Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Mike Stark With Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry

April 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Mike Stark With Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry

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Michael Stark serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry and the Foundation of the Wall and Ceiling Industry. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations, strategic planning, program management, fiscal management and governance of the organization and its more than 2,400 members. Prior to joining AWCI in 2019, Mike held leadership positions at the Associated General Contractors of America, Construction Management Association of America, American Road & Transportation Builders Association and as a Congressional staff member on Capitol Hill.

Mike is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. He is a member of the American Society of Association Executives and a Certified Association Executive (CAE).

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.

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: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Mike Stark with the Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Stark: [00:00:29] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate you having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. But before we get started, tell us a little bit about a WCI. How are you serving folks?

Mike Stark: [00:00:39] Yeah, absolutely. So our association’s been around since 1918. We represent wall and ceiling contractors, manufacturers and distributors all throughout the United States and outside the United States as well. And as a national trade association, we certainly provide networking opportunities and media opportunities through our magazine and other avenues. We have education programs, provide some technical expertize as far as codes and standards and the wall and ceiling space, and also have recently engaged more in the safety and health arena, particularly for wall and ceiling contractors.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] And how long have you been leading this association?

Mike Stark: [00:01:21] Yes, I joined WCI in September 2019, so approaching three years.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] So the timing is a little tricky, huh? The the you got there just in time for it to have a pandemic hit, so. Oh, that must have been fun.

Mike Stark: [00:01:41] Yeah, that was not the job description. But you’re correct. I started about about six months before the entire world shut down. And around March 2020 there and I came aboard. My predecessor retired and was here for about 24 years as CEO of this organization. So his timing was great. My timing was interesting. But here we are. We’re still standing.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:07] So now let’s dove into both of those things separately, because it’s one thing to replace somebody who maybe had a term of a few years, but somebody who’s been around for, you know, two decades that’s pretty entrenched in in a leadership position. And then to have to follow that, how was that something you were excited about or was that some apprehension about doing something like that?

Mike Stark: [00:02:33] Well, you know, it’s a little mix of both. I mean, as I came aboard, you know, it was a very stable, well-established organization. So that was that was good. You know, when I when I took on the role, you know, I wasn’t coming into a train wreck of a group. It was a very stable and, you know, just a solid organization. So that was certainly comforting to walk into that. That being said, you know, I did not want to come into the role and just keep the trains running on time, kind of keep the status quo for the next number of years. Wanted to assess things and take on new things. So, you know, what’s great is the leadership of the organization, board of directors, executive committee. You know, they had that vision as well. I’ll bring in our new CEO. So they gave me quite a bit of runway to to try some things and do some new things, but certainly wasn’t easy. And even to this day isn’t completely easy as far as, you know, trying to not change everything certainly don’t change for the sake of change, but have the ability to try some new things. And, you know, we had a very solid staff here, but a lot of staff who had been here a long time. So, of course, they’re getting used to a new guy. I’m getting used to them. And I obviously have some different approaches to things as my predecessor doesn’t make that better or worse, but just different. So, you know, all in all things have gone smoothly. But yeah, certainly some challenges here and there on just changing culture, changing process, changing approach.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:09] Now in some ways, did having gone through the pandemic make this transition a little bit smoother in the sense I know it was difficult for everybody, but just the fact that there’s this major global change so that we have to change like there’s no, you know, like this is non-negotiable. We have to adjust and make some changes. We can’t do things as we’ve done them for, you know, while we have a pandemic happening.

Mike Stark: [00:04:36] No, I think that’s that’s a good way to put it, where no one would wish, of course, a global pandemic for any of us. But, you know, I guess I was supported by the fact that, you know, WCI wasn’t just dealing with that. I wasn’t just dealing with that. Every organization, nonprofit for profit around the globe was dealing with the pandemic. So, you know, there wasn’t a playbook for us to follow. But, you know, we just figured it out along with other groups, certainly kept my eyes and ears open on what other other associations were doing, whether it’s meetings, remember communications, COVID protocols, that kind of thing. So, so that was good. And you know, I do joke with our members, you know, my honeymoon as the new guy was probably extended a bit, right? You know, that honeymoon can be short or it can be a year. Every position is different, but. You know, we were in some form of triage trying to navigate the ins and outs of of COVID. So I think in that way, it did make it a little easier that, hey, you know, Mike and his team and WCI are dealing with this thing as as our members are and probably didn’t have as much pressure in some other areas at that point. So yeah, we negotiate that well. And I just kept in mind that our members, they’re dealing with these things the same way we are. So we’re all kind of in the same boat.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:05] Now when the pandemic hit, obviously that impacted, I would imagine, how you did some in real life events and conferences and conventions and things like that. Have you come out of that? Have you kind of gone on and started, you know, getting back together and meeting in person again?

Mike Stark: [00:06:24] Absolutely. So, you know, the initial impacts were of course, I had a whole slate of travel, get to know the members, get to know the chapters plan for 2020. And that came to a screeching halt. So that that slowed down, I guess, a little bit, just my, you know, my ability to to put names with faces a little bit. But yeah, certainly getting back to that, you know, currently I’m on travel next week I’ll see several members in chapters out in Arizona, so that’ll be great. In March 2020, we had our national convention and trade show planned in March 2020, and if it had been two weeks earlier, we would have gotten it in under the wire. But it was not. So about a week or so before the event we had to cancel it. We were supposed to be in Las Vegas in mid-March of 2020, had to cancel that and no one wanted to have to do that. Of course, it was kind of a no brainer. The right decision. Las Vegas shut down a couple of days after we canceled, and fortunately, we did come out of that. Well, for my financial aspect, meetings and conferences, about 30% of our our revenue stream. So certainly consequential in that regard. But we did have a favorable insurance policy for events and infectious diseases at the time. So at the end of the day, we came out of that financially whole, which was great, obviously missed seeing people and we just literally had our convention and trade show in Dallas, right outside of Dallas a couple of weeks ago, and that was my first one. I’ve been on the job almost three years, but that was my first event because we canceled in 2020 and had to cancel again in 2021.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:19] Yeah. So that must have been exciting time though for you to go in the first time to see everybody in person. And there was probably a kind of a great enthusiasm to meet again altogether.

Mike Stark: [00:08:30] There really was you know, I keep using the line, you know, everyone was in a good mood walking in the door, you know, at our convention and expo a couple of weeks ago. Which which helps. Right. They weren’t a good mood coming in the door. I think we we put together an outstanding event and kept them in a good mood and kept them engaged. Our attendance was in the neighborhood of pre-COVID levels, which surprised me, frankly. Our trade show was sold out. We literally had no more space to sell it out at the Gaylord Texan outside of Dallas. So, you know, it was a win across the board and somebody were like, Oh, you’re the new guy. And I’m like, well, yes and no.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:11] Right? The three year old new guy.

Mike Stark: [00:09:13] Yeah, it’s my first convention, but I’m two and a half years ago.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:17] Yeah, that’s like a time warp happened.

Mike Stark: [00:09:20] Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:21] Now. Has it been difficult kind of continuing to push the value to the members when you are going from a you know, a lot of our value was these in person stuff and now we haven’t done that and now we’re getting back to that. Has the members kind of come along for this ride and are now hungry for that in person kind of interactions? Or you’re having to come up with creative ways to just keep enhancing the the membership value.

Mike Stark: [00:09:49] Yeah. So it’s, you know, my biggest concern frankly during all of COVID and even still, you know, certainly the financial implications of canceled events and things of that nature. But it was really are we going to lose the momentum? Are we going to lose the engagement of members say, hey, we haven’t met in person in two years, but, you know, no big deal. You know, my company is doing fine and, you know, is that necessary again? So I hope our recent convention was not an anomaly and really shows that people want to get back together. You know, I think our industry again, the construction industry contract. Manufacturers, suppliers, like a lot of industries, it’s a people business, you know, it really is. And all the Zoom meetings in the world and all the webinars we can crank out, they have their place. But I really don’t see it replacing that in-person contact. I really don’t, at least not for our industry. We’ve certainly done more webinars. Some of our committees that used to meet in person, we learned they can do it over Zoom and some of those things are, I guess, positives that came out of all this. But I think the in-person will continue to be important for for our members and our organization, but it doesn’t mean okay, great, we can just keep going how we were going. I think that member value proposition is something we always need to look at and, you know, want to use the past couple of years and the challenges we faced as that springboard to try some new things and make sure we are engaging the members and don’t just hang our hat on a convention in the spring and a fall conference in the fall as those touch points.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:46] So now that you’ve been about three years into this, is it you feel like kind of now you’ve got that balance of this is the way we used to be. This is where I kind of see us growing into. Are you kind of having that vision kind of come to life now?

Mike Stark: [00:12:05] Yeah, no, we definitely you know, some of the things we’ve talked about and of course, some of it was we were stopping and starting. Right. You know, it’s like, okay, we’re going to we’re going to mix up some things for the convention and and try this and that. And then and then we canceled, you know, and then a year goes by. So now we’ve got one of those under our belt. Under my belt, we saw some things that work, some things that that maybe weren’t a home run. And we can adjust moving forward. But it is good to see some of the conceptual things that the team and I hear are volunteer leadership had talked about come to fruition. You know, we’re seeing we’ve increased our marketing and gotten smarter about how we communicate with our members. We’re seeing higher attendance in webinars. So great, they’re not the best kept secret anymore. So that’s a nice metric to see. We’ve gotten good feedback from our our recent event. We have an event this coming fall. We’re going to try some new things and and see how that goes. But it is certainly nice to, you know, you have a lot of great conversations and your whiteboards and things. It it’s refreshing, I guess, to to see some of those things actually put into practice and then move forward and make them better next time.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] Now, having replaced somebody that was in the role for so long, does it is it is it hard to attract young people or younger people into the association? Is that something that’s important for the growth of the organization to keep kind of refreshing it and keeping it, you know, with a more kind of representative group of all of the people that are in the industry.

Mike Stark: [00:13:50] It is essential to this organization and it is front and center of almost everything we do. And, you know, it’s that balance, right? We don’t want somebody who’s been active in the organization. Maybe they’re a past president, maybe they’re not. But them in their company have been involved forever. We don’t want them to feel like there’s not a place for them anymore. That would be a disastrous misstep. But I think we can do both. We’re embracing those long term individuals and companies, but also having programing, paying proper attention to what we call the emerging leaders. And we created an emerging leaders group about two years ago. Probably should have done it even earlier. But be that as it may, created this group and for the first time at our recent convention, had programing specific to them and actually have set up, I’ll call it a class where we had people sign up and we made a commitment to them. They made a commitment to be part of our emerging leaders program and making it almost like a class. So you move forward over a year’s time and beyond with your class, basically as an emerging leader. And, you know, we want them to go on site visits. We want them to interact with experienced leaders to learn from as well. So, you know, I’ve had a lot of our members who have been stalwart saying, hey, you know, I’m within five years of retiring here. And that’s scary in one regard. But we want to make sure we don’t wake up one day and all of our most dedicated members are retired and we haven’t backfilled that with. A new crop of leaders in our industry and in our association. So it’s it’s critical to basically everything we’re doing right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:38] Yeah, I think that’s a really great and powerful statement you’re making to and I think that it serves all of the members, though, because you’re now having a place for this emerging leader to learn and grow. And then also there’s a place for that seasoned veteran that’s able to share their knowledge and have a legacy and seeing the impact of all their work being, you know, staying alive in the group. And you don’t have that brain drain like you were saying that, you know, all this history and legacy leaves and then there’s people don’t know kind of where they were and what has already what mistakes have already been made, you know?

Mike Stark: [00:16:15] No, that’s right. No, I think it’s that kind of, you know, we don’t have a, quote, formal mentor program. But I think, you know, emerging leaders, you know, those kind of under 40, although we don’t we don’t put a we don’t put an age on our program at all. But, you know, to hear from others outside of their their region or their market or within their company to hear from others on some pitfalls and some successes maybe that individuals made in their career within their business as well. And yeah, just trying to, you know, and some of this is self preservation for the association as well, right. You know, it’s not only the industry, but we want to make, you know, start to identify the next committee chair who maybe becomes the next officer, becomes the next president as well. And just one thing I would like to mention, you know, we’re we’re just starting to kick around an idea and it’s just really conceptual at this point of, you know, those individuals who, you know, they’re still in the industry. They may be close to retiring. Maybe they’re a past president of the group, maybe they’re not. But, you know, and even once they retire from their company, but they still want to be involved on some level, they still want to contribute. We’re kicking around. Hey, can we have a group of some sort that is there as an advisor, you know, an advisory capacity, a guidance capacity or mentor capacity? You know, maybe they’re retired, but they still have knowledge and experiences to share. Can we have a home for those individuals? So we’re kicking around that idea a little bit as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:51] Yeah, I think it’s great to get all the generations involved. Like why would you kind of not be open to having a place for them? I mean, they they’ve learned so much that were part of it for so long. Why would you not want their just their opinions or thoughts about things like it’s I think people want to be heard. And especially as your career is winding down, you want to know that, hey, I left a mark. There is ripples from the work that I’m doing and I have things to share and I can, you know, maybe help somebody else not go through some of the stuff that I had to go through. I think everybody wins in that sense.

Mike Stark: [00:18:27] Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:29] So it’s exciting times for you. Is there any advice you would give? Let’s talk about somebody. If you’re replacing somebody that has been around for as long as your predecessor had, is there any advice like dos or don’ts that you can say, you know what, I wish I would have done this or I you know, this went really well, is there are some ways to do that kind of a handoff in a way that you think you can help somebody else down the road?

Mike Stark: [00:18:54] Sure. Yeah. You know, I came in and, you know, this was my first I’ve been in the association space and particularly the Construction Trade Association space on a national level for 22 years now. But this was my first CEO opportunity. So, you know, like a lot of jobs, you don’t know what you don’t know. I knew I was qualified for it and prepared for it. But until you actually sit in the chair, so to speak, you know, there’s some on the job training there. So I really went out of my way with our staff and we’ve got about 11, 11 staff here too, just to listen, you know, to be a collaborative leader. And, you know, easier said than done. But, you know, no one needs to be reminded that the CEO has a final decision making authority that kind of goes unsaid. So, you know, everyone knows that you don’t really need to remind your staff of that. But I wanted to hear from these individuals. You know, they they have experiences and expertize that I don’t have in their particular areas. They have been with the organization for longer than I had. I just walked in the door. So I want to hear from them. And I wanted them. And I said this time and time again to be clear that their voices were valuable, whether they had been here 30 years or three months, whether they were a coordinator or a senior director, I didn’t really care what what their title was.

Mike Stark: [00:20:17] You know, all voices were important and that I wanted to hear from them on what’s good, what’s bad, what works, what doesn’t work. And an ideas they have. You know I always like. The quote, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the you’re in the wrong room. And so I really just tried to listen. I think that was received very well from the team. And that’s a continuous approach, right? That’s not just me as the new guy trying to get on the good side of the team. That’s that’s something I try to do every day. So there’s that as well. And, you know, with our members just trying to hear from them, you know, I’ve got 20 plus years experience in the Construction Association space, yet I’m not a contractor, I’m not in the field again. I don’t know what I don’t know in that regard. So just trying to hear from the membership on some new approaches and all of that and and also to share my experiences and try some new things. So I just didn’t want to come in and kind of the new sheriff in town approach. And we’re doing this, we’re doing that, we’re doing this and not do the listening part. So I think that’s was essential to some success that the organization is seeing.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:33] So have you been able to kind of see some maybe some of the sprouts of your efforts that things are now kind of bubbling up and you’re seeing, hey, this is this really has a chance to be successful or we’re here or this is something that I think is starting to get traction.

Mike Stark: [00:21:53] Yeah. No. And, you know, we’ve made a lot of changes here. Some some small some were just, you know, the organization when I came in, again, very solid and stable, as I mentioned. But, you know, there were some things that, in my opinion, were were kind of dated and some of this was low hanging fruit stuff. You know, some of it was larger on on things. But our leadership wanted a fresh approach. They wanted a new set of eyes. And and I really stress to my team here for them to be part of that. And I still stress to them, you know, if all the new ideas, the questions, the analysis is coming from my office, that something’s fundamentally wrong. It shouldn’t just be from me or from my position simply because of my title. So but to your question, we have seen some new things. I mentioned the emerging leaders growth there. That is now happening after conceptual talks for a year and a half and COVID pumping the brakes on that a little bit. We hired a director of safety, health and risk management. You know, that was a void that I saw and some of our leaders saw in this organization. You know, everyone says safety and health is their number one thing and they should say that. But as a national trade association, we weren’t talking about that issue, you know, and if we’re not talking about it as a representative of the industry, why not? It’s so essential and impacts every single one of our members. So we now have somebody who’s dedicated to that role and are doing a lot more there. So yeah, we’re seeing some new things and again seeing things actually happening, which is great to see. And you know, the key I think for any of us and any business, any association is just not to get complacent. You know, you do an annual report each year and, you know, you’re you pound your own drum there a little bit and you should and highlight your successes. But we don’t get complacent and, you know, try to push the envelope and we’ll continue to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:02] So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Mike Stark: [00:24:05] Yeah, so, you know, it’s it’s really just, you know, in this role and I think it was smart where I tried to make sure I didn’t get over my skis or my ego got in the way of. You know, listening to other associations, listening to other CEOs, listening to other groups and proactively reaching out. And we’ve done that in various places to hear what they’ve done, to learn their lessons learned on the good and the bad. You know, so it’s really just, you know, whether it’s it’s broadcast like this or resources through ACA or just any other avenue for particularly leaders in the nonprofit sector, because we are unique as associations in a lot of ways, but just as many resources that are out there on what’s the future of trade shows, what do association CEOs need to learn how to best supervise and manage people? Which is always a challenge at times for those and usually an area where none of us have had really formal training. So I think we’ve been smart about proactively reaching out to other groups. Hey, you know, what are you doing with webinars? We hired somebody to do a communications audit of our organization, so a third party could really, you know, we’re all too close to it. A third party could really analyze what we’re doing well and what could be improved. So, yeah, just really the availability of those resources to anyone up and down the staff list for an association are really invaluable because we’re all facing very similar things.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:51] Well, if somebody wants to learn more about your work, what’s the website?

Mike Stark: [00:25:56] Yeah. So our organization WCI dot org is an organization website and we’ve got about 2400 members around the country, 16 chapters, 15 in the United States, one in Canada. And, you know, we filter things through our website like everyone else does. We’re doing a lot more on social media between Twitter, certainly, and LinkedIn and Facebook. We’ve hired somebody to to really hone that in for our organization. So a lot more on that as well. And yeah, we’re certainly in growth mode and I think our members are as well. And it’s been helpful for us as an organization that even during the the heart of COVID construction was largely deemed essential as it should be even even in the middle of COVID. So that’s been helpful for our members and our association as well. But yeah, doing a lot of great things and looking to hear what other groups are doing as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:59] Well, congratulations on all the success. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Mike Stark: [00:27:04] Thank you, Lee. No, I appreciate being a part of this and in all the work that you do highlighting the association industry. Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:12] All right. This is Lee Kantor SEO next time on the Association Leadership Radio.

Lowell Aplebaum With Vista Cova

April 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Lowell Aplebaum With Vista Cova

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Lowell Aplebaum, FASAE, CAE, CPF is the CEO and Strategy Catalyst of Vista Cova – a company that partners with organizations on strategic visioning and planning, designing strong systems of governance and growing staff and volunteer leaders. As an IAF Certified™ Professional Facilitator, Lowell frequently provides dynamic sessions to organizations – getting volunteers, members, and staff involved through experiential learning approaches.

Lowell currently serves on the ASAE Research Committee and is a past Chair for the overseeing commission for the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential. He chaired ASAE’s Task Force on CEO Pathways, and previously served as Chair for ASAE’s Component Relations Council. He is the creator of a master-level learning series, Through the CEO Lens, and Association Charrette – a co-creation retreat experience.

He is the co-Executive Editor and Contributing Author for ASAE’s Component Relations Handbook, 2nd edition, and contributed chapters to the latest versions of Professional Practices of Association Management as well as Membership Essentials. His work on global efforts for associations includes experience across five continents, hundreds of volunteer groups, and all 50 states in the U.S.

Connect with Lowell on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Many organizations use strategy to better guide their directions and decisions in the world today
Some key leadership skills or traits that every association should seek for its Board of Directors
How can an organization focus its resources on the right programs to advance the mission
How modern-day associations use vision and mission

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: [00:00:16] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Lowell Aplebaum with Vista Cova. Welcome.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:00:27] Thanks so much for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:28] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Vista Cordova. How are you serving folks?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:00:35] Sure. So we are a set of facilitators that have a depth and breadth of experience in the association space. So we help organizations with strategic planning and visioning and reimagining how their governance and leadership should be. We worked with about 86 associations last year, on track for over 100 this year, and really try to help any organization that is mission focused to imagine how they could accomplish that mission even more.

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

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:01:04] Probably like most people that you speak to, I’m not sure it was by initially by intention. We I have a master’s in education and actually in a doctoral program for the same and in not wanting to be in a classroom, but with a passion for learning, found my way to association where of course, so much of what we create are environments where we want members to learn about one another, for them to increase their own learning on their professional growth journey. And started inside. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers worked inside about five different organizations and finally just missed working with boards and strategy, leadership, and so became a certified professional facilitator, which is in part what I had been doing inside associations and five and a half years later, here we are.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:48] Now, why did you choose, though, the path of associations rather than since you’re serving businesses and industry? Why didn’t you just work for a, you know, a company within, you know, maybe was a member of the association rather than the association itself? Like, how did you see kind of that path or that the value there rather than, you know, being in the company that’s a member?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:02:12] I think at the heart of the answer to that question is really a service mindset, although of course my company is a for profit company, it’s really dedicated towards mission based organizations. There’s a really heartfelt belief that the work that nonprofits and specifically associations do in trying to create these communities and places of connection to better represent a collective voice for industry, for professionals, can have impact on community society can make a better world. I have I have three little ones that I want to build a better world for. And I just have a strong belief that associations are a real key way to do that. And so if we can continue to build up their strength and continue to build up their profile, then I think that we’ll see a better world because of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:58] Now are you seeing associations kind of lean into that, trying to be the true north for their their members and their industries that they represent, that they are trying to role model these behaviors that folks say are important but maybe don’t execute at the level that people would like them to.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:03:17] I think the past few years in particular, as we’ve experienced ever successive more rapid societal shifts that associations in general have been able have been forced to actually embrace that more. I mean, they’ve had to be representatives of industry when that industry has been disrupted. And so there’s been a great opportunity for those organizations that can recognize that their mission is not just to throw a great meeting, right? That their mission is not just to make a pretty journal, but their mission is to create the right value and resources to amplify and to embody the voice and potential of their membership or the industry they represent. Yeah, those, those organizations are taking mission to heart and are really it’s impressive how they are innovating to try to go beyond what have been traditional models to think about if we can do anything but not everything, what are the most important places we could invest to advance that mission? And so I do I do think that there’s been a double down. I do think there’s been a serious focus on that. I think many organizations are still learning how to do it.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:23] Now, you mentioned that the the chaos and the disruptions that have been happening lately have been maybe unprecedented in our time at least. But how have these associations done when it comes to pivoting and adjusting and, you know, kind of maybe getting outside of their comfort zone when it comes to the status quo, that they’ve had to make changes, they’ve had to, you know, no longer rely on things that historically maybe have served them, but they’ve had to make adjustments, just even like you said, like coming out of the. Pandemic going. Serving members always in-person or with live events in real life shifting to some more virtual or remote or, you know, not in-person events. You know, that was a big shift in providing value to members. How have you seen them, you know, handling that disruption?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:05:21] You know, I think that you would hear from many CEOs that many of the changes that have come have been places that there was an initial intention for the idea of being able to serve a broader audience, to be more inclusive by geography, by having virtual programing isn’t novel. It’s just not anything that, for many organizations was a short term priority. It was more of a slow roll of how do we get there? Welcome, pandemic and forced innovation. All of a sudden you see how quickly can we adapt? And so I think organizations have taken the two ish years of pandemic as a time of forced innovation, and that’s opened up a lot of experimentation and innovation in ways that many organizations probably needed. I think the the real tipping point we’re at now is that as we go from pandemic to endemic, right. And there’s still, of course, societal shift and change that’s happening nearly every week. We do see that there are some organizations that take a traditional mindset of where can we somehow go back, even though they don’t have any sort of time travel machine? Rather than taking a mindset of What did we learn over the past two years? What are the new strengths we discovered we had? And rather than try to recreate the past, what is the future we want to design where we leverage those strengths so that we both acknowledge what we had beforehand, but then include what we’ve been able to learn and create.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:06:54] And so perhaps it’s not a full shift back in person. Perhaps it’s not a full shift back to virtual. Is there a blend there? Right. Is there a balance there? And I think that that goes across the gamut. Another one of, of course, for national organizations, at least here in the United States, was the Black Lives Matter movement and the raise profile of the importance of DNA. And so I see many organizations we’re working with rethinking about their governance structures, right? How are we choosing a board of directors? Not by nepotism, but by strategic competencies and diverse representation? Now, I think that many leaders would tell you that their hope is that isn’t something that goes back. Right. But that that is something that continues to have a place of progress and innovation and growth. And so there’s there’s a lot of opportunity, especially at this moment, to learn the lessons from the past few years, to not lose those, but to take what’s been a place of forced innovation and to put in place practices of innovation that become part of the routine. So it doesn’t take a pandemic or some other societal crisis to shift into a mode where we have to think about something new.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:02] Now, can you share maybe some of the symptoms that an association is having where maybe they need to kind of inject some of the leadership that you were talking about? Like what are some signs that maybe things aren’t going as well as youth that they have been going?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:08:18] So I think if we’re talking specifically around leadership here, for many organizations, one of the wake up calls is the generational shift. It’s always interesting when you’re talking to a board of directors or leaders of an organization. You talk about concerns about the next generation not becoming involved around the next generation’s voice, not being joining the organization. And yet the entire board of directors is the senior experience generation, right? Where is their efforts and inclusion if they want to see that just as one one example. So that’s that’s one place that often if they can actually articulate a need for a greater inclusive nature by a differentiated population that isn’t present, that doesn’t happen by accident. Being welcoming and creating a sense of belonging doesn’t happen by accident, but by intention. So that’s certainly what I would say is one indicator. A second indicator, I would say is if you look at the systems of leadership within an organization, what you want to try to measure to ask about is not how well they’re able to say yes to things, but how strong is their capacity to say no? Right. Is there an inherent system, a belief in the culture that if they say no, if they’re willing to cut back or to cease doing some programs because those programs are live the time, then that’s not a place of failure, but that’s a place of capacity building.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:09:36] So they can be in the space of design and creation about what’s needed next. And so organizations that have a culture where saying no, right? We’re being able and willing to sunset, to pause things, to create capacity for new and innovation. Those are the ones that are going to thrive and that takes culture right. And so I think the third piece of that would just be that there is an intentional culture in the membership and in the leadership. Of not just what is the value they’re going to produce, but if who they are of what you’re going to experience about what we’ve agreed to and how we function in today’s day and age. You can buy great products anywhere, but if you’re going to actually try to belong somewhere, it’s going to be because your beliefs align with the beliefs of the organization or the community that you’re joining. And so in articulation and then a fulfillment of what you’re going to experience is essential if we actually want to see people not just buy products but want to belong.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:30] Now, are you seeing as we come out of the pandemic, a hunger for belonging to associations, getting re involved and re-energized by what’s happening in the associations like the. Our members are growing at this stage or are they kind of still hesitant to invest back into association where they might have dropped the membership during the pandemic because they weren’t doing some of the activities that they had used that association for?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:10:59] Yeah, I think that there’s a real hunger for connection and belonging and community. I think there’s a real hunger for a recognition of rapidly changing disruptors. And then how do we adapt to those disruptors? And who has the right resources and insights that can help prepare us to help prepare our workforce, can help ensure we succeed? Right. There’s a real hunger for in this time of great resignation in ever shifting job places, titles and personnel. If how do we get some stability and workforce, whether that’s on the company end and being a great place to connect to potential future employees or on the individual end? If I want to take the next step, my my employer is not providing the kind of work environment that I think that I need. Where can I go to find the right opportunity? And I think in both of those cases, in all of those cases that absolutely are places that an association can thrive, and if they do right, if they do thrive there, then they see growing membership. But for organizations that don’t try to right set what they are offering, what they’re creating with those really immediate needs of the moment that are going to be here for a bit and we’ll continue to evolve, then, yeah, I think you’re going to see declining affiliation, declining membership and declining engagement. It’s not enough to have rigorous and good set value of products to buy by transactions, right? You have to be really fluent in the needs of your high priority audiences, be able to talk their language so you can cut through this ever loud world and then hopefully create an experience around using those those pieces of value, those experiences that’s going to make them both want to come back, but also share the experience they’ve had with others. And they do that. Then those organizations are the ones where we’ve actually seen membership growth at this time.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:52] Are you seeing young people embrace membership in these associations, especially in their industry, at the level that maybe, you know, their parents did?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:13:05] I don’t think I’m seeing young people embrace it at the level their parents did in the same means by which their parents did. Meaning that there was some when you got to your job that you would stay at for decades, your supervisor said you have to join this organization. And by the way, we’ll often pay for you to join this organization and therefore you got your membership. I think that that that model exists in some places still, but not everywhere. And so where I see young people wanting and those coming in, wanting to affiliate is for those organizations that recognize that the path to involvement has changed, the path to seeing the value has change. And so how are they building functional places of leadership development, right, where those that are coming into an industry and have greater career success because of their affiliation. Right. Not that they come in and there’s some other newer you have to put in your time before you get any value, but rather that organizations are dedicated to being inclusive to all voices and to the needs of differentiated populations from the very first time you come.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:14:09] And it doesn’t mean that everything has to be geared to next gen, but if nothing is geared to next gen, why are they going to affiliate and come and stay, especially when fewer and fewer companies are paying for memberships? If you’re going to expect them to pay to affiliate, then just like anything else they purchased in life, if they don’t see the value of it in a consistent way, then they’re not going to. And I think the the fault line there is that organizations are all too often still relying on loyalty that’s been built over years, decades with traditional members, that they can have subpar interface platforms in the digital space. They can have subpar experiences when taking advantage of the value because there’s been a good career partnership. But for those that are coming in, that are new, that have differentiated expectations, there isn’t that base of loyalty that’s been built over years. And so you see them either joining and then leaving or not even joining because they can’t perceive what the value is to belong until they’re inside and they’re four years that’s too long of an on ramp.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:13] Now, isn’t that kind of a warning sign if you aren’t attracting younger members that, you know, troubles brewing?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:15:23] I think that it’s a warning sign is probably a good word, but I think it’s also an opportunity because you can if it’s the priority, you can shift your system. You know, for a few years I worked for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers early in my career. And what happened during my time there, frankly, was that there was this great, robust system of local students and local young professional groups, but there needed to be a stronger connection to the national group. And so what we created over years was a parallel system of leadership, where there were regional student vice presidents, there was a national student board, and those leaders then actually had mentor opportunities with the actual national leadership, with those that were the full time, the impressive, the ones who had written their textbooks, and by establishing a parallel system, those young professionals coming in could see leaders of their own generation already within the organization. And surprise, surprise, many of those young professionals in subsequent years actually came on to the board of the organization. And so it’s it’s a challenge, but I think it’s an opportunity that if you start to design, right, if you take a design mindset of we were designing our systems today, that we were inclusive of the multiple differentiated generations and populous by differentiated diversities that we want to see. What would we actually design? Would we design conferences that cost 5000? When we think about differentiated populations, they may have different economic standing, right? Would we design the majority of our value? And once a year of meetings when we have a global population that may participate if we are virtual. And so if we could take more of a step back and do a design mindset of what would we design, we could probably come closer to rightsizing what we have to what we need. Then if we just look at what we have and do a little tweak here or there.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:18] And it gets back to what you’re saying, being clear on what your mission in True North is, as well as pushing that kind of value to your members. I mean, if you can get those two things right, you can be more inclusive. You could serve more people in the way that they want to be served in today’s world.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:17:36] Absolutely. And I think that what’s key to that is that that’s not static. Right. The organizations like OC, we know what they need and now we’re good for the next five. Ten years are in just as much of a pickle as the as the ones that said the same thing five years ago and haven’t changed. And so what we really need are systems designed within an organization for places of continual input. Hopefully what I at least talk about often is the curiosity imperative that an organization has inherently elevates the need to be curious. We’ll see leaders that ask more questions than hear their own voice. We’ll see staff that seek to listen to members more than just quickly answer a needs related question. And we’ll seek an overall community and wants to be a learning community that can evolve together. And if that can help guide an organization, then those places have differentiated. Value won’t become static, they’ll become ever evolving.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:31] Now can you share a story? Maybe you don’t name the name, but maybe explain what the challenge the association had when you came around to help them and then how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:18:44] Sure. And so one organization we worked with when I came in had a council of representatives from geographic regions that I believe was around 80 to 90, as well as a board of directors that had partial authority to oversee the fiscal responsibilities. But part of it was in this representative council that met once a year and no one in leadership could draw a clear map of what the leadership should look like looked like currently. And so the work we did right was to after we had done strategic planning with this group, to re-imagine the vision, the priorities and what success looks like. One of the things that emerged was like, Well, if we’re going to be able to do this, we need a leadership system that actually is inclusive, is easy to understand, and is right size at the right levels so that we have decisions being made by the right levels of governance. And so the work we did was with a task force that they assembled was to look at what are the best practices in nonprofit association governance, leadership happening in the space today to have them then discuss, decide, debate, right? What are the things that we need that will fit within our system where we want to see inclusion of voice, but we also want to see meaningful volunteer input and contribution and really help them redesign where we got still a representative council and that representing the council was just about two dozen.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:20:09] And instead of having roles of fiscal oversight, they had advisory roles and that the main place of fiscal and legal oversight became the board itself, who could then form the right committees. We’re under the advisement, right, with the consideration of this representative council. I mean, that’s that’s a big shift in what leadership of decades looks like. But it allowed them to actually be more inclusive by including more voices and advisory capacities, while also making everyone’s volunteer experience more meaningful because no one felt like they were coming to just rubberstamp something. When they were asked to do something, it was because it was going to be tied to mission. It was going to be tied to where the organization used to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:48] So over what period of time did it take to make that transition?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:20:52] So that one took just about a year. We’ve done some governance transitions in quick ones, as short as six months, some as long as two years, depending the size, scope and what that looks like. And look and that’s different. You know, the strategic planning sessions we do, that process unto itself is also something that can take anywhere as short as three or four months that in some cases has taken a year and a half. And that depends on what the architecture of the strategy outcomes they want to see will really look like.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:26] Well, if somebody wants to have a more substantial conversation with you or somebody on the team or maybe learn more about your services, what is the website?

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:21:37] The website is Vista About.com, Vista SEO VA dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:43] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Lowell Aplebaum: [00:21:48] Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to share your story.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:51] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on the Association Leadership Radio.

Jane Gentry With JaneGentry & Company And John Armitage With Armitage Photography Inc

April 28, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Cherokee Business Radio

Jane Gentry With JaneGentry & Company And John Armitage With Armitage Photography Inc

00:00 /

This Episode was brought to you by

Jane Gentry has had a successful 30-year career as a CEO, Business Consultant, Executive Coach, Sales Manager, and Keynoter. In 1999, Jane formed her practice where she has partnered with her clients to improve growth, profitability, client retention, employee retention and leadership capabilities. Jane helps entrepreneurs and senior leaders diagnose and solve gaps regarding people, process and development enabling profitable growth and improving sales velocity and pipeline consistency.

Her clients realized a better articulated value, better delivered value and a better value to their bottom line. The world’s most successful organizations have brought Jane on board, including Assurant, The Home Depot, Milliken, Philips, Coca-Cola, Leidos Healthcare, Stryker, GSK, Transamerica, BlueCross Blue Shield and Mercedes-Benz.

Jane is considered one of the top voices in sales. She has been a guest on numerous podcasts and is a prolific speaker at high-profile meetings from Canada to the Czech Republic. She has been tapped to address topics including “Selling Value” to “Social Intelligence and Your Millennial Sellers” and “Inspirational Leadership”. Audiences and clients have described her as a woman with a vision, energetic and inspiring.

Jane holds a BFA/MFA from Kent State University/ The University of Pittsburgh. She also holds a CPI (Certified Professional Innovator) distinction from GA State University. Earlier in her career she was a professional stage actress. Jane lives in Atlanta, GA.

Connect with Jane on LinkedIn.

John Armitage attended California State University Fullerton and obtained a BA in Communications Photography. He worked in the industry in Orange County for 5 years and then moved to Atlanta in the early 90’s. After a few years here working in various studios, he opened his own and has been adapting and changing as the industry has transitioned from film to digital. He loves photography and all aspects of it. He also finds great satisfaction in mentoring and teaching young photographers as others helped me.

Connect with John on Facebook and LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live. From the Business. Radiox studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:23] Welcome to Cherokee Business Radio Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by Alma Coffee, sustainably grown, veteran owned and direct trade, which of course means from seed to cup, there are no middlemen. Please go check them out at my alma coffee ecom and go visit their Roastery Cafe at 3448 Holly Springs Parkway and Canton. As for Harry or the brains of the outfit, Letitia, and please tell them that Stone sent you. All right, you guys are in for such a treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast. First up on Cherokee Business Radio this morning with Jane Gentry and company the lady herself. Miss Jane Gentry. Good morning.

Jane Gentry: [00:01:10] Good morning.

Stone Payton: [00:01:12] It is a delight to have you in the studio. How about we start with a little bit of an overview? Mission, purpose. What are you out there trying to do for folks, Jane?

Jane Gentry: [00:01:23] We are out there trying to help CEOs and executives of businesses up to about 200 million grow. Some of our clients are growing rapidly. They don’t know that they have the right infrastructure to support that growth. We have a lot of owners that are trying to exit after COVID, and we want to make sure that they’ve got the systems intact to serve. Their businesses can continue without them or they can sell for a profit if that’s what they choose to do.

Stone Payton: [00:01:54] So it sounds like a tall order to me.

Jane Gentry: [00:01:58] It sounds like a lot of fun to me. I don’t.

Stone Payton: [00:02:01] Know. So where do you start with. It seems like a great big thing that you’re tackling. Where do you start?

Jane Gentry: [00:02:07] We start with the leader. Frankly, we start with the CEO. Most of my consulting is to the CEO and we take a look at their leadership of the organization, places where they might improve and listen a lot to what they think the challenges are that they have in the organization. Then we go back in there and dig in and figure out if we agree with them in terms of the priorities of of what they think are the challenges in the business.

Stone Payton: [00:02:39] So I’ve always wondered, what does that look like when maybe the the leader’s perception is different than than the reality you’re observing and or they’re just not equipped or prepared to have that real conversation? Or do you run into that?

Jane Gentry: [00:02:58] Sometimes we have a lot of hard conversations and in a loving way. Stone But yeah, sometimes the leader is the challenge in the organization, frankly. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they’re grabbing too much to things that they maybe should let go of and let other people do. Sometimes they don’t have those people in the organization, and we need to look at the talent situation in the organization. And then there are a lot of times where they think they need to start at a particular point, and we don’t agree necessarily with that. And so there’s some negotiating, some convincing on our side, some convincing on their side, and some negotiating about where’s the right place to start.

Stone Payton: [00:03:47] So I suspect you see some patterns over time. You’ve been at this a while, or are there some things that you can almost count on seeing and you probably have the social skills not to roll your eyes, but maybe internally you’re like, okay, here we go again.

Jane Gentry: [00:04:01] Yeah. The number one thing is I call chasing the shiny object, chasing the things that are not the most critical to move the business forward. And I’ll give you my favorite example. Almost every time I get into an organization, somebody says to me, we need a new website. And I’ll say, okay, well, you know what? I agree with you. Your baby’s ugly, but that’s not really where I would start. You need the strategy first, right? You need you need the plan first. You need to know who your customer is first and what the language is of your customer and what the problems that your customer has. What are the solutions you know, what are the things you’re solving for? And then we get to the website. A website anymore is just a calling card, right? Nobody in B2B is going to buy off your website. But but the thing about something like that is that you get you get something metaphorically to hold in your hand at the end of it that you can be proud of. It’s and some of the harder business challenges are a process and you it’s harder to find that thing that you can hold in your hand and go look at what we did. Isn’t this beautiful? Isn’t this website beautiful? Isn’t this collateral beautiful? Right. So I call it chasing the shiny object. And that is a that is a pretty consistent thing that that I see.

Stone Payton: [00:05:28] I think I might resemble that remark and we’re no, we’re 200 million, but we’ve got a good little business going here. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I’m one of the leaders of this little business and I do get sort of distracted by.

Jane Gentry: [00:05:42] Yeah, well, I’ll tell you, I had a CEO say to me recently, I’m not sure that our business will be relevant in ten years and then not too long on the tail end of that, she said, Jane, we really need a new website. And I said, Wait, I think we need to go back to the statement that your business might not be relevant in ten years and address that. I think that’s the big problem. Not not your website, right. So it is a pretty consistent, pretty consistent thing.

Stone Payton: [00:06:11] So let’s back up a little bit. I’d love to hear a little bit about the back story. How did you land in this in this line of work?

Jane Gentry: [00:06:22] Well, I had a consulting practice for 20 years. I consulted predominantly with very big companies Mercedes, Home Depot, Philips.

Stone Payton: [00:06:33] I’ve heard.

Jane Gentry: [00:06:33] Of those. Yeah, a couple of those. And then I left. I was recruited to run a couple of companies to take a CEO role in a couple of companies and turn these people down, I don’t know, ten times and ultimately took the job and with an equity backed they were equity owned. Covid aside it was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. Everybody that ever sold to this equity firm lost their money or didn’t get their money. It was really a pretty big bait and switch. And so I got I left there. And. Had, you know, kind of a hard time. Jane and Jane had a heart to heart with each other. Do you want to go back to what you were doing? And honestly, I was a little bored. In fact, a friend of mine had said before I took this this role with the equity backed companies. He said, Jane, I think you’re just putting different lipstick on the same pig. And I thought that was really very southern, but very good advice, right. So what I realized is that that experience lit a fire under me. I do not want if I can save one person stone and it sounds this sounds so like metaphysical and Jane thinks a whole lot of herself. But honestly, if I can save one owner from an experience like that, it will be a win for my career. And so my partner, who’s been doing this for for quite a while, and I have just decided that’s really what I’m passionate about, is helping these owners realize the things that they want in their business, realize that they can have a life and have a business which is really hard to do, and that they can sell their business and make money and not get not get ripped off like these poor owners that I that I got to know.

Stone Payton: [00:08:47] So sometimes when you’re going in, you’re helping them get ready.

Jane Gentry: [00:08:50] For an exit. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:08:52] Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So do you ever run into a situation where the operation is generating pretty good revenue? The sales side of it is okay, but they’re just not nearly as as profitable as they should and could be because some other things in the machine aren’t working too well.

Jane Gentry: [00:09:10] Yes, we are in we’re in the midst of a fixing a fixing all the back end financials for an owner right now who inherited the company. And there’s no there’s no job costing. They don’t know what their cost of goods sold is in the company. They don’t have a process for estimating they let their clients send the contract to them out of and they work with giant companies. So do you really want procurement from Disney sending you the the contracts is really not going to be in your best interest, right. So so we’re digging into that and helping that owner think about that business and how it makes sense to look at that business financially and how you can ensure your profitability and how you can look at some of the decisions you made and and ask yourself, was that a really good decision or was that a poor decision? Right. So, yeah, sometimes sometimes the money is there, but the profitability isn’t there because some of the decisions that are being made aren’t aren’t really in the best interest of profitability.

Stone Payton: [00:10:25] So I am peripherally around some of the things that you’re describing just because I get a chance to talk to business leaders and a couple of things that come up a lot, it’s two different retention. Sometimes they have concerns or at least they’re focused on client retention hanging on to who they have. But a lot of it too is hanging on to the to the employees.

Jane Gentry: [00:10:49] So that is the number one problem for every business on the planet right now. 30 million boomers left the market during COVID. Just said, I’m out of here. Wow. We bring in right now about 9 million new bodies into the workforce a year. And so a lot of owners are saying to me, Jane, people don’t want to work, they don’t want to work. And I say, no, honey, you have a math problem. You don’t really maybe people don’t want to work for you. And that’s a different problem altogether. Right. But the the overarching problem is a math problem. We have lost 20 some million people out of the workforce. The birth rate is going lower and lower and lower. So that problem is not going away. In addition to that, people did during COVID really take stock of who they work for. How do they feel about that? What do they want their work life to look like? I had somebody asked me the other day at a keynote, she said something about work life balance. I said, There’s no such thing. There’s just life balance, right? And people are looking at that now and are not accepting some things from their employers that they were willing to accept in the past. And so employers who are not willing to revisit how they treat employees are going to be the losers. Right. So so a couple couple examples somebody posted on LinkedIn yesterday, and I just I kind of cackled. As I was helping one of my nieces with this recently, she was applying for a job in a big company. So first off, those talent acquisition platforms are horrible because they don’t look at you as a person.

Jane Gentry: [00:12:35] They’re looking for keywords in your resume. She submitted the resume and then the platform asks her to basically fill out again everything that’s on her resume. And that’s and that’s pretty common. But is that a way to treat? Is that a way to show people that you value people in your organization? No, because you’re wasting everybody’s time. Right. So that’s that’s just an an example that has happened recently. So we have to think about about that. If the employer is not in the driver’s seat right now, you’ve got to be attractive to your employees and you’ve got to be willing to be flexible. I had a CEO say to me recently, well, the reason I don’t let people work remotely, Jane, is because they refer to that as their day off. Not their day at home. And I said, Yeah, well that’s not them. That’s you guys having poor management in your company. Right. So what, what this work at home thing has really illuminated is the lack of leadership that we have in organizations, because you have to be an intentional leader when you lead remotely. You can’t just pop by somebody’s cubicle and look over their shoulder and see what they’re doing and give some, some input. You have to be really intentional about KPIs that you’re asking them to meet and expectations that you have and when you’re going to check in and ways that you’re going to coach. So it really has required the level of leadership to be ratcheted up for people to be able to work remotely. And leaders have to start embracing that and digging in.

Stone Payton: [00:14:21] Well, it’s my understanding for those organizations who have done it well, who have done it right, they’ve really gotten some tremendous benefit from having their workforce work, at least part of the time remotely. Has that been your test?

Jane Gentry: [00:14:35] It has to be the right people in the right organization with the right expectations. Part of the other thing I think that leaders would get value from is revisiting the way work gets done in their company. And so when I talk to CEOs, I’ll say to them, I don’t want you to think about titles. We need this title and this title in our company. I want you to ask yourself, what is the work that happens in our company and what are the ways we can get that work done? But before we got on air, I told you I had done work with Mercedes and the chief HR officer for North America for Mercedes. Just love his brain, you know. And he he goes, he tells the people in his organization, think about how that work can get done. Can it be job share? Can it be an intern? Can it be a mom that left the workforce that doesn’t want to work full time? Can it be a boomer that retired that still wants to exercise their brain a certain amount of the week? Right. Doing something work related? Can it be a college student? To be really frank with you, college students that are sophomores Stone are more equipped to enter the workforce today than you and I were then. I was probably in grad school, frankly, so. So we have to be creative about the way work gets done because the lack of talent is not going to go away.

Stone Payton: [00:16:03] And when it comes to keeping the talent, after you’ve recruited properly, you’ve nurtured them. My instincts are that it’s so often so much more about something beyond or other than money. Is that.

Jane Gentry: [00:16:19] Accurate? It money is not the number one thing.

Stone Payton: [00:16:21] Okay.

Jane Gentry: [00:16:22] Purpose is the number one thing. And people get all freaked out about that term. We talk about it a lot in leadership, but purpose is really just look to engage employees. They want to know three things. They want to know where we’re going. They want a clear vision, a clear purpose for what we’re doing. They want to know what their part is in that they want to be able to see that they have a part in that and they want some autonomy in their job. In terms of getting the company to that to that vision and living out that purpose and purpose is really, you know, every most companies, some executives somewhere writes the mission statement and the purpose statement, and it sits on a wall, maybe somewhere in a document. But a purpose statement is really should be the lens through which you make every decision for your business. That’s that’s the point of a purpose statement.

Stone Payton: [00:17:16] It makes all the sense in the world. And it sounds so simple when you say it. Yeah.

Jane Gentry: [00:17:21] It does. It’s not. Which is why I have a job. Thank goodness. Thank goodness it’s not simple. Or I would I would be working somewhere else.

Stone Payton: [00:17:31] So. So when a company decides to engage your firm, what does the early part of an engagement look like? You’re sitting down with them. Can you kind of describe what happens in the early stages of an engagement?

Jane Gentry: [00:17:44] We do a lot, a lot, a lot of discovery. And then we do an assessment with the CEO and maybe some of the executive team called the judgment index. And that freaks everybody out because there was like, so do I have judgment? Well, I don’t know. We’re going to find out. It really gives us some good insight into what’s going on with a leader in terms of the the way that they show up at work, but the way that some of the things some of some of the ways that they see themselves or they see work in general impact how they show up at work.

Stone Payton: [00:18:23] So what do you find? Doing the most rewarding. What do you enjoy the most about the work?

Jane Gentry: [00:18:28] I love Ahas. I for 30 years. That’s the thing that gets me up in the morning is for for a CEO, for a salesperson, for somebody to have an Aha moment. That kind of course corrects maybe the way that they choose to do their work or to look at their work. Yeah, I get excited about that.

Stone Payton: [00:18:53] I bet that is incredibly fulfilling. So it sounds like great work if you can get it. How does but I’m curious and I have I play a pretty major sales role in our organization. So I’m always curious how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a company like yours for for a practice like yours, how do you how do you get a chance to even have those conversations with CIOs?

Jane Gentry: [00:19:18] Yeah. So I’m knocking on the wood of your table, my practice even before. So for 30 years, for 30 years, 20 some years has been all referral.

Stone Payton: [00:19:32] Wow.

Jane Gentry: [00:19:34] Very, very blessed that way. Yeah. But we also you and I talked about networking or or whatever. I’m a believer in helping. So I’m I have a very large network of people, but I’ve spent a lot of time paying into that network. Yeah. Doing my very best to help people succeed. And so the, the benefit of that is those people are willing to help, help back. So I’m very lucky that way. But your radio show maybe won’t hurt. And I am invited on a lot of podcasts and things like that. So I’m out and about in the world or outand about if you’re Canadian. And and so we’re lucky that way. We are about to do a little bit of marketing, but only because I think that’s the right thing to do.

Stone Payton: [00:20:29] Yeah. And you’re out there speaking, you have an opportunity.

Jane Gentry: [00:20:32] I’m a keynote speaker, so I speak quite a bit at sales and leadership conferences in particular. Yeah, because, you know, small and mid-sized business owners are not out networking, right? They are head down in their businesses. And so really the only way to meet them is through referral or speaking at a conference that they that they choose to attend because they’re not they’re not out in the world to have having the time to go to a networking meeting.

Stone Payton: [00:21:02] Yeah, I hear you. And as you’ve clearly experienced good work, doing good work is a marvelous sales tool, isn’t it?

Jane Gentry: [00:21:10] It’s a great sales tool. And it’s a great way to spend your week. Just feels good.

Stone Payton: [00:21:18] So our listenership is largely made up of people who are trying to strike out on their own and and create their own future. Like the decision you made some years back. What counsel, if any, would you have to offer them if they’re considering it or they’re in the early stages? I don’t know if there was a mistake you might have made or something that surprised you or you came out of that with the three do’s and three don’ts of getting your own thing going. But any counsel you might have, I’m sure it would be greatly appreciated.

Jane Gentry: [00:21:52] If you’re if you’re early on, you’re very product focused. Right. And we’re usually not working with little bitty companies, but I would say major on the majors don’t chase the shiny object strategy. I don’t know who said culture eats strategy for lunch. If you don’t have a strategy, you’re not going to have a culture. So you have to be a certain size for that. Culture eats strategy for lunch maxim to work major on the majors and strategy is the major execution comes behind that. The other thing is don’t be myopic in the in terms of just staying so hyper focused on your business that you’re not out in the world networking. I have found in my own business that the biggest accelerator of my business is my desire to be around smart people who challenge the way that I think. And for business owners, when you’re when you’re in your business every day and that’s you show up in that building and you don’t go anywhere else. Where do you I mean, they get it from us, right? That’s one of the ways where the people that ask the hard questions and hold them accountable. But other than somebody’s like a consultant, business consultant, where where do you get your thinking stimulated from? Who stimulates you? What do you read? Who do you listen to? Who do you go to lunch with? You owe that to your employees and your culture and your business to kind of get outside your business.

Stone Payton: [00:23:29] I am so glad I asked and if I’m asked that question and I will try to remember to credit you, but I am going to tell them to major on the majors for sure. That is fantastic. I love it. And then I’d like to know how. I don’t even know what questions to ask. If I were to to begin shopping for, for lack of a better phrase, a consultant. Like how what kind of questions should you ask? What should you look for? If you’re considering engaging a consulting firm to come help you prep for the exit or just have a more profitable business? Or maybe you don’t even know what the challenge is. You just feel instinctively, Man, this could be so much better than what we’re doing here. How would you go about engaging someone?

Jane Gentry: [00:24:16] Well, I think there are a lot of smart business consultants. There are a lot, you know, equally number of them less smart. But if you can get past the point of credibility, then I think you should look at do you trust this these people? Do you trust this person? Are you willing to be challenged by this person? Do they challenge you?

Stone Payton: [00:24:46] Yeah.

Jane Gentry: [00:24:47] I mean, that is the value of a consultant is that they should be asking you hard questions. They should be challenging your thinking. And if they don’t do that, then I would give them Das Boot in favor of somebody else. But but you’ve got to have the relationship, right? Because a person who does the kinds of things that we do, we’re deep in your business. We’re we’re deep in in in conversations about your leadership and your your leadership style, your leadership effectiveness. So the the trust in the relationship and and the credibility, I think, are the two biggest two biggest things.

Stone Payton: [00:25:34] What I’m hearing from you is look for those things. Be prepared to try to ascertain and see if that really is the case with this organization or individual that you’re considering engaging and look to yourself. And if you’re not ready to participate in that way and be open and then then that’s just you’re not ready.

Jane Gentry: [00:25:55] Yeah. If you want somebody to just agree with you, I can maybe give you some recommendations. Probably not going to be me, but that’s one of the reasons that we use that judgment index stone is because it really kind of bubbles up for us some issues that maybe some of the leaders had. And I’ll tell you one thing that that used to really surprise me. The number one. One of the top things that that index shows fairly regularly is a lack of self-awareness from leadership. So if you’re not willing for somebody to tell you you’re the emperor and you’re walking around naked, as they say in the South, and you probably don’t you’re not ready for for a business consultant.

Stone Payton: [00:26:38] Got it. What a delightful conversation. Thank you so much for coming in and sharing your story with us. If someone out there would like to reach out and have a conversation with you or your partner or someone on your team, let’s give them some some points of contact. Whatever you feel like is appropriate, a website, email, phone, whatever. What’s the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Jane Gentry: [00:27:00] You can reach out to me directly at Jane. At Jane Gentry. Jane is not the fancy Jane. It’s just Jane Gentry. Our number is 7705167758. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. I think my LinkedIn profile is actually Jane M Gentry, but I’m not hard to find.

Stone Payton: [00:27:23] Well, it’s been an absolute delight having you on the show. Thank you again.

Jane Gentry: [00:27:28] I appreciate you.

Stone Payton: [00:27:29] Yeah. How about hanging out with us while we visit with our next guest?

Jane Gentry: [00:27:32] I’d love to.

Stone Payton: [00:27:33] All right, gang, you ready for the headliner? He’s been very patient over there and listening. I thought I even saw. I’m taking some notes. I know. I saw him taking some pictures. And you’ll find out why here in just a moment. Please join me in welcoming to Turkey Business Radio with Armitage Photography Inc. Mr. John Armitage. How are you doing, man?

John Armitage: [00:27:54] I’m good. How are you doing?

Stone Payton: [00:27:55] I am doing well. Well, did you learn anything in that last segment?

John Armitage: [00:27:59] I did. I did. I almost sometimes wanted to reach in and say a few things, but I thought, no, I can’t because. But a lot of things she said ring so true about the business world and leadership and and you definitely have to self assess a lot of the times just to see where you are and to go forward all the time.

Stone Payton: [00:28:22] It’s one of the things that I love about doing this work, guys. If you ever want to just meet some really smart people and occasionally get some really great thought leadership consulting, coaching, get yourself a radio show and invite smart people to come visit with you. All right. So tell us about Armitage photography. You’re obviously out there taking pictures, but I’ll bet there’s more to it.

John Armitage: [00:28:46] Oh, yeah. There’s photography is a whole industry of various factions, I would say. I mean, I’ve been shooting product photography for the last 35 years, so I’ve been doing it a long time. And you end up over that time shooting just about everything possible. And so there’s nothing that comes my way nowadays that I don’t say, Oh, okay, this is how we’re going to do that and this is how we’re going to do that. And a lot of it just takes a lot of experience. And, you know, as I also one of my big passions is to mentor an intern, other photographers coming out of school. And one of the things I tell them is, you know, you have to fail all the time, because if you if you don’t fail, that means you know everything. So you have to fail constantly to make sure that, you know, you are not making mistakes at the critical moment.

Stone Payton: [00:29:42] So when you say product photography, this could range from food to to widgets.

John Armitage: [00:29:49] Exactly. I, I do a lot of food. I used to do a lot of work for racetrac gas stations and doing all their food. I have only Mexican brand foods is one of my current clients. So yeah, I do a lot of tacos and I’ve shot.

Stone Payton: [00:30:05] You’re making me hungry, man.

John Armitage: [00:30:06] I can’t tell you how many tortillas I have shot, but I mean, one of the one of the nice things about working with Ola, as they’ve been very good about afterwards, you know, we have all this product that we can’t really restock, so I have the ability to give it to food organizations. One of them is Logan Co-op, which is around where I live. And it was really hard to give away like two pallets of tortillas, I’ve got to.

Stone Payton: [00:30:36] Tell you now, did you start out with a focus on on product photography or did you sort of migrate to that over time?

John Armitage: [00:30:45] Well, when I was younger, I wanted to be a photojournalist. And I as I went to college, I actually went to photo school. There was an actual college for it out in California, Cal State Fullerton. And so during that time, you one of the requirements to graduate is to have an internship. And so this is one of the reasons why I like to host interns as well. But I went to a guy named Jack Eden. He’s unfortunately passed away now, but. He taught me a lot of things, and it was one of those things where you walk in and go, This is where I’m supposed to be. This is what I want to do. And I pursued it ever since. And even in the face of many people going, Oh, you shouldn’t do that. It’s so hard. It’s so difficult. But, you know, I just have the philosophy of if whatever it is you’re going to do, if you put yourself into it 100% and don’t. You know, listen to these people that are telling you no. In fact, it just emboldens me more to say, really, you’re going to tell me, no, no, I can do it. So I just went on and on. And there’s there are paths to take to get to certain levels. And, you know, I’ve noticed each of those inclining paths as I have worked in the business and work with other photographers and worked with studios, large studios. And now that for the last 20 years I’ve had my own studio. So it’s over. Actually, it’s over. Norcross. Right off Jimmy Carter.

Stone Payton: [00:32:18] So do you find yourself working with someone in a marketing capacity in these firms or you’re working with the owner? Like, who are you interacting with at the company?

John Armitage: [00:32:28] Oh, it all depends on which company it is for old Mexican brand foods. There’s a nice gentleman named Enrique Botello and he is their marketing person. So he gets together with me and we he tells me what they need and I try to provide them the best way I can. If it’s because there are some just product shots that are that are just for the Web, for Amazon, that are tortillas on a on a white sweep, not too exciting, but occasionally there is a better opportunity to do some more lifestyle type of shots where, you know, I have to I hire a food stylist. There’s a lot of really good ones out there.

Stone Payton: [00:33:07] You got to hit the brakes here. What? What in the world does a food stylist do?

John Armitage: [00:33:13] My food stylists are women and men. I shouldn’t say I don’t want to be sexist, but I’d say a majority of them are women. But a few very good men do this and they really just make food look good. So. So I don’t know. They can cook and they make things look juicy and fresh and they have all kinds of little tricks of the trade to make the food look fantastic. And without them, you know, the photography is not going to look good. It’s like we can’t do food photography without them and they can’t get jobs as food stylists without us. So it’s a symbiotic relationship. Rachel Day Long is one of my favorite food styles out there, and I’ve used her several times on old Mexican brand foods shoots and she is just phenomenal. She gets in and she sets everything up and has all the little accouterments that she will put into to make it look fresh and and be fresh. And so many times you just want to look at it and just it looks so good. So.

Stone Payton: [00:34:25] Rachel. Deadline Well, I appreciate that because now I can send her an invoice now.

John Armitage: [00:34:31] Well, I got you know, I got to plug the people that help me.

Stone Payton: [00:34:34] Absolutely. You know, so do you do you walk in sometimes and they whoever they is and sometimes it varies, know exactly what they want and sometimes they don’t. And you find yourself in a little bit of a consulting role both.

John Armitage: [00:34:48] But yeah, there’s a lot of times when people come into the studio and they’ll say, After about 20 minutes, I’ll go, I never realized how much there was to this. Yeah. And you know, in today’s day of cell phones and iPhones and social media, I mean, the photo world has changed quite a bit, I’ll bet. And so a lot of people aren’t so concerned with quality as they are with, you know, quantity of of content because they’ve got to feel content all the time. And it’s important for companies to have a social media person to do that, but they shouldn’t substitute their product photography to their social media person. I mean, it’s not it’s not at all the same thing. So like one of the more recent shoots I did was for Hoots, which is a offshoot of Hooters, which is Hoots Wings. And I had a really good experience with them. They came in I had actually had two food stylists on that job, actually. I’m sorry, three one just cooked one just fried food out back because we didn’t want to smell like big giant French fry. And we also had a video crew in to video do some video for them. And because when you once you make the food, it’s it’s not going to last for that long a period of time.

John Armitage: [00:36:10] And if you’re going to make it for still photography, you might as well have the videographer in there to do the things that you want on video as well, because there’s that’s one less cost that they have. But the big thing probably about today’s photography is that it’s all digital. And years ago I was a film guy, you know, four by five and, you know, sheet film and Polaroids. And, you know, we heard of, you know, the digital cameras are going to be better. And we never thought that. Was going to happen, but eventually it did. And they are they are really fantastic. And the great thing about it is it brings the cost down. Huh? Because before we’d have sheets of film, you’d have to purchase process and Polaroids that you’d have to test your image. You know, you’re when you’re when you’re doing your shot, you put a Polaroid in and pull it and you look at it and go, okay, well, you know, this is that that’s that chick focus, all these kind of things and all of that is gone for. So for each shot you would do, you’d spend about 30 or $40 in processing and Polaroid.

John Armitage: [00:37:17] So when you start adding that up ten, 15, 20 shots a day, that gets up to be a pretty hefty bill. I had been on a job once with a couple of friends of mine for a clothing company. This is back in the film days and after we figured out how many images they were going to need, it was like, you know, 60, 70 page catalog and it was like 400 shots or something. And so somebody we all looked at each other. Okay. Who has a credit card with that can put $90,000 of film and Polaroid on? We’re all like, none of us. So, you know, that’s a that’s a huge savings to most businesses. And it and it really cheapens the cost of photography immensely. And and now clients get a lot more photography done during the day in one day than they would have in years past, because there is no film to process. There’s no waiting for it to take a look at it, make sure everything’s okay. And, you know, instantaneously right there and there’s a big screen on your computer and, you know, it’s it’s really kind of a beautiful thing to watch. It really is.

Stone Payton: [00:38:29] So how did you get started, man? Did you mentioned that you went to school when you’re doing something before that or you knew pretty early on this was your path?

John Armitage: [00:38:36] Well, actually, I was in I was in the military for a few years, active duty. And during that period of time, my father passed away a young age. He was 48, and he was never really happy with what he had decided to do with his life. He wanted to be an actor. And so he. Didn’t pursue acting and he went into a career in business. Yeah. And he worked for Alcoa Aluminum for many years and we moved back and forth across the country a several times. But he passed away when I was 20 and I was still in the military and when I got out six months later I said, you know, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Yeah. And because I really didn’t have a clear vision of that and I said, you know, I really want to do something I enjoy doing because I’m going to do it the rest of my life and I better be happy doing it. And photography, which is something that had always piqued my interest that I had done when I was a little kid, a guy at a down the street who was having a garage sale. He gave me a rolly camera when I was like eight years old. And I was taking pictures all over the place. And and then later on in high school, I took photography classes and the teacher said, Hey, you got a great eye for this. And one of the weird one of the strange things was there was in high school, you take these kind of tests that are trying to evaluate what you would do. Well.

Stone Payton: [00:40:03] I remember that test. It didn’t say anything about running a media company.

John Armitage: [00:40:09] Yes. Well, you know, I fill this thing out. I didn’t even really look at it. And then years later, I found it as I was, you know, going through stuff when I was about to move and had to get rid of stuff. And I found this thing and it said communications photography on my you should do that. So it was almost like, you know, an omen, I don’t know. But it was weird that, you know, those kind of things have happened. And just another reinforcement that this is what I was supposed to do.

Stone Payton: [00:40:34] Have you had a mentor or mentors along the way?

John Armitage: [00:40:38] Oh, many, many, many.

Stone Payton: [00:40:40] Yeah.

John Armitage: [00:40:41] Jack Eaton was a big one when I first started out. A lot of photographers out in Los Angeles. And then when I came here, I started working for some catalog studios. Quadrant Quadrant was a big one and three score there. They’re both gone now, unfortunately, but there was always a great camaraderie in those in those studios that would be anywhere from 5 to 40 photographers every day shooting, and it’d be like 40, 50,000 square foot spaces that everybody’s trying to squeeze in and get enough equipment to do what they’re going to do. But everybody was very helpful and friendly. And, you know, when you had an issue, they would come over and help you out and say, hey, you might want to try this and you could go over and look at what they’re doing and see their sets. And so it’s a real it was a real training ground for kind of getting up your production and you had so many shots you had to do every day. And I mean, they ranged from, you know, things on what we call things on white, stuff on white, so to speak. Nicely put, but all the way up to a huge room sets where you have walls that are put up and held up in place and curtains put up, carpet lay down, hardwood flooring laid down.

John Armitage: [00:41:58] You’d have assistants that would come and help you set all this stuff up. You’d have a stylist assigned to you to help you, you know, fix the room up or whatever it was that you were doing. And it was a it was a great learning experience. A lot of great photographers. I guess. I want to point out one guy, Mark Perfect, is one of those guys. He he always had this ability to no matter what he shot, it looked fantastic. And so I really paid attention to him a lot and what he did. But there’s a lot of other people. Laura Bullock It was another woman that not not as many ladies in photography, but the ones that are there are really highly skilled. And Laura Bullock was one that taught me how to shoot glass, you know, because we were shooting glassware for Macy’s and for Bloomingdales. And there’s techniques to make it look really good because when you just point a light at something that just doesn’t always do it, there’s reflections in all kinds of little nuances that you have to do to make something look appealing and sexy, so to speak, to consumers that want to purchase it. So you really you really have to understand, you know, what you want, what your client wants to be conveyed in their product.

Stone Payton: [00:43:13] And now you’re mentoring others. Yes. What is that like? Are you enjoying that? I sense that you are.

John Armitage: [00:43:19] Oh, it’s it’s one of my passions. I really do enjoy it a lot. And they inspire me as much as I inspire them there. I mean, what I try to do is to help them through the the ups and downs and most of the downs that we all experience. It’s just like a parent trying to tell a kid not to do something or touch that hot stove, but, you know, they’re bound to do it anyway. So I press them to, like I said before, to fail all the time. And because through your failure, you’re going to find out what to do the right way. But they’ll come to me with different ambitions of shooting. Different kinds of photography. So sometimes they’re what they want to do. I asked them, I say, Well, I want you to pick out, you know, ten pictures, ten, ten photos you see on the Web or in magazines to emulate for your portfolio. You know what? What do you want to see in your portfolio? And so they’ll bring them to me. And now and some of them were like, Well, I would like to do this, but it’s just too hard. You know, I’m like, Is that what you’re going to tell your clients? It’s too hard. You know, I can’t do it. My friend down the street, you know, he can do it because he’s better. No, you want to you want to like I said, practice. I mean, it’s just about like, everything else. It’s practice, practice, practice. Like brain surgeons, they don’t go into brain surgery right out of medical school. You know, they have to go through a long period of time to get to that level and to provide that kind of service. And there is definitely differences in I mean, you give a product to five different photographers, you’re going to get five different shots. There’s no doubt about it. We all have our own little styles and our techniques, and I’m currently trying to help pass those upon pass those along. I’m in the process of writing a book about photography and lighting.

Stone Payton: [00:45:20] You got to come back when you book out.

John Armitage: [00:45:22] Well, it’s going to be called Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, because we you know, there’s an old saying of my mother’s because she always, you know, did everything around the house, of course. Right. And she’s like, I’m the chief cook and bottle washer here. So anyway, I’ve I feel the same way when I’m at my studio because I’m a one man show and I hire people when I need to. I keep a list of very good, strong freelance people that I hire, hire assistants and stylists and all kinds of folks to come in to help me put up sets, build sets, food styling style clothing. One of my clients is USOC, the Olympic Committee. And we do a lot of their their social media apparel. And I’ll be I’ll have three sets going on, three cameras up, three stylists, and they’re all working there, each of their their stations there. And I’m going from one to the next shooting, you know, clicking off images, because once we get the lighting up for most of those, you know, they want to keep it consistent. And one of the advantages but having a big enough studio to do that and have three sets going at the same time, you got to keep focused. You still have everything else to worry about. You have to worry about your your stylist. You got to worry about your assistant. Make sure everybody is keeping busy. You’ve got to keep the clients happy. The art directors are there. You’re trying to make sure that they’re getting what they need for the project they’re working on for that client. So it’s it’s quite a it’s quite a show, actually.

Stone Payton: [00:46:48] You know how bed it is. So, so in your world, probably not unlike Jayne’s or earlier, I guess there’s mastering your craft, but then you’ve also got to run a business.

John Armitage: [00:46:58] Yes. Yeah. I mean, we’re we wear many hats. We were all the hats. That’s why Chief Cook and bottle washer. But I mean, could we do it? We have to do it all. We have to I mean, I’ve I’ve hired Anna here. Anna Smith is with us today. She’s a marketing consultant to marketing. And she has done a fantastic job for me with my social media stuff and really gotten my name out there. And, you know, it was probably the best decision I made for the longest time. I didn’t really need to market myself. I had some really big clients that would keep me busy all the time. But with COVID and the changing of, you know, social media being brought on and people think that, you know, the cell phone is going to be the end all to the photography needs it. It came time where I had to actually get out and start hitting the bricks so well.

Stone Payton: [00:47:52] It was a good call for whatever my opinion is worth. I’ve gotten to know Anna a little bit over the last year.

John Armitage: [00:47:56] Yes, it was the best thing I’ve ever done. I think it really is.

Stone Payton: [00:47:59] So let’s talk legacy for for a moment. Your passion just comes through. So it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that you plan to do this till your last day.

John Armitage: [00:48:09] Well, they’ll probably bury me in my studio.

Stone Payton: [00:48:11] Yeah. And do you have any plans at all for maybe bringing someone in and having or exiting in some fashion or passing the baton? Or are you there yet thinking about that stuff?

John Armitage: [00:48:25] Yeah, of course. I think about that stuff. It’s difficult to find a younger person, of course, though, that wants to come in and commit the kind of time necessary to take over the business because, you know, they have to have the clients as well and they’ve got to my clients, trust me. I mean, they come to me because it’s what I do for them is, is I work very diligently and that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how much they pay me. Some clients pay more than others, depending on usage rights. That’s a whole other story. But. You know, I work 110% for that client. I will. I do the shooting, I do the retouching, I deliver the product. And so it’s it’s a lot of work, probably more work than sometimes benefit of of monetary benefit. But it’s just something that I love to do. I can’t I just can’t help it. I’ve always loved it and I’m still passionate about it.

Stone Payton: [00:49:26] Well, I can tell. And so can anyone listening to this to this conversation. So what’s next? Are you going to branch out into any other arena? You’re just going to stay in this lane and just get better and better and keep trying to serve more folks or what’s on the horizon. You got the book?

John Armitage: [00:49:41] Yes. How’s that for an answer? Yes. All of those things. I’ve got the book trying to come out here where it’s being edited right now. And I have branched out to do. I’ve actually started a new thing with car photography of guys that have their fancy cars. They’d like to come into the studio. I take a nice, beautiful picture of it with them in it. If they want, they can hang on their wall because there’s a lot of really neat cars out there and a lot of guys really enjoy that great Mother’s Day, Father’s Day gifts for the mothers out there. And anyway, doing that, I’m also I give classes on weekends, basic photography classes. I’m planning to branch out into more advanced classes. But, you know, I can’t give away all my secrets.

Stone Payton: [00:50:32] So so the book is close. It’s about done. We’re getting close to publication.

John Armitage: [00:50:36] We’re getting close. We’re getting close a couple of months maybe.

Stone Payton: [00:50:38] And what was that process like for you? Did it come together pretty easy? Did you struggle over pieces of it?

John Armitage: [00:50:44] You know, I, I started writing it during the first opening salvos of of COVID, and it took me like maybe a couple of weeks to put it on paper. Wow. Because it just came spilling out. I’ve been you know, I had been thinking about this for years. Yeah. And, you know, as I as I work and one of the reasons why I did this was because as my interns came in, they would, you know, I would be setting something up and showing them how I set it up. And they’re like, Why did you do that? And I’m like, Well, that’s a pretty good question. Why did I do that? And what’s the difference here? And what’s the difference there where I put this card or I put what kind of card up in there, how big a card it is? And so I found myself having to articulate very specifically what I was doing, because we do it so naturally after after a time. Sure, we just do it automatically. And we we don’t really think about what we’re doing because it’s just a second nature. And suddenly I had to stop and go, okay, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why am I putting this here? Why am I putting that light there or this card here? And I started to come up with ideas to help kids, young photographers, to understand how light is reacting. Because it is all about light. It’s not it’s not the camera. It’s not you know, photography is a study of light, so a camera’s only as good as the person behind it.

John Armitage: [00:52:12] So you have to train them to see in great detail, especially in product photography, because once you take that picture, it’s there. I mean, there’s no there’s no getting around. Whatever is in that shot is in that shot. And you can’t once it’s published, you can’t cover it up, you know. So if there’s some weird reflection in your in your product because you didn’t see it, it can be troubling, especially to your client, like, well, what was this? You know, what did you do that for? I remember when I was working for Jackie and we we were taking a shot of this glassware, of some glassware, and there was this big blue spot in it. We’re like, What is this blue spot? You know? And and finally we realized it was about a Windex sitting on the table across the way that was reflecting ever so slightly, but a little sliver of blue. And so you never know where that is going to be coming from. So it’s very important to be very critical of what you’re doing and how you’re putting things in there. Because one of my basic laws that I teach my students is everything reflects everything. It doesn’t matter what it is, everything reflects. And so you have to really understand that and understand how reflections work and in different situations and flat surfaces and in round surfaces as well.

Stone Payton: [00:53:36] You know, I don’t a layperson, certainly not me, would never even think about that.

John Armitage: [00:53:41] And that’s our.

Stone Payton: [00:53:42] Thing about shiny things reflecting.

John Armitage: [00:53:43] Right? Well, that’s what our job is. So that you’re looking at it going, oh, this is what this photographer doing. You know, it’s got to look great and it’s got to be that thing that you’re going to have in your hand that that the clients want want to see. It can’t look bad, you know? And that’s why there’s a lot of, you know, funny things done to especially food to make it look better.

Stone Payton: [00:54:07] Right.

John Armitage: [00:54:07] We try especially try not to oversell something. And there’s also some legal ramifications. For instance, Campbell’s alphabet soup. You know, they used to have, you know, the bowl of soup and you’d have the little letters, you know, writing something.

Stone Payton: [00:54:27] Yeah, I remember. I’m old enough to remember that.

John Armitage: [00:54:29] Yeah, well, they ran into a problem because their noodles didn’t float. They would sink, so they would put marbles in the plate underneath it. And that was.

Stone Payton: [00:54:41] Not.

John Armitage: [00:54:43] Good. And so they said, you can’t do that anymore. So now whenever you see an ad for alphabet soup, it’s always in a spoon. You’ll see a little word in a spoon instead. And so there’s little things that we you know, that we know in the industry that that happen. And but like, if you’re shooting ice cream for, let’s say, carnation ice cream, I mean, you have to shoot their ice cream. You can’t make fake ice cream, which is just powdered sugar and Karo sirup. But you can do that if you’re you’re just putting ice cream in as a prop, right? That’s not a problem. But ice cream is a whole different ball of wax. You’re working inside of a freezer that has dry ice lined in it and the style is down in there and trying to go and you have to get it really hard. And then you only have like about 20 seconds once it goes on set before it starts melting. So you have a couple of hero stand ins that the stylist would make and you get all your lighting right. And then the last second time for the hero and they bring that out of the freezer and they sit it on your on your set and you go for it.

Stone Payton: [00:55:54] So what a fascinating world. All right. So what’s the best way for someone to reach out to you, have a conversation about this, probably sit down with you and talk with you a little bit about it before we book all the stuff. Right. What’s the best.

John Armitage: [00:56:05] Way? Best way is just to call me directly 404 2475458. And you can go to my website, which is Armitage photo and that’s an Armitage’s actually a lot easier than you think. It’s three words arm it an age and you put them all together.

Stone Payton: [00:56:25] Fantastic.

John Armitage: [00:56:26] Sounds like a mouthful, but it really isn’t.

Stone Payton: [00:56:28] Well, thank you for coming in and talking with us. Man, this is fascinating world.

John Armitage: [00:56:32] Thank you. It’s been a great, great pleasure.

Stone Payton: [00:56:34] All right. This is Stone Payton for our guests this morning and everyone here at the business Radio X family saying we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.

Brianna Sylver With Sylver Consulting, LLC

April 28, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Chicago Business Radio

Brianna Sylver With Sylver Consulting, LLC

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Brianna Sylver is the founder and president of Sylver Consulting, an international innovation research and strategy firm operating at the intersection of Market Research, User Experience/Design, and Strategy. Brianna and the team at Sylver support Fortune 500 organizations to confidently embrace change and future proof their offerings and brands by illuminating the clear and focused paths to future growth.

Brianna has gained recognition for her contributions to the fields of innovation, Design Thinking, UX and consumer insights by the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA), HSM Management (Brazil) and the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA). She writes and speaks on topics such as the integration of UX and MR, innovation culture and transformation, civic and social innovation, blended hybrid research methodologies and entrepreneurship.

Brianna holds a BFA in communication design from the University of Buffalo and a master’s degree in human-centered communication design and design strategy (MDES) from the Institute of Design at IIT.

Connect with Brianna on LinkedIn and follow Sylver Consulting on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Value of working with an agency that sits at the intersection of market research, user experience, and strategy
Comfort and predictability to innovation

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Chicago, Illinois. It’s time for Chicago Business Radio. Brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm space.com. Now here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and we’ve got a great show for you today. But before we get started, as always, I want to thank today’s sponsor. Today’s show is sponsored by Firm Space. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Like I said, we have a great show today. Today we have the president of Silver Consulting LLC. So please welcome to the show, Brianna Sylver. Welcome, Brianna.

Brianna Sylver: [00:00:46] Thanks so much, Max. I’m really excited to be here. Thanks for having.

Max Kantor: [00:00:49] Me. Of course. Yeah, I’m happy to have you here. Talk about your business a little bit. So let’s jump right in. Tell me, what is Silver Consulting?

Brianna Sylver: [00:00:56] Yeah, I’m happy to share. So Silver Consulting, we’re an innovation research and strategy consulting firm. And so we support mainly Fortune 1000 organizations to future proof their offerings. So we sit at the intersection of market research, user experience and design and really support organizations in three areas. One is around enhancing their brands. So why do they deserve to be in the marketplace today compared to others? For instance, fill their innovation pipelines, either looking at next generation products or services or development of whole new and new offerings, and then largely around aligning stakeholders around new visions for growth.

Max Kantor: [00:01:38] And what industries do you work in?

Brianna Sylver: [00:01:41] We work across a lot of different industries, but the three industries that we largely support, at least right now over the past few years, is health care, education and government.

Max Kantor: [00:01:53] So what’s a common mistake that businesses make that you can help alleviate?

Brianna Sylver: [00:02:00] Well, I would say that a lot of times organizations come to us when they’re seeing shifts in their business that they’re not quite sure what to do about it. So I would say, if you think about it from a problem standpoint, maybe not super concrete, maybe not what you’re expecting hearing, but it’s like when somebody has a wicked problem and they’re like, we don’t know what to do. That’s usually when people reach out to us because there’s been enough shifts in their marketplace or they’re seeing some signals around. Things are changing, but we’re not sure how we need to change to stay relevant. That’s when they come to us. So just to kind of put this into like into like hard concrete a story here. So like we had a client a couple of years ago come to us. They were an insurance agency and they said, you know, we are spending more money than sort of what would make sense by the book of business on mental mental health fees, if you will, or mental health services for individuals who are between 18 and 25 years old. And so, you know, the reason why they were doing that is because basically the emergency room fees were incredibly high. And so what you would do is like all these things that may be offered service wise to prevent that emergency room admittance won’t be taking advantage of. But they didn’t know why and they didn’t know what they should have instead to prevent that. And so that’s where they would come to us. And they said, you know, help us to understand what’s really happening and more to develop new services and offerings that can better support these individuals to prevent them from getting into an emergency room type of situation, and then consequently helping us from a revenue perspective to not having have as many fees going towards emergency rooms.

Max Kantor: [00:04:00] Right. I was on your website and I was reading about how kind of the when a company comes to you all they receive the what the so what and the now what so can you explain that those three steps you kind of were touching on a little bit with your story, but I would love to just hear more about that.

Brianna Sylver: [00:04:19] Yeah, I’m happy to. So if you remember at the start of the conversation, I said, you know, we sit at the at the intersection of market research, user experience and strategy, or maybe I said that, maybe I didn’t, but we do. And so that that kind of correlates to what you’re just talking about that. So I would say our market research is really around. So what is actually happening in the market? What are what trends are going on? What does customer behavior look like? What are the needs? Both those that are spoken and unspoken. So it’s just kind of like charting, charting the the sort of the landscape of what’s happening. The so what piece of it is where design training kind of comes into play. So it says, okay, if this is what is happening, happening, what are the possibilities of what we could do to to change a scenario or circumstance? What’s the what’s the range of possibilities, if you will? And then when it comes to saying, okay, now this is what we’re actually going to do then, now what of it? This is where the strategy element comes into play, because this is now when they’re saying, all right, if this is what we could do, this is what we’re actually willing to do. And this is why taking this step makes sense for our business at this time. And so there’s a lot that goes into that type of decision making around the now what it’s what’s happening in the market. It’s what your core competencies are your resources, your timelines, your talent. All of those things factor into ultimately defining the now what? But from working with us, basically customers go through that whole continuum where they really get to diagnose what is actually happening, what are the root causes to the challenges that they’re facing, what’s the range of things that they could do to respond and then ultimately committing to we are going to do these things to have a different outcome?

Max Kantor: [00:06:15] Yeah, it seems, you know, it’s really valuable that you guys, like you mentioned, sit at that intersection of market research, user experience, strategy, because you can address so many problems with so many different types of companies.

Brianna Sylver: [00:06:28] Absolutely. Yeah. It’s the process that we specialize in. We don’t have to have the industry expertize. I mean, I don’t know the number off the top of my head in terms of how many different industries we’ve worked with over the years. We’re we’re coming up on our 19th year of business. And it’s been it’s been extensive. I mean, anything from, as I mentioned, like health care, government education, industrial products, technology, banking, I mean, we started in banking. Those were our first clients. Power tools, consumer packaged goods, I mean, you name it, we’ve worked in it.

Max Kantor: [00:07:05] So the world, you know, is ever changing that. We just went through a global pandemic. We’re still going through that global pandemic. So you see a ton of trends come and go. For a business that comes to you, how do you bring a sense of comfort and predictability to new innovation happening every single day?

Brianna Sylver: [00:07:24] Yeah, it’s a really good question and something we we were constantly asking this question. So we have a process. So so first and foremost, I would say the process helps to bring some level of comfort. And it’s kind of like we’re we’re charged with making people comfortably uncomfortable, I guess is probably the first thing to state. Usually when they’re coming to us, they know that something has to change. So you’re not going to be 100% comfortable through that change. Otherwise, we’re probably not doing our job appropriately. However, you want to give people a sense of ground as they go through the change that that is being demanded of them by the market. And so a big part of how we do that is just in the way in which we work. So we, we engage workshops a lot through our process anywheres from like initial we call them setting the stage for success workshops at the beginning of a project to really get clear around what is the innovation and vision that we have, what are we trying to accomplish? Get hypotheses out both in terms of what has gotten the organization to the situation that they’re in, as well as potentially kind of what the outcomes may be. And then as we move through the process, there’s lots of moments of iterative collaboration where we come together, we share bits of what we’re hearing from the market and what we’re learning. We get their interpretation of that and then start to iterate and probe and continue to sort of press on different things that are coming out of sort of that that what market context.

Brianna Sylver: [00:09:09] And then once we have that, what market context, then there’s a lot of different types of workshops that we do that are around interpreting that data for their business. And the goal of those types of workshop sessions are to support them to really take action. So we have found that many times organizations are not for lack of data, they are lack of they basically don’t know how to take action on the data that they have. And a big piece of that is there’s an interpretation or translation step that needs to occur. And so, like I said, we have lots of different types of workshops that we will run to support those different translation steps depending upon what the desired outcome is. And then if organizations wish to take it further, which some do and some don’t, we will even get into helping them to shape the new offerings. So doing a lot of prototyping and testing and iterative building of different solutions, ultimately to get it to a point where it’s ready for pilot or implementation. And so those iterative touch points along that process keeps people engaged. They’re bought into not only the fact that change needs to happen, but the vision for what the change needs to be. And they become champions for it. And so even though it may be stretching the organization into new territory that can feel uncomfortable, there’s a there’s a level of investment and engagement and excitement that really leaves them energized to want to advocate for that change as well.

Max Kantor: [00:10:43] And now, are you working with companies just in the United States or do you work with companies all over the world?

Brianna Sylver: [00:10:49] We work with companies all over the world at this moment in time. I think we’ve done work in 39 different nations across the world, in many of those nations multiple times. You know, like if you think about like some of the BRIC countries, we’ve worked with them numerous times. I would say that a lot of the work that we do internationally, we are a good fit internationally typically when there’s multiple countries engaged. So we have a physical presence in the United States and in Brazil. And so to kind of do work in either of those two countries independently, it kind of makes fiscal sense, if you will. But like if we were to go do a project in China, for instance, in just China usually doesn’t make good sense for folks, but we do a lot of projects where we will do we will do research in five, ten, 15 countries at one time. So for instance, like we’re just finishing up our project right now where it was in five different countries. We have another project in field at the moment that’s in three different countries. And so when there’s multiple countries engaged and there’s that need to get a broader sense of what are the global trends that are impacting their business? And again, going through that, so what and now what equation across the whole global portfolio where we’re a great partner for that type of work.

Max Kantor: [00:12:22] So, Brianna, you mentioned that you’ve been doing this now almost two decades, tons of different businesses, tons of different experiences all over the world. But for you, what is the most rewarding part of your job?

Brianna Sylver: [00:12:35] So my the most rewarding part of my job. Well, there’s sort of two pieces of it. So on a practical, I guess, level, if you will, I have found over the past almost two decades, as you put it, that I really love the process of running the business and sort of like the reinvention of the business over these nearly two decades. You know, I guess putting my own my own method into practice, if you will, and needing to kind of constantly reinvent yourself. But when it comes to serving our customers, what I have found that I really love is the ability to to to be a catalyst of change in that process. So recognizing that when it comes to any type of big engagement, like the ones that we get involved with, there’s sort of like the project management associated with it. And then there’s the anxiety management around that project that also needs to be managed and that the two of those two things together when executed well, support change in occurring. And when they’re not executed well, it results in a lot of friction and frustration and all of that. And so what I have valued over particularly, I would say probably over the past ten years, is really getting to lean in at that level. And then when you do it right, the learning that occurs happens not only at a project level, whatever they’ve brought us in to do, but actually at a whole organizational level. So like I’ve had many clients kind of endearingly refer to us as covert cultural change artists. And, and I think a big piece of that is because they’re discovering things about themselves in the different ways of working. And so supporting that that level of enlightenment, if you will, and sort of like acknowledgment is something that I personally really value.

Max Kantor: [00:14:43] So if any of our listeners want to get in contact or learn more about server consulting, what you guys is website any social media for Silver Consulting?

Brianna Sylver: [00:14:54] Yeah. So we have lots of different social channels. From our website perspective, it’s Silver Consulting. Now that is why we are consulting. You can find us on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. I would also encourage you to reach out to me personally on LinkedIn. I’m very active on that platform and love to connect with people that way. And so you can look me up at Briana Silver. And again, that’s why we are.

Max Kantor: [00:15:26] Well, Brianna, thank you so much for being on the show today. You’re doing a lot of great work for a lot of great companies, and we definitely appreciate all that you do. So thank you for being on the show.

Brianna Sylver: [00:15:35] Oh, my pleasure. And thank you, Max. I mean, what a fantastic way to to highlight the great businesses operating in the Chicagoland area. So thank you.

Max Kantor: [00:15:45] Thank you so much. That’s what we love to do here on Chicago Business Radio. So thank you all for listening to another episode. I’m your host, Max Kanter, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:15:55] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm SpaceX, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.

Tim Dorr With Techstars

April 28, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Startup Showdown Podcast

Tim Dorr With Techstars

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Tim Dorr is the Managing Director of Techstars Atlanta in partnership with Cox Enterprises. He is also a co-founder of Salesloft, one of the largest startups to come out of Atlanta, Georgia with a $2.3B valuation.

Prior to that, he created the first coworking space in Atlanta, Ignition Alley, was an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech, and has been an advisor at Atlanta Tech Village.

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] Lee Kantor here another episode of Startup Showdown, and this is going to be a good one. Today on Startup Showdown, we have Tim Dorr with techstars. Welcome, Tim. Tim, before we get too far into this, can you share with our listeners about the Atlanta rendition of Techstars? How did you get involved with it and what’s your mission? How you serving folks? Sure.

Tim Dorr: [00:00:59] I’m the new managing director of Techstars Atlanta in partnership with Cox. And I’m going to be managing the summer program coming up. I’m taking over for Dave Payne, who was the previous managing director. It’s a generalist program. We’re not really focused on any verticals or markets, really. What I’m hoping to do with the program, though, is find some more brand names for the Southeast. It’s definitely a big focus for me is to I’ve had a lot of success through the Atlanta specific startup ecosystem, and I’m sure we’ll get into that in a bit. But in having my own success, I want to see more success stories out there. It’s kind of my own personal thesis to go create a dozen more copies of me in whatever way makes sense for them. It doesn’t necessarily have to be financial, but I want to do that through Techstars and really what I want to do in particular is find some of these like large brand name companies, you know, kind of think like the ones we’ve already had success with here in Atlanta, like MailChimp, Greenlight, Counly, like everyone knows them. You know, they’re such strong brands and they’re really something we can rally around in the Southeast to draw the attention here that like we’re as viable a startup hub as the the coasts.

Tim Dorr: [00:02:33] Like, you don’t have to go out to the Bay Area or L.A. you don’t have to go to New York. There’s another option where the culture, the talent, the resources, the geography, everything is just so perfectly aligned to create amazing startups in. And I just want to use more of these brand name companies that can come out of Techstars as flags we can plant in the sand to really get the attention of folks like, Hey, come out here. There’s something something going on here. So that’s what I’m looking to do with the the Techstars Atlanta program. And actually, like, how I got into the role was actually through a former managing director, Michael Cone. I was talking with him just about general investing stuff. Him and Sean O’Brien who run over line and they were just giving me some advice on that that front. And Michael just mid-conversation had an idea, said, Hey, would you be interested in the MD role at Techstars? And I kind of paused for a second and said, Sure. And then that kicked off an email that kicked off a whole interview process. And here I am.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:46] Now, what are some of the qualities that those Atlanta based brands that you were holding up have in common, that other kind of aspiring or emerging brands can either emulate or model themselves after?

Tim Dorr: [00:04:03] I mean it definitely like male chimps case there’s a really strong just brand name to MailChimp if you remember that that serial podcast from several years ago there was an advertisement for MailChimp at the front of it and they did this kind of like man on the street interviews with folks and some lady was reading off a card and didn’t know how to pronounce MailChimp. She pronounce it as MailChimp, and that kind of became a little meme for a bit, but it was funny about that. In particular was that even though she mispronounced the name of the company, everyone still knew that she was talking about MailChimp and it was just that kind of like pervasive, strong brand that is of the same caliber is like, you know, like Disney or Coca-Cola, like, you know, these incredibly strong brands that like can cut through even like a mispronunciation to get people’s attention. I really think something like that is amazing that, you know, Ben and Dan have created over MailChimp in particular. So there’s definitely like the branding aspect of it and then really leveraging some of the unique properties of the Southeast. I mean, we have amazing talent here. You know, there are a lot of like really talented folks to work on things, you know, I know watching Tope build out Counly over Atlanta Tech Village because we were cohabitating there alongside Sales Loft, which I’m a co-founder on like watching him kind of make use of these amazing folks to like really build out a really strong company which didn’t take that many people to really reach the like pervasive level of being the de facto standard for, you know, online scheduling. You know, it’s pretty incredible how little it took to get to that worldwide success that they have now. And, you know, they’ve grown quite a bit since then, but now it’s definitely making use of those unique resources that we have here.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:09] Now, do you think that we have the density that the coasts might have where a person works in a startup and it doesn’t you know, it doesn’t go the way they planned and they can just jump to another startup and not kind of abandon the startup dream.

Tim Dorr: [00:06:25] Yeah. I mean, there’s so many opportunities for, you know, in particular, like the way I look at Techstars now coming into it is that we’re a piece of a larger puzzle. We’re not an island by which there’s a silo of activity happening. And it’s amazing for Techstars, but not amazing for anyone else. There are definitely programs and resources out there. We have hubs like Atlanta Tech Village, like I mentioned at DC, at Georgia Tech and at DC. There are various accelerator programs there. Like I’m not doing them as competitors. I’m viewing them as being a piece of the puzzle. Like you might go over to ATB and do the It Takes a village pre accelerator program is kind of a starting point to figure some things out and then kind of as you start to get the business going, you come over to me, go through Techstars and then maybe you have like a very enterprise specific play or you could make use of that. You go over to engage and Blake Payton’s program over there where they partner with various Fortune 50 companies in the southeast here in Atlanta. And you get access to like the C suite of like Chick fil A and UPS and Home Depot. These like incredibly large companies, you get direct access to the very top of it. These are all components which come together to really create a unique opportunity to create a startup. So there’s just so many opportunities to, you know, if you go through one, it doesn’t work out like you can get back on the the horse and try again. Whether it is either starting another thing yourself or joining one of the the many, many, many startups that exist in the Southeast, you know, just seeing the amazing opportunities that we have here, you know, there’s so much that you can get involved with very directly, very easily.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:29] Now, if you were to kind of create a startup ecosystem from scratch, what are the elements that were lacking here in Atlanta?

Tim Dorr: [00:08:41] I mean, the things that were lacking previously were particularly capital, but that’s actually been fixed. So, you know, the sponsor panoramic, they’re a very large fund that has established itself in the Southeast. I mentioned overlying earlier there’s Outlander Tech Square Ventures. I’m blanking on others, unfortunately, under the gun here. I do know a lot. I think the if I’m if I remember the numbers correctly, I believe $1,000,000,000 of new capital came into Atlanta last year. So there is a lot going on here that we have in terms of resources. Really, what’s happened in Atlanta over the past, say decade has been a transformation of the startup ecosystem from being a bunch of people kind of hanging out, wanting to do something to being a functioning, well-structured machine that just spits out great startups. And in particular, it’s starting to feed back into itself. And you have, you know, the leaders coming out of these amazing companies that are doing amazing things. So like I mentioned, Tope and Ben and Dan, a MailChimp top order. It sells loft. You know, they’re starting to because they’ve had success and I humbly include myself in this, you know, that feeding back into that ecosystem is starting to create that exponential growth where, you know, a dozen people come out of it in one cycle, contribute back whether that’s in just time or capital or whatever, back into the ecosystem to help it continue to grow. And then, you know, a couple dozen people come out and then a couple of hundred, you know, it starts to really feed back in itself very quickly. And we’re starting to see that like first cycle really happen. So. Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like the disadvantages are kind of gone at this point. It’s really just us continuing to hone and operate that machine that we’ve established here and continuing to just grow, grow, grow. Like we’re essentially. Atlanta is a growth stage startup now. We are no longer in the the product market fit. We’ve figured it out now. We just need to continue to scale up.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:06] Now, how do you feel we’re doing when it comes to underserved founders or founders from others or groups?

Tim Dorr: [00:11:16] There’s definitely a lot of work to be done there and I feel like we’ve been making great strides on that. For Techstars at least I can definitely speak to the fact that it’s something we care a lot about, and it’s not like we’re not trying to hit numbers here. Like that’s not the goal here. The goal is that we’re trying to fundamentally change how we source startups so that we can find those founders who are not being seen because it’s just frankly, it’s an injustice that we’re not doing that because like every time I run into somebody and they’ve never talked to anyone before or they, they’ve only just figured out that there’s a startup ecosystem here and they’re, they’re not getting seen by anyone. They have great ideas, they have really good ideas, and they have a ton of drive and passion like they absolutely want to get it done. Like I was talking with one startup who it’s her first time doing anything. She’s figuring everything out from scratch. And she was just a teacher last year. You know, she is brand new to this entire world and is somebody that may have gone overlooked in the past very easily and wouldn’t have gotten access to the resources that she needs to get the help to move forward as a founder in particular, but also for her particular idea.

Tim Dorr: [00:12:44] And yeah, I mean, for for Techstars, it’s important that we’re establishing systems where we can make sure we are both finding the kind of founders that are not getting seen yet. And we’re encouraging those founders to come out of the woodwork a bit and reach out to us like we want to make sure we’re being welcoming as well. We definitely have a lot of interest in whether it’s race, gender, age, disability status, veteran status, things like that. We want to make sure that we’re we’re being as accommodating and welcoming for those kinds of founders as possible so that they don’t have to have like as much as the the startup ecosystem might have biases against them. They also have biases against us which are well deserved. And we want to make sure we’re breaking those down as well so that they can feel welcome and included in the process. It’s definitely about inclusion and making sure that they have a seat at the table too.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:56] And I think it goes along with what you said earlier about having those brand names. If we can get the companies that are from underrepresented, folks that have kind of working towards a brand name or have a brand name to show what is possible and that they can aspire to do this. This is this is a dream that can come true and open their minds to this as a career path. I think that would help out as well.

Tim Dorr: [00:14:25] Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:27] Now, what part of this process gets you fired up? Like, what do you enjoy about working with these early stage folks that, you know, get you up in the morning, get you excited to do what you do?

Tim Dorr: [00:14:41] It’s definitely about. You know, like the best founders that we have come through the door are the ones that are most amenable to change and the ones that want to learn and grow. And I love really like connecting with them on that level and helping them see maybe something from a different angle and a different perspective, but at the same time, like not instructing them to do something per se, you know, just exposing them to another way of thinking. So like one thing I always say about Techstars in particular is that like, well, we’re called an accelerator, quote unquote. We are actually going to slow you down for three months. And that’s because we’re asking you to, for those three months, really step off the gas of like the build, build, build mode of the startup. Because chances are you have your blinders on, you’re headed towards the target. You want to just hit that target no matter what. And, you know, if the thinking is if you get to that target, everything will be great. That’s your success point. And usually that’s not true. Usually you need to, course correct as you go, but it’s really hard to do that. That’s a skill that takes a lot of learning, a lot of a lot of failure to figure out like, that’s something you have to do. So what Techstars is going to do is, you know, really force you to break down that assumption. And that’s definitely where I can help the most is, you know, kind of structurally how we do it is we have a very mentor based program.

Tim Dorr: [00:16:19] And one thing we do upfront to connect you with mentors is we do this thing called Mentor Madness, and it’s basically a week long process. You’re meeting with all 100 mentors that we have. You’re doing these quick 15 minute meetings. They are just the most raw, honest, objective feedback you’ll ever get in your company. There’s no time to defend yourself, so you just got to listen and write things down as fast as you can and you’re going to hear a bunch of stuff. Some of it will be complete crap and bad advice, but you’re going to start hearing a lot of like the same thing over and over again from like, you know, ten different people in a row. And that forces you to start to say, hey, I keep hearing the same thing that maybe I need to be doing this thing that I haven’t been doing in my business. And that can start to break down that that stubbornness barrier of like, I think I know the right direction or I think this target is where we should be headed and really start to think, think about things differently for your business and realize maybe there are different perspectives on what I’m doing. And then we pair you with your mentors, and the ones that really resonated with you on that are the ones that are going to help you the most. And we run through the program and really the acceleration comes after the program where, you know, the demo day is over, kind of back to normal and you want to step back on that gas.

Tim Dorr: [00:17:40] But now you have a plan in place. You know, you’re headed in a better direction and you have that skill set to be able to stop and take a take a moment to say, okay, maybe we’re not headed in the exact right direction. Let’s course correct a little bit to the right. And you have your mentors like the one thing I will point out is like the mentors are mentors for life potentially. You know, we definitely encourage that. It’s not just limited to those 13 weeks, then we take them back. Like these mentors are mentors you can have forever and they can be advisors to your company, they can be investors in your company even. You know, these are definitely like long term relationships and you have them as a way as a sounding board potentially to say like, hey, are we actually headed in the right direction here? Or does your opinion differ and suggest that we should do something differently? So kind of going back like that’s where like I definitely prefer to help is when somebody comes in and says, hey, is this the right direction to go in or do we need to course correct and kind of working through with them like to figure out, okay, what is a better strategy here or what is a, an adjusted strategy? Or maybe we just need to pivot entirely and do something different. You know, kind of working through those challenges are definitely the most engaging for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:58] Now, what’s the biggest piece of advice you can share with a startup founder to even enter the Techstars program? What do they have to what’s something actionable they can be doing today that will give them a shot of getting into the Techstars program?

Tim Dorr: [00:19:14] I definitely say B considering. You know, again, kind of like doing this like course correction work comes down a lot to really being good at customer discovery. There’s a very good book on this topic called The Mom Test. It’s actually written by a local Atlanta native. I forget his name off top of my head, but it’s like ten bucks on Amazon. It’s really quick read. It’s very practical in this nature. Like, that’s the one thing I like about it. It’s not very like theoretical about customer discovery. It gives you like actual talk tracks that you can see both the things to ask and why to ask them. And really, like all customer discovery about is about is discovering what is the problem space that your customer lives in. Like, what are their issues? What are they dealing with? You know, kind of like working through that sort of thing. And if you’re doing a lot of customer discovery, that’s great. I’d love to hear that. Like you’re talking with dozens or hundreds or maybe even thousands of customers to really understand what is going wrong in their world. And you really strongly understand their problem space because that will just help you long term. Like as a business when it gets to like selling mode, when you switch to the other side of things because you understand the problem space so well, you understand where they are, where their head space is at. You can when you sit down and sell them.

Tim Dorr: [00:20:48] You’re not selling from the other side of the table. You’re selling on the same side of the table as them. You’re selling alongside them rather than to them. So I love to see that kind of like that’s to me is a traction metric. A lot of people come to Techstars and say like, Well, how much revenue do we need? Like, how many customers do we need? Like, No, that’s actually not the issue. Techstars is really wide open when it comes to the stage or companies that like anything from a back of the napkin idea up to like I’m about to raise my like second or third round of funding and anything in between. So like what matters more to me is just like when it comes to traction, quote unquote, it’s not so much the, the revenue numbers. It’s like how much have you connected to your your market space? And are you like actively working through talking with customers, understanding their needs and like setting yourself up for that kind of success when it comes to selling and actually obtaining customers? Because if you don’t understand your customers, maybe you have some revenue, but that might have just been dumb luck that got you that revenue. You know, if you’re actually listening to them and getting feedback, getting input, then the traction you have is more real in my mind. So I definitely look at like the kind of like work you’ve done to really understand your market in particular.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:15] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about the Techstars program, what’s the best way to do that?

Tim Dorr: [00:22:23] I mean, you can read the text. We have I think it’s roughly 50 different programs. We actually have a second program now in Atlanta as well. Melissa Peggy’s is the new managing director of the Techstars Atlanta, powered by Jp morgan program, which runs opposite of mine. So I’m runs in the summer. We also have the Cox Social Impact Program that runs in the winter. And then Melissa’s programs are running in the essentially the fall and the spring. So pretty much 24 seven. There’s something Techstars going on in Atlanta. And if you want to learn about any of those, head to Techstars dot com, you can go to the accelerators page. And one thing that’s really great there is that you can start to look through all of the programs we offer. Some of them are city based. Some of them are remote programs like Techstars anywhere. Some of them have corporate partners. Some of them do not. Some of them have a focus, like there’s a physical health accelerator in Fort Worth, Texas. There’s energy tech over in Birmingham. Some of them have a particular maybe a specific market that you’re in that you can get a lot of value out of. Like, you know, my summer program is very generalist, but if you go out to LA Matt, who runs the program out there, he has a space technology focus for one of his programs he’s actually running for, and he’s kind of nuts for doing that.

Tim Dorr: [00:23:59] But we love him. He’s he’s we’re lucky to have him. And I definitely would like look through all the accelerator programs we have, mainly when like evaluating like a Techstars accelerator, you definitely look at the, the resources being provided by that program and they’re going to be a bunch that are just not in fits entirely, but try to find ones that are close and like really examine them. And I would definitely encourage anyone who’s interested in Techstars to apply to multiple programs at the same time. There’s no disadvantage whatsoever for doing so. And on top of that, you just have more chances. Again, we have hundreds of applications for Techstars Atlanta this summer, and I’m only choosing ten companies, so the chances of anyone getting in is fairly low. So the more programs you apply to you, the more chances you have. And who knows? You might find one in there that you resonate with more than my program. For whatever reason, maybe you like the MD more or the corporate partner is a better fit for you. Whatever it is. I’m not offended by that, by the way. Feel free to to find the best program that works for your team and your needs. But yeah, consider them all and definitely apply to any that make sense. The more chances you have to get into a program, the better.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:16] Yeah, like you said, there’s a lot of resources now compared to five, ten, 15 years ago. So take advantage of them.

Tim Dorr: [00:25:24] Yes, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:26] Well, Tim, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Tim Dorr: [00:25:31] Thank you. Definitely appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:32] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:25:38] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup Showdown Pitch Competition Visit Showdown VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. That’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

Spark Stories Episode 14

April 27, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Spark Stories

Spark Stories Episode 14

00:00 /

Carla Moultrie is Author, and Autism Advocate. She is a parent advocate for children with Autism and connects other parents to resources, education, and support. Ausome Girl shares the amazing world of a little girl named Camille who has Autism Spectrum Disorder and Sensory Processing Disorder.

This children’s story illustrates how Autism affects her and how her family, teachers, and friends support her. Ausome Girl shines a light on the characteristics of Autism while bringing awareness to the strengths that children with Autism have.

Carla’s hope is that the Ausome Girl series will aid children and adults with becoming more empathetic and understanding to their peers that may be different from them.

Carla is a proud alumnus of Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, the University of Phoenix and is pursuing her Master of Business Administration degree at the prestigious Terry School of Business at the University of Georgia

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Spark Stories, where entrepreneurs and experts share their brand story and how they found their spark, the spark that started it all.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:00:13] Welcome to Spark Stories Live Business Radio brought to you by the Atlanta Business Radio Network. Every week, entrepreneurs and experts share the stories behind the brand who they are, what they do, and why their brands matter. I’m your host, Clarissa Jae Sparks. In our own series, we dove into the everyday operations of inspiring small business owners in our community. You can listen live on Saturdays or the rebroadcast at WW dot Business RadioX dot com. Today we’re going to talk about building a brand around causes you’re passionate about and why it’s important to build community that fosters a safe environment. Please allow me to introduce one of our amazing community leaders who owns it, Carla a Moultrie. She is a sister, wife, mother, professional encourager, author and autism advocate. She is a proud alumnus of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, the University of Phenix, and is pursuing her master of business administration at the prestigious Teri School of Business at the University of Georgia. She is a parent advocate for children with autism and connects other parents to resources, education and support. Through the many experiences she and her husband they thank, you have compiled navigating as parents with a special needs child. Her hope is that the Awesome Girl series will aid children and adults with becoming more empathetic and understanding their peers that may be different from them and how they can support them. Additionally, her hope is that those that live with autism and other differences will be embraced and will have more spaces created that would include them. Let’s welcome Carla Moultrie. Welcome, Carla.

Carla Moultrie: [00:01:59] Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:02:02] You know, I’m so excited to have you here today to talk about your experience as an entrepreneur, as an author, as we read in your bio. You wear a lot of hats and the hat that you’re wearing today is this author. Yes. And we’re here to talk about autism and raise awareness around your awesome girl. So just tell our listeners who you are.

Carla Moultrie: [00:02:26] Okay. Well, I am Carla Moultrie. I am a native Floridian. I’m an alumnus of Florida A&M University, the University of Phenix. As I mentioned, I am pursuing an MBA at the University of Georgia. But mostly importantly, I am a wife and a mother to an amazing, awesome little girl, Camille.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:02:46] Oh, Camille, tell us a little bit about your journey with starting to author the book about Camille.

Carla Moultrie: [00:02:54] Camille now is eight years old. When Camille was two years old, she started displaying symptoms of autism. My husband and I had literally just moved here from New Jersey here to the metro Atlanta area from New Jersey. And we thought, you know, her her behaviors were just behaviors with being in a new environment. She was having some withdrawal symptoms, just pulling away, not really wanting to be around other kids. So we just we really initially thought it was about just the new environment. And shortly, maybe two or three weeks after being here, my husband started noticing that she wasn’t using her words as before. And he just mentioned she’s not using her words as much. And we found a pediatrician. We spoke to the pediatrician, and the pediatrician just said, oh, this is typical. She’s a little girl. She’ll probably just speak later. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Waited another month or so. We just kept seeing, you know, very little communication, the no eye contact, just the withdrawal from people in general. And I started doing my own research, start Googling, and I kept seeing autism. Autism. And we got we got her into a developmental pediatrician. And they told us initially that she didn’t have enough symptoms to be diagnosed as autistic. And one thing that we found out in this process is that autism typically manifests differently in girls than it does little boys. One thing that we noticed is that we have found out is that girls typically are like shyer and quiet, where boys typically have a lot of the behavioral issues.

Carla Moultrie: [00:04:37] So girls get misdiagnosed or diagnosed a lot later than boys. So after about a year of constantly trying to, you know, getting first and second and third opinions, we finally got an autism diagnosis right before she turned three. We got the diagnosis. You know, they told us all these things that she would probably never do. We would they told us to prepare to. Ever hear her say mom or dad to prepare to potentially institutionalize her one day? Just prepare to just have a different life. Because children a lot of children with autism have challenges. And, you know, they don’t know. They don’t live typical lives. So obviously, I was devastated. I remember just just breaking down and crying in the doctor’s office. And my husband, being a minister, just said she’ll be okay. He just patted me on my shoulder. He’s like, she’ll be okay. He was extremely confident. He’s been confident since day one that she would be okay. And after about a month, I was really just devastated. I swung into action and started looking for different types of therapies. And for about the first year, we were just doing therapies. And she wasn’t really responding. She just was you know, we were just going through the motions. So when she turned about four, it just it was like a light just flipped.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:05:56] And she became her own timing.

Carla Moultrie: [00:05:58] And her own timing, she became this ball of energy. And just she’s she began to just really thrive. Her words begin to come back and just her attention, her eye contact, just the a lot of the things that we were told she wouldn’t do. She started doing wow. And it’s just been amazing to watch the last four, four and a half years of her just just thrive and just really, really go on. So that inspired me just to do a children’s book or a book that teach children and adults about autism. Because as I said earlier, a lot of times we’re told most times we’re told when we get the autism diagnosis is that our children will not be able to do a lot of the typical things. And I am here to say that she is defying the odds. She’s doing everything that she was said.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:06:53] That’s awesome.

Carla Moultrie: [00:06:54] That’s awesome. You know.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:06:55] Exactly. That is awesome. And, you know, it’s very interesting, like you said, to hear the diagnosis in the in the doctor’s office. And then you have to spring into action and you have to take first. You have to process. Yes. And then you have to come up with an action plan. And that’s part of the entrepreneurial journey as well, is knowing that even when you have a thought in mind, it’s something is, you know, raising a child. You have to learn how to pivot. Exactly. You have to learn to make adjustments. You have to learn to adapt. And as a woman of many hats, you are able to do that and you are able to find the resources and the education that you needed to help. Guide you and your husband through the process of raising an awesome girl.

Carla Moultrie: [00:07:43] Exactly.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:07:44] And what advice or words of encouragement would you give to someone who’s starting a business or they receive a bad diagnosis from their physician?

Carla Moultrie: [00:07:56] One one piece of advice I would give a person who has received a diagnosis, a bad diagnosis. Is that ta to to to look, to see, look, to see how that diagnosis can help others. Because that’s the one thing that I’ve learned in my life, is that everything that happens to us is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s really to help other people. And I thought about a way that I could help other people. And that’s why I said, you know, in particular the African American community. I found out that a lot of times we don’t talk about autism a lot and we are afraid to talk about it or we’re made to feel bad about it. And I wanted to show a little black girl who is brave, who is smart, who is intelligent, how she can be awesome, and how she can do just what anybody else can do. So I would encourage other persons who are who receive a bad diagnosis to think about the diagnosis is how they can help other people. I don’t think things happen to us just to happen to us. I believe things happen that maybe that may look like it’s a negative to always help somebody else. And that’s what this this book has done. I mean, literally all across the world, people have reached out to me wanting to share Awesome Girl this book. And it’s been, you know, a motivation to little girls. I mean, parents have emailed me saying, my little girl wants to be awesome girl. They want beads in their hair. So I’m looking at it from that vantage point and I’m seeing that it’s doing just exactly what I what I had purposed in my heart to do, and it’s to help other people.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:09:40] And that’s really good, too. So from that moment at two years old to around four, after you found she started becoming into her own and being even more awesome, you decided, I want to be able to impact others by sharing Camille’s story. Mm hmm. What was that process like? How did you say, you know what? Because there are a lot of ways that you can share your story. But what made you want to actually put pen to paper or come up with the book when you could have chose maybe something else?

Carla Moultrie: [00:10:13] You know, initially I had to get past the grieving process. I had to get past the process of potentially not doing typical things with my daughter. Like I remember I wanted we saw we noticed that she could tumble really well and do do tricks that look like gymnastics really well. So I wanted to get her in an adaptive gymnastic class. Well, we took her to the first class and she couldn’t follow directions. And I was just I had a meltdown, and my husband was like, she’s going to be okay. That’s that’s what he always says. And what what what what encouraged me was when I saw another friend of mine who who has a daughter with special needs, she has hearing loss. And we were talking about just, you know, how to journal our, you know, just journal to start writing. So I started journaling, you know, in my own private time, you know, about my experience with autism. And then I started looking, you know, just started wanting. My mother in law is a retired educator. She would always send me little books for little girls, you know, about the hair or any different little things. So I’m starting to look through all these little books that I’m receiving from my daughter, and I didn’t see anything that really looked like her or told her story. So I said, Well, let’s do a children’s book about a little girl who has autism. And my inspiration really was Superman. You know, Clark Kent is Superman. He turns into Superman. What kamille Moultrie turns into Awesome Girl. And and that’s that was my inspiration. And that’s what caused me to turn the table from being a little disappointed from grief to just joy.

Carla Moultrie: [00:11:53] You know, I know that my daughter is intelligent. She’s really smart. I remember the first time we had our IQ test that I was very shocked that on certain levels of the test, she was the first time she was five years old. We saw that she was always test. She tested three years ahead of herself. At five she was testing with eight year olds. We just had her tested about a month ago. She’s eight now. She’s testing on certain areas with an 11 year old. So that’s that’s so comforting to know that she’s still well able to do a lot of things just may look a little different for her in some cases. But she’s able and I would just encourage any other parent who is or a caregiver who is caring for a child with autism or any differences just to not lose hope. Expose, expose, expose, expose. Expose your child to different things. Like this morning my daughter started swim lessons. Oh, that’s great. And my husband was sending me pictures and just really excited. Just he’s like. She’s like a natural already out there in the pool, just just doing it. So I think that’s key to parents, you know, and caregivers of children with differences and autism just to expose, you know, find time for yourself, you know, reflect on how and be honest about how you feel. And from then on, just just expose your child, you know, find out what’s the what are their strengths and and help to strengthen those different things. And that’s what we’re doing with Camille.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:13:21] That’s good. One of the things that you mentioned, too, is that you start journaling, but that was a record through a recommendation from someone else who has a child with special needs. And I think what resonates with me is that that’s all about building community and having a support system so that when you’re starting something new or you are experiencing a new life circumstance, that you have community. So what is how important is community to you with this phase in your life?

Carla Moultrie: [00:13:53] Oh, community is absolutely essential. One of my friends who is also a Florida A&M alum, she she also has a daughter who’s autistic. And we’ve shared different different conversations about our experiences. We have another friend who also has a son who’s autistic. And, you know, they have both both of their children are older than my my daughter. And, you know, they’ve always given me tips, things to look for, you know, to remind me you are her advocate to help making sure I knew my rights and understood my rights as a parent of a special needs child. And matter of fact, one of the greatest communities that I found was a recommendation to a group on just social media. It was called Black Autism Moms. And I could not believe that when I joined this group about two years ago, I would be in a group of about 8000 women who share the same thing that I’m sharing. And we all have very similar stories. And it’s we share our triumphs. We share our disappointments. I mean, when one has a child that graduated and goes to college. Or does something great. We’re all excited together. If someone is having a challenge where we’re just there as a community to share resources, to tell them how they can get through this or some recommendations. So community is essential. And and I will say this, as a parent of an autistic child, we can you cannot do this alone. You absolutely cannot do this alone.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:15:21] Absolutely. And you know, during this process and use sharing and telling Camille’s story, what challenges did you face?

Carla Moultrie: [00:15:31] You know, initially, after I, you know, journaling, I knew that I was I wanted to write, but there was a part of me that wanted to protect her and didn’t know if it was necessarily even okay to share her story, since she couldn’t say yes, it’s okay, mom, to write a book about me. There was a part of me that was nervous about Do I want to share my child, her, her world with everybody? And I wrote the manuscript and I shared it with the publisher and she said, This is absolutely amazing. She shared that her and my illustrator had never they’ve done tons of children’s book books, but they’ve never done one with a special needs character. And as they began to tell me how they learned so much just by reading the manuscript, it’s a short 30 page book. They learn so much just about autism, things that they did not know, and it helped them just to see autism differently. And I knew then when they shared that to me, I knew that if it was a blessing to me and it was a blessing to them, I knew it would be a blessing to others. And in just the last two weeks that the book has been out, I mean, literally across the world, people have reached out and, you know, they purchased it on Kindle and they’ve gotten copies and their overwhelming response. Overwhelming. Yeah. It’s been it’s been a tremendous blessing. Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:16:52] And that you know, and that’s the blessing. And the blessing when you can create something that is going to impact the world and it’s bigger than you. And when you have that that brand or that brand promise and that is what are you going to commit to deliver time and time again to your readers, to the people who are impacted by autism? It’s bigger than you. Carla Yeah, and I think that it’s awesome that you have created a platform to share the story of a your child that can impact others, not only children with autism, but African American girls with autism. And how because representation matters. And to be able to go into a retail store or online and see someone who is as awesome as Camille is going to help them on their journey. So again, that’s a part of that brand promise and the community that you’re building with these other 8000 women, you’re sharing your story. And again, that just, just is a reminder to me that it is bigger than us. And when something is bigger and it gains the traction that you’ve gained, I mean, aren’t you the number one seller? Tell us about that.

Carla Moultrie: [00:18:22] Yes, I was the number one seller in my category the first week that the book has been out for two weeks. So I was the number one seller for the first week on Amazon and the categories for children’s books about disabilities. And and I’m just very I haven’t checked the ratings and the rankings this week, but I’m really excited about just being in two weeks, having that reaching that level of success. We’re already on book number two. This is this is going to be a series. I mean, our goal is to journal Camille’s life until she’s 18 years old. So she’s eight now, at least another ten books. Well, you will see another ten books talking about and sharing about her challenges, her development over the next 18 years. So I’m excited about this. I’m really, really excited about being able to share her growth and her development with everyone and just the world, because, as you said, representation does matter, just like other like African American women. A lot of times, you know, there’s their health disparities. A lot of times we don’t get the treatment that we are supposed to get. We’re often not taken seriously when we go into doctor’s offices. That happens also with little black girls. Right. And we saw that firsthand. It took almost a year to get a diagnosis. Three different opinions. And our daughter is clearly autistic. So, you know, we’re trying to bring awareness, not only just awareness about autism, but acceptance so that parents and people who engage other persons with autism and differences, they’re accepted. You know, I. I love the idea of the Special Olympics, but I also would like to see more spaces where we don’t have to exclude them if they’re if they are capable of engaging in other spaces. I would like to see more inclusivity in other spaces for our children.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:20:16] That’s a great point too. So that kind of takes me to vision. Having as the visionary of Awesome Girl. And you said you want to grow this over the next ten years and beyond. How can you help? What is going to be your greatest learning from your vision?

Carla Moultrie: [00:20:39] My greatest learning. I hadn’t thought about that.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:20:44] What have you learned so far through this process?

Carla Moultrie: [00:20:47] Well, one thing that I have learned is that you can never be prepared for the level of support that you can receive. I’ve literally had support come in from everywhere. I’m learning to manage it. Obviously, that that’s my my greatest learning is learning to manage it, trying to make sure that I take in the moment, you know, enjoy everything that’s happening. Enjoying the experience but also managing it, you know, interest, even vetting different opportunities because, you know, as every everyone wants to be associated with something great and something moving. That’s true. So, you know, just vetting those different opportunities as well. That’s probably my greatest learning experience right now.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:21:37] That’s really good, Carla. Like I said, you do have to be self aware. And, you know, like from your introduction to now, listening to your story, you do wear a lot of hats and you are in different communities. How do you manage? What is your self-care?

Carla Moultrie: [00:21:58] Oh, well, prior to launching the book, I had I had, you know, I had my typical massages once a month to my Mandy pedicures and going to the salon. But my husband literally told me two weeks ago, he’s like, Honey, we’re going to have to take probably every other weekend a Saturday, and just just pull back from everything. Just really just pull back because everyone is pulling I mean, everyone you’re having requests literally every day, right? All throughout the day. So we’ve decided that we’re going to take two Saturdays out of the month and we’re just going to just just pull back and just spend time with family. No social media.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:22:37] No social media, just, you know, just for that day. And I understand because it’s hard to pull away from the know social media, especially when you’re in the beginning phases of, you know, producing something great. You feel like you always have to show up. However, it is so important to be able to pull back and recognize what is important at the time. And so I think that is a great strategy that you and your husband have developed this saying, you know what, two days or two weekends out of the month, we owe that to ourselves so that we can continue to deliver on our brand promise. And if, you know, if we’re not recharged and re-energize, we cannot serve our community. So I think that it’s important to make sure that when you’re developing a plan of action, that you do incorporate self-care and managing and healing time to recharge so that you can continue on your life’s purpose.

Carla Moultrie: [00:23:36] And additionally, we are we’re looking to even just bring on some other additional support. You know, I’m looking to hire a virtual assistant, someone to assist me with some of these tasks that, you know, that I’m being pulled.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:23:48] Into and.

Carla Moultrie: [00:23:49] You know, even, you know, hiring more help with my daughter, you know, you know, currently I’m working remotely. So, you know, being at home has been been a blessing. But we we realize that even being at home, working remotely, picking her from school, we probably need some extra help now. Right? So looking into hiring a sitter, you know, to come a few days out of the week, you know, to be with her and to help support her as well, you know, while I while I can.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:24:17] While I live. Right, I’m curious to know. So what has been Camille’s response to all of the new gain attention?

Carla Moultrie: [00:24:24] You know, it’s so funny because when we first did the did the book and we were showing it to her and we were telling her that this was her, she just kept looking at it, just kept looking at it. And her teacher actually purchased a copy of it, and she didn’t say anything initially. And her teacher told me that when he showed her the copy of the book, she said, That’s me.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:24:46] That’s that’s me, that’s sweet.

Carla Moultrie: [00:24:48] So I was just like, wow. And every time she, you know, I have a copy of it on our kitchen table, on my dining room table, and she walks by every day. That’s me. That’s me. So she’s excited. I think she knows that she’s a little local celebrity.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:25:03] So she’s.

Carla Moultrie: [00:25:04] She’s excited. She a little girl at church came up to us last Sunday and said, I’m awesome girl, I’m awesome girl. And I have my book. So and Camille hugged the little girl and, you know, she’s that’s me. That’s me. So I’m excited. So I think she’s aware that she’s she’s getting some newfound attention.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:25:23] I know, you know, I look forward to logging in to social media and seeing the updates of her. I say Camille’s adventures. So now we’re going to look at the awesome girl adventures. I know that she has a a passion for Oreos. Oh, yes. So you’re in your series. You’re going to have to tell the Oreo stories.

Carla Moultrie: [00:25:45] Oh, yes. It’s so funny because we went to Publix last night on the way home from a little birthday party and, you know, Publix. I love you all. I really do. But when the Oreos are on sale, can we put them in the back of the store? Because every time we walk in when they’re on sale, like every other week, right. We walk in and she she sprints out and she looks back at me and she goes and grab her pack of Oreos. Oreos. I’m like, okay, let’s get a pack. And we probably have seven or eight packs of Oreos throughout the house hidden because she’ll eat a whole pack.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:26:18] Now, tell me it’s her favorite, the chocolate or the golden?

Carla Moultrie: [00:26:22] You know, the chocolate is her favorite, but she has. My mother in law just knew she would love the golden. So for a while she wouldn’t touch the golden. And then when she couldn’t find the chocolate, she, she just went to the golden. So she likes them both. But the chocolate is the favorite.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:26:37] Oh, that is awesome. I think. Like I said, I always look forward to see where the new hiding spots are for the Oreos. And then I think the other day the funny story was that you hit them in the oven, but then you preheated the oven. So now you have warm Oreos.

Carla Moultrie: [00:26:52] Yes. I completely forgot. My husband had hit him in the. And then I said, Why didn’t you tell me they were in the oven? You’re supposed to check the oven. You know, that’s a hot spot.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:27:01] So, yes, the the awesome stories of Camille. And I just think that it’s just such a blessing that you’re able to put a spotlight on. Ace a diagnoses or a subject that is, you know, sometimes often taboo and particularly in the African American community. And we we have our own perceptions around what special needs are. And for you to able to write a book that helps. Shine a light on how you can be awesome and how you can have. A diagnoses or disability, but still live. And you can still be the hero and you can still tell your story. So a lot of great things are going to come out of the Awesome Girl series and, you know, as entrepreneurs and future authors, as they hear the podcast and the rebroadcast of it, Just to be encouraged. And what advice would you give to someone who is probably they have a vision they don’t necessarily know how to implement because you’ve produced the book, you’ve become the number one best seller. But if they’re not as far as along on the journey as you are, how would you advise them?

Carla Moultrie: [00:28:25] I would advise them to do the research that one of the things that I did when I knew that I wanted to to write a children’s book and seeing with my mother in law sending me books, I was I started ordering books as well. I started learning how children read and understand. You know, that was my biggest thing. I said, I want it to be I want it to be very easy reading. I didn’t want it to be clinical because I did find some books about autism, some children’s book about books about autism. But to me, I thought they were either not representative of my daughter or they were a little bit too clinical for a seven or eight year old. I wanted it to be very easy reading. I wanted kids to be able to understand when they read the book, so they’ll say, Oh, that’s why Jane does this, or That’s why Tommy does that, so that they would understand. And doing doing your research, you will you won’t be able you won’t go wrong because you you will learn how to do what is whatever it is that you’re trying to do. And that’s why that’s one of the reasons I think that Awesome Girl has been such a success in this these last two weeks is that it’s easy reading.

Carla Moultrie: [00:29:40] You know, I’ve had medical professionals, clinicians, autism experts, ABA therapists, specialists, you know, ordered the book and said, this is absolutely amazing. This is absolutely amazing. And matter of fact, her nurse practitioner at the Marcus Autism Center has a copy of it and she says, we’re going to have to get multiple copies of this. This is amazing. You did an amazing job, you know, penning this you know, this is this is this is easy. This is easy. It helps people understand. And that’s what I wanted to do. And I think that’s what piece of advice I would give others who are in particular authors, you know, who are wanting to write a children’s book or any other book, you know, do your research that that will be key to your success. And and if you’re an entrepreneur, pace yourself. Don’t you know you’re not in a race against everybody else? You know, you don’t have to be number one tomorrow. You don’t have to feel like you’re you know, you’re competing with everybody else. Just race yourself. Yeah. And pace.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:30:40] Yourself. I always tell entrepreneurs, no matter how long you’ve been on the journey, you have to trust the process. And no matter what it looks like, be mentally prepared to pivot and to go with the flow and trust the process. And you know, here with she sparks and sparks stories, we are all about community as well. And Carl, I would like to know, how can we support you as a community?

Carla Moultrie: [00:31:10] Honestly, I think just educating yourself first on autism and what it is and what it is not. One of the things that I’ve learned about autism in particular is that years ago, autism was considered mental mental retardation. That’s that’s essentially what it was. We heard it growing up. I mean, I didn’t know many people that were considered mentally retarded when I was growing up, but I knew a couple of people, but I didn’t understand it. I just thought they were different. And one thing that I have learned in that we’ve learned as is is a world is that autism is not one dimensional. It really is a spectrum. It really is a spectrum. You can have a very, very low functioning person who will really need care and support their entire life. And then you have people who are very, very high functioning. Albert Einstein was autistic, you know, so and we’ll do great and wonderful things as we know. We’ve we’ve seen that there have been people who’ve gone to college who’ve earned law degrees, medical degrees, who are who indeed are autistic. And and that autism is definitely a spectrum. As I said, you can be very low functioning to very high functioning to somewhere in the middle. But at the end of the day, those people still are people. They deserve respect, they deserve empathy, they deserve dignity and find a way to support and encourage them and. Find a way to support and encourage their families as well. Right. Because it’s not it’s not an easy journey. We make a lot of adjustments to our our lives every day. Caring for children and adults with autism.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:32:57] Thank you. How can we find out more about Camille as an awesome girl?

Carla Moultrie: [00:33:03] Oc Well, you can follow her on social media. She’s on Facebook as awesome girl. She’s on Instagram as awesome girl books. And you can just follow me. Carla Moultrie. I’m. I’m Carla Moultrie. On Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. So you can follow me in all places on LinkedIn, you can follow me. And I’m sharing our journey on all of my platforms. So please follow the page. Awesome girl books on Instagram and Awesome Girl on Facebook or Carla Moultrie on all social media platforms.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:33:38] Well, Carla, thank you for sharing who you are, what you do, and why your brand matters. Again, here on Spark Stories, we celebrate business owners. And today and every day, listeners, please remember to support local businesses and express your support on their social media platforms. And again, thank you for tuning in.

Intro: [00:34:01] Thank you for listening to Spark Stories. If you’re looking for more help in gaining focus, come check out our website where you can find episode show notes, browse our archives and access free resources like worksheets, trainings, events and more. It’s all at WW she.

About Your Host

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks is a personal brand strategist, trainer, mentor, and investor for women entrepreneurs. She is the founder of She Sparks, a brand strategy design consultancy.

Using her ten-plus years of branding & marketing experience, Dr. Sparks has supported over 4,000 women entrepreneurs in gaining clarity on who they are, what they do, and how they can brand, market, and grow their businesses. Using her Brand Thinking™ Blueprint & Action Plan she gives entrepreneurs the resources and support they need to become the go-to expert in their industry.

Follow Dr. Clarissa Sparks on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Jennifer Andersen Smith With GROWTH Community, Yin Johnson With COUNTRY Financial, and Jessica Light With JJ Social Light

April 27, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Women In Business

Jennifer Andersen Smith With GROWTH Community, Yin Johnson With COUNTRY Financial, and Jessica Light With JJ Social Light

00:00 /

This Episode is brought to you by

Jennifer Andersen Smith is a daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother. She has built herself a life full of joy and love. As someone who deals with depression but works hard to stay positive, Jen has done her best, with God’s help, to stay strong in the face of the lowest lows. Through her speaking and writing, Jen shares her own experiences of being emotionally well.

Jennifer and her husband Craig have a blended family of 9 children and 15 grandchildren. She loves interacting with each of them and enjoys watching them excel in achieving their individual goals. Jennifer believes that being part of a community of family and friends that celebrates people collectively and as a whole is the most important legacy. For relaxation, Jen loves to read, garden, and watch her favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs.

Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn.

Yin Johnson is an insurance agent at COUNTRY Financial, serving all of the state of Georgia by bettering people’s education about insurance.

She will help you cover the things that are important to you in home, auto, commercial, and life insurance by advising and walking you through the difficulties of insurance in a simple way to assure that your life is enriched in the COUNTRY Financial way!

Connect with Yin on LinkedIn.

Jessica Light began the business (along with her husband, Ryan) in much the same way that most business owners begin – with passion and interest. Then she did what all entrepreneurs do and turned her passion into expertise.

She refers to herself as a “project management aficionado” of the company. For you, that means that Jessica is your main point person for your website and social media project. She coordinates between designers, writers, and the SEM team on your behalf in order to make the process as simple and stress-free as possible.

Jessica lives with her family in the Atlanta suburbs and is a proud “Military Mom.”

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. Welcome to Women in Business, where we celebrate influential women making a difference in our community. Now here’s your host.

Lori Kennedy: [00:00:29] Hello. This is Lori Kennedy and I’m your host today for Women in Business Powered by Business RadioX Stone Payton. Our producer is also in the studio with us. And today we are grateful to have you tuned in with us. Today, we have three amazing women and we are going to get to meet them and hear more about them. First, we have Jennifer Anderson Smith and she will tell us about herself. She has an organization called Growth Community and Yin Johnson will tell us about her new endeavors with with the insurance world. And then we have Jessica Lyte, who is with J.J. socialite, and we will hear more about that as well. And Jessica, I am going to actually start with you. Why don’t you tell us your business name, what you do, how long you’ve been in business, and just what you what your business does?

Jessica Light: [00:01:20] Yeah. So I own founder of J.J. Socialite Marketing Company, and we’re out of Alpharetta. We serve mostly Fulton County, also Cherokee County. And then I have customers all throughout the US. We do web design, social media, graphic design ads, all the things. I love working with the small to midsize client and really just helping them grow and then kind of plug into the local community and figure out what we can do with them that will help them not only grow business wise, but also relationally like how they can help connect to their customer base.

Lori Kennedy: [00:02:02] That’s great. Didn’t you do something in Cherokee County that with a like a Facebook page or something? That became quite the thing.

Jessica Light: [00:02:12] Yeah. So I, I didn’t start a Josh Bagby started this Facebook group called Cherokee Connect, and I had known him a little bit and we kind of really started connecting and then COVID hit. And he I had this idea that he should create a website that would go with the Facebook group. Well, he also had the very same idea. So we were chatting and he was kind of nervous to pull the plug. But during COVID, we were really working with a lot of the restaurants, trying to do lots of posts about helping them get, you know, word out that they’re doing takeout all all the things. I said, Josh, let’s just do this. So I said, I’ll do it for free. And so I built a website and there was about 5000 people in the group, maybe 88,000. He’s broken the 50,000. It’s crazy group. And and I think there’s well over 800 businesses or close to it listed on the directory. So it’s a great piece tool for the local business owner as well as the community. So they can go on the group and find out, hey, you know, who do you know that does a really good insurance or I’m looking to to learn more about networking or whatever. And the community can collaborate. Business owners for $100 a year can put a listing on there. I mean, I’ve known so many people, their business has literally taken off just because of Cherokee connects. So yeah, I built the website for that and it’s just of course, Josh is great and he does amazing work with the community anyway, so it makes my work very, very easy. So, but it’s been neat. It’s been great for me and my business as well, and it’s neat to just be able to help because as a marketer, I really can’t help people, you know, I mean, AdWords charges so much, you know, you know, so not everybody has $5,000 a month to spend on marketing, but for 100 bucks, I mean, yeah, I can’t, I can’t get those kind of results at all. So for 100 bucks, it really helps, you know, people get out there.

Lori Kennedy: [00:04:15] Yeah, for sure. So in reference to the Facebook page, just just to just a curious question with that many people on there, I would think that there could be some negative talk.

Jessica Light: [00:04:30] About a lot of.

Lori Kennedy: [00:04:31] Manage that because I haven’t seen a lot of it at all on there. Most everything is amazingly positive. But how do you like keep an eye on that much that many people in that much happening.

Jessica Light: [00:04:43] Yeah it’s a lot. I mean Josh does a lot. I mean, he teases that he’s a part time babysitter for adults, you know? All right. Yeah. So you know there is that he actually even just posted you know we’re going to be starting to not ban people, but mute them if they can’t be nice and act like adults, you know.

Lori Kennedy: [00:05:04] So there is some of it.

Jessica Light: [00:05:05] It just is just doesn’t.

Lori Kennedy: [00:05:06] Come in my inbox because he’s on top of it.

Jessica Light: [00:05:08] Yeah, we try to be on top of it. But, you know, he’s a big advocate of free speech. You know, we’re not going to, you know, so, you know, it’s always the line you don’t want to like control the situation that we live in. This like nirvana, happy little community and there’s nothing negative going on that’s not the case. But it is this balance you’re always trying to. In a marketing in general, you’re always trying to balance. You know, not every customer is happy, you know, not you know, your husband owns an auto mechanic shop. I’m sure not everybody comes out of their super happy, you know, all the time things happen. So it really is indicative of life in business, that Facebook page and community and the diversity and, you know, all all of the things.

Lori Kennedy: [00:05:52] Yeah, for sure. Well, let’s talk to Jennifer. Okay. Tell us about who you are, what you do, your business, your company, whatever you want to tell us so that we can know who Jennifer is.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:06:05] Well, I am the founder of Growth Community, which is really a safe space for you to be able to kind of come back to the person that you always wanted to be or you once were. But life has kind of gotten the way and you lost track of that, kind of lost your way and trying to figure out how to get back. So I am a speaker and an author and a mentor. I have published a book called So that for Relationships a couple of years ago, and that’s really a personal transformation memoir about my own life, starting with my childhood, some adverse experiences that I had there going into teenage pregnancy, and then a very early marriage that lasted 23 years and turned toxic. And then how I pulled myself out of all of that, and then the healing processes that I went through that I felt were the most beneficial for me to become the person that I am today, which I am a very happy, very blessed, very positive person. And I would say to you that ten years ago I would have never said any of those words to describe myself. But just by being aware of, you know, the things that happened in life and then the lessons that we can learn from them and then how we can take those lessons and share them with other people so very much at Pay It Forward concept, but it’s based on the so that principle which is actually found in the Bible in Corinthians. So but I just that’s how I’ve lived my life and I didn’t do it on purpose knowing this principle, it just kind of all fell together. And I thought, Well, I’m going to put a book together, and if that helps one other person out there have a better life, then I’ve done my job. So yeah, that’s awesome.

Lori Kennedy: [00:07:59] Do you have the scripture address memorized?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:08:02] Yes. It’s second Corinthians one, three and four. I don’t have the whole verse memorized, but essentially to paraphrase, it says that God gives us comfort and mercy in our time of need so that we can share that with others in their time of need.

Lori Kennedy: [00:08:19] Oc oc i I’m familiar with that one.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:08:22] There you go.

Lori Kennedy: [00:08:23] Awesome. All right. You can tell us about you, baby girl.

Yin Johnson: [00:08:28] All right. So Ian Johnson here, and I’ve been in the insurance world for like two years, going on two years now, past two years. Now, at this point, I started my own business, so I opened up Johnson Insurance Agency. So that’s what we’re looking at now. It’s still powered by country financial. So rock and roll in there. It’s been very interesting as a starting out business owner. I’m thankful though, having the networking groups, meeting all these people that are willing to support having the community inside of Cherokee Connect. And it’s just phenomenal, phenomenal having all the support and people that you can call and go to and ask questions because that’s what it is at the end of the day, is just laying down the ego, ego and just being humble and being able to ask people questions and figure out like, you’re not on your own on this. Everyone’s gone through this before, so learn, you know.

Lori Kennedy: [00:09:26] So, so when we started this process talking about coming on the show, you were with Country Financial, now you’re with Johnson Insurance Agency, powered by Country Financial. Can you help us understand what the difference is?

Yin Johnson: [00:09:42] So it’s a I’m an agency owner through country, so I own my own office. So everything is ran under me and. I’m rocking and rolling under myself.

Lori Kennedy: [00:09:56] So you were an agent before. Now you’re an agency and you will have agents.

Yin Johnson: [00:10:01] Yes.

Lori Kennedy: [00:10:02] Yes. Got it. That’s awesome. Yes. Congratulations.

Yin Johnson: [00:10:05] It’s exciting, but scary.

Lori Kennedy: [00:10:07] Yeah. Well, so where is your do you have to have a brick and mortar for that? And where is.

Yin Johnson: [00:10:12] That? Yes, I do have a brick and mortar. I am on Sixes Road. So where Shane’s rib shack and Verizon Wireless is right in front of one life fitness and stuff. So that’s where my office is.

Lori Kennedy: [00:10:24] Great. That’s awesome. Okay. I’m going to ask you the next question and we’re going to go around the room the other way. What motivates or inspires you in?

Yin Johnson: [00:10:35] Honestly, it’s the community. That’s really what’s inspiring and motivating. For me, just seeing people support each other, it makes you want to be supportive as well and being able to give back to the community that helped you. So like through Cherokee Connect, you know, you have all these shout outs, all these people that you’ve met, you definitely once you build a relationship, you know that you could trust them. And so it’s being able to shout them out, being able to support them and help their business grow as well, and then them doing the same.

Lori Kennedy: [00:11:08] And do you feel like we met in Woodstock Business Club? So you feel like that’s the same kind of concept that occurs in that location?

Yin Johnson: [00:11:15] Yes, absolutely.

Lori Kennedy: [00:11:17] Yeah. I think it’s an amazing group of people. Oh yes. Oc What motivates or inspires you?

Jessica Light: [00:11:23] Jessica Well, I mean, I originally started the business nine plus years ago. We moved to Atlanta. I had four kids at home and I’m just not really the PTA mom type. I mean, I’d probably get beer and pretzels for the party, you know, the school party watch movie.

Lori Kennedy: [00:11:42] I’m coming to that one.

Jessica Light: [00:11:43] Yeah. I mean, the parents would come, but, you know, anyway, so, you know, I had been a stay at home mom for pretty much most of my kids. And I started kind of just doing a little bit part time and I just really, really loved it and I kind of grew and grew my business. So really at first it was motivating, just something that I could do that was for me because as a mom, you know, everything’s always for your kids and your husband, everybody else. And I just really love it. And my business grew and grew and my husband has been amazingly supportive at first, you know, I mean, I was a stay at home mom and now I’m, you know, you know, I’m buying Costco dinners pre-made, you know, heated up. Heated up. Yeah. So that’s what initially got me going, you know, just kind of doing something for me. But now it’s been the community in the businesses I love, like getting to know everybody and getting to know the people. I am a boutique agency. I don’t take everybody that comes through my door has to be a good fit. I have to know that I can help them. I have to see that they’re willing to do their side of the work as well. And it has to be a business that I believe in also. So so there is some kind of vetting process, but now seeing them grow and just having those relationships with people in the community is just great. I love doing that. I just I could never really quit because I just did that. Just what feels me.

Lori Kennedy: [00:13:05] Yeah, you did a website for some of our really good friends. The blacks.

Jessica Light: [00:13:10] Yes. I love. I do t black hardscape. Yeah. By the way, they have done some work for me, they do hard scapes and they, they do just wonderful, wonderful work. Actually I just chatted with her the other day. She said they’re getting like 3 to 4 leads a week from their their website alone.

Lori Kennedy: [00:13:26] That is.

Jessica Light: [00:13:27] Awesome. I mean, it helps that they do fantastic work and Troy Justin.

Lori Kennedy: [00:13:31] Is.

Jessica Light: [00:13:31] Awesome. Yeah. He’s out there, you know, haul in the bricks with them, you know, he did. He did our thing. He’s out there with the guys. He just doesn’t show up, give you the invoice and leave. You know, he’s out there and making sure the work’s done right. Yeah. So I love seeing that, you know, that they had this website that was well in the top ten worst website I have seen. I could tell them that. So it’s not news to them, she said. It was like, you know, it was like inviting people over to your home. And it’s just such a mess. You’re just so embarrassed when people see it. And so anyway, I love seeing that. Like she just told me, I’m working so busy like 3 to 4 leads from the website alone. So if I can do that for someone. Yeah, you know that. I love.

Lori Kennedy: [00:14:14] That. Yeah. She’s definitely shouting your praises. Yeah, for.

Jessica Light: [00:14:17] Sure. Yeah.

Lori Kennedy: [00:14:18] Awesome. Okay, Jennifer, tell us what motivates or inspires you?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:14:23] I love hearing people’s stories. So just like that, your story, you know, the different things about the different people in the community and hearing the stories of how people have transformed their lives. And I figured out a few years ago that what really gets me going every day is being able to help somebody, whether that’s through growth community or I also do mortgages for residential. So if it’s helping someone get a mortgage and buy a house and change their life that way, it’s. Really something that that is what gets me up every morning is knowing I can help somebody.

Lori Kennedy: [00:14:58] Now, this mortgage thing is a new job for you. Yes. And are you aren’t you serving a specific people group?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:15:06] So a couple of things about that. I’ve actually been in the mortgage business for over 30 years. So, yes, this position is new. I work with Regions Bank and specifically I work with community mortgages. And while I can do a mortgage for anyone up or down the spectrum of mortgage world we do in the community section, we really try to find people who are low to moderate income borrowers who need maybe a little bit of help with their credit, or they need help with a specialized program and also a down payment assistance. And so we actually have an internal program at regions with a down payment assistance that we are able to help people. You know, you have to fall into certain criteria, but we able able to give them $5,000 to help with that down payment.

Lori Kennedy: [00:15:55] Oh, that’s so awesome.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:15:56] Very, very rewarding.

Lori Kennedy: [00:15:58] Wow. I love that. So how does a person how does sorry, how does who you are as a person reflect in what you do?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:16:07] Jennifer Well, that’s super easy because I mean, I wrote the book about myself, so there you go. But, you know, I butterflies are a big part of my symbolism in what I do. And as we I think all of us can say that a butterfly we know that that symbolizes new life. Right. And a new chance and a new experience. And that’s definitely what the transformation is about when you go from, you know, understanding, realizing that, hey, I’m in this dark pit where I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. I’m so lost. And then you start to hear someone at the top of that pit that you know, Oh, hey, maybe there is someone up there who can help me. And and that’s where I come in, is I’m that person that, you know, when you think about what do I need to do? How do I need to get there? You know, we don’t all have the answers. And that’s why I love, like, groups like this, like just this four ladies right here and shown you, too. But I just I love it because women need to be there for one another. You know, if you look back in biblical times, that is exactly what they did, you know? I mean, and if you we have gotten so far away from that in our world that we’re all competing and competing and striving against one another, when, you know, if we could just figure out how to lift each other up, it would actually lift all of us up. Yes and yes. That’s that’s definitely a theme in my life. Absolutely.

Lori Kennedy: [00:17:43] I’d love a couple of things you said, first of all, about the darkness, because I feel like when you when you compare that to the life of a butterfly, which of course, starts as a caterpillar, the darkness could signify some people look at darkness as difficult times, obviously. But could you be creating something new during that time? Could that be a cocooning period, so to speak? Because this is an interesting fact that I didn’t know for. I haven’t known for very long. But the DNA of a caterpillar is different than the DNA of a butterfly. It is a new created like it is a new creation. It’s a different creature. It’s a different type of creature. So who you are before you began, this process of darkness changes you into this new, beautiful thing at the end. I just think it’s so cool when you look at some of that, how that plays out in our lives.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:18:35] Well, you know, that’s where transformation comes from. But quite honestly, even a stronger word that that fits that even better is transfiguration.

Jessica Light: [00:18:44] Hmm.

Lori Kennedy: [00:18:45] Wow. That’s awesome. Jessica, tell us how who you are as a person reflects in what you do.

Jessica Light: [00:18:53] Well, I mean, I. I like to get things done right. I don’t like to do things halfway. So I feel one of the biggest frustrations as a marketer in my business, I’ll get people that will call me. Actually, I just had someone call me that said I paid $15,000 for this website and I didn’t know that I was only renting it. So as soon as we didn’t, you know, and I was just I could not believe it. Or I’ll get, you know, I’ll see a website when we get in the back end. I won’t bore anybody with that. But it’s just such a mess that people took shortcuts. They didn’t think about that business known that they’re not going to be able to do these things going forward. They just did what they their little job that they get paid for. They didn’t take the time to inform the client of different options they have. That may not include you and that’s okay. Yeah. What’s the best for them? So that really kind of drives me to do it correctly and do. Do things right. What’s the best fit for the other person I just don’t like? And, of course, my kids. I mean, you’ve met my eldest son. He’s a marine. I was teased that it was easier for him to join the Marines and continue staying at home. I just don’t you know, I don’t like halfway. So, you know, I think that helps me be good at what I do.

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:15] Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. All right, Ian, what about you? What? How does who you are as a person reflect in what you do?

Yin Johnson: [00:20:22] I definitely agree with what Jessica said on doing things right. So in the insurance world, if you’re not covered correctly and something happens. It’s danger. So when if when an if a claim happens and their policy is not written correctly or if like they’re cutting corners on coverages just because it made the premium cheaper, you are not protected, you know? And so I like to take time with my clients or even prospects are just people that have questions. I like to educate and go over what they have currently, because if I could change your policy and what you have currently and you could stay, that’s great, because I could help you realize, like, okay, this is what you’re paying for, this is what you’re covered for. And I’m going to show you how to do it correctly. And I’ll like walk them through, like, okay, this is what this means. This is what that means. And just taking the time to do it correctly the first time and make sure that that person is protected, their family’s protected, because at the end of the day, I’ve, you know, seen houses like get burned down and they’re like, yeah, you’re not covered correctly or that house is not written as a house, you know, it’s just different things that, if not written correctly, your claim will get denied. And so definitely taking the time to go over all of that.

Lori Kennedy: [00:21:50] That feels scary.

Jessica Light: [00:21:51] Yes.

Lori Kennedy: [00:21:54] So tell us, how do you use your influence in the community? Let’s see.

Yin Johnson: [00:22:03] I’m still a newbie in Cherokee County, so. Being in the networking group, though, has definitely brought like a whole new light for me. Definitely in meeting all these people, getting to know them, building that relationship helps influence me and my character because then people realize, okay, she’s not just trying to sell, like sell someone on getting a policy. She’s trying to educate people and highlight their coverages and being like, okay, like this is what you need because insurance changes throughout your life. So I use that influence to educate and help people realize, okay, this is how you’re going to protect yourself correctly.

Lori Kennedy: [00:22:50] I was I had something else in mind for your answer, and that was, aren’t you doing trivia now?

Jessica Light: [00:22:56] Yes.

Yin Johnson: [00:22:59] So so do.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:00] You have like trivia where you only ask insurance questions?

Yin Johnson: [00:23:03] No, unfortunately not. I think that would be scary for people. So, yeah, I actually do like I partner up with Mesmerize Media and so I help Tim and Jared out with running trivia over at the Woodstock beer market. So I do trivia and bingo night there and it’s is awesome getting to meet a whole bunch of people there as well and building relationships.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:27] Yeah, that sounds fun.

Yin Johnson: [00:23:29] It is so fun.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:31] Okay, Jessica, tell us, how do you use your influence in the community?

Jessica Light: [00:23:36] I think I just I just want to be helpful and inform people, even if it’s something I can tell them to do that’s free, you know, or help them learn to not pay $15,000 for a website that you’re going to rent, that you’re not going to own. You know, so I really just try to educate people and let them know what to look for. Even if you don’t go with me, these are the things you need to know and be aware of.

Lori Kennedy: [00:24:00] Yeah, I feel like as well, when you said yes to the Cherokee Connect thing for free, you had no idea how much influence that was going to have later on.

Jessica Light: [00:24:09] Yeah, no, it really was just spur of the moment. There’s another reason also I won’t go into that, but it was mostly because like, we’ve got to do something and I know I can help. You know, I can only order so much food to go. Yeah, you know, and, and then also I almost exclusively use only Cherokee connect people for services. So I always try since I am a moderator in a group, I always try to, you know, take a picture of what I’ve done and give them a shout what I’ve had done. Give them a shout out, hey, look what I just had tile done today. So I know the guy that’s done. He’s done a ton of work in my house. I’m always like, I tried to paint the tile. I thought I could just paint the tile. And they laughed at me. I’m like, Mike, you know? Oh, I gotcha, gotcha. So, you know, I mean, I’ll post that picture. Like, they came and helped me because I stupidly thought I could paint tile and do it very, very cheap. And it was.

Lori Kennedy: [00:25:09] Worth a.

Jessica Light: [00:25:09] Try. It was worth a try. My, my, my cheap and quick project came out very expensive and very long, so. Yeah. So anyway, what you planned. Yeah. It’s not what I had planned on too, but so and of course I’ve gotten plenty of work through Cherokee Connect, which I’m extremely grateful. That’s not why I did it. But you know, sometimes when you do things not expecting anything in return, it comes back. So that’s been great. But if I can turn around and then also help other people’s businesses. Hey, you know Jennifer Jennifer Jennifer hair. Yeah you know did help me with with my LinkedIn or help me you know you know some coaching and I can give that I can leverage my position in the group and help other people’s businesses.

Lori Kennedy: [00:25:52] Yeah, that’s awesome. All right, Jennifer, the same question for you. How do you use your influence in the community?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:25:58] So first of all, I want to say for Cherokee Connect, technically I live in Cobb, although I’m closer to Woodstock than Marietta. But and I follow that group and we are actually hiring a guy to come and do some work in our yard because he was recommended when someone else asked a similar question. So it’s absolutely powerful and I know my daughter does custom cookies and she has gotten so much work off of that website. So, yes, very, very powerful.

Jessica Light: [00:26:28] I have a niece of cookies soon, I’m sure.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:26:33] But for me, I mean, I built my own community also. So, you know, growth community is about having a safe space and very much the same way with Cherokee Connect. Right. You have the moderators and you have the website built the way you do so that people can feel comfortable talking about what they need to talk about and not get slammed for it like we are so quick to do in so many places. And so that’s I like to think that, you know, by just putting out a social post that says, you know, chin up today, you know, not every day has got to be a. I killed it today. Maybe some days. It’s just I got through it day, you know, just putting that out there for somebody who is having one of those days where it’s like, this sucks, you know, maybe maybe hearing that seeing that social post will help them feel like, you know what, it’s okay. I can have a day like that. Or, you know, the mom that’s just exhausted and tired because, you know, I think we’ve all been there or will be there maybe some day that you are just exhausted, you’re tired, you’re done. And giving yourself that permission to be exhausted and tired and done. And that’s okay. And even if my community just reaches into one person’s life at a time, it’s still a community and that’s what matters.

Lori Kennedy: [00:27:54] Well, one of the things that you mentioned is on my list to ask anyway, and that’s about mentorship. So are you being mentored and are you mentoring others and what does that look like?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:28:04] I am currently searching for a mentor. This is something that, you know, I’m going to say my age, I’m 50.

Jessica Light: [00:28:11] And I.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:28:13] Know I’m good with it now. But, you know, last year was rough, but I’m good now. But I realized a couple of years ago, actually about a year ago, as I’m approaching my 50th birthday, that that is something I missed out on. I never really got on the boat there with the mentoring or with coaching in my career. And I really do encourage people to do that because I think it can make a huge impact in in being able to figure out your career and your trajectory that way, but also in figuring out what your personal passion is. Because my life got so kind of skewed sideways that I didn’t even know what my own desires and passions were, what my dreams. I remember specifically being asked, What are your goals? And I said, I don’t know, I don’t have any goals. What are you talking about? And I was like 30 years old. I mean, what 30 year old doesn’t have goals? You should have goals, right? But so right now I’m searching for a mentor. So if you know anyone who’s looking for a mentee. But yes, I mean, actually, part of what I do, I don’t call it coaching, I call it mentoring. And the reason is because I think a mentor just kind of walks alongside you. You make all your own decisions. You choose to take the action steps or not. The mentor is just there to kind of be a sounding board more than anything. And if you’re going a little bit sideways, maybe help kind of get you back in that lane.

Jessica Light: [00:29:40] So yeah, yeah.

Lori Kennedy: [00:29:42] Understood. Jessica, who is mentoring you and how are you mentoring others?

Jessica Light: [00:29:46] Yeah, I would I would love to do both. I I’m originally from Seattle, so my husband and I, we lived in Seattle most of our while. I lived most of my life. My husband will not admit to any of that. Anyway, there’s a story. Yeah, there’s a story there. He says he lived in Seattle 19 years and it took him 20 years to get out. But in our church life and actually in business, we both had mentors, all our early marriage and we and if it wasn’t for them, we would not still be married. I know for a fact it was so vitally important. Personally, especially my husband actually is a coach now, so he is a coach for anxiety and depression and all that. Everything that was poured into him and us, he’s able to give back now. And I mean, I’m a huge advocate of it. I tried to even start a mentorship group in our church and it didn’t are old church here and it didn’t pan out. I find that sometimes people are just apprehensive to kind of get down and dirty, you know? So I think some people are just scared to do that. But I think it’s so, so important to have that.

Lori Kennedy: [00:31:00] Yeah, for sure. What about you again?

Yin Johnson: [00:31:03] I consider everyone in my networking group. So like Woodstock, Canton Ball Ground, everyone there are all my mentors. Like I love being able to sit down with someone and just ask them questions and just like try to figure my way around things, especially being a first time business owner. It’s just awesome having that that support. I also like I would love to mentor, I would love to mentor first time business owners as well and help them kind of figure out the steps and just kind of help guide them through as well because it’s terrifying. It’s absolutely terrifying. I am 27, so trying to figure out all of this is has been really interesting, but the mentorship that I’ve gotten from just the community and the people I’ve met and just even in my own industry, in the insurance industry, everyone that I’ve met insurance wise, like Josh Bagby and like Derrick Goode and everyone like that, they’ve just been able to support like I can just call them up and just be like, Hey. Quick question for you. Have you ever dealt with this, you know, or something like that? And they’ll help me out. They’ll meet with me, we’ll grab lunch and just talk it over. It’s phenomenal.

Lori Kennedy: [00:32:26] That’s awesome. Well, who is in your household? Tell us about your family.

Yin Johnson: [00:32:30] So my little household is just my husband and I. And we have two dogs.

Lori Kennedy: [00:32:36] Dogs? Yes. Tell me more.

Yin Johnson: [00:32:38] We’re a dog family, so I have a husky mix. So before Lock and I were dating, I adopted Ripley from the Blue Ridge Humane Society. And she’s a wonderful, wonderful dog. She is melted butter in dog form is what she is. She’s she’s amazing. She is like the most lovable creature. She just wants to cuddle with you. And that’s all she wants to do. Which is so interesting because Huskies are normally not like that. But she’s if she could get on the couch with you or have you have treats, she’s all about you. And then our youngest dog that we have is a blue heeler, full blood, and she’s a little psychotic. Like, I adore her. Like, she’s very intelligent, very intelligent. But she’s so intelligent that she knows that she could break your rules if you’re not watching her. She’s like, Och, och, you’re not watching me anymore. And then she’ll go do the things that she knows that she was not supposed to do.

Jessica Light: [00:33:47] So. Yeah.

Lori Kennedy: [00:33:48] All right, Jessica, who is in your household?

Jessica Light: [00:33:51] So my husband. So we’ve been married 23 years.

Lori Kennedy: [00:33:56] Congratulations.

Jessica Light: [00:33:57] Yeah. And I’ve got four kids, three older ones, and a little bonus one. So I have a 22 year old. This is how I remember how long I’ve been married. It’s one year after. So if he’s 22, we’ve been married 23 years. We just figured this out. This is how we. So this is how smart we are. So I’ve got a 22 year old that’s Marine. He just came home and I hadn’t seen him in almost three years, which was great. He was in Japan during COVID and stuff, so I didn’t get to visit him or do any of the things, which is very disappointing. I have a 20 year old and he is in the army and he’s stationed in El Paso. And then I have an 18 year old daughter who should be graduating this year and then a 12 year old little guy that pretty much runs a house and he does whatever he wants and he’s pretty much an adult already and you know, and he’s great. So and we have two dogs that are both psychotic and crazy. And I wish that yeah, I wish they were, like, better and they are not. I grew up in a dog family and these are not great dogs. And, you know. So anyway, I shall digress.

Lori Kennedy: [00:35:07] Well, thank you for keeping them and not kicking them out to the road.

Jessica Light: [00:35:11] Right? Oh, I won’t do that. And my kids would hate me for it, but. And I could never do that, honestly.

Lori Kennedy: [00:35:17] But. Who’s in your home?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:35:19] So in my home, we are pretty quiet. It’s my husband and I for the most part. We have been married just under five years. So but we have a blended family that we have nine children and one of the youngest one of those does live with us kind of part time. He’s in the guard right now. So he’s 20. He’s trying to figure out what he’s doing all the time, which is great. I’m glad he’s trying to figure it out. And then we have 15 grandchildren, so.

Jessica Light: [00:35:50] Yeah. Oh, my.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:35:51] So all but one of the children and two of the grandchildren live here in Georgia and are within easy driving distance. And and we have a couple that are out in the state of Washington. But yeah, so that was my Easter was I think we had just shy of 30 people in my house. Oh, so thank God it did not rain.

Lori Kennedy: [00:36:10] Oh, wow. Right. That way you could be outside some. Well, tell me about a mistake that you’ve made in your business and then how what you learned from it.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:36:19] Oh, that’s easy. So, first of all, there’s a million of them. Right? But the. Biggest thing that jumps out immediately is not following my gut, you know, compromising on especially when you’re a writer or an artist, which all of us are creative beings. So, you know, I know that Jessica was what you do. You use your creativity every day. And then even though you’re in insurance, there’s still ways that you can use your creativity every day. And obviously being in this art form, Lori You can definitely users, but all of us are creative beings and so we have this desire to have things the way that we see them and perceive them and putting our best foot forward on that stuff. And the very first time that I published my book, I was kind of pushed by my author coach to publish it immediately. And so I did because I didn’t know better. And this time around, with the re formatting and adding 10,000 words and republishing, it should have been out like a couple of months ago. And I’m just making sure we do it right because I’m not going to do this one again. I’m ready to write the next book. So yeah, definitely. Go with your gut. Do not compromise.

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:34] Jessica, what about you?

Jessica Light: [00:37:36] Yeah, I would piggyback on that. Go with your gut. Just because I feel like I’ve done things that people pushed me to do or clients have pushed me to do, or maybe I’ve taken clients and they pushed boundaries. Maybe I can only get on that call at 9 p.m. at night, you know, because I’m busy during the day and I would do it, you know, and then and then I’m mad that they’re calling me on the weekend, so not setting proper boundaries and then I’m working all the time and then I love what I do. I found myself hating like Friday. I was just, like, dreading, you know, my what I was doing. So now I have boundaries and a schedule and, you know, I rarely go outside of that boundary just because I know what I can do and I want to be the most effective. But I think as women, we tend to feel guilty, like, you know, like maybe I should do this or we just let people push our boundaries. And we, I don’t know, we always kind of second guess ourselves. And, and I’ve just done things that I felt like I’m supposed to do. Yeah. And not just said no and yeah, I can say no. Very easy. And, you know, asking, you know, my family for whatever in business I had a hard time saying no and somebody wanted me to do a website, but they only had $500. And I would, you know, and it should have been 4000 and I would do it, you know. Okay, well, you know, maybe we’ll just do this and this and I would just do it. And then I’m resentful because I did all of this work and then they only paid me $500 and then they expected $5,000 worth of work. And, you know, the expectations were you paid. And I’m like, you paid 500 and they expected $5,000 worth of work and then no one’s happy. So now I just set those little like I like fences, lots of fences and proper expectations. And not everybody’s a good fit. And that’s okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Lori Kennedy: [00:39:31] And what about you? Mistakes and what you’ve learned?

Yin Johnson: [00:39:36] You can’t please everyone. That’s. That’s what I’ve come to realize pretty quickly. When I started in insurance, especially in the insurance field, you cannot make everyone happy. Premium changes are bound to happen. We all know this. We’ve all had insurance throughout our whole lives. That is probably the biggest thing, is just you can’t please everyone and don’t be sad if you’re told no. Yeah, yeah. Because you get told no a lot in the business world. But just taking that with stride and just keep going, it’s going to be fine. And just, just realize that with every no, there’s going to be a yes somewhere. And then the other part is yes, the boundaries. Yeah, laying out the boundaries where yeah, I’m not on work right now, I’m not on shift right now because I need me time realizing that also. And the last part is probably realizing that I cannot do everything by myself 24/7. I need to bring on a good like counterpart that’s able to support and also build the business.

Lori Kennedy: [00:40:58] That’s great. All right. We have just a couple more questions. This one I’m going to ask all of you, and then we’re going to talk about how to get in touch with your businesses. Do you have a message that is for women specifically? Jessica, I’ll start with you.

Jessica Light: [00:41:14] I always say go for. Don’t use competition. Always, always collaborate. So I’m big collaborator, not competition. I have many friends in the marketing industry and some. And we’re maybe direct competitors and we’re still friends. I still because sometimes, you know, maybe I can help them and maybe they can help me and we’ve shared clients or maybe I can do this. So I’m a big, you know, women sometimes negatively we see each other’s competition. And there’s no reason for that because I’m not for everybody. You’re not for everybody. And if we can help each other out so, you know, don’t look as everybody is competition, even if they’re direct competitors to you, you can still be friendly. And I think you can learn from each other. You know, there’s plenty of business out there. There’s no reason that you have to, you know, claw people to death and be not nice about it. So, yeah, you know, look, as people as not as competition, but potential collaborators.

Lori Kennedy: [00:42:17] Jennifer, what about you?

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:42:19] I just like to tell women you’re not alone. You know, you might feel like your story, the stuff you’re going through, no one else has ever gone through it or felt it or dealt with it. And if I’ve learned nothing else since I published a book, I have learned that that’s not true, and which is actually why I published it was because I wanted women to know that, you know, there’s parts of my story that probably resonate with every single person in this room. And quite honestly, every single person listening to this, there may not be the whole story, but there’s parts of it and just a little bit of kindness and compassion of thinking about that. You know, I don’t know what’s going on in Jen’s life after she leaves here today or what happened to Jessica this morning before she came in. But if I can, you know, if I can be a little bit kinder to her, then maybe she’ll turn around and be a little bit kinder the next person she deals with, you know. So it’s the same thing. It’s a collaboration as opposed to competition. You know, you’re not alone. None of us is an island and you definitely need to just extend a little bit more kindness. It’s nothing off of your nose to do that. So.

Lori Kennedy: [00:43:32] And what is your message for women today?

Yin Johnson: [00:43:34] Those are both really good ones that Jessica and Jennifer just gave. I mean, for me, it’s just. Realizing that, like, you can put your foot down if you feel uncomfortable in a situation business wise or personal life. If you feel uncomfortable, put your foot down. Say no. Like it’s if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. Feel comfortable in that. You are not alone. There are some people that are going through the same thing and if you don’t feel comfortable, leave like leave the situation. It could be work life if you know you have a whole lot of stress and you’re not happy. Their mental health is really, really serious topic. Get out of it. Find something that fulfills you.

Lori Kennedy: [00:44:23] That’s great. All right. This is last one and that is tell us how to get in touch with your business.

Yin Johnson: [00:44:30] Well, for me, it’s very easy to get a hold of me. So I have a Facebook business page that a lot of people like to just go through, and it’s the easiest part because then it’ll pop up like a chat page and you could chat me and it’ll instantly pop up on my phone, my cell phone numbers on the page. So you could text me as well, call me with questions or anything. And I have a website like a business website landing page that some people go through that as well.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:03] Okay. And what are those addresses?

Yin Johnson: [00:45:08] Oh, geez.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:09] Look at this. What is your Facebook called?

Yin Johnson: [00:45:11] So the Facebook page is in Johnson Johnson Insurance Agency, LLC.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:18] Okay. And you had said the other thing was a website.

Yin Johnson: [00:45:23] Yes, the website. The website will be Country Financial Companion.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:30] And that’s spelled.

Yin Johnson: [00:45:32] Y i n dot q you oh CS and cat.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:37] Awesome. Thanks, Ian. All right, Jessica, how can people get in touch with your business?

Jessica Light: [00:45:42] Just you can find me. I’m on Facebook, Instagram, all the things. Of course, you know, I do social media, so you’re supposed to do those things. And I have a website, so it’s JJ Social Lite and my last name is Light Like a Light Bulb. So it’s a little bit of play on words, so it’s social and then light lag. Hd So. Jj Socialite, if you want to book a free consult, I have a button right at the top. Right. That’s your highest converting section on the website, by the way. Top right? Yes.

Lori Kennedy: [00:46:12] Good to know.

Jessica Light: [00:46:12] Yeah. Take notes. Yeah. So take notes. Whatever you want the user to do, put it in the top. Right. So I have a book now you can book as a free zoom call right from there.

Lori Kennedy: [00:46:25] I’m writing that down along with the Corinthians scripture.

Jessica Light: [00:46:28] Yeah.

Lori Kennedy: [00:46:30] All right, Jennifer, tell us how to get in touch with you in your business. Sure.

Jennifer Andersen Smith: [00:46:34] So my website is my name, Jennifer Anderson Smith. Just FYI, it is Anderson with an E n because we are Danish. And so it’s Jennifer Anderson Smith. You can see my book on there. The book title is so that for relationships do not order the book right now, but definitely go to the website and get part B part of the community. Just jump in and do the little contact us form and then you can actually be on the list of people who hear about it first. So that’s the best way to get me. I am on Facebook and Instagram and all those places as well, but Jennifer Anderson Smith And that way you can click on all the links to go to all the places.

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:18] Awesome. Well, thank you, ladies, for being here today. And remember, if you already know everything you are sure to.

Damian McKinney With Stoli Group

April 26, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Daring to

Damian McKinney With Stoli Group

00:00 /

Stolichnaya is a historic vodka brand. It has deep roots in the vodka industry, dating back to 1948, and was a standard bearer of Soviet/Russian vodka.

The rights to the Stolichnaya brand were acquired in 1999 by SPI Group, a private company chartered in Luxembourg, founded and owned by Russian businessman Yuri Shefler. The Russian government has disputed the legality of the sale of the Stolichnaya brand and vested those rights in a Russian state-owned company – FKP Sojuzplodoimport.

The upshot is that two different companies claim ownership of the Stolichnaya brand. Each operates in those countries where the local courts have upheld their ownership of the brand.

In the United States, the Stolichnaya brand is managed by the Stoli Group, a division of SPI Group.

Damian McKinney brings an eclectic mix of skills and experiences to his role as the CEO of the Stoli Group. An officer in the Royal Marine Commandos, he operated in a variety of the world’s hot spots, including the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War, and received numerous awards for courage and distinguished service.

In 1999, he founded and built a global consultancy, McKinney Rogers, which was acquired by GP Strategies. McKinney has a formidable reputation as a business leader, transforming companies and brands to become the best in the world. He has worked across many industries and continents, achieving significant recognition, with a particular focus on the beverage alcohol industry.

TRANSCRIPT

Rita Trehan: [00:00:02] Welcome to Daring To, a podcast that finds out how CEOs and entrepreneurs navigate today’s business world, the conventions they’re breaking, the challenges they faced, and the decisions that they’ve made, and lastly, just what makes them different.

Rita Trehan: [00:00:19] Well, today is a real honor. I mean, I’m lucky enough to be interviewing Damian McKinney. He has a background in front of him, which is to do not only with the brand that he’s the CEO of, which is a vodka brand, so those of you that like vodka, make sure you do listen in, because there’s more to the brand than just the drink. And so, he’s the CEO of the Stoli Group. And behind him is a map, I guess, a very important sort of recognition of what’s going on in Ukraine.

Rita Trehan: [00:00:49] There is often a thought that when we think of vodka, we think of Russia. I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Ukraine myself in my former career and do like vodka, but yes, it does often think about Russia. And so, it’s quite an interesting time to be the CEO of a company where people might be misinformed about a brand’s origins and actually where it is today, so we are obviously going to talk about that.

Rita Trehan: [00:01:15] But actually, even more interesting, I think, is what you’re bringing to the CEO at this particular point in time, because your history isn’t really what I would call the traditional CEO route, is it, Damian? So, let’s start with that. Somebody that actually didn’t grow up in the UK, but like me, you probably don’t sound very American, but actually probably spend a lot of time in the US, but grew up in East Africa, is that right? And spent some time in Barbados. I think I want your life.

Rita Trehan: [00:01:48] Tell me a little bit about that. I mean, because it’s true, I think that early sort of childhood or early sort of experiences of going to, you’ve been really passionate right now about what’s going on in the world. It’s really important for CEOs to be making a stand on issues that go beyond their brand today, and you’re one of those kind of forefront. So you think that your early career, your early sort of childhood, and your influences around growing up globally has helped that experience?

Damian McKinney: [00:02:22] Rita, lovely to meet you and lovely to talk to you. Life is a full series of chapters, isn’t it? And so, your comment around shaping, there is no doubt. I was born in Kenya—I was born in Uganda, but I really grew up from the age of a-year-and-a-half in Kenya, just outside Nairobi, in a place called Limuru. And first of all, I’d say I look back and it was the most amazing childhood in many respects.

Damian McKinney: [00:02:56] I come from a single parent family as well, so it’s not all idyllic. There are some challenges there. But I think two things have always stood out in my mind. One is, in a sense, the geography and life. There is a lovely view in Kenya, which is every morning when the sun rises, particularly over the Rift Valley, and I’m sure you’ve seen movies, the colors are magnificent. I mean, it is just the smells, you just think, wow, life is amazing.

Damian McKinney: [00:03:29] And you look around you, and you have those big, lovely smiles that I remember as a child, and indeed, I’m going back in the summer, and I’ve been working there as well. So, you get this real sense of we could do anything. Then, as you go through the day, imagine this moment where you’re in the game reserve, and you see a pride of lions, and they look truly beautiful and magnificent, and they’re wandering around, but frankly, lazy. It’s a nice day.

Damian McKinney: [00:03:57] And then, behind them, not very far away, you’ll see the antelope, and the zebra, and the giraffe, and everybody is kind of minding their own business, and life is pretty good. And then, all of a sudden, the sort of the lion or lioness will stretch, and lick its mouth, and say, I feel a bit hungry. And then, there is this kind of madness of the chase. And then, there’s the violence, unfortunately, of the lion catching its prey.

Damian McKinney: [00:04:26] And then, the next minute is eating. And then, within minutes, life settles back down again. And then, at the end of the day, you get a beautiful sunset. And there’s this sense of, we used to call in Swahili, the story of Africa. These are the way things are, and you have to accept that that’s the world in which we live in. But the beauty about the sun setting is that it sets up for a sunrise the next morning, and therefore a chance of a better world and a better day.

Damian McKinney: [00:04:55] So, I think the first thing is I’d say I think I’ve grown up with this massive sense of optimism and this massive sense of belief in the world, understanding though a very practical, and that’s why I use my example of the lions, these things do happen. It’s number 1. The second thing about that, which has really, really stuck with me, is two words. One is respect and the other is explore. And I remember, again, as a very young—my brother was a year younger than me, but both of us were very young.

Damian McKinney: [00:05:28] I think I was six and he was five. And one of sort of the team on the farm, one day, this individual turned out, a lovely, old man, amazing man, and he had two sacks, two canvas sacks. And in one sack, he had a python snake. And he took it out, and said, “This is all about respect”, and he said, “When you’re on your way to market”, and you walk to market, typically, in bare feet, “If you see the python, it’s okay. Just walk around the python, don’t worry about it. Go to market. And when you come back in the dark, he’ll avoid you, you’ll avoid him, and everything’s okay.”

Damian McKinney: [00:06:11] And then, he took out of the other sack a cobra, and he said, “Now, this is different. You need to understand danger, you need to respect it. If you see this guy, then you need to take a very wide berth, and ideally, make sure you never come back near him again, because this one will bite”. And then, he didn’t say it, but what he then meant was respect, therefore, is listening to advice from people who’ve got the wisdom and that they represent the older ones. We live in a society where, to be honest, at times, the old people, ignore them, they don’t understand, we’re young, we know how to deal with the world.

Rita Trehan: [00:06:51] Seasoned. That’s the word I use to describe that, be seasoned.

Damian McKinney: [00:06:55] Yeah. And in that moment, I learned that respect. Now, the reason why I mentioned that, because that sets up my next chapter in my life as a Royal Marine Commando. But in a sense, those two words of respect, life, and enjoy it, respects danger, respect advice, but that once you understand all that, then this world is for you to explore and really push all the boundaries. So, in a sense, when it then came to what am I going to do with my life, there was this real sense of, I’d like to join the very best, I’d like to be part of this best.

Damian McKinney: [00:07:35] And I’d read a lot about the Royal Marine Commandos. They were an elite force, and I know in this world, you’ve got to be careful about the word elite, but elite represented the best of the best, of the best, and I thought I’d love to be part of that. And part of that is because, A, there’s a standard, but B, there’s a sense of performance, and can you live up to that level of performance, and can I deliver against that?

Damian McKinney: [00:07:58] So, I really want it. But here’s the second, like every youngster, I spent time going and looking at various different military and other occupations was a career drive. The thing that struck me about the Royal Marines was spending two days down at Commando Training Center at Lympstone, and I met some of the young officers who are going through commando training, and it is very, very intense as you’d expect. Night and day, they’re pushing you, they’re driving you, and so forth. I sat in the mess, met all these young officers, and you know what, there was one of them, there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt, or commentary, or other, that kind of throwaway comment that said, “I’m not sure why I’m here”.

Damian McKinney: [00:08:44] And these were individuals who’d only been in three months, let alone all the other, the instructors, those are full-timers. And I walked away clear that I wanted to join an organization where people really believed in the values, the DNA, and what they stood for, and that they were prepared to stand by very high standards and keep driving against those, but there was one extra little bit, which really impressed me, was it was not an officer exclusive training college now that we-

Rita Trehan: [00:09:17] Let’s talk a little bit about that. I’m just going to interrupt you for a minute there, actually, because the reason why is you’ve actually made like, I think, three really, really powerful statements that CEOs or potential CEOs of any business around the world should take note of. And the first is about this real sort of passion and belief in the DNA, and what it stands for and purpose. That’s never been more important. You see it just by what’s behind your background, right?

Rita Trehan: [00:09:47] Liberate Ukraine, Stand with Ukraine. I mean, the passion of the organization that says, we want to do something that’s bigger than us and help support that. So, that’s number 1. I think that’s a really important insight. The second that you say is around, but it wasn’t officer exclusive. This concept about that you mentioned earlier around in the explore and if you couple that with diversity, that understanding the differences, I think, really is important that you bring out, and that, I also think, is a very powerful message, so I encourage people to go back and listen to just your snippet of information.

Rita Trehan: [00:10:22] I will let you continue on it. But those two particularly, now, go back to the lion, the very first thing that you said when you were talking about the lion about kind of wake up, and you’re not quite sure what to do, and then like at the end of it, you see this glorious sunshine, but isn’t that a bit like being a CEO in some ways? You have all those high moments, then there’s really like stressful moments, but there’s something that makes you continue to do it.

Rita Trehan: [00:10:47] So, I think three really powerful nuggets, and we’re going to continue to talk about it, because a career in—I said like it was a really interesting career and you became a lieutenant colonel very early on. I mean, most people take a lot of time to get to that level. It didn’t take you that long. You’re clearly somebody that’s very, very passionate and I guess driven in some ways.

Rita Trehan: [00:11:18] So, tell me, like leaving, I mean, we’ll continue to talk about the army, but a business consultant, come on, like I was in the corporate world, and said, whatever I do next, it’s never going to be a business consultant, because all that business consultants do is that they’re not in there to like see what really happens. And then, I read that that’s kind of what you said, but here I am now as a business consultant eating my words, but tell me about that. Let’s talk about like your passion, your conviction, the things that you’ve talked about, the explore, what got you to be a business consultant? Come on.

Damian McKinney: [00:11:54] So, if I may, why did I become a business consultant? Well, because I loved being on operations and doing it for real in really simple terms. I joined the Royal Marine Commandos to go on operations and to participate. And I was fortunate enough, nobody will ever say they’re fortunate to go to war, but I was tested. Whether it was Northern Ireland, whether it was several years hunting down drug runners in Central America—drug lords, or whether it was the Gulf War, or subsequently, Bosnia, et cetera.

Damian McKinney: [00:12:30] I spent a lot of time on operations and actually wanting—because I love being on the front line. I love doing that. I think I was reasonably good, and in a way, what that points to, and if you were going to give advice to anybody, young people to start with, is do what you’re really passionate about. Your comment is exactly right. And I truly loved it. But why did I really love it? I just want to finish this point here, because it points, in a sense, the sort of organization that I would want to be part of, and therefore I’m CEO of today, which is an organization which is team-based in the first instance. I mean, I’m really talking about team.

Damian McKinney: [00:13:12] I’m talking about the diversity. People who join the Royal Marine Commandos, whether they join as a marine or as an officer, go through a selection. It is both physically demanding and mentally demanding. But what they’re looking for, and they often refer to it as a sort of 0.1%. They’re looking for people, frankly, from all backgrounds. I mean, it never ceases to amaze me how people came from, whether it was a grammar school, state school, or public school, came from the north, from the south, different, I mean, literally huge diversity, and yet we had a common view of life.

Damian McKinney: [00:13:51] And that common view of life was, number 1 was we wanted to be the best and perform at that level, but we wanted to do things that actually made a difference. So, just the idea of just going and doing an event, or participating in conflict for the sake of conflict, or otherwise, that was anathema, we want to know why we’re doing what we’re doing. So, there is this sort of concept of a just war in a way.

Damian McKinney: [00:14:18] We really were, the why was very important to us. But the second aspect of this team was it was led by people who were expected to, first of all, lead by example, and secondly, often, you had this term of servant leader, which was beautiful. So, at no time was anybody given any courtesy because they had the authority. They were given the courtesy because they had the responsibility. Very different.

Damian McKinney: [00:14:49] And the thing that shocked me most, if I sort of pivot across to the commercial world—I mean, by the way, I made the decision. I was a young, reasonably successful officer, who’d benefited because I was passionate. I had some amazing mentors who’d given me opportunities, and I think that’s a big thing. I look back at individuals who said, go on, why don’t you have a go at this? Why don’t you do this? Promoted in the field when I was in Iraq, just literally, suddenly, I was told, we’re promoting you.

Damian McKinney: [00:15:22] I think the conversation went along the lines of Colonel Graham Dunlop, who is the CF40 Commander, he said, “I’m under pressure to move and take over because this is such a big job. What do you think about that?” And I looked at him, and said, I can’t remember the exact language, but it was something like, no, leave me alone, because I would like to do this. And what was wonderful about him, and therefore many of the officers I served under, is they were secure leaders.

Damian McKinney: [00:15:47] So, they didn’t have egos. They didn’t have—so I’ll never forget that he said, “Okay, I thought that was the case. Go on, you do it. You could do this and be promoted.” So, I benefited from all of that. So, I literally, as a kind of 35-year-old, sat in a bar in Norfolk, Virginia, and just worked, just what am I going to do for the rest of my life? I love doing this, but I’ve been promoted quite quickly.

Damian McKinney: [00:16:11] I think I’ve got four more years of excitement, and then I’m probably going to end up very much sort of political leader in a big headquarters. That’s not to say that the generals don’t do a great job, but I never aspired to be a general. I just love the idea of being on operations. And I probably read too many Richard Branson-type books to think, well, wouldn’t it be great and cool to be an entrepreneur and be in business?

Damian McKinney: [00:16:36] So, that was it. I made a decision, I resigned the next day, and within six months, I was out, and I thought, well, I’ll be a consultant for a year focusing on business consulting, because I think I’ve designed strategies, and I’ve executed them, and so forth, and I had an initial business degree, and then I’ll get a real job. That was the plan. And then, six months in, I was working with a consulting, which at the time, I was finding very frustrating, because I couldn’t see the value that we were adding. Don’t forget, I come-

Rita Trehan: [00:17:10] Do you remember the thing that you said to them, because I did find that quite interesting the day you came out?

Damian McKinney: [00:17:15] Yeah. Well, I come from a very mission-orientated environment, and the comment was, you need to understand, it’s about a revenue stream, and I was shocked, I suppose, from a values perspective, but I thought the idea here was to deliver an effect. So, that was my sort of first warning bell. And then, the sort of second warning bell was there was a chap called Martin Akers, who was a director of corporate banking, who’s gone on to be a very good friend, but you knew you had these critical moments in your life where people give you advice.

Damian McKinney: [00:17:50] And I remember him saying, I was involved with the project and I remember him looking at me, and saying, “Damian, you look really frustrated. You look like something’s not right. You’re the sort of person who’s always smiling and happy.” I said, “You’re right.” I said, “I embarked on this new life thinking I’d be excited, we’d be entrepreneurial, we’d be taking the world on, and yet I’m bored.” And he said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Do you know what, it’s incremental.”

Damian McKinney: [00:18:17] I said, “Nobody is doing anything that’s really breakthrough. I hear all this, let’s be breakthrough, let’s break all, blah, blah, blah. But it’s all incremental. Frankly, you’re all stacking, making sure you’re delivering your bonuses. You’ve got a target of 7%. You’re at seven-and-a-half percent. There’s no risk. You’re all risk-averse”, et cetera. And you know what was amazing, he said to me, he said, “Damian, what do you think we could really do?”

Damian McKinney: [00:18:40] And I said, “Well, the first thing is, can we just start by saying, imagine what we could really deliver? Forget all this business as usual. Get a bunch of people together, and say, your team, and say, ‘Forget everything. What could we really achieve?'” And he said, “What do you think?” I said, “Well, you could at least do 18%.” And he said, “What, in a year?” I said, “No, in six months.” And he said, “Okay. Why don’t you work with me?”

Damian McKinney: [00:19:08] We did 32% increase in six months. And you know what, none of it’s complicated. Business is not complicated. Life’s not complicated. The first thing we did was put a stake in the ground, a bit like Kennedy’s, let’s put a man on the moon, and challenge ourselves, and say, wouldn’t it be great to achieve at least 18%? You’ve got to put that stake. And I find some of these statements which have no date in it as just dreams.

Damian McKinney: [00:19:33] No, we put it in. This was our commitment to ourselves. Secondly, it’s, okay, let’s work out a plan, because the second thing that—Royal Marines, they taught me so much. One of the big things they teach you is, frankly, you could be the fittest, strongest person in the world, and then get shot in the first 2 minutes, because you’re daft, you don’t think. So, the most powerful weapon you have is your brain, is your ability to not only think, but secondly, link all the other teammates together, and create a supercomputer.

Damian McKinney: [00:20:03] So, in that particular case, let’s really think through, what is our plan? What could we really achieve? Then, agree how we’re going to work basically, or culture. So, get a team together. You share a common culture, common way of working, you have a common destination, and you’re very clear on how you’re going to get there, because you worked it through together, and then just get on with it, track it, and inevitably, things are going to go wrong.

Damian McKinney: [00:20:28] We used to talk about no plan survives first contact with the enemy or that first bullet that flies. It all changes. It does change with the mission, doesn’t it? You adapt, you’re very dynamic. And again, how do we do that in business? We achieved 32%. Now, what that then led to was Martin saying, “Damian, why don’t you do this for real?” And that was the moment where I thought, okay, I’m going to set up a consultancy with a friend at the time and we’re going to set off.

Damian McKinney: [00:20:59] And I remember, literally, the May 1999, where we set off, somebody said to me, what’s your future? And I said, in 10 years’ time, we’ll be a truly global company and we’ll have offices around the world, and I’m bald, in those days, I had some hair. And I’m sure people—they kept patting me on the head and I’m sure that’s probably why I lost all my hair in the end, because people kept saying, yes, yes, good idea, but you’re never going to achieve it. It was obvious. But 10 years later, we did. We had offices all around the world. We had established a pretty good reputation. And I sold it four years ago to an American-listed company as a global company.

Rita Trehan: [00:21:42] And I mean, that successful career has continued. You became the CEO. You worked with Diageo. In fact, you took a whiskey brand, exactly one of my dad’s favorites, but it wasn’t performing very well, but if you know Indian community as well, you’ll know that Johnnie Walker, particularly Johnnie Walker Black Label, is one of their favorite whiskeys. My dad at 89, still one of his. You kind of turned that brand around.

Rita Trehan: [00:22:09] You’re now obviously with Stoli, and you were brought in. I’m going to ask you, like all the things that you’ve talked about right now, and there is a lot of, let’s just say like it’s probably a bit more than lip service, but people have been canceling out brands today in a heartbeat, because they are more driven about wanting to be associated with what they buy, and who they buy from, and what companies stand for.

Rita Trehan: [00:22:39] I mean, with the company that you’ve got right now, and it must have been very hard for the people, like we’ve seen a lot of people sort of react, obviously, to associations with Russia, the mindset that goes, well, this is a vodka, it must be Russian, therefore, like—you took a very bold decision, right? I mean, that’s a pretty massive decision that most CEOs, as you set—I won’t say most, many CEOs, I wouldn’t want to give up that comfort. I mean, rebrand, rebrand it.

Rita Trehan: [00:23:15] Like get clear about what you stand for, going out. And I think today or yesterday, you launched a commemorative bottle that really symbolized in the colors of Ukraine to really sort of recognize how supportive, and the money is going towards helping support people within Ukraine. I mean, I can’t even imagine what potential shareholders, investors, or the community at large would have had many different diverse opinions about, is this really a good idea?

Rita Trehan: [00:23:42] Should you really be putting yourself on the precipice? Yes, we want to say we’re supportive, but let’s be really careful about what we say and how we say. That doesn’t strike me as the kind of direction that you would take. I mean, it’s clear from what we can see behind us. But tell me what it’s been like for the company over the last several months, the last few months?

Damian McKinney: [00:24:01] Yeah. No, Rita, look, it’s a great point. And in a sense, and thank you for asking the question you asked earlier on, because we learn from our past. We definitely do. It shapes us. And in a sense, you get a chance. So, I feel a bit light with Stoli that I was given a chance in October 2020 by Yuri Shefler to take all of that, and how do you now transform an amazing company, an amazing brand into something really great?

Damian McKinney: [00:24:30] And in the first instance, the thing that I’ve—I’ve learned lots of things, but here’s another thought, which is, and to your point, there is a tension, people call that balance. I don’t think it’s a balance, because the trouble with the balance is you could unbalance it and make all the excuses, right? There is a tension and the balance is to maintain that tension. You can’t let any side down. And the tension is simple.

Damian McKinney: [00:24:54] How do I create a really well-performing business, generating profits and cash, because that’s the oxygen for further growth, and for your people and everything else, whilst, at the same time, doing it in the right way, in a good way, where you’re really making a difference? And many people refer to that right-hand side of the balance, what I call the tension in my case, is what many companies call corporate social responsibility, the life of corporate, sustainability, et cetera.

Damian McKinney: [00:25:28] And over the years, I’ve had many CEOs make grandiose speeches, but when it really comes down to it, and I think I mentioned this to somebody the other day, it’s a bit like soldiering. It’s really easy when it’s nice, warm weather to tell everybody how brave you are and how you would respond, to 3:00 in the morning when you’re freezing cold, and tired, and frightened, and everything else, it’s not quite the same. It really does.

Damian McKinney: [00:25:53] You’ve got to dig very, very deep in those situations. But you’ve got to better do it. You’ve got to better do it in order to deliver the mission. So, for me, when I started with the company, it was very clear that here was a company with a brand, frankly, I refer to as Sleeping Beauty. It was a company that, at early stages, when it was first acquired, had some greatness, but frankly, it declined. And what was it about this company?

Damian McKinney: [00:26:21] One, we lost sight of where we’re going. Human beings are pretty simple. Just tell me where we’re going. And that gives me some confidence, because at least, I can visualize it. We didn’t have that, is the honest truth. We didn’t really have a plan. So, that was easy. In a way, they were the easy bits. I think the Kennedy Congress speech in ’61 is not just the words, but it’s the fact that he said, in order for the United States and the nation now to feel more confidence, we need to give ourselves a challenge.

Damian McKinney: [00:26:50] That’s ultimately what a vision is. It’s a challenge to create confidence. So, that’s all I did. But the second then is you better have the right team on board with the right values. And for me, and I think it’s about getting capability. So, I had some great people in the past, and there have been great people in this company, so I don’t want to denigrate them in any shape or form. However, today, in the moment, I needed a team that was capable of winning the World Cup. I use the soccer analogy.

Rita Trehan: [00:27:22] Yeah, I always do that well.

Damian McKinney: [00:27:24] I’m not a soccer player, but if you want to be in the World Cup or you want to be in the Olympics, somebody said to me the other day, the Olympics is real. You don’t go there to experience the Olympics. It’s real, and it’s raw, and it’s competition. And therefore, when I looked at my team, I had a lot of Third XI, but nice people, but they were Third XI. They weren’t First XI. So, capability is really important.

Damian McKinney: [00:27:46] But the second piece in that tension is you need the most capable people, but I use the word care. I often said to people in an interview, and they looked at me strangely, and I’d say, but do you really care? Do you really care about the planet? Do you really care about this sustainability rubbish? Do you really care? I kind of played it like that. Do you really care about the team at the end of the day? Is it surely about you?

Damian McKinney: [00:28:11] You know what, there’s many—by the way, they’re not bad people. It’s just they decide, but no, you’re right, I don’t really at the end of the day, they make comments like that. And I was very honest, and said, yeah, but I’m looking for that 1%. I’m looking for people who really, really care, because it’s difficult. It’s really, really difficult.

Damian McKinney: [00:28:27] But if we’re truly going to make a difference and we’re truly going to be the company that we could be, then we need everybody really, really caring, because we’re going to make calls. So, we went to that stage. Now, in our first year, I think we did 38% growth and it’s going fine. We changed a lot of people, and a lot of people said, “You can’t keep changing people, Damian.” At this point, I kept saying, “I’m going to, I’ll change 100%.”

Rita Trehan: [00:28:52] Very brave. Good for you/

Damian McKinney: [00:28:54] “I need the right people.” But by the way, the one thing I really understood is if you get the right people, you can parachute them into the middle of the jungle and they can operate straight away. So, I’ve known that, again, back to our military. So, don’t worry, just be bold and go for it. Now, all of a sudden, imagine this little kind of PowerPoint stuff, then all of a sudden, on 24th of February, bang, there’s an invasion.

Damian McKinney: [00:29:17] Now, to be honest, most people knew it was coming. We may have gone into denial, but the fact is it was coming. And we definitely spent a little bit of time looking at it, thinking about it. But for me, on the 24th of February, when I walked across the office, and I’d had a conversation with my wife before this, and I said, look, I’m going to speak to the founder, I call him Yuri Shefler. He’s our kind of Steve Jobs of Stoli. He’s an amazing individual.

Damian McKinney: [00:29:44] And I said, I’m going to speak to him. Now, I know, and every conversation I ever had is he stands absolutely against Putin. But you know what, this is the moment. This really, really is the moment. And if there is any shadow of doubt in what he says, then I will resign. There’s no debate in my mind, because this is a moment where I’ve stood up long enough, we’ve all, as a team, stood up, and said that this is the moment, we now need to be starting to be counted.

Damian McKinney: [00:30:13] And frankly, when I spoke to him, he was even more vehement than I was, because I know he’s been fighting and he’s personally been involved at a very personal cost at times. And then, when I spoke to the broader team, we go to the town hall, there was zero debate because we brought those people together, really care. There was zero debate around us unequivocally standing against this invasion, and standing for Ukraine, and standing for these amazing human beings.

Damian McKinney: [00:30:38] So, in a way, as a CEO, whilst it may seem like a really tough decision to make, it actually was a really easy decision, because we’d already created, I’d suggest, the foundations for that decision to be made in the first place. Is there a cost when you make decisions like that? There’s always a cost, but there’s an upside. And here’s one other, I’m probably sort of full of stories, I apologize, but one of the things I learned very, very early on and continue to be repeated through my military career was there’s always the right decision.

Damian McKinney: [00:31:16] It’s a question of whether you’re prepared to make the right decision. And quite often, making the right decision has a cost, and a cost could be in morale. It could be financially. It could be a whole bunch of things. But at the end of the day, if ever you steer away from that, then you will end up—it will end up costing you later on. And if I just give you one, it’s a crazy example, but I’ll give you one.

Damian McKinney: [00:31:43] At the age of 13, I started a new school. It was a boarding school. And I remember turning to my year, and saying, look, we were all talking about how awful it was that the 18-year-olds were allowed to walk around in non-uniform on a Sunday and we had to wear uniform. Probably, many people kind of think about that conversation. Anyway, there we are, five years later, we are now the 18-year-olds, and I remember turning to the same group of people, and saying, this is our moment, we’re going to change it, we can change the world, we’re in a position now, we can do this.

Damian McKinney: [00:32:16] And you know what, they all said, all of them said, but it’s different, we didn’t understand. And so, one is kind of the sense of privilege, and it’s different because we want to enjoy this. And by the way, it’s too difficult a decision to make, et cetera. And I remember saying, we said it was wrong then, so why is it right now? It’s still wrong. And anyway, we managed to change it. But I’ve had moments like that through my life, and for me, this was one of those, and I did have a couple of other CEOs phone me up, and said, “Damian, look, I know you’re a relatively new CEO in this industry, but you know, there are implications to what you’re saying, for all of us, but let alone for you in business.” And I said, “No.”

Rita Trehan: [00:33:01] A massive kudos, I would say. Massive, massive kudos for you, and for the organization, and for everybody that’s—that ecosystem that around it, the stakeholders, the people that go out, and drink it, and buy it, and hopefully, they’re going out more so than ever now that I’m doing it obviously carefully, but contributing to where particularly this release of the bottle that you’ve done will go to. I think your comments are just so important right now at this point in time.

Rita Trehan: [00:33:32] Particularly, post-COVID, post-what we’re seeing around the world, we’re seeing right now as we go into the US, proxy season is hitting, we’re seeing shareholder and investors like going, we’re a bit tired of this box-ticking stuff that you guys do, like the sort of the rhetoric, like give us like the real deal if you really believe in this stuff, which you guys are showing in terms of like, you say you’re very purpose-driven, you say you’re very diverse, you say that you’re very into ESG, but are you really?

Rita Trehan: [00:34:03] And it’s voices like yours that we need to see and hear more of. And I think the lessons, the stories that you’ve actually shared are extremely powerful for people in executive positions today and even those seeking to be in those executive positions, because it’s a lonely position to be. And let’s not sugarcoat it and say like it’s great, look, you get all this money, and all the rest of it, and like all this glory, it’s actually quite lonely, isn’t it, at times?

Damian McKinney: [00:34:34] Of course, it is. You’re absolutely right. But it’s only as lonely as you want it to be. In terms of—again, lots of thoughts running through my head, and I’ll give you a couple. Number 1 is when I was doing the anti-narcotics work, I said to my wife, “Look, I don’t think I’ll ever get shot, because I’ve got this bizarre view that most people can’t shoot, so I should be okay, but I’m probably going to get set up, because I keep catching big people, and actually, the end of the day, no smoke without fire, they could slip it into my suitcase when I’m traveling and so forth, so I’m probably going to get set up.”

Damian McKinney: [00:35:15] So, I said to her, “So, look, don’t worry if I end up in jail somewhere, because as long as the Red Cross parcels keep coming through, I’ll be all right.” And she said, “Well, why?” And I said, “Because there are two jails. There’s a jail in your head, and then there’s the physical jail. The physical jail doesn’t worry me. It doesn’t worry me, because I’m not in jail in my head, and that, it’s your conscience that is really important.”

Damian McKinney: [00:35:42] And the reason I say that, therefore, is, look, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I genuinely have. And I regret those. And I’ve hopefully learned by them. And I’m a series of sort of hopefully, incrementally getting better, and I’m still trying to do that. I think the same is with us, as a company, we’re on a journey, we’re trying to embrace sustainability and so forth. But if I give you the example of LGBTQ+, we’ve been very active in this for a long time. We’ve got a fantastic global ambassador in Patrick.

Damian McKinney: [00:36:18] But my challenge to him and the rest of the team is, please, please don’t tell me that we’re doing everything we can by simply putting a label on a bottle and putting Harvey Milk on it. I said, That’s bad. I said, that’s not doing nearly. I’ve got to look at my own conscience, and I’ve got to be able to say, what am I really doing? What difference do I really make? The honest truth is I’m not sure. I don’t think I am really.

Damian McKinney: [00:36:44] And that’s really driven us to dig deeper, and say, what are we doing about it? And in a way, with the Ukraine situation, it was one thing to make a decision, but the question is, so what are you going to do about it? And that was why the very first instance, there were two very clear agendas. Number 1 is people, what are we doing about our people? I’m talking about our own employees. We had people on the ground who had families.

Damian McKinney: [00:37:13] What were we doing to at least get them out of harm’s way or at least support them in any shape or form, particularly those who are staying behind? What are we doing for our partners, our suppliers, and others on the ground? So, there was a whole agenda to do that. And then, the other part of it is, because I was involved in a refugee situation, I’ve seen the trauma of refugees who frankly have lost everything, everything.

Damian McKinney: [00:37:35] What are we doing to help them? And this is winter, by the way, and therefore, for me, trying to find the right partner, and it needed to be not just what I call satisfaction charity, where you hand over, you put your money in, and you walk away patting yourself on the back, and say, really wonderful, what are we doing to really help? And that’s why I love Jose Andres and the World Central Kitchen, because the way in which he does it, he thinks about nutrition, rather than just handing food over. He thinks about nutrition in the sense of morale as well as wellbeing, but he also thinks about the people providing it.

Damian McKinney: [00:38:12] So, what he’ll do is he’ll go to restaurateurs, who, by the way, don’t have a restaurant anymore, he’ll go to people, to supplies, and by the way, somehow, farmers always seem to just keep producing, and what he’ll do is he’ll pay them to actually provide. So, he’s maintaining one, their self esteem, and two, a market economy. So, he’s doing it in a very independent rather than dependent way. So, for me, that was a really big piece of helping the sort of people side of it. The other side of it was how do we keep, in a sense, Ukraine on the agenda, and how do we continue to support?

Damian McKinney: [00:38:48] And that’s what really, literally, I think it was—the invasion was on the Thursday, on the Sunday, I spoke to Tim, because I’m at a global innovation, said, Tim, can we get a bottle out within the next three weeks, where one, we obviously provide money to World Central Kitchen and support, but two, we also do it in a way which will keep the flag flying, because we also know that very quickly, it’ll be page three of the newspapers.

Damian McKinney: [00:39:14] Nothing will have changed fundamentally. People are still being bombed and killed as well. When we’re not careful, it goes off the agenda. We have a human responsibility to keep it that. So, absolutely that’s why we drove this. And then, frankly, the rebranding was an organic decision. The team and the rest us said, look, we need to put a bit of distance between us and Putin. Not the Russian people, and I’ve said that many, many times. I’ve got some lovely Russian friends.

Damian McKinney: [00:39:43] Our recipe for what I believe is truly best vodka in the world, I’m not going to give that up. In no way I’d ask anybody to give up their families, and where they come from, and what they stood for. Never. But what we can’t do is have any association with Putin, and his henchmen, and so forth. So, for me, it was very simple, with a founder decision, and with the rest of team, which was, let’s just take off the chnaya, let’s make it really clear and simple what we stand for and who we are, hence the rebranding against Stoli.

Rita Trehan: [00:40:13] Damian, I mean, I don’t know what to tell you, that so much like just warms my heart to hear of CEOs with the vision and the passion, and actually, the boldness and courage that you have, and showing servant leadership as it truly is. So, I hope that this goes viral, because this is one of the best, I think, of CEOs, potential CEOs, entrepreneurs, young, old, seasoned, whatever we want to call ourselves, to really listen to.

Rita Trehan: [00:40:42] And I will say it’s something I’ve learned from living in the US, which we haven’t tended to do in the UK, which is to say thank you for your service, because that is important. It’s always struck me how people in the US do thank people that have served in the forces in some way, because that’s a very important role. I would love to continue this conversation, we may get you back on to talk about loads of other things.

Rita Trehan: [00:41:09] There’s so much you could add and have got loads of other things that you should be doing. Like if you haven’t written a book, make sure you write one soon. But before you go, if people want to know more about Stoli, about what you’re doing, and as an organization, if they want to know more about you and about some of the efforts, what’s the best way they can get in contact with you?

Damian McKinney: [00:41:29] Well, two things. Just go to Stoli website. One of the thing is it’s all on there. I’ve made sure that we’ve sort of updated it all the way through. So, happily do that. And then, secondly, through the website, or frankly, through LinkedIn, just connect. I think, I’ll have alluded to, I’m the world’s luckiest person. I’ve had amazing people in the past who have tapped me on the shoulder and give me advice as I’ve gone along. I’m always happy to share and I wish everybody the very best of luck at their own endeavors, but please, please, let’s make this a better world.

Rita Trehan: [00:42:05] Yeah, hear, hear.

Damian McKinney: [00:42:05] And if I may say, the tragedy of Ukraine, sometimes, out of tragedy, the sun will emerge. And I’ve certainly reflected, I hope most people have reflected on, what does it take, particularly as leaders, and you’re focusing on CEOs, this is your moment, let’s not wait for governments to put sanctions on, and other people, politicians, to tell us what to do. We have the opportunity. We. If we behave in the right way and we deal with that tension in the right way, we have the opportunity to make this world an amazing place. That’s exciting.

Rita Trehan: [00:42:48] I’m speechless. It’s a great way to end. Thank you so much for giving up your time today. I know how busy you are and how much the company is doing, so we really appreciate you being on the show. Thank you very much.

Damian McKinney: [00:42:59] Thanks, Rita. Thank you. Lovely to meet you.

Rita Trehan: [00:43:01] Thanks for listening. Enjoy the conversation. Make sure you subscribe, so you don’t miss out on future episodes of Daring To. Also, check out our website, dareworldwide.com, for some great resources around business in general, leadership, and how to bring about change. See you next time.

Jeffrey Gregor With OVHcloud US

April 26, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Jeffrey Gregor With OVHcloud US

00:00 /

Jeffrey Gregor is the General Manager of OVHcloud US and the President of the Board of Managers of OVH US LLC. He joined the company as one of its initial employees in March 2017 and was appointed to his current role in June 2019. Gregor brings with him over 27 years leadership and management experience across a wide range of roles and disciplines, including: engineering, operations, strategy, information technology, product management, and data analysis in both the military and technology sectors.

Gregor servers as the President of the Board of Directors for OpenIO, Inc. and as a board member on the Board of Managers for BuyDRM following the acquisitions of each company by OVHcloud.

Prior to joining OVHcloud, Gregor served as a commissioned officer in the US Navy for 20-years before retiring in 2014 and then worked in product management and e-commerce for Media Temple, a GoDaddy company.

Gregor holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, a master’s degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a master’s degree in Business Administration with a certificate in Entrepreneurship from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. During his career with the US Navy, he qualified as a Nuclear Engineer Officer in the US Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program.

Connect with Jeffrey on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About OVHcloud US
types of companies and industries can OVHcloud services assist
OVHcloud helps companies across the United States
Data security is a large concern for individuals and businesses

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] 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 Jeffrey Gregor with OVHcloud. Welcome, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:00:42] Oh, hi. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

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

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:00:51] Yeah, so cloud is a cloud services provider. We are we see ourselves as an alternative in the market relative to the Hyperscalers, who you would know as us, Google, Microsoft, etc.. So we set ourselves apart from them, but also from other lower tier competitors in the market. We’ve been around for a long time, over 22 years in France. The company in the US has been active for about five years and we are currently the fastest growing segment or business unit in the company. Globally we’ve got over 1.6 million customers. We serve those customers in 140 countries. We have 33 data centers around the world, including two here in the US and another one in North America, in Canada, near Montreal. And what we do is we bring secure, trusted, open and sustainable cloud solutions to everyone from individual users and developers to small, medium, large and enterprise customers. And we do that at a fair and predictable price that allows them to really prepare and plan their business for their own growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:19] So now how do you separate yourself from the bigger players in terms of do you serve certain niches? Are you a better fit for certain organizations than others?

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:02:30] Well, we’ve we’ve in the US specifically, we’ve been very successful since we started about five years ago, offering disaster recovery solutions, especially for customers who are using VMware software on premise. So there’s three main use cases for what we call our private cloud, so they can extend their on premise data centers to have a cloud presence and give them more capacity and more resiliency and perhaps be closer to either their customers or remote offices. We’ve got a strong disaster recovery solution, which is something that not all companies or customers are always thinking about. So we’re always promoting that option. And we’ve been very successful, especially in this crowded market here in the US where we are not that well known yet because we’re somewhat new to the market. So we’re proving our value to customers with that disaster recovery solution. But really we have products for everybody. We are a pure cloud player and we offer all of the different cloud solutions, everything from bare metal cloud to public cloud and platform as a service offerings and the private cloud, which I just spoke about.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:53] So how do you help the CIOs and CTOs out there kind of choose over cloud, over their competitors? What are some of the kind of tools you could give them to champion your cause internally?

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:04:11] Yeah. So one one of them is the price predictability and also just the value for price. And we do that in a couple of ways. So we are vertically integrated. We do everything. And like I said, we’re a pure cloud player. So we’re not doing a lot of or we’re not doing any other things like some of the other providers are trying to do. This is our only business and we focused on it exclusively. Like I said, for 22 years, we do everything from building our own servers, starting with bending the sheet metal and putting the servers together with the motherboards and all the components. We build them into racks. We operate our own global data centers. Like I mentioned earlier, we also operate our own global 32 TERABITS per second fiber network. And then we package it, like I said, into these bare metal cloud, private cloud and public cloud offerings to give a wide variety of offers for our customers to use. So with that scale and vertical integration, we pass all those savings on to our customers. Additionally, another big area where we bring savings is we have our own proprietary water cooling technology that we use to cool the servers and components in our data centers. And that is in contrast to regular data centers where they use air conditioning to cool the servers and components. And the water cooling is much more efficient, it’s more ecologically friendly, and it saves a lot of money in power and electricity. And again, that’s something that we can use to pass on cost savings to our customers. Now, what very.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] What what about from a standpoint of data security? Is there any differentiator on that side as well?

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:06:11] Well, with cloud, we’re very transparent and the customers always know where their data is. They know exactly which servers or which data centers it’s in, and that’s under their control. We don’t take any operations to move or back up their data to somewhere that they’re not aware of. So they’re completely in control of their data. We’ve got great respect for the customer’s data and their personal information. We comply with, of course, all the regulations and GDPR regulations for European customers. But yeah, really the customer is completely in control of their data and that’s a key aspect of the company.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:00] So now how did how did Cloud land in Peachtree Corners? How did that get on your radar when you you know, obviously America is big, so you can land it anywhere. How did you land in Peachtree Corners?

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:07:16] Yeah. So we were made aware of Peachtree Corners and their Smart City initiative. And Cloud has always been at the forefront of technology and innovation. And in fact, our founder, Octave Club, you know, one of our slogans over the years has been innovation for Freedom. So we’re always looking to partner with innovative companies and in this case cities and local governments. And the smart city concept that they have going on there is a perfect fit for cloud. So we were able to come in and become a partner with them and the the many other partners that they have at Peachtree Corners, and we’re operating a startup program there. So we’re offering credits in conjunction with their Curiosity Lab, which is sort of an incubator that they have set up there, the city of Peachtree Corners, to allow companies and startups that are doing work in this smart city, technology and Internet of Things to come and get credits to use our cloud services to develop their technology and innovations to go to market.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:31] So now how has the launch in America gone for a client? How has it been?

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:08:39] Oh, yeah, it’s been fantastic. Like I said, we’re we’re the fastest growing business unit in the company. And it’s it’s a global company. 22 years in Europe, starting out in France and then expanding throughout France into Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, etc.. They’re they’re a household name of cloud as a household name in France and very well known throughout Europe. We’re also in Asia Pacific. We’ve got some data centers in Sydney and Singapore, and that’s the second biggest growing area for the company of Cloud decided to come to North America in the early 20 tens with an office and a data center outside of Montreal. And from there they began to serve us customers. But we knew to really address the US market, we needed to have a company in the United States and what data centers in the United States. So we have currently an East Coast data center in Vienna, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C., and a West Coast data center in Hillsboro, Oregon, outside of Portland. So that’s what we’ve been using to serve customers with US data center needs for the past five years. We’re looking very soon to expand to a central data center in the US, but even the US company is a global company. About a third of our customers are from outside of the US and that’s because we can sell the servers and services in any of the global cloud data centers. And we have this other interesting technology called V Rack that allows customers to connect all these different types of cloud products from bare metal, private cloud or public cloud across a private network. Like I said, we operate our own high speed fiber network, and that allows them in a safe manner and a more efficient manner to transfer their data between data centers and also to run their applications and databases securely without having to connect across the public Internet.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:57] So any advice for other European firms that are thinking of coming into the United States? Any kind of suggestions from a good launch point and a good go to market strategy?

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:11:10] Well, that’s a that’s another area that we’ve leveraged with our partnership with Peachtree Corners and the Curiosity Lab. Through them, we’ve been introduced to and have partnerships also with the French American Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta and LA French Tech. And that is part of our strategy to work with them and help to bring French and other European companies who want to do business in the US and who need cloud services to allow them to get the the powerful services that they need for a fair and reasonable price, and also give them that predictable pricing so that they can plan their business, especially as they’re starting out. And maybe to tie something in to your previous question that I haven’t mentioned yet, which is another one of our key differentiators in the market against other competitors, is that our prices are predictable for among other reasons because in. Maybe just a few. There’s just a few exception cases, but we do not charge for ingress or egress bandwidth from our network and to our servers, and especially with the HYPERSCALERS. That’s where people and companies who move to the cloud get that sticker shock. They look at the very low price per hour or per minute for some of the public cloud services. And that’s great. But when you start moving some data around, that’s where you get the sticker shock at the end of the month with a huge bill for the the bandwidth and transit charges.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:59] That’s where you can kind of see you get those kind of surprises that maybe you didn’t anticipate.

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:13:06] Yeah. So it’s not it’s not really predictable. They’ve got a variable build month over month depending on how much traffic they or their customers are using. And we were able to flatten that out for them because it’s all included and they’ve got a very predictable price model to use to run their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:28] So what do you need more of? How can we help? Do you need more customers? You need more a brand awareness. You need more talent.

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:13:38] Yeah. I think like like I said earlier, unfortunately, although we are growing and becoming more well known and we actually have great retention and great reviews from our customers. So yes, we’re just trying to do everything that we can to get our name out there and let folks know that there are alternatives to the well known hyper scalar names. And like we’ve been talking about some of the advantages that we have relative to them. We also, like I’ve said, we’re a pure play cloud provider, so we’re not a managed service provider or a system integrator. So we provide the infrastructure and the platforms for the customers. So some customers need additional help to either operate the services that we provide or to get things up and going. So we’re always looking for great partners who are system integrators or managed service providers who can be along the value chain between us and some potential end customers. Now, of course, there’s lots of and customers that we serve directly that have their own I.T. departments or that are software providers or other service providers that can directly consume our cloud services. But yeah, certainly brand awareness and finding some additional partners would be would be a great boost for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:14] And you’re looking for them throughout North America, not just in the Atlanta area.

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:15:19] Yeah. Correct. Any. Anywhere. But we know that Atlanta is a big tech hub. And so we think there’s a lot of opportunities there. So that’s another reason that we’re there and partnered with Peachtree Corners. And in fact, there is a bit of a success story already to tie back a few of these things that we’ve been talking about. So we do have a managed service provider, a small company who has a French founder who we’ve been working with since we partnered with Peachtree Corners. So that’s that’s exactly what we’re looking to do, is find these partnerships, find new customers, get our name out there and continue to grow. Because I think we can really help a lot of people and customers on their cloud journey and really give them an alternative to maybe what they perceived were the only options in the market. And I think the other thing too is on the cloud journey, there’s still a lot of companies who have not moved to or taken advantage of the cloud as compared to having to buy their own hardware and operate it on premise. And also some to many companies have moved to some of the bigger providers and not really. Had the success that they hoped from their cloud migration because they weren’t really ready to modify and modernize all their applications. And so many are considering moving back to an on premise solution. But with our bare metal cloud and private cloud, especially operating on that VMware software stack that they’re familiar with, we can still give them the advantages and the promise that the cloud offers, even if they’re not ready to do that complete transformation yet. We offer a good step to get to the cloud in a familiar way.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:21] So if somebody wants to learn more about the cloud or get a hold of you and have a conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s a website?

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:17:31] Yeah. So it’s us dot over cloud of icloud.com and yeah, you can see all of our products there. There are contact us forms for our sales team. We’ve got a chat feature. You can talk to our sales agents or support agents and yeah, we’d be we’d be very happy to get some inquiries from your listeners in Atlanta and around the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:02] All right. Well, Gregor, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jeffrey Gregor: [00:18:08] Yeah, thanks for having me on. It was great. I hope maybe come back sometime in the future and tell you how this is all panned out for us in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:15] Sounds good. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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