Business RadioX ®

Business Coach Kevin Kru

by

It’s easy for business owners to feel like slaves to their own business.

Coach Kevin Kru helps coachable and ambitious leaders go from worker bee to CEO so they can achieve their dreams and enjoy the journey.

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • R4 Planning System
  • How business owners attract and keep talent in such a competitive market
  • How business owners track the performance of their company without getting overwhelmed by KPIs, OKRs, and all the other acronyms out there

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 Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Kevin Kru. Welcome, Kevin.

Kevin Kru: [00:00:41] Thanks, Lee. I appreciate the time.

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

Kevin Kru: [00:00:49] Yeah. So I work with small business owners, entrepreneurs who, you know, kind of started out with gusto, excited about their vision, but maybe find themselves in a bit of a state where they’re feeling more like a slave to their business, which can happen. And there’s a lot of excitement, a lot of promise. But then now you get into the slog of it and you find yourself overwhelmed. And certainly in the last year or 18 months, we’re seeing some unprecedented challenges for the small business community. And so I have the privilege of working with these folks and helping them to feel less and less like the worker bee and the slave to their business and more like the CEO through helping them just install systems and frameworks in their personal life and in their business life, and then with their company so they can really achieve their dreams and enjoy the journey at the same time.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:44] So what’s your back story? How did you kind of have this heart for small business?

Kevin Kru: [00:01:49] You know, it’s a pretty varied back story actually started back in the day in a ministry context, in a church setting where I got a lot, a lot of opportunities to spend one on one and small group kind of coaching and mentoring students and young adults. And really, you know, kind of developed a heart for seeing people develop personally. And then when I went into the marketplace and found myself in technology and just kind of learning the ropes and growing myself, finding that some of the challenges associated with business are significant. And so over the last few years, I’ve really developed more of kind of a blending of those two worlds where I get to work with business owners and people on a very one on one personal level where they’re very close to their business. They have a lot of skin in the game. Whether it goes well or poorly, has a significant impact on their personal lives, their family lives, their personal net worth their own sense of well-being in the world. And so I get to really partner with them, walk alongside them through some of the ups and downs.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] So how did you kind of develop the methodology that you use to help, folks? Is this something that you’ve just kind of cobbled together over the years, or are you following someone else’s principles?

Kevin Kru: [00:03:18] Well, I’m not sure that I truly have anything, you know, starting purely from scratch. I think I’ve read a lot of books. I’ve used a lot of different frameworks and have learned a lot from people that have gone in the road before me. So I’m a big fan of Don Miller and story brand and business made simple. I’m a big fan of Whitman and the entrepreneurial operating system at us. I’m a big fan of Michael Hyatt and some of his personal productivity tools. And so when I’m face to face with my clients or shoulder to shoulder with my clients, what I bring to bear is a lot of the frameworks from some of those sources in a in a cabin crew kind of way, right? As we digest all this content and we learn to use it ourselves. It takes on our own sort of personality. So I bring the Kevin version of all of those things to bear to my clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:18] So is that where that are for planning system comes into play that you’re kind of that’s your gumbo that you created from a variety of ingredients?

Kevin Kru: [00:04:28] Yeah, that’s an interesting way to put it. Yeah. So the R for planning system is really about kind of this rhythm, rhythm of life, rhythm of business where we’re working in the business and we spend a lot of energy in the business and and we get tired. And so we need to step out and spend some time working on the business. And so the R for the four R’s that are a part of that are recharge, report, reflect and refocus. And so this is yeah, I would say it’s somewhat of an amalgam gumbo of what I’ve read and what I’ve been able to adopt elsewhere and made it in a way that works for me and for my clients. And so whether that’s on a daily rhythm, a weekly rhythm, a quarterly rhythm or even an annual rhythm, it looks a little bit different depending on what period of time we’re looking at. But it’s really important to just spend some time recharging, right? So we’ve got the weekend. We’ve got the weekend to recharge, spend some time unplugged from work, spend time with families, spend time like I was yesterday out of the Frisbee golf course, just getting some time away from the business and thinking too hard about it. But then Sunday evening, one of the things that I do every Sunday is I have my weekly planning ritual and I start by after recharging reporting.

Kevin Kru: [00:05:56] I want to look at the reporting data from last week, and there’s certain key performance indicators and metrics that I look at to give me an objective sense of how that week performed against my goals. And then I’m reflecting on those things. I have some journaling exercises that I like to go through to ask myself important questions like what’s working, what’s not working? What do I need to do better? So we’re stepping out of the system to kind of evaluate the performance of the system and work on the system itself. And then the fourth component, after recharging reporting reflecting is the refocus. And the refocus is, of course, kind of future focus. It’s I’ve got this week ahead of me or if I’m doing it, this on a daily basis or a quarterly basis or an annual basis, whatever that period ahead is, what is the vision? What are the goals? What are the tactics? What are the most important priorities that I need to find time on my schedule and I find that. Of course, why I’m doing these things is important, and you have to be clear on that. And that’s really important for long term vision. You know where they happen, your environment and things like that.

Kevin Kru: [00:07:05] I’m really focused with my clients a lot on when these things are going to happen. And so this kind of gets into time management where, you know, if you haven’t scheduled a time block for these things that we’ve said are the most important priorities in our business or in our life to happen the when just sort of escapes us. Got one hundred and sixty eight hours per week. Hopefully we’re sleeping roughly a third of those. And so that doesn’t leave as much time as we would want. Everything’s pulling at us for time, for attention. And so if we’re going to get serious about achieving what we say is important and ending up with a life that is meaningful, we’re going to need to schedule these things in. Otherwise, if we don’t say no to a bunch of other things, those things are going to come at us. And one of my favorite quotes is every yes needs to be defended by a thousand knows. Every yes needs to be defended by a thousand no’s. So that end of that planning ritual for me on a Sunday night is just telling my hours where to go, telling them what to do for me versus having having somebody else prioritize my life.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:20] So now is this structure, it sounds like it’s almost a I don’t want to say virtual coaching system, but it’s definitely an accountability partner because if you follow this system, you’re kind of holding yourself accountable to maybe some objectives and some priorities that you either asked your your help for or came upon this system and then figure it out themselves. But the prioritization, the making non-negotiable, you know, appointments with yourself that you’re putting in a calendar and blocking them and then helping people make sure everything’s aligned with the true north or wherever there they want this journey to go. Are you helping people kind of formulate that in a macro way and then giving them the system and then they just go off and implement it themselves? Or you there also as their, you know, human accountability partner and human kind of support system to help them make sure that they execute on what they promise themselves that they wanted to do.

Kevin Kru: [00:09:23] Yeah. So I think what you’re asking, is there a DIY DIY version of this? Yes, there is. And is there a version of this that has a human level of accountability? And the answer is yes and yes, you know, there there’s lots of people out there who can take a system like this, any system and run with it and have a lot of success, and they themselves have a high degree of personal accountability. Although I think it’s more fun when you do it with people, right? Or at some, some loose level, even if it’s not professionally to have people in your court to have people rooting for you, to have people asking you about, Hey, you said this was important for this quarter or this is the priority this year. How’s that going? And you know, loosely, that’s that’s great. Some people, especially if there’s an important initiative or, you know, there’s pressure on them or they just really have a high level of ambition, understand that just like having a personal trainer, you know, yell at you sometimes or challenge you or encourage you or explain the process of you want to pick this weight up and not that one at this point. And unpack that for you. Just like having that personal trainer is helpful and oftentimes just results. Practically speaking in more exertion, having a business coach is the same type of thing where we can get stuck in our own heads. We can, and I’m the same way I have coaches in my life as well.

Kevin Kru: [00:10:53] So this is this is not just for some of us. I think all of us can benefit from this where we’re walking in community with people and and they’re holding us accountable. And so, yeah, we can install and we should install accountability systems that we ourselves are beholden to and even people that that report to me, for instance, I have a meeting later today with somebody that works for me, and I’m approaching last night’s reporting session knowing that that meeting is holding me accountable to getting my metrics in the scorecard. And I want to set a good example for the people that work for me. So I’m not going to ask them to fill out their scorecard ahead of our meeting if I’m unwilling to do the same. So I want to be able to walk the talk. So there’s there’s accountability with being a leader. I think of just walking the talk, but also I need people that have a level of objectivity that can see from a perspective that I can’t see because I’m in my own head, I’m in my own business. I lose objectivity and and having a regular cadence of somebody in your life to be as committed to your goals and to your success and to your flourishing as you are, is a really affirming thing that results in measurable results above and beyond what you might be able to accomplish on your own.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:16] How does a person come to you? Like what is the pain that they’re having? Where Kevin is the solution? Are they do they have to have evolved to a point of this kind of self-awareness and personal accountability to say, Hey, I need some help? Let me call Kevin. Or am I struggling with something tactically that Kevin is giving me a solution, knowing in the back of my head? Sometimes I need help, and sometimes I need a helper, and then that turns into maybe a different type of relationship with Kevin down the road.

Kevin Kru: [00:12:49] Yeah, that’s a great distinction. So the second part of what you’re describing is that I’ll call that more of a consultant, somebody that has a particular skill and I don’t have that skill. So I need to outsource that skill to somebody else. Sometimes specifically, especially related to marketing type of skills, that is an area that I go down with my clients. I mentioned story brand and story brand as a framework for messaging and for marketing, and that’s a background that I have. And so sometimes when that surface is in a coaching relationship, we can go there and Kevin can play more of the role of the expert in that sense. But as a coach, my role is not so much to, you know, for you to outsource the doing of work. To me as a coach, my role as a coach is to help you get clear on what you want sometimes, or if you’ve already gotten clear on what you want, what’s an execution system to pull it off? Sometimes people will just come to me with with a symptom or a pain of like, I’m feeling overwhelmed. My my schedule is is controlling me and my business is running me. My people are not engaged. We don’t have a way of tracking what success metrics look like. Or maybe they don’t even know to ask that question about tracking KPIs or tracking scorecard. They just know that they’re not living the life that they want, or they’re not getting the level of success or follow through. That they envisioned everybody can start January one with. Cool ideas about what they want their future to be, if that future is going to come to pass, we have to engineer and then execute on that.

Kevin Kru: [00:14:37] Those things generally don’t fall into our laps. So that means we’ve got to translate big picture vision into yearly, quarterly, weekly and then daily getting stuff done, execution, identifying where my best and highest use is as an entrepreneur, building a team to to help fill in the gaps or to help extend our capabilities and having a management system that would allow us to know are we on track with our goals? Is the structure that we put in place successful or not? Do we have visibility into the things that signal for us that we’re succeeding? So people come to me with a variety of symptomatic signals. Some are able to articulate those in a more sophisticated way. Some not where people would say, You know, I have a very specific thing in mind, can you please install this on my business? Those people tend to be a little bit more of the DIY crowd, right? They’re going to read the business book. They have the wherewithal to then implement that in their business. I tend to work with folks who are just feeling overwhelmed. Maybe they don’t even have the time to read that business book, or they’re just they’re overwhelmed by the options, and they have a hard time sort of picking a track to run on. So I have a track to run on and we do a diagnostic to find out where kind of the gaps are. And then we dove in kind of 90 days at a time and we measure the results over 90 days. If you take an assessment day one, you take an assessment day 90 and we want to see that transformation in key areas over that time.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:21] Now you’ve mentioned KPIs. Is there some universal KPIs that we should all be monitoring or this? Is this something that you have to really dig deep into each person’s situation and understand what they’re trying to do to figure out the appropriate metrics to measure?

Kevin Kru: [00:16:40] Yeah, that’s also a really good question. So universally, I mean, obviously, we want to know about things like profit. We want to know about things like overhead, like revenue. But and those are more kind of outcome or what what I’ll call lag measure based. However, there are LEED measures, things that we can do, behaviors that are going to lead to those LAG measures or those outcomes that we want. So on your P&L, your balance sheet. These are more results of things that we’ve been doing all quarter. But what are the activities and behaviors that lead to revenue or lower overhead or something like that? And that’s going to vary depending on the organization. And so and that’s also going to vary based on what symptoms people present when they first come to me. And so one of the KPIs I will track with people who are really having a hard time with time management is how many am rituals did you get in this week or how many weekly rituals did you get your weekly ritual in this week? And when I say am ritual, our weekly ritual, I’m just referring to that time that you’ve carved out. You’ve protected where you are going through this process. Essentially, you’re recharging, your reporting, you’re reflecting and you’re refocusing and you’re telling your hours what they’re going to do for you. You’re reprograming every hour of every day for the following week, and that might sound a little neurotic pre programing every hour of every day, but I will tell you that if you don’t defend that time, somebody will take it.

Kevin Kru: [00:18:10] So if you want that power to work for you, you have to be the decider of where that hour goes. And that doesn’t mean that every hour of every day is work. I’m talking about scheduling time with your family, scheduling time with your musical instrument or out playing frisbee golf or whatever it is. What I’m talking about are the things that are important to you. Is planning for self-care important? Yes. Dreams don’t work unless you do another one of my favorite quotes. So it’s not all work all the time, but how about sleep? Is sleep important to your body? How about working out? Is it? How is health important? All of these things have to take place. In a when there has to be a win for these things and we only we have a finite amount of time. So part of this process is just embracing our own finitude. I can’t make a twenty fifth hour today. All I can do is just do the best I can with the twenty four hours that I have and I have to. I have to come to terms with the fact that if I redline myself for too long, something’s going to break. So I have to come to terms with that. I have to face that.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:18] Now, if I looked at your calendar, would every kind of hour be have a different color? So like I would see sleep, I would see dinner, I’d see family, I’d see go to the movies, I’d see, you know, do my sales calls like whatever your your day is, you fill every slot. There’s not, you know, empty spaces. You’re you’re you’re kind of allocating every hour to something meaningful to you.

Kevin Kru: [00:19:45] Everything that’s important to me, and so usually that means that about 50 to 60 hours a week is filled with something even after hours. So there’s key things that I have to get done before I leave on a trip this Thursday with my family. One of them has to do with a scorecard for my son, actually. And many of your listeners are thinking, Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t want to be his son. But we’re working through some stuff with my son and we’re looking for a transformation, and a scorecard is simply incremental way of measuring that transformation. So I got to do a scorecard for my son. I think it’s six p.m. tonight after I come back from a rock climbing gym, which is also scheduled. So from a color coordination standpoint, it’s not. It’s basically work is one color of families, another color. My wife’s calendar is another color and so forth. So it’s more it’s more domains, I guess. But yeah, I just in a similar way to budgeting, budgeting money, you know, entrepreneurship and kind of that whole crew is really fond of of giving every dollar a job and. And so in the same way, we we have a finite amount of money in our disposal. We have a finite amount of time at our disposal and we need to plan accordingly.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:02] Now, one of the reasons we do this show is to help coaches learn from each other. Do you mind sharing with our listeners how you got your last client? How did your last client come to you?

Kevin Kru: [00:21:16] Uh, through a referral. So I’ll give you the last two, because they were slightly different, last one was more of a consulting engagement website, consulting engagement, where I’m not building their website, but I’m helping them define their criteria for shopping for web designer so that they go in with their very clear understanding of what they want to accomplish. Because there’s nothing worse than hiring somebody professionally and not being able to articulate what you want the outcome to be or what success looks like. And sometimes people don’t even have if it’s not their domain, expertize have the language to articulate that to, let’s say, a marketing person. So we’re helping with that. And she came to me through a referral and through a coaching client. The one prior to that was, you know, honestly, just I believe it was social media content that I had been putting out related to faith driven entrepreneurs and faith driven investors and even the R for system. And this gentleman came to me and we just started coaching together. So we are second week this week really with a need to hey, I’ve got to up my game. I’m getting pressure from my sales. It’s actually not a business owner. This is a sales leader within an organization that has sales reps reporting to him, and he’s he just needs to improve with time management. And he saw some of the stuff I was putting out with respect to time management and performance, and I think you responded to that.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:51] Well, good stuff. Congratulations on all the success, Kevin. The amazing story. Well, it’s an amazing story in the self-discipline that you have and your personal accountability and the way they are able to transfer that knowledge to others, it’s very impressive.

Kevin Kru: [00:23:09] It’s a blessing. I mean, I I would do it for free if I could afford it, because it’s it’s it’s a calling. And it’s not. It’s not just a product that I buy. It’s something that people buy. It’s a heart. I’ve a very close relationship with my clients and their success is deeply meaningful to me. It’s about the relationship and I appreciate your sentiment.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:34] Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s the website?

Kevin Kru: [00:23:40] Yeah, you know, I have a resources page. If you go to Kevin Cru spelled Crew Kevin Crew Resources, you can find my R for planning worksheets there and download them. I think it’s like the second section on that resources page. So Kevin Kruger Resources. And you can download and DIY that are for planning system. And then if there’s if you want help with that system or any other system or framework to install on your business or your life, all my contact information is there. The two assessments are also there. So there’s an entrepreneur for health assessment and there’s a small business revenue assessment that are also on that resources page. And if you’re curious kind of where you stack up and where your gaps might be and opportunities to improve those two assessments are great places to start.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:28] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. Kevin, you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Kevin Kru: [00:24:33] Thank you, we appreciate your time.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:34] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

 

Christian Hyatt With risk3sixty

by

Christian Hyatt is a serial entrepreneur with 15 years of experience in security, privacy, and compliance. Based on his experience as an entrepreneur and from working with dozens of unicorn start-ups (start-ups with $1B+ valuation), Christian brings a unique and philosophical perspective to cybersecurity, privacy, and what it takes to build a successful business.

Risk3sixty is one of the fastest-growing security and privacy consulting firms in the nation. Risk3sixty has been recognized as an Atlanta Business Chronicle Fastest Growing Companies (2019, 2020, 2021) as well as one of Atlanta’s Best Places to Work (2020, 2021).

Christian received his M.B.A. with honors at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his B.B.A. with honors from the University of Georgia.

Connect with Christian on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Cybersecurity
  • Who are the bad guys (criminals, hacktivist, nation states, hackers)
  • Compliance: SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HITRUST, etc.
  • Ransomware, blockchain, election security, etc.

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

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 onpay 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 the land of Business RadioX. We have Christian Hyatt with risk3sixty. Welcome, Christian.

Christian Hyatt: [00:00:43] It’s great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about risk. Three sixty. How are you serving, folks?

Christian Hyatt: [00:00:50] Yeah. So Risk 360 were a cybersecurity and compliance consulting firm here in the Atlanta area that we serve clients nationwide. We ensure we help companies build, assess and then certify their security compliance programs.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:04] So that seems like there’d be a lot of job security in that line of work.

Christian Hyatt: [00:01:08] Yeah, there’s definitely no shortage of headlines, this kind of funny. I think we’re entering the stage. I had a conversation with my mom the other day and you know, before when I would talk about what I did in the world of cybersecurity and consulting, she would think computers, you’re fixing computers. But with all the headlines now saying, like ransomware and the cyber attacks, she had some sense. It’s like, Oh, you were calling that kind of stuff. I was like, Yeah, mom, that’s some of the stuff we’re working on. So I think we’re hitting a stage in the world where the security and this privacy stuff is reaching the public consciousness, but a spell in the mind of business owners for a long time. So a lot of good stuff, a lot of job security, as you said.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:51] Now, for those who aren’t aware and who kind of follow the headlines, maybe that’s their only awareness of cybersecurity. It seems like it’s terrible out there that there’s risk everywhere. The largest of the large companies are getting hit. It seems like a regular person doesn’t stand a chance against some of these kind of risks that are out there. Is there anything you can share with us that is semi optimistic about some of these cybersecurity trends?

Christian Hyatt: [00:02:23] Yeah, I mean, I think some of the good news is that it’s not really a technology problem anymore, so what that means is there’s an abundance of things people can do to protect themselves, and it’s largely about awareness, which we’re we’re seeing. So, you know, if you’re not a business and you’re an individual out there, one of the biggest things that you need to worry about, for example, is a phishing email. Someone send you a fraudulent email, you click on a link and then that ends up compromising your computer and you get caught up in some type of fraudulent situation. But where we’re at in society is people are generally becoming more and more aware of that stuff. So when you see a weird email, you know not to click on a link. So I think while businesses continue to struggle with this and this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem at the individual level, we’re seeing a lot of consciousness. We’re seeing a lot of tools. It’s becoming easy for companies and people to use these tools. So I think people have a chance to be a lot safer and that’s good. That’s that’s great.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:16] Now I’m seeing a lot more of these situations where if something happens, then the company I’m dealing with says, I’m going to text you a code and then you implement that code, and that’ll kind of verify that you’re who you say you are. Is that a trend that’s happening that’s really protecting or is that some of this kind of theater security theater?

Christian Hyatt: [00:03:40] I think it’s good. I think companies are really trying to take consumer security seriously, so they’re trying to implement steps to make it more secure for you to use their platforms. So a common example is, you know, you look back even five years ago and you’re using a bank, you know, pretty much used a username and password to log in, and that’s it. And you didn’t have many other options. But what you’re seeing now is you have an option to get that secure text message or to use like what we call an authenticator app on your phone to add some additional steps to log into your account. And even if you call in to get support from these companies, you’ll notice that they’re asking questions that are helping verify your authenticity, your identity, or they’re sending you the text messages to ensure that it’s really you talking. And these are all good steps. So this isn’t just security theater. What happens functionally is if you’re a large organization, people call in and pretend to be you, and it’s a fraudulent situation. They’re trying to get your information, trying to get your password reset or trying to get your phone number changed so that they’re getting a fraudulent text. So the big banks, the big companies want to verify that it’s really you so that your account doesn’t get compromised. So this is a security theater. These are good steps. This is stuff that companies are taking seriously and really trying to help protect their users.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:58] And then from a company standpoint, they’re trying to help you get what you want as fast as possible and as kind of simply and elegantly as possible. But I think as individuals and maybe as customers, too, we’re we’re accepting of these extra couple of steps to verify because we are a little paranoid about all this kind of all the threats that are out there.

Christian Hyatt: [00:05:22] Yeah, this is the age old problem security. There’s always this balance between ease of use and security and generally in business. The more steps you add to be able to do business with the company, the fewer users that want to take those steps. But I think as people are becoming cognizant of the need to secure their identity and their financials, they’re accepting these steps, which in turn gives companies flexibility to implement those steps. So this is a careful balancing act between how hard do you really want to make it to use a product? Because if you get a new fun toy to play with an app, you want to use it immediately. You don’t want to have to go through 17 setup steps, but if you’re cognizant of the reasons why you need those steps, then you’re more willing to do it. So it’s really a balancing act between the consumer, and the company is helping educate each other and understand what’s the right balance of security and ease of use. And we’re seeing that balance, I think, go a little bit more towards the security side of the house, which is definitely a good thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:19] Now is there a future where there is no passwords that it’s all going to be based on some sort of biometric?

Christian Hyatt: [00:06:26] I think that that’s true. You’ll see you’ll hear buzzwords out there like the biometrics and you also hear something called blockchain, which you might know because you’ve heard of bitcoin. And there’s definitely some technologies today to do to do identity verification without the use of a username and password without even doing biometrics is where you can have like a secure key or a secure token to verify your your identity. Think of it like a really long Social Security number that only you know and the only you store. So those technologies exist today, where you can you can, with a high degree of certainty, verify somebody’s identity. What we’re seeing it is back to that ease of use and security use case, and we’re still working on the make this really easy to use because the technology exists. But if the the average user can’t use them cleanly, efficiently, effectively, then they’re not going to rule out. So we’re still working on that piece of it. But I would say if you look out a decade or even five years, you’re going to see more and more tools and technology where there’s no user. Then password involved, there’s some other type of identity verification mechanism.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:27] Now are the bad guys the same bad guys as they were, you know, five, 10 years ago? Or are these kind of new bad guys in terms of this? They’re finding it easier to get into this line of work and then it’s attracting a different type of person that’s that, you know, kind of thinking of things and trying to steal and harm folks.

Christian Hyatt: [00:07:48] Yeah, I think there’s the. The old guy in the basement with the hoodie on. A lot of people think of when they think of the bad guy or the hacker, but that’s truly not who it is. There’s kind of three different potential organizations that you need to be concerned with. There’s hacktivists, that’s folks that want to do. You know, they have problems with society or government, so they’re going to do it from an activist perspective. You have advanced persistent threats, which is like the nation state or Russia or China when you’re thinking of those kind of folks and then you have the criminal organizations, and sometimes there’s a lot of overlap between those different groups. But it’s largely the same figures, you know, the nation states out there. Everyone’s seen the headlines about Russia and China, which is largely true. Those are very important groups that are doing the hacking out there. And there’s the criminal organization, but the same actors. But the thing to realize is how organized these groups are. They’re like businesses, they have business models, recruiting mechanisms, they have air power, they have revenue generating activities, playbooks, formal training programs. And if one of those groups want to go after you, it’s really difficult to defend. So that’s why companies are having so much trouble because they’re so organized.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:59] And then those hacktivists and those Nation-States, they’re in their eyes. They’re the good guys, right? They’re the ones who see this evil that they’re trying to, you know, punish in whatever means they’re doing so. You know, it’s like they say that the terrorists are freedom fighters are kind of in the eye of the beholder. These people think that they’re doing work that’s helping their cause and their cause is obviously not our cause, and it’s not something that we’re fond of, but in their mind that they’re doing what they should be doing, right?

Christian Hyatt: [00:09:34] Well, I mean, it’s warfare. You know, the U.S. government is doing the same thing. We have probably the best in the world in terms of cybersecurity apparatus in Russia and China have a very similar apparatus and it’s not gun fighting anymore, but it’s a very real combat situation where you know, it’s one nation versus another. And if you talk to folks that work for U.S. Cyber Command, they feel like they’re serving their company and they’re acting in the interest of their country. And similarly, I would imagine if you ask a Russian or Chinese or Korean or whoever else you know, are they serving the interests of their country? They would it would feel justified in doing so, too. So this is just a new form of warfare at scale that happens to be borderless. You can easily cross a border and impact the U.S. company. So you’re tying up the average U.S. citizen and company instead of being in some distant battlefield.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:27] So now in your work, companies are coming to you because they feel threatened, obviously, and they have to be proactive. They can’t just wait for this. They can’t solve it internally. They need third party and specialists like yourself and your team to help them.

Christian Hyatt: [00:10:44] Yeah, that’s right. So, you know, a company approaches us and they need the playbook. They are aware that this is a problem there where their organization could be at risk, but they don’t know how to get from point A to point B. And we come in and we help understand the business and we have the playbook when it comes to cybersecurity. How do you build a security program that’s aligned to those business objectives that will ultimately balance what you’re trying to accomplish as a business, but also protect that business? And like you said this, that’s how we’re helping a lot of companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:17] So now is the is the point of entry for your firm around cybersecurity and protecting the your client from the bad guys getting in? Or is it about helping that company in terms of keeping their content and data safe in terms of privacy to help serve their own clientele? Or is is that a kind of a blurring of the lines of what you do? It’s the same activity, but maybe it has a different objective for the client.

Christian Hyatt: [00:11:48] Yeah, so I think clients typically approach us from two perspectives. One, they want the roadmap on how to build a security program to protect themselves. The other phenomena that you see is most of our clients are business to business clients. They’re a SAS company doing business with a very large company. And it’s actually a business preventative thing. So let’s take the example I want to do business with Bank of America. Well, Bank of America very well isn’t going to let just any business do business. They’re going to feel very good that before you connect systems and you start doing work with them, that you have a security program and you’re not presenting an additional risk. So we’ll help those organizations articulate their security story. So in preparation for doing business with Bank of America, what do you have to do? What kind of security program do you need? What kind of certifications do you need in place? And suddenly security becomes a lot more than just a risk management thing. It becomes, Hey, to get this revenue actually have to have a security program to speak to, which is a very interesting kind of economic thing that’s happening where a lot of the enforcement and the reason behind building a security program isn’t regulatory, it isn’t risk management, but it’s actually to get that revenue and that next sell. I have to have a security program built out and certified. And so a lot of the customers that call us are on that side of the house to this is a revenue generating activity for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:05] Now it’s also a regulatory issue because in health care, right, like I can’t just participate in the health care supply chain without having some level of security. That’s kind of blessed because I’m putting my if I’m vulnerable, then I’m putting every other vendor that’s dealing with this health care company at risk.

Christian Hyatt: [00:13:26] Yeah, that’s that’s a great point. One of the things that security is very focused on right now is the supply chain. So if you think what it takes, how does the hospital serve their customers where they’re probably using several dozen vendors to do that, to provide care, to issue payments, to collect records and communicate with the end user? And when you look at that supply chain, a lot of those are SaaS companies or B2B companies. So let’s just take the example of where your medical records stored. We’re not just anyone can store medical records, and to your point, there’s a lot of regulations like HIPAA and others that mandate organizations have certain security and privacy mechanisms in place to protect that data before they can do business. So another popular way, you know, a health care company, ABC, give us a call. They want to enter a certain market or serve a health care sector or financial services sector, and there’s a litany of different compliance requirements that they have to meet. So they have to interpret those compliance requirements, but also implement them without burning down the business in the process. And that’s something that we’re very good at navigating.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:30] So now say your clients are like you said, B2B, these SaaS companies, I would imagine finding fintech and health care I.T. organizations.

Christian Hyatt: [00:14:42] We’re very lucky in Atlanta right now because we kind of have a booming tech scene, as seen by some of the recent kind of companies that have been acquired or receive funding. But the way we describe our client base is high growth technology companies. So if they’re a business to business SaaS company, high growth tech, that is our target market and we serve those folks very well. They have very important security and compliance initiatives and we fit in really well.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:07] So now let’s talk a little bit about the Atlanta tech scene. You’ve been here for a minute. How have you seen it evolve over the last 10, 15 years?

Christian Hyatt: [00:15:16] You know, when I first started my career, I went to a big company and it wasn’t even on my radar. And we’re talking about 15 years ago to to join a startup or a tech company. I was going very traditional consulting route. And what I’m seeing today is when I’m talking to when recruiting off campus from Georgia Tech or UGA or any of these schools around Atlanta, it is very much on their mind to potentially go work with a tech startup or a technology company. Then you see the amount of funding that’s coming into the Atlanta area, some large institutional investors that are willing to bet on Atlanta companies. You’re seeing Atlanta companies go public or exit. We have MailChimp recently, just so we had a store here in Atlanta that became a unicorn, got a $1.1 billion valuation. So I think there’s something in the water, there’s great universities, there’s great business people. There’s actually a second generation of tech entrepreneurs that have sources of funding that have a playbook and have mentors. So I think that you’re just going to see the Atlanta tech scene continue to be an important one here in the U.S., all things considered, it’s just great and growing industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:25] Now are you seeing that the success of Atlanta and the Atlanta tech scene kind of bleed into other southern cities? Are you seeing the same thing? I’m seeing it in Nashville. You know, North Carolina obviously has been a tech hub for a while, but there’s other secondary cities are now kind of raising their hand and saying, Hey, I want a piece of that to.

Christian Hyatt: [00:16:47] I think so. Even some small cities that aren’t major cities like Huntsville and Atlanta has a handful of tech start ups. Greenville, South Carolina You’re seeing Charleston even in Savannah a little bit, so they’re popping up. And I think it is just that second and third generation of tech entrepreneur that has seen someone in their ecosystem do it. They have mentorship. They have funding. There’s a playbook. And that’s also just the environment as a whole, gaining more confidence in the southeast. You know, this used to be if you were in New York or Silicon Valley, you could pretty easily get funding. But seeing the South and the southeast win, I think, is giving some investors some confidence that, hey, these are safe bets. These folks really know how to do good work. They have mentors, they have a playbook. And I think all of that together is, you know, good for Atlanta, but also good for the southeast in general.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:38] Now are you seeing that the kind of remote workforce accelerating our growth because people can work from anywhere now? Maybe some folks are choosing the South because of the cost of living and access, and you’re still getting kind of the best of both worlds. And, you know, now you can live anywhere and work anywhere.

Christian Hyatt: [00:17:59] Yeah, I think remote works yet to be seen how it’s going to impact, so the South has traditionally had an advantage because of the cost of living from that perspective. You know, you could come here make an equivalent salary, but have a great life because the cost of living is so low. So there’s always been somewhat of an advantage to move to a big city in the southeast with the remote work. You know how it’s impacting us at risk. 360 is we’re accessing talent from all over the U.S. and we’re learning how to recruit that way. Learning how to be productive and engage remote employees in that way. But it’s helped us be competitive in terms with who we have access to in terms of talent and also our clients willingness to work remotely as well so we can have consultants all over the country best in class consultants, clients that are willing to work with them remotely. So I don’t think that it’s making just the Southeast or Atlanta more competitive. I think it’s making all companies, especially small businesses like ours, at risk 360 really competitive because we have access to such a large talent pool and we’re also agile. We can adopt this remote work situation really easily, really quickly. And that’s a little bit of a competitive advantage versus a really large company that we might be competing with.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:09] And then does this kind of trend towards remote workers just feed back into your core business that now you need to protect that, you know, the information going back and forth in a secure manner?

Christian Hyatt: [00:19:22] Absolutely. I get that question all the time. It’s like, what do we need to be thinking about because we have a remote workforce and you know, everybody has a laptop that they’re doing business on, it needs to be secured. Now you have employees accessing email from all over the place. There’s new apps like Zoom and others, video conferencing tools that are new attack vectors from an outsider. So there’s a bit of a strategy update, especially if you’re doing remote work for the first time. You know, I have a couple of clients that have thousands of employees that were largely on site, now going offsite and remote, and that’s a thousand new laptops that you have to provision a thousand new entry points for potential outsider. So a lot to think through there. But bottom line is, I think this is the new normal in some ways, like the flexibility being able to work remote. So it’s also the new normal for a cybersecurity strategy as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:14] So now before we wrap, can you share some maybe low hanging fruit, some easy things that folks can be doing to just be more secure in their work or their personal life when it comes to cybersecurity?

Christian Hyatt: [00:20:28] Yeah, absolutely. I think whether you’re a business or you’re an individual, there’s a few things you can do. Number one is just vigilance, so be mindful of any phone call that you receive any text message and email. Pretty much every new hire at risk 360 gets a fake text message, saying that they’re me asking them to send them gift cards. So if it looks suspicious, it probably is. So just be vigilant. The other thing is implementing multifactor authentication. So anything that you’re logging onto, whether it’s a bank, your email, don’t just use a username and password. Go ahead and set up a multifactor authentication. Whether you get a text or use an authenticator app in. The last thing I’ll say is just your endpoint device. Everybody has a laptop. You know, installing some basic antivirus on that laptop will go a long way for most organizations.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:16] So now, if somebody wants to learn more about your work, what is the website that they can get a hold of you or somebody on your team?

Christian Hyatt: [00:21:24] Yep. If you want to check out risk through 360, you can check out risk three six. That’s w-w-what risk the number three. The word six

Lee Kantor: [00:21:35] Risk the number three six. Wired.com Christian. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Christian Hyatt: [00:21:44] Thank you very much, Leigh.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:45] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

 

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Ean Price Murphy With Moxie Bookkeeping And Coaching

by

Ean Price Murphy, the founder of Moxie Bookkeeping, teaches successful entrepreneurs a dead-simple cash management system that works with their natural habits so they don’t have to learn accounting to become permanently profitable

Connect With Ean on LinkedIn and Follow Moxie Bookkeeping on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant
  • Find a good bookkeeper

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 high velocity radio

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today. On the show we have Ean Price Murphy with Moxie Bookkeeping and coaching. Welcome, Ean.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:00:24] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Moxy. How are you serving, folks?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:00:31] Yeah. So we are a profit first bookkeeping firm, meaning that we use the profit first philosophy based on a book called Profit First by a guy named Mike. And if you haven’t heard of it, it’s it’s definitely a must read in the entrepreneurial set. I did get a little giggle when when you said it was going to be a fun one and then said bookkeeping and I’m I’m assuming that there were some wilted faces after they heard that word.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] No, I think that when you are bold enough to have a name as moxy bookkeeping, I know that there’s fun in store. So I have a lot of confidence. I have a lot of faith in you. And just for full disclosure, we run our company as a profit first company. So we I am a big fan of super fan of that methodology and a lot of Mike’s work. But let’s for the listeners who aren’t familiar, why don’t you kind of give them a thumbnail of what profit first? How that’s different than maybe the traditional way of keeping track of your money?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:01:28] Yeah. So the biggest difference is I think that traditional bookkeeping and even accounting is really looking at the past what has happened so that we can make some guesses about the future. What I love about profit first is that it says, Well, great, we need to know that, but I’m not going to try to drive my car by looking in the rearview mirror. I need to know what’s happening right now, and I need to have the road lit far enough ahead of me that if there is a pothole that I can take evasive action before I ruin my axle. And that’s what profit first does

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] And the way that I explained it to my folks and the people that we coach in terms of helping them start studios and things like that, we recommend profit first. We tell them when you pay yourself first and then adjust your expenses. That’s just a better way of doing business as opposed to the way most people do. Business is they just start subtracting and then whatever is left is what they get to keep. And then sometimes it’s nothing, and that’s not that’s not sustainable.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:02:44] We find right to me, profit first answers that very important question of I know you told me to pay myself first, but how do I do that when I when there’s so much money going out? And so it gives the nice guidelines, you know, and I use a lot of crazy metaphors and analogies in my work because that’s how my brain works. So for me, you know, when I’m explaining it to someone that’s like, I’ve never heard of this before, what is it? It essentially comes down to give every dollar a job and give every dollar a home in a separate bank account like the envelope system. And the first pushback that I always hear is, Oh, that sounds so complicated. And I think, well, do you have a junk drawer at home? I know I do, and I know there are stuff in there that I need, but I can’t put my hands on it right away. I couldn’t tell you if we were running low on twist ties, for instance, versus my silverware drawer where everything is neatly laid out. I know how many forks, knives and spoons I have so that when I go to set the table for dinner tonight, I can look at that and be like, Oh, I better run the dishwasher tonight. Otherwise I’m not going to have enough forks for the morning. That’s what profit first does. It allows you to see things separated out rather than in a big junk pile so that you can immediately know just by a glance at your bank balance. Do I have enough to carry me through the month or not?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:11] Yeah. And also when you say that OK, for every dollar X number percent goes to profit and that’s going to be a priority of me pushing it aside first, it just to me gives you the discipline to say, OK, that means, look, this month I’m going to have to cut back over here. If I want that number to happen, something’s got to give somewhere else. Yeah. So it allows me to kind of stay on top of things and prioritize. It’s like the person in the plane. I’m sure you use this metaphor of, you know, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, because if you don’t make it, no one’s making it. So that’s the way it is in business, too. I mean, you can’t forget that it’s hard to run a business successfully if you’re never getting paid, and there’s a lot of business people out there who think that’s normal.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:05:01] Yeah, and it’s really not. I mean. The word that you used prioritize, I think, is incredibly important, so profit first is a set of guidelines that let you see what your choices are and what the effect they have is so that you can be intentional and prioritize correctly rather than just throwing money at whatever is squawk and loudest for it today.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:24] Now you are a bookkeeper and a bookkeeping firm for folks who don’t know that maybe they have a CPA, somebody keeping track, maybe it’s themselves. But how does a bookkeeper like, do I need a bookkeeper and a CPA? Or is there overlap there?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:05:43] That’s a great question. There is a little bit of overlap, but they work in harmony rather than than working, sort of overlapping. When when we use the word accountant, it’s very much like using the word doctor. It could be a dermatologist. It could be an ear, nose throat guy. It could be a professor of philosophy, right? They’re all called doctor and similar in the accounting world. There is management, accounting and tax accounting. And and there’s a spectrum in both of those, right? So in the tax accounting side, you can have your EIA’s, you’re enrolled agents or your CPAs, you’re certified public accountants. Those people are generally focused on making sure that you are in compliance with the laws and paying the least amount of tax legally allowable. That’s their job. Now, some of them do bookkeeping, some of them do advisory. But the core of where they are focused is that when we look at bookkeeping, the core focus of a bookkeeper is on the internal day to day management of information so that you can make smart decisions. Now here’s the rub. Bookkeepers exist in this little bubble where they’re making sure that the books are perfect and match to the bank and the reports are clear and clean. And that’s kind of the end of their job. Some bookkeepers are able to explain this is what this report means.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:07:14] A very few number of them can take it the next step and say, And here’s what you should do about it. And the the next question after that is the, you know, the business owner asking, well, what can I afford? Can I afford to do X, Y and Z? And almost every bookkeeper will shrug their shoulders because that’s no longer bookkeeping. That’s the the work of a CFO, a chief financial officer. But most small businesses don’t have one of those. So in my opinion, you need not only a bookkeeper, although that can certainly be you. You definitely need a tax person to help keep you in compliance and what most people don’t know that they need. But that’s the person who’s really going to be able to answer their specific questions is someone who knows business advice, financial advisory like a CFO would. And again, because fractional CFOs are 5000 up a month. Having someone that is a profit first professional can give a business owner who does not want to learn accounting and does not want to be working in Excel pivot tables. The common language that a CFO would use to talk to their bookkeeper, their accountant and and make a plan for themselves. So it’s this brilliantly simple, very accessible version of some very high level stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:45] And then so what I’m hearing is in your firm, you help with the bookkeeping and some of this advising. And then the CPA is still needed, but primarily to kind of execute the taxes.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:08:59] Absolutely. So I think of what we do in our firm as beans and rice. You know, bookkeeping is beans, profit versus rice or vice versa. You can cook rice a million ways without beans and beans, a million ways without rice. When you bring them together, however, there’s this magical complete protein that happens that would not have happened on its own. So I don’t think profit first should or does replace your bookkeeper, which is why it’s an additional service that we offer. We just weave it in because again, if we’re talking about opening multiple bank accounts and most people have at least five. A lot of bookkeepers go. That doesn’t make sense, I don’t want to do that, and so we provide this service of not only are we happy to to work with you in the profit for system, but if you need help getting set up in it, we can. We can help you with that too, and we can certainly help carry on. There are clients that we work with for, you know, months and months and months and more than more than a year to to make sure that the habit is really strongly formed before they do it on their own.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:01] Now, if I work with you or a bookkeeper like you, does that mean that maybe I don’t have to pay like super high fees to a CPA? Maybe there’s less for them to do now that I’m handling this aspect of some of which might be construed as their job because I’m giving them clean numbers now, rather than them having a box of receipts that they have to sort through.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:10:29] Absolutely. If you’re handing your account in a box of receipts, please stop now. Nobody likes that. I know that you don’t like it, and your accountants certainly doesn’t. So what you’re doing then is essentially paying your accountant who’s a tax professional to do basic data entry work that is not the best use of your dollars. So, you know, there’s some structural things in the technology has come so far. You can take a little picture of the receipt on your phone and tell it what it was for right there and have it upload to software like there’s all of this beautiful automation that’s happening. And so, yes, hopefully your accountant bill will go down if you have good, clean books. I would also caution people, though, because I think a lot of people put their account, their tax accountants in the position of being the one to review the books and catch the mistakes. And again, that is not the job of a CPA. They’re not there to dove deeply into your books and say, Well, did you? Why did you really spend this much on marketing? What is that? Is everything categorized, OK? They’re very, you know, that’s that’s just not their focus. So, so expecting to do your own bookkeeping, not have any oversight, no controller, no CFO, you know, no full charge bookkeeper looking at your shoulder and hand those books to the accountant.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:11:54] The accountant would not be doing a U.S. service by digging deeply and to say, are there any mistakes that would cost a whole lot? And usually they’re pretty busy around the time that your taxes are due, so they’ll file what you tell them to file. You’re the one giving them the information unless you’re having them process all of your receipts. And so both of those are not ideal scenarios, in my opinion. Much better to have someone set you up correctly in the bookkeeping software of your choice so that you can do your own bookkeeping because you’re the one that knows how you earned and spent or get some assistance, you know, and some oversight. We do a lot of what I call second set of eyes bookkeeping where you, you or your staff member who maybe is an office manager and not a real full time full charge bookkeeper does the data entry and will do the reconciliation and look at the reports and review them and assess them, and then talk to you about them to make sure that you understand what’s going on so that there is that layer of, you know, oversight and double checking.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:56] So now in that layer of oversight and double checking, are you there to also make recommendations and like talk strategically about the business and the direction? And you said you wanted to do this, but here you’re spending a lot over here that has nothing to do with that or I’m noticing that this is now twice as much. It was, you know, doing some analysis and some strategy. Or is it just these are the facts here it is. You know, figure it out.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:13:25] It depends on what the client wants. You know, my preference is always to do the strategy, and the reason that I choose to continue to call myself a bookkeeper is because most small business owners falsely assume that is their bookkeepers job. And again, that’s really an advisory level position, you know? Yes, we can look for trends if you want us to print out reports that say, show me month over month. But as a bookkeeper, if I see a five hundred dollar phone bill one month, I don’t have a reason to suspect that anything’s wrong. Right? Maybe you just called France on your cell phone? I don’t know. And so you, as the business owner, have to be looking at those reports. No one knows your business better than you, and no one cares as much as you do. So if you’re doing what I call abdicating instead of delegating your books and saying, but you’re the bookkeeper, why didn’t you catch this? The answer is I don’t know what the parameters are, and I don’t same thing. I don’t think it’s a good idea for your CPA to be digging deeply into your books just in case there’s a question. I don’t want to be wasting your money by by looking, you know, by analyzing everything, if that’s not what you want or need. I love doing that. When there’s a specific question, right? When I say, here are your reports for the month, here’s your year to date. Whatever the reports are, you want to see if you come back to me with, Wait, why is this line item so high or so low? I go, Let’s jump on the phone and look, let’s figure it out. But it’s irresponsible to assume that I, as your bookkeeper or even your advisor, would have any insider knowledge, even if I know your business really well of why a particular expense might spike or drop during a particular month.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:16] Now are you helping me set up certain reports that are kind of giving me dashboard views of my financial health?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:15:26] Yeah. So we generally use QuickBooks Online or zero zero, which is my personal favorite, and those softwares have little dashboards built in them, and they all have these pre formatted reports so that it’s very easy with maybe 15 minutes of training for you to be able to go and look those things up. You know, one of the things that I’m always really trying to get people towards is this idea of you shouldn’t have to wait on your bookkeeper or your accountant in order to make decisions about your business. We want to be there to make sure that the data is solid so that when you’re making plans and assumptions that you’re doing it on clean, clear, real data. But I don’t want you to have to schedule with something from me two weeks from now because you have the opportunity to. You know, get a great deal on something or there’s a limited time offer or, you know, you want to make an extra debt payment and aren’t sure if you can afford it or not. If I’ve done my job right as your advisor. I’ve let you know here are all the things that you can totally figure out on your own without having to learn accounting. You just, you know, know how to click a couple of reports or with profit. First, just look at your bank balance. And here are the flags that if you see them, what they’re waving is caution and give me a call and we’ll figure out what’s up before that yellow turns to red.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:58] Now, if if a person an entrepreneur did their job right and has this information, could this have helped them or would this help them for like a PPP loan or a, you know, one of if they were getting an SBA loan or a business loan? If you do a good job, here are you. Do you now have the data you need to kind of share that with your banker and anybody else that might be able to help you, you know, get financing when you need it?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:17:31] Absolutely. And the best time to get a loan is when you don’t need it. The best time to be prepared to get a loan is before you need it. One of the one of the things that really broke my heart during the pandemic with the PPP was business owners who thought they were being smart by not paying themselves or not paying themselves through payroll, even though they were an escort or taking shortcuts or not. Keeping up to date on things got tremendously less than those who were sort of following the rules a little bit beforehand and keeping good track. I mean, the difference between like five thousand and one hundred thousand over and over and over, I had people reach out to me because they said, you know, I didn’t get anything for the first PPP and I’ve heard there’s another one and I want to be able to get something because I’m drowning over here.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:22] And it was because they were trying to be a little clever when it came to how they pay themselves.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:18:28] I think I think more than clever they were trying to be penny wise and saying, I don’t see the value in that. I know my accountant told me to do it, but I don’t. I don’t get why, so I’m not going to. And you know, that I think is one of the things that frustrates accountants all the time is I tried to tell you. So I’m also a huge fan of people checking in with their accountant at least once a year before tax time. Right like now, September October is a fabulous time to reach out to your accountant and say, Can we just take a look at everything in the year so far to make sure that I’m on track? Have I paid the correct amount of estimated tax payments, or should I slide that one into January before the taxes are due so that I I know? Am I in the ballpark or not catch any mistakes before they bite you in the behind? And more importantly, listen to the good advice that your tax person will have for you about given where you are. Here are the the tax strategies that I would recommend we implement before the end of the year to make sure that you’re really maximizing your savings and quarterly is best, in my opinion. But but at least once a year

Lee Kantor: [00:19:45] Now in your practice, do you have a specialty in terms of the type of entrepreneur you work with? Like do you do more manufacture or more creative services or professional services? Do you have a sweet spot in terms of your ideal client?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:20:01] We do. It starts with our niches. What I like to say No A-holes. We like working with people who are nice people. That’s sort of the first barrier for entry. You have to be a good communicator and and someone that’s pleasant to work with. We treat you with respect. We expect the same. Certainly, we do serve, you know, focus on professional services and our our juicy center is the creative industry. But what I define is creative is a little bit wide, right? So I know some lawyers who I consider to be creative professionals because they’re creative problem solvers and they’re not all lawyers, but those types are out there. Some people in the trades, you know, so it’s really just sort of who identifies with that. We we love people who love what they do and want to be able to focus on that work and not have to worry so much about figuring out, Am I going to be OK? Or is there something terrible waiting around the corner for me now?

Lee Kantor: [00:21:05] Should they be at a certain revenue level before it’s appropriate to work with you?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:21:11] Um, I don’t put that out on anyone, I let people self-select for that, I think, you know, getting started off on the right foot is extremely important. One of again, the biggest stumbling blocks that I’ve seen with people who do their own bookkeeping or or even outsource it is the list of how they earn and spend money. Their chart of accounts does not apply to them. It’s whatever the default of the software was. And so they already feel a little confused and locked out and just by customizing that which every bookkeeper should do for their clients. Suddenly, things make more sense, right? It’s not sales. It’s, you know, commercial photography versus portrait photography or whatever. The whatever the distinction is, it’s it’s trying to answer the questions that the business owner themselves has. Because even if you’re in the same industry as others, what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and why you’re doing it is going to be different. So we want to make sure that we’re really aware of what your goals are and that the books and the data is supporting that. There was a second half to that question, which I’ve already completely oh.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:27] Well, it was about your height. It was about the sweet spot, and then you covered that in terms of the creatives and then and because when people drill down their business, you said that a lot of times they use the default of whatever the software has. Right. And then, yeah, and then it’s the same thing on the revenue as the expense side, I’m sure.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:22:49] And and well, so the yeah, the question that I had forgotten that I’m remembering now, as you had said, is there is there a sweet spot in terms of revenue for the clients? And I was saying, I don’t like to decide that for them because I think people really do need to get started on the right foot. So investing some upfront, I think, is a good idea. But again, if that’s not my choice to make and then after that, I really want them to focus on sales and marketing. And so whenever they feel like I’m now making enough that I need some input, I feel like, you know, I have a proven product. I’ve got clients coming to me. I’m not struggling for for income. Cash in is not my biggest concern now. My concerns are systems and spending and controlling costs and knowing where these things are going. That’s when I want to talk to them again. A lot of times that happens around 300000, but I get people calling me at one 50 or even 100. So it really depends so much on what their personal financial literacy level is, what their comfort with numbers and finance and business is. You know, I don’t want to solve a problem that somebody doesn’t have,

Lee Kantor: [00:24:02] But the way it sounds like you work with people, it might be up front, do some work to create a strong foundation and then pause and you’re available, obviously, but then swing back around when they’ve hit another kind of milestone where they can bring you in and then help maybe create tighter systems around this new reality they’re in.

Ean Price Murphy: [00:24:22] Yeah. So and that sort of reflects in our service offerings, right? We have these sort of like short jumpstart packages, you know, just a couple of meetings to get you going and that that’s not only reserved for our first starting people, that’s also a great way to get to know us and figure out if you want to continue with us. It’s just a matter of how much hand-holding you want, right? If you already have a business coach or an accountability group or a mastermind that you check in with, you may need less hand-holding from us than, you know, an entrepreneur who does not have those resources and really does need to have that sounding board and someone to help talk through the systems and say, like a general practitioner, Dr, might you know, this sounds like this sounds like we should call it a specialist like, I see it’s definitely something wrong with your inner ear, but I’m not an inner ear person. So let me go get you to that specialist and talk to me again when you’re done.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:21] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more about the bookkeeping and or the coaching or just wants to chat with you. What is the website?

Ean Price Murphy: [00:25:32] The website is Moxy Bookkeeping.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:35] Well, Ian, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you. Thank you. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see next time on high velocity radio.

 

Thane Ringler With Thane Marcus

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Thane Marcus Ringler is a former professional golfer now dedicated to unlocking the potential in others. As a Development Coach and Leadership Guide, he works with individuals, teams, and organizations on improving performance and becoming leaders worth following.

Thane’s mission is to help others live and work better. He is passionate about speaking to the journey from the journey, and is striving to empower this generation to take ownership of their lives and never settle for less than they are capable of.

Thane lives in Denver, CO with his wife Evan, and is the co-founder and host of The Up & Comers Show, a podcast all about the process of becoming and living with intentionality.

Connect with Thane on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow Thane Marcus on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Two traits of high-performers
  • How golf connects to leadership
  • The rhythms of high-performance

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 Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Thane Ringler with Thein Marcus. Welcome Thane.

Thane Ringler: [00:00:42] Thanks so much for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Thane Ringler: [00:00:48] Yeah, so my practice is aimed around creating and fostering high performing individuals and teams unlocking their full potential. And we do this through self awareness, self leadership, team communication and putting some objective data to the work itself through partnering with Giant Worldwide. So it’s been a fun journey. A lot of my practice stems from my background in golf, and so a lot of it deals with the mindset and what goes into performing at your best and starting internally.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] Now, having been a professional athlete, can you maybe relate to the listener how you’ve seen people, maybe your peers, some of which have all the talent in the world? Maybe some of them have more talent, but at key moments didn’t perform like the mindset was kind of the thing in your mind that kind of kept these people from being as good as they can be.

Thane Ringler: [00:01:47] Yeah, it definitely is one of the biggest contributing factors now at the top tier, really. Golf itself comes down, I’d say, 90 to ninety five percent in your mind, in your head. The body has done the reps it’s put in the practice. At that point, it’s really up to your mind being optimized to produce the best thoughts that will then produce the best shots with your body. And this is really true in life, too. Like you’re like, you pointed out, you know, it’s there’s always a matter of chance that we can’t eliminate. And so just because you’ve optimized your mind doesn’t mean success will immediately follow. But it gives you the best chance of success. It gives you the best chance to capitalize on those opportunities. You know, in golf, the margin for error is so small, and a lot of times it can be one stroke. The difference between success and failure, making it onto the PGA Tour or not winning the tournament or getting second. There’s a lot of things riding on one stroke itself and within a golf tournament, there’s four rounds of 18 holes with on average 70 strokes around. So it’s a lot of reps and they can come down to one stroke, which means that you must be focused, you must be controlling your thoughts and working on eliminating distractions and the things that get in the way from you performing your best. And really, that translates to life, especially today. There’s so much noise in our world. There’s so many things that are vying for our attention and our energy. And if we don’t do a good job of controlling where we put our focus and making sure that we’re focused on keeping the main things, the main things, we’re going to be really limiting our ability to bring our greatest gifts and what the world needs from us to those around us that we want to serve.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:41] Now one of the challenges I think regular folks have when they try to maybe model after professional athletes, a professional athlete typically has a season and they’re trying to achieve peak performance during certain dates. They probably have marked on a calendar ahead of time where the leader of an organization may not have that kind of a structured world where they have certain dates. Maybe if they’re a public company, they have earnings and things like that. But a typical entrepreneur may not have a calendar they can go to ahead of time and say, Oh, on August 3rd, I better be at my best because that’s when it all goes down. Like, I don’t have a Super Bowl that I’m aiming at every year. Or maybe I should. Maybe that’s why I’m not succeeding as much as I am. But I think there’s a benefit from having a structure and there’s a it’s it’s more of a challenge when you don’t have that kind of a season or a structure like that.

Thane Ringler: [00:04:42] Yeah, I think it’s a really insightful point. We appreciate you bringing that up, and I definitely agree. You know, I think as a professional athlete, my expectation and really what I aimed for was ninety five percent plus optimized, right? Like my life was my performance as a normal human. That’s just selfish. That’s not reality. You can’t do that, right? Like that. That is not a way to live. I think as a normal human, if I’m 80 percent optimize now that I’m doing pretty good, you know, and I’d say that’s a good aim to have in in how you perform individually, because that that means it’s more realistic, it’s attainable and it’s fitting what role we’re playing in society. But I think what you mentioned too, alongside that with with having these definite goal posts that we’re we’re aiming towards and that we’re we’re optimizing ourselves for, it can be done in a business setting. Like you said, right, there can be quarterly reviews, there can be year end, you know, some reason statements. Especially if you’re a public company, right, the filing and there’s a lot of things that you can create that are already in place as benchmarks. But beyond that, I think any good leader or manager will have clear and defined objectives for their team, for the individuals on their team with ways that they can measure up their performance against what the goals were, so they can start seeing some objective feedback of how they’re doing and then reevaluate from that point.

Thane Ringler: [00:06:14] And so it’s attainable for everyone. It may be less optimized, right, as a normal human versus a professional athlete, and I think that’s for good reason. But I think what you’re speaking to as well is the nature of seasons and life in the nature of momentum and rhythm in life, which I think are really important concepts. Especially is this idea of rhythms of high performance that high performance doesn’t always entail being maxed out, running in the red or operating at your 100 percent best. It means that you’re recognizing where you’re at in that ebb and flow of life and the momentum that each season has so that we can adjust our aim and our focus and our perspective accordingly. Similarly, on the golf course, if I am in a slump, if I’m playing poorly and I’ve been playing poorly for some tournaments, my aim and focus on the golf course while I’m competing in that round will be different than if I’ve been playing really well and everything is sinking up. And so it requires a different intention for my round because I know that it’s going to be a battle and that I need to be conservative so that I can perform my best, even when I don’t have my best. And if we aren’t aware, if we don’t recognize when we don’t have our best, then we can’t make the adjustments needed.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:37] Now do you find that folks sometimes spend too much energy or put too much pressure on the outcome they desire, rather than just getting the process and the systems right and trusting the outcomes are going to come over time? If I just focus in on what I can control rather than, you know, the environment, the circumstance, my competitors, things like that. If I just get do my job well, then I’m going to win in the long term.

Thane Ringler: [00:08:05] Yeah, that’s a really good point. You know, I think all of us as humans fall into this, and not only that, but our society is really geared around it, especially in the West. You know, we’re very much an achievement based culture and achievements are based on outcomes, right? Achievements come strictly from outcomes themselves, not necessarily from certain efforts, but what we’re wired to care about most are those outcomes, and we’re rewarded or incentivized for those outcomes as well. So it really does take an intentional retraining or rewiring of our our brains and of our thought process of knowing no, you know what, I really am going to trust along the process here. I’m going to play the long game. I’m going to really focus on developing the systems needed. And, you know, I think some of the fuel of that is even just startup culture in general. I think the nature of the last decade or two in the startup world has been scale as fast and at all costs as possible so that you can then exit with a really nice, really nice number behind your name. And that game doesn’t produce the best for you or the best for society. And I think it’s unhealthy for for your normal person, like most of us, that then starts thinking, OK, well, I need to figure out how to achieve this monumental outcome versus how can I just improve one percent of my process today?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:34] And go ahead? Well, I think that when you’re so outcome focused, then the means justify the ends. Yeah. So then when that’s the case, then you’re doing whatever you can to achieve that outcome, whether that’s the right thing and you might lose kind of your true north or the big y of why you’re even doing this in the first place, you’re focusing on numbers that maybe look good and seem good in the room. But they might be you might be doing behaviors that are unhealthy to get to that point and which isn’t helping anybody.

Thane Ringler: [00:10:07] Yeah, 100 percent. You know, I think a quote that I believe is Bill Gates, but I’m sure many other have been attributed to it is that we all overestimate what can be done in one year and underestimate what can be accomplished in 10. And that again, speaks to, I think, this propensity we have for short term reward, short term gain or satisfaction at the cost of the delayed reward and delayed gain that can come. That’s much more sustainable and helpful for others, but especially for ourselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:40] Now, how do people engage with you or is it typically individuals that are looking for coaching that they want to become? High performers or there are already high performers who are going to be higher performers, are they organizations or are they enterprises that hire you and a team to come in and work with like the entire sales team? Like what? What is kind of your deliverable to your clients?

Thane Ringler: [00:11:00] Yeah. In the in the past, it’s been primarily individuals and that can be freelancers, entrepreneurs, business owners, employees, even in the most recent. In the last year or so, I’ve transitioned to working with teams and organizations as well. With Giant, there’s a technology and a platform we use that have tools and resources that make that work simple, sustainable and scalable. It can really reach a lot more people within the organization. And my heart has really always been to reach people kind of in the middle tier of society because there’s so many people out there that are settling for status quo or are defaulting to what they’re told to do versus what they’re capable of doing. There’s a lot more high performers out there that aren’t unlocked yet is what I’m getting at. And so my my heart really calls to those people and by working with organizations, I get to reach those people more readily. And so that’s really my focus now is with the teams and with organizations full of people that are operating at a certain level but have a much higher capacity that they can reach to, especially through understanding themselves better understanding how they’re wired and then tapping into it and designing really the way they work based on their personality and the way that they’re best suited to bring results to the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:23] Now on this show, one of the reasons we’re doing this show is to help other coaches learn from each other. Can you share with our listeners how you were able to partner with a company like giant? Because a lot of coaches out there would love to have the opportunity to partner with a big enterprise like that to really work together and maybe take their game up a notch and really serve that larger enterprise and their people. How did that relationship develop and then how did you kind of manage to convince them that you were the right partner for them?

Thane Ringler: [00:12:58] Yeah, it’s a good question, and I’m glad you asked it. You know, like, like many people listening, I’m sure I I know that it’s a hard journey, especially in this space. There’s a lot of people doing this work, and it’s a type of service and work that isn’t necessarily an easy sell, right? People aren’t automatically thinking their greatest need is to have a coach or consultant come in and assist them or give them feedback or help them grow. And so it’s a harder thing. It’s a harder business to run a lot of times. And. And so for me, as an individual, it was me wearing all the hats in my business and it was challenging and lonely a lot of times in doing so in finding giant. It was a really great process because after talking to probably half a dozen people within their organization, I just knew that their language, their heart, posture and a lot of their systems they developed were so parallel to what I’d already been doing that that it was a really seamless transition and a great fit for me personally. But beyond that, just understanding that having teammates, having people that are doing the same work alongside you that you can collaborate with and you can bounce ideas off of, and that you can work together on larger engagements has been such a breath of fresh air.

Thane Ringler: [00:14:15] And and really giant is a company that that wants more coaches and consultants to be a part of them. They’ve developed against some great technology that I don’t have on my own, and a lot of coaches don’t either, and it really allows you to serve the client exceptionally well and focus on delivering and facilitating with your unique gifts alongside the material they already have. And. And so it’s a great fit for other coaches out there who are looking to get involved. You know the best? The thing I would recommend is just visiting. If you go to a giant Steve Thane, that’s my my first name THAAD, you can get set up with a 30 day free trial of their platform and just taste and see some of their materials and their content to get a feel. And if it’s something that resonates with you, I would definitely recommend reaching out. They’ve got a great, supportive staff that would love nothing more than to serve you in your business. So I’ve really been blessed by joining forces with them and definitely would highly recommend.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:19] So now how did you identified them as being a good partner for you? How did they how did you convince them to work with you?

Thane Ringler: [00:15:29] Yeah. So I mean, really, they look for people who are committed to unlocking the potential of others and who are serving heart of service in their work. So really, at the end of the day, if you’re a coach or consultant, that’s aiming to do intentional work. With your clients, you’re going to be a good fit, so there’s not a huge there’s not a huge barrier to entry for them. They really want to make sure that the hard alignments there and then going through their certifications and programs definitely takes some time. But once you are able to get certified and trained, they are 100 percent supportive of your practice and want to do what they can to support you and grow, which has been really cool. So a lot of it comes down to hard alignment, having conversations with them, seeing if it’s a good fit for both parties and then moving forward together.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:25] Now, in your practice, when you’re working with people, can you share a story about maybe the challenge they had? Obviously don’t name their name or their organization, but explain maybe their backstory. What was their challenge? How they found you? Why they partner with you? You started work with them and then you were able to take them to a new level, maybe one that they didn’t even anticipate as being possible.

Thane Ringler: [00:16:48] Yeah, definitely. Know, recently, one of my clients we had been working together for, probably. Four to five months up to this point, and he’s working on growing his team. But in the midst of that, you know, as you start out, you kind of add this piece and that piece and really there’s some dysfunction, there’s a lack of communication, there’s a lack of clear expectations and there’s a lack of alignment as these kind of adjunct pieces all start forming a team. But there really never was a formalized team in the first place or communicated up front. And so what we were able to do is we went actually through organizational clarity, workshop a couple, a couple day workshop just to really get clear about because it’s so common a lot of times, right? We start businesses, we have success, we see holes or gaps. We need to fill in and then we go through the process of finding people that can do that. But but if we aren’t intentional with really creating a structure of vision, mission and the values for our business and our organization, then they’ll never be true alignment with the people that are part of a team because it has been clearly communicated. So establishing those clear values vision and mission for the organization was a really important step just for his team being on the same page. And for these recurring, there’s a lot of recurring issues, especially with certain employees or partners in his business that were remedied through this process of just establishing clarity on what the hard posture is. Because then we can come back, like you said earlier, have that North Star that why for the business that you can unite around, it makes it less personal. It makes it much more objective and clear, and you can get on the same page much faster without it being as confrontational or as an emotional conversation as those often are. So that was really a great win for them and the team as they’ve been growing and adding on pieces, making sure that they’re all functioning together as a unit.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:49] Well, if there is anyone out there that wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team. What is the best website?

Thane Ringler: [00:18:58] Yeah, Thane Marcus is my headquarters for my business and all that I do. That’s a great place to go. See some of the services offered. You can read or listen to some other things I’ve done there and reach out. There’s an email there you’ll find you can also. Like I said, however, giants Thane and that’s a great place to check out a platform. And alongside that, one last thing I’d recommend is with Giant, there’s a personality assessment called the Five Voices. It’s a great tool based off Myers-Briggs technology and research. It’s a great tool for understanding yourself, knowing more about how you’re wired and how that communicates and relates to others. It’s really been helpful for me in my business and my family, and then with my clients as well, but you can take that for free by going to giant DCTV five voices. That’s the number five and then voices slash Thane, and that’s about a 10 15 minute assessment. So if you want some immediate value, that’s a great place to start.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:56] And that website again is Thane Marcus THAAD PMRC, U.S. Thane. Thank. Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Thane Ringler: [00:20:08] Thanks, Lee. I really appreciate you having me on and you’re doing great work here as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:12] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Matt Paige With HatchWorks

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Matt Paige is the Senior Director, Strategy & Business Development at HatchWorks.

HatchWorks was founded in 2016, and Matt joined the team in early 2018 as a Product Manager. Since then he has had roles in product, customer engagement, and now Strategy and Business Development.

Matt is passionate about building and scaling engaging data-driven products for HatchWorks’ customers.

Follow HatchWorks on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Lifecycle software development
  • Cloud services
  • Data intelligence

About Our Sponsor

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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 onpay 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 the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Matt Page with hatch works. Welcome, Matt.

Matt Paige: [00:00:41] Hey, how’s it going? Thanks for having me today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] It’s going great. I’m excited to learn about hatch works. Tell us what you’re up to.

Matt Paige: [00:00:48] Yeah. So Hatch Works is a software development company locally here in Atlanta. We’ve been around since twenty sixteen and we really believe intelligently built solutions improve the way that people work and live. So really focused on building full lifecycle web applications that are native to the cloud and data intelligence solutions so doing from full software development. Defining it, building it, running it. Yeah, with everything going on today, the push, the digital, the customer experience and customer demands is just evolving with everything from COVID to all the other great technology products out there. I’m really looking to help our customers evolve. And in that way and making that that push to move to digital

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] Now is hatch works. Did it start as Hatch works, developing their own software and applications for themselves? Or was it always built to help other people create what their their company needs?

Matt Paige: [00:01:50] Yeah, it’s always started helping our our customers, and that’s the biggest piece. It’s interesting. Our founder, Brandon Powell, knew he wanted to start a company. He didn’t quite know what product to build, so decided to go serve other other customers and clients in their industries. Another area we want to get into down the road is developing some of our own products from all of the great stuff we’re learning, but wholly focused right now and just serving our customers and giving them and building them the best, the best products we can.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:20] Now, can you talk about that kind of the early days? Was it always geared towards enterprise level or was that something that just grew over time?

Matt Paige: [00:02:29] No, not not initially and truthfully. In the beginning days, it’s almost more of a friends and family and connections to give you your first bit of business. But we’ve really grown a lot in the health care space, the financial services space communications, just with past experience there. So those are kind of the main verticals we played in and then, as we’ve evolved, started to work with a lot of bigger clients. So your AT&T is your Cox’s fleet core locally here in Atlanta and some big health care players like Anthem and others.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] Now, how did that come about, because dealing with companies of that size, there’s a lot of complexity in a sale like that. Was that again, friends and family type thing? Or are you kind of earned your way up the ladder based on your previous work?

Matt Paige: [00:03:19] Yeah. Starting to earn our way up to building some really great case studies in the place that we can show off and represent with our customers, and it’s definitely a different, different animal. There’s more decision makers in the process. The sales cycles a bit longer in different, and sometimes you don’t have the full autonomy to build the full end solution. A lot of the times you’re working very, very tightly with the organization that we may be working with, whether it’s on the product side or the the technology side, which is really neat, helping our our clients evolve and how they think about software development, how they think about product development. And a big piece is that that discovery and design element, right? You don’t want to just be, you know, a hammer trying to hammer and nail all the time. You got to make sure you have the right solution for the problem at hand.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:14] Now, do you sometimes go into an opportunity fixing something and then it evolves into kind of a wholesale rebuild? Or are you always going in there to start like from a clean slate?

Matt Paige: [00:04:27] Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s interesting. We do both, right? So we’ll do brand new product development. The customer just has an idea or a problem they have. And we also do complete modernization projects or redesign projects as well. I’d say a lot of a shift towards more the modernization and redesigns as of late because we have so many customers, especially as you move up in the enterprise space, they have a lot of existing legacy products. A lot of integrations in the customer experience isn’t great. So they want to, you know, bring it up to snuff in a lot of ways. We’ve seen a big shift in that way. We’re doing a lot of redesigns, a lot of modernization projects

Lee Kantor: [00:05:10] Now in your work in strategy and business development. Can you share some advice for folks that are transitioning into maybe targeting enterprise level customers? How do you kind of go about opening the door to building the relationship and then taking the project to the finish line and getting all that buy in from all the, you know, the bureaucracy that usually comes with an enterprise sale to you, move from the champion to all the people that have to sign off on the decision of this magnitude.

Matt Paige: [00:05:38] Yeah, you hit on it once you’re moving in that enterprise level, especially in bigger deal sizes as well. It’s really about that relationship. You’re not going to win them over with just some marketing. It’s it’s showing thought leadership right that you uniquely understand their industry, their pain points, their problems is really a better entry point, but really building that relationship and building that trust as well. And a lot of times we look to build that in the sales cycle, sometimes some initial smaller engagements just to help in terms of discovery or some design. And really, it’s about building that trust, building the trust within your main stakeholders, as well as the the broader organization. So it’s it’s a definite shift when you start to move up into more of an enterprise type type sale there.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:27] Now how do you manage the kind of sometimes the inertia to make a decision or a change when you’re working with someone and you think you’ve answered all their questions and then someone is, I don’t want to say sabotaging it, but maybe just kind of putting it on the back burner. How do you kind of keep it going, even though it might seem like there’s no interest, but you’re like one person or two people away from making the deal happen?

Matt Paige: [00:06:51] Yeah, I think the key thing is a knowing up front who were the key decision makers and really having that tight relationship with them, who actually owns the budget. And it’s also, you know, that person that may be bringing up this point or seeming like they’re undermining it, they probably have a valid reason. They’re bringing it up, right? So taking it into consideration, making sure that they’re also heard and understood as a big part of it. All right, because there probably is a valuable reason they’re bringing it up. So really, bringing them almost into the conversation sometimes can can help with that decision making process.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:27] Now how are you finding the Atlanta kind of software ecosystem? It seems like we’ve had some big wins lately. Can you talk about how that is as a collaborative community?

Matt Paige: [00:07:40] Yeah, Atlanta has just been great. You look at MailChimp recently, the acquisition there, then to it, there’s just a lot of great instances, especially when you look at fintech in the financial services space in Atlanta. So it’s been a great place for us to grow up and evolve. And it’s just, I think the sky’s the limit for. And you know, what else is unique is with our move to remote and COVID, we also have a near offering because we have an office in Costa Rica. It’s completely transformed in a lot of ways how we do things, we do it in an integrated model. So what folks developers here in Atlanta, as well as in Latin America. And it just provides a more cost effective option for a lot of our customers without sacrificing the quality. But Atlanta has just been great for us. We’re a lot of us are born and raised in Atlanta here as well and just a great community to be a part of.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:44] Now how are you finding Atlanta’s reputation nationwide when it comes to software?

Matt Paige: [00:08:49] Yeah, it’s interesting. Even from like 2016 when we started, it’s just it’s completely evolving. It’s being known as more of a technology hotbed. Especially with know you think of newer startups and kind of venture backed endeavors. A lot of that is just increased in big ways, and there’s a lot of huge staple companies here as well. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of big enterprises in the technology space that we work with as well. Now continue to evolve.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:21] Now, from a talent standpoint, now as we go remote, you know, some of the trade offs are now the world is your oyster when it comes to talent is. Are you finding that other cities in the southeast are kind of following the lead of Atlanta? And maybe, you know, the Carolinas in terms of becoming this kind of tech hotbed in terms of finding talent that are kind of OK with moving down here and living here, where the cost of living is may be better than it would be in, you know, obviously San Francisco or Boston or somewhere like that. But now you have the world, so then you know, you can live in Wichita and work here in Atlanta now. So how do you kind of see the southeast as a as a whole

Matt Paige: [00:10:06] Like the southeast is a great spot to be. You mentioned cost of living and all of that, but yeah, it’s just this remote environment that we’re in is completely changed everything. And I think we’ve proven that we can do it. You know, we almost needed the push to get us there, but leveraging all kinds of tools like Miro and other collaboration tools that we leverage just making it easy to collaborate with our customers. But it’s it’s definitely changed. The game in the talent market is it’s hot right now. There’s a huge it’s almost like an arms race for talent. And the key thing is making sure that you’re you’re retaining your your core people, right, that you’re providing a great experience for your employees. And we do that through our culture that we really promote and really try to live by, by sharing stories about how we promote it, about living by it every day. But that’s a big piece. You know, the talent market is very hot right now, especially Atlanta, and I think it’s only going to continue to grow in that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:13] And that’s why it’s so important to have kind of the ecosystem we have that takes a person from the university into these growing businesses. And there’s a lot of density. So if something, if they move to a startup that doesn’t work, there’s a place for them to land. They don’t have to move.

Matt Paige: [00:11:30] Oh yeah, definitely. And we’ve the university system here is just great. Go dogs, by the way, and our founders actually at University of Georgia grad and our CTOs at Georgia Tech grad. So it’s kind of the battle there. But we’ve also started some internship programs just with local universities here. But there’s just such a hotbed of talent and so much opportunity here in the southeast and especially in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:57] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Matt Paige: [00:12:01] Yes. Just really excited to get to talk to you today. I’m just helping, you know, talk about how we how we solve problems for our customers, the type of things we do and just really excited about serving our customers and our clients really kind of an outcomes focused company. That’s where we like to start with our customers is what outcomes do they want to achieve? It’s not just about how much velocity you have in a sprint, it’s what business goals are we driving? We’re going to make sure we’re building solutions that are usable, feasible and viable for our customers and their business

Lee Kantor: [00:12:41] And that it’ll help them get. Like you said, the outcome they desire, not something that they thought they wanted that that it may not achieve that. You know, a lot of times people have ideas, but you know, when you start vetting them, it may not be the right thing that they should be working on. And to have a trusted partner like hatch works kind of help them through that to get that outcome that they really, really want. Not the one they think they want. That’s that’s huge.

Matt Paige: [00:13:07] And that’s the biggest thing. We start with the problem in mind, not necessarily the solution. We put a lot of focus in the discovery and strategic side of it and the design for that very reason, right? We don’t want to build a solution in the customer, come back and say, Well, that’s that’s not solving my problem or there’s another problem I didn’t even know I had or we want to get in front of that up front before you’re actually developing any form of software. So doing that through prototypes, you know, clickable prototypes, design, discovery workshops and sessions. So that’s a huge part of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:43] Yeah, that old saying measure twice cut once it applies to software as well.

Matt Paige: [00:13:47] Oh yeah, most definitely. Yeah, that’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:50] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about your offerings, what you can do for them and or if the talent and looking for a place to land, what is the website?

Matt Paige: [00:14:01] Yeah, that’s QCOM is the website. And yeah, from both sides. Whether you’re have a need in your customer or you’re a great engineer, we’re always looking to expand our team. We actually have several open roles on the engineering side, the product side of things. So definitely check that out as well. See, that’s where you can find us.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:22] Good stuff, Matt. Thank you so much for sharing your story today, man.

Matt Paige: [00:14:25] Thanks. I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:26] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

 

Madelaine Claire Weiss With Mind Over Matters, LLC

by

Madelaine Claire Weiss (LICSW, MBA, BCC) is a Harvard-trained Licensed Psychotherapist, Mindset Expert, and Board-Certified Executive, Career, Life Coach who helps people master their minds so they can maintain and enjoy satisfaction and success in all areas of their lives.

She is a co-author in the Handbook of Stressful Transitions Across the Lifespan and author of the new release “Getting to G.R.E.A.T. 5-Step Strategy for Work and Life.”

Madelaine is a former group mental health practice administrative director, a corporate chief organizational development officer, and associate director of the Anatomical Gift Program at Harvard Medical School where she spoke before the Joint Committee on the Status of Women.

As a corporate trainer, Madelaine designed and delivered programs for such diverse organizations as Harvard Medical School, Legal Services Corporation, and AARP.

She has been featured on NBC, Bold TV, FOX TV, appears frequently as a podcast guest expert including Major, Lindsey, & Africa’s Erasing the Stigma; has written for Thrive Global, Authority Magazine’s Editors List, UpJourney, My Perfect Financial Advisor; and conducted webinars for such organizations as the American Bar Association and Harvard Law School Association-MA.

Connect with Madelaine on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • A Great Life Depends on a Great Fit Between Who We Are and the Environments in Which We Work and Live

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 Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxAmbassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Madeleine Claire Weiss with mind over matters. Welcome.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:00:43] Hello. Hello. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about mind over matters. How are you serving, folks?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:00:53] So I help busy professionals and entrepreneurs find more hours in the day energy, peace of mind, freedom and fulfillment. All those good things maintaining their high performance because people are worried that if they relax a bit, they’ll lose the whole thing. So it’s maintaining that high performance without burning out.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] Now, why do you think that that is kind of a common thread among high achievers that everything is precarious and that if they just don’t, if they take their foot off the gas, then everything could tumble down.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:01:36] I think that’s because the kinds of people that I work with are headed to places they may have never been before, which is wonderful because there’s so aspiring and wanting so much to build and create, but because they’ve never been there before. And in some of their cases, no one has ever been there before in the kinds of things that they’re building. There’s so much uncertainty about what the outcomes will be and whether they would be able to manage them or not.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:17] But if if they look at their life trajectory, though, they have a history of success and the history of achieving. Yes, but they still have doubt that the next thing might be the one that, you know, makes all the dominoes fall down.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:02:32] Yes, because they have never been there before, you know, everybody talked so much about the imposter syndrome. And I have, by the way, on my website, I have my blogs there and there’s one on the imposter syndrome. And I quoted an author who made a really good point, which is that when you’re going someplace you’ve never been before. If you’re not at least a little bit nervous, we would worry about you more. Because what kind of arrogance would it take to think that you could handle perfectly something you’ve never handled before? So it’s so normal, and that’s a large piece of what I try to convey to people. And in fact, there’s this wonderful Yale study that says that learning and creating takes place optimally when we are 70 percent outside of our comfort zone. So people are waiting around till they feel comfortable, and that’s like, don’t do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:46] So then all you need to do is feel 30 percent certain.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:03:50] No, well, there’s what. What happens is that when we are in our comfort zone, the brain thinks everything’s fine and all the learning and problem-solving centers turn off. So there’s what we need to do is embrace that discomfort rather than shy away from it.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:14] So then the discomfort is almost kind of a good sign.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:04:18] Yes, yes. Because if we’re not uncomfortable, there’s a really good chance nothing is happening.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:25] So when you have that discomfort, you kind of have to lean into it and just trust trust the kind of the process and trust your previous history of success.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:04:36] Yeah, I heard it said the other day, and I love this. We get to choose our choices, but not their outcomes.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:48] Right. And and the outcomes, I think we a lot of times we focus so much on the outcomes. We forget the importance of the process. And if you trust the process, the outcomes are going to come or they’re not. But the process of you have a good one, then you should be OK.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:05:05] Well, I always like to come as close as I can myself to doing the right things right in the process so that when if things don’t work out, it’s not because I didn’t do my best. And that just relieves us of a lot of the pain that people feel when things don’t work out the way they wanted them to. They kind of beat themselves up about that. But if we, as you say, trust in the process and come as close as we can to doing the right things right, we’re spared all of that pain and suffering.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:43] And I would imagine the stress that comes along with this, because if you really work on your process and get that tight and clean and and right, then that takes a lot of the pressure off because, you know, look, I’m just working the process and then the outcome I can if I can let go of the outcome a little bit and just trust the process and work on getting as good of a process as possible, I would imagine stress melts away.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:06:09] Yes. One of my mentors taught me years ago I was working in a large, prestigious institution and everybody was acting nuts. And I went to him. I was in tears about how crazy it all felt. And he said to me, Just do good work. That’s your best friend and your best protection. Just do good work. And I lived by that, and I share that with all of my clients that that’s your best friend and your best protection, just doing and knowing that you did good work.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:51] Now, is this the subject matter of kind of your work and your books and and kind of what you preach is kind of helping folks create that process that’s going to serve them?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:07:04] And I call it sometimes an environmental fitness reboot. It is much easier to be doing good work and doing right things right and appreciating it and thriving in it at all when it is aligned with who we really are, not who someone else said we should be or who we may have even thought we should be throughout our lives. But the true essence of what it is that we really hold dear and has meaning for us, the closer we can come to closing the gap between who we are and the environments in which we work and live. The more we thrive and flourish and work in life. So that’s the essence of my book if you were referring to that, which is getting to great.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:01] Well, I was referring to the book and your work in coaching and training, yet that it to me, it centers around kind of creating more congruence between the the life you would like to lead and that you were meant to lead and maybe the life you’re leading now. And maybe if you get to the heart and peel back some layers that maybe you think you’re on a path that you were meant to do, but maybe it was someone else’s path, you know, it might. And that’s where a lot of the stress and discomfort comes in is that you aren’t aligned with your true north and the quicker you can identify what that is and put processes in place to align yourself and kind of maximize your talents and your mission, then life becomes a lot easier and a lot less stressful.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:08:48] Right on perfect. Yep.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:52] Now what’s your back story? How did you kind of orchestrate your life to be in this direction to help so many folks?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:09:01] So when I was 15 years old, my father, who was 42 years old, died suddenly of what the doctors called a cerebral hemorrhage. My mother said that he died of work stress. I started out my career, oddly enough, in a clinical chemistry laboratory. I worked for the USDA Biological Control Lab and Drexel University’s Cardiac Catheter Lab, so I was really heavy into laboratory science and all that sort of thing. And yet there was always this pull toward the people so one foot in front of the other over the trajectory of my life. I got closer and closer to working directly with the people. And now it’s no surprise, really, that I always say if I can help one little boy or girl’s mommy or daddy or anybody at all, for that matter, live a happier, healthier, productive life. I feel like I’m doing what I was put here to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:12] No. So now your work is centered around writing and training and coaching.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:10:19] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:20] Yes. Now, how did you make the transition from kind of an academic background working in labs and things like that to working with individual leaders?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:10:33] I have to think about that for a minute, Leigh, so I. I’m trying to think when I made the transition from the clinical setting to the mental health setting, at some point I went back to school and got an MSW and found myself as the administrative director and treasurer of a group mental health center. And then because I became an administrator, I realized I really ought to learn something about this. So then I went back to business school and got an MBA, and it was just, you know, I’ve lived long enough by now to have just kind of followed. I feel like if you get quiet enough inside your truth of your direction kind of bubbles up and you can actually hear it and honor it. And that’s kind of what I’ve done. Just one thing after another pivoting they call it now. I didn’t know I was pivoting.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:45] You were pivoting before it was cool.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:11:47] Yeah. Before it was. That guy had no idea I was pivoting. I was just feeling like there. There was another door to go through. And I love, love, love to learn. I’m a learning junkie, so going back to school was always fun for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:03] Now how in your work are you kind of delineating between maybe the therapy background, the science therapy background to the coaching background and also to the training background? Because I think there’s some overlap between all of them. But there are some distinctions, right?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:12:24] So I’m now a board certified executive coach and the reason I made that pivot from. Psychotherapist to executive coach, executive, career and life coach was because of the future positive action orientation of it. So now at the end of every session, there are action steps in therapy. You never did that. I was very classically trained, but so you never get that close to talking with people about what they’re going to do. And now in my work, it’s very much about what they’re going to do because William James said that. Action doesn’t guarantee happiness, but without action, there is no happiness. So I have become very action oriented in my work with people what I tell them during our introductory session because they typically have the question that you just asked me. So what I tell them is in terms of peeling the onion, you know, going back and looking at the family history and all that kind of stuff, only as much as is necessary to get the job done. And the job is not in your past, it’s your present and your future. So if there’s something that we can learn to facilitate your movement forward and your flourishing and your present and your future great, otherwise it has no bearing. Did that answer?

Lee Kantor: [00:14:08] Yeah, I I I definitely see the distinction there, and then your book, like you said, getting to great five step strategy for working life. This is action steps, right? This is not theoretical. This is stuff that has kind of a strategy and steps I can take to, like you said, create that action and momentum in my life.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:14:35] Well, what happened was my clients were doing so extraordinarily well and they were all so different from each other. And my education and experience is also so diverse that I asked myself about a year or so ago, What is it that’s working here? What are these people doing? What do they all have in common that’s getting them from here to there? And so I kind of reverse engineered this process, which I imagine my delight fit into the acronym. Great. So I was I was kind of thrilled by that. But there there is a process that people go through that has those steps.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:20] So your background, I guess this is just maybe how it was meant to be, but your background enabled you to use some sort of a scientific method to look backwards and assess and see what is the commonality of the success. And from that, you were able to then distill it down to the five steps.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:15:41] Yeah, I’m pretty good at synthesizing stuff. They told me when I first started training, they said, Where did you learn to formulate? And I said, What’s that? So there was there was some sort of ability to see something that seems to work well in the work that I do.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:06] So now, can you share what those five steps with green tea stands for?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:16:11] Sure. So grounding so is G. G for grounding. When people come to me, they don’t typically believe that they can really have a great life. Mostly, they’re just in pain and they want the pain to stop. So the G is for grounding in this belief. That they have everything they need inside of them to have a really great life and that it is very, very possible for them to get there. So that’s the G. The first line of the book is a great life depends on a great fit between who we are and the environments in which we work and live. So to have that fit between who we are and the environments, we need to recognize who we are. Again, not if someone else said we should be or who we may have thought we should be, but who we truly are in our nature and our interests and our values and aspirations and so on. So they are is for recognizing that once people have a better sense of what really matters to them under their belts, they go exploring in the external environments, looking for what is the right fit. So the E is for exploring, so they talk to their present bosses about maybe moving to a different part of their work world or they look at opportunities outside, sometimes opportunities that they didn’t even know existed.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:17:54] Everything opens up now, and or sometimes it was an opportunity they always dreamed about, but that’s not going to happen for me. So the exploring phase has no limits to it. And then we talked about a four hour action. So the A is what I mentioned to you before. We can’t stay in the land of dreaming about the things we wish were. I think the word everybody uses now is manifest. We have to manifest, so we have to take action on those. And then finally, the tea is. For tackling that normal, natural, inherent, predictable, expectable resistance to change that we humans enact when we’re trying to go some place, as I said at the beginning, that we may have never been before. So the brain is really, really good at keeping us safe, and it takes a little more energy and effort for us to go outside of that comfort zone where all the goodies are waiting for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:06] So now I know that that spells the word great was the is tackling last because even after you’ve decided to take action, they’re still going to be resistance or.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:19:21] I’m actually glad that you asked that question, because one of the first things I learned very early on in my education was something called prediction and control. So I will very often talk with people on the front end of our work together about when the resistance hits. What’s it going to look like for you? So it may not come right away, but we do talk about it early on so that when it happens, they can have a stance of, oh yeah, that. So it kind of disempowers the hold on us because it’s like, Oh yeah, that

Lee Kantor: [00:20:06] It’s kind of like an insurance policy. You’re kind of letting them know ahead of time this is going to happen. Just be ready for it.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:20:13] Yes, definitely.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:15] Definitely. Because a lot of people have the same kind of saboteurs that they treat as if this is the first time they’ve ever seen them, even though they might be kind of a recurring theme in their life, right? Yes. Now, OK, I’m sorry.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:20:31] No, I was just going to say a lot of people have different ideas on what to do about the saboteur. I just want to throw in there that. What we resist persists and get stronger. Therefore, I typically recommend making friends with it. It’s like that children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are and the Monster comes out from under the bed, and it’s not so hairy and scary anymore. So I tend to recommend getting to know the saboteur. What’s troubling the saboteur that makes it act like that, and maybe even to address that part of ourselves that I got this now. Trust me. Take my hand and come with me. I got this now.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:24] Now, in your work, do you work with a certain type of leaders? Does this work better? Like kind of in like your background, academic? Scientific.

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:21:35] Actually, my. The clients that I’m working with have really morphed over time, and I am really intrigued by it. I have a lot of. Young millennial types who are taking on the world. I have a 25 year old superconductor in who was a Fulbright scholar who’s working in renewable energy already. Around the world, I have people building companies in Colombia, in Costa Rica, and they’re all just balls on fire now. And I didn’t. I’m not sure what the draw is, but that seems to be who feels like they want to work with me and we’re really doing well and having fun now.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:36] Now, congratulations on that. But yeah, thank you. One reason we do this show is to help other coaches learn from each other. Do you mind sharing with our listeners, like how you got your last client? Like how did the last client that worked working with you? How did they come about?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:22:57] Ok, so most of my clients come through Psychology Today, which? I think you have to have certain licensing to be able to be on that, I get a lot of linked in Pro Finder. So if your listeners don’t know about the Pro Finder, I would highly recommend looking into that. I have taken three extremely high end marketing courses, and honestly, I don’t think that’s where my clients are coming from. I did last hour just talk with a woman I met in a networking group, and she was wanting to know if I could coach her clients, who seem like sometimes she has trouble getting the people who come to her for services. She’s a business development coach and sometimes they don’t do what she wants them to do, and then she goes into a snit about that, and I offered her the option actually to work behind her and lay hands on all of her clients through her while developing her at the same time. So that’s quite possibly going to happen. And so that happened through a networking group. I have lots of coaching colleagues who I’m watching develop their own businesses over time, and there are so many ways to go about how you find your ideal client and they’re all doing something different. So some of them are doing podcasts. A lot of them are writing books. People are doing online courses, so I guess my central message is there is no right way to do this and the right one is probably the one. It’s kind of what they say about physical exercise. The right thing to do is the one that suits you well enough that you might actually do it good stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:16] And that aligns with your philosophy of finding that right kind of true north. And then when it’s all aligned, then life becomes easy or easier. Yeah, yeah. Well, congratulations on all the success. If there’s someone out there that wants to learn more about your books or your practice. And once I get a hold of you. Is there a website that you can share?

Madelaine Claire Weiss: [00:25:36] Yeah. Let me mention, I recently launched an online course that’s at Super Piercy. However, everything is on my website, so if you go to Madelaine Wise dot com, all my social media links are there. There’s a there are buttons for the book and the online course, and there’s also a how to reach me, and I would be delighted to hear from any and all of you.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:06] So and that’s made GLAAD and WUIS. Madeleine, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you, Julie. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

 

Carl Sharperson Jr. With Sharperson’s Executive Leadership

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Carl Sharperson Jr. is a Leadership Innovation Strategist, speaker, author, and coach. He specializes in taking leaders from mediocre to maximizing their potential in work and personal life.

He transforms his audience and coaching clients through his proprietary Sharp Leadership coaching process as well as drawing from his unique experiences in the military, Corporate America and entrepreneurship.

A graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former United States Marine Corps pilot with a BS in Engineering, Carl documented those experiences in his book, Sharp Leadership Overcome Adversity To Lead With Authenticity, which is a life-changing book.

Following his service, he went on to hold a number of senior sales and operational positions with Frito Lay, Procter & Gamble, and Colgate Palmolive. In fact, he was the Vice President of Manufacturing for an international sports company, when he felt the tug towards entrepreneurship.

He then launched Sharperson’s Executive Leadership in 2000, where he has worked with executives at companies including Harley Davidson, BMW, University of North Carolina, and Chick-fil-A, just to name a few.

As a speaker, Carl travels nationally and was trained by the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC, as an adjunct trainer, where he specialized in executive coaching, leadership, and organizational development.

Carl recognizes the value of giving back and works on several communities and faith-based initiatives, serving as a mentor and a resource to maximize the potential of youth today. Carl and his wife make their home in the upstate of SC, and they are the proud parents of a son and a daughter.

Connect with Carl on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Addressing the work-life balance principle
  • Sharp Leadership – Life Changing Principles

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 Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Carl Sampson Jr. and he is with sharpersons executive leadership. Welcome, Carl.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:00:44] Welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here.

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

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:00:52] Well, I’ll start off with I’m the grandson of a Virginia tobacco sharecropper, and what I do is I basically use leadership principles to change cultures. That’s what it’s all about. The culture of an organization, be it church, be it Fortune 500 company, be at the military starts at the top and I work with leaders to change the culture to get better results.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] Now you made a point to share that you know your legacy is from the past of a sharecropper to where you are today. Is there anything when you look back at that lineage that says our folks were destined to the greatness that you’ve achieved?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:01:36] Oh, I think it says that it doesn’t make any difference where you start, it’s where you end up. And if you have good people around you to surround you and you stay grounded in the truth that you can achieve whatever you want to achieve.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:54] So now in your journey, were there points where you were like forks in the road where you’re like, I can, you know, choose this path or that path? And then it seems like you’ve chosen the right path throughout, but maybe there were times where you went awry a little bit.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:02:14] Well, one of the things that I’ve always done throughout my life is things would happen to me and I’d say, OK, what did I learn from that situation and how can I make it better to continuously improve? So I remember when I went out for football for the first time and never played tackle football before, and my coach, who was the third most influential person in my life, Coach Spark, said, You got your pass today. You don’t want to play tournament, no harm, no foul. But if you come back tomorrow, I need you to stay until the end of the season because quitters never win. And winners never quit. Is that if you quit my football team, you might quit school, quit school, get married, might quit your spouse, have kids, quit your kids because once you quit the first time, it’s easier to quit the next time. So at that point in time, I developed a mindset to never quit, and that has served me well.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] So now. So mindset is critically important and that that statement obviously left a mark. Was it because you knew people that quit and you were like, Well, the I have evidence that kind of backs that up? Or did you just kind of trusted this guy knew what he was talking about because he was a good coach?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:03:22] Yeah, I pretty much believe the coach took him at his word and said, I’m going to, you know, that’s what I want to do. I want to play and I’m not going to quit.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:30] And then so then that decision kind of puts you on a journey that was probably hard and difficult and challenging, but you were able to overcome that and be successful there, and that led you to the next kind of step in your career.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:03:44] Exactly. So I did not quit. At the time, I was five foot six hundred and three pounds ninth grade. I never played tackle football before. Fast forward, I stick out the season, my senior year. I’m the most valuable player of the team. My coach sent the recruiter to my high school to recruit me to play football at the Naval Academy, and I didn’t know what the Naval Academy was and it was only 90 miles up the road. If I had quit, that would have never happened.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:12] And then once you were in the Naval Academy, there was a lot of other leadership training happening there.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:04:18] I’m sure exactly a lot of training, a lot of a lot of good relationships with good people with the best of the best, and it just sharpened me and helped me to become the person that I am.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:31] So now, having gone through the Naval Academy and and I interviewed business leaders all the time and a lot of them have that kind of same journey, yours in terms. Not exactly, obviously, but in terms of going through the military and then taking those leadership skills from the military into the business world. Why do you think that the military does such a great job developing leaders and none of we don’t kind of transfer any of that knowledge into like the public school system, like it’s part of the government and we have all this knowledge and have all this track record of success. But none of it is kind of trickling down to the little kids and those same lessons, I would think, would be just as meaningful.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:05:19] Well, it sounds like you were in my conversation yesterday when I was meeting with some with a dean of a school that works with troubled middle schoolers and saying the same thing so the military gives. What does it give you? It gives you discipline. It lets you know exactly what you need to do to get rewarded. It’s physically challenging and it’s mentally challenging. Ok. Those same principles need to be applied in our school systems or any learning system, those exact same things. There are a multitude of young men in particular that went into the military and changed their life because of those elements and more than anything else, the structure and the discipline.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] Right. And in the military, they have kind of a machine to do this like that’s it’s kind of they’re not expecting like the highest achieving people to come into the military. This is built to help regular folks be successful.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:06:19] Yeah, it’s designed to help anybody that comes in no matter what your intellectual level is, what your physical thing is, just some common elements that you go through that will allow you to maximize your potential, whatever that is.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:34] Now is the thing that makes the military an effective leadership teaching machine or training machine. The fact that people have to raise their hand and say, I have to sign a paper and say, I want to do this, whereas school, they’re just kind of put in it and then they’re just, you know, they don’t feel like maybe they chose this.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:06:56] Well, I don’t think that that’s necessarily the differentiator because I’m a firm believer that everybody wants the same thing, no matter what your economic level is, no matter what your background is, no matter what your culture is, everybody wants the same thing. They want to be loved, they want to be respected and they want to be successful. So in any environment, I don’t care. You know, if you can identify those things in an individual, they will perform. If you do those things

Lee Kantor: [00:07:27] Right and then you just have to convince them that they really want that and that to to persuade them maybe to change some behaviors to help them get what they really want, not what they think they want.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:07:40] Yeah, identify what they want, what they’re what they want, what their purpose is, and then allow them. You give them the tools to achieve that and they’re off to the races.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:52] Well, sorry for this kind of aside about this, because this to me is fascinating and it’s important to me. And it’s a it’s a hard problem that I think that we should all spend some energy trying to solve is to, you know, instill some of these leadership qualities in as many young people as possible, because I think without that, we’re going to have problems down the line. I agree. Now let’s talk about your executive leadership, how did you transition from the Naval Academy into business and then from business into, you know, kind of coaching other business leaders?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:08:28] I think one of the things that I had in my body, soul or whatever was kind of a coach mentality. So when you think about what does a coach do, an athletic coach or business coach or military leader, you really you’re developing people, you’re developing leaders. So that was something that was always in me. I think military gave me some skills. I entered corporate America working for Procter and Gamble, which had one of the best organizational development team building, strategic planning, high performing work systems systems. I learn that system in Albany, Georgia, which transformed the community in a multicultural way and got the best results in the company’s history. So I got that learning. I went to Frito-Lay, which was an upper out organization, to learn how to deal in that organization and work for Colgate-Palmolive, a union facility. And then I decided to do my own thing. So I took the learnings from athletics, the military, Procter & Gamble Frito-Lay Union facility in Colgate-Palmolive. It said, OK, what works, what elements of this stuff works, so I just kind of parlayed that and started doing that. I went to some training at the Center for Creative Leadership to get quote unquote fixed. And I went through the training, which is one of the top leadership institutes that’s nonacademic, went through a program called the Looking Glass Experience. Twenty one executives come in on assimilation for a day and then you debrief how you impact the organization and how the organization impacts you.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:10:06] At the end of that, they say, and that was the first time I really got accurate, timely and specific feedback. And I have an opportunity to work with a lot of individuals because I did that on an ongoing basis. So I’m working with high powered executives and all different disciplines, and one of the things I learned was everybody wants the same thing again. They want to be loved, respected and successful, and everybody has issues. I don’t care how much money you have, how much power you have. The question that I asked the executives when they got done was, what’s the one thing that you need to do to become a better leader? They would say this thing. I need to work on my work balance. They say I’m on my third wife and she just filed for divorce. I’m 60 pounds overweight, just had my third stent put in. I’ve got two kids, one doesn’t know me and the other one is on drugs. Ok, those were the things that high powered executives were saying, right? So I knew that I could coach executives and really anybody and everybody has the same thing. Everybody’s got issues just like I have. So that propelled me to go into coaching and consulting.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:15] And then was it a difficult transition having always been involved in kind of a a team enterprise like you’ve had been, whether it’s the military or in these large enterprise level organizations to now being OK, now it’s my show. You know, your team is you. When you started, I’m sure maybe you had a couple of other people around you, but it was basically kind of you and you didn’t have that kind of whole support of an organization around you. Was that a difficult transition?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:11:46] It wasn’t one of the things that I did. Subconsciously, as I think about my career, is as I was picking up these skills, I was always trying to pick up some more know, not knowing what I was going to do with them. And then by the time I got ready to move geographically to be closer to family, I said, I don’t want to do my own thing and I’ve got the skills. I’ve got the ability and then I can look in the mirror every day and see whose fault it is if it’s not working.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:15] Now, when you when it is your own show, how do you kind of handle kind of the sales and marketing? Because not only is it you, the implementer and the leader, but you’re also kind of the marketer and the salesperson and the, you know, you’re all you’re wearing multiple hats here, Rick.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:12:39] And I think that in all those environments that I’ve been in, one of the most important things to remember that I’ve learned is it’s all about relationships. Nobody gets to where they are without having good relationships in the military. People get promoted and get opportunities because of relationships that they have created. If you ask anybody that’s been in the job market for any length of time, say, how did you get this opportunity that you have with this job, that you’re 80 percent of the time? They’ll say somebody, I know a relationship that I had, you know, so that so I’m basically a relationship guy when I talk to people say these are skills, this is what I can offer, build relationships, and that’s kind of how I’ve got my business.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] And then as part of this show’s mission, we’re trying to help other coaches learn from each other, obviously by telling their story and then kind of sharing some of the lessons learned. Can you share maybe how you got your last client? Like, how did the last client come to you? So others can learn from your experience and maybe either replicate, replicated or, you know, might kind of spark something?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:13:50] Yeah, the last client I got started out just with a reach out on LinkedIn. One of the things that I do is I’ll periodically look at LinkedIn and look at people that I think or have a commonality with me. And not only do I look at what they do. I look at what they do when they’re not getting paid. In other words, are they working for Boys and Girls Club? Are they working with United Way or are they on this board? You know, what do they do? What do they do outside of making work? You know, because I’m a firm believer that the whole person, the people that I want to spend time with, not only, you know, are successful at work, they’re also successful at home. They’re leaders in the community. So that’s kind of one of the that’s how I got my most recent client is conversation and relationship building. And how can I help you and how can you help me

Lee Kantor: [00:14:47] Now in your journey, you decided to write a book sharp leadership. Can you talk about what was kind of the catalyst for the idea and why was it important for you to kind of document your philosophy and your kind of life principles in a book form?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:15:03] I went to some coaching myself about four years ago, and one of the things that the instructors said was that it helps if you have a book to give slash that talks about what you do. So I had an idea that I wanted to do it, but to me, it was intimidating to get the grammar right. That would flow have something people want to read. So my daughter, who’s 30 years old now, called me one day and said, Dad, are you serious about writing your book? I said, yes, she says. Are you committed to write in your book? I said yes, she says. If you’re committed to write in your book, she says, I found a book coach and I’ll pay for the services up through the manuscript. So that took away all the. Different excuses that I had. She connected me with a young book coach that was, at the time, thirty two years old. Ok, so if a 32 year old can understand what I’m saying, then that’s a pretty good check. And what I did was I wrote down some things I wanted to talk about in my life.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:16:08] Send it to her, she says. What about this? What about this? I have a question about this and after about four months. It was ready, and I got a lawyer friend to write the acknowledgment or the forward. And a couple of people that I know do a book review in it. My daughter did the the back and I did a why I wrote it and the book popped out and I call it a manual for overcoming adversity in any environment, in any stage of life. I’ve had a 10 year old reading ninety nine year old great great grandmother, C.E.O.s, military leaders, community leaders, family ended up talking about my trials and tribulations, one of which 11 years ago I was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Right? I went to a prep school because I wasn’t academically prepared to go to the Naval Academy. I played football at the Naval Academy. You know, work for three Fortune 500 companies. So those journeys, I document that and what I learned from it. So it’s an easy read with a lot of nuggets in it.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:15] And then is it kind of theoretical or is there a kind of practical insights that a reader can take with them and implement in their business?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:17:25] It’s all my experiences. It’s all my. It’s no theory. It’s all. It’s all examples of, you know, for example, one would be when I was looking for when I was in East Corp, one of the things I learned from, I guess, probably Tony Robbins of 20 30 years ago, Tony Robbins said, learn from the best of the best. You know, if you got something you want to do, learn from the best. So I applied that when I was in corporate America, when I was working for Procter and Gamble and I went to corporate headquarters. Michael Rowland goal was to meet with the best of the best, so I called up the president of the company. I called up several VP’s and I said, I want to meet with you. Ok, we get in the meeting. And I said I told him a little bit about myself. I said, I like for you to do the same. And then I want to find out from you what will be your advice for me to get to this certain level and they all talk to me. Nobody. I was never denied. Learn from the best of the best.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:20] Iron sharpens iron.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:18:22] He does. That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:24] And and that’s a great lesson for young people to not be afraid to make that call. I have found that the same thing true in my life as well, that leaders are open to talking, especially to young people. And you don’t have to have this kind of really super creative, clever way to get in front of that. They want to give back and they want to share what they know. A lot of the times they’ll make time for a young person. Questions and passion.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:18:54] You’re exactly right, and that’s that’s young people, that’s old people, because it’s a natural phenomenon or natural want and need for for people to help others. So what I tell people all the time, if young people know people, if you want to, if you if you’re doing something productive, there’s a ton of people that will help you. But you got to ask them for help.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:16] Right. I think a lot of folks just wait for that phone to ring and they just keep waiting and they can’t understand why other people’s phones are ringing. And it’s because the phone works two ways.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:19:29] You’re exactly right.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:31] So now the types of companies you work with, are they those enterprise level companies that from your past or are you working with entrepreneurs who is your ideal client for coaching?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:19:42] All of the above. I work with young entrepreneurs, old entrepreneurs, I work with Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, school systems. One of the things that I have learned over time, Lee, is and I’ll ask this question, I’ll say, what does a general in the Marine Corps, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a very successful entrepreneur, a superintendent of a school system? What is the one thing that they all have income? The one thing they all have in common is they don’t have anybody they can talk to.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:19] And and that’s where why they hire you, because you become that sounding board.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:20:23] That’s one of the major reasons. Ok. Everybody’s got blind spots. So no matter how smart you are and what you do, there’s some things you can’t see that you miss it. Ok, so what I found is that those that really understand that then they hire, they hire people or put people around them to cover their blind spots. And for an entrepreneur, there’s a ton of blind spots.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:47] Yeah. Now is there industries you work with? Is there a certain kind of symptom that your clients are having? Is it the the Work-Life Balance? Is that the kind of area where they’re struggling, where you’re your team is a good fit or is there, you know, does this work better in manufacturing over like creative services or professional services like? I would imagine it’s industry agnostic, but maybe the point of entry is something around work life balance? Or could it be something else?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:21:19] Yeah, the point of entry normally is I find out what’s keeping them up at night. And so I focus on the organization. I focus on the leadership. So with that, it crosses all different types of industries, you know, so so that’s that’s what I have found. But the work life balance, what I do when I coach, I do a holistic approach and I look just at the business. I look at family. I have to look at family, family, career finances, social, intellectual and the whole holistic way of looking at act. Because when you when you’re talking to somebody or give an example, let’s say somebody calls me and they want me to help them get through something, OK? And then I found out, I found out after talking to them that, yeah, they have some business business things that need to be worked on. But the most important thing that they need to work on is this this child that they got at home is causing havoc. You know, so you know, so if that gets fixed, then the work becomes a whole lot easier.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:24] Right? Yeah. I mean, that’s really important to go layers deep and not they might come to you with, Hey, this is my problem, and then you have a conversation for a few minutes. You’re like, That’s that’s definitely a problem, but I don’t know if that’s the big problem. Let’s go. When you go a little deeper, that’s where you kind of uncover some stuff.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:22:45] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:46] Well, Karl, thank you so much for sharing your story today. If somebody wants to get a hold of the book or get a hold of you. What is the website?

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:22:54] It’s w w w got my first name. Last name J.R.. Carl Sharp Person, J.R. dot com. And if you just Google, my name stuff will pop up podcasts, website speeches, so I’m easy to get a hold up.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:12] Good stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:23:18] Thank you, sir, I appreciate that and my book Sharp Leadership Overcome Adversity to lead with authenticity. Amazon, Barnes Noble and on my website.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:27] Good stuff. Thank you again.

Carl Sharperson Jr.: [00:23:29] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:31] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Anish Michael With Firmspace

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Firmspace-sponsor-banner

Anish Michael serves as Firmspace‘s Chief Executive Officer. Firmspace is coworking private office space for discerning, achievement-driven professionals and executives

Anish joined Firmspace as its CEO in August 2019 after spending fifteen years as a legal advisor to public and private companies, including serving as Firmspace’s outside legal counsel since the company’s inception.

Anish brings his legal and business acumen to Firmspace in an effort to scale up the company’s niche professional workplace model. Anish manages company direction, growth, and strategy at Firmspace.

In his role as CEO, Anish works to share Firmspace’s strategy and vision with its members, strategic partners, and investors.

Connect with Anish on LinkedIn.

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 Firmspace.com. Now here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey everybody, and welcome to Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor. And before we dove into the show today, I want to shout out our sponsor firm space without them. We couldn’t be highlighting and sharing these important stories and speaking of firm space. We actually have the CEO of firmspace on the show today. Please welcome Anish. Michael, welcome to the show, Anish.

Anish Michael: [00:00:44] Max, great to be here, thanks for having me.

Max Kantor: [00:00:46] Of course, let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit about firm space, how you guys serve in the community.

Anish Michael: [00:00:52] Certainly, well, firm space is a flexible office provider for business professionals. We provide private environments that focus on exactly that, the privacy that our members need, the security and the support that they need to to run their businesses. We like to call our concept pro working. It’s really a professional co-working environment and it’s really focused on members that are achievement driven and maybe don’t have a lot of options when it comes to getting their work done and the distraction free environment. So our pro working model gives them that sense of security, privacy and support that they need to accomplish this type of tech work.

Max Kantor: [00:01:38] Now what makes firm SpaceX different from other shared office space companies?

Anish Michael: [00:01:44] Yeah, I would say typically other shared office you generally hear about co-working being from from a traditional standpoint, being a communal environment with open desks that allow for individuals to work that work in environment next to other individuals without much privacy and security. The way we are different is all of our memberships are based on a private office and it allows the professionals that we cater to to really have a distraction free and safe environment to get their work done.

Max Kantor: [00:02:24] It’s funny you say that because I have been in multiple shared office spaces and I feel like it’s always a party. You know, there’s like the ping pong table or the slide, but but what you guys doing are different, and I was looking through your website and to me, there’s almost a sophisticated feel to it. That’s what I felt from looking through your website. So can you share a little bit about your strategy of firm space and how the strategy came to be?

Anish Michael: [00:02:55] Yeah, I know absolutely it, and I’d first say like that. We certainly enjoy a party and getting getting to know others and networking and certainly our environment caters to a networking among our our members when the time is right and appropriate to do that. But we were really founded on the concept of developing a model that worked for the highest level of services from from some urban professionals, mainly lawyers and law firms. And the concept really was generated based on that, and lawyers need a sense of privacy and the ability to focus on their work and service. Their clients in an environment that is going to be distracting isn’t going to compromise the confidentiality of the work that they are working on and the formation that their clients are providing. So that was really the genesis for why we built a model like from space and when we were able to cater to the legal profession, it really allowed us to open the eyes of other professional services and build an environment where it’s sophisticated, it’s professional. It’s meant to keep a focus of getting work done and ultimately being an environment where our clients and our members worry less about the hassles of running the space and more about an environment that they can bring their clients and guests to and be really proud about.

Max Kantor: [00:04:40] So you mentioned lawyers, but what other industries would make good members for firm space?

Anish Michael: [00:04:47] Yeah, sure. In addition to to the to the legal profession financial services consulting real estate, there’s many industries that really fall into the category of needing an environment like ours.

Max Kantor: [00:05:03] You talked about how individuals and members can just bring clients to have a meeting at you guys as offices, and that’s what they focus on. So I’m assuming you have other amenities that kind of help take care of your members like reception areas and mail services, things like that.

Anish Michael: [00:05:21] Yes, we’re full service when it comes to that traditional concept of an office sharing environment. Mail services conference rooms will. Every location will have a board room type conference room that allows for large group gatherings. In addition, we’ll have other smaller conference rooms and hotel rooms that do allow for collaboration when when the when that’s necessary. So there is other amenities in addition to just having that private office environment and all the other basic amenities that you would want in an office environment such as refreshments, the coffee, obviously things of that nature, it’s really more about allowing our members to focus on their business and less about them worrying about the administrative hassles of running an office.

Max Kantor: [00:06:16] Totally, which is great. And you mentioned collaboration and the spaces for collaboration. Do you guys put on any events for your members and how do you support the members in the community?

Anish Michael: [00:06:30] Sure, Max, yeah, definitely want to do things to not only promote our members and their businesses, but also help in the community. Obviously we’re in the middle of challenging times, so we want to make sure we are adhering to the local requirements as it relates to the COVID pandemic. So we’ve done different things. We definitely in terms of our members providing weekly catering services for meals, things of that nature. We’ve even gone to the efforts of making sure we’re being sanitary as we try to provide those types of meals just to make sure everyone’s comfortable in how we do that. But we still want to continue to do that as being a benefit for our members as they come in on a regular basis. And then in terms of for the community, I think we’re new to Chicago or happy to be in a great metropolitan city like like Chicago, and we feel that we are getting our name out there and it’s being recognized over the the last few months since we’ve been open and we’re looking to partner with community partners that that really want to take, take, take initiative and bring in events and other type of formal gatherings to outer space when the time is right. For now, we’re certainly adhering to the COVID mandates that are in place locally, and we are working to provide an atmosphere where our members feel safe and comfortable. Really, the good thing about our environment compared to maybe traditional environments is that we were really built with that social distancing in mind because of the private offices. And so it gives our members comfort to be able to come into their offices, close their door and be able to focus on the task at hand and not worry about some of the some of the things that we all are facing in our daily lives today.

Max Kantor: [00:08:37] Yeah, I got to say you guys were social distancing before it was cool, before it was the cool thing to do. You were ahead of the game there with that one.

Anish Michael: [00:08:45] Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.

Max Kantor: [00:08:47] Is there anything special about the Chicago firm space location it compared to the other firm’s space locations?

Anish Michael: [00:08:54] Well, we it’s unique in the sense that we have three floors at the top of our building at one point forty five South Wales, and it’s great to be at the top of the building. We actually are contiguous with the amenity floor at the very top of the building, so it really gives our members the ability to enjoy their private office environment, but really have a really close step to being on the amenity level of the building, which comes with a workout facility, shower rooms, outdoor terrace when they want to go out and get a fresh breath of air and additional open areas to be able to collaborate with not only their colleagues but guests that they want to invite to the building. It also has a golf simulator up there, so if someone wants to go upstairs and take a quick break from from the daily grind, we think it’s just a great amenity for us and we’re glad to be a part of the building and so close to it.

Max Kantor: [00:09:58] Initially, it seems like you’re not only giving people private office spaces, it’s almost a lifestyle, I mean, you could spend an entire day at the firm space location.

Anish Michael: [00:10:08] Well, yeah, yeah, it’s funny that you say that I think the building and the great group of developers and the landlords that built that with had a really good understanding in mind. Tom Rogic, architects and company who helped develop the the the the building rosette industry. They they really put forth the thought and were able to think through what really makes sense in this part of town, what really is an amenity that people are longing for. They come from a background in building high rise condominiums. And it’s funny because it really does have a great feel, not only of a wonderful office space where where professionals can come and focus on the work, but it gives them the ability to do things that are attractive for everyday living.

Max Kantor: [00:11:10] And we’re talking about the Chicago firm space. But how where are your other firm space locations across the country?

Anish Michael: [00:11:18] Sure, yeah. Be happy to tell you, we currently have five locations at this point, Chicago being our most recent, but we also have locations in Austin, Denver, Houston and Atlanta.

Max Kantor: [00:11:32] And how did you guys end up picking those cities?

Anish Michael: [00:11:37] Well, you know what, it’s it’s a great question, and it’s something that we’re we are really particular about. We do a lot of research up front and make sure we are in cities that where we see a need for our particular concept, right? And that includes growing cities with professionals that have a desire to be in our environment. But it also needs to be in the right location with the ability for our professionals to have the additional amenities not only not only within our space, but not only within the building, but also in the surrounding area, the surrounding block to to really have a complete environment, if you will, for the type of things they want to do on a daily basis. So those things are important to us as we grow and expand, and those are some of the reasons why we’ve made the decisions to be in the cities where we’re currently at.

Max Kantor: [00:12:36] So if there’s a member in one city, say Chicago and they become a member of the Chicago firm space, do they get access to the other firm space locations as well?

Anish Michael: [00:12:47] Absolutely. It’s something that we’ve been wanting to have, and it’s a reason why we’re we’re spread out all over the country at this point in time. We’re wanting to build a network so that our members have the ability to access firm space wherever they may be. So if they happen to be a first base Chicago member and want to head to Denver for a couple of days if there is availability to have an office in the Denver location, our first base Chicago member is more than welcome to use it.

Max Kantor: [00:13:23] What are your different types of memberships for professionals?

Anish Michael: [00:13:28] Yes, it’s a great, great question, Max, because we’ve thought a lot about it with the way the work environment has changed through the pandemic. Our basic membership has been a private office membership where you can get a private office with how many guests are needed and that can range within our locations. But those private office memberships are typically based on a two month, six month or 12 month term. So there’s a lot of flexibility in terms of how long of a duration that our members want. And in addition to that private office, we have other products such as conference room, use day office use, even a firm space hybrid product which piggybacks our private office membership in the sense that we allow for up to three people to use the same office and desk so long as they’re just not working there at the same time. So we decided to bring out that hybrid product for a small fee. It’s always been a two to one ratio for us with our guest. We just bumped it up to a three to one ratio because we feel there’s a demand out there and people are longing for a hybrid work environment. And this is our way to say, Hey, we’re here to try to meet this desire and demand and give give companies a little bit more flexibility in how they want to staff their work environments.

Max Kantor: [00:15:09] Totally. And Aneesh, you sound very passionate about what you do. It sounds like you enjoy being the CEO of Firm Space. So for you, what’s the most rewarding part of the job?

Anish Michael: [00:15:20] Well, it’s great to be a part of a company that’s finding ways to innovate and bring new concepts and solutions to the commercial real estate industry. That’s been fun since day one, something that we’re trying to accomplish and and give people more solutions, more options. But I have to say just the day to day gratitude and fulfillment that I have is just working with my team and just growing something special. And you and I both know that, you know, a product is only good as the people that are around it and able to promote it and support it. And and at the end of the day, while we’re selling office space and giving people a place to work, we’re really here to support their their mission, their business, the things that they’re trying to accomplish. And that’s really at the at the end of the day, what firm space is all about. We are trying to enable people to achieve their very best and it just happens to be in a private office environment. But we’re also here to be an extension of their business and provide the support they need to excel in their day to day work.

Max Kantor: [00:16:39] And so for any professional that’s looking to achieve their very best or even to learn more about firm space in general, what’s the best way they can find you guys?

Anish Michael: [00:16:51] Absolutely the best way is go to our website at WW from Space.com. And for the folks in Chicago, please come check us out. We’re located at one point forty five South Wales in the central loop, right off of the Quincy Loop and in a great place. I think for for many professionals to want to continue and really rejuvenate their their their work, for sure.

Max Kantor: [00:17:20] Anish, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Anish Michael: [00:17:24] Thank you very much, I appreciate you having me.

Max Kantor: [00:17:26] And it’s not every day that I get to talk to the CEO of Firm Space, so I also got to say thank you so much for sponsoring the show. Thanks to firm SpaceX, we’ve been able to talk to amazing businesses across the Chicagoland area, from small theaters to restaurants to everything in between. So a very special thank you for for helping us out being able to highlight these local businesses.

Anish Michael: [00:17:49] You bet. Max, good luck to you.

Max Kantor: [00:17:51] Thank you so much and thanks everyone for listening to another great episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:18:01] This episode is Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm SpaceX, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to Firme Space.com.

Alan Reed With Chicagoland Food And Beverage Network

by

Firmspace-sponsor-banner

AlanReedAlan Reed is the Executive Director of Chicagoland Food & Beverage Network. Prior to this role, Alan was Executive Vice President, Strategy & Innovation at Dairy Management, Inc., and was responsible for creating and driving innovative strategies to grow dairy demand.

Alan has a degree in Telecommunications from Indiana University and an MBA in Management & Strategy from Northwestern University.

Follow Chicagoland Food & Beverage Network on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

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 FirmSpace, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to Firmspace.com. Now here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey everybody, and welcome to Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor. And before we dove in today, just want to give a shout out to our sponsor firmSpace. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories that we are so special thanks to firm SpaceX for sponsoring today’s show. On today’s show, we have the executive director of the Chicago Land, Food and Beverage Network, so please welcome to the show, Mr. Alan Reed. Alan, welcome to the show.

Alan Reed: [00:00:47] Thanks so much. Glad to be here.

Max Kantor: [00:00:48] So let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit. What is the Chicagoland food and beverage network?

Alan Reed: [00:00:55] Well, we are a about four year old industry organization that brings together the food and beverage industry of the greater Chicagoland area to do great things. Sometimes just compare notes to network, but also talk about innovation and growth and how to make our industry better, how to make our communities better and everything in between.

Max Kantor: [00:01:18] So how big is the food and beverage industry in the city of Chicago?

Alan Reed: [00:01:23] It’s huge. Everyone knows us. Chicago is a is a food and beverage town. But there are, if you’re there are forty five hundred food and beverage companies. So not not just restaurants. We’re not counting restaurants in there, but these are the companies that actually manufacture, distribute and market food products. And over one hundred and fifty thousand people in the greater Chicagoland area work in food and beverage. So it’s an important industry for our economy here. We consider ourselves the Silicon Valley of food and beverage here. And again, we are a we are a food city and again full of just, I’ll say, terrific companies and terrific people who sort of make this amazing ecosystem work.

Max Kantor: [00:02:12] How did Chicago become such a hub for the food and beverage industry?

Alan Reed: [00:02:19] Wow. It goes back a long time. And actually back to the world’s fair back in while I think eighteen, seventy one and Chicago was sort of a showplace for what was happening in in the meatpacking and sort of the meat industry and some of the signs of the progress that we were showing, like we have these amazing trains so you can get the the processed meat all over the country and incredible sort of factory equipment, et cetera. And it really started started from there. A lot of the companies that call Chicago home had their had their origins around sort of this meatpacking industry that we were really leading the way in and have for a couple of hundred years.

Max Kantor: [00:03:10] Oh, that’s interesting. That’s a that’s a history I was not familiar with. So I found that very interesting that all all about that with the Chicago Land, Food and Beverage Network, like you talked about the history of the meatpacking industry in Chicago, now there’s so much more such a broad industry with all different types of people. So what type of members do you have in the Chicago land, food and Beverage Network?

Alan Reed: [00:03:33] Wow. So we have big members, small numbers and sort of everywhere in between. So some of our some of our large members are the are the names that people know. So the Kraft Heinz, Mars, Wrigley, Kellogg, Tyson, PepsiCo and then some of our we would call them emerging brands. Some of our emerging brands are they’re great, just innovative growing companies here like like Simple Mills and Farmer’s Fridge and Blake seed based snacks. And and so many more. I’m forgetting hundreds of them. And then we also have this, I’ll say amazing. Sort of only in Chicago do you call a company that that does a billion dollars in sales mid-size. But we have these mid-sized companies who are sort of like plus or right around a billion dollars in sales. And those are the Eli’s cheesecakes and mini meats and and and Toronto bakeries, et cetera. So it’s a really big, small and everywhere in between, which is part of what makes Chicago just such an exciting place to be in the food and beverage business.

Max Kantor: [00:04:52] Yeah, for sure. And it’s it’s really interesting how you have all these types of businesses and companies under this one network. So I have to know how do you help these smaller you mentioned emerging brands and even mid-sized brands, how do you help them learn from some of the bigger brands all within your network?

Alan Reed: [00:05:11] Well, so we would say that we want them to learn from each other. There are amazing things that are large global companies that they can do, that small companies cannot. And also, I’ll say knowledge and resources and consultants and contractors and others that large companies have access to. But I got to tell you those startups like they do amazing things, and I will tell you we hear this all the time that the big companies learn as much from the small companies as the small companies do, the big companies, they’re really again, I think it’s really what makes Chicago just such a vital, amazing place. Because, yeah, again, a a three year old company run by a 30 year old who’s never run a food business before stands toe to toe with executives from again. Some of our great members like like Adam.

Max Kantor: [00:06:10] Yeah, it’s a great atmosphere for collaboration. So with that collaboration, do you guys put on events to help companies get together to network and learn from each other?

Alan Reed: [00:06:23] Absolutely. It’s one of the things we we pride ourselves on and sort of built our organization around. So we go back pre-COVID, starting back in twenty nineteen. We put on 40 in-person events a year, and we don’t believe in going and putting those in sort of, let me say, windowless hotel ballrooms. We like to put them in exciting places around Chicago with great views or inside amazing companies or inside great agencies, or I mean, really so that people can not just network, but they can also see what is the rest of the industry doing and what does it look like and what’s exciting to me again, because we have so many great companies here that engage in food and beverage.

Max Kantor: [00:07:10] You mentioned COVID, and I’m sure COVID had a big impact on not only the events you were putting on, but your members of the network as well. I know how it impacted the restaurant industry and not just the restaurant industry, but the food and beverage industry at large. So how did you guys help companies within the food and beverage industry cope with COVID? And how did your events adjust to the pandemic?

Alan Reed: [00:07:35] Well, we very quickly switched all of our events for four, 20 20 into virtual. So that was the first step, and then we realized there was such a need for connection that we actually added events. We ended up doing over 60 events. So I mean, over one a week, if you can even wrap your head around that, sometimes you have trouble to do because so many questions were coming up so quickly. And it’s like, Hey, what are you doing about this? What are you doing about this? And like, what we really found is that people just needed a place to talk about, Hey, here’s what I’m facing. Are you facing the same thing? What are you doing about that? And it truly became a virtual sort of place for conversation or two to move these important topics forward and just keep the industry really up to speed on what others and industry were doing. And I’ll tell you, we actually change some of the way we do our events. We’re like, Wow, we don’t. No one knows what’s right or wrong. Let’s just let’s let people just talk and discuss and and ask questions. And it’s not necessarily about this is the right way. It’s about this. This is how we’re doing it.

Max Kantor: [00:08:53] Absolutely. And getting people together, you give them the opportunity, like you mentioned, to learn from one another and really start to identify kind of what were the old trends in the industry? What are the current trends? And hey, when we put our minds together, what could those future trends be? You know,

Alan Reed: [00:09:09] Absolutely. And I’ll also say giving people connections or companies connections to to resources they need to make their business better on things like the the PPP program. We have some terrific banking members, so we connected with some of our some of our corporate members so that they could actually tap into some of the resources that were being offered.

Max Kantor: [00:09:35] Now, speaking of resources, I know, you know, these networking events are just an amazing resource that we’ve been talking about what other resources are available to members in the Chicagoland food and beverage network?

Alan Reed: [00:09:48] Well, so we have quite a few things. So we we actually keep a virtual library of really all of the events and the contacts within there. We have a searchable database of all of our members. So if you’re looking for a particular person company or expertize, you can you can search by that. In addition, we have and it’s one of our more popular things. We have a co-packer database, so co-packers and co. manufacturers are people you can hire to package or manufacture your products for you. And again, a much, a much requested part of what we do. We also we also work hard to connect people. It’s like someone will have a member ask, Wow, do you know anybody that can do this? I’m like, I don’t just know one. I know. 10. Let me let me make sure introductions are made for you. So we do do an introduction service and we also do do some consulting. We have many companies who are interested in what noncompetitive companies are doing. So we again pre-COVID and we’re ramping this back up for before next year. But we also do. We also do sort of consulting and sort of innovation tours where you can literally see how others are are working in industry.

Max Kantor: [00:11:10] What trends are you seeing coming within the food and beverage industry?

Alan Reed: [00:11:16] Oh wow, there’s they’re all. It’s an odd moment just because there’s so much happening. I’d say the biggest trend right now is everybody is looking for additional suppliers where the big trend is we’re moving from. What we used to call sort of just in time, so you get your ingredients and have everything done just in time to make it and get it to the the retailer exactly when their customer needs it. And with all the disruptions in the supply chain sort of across the world and not just in food and beverage, but in lots of places, we’re now they’re calling it just in case. So now we’re we’re watching companies who used to be great at just in time, moving to having a little more inventory, making sure they’re they have their ingredients, making sure that that they they have the things that are absolutely critical to their business to service their customers needs. So I’d say that’s one big trend is just the world of the supply chain is changing in a really important way to really change the way the food and beverage industry works. And I’ll say the other is it’s this interesting balance between how much are people going to eat out at restaurants and how much are people going to eat at home and making sure that that as a food company, you’re you’re addressing both of those both of those segments. And and nobody knows exactly how it’s all going to play out. We’ve seen restaurants come back in a really strong way, but still not quite as strong as they were pre-pandemic. And grocery stores had a great year in twenty twenty. They’re down a little bit this year, but still up if they look at look back at twenty nineteen in most cases. So lots of exciting things, a lot of lots of exciting things going on.

Max Kantor: [00:13:11] Alan, you sound very passionate about what you do within the network. So what would you say is the most rewarding part of your job?

Alan Reed: [00:13:21] Oh, wow. So first, I love working with all of our members and just sort of being a part of this incredible industry overall. But I have to say, the thing that has been most rewarding, especially in the past year, is we we did a crazy little project where we asked a bunch of ingredient companies if they had ingredients they could donate and then we would turn that into something like manufactured and we donate it to to area food banks just based on what they sort of had lying around that that pilot project has led to something that we call the bigger table and bigger table basically works with ingredient companies, manufacturers, food scientists and others to literally formulate healthy product that we gather the ingredients for manufacture and then donate to area food banks. So last year, we donated five hundred and sixty five thousand servings of healthy food to Chicagoland area to food banks. This year, we’re on track to deliver one point five million servings of healthy food. Wow. And it’s just it’s a lot of hard work and it’s a crazy time to do anything like this. But there are hungry people who are really struggling through the pandemic, and it’s just it’s been so amazing to work with great companies willing to just roll up their sleeves, volunteer, donate and get an amazing project done.

Max Kantor: [00:14:53] That is amazing. And I mean, I can’t imagine the impact that that you’re having on these people’s lives. It’s so great what you’re doing. It’s just amazing for the community. So for anyone that is interested in becoming a member or becoming a sponsor, where can they learn more about the Chicagoland food and beverage network?

Alan Reed: [00:15:13] So easiest to go to our website. That’s W-w-what Chicagoland. Org or w-w-what bigger schlaug if they’re interested in our charitable mission?

Max Kantor: [00:15:26] Well, Alan, thank you so much for being on the show today. I can say that I am both a fan of food and beverage, so I think you’re doing a really great stuff for the community and the food and beverage industries in the Chicagoland area. So thank you for being on the show today. Thank you, Matt. And once again, thank you to firm SpaceX for sponsoring today’s episode. I’m your host, Max Cantor. This has been Chicago Business Radio and we will see you next time.

Intro: [00:15:57] This episode is Chicago. Business Radio has been brought to you by firm SpaceX, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to Firme Space.com.

 

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