Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Elisa Pratt With Brewer Pratt Solutions

May 6, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Elisa Pratt With Brewer Pratt Solutions

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Elisa Pratt, CEO and Chief Strategist of Brewer Pratt Solutions, is an influential strategic specialist who, prior to consulting, served as an impactful senior staff member for several trade and individual membership associations, both domestic and international.

Pratt leverages a record of transformative success and specializes in strategic planning and engagement. As an association management executive for nearly 20 years, she delivers strategic and actionable innovations, future-focused member engagement solutions, and tactical operational effectiveness solutions.

With a unique background in components, advocacy, stakeholder relations, and association operations, Pratt’s diverse expertise makes her an invaluable partner. Pratt is a Certified Association Executive (CAE), has earned her Certified Virtual Facilitator™ designation from the International Institute for Facilitation (INIFAC) and holds a MA in Government from Johns Hopkins University.

A thought leader in the association space, Elisa founded and co-hosts the award-winning Association Transformation™ podcast, advancing issues and innovations of nonprofits around the world.

Elisa serves as a strategic advisor, sitting on the board of the Institute for Association Leadership (IAL), has developed curriculum for AssociationTrends.com and AssociationSuccess.com and delivered keynote and session presentations for the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), Nplace.org, the IAL’s Focus Forum, and the Virtual Association Network (VAN).

Connect with Elisa on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

The Power of a Post-Pandemic Recalibration
Strategic planning in the new, next normal
Nonprofit hiring in a hybrid world: Don’t fill the old holes

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 Kanter here another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Alisa Pratt with Brewer Pratt Solutions. Welcome.

Elisa Pratt: [00:00:28] Well, thank you, Lee. Longtime listener, first time caller. Thanks for having.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Me. Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Brewer Pratt. How are you serving folks?

Elisa Pratt: [00:00:37] Yes, Brewer Pratt Solutions is an association excellence consultancy. We focus on really a three legged stool of strategy development. So strategic planning, board execution. So making sure your board has what they need. And then future member engagement. Who is in your pipeline? Who is your pipeline to not only membership but to those those next generation of leaders. So that is our our main approach with organizations of all shapes and sizes. We work with both 536 and 583 associations. And it it keeps us busy. It keeps things exciting. And things have never been busier.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:20] Well, one of the first things you mentioned was strategy. How how important is strategy to you in this three legged stool? And why would you think that organizations that have been around for any length of time would need help in strategy?

Elisa Pratt: [00:01:39] Sure. You know, it’s interesting with mission driven organizations that mission is truly your your compass, but you’re changing directions all the time. And it’s that that adaptability. It’s it’s that reaction to change around you, both internal and external, that requires a strategic mind, a strategic focus. And it’s important to to keep asking yourself the hard questions. I believe, and I see often that it’s those well established and long tenured organizations that that get into the most rut. You know, it’s it’s it’s hard to go from good to great, but it’s also really hard to stay great and and strategy can come into play to allow an organization to be flexible, to be responsive and to remain relevant. Really, this is about relevance and ensuring a relevant future. And that requires strategy. That requires a candid look at yourself as an organization, at your your industry and your your membership and and what you believe you can truly achieve within the scope of your your mission.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:51] Now, what are some symptoms that maybe your strategy has gone awry or it’s a little maybe off the mark and it is no longer kind of pointing to that true north that you aspire to?

Elisa Pratt: [00:03:03] Sure. There’s some very, I think, obvious data points and metrics that can start to skew to let you know that things are off. First, our customer numbers, those end users, in most cases, your members, your leadership, when those when retention numbers start to drop, when joined numbers start to decline, when when even attendance and registration numbers start to drop. That tells us that there’s there’s a disconnect that the organization we want to be and the organization we think we are, that’s not what’s what’s getting to the end user. That’s not the experience that they’re having. Financials usually fall in line with that. Obviously, membership and programs and service changes will will affect the finance pieces. But I also like to look at at internal if we’re turning over staff, if if we’ve had a long tenured executive with great success retire and now we can’t seem to keep to keep a new executive in place. That’s that’s a red flag that there’s not not a strategy coming out of COVID. One of the most telling symptoms for me has been the burnt out staff. Many organizations got very lean during COVID and necessarily so. And the staff that have remained have been rewarded for their loyalty and their commitment with more and more and more responsibility. And that does not demonstrate a strategic mindset. That means you’re saying yes to everything you’re piling on, and you are, as some would say, you’re you’re forgetting about the mule and just loading the wagon. And that is a recipe for for disaster. And that tells me that we don’t have a strategic discipline or a strategic focus for the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:54] How do you help the organization where maybe at one time in their market or with their cause, they were maybe the only game in town. And now there’s been others that upstarts maybe that have said, you know what, this is a cause worth pursuing and this is kind of our little take on it. And this is where we’re a little different. And all of a sudden, the cause that. Was exclusively yours is now has several players in it and maybe each appealing to a different group. In that case, the strategy might have made sense at a certain time, and maybe it still makes sense, but maybe you just aren’t the answer anymore.

Elisa Pratt: [00:05:32] You know, I laugh because competition and an expanded and competitive market is something all industries face. Not just associations, not just nonprofits. And where the greatest competition lies is, is really in in the organic user space. The people on the Internet, the people on groups, the people in their own communities that can connect, that can amplify their voices through through unity, that can can make a case that can put on a user group, that can write a paper, that can do a lot of the things that we would traditionally look to to a nonprofit to to undertake. And that’s scary. But if you if you embrace partnership and you embrace collaboration and I think those are two very important strategic attributes you can weave yourself into that diverse marketplace, that diversity of thought. And instead of having competitors, you can have channels of content, you can have you can have channels of influence. And in some ways make yourself even more more vibrant and therefore more relevant.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:44] Now when you’re having a conversation with maybe an incumbent, how are you broaching this? Because that seems like a conversation not many incumbents would like to have.

Elisa Pratt: [00:06:56] Well, you know, it depends on what you’re measuring and how you’re measuring success if if success is being measured through. Status quo through. Through, not, not. I don’t know. I don’t want to say a resistance to change. But we know that many, many incumbents and the boards that they support are resistant to change. The future is coming and you can either wrap yourself around it or it will consume you at your own expense. I think my my clients hire me for my candor. I’m not a yes person. I’m not going to sugarcoat things. And and in many ways, that environmental scan that that we do for our clients will help. I don’t know. It allows us to read the tea leaves. But but the future is coming. The the pace at which it will impact you is different for every organization. And I mean, I have to beg of my my clients to be to be open minded. And many are those that are already innovative, that used the pandemic to to jump ahead, to experiment, to test things, to try new things. They already get it. And it’s really about risk allocation and prioritization, those that are the risk averse, those that that are desperately grasping on to the status quo and talk about the good old days and how things used to be and and want to get back to the way things were. They they need a little bit different motivation. You have to kind of shake them up in a little bit different way. And I don’t want to use fear, but that competition is out there. The the rate at which the world around us is changing not only through technology and science and and innovation, but the expectations of the next generation that is that is speeding up faster than we can we could have ever imagined. And and sometimes you do have to show people the hard truth to get them to to open their minds to. To what their mission and their organization could be in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:09] I agree 100%, and I think that that is one of the biggest challenges, especially with mission driven organizations at some point is the priority the mission or is the priority the organization? Is it to keep the status quo and the status of the organization and the members of there who have been there a million years and are seen a certain way and have a certain level of authority? Or is it to really solve the true problem of the mission that we’re trying to solve? That’s a different. Those are two different things.

Elisa Pratt: [00:09:38] Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. And there are we talk about the word stewards and I hate to think of of organizations as as steward or as leaders and boards as stewards of their organization, because that forgets that mission, peace. And I like to think as visionaries, I like to go into boards and ask them what they believe possible, not what the organization has done, but what they believe the organization could look like. What impact do they believe they could? They could have? And it’s a most interesting conversation in the trade association space. I spent most of my nonprofit career in 500 1c6 organizations, and there you’re trying to advance an industry. But I’ve never seen an organization where 100% of that industry is represented in the membership. So at some point the organization is having to do things and spend resources and allocate effort in areas that are that are benefiting those outside of the direct membership. And I think that’s where you can start to break down that wall of just the organization. This is who we are. This is what we do. This is who we do it for. You also have this conversation in more of the philanthropic and charitable organizations where where their their vision is is more broad because they are focused on a cause and on a mission. But anyone looking to protect the organization and build walls and ensure rigidity, I didn’t use the term stability, but rigidity, you know, they, to your point, are are missing the forest for the trees.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:22] Now, when you’re working with an organization and say the light bulb goes on and they look at their website and they realize that the people on the website under the leadership and the board aren’t looking like they’re members. And they said, you know what, we want this to change. How do you what are some kind of low hanging fruit? What are some of the things that that organization leadership can do to make that dream come true?

Elisa Pratt: [00:11:48] Sure. It’s important to first recognize that that you have that that challenge, that that who is around your board table doesn’t either represent your current membership, your current industry, your current cause, or even the future of that industry. And I think the first step is, is to to understand where your industry is going. And some organizations embrace this through through DEI initiatives. Other organizations embrace this through a future visioning of where their their industries are going, their sciences, their specialties, their areas of of practice or their professions. I want organizations I want my clients to undertake this as as part of a pursuit of excellence for those who they serve, not just to check a box and stick a new variety of people on on the board. We want to be representative. We want to be we want to be the future of of of our organizations and the future of who is going to be impacted by and have the greatest opportunity to impact these these missions. So I like my group’s to dove into data, understand who are your members now. It’s amazing how many organizations don’t know exactly who their members are now. They haven’t captured demographic information. They haven’t captured maybe not age, but where are you in your career? Where are you in the industry? And first, knowing who you have within your under the tent and knowing who that that is and what portion of the industry you then represent and how you measure against your industry or your profession’s own numbers and representation and diversity. Then you then you can start to measure something, then you can start to put initiatives into place and reallocate your your efforts and your resources to to see and measure change. So many people are just plugging new faces in and they’re not measuring anything. And and I think that is, is it’s somewhat arbitrary. And and it’s it’s I wouldn’t say it’s in. Sincere, but I think it’s it’s misdirected.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:08] Well, if you’re going to do the effort to kind of get the lay of the land, it makes sense. Again, going back to the strategy to have some to know what it looks like when you’re done, you know, at least have something. Okay. How do we know if we did a good job? Should we be high fiving this month or should we not be? You know, you know, keeping track of the metrics are important, but also defining what are the metrics that matter, I think are are more important now.

Elisa Pratt: [00:14:33] So definitions of success are going to be different for every organization and each organization and each each industry is going to define diversity in a different way. You know, it may it may not be racial. It may be more gender specific. It may be age related. It may be a diversity of of roles within within the industry. And and I like I like to break beyond the DEI space to ensure that, to your point, the strategic metric is specific to that organization and who they represent and what their mission states.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:12] Now, you mentioned leadership and leaders. How does an organization kind of keep that leadership pipeline filled? What are some of the things they can be doing to engage? You know, maybe the people that are early in their career as well as the people who are on later in their career that would like to leave a legacy and like to, you know, feel like they’re they made an impact. You know, both sides of the coin have to be addressed and you don’t want to forget anybody.

Elisa Pratt: [00:15:42] Yeah. And, you know, groups have gotten pretty good over these last ten, 20 years at creating future leader committees, young leaders, councils, you know, all of these channels and for for engagement and participation among the young, the next generation, the emerging leader. But then there’s a gap. They don’t have anything for them to do until you you’ve evolved to a board position and they’re losing a lot of those people that they’ve invested in during those gap years. And what I like to help my clients identify and design are opportunities for bridge engagement. How do we bridge them from the early career professional committee or counsel to the board? Are there micro volunteering opportunities that we can plug in along the way that are suited to their where they are in their life cycle? Can we can we adapt things that that are respectful of of parents of of those who aren’t able to come to to evening events because they’re at Little League? Can we customize some micro volunteering opportunities during those interim years that that will keep them engaged until until they have either met criteria or in their own time and profession are able to give time required of of greater leadership roles. Another piece of this is not reconciling young leaders. And however you define that, but not relinquishing that or I don’t know, not not putting them in a box, putting them in in that council or that task force or integrate them within the holistic organization. Let them have a seat on every committee. Let them be a part of board discussions. Now, give them voting rights. Don’t don’t lock them into a box to interact only with themselves so that you can pat yourself on the back and say, Great, we’re engaging the young. Good job. Well, they’re engaging with themselves. But you aren’t you aren’t absorbing them sincerely into into the organization. And therefore, you’re losing their their influence. You’re losing their their expertize. And you’re somewhat, I think, stunting their growth within the organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:14] Right. You’re giving lip service to giving them a voice, but they’re only having a voice among themselves. It’s not really being heard by the people that are making decisions. So that’s the I mean, the balance there. I love how you use the word strategy. I think that’s critical and I love how you use the word design because things have to be designed. You can’t just hope that just because you have good intentions that things are going to work out the way that you’d like. These things have to be really kind of elegantly designed so that they organically lead you to the path you want to be on and grow into.

Elisa Pratt: [00:18:51] You know, having come from the staff side of things, the way I’ve approached consulting, I want to be the consultant that I wish I had had. And for me, being staff minded but member and mission focused is key to the value that I provide my clients. And when we embark on a strategic planning engagement, there’s the standard of discovery and analysis and in-person facilitation and all of that. But I require of my clients an implementation planning phase. I refuse to allow my strategic plans and these clients strategic plans to get put on a shelf. And if we aren’t going through the process with a certain dose of realism and ownership and ultimately bringing it all the way through the design phase to implementation. We have to figure out the how and do so in a way that is tactical, incremental, measured and tied to those key performance indicators that will allow us to report out victories. Part of this is just the PR around around delivering on what we say we’re going to do. And it’s very, very important to me. The design piece is sincere and it is member driven but staff minded and that there is a commitment to and a dedication of time and resources to to the how to the implementation planning, who’s going to own what, what are the milestones along the way and what what’s our measure of success? To your earlier point, how are we going to know when we get there? And that’s something a lot of people think strategic planning is just facilitating a board retreat. And I’ve learned my lesson. I have my own strategic planning scars from when I was a staff person, and that’s how I built my approach and why my clients come back over and over again to undertake a more. Implementation minded. Approach just to to strategic planning.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:57] Now, what is your ideal client look like? What is the size? What is the maybe the niche that they’re in?

Elisa Pratt: [00:21:05] Sure. I love that kind of 10 to 15 person staff, you know, 5 to $15 Million. I do have a special place in my heart for organizations that have chapter and affiliates, because I spend a lot of time in component relations. So whether it’s a national network, whether it’s a state network. Even more so now a global network. I think that’s a very underrated element of strategy and strategic design because people don’t always give credit to or fully appreciate the power of those networks. So I started most of my work in the trade association space, but now have greatly diversified over over the last five years with scientific associations, medical societies, charitable organizations. And and it keeps me I’m learning at every turn. Every every client makes me better. And and we refine our process and evolve that strategic journey for for each each client.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:15] So can you share maybe one of your success stories in terms of what was the problem they had? Obviously don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe share. What was the challenge they had and how? When Breuer and Pratt Solutions came in, you were able to help take them. You solve the problem and took them to a new level.

Elisa Pratt: [00:22:33] Sure. Absolutely. There’s there’s really many groups fall into two categories. And I’ll come into a group and they will have what I call an overgrown garden. And they’re good. They want to get to great, but they don’t realize that it’s it’s having said yes to everyone along the way and trying to be everything to everyone, that really is what’s holding them back. And so coming in with a lean, a lean mindset and also a commitment to candor, using the data to point us in the right direction, but also listening to the members and taking taking what they have to say to heart, taking the ego out of it. That’s that’s very common. More recently, I’ve been working with organizations on on operational assessment. They’re coming through the pandemic. They don’t know who they’re supposed to be moving forward. As I mentioned, they’re very lean on staff and they don’t want to just rehire into the old positions. So they’re calling me in to do kind of an operational and organizational 360. And then with that in place, we can reassess and realign our internal resources in conjunction and in parallel with a strategic planning engagement. And it’s powerful to do those things at the same time because your board tells you they want to prioritize this or this element of the mission is where we want to direct more resources to your operation has to has to align with that. You have to be able to deliver. So I very much appreciate those organizations that are self aware enough to bring in an outside set of eyes to assess and determine, not just. What positions need to be hired for, but how departments are are interacting and how roles are shared among different program models and their and therefore prepare themselves better. It’s almost kind of like a training boot camp. Before you go into strategic planning, let’s make sure that we are strong in the right places so that we can go into strategic planning to deliver to to to exceed the board’s expectations in every way possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:49] Right. If you have the foundation right, then the other stuff gets a lot easier.

Elisa Pratt: [00:24:53] Exactly. Exactly. And doing strategic planning first is very dangerous. And, you know, many I have a handful of clients right now who are coming off of 2018 or 2019 strategic plans. And how much has the world changed since then and how much of those plans had to be either forgotten about, left behind, or completely reimagined? And what does strategic planning look like for those organizations in this new normal? That’s that’s a very common call that we get. Alisa, please help us. We didn’t do anything with our 2019 plan because we were just trying to survive. And and it’s not necessarily about picking up where you left off.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:41] Right. It’s a new world now.

Elisa Pratt: [00:25:43] Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:44] Well, Lisa, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s the website?

Elisa Pratt: [00:25:49] Absolutely. It’s Brewer Solutions dot com. And I’m also very active on LinkedIn and you can find me there either at Lisa Pratt or at Brew Pratt Solutions. But we look forward to, again, any helping any organization that wants to to go from good to great or even great to awesome. Those are those are some of our most fun engagements. And there’s really no client too small. I want to make sure, having come from smaller organizations myself as a staff person, that you two deserve expert consultation and third party support. So if you’re you’re a 500,000 association or $1,000,000 association, you have just one staff person or two staff people don’t don’t think of yourself as as undeserving or or not able to secure support. I love the small and medium associations and I think they often get forgot about in this landscape and their potential for impact is is is truly amazing.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:55] Well, Elisa, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing an important work and we appreciate you.

Elisa Pratt: [00:27:00] Thank you, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:01] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.

Caitlin Clampitt With Amazing Lash

May 5, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Franchise Marketing Radio

Caitlin Clampitt With Amazing Lash

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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.

Caitlin Donovan is no stranger to business ownership. After her husband Adam Clampitt, a Naval Public Affairs Officer, returned from his deployment to Afghanistan in 2010, the couple built a public relations firm that focused on raising awareness of social impact issues.

Now, Donovan is focusing on her next endeavor — bringing Amazing Lash* Studio, a 250-plus-unit eyelash extension franchise, to North and South Carolina.

Donovan, who has been a client of the brand for years, will be opening six Amazing Lash Studio*s in the Asheville and Greenville markets, with the first two planned to open in late summer.

Connect with Caitlin on LinkedIn.

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: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show we have Caitlin Clampitt and she is with Amazing Lash Studio. Welcome, Caitlin.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:00:43] Thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. As I said before, you’re a franchisee with amazing. Tell us a little bit about Amazing.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:00:55] Sure. So we have over 250 locations nationwide and we are the studio to come and get your lash extensions done. We have the best quality products. We have the most highly trained lash stylists, and we’ve also branched out into brows doing brow waxing, tinting, lamination. We really own the whole eye area. So it’s it’s something that we as women, we get hooked on. And it’s a little something special we can do for ourselves that make a really big difference in how we look and feel.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] Now, we talk a lot on this show with franchisors, and sometimes we talk to franchisees. And whenever I talk to a franchisee, I’m always curious about the journey to become a franchisee. Can you share a little bit about that story?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:01:51] Absolutely. So for the last 12 years, I’ve been helping my husband’s manage and run our PR firm. So long story short, my husband’s 19 years in the military and we met right after he came back from Afghanistan. He knew he didn’t want to go back into corporate America and all the stress and, you know, just working for somebody else after having such a crazy life experience, like being in Afghanistan in a war zone. And so we set out to create our own veterans centric organization. We do a lot of PR and marketing for veteran campaigns, and it’s been an unbelievable journey, learned so much about business ownership and being a leader, hiring and being customer centric, all of the things, and I love it. It’s absolutely what I’m meant to do. I can’t imagine ever working for somebody else again. But truth be told, it was my husband’s business. And as much as we’re married and we did everything together, I really was yearning for something of my own. And I was noodling around some ideas, you know, trying to come up with that million dollar idea or that cool new product or service that’s not out there. And it wasn’t coming to me, at least it hasn’t come to me yet.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:03:16] And I started exploring franchising because it’s the best way to be an entrepreneur without having to take on so much risk. Having a playbook given to you. So as long as you sort of follow the rules and you’re smart and you can you can be as involved or not as actively involved as you want. And it was a really good match for what I want to do with my career at this point. So again, I started talking to a bunch of franchise organizations and ironically at that same time, well, Biz reached out to me and I had been a customer at Amazing Studio for four years. At that point I had been a member. I knew the brand inside and out. I was hooked. I loved it. I was there every two weeks and it was like the perfect storm. So I flew out to Denver and met with the whole team. They wowed me. I said, If I don’t buy into this franchise, I want to come join your corporate team. That’s how much I just loved everybody and was really impressed. I purchased six licenses to own and operate Amazing Lash Studios and I’ve opened three in the last year.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:40] Now talk about the very beginning of this when you’re like your husband shows kind of creating something from nothing. He he didn’t choose the franchise path. He said, I’m going to build this and they will come. Kind of strategy. Right. And you saw that work for 19 years. And then something inside of you said, you know what? I would rather go with somebody who has already kind of built a playbook and I can just kind of plug and play my way into this. And I know I’m going to work hard. I know I’m going to give it my all and I’ll do whatever it takes to be successful. But I prefer partnering with somebody who’s already kind of laid the ground so I can just go in and execute. Well, when you had that kind of conversation with yourself or your spouse or your team, what happened next? Like, did you just go onto Google and said, okay, now I’m going to find a franchise? I mean, you you mentioned you were a member of Amazing Slash kind of locally. And then that team reached out to you because you were probably a super customer and they said, hey, this would be a good partner and share some of the skills that we need in our franchisees. But did you kind of go out to the world and say, let me see what else is out there?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:05:55] I did. I did. And actually, before I connected with well, Biz and the Amazing Lash Brand, I had explored conversations with other other corporations, other franchisees. I was talking to owners that franchisees. I was talking to franchise owners. I was really digging into all of it. I was listening to podcasts and reading books and just trying to familiarize myself and understand what the process was and what to expect, what to look for, and really how to identify the right match for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:33] So what were some of those kind of things you learned so that you can educate some other people who are potential franchisees listening? What are some kind of things that you were like, you know what, if a brand has this, that’s great. That’s a that’s a must have. And if a brand does this, that’s kind of a yellow flag. That might be a red flag. So can you share a little bit about that kind of the the go no go decision making of when you’re vetting a brand?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:07:03] Absolutely. So I think, you know, everyone is looking for something different. Everyone needs different degrees of support, hand-holding or autonomy. And so that is definitely a personal decision. You’ll know when you’re aligned with the right group. For me, it was there were a lot of red flags, things like missing meetings or being disorganized or just not on top of things. If I were asking specific questions about marketing or the fee structure or technology, you know, other brands just weren’t able to give me a thorough, clear, quick answer. And all of those things were red flags for me. But I think the thing that really stood out the most to me, a couple of things. One, you need to talk to other owners. You’ve got to do your due diligence. And this has been number one place. If you connect and you can really go deep, you can ask these owners almost anything because you’re all part of the same club sorority, if you will. You’re all in it to win it. And people are willing to help other franchisees give that, give all the tips and tricks and tell them exactly what’s going on. So that was a big part of figuring out what what direction I should go in. Was talking to other owners going into their physical location, if that was relevant. So for me, I saw a whole bunch of amazing studios. I talked to a whole bunch of owners all over the country, and that really clicked for me. I met all of the heads of the different departments from corporate, so marketing, technology, development, real estate. I really dug into everything and so it felt really, really good to me. All my questions were answered, all my concerns were addressed, and they were really transparent and honest.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:10] So now you mentioned autonomy, and that might be confusing for some folks because in a franchise you’re supposed to, you know, kind of follow the recipe. How much autonomy is there in the different franchises that you explored or some kind of a free for all that said, look, your market’s different, go you, be you or others like you have to you know, you can’t fried the burgers. You got to grill the burgers. This is how we do it here.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:09:39] Yeah, I. You know, I, I think that was another reason why I nixed a few of the other brands I explored was that there was either too much hand-holding and I wasn’t given a lot of freedom or flexibility to put my own spin on things, or it was like the Wild West and they had no sort of brand standards and you could go into one store and things were done one way and you go into another, and it was a completely different service offering or their websites or social media presence were different. I thought, well, there’s an amazing lash in particular. It was a good 7525 in the sense that 75% of things are done exactly the same in every single studio, and that 25% is where you get to put your own spin, have your fun, try different things. What works for you? What connects with your community, your market that makes you unique? It was a good balance for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:50] Now, did you use franchise brokers? Did you use, you know, kind of some of the intermediaries that are out there or did you just do this all on your own?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:11:01] I did it all on my own.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:04] So you haven’t had the experience of going through a franchise broker or one of the portals or one of those kind of places where a lot of people connect with franchises?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:11:14] No, no. But I. I don’t know if I wish I had, because I had such a good experience and I was able to cut right through it and not have somebody acting as that buffer. But at the same time, you know, I had to figure everything out myself and be really resourceful and read articles, books, podcasts and really put pen to paper, writing down my questions and thinking through everything. So I think for people that have never owned or operated a business before, going the broker route is absolutely a smart move. For myself, I think I had enough experience in building businesses that I and just that reliance on my gut that I feel pretty good about the direction I went in. So I think either way works.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:08] So now when you decided to kind of go with Amazing Slash, what made you go with a six pack rather than just try one on and see if you’re going to be able to make this go?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:12:20] Yeah. So I knew that I wanted to scale. I didn’t want to just own one. I actually ended up owning or opening studios outside of where I live. So I live in South Florida and we have a summer home in western North Carolina. So we knew we had some presence and ease of of getting to that market. But there was nothing like this there. So that’s why I picked that market. But I knew that I because I wasn’t going to be there every day, that I needed to surround myself and build really strong teams and layers of management. So I figured in this way, more could almost be less for me. If I owned one studio, I wouldn’t be generating enough revenue to have not just a studio manager, but but somebody over overarching that location as well. So I opened three in six months. So really open staff trained. Boom. Move on to the next. And I built up regional managers to help support me with all three locations. And as we grow, the costs for those senior level managers and regional folks will go down because I will spread it out among multiple studios and locations. But to be perfectly honest, I also got a package deal by buying more than five. It reduced the cost of each license considerably. And on top of that, well, this offers a super generous military discount. So we were able to really tap into a bunch of ways to trim those franchise fees. And I wanted to take full advantage.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:21] Now, once you decided to pull the trigger and you launch, is there any advice you can give a brand new franchisee in a market of how to launch successfully? Like is this you know, that would be different than. Okay well biz is helping here on this side with the launch. But me as a franchisee, I have to take some responsibility and I have to immerse myself in the community somewhat to make sure that this launch. Because this ultimately is my business.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:14:49] Absolutely. I mean, you nailed it. You’ve got to be embedded in your community. And I’d say that was my biggest challenge because I didn’t live in the market where we opened our first studio in South Carolina. But my team was all from there. They were born, raised, went to school, had friends, family. So I was making everybody this was a team effort and we hit the community hard. We made lists of businesses to build relationships with. We invited the media. We got all of our friends and family. We did a massive grand opening party. We got engaged with different community organizations. We partnered with charities to be able to give back, but also raise awareness to our organization as well as theirs. So we have really gotten involved in the community. That’s what makes it fun, that’s what makes it meaningful, and that’s also a key component to success.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:56] Now, what about some advice on choosing those initial team members because that they’re the boots on the ground, they’re the ones that are are really the brand when you’re launching?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:16:07] Yeah, I would say I had a little bit of an advantage in this area just because my entire career I’ve been the recruiter. That was how I started out. Right after I graduated college, I was in HR and recruiting, so I have been recruiting people my entire career, so there was a little bit of advantage there, but I had never owned this type of business before. I’ve never worked in the retail or the beauty business. I had a lot to learn and the best way to do it for me. I did get training through through the prep work that you do before you launch and you open. So I did get lots of tips and tricks and talking to owners about what what worked for them when they were hiring managers, what kind of backgrounds. But honestly, I just hit the phones. I posted an ad, of course, and I interviewed tons of people, but the people that I hired for my managers were all people that I found myself. I went out, I found them on LinkedIn, I pulled calls, I networked, I called references and flip them to become candidates. I, I really just learned what was going to work by talking to as many candidates as possible. And I’ve been really lucky. I’ve have built an unbelievable management team, and I can’t imagine doing this without each and every one of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:41] Now, when you were selecting, were you going with kind of attitude first or skills first and or, you know, if they have the right attitude, you can train some of the skills or that they have to have some of these skills become the non-negotiable part. And then, you know, we’ll, we’ll get them kind of built buying into the culture over time.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:18:04] Yeah. So when I was looking at my managers, they needed to have the skills that I don’t have and so they needed to come with membership, sales, retail, studio operations, people, management. And of course, if they had anything in the beauty industry lashes or anything along those lines, that was the cherry on top. I needed that and I can bring other skills to the table. So I needed people that were very complementary. But outside of managers, which I again, I think it’s 5050, they need to have a killer attitude and b they just they need to have it all. The 50% needs to also be those technical skills. They need to be able to run the studio operations when I’m not there. And even if I am there, everyone else that works in our studios, I am dead set on attitude. Attitude to me is everything. And I have been doing this throughout my career of I would every single time hire somebody that has a killer attitude. If you are humble, hardworking. You want to learn. You are passionate, responsible, dedicated. Those are skills. You can’t teach those things. I mean, maybe you can a little bit, but I really think you’ve either got it or you don’t. But when it comes to working at the front desk or even lashing, some of my most talented and successful lash stylists came to me with just an awesome attitude and a willingness to learn. And we’ve put them through training. We’ve given them all the tools to be successful. And I’ll tell you, they are more successful than people I hired that have been doing lashing for years if they didn’t have a great attitude. So attitude for me is everything. It is truly a deal breaker.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:08] Yeah, we’ve interviewed over the years some of the folks at Chick-Fil-A and some of the the family members that own Chick-Fil-A. And one of the things that one of them said to me that really stuck with me is they hire people who are natural smiles.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:20:27] I love.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:27] That. Like, if you’re not a smiley person, it’s going to be hard for you to get a job at one of their locations. And and that really comes across I mean, they don’t have to train smiling, you know, that’s it’s just built into the person and that’s, you know, you’re almost there. If the person is smiling at you, you’re you’re almost had a good experience right at go. So it’s a lot easier to kind of take the person that has those that right attitude and then force somebody who doesn’t have the right attitude to kind of fake it.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:21:03] Absolutely. And, you know, this isn’t the job for everybody and that’s okay. You know, if it doesn’t work out, let’s part ways and let’s celebrate your next career. Move. As much as we celebrated, you know, you joining the team, there’s no hard feelings as long as you’ve got a great attitude. And that is what’s going to carry you through every aspect of your life and your career. So I love Chick fil A and there’s a lot of good lessons to learn from how they run their business that we can all employ in our businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:37] Now, what has been the most rewarding part of this journey for you, having come from a business that again started from a blank sheet of paper to now one that had a playbook and is now kind of growing, which is I don’t want to say which is more rewarding, but what is a rewarding part about this part of your life?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:21:57] You know, I love first of all, I think my ultimate advice is for for people considering a franchise is align yourself with something you’re super passionate about. It’s going to help you weather the storms. It’s going to make the lows not so bad and the highs that much better. So for me, I love lashes, I’m passionate about it and I love the brand, so it helps. But for me, the biggest takeaway, there’s two. It’s it’s multifaceted. I’ll keep it quick, though. One is just the teams I’ve built. I love these women. I love the opportunities that they’re tapping into and taking advantage of. That is so rewarding to me. When I was interviewing some of these gals, they would tell me the stories of places they were coming from and just the lousy managers they worked for or just circumstances that they shouldn’t have been in, in a professional setting, and to give them a completely different culture, to give them a career path. I mean, these women have are coming to me with goals. They’re paying off student loans, they’re saving up to buy houses. They are putting themselves through beauty school and transitioning from the front of the house to the back of the house.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:23:18] I love the opportunities that are available to them and it is so exciting and worth everything to see them thriving in their lives and their career. And then on the flip side, the customers, I mean, you know, I know the concept of lash extensions and anything in the beauty industry can sometimes come across as a little superficial. I get it. But when you really strip it down, I have had cancer patients come in. I’ve had women in abusive relationships. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the stories and the things that people tell you. And to see people give themselves an hour or 2 hours for themselves and to come in and then leave. I mean, talk about smiling. I know it’s not Chick-Fil-A, but our guests come out and they are grinning ear to ear. It is transformational and it’s an hour and they feel great about themselves. And how you look and how you feel is it goes hand in hand. And I really love giving people a place that they can come treat themselves some me time, some alone time and really help them feel awesome about themselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:41] Well, Caitlyn, you know, the impact is real and the work that you’re doing is important. And we appreciate you. If somebody wants to connect with you, whether it’s about amazing lash or maybe you’re the PR firm you’re you work with and whatever regard what is the best way to connect with you and learn more about Amazing Lash and the work that you’re doing?

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:25:01] Absolutely. I’m reachable best at email. It’s Caitlin Clampitt at Amazing Lash Studio is probably the best way to to get in touch.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:14] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. Like I said, you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Caitlin Clampitt: [00:25:19] Oh, thanks so much for the opportunity. It is great to chat with you, Leigh.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:23] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Rebecca Taylor With GoCoach

May 5, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Startup Showdown Podcast

Rebecca Taylor With GoCoach

00:00 /

Rebecca Taylor, Co-Founder / COO at GoCoach

Rebecca brings her years of experience in the HR and People space to GoCoach as the first official employee and Co-Founder.

Throughout her 10 years in HR, she developed programs that optimized talent acquisition, employee retention, upskilling/reskilling, employee engagement, employee experience, succession planning, and more.

She used this expertise to build People strategies that made her companies successful and protected their most valuable asset – the people. At GoCoach, she works cross-functionally to deliver solutions and experiences that push learners beyond their perceived limitations to unlock their potential.

She aligns with key stakeholders to ensure they see ROI and continue making learning more accessible within their organizations. Her goal is to empower people to invest in themselves and their teams, to increase employee engagement, retention, and performance.

Connect with Rebecca 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 are here. Another episode of Startup Showdown, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Rebecca Taylor with GoCoach. Welcome, Rebecca.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:00:47] Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:49] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Go Coach. How are you serving folks?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:00:54] Yeah, so we’re a learning platform. We work with companies to help them bring access to education and learning opportunities for all their employees within their organization. And it’s nice because we’re also working in the higher ed space. So we’re introducing students to the ability to develop their soft skills through our learning platform to while they’re still in school.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:11] So the name Go Coach, is it. So it goes beyond coaching.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:01:16] It does go beyond coaching. So it starts with coaching. When we actually first founded the company, we started with seven coaches and a couple of spreadsheets, and our idea was kind of, let’s make it really easy for companies to find coaches and for people to find the right coaches to work with within their companies provided structure. And then it’s really kind of grown in the last few years because for us, coaching is always sort of the beginning of where people start to learn and it’s really branched into more of a platform that supports all types of learning with the root of it being coaching, whether it’s team coaching, group coaching, one on one coaching or anything along those lines.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:52] So what’s your background? How did you get involved in just this kind of thought process in terms of adding coaching as a as a career and building a platform around that?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:02:04] Yeah. So it’s actually kind of funny. I when I was in college, I was an English major, majored in creative and professional writing, thought I was going to work for The New Yorker and that I was going to spend my days making art. And I actually ended up falling into h.r. When I got out of college and it was actually a really cool opportunity. I was working in the learning and development team at lord and taylor fifth Avenue, rest in peace. And so I spent a lot of time kind of developing training programs for people at all different levels of the company. And that kind of got me started on my HR path. So I sort of did the typical HR stint where I did some time as an external recruiter and then as a head of talent acquisition at a company where I actually ended up meeting my co-founder and CEO, Christy McCann. And so when we were there, we were really working on building out different learning and development programs specifically to help their different employees better retain their staff and to create those career paths that every company really is looking for, for their employees. And so we had this there’s got to be a better way kind of moment when we were really working on finding the right coaches for the right people to kind of serve them where they need to. And so we sort of had this we had a really great exit. The company was acquired for just over $1,000,000,000. And we had this sort of what do we do now? Conversation. And that was really where the idea for Go Coach started.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:03:27] And over the course of a couple of years, I actually took a job as a head of people and culture at a series a startup in New York. While Christie was really kind of laying the foundation for what was going to become go coach. And so we realized that there was a lot of opportunity to help companies address the different gaps that they had with their talent. So there were so many companies that were hiring all these people and they were losing all these people because they would let them go when they were reaching sort of their plateau. And there was sort of this culture within these organizations, especially in the tech space and in the startup space where people weren’t expected to stay at a company for very long. And so we really looked at that as something that was a problem that was worth solving because people would leave companies when they were losing the ability to to grow and the ability to learn. And companies were losing really great talent after spending all this money to hire them. And so we launched Go Coach with really this core of seven coaches and a spreadsheet. And it grew into something that we’ve really evolved to understand the different needs of the different companies that we work with. And so leaning into our HR backgrounds has really been a really strong sort of vision navigation point for how we’re deciding what our next steps are. Because at the end of the day, our ultimate goal is here to support companies and to support employees to unlock their potential together.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:49] Now, do you find that coaching has evolved from back in the day where like a coach was only for the, you know, the highest performers or the the highest executives? And now it seems to be trickling down throughout the organization. And to use coaching and learning almost interchangeably. Like you, you have a coach, sometimes you need help and sometimes you need a helper, right? Like learning can happen in a lot of ways. And a coach is a great way to expedite some, you know, to get the best out of somebody that a lot of organizations want. But, you know, maybe historically haven’t invested in them that way.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:05:28] Yeah. Yeah. So it definitely has changed when, you know, when you first think about coaching, everyone kind of thinks of the original coaching kind of. Except where you had one person who’d be flown in to coach the executives at an organization and either spend all day with them once a month rotating their meetings between these different executives, or someone who would just sort of be there and only support a few members, a very few very high up members of an organization. And it was very much based on being in person. It was very it was very elitist. It was very much catered to supporting CEOs and executives. And what we’ve seen, especially over the last probably seven or eight years or so, is that the evolution of technology has really allowed the coaching industry to become a lot more democratized. It’s a lot easier to access coaches and it’s a lot easier to access coaches all over the world where the cost becomes a lot more effective for the coaches to work with a wide variety of people because they don’t have to spend all this time and money traveling because technology and virtual coaching especially can kind of allow them to cast a wider net. And when we work with companies, it’s really been interesting to see kind of how people evaluate whether or not someone is sort of a viable candidate for coaching it.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:06:43] Like I mentioned, it always kind of had started with executives, then it sort of segued into managers, directors a little bit lower than executives, but still those that were kind of in a higher powered position within the company. And what we’ve seen during COVID really kind of starting when when the pandemic started, was employees are demanding the opportunity to learn and they’re demanding the ability to increase their skills and to access different opportunities. And so as a result of that demand, companies are investing in coaching solutions that are actually available to all employees from entry level to executive level. And yes, the things that people work on in those coaching sessions will be different. Someone entry level might have what some might think to be simple things to work on, but for that person meeting them where they are, these are big challenges that they’re looking to work through and we’re really looking to create is a culture where everybody has a coach from day one. You know, when you’re a kid, you’re going through school and you always have teachers, guides and mentors, and then all of a sudden you graduate and you’re on your own. And we’re really looking at just sort of creating cultures that continue that element of nurture and continuous learning even throughout our entire careers.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:53] Now, is that when did you kind of get the sense that you’re getting traction with that idea? Because that’s a leap for a lot of organizations. I remember interviewing somebody in HR for a while ago and they said, You know, when people talk about training and learning and coaching and things like that, they’re like, What if we invest all this resources onto this person and they leave and and then somebody said, Well, what if you don’t and they stay?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:08:22] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:24] You know, are you seeing a change in that thinking is we have to invest in our people, in their learning because we want them to stay a little longer. It’s hard to get people. And why are we always thinking the new person is better than the person we already have?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:08:40] Yeah. Yeah. So it has been an interesting shift because the great resignation is definitely influencing this because you’re seeing people leave organizations regardless of whether they’re getting invested in or not. Right. And the different reasons that people are leaving, organizations come down to things like salary. You know, that is kind of something that is always going to be a good reason for people to leave a company if they can get paid much better somewhere else. And their current employer can’t match that. I mean, that’s hard to argue with. Right. But what’s interesting is that when you’re seeing the data around why people are leaving their organizations now in mass, it has more to do with their work culture, their potential to grow. And so it’s really kind of creating this environment where there’s a lot of data from the actual employees that’s showing that they would stay in organizations if if more organizations were investing in them and the historical way that people would invest, where people would look at, you know, I’m going to put all this money into my high potentials and we’re just going to hope that if they’re invested and they’re going to stay. But what’s really kind of influencing this democratized element of it is if you put money into all of your people in your organization to develop, those who do stay will perform better because they’re more mentally connected to the company, they’re more engaged in their role, but they’re actually seeing their own skills grow and develop as a result of what the company is providing to them.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:10:01] So they’re more likely to stay on because they’re seeing themselves grow and be successful within their role and they don’t feel the need to look elsewhere. And so it’s also the concept of sort of skills or currency, right? So employees know that the skills that they have are very, very valuable. And I always say this to organizations, to the skills that you have within your organization are the most valuable piece of your talent. It’s not who has those skills, it’s how strong those skills are within your organization. So if you’re not continuously investing in the skills of your organization, then the value of your talent goes down. So it’s really about kind of shifting the narrative from looking at. As individual person to collective group of skills and using that as a way to empower both learners and employers.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:44] So what is kind of the conversation you’re having with your prospective clients or your clients? Like what’s the pain they’re having? Where Go Coach is the solution?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:10:54] Yeah, so it’s a few different things that actually kind of map to the employee life cycle, which is interesting. Know every organization has their own sort of unique challenges, right? But what we can really see is that it buckles down to kind of the basic things like employee retention, talent attraction and talent acquisition, succession planning. So what happens when people do leave? How do we have sort of our next batch of of leaders or people being able to step into those roles as well as things like burnout, change, management, die? These are sort of the main challenges that companies are facing in mass. And so we really work with them to address the different components that are influencing this. And we map it to how it influences the employee life cycle of attracting talent, retaining talent, developing talent, because that’s really where you’re going to see a lot of value in what you’re doing from a people perspective.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:44] So what are some of the clues that your prospect has a problem that go coach can help them with.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:11:52] Bleeding people and having a lot of open jobs is a really good indication of that. They might need some help. So when you see that there’s a company that has a lot of people exiting and a lot of open jobs, you can imagine that they’re losing people at a rate faster than they can acquire them. And so there’s two different challenges to meet there. There’s one, the employee retention side. So how do we stop the bleeding? And then two, how do we use learning as a way to attract more talent so we can hire people and really fill the top of that funnel? So that’s really been the biggest theme that people are seeing now, and it’s probably our biggest sort of call when we get onto a call with a customer and they’re just like, everyone’s having sort of this universal problem. And so what’s nice is that they don’t have to explain their situation, they don’t have to explain that they’re losing people and that they can’t hire. It used to be a very taboo thing to say in HR. You never wanted to say that you couldn’t keep your people and you couldn’t hire people. But what’s nice is that there is sort of this universal narrative that there is everybody reshuffling. And so you can get a very, very frank perspective. And we’ve got a really sort of nice way to solve this problem regardless of their industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:00] So has been as being a founder of a startup, has it been as you thought it would be?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:13:09] I don’t even know if I knew what I thought it was going to be, to be honest. I had I’d say yes and no. I mean, yes in the sense that it really is sort of empowering to see that you’re doing something that companies think is valuable enough to spend money on and that they continue to spend money on on this thing that you created. Right. Seeing the impact that you can make on people who are working with a coach who without without this company would not have been able to access that coach. You know, that is sort of something that I wasn’t expecting as a founder to feel as personally gratified by, to be honest. But then it was also the things that are expected or, you know, it’s tough out there, right? Like, it’s it’s hard to it’s it’s hard to be a founder because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of weight on your shoulders. You know, you’re at the end of the day, the buck stops with you when you’re you want your company to be successful, your teammates really look to you. And that level of responsibility is something that if you’re going into entrepreneurship, you can’t take lightly. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, and so I think it was always inevitable that I’d sort of be here. But I think what’s really cool is that, you know, it’s going to be hard. You know, it’s always nice to kind of be able to choose your own destiny a little bit more and to kind of set a meaningful vision. But it really is cool when you can look back and see, oh, you know, all the hard work that we’re doing. And this idea that we had is actually something that’s truly benefiting people’s lives. And I know every founder says this, but actually changing the world and changing the way companies hire people and the relationship that they have to their employees. So that’s been really cool.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:40] So what compelled you to get involved with Startup Showdown and Panoramic?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:14:47] Yeah, so we were really looking for an opportunity to partner with investors who would be partners to us, and so we’d been bootstrapped for a long time by choice. We really didn’t want to take money from organizations that didn’t support our vision and our mission. And so we done a lot of research in about panoramic and the team that was the team that’s there. And we saw that they were going to be a group or we assumed and thought that they were going to be a group that we would want to partner with and work with. And so that was the thing that we said, Hey, let’s do this startup showdown, see if we can get a chance to meet with them and then see where it takes us. And so I think the piece of it that was really cool was just kind of the level of visibility that we had, but who we were able to meet in the process from other founders that were going through the same showdown process and really seeing who else is building cool stuff out there. And we’ve loved working with the panoramic team. I mean, they’ve really kind of felt like an extension of our team, and it’s the kind of partnership that you want from an investor. As much as it’s nice to say, you know, I’ll take a check and then we can just sort of move on with our lives. We were really looking for groups that wanted to be part of the vision and the mission with us, and we really found that here.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:54] Now, any advice for startup founders out there that maybe are going along the same path as you bootstrapping it first and then then reaching out to partners afterwards, as there are some do’s and don’ts that you would if you could, if looking back at the journey so far.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:16:13] Yeah. So do take every conversation. You know, getting funding and getting investment is something it’s very much like sales. I mean, it is sales, right? So you want to have a huge pipeline so that you have opportunity and you have options. So take every call and try to make as many connections as humanly possible with other founders, but don’t necessarily rely on other founders to refer you to investors before you try to go and approach these investors yourself. So definitely take sort of that self driven yet community support community partnership element to it. And you know, do look at competitions like the startup showdown, look at accelerators, look at these types of resources because they’re not only a good way to get funding, but they’re a really good way to get education, too, and a good way to kind of get that support that you really need to understand how to be a founder, because being a founder is a totally different job for every type of company. And so really finding that support from that community is really big. The biggest don’t that I have though is don’t give up. I know it’s probably really cheesy, but you’re going to hear so many no’s and you have to believe in your vision and your product and your idea and your self and your team more than anybody else does. And you know, there is the opportunity to take constructive feedback. But don’t let it don’t let it set you off. Right, because companies that are looking for funding are looking to disrupt something. They’re looking to do something differently than it’s ever been done before. And you’re always going to be measured around who’s done something similar or what might have been done in the past. And you have to remain convicted that the whole point is that we’re doing it differently and there might not be a proven path that shows how this is going to work. But I know that we’re going to be the ones to set it. That’s the thing to remember when every moment of defeat hits you.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:03] Now, any advice for female founders, both you and your co-founder of female? Is there anything that you would advise a young female founder to going through the process that again, do’s and don’ts from that standpoint, is there is there groups that you found that were useful for you, that were supportive? Or is this something that you’ve done just kind of on your own where you’re just like kind of carving the path but within your own team?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:18:36] Yeah. So I’d say, I mean, the female founder question is always one that kind of comes with a little bit of a little bit of, I guess an asterisk. So we found a lot of support in the Female Founders Association. They’ve been really, really great. But I think it’s important for any founder to sort of find a diverse network and community so that you can find other people who are like you, but also people who can challenge you in a really good way and who you can really kind of grow and evolve your yourself and your idea through. So female founders has been a really great association, but and I know that this sounds like a plug, but the best thing that any founder can really do on this path is to get a coach. So if you’re a female founder and you’re looking for funding, expect it to be different. Expect every conversation to be different than you anticipate. But if you work with a coach, I think that was what was really powerful with Panoramic two is there was a lot of practice sessions going into the startup showdown. You know, we had a lot of support to prepare and to present ourselves in a really strong way. If you’re working with if you’re working with a coach or a mentor or an advisor, you know, let them prep you. Let them help you understand how to tell your story in the best way. And, you know, that’s probably the piece that’s going to be the most important because it’s really hard to tell the story of your startup in a way that makes other people care about it the way that you do, because no one’s going to care about your company the way that you do. And so taking advice from people who can say this is what’s interesting, this is what’s going to catch people’s attention, it’s definitely an important way to to govern all of these types of conversations. And the best way to really hone that is to work with a coach.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:15] Now, has there been a point anywhere in the journey thus far that was kind of a make or break where you’re like, I don’t know if this is going to if we’re going to make this, and then if so, how did you kind of get through it?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:20:28] I’d say COVID was definitely a big one. So when when the world shut down in early 2020. We were a company that was just over a year old, so we were still brand new in the grand scheme of things. We were still bootstrapped, we were selling into H.R. and all of a sudden all these companies started laying all these people off and we had the world shutting down. No one had any idea. I remember just sort of the ambiguity when COVID started and what was going to happen. So Kristy and I had this conversation where we were like, What if this is it? What if this is the thing that kills the company? And so we sort of were like, Well, we have all these trainings, we have all of this information, all these things that we are offering to companies. If this is what’s going to bring the company down, let’s let’s go down swinging. Let’s offer all of our stuff out there for free. Let’s give people free coaching. Let’s give people free training. Anyone who’s lost their job, any company that doesn’t know what to do, you know, register for our webinars. Let’s get through all this together. And it was actually pretty amazing. We we trained over 1000 people for free over the course of six months, just working with huge companies, too. And it was a lot of people who just didn’t really know what else to do. And we coach hundreds of people back into their jobs for free. We were actually able to secure sponsorship from a company to actually pay our coaches who had initially volunteered their time.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:21:53] But we were able to get a grant to actually pay them for their time since they were coaching people back into into the workforce. And so it was actually pretty cool because it was sort of that moment where when you’re at your most desperate, you find out who you are. And when Christie and I were sort of at our most like, if this is it, you know, let’s just try to help as many people as we can along the way. It really became that moment where we realized the type of leaders who we were and honestly the type of leader who she is, because she’s made me in a lot of ways. Like I said, I’ve known her for eight years now, I think. And so it’s been really, really cool to see how that continues to give back to us. I mean, we’ve gotten it turned out to be a really great marketing campaign because once, you know, once people got over some of the humps and they started to have some money to spend, we were starting to convert a lot of these free trainees into paid customers, like through their big companies. And so it’s kind of like when you’re at that moment where you think everything’s going to kick it go down swinging because you never know what can come out of it. And it’s put us in a really good spot.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:52] And when you have a good true North or a good Y, then it makes the things a lot easier because if your mission is to coach people, then getting paid or not getting paid, you should still want to coach people.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:23:07] Yeah, right, exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:08] Because the why didn’t change, you know, the money might have changed, but the why didn’t change.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:23:13] Yeah, the how changed a little bit, but the Y definitely didn’t then. The Y was all we had at that point and it was actually kind of cool because we were expecting our clients to cancel their contracts. We were just like, Oh no, what’s going to happen? And a lot of our core clients were like, okay, we need you now more than ever. We had to cut our recruitment budget. So now we’ve got money that’s already been budgeted. Let’s do more training, let’s do more coaching. And it was pretty cool. It was pretty cool to see because I think we’ve done a good job at partnering with really good clients who are really forward thinking too. So it turned out to be it turned out to be a good Y on all ends.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:45] So what’s next?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:23:48] Yeah. So we’ve got big plans. We’re actually going to launch, we’re going to start to kick off our series A Fundraise later on in the spring. So we’re really pumped about that and we’re really looking at ways that we can continue to partner with some, not just really interesting enterprise clients and B2B clients, but really carve out our space and higher education. We’ve been working with a lot of really great institutions to offer coaching to their alumni, their students, their staff. And so really continuing to grow our presence and our offering within the higher education space is going to be huge for us. We’re also partnering with some really great nonprofits to focus on upskilling, to get people out of impoverished neighborhoods, the skills that they need to work in jobs within their cities. So really kind of continuing to hone in on that Y while continuing to sort of fundraise and evolve our platform into this really, really nice, slick, inclusive learning ecosystem. Those are the big sort of things and it’s on to continue to change the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:50] So what do you need more of right now?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:24:53] So I mean, in terms of I think in terms of people, we always need more. We always need more people. I think every time we hire someone new to the team, we get a really, really great story and perspective. So we are looking to hire some folks, especially on the entry level side into sales. It’s about to be prime hiring season for folks who are graduating. So we’re looking at bringing on some more people and we’re obviously always looking for more customers, right? So anyone who’s really looking at how they can change the way that they develop their employees within their organizations, where we’d love to talk to you, we’d love to. We’d love to figure something out and make it work.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:31] Well, if somebody wanted to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, is there a website?

Rebecca Taylor: [00:25:37] Yeah. So they can go to go coach, go or you can email me at Rebecca at Go Coach, Go.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:44] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Rebecca Taylor: [00:25:50] Thanks, Lee. Thanks so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:52] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:25:57] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup Showdown Pitch Competition Visit Showdown Dot VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. All right, that’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

A.M. Williams With A.M. Williams Coaching Co. LLC

May 4, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Cherokee Business Radio

A.M. Williams With A.M. Williams Coaching Co. LLC

00:00 /

A.M. Williams is a Breakthrough Performance Strategist who businesses hire to achieve “BOSS-level growth” by using his secret sauce of leverage. His Leverage Without Limits philosophy has helped business owners across various industries to break through their limitation barriers and Blast Off Strategically & Systemically (BOSS).

Having been diagnosed incomplete paraplegic in 2000, A.M. has discovered the gift of challenges and has been relentless at fulfilling his unlimited potential through the power of Leverage leadership. Today, Coach A.M. challenges individuals and organizations to find their optimal leverage; explore their true potential, and achieve more than they’ve ever imagined.

A.M. coaches, trains, and consults 6 – 8 figure Founders and CEOs in the art of leverage to achieve BOSS-level growth. He is co-author of the best-selling book Resilience: Turning Setbacks into Comebacks, and sole author of “Leverage Without Limits: How to Make it To the TOP When You Can’t Take the Stairs” scheduled for release in 2022.

Connect with A.M. on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Leverage Without Limits
BOSS-level growth
Leverage is a powerful way to grow a business

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: [00:00:13] Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for such a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with AM Williams Coaching Company LLC. Coach AM Good afternoon, sir.

A.M. Williams: [00:00:35] Good afternoon.

Stone Payton: [00:00:36] Well, we are excited to have you, man. I know you and I got a chance to talk off air a few days ago, and I’ve been looking forward to this ever since. I’ll tell you what, let’s start by having you, if you would, just share a little bit about mission purpose. What is it exactly that you’re out there trying to do for folks?

A.M. Williams: [00:00:56] Well, literally. What what I’m. But I believe my mission and purpose is is threefold, is to create significant impact into the lives of other people and inspire people to take action. And then lastly, empower them to achieve heights that they never before imagined. So I showed them how to get to get more out of themselves and their business so that they can purposefully and intentionally inspire people to take action on their solutions.

Stone Payton: [00:01:37] Well, when you and I were visiting the other day, you mentioned this whole idea of leverage without limits. Can you speak to that some?

A.M. Williams: [00:01:47] Yeah. So leverage without limits is the way truly successful people accelerate growth and achieve their inner greatness. Jay Abraham says that successful people think and act differently. So when you think about that, they’re going beyond the norms of conventional and traditional ways of doing things. They don’t just look for ways to simply create incremental growth. All their efforts are designed to create some form of leverage, meaning that they can achieve significantly more. Do utilizing less time, energy and resources to be able to accomplish it. The whole dynamic of without limits is because once you’re able to find that, once you’re able to access that inner wisdom inside of you, you you gain the ability to attract everything you need to be able to literally break your impossible and be unstoppable. So I’m not just talking about any leverage because there are certain types of leverage that limit you. And then there are some types of leverage that gives you the ability to leverage without limits. So I showed them how to utilize leverage that has no limits so that they can break their impossible and achieve heights they never before imagined.

Stone Payton: [00:03:38] So this whole body of work clearly a passion for you, but you’ve turned it into a business. How did the business start, man? How did you get it off the ground?

A.M. Williams: [00:03:46] So literally, I started my business stone. In the hospital from a hospital bed. I got my first client in the hospital. Wow. And from that point, I went on this journey, having heard a still small voice, which I recognize as the voice of God, telling me something in my life can be leveraged to create something that I wanted. And it took me on a path to to discover what that thing in my life was that would give me the ability to not only. Get beyond the current situations that I was in. I mean, when people ask me, was it frustrating losing, you know, being diagnosed, incomplete paraplegic, not being able to rely on the systems and things that I utilize to walk, be mobile and all of that. I tell people it was not frustrating. It was impossible.

Stone Payton: [00:05:03] Yeah.

A.M. Williams: [00:05:04] So what this journey has done was helped me to break my impossible. And achieve heights in many different areas that were totally, you know, that allow me to exceed my expectations. I give you a couple of examples. I went back to school having been diagnosed incomplete paraplegic. The reason why I spent so much time in the hospital and in acute care facilities, I even was in a nursing home. I turned. What I gained about leverage literally allowed me to show up in a way that caused the doctors to tell the nurses, put up on us, put a sign up on the door saying, Do not disturb. He’s recording. I can’t make this stuff up. So I showed up that way in the hospital. When I got out of the hospital, I was I was I was able to go back to school, achieve several degrees. I’m currently in a doctoral program right now, and so I am doing the things to become Dr. AM Williams. And I was able to turn that business. I started in the hospital into a reputable six figure enterprise, and now we’re going beyond the six figure mark where this is our first year, we’re breaking the million dollar mark. And so I, I am very grateful for what I’ve gained in this process and what I’ve learned in this process. I put it all in the book, which we’ll discuss later this coming out in August. So I want to show people how to tap into that. And once they get it, they they gain what is needed to help them break their impossible and exceed their own expectations.

Stone Payton: [00:07:10] I’d love to be in the room or on the phone when someone that you were working with or maybe someone who is considering engaging your services began to offer up excuses. I wonder what that exchange is like. Are you empathetic for I mean, can you even be empathetic in your situation? You’ve got to be a no excuses guy.

A.M. Williams: [00:07:30] Well, I am a no excuses guy, but I’m empathetic to the point that I deeply understand their problem better than they do. I know a lot of people won’t share this, but the real key to inspiring people to take action is your ability to communicate to them very quickly that you have a deeper understanding of their problem than they do. And once you’re able to do that, you have what it takes. You convey to them that you have what it takes to help them break through that. Now, another thing that I will say, and I think this is Keystone, is that. I don’t mind being the bad guy. I learned that from personal trainers. There’s only two times you like personal trainers when you hire them and when you release them, that’s the only time you like them. The rest of it is pain all the way through because they’re going through the process of administering transformation in you. So it’s going to make you extremely uncomfortable. And, you know, they’re they’re working with you and they’re saying, come on, give me give me five more. Give me this. You’re kicking their blood the whole time.

A.M. Williams: [00:08:55] And because I know what it takes to implement that transformation, I kick their. But as I was sharing with you they call me coach am not because you know so much about me just being a coach in business. I coach like Tim Grover, the guy who who trained Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Yeah, I coached them like that in business. So I kick their butt in business. And the only way you can do that is you can’t you can’t mind being the bad guy. I’m going to be the bad guy. And I’m okay with being the bad guy because my goal is to help you is to facilitate the transformation that my solution provides. And you’re not going to like it. You’re not going to like how you got to do it because you’re so used to doing things the way that you’ve been doing them. And I bring along something that’s going to disrupt your path and going to allow you to self innovate and do the things cause you to show up the way that you need to in life and in business to be able to attract the people that you want.

Stone Payton: [00:10:16] So you also, I’m sure, have to have some some pretty healthy business acumen to be effective in this line of work. Did your diagnosis and your situation lend itself to to capturing and synthesizing more business knowledge? Or how how did you go about that? And what impact, if any, did the the circumstances, the situation impede that or actually support it?

A.M. Williams: [00:10:44] So what it gave me was an application like it really gave me. A greater sense of just humanity, period. Like businesses only struggle because people struggle. And so if you’re going to be effective at transforming your business, you have to, first of all, become more. And I think the becoming more has gotten a bad rep. People have become desensitized to the notion of becoming more. By trying to shortcut growth with external tools. I’m a firm believer that. Language is location. So when people come to me and say, Man, I’m trying to get more clients, I’m trying to get more sales, I’m trying I’m like, I got to close more sales. I got you’ll never do any of that stuff because you’ve given all your power away to something external. True brands are not sold. True brands have the power to influence purchasing behavior so they’re not sold their board. If you’re going to create significant transformation. You’ve got to transfer your business into a brand. And what I gained. In my tenure of of disability. It’s understanding how people work, what’s school, what goes on with people. And so what my life demonstrates is the no excuses component that you talked about.

Stone Payton: [00:12:37] Yeah.

A.M. Williams: [00:12:38] It’s like if you think life is hard. Try doing a meeting. Why you got a nurse trying to change a bedpan? Yeah, you. If you think business is hard. Try administering a meeting and you’ve gotten spasms. You know, try administering a meeting from a hospital bed at home. Try administering a meeting when you’ve been told you’ve got ten days to live. And so I’ve had those experience experiences and that’s the real value of my solution is through the lens of my experiences. I do not shortchange growth. You can’t shortcut growth with external solutions, with external tools like, well, man, if I, if I just master, if I just hack this funnel, I just hack the way he’s doing business. I don’t have to grow. I can grow. I can grow after I learn how to make money. And when we put it in that framework, Stone doesn’t seem to be so bass ackwards. Yes.

Stone Payton: [00:13:58] So what kind of entrepreneurs, what kind of clients are you working with? I’m operating under the impression that you’re certainly must be working with entrepreneurs. Or are you working with people in a certain type of industry or at a certain stage of growth? Who are your clients?

A.M. Williams: [00:14:16] So yeah, my business is not isolated to an industry. The challenges that I speak about happen in every industry. However. There are winners and losers in every industry. What that person has to make the decision on is which one would. Are they going to be? And I typically work with entrepreneurs beyond the million dollar mark because. These guys don’t even realize what they did actually to cross the million dollar mark. And now that they’re trying to move forward, they’ve come to a harsh reality that their hustle. Is no longer applicable to the level of business that they aspire to. And so the hustle is not so much the problem as it is the hurdle in the hustle. And that hurdle is the dynamic of trying to get clients. You don’t get clients beyond the million dollar mark. You attract them. You don’t get clients at the $10 Million level, you attract them. You don’t get clients, the $20 Million level, you attract them. And so I show them how to basically leverage themselves. And that does not mean that they necessarily are the leverage. Their authenticity is to leverage. Their partnerships can be the leverage, their systems can be the leverage. But I’m literally showing them that they are the fulcrum. So I don’t care how lengthy your tools and systems, I don’t care how lengthy your leverage may be if you’re if you’re trying to leverage that on a little rock or a pebble. How far is that going to get you?

Stone Payton: [00:16:24] Right.

A.M. Williams: [00:16:24] You got to have a big enough and strong enough fulcrum. On which to place that lever. So that you can adequately get out of. Your authenticity, your differentiator, your systems, your partnerships, your team to create the result that you’re actually after. So I clients that I typically attract are entrepreneurs leveraging themselves.

Stone Payton: [00:16:58] So something that really stood out for me when you and I had a chance to visit before, we weren’t on air. We were just we were just chatting. You spoke to this idea of boss level growth. Can you dove into that a little bit and describe that?

A.M. Williams: [00:17:14] So boss level growth, boss meaning blast off strategically and systemically. So it’s not so much a destination as much as it is a method of modality of growth. There are there’s a modality of growth that gives you incremental results. But. You know, many years ago, people traveled by horse and buggy. And I remember somewhere Henry Ford said if I gave people what they wanted. I’d have just created a bigger horse and buggy. Yeah, but what he ended up creating was a vehicle that had the ability to get him where? Get them where they wanted to go faster. Well, since then, you know, we’ve created the airplane, so now you don’t have to just utilize something with wheels to get you where you want to go. Yes. Can you get in a car and drive from New York to California? You could. But why? When airplanes are available. So. There are there has been vehicles, modalities that help people get to where they want to go, help them to travel further and faster than traditional means of growth like today. If you try to sit a person down and tell them, man, if you just set aside $50 a month, by the time you sit down to try to tell an entrepreneur 30 years old, if they just sit down and just invest it or 25 years old just invest $50 a month into something. By the time they turn 65 or 70, they could actually create $1,000,000. Nobody’s doing that stuff. Nobody’s doing that. They’re not working a job 40 years. They’re not.

A.M. Williams: [00:19:12] They’re not trying to wait 40 years in business. And they don’t even want to commit to a mortgage for 30 years. And some of them don’t even stay in relationships for 30 years. So nobody is trying to do long term methods to get there. What they’re looking for something is that something that has the ability to take them further and faster. So that they can show up when they want to be there. Now, the other side of that is I’m not talking about. You’re learning something that’s going to get you financially independent by next Saturday. I’m not talking about that either. I’m just talking about a mechanism, a method of growth that will allow you to go further and faster. And boss level growth is that method that has the ability to take a person further and faster. I call it the boss growth method to achieve boss level growth. Those people that are really doing this at a high level are doing boss level growth. They got boss level growth to achieve that. They don’t have to work all year to make $1,000,000. They built themselves to a place where they can do that in a summit. They could do that in a seminar. They can do that. You leverage their influence using the power of leverage to achieve what they want. And leverage is a boss growth method. It allows you to pick the high, the highest and most optimal path to get you where you want to go. So that’s what I mean by boss level growth.

Stone Payton: [00:21:00] So can you walk us through an engagement, if that’s the right word, but maybe some of the activities and maybe an example or two? You know, of course, I wouldn’t ask you to name names or anything, but of, you know, what things were like when you began the relationship and some things that you worked through and recommended that they do or not do just to kind of paint a picture of what working with Coach AM looks like.

A.M. Williams: [00:21:26] Well, one of the things that having been having gone through the stuff that I had. I could have looked at that two different ways. I could have looked at that as a major setback. Or I could have looked at that as the cheat sheet. For how to dance with adversity. I chose the latter. So as a result, when COVID came around, my business exploded. Huh? It didn’t it didn’t contract. It didn’t. It didn’t fold. It exploded. Why? Because I had the cheat sheet. Add the cheat sheet from learning how to build a business when you’re not getting stages at that time. You know, when we talked about stage, somebody was telling how virtual summits, people were talking about live events and there was a lot of people that were building their business off live events for when COVID hit. Guess what? Those live events dried up. Mm hmm. And what my experience taught me is. Is a very powerful lesson I got from grapes. You can go to a grocery store and buy a bushel of grapes, probably for a little over $1 and some change a pound. A bushel or so and so. But if you go to a vineyard, you can take grapes that were grown in a vineyard and put them to a fermentation process where they they they are utilized. To create themselves and to create something at a different form that allows them to be significantly more valuable. So you can take grapes out of the store.

A.M. Williams: [00:23:14] They go through a process and they’re sold about a dollar or something, a pound, or you can take grapes and put them through a fermentation process where they’re basically sold for 50 to $100 a bottle. Lesson being you could be more valuable in a different form. So I had a case with a client who phenomenal speaker. Phenomenal speaker, but when COVID hit, it dried up the business. So I gave them the analogy and open them to the possibility that they could be more valuable in a different form. So through that process, we took her message for speaking and put them in the form of online courses. Took her book, created online courses from the book. Upon doing that, her business exploded within a month. I mean it literally like 2 to 3 eggs then. And her ability to generate revenue. Very quickly. And so we did that for that client. And I had a client come to me that was doing. And much, much of the same challenges because they could not physically meet. With their clients. And so when I showed them how to reposition themselves and take their clients through a different process and show them how to help their clients migrate to online based training versus the traditional methods and means, their business did very much the same thing. And so what is being what has come from that is our ability to help businesses. Three X their results and as little as six weeks.

Stone Payton: [00:25:20] Wow.

A.M. Williams: [00:25:20] Six weeks.

Stone Payton: [00:25:22] So what are you I mean, clearly, you’re very passionate about this and you’re thoroughly enjoying the work, but what are you finding the most rewarding right now? What are you enjoying the most about the work?

A.M. Williams: [00:25:35] The transformation. Man. It is so powerful to see the transformation that’s going on in these guys, to see them realize the greatness inside of them. I’m not I’m not doing anything. As much as I am helping them to realize the greatness, to access that greatness in them and compel them to live it out. And as they as they adhere to it and they buy into it. And when I say buy in, I basically mean. They rightly filter it, experience it, meaning they’re present with it, or take action on it without action. What’s the value of any solution? So they have to experience it. Having rightly leveraged it. So that they can ultimately transform their life and their business. So when you look at Riley filtered experience, leveraged and transformed it, it shows rightly felt. So knowledge becomes treasure once it is rightly felt. And that’s. That’s the value that we bring to the world. And. Serve others with. The knowledge that is rightly felt.

Stone Payton: [00:27:15] Are you finding in your work that some lovers or one particular lover is, I don’t know, more powerful, easier to implement faster? Like is there almost a go to lever or to that you’re almost certain at some point you’re going to engage that and facilitate their their propensity to to to utilize that particular lever? Or is it just different in every situation?

A.M. Williams: [00:27:44] Well, the most powerful lever across the board. Is the the dynamic of becoming more is the dynamic of personal growth. Jim Rome once said, if you’ve got $1,000,000, you’ve got to become a millionaire quick. So growth is the most powerful lever in any business. If you’re not making the conscious decision to become more than your leverage is limited. The greatest limitation Tony Robbins talked about this and I’m paraphrasing, he said the greatest limitation in a business often is the psychology of the owner. Man. So when we try to shortcut growth by looking for external tools, external systems, we’re trying to shortcut the thing that not only allows us to achieve at a higher level, but to sustain that growth. Like, who wants to, you know, when we play football back in the day? Stone We used to do these things called. Suicides where you have to run.

Stone Payton: [00:29:03] I remember those in basketball.

A.M. Williams: [00:29:07] Yeah. Run ten yards, then run back and run. I hated those things. I hated those things. But, you know, people don’t think they’re really accomplishing much unless every time they hit a new level, they have to run back to the starting line. And again, if we just think about things twice, Mike Murdock said, Dr. Mike Murdock said, If you think twice, you’re almost genius in this generation. If we can just really get people to think. Twice about what they’re doing. And how is it really attributed? It’s never what we’re doing. It’s the way we’re thinking about what we’re doing that’s causing the problem. And so I just encourage people to really think about what they’re doing. And so I guess in many regards that’s like, what, metacognition? It’s not so much about what you’re thinking as the way you’re thinking about what you’re doing. It’s not so much about what you’re doing is the way you’re thinking about what you’re doing is creating the problem. So that’s why I say if you if we work on us. That personal growth, that commitment to grow as a a business owner, that commitment to grow in our culture of the business, that commitment to grow within our sales team, that commitment to grow in the organization. Once we create a culture that is growth oriented, we position ourselves with the ultimate lever. Of what it takes to really achieve more of the success that we want.

Stone Payton: [00:31:06] So let’s talk about the book, which strikes me as one of the ways you’ve chosen to to leverage your ability to reach more people, to serve more people. You’re no stranger to the to the world of authoring. You’ve coauthored a book before, but now you’re the sole author of a book that is going to be released any time now, probably soon. Not too long after this particular conversation is published. Tell us a little bit about the the book, how it came together and what you’re hoping to accomplish with that.

A.M. Williams: [00:31:38] So I literally just basically take people on my path. I give them an inside look on my path from the time of the year 2000. And I, I basically share with them the things that I went through, being vulnerable and sharing, what the challenges that I went through about being told I would be dead in ten days, multiple times since the year 2000. Yet ten years from the last time I was told that I’m still here and on the interview with you. And the reason why that is, is not that, you know, the doctor was bad. He was doing what his level of information told him, how it should turn out. He didn’t realize I had a higher level authority in my life. God himself. They said I should not die. I shall live. And since he created me, I tended to lean more to what he said than what the doctor said. And that that gave me the power to stop focusing on my condition, not be conditioned by my condition, but basically live out the greatness that I had. And I had to get to the point where it was no longer about my condition. As long as I thought in my condition I was a victim, I was a victim. And whatever leverage I had was limited. It was limited. Why? Because the way I saw myself. Technology was there. There were tools that could have helped me better reach, better do, man. When I started seeing myself different, I saw I saw the things that helped me expand my reach differently. As a result, man, I train. I had a client with a business in nine different countries. I trained her sales team. Across nine different countries from my bed, my hospital bed at home.

Stone Payton: [00:33:49] Wow.

A.M. Williams: [00:33:50] I trained that sales team. I’ve done leadership coaching for a Fortune 50 organization. From a bed bound condition. I’ve worked with professionals, doctors, lawyers, accountants, dentists. I’ve worked with them across several I mean, across several industries, coached them all from a bedbound state. I’ve worked with tons of entrepreneurs and processed them through a course that I have and of course that I offer just to kind of kick start their whole growth and development. And that that has also been very lucrative for me. And as a result, now I’m getting all kinds of things from coaching clients and, you know, working with people that are attracted to what I’m doing, having experienced some level of publicity, whether it be a podcast or a stage, a virtual stage or something, and they say, Hey, man, I want you to work with me. And, you know, at at the level at which I do it, you know, these guys are pretty much like, listen, you’re going to help me do this and I’m going to pay you 250 K to do it. I’m like, at the time I didn’t even have a 250 K program, but who am I? To tell this person that, you know what what what I charge, they told me at the level at which they can implement. And I said, sure, okay, let’s do it. And so that’s the thing that I don’t think many consultants or coaches understand, man. If you just show up the way that you’re supposed to, they will. They will either come in and. And be a prospect and and turn into a client, or they will connect you with people in need of what you have. And it will turn into business for you. So that book is a documentary of my past. Of the things that I learned along the way, and I call it leverage without limits. How to make it to the top. When you can’t take the stairs.

Stone Payton: [00:36:17] Wow. What a great title and what an inspiring story. Okay. Before we wrap in just a moment, I’m going to make sure that we provide our listeners with some contact information in some ways to get to you and talk with you or someone on your team. But before we go there, what are some things that someone might be well served to do in preparation of visiting with you? Or are there some things that maybe they should think about or read or do so that they get the most out of reaching out and having an initial conversation with you, do you think?

A.M. Williams: [00:36:52] So Leland Vandewalle. Once was quoted saying. A man’s growth is directly proportional to how much truth? He is willing to confront about himself without running away from it. So. When a person comes to me, I want them in the mind frame that I know I need to grow. But part of my growth is my willingness. To come face to face with the truth and not run away from it. So. I allowed them to do that from the onset with my course called address your BS. I like it and BS representative of belief system. Blindspots. Backstories. Basic suppositions. And we turn those things, we create a breakthrough, we turn it, transform it into a breakthrough strategy. Solid business structure. A business simplified. Better. Business sales. We get rid of that busyness in the schedule. And so that leads to better bank statements. So when people ask me, what do I sell, I just tell them I just sell a bunch of ads.

Stone Payton: [00:38:34] I got to tell you this this conversation, the time and energy invest in this conversation for the for your BS list alone is definitely worth it. All right. So if our listeners would like to reach out, have a conversation with you, begin to learn more about your work and begin working on some of these topics. Let’s leave them with some points of contact. Whatever you feel like is most appropriate LinkedIn, email, whatever. What’s the best way for them to reach out and connect and have a conversation?

A.M. Williams: [00:39:02] So you can you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’m under Coach Am Williams. You can also reach out to me on Facebook. I’m under Coach AM Williams. You can coach A and Williams fan page and so you can reach out to me there. I’m under Coach Am on Instagram. So in my social media we have a lot of great fireside chats. You know, I promote promote a lot of inspiration there, but I’m not just inspiration. I am perspiration. So while I don’t want to just get you close to the fire, I want to set you on fire. And the way that we do that is put you through this address, your BS course, so we can purify all of that stuff out and you get all of that mess in the bottom, your view up to the surface and scratch it out and cut it off so that you can show up like gold and you can show up in a way that allows you to attract the people that you most enjoy working with. So social media is great for fireside chats, but if you’re at the point where like, Listen, man, I don’t want to sit by the fire, I need to be set on fire. Then go to address Shabazz Workshop that come. And register for one of my upcoming workshops where over three days I take people from bound to box to show them how they got what it takes to achieve boss level growth.

Stone Payton: [00:40:42] Well, Coach, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. I’m going to ask you if you would to stay on the line even after we go off the air, because I want to chat with you for for a moment, but man, I can’t thank you enough. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story and your perspective. We’ll look forward to the book coming out. And if you’re up for it, man, we’ll have you back on when you release that book.

A.M. Williams: [00:41:05] Actually, that would be awesome. My pleasure. And thank you for the opportunity. I consider it a pleasure. People really want to grow, man. I suggest if they haven’t already, I don’t know why, but just in case you’re operating with that level of dysfunction, subscribe to this podcast. Subscribe to this, because this is an amazing resource, an amazing resource for anyone who wants to achieve boss level growth. I would strongly suggest that you do subscribe to this podcast and get great interviews like this one on a regular that would help them tremendously.

Stone Payton: [00:41:44] Well, thank you for that. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Coach AM Williams with AM Williams Coaching Company, LLC, and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

Shelley Gupta With BāKIT Box

May 4, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Chicago Business Radio

Shelley Gupta With BāKIT Box

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Shelley Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO at BāKIT Box

BāKIT Box is a female, minority owned specialty baking kit service, aimed at making baking easy and accessible to all levels. BāKIT Box offers customers a changing selection of culturally diverse baking recipes and delivers all the pre-measured ingredients directly to your door.

ustomers subscribe monthly or every other month, with new recipes to choose from. BāKIT Box is selling more than a baking kit, they are selling convenience (no mess and no waste), experiences (bonding experience with loved ones), and education (in baking tips and access to global recipes). Customers can also purchase a la carte, as this is a huge gift giving opportunity.

Follow BāKIT Box on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody, and welcome to 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 firm Space, because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we have a great show for you today. On today’s show, we have the co founder and CEO of Bake It Box. So please welcome to the show, Shelly Gupta. Welcome to the show, Shelly.

Shelley Gupta: [00:00:45] Thank you so much for having me.

Max Kantor: [00:00:46] So let’s jump right in. What is Bake It box and how to get started?

Shelley Gupta: [00:00:51] Yeah, absolutely. So Bake It Box is a specialty baking kit service. We create culturally diverse baking kits, things that you can’t find in the grocery store, and we provide all the pre measured ingredients so you can bake at home. We started this. I started with my best friend and co-founder in 2020. We started it because we both personally were realizing that there are so many pain points with baking at home and it really starts off with the the unlimited resources online and trying to filter through all this information online, buying ingredients in bulk. You waste a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of food. And so we wanted to create something that was all inclusive, making it really easy and convenient for people to bake from scratch. And with that really, really important cultural focus that that we feel very strongly about.

Max Kantor: [00:01:39] Totally. I mean, that was my favorite thing looking through you guys website is, you know, typically when I think of like prepackaged baked goods that lead you step by step, I think of just like the standard chocolate cake or the standard cupcakes. But you guys have such a great variety of foods.

Shelley Gupta: [00:01:57] Yeah, absolutely. That was really important to us. I come from an Indian and Canadian household, my co-founders, Puerto Rican and Mexican. And so just our own cultures are so enriching that we wanted to we wanted to touch on different cuisines all around the globe.

Max Kantor: [00:02:11] Now, did you pick your personal favorite kind of baked goods to start with? How did you grow that options as your business grew?

Shelley Gupta: [00:02:21] Yeah, we kind of did. We started off with things that we really felt that we were gravitating towards. We started off my co founder started created one of our first recipes, which is still my favorite. It’s our mini empanadas. They’re covered in cinnamon sugar filled with jam. They’re just delicious. We started off with essentially 4 to 6 recipes just to kind of see where the what the market was going to tell us. And we were finding that people loved it. They were coming back to the website and purchasing again. So from there, we just kept developing more and more recipes and getting inspiration from different cuisines around the globe.

Max Kantor: [00:02:57] And as people were at home during COVID, I know you mentioned you started in 2020. So it’s kind of like a perfect storm of people being at home and kind of turning to, at least for me, you know, YouTube to grow new skills. A lot of people turn to baking. So how did that impact your growth as a company?

Shelley Gupta: [00:03:16] Yeah, absolutely. You know, that was the inspiration for the company, to be honest, because as we as we all saw when we were all at home and we had more time on our hands, the activity almost everybody across the world chose to do was to bake. And it really kind of clicked for us that, you know, we we desire these types of abilities to create, to explore in the kitchen, to feel that that benefit of being able to create something from scratch. We just don’t have the time anymore. You know, we are a different generation of people. Our lifestyles are so, so busy. So it was really, truly the inspiration for Bake Box. We also found that as people were still kind of stuck at home and needing activities to do with their kids or with their friends. It was becoming such a great solution and something new and innovative for them. So we had a great first year and we’re growing from there.

Max Kantor: [00:04:11] How do you guys craft your recipes?

Shelley Gupta: [00:04:15] So we started off actually doing them personally and working with our team. So we are part of an incubator program here in Chicago called the Hatchery. So we started off with them working through how to create and develop recipes. And as we’ve grown, we’ve actually hired a pastry chef who’s fantastic, so we work very closely with her. On pulling inspiration and creating unique recipes.

Max Kantor: [00:04:39] Gotcha. So at the hatchery is that’s kind of where your test kitchen is.

Shelley Gupta: [00:04:44] Exactly. Yes.

Max Kantor: [00:04:45] Gotcha. Okay. Very cool. How long does it take you to develop a recipe from the start to the finish?

Shelley Gupta: [00:04:53] Good question. It could take a few months because what we do is we we try we change our menu every two months and we pull from the holidays the different seasonality, the flavors of those months. So, for example, for May and June, right now we’re focused on Mother’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, Father’s Day pride. It’s the Asian Pacific Islander Month as well. I may have said that wrong. Apologies. So we basically do a lot of research on looking at what holidays are important, what cuisines are important during that time of year, and then we start to develop from there. In addition, we test everything personally. So my co-founder and I take each of the recipes once they’re developed, and we actually try to do them in our own kitchens. So an average household type of scenario to make sure that it’s super user friendly for our customers. Once we finalize all of that, then we actually go into actual development of the kits to make sure they’re done correctly. The measurements all make sense and the recipe card is reflective of what is going in your kit. So it can take a few months to do that whole process for one recipe.

Max Kantor: [00:05:58] I love that you’re changing it up every couple of months because that way when someone gets a subscription, you’re always kind of keeping them on their toes. They don’t know what’s coming next and that keeps it fresh and fun.

Shelley Gupta: [00:06:07] Exactly.

Max Kantor: [00:06:08] So when someone gets their box, they’ve ordered a box. What comes in that box for them to bake?

Shelley Gupta: [00:06:15] Yes. So you get each individual kit will have it’ll all be labeled, but you’ll get all your pre measured ingredients with the labels, with the measurements on there, you get a very detailed recipe card. It has images of how to do each of the steps, so you just know where you stand at each point in time. We want to make it super user friendly and the recipe, the full recipes on there as well. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t hiding anything from our customers or not giving them the full detail. So you can keep that card, throw it in a folder in a binder, and make it again in the future. So that’s everything that comes in the kit. When you’re a subscriber, a new subscriber, we give a little bit of a gift in the beginning as well, and the goal is to build that recipe, database and portfolio of all these different cuisines.

Max Kantor: [00:07:03] Now, for me, I am such a bad cook. I’m the one who’s YouTubing like how to make pasta? Still, it’s embarrassing, but my mom, she’s like, Alex Gordon, Shelly. She’s whipping it up in the kitchen. She’s great. Oh, yeah, amazing. So what skill level is good for Bake It box?

Shelley Gupta: [00:07:21] You can absolutely be a beginner with Bake Box and that’s what we want it to focus on. So we have customers that are very, very new to baking and we also have customers that are more avid bakers. We do categorize each of our recipe kits by easy, intermediate or advanced, and that is really just based on certain skills you may not have been familiar with or comfortable with. We also, as I mentioned, because we test it and in an environment where we’re looking for making it as easy as possible, my co-founder and I will break down even baking terminology and jargon and make sure that it’s super clear what that means, because that’s what we found was difficult when we were just baking on our own. When you find a recipe online, I find myself as well Googling on the side or doing some research or being like, Wait, what does that word mean? What’s the technique here? And so we want to make sure that that is not something that needs to be done with our kits. Our recipe card will give you exactly what needs to be done. We will even be be like, yes, it should look like that. It should be liquidy and gooey or whatever it should be in that step. We validate that as you go along and we have those images. So truly it’s great for beginners. Funny enough, we have some more advanced bakers that love our kits too, because it’s just it’s so easy. There’s no mess, there’s no waste. You have everything already in your bags. It makes cleanup a lot easier than it would be if you were measuring everything out from these retail sized bulk bags.

Max Kantor: [00:08:49] Totally. And that’s so accessible to everybody. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re making it accessible to everyone so everyone can experience, you know, the joy of baking something in the kitchen.

Shelley Gupta: [00:08:59] Exactly. It’s such a beautiful feeling to create something from scratch and step away from your busy lifestyle. No screen time like parents love it because it occupies their kids for a couple of hours. It’s just fun. And, you know, I really enjoy even now when I’m. Testing recipes, even though it is for work. I still love that experience of being able to create something and see what you can do in the kitchen with your hands.

Max Kantor: [00:09:23] Now, to order your kits, do people have to get a subscription or can they order them individually if they like a recipe?

Shelley Gupta: [00:09:30] Yes. So we offer both a la carte as well as subscriptions. So on the website there are a few of our recipes that we offer to anyone who is not a subscriber. And then we have a little bit more of a detailed menu or more menu options for subscribers.

Max Kantor: [00:09:46] So my next question for you is a little bit of a two parter. One, what has been your personal favorite recipe you all have made so far? And two, can you tease an upcoming recipe that you’re excited about?

Shelley Gupta: [00:09:59] Yeah, absolutely. So one of my favorites is still from the original menu when we first launched, it’s our mini empanadas with Berry Jam. They are just so good. You we walk you through how to make the dough. The dough has cream cheese in it, so you can imagine how delicious that turns out. It’s filled with jam covered in cinnamon sugar. They are just so good and they’re pretty small. And I found myself eating too many of them when I make them a few times. There was one day in particular that my co-founder and I were prepping for a photo shoot and I ate like half the batch. And she’s like, Kelly, we haven’t shot them yet. And I was like, Sorry, they’re too good. I can’t put it down. The one of the recipes that just came out for Mother’s Day and for the spring season, it’s called Our Persian Love Cake. Oh, my gosh. It is phenomenal. It has rosewater in it and cardamom. Wow. And when you open that little rosewater bottle we give you, it smells so fragrant. I made a batch last week, and my apartment smelled fantastic for a few days, so that one is really cool. It has these flavors from the Middle East that you will love. It’s like a traditional white cake with these enhancements, and it really, really smells delicious. It’s covered in pistachios and icing sugar. So good. I would absolutely encourage you to try it. And it’s on sale right now because we want to inspire for Mother’s Day to give your mom a little love.

Max Kantor: [00:11:23] Definitely. And I’ll tell you, it’s a good thing I ate lunch before this interview because woo hoo. You describe it in such vivid detail. Oh, boy.

Shelley Gupta: [00:11:30] Oh, wow. Oh, thank you. I always I always I admire people who can talk about food that makes you want it. So I’m glad you said that.

Max Kantor: [00:11:38] Oh, yeah, definitely. So you said you’ve been doing this for for about two years now, since 2020. For you personally, what’s been the most rewarding part of the Bake It Box journey?

Shelley Gupta: [00:11:50] Oh, wow. There’s so many. Honestly, it’s been a lot of things along the way. I was I come from an entrepreneurial family, but I hadn’t really, really, really gotten that part of part of my background out yet. I had done some projects, I’d work with some things, but this is my first, first project that’s truly. Truly an entrepreneurial venture. So even the first website draft that was launched, it was February 12th, 2021. As soon as it went live like those, the small wins, I think for me have been really, really wonderful. Seeing our first sale was so exciting. We didn’t know if anyone would buy it. So these all of these small things really add up to showing that we are making an impact. And one of the most rewarding moments for me. It was actually so interesting. I sent a box to an investor, a potential investor. He was an older gentleman, never really baked himself. And when we got on the phone call, he said that he had his two teenagers help him bake it before the call so he could be prepared and male and female teenage kids. And he said he has not had that type of connection and interaction with his kids and with them with each other in months. And that really warmed my heart to hear that like our box could bring them together that way. A man that does not bake, his teenage kids that probably have their busy lifestyles and are occupied with things in their life, school and friends and all that. It was such a beautiful moment and we were like, This is what we are trying to accomplish. This is why we’re doing this. And that was just a moment I always hold on to.

Max Kantor: [00:13:32] Totally. You guys have both built something special and bake it box. And so when you get to experience those moments, that’s what it’s all about.

Shelley Gupta: [00:13:38] Absolutely.

Max Kantor: [00:13:39] So if someone is interested in either starting of subscription with Bake It Box or wants to try recipes individually, how can they find out more or order from you?

Shelley Gupta: [00:13:50] Absolutely. They can go to our website. We bake it vox.com, that’s baking tea box and both options are there for you if you want to subscribe. There’s on the front page, there’s some details about how you can do that. You pick two kits per month and every month you get to choose from a new menu, which is really great. Or if you’re not ready to subscribe, there are options for you to try us out, including the Persian Love Cake. So definitely check out the website and you can also contact us through the website.

Max Kantor: [00:14:23] That’s great. Well, Shelly, thank you so much for being on the show today. It was awesome talking to you about Bake It Box and all the all the stuff you both are doing.

Shelley Gupta: [00:14:31] Thank you so much for having me, Max.

Max Kantor: [00:14:33] 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: [00:14:41] 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.

Seven Chan With KSP Restaurant Group / Umbrella Bar

May 2, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Seven Chan With KSP Restaurant Group / Umbrella Bar

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Seven Chan is one of the owners of KSP Restaurant Group, him and his partner Ken started their restaurant group in 2016 and currently have 20 plus restaurants around the country with about 8 in metro Atlanta including award winning poke burri and lifting noodles ramen. The duo make traditional asian food with a twist.

Connect with Umbrella Bar on Instagram.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Umbrella Bar
Exciting Korean Dishes / Drinks / Specialty Games and programming

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 an old friend, seven, who is the managing partner chef with the KSP Restaurant Group and now Umbrella Bar. Welcome, seven.

Seven Chan: [00:00:47] Hi everyone. Always good to be back. One of my favorite shows to be on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] Well, thank you very much. I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. The last time you were on, I guess was pre-pandemic and you had just launched Feast that food hall in the battery and you were still kind of, you know, building your franchises up with, I think, Pokey Beer, Pinkberry.

Seven Chan: [00:01:12] Yeah, absolutely. So our brands are Pocky Berry and Little Noodles Ramen. Those are two of the most award winning restaurants in the city of Atlanta. And Pokey Burger is actually the most award winning restaurant in the city’s history of all time, which is absolutely amazing. And we’re currently up to about 20 to 30 locations for those around the country. Our home is always Atlanta, and this is where we’re launching the two new concepts that I’m here to talk about today.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:39] All right. So let’s get into it. One of them is Umbrella Bar. We want to talk about that one.

Seven Chan: [00:01:46] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that one is just so exciting for us. And I want to say that’s probably the more interesting story for the listeners. But yeah, we’re opening umbrella bar at Ponsonby Market, which is of course a huge landmark in the city. It’s tied into the Beltline. There’s like whether you’re a tourist or local, somebody just wants to go somewhere to hang out. It’s one of the best locations in the city, so we’re absolutely so excited to have it. And this is going to be our first our first bar and this is our first night market concept, which is really exciting for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:18] So now how did the concept come about?

Seven Chan: [00:02:22] Okay. So actually this is something that we’ve been working on for years, but we’ve always been just so busy opening the other pokey breweries and lifting the little Robinsons that the pandemic was actually kind of a blessing in disguise. As far as Umbrella Bar, it kind of gave us a chance to bring something to reality that we’ve just kind of been imagining forever. So for everyone, that’s kind of listening. But having hasn’t heard the other episodes, it’s me and my partner Ken from KSP Restaurant Group, and every year we always go on a different trip to Asia and try to experience like new food, cool things. And I want to say maybe five or six years ago we got a chance to go to Korea and we had a chance to go to all the local night markets. And this is a completely different experience, a different kind of feeling and something that Atlanta really doesn’t have. And we’re so excited to bring it here.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:08] So now when you see kind of a concept in an Asian country, like kind of in the wild there, and you you say, okay, we’re going to bring this to America or to Atlanta to test it. How so? What are you kind of looking for? What are your kind of do’s and don’ts if somebody who’s listening is out there trying to get inspiration from around the world?

Seven Chan: [00:03:32] I guess I would say anything that we get excited about is something that we want to share with other people. So imagine for people that haven’t been to a night market. You’re kind of walking down a lot of these places. That’s a little tiny alley and there’s maybe ten, 15, 20 little kiosks. And they each have like their own little specialty. So like for Ponce, we see this as a great opportunity to kind of combine that in a way that people can get things that are grab and go food on sticks, things are weird, different. Everyone just kind of try a little bit of everything. So I think for us it’s kind of creating an experience and finding not just the food, not just like the concept, but a whole experience that you can provide to people in a new way. And if you well, if you want to, if it’s something you’re excited about, it’s something that hopefully other people will love and be excited about, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:20] But when you go and experience that like in Korea and you see that happening kind of in a street market kind of experience, how does that translate into a pond city market? Like how do you take that kind of concept and say, okay, we’ve got to fit this into this kind of a space inside of this kind of ecosystem, that pond city market is.

Seven Chan: [00:04:43] Yeah. And so we actually have been waiting or trying to find our space upon the market for about three or four years now. And honestly, it’s been kind of a back and forth of trying to find the right thing that they’re looking for and trying to find the right thing that we would fit into that environment. And we actually have a really unique space here at Ponds that actually lends itself to the concept of a night market. So if you guys have been there before, if you guys haven’t, really easy way to describe it. It’s kind of like a food hall and we’re in the new expansion side of the food hall. So it’s really exciting. And for a lot of food halls are just a kiosk, the standalone place. But for us we have essentially two little kiosks that are across from each other and it feels kind of like a little alleyway, as if you’re walking down the street and Japan and Korea and you kind of get that feeling that you’re just surrounded on both sides by something that is engulfing, you know, you feel like you’re in it. And that’s the experience that we want to provide there, where if you’re just a standalone store, if you’re just one little booth, you kind of don’t get that. But for us here, we have two booths or two kiosks and a little alleyway that you can actually get to walk down. So in a way, it was we felt like it was kind of destiny that we were able to combine these two things.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:54] Now, when you’re building out something like this, are you always looking at it as, okay, this is something we’re testing in order to franchise this down the road? Or is this something that’s going to live as kind of a, you know, a concept that’ll be just there at Ponca City?

Seven Chan: [00:06:09] So that’s actually a really good question. So, I mean, a lot of times we build something and we kind of try to see what happens and and like for Pokey Brewery and Lifting Noodles, we kind of always knew that in a way we were leaning toward franchising, but with Umbrella Bar, we’re really excited that we feel like this is a standalone thing. This is something this is like a passion project. This is like something that we’ve been working on, experimenting with the food, trying to just get everything right, including like the cocktails, the drinks, the signature things. And for this, I would say this is going to be a standalone one out of the only thing in the whole city. And we and this will probably be the only one that we have.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:46] So now another concept you’re working on is the barbecue fried chicken. Can you talk about that?

Seven Chan: [00:06:53] Yeah, absolutely. So pork fried chicken is another Korean concept and our second Korean concept, and that will be opening in the next few weeks and that will be the Parkside Complex on Roswell Road here in Atlanta. And it’s a really fun and different one for us. We’re kind of getting to experiment with something that I won’t say. I love it. I’m sure you love it. Everyone loves fried chicken. So we’re bringing our own version of Korean fried chicken here. And what’s kind of cool and different about this space is it’s also not a standalone restaurant, it’s not a food hall. It’s this is our first restaurant that we’re building inside a really tiny shipping container. So it’s kind of a fun kind of thing. It’s kind of different. If you drive by it, you’re kind of like, What is this weird random thing in this parking lot? But that’ll be our our fried chicken concept and it’s kind of cool and it’s kind of different and it’s just kind of like what we normally do where it’s traditional Asian food with a twist.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:46] So now that’s going to be in Sandy Springs, right?

Seven Chan: [00:07:52] Correct. So it’s right on Roswell Road and it’s for people that are local, it’s right by the Whole Foods.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:58] And then that is an interesting idea to put things inside of shipping containers. Did they come to you with that idea or was that something that you kind of drove to them because you’re not that’s not going to be the only shipping container there in that space. Right.

Seven Chan: [00:08:14] So there’s actually going to be two shipping containers. And we’ve been kind of pitching this idea to a bunch of different people. And it’s it’s also Jamestown, who is also the owner of Pond City Market. So they were really excited to kind of implemented. So I would say it was kind of like a collaboration of things that they’re looking for and things that. We’re looking for. But what’s really exciting from us, for us from a business point of view, is what we’ve seen during COVID and even now, like inflation, has gone up to build restaurants to get supply. It’s kind of do all these things. So our idea was let’s build the tiniest restaurant we can in the shipping container, and if we do grow in franchise it, we can literally build it here and then ship somebody, an entire restaurant in a different city, a different state really anywhere in the world. And it’s kind of cool and kind of interesting. So this one, we’re definitely planning, it’s a franchise and franchising will be available within the next few months and we’re really excited to kind of take something in that very different. And both things are kind of very different, very new and very special to us, but for different reasons and also kind of like accommodating for COVID and try and just adapt to the world that we live in today.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:22] So is this I mean, are restaurants inside shipping containers? Is that happening around the country that we’re just not aware of? Because I don’t remember seeing a lot of these concepts.

Seven Chan: [00:09:33] So there are a few that we’ve kind of seen and visited for inspiration. We went to a little container park in Birmingham not too long ago. We went to one in Charleston not too long ago, but it is still a relatively new thing and it’s a new thing for, I guess, us to kind of talk to landlords and have a different kind of thing to pitch to them, something different to talk to them about. But so far everyone has been super excited and just comparing building a shipping container to building a full restaurant, it’s a fraction of the price. It’s dramatically easier and I’ll give a shout out to the people that build our food truck south. They’re absolutely amazing. Small, local, Atlanta based business that we’re hoping to grow with as this concept grows.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:13] Now, is this kind of the evolution of food trucks, you think?

Seven Chan: [00:10:19] I hope so. I mean, honestly, I would really hope that this is something that can grow. But the kind of way that we like to be experimental, this is kind of like a cool, fun experiment. We know the food is going to be great. We know the customer service is going to be great. And we’re hoping that this is kind of a way that we kind of innovate or adapt our business model to being in more places for less overhead and kind of getting people a chance to get into business a lot easier now.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:47] Is it going to be kind of a walk up counter experience or is it a drive through?

Seven Chan: [00:10:52] So we currently have a walk up pickup window and there’s actually a little seating area outside and people kind of grab and go, but you’re also welcome to sit and hang out. And because it’s kind of like in a little shipping container in the middle of a parking lot, we’re planning to do a lot of different programing events, kind of like cool stuff because we kind of have all this space that we normally wouldn’t have to play with otherwise.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:16] Oh, that’s very innovative and very creative. Did you this concept, did it come about because you saw other kind of container parks and you’re like, Hey, why isn’t there one here? Like, what spurred you to kind of experiment in this way?

Seven Chan: [00:11:34] That’s a really good question. I guess for us, we have always been kind of used to growing from something really tiny. So if anyone has been to our original restaurants in East Atlanta, you’ll see that our our smallest footprints are about 150 square feet. And for most restaurants, that sounds like that’s like their closet, their office, their bathroom space. But we’re kind of used to growing out of these small things. So we’ve kind of got the idea for the shipping container. We thought, Oh, this is perfect for us. So we can’t really necessarily have people that are too tall or too big working in there, but it’s going to be for us. We’re kind of used to this environment and we see when you grow from something small, it’s a lot easier to kind of adapt and scale. Or if you start with something really big and trying to work your way down, it’s generally a lot harder.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:20] So when is that going to open?

Seven Chan: [00:12:23] So we’re hoping that that’s going to be in the next few weeks. So for you chicken, it’s going to be in the next few weeks and then Umbrella Bar will be in about a month, month and a half now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:34] Talk a little bit about kind of evolving into a to becoming a franchisor, a franchising. A lot of people aspire to be franchisors, but to actually pull it off to the extent you have and to build the portfolio that you built is very impressive. Can you talk to the listener out there who might have a concept of their own that, you know, maybe they’ve been thinking about franchising? Is there are some do’s and don’ts that you would kind of advise somebody who is a restaurant owner.

Seven Chan: [00:13:05] Yeah, absolutely. So. Our parent company, UK Restaurant Group, which is the Life Partner Academy, we actually do help small businesses become franchises as well. I guess what we saw when we started is there’s not a lot of people to help you. You know, there are people that are kind of at the same level, just kind of starting out mom and pops. And then there are people that are have like hundreds, thousands of restaurants and hundreds of millions of dollars. And there really aren’t too many people that you can talk to. And on that side, if you’re just a small person. So, I mean, for us, we do help people become franchisees. We do help them grow and we help consult. But as far as general advice goes, I would say it’s all about the customer experience, it’s all about the food, it’s all about the things that you can be passionate about. And in the same way, that’s how we pick restaurants. That’s how we pick franchised franchisees as well. So I think any time that you have something good, people are going to come up to your store or come up to your cashier or your manager and say, hey, you should be a franchise, hey, I want to be involved and that kind of thing. So what I tell people is a lot of planning, it’s a lot of preparation and kind of just ticking all the boxes of doing the right things and there aren’t really shortcuts, but it’s always good to have a mentor, always have good to have someone that can guide you and somebody that can kind of help you through it and just kind of in a really abbreviated way. There’s a lot of paperwork to be done, a lot of filing, a lot of compliance things, and it’s definitely great to have somebody that knows how to do those things walk you through it.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:29] Now, is there any kind of red flags like how do you know that if a concept is good enough to franchise, is it good enough? Like, Oh, we’re slammed all the time. Is that enough information to know that it’s going to work in another market or is it do you have to have like a really good operation in terms of documenting an operation so you know that it can be you can transfer the knowledge.

Seven Chan: [00:14:53] So for us, I think a lot of people ask us what it takes to be a good franchise. And, you know, it’s such an open ended question. What I try to tell people is we try to break things down in a way that is as simple as possible. So the two main things that we look at when we think about franchising someone or franchising something ourself is the brand, and that’s what’s there online presence or social media, their reviews, those kind of things. And we look at the business model and almost every restaurant in the world is supposed to be following a very similar formula. Covid has kind of thrown it off, but if everyone is following the correct ratios, that’s a really good sign that they’re good to franchise. And a basic kind of rule of thumb is your rent and bills is around 10 to 15% of your sales. Your food cost is 20 to 30%, your labor is 20 to 30%, and you have a decent amount of profit left over. Your average franchise in America is somewhere between 12 and 17% profit. So if you’re beating that ratio, you probably have a good chance to kind of succeed if you want to scale that model.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:55] And then one of the advantages of working with an experienced group like yours is that you already have systems in place that can help accelerate the process.

Seven Chan: [00:16:05] Absolutely. So, I mean, we have resources that can help from branding, marketing, real estate development, paperwork. And I try to tell people we’ve just made all the mistakes we’ve kind of learned and we can do. People that work with us don’t have to make those same mistakes again.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:23] And then the concepts that you be willing to help other people, are they only food concepts or are they only Asian food concepts?

Seven Chan: [00:16:31] So honestly for us, we want to just find things that we’re excited about, things that we want to work on and grow into for the long term. So like when you’re franchising is not something that you technically you can work on that project for a few months, for a year. But I think anyone that’s kind of in the same position as me who does this for a living, they would say it’s really a five year, ten year or 20 year thing that you work on with somebody. So if you’re going to work on something for that amount of time, make it something that you believe in, something that you’re passionate about.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:03] So if somebody wants to learn more about KSP or one of your concepts, what’s the is there a website that where they all live or is it each one? You got to find them individually.

Seven Chan: [00:17:15] It’s a little bit of both, depending on the structure of the company or each individual company. But I want to say you can find out more about us at KSP Restaurant Group dot com at Pokey Brewery Lifting Noodles Rom-Com walk you atl dot com and umbrella bar atl dot com well seven.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:35] Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Seven Chan: [00:17:40] Yeah, absolutely. And then just lash out. Follow us on our Instagram. And it’s just the name of YouTube or our restaurants or companies. And if you guys come through and mention that you guys are on the show, we’ll try to give you some kind of special discount or some kind of special prize.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:54] Well, thank you, as always. And once again, congratulations on all the success.

Seven Chan: [00:18:00] Absolutely. Always a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:02] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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John Inhouse With Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

April 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

John Inhouse With Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

00:00 /

John Inhouse serves as the Senior Market Executive of the Atlanta Buckhead & Associates Market headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The Market includes offices in Buckhead, Atlanta Galleria, and Alpharetta, and is comprised of over 300 partners.

John began his career with Merrill Lynch in Akron, Ohio in 1990 as a Financial Advisor and was a Circle of Excellence Financial Advisor and Resident Director from 1994-1998. John became a member of the leadership team in MerrillLynch’s Global Private Client Group in 1998 and served as the AssociateRegional Director for the Mid-America Region from 1998 – 1999.

Prior to leading Merrill’s Private Banking and Investment Group in the Pacific Northwest, John was the Director of the Akron and Cleveland Complex from 1999-2006. He was nominated to the Director’s Advisory Council to Management in 2006 and became the Chairperson in 2008. In 2009, John assumed the role as Regional ManagingDirector of the Mid-South Region based in Atlanta, GA.

John attended Youngstown State University and is a Board Member of Clark Atlanta University Financial Planning Advisory Board and Morehouse College’sExecutive Committee. John recently completed his board tenure with the AtlantaPolice Foundation. John serves as an Executive Sponsor with LEAD (Leadership, Education, Advocacy and Development) for Women, the Executive Advisor for the Atlanta Black Executive Leadership Team (BELT) as well as the Executive Sponsor of Bank of America’s Black Professionals’ Group.

He also is an Executive Member of Merrill’s National Black/African American Financial Advisor Council. John recently accepted the position of leading the Southeast Division’s Market Executive Leadership Academy (MELA-Readiness). Additionally, John is a 2019 recipient of the Bank of America/Merrill Global Diversity & Inclusion Award.

John resides with his family in Sandy Springs, GA and enjoys traveling, boating and spending time with his wife, two sons and daughter.

Connect with John on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Unique trends driving wealth creation in Atlanta, including younger and more diverse clients
Wealth management needs of Atlanta residents
How clients are embracing financial technology over the last year
How Merrill is meeting the new demands in the Atlanta Market
How Merrill is developing local talent

TRANSCRIPT

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 John Inhouse and he is with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. Welcome, John.

John Inhouse: [00:00:43] Welcome. Good afternoon, Leigh. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about Merrill Lynch wealth management, you know, mission purpose, like the type of people that you serve.

John Inhouse: [00:00:55] Thank you, sir. So we we serve, you know, investors and families as well, as well as businesses across the Atlanta metropolitan area. And our mission is really to be five things to our clients. Number one was to be a wealth management planner to articulate each financial decision with a financial plan. Number two, more traditionally provide all of the investment advisory services and advice, but doing that based on financial goals and a financial plan, you know, kind of what we call goals based wealth management. You start with goals and dreams and then you plug in the investments. We also do personal banking and in terms of credit, balance sheet management, mortgages, credit cards, which has been made easier with our obviously the relationship we have with with Bank of America part of the enterprise. We’re also philanthropic consults. We help our clients and families with their philanthropic pursuits. Family, legacy, wealth transfer. And really the last thing is we’re a friend. Know when you’re in the weeds with somebody on trying to get their family goals and their and their most important goals in their one lifetime. You become friends and you help them with all things that involve money.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] Now, how does Merrill differentiate themselves in the marketplace with so much competition among, you know, kind of these robo advisors with these boutique firms? Why is a client better served at Merrill?

John Inhouse: [00:02:22] So the first I’ll take the robo advisor is a little bit of a different scenario. Right. And we do have Merrill Lynch edge, which does have we do it’s not so much a robo advisor, but you could do it yourself or you could use sort of a computer driven model of investing. But there comes a time when there’s a tipping point or a line in the sand where a family or a client says, you know, I really want a person, right? I want to have a financial plan. I want someone to walk me through it. I want someone to tell me how much money I’ll be able to spend when I retire at 65, how much money I need to send my children to school. And I would say what sets us apart the most is delivering financial planning. And by the way, we deliver financial plans at no additional cost. It’s part of what we do. So it doesn’t matter who you meet, whether it’s a neighbor, it’s the wealthiest family on the block or the wealthiest family, you know, the vast majority of people. They do not have a financial plan. They might have an investment plan. So they might say, oh, yeah, I have a plan. But their plan is what percentage? Stocks and bonds. They can’t tell you what percentage probability they’ll have of reaching their dreams of, let’s say I want to have after tax income of $9,000 a month, you know, inflation adjusted when I hit 62. We deliver that and we based our investments off that. That’s the difference.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:49] Now, is that becoming more and more relevant to folks as the market is kind of in a downturn now where you have when it’s a bull market and everything’s going up, then, you know, all these people that are doing it themselves feel like they figured something out. But when the market kind of goes sideways or goes down, all of a sudden, you know, people are exposed and then they might start panicking. Is this where kind of the value of having a trusted adviser comes into play to help you kind of off that ledge so you don’t make kind of a monumental mistake during this time?

John Inhouse: [00:04:23] Lee, what a great question. You’re absolutely right. I would absolutely agree with you. I would add to that you need a financial plan all the time, right? Because, you know, I don’t know what my advisors would say. Lee, if you were a client and I’m an advisor of Merrill Lynch, which I was for eight years and loved it, if you call me yesterday when the market was down again and said, John, you know what’s going on, you know, I could go through a myriad of philanthropic or I’m sorry, but, you know, sort of what’s going on with globally, right? Geopolitically, I could go on about the recession. I can go on about is there going to be a recession, talk about inflation and rising rates or. Right. I can say that and then say, hey, by the way, Lee, I just updated your plan and you’re still on goal to retire in six years. Right. So, you know, that’s when the planning is needed the most. But I’d argue that planning is needed all the time. And that’s the difference in goals based wealth management where we lead with planning, we it all ties, but especially when it’s volatile. Right. That’s when you want to rerun the plan to say and that. And so if I could you know you made a really good point, like when people would call and and make an emotional decision if you call me and said, oh, my God, John, the market’s down again, I want to get out. I would say, well, Lee, you know, let me just share with you. We’re still on goal. We plan for this, right? That’s why we have the asset allocation we have in case there is a market pullback. So there’s no reason to do that. So great question. And planning is is needed every day of every client’s life. But but most importantly, as you put it, when it’s volatile and when it’s going down or sideways.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:59] And I think planning is critically important at the different stages you are and you’re kind of investment life cycle. You know, when you’re accumulating wealth and it’s going down, you’re almost high fiving like, Oh, I’m buying things on a discount today. But when you’re retired and you don’t have kind of an influx of money coming in and it goes down, you’re feeling a little differently.

John Inhouse: [00:06:23] I would agree 1,000%. And you know, what we we call those accumulators are saving money and accumulating. And just like you describe, they almost want to buy when it’s down and there’s the transition into retirement. And then you become an accumulator where you don’t have the steady income of a job coming. And then you need to live off the investments you have and make sure you don’t run out of money. And that’s when it becomes critically important. But I would say that having a plan the entire time is important. But as you approach retirement, it’s it’s even more important.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:54] So now, is there a niche that Merrill serves more than others, or is this kind of anything goes? Anybody anywhere along their career, anywhere in their wealth kind of life cycle that is a is a good fit for Merrill folks.

John Inhouse: [00:07:11] So typically people that just start out investing that might have a few thousand would would use Merrill Lynch edge. So we have Merrill Edge which provides you with an advisor a little bit different than what you do when you’re in normal Merrill Lynch wealth management. We do have planning tools. We do help you with guided investments. And then then there comes the point where you, as you said, as you go through the different stages, then you really need an advisor, right? Then you need that one on one advisor to have that monthly contact, the quarterly reviews, update your plan on a quarterly basis so we can help along the way. And it’s just what channel best serves the clients and families we we meet.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:53] So now are you seeing anything, any kind of surprising trends that you’re seeing? Like, is there more interest now for young folks than maybe there has been historically? Is there, you know, are people asking for more types of alternative investment options? Like, are you seeing anything interesting out there in the market nowadays?

John Inhouse: [00:08:15] Well, you know, I think with the financial uncertainty that we’ve had the last two years with jobs, the market, the economy, the pandemic, there has been an unprecedented interest in financial advice overall. People want to know. Right. People you know, you remember March during when the pandemic first hit, when the markets were I think it was right around March 23rd when the market really capitulated. That’s when everyone really was saying, my gosh, how long will this take to recover? And I have experienced that firsthand in Atlanta, which is, of course, a growing market. And we’ve been able to acquire more clients. You know, we we’re at an all time high and client acquisition where an all time high and client satisfaction and an all time high on client financial planning. So I think through the pandemic, our advisor teams and leaders have been really focused on client engagement and making sure that every client is aware that the full capabilities that Merrill and Bank of America have to meet their financial needs. So, yes, there has been definitely there’s been more interest, especially over the last few years with the pandemic, etc..

Lee Kantor: [00:09:18] Now, are young people looking towards financial advising as a career path? Are you seeing more and more people interested in that?

John Inhouse: [00:09:27] We do we do see a lot of interest in financial you know, financial planning is, you know, it’s a noble cause when done correctly. And, yes, there’s always a we have a phenomenal training program. We’ve never, ever had a year when we didn’t have our training program. We’re really proud of it and we’re really proud of what we can deliver to, you know, to our clients and future clients. So so, yes, there is it’s a very popular career vocation to say, I want to help people plan their their these are it’s so important when you think about especially as people get closed in on retirement, it’s so important that people have that peace of mind when they put their head on their pillow at night to know they’re going to be able to live in dignity or live the retirement that they always dreamed of. And they’ll do that by having a plan. So there are a lot of college graduates that are interested or second career, early second career people that follow this path.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:22] Now let’s talk a little bit about the people at the different kind of stages of their career. So if you’re a brand new, you just started working a recent grad, you got your first job and maybe you’re putting things away for retirement for the year, even just thinking about it for the first time. You said that there are some tools that you can use through Merrill. That’s still that’s somebody that could still engage with Merrill and and create a relationship that might they might not use it to the fullest degree today. But down the road, it might be something that they evolve into a deeper relationship.

John Inhouse: [00:11:01] Absolutely. And that’s Merrill Edge. And by the way, Merrill Edge would also offer them the full suite of all of our Bank of America banking advantages. Right. So they would have both of those. And then as as they continued along, there might be a point where their Merrill Lynch Edge advisor might say, look, you might want to meet a merrill Lynch wealth management advisor, you know, to go to that next step. But but truly from I mean, my 16 year old son has had a merrill Lynch account for for a few years. Right. I mean, and he understands investing and understands companies and what works. And he has a say. And then we use some of the models that Merrill Lynch has. So it’s a great way to teach financial literacy. And, you know, it’s kind of fun to watch people cross from being a saver to an educated, savvy investor. And in the earlier that happens, in the earlier they start, you know, I’ve got a 22 year old that’s you know, he’s got a Roth, right. And because he’s worked. And so it’s fun to watch those younger individuals, you know, start early because it’s amazing what could be done over time, as you know.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:09] Lee And then if you’re a business owner or an entrepreneur, there’s a place for you here as well. Like you don’t have to it doesn’t have to be through your company, right? You can still engage with Merrill if you’re an entrepreneur or solopreneur or somebody like that.

John Inhouse: [00:12:24] Absolutely. And of course, we have incredible business bankers across Atlanta. We’ve got 5000 partners across Atlanta that are Bank of America merrill Lynch across lines of businesses. And not only the consumer bank, which is when you hear Bank of America, you think of the most. But I think the business banking that we have is incredible, where we can really help a business owner, whether it’s with cash management, it’s lending. It’s we have amazing practice management around medical professionals to help them lease equipment. It’s amazing what we can do when we kind of put the power of Bank of America with Merrill Lynch. It’s truly exciting. I’ve been here for 32 years and it’s really fun to watch the number of solutions that we have now. All we need to do, though, is start with goals based, right? It doesn’t matter how many solutions you have if they’re not the right ones. That’s why we always start with goals based. Really understand the client. If they’re a business owner, that’s a whole nother nuance, right? If there’s needs of the business that will help in their in their individual wealth management, we have the banking team that can do that as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:30] And then if you are a corporate person, you can still tap into the advisors and the planners. And especially as you approach retirement. This is I think this is a must have conversation with somebody to help make sure that you’re on the right track to get to where you want to go. And I agree with you that this goal is based. I mean, you have to know where you’re aiming or else you’re never going to get there.

John Inhouse: [00:13:56] Lee. I agree. Again, I mean, just because this is what I do and it’s one of the most passionate about from a career perspective, it’s the only thing I’ve really done. It’s amazing how many people you meet. It doesn’t matter. They could be a top position, a top attorney, a top business owner. They don’t have a financial plan and the things they own, they just bought for through happenstance or someone sold it to them and they never took the time to put it all together to say, you know, do I have too much in stock? I mean, if you’re if you’re if you’ve done really well and you don’t need a ton of money when you retire, why own 90% stocks? There’s no reason people take too much risk. And once they understand that, wow, you know, I don’t need to do that, right? I don’t need to have everything I own in stocks. I could actually have short term fixed income or whatever is the most appropriate or, you know, more dividend yielding investments that are that are a bit more stable. It’s amazing the peace of mind. First of all, it’s an aha moment. They’re like, wow, I didn’t realize that. I didn’t. Or, you know, it’s really the three questions that we ask. And the first question is, what’s the primary intent for your wealth? Right? Or in other words, you have money, you have savings, you have an investment, you have a41k, tell me the jobs that money has to do.

John Inhouse: [00:15:11] And typically people will say, get me through retirement, get my kids through college. I have a family member that I need that needs some of my financial support. I have a couple of favorite charities. And then you ask them the second question and that’s do you feel like you have enough, not enough or more than enough? And they always say, I don’t know. And when they say I don’t know, it’s when we say, you know, have you ever talked about this with a financial professional? No, I have it. We need to do that. And that’s the first thing we do and we’re happy to do it. We don’t care what they do. If you can do it yourself, you can do it with us. But we want everyone to have a plan because once they have that plan, as you said, they’re going to make better educated decisions regardless of what the market’s going to do. They’re going to have peace of mind and their lives are going to be much better and we’re going to greatly increase the probability of their success.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:57] And this is a very complex problem. I mean, you don’t know when you’re going to die. You don’t know what your health is going to be as you age. There’s a lot of unknowns that you’re making assumptions with. And if you don’t have somebody kind of guiding and playing out scenarios, it’s just really difficult for the layperson to understand all of the kind of ramifications of certain actions.

John Inhouse: [00:16:23] Absolutely. You know, and even when it comes to disability or life insurance, it doesn’t have to be even with their employer. Right. I mean, people don’t they don’t really know how much life insurance to buy through their employer. Right. Or or should I have this ability? And the best part of what we do and the best part of the three plus decades I’ve been with Merrill and now Merrill, Bank of America is watching people’s eyes light up when they realize, Wow, I now know what I’m doing. I, I now understand whether I’m in good shape, bad shape or great shape, but I know where I am and now I can plan for it. And I could get into the point where I land at age 65. I land on that island with this much money after taxes. You know, my my kids are going to college. Maybe they’re lucky enough or they can help their grandchildren. All those things. When you ask people, what is your retirement look like, what is what are the goals you’d like your money to accomplish? And you build a plan and accomplish those. There’s nothing, nothing at least better for me and my team than to watch that come to fruition.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:24] Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the best way to do that?

John Inhouse: [00:17:31] Well, sure you could obviously Merrill Lynch. My name is John in-house I ion USA where I’m here in Atlanta, Buckhead and I’m the senior market executive and managing director. I could also be reached in my office where I’m sitting right now, which is 4042312500. And the one thing I just impress upon everyone is, please take the time to do a financial plan. And by the way, we do not charge for our financial plans. So this is no, we’re not looking for people to call us for 5000. No, let us do a financial plan for you. You can decide what to do with your money later, but let us do the plan for you. You’ll feel so much better.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:09] Good stuff. Well, John, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

John Inhouse: [00:18:16] It’s a pleasure and an honor to be on your on your program, sir. Have a great rest of the afternoon and stay safe.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:20] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Danny Kenny With Level 5 Capital Partners

April 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Danny Kenny With Level 5 Capital Partners

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Danny Kenny, Principal at Level 5 Capital Partners

Danny Kenny joined L5 in 2018 and is a principal on the Investment Team. In this role, Danny is involved in deal sourcing and diligence, portfolio company operations, overseeing portfolio company integration with AS, investor relations and day-to-day management of the Investment Team. Danny additionally served as Director of Corporate Development for Big Blue Swim School from 2018to 2020 where he was responsible for launching the franchising business.

From 2015 to 2017, Danny managed public and private investments at Bayshore Global Management, a multi-billion-dollar private family office in Palo Alto, CA. Prior to Bayshore, Danny was a vice president at Goldman Sachs in Chicago, IL.

Danny received a B.A. in political philosophy and economics from Georgetown University and an MBA from the University of Chicago in statistics and analytic finance.

Connect with Danny on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

The next big health and wellness brands
The Health and Wellness Market Size is expected to increase by USD 1.39 trillion from 2020 to 2025

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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 business radio, we have Danny Kenny with Level five Capital Partners. Welcome, Danny.

Danny Kenny: [00:00:43] Hi. Great to be here, Lee. Excited to spend some time with you?

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

Danny Kenny: [00:00:52] Yeah, absolutely. So Level five has been informally around since 2008, investing in in the consumer franchising space. We started our lives with a brand called Core Power Yoga and ultimately made an investment in the brand and then organically grew into its largest franchisee owning and operating over 34 stores across the country. Over time, we realized there was a lot of opportunity in the space to professionalize and institutionalize and so started working with other brands. So we work with Orangetheory Fitness, Big Blue Swim School, Heyday Skin Care and restore hyper wellness and cryotherapy.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:38] So you stay within that health and wellness kind of conglomerate.

Danny Kenny: [00:01:44] You know, we have up to up to this point in time, we tend to focus on consumer services businesses. So really think about businesses we like to say that are non Amazon able where there’s really an element of human connection and local community. And that’s really the sweet spot for where we’re in. It’s happened to be health and wellness. And I would say when we started doing this business, health and wellness was a much smaller niche. And just as an example, five, six, seven years ago, we wouldn’t have thought of heyday skincare as something that was in our space. But today it is because people want to take care of their skin and care deeply about that.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:26] Now, when you’re working in kind of a category or a niche like you are, even though it might be broadening a bit, is there some benefit for that franchisee in terms of by partnering with you and getting access to multiple brands? So there’s some economies of scale like so one, if I am a user of a service, you know, say the fitness brand, that I might also be a user of the skin care brand. And then you don’t have to kind of acquire a new customer. We can share the same customer.

Danny Kenny: [00:02:56] You know, we do get some of that. I would say it’s less about us sharing data across our brands and more sharing processes and tools where there are some walls between what we can share across brands. But the methods for capturing the consumer’s attention and more importantly, delivering a really high quality service experience, those tend to be pretty universal across brands. And so building the processes, tools and systems at the franchisor level and then also giving your franchisees the institutional platforms that a lot of emerging franchise systems don’t have. That’s really where we at level five capital can help a lot in scaling a brand faster by giving them tools that some franchise systems take 5 to 10 years to build out. We can help a brand do that within 24 to 36 months.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:56] And what’s an example of some of those tools?

Danny Kenny: [00:04:00] Well, we build them out. It runs the gamut. And so we have a group that does marketing and new store opening for us. And so we recently recruited somebody from from Facebook to lead that effort. And running the digital marketing playbook is pretty universal across brands. And to do it efficiently and at scale across all the locations that we manage is extremely powerful for for both us as a franchisor. And we also are a franchisee of all the brands we work with today. And we share those insights and processes and playbooks that really exists across our concepts in terms of a large real estate team that helps us locate stores and get in the way of the customer, really make the services convenient for them and and make sure that we’re hitting our opening timeline builds and that we’re delivering as many customers to our locations on the day the store opens.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:02] So having come from kind of the lens of a franchisee, do you think that that’s part of your secret sauce, that you really could empathize with that prospective franchisee? Because you’ve, you know, you’re that’s an active part of what you do every day as an organization.

Danny Kenny: [00:05:17] We don’t even need to empathize. We are on the other side of the table. So we’re building tools for ourselves that that are easily shareable with the rest of the system. So we absolutely do have empathy for sitting in the seat of the franchisee. But we’re also doing I don’t want to proclaim where this is all is all charitable, but we are building tools for ourselves that we want to give access to other franchisees. Because ultimately, if the whole system is successful, everybody wins and we want to see more people involved. And ultimately, it’s all about how many customers can we serve and how many people’s lives can we make better.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:56] Now, you hear a lot about this great resignation. Has that kind of been a maybe an impetus to consider franchising for some of these folks that have quit their jobs?

Danny Kenny: [00:06:10] Yeah, that’s a great question. I think we have seen it. We have in 2020, we actually had a very good year in franchise sales. So we saw probably about a two month slowdown during the pit of the crisis in March and April where nobody was really doing anything because we were all paralyzed with fear. But really, it started picking up in May and June across all of our concepts, and we actually had a really good year selling franchises and 2021 was even better. So I do think you are seeing it. And, you know, we don’t we don’t forecast the future too much. And perhaps with the economy picking back up, that that slows down. But yes, we have seen tailwinds in franchise sales during the pandemic.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:01] Now, any advice for that emerging franchisor that’s out there, maybe with a new franchise that they decided to franchise, that some do’s and don’ts that you would recommend that they kind of implement?

Danny Kenny: [00:07:15] Yeah. I mean, I would say the number one mistake that we see across new franchise systems is a desire to sell at any cost to whomever they can. And so we really see people make strategic errors because they don’t have the early emerging franchise or doesn’t have the negotiating leverage at the table. And I can assure you each one of them regrets that decision 24 months later. Now, that may be the right business decision at that point in time, but I would I would recommend anybody early in the franchising system to think long and hard about giving too much up at the negotiating table just because they haven’t sold a lot of units.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:57] And then what about getting clear on who that ideal franchisee is? How do you go about doing that?

Danny Kenny: [00:08:05] I mean, we it’s very difficult up front. I would say more often than not we’re wrong. But what we are doing is we’re constantly revising who are what the customer profile is for our ideal franchisee. So as soon as we do start selling franchises for a brand, we’re doing quarterly and semiannual updates on who we’ve actually seen come into the funnel and who we have actually sold a unit to. And we’re retargeting based on that. And again, I would say our initial instincts, we can we can get I think we’re going to be correct. But more often than not, the actual people who end up coming in the door and buying and and ultimately being successful franchisees are very different from the people you’ll have in mind when you’re initially launching.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:56] Now, once you’ve identified the ideal franchisee, do you just implement the same strategies you’re using for franchisees to get clients in the door? Are you using those same kind of Facebook and digital ads?

Danny Kenny: [00:09:09] Absolutely. Our franchisees in our system are going to use the same playbooks that we put in place at our stores. And that’s part of the benefits of scale that we bring to an emerging franchise system. So a lot of other people don’t have that expertize. And so the same playbooks that we use at level five for our franchisees are the same playbooks that are put in place for non five franchisees. And people see a lot of benefit in that and I think they take a lot of comfort in the fact that the same person who is an investor in the franchise or is also putting their money where their mouth is and becoming a franchisee and sitting on the same side of the table as future potential and current franchisees.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:52] So that same strategy works for a franchisee to get a customer than it does for L5 to get a franchisee as a franchisee for a brand.

Danny Kenny: [00:10:03] Oh no. So I was thinking customers in the door. We have two different strategies for getting franchisees or for getting potential franchisees to sign franchise agreements. The playbook that I’m talking about that we give to franchisees is really focused on the customer coming in through the doors of the four walls and the franchisees who are not out five of the same playbook as L five does to drive customer volume and revenue through their door.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:31] Because you’re kind of running a laboratory to kind of figure out best practices.

Danny Kenny: [00:10:36] Correct. We like we like to visualize as a conveyor belt or a set of gears that work. Right. And all the gears need to work together. And we’ve come up with a pretty good conveyor belt to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:49] And then when it comes to identifying the next big health and wellness brand, do you have a system for that as well?

Danny Kenny: [00:10:57] Say yes to a lot of meetings. You know, you just have to spend a lot of time looking and talking to a lot of different people. I don’t it’s very hard to triangulate on a system and we’ve thought about it and we attend all the conferences. And but we really the way we think about it is, is we come up with what are things in our life that we want somebody to solve, whether or not it’s something’s not working in my life or this is an inconvenient product and we think somebody can do it better. And then then you start to see patterns and you say, okay, that that person, this product, this this brand is solving this problem in my life that I have either one that’s somebody else hasn’t solved before, which is the case of Restore Hyper Wellness, which is a very new concept and a new brand. Or in the case of Big Blue Swim School, there was competition out there, but we didn’t feel as a customer that they treated that it was as good of an experience as it should be. And so Big Blue is in a market that existed but really ups the game. And we try to think of Big Blue as the apple of of kids swim schools with just a high level of customer touch and experience with a strong technology wrapper around it. I would say the other thing that we we want to see in a brand early on is leaning into technology because everything is has some sort of software wrapper around it. And if you’re not making that investment early, it’s very tough to change the DNA of a company.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:35] Now, is it just a coincidence that you’re based here in Atlanta, or does Atlanta have some unique characteristics that make it a good place to launch brands like this?

Danny Kenny: [00:12:44] You know, it’s it’s coincidence, but it’s a great coincidence. We happen to be here because my brother, who’s also the founder of our firm, know his wife’s a doctor and she was placed at Emory. It just so turns out Atlanta is a great city. It’s not one I considered. I moved here from San Francisco and really kind of pinch myself because I love it here, but it is a great place to put a franchise business. There is just a lot of talent here and it’s very easy to recruit people to move here. And so, again, it’s a coincidence, but it’s a coincidence that I’m very happy about.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:21] Now, is it also a good place to kind of if you’re starting with an emerging brand, to have Atlanta be that market that you’re putting some of your early franchisees on?

Danny Kenny: [00:13:32] Yeah, absolutely. We love Atlanta as a market. It’s a growing demographic. The hard part in Atlanta is it’s growing so much that it can be difficult to find real estate. But beyond that, you’re spot on in terms of the ability to attract talent here and the ability. It’s it’s nice not to have discovery days in the north where it’s. We’re cold and nobody wants to be there from December to March. And so Atlanta absolutely helps in that regard.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:03] So when you’re working with an emerging brand, how do you know when you’re getting traction? Like, is it an obvious thing where you’re like, okay, this is going to work? Like we’re going to be able to get to 102 hundred units? Or is it something that, you know, you have a brand, you do some stuff, it’s maybe it’s struggling and then you’ve got to do some tweaks, like, how do you know when you’re getting traction?

Danny Kenny: [00:14:26] Yeah, I would say the traction is obvious in hindsight and some brands just don’t have to worry about it and some brands do. And it’s great when a brand doesn’t have to worry about it. And basically there’s a giant tailwind behind what they’re doing, and we certainly have a couple of those in our portfolio. And then there are some brands that really have to work through product market fit and there are is some tweaking to do. But ultimately it’s actually the latter is is more rewarding for us and for me gives me a lot more confidence going forward because if you can run into problems and solve them and then come out on the other side with a really good outcome, I feel like you have a much more a much stronger grasp of cause and effect in what you’re doing. And you can have a lot of confidence that the management team at the brand is able to solve problems, whereas a lot of brands sometimes just have so much growth underneath them that they never run into any problems. And you know well as well as I do at some point, at some time, a brand is going to run into a problem, whether that’s a ten stores, 100 stores or 250 stores. It helps to know that the management team is capable of seeing the problem, diagnosing it and coming up with a solution. And so I don’t view brands as completely invulnerable just because they’re growing extraordinarily fast. Sometimes those bumps in the road really help you to understand the durability and the ability of the management team to really understand the customer and fix the trajectory of the brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:08] So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Danny Kenny: [00:16:12] Oh, I’m. What do you mean?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:15] Do you need more franchisee? You need more emerging brands. What do you. You need more capital. You need investors. What do you need more of?

Danny Kenny: [00:16:22] Well, on the latter point, I can’t talk, but on franchising, I mean, listen, we are always looking for franchisees. We have a really I’m really happy with the group of brands that we’re fortunate enough to work with and we’re always looking for new investment opportunities. We again, we’ve been blessed in terms of the types of types of brands and more importantly, the people that we’ve worked with at the brands. We do this because we love it and the areas we focus on. Again, we’re trying to we like to say we want to create the communities that we want to live in. And so finding brands that are trying to solve these problems and make people’s lives better lets us get out of bed and work really hard and gets us excited about it. So and that we’re happy to talk to anybody who is looking to become a franchisee. We’re happy to talk to young and emerging brands and whether or not we make an investment. I’ve spent a lot of time with brands where we haven’t made an investment, just giving them advice on how to think about things. And it’s ultimately been rewarding for me and and some of the brands I have started to see them scale and maybe at a point where they’re ready to work with us. So at the end of the day, we’d love to talk to both.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:44] Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s a website?

Danny Kenny: [00:17:49] Yeah, it’s L five capital l5e capital dot com. In my email address is Danny at WL five capital dot com and easily reachable.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:03] Good stuff, Danny. Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Danny Kenny: [00:18:09] Thank you, Lee. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:11] All right. This is Lee Kantor crucial next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Mike Stark With Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry

April 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Mike Stark With Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industry

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

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

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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