Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Jack Tompkins With Pineapple Consulting Firm

February 15, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Austin Business Radio

Jack Tompkins With Pineapple Consulting Firm

00:00 /

Jack Tompkins is the owner of Pineapple Consulting Firm based out of Charlotte, NC. He helps you analyze and visualize your data in interactive dashboards so you can get all of the insights from your data without actually touching it!

His goal is to help you grow profitably while giving your data a seat at the table and becoming a bit more data-driven.

Connect with Jack on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Data for small businesses
Analytics for small businesses
The importance of visualizing your data
Benefits of the dashboard for a client
Types of data that are important to look at
KPIs are important for business owners
Data influence strategy

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, and for the folks out there, this is an important one for your business as well. So please help you have a pad of paper your phone handy to take some notes. This is going to be a lot of great information today on the show. We have Jack Thompkins and he is with pineapple consulting firm. Welcome, Jack.

Jack Thompkins: [00:00:54] Thanks, Lee. Pumped to be here. I couldn’t agree more. I think we’re going to cover a whole lot of good stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:59] Well, I’m excited to learn more about your practice. Tell us about pineapple consulting firm. How are you serving, folks?

Jack Thompkins: [00:01:05] Sure. So we’re kind of your outsource data nerd. So everybody is familiar with the fractional CFO and fractional C-suite executive type thing. We’re kind of the fractional analyst. So that’s what we do. We put everything into dashboards, help folks become data driven. So even non-financial or non numbers, folks can easily make decisions and build strategies from their numbers.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:29] Now this is an area that’s, I think, really not appreciated by most entrepreneurs. There are so much data out there and there are so many numbers to look at. It’s very difficult for a business owner to really hone in on what are the kind of metrics that matter and how to discern what are the numbers you should be paying attention to every day. How do you help educate your clients to the importance of that number one and then give them some tools so that they can pay attention to the stuff that matters and not get bogged down by all these other distractions?

Jack Thompkins: [00:02:05] Yeah. So we’re obviously doing audio only, but I was aggressively nodding my head in agreement while you’re going through that. So, so number one, what’s important, right? Or how did they get started? What metrics do they pick that kind of thing? Honestly, I always say, start simple, start with something that you probably look at every day and I’ll use like revenue and profit as kind of the basic example, something that most business owners probably look at pretty frequently. Maybe it’s not every day, but whether they’re numbers, people, financial people or not, that is something that they’re going to look at every day. So kind of start there and then let the snowball grow from there. I always encourage people to start simple and then ask yourself, like, what does that mean? Right? So revenue is up 10 percent. Fantastic. That’s awesome. Why? Right? So was it more marketing? Was it better conversion rate? Did people come in from LinkedIn as opposed to networking groups? Stuff like that? And your questions will kind of feed your next steps. So that’s always my advice on where to start. And then second, part of your question stuff that we do at pineapple to kind of help make it easy is all just using dashboards. So an income statement, I’ll stick with the revenue example. I’m a financial nerd and I I absolutely love going through an income statement. Most people don’t because it’s a black and white piece of paper, and it’s kind of boring to look at. It doesn’t really tell you a lot of insights when you throw that into a dashboard. Now you have a trend graph, now you’ve got indicators of your performance and you’ve got your brand colors, and it’s actually kind of fun and engaging to look at. So I guess the all in answer is start simple. Feed your curiosity and then make everything visual because it becomes a whole lot more usable when it’s visual.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:54] And I think that’s another important kind of component with this. A lot of times people get, they just see kind of numbers and they see columns and it’s numbers and that that doesn’t really give them any context unless they can somehow remember what it was at the same time last year or over time or last quarter. It’s difficult to really understand and appreciate the direction your business is going unless you put this kind of data into some visual tool that helps you kind of see trends.

Jack Thompkins: [00:04:28] Right? Yeah, it’s exactly right. And the same thing goes for obviously this is Coach the Coach and everything. So for the coaches out there, for the consultants out there, when you’re working with a client, it’s a whole lot easier to point to a number that is in a graph or in a chart or something like that and have a solid foundation of to your point. The context around it, right? Here’s what it was last year. Here’s what it was last month. Here’s how we’re trending. Boom, now you have this solid foundation for the conversation, and you can get into strategy now that you’ve covered the numbers piece the quote unquote boring numbers piece that you have to get through.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:06] And I think it does a better job when you have these this information in a visual form, I think the story becomes clearer. It becomes when people can kind of see the graph and see the trends and see. However, you’re kind of framing the visual, whether it’s a pie chart with a big slice of pie that just improved, you can see it. It helps you tell your story better. It helps. You kind of understand the impact that people are making in the company.

Jack Thompkins: [00:05:37] Yeah, that’s exactly right. That is one hundred percent right. And that’s I think the number is like sixty five percent of people are visual based learners, but through a big red down arrow on the screen, everybody’s going to understand that that is not something that should be. That’s not what you’re going for it, right? That’s kind of the big red X that you want to avoid. So you dig into it and it becomes really clear with the visual. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:02] So now what’s your back story? How did you get into this line of work?

Jack Thompkins: [00:06:05] So kind of boring, honestly. I grew up, if you will, professionally in the insurance world. So Up in Connecticut was an analyst for an a bunch of different capacities and had some really cool like leadership roles in there. But really like the analysis, really liked making dashboards because I had to present every now and then to like the CFO of the division or my boss’s boss’s boss or something like that. And I quickly realized even continuing our visualization conversation. The best way to get my point across to this leader, who only has two minutes for me is to just not even explain it. Just turn my computer around, show them a picture of the dashboard, and then they’ll get the insights that they’re looking for. So that’s kind of where it all started. And then I’m about two years full time in running pineapple on my own.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:58] Now, kind of the epiphany of a dashboard or seeing the value of a dashboard. Was that something you were like, OK, I can create dashboards. I can take this data and kind of smush it into a dashboard so that it becomes very crystal clear just the handful of metrics that matter for an individual client. It was that kind of the epiphany, and now I can. Now I have a tool that I can now deploy and offer to lots of people. Was that what happened or is this something that you work with clients and then customize some solution, whether it’s a visual dashboard or whether it’s numbers or whatever the solution is?

Jack Thompkins: [00:07:36] Yeah, it’s kind of both. So I think I should know this because I’m a numbers person, but at least 90 percent of what I have done for clients has been completely custom from the ground up. And I honestly love that I have an absolute blast making that type of stuff. But to the first part of your question, that was kind of the formula, right? It was let me take the things that matter because in my corporate life, it was I know that they’re going to ask about these three metrics. And now in the small business world, I know we care about, you know, revenue, profit and leads and conversions or, you know, whatever it is. I know that those are the big things. So how do we package them and they kind of formed together to be this a bit of default stuff so we can have the conversation of here, the KPIs that we’re thinking about. Here’s why they make sense in general. Let’s see if they make sense for your business, too. And then part two, let’s let’s make it custom to your business and make it visual and make it engaging and make it interactive.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:39] Now, most small businesses, if they don’t, they would imagine not have kind of a data analyst on staff, but they might have a bookkeeper. They might have themselves with QuickBooks or some, you know, software. How does your firm kind of play with those tools and how do you help them get the most out of those tools?

Jack Thompkins: [00:09:00] Right. So it’s a very complementary situation, and I’m glad you brought it up early because my business is very garbage in, garbage out, right? So if the bookkeeper is or if there is no bookkeeper, right, maybe that’s the better example. There is no bookkeeper. It’s difficult to create a dashboard, a financial dashboard, right? Which is a very common thing. I link up to QuickBooks all the time. But if the data is not good in there or it’s inaccurate or whatever it is, the dashboard is not going to be totally useful. So whether it is the bookkeeper, whether it’s the CPA, whether it’s the CFO who wants to know or wants to drive the strategy but needs to know a few metrics first, those are all folks that are great, either information feeds for us or data sources for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:49] And then so how do you kind of work with your clients, is it something that you just say, OK, here’s what you need and then you just give them the resources to do that? And then they just now the bookkeeper is doing this kind of work or their CPA or their themselves? Or is it something that your service is kind of been ongoing, like a retainer like relationship?

Jack Thompkins: [00:10:12] It depends. It’s again, so everything that I build is custom, and that’s kind of the model for working with clients, too. It is very client by client. More often than not, it works out out to be a retainer type situation. So the example the standard example is people come in for, Hey, I have this idea. I want to see financial dashboard with, you know, sales by SKU or by product that came in through online versus versus whatever channels online or whatever other marketing sources. So they have that idea to start and then it kind of evolves into. All right, this is great. We also want to see how that impacts our operations. We want to see some more marketing stuff that we can do better. And so it kind of grows from there. So I guess kind of wrapping that up. It does transform into a retainer thing after starting as a project in more cases than not.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:08] Now are you typically kind of partnering with CPAs or these payroll services or the people that have some of this data? Or are you kind of going arm in arm with them? Or are they referral sources or are they just kind of, you know, you’re just complementary services that are both serving a similar client?

Jack Thompkins: [00:11:27] Yeah, it’s a good question. Kind of a little bit of all of it, I would say. Referral sources, both both directions, right? So a business coach, for example, needing to see the numbers, they talked to me and then me creating the numbers, building the dashboard and then saying, Hey, talk to this business coach because he’ll help you kind of build the strategy off of it. So the referral partner is most common of those options with, again, just very, very complementary services.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:56] And then in your work, are you kind of. Is this kind of industry agnostic or do you have some niches that you focus in on?

Jack Thompkins: [00:12:05] It’s been kind of all over the place, which honestly is a whole lot of fun for me because like I said, I came from insurance and that I really like the people. I like the work I did. I didn’t like insurance that much. So to be able to work, I have clients and transportation. I have clients and e-commerce. I have I have other consultants as clients and kind of the whole gamut. And that’s super, super fun for me. Honestly, there’s so many different metrics out there and so many ways to slice the data, and a bunch of different things matter to a bunch of different people. So I am pretty industry agnostic. I should say we are pretty industry agnostic because it’s just it’s more fun that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:45] And then because the dashboards don’t care about the data, right, it’s just a matter of aiming it at the right information that the person cares about.

Jack Thompkins: [00:12:52] That’s exactly right. Yep, 100 percent

Lee Kantor: [00:12:54] Now for you. Can you share a story? Maybe that kind of illustrates some of the impact you can have in an organization. Maybe share what the challenge was before they got a hold of you? And then what happened after you kind of deployed some of your services into their world?

Jack Thompkins: [00:13:09] Yeah, absolutely. So this will be a we’ll go with a transportation company, so fairly big company, big for my term. So I think there are 40 50 employees, something around that. But a whole lot of truck routes every day, right, going in and going out, delivering packages, all sorts of stuff. That is it feels like kind of what was the analogy that we used? It was putting out fires with a blindfold on. So it was so many things happen in a day, right? Maybe a truck breaks down, maybe a deliveries and all that stuff. So it was kind of just whatever happens today, we’re going to deal with it and then wake up and try and figure it out tomorrow, kind of thing. And and that’s probably a bit too cavalier. But the bottom line is it was put out the fires first and then try and build the strategy second. So what we did was we created an operational dashboard and a financial dashboard. So the operations was how many stops do we do? How many packages did we do? What was the time? What was the efficiency on all of that stuff? And then how does that lead to financials, right? So two complementary dashboards and now the operating structure isn’t put out fire figure out solution. It’s now anticipate what’s going to happen. Select the most efficient things, aim for specific targets that we know it can hit based on data and run the business much, much more efficiently and honestly with a lot more confidence. Because when when it’s not just dealing with. Fires. It’s a whole lot less stressful. And when the numbers are backing your decisions and you’re telling your management team and stuff like that, hey, here’s what we need to do. It’s a little bit of a stretch, but I think we can do it. You have the confidence of the numbers to back you up. So this client in particular would be the first to say that the dashboard is something that he looks at every day, and it is just it’s a 180 for his confidence in his day to day business.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:16] Now are there some kind of symptoms or breadcrumbs for you or for a company that says, Hey, you know what? Maybe a data analyst is the right person that we should be talking to, because I would imagine that this isn’t an area that a lot of that it’s top of mind for a lot of folks.

Jack Thompkins: [00:15:34] No, you’re right. It’s it’s not super top of mind. It’s one of those data is one of those things that honestly, even in the corporate world too, it was, Oh man, we should definitely look at that right? And then kind of crickets because it

Lee Kantor: [00:15:46] It seems like a nice to have, but not a must have. But I think that in today’s world, with so much data out there and everybody having the ability to collect so much, I think it moves higher up in that hierarchy and it becomes something that is becomes a must have.

Jack Thompkins: [00:16:01] I completely agree and I think that is the that’s the shift that’s happening. So corporate has had data and dashboards and stuff like that for a while and making decisions off that for a while now. I kind of seeing the transition into more small businesses and I have a couple of solopreneur clients as well that one of their first priorities when they started their business is let’s get the data set up. And I absolutely love that just in general for the for the whole field of data. So you’re absolutely right, it’s becoming more of a must have because of the decisions that come from it, because of the strategy that can come from data. And and again, that confidence and your gut tells you one thing your gut is going to be right your gut. Plus your data can make you completely profitable, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:49] And that’s the thing. I think a lot of, especially the smaller businesses they rely on just kind of their gut or just like that initial, you know, whatever happened first and then they’re using that data point as that’s kind of modeling for everything going forward, and that’s just one data point. And exactly. And I think that that’s a mistake. A lot of people and you can get into a rabbit hole and you can go down the wrong path pretty quickly if you adopt that kind of thinking in terms of strategic growth.

Jack Thompkins: [00:17:19] Right, it becomes a short term strategy that only has good short term results.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:24] Well, and then you forget when you’re wrong and then say you don’t have any kind of data that supports you having a good gut feel for things like you think it is. As long as you’re in business, you know, you just have to win a little bit more to stay in business. You don’t have to be that right. But if you have some system that kind of looks at your data and you can make better decisions, you’re going to increase your chance of success dramatically.

Jack Thompkins: [00:17:47] Oh, a hundred percent, absolutely. And this isn’t to say get rid of your gut, right, your guts, why you got into business in the first place, but again, your gut plus data, you’re absolutely right. It’s you can be so much more efficient grow, so much more scale, so much more when you have those processes in place and data being one of those processes, it is about as important as automating some of your marketing or developing a marketing strategy or consistent emails and conversations with clients. Anything like that. And if that operational day to day stuff data is right up there in terms of importance.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:24] So now is there any kind of low hanging fruit for our listeners out there right now, anything they they should be doing today or something they could do today that could at least get them thinking about, you know, kind of analyzing their data or even just kind of being aware of the metrics that matters or something that you would recommend people do.

Jack Thompkins: [00:18:45] Yeah, so I think first would be just kind of a kind of an easy take away for listeners is somewhat what we talked about at the beginning of starting simple. So even when you’re just walking to your next meeting in the shower or whatever, wherever you do your thinking time, I would encourage everybody to just challenge themselves a little bit and say, I know what I focus on, right? There’s a few metrics that I pretty much know offhand just because I have to. What’s the next step? So using the example we use at the beginning revenue, most people are going to know it. Why did it grow? Where did it come from? And then kind of build on that, right, so it’s that sort of step one is what is the next step of importance because every step that you take is going to be exponentially better. So if you go into why data are scary, why clients have joined me, fantastic, you’ll get more clients because you know that answer. And then tools wise, I always encourage folks to start with whatever sort of visual representation that their software they’re already using has. So QuickBooks, for an example, and most crimes have this Google Analytics as well for marketing and website analytics, there is always a default dashboard out there. It’s not going to be great. It’s not going to be exactly what you’re looking for. You kind of dip your toe and say, OK, this is cool, I get it, but it’s not exactly what I want. And then again, what’s the next step? And that’s where you get into some more in depth data conversations and and making sure that the processes are in place for the data flow properly and making it easier to update and easier to visualize. But it starts kind of like most cliches out there, right? How do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? This is very, very similar. Just start with the next logical step that makes sense to you, and it’s important to you today.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:48] So what is it that you need right now? Is there something we could be doing for you? The what is there anything the listener could be doing for you? Or are you looking for more referral partners? Are you looking for more clients? What can we do to help you grow?

Jack Thompkins: [00:21:04] Oh, I appreciate that. I never get that on the podcast, so thank you. More clients and more referral partners are always fantastic. Honestly, I really like just kind of talking shop. Like I said earlier with being industry agnostic, I always learned so much. It’s always a lot of fun. I just like kind of seeing what other folks are doing, so I would absolutely love to have a conversation with anybody that’s listening. Just kind of talk shop here about your business, and I’m sure there’s ways that we can help each other that will come out of that conversation, too. So I just I love small business and I love talking with other entrepreneurs. So please contact me and let’s talk some shop.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:41] All right. If somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website or the best way to get a hold of you?

Jack Thompkins: [00:21:46] Best way is the website, and it is pineapple kfcs, and that’s the abbreviation pineapple abbreviated consulting firm So Pineapple KF.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:56] Well, Jack, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jack Thompkins: [00:22:00] Oh, thank you so much for having me on. This is fun and and I hope it was good for the listeners, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:04] All right. Lee Kantor we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Courtney Schutter and Tammy Lewis on Women in Business

February 11, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Women In Business

Courtney Schutter and Tammy Lewis on Women in Business

00:00 /

This Episode is brought to you by

Courtney Schutter is a Life Coach who works with ADHD parents to help them go from being overwhelmed, exhausted, and stressed out to organized, well-rested, and happy human beings.

After overcoming her own struggles with ADHD as a single mom Courtney knows the key to happy children is happy parents.

Courtney holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Kennesaw State University and is a Certified ADHD Life Coach through the iAct center.

Outside of her passion for coaching, Courtney loves to play outside with her son and 2 dogs, painting, singing, and watching her favorite show The Office. She loves bringing parents and children joy through her other passion, Tinkergarten.

Connect with Courtney on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Tamara Lewis helps people get on the “Right Side” of wealth through people at work and money at work. Her personal passions are; empowering women, optimizing digital planning, and advocating for Breast Cancer awareness.

Connect with Tamara on Facebook and LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lori Kennedy: [00:00:28] This is Lori Kennedy, and I’m your host today for women in business, powered by Business RadioX Stone Payton, our producer is also in the studio with us today. We’re grateful to have you tuned in with us and today we are interviewing Courtney Schutter. Did I say that right? Yes, you did. Ok? And Tami Lewis. So the first thing I’m going to do is I am going to ask each one of them to tell us about what they do and, you know, just their businesses and why they’re here. So I’m going to start with you, Courtney. Courtney, tell us what you do and how that plays out into your life and the community and that sort of thing.

Courtney Schutter: [00:01:03] Absolutely. So I am an ADHD life coach, so what I do is I help specifically parents with organization feeling overwhelmed, and we talk about the obstacles that are preventing them from getting to their goals, and we find ways to get over those obstacles.

Lori Kennedy: [00:01:24] Ok, so when you say parents, do you mean helping parents that have children with ADHD? Or do you mean helping parents or adults who have ADHD or both?

Courtney Schutter: [00:01:35] I can do both, but my passion is parents who are ADHD, because that’s that’s my story. So that’s why I got into this.

Lori Kennedy: [00:01:44] Yeah, well, I’m a parent who is ADHD without children in the home. Does that still count? Yes. Ok, good. I might need help.

Courtney Schutter: [00:01:54] Absolutely. Yes.

Lori Kennedy: [00:01:56] Absolutely awesome. Ok, and do you have a name for your business or do you operate on your own or how does that work?

Courtney Schutter: [00:02:02] Yes. So it’s ADHD Parent LLC.

Lori Kennedy: [00:02:06] Ah, OK, great. All right. Awesome, Tammy. Hey, hi. Tell us about what you do and how I know you have several things that you’re passionate about, so I want to hear about all of them.

Tammy Lewis: [00:02:18] Ok, well, thank you again for having me here. This is so awesome and a great opportunity just, you know, to meet other women and learn more about women in business. So my my journey has definitely changed. I was in corporate America for a while in the pharmaceutical industry, and I totally did a 360. So I’m actually in finance now, which has nothing to do with health or selling illegal pharmaceuticals. But but I did a total 360 in finance. I partner with my husband in our business, where we really do focus on helping people get on the right side of wealth with people at work and with money at work as well and life changes. And I’m pretty sure I’ll talk a little bit more about it. But I’m also a breast cancer survivor. So I started a nonprofit called Pink Pearl Hero, literally a week before my major major surgery, and it was because I didn’t see women who look like me talking about breast cancer and African-American women die at a higher rate. Oh wow. From it. So I was just like, why? You know, I was like, Somebody needs to talk about it, and I’m like, Well, why not you? Because your background is health, education. And then from that, which is not ironic. I always think things happen for a reason is I co-created a digital planner called One Dope Planner. It’s a digital organization planning experience. Pretty dope. But my partner actually was, as is, has been diagnosed with ADHD. So it’s again, I always say it’s divine that when you’re around certain people with, you know, places and that you go, So that’s me. So I’ve turned into a trilogy. I’m trying to figure out how to really say that. But you know, just from life, those are the three passions of mine.

Lori Kennedy: [00:04:10] Ok, I’m going to like, delve into each of those just a tad. Yes. First of all, I want to know more about this dope plan or like, how do you get it? What type of device do you need to use it on? Like what? Give me some details there. Like if I wanted to do this and be part of this, how do I join you in this?

Tammy Lewis: [00:04:28] So I mean, right now it’s just available on Instagram, so there’s a link where you can purchase it through Instagram. You do need like a tablet and you do need so, you know, iPads or like any type of PDF, you know, tablet you do need like a pen, you know, because it works better with like a stylus, you know, because people have asked me, What can I just, you know, purchase it and how does it work? And you do need to have certain software, but all that is laid out in like if you go check like the Instagram post on there. So we’ll be having more people because I don’t have time to do it, but we’ll be having more people kind of show how they use it just in their everyday lives. So and that actually came into play because when I was going through all my surgeries, I couldn’t carry anything over 10 pounds because I was like the Clevenger junkie, like I had. I had the top of the line lavenders because I always like to plan and organize. But when the surgery started to happen, my plastic surgeon said you can’t carry anything over 10 pounds and I said, Well, I got to figure this out because I still have a business that we’re running so I cannot not be organized. And so I learned, well, digital planning fell into my lap. It was a divine digital planning and I just started creating them, and it actually kept me busy during that process, too. So my mind was on that and not on where I currently was when I was going through that process.

Lori Kennedy: [00:05:57] That’s awesome. I do. I do. It seems to me like the more life I do, the more I realize that sometimes the hardest or the most difficult moments in our life are where things grow and bloom that take us to the next place, you know? And so the fact that you say that this planner came as a result of something that was, you know, a tragedy in your life and has turned it into a triumph? And that’s awesome and I of that. Mm hmm. I love that. Well, tell me a little about your story, Courtney. As far as like what led you to this place for such a time as this?

Courtney Schutter: [00:06:33] Yes. So I. Good things come out of tragedy sometimes. So I was let go from my insurance job. I was also in the insurance industry for 10 years, and I had no idea what I was going to do. I was a little bit panicked. I have a four year old, it’s just me and him and I had just been diagnosed with ADHD the summer before that. And you know, I was doing I was hyper focusing. That’s what ADHD people are really good at. And so I was hyper focusing and looking up all these things with ADHD. And I saw that there are ADHD life coaches and I thought, Well, what is that? I didn’t even know. I never even thought of a life coach, to be honest with you. And I looked into it, and it was one of those impulsive, a little bit impulsive ADHD things where I was like, Oh yes, that’s what I’m going to do. Shiny object. Let’s do it. And so I paid for the classes and just going through the certification process has made me learn so much about me how I function. It’s it’s been amazing. And it also explains a lot about like childhood because I was one of those ones where I was OK in school. I got, you know, talks too much on my report card, you know, every time they came out. But you know, my mom loves to tell this story that in high school, she she was a teacher. She met, she retired math teacher and she I was not doing well and she held a parent teacher conference. She was like, We need to talk. This is not acceptable.

Courtney Schutter: [00:08:16] And every single one of my teachers was like, Oh, but she’s so sweet, and she’s working so hard and it’s OK. And my mom is sitting there like, No, it’s not OK, she’s getting D’s. And, you know, it’s so. And we didn’t know at the time that there was anything going on in my brain. It was just I was struggling and we didn’t know I’m 35 years old back then. You didn’t really. It’s rare it did happen, but women really did not get diagnosed with ADHD, and it’s still very rare and we have to fight a lot harder to get our diagnosis. I actually had to convince my doctor to. I said, Listen, I’ve taken all these tests. I’ve talked to all my friends who know things. I need you to. What do we need to do to try this? Because I think this is what I have because before I was diagnosed, anxiety and depression and I thought, I’m not really depressed, I’m just really tired all the time. So, you know, so being let go from my job trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and then just jumping in and finding my passion. But I also have a degree in psychology that was my my undergrad, so I always in insurance. I worked in claims. So I always kind of said, Oh, I use my degree because I’m making people. I’m calming them down. I’m making them feel better when they’re stressed out because they just got in a car accident, right? But now I really am going back to my roots and I’m it’s it’s been awesome. It’s been awesome

Lori Kennedy: [00:09:53] Ride. That is awesome. I love that. So tell me what hyperfocus means. Like, I just want to understand or I want everybody who’s listening plus me to understand what that means exactly.

Courtney Schutter: [00:10:06] Yes. So when a typical person, we a lot of the word is neurotypical. So if you don’t have ADHD, autism, those things you are neurotypical neurodivergent is autism, ADHD, et cetera. So neurotypical people get exact. I read about stuff and they’re like, Oh, yeah, this is this is great, let me read about this for about an hour and they learn some things and it’s great. Neurodivergent people are like, Oh, that’s so cool. Five months later, they know everything about that subject because they have just completely consumed their day to day because they have to know everything about it. And that’s what happened after I got my ADHD diagnosis one, I realized that I have always been doing that. But to that’s what allowed me to really learn all these things about ADHD and find out what I really want to do with that. But yes, it’s we just take everything to a little bit of an extreme.

Lori Kennedy: [00:11:14] Ok, well, I want to explore this more with you later. One on one. And personally, yes. Tami, tell us about the financial or wealth building part of what you’re doing. And I would love for you to mention some of your social media things that you have happening around that as well.

Tammy Lewis: [00:11:37] Yeah. So what I realized and this actually came more into play during the whole breast cancer journey is I started reading when you said that, I’m like, Oh, that’s me. Wait a minute. Yeah, I was like self-diagnosis, but

Courtney Schutter: [00:11:53] It

Tammy Lewis: [00:11:53] Happens. I started reading more about why women don’t have the wealth that we should be, you know, should have. And a lot of it is because we’re trying to win a game and we don’t understand like where we are on the board and we’re playing from behind because women actually make 80 cents for every dollar that a man makes. I mean, it’s not our rules, it’s just what it is. And so if you’re playing a game, you got to know what the rules are. And I think that’s I think women know that, but they don’t like know the dollar. And when you look at it by race, I mean, the separation happens even more. So I’m like, OK, so we’re all trying to win this game of, you know, wealth, but we’re all playing from behind and we’re not using the right tools. So one of the things that I share is like when I went through my breast cancer journey is, you know, I had certain things in place. So, you know, I talk about how I had life insurance in place. You know, nobody wants to think about death, but I actually had to because, you know, we didn’t know what was going on, you know? And I told my husband, I said, You know, well, worst case scenario, the kid’s financial future is set because we put those plans in place.

Tammy Lewis: [00:13:03] And outside of, you know what you know, benefits that you get in a corporate job and then, you know, just teaching people about investments. So, you know, I’ll, you know, take time and do workshops on that or just one on one just to put a plan in place because I had money making money for me while I was going through all the surgeries. But, you know, in entrepreneurship because we had a business that had passive income. I didn’t have to work. And you know, I tell people, when you have options, you heal differently because, you know, when you’re going through like chemo and radiation, you only have one or two options. You’re either working because you have to because you got to have benefits and keep money coming in or you can’t work at all because the side effects are too bad. But when you got options, you do, you just heal differently.

Lori Kennedy: [00:13:52] And so I would assume I was just going to say I would assume that the stress of having to have a full time position while you are going through something like that would just make it even harder. Yes. Harder to heal from because you now you’re adding stress to it as well, right?

Tammy Lewis: [00:14:08] And I just was talking to actually one of my sorority sisters who’s also a breast cancer survivor who actually went to see my plastic surgeon for some redo reconstruction. And she said, Yeah, he said it again. He said, you were just an anomaly the way that you healed and because everything I did was intentional. But I think I could be more intentional about it because I didn’t have all these other stressors that most women, you know, have going through that process. So that’s, you know, and one of my girlfriends who was one of my partners in pharmaceuticals. She said, So you know what this means, right? So this means that you can tell your story from you living through it and the things that you had in place. And you know, having your business that you can talk to other women about this is how you have, you know, multiple sources of income. This is how you get your finances in order. And, you know, just talk to them through what you live through at the same time.

Lori Kennedy: [00:15:07] Yeah, I love how all the pieces like I’m trying to get you to tell me about one thing, but it always flows right into the next. It’s like your whole life is all so interconnected you don’t have like this space for this and this space for this. It’s all together because you do have this women of wealth. Social media and then you also with the breast cancer thing, I want you to tell me about these boxes or something that you were talking about in reference to that. I want to hear more about that. So tell me about those two things.

Tammy Lewis: [00:15:39] So the women are wealth like I. I started like a private group just so we can just start having wealth conversations. And, you know, most people think I’m just talking about finance. No health as wealth. You know, mindset is wealth, because if you have a bad mindset, then I mean, you’re not making any money because you’re just kind of like all over the place. And so bringing a platform where we can have safe conversations about that and again, going through the breast cancer, I, it’s like, OK. So I really need to do something with this. And when I was in the Woodstock business club for like the first time I was there, it was actually last March. And actually, Giselle came up to me and she said, You know, I wanted to introduce myself. I invited actually this person and this person. So we kind of went down the list and she said, and there’s probably seven other women in this room who know who you are, but you don’t know who they are. Oh, wow. And that’s when I said, OK, so this thing is really getting big. So it’s it’s an opportunity number one, to have wealth conversations on health mindset and wealth. But also what it’s turned into is I want it to be a platform for other women who are entrepreneurs to showcase their business.

Lori Kennedy: [00:16:54] Yeah, it’s

Tammy Lewis: [00:16:54] Awesome. You know, at the same time. So we’re working on what we’re actually going to do with it. So I’ve talked to some other women and just some of the relationships that I’ve had with other women and not just here, but it’s also like I went back and looked at the analytics because I’m a little analytical. And yeah, I mean, we have women from Atlanta, like all areas of Atlanta and in Nashville, in St. Louis and Houston and Dallas, parts of Jersey, New York. We got people in Boise, Idaho. I mean, it’s just. But it’s that, you know, six feet of separation that has happened and it’s like it’s own like growing organism.

Lori Kennedy: [00:17:39] So how many how many members of this social media?

Tammy Lewis: [00:17:45] So right now, when I last counted, we’re right at 1300 getting ready to tip over to 14, and that’s only because it’s private now. So like I know, as soon as we release it, it’s just going to turn into its own beast. So I just want to make sure a couple of things are in place before we do that. So we’re really supporting women in that process, not just kind of being another women’s group.

Lori Kennedy: [00:18:09] Yeah, yeah. I love the strategy behind that. So tell me about these boxes that we had talked about at one point in time. I want everybody to hear what you want to do.

Tammy Lewis: [00:18:17] So when I was when we started the Pink Pearl hero, it was like, So what are we going to do? Because I have some girlfriends who like valid is hope. One of my girlfriends in St. Louis, she does recliners for women who have double mastectomies. I would have never thought of that until I went through it, and it was like my saving grace. It was like my bed from October to October to the next May because of just the type of surgery. So what I decided was a couple of girlfriends of mine in St. Louis would send me a box once a month and I always like, look forward to the box and had funny things and it had t it had a mask and it it had like gift cards to Pinero, a Starbucks, T-shirts, all that stuff. And I said, Well, what am I going to do or what are we going to do to give back? So I decided, let’s do this hero box, because that was one of the things that I always look forward to. And that’s a way that someone can support another breast cancer survivor, even if they’re not in the same city as them.

Tammy Lewis: [00:19:22] So the hero box and so I took it a step further because, you know, big on supporting women in their businesses is let’s put contents of the box only from women’s businesses so we can support other women in their businesses. So that’s what we’re in the process of doing. And I’ve met some phenomenal women in the journey of doing that and even from things because we even talked about, you know, little things about getting, you know, oil change or car repair. I mean, it may sound like, OK, why would you put that in the box? I’m like, because the car still has to be repaired when you’re going, you know, through that process. And there are so many women. And I think that’s the only thing that keeps me talking about my journey is because there’s so many women who go through this alone. And, you know, and even some of my friends are like, Yeah, I just, you know, they have family members who don’t know they had breast cancer. Wow. Because that’s just their choice and I respect their choice. And so for me, I’m just like, Well, I’ll just be your voice now.

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:22] So that’s awesome. Yeah. Wow. So, Courtney, I want to hear about. How people like are able to know about. What you do and how they find you like, how does somebody come across, how do how would I have come across? Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, I found you on social media, right? But it just was kind of by

Courtney Schutter: [00:20:45] Accident, which I’m so happy for.

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:47] Yes, I am, too. And I can’t wait for us to be a little

Courtney Schutter: [00:20:50] Obsessed with him. You know, I have to admit she’s awesome.

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:52] Yeah. Tammy is awesome.

Courtney Schutter: [00:20:54] Can we just ask her more questions?

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:56] You know, we want to hear from you, too. I know

Tammy Lewis: [00:20:58] Because I’m over here self-diagnosing,

Lori Kennedy: [00:21:01] Right?

Courtney Schutter: [00:21:01] Yes. Well, no. So I am most active on Instagram, so my Instagram is connected to my Facebook page. So it’s ADHD parent. Eighty six on Instagram, and that’s where I go live. I post a lot. I repost a lot of people who are self-diagnosing themselves with ADHD. They get it from Tok, which is fantastic. There’s a lot of good information out there, but there is a lot of not correct information out there, so I just would encourage everyone to just do their own research. You know, love the Tik Tok videos. Love the Instagram even. But yeah, and then go. And my favorite place that I go for a lot of my information is called Attitude Magazine. Its aid attitude. Oh, that’s cool. And so they have all these experts and a lot of different information about what ADHD is, what it is not. But yes, where you can find me is mostly on Instagram. That’s where I just talk, usually to myself, it’s fine. I love it. Actually, I go live it. No one’s there. I’m just like, Well, I’m just going to pretend I’m talking to you guys. And I just, you know, and usually some people will watch it afterwards and comment. But and then I have my own I have two websites, so Courtney Schutter is my just official coaching. That’s all it is. Is coaching and then ADHD. The parent is my blog. But in true ADHD fashion, I have three posts on my blog because I was so excited to become a blogger. And then it was like, Oh, wait, this is boring. I don’t want to do this, so I do want to get more into it. But again, this I’m a baby business. I just started even thinking about this in May. Oh, wow, yes.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:08] Well, is this something that can be like connected to psychology or like, could you be on some sort of insurance type of thing where somebody could get so insurance?

Courtney Schutter: [00:23:21] No, it’s not. It’s not covered on insurance and it’s not like therapy counseling. But I do work with a lot of other coaches and you can go and buy regular advertising, things like that. The main body that kind of looks over all of life coaching is called the International Coaching Federation, so they’re the ones that are making sure that everyone’s kind of doing coaching in a similar manner. Ok, but yeah, all of it, you have to pay to get your name on there. And again, I’m a baby business. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:59] I just didn’t know how all that worked because it sounds like it should be something that is part of it. Should counseling or something of that nature, you know?

Courtney Schutter: [00:24:09] And I always encourage people coaching is not therapy, so what I’ll do is either I’ll have a conversation with somebody and I’ll realize they may be better suited for therapy because therapy, I think a lot is dealing with past traumas. Talking about the past, figuring out how to maybe get over those types of things, coaching is all about the future. It’s here’s where I am, and here’s where I want to be. How do I get there? And people just get stuck. I mean, I just talked to somebody yesterday that they had this great idea to fix a problem that they had, but they have no idea how to implement that fix. They’re like, I know this will work for me, but I cannot bring myself to actually do it. And it was like, OK, we can work on that. We can get there. It’s very similar to. Like, you hire a fitness coach, you’re like, OK, I’m here in my weight or my fitness level and I want to be here, but I cannot do it on my own. So can you get me there? And that’s what a life coach does, especially with people with ADHD. I think we tend to get stuck more often because we have a lot of stuff going on. And, you know, a lot of ideas, a lot of shiny new objects that we get so excited about, and it’s so hard to rein it in and think, OK, this is what I’m going to focus on today. Even I do. I mean, I have all the tools of a coach, you know, I know what I’m doing, and I still struggle with it sometimes. So it’s a work in project process.

Lori Kennedy: [00:25:46] Always, yeah. Ok, so the next question is, I want to know who’s in your household. So let’s start with you, Courtney.

Courtney Schutter: [00:25:54] I have my son who is four and two dogs and a cat. Oh, yes, it is. I just moved my office upstairs to my bedroom because where my house sits, the sun only hits one side of my house and I have to have that sunshine. Otherwise, I’m just like, Oh, it’s nap time, OK, let’s do that all day long. Even on medication, I’m just like, No, I can take a nap. That’s fine. So, yes, but my dogs were there little 10 pound dogs and they bark at everything.

Lori Kennedy: [00:26:29] So I have little ones too. What kind of

Courtney Schutter: [00:26:31] Ears? Bishan and having knees. Ok, I have Pomeranians.

Lori Kennedy: [00:26:36] Oh, and they bark at everything, too.

Courtney Schutter: [00:26:38] Yes. Jacki’s my next dog will be a German Shepherd.

Lori Kennedy: [00:26:42] German shepherds are

Courtney Schutter: [00:26:43] Beautiful. They’re my secret. They’re my favorite.

Lori Kennedy: [00:26:46] Yes. Well, Tammy, who is in your house?

Tammy Lewis: [00:26:48] Well, so we’re going through a transition because so my oldest is in college in Nashville and my youngest is graduating. She’s a senior and so she’ll be leaving the nest, so we’ll be empty nesters. And so I’m like, everybody is like, Are you excited? I’m like, Actually, I’m not because I’m so, you know, it’s always been them. And of course, I’m sorry my husband too.

Courtney Schutter: [00:27:14] Oh yeah. Oh yeah, the other big kid, right?

Tammy Lewis: [00:27:19] And we do have a little dog. We have a it’s a Yorkie, Shih-Tzu, Shawki Zoo, which that breed is got, you know, detachment issues, I think, for families, but which we’ve been informed from my older daughter that as soon as she gets her apartment in Nashville, she’s taking the dog too. So I was like, OK, so yeah, so Lauren, our youngest, it’ll be going to SCAD in the fall, but she’s going to be in, you know, in Atlanta, on campus there. So that’s who’s in the house, kind of in the house, but we’ll be empty nesters. So.

Lori Kennedy: [00:27:55] So why don’t you tell me? Tammy, about a mistake that you made in your business and what you learned from it.

Tammy Lewis: [00:28:03] Oh, I think I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I think one of the biggest mistakes always has to do with people. And, you know, in any business, I think especially when you have people that work with you is really not like listening. Like, you kind of hear them, but like really listening to what they’re saying and not clarifying and just assuming this is, you know, this is what I think I heard you say. And really just taking a step back, you know, the whole process, like he said, what I heard was. And taking that step where I just kind of like assumed and went on like a whole nother tangent and realizing that I mean, my like my agents, my agents are my customers. And you know, the customer is, you know, always, right? So you still have to kind of take that step to to listen. And I think, you know, a couple of times where I’ve made people mistakes is not taking that extra step to say, All right, well, maybe what you’re thinking and what they’re saying is two different things. So just take a step back, clarify, ask the question, just be humble about it. And then, you know, kind of go from there.

Lori Kennedy: [00:29:18] So, yeah, that’s great. Courtney, what about you?

Courtney Schutter: [00:29:22] So when I first thought about this question, I thought, Well, I’m too new. I haven’t made any mistakes. But now that you’ve said that, not that I have made any mistakes with other people yet because it is just me, but not listening to myself. So I was I’m past that point now, but I was being very wishy washy about who I wanted to coach. And then when it wasn’t working out immediately, I thought, OK, maybe I just need to go back to what I know insurance and maybe not get out of the coaching space per say. But, you know, start coaching insurance agents, which would have been months of retraining. And I thought, you know, finally, I just said, OK, no, no, no. Trust your gut. This is what you’re passionate about. So I think that would be, you know, my main takeaway and what I have to just try and remember consistently is trust your gut, you know, and don’t and just go with it. You know, this is what you’re good at. It may be a little bit of a slow start. Yeah, but again, I just started in May. So yeah, it’s great. It’s it’s, you know, you can’t expect things overnight to happen, but I do love that. I love what you said about taking a step back and making sure that you are understanding what people are actually saying to you and what they’re understanding because that’s big in coaching. It’s like, this is what I’m hearing you say you want to work on or this is what I’m hearing you say, making sure you have that understanding because people’s brains, you know, work differently and not just if they have ADHD, everybody, right? So getting that clarity is so important with all relationships.

Lori Kennedy: [00:31:13] What are some misconceptions about your industry?

Courtney Schutter: [00:31:17] So I think the biggest thing is people just don’t know about life coaches, especially that there are specific life coaches for people with ADHD. I know the courses that I took at the iaCt center, she the woman who runs them. She started them years ago, but it’s always been kind of a small, small school. And now finally, I think partly because of the pandemic, it’s just blown up, you know, because a lot of people are giving themselves permission to work on their mental health because we’re all struggling right now and a lot of people. There was a meme and I can’t remember the numbers, but it said women who took an online test to find out if their ADHD in Twenty Seventeen was like 1100 women who took an online test to find out if their ADHD in twenty twenty two was like twenty five hundred. I mean, it’s absolutely it’s just crazy because partly we are very under-diagnosed. We mask very well. Masking is when you you realize that you’re different and so you do whatever you need to do to fit in with everybody else, which also can then cause anxiety because you’re just not able to be yourself at all. So, yeah, and I lost my train of thought hashtag D

Lori Kennedy: [00:32:49] Did I think, don’t we all do that or

Tammy Lewis: [00:32:52] Yeah, actually a diagnosis in the DSM four? Yeah, to the it’s called postpartum amnesia. I’ve been using it for 20 years.

Courtney Schutter: [00:33:00] Yes. Yeah. There’s. There’s the normal rate, and then there’s the ADHD rate where you’re like, just OK by thought it was nice knowing you when I had you?

Lori Kennedy: [00:33:10] Well, so do you typically do Zoom? Is that how you do that?

Courtney Schutter: [00:33:15] Ok? All online? Yes. Ok. Yeah. So I’m international. So coaching, there’s no regulation. As far as like, I don’t have to have a license in each state, so it’s all Zoom and it’s whatever country, city, state, whatever I can.

Lori Kennedy: [00:33:32] Is it typically one hour sessions? Is that how you do it? Ok, yep.

Courtney Schutter: [00:33:36] So one hour. So I think one hour a week they can contact me throughout the week. Like if there’s a quote unquote emergency, they can message me through my client management system. And yeah, and then I offer 12 weeks or twenty four weeks. And right now what I’m doing, especially because, like I said, ADHD people can tend to quickly sign up for things or, oh, that’s going to work for me. I know this is going to fix me, which is one of the things I don’t do in my coaching is we’re not trying to fix you, but that’s how they think. They’re like, I’m going to be normal. It’s like, No honey, you don’t need to be normal. You’re perfect, but I do three weeks at a sliding scale. So essentially what you can afford for three weeks, and that gives people typically an understanding of if coaching is going to work for them, if that’s what they thought it was going to be. And then after that, then that’s when we sign up for they decide the 12 or 24

Lori Kennedy: [00:34:42] Weeks, OK? I love that.

Courtney Schutter: [00:34:44] Yeah, it just gives them kind of a, you know, a better idea of what coaching is and how I can help them. And I don’t want to be another app that you forget to cancel and then it just keeps renewing. And then, you know, $500 later. It’s like, Oh my god, I keep forgetting to cancel this. You know, I don’t need to be that. I don’t need you to sign up for the whole 12 weeks and then realize three weeks in. This is not what I thought it was going to be. So I like to give people that kind of trial.

Lori Kennedy: [00:35:16] Yeah, I love that. I appreciate that. Yeah. Tami, tell me about some misconceptions or a misconception in your industry.

Tammy Lewis: [00:35:25] Well, I mean, I think one of the biggest misconceptions, I think from a client perspective is that people. Like, like they don’t want to get their finances in order, like some people just don’t know where to start. Yeah, and I’ve met, you know, folks anywhere from like, this is all I have, you know? But I got to start somewhere to people who make six figures and say, I just never sat down and did it. And you know, like, they just I do the stuff you know, that my employer has. But there was never a plan in place, and I think it’s just some people just, you know, it’s just, you know, they’re they’re just working kind of like just in them on the treadmill, just kind of just working. And they’ve never stopped to say, I really need to put a plan in place. And I think like, especially like our Gen Xers know, not Gen Z or Gen Xers. I mean, we’re now at a point where it’s like, Oh, retirement is like in 20 years, and I never really like sat down and really put a plan in place. I just been kind of winging it the whole time. So and then I think the other misconception is like these younger folks, you know, they’re, you know, I do call them like kind of the juice box generation. They want instant gratification. But there are a handful out there that are just like, Look, I ain’t trying to do like, you know, my mom and my dad did, I got to do something different or I’m going to be stuck in this, you know, in this cycle. So I think there’s there’s more of that now in pockets than ever before.

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:05] Ok, do you have a message that is for women specifically?

Tammy Lewis: [00:37:10] Yes. Yes. Can you

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:13] Tell? I can.

Courtney Schutter: [00:37:14] I can. Big, deep breath go.

Tammy Lewis: [00:37:17] You know? And and here’s here’s why can I can I take a second to say, Wow,

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:20] You absolutely can. I just think it’s funny because I’ve read through these questions and I’m like, Oh, we’re answering them naturally. Like, I don’t I can’t even ask half of my questions because it’s just automatically come out. But yes, tell us.

Tammy Lewis: [00:37:32] So I think, well, a couple couple of reasons why it’s number one. Just through my own personal experience of going through breast cancer and having options in life is all about options. And I think the other thing is is just from sitting from on. The financial part of it is seeing women like I met. I met a lady who had been married for years over 20 years, and her husband dies and there’s not enough life insurance. So now she has to sell the house. She had an estate sale and she lives with her son in his basement because there wasn’t enough and she just never, she said. I just never thought to have the conversation and not saying that, you know, that’s just, you know, her husband just didn’t. They just never had the conversation and she thought that everything would be OK. So I’m a little different when I talk to couples, I always ask the wife. I said, he dies, what happens to you? And like, lay it out, tell me step by step. And a lot of women don’t know and vice versa, because I’ve seen the wife die and the husband have to figure it out where they had to get a nanny and had to have somebody come in like those little things. People don’t think about. So my message for women is if, if, if you’re married or not married, if you’re, you know, if you’re a single mom, a stay at home mom, if you don’t have a husband or a kid, you know, what is the plan? And if somebody said, Go, can you recite the plan like, you know, like for me, I shared because of this experience.

Tammy Lewis: [00:39:06] One of the things that we did is, I, you know, I was like, OK, well, this is real. So we’ve really got to put a better plan in place is, you know, I told my husband, something happens to me here the five accounts, and here’s where all the money needs to go. Nobody, again, nobody wants to talk about that. But now there’s an ease like if something still happens because something is going to happen one day. I mean, it’s like, I don’t know why people don’t realize you are going to die one day. So you just don’t. We don’t want to think about it. But the thing is, is that wealthy people think about it. That’s part of the plan like and that’s why they have generational wealth, because it’s part of the plan. So, you know, even like talking to Taylor, you know, our oldest now that she’s 20, I’m like, OK, so we need to redo our will because you’re 20 and you kind of know our business. And so putting those plans in place, because once you do it, then you don’t have to do it again and you can rest easy at night and you can really, really enjoy life and not be the wife that I met, whose husband is no longer here.

Tammy Lewis: [00:40:08] So she can’t even grieve because, you know, the house that she’s been in for years, she can no longer be in. So that makes me sad. I know me too, me too. And I hear it more so you know than not. I mean, and there was another case where the wife was. She stayed at home with the kids. Husband was in corporate, and these are fi. These are none of my clients. These are just stories that kind of, you know, brought more passion. And he goes, you drive. He’s on his motorcycle and he dies. And he’s making, you know, good income because you stayed at home, but they were like living in a half million dollar house. All that gone because it just wasn’t enough to plan for it. Wow. So it’s just no. Whatever the plan is, put the plan in place and on the good side and on for retirement. Unless you plan on working like you know how you see. Well, I don’t know. But like if you go to Wal-Mart, like it just burns. It burns me, and it makes me sad when I see older women working. Yeah, like over 70. Mm hmm. Still working? Yeah. Right. So like that shouldn’t.

Courtney Schutter: [00:41:22] Yeah, have the uncomfortable conversations. That’s me. I love them. Yeah. Conversations with people I love. I love to get awkward. But yeah,

Tammy Lewis: [00:41:30] Because, you know, it just makes people just start think like, Oh my gosh, and that’s what you know, struck me as I was like, Yeah, I was making great money in corporate, but I didn’t have a plan. Mm hmm.

Lori Kennedy: [00:41:41] So Courtney, is there a specifically for women? Is there a message that you

Courtney Schutter: [00:41:48] Have for that? Yeah, definitely. Go for your dreams. So, you know, I spent probably too many months trying to get back in the industry that I had been in that I knew. And then I finally decided to actually just forget it. Go for it. And I’m a single mom and it’s a big risk to decide I’m going to work for myself. I this is my business is my company. I know I can do this, but I also have days where I’m like, Oh my God, what was I thinking? This is not. This is terrible, but I just, I just keep going. And then the other thing really is take up space. You know, we do not. We shrink ourselves, which causes anxiety, and we just need to stop. We need to stop shrinking ourselves to make other people uncomfortable, make other people comfortable. Yeah. You know, I still do it to an extent. I catch myself, but it’s a hard habit to break. Yeah. You know, and especially women with ADHD, even if they don’t know it, they are much more susceptible to doing that because we’re so often told that we’re wrong. We’re doing it wrong. You’re, you know, you’re not being ladylike because especially women with ADHD, we have a really hard time being traditional women. We talk too much. We’re we’re too much for people, and I just would love every single woman ADHD or not to just get over it, you know, as best we could and just say, you know what, I’m going to take up all this space. And if it makes you uncomfortable, that’s your problem. That’s not my problem. So that’s, you know, I’m very passionate about that clearly.

Lori Kennedy: [00:43:38] Yeah, no. I mean, I think embracing who you are is something, yes, that a lot of women struggle with. And I think that the message of you are, OK, you are good enough, you are amazing. The way you are is something that needs to be retrained and a lot of brains.

Courtney Schutter: [00:43:59] And it is. It’s very, very difficult. I mean, I posted something. I mean, it was ADHD specific, but about ADHD being a superpower? Well, it’s not always a superpower. Sometimes it feels like kryptonite. You’re just like, I literally can’t get off the couch today. That’s just that’s that’s what’s going to happen today. I’m doing nothing but to be able to find that superpower is so important, but I posted it on a women’s ADHD and got torn apart. Oh no, because they said, because they don’t feel it and they and they are not in the space right now to be able to believe it, that they can be, that they can use this as their superpower.

Lori Kennedy: [00:44:39] Don’t you think, though, don’t both of you think and you too stone, don’t you all think that our superpower and our kryptonite are typically the same thing? Just one of them is managed and one is unbridled?

Tammy Lewis: [00:44:52] Yes, I would agree. Yeah.

Lori Kennedy: [00:44:54] Like when I when when you know, like if you’re in an interview and somebody says, What is your weakness? Well, you’re supposed to turn it around as your strength. But in reality, it’s probably the same thing. Your strength and your weakness is the same thing. Yeah, it’s just one of them. You’ve you’ve got a handle on. And then in some cases, it’s out of your grasp, so to speak.

Courtney Schutter: [00:45:16] Yeah. Absolutely. Like with ADHD, one of the people that people that people complain about is talking too much. I wish I could just shut up and stop talking, but I can’t. But then you can flip it and say, I’m really easy to talk to. Right? And so, yeah, absolutely. It can go both ways. It’s just a matter of being able to get to that mindset of, yes, this is a positive thing, and I’m going to use it as such and not everybody can get there.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:47] It’s hard. Yeah, well, I love that that it’s your life’s mission to ensure that as many people get there as possible. Yes. And Courtney, how can people get in touch with you? Give us all of your things. I know you’ve done it already, but we’re going to have it right here. You know, packed in at the end.

Courtney Schutter: [00:46:04] Yeah, absolutely. So Instagram is ADHD parent. Eighty six. My website is ADHD Dash parent or Kourtney Shutter C o u r t and e.y s c h u ttr. Awesome. Yes.

Lori Kennedy: [00:46:26] And Tami, tell people how to get in touch with you.

Tammy Lewis: [00:46:29] Yes. So I guess because of my business, my, you know, in the brokerage, it’s really just my personal. So on Instagram is probably the easiest way. It’s Tami gluey. So it’s nothing like, you know, fancy because of that. But as far as, like the Pink Pearl hero on Facebook and Instagram, it is pink pearl hero altogether. And for the planner, it’s one dope planner. So it’s the number one d o p e so p like Paul E Planner and that’s on Facebook and Instagram. And now on Tik Tok. I wish I could just I mean, that’s why we’re hiring other people to do it. And when you said that about the kryptonite, I think my girlfriend and I, she’s an entrepreneur as well, and we both figured it out. We’re professional extroverts, but we’re personal introverts. Yes, because I’m really an introvert and people are like, No way. I’m like,

Courtney Schutter: [00:47:28] Yes, I’m going to go home and take a nap because all of this Typekit like, really,

Tammy Lewis: [00:47:33] I’m just like, Can I go back to the beach? That’s all I really want to do. So.

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:37] So Tami Lewis is with a Y and an e w e w.

Tammy Lewis: [00:47:41] Yes, OK. Just with Tami

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:43] Lewis from St. Louis, I knew that. But yeah, I wanted to make sure others could find you.

Courtney Schutter: [00:47:49] And then one is the number is the number one.

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:52] Yes. Yes, any last minute amazingness.

Tammy Lewis: [00:47:56] I think this is amazing. Yeah, you

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:57] Know, it’s fun.

Tammy Lewis: [00:47:58] I’ve seen personally, I’ve seen a shift in the U.S. with women, and I like I was seeing it. But now it’s kind of like I am woman. Hear me, wore your roar. And then when the pandemic happened, I think a lot of women actually pivoted and they were just like, You know what, this, you know, baby that I had on the shelf or this this feeling I had inside. Dang it, I’m going to do it and I’m going to do it guns blazing. And I think we’re seeing a lot of that now. So if there’s women listening, if you know, if you got that, that urge just I mean, literally just just do it because the world is waiting on, you definitely will meet you and the world needs you for sure.

Courtney Schutter: [00:48:38] Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. We need to be heard. And like I said, we need to take up more space for sure.

Lori Kennedy: [00:48:44] For sure. Awesome. Well, remember, if you already know everything, then you are sure to learn nothing. Lori Kennedy signing

Courtney Schutter: [00:48:51] Off.

Jordan Queen & Gilead Fishel With Dilly Dally Provisions

February 11, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Chicago Business Radio

Jordan Queen & Gilead Fishel With Dilly Dally Provisions

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Jordan Queen & Gilead Fishel, Co-Founders at Dilly Dally Provisions

Dilly Dally Provisions is a small food business that was founded by two brothers-in-law in 2020. They make handcrafted preserved goods that liven up everyday meals. Their products are made with clean, simple ingredients that promote healthy eating and reduce food waste through old-fashioned food preservation.

Follow Dilly Dally Provisions on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Max Kantor: [00:00:20] Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor, and before we get started, I just want to go ahead and thank today’s sponsor today. Sponsor is firm space thanks to them because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. We’ve got a great one for you today. Today’s guests are the Dream Commercial Kitchen Pitch Contest winner at the hatchery in Chicago. They’re the co-founders of Dilly Dally Provisions, and I’m so excited to talk to them about everything they’re doing. Please welcome the show, Jordan Queen and Gilad Fishel. Welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for having us. Well, let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit what is dilly dally provisions?

Jordan Queen: [00:01:03] Yeah, so don’t dilly dally provisions. We we specialize in chef crafted preserved goods. The focus is small batch handcrafted, everything, a sugar free, no additives, no preservatives. And we just take a lot of pride, a lot of passion in creating delicious good for you products that are oil free, vegan and also gluten free when possible.

Max Kantor: [00:01:31] So how did this idea come about of dilly dally provisions?

Jordan Queen: [00:01:37] Yeah, so Gilad and I are our brother in laws. You know, I moved to Chicago about three years ago and yeah, you know, I’ve always been a long time hobbyist of pickling and fermenting and preserving just always been something super passionate. I’ve been passionate about my grandmother. She we grew up in Appalachia mountains, so it was just very much a way of life. She was very self-sufficient. She grew everything herself. So, you know, always played around. But then, you know, of course, you know, the pandemic happened and I got furloughed, so I had to kind of move around a little bit kind of, you know, shift the focus. So I came up with this idea for dilly dally provisions. I knew we had some. I had some good recipe development, but I just I knew that I needed someone to kind of help bring more of a business perspective. And that’s when I approach my brother in law of Gilad. And we just started kind of brainstorming and thought that it had some legs and we’ve been making a run at it.

Max Kantor: [00:02:43] Now, Gilad, have you had any background kind of in like the food industry or restaurant industry or this was all new to you?

Gilead Fishel: [00:02:50] I’ve worked. I’ve dabbled in in restaurant kitchens. Not a ton. I mean, really, the the the culinary expertize comes from Jordan side. But I mean, I love food and you know, a little bit about our back, our backgrounds in general. I mean, Jordan’s from rural North Carolina. I grew up on a kibbutz in Israel. And so while we come from very different backgrounds, we just we found that we had this common set of values around the connection that we have to food and farming and sustainability. So you know, it just it’s just kind of it just kind of evolved and we’re just been really enjoying kind of taking our passions and creating something out of it.

Max Kantor: [00:03:35] Now, I’m not familiar with the pickling process. Could you talk about like what goes into pickling something and how do you guys decide what you are going to use?

Jordan Queen: [00:03:47] Yeah. So, I mean, the pickling process and this goes with fermenting, too, I mean, the basis of it is you need an acid. You know, usually sugar and salt. Those are the core ingredients and then spices that kind of makes up the general foundation for pickling. But that’s but there’s there’s so much that you can kind of build off that. So, you know, we we we do six products all very different. You know, it all ranges from, you know, kind of condiment based. We do hot sauces, spicy beer, mustard. We offer a couple of different relishes. Being in Chicago, we have to offer a genre relish that’s fermented and oil free. And we do dilly beans and corn relish. We’re just kind of taps into my roots of being in the south. But you know, the the R&D part is just, you know, that’s that’s kind of the fun part about our name dilly dally. It’s not only fun to say, but it’s also kind of expresses our love for food exploration. So a lot of times when we were developing these recipes and we continue to develop recipes throughout the farmers market season because we work with a lot of farmers and we offer seasonal rotation. So a lot of us just inspired by what we can get our hands on locally and and just kind of, you know, a lot of experimentation. You know, it’s a lot of things. We try it and we’re like, That’s not it. Sometimes we’re like, That’s cold. So it’s just a lot of trial and error. And then, you know, and then we’re constantly trying to perfect recipes, you know, tweaking here and there. But that’s kind of our process.

Max Kantor: [00:05:31] Totally. It’s interesting to hear you talk about how this business kind of grew during the pandemic because we’ve talked to a couple of restaurants on Chicago Business Radio and we obviously bring up, you know, how COVID hit them so hard. And Jordan, I know you talked about getting furloughed like, you know, firsthand, so it’s great to hear you guys took this really hard time, but then made something out of it. But during that? Were there any struggles that you had to overcome when getting started?

Gilead Fishel: [00:06:00] Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think it’s something that is not necessarily unique to our business, standing a business in the midst of a pandemic is sounds kind of crazy, but at the same time, it’s kind of like. Why not, you know, the world is kind of turned upside down, so we we I mean everything in terms of navigating. I mean, I think first and foremost, we launched our business really in in front of people at the farmer’s market. And so obviously, you know, we’ve been masked the whole time, pretty much at least initially when when when the business kicked off. A lot of a lot of people are interested in sampling our products, and that’s not something we’ve been able to do. You know, it’s kind of the typical list. Supply chain issues there was a major shortage of of glass jars when we started the business because guess what? We weren’t the only ones that thought that this would be a good time to start pickling. So, yeah, it was. Those are just a few of the challenges. But you know, we we are we’re so, we’re so grateful and feel so fortunate to be where we are. And we’ve already, you know, we launched in November of twenty twenty and we’ve we’ve managed to establish some really strong partnerships with some suppliers and vendors. And so it’s you compare it to the horror stories we’ve heard from from others. We feel really grateful that we’ve been able to move forward and execute in the way that we did last year and what we have planned for twenty twenty two.

Max Kantor: [00:07:42] Oh, absolutely. Now are you guys pickling out of your home kitchen? Do you have a space you go to? Where are you guys doing this?

Jordan Queen: [00:07:52] Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, initially when it started a lot of the a lot of the experimenting and a good bit of the R&D started just from my home kitchen. But once we realized that it had potential, we kind of, you know, partnered up with Gil-Ad and really decided to make, you know, build a business model around this. We was lucky enough to have a neighbor that owned a restaurant just just nearby in Evanston, on the North Shore, and we were able there like the restaurant was closed down for almost a year, so we were able to get in there and do a lot of production. But, you know, as the pandemic lifted and restaurants started going back to normal, it kind of put a little bit of a squeeze and we had a we kind of had down dance around their schedule. So we started looking for other opportunities. And, you know, late late last fall, Dillard was like, Hey, there’s a pitch contest coming up, I’m going to sign us up for it. And I was like, Sure. And then, you know, next thing we know it’s we’ve been we made it down to top top five finalists, which we were just so humbled and blown away by that. We thought we were kind of a long shot just to get to that point. And then we, we we did our pitch in front of it was it was virtual, which is kind of different. But we had an amazing panel of judges and and we, you know, we we won which that was. We’re still kind of thinking shocking on cloud nine about that. So that’s allowed us. We’ve actually just moved in this past week into the hatchery. We have our own private kitchen here, and it’s just a total game changer for us, you know, just having unlimited access and just it’s going to really allow us to be able to scale and kind of ramp up our business, and we’re just really excited about it.

Max Kantor: [00:09:51] So you mentioned being in some like small farmers markets, markets like store like that. Where can people find you both in person and online?

Gilead Fishel: [00:10:05] Yeah, well, last year we were fortunate to participate and be a vendor in the Evanston Farmer’s market, which has been going on for over 30 years. So we were there every Saturday and as well as the Wicker Park Farmer’s Market, which is also long standing. So, you know, John lives in Evanston. I live in the city, and so we kind of started to focus on on kind of establishing ourselves in our own neighborhoods. And so those are two major markets we were also in in a number of other ones during the week Lincoln Square, Ravinia in uptown. But we’ve we have these wonderful independent shops all scattered throughout the the city and the suburbs that are taking a chance and offering our products. So Ravens, Goods and Ravenswood in Lincoln Square. Kaufman’s deli is a is is a fun one in in Skokie, to name a few.

Max Kantor: [00:11:13] Now do you guys have any upcoming products, locations, events that you want to share to our listeners?

Jordan Queen: [00:11:22] Yeah, I mean, we’re we’re as far as upcoming products, we have a lot of things kind of in the works. You know, the beauty about us working with local farmers like during the season, it really does. It’s kind of a it allows us to do a lot of R&D kind of testing recipes and then hopefully perfecting those where they can kind of move into our lineup. But you know, as Gilad mentioned earlier, he does, you know, he has, you know, he was born in a kibbutz in Israel and he’s got those roots. So we’re definitely focusing on maybe some Mediterranean flavors. We’re developing in the process of developing a harissa recipe where we’re trying to make it an oil free version, which a lot of commercial versions you get are are a little heavy on the oil. So, you know, and then just whatever we can get when peaches come in season, we we we do pickled peaches, pickled asparagus, we we just have so much available to us. We can kind of that’s the fun part. We have our core lineup, but we have so much room to play with on the seasonal side. And I don’t know. I personally, I love that aspect of it.

Max Kantor: [00:12:38] What would you say is the most rewarding part of what you guys are doing?

Jordan Queen: [00:12:45] I would say real time customer feedback and engagement. I think that’s just the beauty of being in a farmer’s market. It’s not like you’re selling online or a store or someone buys it and you never hear from them again. I mean, we see a lot of these people every week. I mean, they’re very much loyal to the markets in their neighborhoods, and they’ll be very frank with you and honest and and, you know, lucky for us, we’ve had a tremendous amount of positive feedback and it’s just it’s great. Like without that, we we feel like it would be hard for us to improve and get better. So we really we really are grateful to our customers.

Max Kantor: [00:13:27] And if people want to purchase some of your products, learn more. Do you guys have a website, social media? Where can they find you?

Gilead Fishel: [00:13:35] Yeah, we we absolutely do. Dilly Dally Provisions launched on Small Business Saturday Enough in twenty twenty. We offer free local delivery in the city for those that can’t make it out to visit us in markets or in gift shows. And yeah, we are on Instagram as well with the dilly dally provisions handle and lots of we try to we try to share our experiences and our journey of how we’re, you know what we’re up to. And so, yeah, please check us out.

Max Kantor: [00:14:12] Well, Jordan, glad you guys are both doing great work and we appreciate you for being on Chicago Business Radio today.

Jordan Queen: [00:14:20] Thanks so much for having us.

Gilead Fishel: [00:14:21] Thank you.

Max Kantor: [00:14:22] And thanks to you all for listening. Today’s episode once again is sponsored by firm SpaceX, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:14:30] This episode is Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm SpaceX, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to Firme Space.com.

Thomas Nieto With Main Squeeze Juice Co.

February 11, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Austin Business Radio

Thomas Nieto With Main Squeeze Juice Co.

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Brought To You By SeoSamba . . . Comprehensive, High Performing Marketing Solutions For Mature And Emerging Franchise Brands . . . To Supercharge Your Franchise Marketing, Go To seosamba.com.

Thomas Nieto, CEO at Main Squeeze Juice Co.

After a 10-year career building successful teams and managing a successful organization for the largest telecommunications company in the world, AT&T, Thomas Nieto decided to take a leap of faith and jump into entrepreneurship. Since 2017, Nieto has served as the CEO of Main Squeeze Juice Co. The New Orleans-based franchise’s mission is to make healthy easier, and the company’s nutritionist-designed, the superfood-centric menu does exactly that.

As CEO, Nieto serves as the brand’s fearless leader who manages their corporate team while leading site selection, franchisee support, and franchise sales.

Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Nutrition
Technology
Health
Franchise
Development
Product

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Thomas Nieto with Main Squeeze Juice Co.. Welcome, Thomas.

Thomas Nieto: [00:00:43] Thank you very much for having me, Lee.

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

Thomas Nieto: [00:00:52] Sure. We are serving folks with whole fruits, whole vegetables, healthy, clean eatery. Quick, fast on the go. Our mission is making healthy easier. And we do it by offering this whole fruits and vegetables. Real food. 100 percent plant based. And we do it conveniently, quickly and at an affordable price point. And so the story is basically, I stumbled across a mom and pop juice bar in Lake Charles, Louisiana, about four years ago walked in, blown away. It was not your typical juice bar. The design was breathtaking. All the products were the best tasting products that I’ve ever had in my life when it comes to juice, smoothies, bowls. And, you know, I ended up falling in love love at first sight. You can call it and and so the rest is history. Here we are today. We have twenty five locations opened. We have well over 50 plus more locations that are in various stages of development between, you know, real estate or design construction. And so, yeah, we have a lot of momentum. We’ve grown quickly, but we’ve grown in a very smart way. And it’s all been organic up to this point.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:17] So well, that’s fitting. Therefore, it’s fitting that it’s organic, right?

Thomas Nieto: [00:02:23] Yeah, exactly. No pun intended

Lee Kantor: [00:02:25] Now. So you just discover this as a consumer.

Thomas Nieto: [00:02:30] Well, actually so. All right. I guess I’ll have to make the long story short a little bit longer. So basically, my background is I cut my teeth in the business arena with AT&T, started as a sales rep, ended as a regional manager for AT&T Corporate over the company on retail locations in North Florida left AT&T to actually do a venture called In-N-Out Smart Repair. And this was about six years ago. And so the self there was a cell phone repair concept. If you cracked your screen, any kind of electronics that needed repair. It was the kind of business that it was and a buddy of mine who actually, funny enough, I had hired at AT&T. He worked in construction, was begging me to get him in the air conditioning for take him out of the construction world. He ended up getting fired six months later because he couldn’t show up to work, made me look bad, but then totally redeemed himself by convincing me to take the leap of faith from AT&T and starting what was in and out franchise. And so that was a venture where we scaled from seven locations. We opened seventy eight locations and right at three years time, we were the fastest growing franchise in that space. We rose up to be the number three player in the space and ended up getting acquired by the largest player in the space CPR cell phone repair.

Thomas Nieto: [00:04:00] So from when we after we sold and did that merger acquisition with CPR, at that point, I’m kind of figuring out my next move. What am I going to do? Where am I to go, you know? And so I was getting phone calls, opportunities and whatnot with some different folks wanting to do ventures. And so in my exploration of what my next steps were. I ended up talking to some guys at a Lake Charles, Louisiana, about their cell phone repair concept, which was called Fix My Phone. These two gentlemen named both of them were Nick and Carl, and great guys ended up meeting with them. And while I was there evaluating their cell phone repair concepts, they were like, Hey, do you mind jumping in the car real quick? And my little sister is about to open a juice and smoothie bar, and she needs help unloading produce, which I thought was kind of odd, but I was like, Yeah, sure, man, I’ll jump in the car and go, help out. Why not? So I did that, and that’s where I walked in love. At first sight, I was blown away and the the kind of creators, if you will, the founders of that, that location that worked with some of the best chefs in the world to create the recipes. And these are two really special people, very authentic. We’re very close with them today.

Thomas Nieto: [00:05:23] Matt Myranda, husband and wife, is their passion to to open this juice bar and and really offer a holistic vegan option to their community and Lake Charles. And so they were so thankful that I was helping them unload produce and whatnot. And they were like, Oh man, we have to. Our products like let us let you taste everything. Look, guys, I mean, I’m, you know, I’ll do that, but just so you know, I’m not, you know, I’m not the healthiest person. I don’t really like juice to me, like juice tasted like the dirt or fruits, you know, not my cup of tea, but you know, I wanted to oblige. So I was like, OK, sure, I’ll try them. And lo and behold, I’m trying like green juice, beet juice, all these different juices that I couldn’t believe that I was loving every single one of them. Like, we’re putting in this, like, how does this taste so good? And to my surprise that, you know, we’re not adding anything straight whole fruits, whole vegetables, two to four pounds of produce in every bottle of juice, which was kind of mind blowing. When you think about how much four pounds of produce is going into one bottle of juice and everything I tried, it was amazing. And we’re like, Oh, we got to try the smoothies. I’m like, Well, how great can a smoothie since a smoothie? And to my surprise, I mean, the best tasting smoothies I’ve ever had.

Thomas Nieto: [00:06:49] Like, what do you like? How did these smoothies taste so good? Why are they so different? Well, we have a very special process on our bananas. We get them in a certain ripening stage and we freeze them at a certain temperature for a certain period of time. And that’s what we don’t use any ice or any fillers or sirups. It’s all just 100 percent whole fruits, whole vegetables. The only thing we’re adding is organic superfoods. And man, I was blown away and then they showed me that they were like, Oh, we got to try the US edible. And I didn’t even know how to say, Asieh. I didn’t even I didn’t know what A-Xii was, but once again blown away, it was there like, Yeah, we get our wild harvested from the Amazon rainforest, from indigenous tribes who like, climb the trees and pick the berries, and then they clean it. They’re in Brazil and they ship it straight to us. I was like, Wow, so I I was just light bulb moment blown away with with how mind you like, I’m here. Like having this epiphany like, man, this this is a very special brand and this is this is what I’m interested in. But funny enough, like the whole purpose, it was completely random that I was even there. The whole purpose of me being in Lake Charles was again for that cell phone repair concept.

Thomas Nieto: [00:08:02] So, you know, kind of concluding, I basically said, Look, I would be very interested in scaling this brand. Or at least I wanted to see how, like the first month went to his mind. You like I was there the Thursday before they opened on that upcoming Monday. And so but I kind of, you know, establish that, hey, I’m very interested in this brand would be very interested in potentially franchising it and learning more about it, et cetera. And so but then I kind of, you know, took a back seat and wanted to watch and see what it did for the first month. And certainly like their first day that they opened with no marketing, they sold out of everything at two o’clock by two o’clock in the afternoon and did six thousand and sales did over ninety thousand almost one hundred thousand in their first month. And so I was like, OK, so confirmation this brand is very, very special. It’s a it’s a brand that the products are so amazing and they taste amazing and they make you feel amazing where, you know, it’s a lifestyle brand you end up. It’s kind of like how people go to Starbucks, you know, over and over again that addicted to caffeine. You know, that’s that’s how I saw this brand because I was like, if I lived here, I would come here every single day because the energy that you’re getting on infusing your body with two to four pounds of produce is a very natural, amazing energy rush that you’re getting.

Thomas Nieto: [00:09:32] That’s basically the benefits of caffeine without all the jitters, and it’s more of a sustainable energy and so many other benefits health wise. So, you know, and I was like, Man, how cool is it to like, you know, how cool would it be to be able to scale a brand that also is serving like products that are literally helping people and improving people’s lives and improving their health and their well-being? A lot of businesses out there to make make a dollar, but really cool to be able to partner with the brand and scale a brand that ultimately could make a difference, a positive impact in people’s lives with their physical and mental health. So all that being said, I ended up doing a deal founding the franchise company back in July of Twenty Seventeen. We got to work on building the FTD brought in my my brother in law, who was part of that last venture that I mentioned within and smart repair, and he is an attorney and basically wrote our Ph.D. for Main Squeeze franchise. We completed the. September of 17 started licensing, then again, very kind of organic word of mouth, and then, like I said, here we are today.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:52] Now has any of the tactics changed like of going to market with a franchise that is in this kind of industry rather than the technology cell phone repair kind of industry? Was it the same kind of philosophy and strategy in place in order to franchise and scale this brand?

Thomas Nieto: [00:11:15] Yeah, well, you know, what I learned was coming fresh off of the in and out smart repair concept that was that was my first endeavor in franchising, but what I learned and I learned so much through that endeavor, to be honest with you, most of what not to do. Nevertheless, learned some invaluable lessons. I’ve kind of figured the thing out. I figured out they always had my business. Background comes from marketing, merchandizing, customer experience, how to create an extraordinary experience that retail brick and mortar from AT&T, but in and out really gave me that franchising experience and figured out that franchising is all about systems and processes. It’s about having a great product with great people, with great process. And so those principles are always law and truth for any brand in franchising, regardless of what the brand is, comes to this point having great people, having a great product and having great processes in place. And and so that’s what we kind of, you know, got to work on immediately. While we were working on the FTD, I was working every day at Lake Charles store. Of course, we had to streamline a lot of the operations, for example, you know, their recipes were, well, a handful of this and you know, a pinch of this, you know, so we had to standardize everything and create good structure and processes that can be easily taught and replicated. And so, yeah, that’s what franchising is. It’s about creating that structure where an operator and an owner can come in and they know the machine, basically, if you will, is already built. And all they have to do is grab the steering wheel and and make sure that they’re driving it every single day. So from from that standpoint, yeah, very much very similar in that regard.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] Now does the idea, what is the ideal franchisee look like? Are they somebody that has this kind of health and wellness background? Or are they could be anybody that’s open to, you know, just following systems and kind of leaning into this kind of an opportunity?

Thomas Nieto: [00:13:42] Yeah. You know, I guess if you ask that question to different, different folks, you might get different variations of what the answer is. But for me, most important is, you know, kind of two two main things up front that are big qualifiers. Number one is financial qualifications, because at the end of the day, it’s the number one reason why small business owners fail even franchisees because they’re under capitalized. And so that’s a big one. We have to make sure that everybody who’s getting into the space and going to be opening a main squeeze, that they’re coming out of the gates from a position of strength, but they’re not fully overleveraging and fully extending themselves so much to where it puts them in a conflicted position, which is ultimately a position of weakness. For example, I mean, if you if the investment costs three hundred and fifty thousand and you’re you went all in, you have no other working capital. That was that’s not a good situation. We don’t want you to just because you have the money to do the investment, that that doesn’t mean that you’re you’re well capitalized because you are highly at risk if you don’t have sufficient capital with sufficient buffering to account for your kind of worst case scenarios. And so that’s a big one, and we spend a lot of time on that and we make it a big priority. That was one of the big lessons that I learned and in and out and I got to I got to see how those the consequences of not making that a priority and how that played out and it ended up playing out.

Thomas Nieto: [00:15:31] Not well. And and, you know, people were frustrated, people got hurt. And and that’s not why I’m in this game. I’m in this in this deal to help people and provide great opportunities for entrepreneurs and to serve our customers and amazing product and to an awesome place for all of our employees that come to work every day. So financials, number one number two is after that is I really, really feel strongly that this has to be this business specifically, not necessarily just franchising meaning like the passion. The talent of following systems and processes are the characteristics of somebody who does that very well. But. More so somebody has to be you have to be passionate about who we are and why we do what we do. You have to be connected to that. Why? And that might sound, oh, cheesy, superficial kind of. Everybody might say that. And you know, it’s it sounds good, but some people could think that that’s fluff or but it’s really not. It’s really important you have to be connected at the core value level to what we believe from a philosophy standpoint about people. You have to be connected to why we do what we do. And the reason is if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing and why you’re doing what you’re doing when the going gets tough and by the way, you will be tested, it’s not always going to be sunshine and rainbows.

Thomas Nieto: [00:17:06] You’re not always going to be on the mountaintop. Sometimes you will have to go through the valley and when the going gets really tough, if you’re not really passionate about it and all the real drive for you is money, well, you’re going to quit. You’re going to want to give up because it doesn’t mean anything deeper than a dollar. And so I really believe strongly that there has to be a fit at that core value level with what we believe about people philosophically and why we the mission behind what we’re doing and why we do what we do. And and if you have connectivity there, of course, third layer is I’m really looking for people that have a proven track record. Ideally, it’s very helpful as it would cuts the learning curve down if you have a background in restaurant operations that that helps. It’s not a deal breaker. The first two are, but that third one is not a deal breaker, but it makes a difference. And certainly, you know, regardless of whether you have that restaurant background or knowledge in your in your quiver, you at least need to have a proven track record of winning. I want to be able to see your past endeavors, your past work experiences, and I want to see what your track record is and I want to talk to references and I want to know what you’ve done up to this point.

Thomas Nieto: [00:18:35] And what you find is when you have a pattern of past successes and somebody that has a track record of winning and everything that they do, the odds are they’re going to continue that trend and they will they will find a way and make your way to win in whatever they do. And that’s just, you know, inside of somebody and that’s who they are at the core. So we’re looking for winners. We’re looking for people who are motivated that are, you know, that are that are passionate and determined to win no matter what it takes at all costs. And so, so those are the three main things that I’m looking for and what a great candidate looks like. And we are very selective. We we end up doing, you know, not doing, I should say a lot of deals with a lot of people that that meet criteria one typically financially in, but they don’t they don’t have number two and or a combination of number two and number three. And so that the ideal candidate, somebody that is well capitalized, that has the money that can fight from a position of strength right out of the gates. He’s very passionate about the brand and our mission and why we do what we do and really has a core value connection to like what we believe and what our philosophies are about business and people. And then, number three, having a proven track record of winning.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:05] Now your location, you started, I guess, in the Louisiana kind of Gulf Coast area. Are you? Is that the main area of growth now or is it the kind of the world is your oyster at this stage?

Thomas Nieto: [00:20:19] Yeah, I mean, for us is a young brand, and I would recommend for any brand again, this is a lesson that I learned within and out of what not to do is doing any kind of a shotgun approach. When you’re young and when you’re an emerging brand, you think it can work, but it can’t and it won’t. In my opinion, it’s too tough if you’re doing one unit in North Carolina and then you go in one unit in Colorado and then you’re doing two units in California and you’re doing. So for us, we were very intentional about our growth and about the foundation, how we see it as what we’re building with our units. And so we started out of Louisiana. We really honed in and targeted specifically Houston. And so we really focus all of our efforts on developing Houston. And now we have 30 locations that we’re doing in Houston alone. Now we’re turning our attention to Dallas and we want to. It’s like a domination strategy, if you will. But for going in, we want to be very intentional and targeted with our growth so that our units are really getting all of the the leverage of the power of the brand. And that brand power was shared marketing with the exposure of the brand and brand recognition and reputation and accessibility to our customers where they live, work and play.

Thomas Nieto: [00:21:48] And so we are growing in clusters specifically honed in on Gulf states. Southeast region is where we’re concentrated. But certainly, you know, the world is our oyster, but it’s just a matter of choosing the right time and the the right approach. For example, we are at this point, we’re going all the way to Florida. We’re doing a 10 unit development out of North Florida, Jacksonville. We want to continue developing in other markets south of Jacksonville and Florida. We’re going up actually to Missouri, but we’re in St. Louis. But when we’re doing a development deal in someplace outside of our existing clusters, we’re only going to do a deal if we’re doing it at least clusters of minimum of four, just because again, I’m not going to go, I’m not going to do a deal with somebody that wants to do one location that’s logistically really far away. I mean, especially in the food business, we have to find a new warehouse to be able to for distribution through distribution, supply chain logistics. I mean, there’s so many things that go into. And then furthermore, you kind of defeat the whole purpose of being a part of a powerful brand if you’re not going into a market with intention of dominating that market.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:10] So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website?

Thomas Nieto: [00:23:17] Well, I didn’t get a main squeeze franchise icon and check us out, and we’d love. It’s a very quick little inquiry that you can fill out and and we would love to chat and have a conversation with anybody that wants to bring healthy to their community and and have to read more about us. If you feel like, you know, there is a core value connection and fit to what we’re all about, what our mission is. We’d love to chat.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:40] Good stuff. Well, Thomas, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Thomas Nieto: [00:23:46] Thank you very much for having me, Lynn.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:48] All right. Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lamar Tyler With Traffic Sales & Profit

February 11, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Lamar Tyler With Traffic Sales & Profit

00:00 /

Lamar Tyler, CEO at Traffic Sales & Profit

Using his motto “The Gatekeepers Are Gone,” Lamar has leveraged digital marketing to move his online brands from small personal blogs to an international brand with over 700,000 social media fans and 60 thousand plus customers in all 50 states and 43 countries around the world.

Among the recognition received for his work, Lamar, along with wife Ronnie was named one of Ebony Magazine’s Power 100, a list of the top 100 movers and shakers in the black community, finalists for Black Enterprise’s Family Business of the Year, finalists for Infusionsoft’s Small Business ICON award and winners of the ClickFunnels Two Comma Award.

Additionally, in 2021, Lamar’s company Tyler New Media was ranked #2040 on the Inc. 5000 list of the country’s fastest-growing private companies and won the ClickFunnels Two Comma X Award for doing over 10 Million in sales using the ClickFunnels software platform.

Connect with Lamar on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Focus on the problem
The bigger the problem, the more opportunities to make money
Community building strategy from scratch

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show we have Lamar Tyler and he is with traffic, sales and profit. Welcome, Lamar.

Lamar Tyler: [00:00:35] Hey. Welcome. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about traffic, sales and profit. How are you serving, folks?

Lamar Tyler: [00:00:42] Sure, traffic sales and profit is a business network. What we focus on increasing the amount of entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs in the African-American community, right? So we know that if we can have more sustainable businesses, we can lower unemployment and we can help close generational wealth gaps and other issues that we may face, right? Just because we will have more opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:03] So what’s your back story? What inspired you to take on this cause?

Lamar Tyler: [00:01:07] Sure. So I’ve had different businesses over the years and my my corporate background. I worked in I.T.. I ran the I.T. department at Fox five in D.C., Washington, D.C. and my wife and I actually started a blog about 15 years ago now, and it was around marriages, around parenting, and the blog took off. We started doing documentary films and e-books and audio books and membership sites and really learn how to market and leverage digital media to connect with customers to sell products and services that actually met needs and challenges that they face and really learn how to build a business. And at the time, it was very visible. We got a lot of press behind it, so people started coming to us and saying, Hey, can you teach me how to do the same thing? And we did, and that’s when we started traffic, sales and profit. So I said to to show other entrepreneurs, if so many people had great ideas that had great products, great services, but just didn’t know exactly how to get them into the hands of consumers and really didn’t know how to leverage the internet in the process. And that’s what we help people do.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:04] So what were the first kind of breadcrumbs that kind of made you think, Hey, this thing’s got a chance here?

Lamar Tyler: [00:02:12] You know what it was, and it was not like an immediate hit, even though we had a previous brand that had a sizable online community and presence where we quickly learn is that this new business that we were starting had a different avatar, had a different perfect customer and had a different pain point that it solved. So we started with online courses and trainings, and they did OK. We did a conference and we said, Hey, this first conference, we hope to have two hundred people there. We didn’t get that say we’ll have at least a hundred didn’t get that. Forty seven people showed up and half of them had free tickets anyway to come. But we just kept being consistent and as we were consistent, we started to see online community grow right with the focus of a free Facebook group that we have called traffic sales and profit. So we saw online community grow. We saw people start to show up more and it just was the more we were consistent with building that network and pouring value and information into those people, then we could see the breadcrumbs of an audience starting to come, people starting to want more information, wanting to come to events, wanting to get a hold of the resources that we had available to them.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:16] And there was there any kind of mentor or anybody that was kind of helping you at all at this time? Or this was you just kind of throwing stuff against the wall, just trying a variety of things until you were kind of finding things that worked and just expanding upon that?

Lamar Tyler: [00:03:30] Sure. My wife is in business with me, so I’m the the the idea guy, right? She’s the one that actually makes the ideas work. She’s a project manager by trade. So together we were in it and with our original that marriage and parenting brand I talked about, we did what you said. We just kind of were throwing things at the wall. This stuff just didn’t and we were successful, but we learned that that was probably the hardest possible way to do it. So with this new business, as we kind of grew and we got down the path where we started doing was hiring consultants, getting into masterminds and coaching programs and things that basically to give us a shortcut because we were connected, what other people had already done, what we wanted to do. So instead of trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t, they could point in that direction. Get us 80 percent of the weight in, and we just had to do the work to see if it fit for our audience so that,

Lee Kantor: [00:04:18] Well, you know, in this world, it’s kind of the Wild West out there. How did you kind of identify who the kind of real people were and who were the pretenders?

Lamar Tyler: [00:04:28] Oh, that’s a great question. For us, it was really going out right and is interesting now because we don’t really do it much because everything went on, but it was going out and meet people in person for one. So going out, meet people in person, going to conferences, going to networking events and being able to really get a personal feel. Because all we say, the thing is great about the internet is that anyone can be there, right and represent their business. The thing is bad about the internet is that anyone can be there and represent their business. So it’s a lot harder to tell who’s real and who’s fake, who’s who’s really done it, who can validate that they’ve done it online. So so really a just meeting those people in person, pulling up to them. But then b the other thing we learn is that it’s not so much. That we focus on the coach of the consultant. We want to focus on the people that they’ve actually worked with, right? What are the results that the people that have come to their programs have actually attained? So it’s not about how much money they have, how many resources they have, how how big they are, like, where’s the fruit from that tree? And can we see success all around that actual coach or consultant of that program? Because if a lot of other people came through and they were successful, then we know we probably can be successful too.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:37] And as part of the journey, you moved here to Atlanta.

Lamar Tyler: [00:05:42] Definitely so. So, like I said, we were in the Washington, D.C., area. We moved to Atlanta in one of the reasons I moved here and I actually moved here when I transitioned from working my nine to five to being a full time entrepreneur because at the time, everyone that was doing what I wanted to do in that digital space lived in Atlanta. And when I got here, I realized how different it was because it felt to me right on, on a professional. And as far as, you know, success and things like that, there were a lot of successful people I know in the D.C. area. But when I got here, what I realized is that there was a different kernel of entrepreneurship here. And that’s what I’m always telling people is it’s like Atlanta is just different when it comes to business, when it comes to entrepreneurship. I think there are a few different factors that play that play into it, but I don’t think there’s any place like it in the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:30] I find that our ecosystem is pretty collaborative and the economy is very diverse. There isn’t kind of one specialty like in D.C. it was probably a lot of people around the government. But here there’s a lot of diversity in terms of the economy

Lamar Tyler: [00:06:45] In terms of go ahead and would you say it’s only it right? In D.C., everything is government or government contractors, but like you said, here is so diverse and to be honest, also just like the cost of living makes it a lot easier to go out and try and bootstrap or start something on your own. If you don’t have, you know, five years worth of funding where in the D.C. area because of the cost of living like oftentimes you would need not only be working, but you would need a successful, well-paying nine to five and your spouse would need a successful, well-paying nine to five just to make kind of ends meet. So when we got down here and we saw the cost of living was a lot lower. One of the things we saw a lot of were entrepreneurs and stay at home parents, and that’s what we did not see in the D.C. area, just because the cost of living is so high.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:29] So now how have you kind of immerse yourself in the community? What groups are you kind of gravitating towards? And you know, what are some of the things that you’ve been up to?

Lamar Tyler: [00:07:39] Sure. Well, we’re a member of several chambers. And then what we’ve done was interesting enough. We do two conferences a year here in the Atlanta area. Most recently, we’ve been doing them at the Westin in Buckhead, next, next to Links Mall. But interestingly enough, we first came. The majority of our audience was not actually coming to the events from Atlanta. They were coming from the D.C. area of Chicago. We have a lot of folks from Houston and Dallas in Texas to come in, but by being consistent and just growing our presence here, right, we’re going to get more people from the actual local region. And so again, that consistency part I was talking about and really like I said, just as we connect it, more entrepreneurs connect with us, just connecting with them, finding out more about their stories and sharing their stories. It’s been a great benefit to us and being a part of this community.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:28] And then the ideal client fit for you is this kind of entrepreneur that is kind of have a higher purpose that there’s a kind of a why behind what they’re doing. They’re just not here trying to make money. They’re trying to really make a difference.

Lamar Tyler: [00:08:42] Definitely. So, you know, because you know, you know, you definitely can make money just making a widget every day, day in, day out and selling it and scaling it. But really, what we want to do is we want to impact the communities that we’re in and we want people that, hey, like, I want to make money and I want to make an impact in the difference all together. So that really is who we speak to. It is really who we find show ups for our events and our programs and we like to work with.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:05] Now are you working with the whole gamut of entrepreneur, that person who has maybe just like you said that day job and has a dream, as well as that person that is struggling and wants to get to a new level?

Lamar Tyler: [00:09:19] We do, but we work through them through different types of programs. So, for instance, we have like an online course program that just kind of gives information, has some group components, right, where we have coaches come in and do answer questions, kind of set people on the path if they’re just starting out. Now we do say you need to actually have a business. We don’t really coach around clarity around what should I do, but if they have a business, they can come in and we do help with that. But then on the other end, we do have multiple six figure seven multiple seven figure companies that are on the other end of that scale that are looking for kind of growth, looking for help around leadership and looking for help to kind of get the different components that they need to try to reach eight figures and beyond.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:58] And then is the primary kind of driver are these kind of big events that are bringing people together and then they can splinter off into these other courses and the other services?

Lamar Tyler: [00:10:08] Sure, it’s between big events. We do a lot of online challenges as well, right? So we do our free online challenges where entrepreneurs can kind of come in and get the information that they need because a lot of times they had somebody in the face on Facebook, say, just a few days ago, like like, they’re doing a lot of things right, but it just could be like two or three degrees of separation between like where they are and where they want to be. And a lot of times just pulling one lever that they may not have pulled yet. They kind of catapulted, catapults their marketing or gets their product or service in front of more people. So we do do a lot of free challenges as well online just to bring people into our ecosystem. To help share and show some things right, and again, to as we talked about before, validate that, hey, we actually do know we’re talking about, we actually do the things that we teach. We haven’t just read them somewhere and then kind of regurgitate them to you, and we can help you kind of move the needle forward in your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:56] Well, how about we give some advice for the entrepreneur out there that maybe isn’t maybe ready to talk to you yet, but has a dream of, you know, taking their business to a new level? Is there something in their digital marketing they could be doing today that it’s going to move the needle tomorrow?

Lamar Tyler: [00:11:13] Sure. Number one, what I would say is really focused on what is the problem or challenge that you solve, right and right? The bigger that problem, a challenge is for the people that you solving for the more opportunity there is and the more opportunities for you to kind of make money in that market too, right? If they really want that pain to go away. They really want that problem to go away. And it’s something that they’re really aching and they want to get rid of. I really will focus on that. The next thing I would do is really get clear on who the people that you’re serving are too many times ahead. Entrepreneurs say, Well, you know, I serve women or men between the ages of 20 and 80, and they can live in Atlanta or Chicago or Bali or Mexico in. And obviously, if you’re serving everyone, you’re really not serving anyone. So getting crystal clarity around what is the actual problem of challenge challenging my product and service overcomes. Who specifically is the person that I’m speaking to? What’s the demographic data? Was the psychographic data? What are their thoughts, their beliefs when they come to me? Are they frustrated or are they stressed out? So I know how to talk to them? And then? What I would this is what I prefer to build communities, right? I’m all I’m a community. I like building communities of people that we can speak directly to to have these certain pain points. And then it’s not like we’re fishing in a small pond that’s stacked full of fish, right? And instead of going out into the ocean and I like like really, really building a community of people that face the issue to face a problem and then being there to provide a solution for them. So those got like some initial things I would look at as you begin to say, Hey, how can I get more traction towards my business?

Lee Kantor: [00:12:42] And if they said, OK, I buy into this community building strategy, how would someone start a community from scratch?

Lamar Tyler: [00:12:50] Well, what I would do first is I would look at what social platform your community is on, and just a quick Google search can give you demographic data. It’ll say, Hey, if I’m going be to be, maybe I want to be on LinkedIn. If you know, if I’m reaching a demographic and based on what you sell and what you do right, you may want to be on Pinterest. So maybe it’s Instagram, or maybe it’s Facebook or such, but really find out where your people are and then that’s where you should be as well. And then when you’re there, another tip I’ll give is two things right. You do not have to build a community specifically pointed to your product, and I want to kind of bring some clarity around that. Like a lot of times, if people see a community, maybe it’s a Facebook group, for example, and it’s built around your product name. If I don’t know your product, I’m not joining that group. But if it’s a community built around the name of the problem or the issue or, you know, whatever the thing is that I’m facing, if I’m a realtor and I’m in real estate and I want more clients, I can say, OK, Lamar Tyler Realty, which is not a real thing, folks. I don’t look that up. I can say Lamar Tyler.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:50] Yeah, it might be. Who knows?

Lamar Tyler: [00:13:52] Five years? Right? I don’t know. But if I had a group called Lamar Tyler Realty, unless you know me, you wouldn’t care about that group. On the other hand, if I had a group that said, you know, best homes and neighborhoods in Gwinnett and, you know, then I may attract people to either living on that or they want to live in Gwinnett or interest in maybe moving to Gwinnett. And then I could create and curate content around, you know, maybe these are the the best schools in Gwinnett. These are the safest neighborhoods in Gwinnett. All the things that people in the home buying process may be interested in. And now, once I have a large pool of now, I’m creating value in a resource to them, then I can get them to know like and trust me, I can start to build rapport with them, and it’ll be a lot easier for me to move them into my products and services because they’ll already know who I am and what I do.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:38] Now I find a lot of entrepreneurs, especially aspiring entrepreneurs, they’re trying to kind of fast forward the process in terms of, well, look, I’m going to go on Facebook, let me just buy some Facebook ads or let me buy some ads and that’ll solve all my problems. I find that that’s kind of sometimes ineffective. And unless you have a lot of money, it’s hard to really make that payoff over time.

Lamar Tyler: [00:15:04] Well, you know what, you’re right, if these people do not have clarity and that’s the thing I always talk about, I love it, one of my mentors told me a long time ago, he says, three ways you can build traffic and everybody listening. Traffic is just leads with people. If you’ve got a brick and mortar, traffic is the people that come into your store that are looking and could potentially buy if you have online traffic is the people that come to your website. But he talked about and said, You can build it, you can borrow it or you can buy it, and buying it is the quickest way. Which is, like you said, advertising paid ads, things like Google ads or Facebook ads, or it could be radio, TV newspapers, any kind of legacy media buys as well. But when you buy in traffic, you need to be crystal clear on who you’re speaking to, how you speak to them, how you attract them, and then make sure you have an offer that converts on the back end because, like you said, you can spend a lot of money quickly. For good or bad, right, so you have to know what you’re doing. The other thing is right is most people, what they do is they try to build traffic, which is the organic just growth and going out and I call it like the digital version of shaking hands and kissing babies. And maybe you have a Facebook page, maybe you have an Instagram or LinkedIn.

Lamar Tyler: [00:16:09] Maybe you post things periodically, but it’s like you’re going out doing these, these things. Maybe you’re doing livestreams or going out, you know, getting a few people at a time. The thing is great, as these are your ride or die people thing as bad as this, just slow. One of the other things that people don’t do enough of is borrowing traffic, which is when you find a community or a person that already has your avatar in it, they’ve already accumulated a group or a community like we talked about of people, just like the people that want to purchase or need to purchase your product or service. So looking for groups like that and there are online groups and offline groups and figuring out how can I connect with that group? How can I offer value to them so that I can get my product to service in front of their people? And like, what’s in it for them to give me access to their crowd? So they’ve already spent the time building. I don’t have to spend a time building mine. A lot of times you have to pay for it up front like you would advertising, but you get access to that audience, make money and then maybe do some type of revenue share or split on the back end with the people that actually organize or own that group.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:05] Well, folks, if you’re listening, that was the tip of the day. If you kind of take that information, those three ways to generate traffic build borrower buy that should be money in your pocket because I think you’re exactly right there, Lamar, that that is the key to success in, especially in a digital world that we’re in now. Yes. Now, if somebody wants to learn more about traffic, sales and profit, you know, go to event, check out some of the courses. Just connect with you. What is the best way to do that? Is there a website?

Lamar Tyler: [00:17:37] Sure. Everything is on our website. You can go to WW W traffic, sales and profit and that’s and traffic sales and profit on that. You can find me find more information about the events, our programs and anything else that we’re doing.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:52] Good stuff. Well, Lamar, a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Lamar Tyler: [00:17:59] Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:01] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Angela Paules With Buzz Franchise Brands

February 10, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Austin Business Radio

Angela Paules With Buzz Franchise Brands

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Brought To You By SeoSamba . . . Comprehensive, High Performing Marketing Solutions For Mature And Emerging Franchise Brands . . . To Supercharge Your Franchise Marketing, Go To seosamba.com.

Angela Paules joined Buzz Franchise Brands in July 2012 and currently serves as Chief Marketing Officer for the company. Prior to her entry into the franchise industry, Angela worked as Marketing Manager for The University of Texas at Austin’s top-ranked McCombs School of Business.

Before joining the McCombs School she worked in media planning for Austin-based advertising agency GSD&M, managing high-profile clients such as BMW and Walmart. Angela also co-founded and ran a successful coffee shop business in Austin, Texas. Angela earned her undergraduate degree from The University of Texas at Austin and received her Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) designation in 2016.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by SeoSamba Comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands to supercharge your franchise marketing. Go to seosamba.com that’s seosamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Angela Pauls with buzz franchise brands. Welcome, Angela.

Angela Paules: [00:00:41] Thank you. Good to be here.

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

Angela Paules: [00:00:48] So bus franchise brands were a multi brand franchising company, and our current brand portfolio includes Pool Scouts, which is a residential school cleaning franchise. Home Claim Heroes, which is residential house cleaning, and British Swim School, which is water safety and swim instruction for kids and adults of all ages.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] Now what was the kind of how did the the company get started? Did it start in one brand and then evolved into these others? Or was it built to be a conglomerate all along?

Angela Paules: [00:01:21] Yeah, it actually it did start as one brand. In fact, our our founding brand was Mosquito Joe, and it’s that started in 2012 when our CEO, Kevin Wilson, purchased a local mosquito control business that was operating in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area and called Mosquito Joe, and was working with the founders to expand the business through franchising. And so he recruited the our initial corporate team of about five people, myself included. And we were really tasked with taking that local business that had two trucks operating and a few hundred customers and turned it into what became one of the fastest growing franchises, especially in the home services space. We grew that business to over three hundred and fifty locations and eventually sold it in 2018 to neighborly. So along the way, in about 2015, we sort of transitioned into a multi brand strategy and that was really kind of the birth of the parent company of bus franchise brands and and really we we saw what we were doing with Mosquito Joe, and we just felt like we could serve in other ways. We had a really strong team, some really strong systems in place. And so in 2016, we launched pool scouts and both with the local operation that we operated and franchising effort simultaneously. And then just about a year later, we launched a local operation for home clean heroes and began franchising that business in Twenty Eighteen, which was the same year as I mentioned that we sold Mosquito Joe. And then in 2019, we acquired British Swim School. So that’s how we got to three brands currently, and our intent is to continue to build additional brands over the years to come. We sort of put everything on pause as far as larger brand portfolio growth during COVID so that we could really focus on our existing franchises and everything that they were going through and the additional support that they needed during that time. But now that everybody’s back up and operating and things are turning more normal than they have been in the last few years, we’re ready to continue to build on that as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:57] And the name buzz is an homage to the beginnings at mosquito growth.

Angela Paules: [00:04:03] It’s a bit of a it’s a bit of both. It’s kind of a nice tie to that. But we also are. Our tagline is that we build build companies that get people talking. And so just kind of being the the buzz, we’re very people oriented businesses. All of our brands are service focused businesses. And so it’s really that building the buzz in the communities through the services that we’re providing

Lee Kantor: [00:04:26] Now, I’m seeing more and more kind of clusters of brands around a certain type of customer. Is that kind of your strategy and that this in this home services space, a customer to one of your brands might be a customer to, you know, all of your brands?

Angela Paules: [00:04:45] Potentially. Yeah, we definitely started in the home services space, mosquito pool scouts and home clean heroes. All very much home service focused British Swim School was a bit of a divergence from that, but in that it’s not a home service, but it is still bringing our services to people in. The consumer doesn’t look that different from those in our other brands, so we certainly look for opportunities to have customers who would fit multiple of our brands, but we also don’t try to force that relationship. We in markets where we have multiple operating brands, we certainly provide all the support and materials to make sure that people are aware that we have sister brands. And and there may be some promotional opportunities around that, but we don’t want to lose the core consumer for each of our individual brands or that core message either. So it’s I think there’s a bit of a balance there between maintaining that authenticity and being able to encourage people that if you’re happy working with us in this capacity with this brand and we’re cleaning your house and you also have a pool, we can help you there as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:58] Now does that help in the acquisition of franchisees to to give them a path to create multiple revenue streams with kind of that economies of scale of the customer acquisition?

Angela Paules: [00:06:10] Yeah, it is certainly something that’s out there, we don’t have we only have a couple franchisees at this point that are operating more than one brand. And it’s it’s again one of those things where we want to see a franchisee typically come in with focused on one brand and really get them successful in that space first and then look at, OK, what are ways that we can continue to build on your business? Is it opening additional territories of that particular brand and growing that way? Or is it adding a complementary brand in your area and growing that way? There’s a few different options there, so we’ll work with franchisees to figure out what’s the best fit for them

Lee Kantor: [00:06:49] Now as part of your secret sauce, the ability to identify and acquire franchisees is that what makes you special? It buzzes that part of what differentiates you or is your ability to kind of create these brands that the consumer gravitates towards.

Angela Paules: [00:07:11] Yeah, I think, you know, I’m a marketing person, so I’m pretty biased in that regard, but I would say that I think our marketing is something that differentiates us. We put a lot of emphasis into the brands that we build from the start. We do a lot of research, consumer research and get to get our brand set up strong for success from the start. And then we’ve built essentially an in-house agency of support. And so we have a digital team, we have a creative team that that’s capabilities go from everything designed to video and photography. We’ve got a direct mail marketing team and then we’ve got brand dedicated marketing teams that really help our franchisees focus on local marketing efforts like building partnerships and getting out there in their communities. And so even when we have a new emerging brand that may only have five core people on the team, they’re leveraging all these shared services marketing resources to give them an additional maybe 10 people who are also supporting that brand. So it is it’s a lot of being able to have some good in-house expertize across the different functions of marketing that I think really supports us and our franchisees being successful when it comes to customer recruitment and even just building the relationships with consumers beyond the initial acquisition as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:41] Now, any advice for an emerging franchise that’s out there, that is maybe at the beginning stages, you have a lot of track record and probably scar tissue of launching a new brand. Is there some kind of dos and don’ts you’ve learned over the years that help a emerging franchise? You know, maybe get that escape velocity they need to really, you know, have that explosive growth that you’ve experienced?

Angela Paules: [00:09:05] There’s a few things that come to mind. I mean, I think part of it is really hiring the right people. And and I think that goes functionally speaking, but also culturally speaking, you want to build a team of people who really believes in what they’re doing and who really cares about your company’s mission. Our mission at BFD is to enable people to realize their dreams, and that goes through largely through our franchisees having the business ownership opportunity. But it’s really important that all of our corporate team who are supporting our franchisees believes in that mission as well, and that they really care and see their own personal contribution through their role to supporting the franchisees. So that’s one thing I would say is, you know, hire slow, I guess, as they say, make good, make good decisions there. And then I think just be very aware of your situation and know that things may change and evolve as your your brand grows. So when we started out with Mosquito Joe and there were five of us. I wasn’t running an in-house agency at that point. I was outsourcing a lot of what we were doing from a marketing perspective because I was the only marketing resources resource. However, as our brand was growing and we were able to add more in-house support, we were able to over time sort of transition and bring more services in-house and kind of pick and choose what was outsourced first versus handled in-house.

Angela Paules: [00:10:45] So I think sometimes it can be tempting as an emerging brand to go out and ask everybody else what they’re doing, who’s really successful and then mirror that to a T. And sometimes that’s just not realistic, depending on where you are in that stage of growth for your brand. So I think being very aware of that and then the last thing I would say is staying very focused on your customer, knowing who that person is, communicating with them, regularly, sending them surveys after every service that you’re doing so that you know where where operations are going, well, where there’s opportunities for improvement, what you could do better to help retain them for a longer period of time or get them to maybe increase their spend and what they’re doing with you. But you don’t want to make assumptions on that sort of thing. And that can also change over time. So it shouldn’t be a one time communication, but making sure that you’re very focused on that. So whether you’re doing surveys or focus groups or or a variety of things, make sure that you you’re always staying in touch with who that customer is. And in prioritizing that as you think about the decisions that you make growing your brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:08] Now, from a tactical standpoint in marketing. As there are certain things that you see that emerging brands aren’t kind of leveraging to the degree that you would recommend, like are they leaning too heavily, maybe on digital marketing and they should be focusing on maybe more partnerships among, you know, human to human relationships and leverage those kind of things? Is there something that you see out there that you wish people would do more of?

Angela Paules: [00:12:36] Yeah, that’s a great question, and I do think there is a tendency. Everything really has gone digital in a lot of ways, and so that does tend to be our first place to go from a marketing perspective, and I see everybody throwing all their eggs in that digital basket. But the reality is there’s there’s still not a silver bullet when it comes to marketing, and the old adage of the rule of seven still applies where consumers, it’s going to take seeing your message several different times and in several different places before they’re going to take action. And I would say that that the current version of that is probably more like the rule of twenty five or something with the amount of media impressions that we’re exposed to on a daily basis. So you don’t want to count on the only place that you’re finding consumers to be online, you want people to certainly see messages online, and that’s a great place to communicate with people because we’re spending so much time there. But also, as you’re being active in the community, people still want to do business with people.

Angela Paules: [00:13:44] That has not changed. And so if you’ve got opportunities to have a face to face conversation with someone who could be a potential customer, you’re building a much stronger and more personal relationship from the start. And that’s going to be the kind of customer who feels like they know your brand and have a different level of loyalty to your brand. That’s going to be the one that’s telling their friends and referring other people to you. And and by nature, those referred customers are also going to be tend to be more loyal. So I definitely think local marketing is key and making sure that your franchisees feel comfortable and empowered to go out there and know how to speak about their business and where to speak about their business and what some of those partnerships that they should pursue are. Because I think that’s that’s probably one of the most important things. It’s just remembering that that people still want to do business with people. So the more that you can personalize that experience, the better.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:47] And and that’s really, I think one of the key learnings that a franchisee has to that mindset has to shift in terms of that’s something that they have to do. A lot of that kind of boots on the ground work of building those relationships. And it’s it’s not something that corporate can just run blanket ads and that’s going to be some magic ticket to success. It requires it’s a team, you know?

Angela Paules: [00:15:11] Exactly. And that’s one of the things, you know, when I have new franchisees come through training, a lot of them ask, You know, what is it that makes your most successful franchisees? What are they doing different than than those that are maybe just trucking along? And and I always say it’s the ones that that get out there and are active. And if you are not the kind of person who is very social or is a very comfortable networker or has the time to get out there and do things, that’s OK, but then you should definitely find someone that can do that for your business if it’s not you. So whether you’re hiring someone, whether you’re getting a college intern or somebody who is really passionate about representing your business and believes in your mission and love speaking with people and is going to be the brand ambassador out there where you’re branded polo and going and interacting in places where your customers will be. That’s really essential, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:16] It’s hard to kind of outsource that. If you’re going to outsource it, they you have to outsource it to somebody who is willing to be that evangelist that’s out there, human to human representing the brand, you need the brand ubiquity to a certain degree in order to get those seven to twenty five impressions so they can make an informed buying decision. So it’s going to happen one way or another. Either you’re going to pay for it in terms of running a million ads or you’re going to pay for it in terms of hiring the right person or you’re going to pay for it in terms of your time being out there, being that ambassador.

Angela Paules: [00:16:52] Exactly. And it’s probably going to be a combination of all of the above. But I do think one mistake that I do see people make is just trying to check that off the list and say, OK, well, we had a table at the local Fourth of July parade or something. It’s like, OK, but who is who was there representing you? Was it someone sitting in a chair behind the table waiting for people to approach them and ask questions? Or was it somebody out there engaging and handing out branded tchotchkes and interacting and starting conversations with the kids walking by? Or was it someone who was really going beyond and not expecting people to come? You are you going to engage with them?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:38] Right? And that’s that’s probably the key when you’re trying to identify that ideal franchisee. Or are they going to do that or do they have a plan to do to behave in that manner in order to get the success that both of you want?

Angela Paules: [00:17:52] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:53] Now let’s talk a little bit about the idea of franchisee. Have you identified the type of person that makes a good buzz franchisee?

Angela Paules: [00:18:02] So we we talk about candidates who are passionate, hardworking and driven. I mean, that’s kind of the core of the core traits that we want. You know, a certain level of business understanding is is ideal. But there’s also that’s also pretty trainable area. We’ve got a lot of systems in place and we can educate on that. I think it comes down to people with our brands who are are passionate about people and who are people, people, you know, and and who can build those relationships. Those are the ones that are going to be successful. And then by each individual brand, there may be different aspects to to the brand that appeal to different types of people. So, for example, British Swim School or mission really is about helping to save lives and helping to reduce the situations of drowning across North America to by helping people understand and learn key lifesaving skills and water safety skills, and then learning how to swim. And so the type of person that’s going to be a great franchisee, there is someone who maybe really enjoys working with kids or really feels passionate about a purpose driven brand and making an impact in that way in their community pool scouts. It may be someone who has a little bit more technical or mechanical interest or background, or someone who wants to spend more time outside and what they’re doing. So it can. It can vary a bit by brand as well, but I think the core of it really is about being hardworking, enjoying working with people and building relationships.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:53] And if somebody wants to learn more about the brands and get on your calendar or somebody on the team’s calendar to have a more substantive conversation, what’s the website?

Angela Paules: [00:20:03] Yeah, so you can go to Buzz Franchise Brands, the best franchise brand, and that’s got links to all three of our different brands. And from there you can fill out forms to get in touch with us, and we’d love to share information with anyone about our brands.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:21] Well, Angela, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Angela Paules: [00:20:26] Thanks so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:27] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Marie Davis With Path to Shine And Brian Gamel With Woodstock Arts

February 10, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Cherokee Business Radio

Marie Davis With Path to Shine And Brian Gamel With Woodstock Arts

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This Episode was brought to you by

Marie Davis, Executive Director at Path To Shine

Marie is an Atlanta, Georgia native. After obtaining a Social Work degree at The University of Georgia, she served as a foster care coordinator for the State of Georgia, certifying foster parents and working with foster care children. After obtaining a Series 7 and 63 financial license, she worked with a private financial firm as Assistant to the President.

While raising her two children, Marie worked for a local developer, forming relationships with County and State officials. Moving to Florida for ten years, Marie served as a Targeted Case Manager with Children’s Home Society of Florida and a certified tutor for autistic children. Marie also served as the Director of Mentoring for Center Point, a non-profit in Hall County Georgia. She recruited and trained mentors for several school systems.

She is also a Technical Assistant for www.mentoring.org, the National MENTOR program; through that program, she works with mentor programs across the country to help them with direction and development. Program innovation and designing ways to serve all children through mentorship is what she loves best about her job. Marie also serves on the Georgia Mentor Provider Council.

Currently, Marie is the Launch Manager for Georgia Center for Employee Ownership, directing the opening of the Georgia program.

Follow Path To Shine on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Brian Gamel, Managing Director at Woodstock Arts

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

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Angela Paules: [00:00:41] Thank you. Good to be here.

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

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] Now what was the kind of how did the the company get started? Did it start in one brand and then evolved into these others? Or was it built to be a conglomerate all along?

Lee Kantor: [00:03:57] And the name buzz is an homage to the beginnings at mosquito growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:58] Now does that help in the acquisition of franchisees to to give them a path to create multiple revenue streams with kind of that economies of scale of the customer acquisition?

Angela Paules: [00:17:52] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:53] Now let’s talk a little bit about the idea of franchisee. Have you identified the type of person that makes a good buzz franchisee?

Lee Kantor: [00:20:21] Well, Angela, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Angela Paules: [00:20:26] Thanks so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:27] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Don McCrea With Your Business Legacy

February 9, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Austin Business Radio

Don McCrea With Your Business Legacy

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Don McCrea is the head of Your Business Legacy, and a family business retirement exit planning coach. For over 25 years, he helped individuals and their businesses achieve phenomenal, enduring success. He worked with businesses of all sizes in a variety of capacities—business strategist; management, marketing and sales consultant; sales, marketing, and systems development manager; intrapreneur (in-house entrepreneur); and systems designer; custom education solutions consultant; and educator.

Don holds a Ph.D. in Executive Management from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan.

Connect with Don on LinkedIn and follow YBL on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Successfully Retiring as a Family Business Owner
The biggest issues family business owners face when preparing to retire
The critical pieces to plan for to successfully pass on the 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 fun one today on the show, we have Don McCrea and he is with your business legacy. Welcome, Don.

Don McCrea: [00:00:42] Great. Thank you, Lee. It’s a pleasure 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 your business legacy. How are you serving, folks?

Don McCrea: [00:00:49] The primary audience that I serve are those who are ready to either retire from their business or if they want to spend a little less time with their business. And I focus on family businesses, that’s a special place in my heart. But it doesn’t have to be considered to be a family business because the needs are all the same and the bigger. The big issues, of course, are the lack of planning and even recognizing the need to perhaps do some considerable planning before they retire from their business. So it’s about helping them retire successfully and helping them transition that business successfully to the next leader.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] Now how do you open up the conversation with a business owner? Because I would think that this is something they’re so heads down and they’re so usually driven and ambitious that stopping isn’t kind of in their radar. Does something typically happen? Is there something like a health scare or does some some event happen that kind of opens up their mind of, Hey, I better have a plan here. I can’t just let this kind of jump out at me.

Don McCrea: [00:01:54] Well, it can. It can happen in a variety of ways, and certainly some of it is, you know, I just like to spend less time with my business. This is really much more of a referral business. My best referral sources are estate planners, financial planners, sometimes CPAs, because they’re all having these endpoint conversations with the business owner. And, you know, just part of financial planning and estate planning, especially is really looking at when do you expect this event to occur and what part of that. So a lot of it is those those referral sources, some of it, though, is is business owners who just want a change in their business and they’re not sure where to go, what to do next, how to even get started in it. There’s a huge lack of of even recognition that planning ahead is necessary. It’s almost as though they they they it’s kind of at the back of their mind. Well, I can either sell the business or close the doors and and not understanding that even selling the business may require a lot of planning if they’ve been making all the decisions for 30 years and and they’ve not groomed, excuse me, succession in that if they’ve not groomed their successors for that, then the business doesn’t have much value because someone else can’t just step in and take the lead.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:16] Now, when you’re having these conversations with folks, they might, I guess, intellectually understand that, but they hadn’t maybe tactically done anything to, you know, kind of ensure that the transition happens seamlessly. I would imagine that that opens up a can of worms for them. It’s like, OK, now what do I do? And I can’t retire today. That means I have to wait a period of time. I would imagine it’s a couple of years, at least, to transition into having a sellable business because that might not be a sellable business, might be a different business than the one that they have because they might have to put things in place to make it more attractive in order to bring out the most value.

Don McCrea: [00:03:55] That’s exactly right. And and, you know, selling the business is just one of a number of options, particularly if it’s a family business. There may be a family member, a son, a daughter or a niece nephew who’s interested in really running the business. On the other hand, I’m I’m seeing more now of this younger generation that they want to go do their own thing. And so the the business founder is is kind of left hanging as well. I want to preserve this legacy that I’ve created over decades. How do I do that? Who do I transition it to? And some of the options are things like worker cooperatives, for example, or bringing in a business partner and allowing that partner to really take on more much more of the day to day operational aspects of the business. So there are just a variety of things that that can be considered. So the first is stage usually is I want something different, but I’m not sure what to do next. And that’s usually where I I get involved and it’s it’s an educational process. That’s part of the reason that I’m out there speaking to groups doing networking, et cetera, is to just make them aware of of the need to talk to someone who understands the process.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:17] And it’s one of those things I would imagine you find that in the head of the business owner, they think that the business is worth X. And then, you know, when you get someone to do a valuation, it might be X minus and they might. Really want to accept that or or they it kind of makes them aware that they might have to put things in place to make it get the valuation that they would like it to get. Do you help them through that?

Don McCrea: [00:05:44] I I can. I do. That’s that’s certainly one of the options. Once they’ve looked at other options like a worker cooperative, for example, then well, let’s

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Let’s pause right there. Worker worker cooperative is a new term to me, and it’s probably to a lot of our listeners. Can you explain what that means and how it works?

Don McCrea: [00:06:07] Sure. Most people are familiar with ESOPs employee stock ownership program. Sure. And there’s a there’s there are a lot of regulations associated with it, and I’m not an attorney. I call in business attorneys, estate planners, financial planners, et cetera. When that’s really what the client calls for and make sure that everyone’s talking to everyone else. Examples are complicated and they have rules and regulations associated with them and the filings you have to do and so on. Worker cooperatives are a much simpler process, and it’s when some or all of the all of the employees have a share in the business and there there are processes to put that together. I have a couple of consultants I work with who are specialists in really working through all of the issues of that, but it’s much simpler. It doesn’t have the rules and regulations. It really depends much more upon the the devotion of the employees, their interest in owning a piece of a business of their own, their willingness to to put in the time and the effort to do that. And then is the leadership and and business management expertize. They’re either individually or collectively. And if not, there are things that can be done to really build that expertize as well. So it’s each situation is totally different than the other, but it is really focused on the business and the employees being able to run that business successfully as opposed to meeting all these rules and regulations and so on that Aesop’s require.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:42] So now when you’re talking to a business leader about their options and they’re weighing, you know, what is the best fit for them? What are some of the questions that they typically ask you in order to kind of hone in on, you know, on what is the best option and what are some of the trade offs of the different options?

Don McCrea: [00:08:03] Well, it’s it’s much more of a conversation than than a question and response sort of thing because they don’t know what questions to ask very often. Very often it’s it’s what do I do next? Where do I start? What’s involved? And that initial exploratory conversation, it’s a complimentary conversation that really gets into understanding what what are they looking to do next with their life? What are their goals? Do they just want to spend less time with their business for a couple of years and maybe do a little more traveling? Or do they really want to fully separate from the business? And those are very different decisions because fully separating is almost a grieving process. This is your baby you’ve built for 30 plus years. All of a sudden you’re going to step away from that baby. And so a piece of that discussion is is really helping them understand what do they really want to do with their lives? And are they prepared to do that? I mean, I’ve, you know, I could tell you a number of stories of business owners, for example, that had had done no financial planning whatsoever.

Don McCrea: [00:09:17] They want to sell their business. One instance, for example, had two offers and you want to know what’s the right price for the business. And as we got into the conversation, it turned out that that he and his wife and their late 50s or early 60s did not have a financial plan. They had no idea how they were going to carry on the quality of life that they’d had for the next 20 years. So they I put them in touch with a financial planner that really helped them begin to look at what role that business and its its income or its financial return, if it were sold, would play in that and that long term financial plan that they really needed to put together. And they ultimately decided neither of those options were right. They needed a few more years to really build that financial plan and be assured of a quality of life that they really wanted and to do the traveling and so on for the next next 20 years of their lives.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:14] Now is that unusual to have a business leader at that stage of their career to just, you know, just think, Oh, I’ll just sell my business and that’s my retirement plan and then just hope it all works out?

Don McCrea: [00:10:28] Well, a piece of it is what you brought up much earlier that they’re so busy that. They haven’t they haven’t really given it much thought. You know, their focus for so many years has been on the business, on the business itself and and ensuring the business is successful. So they haven’t really given a lot of thought to that planning. A number of them do. They do have financial planners. They they really have been focused on building wealth for themselves and their family. But for example, there’s there’s one client that I’m beginning to get engaged with right now that the the business itself is a food truck, but it is a they’ve had that business for 30 years, includes catering business, very successful, located in the middle of downtown San Francisco. These are two young people that came as as kids off the streets in Mexico some number of years ago that now have a very successful business. They own a home of their own, and they own two ranches in the Central Valley, one of which supplies the the meat for the for the catering and and Typekit truck business. And they have no estate plan. Their business, the business is a sole proprietorship. There’s no legal structure there that that protects the business. And there’s there there’s no planning to protect the the considerable assets that they’ve built. And that was early on in the discussion, and the first thing I did was put them in touch and bring a financial planner in and turns out they need someone who’s who speaks Spanish as well. And so we’ve we’ve got the second financial planner involved who’s now working with them to get just the powers of attorney and some initial protection in place so that we can begin to look at how how their son really needs to work through with them to take over the business.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:22] Now in your career, you mentioned that you’ve had a variety of adventures to get to the place you are right now. Is there anything or anybody that has been especially influential in your career path? Or have you had a variety of mentors or kind of leaders that you looked up to throughout the years?

Don McCrea: [00:12:43] Well, that’s that’s a good question. If I had to pick out one that particularly stood out. That’s Peter Drucker and I was a my doctorate is from Claremont Graduate University and what is now known as the Peter Drucker and Masatoshi Graduate School Management. Peter was still teaching at the time I was there doing my coursework. I managed their executive degree program for a year, including the PhD program, so I had some additional outside the classroom interaction with Peter. But the most brilliant I wouldn’t call him exactly a mentor because he wasn’t specifically a mentor to me. But on the other hand, he was fully engaged with his students, and the wisdom was remarkable in every single class. So he’s the he’s the one that stands out. The rest of it was just having lots of experiences of being open to what comes my way and be willing to learn I every position that I took as I move from one to the next. I had not done before. And so it was a matter of of of learning on the job. And for example, when I when I was first moved into a management position in computer industry, I had been a systems design or systems programmer, system designer, et cetera. Director of engineering moved me into a second level management position. I inherited five managers in something like 75 professional employees. I’d never managed people before, so I spent a lot of time in the office after hours with the director of engineering. Really, I learned tremendous amount from him. He’s unfortunately, since passed away at an early age, but he’s probably the best manager I ever had, and it was a tremendous learning experience. So it’s just it’s learning where that was necessary depending upon the upon the position.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:40] Now when you started this practice, at some point you realized early on I would imagine, or at some point that referrals were critically important to your success. How did you kind of come to that conclusion and what do you do to ensure that those referrals come in and that you can reciprocate back to all of those providers over referrals?

Don McCrea: [00:15:01] Well, a piece of it. A piece of it is is when I actually when I first started this business, I was focused on helping family and small businesses get from wherever they were to that transition point, whether it’s 20 or 30 years down the road, very different than the typical business and strategic planning, which at most focuses on maybe three to five years. And it took me, I did a lot of networking. I’m relatively new here in the North San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve been here about 10 years. Now, and so I had to build business relationships. And what I came to to understand fairly quickly is that it’s the problem you indicated they’re so busy with the day to day. They don’t have time to think that far out. But I’ve done some work with Cal State Fullerton, the Family Business Center there and under, and realized that when they got there, they still were going to have a number of issues. And so I began to. I reoriented the focus of the business developments nine stage process consultative process that underlies everything I do and began to develop the relationships, particularly the relationships with estate planners, financial planners, insurance people, business evaluators, business brokers, et cetera. And I was still out building those relationships with the business community and realized that that that’s that’s a one on one process.

Don McCrea: [00:16:29] It’s an educational process. And so there are a few things like speaking before groups. It can be useful, but even there it, it’s what are the right groups and what are their constituents, et cetera. So it was kind of evolved into, well, evolved out of the discussions that I had with the the estate and financial planners I was developing relationships with because that those two fields in particular are especially important to the owner being ready to retire. It’s part of their personal readiness. Preparation is to make sure they have those pieces in place and then as well business attorneys to make sure that the the business structure, the operating agreement, if there’s a partner, the buy sell agreement are all properly designed. Business structures correct is an LLC or an S-Corp or a C Corp, rather than a nowadays a benefit corporation. I love to work with those people because they have a they have a broader mission in life than just building a business. So it really was evolving, evolving into an understanding of where was the where was the greatest need? Who recognized the problem first? And and and then how could I provide support to them with their clients? So I guess that’s a long answer to to your question. It just evolved over time and recognizing what was necessary for success.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:59] But it sounds like you’re working kind of arm in arm with a variety of trusted advisors to really give a holistic counsel to these business owners.

Don McCrea: [00:18:10] That’s correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:11] And then do you do you find yourself as kind of. The quarterback of this team, where are you? Kind of a cog in the machine and somebody else is taking lead or varies depending on the situation.

Don McCrea: [00:18:24] I describe myself as like the conductor of the orchestra who plays some of the instruments. So if you if you look at this nine stage process, things like estate planning, making sure there’s been a, let’s say, if it’s a food business, for example, have they done a risk assessment to really ensure that that they’re all of their processes are as as as health wise, safe as they could possibly be? I am sure there aren’t too many insurance brokers, even commercial insurance brokers who do that kind of an assessment other than what insurance do you need? And so it and then for example, with, let’s say they they they need to restructure the the business. From a sole proprietorship to an LLC or escort business, attorney gets involved. Well, all of those people need to be talking to each other. The estate plan, the financial plan, the the succession planning, the business structure, all of those people need to talk to each other. And so my part of my role is overseeing that team and making sure that they’re working with each other. But then when we get into things like succession planning, success or preparation, looking at the the actual operational structure of the business, is it prepared and developing the the exit plan itself? That’s my those are my areas of specialization. My experience over so many years has been business strategy, business planning, but also leadership and employee development, et cetera. So it’s a piece of it is work that I do directly. A piece of it is is work that I have a strong collaboration with the other professionals that are involved. And and you know, these are licensed professionals which have clear areas of expertize. And I’m not going to even begin to try to duplicate that work. But it is important that that they talk to each other and that’s a part of my role.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:30] Now you mentioned that you work with a lot of family businesses. Is there a niche within that that you work like? Do you work as often with, you know, say, professional services where they’re selling kind of the invisible rather than a food truck or manufacturing? When there is stuff and the things are being sold, that’s physical.

Don McCrea: [00:20:50] Well, you know, I’ve had I’ve had the good fortune of working with a tremendous number of businesses I mentioned. I had almost 30 years in the computer industry, but the later part of that, probably maybe the last half of that was managing sales and marketing organizations. Now the company I worked for, we had a significant number of defense and aerospace clients, but we also had had clients in a variety of other businesses. But then I moved into teaching. I taught for Pepperdine University for five years and included it in their executive MBA program, a top business business marketing all of those people in the executive MBA program. We’re working for a huge variety of businesses, and of course, the work we did in class was a tremendous amount of experiential. And then I manage UC Irvine custom exec ed programs for five years and then UCLA’s for five years, as well as their corporate directors program. And again, the custom executive is is a consultative process as a business and business selling process. And it gave me experience with a lot of different kinds of businesses. And then throughout that, I’ve also been doing small business consulting. So to answer your question, no, there’s no particular niche that I specialize in because I’ve worked with so many different businesses and my perspective is the owner of the business is the expert in their field, and they’re the ones who really know their business. And so when we collaborate, that really brings in the business knowledge and expertize and the ability to work with many, many different kinds of businesses with someone who really understands their business, their markets, their clients well.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:39] And if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, is there a website?

Don McCrea: [00:22:45] I do have a website. Your business legacy dot net.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:50] It’s your everything spelled out your business legacy. Dot net. Correct. Good stuff. Well, Don, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Don McCrea: [00:23:01] Thankfully, it’s important to me, too. I come from a family business background. My dad formed his automobile dealership and it’s these businesses are close to my heart to see continue, especially as we’re coming out of the COVID pandemic, but also with the number of baby boomers who are retiring tremendous number of those kinds of businesses. I want to see them all survive.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:27] Yeah. And it’s one of those things where they invest so much of their blood, sweat and tears into something you hate for them to kind of screw it up at the finish line when you can. Exactly. You can kind of plan for things a little bit, and they have a much better outcome.

Don McCrea: [00:23:42] Exactly. That’s exactly right. You’re right on target with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:45] All right, Don. Thank you again for sharing your story. You’re welcome. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Cody Bolden, Greg Shaddix and Jonathan Peyton

February 7, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Cherokee Business Radio

Cody Bolden, Greg Shaddix and Jonathan Peyton

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Cody Bolden

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Greg Shaddix

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Jonathan Peyton

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This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Stone Payton: [00:00:23] Welcome to this very special edition of Cherokee Business RadioX Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast Cody Bolden and Greg Shaddix. We are down one. Though conspicuously absent with this trio is Jonathan Peyton. As I understand it, he’s probably down in the Honduras, hanging out with a Harry and or latisha down there with Alma Coffey having a great time. But we’ll get him in the studio sometime soon. Welcome. Welcome, guys.

Cody Bolden: [00:00:56] What’s going on, man?

Stone Payton: [00:00:57] I have been so looking forward to doing this. If there’s anybody out there who listens to this show that doesn’t know who Great Shot and Cody Bolden is, you’re going to know by the time we finish this conversation. But one of the things that makes it really timely to have this conversation. You guys are going to get together along with Jonathan Payton, and you’re putting on a show in Canton. I’ll start with you, Cody. Why? When? Where? Yeah, tell us about that.

Greg Shaddix: [00:01:29] So when February twenty six this year to Saturday, February 26 at seven p.m. at the historic Canton Theater in downtown Canton is the win. The Wise? Because we’re Cherokee County people. I myself live in downtown Canton and it’s such a cool theater and one that really, really cool shows can go on there. So I’ve always wanted to to do a show there and just kind of had the opportunity to do it early this year. So that’s that’s the why in the win and the cause is just because.

Stone Payton: [00:02:02] So I’m not familiar with the theater, but my wife, Holly and I are both going, so color us, they’re we’re really looking forward to it. And we were talking before we went on the air. I think we’re going to make a date night of it, right? Yeah.

Greg Shaddix: [00:02:13] Yeah, and really, that’s kind of what we we want this show to be a lot more than come see live music. It’s Cody and Jonathan and Gregg. We want it to be a come visit downtown can because we we think it’s such a cool community that has so much to offer and we’ve got support locally from some of the restaurants. So we want you to come eat dinner beforehand, hang out, go to the show and then maybe grab drinks afterwards. All right, there.

Stone Payton: [00:02:35] Yeah. So Greg, I won’t ask you why. I’ll ask you why Cody and why Jonathan?

Cody Bolden: [00:02:40] Well, because they ask me, to be honest with you. I mean, big props to both Cody and Lauren Bolden because they’re they’re really behind the scenes doing, especially Lauren. I mean, she even bribed you stone with pie from the pie bar.

Stone Payton: [00:02:57] That’s right.

Cody Bolden: [00:02:58] But I mean, I think first off, I think we’re all real similar as far as our musical styles. We’re different enough, but similar enough in what we’re doing. And I think kind of like to reiterate what Cody said. We’re all Cherokee County, folks. You know, Jonathan and I both live here in Woodstock and Cody’s in Canton. And on top of that, we’ve got this beautiful theater. So let’s let’s make some local homegrown music in it. I think it’ll be a good time.

Stone Payton: [00:03:24] I do, too. Yeah, go ahead.

Greg Shaddix: [00:03:25] Well, it’s really neat because I would say of the three of us, myself and Jonathan and Greg, I’ve got the latest start on music. But what’s what’s needed is one of the first times I ever played out loud was that like a competition event, and Greg was one of the judges at the event. That’s right. So it’s neat to me because when I, you know, when I was when we were putting this show together, the only the not the only two, but the first two that came to mind were Jonathan and Greg. So I’m excited about it. It’s going to be a great show. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it if even if I wasn’t on this bill. This is a show that I would be going to.

Stone Payton: [00:04:00] So do tell us Cody first, and I’m going to come back to you, Greg, because I want to know your story as well. But tell us a little bit about the back story. How did you get into this?

Greg Shaddix: [00:04:07] Yeah. So my wife and I own a pie shop right here in downtown Woodstock. But just before we open that, I’d always I didn’t grow up in a musical household. We never had a guitar sitting around. Both my parents always loved music and they always sang to the radio. But we’ve never really been instrumentally inclined, I guess, would be the easiest way to put it into law and heard me say that enough times, my wife, that she finally bought me a guitar for Christmas. And you know, I did what I think most people do. I played it for five or 10 times and just kind of like, it’s just too much work for what I want to do. And a year went by, and the next year for Christmas, you bought me lessons, so I picked it back up. Wow. And when I picked it back up is right. When they started building my life right here in Woodstock, that shares a parking lot with us at Pye Bar. And I got to know the owners of Mad Life and just music was kind of like present, you know, not not just music, but like the idea that you can make your own music and that’s a thing. You can write your own songs, you can play your own music. And really, that’s kind of what’s always attracted me. Covers are cool and I love other music, but just the idea of like, you can make your own and not coming up in a household like that, it was never really even an idea. And the fact that not only is it not can you do it, but it’s it’s celebrated, especially kind of here in this community as well. A lot of original music is celebrated, so it just kind of stayed on the forefront of my mind and watching Mad Life be built and talking with Mike and Kerry just kind of stayed inspired, so it hadn’t really stopped since then.

Stone Payton: [00:05:42] And I do want to give a shout out to Mad Life. We had Mike in the studio. It’s been a been a little while and you can just his passion and his genuine interest in helping people in the in the entertainment industry get out there and do their thing. I mean, this guy is and he the energy he and Kerry have around. I don’t know how they do it. You run the business and everything like that. So God love them. And then of course, you know, I love the little little shrimp appetizer and I’ll be, well, you know, I’ll go out there all the time and I’ll see you picking it up, right? And I’ll tell you, it is kind of cool because in a community like this, you get to know some people, right? And it is. I got you feel like a big shot when you walk up. And when Greg’s on stage, he’ll give you a little nudge, you know, like, yeah, I know this guy, especially like if I have family or friends in town, you’re like, Oh, stone knows everybody. Yeah.

Greg Shaddix: [00:06:35] Well, after this, he might call you up by name, and

Cody Bolden: [00:06:37] You never know now that you let me on

Stone Payton: [00:06:39] Your show. That’s right. How did you get started, man?

Cody Bolden: [00:06:43] Well, you know what? I grew up and a lot of people in this area, we started in church. That’s how I started. Just like anybody else. And my dad’s a preacher and I started singing in his church. You know, he learned the old hymns and those things. And then one thing leads to another. And kind of like Cody said, one day you’re like, Wait a minute, I can do this too. I can make something rhyme and write down a story and make it rhyme. And it just never stopped. I’ve been doing it ever since, and I’ve always been infatuated with stories and story songs. My heroes are John Prine and people like that that tell stories in their songs. And yeah, it’s just kind of snowballed from there. And now everything I do to some extent is related, whether it’s my own music, actually, these days, it’s less my own music and it’s more I want to. Hey, that was a great song. Let’s do something to let other people hear your song. And yeah, so then we started the podcast and just keeps rolling.

Stone Payton: [00:07:40] Well, I’ve been stalking you on Facebook. You more recently, Cody, because everywhere I go, I hear your name. Okay, so you’re CMO Lauren. She’s doing a great job or whoever.

Greg Shaddix: [00:07:51] Yeah, that’s my manager.

Stone Payton: [00:07:52] So I’ve been stalking you more. I’ve been stalking you for since we moved. Yes, we moved here. And one of the things that I have noticed is a great deal of your effort is in kind of shining the light on other musicians.

Cody Bolden: [00:08:03] Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I mean, even with my podcast The Mockingbird Shameless Plug, but the reason it’s called the Mockingbird is because the Mockingbird, the actual bird itself, it repeats other bird songs, and I find that fascinating. And yeah, I was telling Cody as we were coming in, I was like, Yeah, I met Stone one night. We were over at the Reeves house and I sitting out there picking and he showed up and he stayed the whole time and nobody ever since.

Stone Payton: [00:08:27] I don’t even know what the event was. That’s not why that might have been why I went, but it’s not why I stayed. I stayed because I was listening to Greg.

Cody Bolden: [00:08:34] When back to your point, earlier stone is the fact this town, it is very community based. And the same goes for Canton at the Canton Theater in that area. You know, you can just walk around and stop here and hang out for a minute and then go over here and hang out for a minute. And it is very community oriented. And Cody and I and Jonathan too, even going up right down to all my coffee. I mean, it’s it’s all about this community.

Greg Shaddix: [00:08:57] Well, honestly, what has happened to me, both in Canton and in Woodstock and Woodstock, back on the Elm Street, green, right across from Reformation. I’ve played a couple of shows there with a full band and then in Canton on the street in front of Green Line. They do during first Fridays. They do this thing on the street, but more more than three or four times. I’ve been on a set break and I’d see somebody I know they said, you know, I was like four streets over and I heard that. And I, yeah, I thought that was you, you know, had to come check it out. Yeah, right, exactly. And just that, it’s the support of like, Oh, you hear somebody, you know, playing and then you go and you know, and support that. And that’s that’s kind of the big thing. I think that we’ve got here is is a supportive community.

Stone Payton: [00:09:39] Well, we really do. And I can remember having a conversation with you on a break and you know what you talked about, not you, not your you talked about Jonathan Payton. Oh, really? Which, as it turns out, I knew the guy. I just didn’t make the connection because I had seen him at a young professionals of Woodstock, which I don’t know why they let me go to that meeting. I’m definitely not young, but but I mean, that’s just your spirit. It’s clearly Cody’s spirit. But I think that’s true about a lot of people in Canton, which are Cherokee County. That’s been my experience so far.

Cody Bolden: [00:10:14] Yeah, I know for me, coming up and Cody is probably the same way, too, like especially in music. There was a time where and I. I say this a lot on my show, but the feast and famine mentality, in other words, hey, how did you get in there to get that show and nobody would tell you, right, there’s room for everybody. And I personally, my kind of my ethos or my M.O., if you will, is like, be the person you wish you would have had. Yeah, when you were, I mean, as young as 13, you know, I’ve seen kids like like an Anna Shin holster or mace and embers from the time, literally, they’re 13 to now they’re 18 and they’re out there playing their own shows. And like, I didn’t have that person when I was a kid, you know, or even tell you it was possible.

Greg Shaddix: [00:10:57] Yeah. And I will say to the more, the more that I’ve playing, the more that I’ve grown in playing in the bigger shows I’m getting in, the more I’m playing out of town. Not everywhere is like that. I mean, there are still those places where it is like, No, I worked hard to get this. Why would I give you any leg up? Because that’s going to hurt me, and I know Greg feels the same way, and so does Jonathan. And it’s not. There’s nothing live music out there for everybody, and then everything we’re doing is different. I mean, you could take my song and Greg could sing it, and you wouldn’t know it was even my song because Greg’s going to sing it the way he sings it. Same thing with Jonathan and so on and so forth. And I think that that kind of community just breeds more creativity. Absolutely. You’re not trying to be that. You’re not trying to be whatever that is, whatever selling or whatever else you’re only. It’s it’s supported that you’re being what you want to be and people are going out. So I think it only makes everyone else better in the long run.

Stone Payton: [00:11:51] So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a musician? You know, I’ve sold training, consulting, speaking. If I had to sell anything physical, I’d starve to death. Right. But but how does it work in your world?

Greg Shaddix: [00:12:07] I mean, I could I could kick that one off. So for me, at least, my methodology is the product has to be good, and that’s the song. So like, you should be able to me, I think you should be able to play your song with the guitar and it’d be worth singing it, you know, by yourself. And it’d be good. But it starts me with the lyrics in the song and then you kind of build off of that. But just like everything else, it’s hard work. You still have to market it. I mean, you can have a great song, but if no one ever hears it and you want that to be successful, then it doesn’t do you much good. But I think I think all too often, just like in a lot of things, the song itself gets looked past and then you start, you see past that. But I think for me, it always has to start with. The product has to be good to start with.

Cody Bolden: [00:12:52] Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to offer the listener or the consumer however they are. You’ve got to offer them something that they actually want to listen to for sure, whether it’s a story they relate to or, you know, art. It could just be a melody that’s stuck in their head. And then on top of all of that, I mean, it’s just a lot of social media like, I mean, that’s, you know, that’s kind of it today, you know, whether it’s Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or Tik Tok, I mean, you know, you just you just kind of have to dove in and see what sticks. And you know, each one is different for different reasons, and you just got to constantly put your face out there, whether you want to or not.

Greg Shaddix: [00:13:29] Yeah. Well, it’s funny you say that because for me, it is such a weird thing like self-promotion is such a it’s a weird thing. It’s something you really have to get over if you’re, you know, especially like, especially small time. You know, if you’re going, you don’t have somebody that’s promoting all your stuff. You have to promote your own stuff. You know, like if you were selling tires, you’re you’re you’re selling that tire. It’s a lot easier to sell that tire than it is like, look at me. Look what I’m doing. Look how good at I am at it. So it’s really, you know,

Cody Bolden: [00:13:57] Yeah, it does. You’re right. It takes a minute to get over. And that might be the reason why I started promoting other people more than myself. Maybe I don’t

Stone Payton: [00:14:05] Know. But isn’t it interesting or I’m extrapolating from my world? You have a show where you’re spotlighting other people. You spend a lot of your energy holding other people up, and I am willing to wager it’s already starting to come back to you tenfold. Oh, right. Oh, I’m a

Cody Bolden: [00:14:22] Huge I’m a huge believer in that. One thousand percent. Yes, you will definitely get back what you put out there into the world. I’m a huge believer of that. And yeah, yes, you’re there’s no way I can’t even add to that.

Stone Payton: [00:14:36] Yes, it’s true. Just by the way, those of you, you can’t see us. We’re in Studio Cody’s wrestling with his hat and his headphones. I have a product idea. Speaking of sales and marketing, okay, because I’m a hat guy, I have hats in the studio. I intend to, you know, if anybody gives me a hat, I’ll put it in the studio. If they give me two, I’ll put one in the studio and I’ll wear one everywhere. The hat I had on before we got started was one of my clients, Alpha and Omega Automotive. But I’ve got this idea, Cody, is to have a hat that has like this flap. Then you put the headphones and you put the flap over the headphones.

Cody Bolden: [00:15:07] It’s not a bad idea. Yeah, I came up speaking of musicians and trying to help them talking about promoting themselves. This one musician that comes to my open mic every Wednesday, he’s missing one of his legs. I won’t remember the story, but it’s his left leg. I was like, well, I got two ideas for you. Number one, his name is the name of his band is seven feet above. There’s four of them. So do the math. I think it’s a great name. Secondly, secondly, I like, man, you should start an eBay store and all you do is sell left shoes and it’s called Take a left.

Stone Payton: [00:15:43] This guy is creative.

Cody Bolden: [00:15:45] I mean, come on. You can’t tell me that there’s not a whole bunch of people out there in the world that need a left shoe in the same predicament. You know that they’re missing their right.

Greg Shaddix: [00:15:54] Not only that, not only there are, and then he even specializes because it’s got to. It’s going to be his size. So, yeah, yeah,

Cody Bolden: [00:16:01] Yeah, it’s a niche market. I sell 10 and a half

Greg Shaddix: [00:16:05] Laughs

Cody Bolden: [00:16:06] In a variety of shoes. It’s not just one make you know I got you Sunday dress you. I got your converse. You wouldn’t need a sock.

Greg Shaddix: [00:16:14] We could. We could come up with that.

Cody Bolden: [00:16:15] I guarantee

Stone Payton: [00:16:15] You. So once you do start to get some traction like you guys and Jonathan have, do you have some physical, tangible stuff that you sell or you use to promote like the do you do, like the hats and the shirts and the in the bumper stickers? Is that part of the thing?

Greg Shaddix: [00:16:31] It is, yeah. So what I’m finding now, because so like for me personally, for this show, I’m playing everywhere. But Canton leading up to this show, OK? And and just kind of to speak to the business side of it, they can’t. Theater show is a ticketed show. So if I’m out playing, you know, four nights a week for free in Woodstock and downtown Canton, why would somebody pay twenty two to thirty eight dollars to come see me? Right, right? So things like the hats, the T-shirts, the stickers when I’m playing in Anniston, Alabama, this weekend.

Stone Payton: [00:17:05] See, I knew that because I’ve been stalking. Yeah, yeah.

Greg Shaddix: [00:17:07] I’m playing in L.A. now, so I’m getting I’m getting paid for the event, but I’m not quite at the level yet where I’m getting paid enough that it’s paying for everybody. Plus our food plus our gas plus our hotel. Yeah. So the merch really kind of makes up. It’s kind of that supplemental income. So and that’s really, you know, at least from what I can tell a lot of a lot of tours in artist right now, that’s kind of where they’re making up for lack of ticket sales on like a Tuesday night in a town because attendance has been down with, you know, with COVID and everything else. So really, that’s almost a necessary supplemental thing. Yeah, I think right now

Stone Payton: [00:17:44] And it’s doing double duty, right, because now you’re you’re getting promotion for the benefit of that. Right now, you’ve got people in Anniston where and you have a band as well. I do. So we’re in Anniston, you know?

Greg Shaddix: [00:17:57] Well, they’re here. So it’s Cody Bolden on the road. Hands the road. Yeah, OK, OK. Yeah, neat thing. So I met a neat thing about the very the original road hand is Jason Hall, and he plays drums for me and I met him at Pine Bark. He came in and was looking for some extra work. I think really just to fill time, he started washing dishes for us. He already had a full time job. He was just looking for something else. I did not know that I met him at. Yeah, he came in and started washing dishes for us and the like. A few weeks after he started working for us, I played at an open mic at Mad Life Undiscovered event and told him, You know, I was like, you know, because I literally walked next door with my guitar. So he saw me with my guitar. So he came over and watched me, and at the end of he said, Hey, I used to play in a band. If you ever need a drummer, let me know. I said, Well, as a matter of fact, I just took a full band gig in two months and I need a full band so I can do the drummer. Yeah, yes. So he’s been with me ever since, and then the other guys are kind of around between Atlanta and Calhoun area, so they’re all right around here.

Cody Bolden: [00:19:00] Yeah. And then for me, I played with Dallas McGee, where the cosmic cowboys. I mean, technically, if you look us up on Facebook, it’s the cosmic cowboy metaphor company. But we just just call us the cosmic cowboys. And we got speaking of shirts, I got to get it made. I’m hoping I can get it done before the show, but our friend Buddy Finnerty designed this one, and because people always laugh at us because we’ll argue for a little while and then we’ll play a song, and it’s just the dynamic that we have. It’s friendly argument. Nothing, you know, nothing terrible. And but he made us a shirt where both rock em sock em robots with our faces on them and it just says, play a little fight a little on the bottom of it.

Stone Payton: [00:19:37] And I have that point again.

Greg Shaddix: [00:19:40] Actually, I had that

Stone Payton: [00:19:41] Toy to do,

Greg Shaddix: [00:19:44] And I’ll speak for Jonathan to Jonathan is going to be playing with Abigail, and I don’t know if you’ve seen them out live yet, but they have incredible harmonies, so I have to go with his wife. So it’s him and his wife.

Stone Payton: [00:19:54] How cool is that? We got to get him in here because we got to ask him about that dynamic, right?

Greg Shaddix: [00:19:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But and you’ll you’ll you’ll see it and hear it when you come to the show, but you’ll feel it too. I mean, there’s just something about them too together. So it’s going to be it’s going to be a great show. I’m looking forward to it. We’ve got support from the local community. As a matter of fact, the the first real open mic I did and I call it real because the first time I played it, my life I. I wasn’t really ready to play yet, but I had been talking with Mike and I knew I knew two songs, three songs at the time, and he was like, Hey, we’re going to be doing this thing, come out and play, and I played it. But then when we moved to downtown Canton Green Lane, Brewer had just started doing an open mic in their space and I could walk down there with my guitar and play like a 30 minute open mic of all original songs. And they’ve kind of been there with me since the start to so they’re on support for this show. They’re literally right across the street from the theater.

Stone Payton: [00:20:54] So maybe that’s for Holly and I have our date night, right? We start there and maybe we start there in in there. We’ll bookend it with Green Line. That’s right.

Cody Bolden: [00:21:00] That’s right. Well, not only that, but you got you got your face on one of their canes.

Greg Shaddix: [00:21:03] I do. Yeah, yeah. So they yeah, they came their first canned beers, Allen Brook Lager, and they they do what they call an auto series, and I think they’ll do. I think they’re continuing to do this as they release canned beer. Yeah, there’s more coming. Yeah, yeah. So it’s got my face on the back. I should have brought you on. I can definitely get you one.

Stone Payton: [00:21:23] We’ll do if you can, but I’m going to be there. I’m going to be. So I’ll just buy. Yeah, probably more than one. That’s all right. But I don’t bring the can. Don’t just pour it into glass, if you can.

Greg Shaddix: [00:21:33] Well, the other night I was there because, like I said, I can walk down there. So for me, that’s my spot to go. I just go down there and Hannah, she works at Green Line and I was I was drinking Allen Brooks and I had two or three, but she was not like collecting the cans. So I was starting this little pyramid, you know, it’s like a pyramid of of my face. So that is a weird. She’s like, I’m going to clear those out before

Cody Bolden: [00:21:59] People start going, I have an issue.

Stone Payton: [00:22:01] Yeah. Now, do you guys? I was going to say, still get nervous because that’s assuming that you ever did. But do you get a little nervous when it gets close to show time and they get in? Somebody denounces you or it’s just your turn to get up? Do you get butterflies?

Cody Bolden: [00:22:19] Yeah, sometimes there was a time, and I’m not kidding. I used to get like I would actually have to. I would get ill right before I went on. Every time, every show nowadays and this nowadays, I actually feel more comfortable up there than I do. Like I’m notorious about and I love talking to people. Don’t get me wrong, but I’m notorious after the show of not wanting to go out and talk and hang out. That’s why I have Dallas, because Dallas would talk to anybody, whether they want him to talk to him or not. He would do it. And I don’t know for me these days, it’s like, I’m actually I’d rather be. It’s almost like a security blanket in a weird way these days. Yeah.

Greg Shaddix: [00:23:04] Oddly, I’ve never really gotten I don’t really get stage fright or I haven’t gotten stage fright. And when I have, it’s in the like unusual spaces. Like it’s not for the big shows. I don’t know. Just kind of block it out in my mind. I don’t really think just, Oh my god, it’s time to do whatever this is.

Cody Bolden: [00:23:21] Well, the small shows are harder.

Greg Shaddix: [00:23:22] Well, and that’s what I was going to say. I’m not like, I don’t get nervous for the big shows where they introduce your name and all this stuff. But like not long ago, I did an open mic out on the MetLife patio. I’m just a Tuesday night. You know, there’s like sometimes eight people there, sometimes 45 people there. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I felt my heart racing during that. But yeah, it’s an odd thing. But now, like for this year, I probably won’t get stage fright. And I think part of it is this particular band that’s playing with me. Mm hmm. They’re all way way better musicians than I am. So I know that if I get up there and I just if I broke a hand, I would be fine because they got your back. They got it.

Stone Payton: [00:24:04] Yeah. So do you have a like a pregame ritual like day of show, will you? I don’t like, eat, eat differently or not do some stuff or do some other stuff. Is there a prep ritual

Cody Bolden: [00:24:16] For something like this? For me, I have to be like real. I need like 30 minutes where it’s just don’t don’t talk to me. Not not, not not in a rude way. Like just let me kind of be for a minute, because a big part of my show is, I mean, we play songs that we wrote and I think they’re good. And I think Dallas songs are really good too. But there’s a lot of banter. We’ll talk a lot. So a lot of times I’m going through my head like figuring out what story am I’m about to tell or which story am I about to make up because you’re not going to know the difference. I can promise

Stone Payton: [00:24:50] You that I’m sure

Greg Shaddix: [00:24:53] Now. I mean, no, not necessarily. And I think that’s part of not doing anything that’s going to make me nervous as I really do anything different other than I like that. I like like that. If if it’s somewhere like this, one is going to be an odd one. This can’t theater show because I got family coming to town and they’re going to be staying at our house. So it’s oh my, you know, and we’re going to have friends in town and it’s just, I like that too. I would if I could just go to a room and sit by myself for like 30 minutes to just bring it here, you know, get it all real. In, but sometimes it’s hard to do on some of those shows, especially playing it like, I mean, I know playing it Smith’s old ball in Atlanta, sometimes with the pre-show there. So because there’s three bands play in, everybody’s kind of sharing the same green room area. It’s really just kind of like chaos. Yeah, yeah. It’s just as much of a show backstage as it is, you know, out front. But no, I mean,

Cody Bolden: [00:25:44] And sometimes shows like that to like the logistics of it. I remember I played a show that made me think of this story. I played a show, its missile bar. This is years ago, and it was I was opening for Corb Lund. Yeah, yeah. But it was just me and a guitar, and there was three bands Corp’s headline in it. And so they put a full band on and its missile bar. Upstairs, there’s a big curtain, right, that closes up the whole stage, so you can’t see the stage until the artist is out there. So they put a full band on and they get done. They did great. They didn’t raise the roof on the place and then the curtain closes and I’m standing out there all by mine.

Greg Shaddix: [00:26:20] You were saying,

Cody Bolden: [00:26:21] Wait

Stone Payton: [00:26:21] A second. I who did this? Whose idea was

Cody Bolden: [00:26:24] This? Yeah. Like, put me on first. Yeah, yeah, please. I’m sandwiched in between two bands. It went and ended up being fine. But it was it was a very supportive crowd. But that is the last time that I can remember literally sitting there like shaking my hands out. My knees are a little knocking because you can hear them out there. It’s a sold out crowd. Oh, and you can hear them out there in this curtain between me and them. Like, this is this is awful.

Greg Shaddix: [00:26:51] Well, stone, and this is for you. You know, just kind of like a kind of like key of like when you do multiple events, you usually want to build the sound. So like in that case, if the headliner was a full band, you’d want the group before them to be a full band or maybe a piece or two less. And then you open with like an acoustic gang. But but if somebody comes out there and they’re just ripping and then you got like a solo acoustic,

Cody Bolden: [00:27:16] But then a bunch of sad

Greg Shaddix: [00:27:17] Stories, you know, the crowd is up here and then we come out and we’re like, Well, you know,

Cody Bolden: [00:27:23] As my friend Roger Brainerd says, you want to hear a fast song about death and dying or a slow song about

Greg Shaddix: [00:27:28] Death and dying, right? So, so you kind of want to build that thing. So it’s kind of like, Yeah,

Cody Bolden: [00:27:33] Yeah, oh man, my

Greg Shaddix: [00:27:34] Knees were knocking. Yeah, yeah, I would have been nervous in that. It was.

Cody Bolden: [00:27:38] It was

Stone Payton: [00:27:38] Terrible. Yeah. So do you find yourselves when you are in that situation and there’s multiple acts that occasionally or maybe more than occasionally, you click with some of them and then after everything, everybody’s gone home and you guys are hanging out and do you find yourself in the back room or a nearby bar and you just like kind of just jam and just hang out? Oh yeah, that happens. Yes, that’s my vision of it. Yeah, like my glorified vision of the lifestyle, right? As we’ll go, you know, we’ll hang out at two o’clock in the morning and just, yeah, that does happen.

Cody Bolden: [00:28:07] Like sometimes to like the craziest stories happen out of those. Another night at Smith’s Bar, I opened up for Ray Wylie Hubbard, and at the time we both had acrylic nails. That’s how we played. Our guitar was our picks, and he was so it’s me and this living Texas country legend, in my opinion, sitting at a booth, eating chicken fingers, telling each other the best way to get to a acrylic nail shop on the road. It was the wildest like I wish to this day that I had that moment recorded, even if it was just for me because you tell that story and feel like, Hey, no, I don’t know if that’s true. No one hundred percent happy just sitting there talking about. They acrylic, nails and guitar, pick over chicken fingers. You know, it was just, yeah, so there are those moments that only I guess the musicians get to share that. Yeah, but almost there, sometimes unbelievable.

Stone Payton: [00:29:02] I’ll bet. Right.

Greg Shaddix: [00:29:04] You know, I was well into the other side of that. Sometimes you get I mean, it’s really nice. I think some of the the guys you think are going to be the coolest aren’t the coolest at all. Yeah. And they won’t give you the time of day, especially if you like the opening. You’re like the the local opening act and it’s a two hour night coming through that you probably have a lot of respect for and you just want to say hello to them. Yeah, that happens too. But there is, there is this and you don’t really understand it till you’re in it. There’s there’s so much downtime involved, like in between soundcheck and the actual show and especially on the road, like if you’re traveling between, that’s kind of I’ve heard people to talk about tours and you get paid to travel. You do the show for fun.

Cody Bolden: [00:29:44] Yeah, you get paid to carry your

Greg Shaddix: [00:29:45] Gear around,

Cody Bolden: [00:29:46] Right? Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, even with the the the show on February 26 at the Canton Theater, I mean, you know, we’ll we’re going to get there way before anybody waiting

Stone Payton: [00:29:56] For me in Hollywood.

Greg Shaddix: [00:29:57] Yeah, yeah. We’re I mean, we were sound checking. So and also the way you do it in reverse order, how you soundcheck. So the headliner sound checks first. So the person that’s going to be there, the latest two also has to get there the earliest because you do it in reverse order, because that way, when everybody comes out, everything is set to that. So like, we’ll get there. We’re sound checking at three o’clock on that, on that Saturday. Yeah. So there’s just all of that.

Stone Payton: [00:30:20] So when your sound checking, the important stuff is set to the headliner, so you have to kind of adapt or there’s just a way to make sure your stuff’s going to work too without screwing up their

Cody Bolden: [00:30:30] Good Sandman good sound man will have it’ll all be preset for each of us.

Greg Shaddix: [00:30:34] Oh, OK, yeah, yeah. And we do have a good sound man for this one. His name’s Jason Jenkins, but essentially, but it’s like we’ll have. I have a full band, so they’ll have a drum kit and everything. So that drum kit can get out and set up and it stays out there while everyone else is playing. So when we, you know, when we come out, it’s already there. There’s not a whole lot of interchange time. So yeah, it’s in everyone’s best interest that way. It just, you know, sometimes there’s a lot of downtime involved.

Stone Payton: [00:31:01] So I’ll tell you what’s going to be fun for me and I don’t know if it’ll be six months from now or six years from now. But I went to a James Taylor concert last time that he was in town and people kept running him different guitars, and I’m going to really enjoy what I see you guys up there and you’re not moving. People are just bringing you different guitars. I mean, I’ll be like, I knew them when you left

Cody Bolden: [00:31:22] To buy more guitar.

Greg Shaddix: [00:31:23] Yeah, yeah. And I don’t want to break it to you, but I don’t think any of us are James Taylor yet. So we’ll all be playing the same guitar.

Cody Bolden: [00:31:29] And he does play with acrylic nails, does he? He does

Stone Payton: [00:31:32] Really well. And his what do you call it, the not the not the headliner? What do you call the other the warm up or the opener opener? Ok, who’s Jackson Browne? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But and James Taylor was such a class act, though during that set, he came during that set and played in the in the in the background. He was like a background singer for Jackson. I mean, I just thought that was a real class act. Kind of got it. Got a thing to do. All right. So what can we expect when we get to this event? So Holly and I, we didn’t go VIP, but there’s a couple of different levels of tickets. Oh yeah. So we got the early admission. So tell us what we can expect when we get there.

Greg Shaddix: [00:32:16] Yeah, so and I’ll start with, yeah, if there may be one more VIP ticket available. But the way we did it and the way this theater is set up to me, I don’t think there’s really a bad seat and I don’t. We wanted to do it and we didn’t want to like pre choose your seats. So we did three different levels of tickets. So we do a VIP admission and early admission and general admission. So VIP admission gets in the doors a little bit early, actually at five 30, because we’re doing like a little acoustic show with those. So it was something we wanted to offer something a little special for like, you know, because it’s a little it’s a little bit more money for those tickets, but essentially they get in at five 30 and they can choose whatever seats they want in the theater. And then we’re doing a little like 15, 20 minute. We’re all going to play a song, tell a little story about it and then hang out with those guys for just a little bit. And then the next tier down, which would be what I think y’all got, which is early admission that gets you in at six 15. So you only you’ll get to go in and choose whatever seats weren’t available after VIP admission or whatever you know, or whatever they didn’t choose. So you’ll still get to. You’ll still have a pretty good because we didn’t do. We only did a limited amount of VIP tickets that way. It yeah, it wasn’t overfilling. So you still got really good tickets and you’ll get to go in and choose your seats. And then general admission is doors for them or at 6:30, so they’ll come in and choose their seats. What after VIP and in general or an early admission. But honestly, there’s not. No matter what time you get in there, you’re not going to get a bad.

Stone Payton: [00:33:46] Well, that’s what I was. I haven’t seen the venue, but I mean, it’s a fairly intimate venue. Yes, absolutely. But there’s not a bad seat in the House.

Greg Shaddix: [00:33:53] Yeah, there’s one hundred and seventy seats in there. And it’s such a such a big space as far as like what the stage in all is, all the seats are, there’s not a bad spot and you’ll see it. It’s such a cool thing. I mean, it’s

Cody Bolden: [00:34:06] Beautiful, too. I mean, it’s a beautiful theater, and it hasn’t been that long ago that they just went in and completely renovated the whole place. I mean, over the last several years, it’s not been that long. And it’s I mean, it’s top notch. It’s beautiful. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:34:19] And so it’s a seven o’clock show.

Greg Shaddix: [00:34:21] Yeah, seven o’clock shows. So depending on what ticket you get, depending on what time the doors are at the latest, it would be 6:30. Greg and Dallas are kicking it off at seven o’clock and then Jonathan Mann will be after them and then we’ll come on after that and in between each one, there’ll be a little intermission break because we’re going to have drinks and stuff there. So Green Line is one of the sponsors because they’re also, yeah, so they’re also offering. So there’ll be beer and wine and they’ll have little snacks. There something else, too? If you wanted to come down early and eat one of the other sponsors is Kel Hospitality. He owns three restaurants in downtown Canton, so that’s Queeny Downtown Kitchen and going coastal. All are great. All the different. Yeah. So for you, you know, like for you, the doors at 6:15, I would get down there around five o’clock, maybe four forty five. Eat dinner at one of those places. Yeah, come to the show, hang out and then go to Green Line afterwards because I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything written on paper. But Green Line is going to offer some some deals if you come in with your ticket, whether it’s half off your first beer or whatever that may be.

Stone Payton: [00:35:27] Yeah, we’ll be there. Yeah, yeah. All right. So you’re bringing your partner in crime?

Cody Bolden: [00:35:32] That’s right. Dallas McGee will be there with me, OK? One hundred percent. Yeah, I’m bringing his cantankerous self.

Stone Payton: [00:35:39] That’s going to be fun. Yeah. So I mean, you’re for both of your passion, your energy for this work. I mean, it just comes through. It’s going to come through over the airways. It definitely comes through sitting in a room with you guys and you’re human. Sometimes you got to run out of gas now and again you got to you got to stall sometimes and and maybe maybe be in a situation where you need to recharge and you need to go somewhere for inspiration or or you need to go somewhere for inspiration to write that next song or to get motivated to. Where do you go for inspiration? I don’t necessarily mean a place, but how do you guys recharge? And for me, it’s I go to the woods. I like to hunt and fish. That’s my church man. That is so for me if I can just walk in the woods, but where do you go to kind of reach? And I’ll ask both Ive and I’ll start with you, Greg.

Cody Bolden: [00:36:30] You know, for the longest time, my favorite place was like chain restaurant bars. And when I say I’m talking about like a Ruby Tuesdays or an outback, especially if they’re in a small town close to an airport, and I’ll tell you why people will come in and they’ll sit next to you and they know for a fact that they’re never going to see you again. And they will tell you the deepest, darkest secrets that they ever have because they want to get it off their chest. And then I turn around, turn it into a song. But I mean, it’s happened. I can’t tell you how many times, but on the flip side of that one hundred percent, you know, I like to throw my kayak in the water and disappear for a few hours without my cell phone and go fishing and just think about things. And that’s a lot where my stuff comes from, too.

Stone Payton: [00:37:15] I am so glad I asked the question. No, that’s it. Is that coming? That’s fantastic.

Greg Shaddix: [00:37:22] Yeah. I mean, mine are situational. So sometimes I put myself in these situations and sometimes I just end up in that situation. But I like I like for a lot of the songs to root from that. But I tell you where I get a lot of like inspiration in terms of things that I wouldn’t necessarily do or things that kind of get just the my ball rolling in my mind is open mic nights because people are coming with their own original ideas and own different stylings of how they do things. And it may take something already may have a lyric, but it gives me a different idea for a melody that I wouldn’t that it wouldn’t necessarily start. And like in an open mic, you know, I think with Greg’s the one he hosts over at my life. I mean, sometimes there’s between eight and 12 different people. So there’s so many different things happen. They’re all playing two or three songs. So you’re getting like this blend of all these different stylings and types. So it kind of just it takes what I may have already had or it kicks off this new idea. So I get a lot of inspiration from open mics.

Cody Bolden: [00:38:23] Yeah. And if you just keep your ears open and just listen, people will tell you things. It may not even be something that seems significant, but the way other people say things sometimes will spark your brain to a way that you would never a turn of a phrase that you would never say. And then you’re off to the races.

Stone Payton: [00:38:43] What you’re describing reminds me of what I think I heard on. On more than one episode where the comedians and cars, where the comedians get together. Jerry Seinfeld and they I mean, they make such a science of just observing. Yeah, right? And they bring that in. That impressed me and it impressed me just how much attention that they put to the craft and how focused like a Jerry Seinfeld will be on how to to articulate the phrase, and he may try that thing on like 13 different ways. Right? Yeah.

Cody Bolden: [00:39:16] And words matter. Like, Yeah, you know, a simple turn of phrase like one word can change an entire song and it can be as simple as a word. It’s like, I don’t know. Instead of using he, there’s another way to say that, you know, I mean, it sounds simple to in some ways, but when you take a what, you basically have a whole page full of words and then you just start throwing every one of them out. That doesn’t have any importance. That’s when you end up with a song, in my opinion.

Greg Shaddix: [00:39:46] Yeah. And you know, to me, I like the idea of crafting a song, too, because once you have that song, especially if it’s a good song and you think about it, you’re probably going to play that song thousands or ten thousand times over you over the lifetime of that song so that that one word you know, it makes. You’re going to say that one word so many times it’s worth it to go ahead and like, you know, chew that down to what you can get

Cody Bolden: [00:40:10] Out of it. And songs grow, too. And I’m sure that you’ve, you know, you write a song and you play it. You may play it for ten years. And then all of a sudden you’re like, Oh, wait a minute that verse. If I said this, it would say what I’m trying to say better. And I wrote the song so I can change the song, you know, and then there’ll be people out there. Well, that’s not how it goes. Yeah, it’s my song. Like, my wife gets so mad at me sometimes because I’ll have a song that you know, I’ve had for years, and she’ll hear me play it and she’s like, I’ll play it. All of a sudden, I’ll make it a waltz. And she like, that is not the way you do that. And I’m like, What it is now or it is for tonight.

Greg Shaddix: [00:40:47] And I think that’s what’s cool about music. And at least from like a songwriter standpoint is, you know, my hope is that I haven’t written my best song yet. So it’s always that like trying to get whatever that is and the same thing, like when you play one, because the way you play a song makes the words meaning different, like the effect of what you do. And so, you know, especially like in storyteller songs like myself and Greg, you know, a hard strum is one thing, and then a palm mute is another thing in certain parts where you really, you know, you really want the the lyrics to come through opposed to the melody of the song. Or you know what you’re saying, there’s very important compared to the rest of the song. So something I’ve I’ve been working on, especially from like a full band standpoint, is song dynamic. So, you know, like everybody’s up here and down here. And I didn’t really listen to a lot of music, podcasts and from like a producer standpoint, you know, if you listen a lot of these old country songs, a lot of the stuff they’re doing is, you know, if they’re if they talk about a waterfall, if you really listen in the background, there’s probably something whether that violins making it sound like water droplets or something, you know that

Stone Payton: [00:41:52] You don’t even necessarily consciously. Yeah. All right. As a layperson, right, it’s really happening.

Greg Shaddix: [00:41:58] Yeah. Yeah, it’s really a neat thing. Yeah. You know what can be done with music?

Stone Payton: [00:42:03] So what about collaborating with with another or several others in putting a song together? I would think that could be it. At the same time, simultaneously very challenging and maybe incredibly rewarding, it might be able to create something marvelous. Have you guys had some experience collaborating on songwriting?

Cody Bolden: [00:42:21] Oh yeah. I mean, a lot of my songs that a lot of people, you know, when I say a lot of people know, but the people, the songs that people know by me that I’ve played for years, a lot of those I wrote with my really good friend Matt Burrell when I lived in Ohio for a time. I’m not from Ohio. As you can tell, by the way,

Stone Payton: [00:42:38] I talk, you’ve adapted. Well, you are.

Cody Bolden: [00:42:42] I am not from there. But yeah, I mean, a lot of those things we wrote together and a lot of things I write on my own or I don’t know about you. Like, sometimes I’ll write some stuff and like, I’ll get stuck and I’ll send it to Cody, or I’ll send it to somebody like Jonathan or just a friend of mine that writes songs and like, Hey, can you? I’m stuck. Like, What? What’s the next thing? And it could be as simple as they like, Hey, what if you went this direction? And that’s all I needed. Like, for some reason, my brain was stuck on it.

Greg Shaddix: [00:43:14] Yeah, I mean, actually up to this point, the only the only person I’ve ever co-written with is my wife, Lauren. She’s also a great writer. And I say, it’s kind of it’s definitely a hard dynamic because a lot of the times I’m coming to it already have the melody and a lot of the lyrics. So I’m already kind of like tied to a lot of that stuff, you know, right? But she also brings a different perspective to things, which I think is needed in a lot of the stuff. So I haven’t co-written many, but I need to work on it, I think. They could only build your lyric integrity like working with others and, you know, being open to changing things

Cody Bolden: [00:43:56] Because you have to have a lot of trust with that person too, because you know, a song, a song can be a very vulnerable thing, depending on what you’re talking about and you’ve got to have you’ve got to trust that person, like, Hey, I’m about to tell you something deep inside of me that I’m trying to get out or trying to handle. Or maybe it’s some kind of therapy. So that person better understand what you’re trying to say to.

Stone Payton: [00:44:21] So you were you were speaking about the I don’t even know the right words for it, but the rise and fall of the peaks and valleys managing through a song. Do you do that with a an entire concert or a set two? Do you plan that out so that you take people up and high fast and slows that that takes some planning to do?

Greg Shaddix: [00:44:40] Yeah, it does. So as a matter of fact, I just finished putting myself this together for arcane theater show. Ok? But yeah, I mean, and I think any any good show or somebody that’s trying to pay attention for the overall show itself, they’ll do that. You know, in terms of, I think different people have different ways I can tell you for me personally what I like to do and what I’ll do, probably for the theater show is as we come in pretty hot and then we work our way down a little slower towards the middle of the set and then we end it, you know, we. So it kind of does. If you’re visually looking at it, it’s here. And then, you know, and then we end out here. So you kind of do this a little bit of a wave. Some people like to do it the other way around. Some people, you know, start off hot and they want to be tear jerking by the end of it or vice versa, or start off really slow and have a gradual increase.

Stone Payton: [00:45:27] But there’s often some design behind it, whatever, for sure. Yes.

Cody Bolden: [00:45:33] And for me, the way I mean, has that been? I’ve been in a band. I was in a band for a while, but these days solo or a duo artist, most of the time and a lot of mine has to do with, Am I going to make you laugh or I’m going to make you cry right now? And like, it’s intentional. Like, Am I going to sing a song about my granddad or am I going to, you know, sing a song about, you know, knocking over a Milwaukee beer truck, you know, because there are songs about both of those things, you know? And and so and part of it for me is you read the crowd like, if they’re laughing a bunch, well, we’ll just we’ll laugh a little bit together. And after, you know, five or 10 minutes, then I’m going to like, Oh, now, so then you got your Kleenexes out and you didn’t see it coming. So like, there’s a dynamic for me personally, like a lot of it has to do, what are you all out here in the seats giving me? And then we’ll go from there. Especially, you know, if you’re kind of back to Cody’s point earlier, if you’re playing a bunch of shows for free, that’s a different thing. But this show February twenty six, like there, everyone in those seats paid money to see us, so I want to give them something that you’re not going to see. If you come see me on a patio on Sunday or somewhere else where it’s just me, I’m going to give you, I’m going to tell you the stories behind the songs. I’m going to talk to you a little bit more. And and quite frankly, you know, Jonathan and Cody may play you more songs. I may talk to you more than I play. These guys may play you 12 13 songs. I might play you six row, but

Greg Shaddix: [00:47:04] You could take that to the bank.

Cody Bolden: [00:47:05] Yeah, yeah, I mean, that’s true. You’re going to be there, Stone, Callum. Yeah, that’s just, you know, one of my heroes has always been Todd Snider, and he had this whole intro and I don’t remember the whole thing, but the last part of it, he’s like, I may go on as much as 18 minutes in between songs, and it’s it’s just part of what I do. And it may be because I’m a preacher’s kid and I’m used to seeing people standing in front of the microphone just talk for a while.

Stone Payton: [00:47:31] All right, so let’s make sure that we leave our listeners with all the information, everything from we definitely want to make sure that everybody has information on this upcoming concert. Yeah, but people are going to hear this a year from now to well beyond the concert. So I want to make sure that they have contact information. I want to make sure they know how to get to your radio show. Yeah. And so they can continue to follow. So whatever you guys think is appropriate in terms of whatever the social media stuff is, you cool kids are doing these days, the Instagram, the website, all that stuff. Let’s let’s start with you, Greg. Lay it out there. Let’s make sure we got it out.

Cody Bolden: [00:48:05] I mean, probably the easiest way to find me is to just go to searching for metaphors, and that’ll take you everywhere. It’ll take you to the all my social media. You can find the Mockingbird. podcast there. Yeah, I mean, that’s probably the easiest thing for me. Just look for searching for metaphors. Spell f0r, spell it all the way out. Not the no.

Greg Shaddix: [00:48:27] And I think Jonathan Patent does Jonathan Peden or Jonathan Patent Music. If you search Jonathan Patent on Google, you’ll find him. Yeah, minus Cody Bolden. So Cody Bolden, you can find all of the other stuff from that. But I think on Instagram, it’s Cody Bolden. I just started a tick tock. I think it’s good. Board music, but yeah, yeah, search for it and you’ll find it any of those names, you’ll kind of if you Google it, you’ll find us. And then for this show, so we’re going to be Saturday, February twenty six in downtown Canton at the historic camp theater show starts at seven o’clock. Tickets are on sale now. I don’t foresee us having tickets at the door. I mean, they’re selling well now. And that’s the hope anyway, is that we can sell out prior. So if you’re listening to this, you can get tickets at my website. Cody CNN.com it’s an Eventbrite as well, so you can like, search the Facebook event, get tickets there.

Stone Payton: [00:49:23] Well, guys, it has been an absolute delight having you in the studio this afternoon, and I’d like to make it maybe a little more of a habit of this. We already get together periodically, get caught up on what you guys are doing, get some stories from the road, get caught up on your shows and do it. So I need you to come on my show too. You got it. We talked about it a away back, too much fun and off air. I’m going to get Jonathan’s phone number because I need him to bring me back some cigars. He’s still down there. He is giving me a call. All right, this is Stone Payton for our guests today, Greg Chadwick’s and Cody Bolden and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.