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Greg Beyer With JDC Group

by

JDCgroup

Greg Beyer, Senior Vice President, leads the next generation IT workforce and SAP strategic consulting and advisory practice for JDC Group.

Greg spent 13 years at SAP where he served as head of services sales for the South Market Unit for SAP North America. In this role, Greg was responsible for leading SAP customer transformations to the Intelligent Enterprise across many industries and for all SAP’s product portfolio.

Prior to SAP, Greg provided leadership in various consulting companies including Price Waterhouse and CSC, across multiple industries for more than 20 years in finance, sales and distribution, human resource & payroll management, enterprise resource management, and professional services.

Greg holds an undergraduate degree in History from Lawrence University and an MA from George Washington University – School of Business (GWSB).

Connect with Greg Beyer on LinkedIn and Follow JDC Group on Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • JDC Group’s 16-year history
  • SAP Strategic Consulting and Advisory Solutions group

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This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one, but before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Greg Beyer with JDC Group. Welcome, Greg.

Greg Beyer: [00:00:42] Hey, Lee, thanks for having me.

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

Greg Beyer: [00:00:49] Well, I’ll tell you what, it’s an exciting story. Back in 2005, our founder, Yohannes George, who had been in the Sapp ecosystem for a long time back in the 80s and 90s, he decided it was at the Atlanta area, was was ripe for an opportunity to start a staffing firm around SAP. And so JD, see, you know, they they they focus primarily on SAP opportunities and then expanded from there and to staffing around business transformation. And that’s where we are today, right? Strong relationships in the South and mid-Atlantic areas, primarily around Atlanta. And now we’re expanding that footprint to include SAP is consulting and advisory services.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:33] So now, as part of the evolution, has it been kind of primarily driven by your clients demands or is this something that you’re seeing and ahead and you’re ahead of your client?

Greg Beyer: [00:01:44] Yeah, absolutely. I would say to you that what’s what’s really the market forces for me are creating an opportunity that are are more expansive. And by that, I mean, it’s its customers today need, I would say, a three pronged approach to to support in their IT infrastructure. Their business challenges require sometimes prime implementation work where they have consulting firms come in and advise them and help them consume their software. Other times they they do direct staffing where it’s maybe project based and then then real expertize by individual right solution architects, business process experts, things like that. So really, it’s the market that’s driven this opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:28] Now are you finding that just more and more major enterprises are kind of choosing SAP and that because of that inherent demand is just really kind of helping your company grow?

Greg Beyer: [00:02:43] Yeah. So, you know, obviously I have a bias here, right? So I’ve been on the SAP ecosystem a long time since the early 90s, in fact, even before I had email. But but I would tell you that SAP is really a leader in digital transformation. Their tools and their applications and the software that they provide is really unparalleled in terms of arrival. And by that, I mean, they also expand out into the hyperscale world. So they’ve got cloud relationships with Google and AWU’s and Microsoft. But in terms of customers, really, I think that the interesting thing around SAP is they’re all hyper focused on on process efficiencies. And this is, I would say, namely due to supply chain issues and challenges around manufacturing as you see them today. And then also there’s labor force issues, right? It’s hard to find good people today. And so SAP can help our customers maximize values, maximize their value, whether that’s doing more with what you have or implementing best in class solutions. And as I mentioned before, the real the real final touch or icing on the cake is, is their relationship out in the marketplace with the hyperscalers and cloud based solutions?

Lee Kantor: [00:03:57] Now, when you’re working with your clients, how does kind of what’s kind of the initial point of entry and then how does it kind of expand once they see the depth of your knowledge and services?

Greg Beyer: [00:04:09] Right, so we we normally engage with customers in the revenue, you know, I would say our sweet spot is three billion and below in terms of revenue, and that’s because these types of customers, we either number one, have an existing relationship with them, supporting them in SAP or non sap I.T. areas. The second thing is they’re looking for a partner to come in and provide them guidance. And what makes us uniquely qualified for this is our ability to be flexible and tailor our delivery model for our customers. So for example, if a customer wants more direct guidance in terms of how to consume their software, whether it’s an architecture question or really a three to five year roadmap, we can provide that assistance. Other customers already have SAP expertize, and so they don’t really want that direct guidance. They want an adaptive model where they can get access to solution architects and specialty services, and we provide that as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:07] Now you mentioned talent earlier. Can you talk about your the backgrounds that your SAP team members have and how do you continue to have a pipeline of quality talent?

Greg Beyer: [00:05:22] Surely I can do that. I think what really positions GDC as a specialty, an experienced group, is that we were our main core team is comprised of former SAP employees. These employees have played various roles in their careers in and around the SAP space, including in program delivery and customer care, account management, business strategy and solution architecture. Every one of us shares similar DNA in terms of we’ve all led implementations. We understand how to run efficient teams and build quality products and drive successful outcomes for our customers. And then lastly, to that point, all of us maintain and have existing relationships within the SAP ecosystem, and that includes even within SAP’s product ownership as well as the executives in Waldorf. So we keep keep a close eye on key decisions around products and the direction each of them is going. And we also keep close relationships in terms of how to solve business challenges that we see every day. And to your to your last question, I think what makes us unique is that we can tailor our implementation offering and we can handpick the people that we know that have the expertize that each customer needs. And so having having those relationships in the ecosystem for years and years really gives us that exposure and opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:49] And can you share a little bit about how you’ve seen Atlanta and the Southeast grow in terms of an area of growth for consulting and services group like yours in and around SAP? Is this are you kind of very bullish about our future now? I would imagine this is a totally different landscape than it was 16 years ago when GDC started.

Greg Beyer: [00:07:12] Yeah, I would say to you that Atlanta is absolutely a major market in the U.S. there are many Fortune 500 companies here. It’s a hotbed of technology, and there exists what I think is an abundance of opportunity to help our customers innovate. And that for me, even in the last nine, 10 years that I’ve been in the Atlanta space, I’ve seen it grow exponentially. So there’s a ton of opportunity and there’s a need. Right. So our customers, our customers are seeking partners that can help simplify the message and help create successful outcomes outcomes with consuming technology. But the other piece to this for me is GDC has long established relationship and many customers in the Atlanta space in the South, but also specifically in Atlanta. And that customer base allows us to to to uniquely position ourselves to have conversations and figure out how to support our customers, depending on what they’re looking for. And so we we look forward to expanding that footprint and with the the growth and addition of the SAP consulting and advisory services, we’re looking for new customers who seek out that type of partnership that GDC can offer.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:26] Now, are you seeing any trends in the marketplace looking forward into twenty twenty two? Are you seeing, you know, with the remote working? Anything that’s happening that is going to contribute to your success?

Greg Beyer: [00:08:41] You know, it’s it’s we have right? And I mentioned earlier. So e-commerce and supply chain challenges have been a huge topic for us. A lot of customers are seeking advice and input in that area. And I really, as far as the remote model goes, you have to be able to provide a core competency in that space. And so for me, your ability to identify and and be able to drive project implementation work remotely is a key to success. And so that means experience really becomes the most important thing in terms of helping customers have success with their implementations.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:21] Now what do you need more of? How can we help? Do you need more clients? Do you need more talent? What do you what do you need more?

Greg Beyer: [00:09:29] Well, I would tell you both, you know, we’re open to opportunities if customers are seeking advice. We would welcome the chance to meet with them and hear what kind of challenges they’re trying to solve every day. And in terms of talent, it is a never ending quest to to seek out and find high quality people. And it is it is something we talk about every day. And you know, you’re you’re some would say you’re only as good as your latest implementations, and we’re looking for well-rounded people that have high emotional intelligence and willingness to be part of a great team. And that’s what JD is all about.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:07] And if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, is there a website?

Greg Beyer: [00:10:13] There is. I can send that to you, but it’s I believe it’s JD.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:19] Yeah, JD Hyphen Group is a website I have here. If somebody wants to connect with you directly, is LinkedIn the best way to do that?

Greg Beyer: [00:10:27] That’s correct. Please have them do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:30] Good stuff. Well, Greg, thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Greg Beyer: [00:10:33] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

 

Patrick Metzger With PM and Associates

by

PMandAssociates

PatrickMetzgerCertified EOS Implementer Patrick Metzger has always been a teacher, coach and facilitator at heart. After spending over a decade as a public school teacher and coach where he helped build high achieving teams and assist them in reaching their goals, he decided to embark on the entrepreneurial journey.

After starting his own coaching and consulting business, Patrick transitioned into holistic high performance coaching. Within two years, he was working with clients across North America and performing professional talks and trainings.

Patrick is passionate about using his teaching and coaching skills and expertise in partnering with and supporting teams and leaders for growth and success as an EOS Implementer, CEO of PM and Associates and Founder of Velocity Masterminds which is launching late 2021.

Currently, Patrick works with dozens of organizations across the Midwest and nation within a variety of industries in helping them get more out of their businesses, themselves and live their ideal lives. He enjoys helping young startups lay the foundational bricks of success, as well as guiding $100M+ companies in increasing efficiencies and making a greater impact in the world.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How to create a successful business

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Patrick Metzger with PM and associates. Welcome, Patrick.

Patrick Metzger: [00:00:42] Hey, thanks so much for having me, Lee. Excited to be here, man.

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

Patrick Metzger: [00:00:50] Yeah, so I’m a certified iOS implementer, so I work with small to medium sized businesses all across the nation, and what I really do is I come into those businesses as a business coach and facilitator and really help them execute at a much higher level by helping them implement an overall operating system that deals with everything from helping clarify their vision and structure to making sure they’re tracking the correct data and executing to the fullest, basically.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:21] So now what is kind of the pain point that your clients are coming to you with? Are they just at the beginning stages that they want to just kind of start fresh and then build their own, you know, professional operating system? Or is it something that they’re just kind of struggling and they come to you to kind of help them through a challenge?

Patrick Metzger: [00:01:40] Yeah, great question. You know, if you look at every business, it doesn’t matter if you run a lemonade stand or if you’re running Google. Everybody has issues, right? Everyone has multiple issues around people, processes, lack of vision, lack of communication. So the the big item that I typically see with businesses, you know, I work with everyone from solopreneurs to $100 million plus companies. But there’s so many issues around lack of communication. Owners, visionaries having trouble letting go of things. That’s a huge one that I very, very frequently see as well. And then just, you know, people want to get more out of their business and they just don’t have a really solid method of how to get there. And anybody that’s ever worked with a coach knows that when you have an outside, an outside facilitator and outside perspective, it’s absolutely priceless. And pointing out a lot of the things and digging out a lot of the things that you may be know are there, but they’re either hard or you don’t know how to bring them up, maybe within your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:44] So now, what’s your back story, how did you just start finding a heart for these entrepreneurs?

Patrick Metzger: [00:02:50] Yeah, yeah, I kind of I’ve kind of gotten here in an unorthodox way to tell you the truth. So I was actually a teacher for 11 years. A lot of middle school, a little bit of upper elementary. Loved it. So teaching coaching has always been my passion. It’s always been my big, big, my big. What do they do and my big why? As part of that is everything I’ve done over my professional career has always been about helping people achieve more. So I’ve helped students. I have helped kids on an athletic field. I was a football coach for a long time. Now it’s really just transition to helping individuals through some high performance coaching, but now mainly working with just leadership teams across the country. And how do you get more out of your team? How do you get more out of your business because every single person is is looking for that. But I, you know, going way back, I left teaching to find what it was that I really wanted to do, and it took me a while to realize that teaching coaching was absolutely something I wanted to do forever. But I did not like the lack of freedom in teaching.

Patrick Metzger: [00:03:57] And, you know, I worked with a business coach myself and to tell you the truth, that’s really who kind of set me on a different direction. I did a lot of health, wellness coaching, consulting when I left teaching because I had a very strong background in that. But he’s the one that really kind of saw way more in me and really started to dig that out. And from there, I really transitioned from health wellness into more holistic, high performance coaching that led me to working with CEOs managers. And that’s where I really ran across the iOS framework, which stands for entrepreneurial operating system. And I was sold. I immediately borrowed thirty thousand dollars against my house, went and did the training and never looked back, started with my first business six weeks after that. Fast forward to now just about a couple of years and work with over 20 companies nationwide. Everyone from, like I said, solopreneurs that are really building the foundation and laying the bricks of their business to $100 million plus companies that are really just trying to break through the ceiling.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:58] Now, for the sake of this conversation, let’s talk about the beginning stages and how to create that successful business. Once you had the framework from iOS and you had kind of a blueprint on how to execute the service of coaching, I guess, and the deliverable back to your client. How did you get that first client? How did you kind of move from? I don’t know. Can I do this to, yeah, I’m doing this and this is I can do this and I won’t have any kind of imposter syndrome. I’m qualified to do this and I’m the person to do this.

Patrick Metzger: [00:05:31] Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I’m always one of those people where I’d rather have my back up against the wall or put me in a corner because I’m going to figure it out. And I’ve just always had an attitude like that of Don’t tell me what I can’t do because I’m going to make sure that I prove you wrong. But I had a I, you know, when I when I first was looking into becoming a professional iOS implementer to tell you the truth, I I talked to a lot of other implementers around the country and I said, You know, you guys, I don’t, you know, I don’t have the business experience that the rest of you do. A lot of you guys have done, you know, you’ve been CEOs, you’ve done consulting forever. I mean, I was a teacher. I said, I’m a teacher. You guys, you know, how is that going to work even? And they every single one of them told me the exact same thing. They said, Patrick, if you’re a great teacher, you can get people to understand things like the system, the tools, the methods that we use. If you can facilitate really tough discussions, ask things that people feel extremely awkward asking or talking about, they said. If you can do those things, they said you’ll learn about people’s businesses.

Patrick Metzger: [00:06:41] And if you’re a smart guy, you’ll learn them very, very quickly. So that, you know, that gave me a ton of confidence in like, Hey, I can absolutely do this and I’m going to be very, very good at it. And they said that they a few of them actually said, You know, some of our best implementers are former teachers because they know how to teach the tools and then they’re deadly effective at it. So, you know, when I started out, I knew it was going to be a journey because I did not have a really strong business network. I mean, actually, it was very, very, very small. So I knew no one thing I needed to do first was really build up that network and then just start putting myself out there, start being seen, start, start offering up value. That’s a huge part of this business is in helping first, providing value first. So my first client actually came like I said, it was about six, maybe six or seven weeks after I became an implementer. I offered to do a talk at an entrepreneurial center right here in North Dakota, where I live, and I think I only had man, I think I only had four attendees at that thing. You know, I put on about a two hour workshop around iOS and all the benefits it provides and such.

Patrick Metzger: [00:07:54] And the client, eventually that I got out of that talk wasn’t even at the talk. He was somebody that had signed up for the workshop ended up not showing up. And here’s the power of follow through in sales right here is I asked him. I sent him a message after the workshop. I think it was the next day or something. I said, Hey, so sorry that you couldn’t make it, you know, I’d still love to chat with you. And I never heard anything. So I thought, OK, whatever. Well, fast forward, probably a week or two after that, I was driving along interstate here in North Dakota and I was about to go by his business and I thought, You know what? I’m going to stop, I’m going to pull in and I’m going to go introduce myself. And long story short, he and I sat there for two or two and a half hours. He started dumping on me on all the struggles in his business and things that were happening and weren’t happening and booked a 90 minute meeting with his leadership team that night. I think I came back that next week right away, presented as a team, they were sold. And that’s how I got started. Really? Wow. Be persistent. Right?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:02] That is great advice. And that is and and great being so proactive. A lot of folks, you know, the first little hint of they don’t like me, they just hide and then forget about them and try to repress all that. But you kind of leaned into it and said, Look, you know, people are busy. Let me go. Check this. Let me, you know, literally knock on the door and congratulations for doing that. I mean, that’s a great testament to others about really, how hungry are you? Who wants it more?

Patrick Metzger: [00:09:31] And yeah, some you know, some people hear the word no or they hear silence and it breaks their spirit. For me, I hear those things or I get silence and I go, All right, here we go, baby. You know, I look at it as a challenge, really, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:45] Like, no does have to me. No, it could just mean not now. So you got to just keep grinding. Now, for folks out there that are kind of building their maybe first business, maybe they’re about to take that leap from, you know, working a corporate job or just a normal person job and then being an entrepreneur. What are some of the kind of foundational pieces they need or the tools they need in order to be successful?

Patrick Metzger: [00:10:12] Yeah, I would say a couple of things number one, bank on your network. You know, the people that can help you go to them, ask for help. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. The biggest item, though, Lee, I mean, man, you have to be willing to invest in yourself. And that’s a huge leap. You know, when you when you leave, whether it’s corporate or, you know, steady job, whatever it may be that you’re doing. And if you’re going to go out on your own, it’s terrifying. It’s exciting in the same. But man, the best advice I can give is if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have borrowed the money. I would have taken the steps to do things correctly and right from the very, very beginning. So I think a lot of people kind of they leave, they kind of test the water, you know, they kind of get partway in and then they get a little worried and then they back out a little bit and then they dove in for a little bit further. And it’s it’s it’s time, you’re burning time and you’re burning money along the way to me.

Patrick Metzger: [00:11:16] You know, if you’re going to roll your roll the dice on yourself, you have to go all in and that’s always energy resources, money, time. But yeah, man, if I could go back, I would have borrowed. I would have borrowed a huge amount of cash and said, Hey, I’m going to hire the people that I need that are experts in marketing, and I’m going to get coaching and I’m going to do all these other things so that I can blast off from the very beginning. And it’s a huge step backward, and that’s what scares most people is they feel like they can’t go backward. And, you know, I always make the analogy of, man, if you’re going to jump across a cliff, you know, a huge valley or canyon, you can’t stand at the edge and just jump. You always have to go backward and you better take a good run at it. So invest in yourself, do what you got to do up front because it will accelerate the process tremendously. And that’s, you know, you’re you’re you’re wasting time. I think if you don’t do those things

Lee Kantor: [00:12:14] Now, when you look back at your career thus far and you kind of look at your teaching to now, your coaching. Are you finding some threads and similarities on how folks learn and how they absorb this kind of information? Like do you think coaching would be a worthwhile way to maybe tweak some of what the learning that happens in schools?

Patrick Metzger: [00:12:38] Oh, absolutely. You know, as a as a former teacher for a long time and coach and now working with adults, I mean, I can see so many of the things that are missing and a lot of what’s missing is it’s, you know, there’s a difference between teaching and coaching. You know, if you’re familiar with like John Maxwell’s five levels of leadership, there’s a big difference also between management and checking boxes. But at the top is coaching and coaching is truly caring, connecting, making sure people understand it. I think a lot of people, when they hear teaching or when they attempt to teach, they think it’s just presenting information. And you can present all the information you want. Does it mean that it’s soaking in and that it doesn’t mean it’s being absorbed and being used effectively? Because that’s the biggest difference is implementing being able to implement what you learn and execute it as well. So, you know, as I think of kind of my whole journey to. An effective coach is not just presenting the information, they’re not just putting it out there, they are connecting through stories. They’re connecting through commonalities. They’re getting very they’re making an emotional connection with the people that they work with because that’s what makes the biggest difference. I don’t care who you are or what level you’re at business school and athletic field. You know, you look at the most successful coaches in the world. If you’re going to talk athletics in particular, there are people that can connect with their athletes and their staffs extremely, extremely well. And it’s all about being your true self and being a fantastic listener, swallowing your pride and being genuinely curious about people, I think is big too.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] Now, any advice for that listener out there, that is, they have their business and maybe they’re struggling. Is there something that they can do right now? Is there some low hanging fruit for that entrepreneur that is kind of maybe in a rut or a plateau that they can kind of. You know, elevate their game a little bit and move the needle in their business.

Patrick Metzger: [00:14:57] Mm-hmm. Absolutely. You know, you use your network or reach out to people that can help you. You know, on one end of that, you could work with a coach. You could pay to work with somebody like that. Not everyone has those resources, even though I would highly recommend it because it’s going to pay for itself in the in the long run. But a lot of us have fantastic resources and connections around us. At many times. We unfortunately don’t tap into, you know, if you’re a business owner, man, talk with other business owners, join a mastermind. There’s a ton of resources online groups online that you can get a ton of valuable feedback, whether it’s personal, professional, whatever it may be. But don’t be afraid to ask for help because everybody needs it and nobody likes asking for it. No one likes to swallow their pride and do those things. But when you do, it’s going to make the difference. And ultimately, that’s what we’re all looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:54] Now, I know you’re relatively kind of young in your career as a business coach, but have you kind of landed on a sweet spot of what type of an entrepreneur is the best fit client for you?

Patrick Metzger: [00:16:07] Yeah, I’m yeah, I’m thirty eight years old. I feel like I’ve lived three different lives. I always say that I feel like I had my teaching life. My transition life and now doing what I’m doing now as a business coach. But the neat thing about iOS and what I bring into organizations is it’s industry agnostic, so it doesn’t matter. I mean, I have clients that are, I have medical, I have construction, I have real estate technology. I have a little bit of everything and it works fantastic fantastically within companies that are anywhere from. I mean, I have some solopreneurs. I have some $100 million plus companies with hundreds of employees also. But I will always say I kind of have a sweet spot. They’re not such a sweet spot, a sweet spot. I kind of have a soft spot in my heart for working with entrepreneurs that are really starting at ground zero because there’s nothing more exciting than working with someone that has a dream. They can see the dream, but what what I’m doing is I’m coming in and I’m actually making that dream a reality. I’m helping walk them through that process of creating clarity around everything from their values to their organizational structure to their big why and what and who they are and what they’re going to be about and what’s really important to them all the way to.

Patrick Metzger: [00:17:37] How are we going to execute it? What’s the rock hard rock solid plan that we’re going to start right now that is actually going to get you to that point? And it’s so fun to see as a team grows, and maybe it’s one or two people that start and then they’re able to add that next employee and then it helps elevate them. And then they add that next employee and they’re able to elevate further and further. And then it’s and then you just have that compounding effect. But too many people don’t ask for help early enough in the process, and they just sit there and they spin and they spin and they spin and they wish and they wish about what all these things that they want to see happen, but they don’t take the steps to actually make it happen. So yeah, I would say those startup entrepreneurs I absolutely love, but you’ve got to find someone to that’s willing to make that, that investment because it is a big one at the beginning.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:30] Now I see here that you’re also launching a national mastermind platform. Can you speak of that a little bit?

Patrick Metzger: [00:18:38] I am, yeah. So the Mastermind platform is called Velocity Masterminds, hoping to launch it late fall or very beginning of twenty twenty two. And the whole concept from that really came from the idea of looking at all these other masterminds and business groups and things around the nation and even world that exist. The one piece set I felt like was really missing is they are a little borderline. Even your best ones are a little borderline transactional. But there’s also that personal growth and development piece missing from it. So this mastermind is going to be similar to many others you would find, and I’m not going to name any in particular some of the biggest, most popular ones, you know, but it’ll include a fantastic peer group, regular meetings around talking business, talking through issues, introducing each other’s businesses. How can we help? What can we do for you? But there’s also going to be a different component to it that really focuses on, Hey, if we can improve you as a professional or as a on a personal level, excuse me, we can really improve who you are as a person and start to have deeper and higher level conversations and get really open and transparent and rah about who you are and who you aren’t and start to improve that facet within a person. It raises your professional ceiling as well. And I felt like all these masterminds that are out there really lack that deep connection within the group and with between the people within that group. So, yeah, super excited to to launch that. It’s going to be really niched out by different industries and as far as professional level. So we’ll have visionary CEO groups, we’ll have more operations and integrator type groups, but then we’ll also have groups based on industries as well. So real estate groups and technology groups and construction groups and you name it. So yeah, it’s it’s going to be a lot of fun spend a lot of work so far, but it’s going to make a big impact.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:47] Well, we’d like to support you in that if there’s anything the Business RadioX network can be doing to help you get the word out about that. I’m a big believer in mastermind groups and I think that that sometimes they do get too transactional and that it creates a lot of pressure to bring leads. And I think that there is something missing and I think a bigger Y and really getting maybe layers deep with the individual would help them kind of see that and not make it so transactional. So we’re here to support you. So if there’s anything we can be doing for you, please let us know because that’s a cause that we would love to get behind.

Patrick Metzger: [00:21:20] Awesome. I appreciate that.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:22] Lee Now, if there is someone out there that wants to learn more about what you’re up to. Is there a website they can go to to maybe find some of your resources or get on your calendar?

Patrick Metzger: [00:21:33] Yeah, the best website is go to my personal one. It is Patrick Metzger. You can learn a little bit about everything that I do. So like I said, I am a certified iOS implementer. You’ll find a link on there that will actually take you to my iOS website kind of a microsite. There you can learn about the strategic consulting team that I have, where we really kind of take a concierge approach to helping with people issues within businesses. And then very shortly there will be some information coming on that mastermind onto my personal website. And then also you can find my podcast there as well. So I do run the Patrick Metzger Show podcast, where we interview high performers from around the world really focusing on their journey to the top and what’s what they’ve had to do to get there.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:18] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success you’re doing. Important work and we appreciate you.

Patrick Metzger: [00:22:24] Yeah. Thanks so much, Leigh.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:25] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Business Strategist Athan Slotkin

by

AthanSlotkinAthan Slotkin is a serial entrepreneur and award-winning business plan strategist. He’s successfully tested and launched multiple businesses, across industries.

His rapid, iterative, heavily-analytical approach has been the key for over 700 new entrepreneurs in 2019 and 2020 alone, helping them package up their business with business plans, financial models, and presentations while teaching them how to become the stellar CEO they want to become along the way.

His work has been featured across, TV, radio, and conferences worldwide.

Connect with Athan on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Top 5 tips for how to start a business
  • Pick a business that people need
  • Pick an industry that you understand very well or are willing to become an expert in
  • Pick a business that has LARGE profit margins
  • Know your numbers – financials, “unit economics” – inside and out
  • Think mid-to-long term

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

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

Athan Slotkin: [00:00:45] Hey, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. What’s a shadow CEO?

Athan Slotkin: [00:00:52] It’s a name that one of my clients gave me that I just decided to run with afterwards because I kind of served as this hidden person behind their businesses, just helping work through strategy and or package together their business for outward presentation, things like that. You know, generally, I like to stay quiet and you know, it’s all about their business shining and me just kind of stepping in there to give a bit of help.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:17] You’re the guy behind the guy

Athan Slotkin: [00:01:18] Or gal, the guy behind the guy or gal. Yeah, exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in helping CEOs be the best they can be?

Athan Slotkin: [00:01:30] Yeah, so I mean, I started off in consulting, so like I normally kind of dissect businesses and think maybe a little bit too analytically at times. I went, went off and went to grad school, worked in corporate, but was always kind of creating my own businesses on the side. And I’ve created all sorts of things, you know, consulting services, businesses, real estate, products, technology, all sorts of things. And so people started to catch wind of that, you know, and it just kind of became a thing, to be honest with you. So I think it’s the combination of that plus like the rise of the digital economy, right? And it just kind of became a thing all of a sudden. And so now, you know, I spend my time working on all sorts of different businesses B to B to C, B to B, B to E, you know, brick and mortar, digital, all sorts of things. You know, one weirder than an exit, it feels like at times, but that’s what keeps it keeps it interesting.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:29] So now what is the pain that these folks are having where they’re like, I better call Ethan. I need a shadow CEO to come in here.

Athan Slotkin: [00:02:36] I think it’s I think it’s largely three phases, you know, three three parts of the timeline that exist. One is for new entrepreneurs who either don’t have idea is or they don’t know which idea to pick and they don’t know how to mobilize it, then you know how to kind of sequentially mobilize their business, especially because it’s their first one. So they both want to mobilize whatever their business is and also learn learn that that approach for future businesses as well to become a serial entrepreneur. The second one, I would say, is people raising capital who want to package up their businesses. Make sure sure the strategy is sound. Make sure they look very good, et cetera. And then the third one is people who are stuck in their businesses. So maybe they’ve had a good amount of success, but they flatlined. They’re too close to their own business. They can’t quite see it straight, and so they need somebody from the outside to kind of pull apart their business. See where there’s opportunity. Match it up with with research and data and give clear direction in terms of where the business should go and, more importantly, why the business should go in that direction.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:38] So now? When they come to you, what is coming to you mean, is it I get to work with Athan or are you sending me to a course to take to solve my own problem? Or you have a team of folks that are going to help me? Like, what is an engagement look like with your?

Athan Slotkin: [00:03:56] Yeah, yeah. In my case, I particularly intentionally chose to keep it small. So it’s me and I have some contractors or part of my team as well who kind of augment the product. Make sure that what we’re putting out is best in class. And so, you know, I like working directly with with most of my clients. On top of that, though, we do have, you know, I put out a book that’s releasing soon. I have guides that are releasing. I always put a content in and articles of waste that I set things and become a better entrepreneur or things like that. So we also have these products, quote unquote products as well, I guess you’d say. But the core consulting business is a lean, you know, a lean strategy consulting operation. It’s, I guess you’d say, augmented by my excellent global team around me as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:44] So now are you doing coaching or consulting? So is it something where you’re meeting with me to kind of ask me some questions to help me self discover my path? Or are you saying, no, you’ve got to do this? This is how you do. You build an email list? This is how you get clients. This is how you do this. I have a team of people. We’re going to go and build the landing page. We’re going to do this stuff. You know, sometimes you need help. Sometimes you need a helper.

Athan Slotkin: [00:05:08] Yeah, you know, it feels like oftentimes that it’s between the two of those, actually. Sometimes people want strategy and they want me to be the helper, right? And, you know, put the things together and look through the strategy and make adjustments and make sure it’s packaged and polished and all that good stuff and or make sure that we’re on the path to clarity. But most of the time, even when that’s the case, you know, they want to be able to discuss and dissect and come up with the direction and all that good stuff as well. So, you know, it’s oftentimes a combination of the two of them, to be honest with you. I would say, like my visceral reaction is I don’t normally classify myself as a coach per say, but every single engagement, every single client entrepreneur I work with always has some component of coaching that exists there. And that’s predominantly because, you know, they’re coming, you know, because they need help in some way or another, right? And it’s it’s humbling to do that sometimes, especially as the leader of a business. And so I like taking the time to be able to talk through with them and make sure that they’re confident and clear in the direction, regardless of whether this is their first time being an entrepreneur or they’ve been an entrepreneur many times before.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:18] Now, I don’t know if this crisis is the first time in your career that you’ve seen probably the magnitude of people that are displaced or deciding to choose a new career or a new adventure. But I would imagine this is a record number of entrepreneurs that are self-employed or entrepreneurs for the first time, either they voluntarily left an opportunity or they were told to voluntarily leave or involuntarily left, but there was a lot of displacement in the workforce, and there’s tons of people now that are cobbling together a second act, third act. And and there I would imagine that some of them are kind of freaking out a little bit and somebody like you in their corner could help them really figure out a path that seems strategic and it’s going to lead them to a better place. Are you finding that there are a lot of folks coming your way?

Athan Slotkin: [00:07:12] Yeah, I love working with those entrepreneurs, to be honest with you. And there’s also a variety in there, too, of course, which is not just in terms of what kinds of businesses, but there are some who are coming who don’t even know what kind of business. Some people I’m working with right now, who came through the door and didn’t even know they just knew that they wanted to start a business. They didn’t know anything more than that, in fact. So part of that is like this kind of combinatorial discovery of what their core skill set is, how it kind of crosses over with what they’re interested in, where there’s the capacity to make money and actually operationalize it, kind of the combination of all of those, right? So I love working with these entrepreneurs because oftentimes there’s there’s a lot of opportunity to be able to grow, have them understand what it’s like being an entrepreneur, how to think through it, what it’s going to feel like because they don’t know what that’s like it as well as, you know, give them frameworks to be able to hone in on either what business ideas, the one that they want to start, or also how do they prioritize and make decisions as an entrepreneur in their business, which sound surprising because oftentimes these people come from business, but it’s quite different coming from, like corporate, let’s say, where you have kind of your scope and what you’re doing, and there’s some parameters in place versus having an almost infinite scope as an entrepreneur, even if you’re focused on one particular business where where it’s not always intuitive to figure out how you actually make those decisions, how you prioritize. So I love working with those, those entrepreneurs.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:36] Now what advice would you give that maybe corporate refugee that left maybe a large enterprise and is now kind of untethered and on their own? Because, you know, it’s a different mindset when you’re kind of a cog in a machine and now you’re the leader of an eat what you kill world.

Athan Slotkin: [00:08:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah. One thing I would say is, you know, you can easily feel pressure theoretically when you leave, you have you had a job, you were getting paid on a consistent basis and you had predictability in terms of what that what that felt like, right? And so that could cause an entrepreneur who’s breaking off who’s unplanned to kind of, you know, panic to some extent and then go directly down the pathway first. That’s going to make them money in the short term, even if it’s not the best and most strategic pathway, right? So what I would say to that is, you know, planning for the fact that it may take some time to ramp up your business, whatever it is to get it to where you want to get to. But the reason why you’re doing this, the reason why you’re breaking off, is because you have freedom and probably because your business has more, more upside potential than working for a company. And so taking the time to one, you know, mentally prepare yourself so you offer coming in and to actually plan out and analyze your business to make sure that it actually has a chance to get to where you want it, to get to feel out what that pathway is going to potentially look like and ensure that you’re comfortable with that pathway.

Athan Slotkin: [00:10:01] I think it’s far better. It’s a good investment of your time and energy, rather than just having to break off early and panic. And then you kind of then you get you get down a rabbit hole really fast. You only have so much time as an entrepreneur, as a person, for that matter, right? And what I don’t like seeing happen is someone panicked because they have to make short term money because they, of course, have to pay the bills like we all do. Of course, you know, much better would be to have the right mentality in mind and the vision for for what the likely trajectory is of your business and and be able to focus on building out that business and having the money saved, let’s say, to be able to, of course, pay the bills and eat food and all that good stuff while you’re building out your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:42] So you have enough runway so you can kind of aim it. Maybe this this goal that’s farther down the the path rather than just kind of go for maybe some short term wins that are taking you farther and farther off your kind of true north course?

Athan Slotkin: [00:10:59] Yeah, yeah. Like, like you’re saying an overshoot the runway, I would say to some extent, you know what I would also say linked to that as well is don’t you know not to rely on to the extent possible outside capital, try to figure out how to be scrappy in your business and generate cash, right? Even if. It’s along the lines of your strategic plan of what your business is. Figure out how you can generate cash, doing what you wanted to do with your business and bootstrap it to the extent that you can do it. And you know, this is coming from someone who helps people raise capital. There’s a time and a place for that. But when possible, if you can bootstrap, I think that’s that’s a more preferred pathway. Most of the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:37] Well, it sounds like especially maybe five to 10 years ago, people were very quick to raise money, and that became the job of the. The main function is raising money, which is a job unto itself. But now it seems like more people are going this bootstrap way to try to. If, if anything, you’re increasing your valuation when you when and when it’s the right time to raise the money.

Athan Slotkin: [00:12:01] Yeah, it sure is nice, like you’re saying, being in the position where you have leverage over investors because you’ve already had a lot of traction, a lot of movement and not needing the money, but rather wanting it or being open to it for scaling, right? Right. That’s quite different than being under the gun and being desperate. And then you’re in a really tricky position all of a sudden, right? And you know, you’re either, you know, not able to raise the capital to be able to keep your business afloat or you have to raise it such a terrible valuation that you know, it just kind of crushes the upside that you were seeking in the first place.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:36] Now what does it look like logistically if I raise my hand and say eight 10, I think I want to work with you? Like, what is the process look like? Are we going to have some sort of a discovery where you see if it’s the right fit? Do I am I sending you my business plan? Like, like what? What is the process look like to start working with you and your team?

Athan Slotkin: [00:12:57] Yeah, so in almost every single case, there’s always this kind of ingestion period, I guess you’d say, where, you know, ask whomever it is, send across any and all bathroom that they have, right? And that may range everything from, you know, a pretty detailed business that’s had some success. And, you know, it has financials and has marketing materials and all that good stuff, too. Literally, the other end of the spectrum is someone just doing a brain dump essentially right where they write right into into their intake form, everything that they were thinking about their business or what they want to achieve or whatever else it is. And so there’s kind of that ingestion period first, which I also match with a little bit of research because I like to come in prepared in the kind of first conversation and having that kind of thing. But thereafter, that’s when it kind of splits a little bit, right? So if it’s, you know, it’s working one on one with someone, it would be calls and a series of calls to be able to discuss, you know, analyze things, come up with very clear next steps and then keep them the, you know, the motivation and momentum going along the way. Alternatively, you know, for those who come in and are, you know, are asking for documents to be put together because they want to present or they want to look really good or they want clarity on their business, you know, that’s where that, you know, the process splits a little bit where, you know, after asking you questions, you know, me and my team are working to be able to put together the best possible things either give you clarity on the business or. Make you look at, you know, augments that what you’re already doing to make you look good as you’re presenting to outsiders. So, you know, it depends if it’s a collaborative model, meaning a coaching type model or if it’s, you know, hiring the strategy consulting team to put together the best possible strategy and documents that exist.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:38] And then the part of the reason we do this show is to help coaches learn from each other. I know you don’t consider yourself, maybe a coach solely a coach, but definitely there’s some coaching involved in your work. But can you share with your with our listeners how you got your last client?

Athan Slotkin: [00:14:59] Yeah, it’s a good question. How did I get my last client? I have a decent. So there’s a few ways that people come in. I’m trying to think who my last year was, to be honest with you. But, you know, usually these days. It comes from I get a decent amount from LinkedIn. So that’s a pretty good channel for me. I’m on a handful of freelancing platforms, so that’s not bad. I have, you know, sometimes I appear as like guest host on TV and places like that. So that’s that sometimes helps. And then these days, because I’ve had my business for a while, at this point, I get a good amount of referrals. So, you know, for me, this is probably isn’t a surprise for anybody with the services business, right? But. I just put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that I’m always delivering and the people are quite happy afterwards with the lens that it’s a referral base business and I want to make sure that I’m constantly delivering the best possible product and my team probably both appreciates and maybe hates me for it a little bit as well. I certainly do put pressure on us to deliver, but I like I really like and prefer the referral channel. You know, it kind of means you can short circuit the process. There’s no limited calls and energy that’s necessary. They kind of come in, you know, pretty interested, pre-sold at that point, right? And then it’s just a decision of, you know, are you are you keen to work with them? They’re a good fit that that exists there. Can they function and fit within the budget? Things like that, right? But other than that, they come in pre-sold. So I try to emphasize and orient a lot of our energy towards that, to be honest.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:40] Yeah, I was telling someone recently, I think that old, that old kind of saying ABC always be closing is always be curating or always be connecting. I think that’s the updated version of that old saying. Is that for sure that you’re just looking for the right fit? I mean, you want these people to win, whether it’s with you or without you. I mean, you’re trying to help them.

Athan Slotkin: [00:17:04] Yeah. To your point, you know, I oftentimes negotiate against against myself a little bit too right if I have a conversation, I had this happen twice last week, if I’m not mistaken, whereas having conversations with someone and I said, You know, here’s what I can do. Here’s where I can help as much. And this is, you know, I just I tend to be pretty direct about it, right? Rather than what I don’t want to have happen is I don’t want to get into a situation where I oversell and that’s just going to lead to a terrible outcome, right? Where they’re disappointed because they don’t feel like they got what they wanted. It’s not a good fit. So. I don’t negotiate against myself. As long as it means, you know that the the entrepreneur, the person can get in the right direction because I’ve been there, I’ve been I’ve been an entrepreneur too many times and sometimes it’s ambiguous in terms of what to do. So, you know, it’s the reason that I’m sure many of us do what we do right is because we like working with entrepreneurs and helping and helping them. So, you know, I want to make sure they get in the right direction, even if it’s at my expense.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:05] Well, congratulations on all those success. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you. Is there a website folks can go to to learn more, maybe get on your calendar or see some of the resources you might have?

Athan Slotkin: [00:18:20] Yeah, for sure. It’s just shadowed that CEO Shadow CEO.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:25] Good stuff. Hey, thank you so much.

Athan Slotkin: [00:18:29] Thanks for having

Lee Kantor: [00:18:29] Me. All right, man, I appreciate you.

Athan Slotkin: [00:18:32] All right, cheers, have a great day. Bye, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:34] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Business Coach Kevin Kru

by

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

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

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

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

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Christian Hyatt With risk3sixty

by

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

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

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

Connect with Christian on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

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

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one, but before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay without them. We couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the land of Business RadioX. We have Christian Hyatt with risk3sixty. Welcome, Christian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Ean Price Murphy With Moxie Bookkeeping And Coaching

by

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

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

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

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

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for high velocity radio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thane Ringler With Thane Marcus

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

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

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

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

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

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

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matt Paige With HatchWorks

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

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

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

Follow HatchWorks on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Lifecycle software development
  • Cloud services
  • Data intelligence

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Matt Page with hatch works. Welcome, Matt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Madelaine Claire Weiss With Mind Over Matters, LLC

by

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

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

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

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

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

Connect with Madelaine on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

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

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxAmbassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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