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Dana J. Murn With AMPED Association Management

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DanaJ.Murn_
Association Leadership Radio
Dana J. Murn With AMPED Association Management
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DanaJ.Murn_Dana J. Murn, CAE, Associate Director/Progam Manager at AMPED Association Management

Dana has been a work-from-home adopter and advocate for over a decade.

She has broad-based knowledge of the overall workings of associations and nonprofit organizations as well as board and sub-board level communication along with specific expertise in membership and online education strategy, as well as strategic planning.

She is a highly-skilled problem solver with the unique ability to think strategically and follow through with implementation.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Women in Leadership
  • Managing Up
  • Working from home
  • Remote Teams/Culture
  • Timeboxing

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Dana Murn: [00:00:27] Thanks, Lee. So happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:29] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Amped. How are you serving folks?

Dana Murn: [00:00:35] Sure. So, you know, honestly, I’ll be completely transparent. I’m new to the association management space. I’ve got ten years of directly working for an association. So association management’s a little new, but I’m getting a chance to work with various clients now, and that’s pretty exciting. We work with a number of different associations in different spaces. We’ve got, you know, a headquarters in D.C. and a headquarters in Middleton. Our owner, Linda Patterson, is just really on fire. She’s doing some really amazing things in the association space. She’s actually the Treasurer on the assay board. So we’ve, we’ve got some movers and shakers over here.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:25] Now having worked in the association world in the sense that you were part of an association, was that your career path you went directly into associations or did you work in traditional businesses and then moved over to the association or nonprofit world?

Dana Murn: [00:01:39] You know, it’s funny, I think about my kind of stumble into associations and it really was just that I actually graduated like right during the time when the economy was not great and I was unlike a lot of my other peers who ended on ended up going on to some additional educational programs. I was like, I’m ready to get out there. So I took a job as an administrative assistant for a tax consulting firm, and I was working with individuals who had not paid their taxes in Wisconsin or to the IRS, which, to be completely honest, I was not aware that there were so many people that had been doing that, and it was a great learning experience. But I really it wasn’t ultimately in the cards for me, so I ended up looking for a different job and I stumbled into associations really just because I read this description online and I was like, That sounds like something I can do. And this sounds like an organization that’s doing some pretty cool things. And that’s how I ended up working with credit unions, actually.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:47] So then you saw kind of what that world is like. Were you a member kind of of any associations prior to that? Like, did you join the chamber or any kind of other groups?

Dana Murn: [00:02:58] No, honestly, that was my first soiree into associations. And I mean, as soon as I dipped a toe in, I was in all the way. Honestly, it just I’ve enjoyed every single person that I’ve come across working with associations. I’m now a member of the Wisconsin Society of Association Executives and I’m a member of RSA as well. I’ve done some other some other things with some other organizations, but those are really my two main associations that I’m a member of. And then honestly, I’ve gotten the chance to meet some really amazing individuals who work for all sorts of associations throughout the United States.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:40] And then now you’re worked with Amped. And I don’t know if everybody if this is common knowledge to everybody, but Amped is an organization that runs associations for a variety of associations. Right. Like the you know, they say there’s like it’s like Russian nesting dolls. Like there’s always another you know, there’s an association for associations. Associations. And it’s one of those things that a lot of folks may not realize that there’s professional association management companies that runs several different and it could be in the same office like, you know, next door could be one and then door down could be a totally different one.

Dana Murn: [00:04:15] Yes, yes, definitely. Yeah, that’s exactly and that’s exactly how we are. We are our company is actually built on we’re we’re an accredited association management company. So we have very high standards in terms of what we do for our clients. And then we also aside from actually like handling day to day operations for some associations, we also do some integrated services where we’ll come in and we’ll handle certain aspects as necessary, just depending on the scope that’s needed by a particular association.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:48] And that kind of service can really help a new or a smaller association really kind of have a bigger feel and a bigger kind of footprint because they can provide a bunch of services. There’s an economies of scale. In certain instances that help these smaller emerging associations really thrive?

Dana Murn: [00:05:06] Definitely. I mean, you know, I’ll the example I’ll give you is just marketing, marketing power in general. I mean, you know, typically if you really depending on the size of the association, you could have a pretty large either marketing department or need to be outsourcing marketing at a pretty high cost as well. And we’re actually able to keep a lot of those things in-house with our association management company, and that savings goes right on to our clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:33] Now, as part of your services, do you help them with kind of like annual conferences or galas or those kind of big events?

Dana Murn: [00:05:40] Yes, actually, for one of the clients that I’m I’m working on, we actually just wrapped up their annual conference that was virtual. And that was the second time that they’d done it. And it was it’s actually their virtual conference is is performing better than their annual conference was doing in person in 2019. So, you know, we’re getting into all sorts of different learning curves with our with our clients, which is awesome. You know, the the pandemic really changed up how a lot of them were doing their education and, and their events. And we did the we did the same thing. We switched up right along with them.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:20] And then I think another advantage of an organization like Amped is that you kind of can really see best practices and really share that knowledge across the board so that you can smooth out a lot of people’s learning curve and they don’t have to go through that kind of rough time of of learning something. You can say, oh, this is working well here. I wonder if it’ll work in this totally different, you know, not a competitor at all, but a different world. And a lot of times that’s so.

Dana Murn: [00:06:47] Definitely I mean, it’s really great to not have to reinvent the wheel if you’ve got a framework that you can look at and go, okay, this could possibly work for this client. It’s really nice to be able to say, okay, this, this worked for them. Let’s see what can work for about this framework for this client. And you’re not starting from ground zero every single time, which is it’s it’s great for the client and it’s great for us as associate directors and executive directors.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:14] So now was that a difficult transition to go from an association where you’re like heads down and you probably knew all the ins and outs and all the nuances of the the association you were working at. And then you come here and then it’s kind of like you get plugged in, played into a, you know, it could be a variety of experiences over the course of your career there.

Dana Murn: [00:07:33] You know. Li It’s funny you say that because while I was at a traditional association for I mean, I had been at two, I worked for a credit union association, and then I worked with I worked with cosmetic dentists the last five years while I was specifically in like the membership role at my at the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, I actually was kind of all over the place at that association. I would I was helping out with anything and everything. So as much as I was like the head of membership, I was doing online education, I was doing, you know, strategic planning. I was doing all sorts of different things that were necessary, as we often do in association space when you need to wear all those hats. So honestly, the transition to association management hasn’t been as as big of a shock as I was worried it would be. It’s actually been pretty smooth and I’m very grateful for that. In fact, I’ve actually been able to take a lot of my direct association experience and apply it to association management, which is awesome.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:44] Now talk about women in leadership roles and associations. Is this something that you feel there is more women in leadership roles in the association world maybe compared to your pre association world life? Or is it something that, you know, we’re all trying to get better at? Like, how do you see women in leadership nowadays?

Dana Murn: [00:09:05] I think that honestly associate the association space is one of, from what I’ve seen, a better place where you see more women leaders. But I do think that we can definitely we can definitely be better all the time. There’s always room for improvement. I think that, you know, overall, it seems to me like the association space is fairly dominated by women, which don’t don’t get me wrong, that is not a bad thing all about I’m all about the girl power. But, you know, I think that when it gets up to those higher leadership positions, you know, it’s really important that we keep advocating for women when they make sense in those positions. I’ve been lucky enough to work not only for an executive director who was female at my last association, but I’ve been able to work. Associations that really did elevate women within the executive leadership team. And I always felt really blessed to work with associations that felt strongly about making sure that they were representative. And now I’m even more lucky because I’m working for for a woman run company now, too. So I’m all about women in leadership.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:22] Lee And what about the pandemic and culture of the organization? Pre-pandemic, you know, there was you know, it was traditional to that. You’re working at the office, we’re all coming in. And the pandemic kind of blew that up. And now all of a sudden, people are working remotely and then, you know, the remote sounds good on paper and it’s like now you can get the best of the best no matter where they are. But there’s something to be said by that. We’re all in the same place and we can bump into each other. I can look over your shoulder. I can kind of sneak into a meeting and then meet somebody. And those kind of accidental collisions where, you know, that that serendipity can occur is is harder to orchestrate when everyone’s virtual.

Dana Murn: [00:11:10] Definitely. It’s as someone who’s been working remotely on and off since I actually started my career, I started out being semi remote a couple of days a week. I continued that when I was working for my my association that worked with credit unions, I worked at least one day a week when I was from home, when I was working for cosmetic dentistry. And then I actually had an opportunity to move closer to family and I couldn’t pass it up. So I was actually thankfully still in driving distance. And it’s similar now with my new with my new company being with Amped, I’m within driving distance, but it’s far enough where you don’t want to make that commute every single day. There’s definitely something to be said, however, to being in the office. I love being remote. I get so I really do find that I am a very productive individual when I’m working from home, which I know not everybody can say. But I do agree with you that there’s a lot of there’s a lot of synergy that happens in person in the office that if you’re not there, you know, I would say, at least for me, a monthly or quarterly at the very least, I think that’s kind of important. I get it. If you’re if you’re getting the opportunity to move farther away and it’s a good life choice for you not being, you know, not having to miss out on an employee that is providing value. But I personally really like where I’m at from being able to work remotely. But when I need to be in the office, I can get into the office.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:48] Now when you are you mentioned your you’re very productive and you probably wherever you would be, you would be very productive. Do you have any tips for folks out there when it comes to productivity or there are some techniques you’re using or tactics that you’ve learned that help you be more productive?

Dana Murn: [00:13:05] I really have taken on an article that I read that was put out by the Harvard Business Review about time boxing. And that has really been something that’s changed how I work. I used to be one of those people. I mean, I’m still am I’m very much someone who manages a lot of their projects using my email inbox. I use color coding and flagging and all sorts of stuff to keep my inbox looking really organized. But at the end of the day, if I’m to in my email, I’m not getting my projects done. So I have found that being able to say, okay, I’m going to spend an hour on this project or 45 minutes on this project and really getting heads down and then coming up for some air and then going back down deep into a project has made me far more productive than I used to be, where I felt like I was kind of moving from project to project a little more aimlessly. That has been a huge game changer for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:03] Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I am a big fan of time boxing and I was telling my team people break promises to themselves all the time. You know, like you say this week, I’m going to do I’m going to exercise or whatever. Like you say all this stuff to yourself, your internal dialog, but when you put it in your calendar and it’s blocked and it’s like I’m exercising now at 2 p.m., then it’s like, you know, I make appointments, I don’t miss appointments. So that just, you know, ties into my personality. So if it’s in the calendar, I just show up, you know, I don’t think about it. I just show up.

Dana Murn: [00:14:39] And, you know, I think the other thing that I found that’s really important, too, and this was another Harvard Business Review article I was reading, was about like when you’re most productive, that was another game changer for me going, You know what? It’s okay that my, like my most productive hours are going to be from like 7 to 2. Like, that’s when my. Real brainpower needs to be added to a project. I can work on some of the other stuff after that time when my brain maybe isn’t firing at its highest level. But like, let’s let’s be let’s be cognizant of when we’re when our brain is being, like, the most active and when we’re firing at our best, rather than trying to be like, Oh, well, I got to hit a 9 to 5. I got to I got to make sure I’m productive that whole time equally. Like, that’s that’s not that’s not at all how things really are. We can all be honest about that. So let’s just, let’s be like, Hey, it’s cool. I know when I’m going to be getting my, my, my major project work done and I’m going to leave this stuff that doesn’t require as much of my brain power to the times when I know that I’m not going to be firing on all of my cylinders.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:48] Now, was that something you just self discovered, like on your own? Just, you know, because it sounds like you’re a lifelong learner, so you’re always reading and you just stumbled upon this. You’re like, Hey, this really resonates with me. Or Did you take part in some training where you learn this? Like, how did this kind of self knowledge come about?

Dana Murn: [00:16:05] So, I mean, I had read a couple articles about, you know, I’ve always been a person who’s believed that 9 to 5 is fairly rigid. So I’ve always been interested, as you say, as a lifelong learner, to read about kind of schedules and when people are most productive and things like that. I did actually attend a session in person where we did have a keynote speaker that talked about, you know, when when you’re most productive and how to utilize that best. And it totally resonated with me. I was like, why? Why do I keep trying to make myself work on like the projects that are really, really crucial to, to what I’m doing at times that are not when my brain is at its best, like, let’s reframe this and let’s make sure we’re, we’re putting our brainpower in the places that it makes sense. That helped me out so much when I kind of unlocked that and went, Hey, you know what? It’s okay. Like you’re going to ebb and flow on when your brain is at its best and that’s okay. Like that’s totally normal.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:08] Yeah. And that, and sadly some people don’t realize that and they get burned out, you know, they’re like, Oh yeah, they just are just trying to fit that round peg into this square hole and it’s not fitting and they don’t get it. And they’re just like, you know, I’ll work longer hours, you know, like they just keep making it worse.

Dana Murn: [00:17:24] Right? And I think that’s the hard part. You know, I think that’s one of the things like as much as the pandemic was really a game changer in some aspects, in a good way. And I totally know that it was not a game changer in some some bad ways, too. But I think from a from like a work perspective and scheduling and understanding and appreciating work life balance, the companies that I think are really getting it and understanding it are realizing that micromanaging the time of their employees and saying, if you’re not doing if you’re not working 9 to 5 with your butt in a chair, they’re losing out on the productivity that could be happening from those employees because there’s so much research out there that says there’s not it is not the right model to get the most productivity out of your employees by making them sit there in a 9 to 5 situation. Like, let’s understand that, that there’s a bit more of a continuum to when people can, can and do get their their job done. And that’s one of the cool things I like about Amped is we have some core hours set up where we go, you know what, you really need to be available between nine and three. But if you’re someone that work wants to get online at six and that’s okay and you’re still getting things handled for your client, that’s okay. Or if you’re someone that would prefer to work till six at night, like that’s fine to adjust your hours. Just make sure that you’re getting your work done. Like, that’s really the end. That’s the end goal.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:56] Right? And a lot of companies lose sight of what the real objective is. It’s not to work 9 to 5. It’s to get the job done and have happy clients.

Dana Murn: [00:19:05] Definitely. Well, happy clients and happy employees. Right. I mean, it’s it’s you want them both. You want it on both sides. So I think that’s the the cool thing about what’s happened now with this kind of revolution about where work is being done, how it’s being done. I think there’s a lot of really awesome things going on that make work life balance more achievable than it than it ever was.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:29] Yeah, I agree 100%. And and look, those companies that are really rigid are probably realizing by their turnover rate that maybe something’s amiss and they just aren’t connecting the dots, that it could be their rigid ness. That’s a problem.

Dana Murn: [00:19:44] Definitely. And that’s that’s a conversation that I know. I’ve got some friends who work for some more rigid companies, and some of them have have actually taken an even an even more harsh stance on what their expectations. Ah in terms of 9 to 5 people in seats like in the office. And those are the ones where you’re seeing a lot of turnover.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:07] Yeah, I was I heard some horror stories like they’re checking like keystrokes and you’ve got to move the mouse like so many times an hour, you know, because they’re, you know, it has to be like you’re working at all times. So, I mean, it’s just I mean, in today’s world, that seems so outdated.

Dana Murn: [00:20:24] Right. Especially when they’ve got way better tracking software out there. Li I mean, come on, keystrokes and mouse movements, there’s they know that there’s other stuff that can track what they’re doing. Like let’s not act like that’s the best way to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:39] So now at AMP, what is kind of the ideal client profile like? What is an association that’s a great fit for AMP? Like what are some of the maybe the pain that they’re having or some of the, you know, goals that they’re having where amps can help them.

Dana Murn: [00:20:53] So amps can can really. So I’ll, I’ll let me step back. I think that Amped can be a good fit for associations that are looking for, you know, someone who an organization that’s looking to do something different. They’re poised to consider how they can do things differently. And they’re looking for an organization that can support that kind of change. You know, we do full I mean, we do full service association management. So we handle we can handle clients. You know, one of the clients I’m working with right now, they have just under 3000 members. We have other state associations where they’re much larger. We have an association that we manage that’s out in California. That’s pretty large, too. I mean, we we kind of, you know, we’ve got the gamut in terms of clients. I would say that a fit for us is really someone who’s looking for something full service, and they’re looking to make that change to a more innovative association management company that’s doing things differently. We’re applying creative solutions and new principles, and we’re working on making sure that our association clients are growing well.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:15] If somebody wants to learn more about the website.

Dana Murn: [00:22:19] Oh, sure, it’s manage associations dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:23] That’s pretty straightforward.

Dana Murn: [00:22:25] It is.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:27] Well, Dana, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dana Murn: [00:22:33] Thanks, Leigh. I appreciate your time and I appreciate the invitation to come on your podcast. It’s awesome.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:38] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on Association Leadership Radio.

Woodstock Arts Series: May 2022

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Cherokee Business Radio
Woodstock Arts Series: May 2022
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This Episode was brought to you by

The Innovation SpotAlma Coffee

 

 

 

WoodstockArtsLogo

BrianGamelBrian Gamel, Managing Director of Woodstock Arts

Brian grew up in the Woodstock area and has loved this town ever since. After going off to get his undergraduate degree in Theatre from Florida State University he came back home and became a part of the Elm Street Cultural Arts Village’s team, now known as Woodstock Arts.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Stone Payton: [00:00:23] Welcome to this very special edition of Cherokee Business Radio. It is time for our Woodstock Arts segment. And of course, we have with us Mr. Brian Gammel. Good morning, sir.

Brian Gamel: [00:00:36] Good morning, sir. How’s it going?

Stone Payton: [00:00:37] It’s going great. Good to have you back. And I got to tell you, you guys, many of you here locally anyway, know that I like hats. And in our studio we must have a dozen hats. And I’m going to have to get one of our other sponsors, Steele Interiors, in here to build me some more shelves so I can have more hats. But I inherited I was gifted a Woodstock arts hat today, so see me walking around town. I will have that hat on almost assuredly. And this is something that people can purchase at the Reeves house or in some of these events, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:01:10] Yes. Yeah. They’ll be able to purchase them at least at the Lantern series and the Reeves house. I think we’re still trying to figure it out for the theater, figure out where a merch station is going to go. But I’m definitely at the Lantern series and at the Reeves house.

Stone Payton: [00:01:19] Well, it’s a good looking hat. And when we publish this segment, we’ll make sure that we get get a good picture of it in there as well. Would it be inappropriate if if we were to share the latest news on the personal front? Man, what’s been happening in your life over the last few weeks?

Brian Gamel: [00:01:35] Well, I just came back from my honeymoon a little hot minute ago because I got married on the 22nd of April. So I accidentally made it Earth Day and we had a fantastic Earth Day. So, yeah, my wife and I, she is the general manager over at Pie Bar, both Marriott and Woodstock. So we just had a phenomenal wedding and just came back from Colorado and had a great trip.

Stone Payton: [00:01:57] That is fantastic. So I had not been to the Marietta paper, but we went and visited with my my cousin Zack, who’s getting ready to leave town and he’s a bartender a couple of doors down at, I don’t know, something with birds.

Brian Gamel: [00:02:13] Two birds. Two birds. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:02:14] Okay. And so so we strolled over into the pie bar there, and of course, they do every bit as great a job there as they do out here in in Woodstock. But, you know, our first love is Woodstock. We like Marietta. We love Marietta. But our first love is Woodstock course. All right. Get us caught up, man. What’s happening over there at Woodstock Arts this month and next?

Brian Gamel: [00:02:34] You know, things have not slowed down just because I was away. We this upcoming Sunday, we have art on the green, which is our twice a year arts market. We had a couple of discussions back and forth on the office where their biannual met once every other year or twice a year. So I’m just going to say twice a year arts market. But it’s on the green space, obviously completely free to attend. You’ll be able to see Vivien and Pie Bar there. They’re actually going to have some free samples for people to try and but we’ll have some live music. Obviously a bunch of great local artists. I believe we have almost 60/10 of hours that you can just go check out their work and hopefully support too.

Stone Payton: [00:03:16] So right there on the green.

Brian Gamel: [00:03:17] Right there on the green, directly across the street from Reformation.

Stone Payton: [00:03:20] And now we have even more and better golf cart parking. Yes, right. Oh, yeah. To the side. There’s some Astroturf out that way. Oh, I may have asked you this last time. Are there maybe we talked about this or there’s some plans maybe to Astroturf the the green or that’s just like a.

Brian Gamel: [00:03:35] There are plans. The funding is where that’s going to take at least a hot minute.

Stone Payton: [00:03:40] It’s always the money, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:03:42] Yeah. Especially with doing that large of a space in Astroturf. It’s, it’s not.

Stone Payton: [00:03:45] As cheap as you might want to bet. It’s not. So we have a little side yard here and we have a little patio home right there on the edge of town. We’re just past IPS in that neighborhood. And so we don’t have a lot. And so as I was watching them do that Astroturf close to the street, I was wondering if I could con them out of a strip, but I didn’t give it. But it looks beautiful.

Brian Gamel: [00:04:08] It’s great. They’ve done a great job, especially with the while I was gone on the honeymoon. It was funny that it feels like all the trees just have all the leaves on them again, so it’s nice and shady over there. It’s looking great over on that side of town.

Stone Payton: [00:04:19] So in these tents, what kind of art and vendors might we see?

Brian Gamel: [00:04:23] It varies tremendously. So you’ll see Madison and Dusty. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but they have stuff and made mercantile.

Stone Payton: [00:04:30] Okay. Well, you know who bars? Yeah. You see the Dirty Unicorn. Is that his moniker. So bars that made I’ve gotten to know him a little bit he made a custom leather tag for me for a Christmas thing that I did, but no, I don’t. What was their.

Brian Gamel: [00:04:46] Name? Madison and Dusty. So they Madison’s actually works with the city on Main Mercantile, so she does a lot of great work there and I know they’ll be there. Katie O’Connor has some of her prints that’ll be there. She has this like at home print. It’s just really cool. I actually got her to do a do something for Vivienne for Christmas. So a lot of really great artists with a large variety of different styles of artwork too. So we’re super excited to have that. Obviously some potters and pottery.

Stone Payton: [00:05:16] Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:18] Just the whole gamut really.

Stone Payton: [00:05:19] And we can nibble on some pie.

Brian Gamel: [00:05:21] Yeah, you can nibble on some pie too.

Stone Payton: [00:05:23] Fantastic. I love the green light. Even today, it’s such a beautiful day to day and I will find some time just to walk around. And I just love making that little walk right by the green, because sometimes I can hear that there’s a there’s a group of people who enjoy playing bluegrass and they’ll be playing in the backyard of reformation. But you can hear them all the way at the at the, you know, on the other side of the green where you’re sitting on the stage. Yeah. And grab you. Usually I’ll grab a beer or a tea or coffee there at Reeves house and then I’ll sit down on that stage. It’s just, and watch the kids play it. And it’s just, I mean, it’s it’s utopia. I love this place.

Brian Gamel: [00:06:02] Yeah. And the weather’s been beautiful recently, especially in the shade where it’s just like, let me. Let me feel that breeze and just listen to that bluegrass in the background. And, yeah, everything’s great. And honestly, we’re, we’re excited. So obviously, we recently had our season revival, which I don’t know if I think you might have actually been on your.

Stone Payton: [00:06:19] I think we were on our boat, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:06:20] Yeah. So we announced everything we’re doing. Our seasons run with the school calendar August through July. Okay. So we announced all the theater shows, at least almost all the theater shows, almost all the concerts and all the exhibits at the Reeves house. But there’s a couple of things we didn’t announce that are happening over at the green where, you know, we’re getting a brand new LED screen over there. So, yeah, yes. It’s it’s going to be bigger and better than the one we had before. Not much bigger, but definitely a lot better. Yeah. So we’re, we’re doing things like a film festival, movie nights, all those sorts of fun things that will, will be coming up. So make sure to mark your calendars once we get those officially announced. But so many great opportunities. We’re talking about video game tournaments out there just so much, so much to do so that that place is going to be definitely busy over the next year or so.

Stone Payton: [00:07:11] I love that idea. I’ve never actually attended a video game tournament, but I’ve seen like snippets of it on online and it looks like a really cool thing.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:21] Well, you know, it’s almost like I’ve seen people play sports games on the JumboTrons at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Right? Like, that’s so cool. The concept of that. So it’d be kind of similar, obviously nowhere near that big. But you could you could see them playing from reformation, right? They’re going to all feel that.

Stone Payton: [00:07:38] Yeah, right. Because it’s like huge. Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:40] Yeah. So I can only imagine playing super smash pros out there with a bunch of people and grabbing you some reformation beer and just having a great time.

Stone Payton: [00:07:49] Yeah. All right. And then we’re into our lantern series now. Yes.

Brian Gamel: [00:07:54] Yeah, we we are. We’ve still been in it a little bit. We had a big jam finally come after I booked him about four years ago and everyone knew they were coming about two years ago. Great, phenomenal concert we had. Wilder But just the duo come recently and that was fantastic. And then I believe I’m going to pull up that date real quick. It’s not this weekend, but the following or no? It’s the 28th, 28th of May. We have the Aditya Prakash Ensemble, which I’m super excited for. Yeah, it’s Carnatic Jazz, which I.

Stone Payton: [00:08:25] Don’t even have a clue what that.

Brian Gamel: [00:08:26] Means. Carnatic? Yeah, Carnatic music is a style of singing and India and the main guy idea. He focuses on trying to bridge that gap. So it’s really what the Lantern series is about of finding different styles of music and making them a lot of fun, making them approachable for an audience that might just hear Carnatic music go, That’s a word I don’t know. I’m not going to listen to it, but like give it that jazz element. And there’s these phenomenal moments where the saxophonist and Aditya, they they’re playing at the same time, the same tempo, like the same notes, and at this very high paced vol like speed. And it’s just so cool to listen to as a saxophonist, right? So. Right. It’s just the talent in this group is so amazing. And also just learning about a new culture. That’s what we’re all about.

Stone Payton: [00:09:20] Sure. Now, does that bump up against Memorial Day? That’s Memorial Day weekend.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:24] Maybe so, yeah. We want to give everyone something to do just for that time off. Did you that concert on Saturday night and enjoy your other two days?

Stone Payton: [00:09:31] Yeah. I can’t imagine it at this point that anyone in the greater Woodstock area wouldn’t wouldn’t know some of this stuff, but I don’t think it’ll hurt. To recap it, there’s there’s always beer and wine there. Yes. That is not like marked up crazy, you know, like when you go to a theater, $10 for a bucket of popcorn. And but you can you can bring some stuff, too, to nibble on like a.

Brian Gamel: [00:09:55] Picnic, of course. So because the beer and wine sold there, we legally can’t have you bring in your own. Sure, but we have it.

Stone Payton: [00:10:01] Therefore we want to support it, right?

Brian Gamel: [00:10:02] Of course. But we do highly recommend bringing in your food. I definitely recommend getting a table if you have, you know, you your significant other and maybe for other people that you can get together, just get a six top table. Because once you decorate that table, if you win the table decorating contest, you get another free table. So you get to just come and enjoy. Multiple concerts at that point. But also you can bring in some food. Just have a great night, you know, get there a little early, set up your picnic, get this table decorated, and then just enjoy a beautiful concert with sun setting right behind the stage. There’s nothing that can beat that view when the sun is setting and you’re listening to some fantastic music, you have your tableside wait staff coming up to you because you’ve got your table. You win your table decorating contest and you know you’re coming to the next one like it’s you know, it’s just a great evening.

Stone Payton: [00:10:49] It is it’s it was initially so much of the initial draw for Holly and I to move here. And it’s it’s just one of those things we brag about and and we try to incorporate whenever family comes to town. And we love to show off so many aspects of Woodstock, but Woodstock Gardens is typically the heart of that show and tell.

Brian Gamel: [00:11:13] Yeah, and we have a lot of great stuff coming up next season too, including a. A special called Croce plays Croce, where if you’re familiar with Jim Croce, his son A.J. Croce plays a lot of the songs from his father and shows some videos of himself growing up and playing with his dad. Obviously, his dad unfortunately died while he was super young. But there’s these family videos and he’ll play time in a bottle and talk about how much that song means to him now and how it connects him to his father. I got to see a snippet of it. That’s how we book these bands. We go to conferences and we see snippets of these maybe 15 minutes worth of a concert. And, you know, I had a tear brought to my eye just that, you know, relationship with a son and his father. And even though they didn’t get a long time of it together, he just it means everything to him. Right. So.

Stone Payton: [00:11:59] So as far as you, are you in the season of going out and doing that or is this the season of staying home and making sure it all gets executed?

Brian Gamel: [00:12:07] This is the season of staying home, making sure it all gets executed. That season’s closer in the fall or winter that way. Know normally once again, behind the scenes, a little bit next season, we’re going to announce our season reveal probably in March or April. I don’t remember the exact date off the top of my head. It’s somewhere in a piece of paper back in my office. But we within theory, we should have everything booked by February. So I know what we’re doing.

Stone Payton: [00:12:32] Right.

Brian Gamel: [00:12:32] Months ahead of anybody else knowing what we’re doing that way, you know, when we announce we can have everything planned out, everything’s schedule, all these beautiful designs made by Libby, our marketing manager, all these fantastic things. And the same thing with the theater. We want to have everything figured out in December and January so that we have time to get directors in place. And, you know.

Stone Payton: [00:12:50] Yeah.

Brian Gamel: [00:12:51] Other people just involve so.

Stone Payton: [00:12:52] So I have a meeting, a one on one, we call it because I’m part of the Woodstock Business Club with a lady at Reeds House today. So we’ll, we’ll, we’ll go sit like in that little area right in front that’s shaded and all that. So I’ll enjoy that as early as this afternoon. But there’s a relatively new exhibitor. It’s not the technical thing with the with the Heather Feathers we call, we’ve turned it over. Right. We’ve got a new exhibit. Yeah, let’s talk about that.

Brian Gamel: [00:13:21] Yeah, it’s the Stacy Rose exhibit. It’s a solo show and it’s just a lot of her work in this more abstract style. So you go from this very technology driven exhibit to this more abstract definitely paint on canvas style exhibit. So kind of taking it back to the roots of traditional art in that sense.

Stone Payton: [00:13:44] So I, I didn’t walk through there and invest a great deal of time. I probably will before or after my meeting today, but I did kind of just zip through there the other day. And I mean all of the exhibits. One of the things that I like about it is often it’s it’s a a style of art that I am not accustomed to seeing. You know, I’ve been blessed in had an opportunity to travel and see, you know, like the old museums. And I got to see some I learned you don’t say Van Gogh, it’s Van Gogh. But I saw like a Van Gogh museum on this last boat ride that we did. But I love the I love the diversity, I guess is, is the right word, the types of exhibits and the type of art that you get exposed to. And I just I love that.

Brian Gamel: [00:14:36] Yeah, I’ve told you before and once again, people might have heard this, but it’s not bad to to re say it. But part of the reason we have a coffee shop and the wine bar in the Reaves house is because, you know, a lot of people might not walk into an art gallery at first or an art museum. They’ll walk in and get their cup of coffee. We make that a habit for them and they go, Wait, that piece is really cool. Maybe I like art. We did our job right, you know? Right. And Nicole has curated a bunch of great stuff going into next season as well. She’s exhibit called Papercut. So if you were ever at the first exhibit and you saw that little paper living room that we did. Yeah, a lot more of stuff like that. There’s another exhibit that I’m really excited for called Off the Wall, because it’s literally pieces that come off and out of the wall towards you as a patron. So it’s super fun, the things that she’s looking at doing and they’re unique, like you said. And I love it when we can get different artists in their interpretations of these types of things, like how women’s work, you know, it was all traditionally women done forms of art, but they were all different styles of that art and different interpretations of that. So Nicole’s really great at curating a phenomenal exhibit.

Stone Payton: [00:15:43] And then you guys do so many other things out of that facility to support and celebrate other forms of art. Other great things come on going on around the community. I think I’ve been to a million cups presentation in that facility. My wife hung a quilt that my sister in law did at this quilt thing you had in the back. There was a there was a jazz night and Holly and I weren’t able to make, but it was definitely on our on our calendar. There’s a lot of cool stuff like that that’s happening virtually weekly, certainly more than. Mostly right.

Brian Gamel: [00:16:20] Yeah. So we have for sure three events that happen every month. One is locals night where in the studio space where you can take classes at. Right. We, we highlight a local artist and hang their artwork and they’re almost like a little mini exhibit and they’re in there for the month. We have art on the spot, which is local artists. Once again, they are making artwork right there in the time frame of the event and you can pay $5 for a raffle ticket and possibly win one of the artworks that’s made right there on the spot. Right? Almost like how we came up with a clever right. And then we do have a monthly jazz night. So that’s always the last Friday of the month.

Stone Payton: [00:16:53] And Jazz tonight is monthly.

Brian Gamel: [00:16:54] It’s completely free to the public to just come in, come out in the back, go ahead and grab yourself a bottle of wine and sit there for a while and listen to some great music by some local musicians.

Stone Payton: [00:17:04] Yeah. And sometimes at some of these other events there’s been I know one local musician, Greg Chadwick’s, who’s a good buddy of mine or has become a good buddy of mine, probably from that. Another great thing about this community, I didn’t realize how much I personally enjoyed live music until I moved here and can walk around and hear it.

Brian Gamel: [00:17:29] So yeah, live, live music is such a great thing and honestly, a great way to support local artists too. I mean, music we found even through the Lantern series is one of the lowest thresholds of artwork. Right. You know, people have these ideas of theater or they have these ideas of visual arts because they think of all the movies and media they’ve seen of, oh, well, the theater.

Stone Payton: [00:17:52] And the.

Brian Gamel: [00:17:53] Art gallery are hoity toity. Like, no, it’s we want to make everything accessible. You know, we might not be we want to be something for everyone as long as you want to be, you know, you want us to be that for you. So that’s like you were saying, every exhibit is different. It’s fun, it’s unique. Every theater show, you know, we just closed sister act. It was a lot of fun. And we on Saturday night, we had a very excited, loud I wouldn’t necessarily say rowdy because it wasn’t like they were ill behaved, but, you know, a rowdy almost crowd. And we had an actor ask us, you know, like, how do we as an organization feel about that? And honestly, we love it. I love the fact that people can come here, you know, whoop and holler, have a great time, feel excited and not feel that pressure of when you go to a hoity toity theater and everyone stares at you because you get super excited or you think a joke is so funny that you let out this guttural, you know, like you didn’t even realize you were going to laugh that hard or but it’s just so much fun. And to see people have such great fun and support artists and support each other, it’s just a cool thing.

Stone Payton: [00:18:58] So are we in that season of a regular rhythm of some theater productions as well.

Brian Gamel: [00:19:03] As we are? So the theater only at most has a couple of months off throughout a year. So right now we actually have the most time off that we normally do because it’s leading into the summer and we have two shows to close out this season. Both are family shows. One’s called Orphan The Book of Heroes, which is based off of Greek mythology. Orpheus Hades is in it. It’s a lot of fun. It’s basically a way for kids to understand that. And it’s goofy, it’s lighthearted, the music’s great. And then we close out our season in July with James and the Giant Peach, so that classic Ronald doll. And it’s just a very, once again, a very fun show and a great group of people that are on it. And then we start the next season in August.

Stone Payton: [00:19:44] Fantastic. All right. So let’s do this, Business RadioX. Let’s talk about local businesses who would like to to to support Woodstock arts, but also get the benefit of being seen as supporting and celebrating the, you know, the local business community and community at large. You have some opportunities to to do some sponsorship. And a lot of these we do.

Brian Gamel: [00:20:12] And something else that we don’t normally talk about that I’ll just plug in first real quick is we’ve had things businesses like Salesforce and other larger corporations too that haven’t sponsored, but their employees have gotten together to volunteer. And that’s a great way to get involved because we are a volunteer run organization. So they’ve come in and they’ve helped build out the set a little bit, right? Or they’ve helped paint something or you know, you don’t need to have all of this knowledge in the world. You could have never picked up a paintbrush before. We will accept you on the paint team because, you know, Katie Caldwell has actually been helping out a lot with that and she can help anyone pick up a roller and paint the stage black. It’s, you know, and then you can grow from there. But from a business standpoint, outside of the volunteerism aspect, we do have sponsorships. We’re about to start the renewal process. So if you’re currently a sponsor, we’ll be seeing you soon. But if you’re looking to sponsor something, we do the full season and there’s different levels. Obviously you can be the presenting sponsor. Those are so Black Airplane is our presenting sponsor for Lantern series. And then. We still have openings for both the Reeves house as well as the theater. And then you can be different levels of sponsors below that, but you get different perks.

Brian Gamel: [00:21:26] So if you’re a theater sponsor, if you’re a gold or presenting, you get one day where you can bring a certain number of people, whether they’re clients, whether they’re your employees, to a reception before the show. Talk to the director, talk to the artistic director, whoever kind of get that backstage tour a little bit to. Yeah, and then go see the show together and just have this great time where you can either get some prospective clients in there or you can just really appreciate your employees lantern series. Kind of the same way you have tables that you can have at each concert, and then with the Reeves house, you can do special appreciation events that will help you do so. If you want to have your own personal jazz night for your for your clients, or we can help you out with that. So there’s a bunch of different things and if you’re interested at all, we have a development manager now who is in charge of all of that, really say her name is Beth, so her email would be Beth at Woodstock Arts dot org. Super easy, but she does great work with all of those things and honestly wants to help you in whatever way you want to showcase your business.

Stone Payton: [00:22:31] So fantastic. And one thing I do not want to leave out because it’s such an important part of my lifestyle now, is at the Reeves house, you know, what, six or seven days a week you can go by there, you can get a coffee, a wine, a beer. You get there’s sandwich. I think maybe my buddy over at the Woodstock beer market maybe makes up some sandwiches periodically and brings sodas. Is that accurate?

Brian Gamel: [00:22:58] Yeah, he makes them, Danny Yeah, yeah. He does stuff periodically. And we also have started partnering with other local businesses too. So we used to buy our bagels from Kroger. No shame, but now we partner with a local bagel maker. Nagel’s Bagels.

Stone Payton: [00:23:12] Oh yeah. We had them in the.

Brian Gamel: [00:23:13] Studio and they’re fantastic. They actually in both sides of the bagel. So, you know, if you and your spouse are split in one, you don’t get the the bottom half of the bagel with no seasoning on it. But, you know, and we’ve started doing our own sandwiches with those types of things, too, some breakfast sandwiches, and we still have the waffles and all those fun things. But now the house is open seven days a week, Mondays, a little bit shorter hours, just because, you know, Mondays are relatively slow and we’re trying to build that staff, do all those fun things, but we’re constantly trying to pump out those events so that you guys have a lot of fun and something to do almost every day.

Stone Payton: [00:23:47] It’s not right.

Brian Gamel: [00:23:48] But yeah, it’s it’s always available. The coffee is fantastic. The tea is fantastic.

Stone Payton: [00:23:54] And it is. I like. I like what is the name? It’s the mint flavor.

Brian Gamel: [00:23:59] Oh, meant to be.

Stone Payton: [00:24:00] Meant to be.

Brian Gamel: [00:24:01] I’m a I’m a huge fan of the farmer’s market because it’s almost like a a hibiscus tea, but it has a little more of those fruity and herbal flavors to it.

Stone Payton: [00:24:10] And I’ll get that today.

Brian Gamel: [00:24:11] It’s really good. And I think we have a special right now with it where they throw a little bit of the ginger simple sirup in there. It’s nice and tasty, but yeah, no, they do a lot of great work over there. Riley, the manager over there now. She’s doing some awesome work. Liz and Marley, you’ll see over there as well. But yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:24:29] And is it is it the email that I get? I get do I get it from Libby?

Brian Gamel: [00:24:35] Libby. Yeah, that’s yeah. She is our marketing manager and she’s been she’ll send you out emails if you sign up for our email list and then you can also tailor what, what things you want from us. So if you’re just interested in the visual arts, you can sign up for that emailing list or lantern series or those things. But obviously we want everyone to know about everything. So if you have multiple interest, let’s get you on those paths. And one other thing I did want to mention, because new seasons up, people have been asking a lot of great questions. Subscriptions will be available soon. You can always fill out a form in person and give it to us and then we’ll we’ll put those into the system as soon as we get the brand new ticketing system that should be hitting us July 1st. All right. So the only way to get tickets at all up to this point is through a subscription. If you only like one event next season, then I’m so sorry for you. You should come to a lot more of them because you’ll like all of them. But if you’re like, Man, I really want tickets to just this one. Those don’t go live until July 1st at the earliest. So everything else is is available to get a full subscription. And that’s your best bang for your buck, too, especially at the theater, because we’re going to start doing tiered seating and the cheapest way to get the front row is through a subscription and it’s an insane deal. It’s so silly that people don’t take advantage of that. One more.

Stone Payton: [00:25:49] And the theater is over in the chambers building.

Brian Gamel: [00:25:52] In that building. So if you’re familiar with where rootstock or just rootstock where rootstock is, right, right behind that, that big building that looks like a church. Right? That’s us. So the city has the chambers in one half of it and we have our theater, our offices and everything else. And the other.

Stone Payton: [00:26:07] Half so fantastic. Okay, let’s wrap with with leaving our listeners with easy ways to find out more website. I think let’s mention Beth’s email again maybe for the.

Brian Gamel: [00:26:18] Yeah. Source websites Woodstock Arts dot org and worst case scenario, just always go back to the website Woodstock Arts dot org. You’ll have all the information you’ll need. But if you’re a business interested in a sponsorship that’s Beth Bette at Woodstock arts dot org email her there and then you can find us on all the normal social media channels Facebook, Instagram, we even have a Twitter, so.

Stone Payton: [00:26:40] Oh, fantastic. All right. Well, we will see you guys at any and all of those places that we described. We’re so blessed to have Woodstock arts here in this community and Brian Gammell coordinating things and captaining the ship. Thank you guys so much for what you’re doing, man.

Brian Gamel: [00:26:58] Thank you for everything you do.

Stone Payton: [00:26:59] Stone All right. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Brian Gammel with Woodstock Arts and everyone here at the business radio family saying we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.

Lindsay Hinger With Gifting With Valor LLC

by

LindsayHinger
GWBC Radio
Lindsay Hinger With Gifting With Valor LLC
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GiftingWithValorLLC

LindsayHingerLindsay Hinger, Founder & CEO at Gifting With Valor LLC

Gifting with Valor fosters meaningful connections between their clients and their gift recipients while also supporting military entrepreneurs. They do this by being a certified woman-owned and Veteran-owned corporate gifting company that purchases products only from military spouse and veteran owned businesses.

They have established relationships with over 100 military suppliers to increase their sales, broaden their brand’s recognition, and establish long-term working relationships in which all of us can grow.

For three years, they have successfully delivered gift boxes and bags for real estate closings, special events, client appreciation programs, and much more. Our process starts with a consultation, and we handle everything through delivery. Our clients save money and time by relying on our expertise.

Connect with Lindsay on LinkedIn and Follow Gifting With Valor on Facebook.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business. And this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Lindsay Hinger with Gifting with Valor. Welcome, Lindsay.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:00:30] Thank you so much, Lee. I really appreciate you having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Gifting with Valor. How are you serving folks?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:00:39] Well, we’ve found that organizations that pursue military causes need a way to honor and show appreciation to their stakeholders. And we also know that these gifts are much better received if they hold meaning to their recipients. So, what we’ve done at Gifting with Valor is we’ve created a corporate gifting service with a patriotic twist. So, we handle gift boxes and swag bags in bulk, all the way from product curation through delivery, and only source our products from veteran-owned or military-spouse-owned businesses. So, not only do we provide our clients a means to demonstrate their support of our military families, they also don’t have to lift a finger. So, it’s quite a good deal for our clientele.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] And it’s a righteous circle, right? Every step of the way, you’re serving those folks that you want to serve.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:01:33] That’s absolutely right. We keep the dollars in the military family, so that our military entrepreneurs can prosper after their service has ended.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:45] Now, what was the genesis of the idea? How did this idea come about?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:01:49] Well, actually, this is my second business. The first business I started was called MilSO Box, and that stood for Military Significant Other. It was a monthly subscription box for the female significant others of the military. And while I was doing that business, I thought it would just be a cool idea to only include military entrepreneurs, entrepreneur businesses for their products. And what turned into “Wouldn’t that just be cool?” turned into parlaying it into Gifting with Valor, which is a totally different target market. So, it had to be a different entity. But we turned it from, you know, wouldn’t this be cool to now having a brand promise of only sourcing for military spouses and veterans?

Lee Kantor: [00:02:40] So, the source of the products are people with military background, but the person who can buy the box could be anybody?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:02:48] That’s correct. Anyone can buy the boxes. We do in bulk though, so it has to be at least 25 boxes so that we can truly give value.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:57] And then, who is the typical buyer? Is this like kind of corporate gifts? Who is your ideal kind of customer prospect?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:03:05] So, our target market really are Fortune 500 military affairs personnel who have ERGs, you know, employee resource groups, who want to celebrate their employees through employee – excuse me – employee retention programs and appreciation programs. We also do client appreciation programs with small to medium-sized, veteran-owned businesses that want to just represent their military background and surprise and delight their clients with a really cool cause.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:48] Now, when you kind of pivoted, did you sell your first business or did this kind of evolve into – the second business kind of evolved naturally into from the first business?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:03:58] I actually did sell my first business a year after I started Gifting with Valor. So, I started MilSO Box in 2016 and sold it in 2019 to a military spouse who runs it today. And a year before that purchase, I started it in 2018 with Gifting with Valor.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:22] And then, with-

Lindsay Hinger: [00:04:22] So, it’s been almost four years.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:24] Now, when did you kind of first get the clue that, “Hey, this thing’s going to catch on. This is really working?”

Lindsay Hinger: [00:04:33] Well, I absolutely love the business model of Gifting with Valor because instead of working from business to consumer, like I was with MilSO Box, I’m working business to business. And so, I’ve really enjoyed working with clients in a more collaborative environment where we do a lot of customization, and every interaction can have a stronger margin and more profits versus the first business that I owned, which had pretty stringent margins, and the higher the volume, the better that business would do; whereas this one, we can have just a few clients with really high volumes and do very well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:18] And then, so, like, no two boxes are the same. You’re customizing what’s in the box based on the desires of the client?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:05:26] That’s correct. We do total customization, but we are kind of turning towards a more preset situation, so that we can scale. So, our website is going to be updated soon with different mockups that we’ve done with the product samples that we’ve gotten from all these different suppliers that we work with. We work with over a hundred suppliers that qualify as military spouse and veteran-owned businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] So, that must be the fun part, right, curating all of those products?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:06:01] It is. It’s so much fun. You know, of course, when we talk to a client, we want to make sure that we really capture the culture of their business, and we want to capture what they want their recipients to feel when they open the box. So, it’s very much a heightened – all of the senses need to be delighted. And so, we have a very well-rounded approach when it comes to curating and like to touch all the senses if we can. So, it is a lot of fun to work with our clients that way and to see the excitement as we build these boxes together.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:46] Now, what’s an example? Maybe don’t name the brands that were in the box, but what are the types of things that’s in a Given box?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:06:53] Oh, sure. There are home decor items, coffee, let’s say chocolate-covered espresso beans, journals, mugs, pens, bottle openers, coasters. I mean, really, all of the gifts that you can imagine that are universally accepted, because almost always, we have to do gender neutral and age neutral as well. So, we like to do gifts that are more on the patriotic side that appeal to everyone who is an American, who appreciates the military background of these suppliers.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:38] And is it typically like, you know, three to five items? Is it 10 items? About how many items go in a box?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:07:47] It really depends on the client and their budget and what they want. We have had as few as three items in a box and as many as ten. So, it really depends.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:59] And then — so, you said the commitment, if I have a company, I got to order like minimum around 25 in order to make this kind of work for both sides?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:08:11] Yes, sir. And the nice part about that minimum of 25 is that I actually work with the person who bought my first business, MilSO Box. She started a second business herself where she handles all quantities under 25 gift boxes. So, when someone comes to me and they want less than 25, I have an easy referral to her and she can take care of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:39] Well, it sounds like you’re always looking for ways to partner and create win-win situations with the people around you. How did that kind of philosophy come into play in your life? How did you kind of design your life to be such a generous person?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:08:55] Oh, well, thank you. I really believe in collaboration over competition, and I think it came from actually working for a pallet program management company, believe it or not. You know what pallets are? You know the wooden things you move things on with a forklift. In that business, I was just a customer service rep, but the whole philosophy of the business was to partner with the pallet suppliers and to build a relationships with them. Not to use and abuse them or just pay them and forget about them; it was to build a relationship so that we could all prosper. And I took that philosophy and I’ve applied it ever since. And it’s been extremely rewarding. And it’s part of the reason that I enjoy networking so much and connecting people to resources that they need.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:51] And the impact that you’re making is real because every time you have a sale, each one of those partners inside the box get a sale too?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:10:00] That’s absolutely right. And we encourage them to include marketing material as well in the boxes, so that they can get a little more advertisement out there.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:09] Right, because that could be – that’s their way of sampling their product to somebody who maybe have never heard of them before.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:10:15] That’s right. And we also – in every box, we place a packing list, which includes the client’s message to the recipient and also shows what each product is, where it came from, and where the person can get more if they want some.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:33] Now, you were in the military, right? That was-

Lindsay Hinger: [00:10:38] I was. I was in the Air Force.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:39] Now, when you left the military, did you think, “Oh, I’m going to be an entrepreneur”? Was that kind of your path? Or like how did you get into entrepreneurship?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:10:49] Actually, yes, I did think I was going to be an entrepreneur when I left the Air Force. I actually read Rich Dad, Poor Dad probably six months before I separated from the Air Force. And I thought being an entrepreneur, I had to do it, but I could not be in the military while I did it, which is absolutely not true. But it took ten years of trying and failing at different ventures until I finally started my first business, MilSO Box. So, it was a long road with lots of – it was a big adventure.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:27] Now, any advice for the listener out there who might be – maybe they are not in the military, but maybe they’re in a job that they’re in right now and they have these dreams of being an entrepreneur? Is there any kind of do’s and don’ts you can share to help them take the leap successfully?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:11:44] Sure. There are some really basic things that I like to tell people. And the number one thing is if you need help to have the entrepreneurial mindset or you don’t think that you can self-motivate, don’t do it because that’s the only way to be an entrepreneur is to self-motivate. Nobody, no outside forces are going to make you be accountable to yourself and to your business. And I know that because I have a hard time with accountability. And I know that because I have business coaches that I’ve used that have been very beneficial to me. So, I definitely advocate to be extremely self-aware before you go down that path. That’s one thing that I definitely advocate.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:35] And then, any lessons from the military that you’re using maybe every day in your business because the military does a great job of training and creating systems?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:12:44] Yeah, that’s definitely true. I have a keen sense of detail or – excuse me, what am I trying to say?

Lee Kantor: [00:12:56] The attention to detail?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:12:58] Thank you. Attention to detail, which I forgot the words of attention to detail, which is great, but attention to detail is a huge thing. Like, I’m a really good editor of any kind of copy. And then, in the military, you also have to kind of keep your emotions at bay when things go sideways. So, I’m pretty good in a crisis situation. I definitely credit that to the military as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:30] So, as you’re kind of living this entrepreneur life now, are you seeing similarities between the military life and entrepreneurship?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:13:41] Strength of character, for sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:46] And things go sideways in both cases. I mean, the stakes are lower. I mean, they’re still high, but it’s not usually life-or-death situations for sure.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:13:57] For sure, for sure. Having to try as hard as you can and not being able to hide, but I say that you can’t hide in the military, but that was because I was an officer, and officers are rare. So, really you can’t hide as an officer. And as an entrepreneur, you can’t hide either. You are the story behind your business if it’s a small business. That’s a huge lesson that I learned with my first business was that people buy the story. They don’t buy the product or the service; they buy you. Yeah. So, that’s been quite an interesting journey, having to open up as a person who really just wants to create and make a business succeed championing everyone else, not really wanting it to be focused on me, but having to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:59] Now, how did you get involved with GWBC? How did that get on your radar?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:15:05] Well, you know that palette program management company that I spoke about, I actually helped the female owner become certified through WBENC, and that was like ten years ago. And then, through Gifting with Valor, I started working with Johnson & Johnson. They’re our biggest customer. And the military affairs lead over there personally asked if I would go ahead and become a certified woman-owned. So, I went ahead and did the certification through WBENC.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:41] And then, so that you had already seen the benefits of doing that at your previous job. And I guess it made perfect sense to do it now?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:15:50] It did. It did for sure. And we’ve done business with Johnson & Johnson for the past three years. And each year we’ve had their spend increase and had better and better results. So, it’s definitely been a good decision that we made.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:09] Yeah, I think that especially if you’re trying to get enterprise-level customers, it makes perfect sense to partner with GWBC and tap into that network because that can take your business to a whole new level pretty quickly.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:16:27] It sure can. And, you know, I’m not only a certified-woman owned, but I’m a veteran-owned business as well. So, we hit the supplier diversity requirements twofold, which is awesome. And so, we try to publicize that as much as possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:46] Now, in your work, you seem so service-minded and so collaborative. What feels better for you, to get a sale for yourself or know that, you know, there’s five businesses inside this box that are going to get a sale as well? Like, I mean, the ripple effect of your work is just amazing. You’ve designed an amazing, thoughtful business-

Lindsay Hinger: [00:17:12] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:12] … that helps so many different people. It just must be so rewarding.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:17:16] Thank you. I really appreciate that. You know, I have to focus on the sales that we get at Gifting with Valor because if I focus too much on each individual brand that we’re representing and that we’re proposing in these gift boxes, then I think my heart would get in the way a little bit because when we’re curating for these boxes, we have to look at the packaging, and we have to consider the names of the products, and how they balance with the other products. And so, we have, let’s say, five or six coffee companies that we work with, and so I don’t want to say that they’re interchangeable, but I love Sally Jo’s coffee company, but I also love Tommy Smith’s coffee company, but I can’t favor any of them. I have to think only about what the client and their recipients will want, if that makes sense.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:23] Right. I mean, your client is the one you’re serving the most, and all these other people are part of that, the ability to serve them. And I guess you can’t just allow you feel, “Oh, here’s an up-and-comer. I really rooting for them. Let me give them kind of special, you know, access.” When it’s the customer that matters, you got to really serve them and do right by them.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:18:47] Right. And of course, our history with the suppliers matters a lot too because we have favorite suppliers that we turn to. And a lot of times, it’s the ease of ordering and, you know, just having good open lines of communication with some of the suppliers that makes them more preferred by us. But that always changes too, as people emerge and as we get to know our suppliers more and more. And speaking of that, that’s a part of the business I really want to develop more of is to actually help the suppliers because that’s what I do in my volunteer work is I mentor entrepreneurs through American corporate partners. So, being able to provide resources or any kind of advice to our suppliers would be, I think, really great. And to have that kind of community built would be a nice aspect to our business.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:51] So, what do you need more of? How can we help?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:19:54] Oh, just spreading the word is really how I need help and getting this concept in front of those military-facing organizations because there are so many of them that could benefit from something like this. We do events, VIP speaker boxes, we do closings for real estate companies, which is really cool. All they have to do is tell us the name and the address of someone who just closed on a house, and we send them a new gift box. And that’s usually for military-oriented areas. And yeah, so just spreading the word to those military-focused people is really what we need right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:50] And if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website?

Lindsay Hinger: [00:20:53] Giftingwithvalor.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:56] Well. Lindsay, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Lindsay Hinger: [00:21:02] Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:05] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on GWBC Open for Business.

Pete First With BrightStar Care

by

PeteFirst
Franchise Marketing Radio
Pete First With BrightStar Care
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Brought To You By SeoSamba . . . Comprehensive, High Performing Marketing Solutions For Mature And Emerging Franchise Brands . . . To Supercharge Your Franchise Marketing, Go To seosamba.com.

BrightstarCare

PeteFirstPete First, Chief Development Officer at BrightStar Care

As Chief Development Officer, Pete is responsible for recruiting new franchise owners for all three brands under the BrightStar Group Holdings umbrella: BrightStar Care, BrightStar Senior Living®, and BrightStar® Care Homes™.

BrightStar Senior Living delivers a higher standard of assisted living and memory care to seniors in need of care support outside of their own homes while BrightStar Care Homes are small-home residential care solutions offering assisted living and memory care for seniors. Over his tenure at BrightStar Care, Pete has grown the brand’s nationwide presence to 365 locations and has expanded the brand into new territories and markets.

Pete has more than two decades of experience in the franchise industry and has expert knowledge on the different types of franchise business models and what to look for in a franchise business before investing.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The future of the growing franchise industry
  • Franchising become one of the most lucrative industries in 2022
  • How to expand your franchise into new markets and territories
  • Unique challenges of in-home care franchising

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio. Brought to you by SeoSamba comprehensive high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands. To supercharge your franchise marketing, go to seosamba.com. That’s seosamba.com.

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

Pete First: [00:00:42] Thanks. Appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about Bright Star Care. How are you serving folks?

Pete First: [00:00:49] So we provide in-home in-home health care for seniors all across the country. We’ve got about 340 locations around the US. A big differentiator for us is all of our franchisees are joint commission accredited, which is the highest accreditation that we have out there. And so we’ve got different multiple different areas of revenue stream that our franchisees can enjoy. So they’ve got the in-home care. We have skilled care that we can provide in the home. We also have external staffing to other communities as well. So a lot of different things that are that our franchisees can do.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] So how did the brand come about? Did it start with franchising in mind or did it start as kind of a mom and pop?

Pete First: [00:01:34] Well, Shelly Sun, who’s our founder and CEO, she started this started the business looking for care for her grandparents. And so that’s where things really began. And she was actually a franchisee before she was a franchisor. So she was involved with a couple of hotel brands and was in in the new owner training program for the hotel brands and realized, you know, this is something that we can we can really take this and we can franchise it. And so that’s really where where it started. So being a franchisee kind of led to this. And then the most important thing that we have today is being able to provide such a higher standard of care. And that really is the differentiator. And one of the differentiators for us was being able to provide that and then expand that via the franchising model.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:17] Then what does that ideal franchisee prospect look like?

Pete First: [00:02:22] Our franchisees today. You know, we’re really looking for franchisees that come in and want to be able to scale their business and want to expand. You know, in looking at folks that don’t necessarily have a health care background. In fact, most of our franchisees don’t most of our franchisees come to us because they’ve had some experience with home care in some capacity, whether it was their own family member, their grandparents, their own parents. And they realize that there’s got to be a better way to provide this type of service. So they have that passion about the business already, but they come in with a lot of our top franchisees, have quite a bit of management experience, and they used to running teams because if you think about the business that we have, we really have two, two types of businesses that people are running. They’re running the business of providing care and providing service to the community. But also they’ve got, in some cases, hundreds of caregivers that are working with them and working for them. And it’s managing that that large team as well, so that that people that have the management experience really build well in this.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:25] Well, there’s a lot in the news about, you know, shortages of nurses and those type of caregivers. Is that one of the challenges in this organization as well?

Pete First: [00:03:36] It’s nationally and globally. It’s a challenge when it comes to this because there is a shortage of caregivers and nurses. And what we strive for is being, you know, being that employer of choice and finding ways to keep and retain our best people. So retention and having a recruiting and retention arm within our company to support our franchisees is really important. And we do we do that. So, you know, it’s one thing to have to hire a lot of people and bring people onto the team, but you’ve got to onboard them properly and you have to make sure that they’re going to stay. So retention and focusing on keeping that team together, it’s a big part of what we’re doing right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:13] So what is a day in the life of a franchisee or a new franchisee look like?

Pete First: [00:04:19] So there’s a lot of a lot of managing the team and the caregivers. So our our franchise owner really oversees everything. They’ve got a director of nursing that manages the nursing team. They’ve got an office manager that helps with the director of operations, kind of helps within managing the building. And the franchisee is the face of the business. This is a business that is networking is very important. Working with the discharge planners and referral sources and having that relationship is really key and then being out there and building that business. So there’s a lot of moving parts to this because especially as you scale, you’re providing care and service to multiple locations every single day. And so there’s a lot of coordination that goes with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:05] Now, you mentioned earlier that the ideal franchisee doesn’t necessarily have to be in the health care industry before jumping into Brightstar. They do, though, have to build relationships with people in the health care industry, right. Like there is, I would imagine a lot of locally they have to know the hospice people, the nursing home people that assisted. They have to know kind of all the players in that space or at least have somebody on the team that is kind of immersed in those communities as well.

Pete First: [00:05:35] Yeah. And a lot of that comes over time where they may not have those relationships initially, but part of our training process and onboarding and new franchisees is to work with them to build those relationships and then know who those contacts are and who the key players are within the market. Because you’re right, those referral sources are your are your key to growing your business and we help our franchisees develop those relationships as well. So it’s kind of a part of the part of the boot camp program that we go through is building up those contacts, who’s who and how to ought to be able to reach them. Because ultimately what our referral sources are looking for is a solution. And we can we can provide that beyond beyond companion care. We can provide that if they have other needs. And one of the things that we really are focused on today is national accounts and building the national relationships with various payers and with whether it’s auto owners or other types of insurance companies and things where we’re involved directly with the payer and helping provide those that business out to our franchise network.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:41] Now, when someone’s considering this as a franchise for themselves and taking the leap into franchising, what are some of kind of their their concerns when it comes to this? Because it doesn’t seem like an obvious choice for a lot of folks. I know you mentioned that they’ve had some personal experience, maybe their parent or grandparent, they saw them go through that and they saw, you know, what a mess that can be. But what was their do they feel like, hey, I’m not who am I to be doing this kind of work? I don’t know anything about this. You know, the medicine, the medical side is that fear of not being immersed in the medical or having that health care background hold them back for even considering this.

Pete First: [00:07:22] Well, you know, we get we get through that hurdle as we take candidates through our process of reviewing the brand before they even become a franchisee. So we’ve answered a lot of those questions along the way. And we also have have all of our candidates do a lot of validation with with existing owners so they know they get a true day in the life of explanation from the owners and what to expect. And it’s it’s it is a 24 seven business. I mean, that’s the nature of what we do. So people have to be prepared for that. And it’s not it’s not right for everybody. I mean, we we say no to a lot more people than we say yes to as far as coming into the brand, because we are looking for that person who who really wants to come in and build and scale. But the medical piece of it, yeah. I mean, if you don’t have that background, let’s say you’re not in you haven’t been a nurse or you haven’t been involved in in medical capacity in any capacity. It is a little bit overwhelming. But working through the training program, through the question and getting the questions answered prior to coming on as a franchisee, we try to work through all of that ahead of time. So when you come in and they’re ready to open, you know, they don’t you only take the types of cases that you’re prepared to take as you open, so you sort of crawl, walk, run through this process. And so by the time you get to some of those higher level cases, you’re ready to handle it.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:42] Now are you finding kind of post-pandemic or hopefully we’re post-pandemic, that more people are open to the idea of franchising as kind of that second act or third act in their career?

Pete First: [00:08:55] We’re seeing a lot of that. I mean, it’s it is definitely just franchising in general continues to expand and there’s more and more opportunities out there for if you think about it, there’s there’s a franchise opportunity for almost everything and almost everyone’s interests. So there’s there’s there’s a match out there. I mean, what we want to do with franchising is make sure that people are making the right choices. They’re doing their investigation and doing their legwork. And that’s what we expect when they’re coming. And considering Brightstar as their opportunity and we want them to talk to as many franchises as we can, but the if you hear about the great resignation and there’s a lot of of people that are out there now looking so I can see franchising continue to grow because it’s such a great model. I mean, where else would you want to go? We see a lot of people that try to start things on their own, but why have the mental anguish and the expense and all of the things that go with that when when there’s probably a system out there for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:49] Now you’ve been in franchising for a minute and you’ve worked with brands outside of Brightstar. Can you share some advice for those franchise owners, maybe from emerging companies like what are some of the do’s and don’ts? What are some of the must do things that they should be doing to get to the level of a bright star.

Pete First: [00:10:10] I think in the beginning you just really be selective with your franchisees. I know that it’s it is hard when you’re just getting started because you need to get to that scale. But but it’s so important to have a really good foundation of franchisees that you can build with because they’re going to be the folks that are out there helping you validate the item. 19 is going to be based upon how they’re doing and how well they’re doing, how well you’re supporting them and getting them up and started getting getting up and running and being able to provide that validation for you as you continue to grow. So I think that’s the biggest thing. Don’t be afraid to say no to a candidate if you just don’t feel like they’ve got the same core values as you, and they’re not going to be working in lockstep with you as as you grow and have the same vision for the brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:59] Now, do you find that when you’re an emerging brand, should you just, even if they’re the perfect fit, should you just take anybody anywhere in the country, or should you kind of grow from your initial location outward?

Pete First: [00:11:14] You know, I guess it depends on the. It depends on the franchisee, on the candidate and their and your ability to support them. So, you know, I suppose it’s the type of brand to we don’t want to I wouldn’t want to hold back development with the right candidate in the right place, even though they may be further from our corporate location, especially today. We can do so much support online and we can do so much support via Zoom. And the pandemic has taught us how to support our franchisees remotely. So I think that that’s opened up a lot of doors. And I wouldn’t be I wouldn’t hesitate if it was the right person.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:54] Now, maybe back in the day at the early, early franchising history, the people started as kind of the one person that’s going to go into a market, and now you’re finding more and more kind of I call them professional franchisees, where they have a portfolio of brands that might be in complementary industries and they have an infrastructure where they can support, you know, where there are some economies of scale. Is that kind of part of your profile now at this stage of Brightstar, you’re looking for that type of professional franchisee.

Pete First: [00:12:29] We see that a little bit. And they come to us from from differing industries. So it’s almost like they’ve had and they’re looking to diversify their portfolio. So they may have multiple food concepts or they may come from other types of industries. So we’re seeing some industry crossover where they’re not necessarily having complementary businesses to Brightstar per se, but they see the opportunity with where the demographics, with seniors and where this where this type of industry is heading. And they see it as an opportunity to be diverse with where they’re at and they’ve got some great teams that they’re that they already have. And some people may be able to be plugged into this and potentially run this for them as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:10] Now, is hospitality one of those kind of crossover industries, like if you have a bunch of hotels, is this kind of a make sense as part of a portfolio?

Pete First: [00:13:21] Yeah, we see we do get we do get quite a few inquiries from that. And one of the reasons that we do is because we also have Brightstar Senior Living and Brightstar Care Homes, which are brick and mortar senior living communities. And that’s where we’ve really seen a lot of folks from the hospitality side come and have interest because they see senior living as an opportunity. That’s fairly similar when it comes to running, running the business itself. It’s about occupancy and it’s about revenue per available room and it’s about providing great service and the hospitality industry bodes well for that, really ties in nicely.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:58] So now is there some locations that Brightstar is looking to expand into next? Are there territories or is it kind of the world is your oyster at this point?

Pete First: [00:14:08] So we’re only in the U.S. so we’re not looking internationally, but we still have areas in the northeast. There are territories available in most of the major markets. What we have done, if you think about how people develop, we’re pretty established and we’re going on 20 years and so we have quite a few. A lot of the major markets are fairly sold out, but what we’ve done this year to increase interest in some of the markets that may be not in the central area but maybe a suburb or something like that. We’ve introduced a medium density territory and so what we’ve done is looked at territories that are under 200,000 population where we know that we need to provide service and the need is there and the demand is there. But we’re looking at these smaller medium density markets. We’ve cut our franchise fee in half, so we’re dropping that down in 50%. And then there are some some aspects of that where they may not have to have an office or may be able to work differently with a salesperson. But it’s really being able to enter into some of these markets that still need service but may not be a 400,000 population territory. But we know that are still very, very viable and areas that we need to provide service and we have national account needs. And this is a way to enter into some of those some of those markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:32] Yeah. The demographics of this of aging are definitely working in your favor. And, you know, it doesn’t matter the size of the city, there’s going to be a need to at least some level.

Pete First: [00:15:44] Absolutely. Absolutely. We want to be able to provide that and want to be able to say yes to inquiries that come in.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:50] Right. And if you can create an offering that makes sense financially in each of those markets, why not?

Pete First: [00:15:58] Yeah. I mean, most senior care franchises have have minimum thresholds that franchisees need to meet as part of developing their market. And with the medium density territories that we’re doing today, we don’t have any of those minimums. So it allows people to to really build to the maximum potential within within a territory of that size. And we’re really excited about that and see that as a great growth opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:20] Yeah, and it’s great for those consumers and those markets because those are the people that really have a hard time.

Pete First: [00:16:27] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:29] Well, Pete, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website? What’s the coordinates?

Pete First: [00:16:36] I would go to Brightstar franchising dot com and that will give you all of the information on the agency in our circular agency development and growth along with Brightstar senior living and those opportunities as well so bright star franchising dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:50] All right well thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Pete First: [00:16:55] Thank you, Lee. Appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:56] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Mental Health Therapist Amy Wilhelmi

by

Chicago Business Radio
Chicago Business Radio
Mental Health Therapist Amy Wilhelmi
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AmyWilhelmiAmy Wilhelmi is a successful multi-entrepreneur as the founder of Balanced Wellness Collective and Ascension Mentality, business & performance coach at Strategic Voyages Business Consultants and licensed mental health therapist. As a speaker, author, and professional athlete, she is on a mission to become a global go-to thought leader in making mental health in business and life mainstream through proven formulas to help individuals stuck in their professional or business lives.

Amy believes in the power of mental fortitude and the many possibilities that lies inside individuals to level up and live their best lives. Within her work, Amy encourages the power of connection and the development of raw, transparent and truth-telling storytelling. Amy sees people’s innate abilities to be resilient and overcome challenges through mental wellness tools and techniques.

By sharing her personal story of being a business owner, licensed marriage and family therapist, divorce mediator, performance coach, mother and bikini bodybuilder, as well as sharing stories of others, Amy hopes to encourage people to let go of judgement, stigma, shame, self-consciousness, step into their own truths and powers and feel relieved, relaxed and ready to conquer life.

Connect with Amy on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Mentality/ mindset
  • Lack of direction/ goals, direction, and purpose, and an identity crisis
  • Reinvention
  • Feel lost, relationships are suffering,
  • Working through loss and uncertainly
  • “Now what?” Phase
  • Career pivot

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 another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor. And before we get started, as always, today’s show is sponsored by firmSpace, thanks to firmSpace, because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we’ve got a good one for you today. On today’s show, we have a mental health therapist, a traveling speaker, an author and an athlete. So please welcome to the show, Amy Wilhelmi. Welcome to the show, Amy.

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:00:45] Thank you for having me on.

Max Kantor: [00:00:46] I’m excited to talk to you so we can just jump right in. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:00:53] Sure. So my training is I’m a licensed mental health therapist. Technically, I’m a marriage and family therapist and I own a therapy practice. So we see individuals, couples, families and children. And then personally, I am in bodybuilding, I do the Women’s Bikini Division, so I’m an athlete and then I consider myself a mindset mentality. Coach I just wrote my first book, it’s called Making Mental Gains, and I specifically work with the athlete community, all sports, and then I also work with teams to really kind of focus on mindset and mentality.

Max Kantor: [00:01:36] So why are you so interested in the topic of mental health and wellness for athletes?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:01:43] Yeah, I think that there is a a gap there specifically. I think if most athletes or very high performers go to a licensed mental health therapist, it’s hard for them to find a provider that actually understands that the mental health struggles that a very high performer goes through. So I again, being an athlete myself, being ingrained in this sport, I, I quickly saw that there are a lot of mental health issues in bodybuilding. And then I started digging into other athletes and you know, 35% of professional athletes have mental health struggles and they just don’t know where to turn. So I was like, well, I can take my professional work and my life passion and kind of combine them and really help athletes stay on track so that they they feel well and then they can perform well.

Max Kantor: [00:02:46] This past year, really, like this past couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of athletes have their mental health struggles publicized, you know, people like Naomi Osaka and Michael Phelps and Simone Biles. So can you kind of describe what you feel like they were going through?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:03:05] Yeah. I think that, again, they just don’t put it as as a priority. Right? I mean, they put their training as a priority, their nutrition as a priority. They all hold very strict schedules. Most of them are traveling, you know, and so there’s a really huge piece with with self care that’s important. And, you know, my whole goal in life is to make mental health and mental wellness less taboo than it used to be. I think a lot of these athletes are just burnt out and they’re just grinding and they just don’t have, again, that correct support system that can that can really understand what they’re going through and help them with their wellness. I think there’s also an issue when athletes get injured or they’re facing retirement and then their sport is over. Right. And they’ve worked so hard to do one thing amazingly well. And now they’re dealing with some sort of identity crisis. They’re forced to pivot, make something new of themselves. And they really have a difficulty, just like mentally separating themselves from their sport and just and moving on.

Max Kantor: [00:04:21] I’m I’m glad you brought up injuries because that’s what I was kind of thinking about. We were talking and I can imagine the struggle for an athlete when, say, they tear their ACL, you know, that has an X amount of time and then you’ll be back, you know what I mean? But when it comes to mental health, it’s kind of undefined. It could be a month. It could be a year. It could be five years. So how do you help athletes when they come to you kind of set that expectation that, hey, this might not be an overnight process?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:04:48] Yeah, I mean, I think that luckily the athlete mentality already understands the work that you have to put in day to day, that those small, tiny steps that kind of add up to the large successes, they’re used to doing that, right? They’re used to running these drills where they’re like, this seems stupid, but they’re they’re doing it because they can see kind of that long game. And so I think mental health for an athlete in their mentality is very similar. It’s like we have to build in these self care activities, these, these mental wellness activities in order to see these kind of long term results. So I think it’s also just kind of talking them into like taking a break sometimes will lead you to those successors. Sometimes our bodies especially, you know, we’re human. They just can only handle so much stress and so much, like you said, injury. If we’re talking injury, that really taking a break for a while is really going to help them be more successful in their sport.

Max Kantor: [00:05:59] So what are some challenges that you see athletes go through from starting from an early age all the way through adulthood and beyond?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:06:09] Yeah, I think that athletes that have a lot of success very early have really have trouble with their identity, like just separating themselves from their sport, right? So like, what do you do when your time runs out? Because it will your body will run out. We all know that the lifespan of athletes in their sport is not much beyond, you know, thirties. Maybe sometimes if you’re really well conditioned, you can make it up to 40. But, you know, really having that plan B and really having an identity outside of your sport, although when you’re when you’re in your sport, obviously you should be mentally all in. But the plan B is so crucial so that you don’t have that swing at the end where a lot of them are just struggling with like this thought of like, who am I? I kind of always compare it to almost like a divorce. Like you were married, you were you did have this family and these neighbors and these friends. And then all of a sudden, you’re not that person anymore. It’s it’s kind of very a similar mind shift and really trying to figure out who they are, what their next steps are. But if you’re planning ahead of time and kind of have all those things built in already, I feel like that transition period goes a lot easier.

Max Kantor: [00:07:28] Earlier you mentioned that there’s kind of like, you know, the stigma of mental health, especially, I feel, in the United States when when if someone reveals that they’re in therapy, they could be labeled as, quote, like, oh, they need help. They’re crazy, you know, all these stigmas that just aren’t fair. So I imagine for an athlete, some could see seeking out mental health help as weak. How would you address that for any athlete who feels that it’s weak to work on their mental health?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:07:59] Yeah, I would say that the way to normalize it again is kind of just building it into your plan and just. Being open about it. I think we do a better job on the coasts of our country. I feel like California is kind of got a hang of it. New York’s got a hang of it. I went to graduate school in California and people are kind of like, yeah, you know, like I went to the gym today and I got my smoothie and I talked to my therapist. My therapist talked to my other therapist. And like, it’s, it’s it’s a normal part of what we do for wellness, right? So I think if we’re thinking about mental health in that wellness realm, like I’m taking care of my body, I’m taking care of my mind, I’m going to go to my chiropractor. I’m going to go get my massage when I need to. I’m going to drink my water. I’m going to have my sleep. You know, I think that when we think of it in that in that context, it becomes less taboo. It’s just one of those boxes that we’re checking off our list. I met with an athlete yesterday, actually, who’s young. She’s 23. And she was I was like, you know, what brings you in? And she was like, you know what? I feel like everybody should just be doing this. Everybody should be talking to someone. Everybody has issues. And that is the right mindset to have about all this. And I think our younger generations are actually doing a lot better at recognizing that that’s a thing, right? And being more proactive rather than reactive.

Max Kantor: [00:09:25] So as an athlete yourself, talk about the unique perspective that you can bring when an athlete comes to you versus, say, going to a therapist who may not have an athletic background.

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:09:39] Right. So, you know. I really believe that that you would need to find a provider who does have that experience, because there’s really no way to understand this drive unless you kind of practice what you preach. Right? So I’ve had a lot of athletes come to me after being told by other therapists like, Hey, you should just stop doing that, right? Or in bodybuilding, the nutrition is so specific that sometimes it could swing into kind of eating disorder type things, and most therapists just have no idea how to handle that. Instead of just like having a good mindset about the nutrition that you need to fuel your body to do your sport right. As far as like the the grind it takes to get up every day and do the same thing over and over and over and over, because that’s really the way that you’re going to get a result. I think that it’s just such a high level of functioning very specifically that it’s it’s really important, again, to just find a provider that understands all of that.

Max Kantor: [00:10:48] And now what kind of services can you provide to an athlete who has questions about maybe their goals or where their career is headed, things like that?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:10:58] Mm hmm. Yeah. So I work with athletes that are currently in their sport, and there’s a huge gamut of sports that I work with as far as gymnasts to football players, to dancers, to baseball. I think that the mindset and the mentality are all the same. So they come to me for that motivation in their sport to keep doing it when the sport is hard, to keep doing it when they might have some performance anxiety to keep doing it, when they’re not making the team or not not performing as well as they should be because they’re having these mental blocks. So I work with athletes that are currently practicing whatever their sport is, and then I work again, like I explained earlier with that transition period. And that’s like a real, real important niche in this population is like, okay, I’m injured or I’m benched or I’m not sure if I’m going to recover or I’m thinking about retiring. And so then I help them kind of formulate those next steps and also connect them with resources to do so. Because especially pro athletes like when they’re playing their sport, they have all these resources available to them. Maybe they’re going to have sponsorships, maybe they have some visibility and people want to give them career opportunities. And then when they’re at that retirement piece or they’re injured, those career opportunities kind of fade away because the those opportunities are more focused on the athletes that stay in their sport, that are active and doing well. So then we have to kind of create almost I help a lot of people with business plans so that they can start their own thing and they can still feel passionate and involved and maybe they’re still in their sport, but in a different way. For example, in the bodybuilding community, a lot of retired pros become coaches or they make clothing lines or they have supplement lines or whatever, and they’re they’re not actively on the stage anymore because their body is just come to a point or they’re they’ve just decided that they’re done and then we kind of help develop their next steps.

Max Kantor: [00:13:16] So, Amy, if someone wanted to learn more about what you do or check out your books or speaking engagements or look to you for potential therapy in the future, what’s the best way they can learn more about you?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:13:30] Yeah, my my website is w w w amy wilhelmi w l h e l m i dot com.

Max Kantor: [00:13:40] Awesome. Well, Amy, thanks again for being on the show today. It was great to talk to you and you’re doing really great work.

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:13:47] Thank you so much for having me.

Max Kantor: [00:13:49] And thank you for listening to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kanter, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:13:57] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.

Joshua Malik With Joshua Tree Experts

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Franchise Marketing Radio
Franchise Marketing Radio
Joshua Malik With Joshua Tree Experts
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Brought To You By SeoSamba . . . Comprehensive, High Performing Marketing Solutions For Mature And Emerging Franchise Brands . . . To Supercharge Your Franchise Marketing, Go To seosamba.com.

JT-logo-2020

Joshua Malik founded Joshua Tree Experts in 2005 as a home-based business out of a three-car garage in Lehigh, PA. After moving into a dedicated location, the company organically expanded to offer lawn care services to clients as a direct result of customer demand.

In 2017, lawn care became its own division in the company. The brand went even further in 2020, and expanded its offerings with a pest control division. Now, the brand is looking to sign 5 franchisees in 2022.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Joshua Tree Experts
  • Now is the time for franchisees to invest in Joshua Tree Experts
  • Qualities of franchisees

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio. Brought to you by SeoSamba comprehensive high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands. To supercharge your franchise marketing, go to seosamba.com. That’s seosamba.com.

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

Joshua Malik: [00:00:42] Hi Lee. Thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Joshua Tree experts. How are you serving, folks?

Joshua Malik: [00:00:50] We are in the green industry. We provide general tree care, which is pruning and removal services. Plant health care is insect disease management on trees and shrubs. We also have another model which is lawn care, fertilizer, weed control, aeration, and we also do indoor outdoor flea, mosquito and tick, which is our pest control department.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:11] Now, how did the idea come about? What was the initial thoughts when you launched this?

Joshua Malik: [00:01:18] Well, I’ve been in the industry for 30 years. In 92, when I graduated high school. I got right into doing tree care at a local tree care company within the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania area and developed them skills in the field for about eight years. Found an opportunity towards the Philadelphia region for sales and management. Did that for five years and just really had the passion that I wanted to be my my an owner of a business, develop my own team. So in 2005, I launched Joshua Tree Experts out of my three car garage with a 100 square foot of office space. So it’s been it’s been a heck of a ride since that time.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:57] Now, when you launch, were you always thinking, oh, at some point I’m going to franchise this? Or was this like, hey, now this is my own empire I can build here in the area and we’ll see where it goes.

Joshua Malik: [00:02:07] Man what a great question. If I look back at my business plan from 2005 when I launched, I was happy to get to a seven employee company service in one general tree crew of plant health crew and really small office staff. And when you really start learning how to develop people and take in people strengths, it’s really energizing and incredible on how much growth you can accomplish.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:37] So what was the switch that flipped that said, You know what, we might have something here that can be replicated and we can train other people to to do this and provide this service at this level and create those, you know, predictable, repeatable processes. How did that idea come about? Because that becomes a different business now, right? It’s different than, you know, being in someone’s yard now. You’re training someone in the market nowhere near you to do what you’re doing.

Joshua Malik: [00:03:07] Yeah, it is. And you know, when we launched Joshua Tree Experts, I think one of the biggest opportunities was within our service area. We really focused on providing you know, everyone says, hey, they want to give excellent customer service, right? But we really focused on that from the initial call to the follow up. We under-promise, overdeliver. It’s been a big factor of even hiring our coworkers on that, you know, sharing that clear vision with them of what we want to do. And training is huge. We’ve always we always knew that we would have a competitive edge by having certified arborist on staff. Having industry certifications that can really focus on employee development, you know, which helps them professionally and personally develop and. Over the last few years, we’ve really developed our processes and systems down to each function of the business of operations, sales and marketing, finance and admin. And we’ve really built out a table of contents that really shows, hey, this is how you operate this business when something happens. This is how. This is the action plan that you have to take place. So we really focused on on building those out. And we’ve done the team has done a really excellent job at doing that. So we knew that we could develop and replicate this system anywhere within the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:37] Now, once you decide to do that and you say, okay, we have something here, we got it, you know, we created this playbook for success. Now you go out to the world and say, okay, hey, do you want to open a Joshua tree experts in your market? Are you looking for the Josh’s like you were? That person that had been in the business had kind of got the lay of the land and is maybe struggling or is frustrated or just doesn’t know the ropes as well as you do. And here now you have a playbook that’ll make take whatever you were doing more to be more successful. Or is this somebody who doesn’t necessarily have to have that kind of experience you have had of, you know, working in people’s yards and working with trees and doing all that stuff.

Joshua Malik: [00:05:19] Sure. You know, ideally we would. Take on the right person to fit this seat and want to expand and improve their lifestyle from where they’re currently at. I know from my own experience getting individuals that have 20, 25 years experience, it’s hard for them to break a cycle that they’re in, whether it’s a process that they’re doing. They might have some really strong beliefs on the way that they perform the work and might not be flexible or like minded on the way that we’re performing it. We really believe, as I picked up the training part. I love getting industry professionals that don’t have that type of experience within our industry. Maybe they have work experience, but they understand that they can be developed or learning the proper way of doing something from the get go. So I would lean towards the people that are maybe business minded, have some really good communication skills, emotional intelligence, have the drive to want to succeed or able to follow processes. And I think I would find that more in that executive style person or someone that is in quite within the tree care industry currently.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:38] Because at the end of the day they’re more in charge of the operations and the sales and then they’re going to hire out the people that are going into people’s yards.

Joshua Malik: [00:06:47] That’s exactly it. We’re looking to focus on people that are going to have the drive to work on the business and not so much in the business. I know from my own experience, when you first launch, you’re pretty heavily hands on, maybe with the first six months to a year, but then when you get the right people in the right place, you develop your team, you got your equipment out there. You got your clientele. Your sales and marketing is working. I want you to start thinking about the big picture and really driving those unit economics.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:17] Now, you mentioned a variety of services when you become a Joshua Tree expert franchisee. Do you have access to all of those lines, those revenue lines, or is that each one its own individual brand?

Joshua Malik: [00:07:31] It is its own individual brand. I’m really glad that you asked that. When I launched in 2005, I launched as a general tree care plant health care company. I developed those 13 years of skills performing that service. And we’re heavily the equipment and vehicle, you know, invested to go perform the service that we’re doing. And in regards to training. It’s much easier to not just train on the brand, but also to train on the industry, to focus on general tree care, plant health care. That’s going to be the launching service. We have developed a scorecard of KPIs that are numbered and tiered that will help you get into the lawn care industry when you can launch that and then the pest control. And we really put that back on the franchisees lap to say, hey, to get to the lawn care, you need to develop these skills. We need to hit the scorecard and the KPIs at this level. Then you can roll in lawn care and then it would be the same thing for the pest control. When I launched in 2005, I didn’t launch lawn care until 2017. We launched pest control in 2020. We’ve just learned. For developing that marketing plan and hiring the right people to run those departments on how to launch that properly now.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:51] So the ideal situation is somebody goes in initially as kind of the the tree person and then earns their way up to these other brands based on their performance rather than somebody saying, Hey, I just wanted to do pest control and I’m going to just jump in and start at pest control.

Joshua Malik: [00:09:09] That is correct. We have three models in the one brand, and we want we want our franchisees to offer that. And our base is absolutely without a doubt, has always been general tree care, plant health care. That’s where my 30 years experience comes from. We know how to develop that brand and find those clients very easily through that. When I say find those clients, the consumer clients like that, and then we would develop that team of professionals to launch our franchisees, helping them get the equipment, searching their subcontractors if they need that, getting their vendors hooked up with them. And then once they hit those KPIs and it’s developing in the lawn care, then and then offering the pest control.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:55] So what how many do you have right now?

Joshua Malik: [00:10:00] We we just emerged. And when I say that we just completed our RFP late last year, we just got, you know, little minor touches on it renewed. We have some people in the pipeline, but we have not landed our first sale yet and we are so close and so excited and doing it. So when I say we’re just coming out live, we are we are just emerging.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:22] So this is a great opportunity for folks out there that are in that same kind of space that you are right now. You have a successful company and that has been proven successful in your local market. And now you’re emerging and you’re kind of trying to get those first ones on the board. What are what some advice you can give other people in that boat, whether they’re in the point of, you know, approaching that and saying, hey, you know, we want to do this. What are some of the, you know, do’s and don’ts and what are the things that you have found to be most successful thus far when it comes to kind of, you know, getting those first ones in the pipeline?

Joshua Malik: [00:11:02] You know, I would say I think one of the biggest things, Leigh, is that. You know, defining your own path in the franchise space, I think is really important. And when I say that is. A lot of people within this industry can can give you a lot of advice, which could kind of make that road instead of going straight. A lot of intersections that you come through and you start making a left turn and you start making a right turn again. You know, define your plan early and stick with it. You might be a trailblazer and start doing things a little bit different than everybody else. And that’s okay to do that. It really, really is. But it’s got to be your own belief on which path you want to create and which which way you want to go down. When you do start developing, we have a franchise sales organization that we’re working with PINNACLE. We just launch with five different broker groups and working with them closely and kicking some stuff off of them, but still making that decision on your own and defining on what you want to do and creating that plan. It’s ultimately up to you and you got to make those decisions for yourself. So that would probably be my my key take away from that is that you can get very confused within this industry fast, but have your strong beliefs on what you want to do and keep your keep your nose down and just keep moving ahead.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:27] Now, when you decided to do the franchise path and you got all your documentation, all that stuff, did you at first try to do this on your own and just say, hey, we can figure it out, we’re smart. We’ve been doing this for a while, you know, how hard could it be or did you immediately get expert help?

Joshua Malik: [00:12:46] That’s awesome. You know, we’ve developed when I tell you about Joshua Tree experts, currently, we’re we’re a good sized firm within our area. We have over 60 employees. We just launched our second location last year in March 1st of last year. So we’ve just completed our first year and our second corporate location. We knew getting into the space, the franchise. Franchising and selling franchises that, hey, we weren’t experts in it. I studied and did some research for about a year and a half, two years. So it wasn’t a quick decision. We knew, again, developing that plan of what it was going to be. I launched and hired. Smb is a consulting group out of Philadelphia. Steve Belman and his team, and they have been awesome to work with. They helped us develop our operations manual. They hook this up with an intern, Nicola Law Firm out of Jersey, which helped create our PhD and we have a really solid pieces there and having them to to bounce ideas off to talk things through network with other franchises they launched with mature and emerging has been absolutely wonderful and we knew that was going to be important. I’ve talked to some people that have gone on this that their own. It’s taken them a lot of time. It’s taken them a lot more of an investment and they never really got to where they wanted to be. I feel like we’re after a year of working on it and we really did start about a year ago that we’re in a really good spot and a really good space to really project now.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:21] So now are there certain markets that are better than others? Like what is kind of in your mind the ideal Joshua Tree export market? Like what are some of the qualities of that market?

Joshua Malik: [00:14:33] Well, we just we definitely want some some demographics to be good. We’ve got to think about. The topography of certain places, you know. Some places in the southwest, probably one the most extreme places for us. Northeast, East Coast, Midwest places even on the West Coast are good. We got to think about tree size. We’ve got to think about vegetation as in what lawns currently look like. Pest control is something that is basically we can do anywhere but and we’re launching as a tree care. We got to think, you know, my ideal spot for us to get our first couple sales wood would honestly be locally to the region that we’re at Pennsylvania within a five hour radius of us. That would be key. We can give some excellent support. The topography is very close. The demographics are very close to what we’re working with right now. Geography is very close. We have our ideal consumer client target profile would be someone in their 40 year old plus single dwelling home half acre plus. That gives us home values of 350,000 and up, gives us the ability to to really cross-sell our services. We might get calls for tree work and it could be a tree removal job. It could be a tree pruning job. We go out there, we’re able to cross-sell and upsell our other departments that we have so different areas of the country that we can find that opportunity. They got trees, they got the landscape care that they need. They got the pest control. We get to offer them all three brands.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:12] And if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity, what’s the website?

Joshua Malik: [00:16:17] Yeah. Joshua tree experts dot com. They can go to the consumer website there. There’s a tab top right there for franchising that’ll take you to JTI franchising dot com and they can fill out a submission form and we can go from there.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:32] Well, Josh, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Joshua Malik: [00:16:38] Leah. I appreciate the time, man. Have a good day, brother.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:40] All right, this Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

John Yates With Morris, Manning & Martin LLP

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John-Yates-feature
Startup Showdown Podcast
John Yates With Morris, Manning & Martin LLP
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JohnYatesJohn Yates, Partner, Chair of the Technology Group at Morris, Manning & Martin LLP

Mr. Yates has practiced exclusively in the technology law field for 30 years. He chairs the Technology Group at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, one of the leading law firms in the country. The firm represents private and public technology companies, entrepreneurs, and business services companies throughout the U.S. and globally.

Mr. Yates co-founded and has been a Board member of leading tech organizations, including the Southeastern Medical Device Association, Southeastern Software Association, Technology Association of Georgia, Technology Executives Roundtable, and Atlanta CEO Council. He serves on the Board of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, co-chairs its Technology Leadership Group, and chairs its political action committee.

He is nationally ranked in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business as a top lawyer in venture capital. He frequently speaks at national and international conferences on technology law issues and has delivered more than one hundred speeches in his career.

His articles have been cited in the tech law area, including citation by the U.S. Supreme Court in Kodak vs. Image Technical Services. He is the author of articles published in Law and Business of Computer Software, Handbook of Business Management, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, TechJournalSouth, and LocalTechWire. He is frequently quoted in publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Atlanta Business Chronicle. Mr. Yates has been recognized in a Harvard Business School case study (“Ockham Technologies: Living on the Razor’s Edge”) as a leading lawyer representing fast-growth companies.

Nonprofit service includes the Board of Visitors – Duke University School of Law, Board of Trustees – Furman University, Emory New Venture Advisory Board, Director Emeritus – United Way of Metro Atlanta’s Tech Initiative, and Advisory Board of CURE Childhood Cancer. He and his wife were named the 2009 Volunteers of the Year by the DeKalb County YMCA.

Connect with John on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] We’ll come back to the Startup Showdown podcast, where we discuss pitching, funding and scaling startups. Join us as we interview winners, mentors and judges of the monthly $120,000 pitch competition powered by Panoramic Ventures. We also discuss the latest updates in software web3, health care, tech, fintech and more. Now sit tight as we interview this week’s guest and their journey through entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] Lee Kantor here another episode of Startup Showdown, and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Panoramic Ventures. Without them, we could not be sharing these important stories. Today on Startup Showdown, we have John Yates and he is with Morris, Manning and Martin. Welcome, John.

John Yates: [00:00:57] Thank you. Thanks for inviting me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:59] Well, I’m excited. First off, to share with our listeners what you got going on at Maurice Manning and Martin. Talk a little bit about your practice since you are one of the kind of linchpin people in this arena in technology, especially in the metro Atlanta area.

John Yates: [00:01:15] Well, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be involved here today and to be a part of this podcast, so I appreciate it. So I am a senior partner and head the technology practice at Morris Manny Martin here in Atlanta. I started in the practice actually in 1981. That was the year the IBM PC was announced. So sort of the beginning of time. And the technology community came to Atlanta at that time, didn’t know anybody, but my sister had encouraged me to get involved in the tech space. And I’ll tell you more about that. But I guess roll the clock forward to the present. From when I joined Morris, Manning and Martin, we were about 20 lawyers. Today we’re over 200. We represent over 600 technology companies throughout the United States and internationally. We did over 300 tech financings last year. Venture M&A, private equity deals. And we’re one of the top ten law firms in the country and doing tech deals and the number one firm in the Southeast and in Atlanta, we’re doing deals in the private equity venture area. So it’s been a been a great ride and we’ve been excited to be in Atlanta for that, although again, the practice is very much global. So it’s been a great environment and a wonderful city to be in.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:22] Now take us back in time a little, because it’s probably difficult for our listeners to even imagine at that time in the early eighties, what was the tech scene like? Was there an official tech scene or was this just kind of sprouts, just, you know, a few individuals out there doing interesting work?

John Yates: [00:02:40] Well, it’s interesting and it is interesting as well that there aren’t a lot of us that are still around that remember that time, most of the people, your listeners that may not even been born in 1981. So I’m really dating myself here. Fortunately, my memory is still pretty good about that time. So before 1981, the second half of the year, when the IBM PC was announced, the market was very cluttered and it was mainly mainframes and midrange computers. So companies like Digital Equipment Corporation companies, companies products like PDP elevens and faxes and the like, and IBM were the dominant players, UNIVAC, Honeywell. I was very different crowd. The latter part of 1981 resulted in the IBM PC being announced as open architecture. Now Apple did have a product at that time, but it was very closed in its architecture and it made it very challenging with respect to the ability for people to write software to the Apple system. So when IBM opened up the architecture, meaning they allowed basically software companies to write into their computer, it basically spawned the software industry. And Atlanta was very fortunate to pick up on that.

John Yates: [00:03:46] Now, at that time, MSA Management Science America was one of the largest midrange software companies in the country. And I’m sitting here in my office in Buckhead. I can see the old MSA building across the Lenox Mall Peach Tree area, and they and American Software were two of the largest players. So what happened was Atlanta spawned a lot of software companies that were nurtured as a result of IBM opening up that architecture. So we became a software capital. And also we ended up at that time having Peachtree Software, which was one of the first, if not the first accounting software products for microcomputer technology users. And we also spawned a little after that a company called Samba that was one of the first word processors in that area. So we became very software driven at that point. A lot of folks coming out of Georgia Tech and a lot of companies that were offshoots of what were midrange and mainframe computer companies that all of a sudden were focused on the microcomputer. So that was really the genesis and what initially launched the tech community in our city.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:56] Now, where there are a lot of lawyers clamoring to get into tech at that point.

John Yates: [00:05:01] Not really. There weren’t that many companies, so there weren’t as many in this area, so there weren’t as many lawyers clamoring. The reason I was clamoring was because my sister had started a tech company in 1980 in Palo Alto, California. So I saw a reason to clamor when I went out and visited her after getting out of law school, got the bug by traveling around Silicon Valley with her, and at the time there were some major trade show called Comdex. Comdex, and it was one of the largest trade shows in the world and every computer company. And there were a lot of them at the time who had all sorts of different microcomputers would go to those shows, as would all the software companies. Now, for about a decade, Comdex was the show you had to attend, and all the major software companies in Atlanta and all of the world went to Comdex and all the hardware vendors went to Comdex. And what happened was obviously hardware became more commoditized and the software companies really stopped going to Comdex because it became so large. Just a huge, huge, huge conference. But what happened was I got the bug because if having gone out to Silicon Valley and my sister’s tech company was one where I represented her and then several other tech companies out there and just saw that it was just a matter of time before it spread to Atlanta. Fortunately for me, it spread pretty quickly.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:19] Now, was having seen Silicon Valley in the community there, was that what kind of inspired you to be kind of a leader when it comes to organizing a Atlanta tech community and tech community events? It seems like you’re you’re touching a lot of them throughout the years.

John Yates: [00:06:38] What’s interesting, because at the time in 1981, 82, 83, there was there were some groups in Atlanta that were doing some things in technology, but they were it was largely sort of scattered. And what we found out in the Valley was that the software was driving a lot of the activity. So I went to my sister in Palo Alto and I said, Gene, what should I do? Where should I focus my time and attention? And she said, You need to start a software society. You need to start something in Atlanta and bring together the software leaders because there’s a lot of small growing companies there. And so I came back to Atlanta and came back to my home and contacted a few folks who were who had a similar interest. They weren’t lawyers. The computer law area or software law area was very nascent at the time. Very few decisions, very little precedent that was being created. And so I said, this is going to be a hot area. Initially I came up with the idea that we would create the Atlanta Software Society, but then I thought of the acronym for Atlanta Software Society realized that wasn’t going to work. So we said, Well, let’s make it. The Southeastern Software Association CSA, which is today one of the divisions of the Technology Association of Georgia, which we’re also co-founders of. And so started the Southeastern Software Association, which turned into the initial pivotal group, later grew into become part of Tag. But that was really the genesis, bringing together people that had an interest and then finding out a lot of these were small companies that were going to grow rapidly. They just wanted to find common a common allegiance with other entrepreneurs. And the CSA created that.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:22] So now I guess there was a lot of foresight to to call it southeast, because the Southeast is kind of really becoming a major, major player in the country when it comes to technology. Could you imagine then what it is now, where there are so many cities around the southeast that are kind of making their mark when it comes to technology?

John Yates: [00:08:44] Yeah. This is obviously a hot space to be in right now and it’s easy to start a tech company. You can pretty much do it anywhere right now from any apartment in any city, anywhere in the world. And so a lot of cities are trying to attract technology businesses. For a long time, the medical device area was in Minnesota and San Diego and biotech was in portions of Boston. And you could think about certain areas where there was really usually a center, university center that served as a hub. That’s still a huge advantage for Atlanta to have Georgia Tech in that regard. You do see places like Miami that are focused now on cryptocurrency, which is fine. That’s an area that’s a little more problematic, let’s say. But it’s certainly an area that’s been hot and we have our fair share of crypto related businesses in the Atlanta area. Austin is also gotten gotten into the fray. One of the disadvantages there is, again, infrastructure and also the absence of what Atlanta has, which is being one of the top three cities in the country for Fortune 100 headquarters. And frankly, being in an environment where we’ve gone through a lot of the sprawl that Austin is going through now, so we’re going to see competition. There’s no question about it. We do need to be more innovative and creative in Atlanta. And one of the great things about our city is we brought together the business community, the traditional business community, again, being top three in the country for Fortune 100 headquarters with the tech business community. And we’re bringing those together in a very unique way that very few cities can do. And it’s it’s been a big differentiator for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:23] So now as your career has progressed and you’re now kind of in start of shutdown, at least you were a judge. What how how does that kind of has that changed? Are you seeing entrepreneurs today? Are they kind of similar people as they were in the eighties, nineties and early 2000s?

John Yates: [00:10:43] There are a lot of similarities. It’s interesting. Back in the eighties and nineties, the challenge of go to market strategy was was much different. The Internet was not being used for commercial purposes. And so the way you communicated was very different. And it was primarily through magazines, which is not a very efficient way to do it, but literally for, let’s say 20 years, the first 20 years of the computer industry, a lot of it was you ran ads and articles and wrote columns and magazines. That was where I start. I wrote a column on computer law in a publication called Computer Retail News that, believe it or not, was published right here in Atlanta, but it was distributed nationally, not a very efficient way to actually get the word out. And I actually did prospecting for software and technology companies by reading, subscribing to all these computer magazines. And literally there were hundreds of them I could have. I’m sure I’ve supported many a paper drive for over a decade, and I would go through those magazines looking at articles, tearing out ads, looking at area codes and zip codes, trying to figure out where these companies were just a highly inefficient system.

John Yates: [00:11:54] And then when the Internet came on, obviously it made it much more efficient, created a much greater likelihood to accelerate companies and go to market quickly. And then social media, of course, helped to catapult that even further. So one of the big differences now is that because of with with the Internet and social media, you can be anywhere. You can plant a flag anywhere you want to be, and you can really create the business in a quite a unique way, which was not the case in the olden days, where we were much more tethered to a particular location and made it much more difficult to get get the word out and required, frankly, a lot more money to do it, too, because advertising campaigns and magazines and going to tradeshows and the like was highly expensive. So the system now much more efficient, much easier. But frankly, that also makes it more crowded, too. So you’ve got to find ways to differentiate yourself.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:49] Now, are you finding that the startup founders are looking the same? Are we is is our startup community as inclusive as you’d like it to be, where it represents America? Maybe truer than it did maybe in the early stages of this.

John Yates: [00:13:06] Well, there’s yes, I think it is much more inclusive now. And Atlanta has a big advantage of being probably one of the most diverse cities as far as population in the United States, which does make us quite different from many other cities as well, because the barriers to entry are lower. It means that more people of any kind of color, persuasion, religion, geography can enter the market. And and so it creates a great opportunity, especially for a community like Atlanta, where we have such a diverse population and we have great mentors. I know Panoramic is one of the supporters here of this podcast. They do a wonderful job focusing on on entrepreneurs, focusing on issues, diversity, as do many other companies and businesses here. So it creates a unique environment for us and a way to attract, I think, companies and entrepreneurs that can feel comfortable that there are people like them that are in our community getting the support and a community that really is desirous of doing that. I know our mayor is focused on that mayor. Mayor Andre Dickens is a Georgia Tech graduate. I know invest Atlanta is focused. I know the metro a lot of chamber. So we’ve got a lot of organizations that are trying to knock down any barriers that were out there for young entrepreneurs, diverse entrepreneurs. We now have a number of venture funds. In addition to panoramic, we have Zane Ventures, Valar Ventures that are focused on dealing with and supporting entrepreneurs that are diverse women entrepreneurs and the like. So it’s great to see that in our community and it’s a good thing for what’s happening here in Atlanta is a differentiator.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:55] Now, any advice for the entrepreneur out there that’s listening that might be from an underserved community? What would you recommend they do to kind of plug in and to get involved and to give themselves the best chance for success?

John Yates: [00:15:08] I think there are three areas of really focus here. One are these venture funds that I’ve just mentioned, the early stage funds, the Atlanta Technology Angel’s Panoramic Valar Ventures, Zane Ventures, these are all groups that that are helpful and directing folks to the right area. And also some of them have cohorts. I know Zane, for example, has a cohort of entrepreneurs. They bring on on as do several of these other funds. So if you’re an entrepreneur, you may be able to get plugged into that. There’s a launch pad to X, which is primarily for women entrepreneurs who are starting businesses as a way to get plugged in, to learn about how to grow a business. And then the Technology Association of Georgia, which is, I think probably the largest tech organization in the United States, I believe that Larry Williams is CEO mentioned. I think we’re over 30,000 members there, which is phenomenal. But lots and lots of groups within the Technology Association at Georgia, where these entrepreneurs can plug in the metro Atlanta Chamber, is also quite helpful in that regard. And importantly, Venture Atlanta, which has now become one of the largest venture conferences in the country, is a must attend this year. It’ll be October 19th through 20th. It’ll be held at the Woodruff Arts Center, which is going to be fantastic, a great way for us to tie technology and the arts together. And I know being involved with the Woodruff Arts Center on the board, we’re extremely excited about bringing the technology entrepreneurs together with folks in the arts community, but also many of the tech leaders. So if you’re a young entrepreneur, there are a lot of resources there and you want to make sure you get your your registration to attend venture. Atlanta, October will be here before you know it.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:52] Well, John, thank you so much for sharing your story today. If somebody wants to connect with Morris, Manning and Martin or learn more or maybe connect with you, what’s a website website is.

John Yates: [00:17:03] Mhm. Law.com. And I’m also on LinkedIn. That’s a good way to connect with me. I do have quite a few LinkedIn connections and I’m always happy to help people if they’re looking to connect into the network. And so I would say you can reach me at my law.com the website provides all the information, but the email address is Jay Yates at law.com and I appreciate everything that you’re doing and this podcast is very informative and we appreciate the support panoramic as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:32] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

John Yates: [00:17:36] Actually.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:37] All right. This is Lee Kantor SEO next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:17:42] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup Showdown Pitch Competition Visit Showdown VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. All right, that’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

Safir Monroe With UnDelay

by

SafirMonroe
Atlanta Business Radio
Safir Monroe With UnDelay
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Undelay

SafirMonroeSafir Monroe, CEO at UnDelay

Safir graduated from Howard University in Mechanical Engineering. He worked for Delta Air Lines for several years.

Connect with Safir on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Flight delays
  • Airline industry
  • Airport industry

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Safir Monroe with UnDelay. Welcome, Safir.

Safir Monroe: [00:00:43] Hey, thank you. Thank you for talking to me. And I want to say hi to everybody is listening.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:48] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Underlay. How are you serving folks?

Safir Monroe: [00:00:54] Oh, definitely. So we reduce flight delays and improve ground efficiencies by converting a lot of radio transmissions into text to identify different maintenance issues, growing operations, problems by disruptions, and maybe some mechanical issues and a lot of runway congestion problems.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] So what was the genesis of the idea? How did you know this was a problem worth solving?

Safir Monroe: [00:01:21] I worked for Delta Airlines for several years, and then after I left, I just understood a lot of operations, definitely wanted to get back in the industry. So just with my background in mechanical engineering and software engineering, I definitely wanted to tag the problem. I worked at Delta as a web developer on dotcom, so I understood a lot of the ins and outs of the entire system of technologies in aviation.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:42] Now, is this a product that’s sold to the airline individually? Is it sold to the airport? Who who benefits the most from this? And who is the, you know, economic buyer of it?

Safir Monroe: [00:01:56] So we’re focusing on medium sized and smaller airports right now. So within a lot of problems at airports, I’m sure you’ve been stuck in the airport before. And later in that night, the concessions start closing. But the flight is delayed two or 3 hours. Everybody’s just wondering where can they get food or something to drink? So we definitely want to service airports first to extend a lot of their concession hours to improve overall revenue at airports. And with that, with advanced flight data statistics like voice recognition and a lot of other places, information and flight stats, we combine those to kind of give the airport more understanding of when to close concessions to increase concession revenue at airports.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:35] So I didn’t realize that the concessions were that tied into the kind of the flight. So they know when the last flight of the day is. So they know when to call, you know, call it and send their people home.

Safir Monroe: [00:02:49] Yeah, definitely. So a lot of you see a lot of airports like their schedule, some schedules, you know, and about their local time. But some are scheduled to close at the last departure of the day. But, you know, as we all know, there are so many different changes within different flight plans. And what was at one delay could, you know, disseminate over the entire airport network. So to cause multiple ripple delays. So with that, there’s so many different changing factors. So we give a lot of statistics to show what these change, in fact, is. We can update those flight plans more efficiently, efficiently, efficiently, and then give that information to different airport vendors.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:27] So how has it done now? How do they know, you know, what’s going on right now? How you know.

Safir Monroe: [00:03:34] Representative, they currently refresh their statistics over and over again so they might get the schedule for the day, but to really understand what was going to happen during the end of the day. Right. Because, you know, there’s a lot of changes. They just they just look at the flight change changes and different flight feels like you could you could search online like real time data, whatever carrier that you have, you’ll see the actual delay. But with that, they want to know like, okay, we’re out of the plane. Like just more information on because what they have right now is not enough to make the decision of if they should stay late longer. So with that, we want to give them more data to make that decision more efficiently.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:18] So how many airports are there like you’re are you talking about like airports the size of Hartsfield or are these the smaller ones like DeKalb or, you know, Charlie Brown?

Safir Monroe: [00:04:31] One more like the ones that for small cities like, you know, Tulsa right now, definitely areas like Alabama, Huntsville, Mobile, you know, Birmingham City, cities like that. Well, that’s where we’re targeting maybe around 20 or 30 gates, you know, 15 or ten gates. Just a good amount of operations that we can detect around and we could increase the revenue for. So Tulsa, Tulsa Airport, they made about $32 million of revenue and $10 million of that were through concessions. And then with that, we want to increase the revenue by $1,000,000. So with that, we want to get just whatever concessions that are made of money. We believe we can increase that revenue. So whatever how many operations the airport has and they have positions and they have enough flight operations to have this type of problem. It was an airport to go target. And there’s 17,000 airports in worldwide, but there are 5000 in America and about a couple hundred that we’re targeting right now in terms of like the medium, small size market. But as we go forward, we want to integrate with all different types of airports. But.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:39] So now your solution would send a text to like, you know, the the hamburger shop and saying, hey, this last flight is going to get in at 11 and not ten. So you may want to keep your people another hour.

Safir Monroe: [00:05:55] Yeah, definitely. So we right now, we, we have a dashboard that just address all the data and make it to make that final decision. But we’re working with a company called Volt, which is text based system to where we can see that text like notification to different airport vendors to have that final output of saying, okay, this flight is going to be delayed an extra hour because we understand where the plane is, where the different planes are in the ground and the operations that are taking place or the voice that they want to send as an engineer, a pushback issue here or operational failure here. So with all those statistics, we push out that final text to airport managers and managers.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:34] Now, have you tested this as is this operational somewhere in an airport somewhere, or is this kind of an idea at this point?

Safir Monroe: [00:06:43] What they’ve said on stage is a lot of airports were just identified. Different rooms replace our technology as well. As, you know, we’re setting up the systems and talking to a lot of officials. It gets a lot it needs a lot of pool for different airports. But we’re in advanced stages of talking to multiple different airports.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:00] So you don’t have it beta tested in the real world yet.

Safir Monroe: [00:07:05] Yeah. No, we don’t have a complete pilot project, but just from talking to different CEOs, CEOs and executives and also TSA agents and managers at the airport and I we just show them the business rules of what our data could do and then a real time feed. So we can take a lot of remote real time fees as well. So we just show them. And also like with being a certain cities, I can detect a lot of places as well. Then with that combined data, we just show them how this will have a final output. But let’s say if they want a lot more data or like a lot more outputs or a lot more predictions, we just get receivers. So in terms of like the business rules of what we can accomplish, that’s already done. So they’ve they’ve tested that at the point we’re just looking at the dashboard or via API.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:51] So you have it kind of conceptually agreed upon that this will solve a problem and it just hasn’t been all the way followed through into an actual airport where they’re getting the text and they’re actually seeing the actual. What happens when you have this information? Are people really going to say, okay, stay another hour or two because there could be, you know, 50 people coming in.

Safir Monroe: [00:08:13] Yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we we have perception and built out. But in terms of everyday testing, not not yet. I’m just a lot of airport like, you know, sometimes there’s a lot of process within the airport.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:25] Right? There’s a lot of bureaucracy, I’m sure, to get this approved. It’s not the easiest thing. Now, how did you you know, you have an idea and then you go through all these steps and the politics and the bureaucracy is a nightmare just by itself. So did you do this on your own or you have a co founder that is a technologist or like like how is the kind of the responsibilities divided up? Because just contacting the airports is a that’s a job by itself and then building an app or a software program or however you’re going to do it, that’s another challenge.

Safir Monroe: [00:09:02] Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So for me, the team is comprised of all five people on me. I’m the CEO co-founder, so my background in software engineering as well as hardware. So I started the solution early stages and now we have a CTO, the software engineer from Georgia Tech co-founder Rob, and he’s served the aviation industry for about 30 years. He’s worked he’s held leadership roles for over 40 airlines worldwide. So it’s a very extensive knowledge and background in aviation. The aviation space as well as a Daniel Cable has actually been in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech and Brendan O’Keefe, which is just got on the team, he’s the head of operations. So with our team we have engineers was people in the aviation space that really just all came together to really solve this problem to the airports that we’ve got now. We’ve been the accelerators. So with that ACT accelerator sponsored by Italy and a lot of other foundations like Bolt and Tulsa, we’re working with them to advance operations in the Tulsa Airport as well as the Bronze Valley Accelerator. We’re working with the Alabama airports because Bronzeville is based in Alabama.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:13] Now, are you bootstrapping this? Are you bootstrapping this or you have investors at this point?

Safir Monroe: [00:10:18] All we do is we raise up to roughly a $200,000 a day to grow this technology. One of our investors very in Atlanta is Chris Claus. So he’s in our security and really believes in our product and helping invest in our company. We actually invested in a company.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:36] So with him behind you, that gives you a nice jumping off point to get this thing done.

Safir Monroe: [00:10:42] Yeah. Yeah, huge. Right. Because just, you know, the technology behind it is so vast and complicated and there’s so many layers to it to where, you know, you need a lot of investments to cover. A lot of the airports, give a lot of push out a lot of data. It’s a very complex structure. So with that, that’s why we are raising we have raised a lot and we still are raising to just to feed a lot of and cover a lot of these products from the hardware and software side.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:08] Now, what do you need more of? How can we help?

Safir Monroe: [00:11:13] But that’s the outreach. I mean, you know, if you know, any medium or small airports, you know, that can utilize technology, we have a lot on our map. But, you know, we definitely like to just talk to as much Air Force as possible. We’ll be going to Ireland and next month for the Future Travel Experience Expo. So they like, you know European airports want to talk to us. We’ll be there pitching as well as just any airports within that Georgia region, you know, or like Florida or South Carolina. You know, we would love to have those conversations with the smaller airports now.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:47] If somebody wants to learn more about Underlay, where should they go? What’s website?

Safir Monroe: [00:11:53] But definitely so. The website is Underlay App.com. So you and Delaware. App.com. So check it out. And also you can contact us at contact at App.com. So feel free to send us an email. A lead to an airport or if you just want to understand more about it, feel free to contact us and we’ll definitely explain what we do in more detail.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:15] Now, are you looking for more talent or are you good from a talent standpoint?

Safir Monroe: [00:12:21] It sounds like we are good right now. We’re really focused on just raising raising money. So we’ll talk later how Tampa really, really focused on like pilots and just getting more airports on board customers. Right. But really, from a customer perspective, we really want to scale in that direction. But also we are raising money as well. But after like, you know, get more airports and raise more money, we definitely look at the time because you need more people to grow the company. But that’s probably the third stage of things we’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:53] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success. One more time. The website is underlay. App.com. Unadilla. Why app.com?

Safir Monroe: [00:13:04] Yep. Yep. That’s the website under the ABC.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:07] All right. Well, Sophia, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Safir Monroe: [00:13:13] Thank you, man. I appreciate it. And I really I’m glad that you had you on the call today.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:17] You got it. All right. This Lee Kantor will see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Jess Chew With Trella Health

by

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Jess Chew With Trella Health
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JessChewJess Chew, VP of Marketing at Trella Health

With more than 10 years’ experience in healthcare marketing, Jessica leads Trella Health’s marketing team.

Prior to joining Trella Health, Jessica served as a marketing leader at Greenway Health, an EHR and practice management solutions company that serves the independent physician market.

After graduating from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s in journalism, Jessica got her start in marketing at Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in America. She thought this entry-level job was the first step on the road to a career as an investigative reporter — but immediately became hooked on marketing.

At Trella Health, she’s able to do all the things she loved about journalism — digging for information and insights, helping people share their stories — and she’s also able to make a meaningful difference in the way post-acute care is provided.

Connect with Jess on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Healthcare tech
  • Atlanta Tech scene
  • Branding/marketing

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Jess Chew with Trella Health. Welcome, Jess.

Jess Chew: [00:00:42] Hi, Lee. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to at Health. Tell us a little bit about kind of mission purpose. How you serving folks?

Jess Chew: [00:00:52] Yeah. So telehealth provides growth solutions for health care organizations. We really believe that by providing insights and performance metrics, making those visible for health care organizations across the board, that we can really make a difference in how patients are treated and how in reducing unnecessary health care costs. So at our core, we give customers insight into what’s happening in their markets and with their competitors, as well as the tools to take action on those insights.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:21] You use an interesting word visible. Everybody talks about data and a lot of organizations have access to lots and lots of data, but they don’t know how to make it visible and how to kind of discern what is the most important things I should even be looking at. How does Trello kind of help in that way?

Jess Chew: [00:01:41] Yeah, no, it’s a really great point. We do there’s two things that makes what we do at Trello special. One is the data that we have access to. So while health care organizations have a ton of data on their own organizations and their own patients, the missing piece for them is often knowing what’s happening in their markets with their patients at different providers and with some of their competitors. So we have a special relationship with Medicare where we get access to all the fee for service claims as well as Medicare Advantage claims. And we take all of that and aggregate it and provide one clear view into what’s happening in your market and your state and your county nationally. So that’s a differentiator because like I said, health care organizations have a ton of information at their own buildings, but they don’t necessarily have what’s happening at a broader level. And then, like you said, data is only as useful as what you can do with it. And we have an awesome team of data scientists that take all of that information and compile it into helpful calculations, surface information. We have a great Web team that turns that into more visuals. We do a lot of things with color coding and just trying to make data as simple as possible and surfacing up what we think are the most critical points for each user.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:07] Now, is the user the the medical center or facility, or is it the consumer? Because I would you know, from the medical center and I know I charge X for this type of A procedure and I can see around, oh, these people charge why these people charge? Z That’s interesting for me to see where I stand from that standpoint. But as a consumer, if I know that center charges, you know, X and Center B charges, you know, five X, you know, maybe I’ll choose this other place. Does it go down to the consumer level or is it just kind of one institution to another?

Jess Chew: [00:03:47] Yeah, it’s not done to the consumer level. It’s the health care organizations themselves. And the primary users at those health care organizations are like the strategic folks, the sales and marketing teams, so that they know who should they be working with to help bring in more patients and who should they be collaborating for in terms of making networks like who? Who would be a good fit for their practice to be working with from a business standpoint?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:11] So it’s, it’s giving you kind of outcomes. So you can see that Surgeon A is more successful in this manner than the surgeon.

Jess Chew: [00:04:19] B Yeah, that’s part of it for sure. And another thing, for example, home health agencies, they’re a big part of our business. We sell to them a lot, helping them understand what types of doctors in your area are referring patients to home health who maybe isn’t but should be because their patients are not having the types of outcomes that doctors who are referring to home health are having. So that’s a big piece about of what we do.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:45] So what was the genesis of the idea? How did this whole company get started?

Jess Chew: [00:04:51] Yeah. So our our founder was working in the post-acute space. He’s actually working at a CRM, a company at the time. And what he found was he was, you know, selling into sales and marketing organizations. But what those teams needed was more information about where they should be going, where they should be spending their time. And then once they do finally get that ultra important meeting with the physician, what should they be saying? And so that’s we were founded around helping them get the insights and information that they need to make their time really efficient. And also at the time, he just saw not a lot of companies were innovating in the post-acute care space. It’s not as big as some of the other health care markets. There’s a lot more small and medium sized businesses. So it’s not as many of these. Giant health systems, and it’s also a big driver of costs for our health care system. And so he really felt like we could make a huge impact in this space and and provide better resources to these companies who are caring for our nation’s most vulnerable.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:00] Now, was this happening at the time when I think the rules change, where they that the insurance companies cared more about outcomes and they were kind of almost penalizing you for bad outcomes?

Jess Chew: [00:06:13] Absolutely, yeah. As we’ve started shifting away from a volume based system where you get paid for a service rendered and moving more towards a value based system where you’re getting reimbursed based on outcomes, and now health systems are getting dinged if their patients are coming back into the getting readmitted into the hospital. So it’s just so much more important now that as you’re referring patients, as you’re sending them from one place to another, that you’re working with people not based on relationships, but based on how they treat patients. Do they treat the types of patients that you treat? Do they have expertize in that area and are they known for having really good outcomes because it ultimately is now starting to affect every single health care organization’s business, whether or not they’re the ones treating them at the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:04] So when you say relationships as a driver in the past, that was like that was the person I played golf with was kind of a driver in terms of should I partner with this facility as opposed to who is the one that’s really delivering, you know, the outcome that we all desire.

Jess Chew: [00:07:21] Exactly. Or we, you know, we like to say we’re moving away from donuts and moving towards data. And, you know, donuts are still an important piece of business development in the health care world, for sure. But, you know, a lot of times back in the day, it was who who brought something to the office most recently, who have I known forever that I should send my patients to? And while that’s is certainly merits to working with people that you have good relationships to now, it’s just so much more important that you’re paying attention to. Is this organization best suited to care for my types of patients? Are they well versed in caring for people with these types of conditions, and are they known for having really strong outcomes so that I know my patients are going to get the care they need and they’re not going to rebound and come back for the exact same thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:08] And that’s really where kind of the secret sauce of Trello, you’re able to parse that data and say, okay, you know what, this organization might be great for people over 80, but they’re not great for people at 35 with a similar injury.

Jess Chew: [00:08:24] Exactly. We only deal with patients 65 plus and older, but. Exactly. You’re right on. You’re exactly right on the track. I mean, we help you understand this group is really good at caring for cancer patients or this group is really good at caring for those who have just had major heart surgery. So every every organization is going to have their own specialties. And we help really surface that information and showcase what a difference in outcomes for the patients that can make.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:53] So now how has kind of the trajectory of cello’s growth gone? I know that early in your career you worked with maybe some early stage folks in the past and you so your background is kind of interesting. So I’d like to kind of touch on that as well. But where are we at with Trello right now?

Jess Chew: [00:09:12] Yeah, I mean, we’ve been growing, growing like crazy. We’ve entered a couple of new markets. We had an acquisition at the end of last year. So it’s been I’ve been with Trello for about three and a half years. It’s been a really great ride and I think, you know, as seniors are continuing to age, there’s continuing to be more value based care type programs coming out that are impacting all the different care settings that we serve and and highlighting other care settings that we should probably enter into to help support them during these times. So it’s just it’s been a really exciting time to to be at Trello.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:49] Now for you personally, it seems like you’re attracted to these fast growing emerging brands.

Jess Chew: [00:09:55] Yeah, absolutely. I was actually just thinking about it because this week, 13 years ago, I was just moving back to Atlanta from from my first job, which was at probably the largest company that I ever worked at, which was Gannett, one of the largest newspaper publishers in the country. And I was was moving back to Atlanta and trying to figure out what I was going to do next. It was honestly one of the worst job markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:19] So at that time, you were you had a journalist hat on at Gannett or you were in marketing at Gannett.

Jess Chew: [00:10:26] So I was in marketing at Gannett. I thought I was going to be a joy. I spent my entire life dreaming of being a journalist, and then when I graduated college, had the opportunity to work on the business side of a newspaper and absolutely fell in love with marketing and realize just how many similarities there are with. Journalism and marketing. So I did have my marketer hat on at that point, but I knew the likelihood of getting another job at a newspaper was very slim. So I started thinking about other alternatives. Ended up at an apparel company. It was a startup. It was really fun. We were we were mostly selling flannel pants, so it was really fun. But I, I missed kind of that mission driven work, which is what I felt like. I was getting in a newspaper. I felt like I was doing something really important by helping getting news in front of people. And so that’s when I started working at a small marketing agency supporting health care companies, doing B2B marketing. And that’s where I was like, Ooh, yes, I love this. I love helping health care organizations and those that are serving health care organizations. So from there, I went to work at an HR company serving ambulatory practices, which is like your primary care doctor. So I was at Greenway and I was there for a couple of years in their marketing department with marketing ops and demand generation, and then got the call to come join the Trello team. And I couldn’t say no to that because it just was such an exciting product and a market that I hadn’t been able to serve, but felt was just a really important one.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:59] So how is your experience been in the Atlanta tech scene? I’ve had the opportunity to interview lots and lots of startup founders, lots of startups, and I’ve seen the kind of startup scene grow over the last ten, 15 years. What has it been for you to be kind of immersed in, especially this health care tech scene?

Jess Chew: [00:12:22] Oh, yeah. No, it’s been phenomenal. I mean, I remember when I was working at the apparel company, which is a startup, Sara Blakely came in the founder of Spanx. She came in and this was before Spanx was like crazy big. But I still knew of her because they’d had some early success and just walked down the halls. I was talking to people and I’m like, Oh my gosh, so crazy Spanx is here. But yeah, I mean, it is. There’s so many people in my network that I talk to on a very frequent basis that are at other similar stage growth companies, some in health care, some not. We’re right around the corner from Atlanta Tech Village in Buckhead. And I just I feel like I’m always running into somebody wearing another startup t shirt in the elevator, in the office.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:08] It’s a lifestyle.

Jess Chew: [00:13:09] It’s it is a lifestyle.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:13] I believe it is. I mean, to me, I think startup t shirts were the concert t shirts. You know, today they are what the the concert teacher was, you know, a generation ago.

Jess Chew: [00:13:24] Oh, absolutely. I mean, and I take a lot of pride in making sure that Estrella, we have really nice t shirts because I totally get it. And I, I sometimes I feel bad when I hop on an interview and like, I’m interviewing a candidate to work for us and I have like a t shirt on and they’re in a very fancy business outfit for an interview. But, you know, I’m like, this is what it’s like when you work at a startup, you get to wear t shirts.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:49] And then it’s not everybody gets that. I mean, it’s it’s not for everybody.

Jess Chew: [00:13:54] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:55] So now what’s it like kind of recruiting talent in today’s market? And you’re in the health care tech Atlanta, and I’m sure you’re you’re searching all over the country, if not the world, for talent today.

Jess Chew: [00:14:11] Yeah. I mean, honestly, this is one of the hardest markets I’ve ever had to recruit in because you’re competing just with a lot of different companies. There’s a lot of different benefits that people are offering. I mean, it’s it’s really the opposite job market of when I quit my job 13 years ago and moved back to Atlanta. And that’s a really exciting thing for employees. I think it’s a really great time, but it has made it extremely difficult. And so what I try to do is lean on the autonomy that we have here and the fact that I have such trust from my boss, the CEO, and all he asks of the marketing team is that we drive pipeline, that we nurture and engage customers so they want to retain and renew and that we help build up Treloar as a place where people want to work. How we do that is completely up to us. And so I think for a marketer that’s something really exciting and hopefully I’m trying to attract people that want to be at a place like that. And also just going back to our mission, I mean, I think there’s a lot of people like me who want to be working at a company where they feel like they’re doing something really important. And so try to tap into that too, because it is really competitive out there right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:31] So now what is the kind of the office situation? Is it in office? Is it remote? Is it hybrid?

Jess Chew: [00:15:40] Yeah, it’s really. Really up to the individual. So we still have our headquarters here in Atlanta. I’m actually in the office right now. I love coming into the office, so I’m here pretty much every day. But I’m one of the few people that that that is my preference. And it’s completely up to every single person. We have like a workday Wednesday where it’s just a day where a lot of people do tend to come in. And that way people know like, hey, if I want to see somebody one day this week, which what day should be Wednesday, but it’s completely up to everyone what their preference is.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:09] So when you are doing that kind of hybrid work day, can you. How did how does it work? This is something that I’m it’s a puzzle for me as a layperson, as an outsider. If you if on one side, I can be remote and I can, you know, live in Michigan because I got to take care of my parents who are in Michigan. And and you’re okay with that? I mean, during the pandemic, everybody was okay with anybody living anywhere. And then if if it’s still okay and then you do things like Workplace Wednesday and I’m in Michigan, is that still okay or is it do I really have to be kind of in the metro Atlanta area so that or, you know, within a drive so that I could come in and work day Wednesday?

Jess Chew: [00:16:57] Yeah, no, it’s totally we have people all over the country and even my team that used to be pretty much an Atlanta based team just because we’d hired most of the people before the pandemic, when we did really want to be in the office together. Now I have a couple of people spread out, so yeah, there’s no pressure to be together. It is. We are still figuring out, gosh, if you have some people in one office and you have a couple of people remote, how do you make that meeting as effective as possible? I would say we’re still stumbling through that like others are. Sometimes, even if there’s three of us in the office, we still take it from our desk just because we want it to each be our own little square on the screen. But for Workday Wednesday, we try to do things that it’s most important to be together for. Otherwise, if we’re just coming to the office to sit on Zoom calls, it’s like, Well, why did we do that? So, you know, we try to we try to find time to make sure that the people that we know are going to come in, that we’re spending time with them and and then prioritizing people who may not be in the office on the other days.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:01] So what for you was that clue when you were you know, you go from unit, you go into this startup world now you’re you’re exploring, you know, you’re with, like you said, that fashion company and then you get into health care. How did you start sensing, you know what this is? I’m good at this. I have a superpower that maybe is different than other people hear. My kind of lens on the world is unique because of my background and who I am and what I can do. Like can you talk a little bit about that from just that self-discovery standpoint of getting you to where you are now and having kind of this your own great trajectory of your career as it’s expanded and grown over the years?

Jess Chew: [00:18:45] Yeah, well, I think for me, it started when I was at the apparel company because when I was working at newspaper I was like living my childhood dream and I used to go it every morning and this is going to sound ridiculous. But there was a table where all the newspapers that we published at that at that press would be laid out on the table. And I’d grab one of each one to take to my desk so I could read on my coffee break. So I was like living my childhood dream. I always knew I wanted to do that. And then when I was at the apparel company, I thought it was crazy fun. I mean, I was organizing photo shoots. I was picking out which pattern of flannel we were going to put on the cover of the catalog. It was crazy fun, but there was just this element of like, why? Like, why does it matter that there’s going to be pink flint on this on this cover for me? And I just I didn’t have that same passion that I had about picking up my newspapers every morning as I did about picking out the flannel. And then when I, I really didn’t choose on purpose to go to a health care agency, I was really intrigued by it, but I wasn’t like, Ooh, this is my calling.

Jess Chew: [00:19:49] But once I started talking to customers, so not not necessarily the organizations that we were supporting, but their customers when I started interviewing them for different marketing projects and getting to hear in their words, like what their day to day was like, how the products we were helping market were we’re solving real problems for them and giving them like time back in their day so that they could spend more time with their families, so that they could provide a better experience for their patients. That to me it was just like a light bulb went off for me and I’m like, yes, this is this is something I can really get excited about and give me that feeling of I’m making a difference. I’m contributing something. I’m putting marketing messages out there, but that they’re ultimately driving to, you know, a patient getting better care or a doctor being able to. Go home and actually spend time with their family because they’re not having to to sit there and try and type notes into a ear system because it’s clunky.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:49] So the impact was real. Like it wasn’t a theoretical or it wasn’t. You were seeing actual impact.

Jess Chew: [00:20:56] Exactly. And it was through talking with my I guess it was technically my customers, customers, the organizations I was supporting at the time from the agency side, talking to their customers and really hearing firsthand how technology was was truly having a positive impact in their lives. And that was just yeah, it was really game changing for me in my career.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:19] And that’s when that light bulb went off and you were like, I am on the right path. This does you know, this is, you know, an exciting reason to get up every day and every Monday. I’m looking forward to I’m not dreading it.

Jess Chew: [00:21:32] Exactly. And that’s I mean, that’s when I basically said, you know, and there’s also so many health care tech companies in Atlanta. I was like, yes, I’ve found my niche. I’m set. This is where I’m going to spend the rest of my marketing days is is helping support health care companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:48] Now, how did you kind of keep your skills relevant and fresh as this tech scene is obviously expanding and growing and changing and chaotic? And so, you know, not only it’s one thing to have your passion pointing in the true north, but it’s another thing to say, okay, well, I’ve got to get good at this and stay good at this.

Jess Chew: [00:22:13] Yeah. And my role was not necessarily at the agency focused on some of the marketing technology that we were using for clients. But I found that in order to answer clients questions, I needed to get a lot deeper. And then and I never thought of myself as somebody who was good at technology or somebody who was particularly skilled at computers or whatever. I fell in love with Marketo, which is the marketing automation system that we were using at the time. It just clicked for me, and so I actually went way down that rabbit hole and that’s when I got my next job at Greenway I was in marketing operations, is running the tech stack for the company and I, I really appreciated that I was a member of we had a, I think they called it mug like a marketo user group but then did need to branch out and start because marketing changes so fast. So I’ve also joined gosh, what do they call it now? I always want to call it Revenue Collective, but there’s a group of like minded go to market leaders, there’s a Slack community and there’s regular meetups part of that. I’m always on LinkedIn. I have a couple of people that I follow very closely because I’m always looking to see what they’re saying and I’m paying attention to that. And I’m just an avid reader, too, of different business books, different business philosophies. And that’s one thing I love about working for Scott Tap, the CEO that we have now and at Trello is he’s introduced the concept of executive book club. So the exec team reads a book and then we talk about it every Friday as as we read it, we don’t wait till the very end. We kind of meet progressively. So those are just some of the ways in which I try to stay. Freshen and on my game.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:03] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Jess Chew: [00:24:07] Whew. I don’t know. That’s a really good question. I would definitely say, you know, even though I’m in some of these groups where I feel like and I have network connections with like minded people, it’s ever since the pandemic, it has been a little bit hard to continually find places and ways to meet up with other people in similar roles and similar stage companies. And so I just think that’s something I’m always looking for, is trying to connect with others at similar phases of their career, similar stage companies, because there’s just always so much that we can learn from each other. And, and so I could always use more networking opportunities around that.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:48] Well, if somebody wants to connect with you, whether it’s on LinkedIn or whether they want to, you know, maybe a job at Trello, what’s first the website for Trello and then maybe your LinkedIn coordinates.

Jess Chew: [00:24:59] Yeah. So. W w w Trello. Health.com. And then my I actually don’t even know the exact URL for my LinkedIn, but it’s it should be Jessica Levine.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:13] Good stuff. Well, Jess, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jess Chew: [00:25:19] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:20] All right. This is Lee Kantor. What’s your next time on the Atlanta Business Radio?

 

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