someone that works in the field and knows what they’re doing. But I also want to make sure that it’s the right fit and it’s someone that equally cares about what I’m doing. So I would rather have someone that cares about what I’m doing and have the background also than just someone that has the background. So yeah, that I think wanting that both in one person has made the process a little longer. But at the same time, like I said, I think it’s a very important decision and so I want to take my time and make that decision. But yeah, I think my advice would be just talk to as many people as possible and vet out people based on what you’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:43] Now, what has been kind of the most rewarding part of the process thus far?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:06:49] Oh, I would definitely say the customer discovery process. So we’ve had three different sessions based on customer discovery alone. And my one big aha moment or my takeaway has been sort of like we all came into the program having an idea based on problems that we individually faced and we wanted to. Find a solution for. But again, we want to get it to a point where it’s not just beneficial to us, it’s beneficial to other people. So we have to make sure we take in feedback from the ideal customer right into consideration as well. So talking to people outside of family, friends and people in that in my inner circle who will obviously give me positive feedback and actually seeking out who I think my ideal customer base and getting their feedback and what they would like to see and if this is even a problem for them that they want to solve, you know, that has helped me really validate my idea and take a different approach than what I had in mind initially when I came into the program. So I think that has been extremely beneficial.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:01] Has there been any kind of big hurdle thus far or has it been kind of smooth sailing?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:08:07] Oh, it’s been challenging. I’m not going to lie. I am. I think if I were doing this full time, it wouldn’t have been as challenging as it’s been. But I also work full time and working on this idea full time with the Main Street Fund. So it has been challenging, like planning everything and making sure I’m on top of everything and meeting the deadlines because after every session we have homework assignments that we have to do and check in with our mentor and things like that. So you have to make sure you’re keeping on, otherwise you’re going to fall behind and not meet the expectations at the end of the program. So that has been very challenging. And also just getting out of my comfort zone and talking to people, you know, and hearing some feedback that is not very positive, but it’s feedback nonetheless that will help flesh out the idea a little bit. So it’s been emotionally tasking, it’s been physically task and it’s been challenging overall, but still very fulfilling.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:14] Now, do you have anybody else on the team or is it just you?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:09:18] I do have my brother helping out in terms of the operations side of things and making sure we’re keeping on deadline and when we’re doing the customer discovery. He’s there to take the notes for me. So it’s not just me going having to talk to people and memorize or like take notes at the same time, because I think that can be confusing sometimes if it’s just one person. So shout out to my brother.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:47] Yeah, everybody’s got to help a little, right?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:09:50] A little bit, yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:52] Now, being part of the Main Street Entrepreneurial Seed Fund, that’s a big achievement just unto itself. That process you mentioned, you’ve been gaining a lot of insight from going through it. Probably without that fund, you might not have taken these steps. Right.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:10:12] Actually, you know, like, to be honest with you, when I applied initially because the one of the cohort members that I applied not saying that the funding is not nice, but when I applied, Michelle, I didn’t realize there was a funding aspect to it because I think the opportunity to actually meet people that work in the field and can give you very specific feedback and guide you a little bit. Also in terms of like turning your idea or even people that have the product, making it a little bit better and going to the next stage in itself is very valuable. But absolutely the funding has been also helpful in terms of me bringing on people to my team, because even the fact that we’re very small, like nobody is still going to work for free. So the fund has been a very nice cushion also, but I think I would have still applied even if there was no funding attached to it.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:04] Right. But would you do you think you would have gone this far in pursuing this analyzer solution if you weren’t part of this program? Do you think you would have done this without being part of that kind of having that help?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:11:19] Oh, I don’t know. I would have gotten this far without the help. I think it’s pushed me like it’s just been a couple of months, but I’ve made a huge progress since when I started the program, because literally when I started the program, I didn’t have any product. I was literally just an idea that I presented to the team and thankfully they thought it was a good idea and they were willing to support. But I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I have gotten if I didn’t have that support. So it’s definitely been very beneficial to my success. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:53] Yeah. I think that the Main Street and other other kind of initiatives like this really, because they put you on a path to success, like there are things to do, you have homework, like you have to do things. So it forces.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:12:10] You to mentors, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:12:11] It forces you to.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:12:13] Do this when you work? Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:15] Because otherwise it’ll be like, hey, I have this idea. And then you would like maybe get to it, maybe on a vacation, you’d bring it up again. But it could it could take years for it to come to life. And this is like, well, now you’re on a clock, you’ve got deadlines, you’ve got things have to happen now.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:12:31] Absolutely. Like we have a schedule and every couple of weeks there’s a class, an assignment. You’re checking in with your mentor in between. It’s yes, you have to keep up.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:42] Right. And then. But it’s paying off, though. You’re making you can see real progress.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:12:47] I know. I am amazed. Like I didn’t think I had it in me, but yeah, very amazed at my progress so far.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:56] Well, it’s a big achievement. You should be super proud of yourself. This is I mean, this is a big deal.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:13:01] Thank you so much. It is a big deal. I’m coming. I’m now getting to realize it. But when I started, the process was a little bit overwhelming. But now looking back and seeing how far I’ve come and the progress that I’ve made, it’s just amazing. So, yes, I’m very proud of myself.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:19] So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:13:23] Oh yes. So I am still doing customer feedback. I don’t think I’ll ever stop even when my product is fully on the market. I’m always going to want to hear people’s feedback on how things are working, how we can make things better for folks. So anybody that’s interested, please email us at info or no. Hello. Hello friend. Please email us at hello at the dot com. We’re still looking to build our team. We’re looking for our tech person. We’re looking for individuals that really care about this product that we’re building to help us in the customer discovery page. So space. So anybody that’s interested at all please email us at hello at the dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:08] So it’s a. Fertilizer is the.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:14:13] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:14] All right, let me. It’s. Hello.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:14:17] Hello? At at Pearl’s.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:19] C u r l l.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:14:20] U r l n a l y z e r dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:29] And then when they do that, that’ll get to you. Are you on any of the social platforms too, or is this the main way to get a hold of you?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:14:38] This is the main way to get a hold of me. I’m on LinkedIn kind of like this. Not yet. Personally. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram and other social media platforms, but I I’m centralizing all my communication to our email for right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:53] Right. And if they want to contact you and social, what is share like the spelling of your name so they can find you?

Christabel Ghansah: [00:15:00] Sure. Yes. My first name. C h Christ. A B e l last name is an s h and that’s Cristobal Gonzales.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:10] Well, Cristobal, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Christabel Ghansah: [00:15:16] Thank you so much, Lee. This was awesome. Truly appreciate your time.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:19] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GSU. Any radio?

Intro: [00:15:26] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll in HR software anywhere. Get one month free at paycom.

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

 

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