Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Steven Howard With Caliente Leadership

November 23, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Steven Howard With Caliente Leadership

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Steven Howard with Caliente Leadership, is the award-winning author of 21 leadership, business, and motivational books and the editor of nine professional and personal development books in the Project You series. His latest book is How Stress and Anxiety Impact Your Decision Making.

His book Better Decisions. Better Thinking. Better Outcomes. How to go from Mind Full to Mindful Leadership, received a Silver Award from the Nonfiction Authors Association. He also wrote Leadership Lessons from the Volkswagen Saga, which won three prestigious publishing industry awards (2017 Independent Press Award, National Indie Excellence Award, and San Francisco Book Festival Award). He is also the author of Great Leadership Words of Wisdom.

Howard is well-known and recognized for his truly international and multicultural perspective, having lived in the USA for over 30 years, in Singapore for 21 years, and in Australia for 12 years. He currently resides in Southern California.

Connect with Steven on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

How leadership is changing today, post-pandemic
Leadership skills needed to emphasize to grow business
Prevent or minimize The Great Resignation of 2021

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Steven Howard: [00:00:42] Good Day League. Did it meet you?

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

Steven Howard: [00:00:50] Well, we do a leadership mentoring leadership, coaching one on one and also some leadership training. Plus I I’ve read a lot of books. I try to help people through the written word as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:02] So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in leadership?

Steven Howard: [00:01:06] I had a job with Citibank many years ago at twenty three people reporting to me when I was living in Singapore, and fortunately, they sent me some good leadership training programs. And when I left Citibank, the company that we use as a training company, hired me to facilitate for other companies. So it was quite a stroke of luck, quite frankly.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] So what have you found regarding leadership over the years, is this something that everybody kind of has in them and it’s just a matter of getting it out? Or is it something that in times of trouble, this type of leadership qualities appear?

Steven Howard: [00:01:43] Oh, that’s an excellent question. I think everyone has the potential to be a leader. I don’t think everyone has the desire and part of getting them into leadership is stroking that desire. On the other hand, a lot of people are really good at individual contributor work, whether they’re a researcher or a chemical engineer or a scientist, and they just don’t want to lead people. They don’t want to deal with the people issues of it. So I call leadership in art. In fact, then I differentiate what a good leader is and a great leader is, and I think that’s what the art of leadership comes in.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] So you feel that some people just hard pass on being a leader, that they’re they want to be a cog in the machine and they don’t there’s no place for leadership for them. Or is that something that there is a place for leadership skills in everybody?

Steven Howard: [00:02:31] Well, there’s a place for everybody because you have to lead yourself. But when it comes to like leading other people, you know, leading other people about how do you motivate people, how they give them direction, how they give them great feedback, and now some people just don’t want to do that, quite frankly. And I wouldn’t call them this. They a cog in the machine as much as, you know. Like I said, if you’re a chemical engineer, I’ve known quite a few good chemical engineers in places like Shell and ExxonMobil, and that’s what they want to do. They want to be in, they want to be in their laboratories. You know, they work with colleagues. They don’t want to lead colleagues. They want to. They want to do the research, they want to write their research papers, they want to write their findings. They want to get their patents filed with the government. I think that’s a fine career path, if that’s what they choose to do. I think a mistake organizations make sometimes is putting those people in the leadership. I mean, I’m sure you’ve known people who are really, really good salespeople and then you make them a sales manager. They don’t know how to lead people. They know how to sell. And that’s probably if that’s what they want to do, that’s where you should leave them.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:32] So how as a leader of an organization, do you kind of discern who the people are that have potential and desire to be leaders and who should be kind of left to for themselves?

Steven Howard: [00:03:45] A lot of one on one conversations that you can you can take up leadership skill. You see the people who have an inclination for leadership. They’re the ones who, you know, they’ll start small, they’ll lead a task force the team into something. Or maybe maybe they just lead a team bonding session, you know, or they do the team, you know, Christmas party or something like that. The leadership skills will rise to the surface if given the opportunity. I think, like I said, I think most people candidly, I think almost everyone can be a leader. But for those who don’t, you’ll see them shy away when you ask them, Hey, could you go mentor this person? No, no, I don’t want to do that. Hey, could you? Could you lead this group task force on this new research study? No, no, no. I don’t want to do that. And you pick up those clues as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:29] So now has the pandemic kind of created more leaders, less leaders? The same amount of leaders created more?

Steven Howard: [00:04:39] I doubt it. I think it’s creating a different breed of leaders, at least those who are going to be successful coming out of the pandemic. They’re going to have to use a whole bunch of different leadership skills as they’ve had to use during the pandemic. I think leading during the pandemic is very different than leading before the pandemic. And when people start going back in the office place and you have everyone co-located again, it’s going to be you cannot go back to the old leadership skills that you relied on. There’s going to be a new subset of skills that are going to be extremely important to be successful sustainably going forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:14] So what are some of those skills?

Steven Howard: [00:05:17] Empathy, empathy would be number one, and I think it’s even taking empathy to to a level of compassion, quite frankly. You can’t just empathize with people’s situation. You’re going to have to show compassion. I think leaders have to understand that’s probably the silver lining coming out of the pandemic is that we have to realize that people have. Not only do they have lives outside work, they have responsibilities outside work. And I think that’s one of the things you’re seeing with the great resignation that’s going on right now with the organizations and leaders who don’t recognize that and don’t respect that they’re the ones who are losing their employees. The number one skill, though I would suggest coming out of the pandemic and for the next three to four years is the ability to handle ambiguity and uncertainty. You know, we used to we we measure leaders on their ability to execute to a plan, and that’s all been well and good in the past. I think now we’re going to have to measure leaders on their ability to adapt to a plan to handle the ambiguity, the uncertainty of what might happen six months from now, what might happen nine months from now? And be able to craft plan a Plan B, maybe even Plan C and D, rather than just focusing on executing a plan that they’ve already got in place.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:37] Well, the people that are comfortable in that level of chaos, that might mean that they might have to admit they made a mistake or that the path they initially started following with less information is now no longer valid. And now we have a new path with new information. Do you think like kind of politically in an organization that that type of I don’t want to say it’s wavering, but just adjusting to new information is acceptable in today’s world.

Steven Howard: [00:07:06] I think it’s going to have to become acceptable. But I will agree with you that there are going to be many organizations and the dinosaur type organizations who who won’t adapt, who won’t be willing to adapt. I mean, I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite philosophers is Yoda, and Yoda has a great said phrase that says You have to unlearn what you have learned. And I suggest that leaders coming out the pandemic, particularly those of, you know, those of us who are over 45. You know, we’ve done it one way for so many years. We’re used to it. We’re comfortable with it. But we’re going to have to unlearn some of the ways we learned previously and pick up some of these new skills. And and also the organizations are going to have to evaluate people and reward people differently. You can’t reward somebody because they executed a plan when like like you just said it may not have been a mistake, a decision that somebody made me think about this two years ago, all the wonderful plans that were being put in place, strategic plans in 2019, how people are going to do so well in 2020. And then came March of 2020. It doesn’t mean their plans are wrong. They just didn’t anticipate the future. They got surprised. And you can’t get surprised by the future anymore. Or can it get taken by surprise, I should say.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:26] Now, for a while now, leaders have been encouraging some of their people to maybe take risks and to, you know, think outside the box and that type of kind of verbiage, at least lip service towards that. But whenever there is kind of an inclination towards action, there are going to be times when you do make mistakes and that you did choose the wrong path and you, you have to self-correct. Typically, in the larger organizations, you’re kind of penalized for that mistake. Are you going to see more empathy and acceptance for that type of risk taking that’s going to be needed when there is such an ambiguity?

Steven Howard: [00:09:07] Absolutely. Again, by the companies that make that change, I would advocate to you that they’re going to be many companies who will not make that change, and they’re going to be the ones we talk about 10 years from now, 15 years from now. Oh, weren’t they successful at one time? I mean, you know, this is not new, necessarily. I mean, the newness now is the fact that the change has been created by a pandemic. In the past, the change has been created by technology. You look at people like Kodak. Kodak was the leader in digital film at one point in digital photography, but they were making most of their profits from chemicals. And so they ignored the trend, and they made the mistake of ignoring the trend towards digital photography. And you know, look where Kodak is today. And, you know, thanks to Steve Jobs and others who put cameras on phones, people don’t need to go to the CVS, you know, go to your local CVS and print sorry print pictures anymore. That’s where Kodak made its money when we used to print our pictures at CVS or any place else. So it’s not it’s not new. The newness now is the fact that the pandemic has forced the management leaders to to leave remotely and lead in the uncertainty caused by a pandemic which has been government influenced in terms of the management of the pandemic. But before you know you could have called technology, you could have called digital technology a pandemic for certain industries.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:40] Now why do you think that there’s very few examples of like a company say, like Netflix that started out in one way, you know, mailing you DVDs to compete against blockbuster totally blow up that whole model and say, Now we’re this new thing and then and then adjust after that to a new new thing that seems to be rare. Why don’t you think that there’s more people out there that can do that type of major pivot and major adjustment based on what they’re seeing in the marketplace?

Steven Howard: [00:11:16] It takes risk, and I think it takes it takes the ability to understand what the trends are. And but more importantly, like I said before, if if. People were being measured on their ability to execute a plan, and that plan didn’t include pivoting into a new industry or to a new distribution channel. Then they didn’t do that. And it’s interesting that analogy you made, you know, that Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for a few hundred million dollars at one point, and the board of Blockbuster said nobody wants to get their DVDs in the mail. People want to come into our stores and get the VRC the videos and buy their popcorn and buy their M&Ms, and they want to know what they’re getting. Whereas Netflix, originally when you got your DVDs in the mail, you know you had a list of 10 and you’d get it two or three in the mail, but you didn’t know which two or three of the 10 you’re going to get. So you didn’t know what you’re going to watch on Friday night or Saturday night until you open the envelope. Blockbuster did not think Netflix’s Business Strategy business model was going to work. Well, guess who won that? I think there’s one blockbuster left the entire country. I think it’s in Oregon somewhere now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:27] Now, how do you help that leader that wants to be that bold? What are some what some counsel to make those kind of bold choices and to, you know, pivot and take the risk?

Steven Howard: [00:12:39] I think it’s understanding the trends. Looking at history when I think one of our shortfalls and leaders today is their sole focus on dealing with today and trying to prepare for tomorrow, they don’t look at historical trends, they don’t see what’s happened to other companies, other industries in the past. And they don’t. Therefore, they don’t think the lessons are relevant to them. Secondly, I think as we talked earlier, the ability to handle ambiguity and certainty in the building and say, OK, we’re going to go take Netflix as your excellent example. They’re, you know, we’re going to go down this road, we’re going to deliver DVDs. Oh, you know what? We can do something else we can. This streaming service that looks interesting. Well, why don’t we let people download and watch their movies on a streaming? Ok, that’s kind of interesting. Oh, technology is now now streaming. We could create a TV channel. We could create a TV channel that streams. Ok, let’s go in that direction. So it’s not just when you admit mistakes and you pivot. I think it’s also when you when you see technology becoming alive or anything becoming alive. The new distribution channels new customer trends and say, Let’s go give this a try. Let’s see how this works. And then when it starts to work, being not being afraid to drop a business unit, Netflix dropped the DVD distribution business unit for something that was going to be better in the future. Kodak refused to drop the chemical business or diminish their chemical business when they saw digital photography came. They stuck to what was working for them and didn’t realize the marketplace was changing.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:21] Now, do you have any advice for the leaders of an organization on choosing other leaders, like what are some of the kind of green lights and red flags when you’re assessing a potential leader?

Steven Howard: [00:14:37] I would say right now the number one red flag, if I can turn your question around slightly, number one red flag would be do not promote the bully, do not promote the person who gets results at all costs, who burns out his staff or her staff. Do not get the one who you know, and we all know who they are in the organization. Don’t promote the one who who throws the tirades and yells and screams and uses profanity because they’re the ones are going to have a high employee turnover. So turn it around. The green flag is promote the person who does both. And as I said earlier, the difference between a great leader, a great leader will either focus on results or focus on people. And if they focus only on people, they don’t necessarily get the results. A great leader will focus on both and and great leaders are not just in the C-suite. Great leaders can be supervisors. They can be team managers. They can be first line leaders. These are the people you need to promote, the ones who can, who can balance leading for results and leading people and leading people development. Those are the leaders that you want in your organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:47] Now what advice to a young person maybe that just graduated is entering the workforce. What are some things they can be doing today that can signal that they’re going to be a leader?

Steven Howard: [00:15:58] Well, put your hand up. Volunteer, it could be something simple. It could be leading a project. It could be leading a small task force. It could be as simple as leading the Christmas party or anything like that. Demonstrate your leadership skills whenever you get that opportunity. And obviously, when you’re first starting out, those leadership skills are all about driving results, so you’re not trying to become a great leader. Try and be a good leader. And you’re obviously the first step is to show that you can deliver show that you can that you can overcome obstacles. Resiliency is an important part of leadership today show that you don’t give up just because you hit a hurdle. And then as once you get your first leadership position, realize that you have three hats to wear, you’re going to be wearing the hat of a manager, and that means you give directions and dictate what people should be doing. You also going to have to continue doing your own individual contributor work so that your second hand, but your third hat. Once you get into leadership, you now need to start coaching people, mentoring people, developing people, communicating feedback, all that kind of stuff. So understand that there’s three distinct hats that you’re going to wear when you have your first leadership position.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:14] Now, when you’re delivering your service to your clients, are you delivering them through kind of training in some sort of workshops that are, I would imagine nowadays virtual, in-person? Or is it through your books? How do you typically deliver your coaching and your work that you do?

Steven Howard: [00:17:33] I deliver it through four channels. So you’re right, it’s now mostly online virtual workshops, with some hybrid work starting to come out now that would be number one and and part of what I do when I do training, I don’t just do training anymore. I always combine some element of coaching. I’ve been working with a major retailer right now in the United States with their IT department, and so we’ve been doing 90 minute workshops and then once a month we do 90 minute group coaching sessions for them where they get a chance to more interact and bring up their issues. So that would be one. The other would be one on one coaching again. Right now, it’s all virtual. Then most of the coaching has been virtual for many years now. You don’t need to sit down face to face to do that. The the books obviously are the third channel. The fourth one is and this goes to those young leaders you just talked about. I’ve got an online, self paced leadership development program that’s eight modules, and it comes with two years of monthly coaching sessions. So that’s for the, you know, the young people like to learn through video. They like to learn through self pace. They like to learn on their own. And so that program allows them to go through each module, send me questions if they have send me work workbook assignments when they want for me to review. And then we we get together once a month and answer their questions and develop them one on one. So it’s kind of a hybrid model as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:56] Now are you seeing coaching becoming more accepted as a tool for leaders of organizations that can be disseminated throughout the organization rather than just kind of at the highest levels?

Steven Howard: [00:19:10] Absolutely, absolutely, I. One company I work for right now has saved up five hundred and fifty employees there in the services business there on the West Coast. I’ve been coaching there. He started when I started coaching him. He was the chief technology officer. I’m sorry. He was the IT manager and now he’s the chief technology officer. He’s now in the executive team. I’m now coaching one of his direct reports now that he’s moved up to like assistant it manager. And I’ve got one of their regional sales managers that I’m coaching as well, who’s not on the executive team. So he’s on the second layer. So it’s not. It’s no longer just C-suite type individuals who are getting coaching. So this one organization is a great example. Three three of their mid-level managers are all going through coaching, and I know several others in the organization are using other coaches besides me. So it’s part of the ethos, part of the culture of that particular corporation.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:08] Are you finding that that’s happening more and more, that it is becoming part of the culture and it’s built into what’s attracting people to organizations that when they do have a robust coaching program?

Steven Howard: [00:20:20] Yes, definitely. It’s it’s one of the things that attracts them. And right now, I think it’s one of the things that’s keeping people in this organization because I asked this question the other day, the nine people who are receiving coaching are all staying with the organization. They have lost about four or five people during this. You know, this great resignation as people are calling it, none of those four or five at the same level had coaching had personal coaches. So I know it wasn’t so much that it wasn’t. I think it partly was. It wasn’t offered to them. And also they didn’t take it up. But yeah, definitely. The retail company I just mentioned earlier, they’re now offering coaching. To their second line and first line managers as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:03] Well, Stephen, thank you so much for sharing. What you do is if somebody is interested in learning more, can you share the website?

Steven Howard: [00:21:10] Yes, it’s client leadership calling Lee Kantor, as you probably know in Spanish, means hot, but the second definition is passionate. So I’m very passionate about leadership and leadership development, so it’s client leadership. My email is Stephen at Caliente Leadership. You can find me on LinkedIn under Stephen Howard. I think it’s as Greater Los Angeles area, but you can find me pretty readily.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:35] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Steven Howard: [00:21:39] Well, thank you, Lee. I appreciate this and I appreciate. I’m sure your listeners appreciate the opportunity that you’re giving people to share this. And before we sign off, I just want to wish you and your family all the best during the forthcoming holiday season.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:52] Yep, you too. Thank you. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Elizabeth Carter With Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC

November 23, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Bay Area Business Radio

Elizabeth Carter With Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC

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Elizabeth L. Carter is a crowdfunding securities attorney who represents investment companies, small businesses, nonprofits, cooperatives, and other social enterprises with the legal strategy and compliance of raising capital from both accredited and non-accredited investors.

Her most recent work includes assisting a driver-owned ride-share cooperative with the legal compliance of its $1.07 million debt crowdfunding offer through Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF). Similarly, she assisted a consumer cooperative with the amendment of its by-laws and articles of incorporation in order to prepare it for an upcoming capital raise from non-member investors.

She also assisted a number of investment funds with the securities legal strategy and compliance of a SEC Rule 506(c) crowdfunding offer, including a cooperatively-owned investment fund that offered $2 million in equity to accredited investors, as well as a community development financial institution that offered $1 million in slow equity to mission-aligned accredited investors

Connect with Elizabeth on LinkedIn and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Legal Fund
The importance of representative legal services for underrepresented entrepreneurs using crowdfunding
Legal matters in crowdfunding

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:06] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in the Bay Area. It’s time for Bay Area Business Radio. Now here’s your host

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Bay Area Business Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Leah Davis, coaching inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy. Today on Bay Area Business Radio, we have Elizabeth Carter with Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:00:39] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:41] Well, I’m excited to learn about your practice. Tell us a little bit about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:00:46] Yes, thank you. So Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC is a crowdfunding securities law firm that represents investment companies, small businesses, nonprofit and cooperatives with the legal strategy and compliance of raising capital from investors.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:02] So for folks who aren’t familiar, can you talk a little bit about crowdfunding? I’m sure everybody’s, you know, heard of Kickstarter or Indiegogo or go fund me where there’s, you know, people go out to the crowd or grow it to people they know and say, Hey, I got this project or I got this thing. But there’s also a place for it in, in business and in the investment community as well, right?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:01:24] Yeah. So crowdfunding is a particular area or specific area of the law concerning capital raising and to be more sort of specific. So you have the business law, right, which is an area of law and underneath business law, it’s securities law, which is more specific in the area of business law. And then underneath the securities law is crowdfunding law. So security securities concerns the legal rules and federal state rules regarding private fundraising from investors. So not the GO Fund Me, which is more donation and not the Indiegogo with your rewards, but actual securities or when you’re giving money with the expectation of significant return. Right. So that’s the difference between a donation. You’re giving money. You’re not expecting things. Return rewards. The only thing you’re expecting in return is sort of a small token, really. You’re just there to support the business. But the investment piece as an investor, you are actually expecting some type of return, whether it’s in no time is guaranteed. But the idea is that I’m giving you money so that you can work hard and provide some return or money back to me, plus whatever gave you plus interest or something, right? And so with crowdfunding does is basically is that area of the law. But there are exemptions under the Securities Act, which is the securities law that we’re speaking about, that allows that business to raise capital from investors without having to register with the SEC or do ongoing reporting requirements, which again can amount to hundreds of dollars a year. So crowdfunding designed for small businesses to cost effectively raise capital from investors.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:08] Now this type of raise is kind of new, right? Because historically, the only people that can get involved with investing in small businesses in this manner were kind of accredited investors. And those are people who had, you know, a certain amount of wealth that was kind of vetted and kind of deemed that they were able to take this kind of risk. But now through this vehicle, people that aren’t accredited can invest as well, right?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:03:40] Right, exactly. So crowdfunding in a nutshell, there are two aspects to it. One is the fact that now, as you’re mentioning, a business can raise capital from non accredited investors just as they would accredited investors. So accredited investors are defined as investors, individual investors as people who have over $200000 in income, annual income, or over a million dollars in excluding the value of someone’s home. So these are just people who have investments elsewhere that are amounting to more than $1 million and then not accredited. That’s basically 90 percent of the rest of the population, right? Most people are not accredited investors. They do not have over many dollars a net worth, nor do they have possibly over $200000 in income and so would allow a small business to publicly advertise. That’s the other quality so publicly advertised to non accredited investors without having to register previously. And this is since 2012 Jobs Act of 2012. Allow for that. Previously, the business would have to have known that that investor privately. So whether a friend, family or business associate to then be able to ask them for money, what without violating any securities rules, right, whether they’re credit or non accredited. You have to know them. And so it kind of. Right, so only people who actually had wealth and people who were that, you know, right, so there’s a network thing that you are able to support, have them able to support your business. So now today, though, with crowd funding, you can go online. You don’t have to know this investor. You don’t have to be friends with them or have a long relationship with them. You can publicly advertise to them and they do not have to be wealthy, right? Just so long as you disclose properly, let them know what the offer is that they know will be businesses and do not misrepresent. So that’s what the legal or securities legal lawyer comes in to help you communicate that effectively through your disclosure documents.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:39] Now, does crowdfunding in this way have to only be equity in the company or can it be debt as well?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:05:48] That is included? That is a security as well as membership interest in an LLC operating agreement when you have that agreement and people are signing on. That is also considered a security. So right in equity can include stocks, but it also can include, again, like I said, that that operating agreement where you’re agreeing to provide money for some type of ownership stake, but that is also very commonly used. And the reason why that is included is because even though you’re not getting an ownership stake, there still is an expectation of return in the form of interest rates.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:21] And are your clients contacting you before they’ve begun this or after they began it and realized they were in over their head? And it’s too complicated?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:06:31] Ideally, before most of the time is before, and this one is more cost effective because before I have people who have gone either gone through the process by themselves and and we’re told that they need a securities lawyer or found out later like one one case. Actually, the SEC denied their filing and said it was actually fraudulent, even though the founder didn’t intend for it to be fraudulent or or misrepresenting. That’s really what it is because fraud is more intentional, but they all run in the same category. There’s a rule against misrepresentation, fraud, and so misrepresentation can simply be that you’ve been disclosed properly or you didn’t disclose fully. You miss some information, you admitted something. And so that is more costly because that particular person pay for an attorney to do that work, and the attorney didn’t do it properly. So now they have to go find another attorney and almost pay double right because the new attorney is saying, Well, I have to review everything with to start over. And so ideally, they should come before they make the offer, before they file anything, before they start asking people for money. You’ll save a whole lot of money just getting that advice and strategy going and then later.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:35] Now is this something that somebody should contact you at the very kind of beginning of their business if they’re thinking of launching? Like, should startups contact you if this is one of the ways that they might try to access funding? Or is this something that they have to have already established a business with clients? And it’s kind of ongoing and they’re trying to get it to a new level. So then they’re going to explore crowdfunding and then they would contact you.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:08:01] Yeah, I think both legally, both. I mean, legally, so long as you have a strong business plan that shows the really lay out lays, lay out your plan to a operate, be bringing revenues and see generate returns for your investors. You have to lay that out. There should be some formula. There should be some visualization that shows the investor that if I give you X amount of dollars, which is what you’re asking for, that over time, some amount of time and that should also be laid out. You will get X amount of dollars in return or X amount of percentage in return that should be laid out. So usually the founders should have access to someone that can really work through those numbers and those financials for them, right? Whether it’s an accountant or a financial advisor that can guide them through really coming up with numbers that are more accurate. Now again, these are projections. So they’re not they’re not truly accurate or facts. They’re more saying. More likely than not, this is what you can expect. And so for me, that’s what I’m going to ask. They’ll they’ll say, I want to raise X amount of dollars and I want to know just how much I’m going to give them time.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:09:04] So I’ll ask them, Well, how do you what did you come up with that number? How do you what was your basis? What’s your standing behind that? It’s not just you can’t just say that, right? And so I do help guide, but the idea is for them to come up with a strong team marketing accounting lawyer to then be successful. So legally, we can draft the documents, make sure they’re not misrepresenting or misrepresenting anyone. But for me, as an attorney who represent underrepresented founders where it’s already difficult to obtain capital, the traditional means, I want to make sure that they’re more successful than not. So I to the team, call them what I call the ecosystem around me so that we can make sure that they’re more successful than not. And in crowdfunding, what makes you successful is the crowd, right? Is your particular investors right or your who are also your friends, family or neighbors and then strangers that just want to support you so you want to be able to build that prior to or sooner than later when you’re starting to make your offer.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:59] Now, when you’re working with a client? Are you coming in just as this expert in crowdfunding or do you also take on some of the kind of general business law issues they might have?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:10:11] Oh yeah. So so I do. I do the general business law. And then what that looks like is I help with the strategy of choosing what type of entity or entity. Sometimes there’s a strategy to create one entity that will be the parent company. Another would be a subsidiary, especially if they’re interested in becoming an investment company or fund. Because the other part is we’re looking for an exemption. There’s two statutes that we want to make sure we exempt from the Securities Act of 1933, which concerns the act of asking people for money. And then there’s the Investment Company Act of 1940, which concerns the entity itself. So if you’re saying I want to create a fund that will then ask people to invest and then reinvest in other companies. My mind is saying, OK, you’re trying to invest in or investment fund. So if you want to prevent that sort of yearly, ongoing, costly reporting requirements, we need to find an exemption. So part of that is looking at the strategic way of structuring these entities, these companies, so that they’re exempt from both the from both acts or, you know, just generally in securities, but also just depending on what their needs and wants are right. They may have certain membership privileges for certain people, certain classes. So we do that sort of structuring the governance and then we go into the particular investment specific and structured the term sheet, the subscription agreement, the offering statement or disclosure documents in times call the Form C. And so, yeah, so it’s both so the general business governance and then the contract surrounding investments.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:37] Now, can you share a kind of one of your success stories of one of your clients that have been able to get that escape velocity and make a go of this?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:11:46] Yeah, yeah. So I’m happy to share one of my clients called the drivers pull up. Based out of New York City, created an alternative rideshare company alternative to like Uber or Lyft, right? And their model is designed to allow the drivers to be owners of the company, right? So unlike Uber or Lyft, Uber, Lyft, the drivers are more independent contractors. They’re not they don’t receive any equity. They have to have their own sort of business business model or business costs and in revenue. So it’s costly for the consumer because the profits are going to certain shareholders that are or that are not necessarily the drivers, but the drivers co-op. The drivers are actually co-owners of the Co-op or the company. And so what they did was in addition to the equity piece, which are owned by the members member drivers they. Created an offer a debt offer based upon the revenues of the company and up to two point five million, they raised over one million and they barely raised up fairly quickly, I’ll say in a couple of weeks. They raised one million dollars through regulation crowdfunding. So through that exemption, they’re able to raise from both accredited non accredited investors and they receive a lot of support all over the country. People are very interested in the co-op model, but also the fact that they’re providing an alternative to sort of this conglomerate. Big, big corporations write over and live.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:15] So that was said, they were able to kind of use that those funds to launch and then maybe are they only in New York? Are they around the country now?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:13:23] Right, so they were so the funds were designed to be set to launch to hire new staff and then to eventually to expand to other cities. That is the goal they want to expand across the country with the same model.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:35] So now you use the term co-op. Can you explain what that is and why that entity might be kind of better for these kind of projects?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:13:46] Right, right, right. So co-op is any entity that is owned and controlled by those that use the services. So if we’re talking about a worker co-op sort of with the driver’s co-op is it is owned and controlled by its workers, those that that provide labor to the company. If we’re talking about a housing co-op, we’re talking about the tenant owning, controlling the residential building where they reside. Sort of like a condo, but instead of individual deeds, it’s only one master d, so to speak, or blanket mortgage on top of the building. And then the members own a share of the company that then owns the building. And in terms of a consumer co-op, a lot of them are grocery stores. Those who consume or credit unions. Those who bank at the credit union are also co owners or, if it’s a nonprofit, just have the ability to control and vote on decisions within the entity. So that is attractive because it counters sort of this disconnect between particular worker co-op sense this power imbalance and disconnect between the owners or the employer and the employees and the workers, right? So now take away that power imbalance and the workers are the employers. They’re wanting the same.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:54] And that’s something that you help firms with as well, right?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:14:57] Yes. Yeah, so I actually thought co-ops is something that I have particular knowledge and expertize and actually was part of forming a nonprofit back in 2016 that was designed to create and support co-ops, which is why I have affiliation with a Sustainable Economies Law Center based in Oakland, which is also designed to do the same thing not only just co-ops but other economies to help support legally these new sort of alternative business structures that are more supportive of social enterprise or more supportive, supportive of something beyond profits for your business going beyond profits. And so that’s what co-ops are really known for. And yes, I have a particular expertize in creating and being being creative in coming up with unique structures to create that model.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:44] Now let’s talk about that work in Oakland. Can you talk about that Black Capital Matters legal fund and the work that you’re doing to help in that area?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:15:54] Yeah. So as I mentioned before, my firm is a mission based firm specifically to support the legal strategy and compliance of small businesses, investment companies that are owned and controlled by underrepresented founders, namely black black entrepreneurs. And the reason being is that, for instance, black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs and the least likely to be supported by Venture Capital Bank financing or just generally philanthropy and et cetera. Right? And so the idea is to be able to be a resource, a representative representative resource to these companies and businesses so that we can come up with unique strategies like the co-op model, right? Or like forming ecosystems with credit unions to be able to offset or counter those disadvantages. So so the the Black Capital Matter’s legal fund is one way that the firm is doing that. We decided to create the fund to offset the legal costs of raising capital, so the firm itself already provides one of the most, if not the most affordable legal rates when it comes to securities law. But even then, it’s still the law firm and law firms. Billable rates can be out of reach for many small businesses. And so even with that in mind, we’re thinking, Well, how can we be more accessible or have you more democratized so that more businesses who are, you know, equally talented have great ideas if need that legal support and marketing support to be able to shine through and grow? How do we best do that? And so as a law firm in this space and its law firm that is particularly designed to be accessible, we want it to be able to be creative and unique to partner with a nonprofit organization, to be a fiscal sponsor to help put forth this legal fund designed to again provide subsidized legal costs while they’re raising capital. Otherwise, what happens is these businesses just go along and do it wrong or just risk doing it wrong and risk being flagged by the SEC, which could amount to financial fines or criminal penalties, right? And so we want to prevent that.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:51] Now, what type of firms should think about going the crowdfunding route, or is that you think any firm that’s thinking about getting into business that this is appropriate for them?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:18:04] Anything, anything. So crowdfunding is a means of acquiring investors. So even today, venture capital, which is has historically always been a private equity space but historically have been a type of investor that controls the deal. Right. They’ll come in and they’re the ones who provide the term sheet. They’re saying this how much are we going to invest and how much control we’re going to have? So historically, that was sort of the way these startups to get funding because again, banks thought it were too risky, like, what are you? You don’t have any revenues. You just have a business plan, right? They didn’t trust it. But the venture capital wasn’t a professional investor. And to do their own due diligence and see farther ahead in the future and say, actually looking at the market, looking at your traction, your mailing list, whatever we know, we can value this company a certain kind of way. And so we’re going to see ahead in the future, but we’re going to make sure we put terms in there that are more favorable to us so that, you know, we can cash out at some point or we can go make this company go public at some point.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:18:57] So with crowdfunding, did was actually said no, actually, the business is going to actually control the terms they’re going to put in their own term sheet with what’s best for the business, for the long term longevity of the business and then Venture Capital Fund or others. If you want to invest, you have to agree to these terms, right? So it flips the control a bit with the investor and within investment space. And so really any business can get involved. But I say the business was a startup or small business, but I will say that it’s a startup is really interested in traditional route and going through the investment or VC funds that invest. Traditionally, they may be they may not be attracted to the crowdfunding means because again, it terms of the terms where the business is actually in control and the VC may not like that. So so yes and no, it just depends on who is that particular investor and what they’re interested in.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:50] Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website w-w-what ELC?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:19:58] Yes.

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

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:20:05] Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:07] All right, this Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all. Next time I’m Bay Area Business Radio.

Patricia Karam With Mission Recruit

November 22, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

GWBC Radio

Patricia Karam With Mission Recruit

00:00 /

As the CEO & Founder of Atlanta-based Mission Recruit, Patricia Karam is the driving force introducing human design to corporate America.

With more than a decade of experience working with Fortune 500 companies nationwide, she launched Mission Recruit with the vision of delivering best-in-class services by combining the sophistication of a large recruiting company with the heart and personalization of a smaller staffing agency.

In 2021, Mission Recruit was named one of USPAACC-SE’s Top Ten Asian American Businesses in America. Patricia’s extensive background in the HR industry started with a corporate recruiting career with a global leader in the IT staffing industry before transitioning to national staffing, as well as positions in strategy and philanthropy.

Her strong entrepreneurial spirit is a result of her parents’ influence, immigrants from the Philippines, who taught her life’s most important lessons – and above all – the significance of giving back.

As such, a pillar of Mission Recruit’s philosophy is to provide active and positive support to women worldwide through its CSR initiatives, most notably survivors of domestic violence and sex trafficking.

Connect with Patricia on LinkedIn and follow Mission Recruit on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Mission Recruit
Life/work balance being a parent
Hope to change the narrative when it comes to recruiting

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business, and this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Patricia Karam and she is with Mission Recruit. Welcome, Patricia.

Patricia Karam: [00:00:30] Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Mission Recruit. How are you serving folks?

Patricia Karam: [00:00:37] Yeah, of course. We have three primary pillars. Our first and foremost is Best in Class Recruiting Services for our midsized to Fortune 500 clients, and we specialize in I.T. and executive level positions. Secondly is our Mission to Give Back, so we give back to organizations, domestic violence and human trafficking. And third is to Keep the Human in H.R. Through Human Design, especially in these times where everyone is remote.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] Well, I love the fact that you kind of boldly and proudly go out there and say, mission is part of our name and mission is part of our DNA. Can you talk about what that was like when you founded the firm? What was kind of the thinking of being so upfront about having mission as part of the name and the culture?

Patricia Karam: [00:01:29] Yeah. No, thank you so much for asking that. And I think it goes along with, you know, I have a lot of experience working for huge companies as well as a small mom and pop shop. And I just realized it’s so huge for me where everybody has budget for hiring, like all companies do. It’s important for me to also give back. And then, a part of pivoting from 2020, I also had the mission to Keep the Human in H.R. too, so everything we do is with intention.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:01] So, you said when you were founding it, I’m going to have an element of the business is going to be giving back and it’s going to be something that we’re not going to just kind of do in the background. We’re going to be kind of transparent and authentic about that as well.

Patricia Karam: [00:02:17] Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, for every single placement we make, we’ll donate $100 to a domestic violence organization and $100 to a human trafficking organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:28] Wow. That’s amazing. Now, in seeing a lot of headlines about this Great Resignation, a lot of folks that are kind of, I guess, sick of the grind and saying, “Okay. I’ve had enough. I’m going to kind of go my own way or I’m going to pull the rip cord and I’m not going to do anything,” are you finding that your clients are having that same challenge and you’re able to kind of help them solve that problem to make their place more desirable or a place that people want to work? And are you able to kind of counsel your other clients who are your people to match them up with the right fit?

Patricia Karam: [00:03:06] Yeah. I mean, absolutely. The Great Resignation, I’ve been hearing a lot about it for months. And I’m seeing, it’s a very real thing no matter what industry, no matter how much you’re making. I think the thing about COVID is that it’s highlighted people in what they truly desired, whether it’s working less or not working at all. But, yeah, I’m seeing it at my client site and we’re definitely there for them to help backfill anyone who does leave. But it’s a very real thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:37] And then, I’m hearing and I’m seeing a way to combat it is make a place of work desirable enough that people want to be part of it. They want to join the mission. They want to kind of join you in whatever that goal is that you have set for your company. And that goes to, like you were talking about your own firm, when you have a culture of mission, that attracts a certain type of person that probably isn’t part of the Great Resignation.

Patricia Karam: [00:04:08] Yeah. You’re absolutely right about that. Yeah, for sure. And I also wanted to add to that. You know, I think people are not only about salaries, too. I’m seeing with candidates, it’s not just about salaries, to your point, it’s also about the company culture and any other benefits, like remote work in, I think, a lot of people now. It’s on either spectrum. People either want to be in the office and want that human interaction so badly or they’re so happy that they can be remote. So, it’s about exactly that balance.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:44] Now, you mentioned as one of your pillars the concept of the human design. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Patricia Karam: [00:04:51] Yeah. It’s essentially a personality assessment with no questions. So, I know throughout my career I’ve taken multiple personality assessments. And based on, you know, your company culture or who your manager may be, maybe the answers wouldn’t always be as authentic as you would like for them to be or consciously would like them to be. And, also, over time, your answers may change. And so, what I love about human design is that it kind of shows you who you are personally and professionally.

Patricia Karam: [00:05:29] So, it takes the eastern and western science principle and practices, and kind of combines them together to come up with your unique human design. And so, we do this in two ways. I have a human design expert on team who actually works in the corporate environment, and she’s implemented human design at the company level and has seen major success. So, we’re offering it in two ways through individual PDF and as well as team workshops. So, they’re fine print types. And I think it would be a great exercise, especially for remote team members to come together and kind of understand each other more. So, like I said, there’s five different types.

Patricia Karam: [00:06:12] And the biggest takeaway that I say to have for people is to see how you know you’re on the right track and how you’re off track. So, for me, personally, I’m a projector and I’m on track when I see success and I’m off track when I’m bitter. And so, that goes for me personally and professionally and that’s why I truly believe in human design.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:34] So then, when you get that kind of knowledge, how does that help kind of the leaders in the organization by identifying kind of on track and off track for each of their people? And then, there are people knowing that, how does that help them kind of be more effective?

Patricia Karam: [00:06:49] Oh, yeah. It’s tremendously. Because, as a leader, you’ll see if somebody is, like, in a meeting and they’re not responding, maybe they need to be called on. So, that’s also a part of projector, they’re waiting for the invitation. So, some people by nature aren’t going to be out there and speaking up. Sometimes they just need to feel comfortable, so they need to be called on. So, that’s something as a leader to know if somebody is a projector, or a manifestor, or a generator, or manifesting generator, or a reflector. Each one has different signs how you know to motivate or step in and help someone. And, also, it helps other team members understand each other better.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:34] Right. It sounds like it really helps people who, maybe, don’t have that kind of empathy gene or that’s not their superpower. It kind of gives them almost a cheat sheet to how to kind of get the most out of their people.

Patricia Karam: [00:07:49] Yeah. Exactly. And I actually need to get you a human design PDF for yourself, too, so you could just see how your human design is.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:58] Is this an intervention? That sounds like an intervention.

Patricia Karam: [00:08:03] It could possibly be one.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:05] Well, thank you for that. I look forward to going through the exercise. Talk about your firm a little bit, you mentioned the pandemic, and I’m sure that that’s affected everybody, but talk about how you kind of were able to manage your way through that.

Patricia Karam: [00:08:20] Yeah. Oh, man. The pandemic was not easy, especially in the thick of the shutdown. And that’s one thing I saw, you know, leaving my comfy job to starting a new business. And then, the second year in business is the pandemic. Luckily, we were able to still be profitable that year, but it was tough the first half of the year, for sure. But as companies were realizing they could still run remotely, that’s where I was lucky enough where my clients were still hiring.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:53] And that’s one of those things where some companies needed help kind of managing through how to move from in real life, in-person, to remote workforce. And then, now, here we go, the pendulum swinging back again of how to move people, some of which are going back into the office again or some hybrid.

Patricia Karam: [00:09:12] Yeah. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:15] Now, were you able to kind of create some programing or some virtual offerings that maybe you didn’t have pre-pandemic that maybe now you have that can kind of live on beyond the pandemic?

Patricia Karam: [00:09:27] Yeah. And that’s exactly where I pivoted and started focusing on human design also, because that’s B2C and B2B. So, primarily before, I was only B2B, and so this has been a segue into B2C through human design.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:43] And that’s stuff that people can do virtually. They don’t have to kind of go to a workshop in-person and somewhere. They can be doing this virtually.

Patricia Karam: [00:09:52] If somebody wants to purchase their own human design PDF, they could just purchase it from our website. And it takes about a two to three week turnaround time to receive your personalized PDF.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:04] And then, what about kind of workshops, are you doing those kind of things virtually as well?

Patricia Karam: [00:10:08] Yes. We’re doing those virtual, and our next availability is kind of spring 2022. But, yes, we are doing those virtually. And I think it’s so great, especially now, because everyone’s remote. And so, it’s not only a team activity to bring everyone together, but it’s also understanding each other better. So, I think it’s very beneficial for companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:30] Now, we talked about how mission is part of kind of the name of your firm, but recruit is as well. Can you talk about, for a potential employee that maybe went through the great resignation and once they get back in the workforce, how do you kind of recommend that they set themselves apart so they become recruit-able?

Patricia Karam: [00:10:54] No, that’s a great question. And I think there’s a lot of different factors. First and foremost, they have to know exactly what they want. So, I always recommend candidates to know the top three things that are must have, and it could be anything and everything from, “I want this to be my title. I want to make this much. I want to be in this location. Or I want to be remote.” So, definitely defining their top three non-negotiables.

Patricia Karam: [00:11:20] And then, secondly, make sure your resume reflect what your target is. Because you have people who have well over five to ten years experience with one page of a resume, that’s definitely not enough information for companies to see. So, a lot of recruiting is becoming AI, and that’s very difficult if you don’t have enough room to put in tools or keywords in your resume. So, it’s very important to be able to articulate your exact experience and goals in your resume.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:56] Now, when your folks are looking for candidates, is there anything that that potential candidate could be doing, maybe on LinkedIn, that’ll help them get found?

Patricia Karam: [00:12:09] Yeah. Oh, that’s a great question. Because that is my favorite tool to recruit people. I would say, definitely add more of your experience in your LinkedIn profile. The more the merrier. This is where the more the merrier is in LinkedIn because it’s definitely keyword searches.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:27] Now, how does a candidate know what are the appropriate keywords? Like, what are the drivers or there are certain keywords to have or certain keywords not to use? Like, is something kind of a red flag if you use too much of this one word where that’s going to send a certain signal? Because, like you said, it is AI. There’s a lot of automation when it comes to this, and you might be doing things inadvertently that are sabotaging you being found.

Patricia Karam: [00:12:52] Yeah. That’s a really good point. And I think it’s mostly not about red flags, but more about articulating experience so somebody could have experience with a specific tool that a company needs someone to have. And they don’t list it. They just list their job title only. So, that would definitely knock them out from the job search. So, the more details and consistency is the best.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:19] So, when you say a tool, that might be a certain software or kind of you went through a certain program that kind of is looking for that, “I need people that have Python” or “I know people that have certain things.” And then, if it’s not in there, they’re not going to make the cut.

Patricia Karam: [00:13:37] They’re not even going to pop up. Yeah. Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:40] So, in that case, that’s probably a more the merrier, too. So, don’t think that they know that you do excel. Put it in there.

Patricia Karam: [00:13:48] Exactly. Exactly. Don’t put spreadsheets, put Excel or Google Sheets.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:55] So, it’s important to be kind of that granular because, like you said, this is AI. They have a checklist. They’re just going, “Okay. We need somebody that does ten out of ten here. And if they don’t, it’s not going to get you to the next level of even be vetted.”

Patricia Karam: [00:14:10] Absolutely. And I’m so glad you’re making all these points, because the more we can put this information out there, the easier it will be to find people.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:20] But I think they, obviously, aren’t doing it to kind of sabotage themselves. They just don’t know what they don’t know. And when things are being vetted with automation, they’re not looking at your resume and going, “Oh, this seems like a nice person. Let’s bring them in.” They’re just kind of if it’s not ten out of ten or nine out of ten, it’s not even getting into the pile to even be looked at.

Patricia Karam: [00:14:44] You’re 100 percent right about that.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:48] So, now, do you have any advice for the women out there, the GWBC audience? There are a lot of women that, obviously, they already have a business or they’re at the point where they had to go through a pivot or some kind. But any advice for women when they’re launching their own company that you would wish you had done differently or something that was a big takeaway that helped kind of get your business to a new level?

Patricia Karam: [00:15:17] Yeah. And I can’t say enough good things about GWBC because they are the reason why I was able to get into my Fortune 500 clients. Because with the certification, you have diverse spend. And that’s one thing I recommend to any woman is to, first, get your women-owned certification, that should be the first thing besides formulating your company. That’s the most important thing to me.

Patricia Karam: [00:15:49] As well as if you are working a job and you want to start a side hustle, just start it. Go ahead and work it on the side as you’re working and whenever you are comfortable enough financially, then dive into it 110 percent.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:06] Now, your firm was recently named one of the Top Ten Asian-American Businesses in America, how did that come about? And does that help you kind of penetrate those enterprise level companies when they’re talking about diverse spend to go with somebody that’s kind of been vetted and named to one of these top awards?

Patricia Karam: [00:16:32] Yeah. Man, what an honor. That was one thing I just was not expecting at all. But I’m so full of gratitude to even be mentioned in the same category as these other amazing companies. But it definitely has helped put a mark on our name. And, obviously, clarify again that we are diverse then, so it’s just an amazing experience, and I’m so thankful for it.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:04] That’s great. I don’t know if you did that on purpose in terms of a strategy to apply to be considered.

Patricia Karam: [00:17:11] I didn’t. I didn’t apply. Someone nominated me.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:15] Wow. That’s even better. So, did you even know about the award that one of your clients or somebody you knew nominated you? It’s amazing.

Patricia Karam: [00:17:23] It was someone I knew, a friend at a client site who put my name in the basket. And I had no idea she did. And I have received an email saying I won the award and I was so thrilled.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:38] Wow. That’s a goose bump moment there.

Patricia Karam: [00:17:40] Totally. It’s like winning the Oscars in the business world.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:46] So, now, as we look ahead as this year is coming to a close, what are you most looking forward to next year?

Patricia Karam: [00:17:53] Oh, opportunity. And now is the most interesting time ever in corporate America, I feel like, because nothing is stable, nothing is the same. Everything is changing right before our eyes. So, I’m interested to see the abundance of 2022 for everyone.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:15] So, you’re optimistic about the future for Mission Recruit and your yourself?

Patricia Karam: [00:18:21] Yes, I am. It only gets better and better.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:25] Now, what is kind of the best fit client for you at this stage of your growth?

Patricia Karam: [00:18:30] So, our clients are primarily midsized to Fortune 500 companies, and we service all industries.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:38] And then, is it all across the country or is it primarily in the southeast?

Patricia Karam: [00:18:43] It’s across the country and also globally, so we have global clients too.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:48] Well, congratulations on all the success. It’s an amazing story.

Patricia Karam: [00:18:52] Thank you, Lee. I so appreciate that.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:54] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about the firm, get on your calendar, or have a conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website?

Patricia Karam: [00:19:02] Yeah. It’s missionrecruit.com, and we’re on all the socials. And I’d love to hear from anyone and everyone.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:09] Wow. Thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Patricia Karam: [00:19:14] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate you.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:16] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GWBC Open for Business.

About GWBC

The Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®) is at the forefront of redefining women business enterprises (WBEs). An increasing focus on supplier diversity means major corporations are viewing our WBEs as innovative, flexible and competitive solutions. The number of women-owned businesses is rising to reflect an increasingly diverse consumer base of women making a majority of buying decision for herself, her family and her business.

GWBC^® has partnered with dozens of major companies who are committed to providing a sustainable foundation through our guiding principles to bring education, training and the standardization of national certification to women businesses in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Paulette Harper With Elevate Your Story

November 22, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Bay Area Business Radio

Paulette Harper With Elevate Your Story

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Paulette Harper is a twelve-time best-selling, two-time award-winning author, certified creative story coach. She has been featured in CBS, ABC, The Sacramento Observer, CBN, and NBC.

Paulette uses her gifts to equip ambitious Christian women speakers & entrepreneurs to write, publish books, and be the catalyst for transformation in their spheres of influence. She is committed to empowering women and equipping them with tools to unapologetically share their voices and stories, as well as helping them push past barriers and discover their purpose, so they may become the best version of themselves.

As a creative story coach, she teaches emerging authors how to tap into their creativity and turn words into stories so they can accomplish their dreams of becoming published authors.

She enables her clients to build their confident, grow and see new possibilities while creating the results they desire. Paulette challenges them to unlock and expand their creative thinking and creativity.

She is the visionary author of four #1 bestselling book collaborations- “Arise From The Ashes, Women Who Soar,” “Resilience in Hard Times,” and “For Such A Time As This.”

As a minister of the Gospel, she has devoted her life to sharing the message of hope on as many platforms as possible. Paulette preaches, “Live with purpose. Don’t limit God. Stay focused and allow God to take you places you have only imagined.”

Her motto is “I’ve unlocked my voice, so I can help others do the same.”

Connect with Paulette on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

How to build a business around writing book
How can someone get started writing their story

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:06] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in the Bay Area. It’s time for Bay Area Business Radio. Now here’s your host

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Bay Area Business Radio and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Leah Davis, coaching inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy today in the Bay Area Business Radio. We have Paulette Harper with Elevate your story. Welcome, Paulette.

Paulette Harper: [00:00:39] Hello, Lee. Thank you so much. I’m glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:42] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Elevate your story. How are you serving, folks?

Paulette Harper: [00:00:48] Yeah. So as a published author of 12 books and a certified creative coach for aspiring nonfiction authors, my business model really is reaching and serving those who want to write books. Those who are coaches, thought leaders, faith based leaders and entrepreneurs who want to tap into their creativity and turn words into stories so they can accomplish those dreams of becoming published authors, but then also taking it a little bit further and showing them how to create a thriving business from that one book so they can become a better coaches or more entrepreneurs, or even create businesses that they haven’t yet tapped into.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:38] Now, can we talk a little bit about your back story? How did you get involved as an author and as a coach?

Paulette Harper: [00:01:46] Yeah. So my back story is I wrote my first book years ago, and when I wrote my book, I wrote it just because of being nudged by the Lord. And then I had gone through emotional trauma and from the emotional trauma and coming through that I realized that my story was powerful. I realized that there were other women who had gone through emotional trauma and losses and setbacks in life and divorce, and I wanted to be able to offer them a platform to be able to share their story without fear, share their stories without being intimidated to just really own their truth. And so for me, being able to write my story. It really opened up the opportunity for other women to say, You know what, I want to write my story, but I just don’t know how. And that’s where, you know, my business is. My business became an opportunity for me to just really showcase other authors or aspiring authors to be able to share their stories as well. So through my own pain, I began to write my story, and from that, it just opened up up opportunities for other women to say, You know what? I have something to share. I have a story, but I want to share with the world. But I just don’t know how and how can I get it out? And that’s where my back story started from. Just being able to share my own story with with other people as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:16] Now did something happen where you were able to connect dots to the power of storytelling? Did where story’s important to you growing up that you were able to kind of see the power in them and you were able to say, You know what? I have a story too. That’s worth telling.

Paulette Harper: [00:03:32] Actually, I when I first started sharing my story, I didn’t know any other writer, any other author. So for me, it was just really me learning that, you know, my words had power. And then for me, taking that journey and walking through the steps to become a published author, I began to be connected with other writers who helped me along the journey, and I was able to gleam off of them. But realizing that there is so, so much power in storytelling and that the connection really does come when we can be real, authentic, when we can tell the truth, when our truth really can resonate with other people who are going through similar experiences with us and that our stories matter and that our stories are really meant to be that creative force that really does propel other people to have the freedom to say, You know what, I don’t have to be ashamed about my scars, my bruises, what I’ve gone through in life, and that I can use what I’ve gone through to really propel me into destiny into purpose, and that there is a better place or a better purpose for me in life. And that really is sharing my story and letting other people hear the truth and the genuineness of what I’ve gone through.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:50] Do you find that folks who maybe tell you their story, they don’t see the value or the worth in it as much as you like, you’ll hear and you’re like, Oh, that’s fantastic. This is a powerful story. And for them, it’s just they almost take it for granted that they don’t see kind of all it could be.

Paulette Harper: [00:05:11] Yeah, in fact, I get it a lot. A lot of people are afraid to share because they don’t feel that there is anyone out there who will listen. There are people who won’t, you know, they feel that there’s other people who, you know, they feel like there is no value in what they’ve gone through or they don’t think anybody is going to read it. Or it sounds like somebody else’s story. And that’s, you know, that’s contrary to the truth. Because even though there are other people, for instance, that have gone through emotional trauma and divorce, no one has gone through the same experiences that I’ve gone through. No one has are going to be able to, you know, pull the lessons that I’ve learned out of my experiences. And so people, a lot of people stop at sharing their stories because they don’t feel that their story has value. But it does. You are the you don’t have to be certified to be able to share your story. You are an expert in the things you’ve gone through. You are an expert in the trauma because you learn to get out of it. You’re expert in the circumstances that life brought you because you were able to overcome those difficult situations, you were able to overcome and build a better life for yourself. And so whatever that looks like. So people feel that. But on the contrary, I tell people, you know, know your story matters, your voice matters, your experience matters. And let let let us share that with the world so that you can be able to connect with other people who are just like you.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:44] Can you share a story, maybe where either yourself or one of your clients was able to share their story and then the impact in the ripples that that caused where people were coming up to them and saying, Hey, you know, your story made a difference? And now because of this, I do that or now because of hearing you, I know I can do this as well.

Paulette Harper: [00:07:06] Yeah, you know. You know, for for me and then I’ll share a couple of my clients, but for me, it’s really being able to connect with other women. And once they read my story, my first book that was then this is now was written years ago, but I have people still, you know, reading it and coming to me and saying, You know what? I resonate with that. And it helped me just really identify where I am, and I’ve taken the the lessons you’ve learned. I’ve taken the tools that you’ve given. I’ve taken the suggestions and the steps to, you know, have a better life and get clarity on, you know, what my purpose is and then for my clients to be able to write their own transformational stories and self-help books. They’re people that read their stories, seeing the authentic see that they’re being so genuine and authentic in those stories because those are stories of triumph. But to get to that place, you had to go through very, you know, different struggles in life. And so their readers or, you know, really resonating with them and finding that there is hope that there is a place of, you know, a genuineness that they can be open to to be able to share their story. So it’s transformational. The readers are being transformed by the stories, but I’ve written stories that my clients have written and that’s really what it’s about, offering the transformational process to get you from where you are to where you need to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:49] Now, now that you’ve kind of created a business that’s around writing a book, is there any kind of tactical things that you would recommend someone who aspires to kind of follow that same path? There are things that they can be doing today that would help them build a business around writing themselves.

Paulette Harper: [00:09:12] Yeah, you know, if if somebody is aspiring to write a book, you know, the first thing I say, you know, make sure you get the clarity on which story that you want to write because there’s so many experiences that we have in life and you don’t want to take the reader on a journey where they’re confused when they get done reading your book, so you get clarity on that one story. And then once you get the clarity on that one story, then you’re able then to outline how it is that you want the story to flow, what it is that you want readers to know about you and then taking the readers on a journey. And that journey as the chapters unfold should be, you know, not only resonating with the reader but transforming the reader as they walk the journey with you. And then, you know, building the business side of it. For me, it was people coming to me and asking me, How do I do this? How do I write a book? How can you help me publish my book? And so the the demand for me was people asking for help. And so, you know, people will tell you what they need and you’re able to fill fill those needs because of your gifts, because of the creativity that you’ve been able to to show in your writing your story.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] Now, do you think that everyone has kind of do you think everyone could be a writer or is this something that you know you either have it or you don’t? Is this something that can be learned?

Paulette Harper: [00:10:49] Yeah, everybody has a story and everybody can be a writer and you develop the craft as you write more stories. And so, you know, for a lot of people, they think, you know, what stops a lot of people is they say, you know, well, I’m not a writer. And so the thing about it is, you have a story and you write it. And then there’s, you know, editors that help make your story polish and make it look really good. So you know, everybody, you know, as I mentioned, they have a story. It just depends on if they want people, you know, to publish it, if they want to publish their story, or maybe they just want a journal about it and let you know just family members read it or just, you know, have it in a in a diary. But everybody, you know, has the ability to write a story and you just have people that help craft it for you and make it better.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:46] Is there something that how do you know kind of your story is? A business as well. Is there some clues that when you’re writing a story that you know, you know what? This is something that can evolve into a business if I take certain steps.

Paulette Harper: [00:12:04] Yeah, I think anyone that is a storyteller can really create a business around it. For me, it’s coaching other people how to write books. It’s it’s helping other people pull out their creativity. And so depending on what the story is about, the book is about can really you can really tailor it for coaching. And so me, I have my other business is also my life coach and my empowerment coaching services that I also offer. And that helps the, you know, that deals with the internal struggles that women may have and how to help them get out of that. So, you know, there’s a niche for every story. You just have to find out what niche your story fits and then definitely as an audience to to service them

Lee Kantor: [00:13:05] Now, is that how you help your clients as you help them kind of hone in on what is the the story that that maybe is the most productive for them to be sharing?

Paulette Harper: [00:13:16] Yeah, I do. Just because there’s so many stories that we have so many experiences that we’ve gone through and you know, as a, you know, first time author or, you know, they want to write about everything. And so I help them get clarity on that one story. And from that one story, for instance, one of my clients wrote a book on on on forgiveness. And so it was centered around her, you know, her struggle with unforgiveness and how she walked, you know, her way through that process to live in an area of forgiveness. And so now from that, she could spring off to be a coach that helps other people in those same predicaments because she’s lived it. She she she know the process, she knows what it’s worked for her and she can apply those same tools and gifts, things and abilities to help her create a coaching business surrounding forgiveness. And then she can reach other people in that in that space as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:20] So now how do you kind of describe your ideal client who is the perfect fit for you in your practice?

Paulette Harper: [00:14:28] Yeah, my ideal client is a is thought leaders, faith based, faith based leaders as well. And then those who are really aspiring to write a story. It’s those who are ready to take action, ready to move, ready to say, You know what? I want to write a story and I want to. I need a coach. I need somebody who’s been there that’s going to help me. You know, along this, you know, along the journey that’s going to show me how to do it and do it correctly, that’s going to be there for me to be accountable. And so I’m looking for people who are ready to say yes, and they’re confident in the story that they want to write and they need a coach to help them along the journey to become a published author. And the thing about me is that I empower my clients to become the publisher themselves, so I empower them with the with the tools and the resources and even my literary professionals that will help them achieve those goals of becoming published authors

Lee Kantor: [00:15:40] And about how long does it take from when they begin working with you to when they have a book in their hand?

Paulette Harper: [00:15:46] Yeah. So there’s two types of people that I that I work with, depending on the stages that they’re in their writing journey. And so some people come to me and they have a manuscript already. And so for me, it could be a three month journey from that period on. I take their manuscript, I read it through. I make sure that it’s outlined correctly. It’s, you know, it’s it’s sharing what they’re what the author wants it to share. And then I moved them on the journey of edit. So that’s about a three month process. Now, those who have never written before, they don’t have a manuscript, they don’t not they’re not clear on their story, and they need help from the conception of it. Then that’s a three. That’s a six month process because it’s three months to really write the story, get the clarity right, the story and outline it. And then I have to allow the the author to be able to write the story in the designated amount of time and then the other three months, the other 90 days. It’s for the. Development of the of the product itself to produce the book.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:56] And if somebody wants to learn more and get on your calendar, maybe have a more substantive conversation with you. What is the best way to do that? You have a website.

Paulette Harper: [00:17:05] Yeah, I do. They can reach me. I call it Harper as Paulette Harper, and they go to my website. They can get a free gift from me, which is the Storytellers Story workbook, which is going to help them outline their story and pick the exact story that they want to write first. So they’re welcome to grab that copy of the Free My Free PDF that I offer as long as they join my mailing list.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:33] And then can people learn more about all the books that you publish on your website as well?

Paulette Harper: [00:17:38] Yeah, I have a section on my website that list all of my books. They’re more than welcome to go and read a little bit about more about me and the books that I’ve written, and then they can also purchase my books on Amazon as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:54] Well, Paulette, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Paulette Harper: [00:18:00] Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:03] All right, this is Lee Kantor Lusail. Next time I’m Bay Area Business Radio.

Larry Galler With Larry Galler & Associates

November 19, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Larry Galler With Larry Galler & Associates

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Larry Galler works with owners and executives of small and mid-size businesses, non-profits, and institutions to transform them from “what it is today” into “what they want it to become tomorrow” by creating breakthroughs in management and marketing.

For sixteen years, Larry was the owner of a chain of six retail stores in regional malls in Indiana and Illinois, then owner of a company that manufactured and sold items of his own design to many of the largest retailers in the country including Walgreens, K-Mart, Sears, J.C. Penney, Target, and many other mass merchants.

For over 20 years, he has specialized in advising executives, professionals, and businesses to extraordinary achievement with an extensive list of clients throughout the United States and Canada.

Larry has written over 750 weekly columns that have been published in the Northwest Indiana Times every Sunday between 2001 and 2017 and is frequently published in many business publications.

He is an active member of and guest lecturer to a number of business related organizations (Chambers of Commerce, Trade Associations, etc.), a Member of the Board of Governors of The Society of Innovators, the Citizens Advisory Board of Lakeshore Public Media (TV and Radio), and hosts a weekly radio show where he interviews people in the business community on WVLP Radio in Valparaiso.

Connect with Larry on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Larry Galler: [00:00:44] Thanks, Lee. Nice to be here with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] Well, I’m excited to learn about your practice. Tell us a little bit about who you serve.

Larry Galler: [00:00:52] For the last 25 years or so, I have been working with owners CEOs of small to midsize businesses. I suppose that means that requires a definition. And to me, a small business is. Well, the bulk of my clients are anywhere from one to 12 employees. A substantial number of them are larger, going up to 50 to 100 employees, and a few are. Over the years, a few of them have been much larger companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] Now what’s your back story? How did you get involved in coaching?

Larry Galler: [00:01:30] You got two hours. I have a I come from a small business background. My parents owned a retail flower shop. I went into business with them after college and after a few years. We had a major disagreement into the future of the company, so I went off on my own. I opened a retail store in what was then a brand new retail shopping mall, which was a very hot destination in those days. The store is sold primarily gift wares and housewares, a broad assortment of things that you would have in your house. The store did very well, and over the next 10 years I opened up five more stores, so we had a total of six stores and. Of then shortly thereafter, in the next four or five years, the economy changed substantially. It became known as the Rust Belt depression or recession. Interest rates went up into the low twenties, the high teens and we were highly leveraged and had a very rough time paying the rent and paying the interest and paying the vendors and ultimately at the end of about a five year struggle. We had to close the business and had to look for something else to make a living, and I did some marketing work for a number of small businesses, people that I knew.

Larry Galler: [00:03:04] One of them introduced me as his business coach. I had never heard that term before. And so I looked it up. And sure enough, there are people out there that call themselves coaches and they’re making a living at it and looked at what they did. And I said, That’s what I do, and I’m very qualified to do it. So I became a business coach and I joined the chambers of Commerce. A couple of them, three of them actually worked very hard to get clients, and the first year was really a struggle. But. I’ve been doing it for 25 years now and slowing down the practice, but still very involved in my practice and in the people I serve. If you want to know something about industries, just about everything, I have worked with one person carpet cleaning company to a statewide community college program where I coached the campus. Chancellors on communications and delegation did that for quite a while. And so and just about everything in between manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, professionals. I think everybody but a veterinarian. I’ve never done a worked with a veterinarian. Not that I’m adverse to it. It just hasn’t happened.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:35] Now is there a typical pain point that your clients all have or it could be anything? It could be a marketing problem. It could be a leadership problem. It could be a communications problem. Or do you solve or do you find you have a sweet spot where you’re really good at a certain aspect of business?

Larry Galler: [00:04:52] Well, I like to think that I’m very good at strategy and no matter what the problem is, and it’s all of those things, it’s, you know, it’s leadership, it’s human beings. It’s it’s having a vision or articulating the vision, having a mission or understanding what that mission is. Training your training the staff to deliver on the mission and vision and values marketing. And I mean, they all want more. All of my clients want more. They want more business, they want more profits, they want more ease of administering the business. And I work in just about all of those areas. I don’t do accounting. I don’t do taxation. I don’t work with insurance. Those are areas that are much better left to professionals who are expert at those things. I will and have negotiated with banks on behalf of my clients, you know, as part of part of the team that negotiates with the banks. But I I think the sweet spot and I don’t I don’t think that most of my clients, when we initially get started, know what that sweet spot is going to be for them because they want more business.

Larry Galler: [00:06:24] But that means that they are lacking something or it would be coming. So what are they lacking? They could very well be lacking a long term marketing advertising strategy. They could be lacking a training program to get their staff to be part of their marketing, be part of their advertising example, HVAC company heating, air conditioning, ventilating. They have people out in the fields. Some of them go in and fix whatever. It’s fixed the furnace and leave and hardly mumble anything to the to the customer. Now, what we’ve worked with is to get those people to be quiet salespeople or marketing people for the company so that that client, that customer knows which H-back company actually service them last time, ways of getting those people back as customers rather than thinking that all HBC companies are commodities. So help we help differentiate our our clients companies from their competitors. So no matter what it is, it’s really a complex. It’s not a magic bullet that you say, do this in your business is going to explode. It’s do a lot of things and implement them properly.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:51] Now, do you see entrepreneurs kind of making similar mistakes or is every client you work with kind of on its own adventure? So everything is kind of totally different.

Larry Galler: [00:08:05] Well, it’s different because we’re all different people. And each each of my clients has strong points and weak points, just as you and I do. Some people are very articulate, able to communicate thoughts. Others have to do have to work in different ways. And I have to know as a coach, I have to know what what will or have to learn and then know what will what will work for my clients and what will help them get to where they want to go. And that’s part of the problem is very often they just want more. They want bigger and they don’t strategize their way to figuring out how they are going to get bigger and more profitable, how they’re going to. I always think of. The eye make up little stories for myself, and one of them is going into the first Starbucks coffee shop in Seattle. Twenty five years ago and going into the back room, sitting at their conference table, which is a bunch of beanbag chairs, coffee beans and everybody sitting around and talking and saying, Hey, we’re doing great. The store is growing. We’re profitable. Yet it added somebody. Somebody says, Hey, we can have a second store. Wow, what a concept. And somebody else says, if we can learn how to run to stores, we can run 10 and somebody else says we could even have 100.

Larry Galler: [00:09:40] Well, today they have twenty five thousand stores across all over the world and it came from. I’m guessing, a grand strategy that they developed and from that they had to do, they had to grow it. There was no model for what they did. So they had to develop leadership managers training, how to how to pour the coffee and how to talk to the customers and how to display the product they had. They had to figure out how to distribute their products, so they had to have a logistics and transportation issues to deal with. Of course, they have internal growth issues like human resources. How do you hire enough people for thirty thousand stores? How do you train them? Well, it starts with when you train your second employee and you build on it and build on it so that you can. You can eventually attain your your goal, your dream. And. Oh, very often the things that just imagine the issues with with inventory management for thirty thousand stores, I don’t care what you’re what you’re selling. But in this case, it’s coffee cups, right? And the little lids that go on the coffee cups and the raw product, the coffee. And how do you maintain the machines that they have on a regular basis? How do you replace them? When do you do it? What are the strategies behind all of those things? Growth is not just one thing, it’s not, except in extremely rare cases.

Larry Galler: [00:11:20] I mean, we probably anybody of a certain age remembers the ad for Wendy’s Where’s the beef? But every company has got a little saying, and very few of them attain that kind of viral viral importance. So. You know, yeah, there is no magic bullet to what they want. Every company is different, every owner is different. Every board of directors is different. Every staff is different and you have to figure out what will work for your company. And that part of that is is going to have a mention this, but part of it is creating a culture. This is the way in a culture is a fancy word for translates into the way we do things around here. And if you have that culture, if you’re able to create a culture and maintain it and teach. To the people who are disseminated to your public, you’re going to go a long way towards getting that business of your dreams, and I think that’s what my role is, is to help them articulate it, to help them figure out how to attain it.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:36] Now do you find that your clients, most of them, are they dreaming too big or dreaming not big enough?

Larry Galler: [00:12:44] Both. And again, you know, it’s, you know, they’re individuals, and I’ve had clients that want to take over the world. And I’ve actually got a couple that have released their world. And others that want to just get a little bit bigger, I think both of those things are valid because it’s their vision and. You know, it’s it’s their it’s their dream, we all have different dreams.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:21] Now, what’s the most rewarding part of the job for you?

Larry Galler: [00:13:24] The most rewarding part of the job is when we develop something and it works and they’re able to replicate it and they’re able to put it throughout whatever their system is. If you’ve got a moment, I’ll give you a short scenario. A client of mine some years ago, landscaping commercial landscaping company, they mow lawns of industrial areas and schools, hospitals, things like that. Nature. They won’t come and do your home. They had no growth for quite a while. They have a very nice business, by the way. It’s been running at about the same level for a number of years. Family owned operation Why can’t you get any growth? I ask. And they say, Well, property managers aren’t interested in talking to us when the snow is on the ground. They only want us to be there when the grass starts growing and I can’t get appointments. I rarely can get appointments with them to sell anymore. So when the grass starts growing, they all sign contracts very, very quickly. There’s no I’m busy getting my contract signed, so I don’t have time to go out and work on getting new business. Ok, I heard that a couple of times and then I said, Well, maybe we change the model for how you sell and market the company. I asked if they were could get appointments at towards the end of the season. September. October, when the grass is hardly growing and they’re kind of ramping up their operations here in the north and. Yeah, I can get those appointments so great. So let’s make an appointment for a end of the season, end of the season assessment of how we did and what we look forward to next year.

Larry Galler: [00:15:20] He could do that and he went out and he called on 10 of his accounts and he got appointments with seven of them. And when a when they had the assessment of how they did, he would then talk about next year and he would have next year’s contract in his portfolio and would get out of the top of the first 10. He called on and he got seven appointments. He sold four of them. And then before the season started in next spring, he sold three or four of the rest of them. And so now we had all, and he did it for much, much larger number of people. So we did it at the start of the spring when other property managers are thinking about lawn mowing. He was able to go out and get get appointments with them, and he was able to expand his business the first year, over 30 percent. He’s been doing this now for a number of years in the business is substantially larger than it was when we first did it. And is this something that he could have done by himself? Yeah, but he never thought of it. He doesn’t think in those terms. He thinks about mowing the lawn and sharpening the blades and having the right people at the right places, at the right time. And and he’s very good at it. So we change the paradigm of how he markets and sells his business, and the business got a lot bigger. I do that for lots of companies, not only in that mellow in that way of doing getting business, but in many other aspects, most other aspects of running a business.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:59] And if somebody wants to learn more and have a more substantive conversation with you, is there a website there is.

Larry Galler: [00:17:05] It’s Larry Geller, Larry Y, JLL and somebody can send me an email. Larry at Larry Gallacher. Well, they are why JLL?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:23] Well, Larry, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Larry Galler: [00:17:29] Thank you much. It was a pleasure being with you, Ali.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:31] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will sail next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Jimmy St. Louis With Franchise123

November 19, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Franchise Marketing Radio

Jimmy St. Louis With Franchise123

00:00 /

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.

Jimmy St. Louis is an entrepreneur, competitive athlete, and businessman focused on innovating and changing the health and technology industries.

He is currently an operating partner of Ayon Capital, Franchise Accelerators, and the founder of Franchise123.

Jimmy is currently focused on innovating and advancing the industry of franchising through a combination of technological advancements, as well as new operational and team efficiencies. As the founder of Franchise123, his focus is on creating simple and open market connections between franchise buyers and sellers, to advance and improve the success of franchisees and franchisors.

Follow Franchise123 on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Franchise123
The trends in franchising these days
The best/most popular industry for franchising now
The biggest challenges in the industry
Advice to someone looking to open a franchise
The future of franchising

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Jimmy St. Louis with franchise123. Welcome, Jimmy.

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:00:42] Hi. Great. Thanks for having me. I’m excited 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 franchise one two three. How are you serving, folks?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:00:50] Sure. Yeah. We created franchise one two three, really as a Zillow for franchising. We realized a couple of years ago that on the web, there wasn’t really this single source of truth for individuals looking to invest in the franchise. And it just wasn’t the ability for individuals looking to invest to connect directly to brands. But we did it with the credit franchise one two three. By aggregating as much data as we could from the web, and we created over 4000 company profiles of individual companies who are selling franchises both in the states and globally. And we built out those profiles and then we started marketing direct to consumer to bring individuals interested in investing in franchises on there. They create accounts to answer a couple of questions. We start to pair them up with not all 4000 brands, but brands that our algorithm thinks is best for them, based upon some questions that they answer. Then they have the ability to connect directly online with franchise owners and begin the process of considering an investment with them and quite a bit of success and looking forward to talking more about it.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:00] Well, if there was no franchise one two three, how were these folks kind of finding each other?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:02:07] Sure. When you look at some other ways in which franchisees or prospective franchisees were engaging, they may go online and say, Hey, what are the best franchises to invest in? And that would either direct them specifically towards a brand that would direct them towards a franchise portal or may direct them towards franchise brokers or franchise consultants. So what took place then was you immediately went from the top of the funnel down to the middle of that buying funnel without having done enough research to really understand which brands are truly a good fit for you. If you click on top franchises and go directly towards a brand, now that brand is trying to sell you on their concept. Or if you go towards a portal, you’re clicking on it, whatever you think, looks nice without really understanding much about the brand. So those initial conversations, in our opinion, were far too early. Prior to Franchise one two three. And now that there’s a single one stop shop for people to go to, to gather information, to review franchise disclosure documents, to look at videos and sales presentations of each brand that’s on our platform now they have the ability to do a lot of their own research prior to having that initial discussion with the brand, that truly would be a good fit for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:34] Now, as part of a lot of people’s processes, going to a franchise broker, and I don’t think that everyone understands that a franchise broker isn’t showing you kind of the universe in terms of choices, they’re kind of curating that list. Does franchise one to three curate or is this kind of you’re trying to be the universe of franchise opportunities

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:03:56] Franchise ones or three is the universe of franchise opportunities. The way that it works is when you go onto our platform, you answer some questions. It starts with the roughly 40 100 brands that are on there. We ask you about location industries. You’re interested in minimum maximum investments. A couple of different questions that helps to narrow the universe, down from roughly 4000 to roughly five hundred or so. Then you can go out there and answer a couple more questions. And now we’re starting to direct you towards brands that were based upon your specific criteria. We are not directing them towards brands that have signed contracts with us or directing them towards brands that really are truly a good fit for you. And then you have the ability to engage directly with those brands directly through our platform. So different than when you mention a franchise broker who may not have the whole ecosystem of franchise or within their portfolio, they may have 10, 15, maybe 50, but they don’t have access to all of them. So what they’re doing is I discuss the forward. They’re starting with you in the middle to bottom part of that buying process or what they may call a funnel, and they’re leaving out thousands and thousands of other brand opportunities that could be a good fit for you. So what they’re doing is they’re controlling the universe that you operate within as opposed to you as a potential franchisee having complete control. That’s what we call it, the Zillow of franchising. So before Zillow, you were at the mercy of your agent to show you what was in the market. But now, when you go see your agent, you’re armed with all the information about all the comps, all the homes, what the market looks like, and now you’re much more educated buyer, which it gives you a lot more confidence that your overall decision.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Now, are you finding that in the economy today that there’s a lot of folks out there looking for a franchise opportunity?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:06:04] So the short answer is yes. There’s a lot more people now looking for franchise opportunities than we saw even a couple of years ago. However, franchising as a full franchise environment, you know, it really encompasses dozens and dozens of different industries. So we have seen that, of course, based upon the the way the world is today, there’s certain brands and industries that people are more attracted to than others. So some areas that struggled a little bit fitness franchising struggled a little bit there for a year. Restaurants and lots of bricks and mortar struggled there for a year, year and a half. We’re starting to see some traffic pick up where we are really seeing the fastest. Most movement is in franchises geared towards home services, whether that means working from home or actually improving your home. There’s brands that are out there like a garage, gangs or other home services groups where people who are at home want to make sure their house looks nice. And because of that, they’re engaging with companies to help their home look nice. And a lot of those are franchises. So we see that potential franchise investors have seen those as opportunities. Also, they were a little bit of a lower cost of entry. So that’s an example of a sector of the industry that we saw moving faster than some of the other ones were.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:31] So now are you? It sounds like you’re creating a marketplace where you have the franchise laws that can show their wares and show the opportunities, and then you have the potential franchisees that can kind of get a really broad picture of what opportunities are out there that might be the best fit for them. Is that a challenge to kind of maintain both of those and provide value to both of those people? Or do you kind of feel that you’re more useful to the potential franchisee?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:08:03] But the you know, the experience really is managed as a multi-sided platform by the buyer and by the seller. And although we are there to provide the customer service to answer questions, we have onboarding specialists and programmers who will work directly with franchise owners to help make their accounts look and feel as powerful as possible and as accurate as possible. We also have customer service individuals who work directly with prospective franchisees to educate them on how to utilize the system. And of course, we’ll be there to consult with them and to answer questions and have give them a certain brands that may be a good fit for them to think about. But it is somewhat of a self-managed tool. However, we are starting to see that who’s really liking it are the franchisor wars, because not only do they have access to. A lot more leads. They also have access to brands or individuals who are ready to buy. So they’re more highly qualified, and they also have access to a dashboard, a series of other tools they can plug into to help make their buying selling experience more efficient. The prospective franchisees are telling us they’re really happy with it because they’re buying experiences better. They can navigate at their own leisure. They’re not getting bombarded with dozens of phone calls from dozens of brands that may have been generated from, say, a franchise portal. So their experience is a lot more pleasant as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:39] Now, if someone is looking for a franchise right now and they come on, this is it. Does this shrink the timeline from them saying them raising their hand and saying, You know what? This is something I’d like to pursue. And then you have you mentioned those questions that are helping me kind of narrow down my choices? And then ultimately at some point, I’m sure have a conversation with the appropriate franchisor that I feel is the best fit. Or together we self discover it’s the best fit if I do it through you. Is that kind of shortening my timeline to actually, you know, be in business? Is it just the same, but different? What how is it from a time standpoint?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:10:21] They’re the number one factor that is speeding up the the transaction time is trust. We now have individuals who are on who can trust the system because they have all the information available at their fingertips and they feel much more confident because they have been in control of their decision the entire time because they’re in control of their decision. Now they’re able to go through and control that conversation, and that feeling of control has led the trust, which leads to a faster experience in terms of them making a decision to buy. We did not anticipate that, but that is often what we are seeing. We’re seeing when you give people more options, they’re actually more likely to narrow down their their decisions much more quickly.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:14] And then if you are a person who maybe is in corporate and hadn’t maybe considered franchising yet, but maybe you’re kicking the tires. Is there some kind of do’s and don’ts that you would recommend that potential franchisee? Like, what are red flags, kind of yellow flags and green flags when you’re kind of betting?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:11:34] There so we did publish a book called Your Comprehensive Guide to Owning the franchise and available on our website and online, and you have a publisher who’s picking up as well. So we do take them through a series of exercises. The book is really it’s a workbook explains the ins and outs of do’s and don’ts of franchising. And then ultimately the objective is to help them go through the exercises to narrow them down from the four thousand down to one. The workbook is also available on our platform so you can go through the whole workbook. It’s pretty extensive, but you can do it efficiently. It’s a pretty intuitive tool. It helps you to ask all the questions. It gives you the guided tools to ask the franchise or the right questions gives you the guided tools to ask other franchisees who are going to eventually be your peers if you were to invest in that franchise. The the where they’ve been aligned and what has worked well for them and what has not met their expectations helps them go through the legal structure, even helps them get their budgeting and planning and preparation and pre-opening. So the goal of our book that we wrote was to arm potential franchisees with the tools to be successful and to make sure that they have the right tools in place to or the right have asked the right questions to arm them with the information so they can really make the best decisions for themselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:11] Now, from the franchiser standpoint, is there, if I’m a franchisor and I see that this is a great platform for folks. And I want to be kind of found first, are you? Is it? Do I have the ability to have like an enhanced listing or featured listing so that I am kind of at the top of the search when people are searching? Or is this something that you’re trying to be kind of neutral and Switzerland when it comes to this and people, it just bubbles up what the franchise prospective franchisee kind of would would find if it’s perfectly vetted.

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:13:48] Yeah, that’s a great question, the franchise or the first thing they should do is go on just grain accounts when they create an account. Now, instead of them having an incomplete profile with information about investing their franchise being not listed as not applicable or incomplete, now they have a complete profile when you have a complete profile. It’s going to work better. Take again our example with Zillow. If you click on a profile of a home and there’s no pictures of the home or there’s one picture of the home, very unlikely you’re going to continue your your research of that home. Same thing with this franchise. If they are signed up, they’re on there. They have their logo uploaded. They’ve completed the build of their microsite that lives on Franchise one two three. Their profile is done. They’ve uploaded information. It’s going to just be easier for that individual to engage with them. So that’s part number one. And that’s what we think is just the free, open market that franchise owners go on there and create an account. Great. If they don’t, unfortunately, those leads are likely going to go to a competitor now as it relates to enhanced listing after we have thousands of franchise owners on this system who are signed up and everyone’s site looks great, everyone’s profile looks great. We then will release some enhanced marketing where we will create banner ads and will allow franchise owners to advertise directly on their for premium placement, but it’s still up to them to manage their accounts. So we do anticipate finding ways for certain brands who are more engaged to continue to stay more engaged and to have pole position on leads by end of the day. It still is the consumers or the buyers decision on which brands are they clicking on?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:46] Now, in your estimation, haven’t been in the franchise business for a minute. Do you see franchising as just kind of growing at the rate it’s growing? Or is this something that you think is going to taper out? Or is this just kind of the future of businesses franchising in one form or another?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:16:06] I think individual entrepreneurs are always going to be interested in expand their brand to a nationwide footprint, and that nationwide footprint becomes possible with franchising. It doesn’t mean other business models won’t work, but the business model of franchising is sound. It’s a way to deliver on the American dream for entrepreneurs who may not have been able to scale their brands before. So, you know, we really aren’t seeing any slowdown in the growth of franchises. But even if there was the great thing about franchising is there’s there’s retail opportunities and we’re working directly with large fitness franchises or called exponential fitness. And they have brands like Pure Bar and Row House and Club Plots and Rumble and 8K. And these are brands that are well known with a nationwide footprint, and a lot of their franchisees have had success, and now they’re selling their units. And so we have individuals who are interested in maybe buying an existing operation that’s already successful. The doors have been open for a number of years. So even within the franchise space, if there was to be stagnant growth on location numbers increasing, there’s going to be essentially facility trading that would be taking place. That’s something our platform offers as well. It gives people the chance to really understand the financials before they go in and take the keys over.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:42] Now is the marketplace. Is it franchise only or their businesses, like if I can buy and sell a franchise, can I buy and sell, you know, Joe’s Jiffy Lube type company.

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:17:58] Now, our platform is just four franchises. We know there’s other business brokers out there that work with a variety of other groups, and they help to do resells. Our platform is intended to give people a free, open look at everything franchising. But we’ve we’ve not gone into the world of business resales in general. It’s probably not something we would do. We think that we have an interesting niche here and we’re trying to position ourselves as the experts in this. And I think we’ve done a good job so far. So we’ll we’ll probably keep our focus pretty narrow.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:31] And so what do you need more of right now? Do you need more potentially prospective franchisees coming to you to sign up and go through the process? Do you need more kind of franchise orders filling out their listing in a more profound way? What what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:18:51] I think all three, of course, for a platform like this that’s going to allow us to understand what’s important to the potential buyers and the sellers. So until we have all four thousand plus franchisors on there, until we have a million users, we don’t think our job will quite be done. We think that’s that’s the magic number on both sides. For us, when people are on there, it’s a great tool. We’ve, you know, it’s kind of like we look at it like it’s a Ferrari that to get the keys and be comfortable getting into the end of the system and creating your account. And when you do, you’ll be very happy that you’ve been in there. So that’s that’s the way we’re looking at it. And yeah, what we need more of is just more eyes on the site and more individuals going on there. And when they’re on there, we know that they will be happy.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:42] And then what’s the fee to go on there for a prospective franchisee?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:19:47] So for the franchisees, for the individuals, it’s free. So franchise one, two three, go on and you click, you create a free account. What most people don’t know when you’re buying a franchise is there’s an initial franchise fee that gets paid to the franchise or and groups like ourselves will. That’s how we get compensated. So we’re on a success based structure, which is really one of the line interest. We’ve seen that the market has been somewhat full of misaligned interest where salespeople get paid, whether a facility opens or not, and they may, they may sell three or five units and only one open. They still get paid for all three or five. We’re not doing that. We’re setting up the both sides for success. So the franchisee doesn’t pay the franchise or the company who’s listing their company. They pay nine point ninety nine per year, so nine hundred ninety nine dollars per year to be on there. And then they pay us a small percentage of the franchise fee as our commission, and that’s how we get paid.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:51] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success. One more time, the website.

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:20:58] The website is W W-w-what franchise one, two three,

Lee Kantor: [00:21:02] And that’s the numbers one, two and three, right?

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:21:05] Yes, it is. Yep, so that’s the number is one, the number two, the number three.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:09] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jimmy St. Louis: [00:21:14] Yeah, thank you. Thanks for all the great questions, and thanks for the chance to share a story with you. We appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:20] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Michelle Murdock With Core Green Technologies and Core Air Solutions

November 18, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

GWBC Radio

Michelle Murdock With Core Green Technologies and Core Air Solutions

00:00 /

Michelle Murdock is the Chief Development Officer/Owner of Core Green Technologies and Core Air Solutions.

Follow Core Green Technologies on LinkedIn and Core Air Solutions on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Indoor Air Quality outside of Covid-19
The Bi-polar ionization
Difference between whole home/building and portable air purification
Benefits of Negative Ions and impact on air quality
Effectiveness against viruses, bacteria, mold, odors, VOC’s and allergens Asthma/COPD/Respiratory illnesses

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Michelle Murdock with Core Air Solutions. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Murdock: [00:00:28] Hi. Thanks for having us.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:30] Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Core Air Solutions. How are you serving folks?

Michelle Murdock: [00:00:36] So, Core Air Solutions kind of came together last year when we were searching for a solution for my senior living communities to the whole COVID. And Core Air is a product that actually cleans the air using the natural process of ionization technology, which is basically recreating the outdoors/indoors without the side effects of pollen.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:03] So, now, for folks who don’t have any type of indoor air kind of solution, like, what are they breathing?

Michelle Murdock: [00:01:13] So, indoor air is actually ten times more polluted than outdoor air no matter where you live. And, really, the biggest thing is particulate matter, there’s viruses, bacteria, mold spores, particulate matter, dust, dander, pollen. When you’re cleaning the house and spraying extra chemicals, that creates something called VOCs, which are Volatile Organic Compounds, which are, really, triggers to a lot of asthma and allergy attacks, COPD. Particulate matter is the tiny, tiny, tiny particles that often don’t get filtered out and is the biggest trigger for asthma and allergy attack. So, those are kind of things that we want to address and kind of clean the air inside so that where we’re at 80 percent of the time we’re getting better, fresher air.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] So, for people who think like, “Oh, well, my air conditioner has got a filter, so that must take care of this.” That’s not accurate, right?

Michelle Murdock: [00:02:14] Right. So, filters are great. And I have had a HEPA filter pretty much my entire life because I’ve had asthma and upper respiratory issues for as long as I can possibly remember, 35 years, for sure. And the filters are great, but the filters can only catch so much.

Michelle Murdock: [00:02:35] And what I realized in my past, I guess, almost 18 months of investigating this technology was that, the biggest problems are the particulate matter, mold spores, and things that are in the air that don’t get trapped in your filters. Also, viruses and bacteria, even if they do get trapped in your filters, a lot of them are too small and they’ll pass through anyway. They’re still alive so they can still breed.

Michelle Murdock: [00:03:02] And this technology actually neutralizes, and kills viruses and bacteria, and mold spores, prevent it from growing so that you’re not pushing back out the bacteria that might build up in your duct gut work. Let’s say you clean your ducts and six months later, there’s still bacteria, especially if you’re in the south at all, we’ve got a lot of humidity. And that’s one of the biggest problems is mold spores kind of build up and get pushed out. And we’re not even aware, you know, we think that everything’s clean, we do a good job cleaning, but what we don’t realize is the things that are building up inside.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:42] Now, you used the phrase bipolar ionization, can you explain that and how it works in this system?

Michelle Murdock: [00:03:47] Yes. So, ionization is actually the process that you get outside. So, the Sun and the Earth, they will naturally cleanse the Earth. They use something called ions, and ions are created by sparks and movement. So, up in the mountains and at the beach, you get the largest count of ions, particularly negative ions. And in that scenario, those ions will naturally attack pathogens, which are viruses and bacteria mold spores. They’ll also neutralize odors and VOCs.

Michelle Murdock: [00:04:20] So, needlepoint, bipolar ionization is the UL certified technology that basically cleans the air with no byproduct. When you’re outside, you get things like ozone and UV rays. Bipolar ionization, basically, eliminates the UV and the ozone and just creates the ions inside. Negative ions are actually really good for you, and they’re also known to increase your memory, and your mood, and your energy levels.

Michelle Murdock: [00:04:50] So, we have the whole home units and the whole business units that go into the ductwork. And then, we also have the ionization technology that are wearable, and you can take them to your cars, so it helps clean the air no matter where you’re at. But bipolar ionization is that creation of those ions without any byproduct.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:12] Now, is this a new technology to be able to bring it into your home and make it portable to kind of follow you around wherever you are?

Michelle Murdock: [00:05:20] Well, the technology is actually not new. Einstein discovered it way back when, and it’s been used in the entire world for decades. It was brought to the U.S. in the ’70s to control pathogens, and manufacturing food, and pharmaceuticals.

Michelle Murdock: [00:05:37] The reason most people aren’t aware of the technology is because it’s always been used as an energy management tool for large applications. So, they use it in airports. Most of the airports around the country have it. It’s in the White House, the Mayo Clinic. It’s in big commercial applications, big office buildings. As a matter of fact, if you’re in Georgia, Georgia Power actually gives you a rebate if you put this in your business, because it does reduce the amount of outdoor air that comes in, and that is creating better energy efficiency within your building.

Michelle Murdock: [00:06:10] So, it’s not new technology. And I knew nothing about it, which was surprising, because as sick as I’ve been most of my life, I thought I knew everything there was to know about the technology, you know, for air. But I didn’t. It was the first I’d ever heard of it. And it’s just not readily available to normal small businesses because, again, it’s always been deemed an energy efficiency tool until recently. And, now, you know, within the past year, you’re seeing a lot more education out there and a lot more businesses becoming aware of it.

Michelle Murdock: [00:06:46] We do sell with businesses, but we kind of are really hoping that we can get more people in the residential side, get their knowledge a little better so that they know that this technology is available for their health as well. Not necessarily an energy efficiency tool, but a clean air tool. So, it helps with a lot of the things that we struggle with on a regular basis. And indoor air quality is not a sudden issue just because of COVID. They’ve been battling air quality issues in commercial applications for decades.

Michelle Murdock: [00:07:21] We’ve made everything tight and secure. And in doing so and in trying to make it more energy efficient, we’re kind of trapping in all the bad things as well, and we’re trying to clean better. So, we’re spraying more chemicals which create more issues than we realize. So, this just neutralizes it.

Michelle Murdock: [00:07:39] And, you know, it’s considered an emerging technology, which I do find humorous because it’s been around for as long as – what? – 80, 90, 100 years or more. So, it’s not new technology. It’s just new to us, as consumers, versus an energy management company that uses it.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:59] So, now, if you have in your home a person that has asthma, or maybe a respiratory issue, or maybe is a senior grandparent, or something like that that might have issues breathing, then this starts becoming elevated to a must have than a nice to have, wouldn’t you think?

Michelle Murdock: [00:08:19] Yeah. So, that was my thought. So, when we first launched this, it was on the commercial side. We worked with a lot of restaurants and a lot of hospitality. And it was kind of something to help them stay open or to reopen.

Michelle Murdock: [00:08:34] But the more that I have experienced it, you know, I’ve had it in my home. I put it in my home first because I wanted to see did it work, what does it do. Because, again, somebody who suffered her entire life with autoimmune issues, and I get a little tickle on my throat and it turns into a nine week sinusitis and bronchitis and sometimes pneumonia, and this constant cough, you know, I needed to kind of know what this did.

Michelle Murdock: [00:09:05] So, my personal experience, first of all, we have a house that was being remodeled, but the basement had been flooded multiple times and it still had a must smell. And we called mold experts and they said there’s no mold in the house. And I’m like, “I smell it as soon as I walk in the door. I’m very sensitive.” We put this in, two days later, the smell is gone. We’ve not had the smell back. I don’t know if it’s just because we live in wood, that the wood retains a lot, but this has been able to clean that air.

Michelle Murdock: [00:09:35] You can’t smell pets. We have cats. Nobody knows we have cats. If we cook, you can’t smell the bacon or the lingering curry. But the biggest tail for me was, I woke up in the morning and I wasn’t constantly clearing my throat. And the more we’ve had it – I’m not saying you’re never going to get sick – I have been antibiotic free for over a year. I have not had a single antibiotic, which is unheard of. My doctor accused me of cheating on her. I haven’t been in to see her and I haven’t had her call prescriptions in because I haven’t been sick. I’ll get a little allergy here and there, but overall I’m better in a day, which has never occurred in my life.

Michelle Murdock: [00:10:18] So, in the beginning, we were having a lot of people that we knew that had the same issues try the technology. Some of my commercial clients put it in their home. We’ve had tremendous success in the same areas. You know, the pet dander is less, you dust less. Now, you do change your filter a little more often. But we, for the last nine months, have gone from a major HEPA filter down – again, this is just us testing it for our personal reasons, and I’m not suggesting that people stop using HEPA filters by any stretch of the imagination. The more things that you can do in your home to clean the air and HEPA filter certainly do that.

Michelle Murdock: [00:10:57] But we were testing to see, “Well, is it going to collect more dust or less dust?” And it’s kind of been the same, we’ve been evaluating. But we dust less because the ions will actually charge particulate matter, like dust dander and pollen, and cause it to clump together. And when it clumps together, it gets heavy and larger. So, the heavier it gets, it can fall to the ground. But more importantly, it gets larger, so now your filter is going to be more effective and it’s going to capture more of that particulate matter and the things that trigger your allergies.

Michelle Murdock: [00:11:31] I have not had a single episode. I have traveled. And when I travel, I actually take either my wearable. Or depending on where we’re going, I have a portable unit that we’ve kind of created. We are in the process of creating one to offer that’s a regular, smaller, in-room unit. But when I travel, I noticed that I was still getting sick originally.

Michelle Murdock: [00:11:57] So, what I did was take the cover off of a P-TECH unit, which whether you’re supposed to do that or not, I don’t know. But the filter was really clean. But what wasn’t clean was the plastic that encompassed the filter. So, there was a bunch of mold spores. So, I realized very quickly that that was the trigger in why I was so sick all the time.

Michelle Murdock: [00:12:18] So, when I travel, I take my wearable unit, and I even wear that one outside because it does repel pollen and the dust and the dander that trigger my allergies. And what I find is less triggers mean less issues. And less allergy issues have equated to zero sinus infections, which, again, I’m not saying that that’s going to work completely for everybody. But in my history, I’ve never not been sick in 35 years.

Michelle Murdock: [00:12:47] So, you know, in every person that we’ve had that has installed this in their home has given me the same feedback. They woke up congestion free for the first time in 20 years. They don’t have odors lingering. I have a friend who is Indian and they cook curry a lot, and she’s like, “For my entire life, my house has smelled like curry.” It doesn’t linger now when she cooks. So, there’s a lot of really good benefits that go along with the ionization technology that you can’t get from UV and you can’t get from filters. But using all three together give you an even better clean air experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:26] Now, is this difficult to install, or is this something a person could do with themselves, or this has to be professionally installed? Like, how intrusive is this type of a device?

Michelle Murdock: [00:13:37] So, we are not an HVAC company. We believe firmly that you should be able to get this through an HVAC company, but a lot of them don’t offer this technology because there’s no real maintenance or recurring revenue to it. We have created self-installation kits and videos and step-by-step instructions. It is probably one of the easiest things I have ever installed. And I’ve done quite a few on multiple different types of furnaces and heat pumps just to get the experience, but also to catalog a video of how these are installed.

Michelle Murdock: [00:14:14] They have magnets on so they easily go into, and you don’t have to screw anything in. And they are 24 volt terminal, which may not mean anything to a lot of people. It didn’t to me. I didn’t understand it. But the setup and the install we have made extremely easy. But if you aren’t that kind of person and you want someone to install, we do work with some HVAC companies around the country to help install it. But it’s definitely self-installed.

Michelle Murdock: [00:14:43] We actually warranty it for three years. We do video chats for people who are, maybe, not sure where it goes. So, we try to make it very convenient. And the reason why we believe in the self-install is because, again, when I first came across this technology, I wanted to know why I didn’t already hear about this. So, I went and called HVAC companies in. And the biggest thing was, it’s a science and you can’t see.

Michelle Murdock: [00:15:11] And once you put it in, these units are designed to last 20 plus years. So, the only maintenance is to use some compressed air and spray off the bristles once a year. Or we do it every time we change the filter. But that’s just because it’s a habit. But the technology is designed to last. You know, there’s an in-line fuse. So, if something were to go wrong, you can just replace the fuse.

Michelle Murdock: [00:15:35] But internationally, it only has a three percent return rate, which means only three percent of the international. It’s been in production for over 12 years. So, that’s a huge win for anybody who’s trying to look at a cost effective solution because that’s what this is. And when I realized how inexpensive it was to have clean air and to not be sick, I literally have paid for my unit ten times over by not spending the money on the medication, and going to the doctor’s office, and being down and out of work for weeks at a time. So, yeah, it’s super easy to install. We hold your hand every step of the way. And we also can help work with getting it installed for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:22] Now, is it similar to the device that would be used commercially, like at a senior center or a restaurant or one of the places that you typically place these?

Michelle Murdock: [00:16:32] So, we have different sizes, and the ones that we use predominantly are the units that can be used both residentially and commercially. And there are smaller unit and they fit very easily into rooftop units, into furnaces, heat pumps. But for our commercial side, we also have larger units that cover larger tonnage. So, the specific unit that I’m talking about that we use residentially and commercially goes up to six tons. And then, we have other units that cover larger, like 10 ton, 20 ton, 60 ton units.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:10] But it’s the same type of a device. It’s just made for a larger kind of a machine. But it’s the same technology.

Michelle Murdock: [00:17:20] Yes. Exactly. It’s the same technology. And the way that it works is, you know, the other reason why this is so energy efficient and so cost effective is it takes less than half a milliamp charge, which is nothing, right? It’s just this tiny, tiny little bit of energy that just creates these little bitty sparks to create the ion. So, it doesn’t pull any power, really.

Michelle Murdock: [00:17:46] And the only thing that you have to do in your home is you have to turn your ventilation system, your fan to the on position, so your thermostat controller. And the reason you turn it to on, anybody who has allergies probably already has it set on, because your doctor will tell you, “Listen, your filter is only going to work when you’re running your fan to filter that air. So, the air has to move through the house in order to get things caught in the filter.”

Michelle Murdock: [00:18:12] So, the same concept with the ions. In order for the ions to work effectively, you turn the fan to the on position. It’s going to be blasting millions and millions and millions of ions out continuously. So, it’s going to first attack any kind of bacterial mold spores that builds up in your duct system. And then, it’s going to go out into the occupied space. And anywhere the air can flow, even on counters and even on shelves, the ions are going to be able to basically kind of scrub. So, they are going to be seeking those pathogens. And then, in those process of seeking pathogens, they’re going to bump into particulate matter, which is what charges them and causes them to stick together.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:52] Now, if you install this, how quickly until you notice something’s changed?

Michelle Murdock: [00:18:59] I noticed it pretty immediate. Everyone that I know, within a couple of days, they actually know. We have had one instance where someone was like, “This doesn’t work. I want my money back.” And we do a full 30 day money back guarantee because we want people to feel confident with their purchase. That’s also why we warranty it for three years.

Michelle Murdock: [00:19:21] But what was interesting was they sent the device back, and a-week-and-a-half later, they called and asked us to send the device back to them. That while they didn’t notice it when it was installed, as soon as they took it out, they noticed pretty quickly that their allergies picked back up. Their son, who had literally gone off of his asthma inhaler, was having to use it again. So, it was very apparent that it was helping.

Michelle Murdock: [00:19:49] In our commercial applications, we get a lot of really good feedback, but it’s harder, especially with this time and what’s going on in our world right now, everybody’s taking extra precautions. But we did have an operator of quick serve restaurants who had installed this in six of her restaurants, bought four more, didn’t install it in those four, and actually was our biggest cheerleader.

Michelle Murdock: [00:20:15] At their last convention, because she had another bout when the COVID variant kind of reared its head this summer, the only difference between those restaurants were that they had Core Air installed at those six. And those six had one off cases of COVID and illnesses. But the four had multiple instances. And even one of the restaurants had to be completely shut down.

Michelle Murdock: [00:20:43] So, there was, less of the, I guess, traveling. And that’s what the system, it’s not going to prevent illness completely because if you’re, obviously, right in front of somebody and they cough in your face, well, the chances of you getting what they have is going to be probably larger. But the trance of Joe, who may be in another room, getting infected by a virus is going to be very, very, very slim.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:12] This must be so rewarding for you to be so personally affected by this and to have a solution that really solves this for a lot of people. It must make you feel good when someone buys this.

Michelle Murdock: [00:21:22] Yeah. And we also do a lot of donating and a lot of giving away. And I get in trouble for that quite often, because it’s just something that if I could do it all for free, I would. But all of our proceeds, every bit that we bring in, we’re putting right back out. We’ve installed at several of the senior living and homes that maybe are lower income and don’t have the ability to afford it. We try to help out. We try to take care of it.

Michelle Murdock: [00:21:56] When we’re traveling, I wear my personal unit and always have several with me because it never fails. You get a waitress, or a flight attendant, or somebody that works in the public who are very interested in it. And in their line of work, we want them to feel protected. So, you know, I’ll often give mine away and have to get another one.

Michelle Murdock: [00:22:19] But, yeah, it’s probably one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life just knowing that it helps other people. We have so many people that will give us a feedback of, you know, they stopped taking Benadryl at night to sleep. They don’t use their inhalers. They’re going longer between episodes. We have a senior that he actually is going through cancer and he has COPD, and he calls them probes – it’s really cute. But he really likes his probes because he feels better. He wakes up and feels better. Which is really the whole reason behind what we’re doing and really trying to educate people about the technology.

Michelle Murdock: [00:23:04] It’s not even about where you buy it from. It’s about learning about the technology and knowing that that’s available to you, specifically to people, in my case, allergy and asthma, anything that triggers that upper respiratory infection. You know, I think they should definitely check out the technology, learn about it. It’s probably one of the most inexpensive investments I’ve ever made to improve my overall quality of health.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:31] Now, let’s talk a little bit about GWBC. Can you talk about how that association has helped you and your business?

Michelle Murdock: [00:23:38] So, we are just learning. I actually have another business, which is a green technology business or green service industry business. So, I have really learned a lot about the potentials out there and the ability to network and connect. And I’ve taken quite a few of their courses, and we ignite, and all of the things that group you together, and you really hear about other entrepreneurs out there that a lot of times are just fascinating, really.

Michelle Murdock: [00:24:17] So, we’ve learned a lot about how to even organize. I don’t know anything about product sales. I’ve always been in service sales and service industry. So, product is new to me. And I’ve realized a lot of things. You know, like I said, I pretty much give everything away for free and priced everything to where it’s just covering costs. And, you know, it’s taught me that you can’t really do that.

Michelle Murdock: [00:24:45] So, yeah, being part of the women-owned small business groups is just amazing information. And I really, you know, keep trying to take more time to develop these skills and these connections. So, I just think it’s been wonderful to see and hear about everybody else, and the possibilities of working to get this product into larger applications, and the commercial – or the retail market – is what I’m trying to say – it’s really kind of neat. So, yeah, I’m learning a lot. It’s really fascinating and really a lot of education.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:32] Now, if somebody wants to learn more about the Core Air solutions product for themselves or in their home or their business, is there a website?

Michelle Murdock: [00:25:40] Yeah. So, we have coreairpurification.com, which is more geared towards the residential. And then, we have core.green, which is all of our green technology. But either way, they can reach out to us on Facebook, LinkedIn, pretty much anywhere. And we’re happy to help and they can email me directly. You know, we just, again, want people to know about the technology.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:05] Well, Michelle, congratulations on all your success. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Michelle Murdock: [00:26:10] We appreciate you having us. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:12] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GWBC Open for Business.

About GWBC

Katie Baird With Baird Coaching, LLC

November 18, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Katie Baird With Baird Coaching, LLC

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Katie Baird transitioned from climbing the traditional corporate ladder to nurture a career built upon her passion for human connection, problem solving and accelerating personal and professional development. Her boutique coaching business serves highly motivated professionals who are looking to accelerate their careers and transition effectively into their next role.

Her work is exclusively about career navigation and leadership development. She has coached executives and emergent leaders (across mature Fortune 100 companies, Unicorn start ups, and small scale entrepreneurial endeavors) in industries ranging from financial services, to healthcare, consulting, media and technology.

Katie is a Rice University trained, ICF-certified coach, with an undergraduate degree from Washington & Lee University and a Masters of Public Policy from American University. She stays current on research, science and best practices in the coaching field as a member of Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Her experience draws upon eight years in Consulting, and nearly three years of coaching mentorship under the tutelage of several premiere executive coaches with expertise in human behavior, systems change, and energy leadership.

Katie’s approach to coaching is further informed by her career in Corporate America as a Strategy & Operations Consultant with Deloitte, much of which focused on strategic workshops designed to assist recently appointed executives make a successful and efficient transition into their new executive role.

In both a coaching and service capacity, Katie is especially passionate about helping women thrive professionally. She’s been an active volunteer with Camp Seafarer fundraising and Washington & Lee University Alumni Admissions for more than ten years. She resides in Houston, Texas with her husband, James, and pup, Copley (an ode to their days in Boston).

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Baird Coaching
How Katie first introduced to the field of Coaching
Regular topics address coaching clients

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from theBusiness 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 got Katie Baird with Baird coaching. Welcome, Katie.

Katie Baird: [00:00:41] Thanks. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:42] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about bird coaching. How are you serving, folks?

Katie Baird: [00:00:47] Absolutely. So I am based in Houston, Texas, but really have a client base across the country and even internationally, which is really exciting. My business really builds on my background and strategy consulting and the years I spent supporting executives as they transitioned into the C-suite. And that’s really where my my coaching practice has gone. I serve leaders who are mid and senior level in their career, anticipating some really important inflection point professionally that they want to have a great deal of clarity and confidence around in terms of how they approach that. So very much so. I’m here to support people as they navigate career change and further develop as leaders.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:38] So now you mentioned having a corporate background. Could you talk about how during your work in corporate, you were able to help executives transition?

Katie Baird: [00:01:46] Yeah. So most of my career was spent at Deloitte, which for those who aren’t familiar, is a very, very large professional services firm here. The great thing about being at a company like that is you can reinvent yourself a few times. So I started in very traditional strategy consulting, meaning I was analyzing business problems and helping companies be more efficient in the choices they were making. And that led to work with a group called the Deloitte Green House. When I started with them back in, gosh, I think twenty thirteen, we were about 30 people nationwide out of a company of one hundred and fifty thousand. So we were a tiny sort of startup and our focus was around helping to accelerate relationships for the firm by really carving out a space for senior leaders to come and think without interruption about their strategy and really wrestle with nebulous business problems. So I supported not only designing those day long sessions but also facilitating them, which is ultimately what led me to my my first academic coaching program at Rice University about four years ago.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] So now, having gone through corporate and then being involved in consulting at the level you were in, you still felt it necessary to actually get a, you know, more academic program of coaching to feel confident in order to deliver coaching.

Katie Baird: [00:03:23] I’m glad you asked that. Yes, I did. So, you know, the coaching market these days has really exploded. I would say it’s probably oversaturated and just like my background and consulting it, it can be very easy to call yourself a coach, just like it can be pretty easy to call yourself a consultant. And for me, I really wanted to understand the foundations of of this profession. And for me, that meant going back to the classroom. So Rice has a has a wonderful program, very focused on emerging leaders and the role that sort of coaching coaching tools and methodologies can can do to help business leaders. So I started that and have since sort of advanced in my accreditation with the International Coaching Federation.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:16] So now what did you take from that kind of academic coaching kind of from the learnings there as opposed to what you were experiencing kind of boots on the ground, dealing with folks in real life situations in real time?

Katie Baird: [00:04:35] You know, the the lessons from the classroom have been really applicable to to my profession, I think the biggest thing for me in my practice has been really embracing this idea of, I call it, leading from behind. So I am there to really support my clients, to accelerate their thinking, to give them a space, to look at their challenges and contemplate things from a variety of dimensions. And I really want to use my line of questioning and my listening and insights from what I’m hearing them to help further their progress as they’re unpacking those problems. And to me, that’s really what stood out in the program at Rice was just the incredible impact that you can have when you really just hold the space for somebody to to explore without, without a whole lot of requirements and pressure put on them.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:38] Now was that a difficult transition to go from kind of wearing a consulting hat for so many years where you’re there to solve a problem and implement a solution to a coaching hat, where it’s more about asking questions and having the client self discover the answer?

Katie Baird: [00:05:57] It definitely could be. I think, if anything, early on, it made me a better consultant when I was still in that world because. You want to make sure that you’re you’re answering the question to the right problem. And in order to do that, you need to be really curious and unpack things and and look kind of beyond the face value of what you may be seeing in the business challenge. So coaching was really helpful in that regard. I’d say when I made my transition to my coaching practice full time, it actually was probably more of a challenge for my clients to adjust to. And I think that’s because a lot of people see my background. They see Deloitte. They may know the name. They may loosely understand strategy consulting. And if they don’t necessarily understand what coaching really is about, they may want me to give them the answer or help solve the problem for them. And I think there are probably plenty of coaches that are fine with that and work that way. My hesitation and the reason I don’t really bring consulting into my coaching business is that I think it makes the solution really less sticky, and I want my clients to really be confident and in control and have that clarity around where they’re going next. What those choices are so that they can continue that momentum without me, like that success is that, you know, they don’t need me as a coach anymore.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:44] Now, having spent time now in both camps, the consulting and the coaching camp, why do you think there is a firm like a Deloitte, like you said, with 100000 consultants and there isn’t a firm that has 100000 coaches?

Katie Baird: [00:08:03] I think coaching is. Well, there’s a few reasons. Coaching can be harder to. I would say standardize it is much more, I think, of a unique, I’m sure, a preference driven profession than consulting. And so I would imagine it would probably be hard to really coalesce a mass of coaches around a single methodology or approach to the work. You know, certainly, I think you’re seeing important work being done in that space by kind of governing bodies like ICF. And I think you’re seeing some early efforts of that to really democratize coaching. If you look at the better ups and the coach hubs of the world that are trying to bring coaching at scale to to junior level people in at companies, at frankly a really, really low price point. I think that’s probably the most we’ve seen so far in terms of establishing a firm around coaching.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:17] Now do you see coaching as integral as consulting, especially to senior level folks, because as as coaching becomes more and more available, and it seems like, as you said, that it’s being kind of offered. It used to be offered, obviously to just a handful of people in a given firm. And now it is kind of moving its way down the the ladder to more and more folks. Do you see this as becoming almost a must have addition to any type of an organization rather than a nice to have?

Katie Baird: [00:09:55] Absolutely. So to your your first part around it being integral at the leadership level compared to consulting, I would say it’s it’s more important. I think businesses have become overly reliant on consultants for talent and for answers. And I don’t think that’s actually what they need. I think they need to be investing in themselves at those most senior levels to frankly be more capable at, at cultivating and retaining talent. And a big part of that is things like communication and setting a strategy and vision that people can relate to and really buy into. And I think coaching can go a really long way in helping those leaders develop more holistically in terms of coaching and its value throughout the ranks of of a business. I think it is also an incredible imperative. You know, this pandemic has been so incredibly hard for the world in so many ways. And I, you know, I don’t want to underestimate that. But I think a really exciting shift that’s happened is all of the reflection and reevaluation that, frankly, those fortunate enough to be able to do so have done about their careers, their priorities and how they want to grow. And, you know, it used to be I think that there was this myth or this narrative around what an ideal worker is or what an ideal company is or what it means to be successful in your career. And if this past year of 2021 is any indication, people are just bucking those ideals left and right, and there really is no longer one definition of career success. I love that for my clients. At the same time, I think that’s really hard for companies to deal with unless they have a really robust approach to investing in their people and providing a variety of avenues for them to grow and think about their development.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:23] Now for your clients, are they finding you because they have a specific pain they’re trying to address and get past or a challenge they’re trying to overcome? How how are they coming to you and what is the problem you typically solve for that first time client?

Katie Baird: [00:12:41] Clients are really coming to me, I would say, through several referral networks I have. And also just word of word of mouth based on, you know, my own reputation and Rolodex, which is fantastic. And I, you know, I make it pretty easy for people to find me in terms of my website and LinkedIn and just, you know, reaching out to find time to chat. So it’s a pretty straightforward process for anybody that wants to just explore coaching. But those that do tend to find me or choose to work with me are both men and women mid to senior level in their career and very much so want somebody as a sounding board to help them think through what’s next? How do I grow? How do I manage through this transition? The best way possible? And you know, for some people, that might be I am a I don’t like this term, but I’m a working mom returning to my job, my career for the first time as a parent, and I don’t know what that looks like. Or it could be somebody leveling up into a senior or very highly visible leadership role for the first time, and they want to be successful. And in that first year, another kind of specific example I’m seeing a lot of currently or are people who know they are unhappy with what they are doing right now, know they have value and experience to offer and want to make some type of pivot. But they just don’t really know entirely what that looks like. So they want to think through what’s next

Lee Kantor: [00:14:30] And for the folks that do reach out to you. What does that first conversation typically look like? Is it a lot of you asking questions or them kind of giving you the background of the challenge? What is that first conversation, feel and sound like?

Katie Baird: [00:14:44] Yeah, and typical coaching fashion. I’m probably always asking a lot of questions, but it is very much so a back and forth. I want to learn. Much about them as a person and what has them interested in coaching as I want them to leave feeling they know about me and my style and my approach so that we can really ensure that we are a good fit. I think if you don’t have that natural rapport and connection with your coach, it’s really worth having a few conversations and fit between both parties. To me, is is just as important as understanding what’s the coach’s expertize and what kind of process or methodology do they bring to the work they’re doing. So we cover all of that

Lee Kantor: [00:15:38] For people that are new to coaching. How do you know that you have a good fit with a coach? Like what are some symptoms of a good fit?

Katie Baird: [00:15:47] So, yeah, rapport can be really hard to kind of put your finger on, but you know, at least where I’m focused in this sort of career space and leadership development. These are serious conversations. It can be intense. It can be a lot in terms of what you’re contemplating. So you want someone where you feel like you can say anything to them. And that is because. You know, there’s no idea here that we won’t entertain or that we won’t unpack. So you want to find a coach where you feel comfortable exploring out loud. I think for me, when I think about some of the the best clients I’ve had in terms of our relationship, they they really value a coach who is going to challenge them, who’s going to ask tough questions, who’s going to push their thinking. And so you want to make sure that you are with somebody who you feel comfortable kind of having that back and forth with?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:58] Now can you share maybe the most rewarding success story in terms of where the person was, you know, when they started with you and where you helped them get to? Obviously, don’t name any names, but maybe just share what was the challenge in how you came, got involved and then in the new level they attained.

Katie Baird: [00:17:17] Yeah, so. And there’s one recently that comes to mind. I was working with a woman who was very established in her career in the tech space. She was not based in Houston. And she chose to leave her her very large, established tech company for for a startup. And I’ve been with her through that whole journey from deciding it was time to make a move to figuring out what that next right move was. And all the way through now we are about six or so months into her transition into that new company. I think for her, what has been one of the greatest values from coaching has. Has been having a consistent kind of supporter and perspective there throughout that process, end to end. She remarked recently that she really had not realized how lonely it is to be a woman and a senior woman in a very male dominated small company culture. And so being able to really help her think through relationship building and setting a strategy in this new role and how she goes about building a brand for herself in this new culture has been really exciting and I think set her up for success in the long term with this with this new startup.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:05] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more, have more substantive conversation with you, what is the website?

Katie Baird: [00:19:13] Yes, it is chaos with my initials and then Bayard Baier coaching. And they can also find me on LinkedIn under Katie Baird.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:25] Well, Katie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Katie Baird: [00:19:31] Thank you so much, Leigh. It’s been a pleasure to talk with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:34] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Natalie Shmulik With The Hatchery

November 17, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Chicago Business Radio

Natalie Shmulik With The Hatchery

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Natalie Shmulik is The Hatchery’s CEO, and go-to resource for launching a successful food and beverage business. Along with an M.L.A. in Gastronomy from Boston University, she has a wide range of experience working with supermarkets, culinary publications, consumer packaged goods companies, and food service establishments.

After successfully operating her own restaurant, Natalie was hired as a specialty consultant for one of Ontario’s largest supermarket chains where she enhanced consumer experiences through educational initiatives. Discovering her passion for innovation, Natalie was brought on as a brand strategist for the first cold brew tea company and later moved to Chicago to run The Hatchery Chicago.

With over eight years of food incubation experience, Natalie has gained a unique perspective on the industry and what it takes to launch and grow a successful business. Natalie is a regular contributor to Food Business News, was recently featured in the Chicago Tribune’s 10 Business People to Watch in 2020 and received the Specialty Food Association’s award for leadership in vision.

She continues to play a valuable role in branding and marketing for food businesses around the country, with her specialty in trend forecasting.

Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey everybody, and welcome to Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and I’m so glad you’re here. We have a good one today, but before we get started, let’s give a quick shout out to our sponsor firm space. Without firm space. We couldn’t be sharing these important stories, so thank you so much to them for sponsoring our show and today’s show. We have a guest who was recently featured in the Chicago Tribune’s Ten People to Watch in 2020 and received the Specialty Food Association’s Award for Leadership and Vision. She’s the CEO of the Hatchery Chicago. Please welcome Natalie Shmulik. Welcome to the show, Natalie.

Natalie Shmulik: [00:00:57] Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Max Kantor: [00:00:59] Of course, I’m glad you’re here. Let’s dove right in. What is the hatchery Chicago and how are you guys serving, folks?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:01:06] Great question. So we are a nonprofit food and beverage incubator. We were established out of a collaboration between two nonprofits. One is Industrial Council of Near West Chicago, and the other is allies for community business. Both are nonprofit organizations I see and see focuses on manufacturing. They’re one of the oldest and largest business incubators in the country, and allies for community businesses is nonprofit micro microlenders. So they’re able to provide essential capital to entrepreneurs who often can’t get access to those funds to launch and grow their businesses. We opened our brand new facility just a few years ago. We have a sixty seven thousand square foot facility located in East Garfield Park on the west side of Chicago, which was a very intentional location for us. We wanted to be part of a community that we felt could both benefit from our resources, but also work alongside us to tackle important challenges within the industry, including things like access to nutritious foods, access to resources and production space, and creating more diversity, equity and inclusion in the industry as a whole. So we are able to provide additional support to West Side entrepreneurs with thirty four hours of free shared kitchen use time and we have a large shared kitchen as well as 50 for private kitchen so entrepreneurs can grow their businesses in a flexible, adaptable space alongside all of the wraparound support they need.

Max Kantor: [00:02:35] So you mentioned that you guys are a nonprofit. How are you funded?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:02:40] Great question. We are funded primarily through three sources. One, we received support from the city in land acquisition, so we were able to access the land to build the hatchery on, and the city has been a big supporter of the hatchery from day one. We also have great corporate sponsors and foundation partners. We wouldn’t be able to exist without these incredible organizations that have believed in our mission from the very beginning. These include companies like Kellogg, ConAgra, Griffith Foods, Ingredion, PepsiCo Foundation Builders initiatives, so many amazing companies that have just jumped up to support us. And then the third way we’re able to continue to provide the support we do is through some of the revenue we generate with rental income, as well as some of the services that we provide with programing and membership.

Max Kantor: [00:03:33] So how can someone participate, most most importantly, an entrepreneur? How does it work? What’s the best type of person who should get involved with you guys and how do they make that happen?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:03:44] We focus on early stage brands, so anyone who has an idea or has just launched a food and beverage business or is in that early growth stage, they’re the ideal candidates to come to us to get the support they need. We run a starting a food business class every month, so anyone who’s just thinking about whether or not this is the right industry for them, we try to provide that information and we take a very realistic approach. So it’s certainly a very exciting industry, but we also know it’s a very challenging one. So we want to make sure that we give everybody the information they need to make a very wise decision on whether or not to move forward. So that’s usually the best place to start is if you’re just thinking about it or you’re in the inception phase, a tender starting a food business class. Again, we run these monthly. We’re the only ones who run this class in the city right now, so we are doing it all virtually, which should make it very easily accessible. From there, we have a sprout program. So if you are in the process of launching or you have launched your business, we have a six month program to just accelerate your path to market and then if you are looking for production space. So if you need commercial grade production space again, we have a lot of flexibility, whether it be access to an hourly shared kitchen space. We have no minimum our requirements. We have daily private kitchens. And then of course, we have your own private kitchen, which you can rent anywhere from one to three years.

Max Kantor: [00:05:08] So you mentioned classes. Do you also have classes and workshops for non entrepreneurs, people who are looking for other things? And also, do you guys do any type of consulting?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:05:19] We do. We do all of the above. So we actually have our networking events. So every month we cover various industry topics that are trend forward, very enticing, relevant topics that we like to discuss with the industry. So we invite everyone, whether you’re a food enthusiast, you’re a service provider, you’re an industry expert or an entrepreneur. We want everybody to be part of the conversation. Our last one this month, which was last Thursday, was actually on reimagining target market exercises. So trying to think differently about how to appeal to the new consumer. Given all these new consumer habits and ways of eating that have developed during and and certainly will continue post-pandemic, and of course, we have our annual fundraiser coming up, which we invite everybody to. The theme is good mood foods and gutsy trends, and it will be talking about how food plays a very important role in how we feel, and especially given that we’re in a time where people feel very isolated, depressed, lots of anxiety and stress. Our gut microbiome plays a big role in helping to change our mood and also improve our health. So we have an incredible roster of speakers. We have Julie Smolensk from Lifeway. We have GT Day from GT Living Foods and of course, famously kombucha. And we have Dr. Erika Engel, who’s the CEO of Excel Foods. She’s really a specialist in the space, and she’ll be doing a bit of a TED talk and then we’ll actually have a pitch session with five finalists from our Dream Commercial Kitchen Pitch contest who will share their innovative ideas, and the audience will get a chance to see the pitches live. They even if there’s an audience vote. So of course, we want to have more than just entrepreneurs as part of our community. We have so many incredible individuals who support entrepreneurs and support innovation

Max Kantor: [00:07:19] For sure, and it sounds like an amazing event. You guys are combining two really important things you know, mental health awareness and also eating good food, and you’re combining it into one great event. So it sounds amazing. Incredible. Do you guys have the opportunity for like ready made meals or buying food or getting? Food from from the hatchery.

Natalie Shmulik: [00:07:43] Yeah, so we on our website have information on the vendors that produce out of our facility, so there’s great ways to support your local entrepreneurs by ordering meals from them. We do have entrepreneurs that use our kitchens as ghost or cloud or dark kitchen concepts. I know there’s a lot of terms out there. But if anyone is interested in ordering, whether it be through one of your third party delivery platforms or for yourself to come and pick up, there are those options. We have so many incredible catering businesses and food service businesses that have meals that are ready to go, so you can always support them that way. And of course, we have so many baked goods and meal kit brands, cocktail mixes, so you can find all of them on our website and you can learn more about the entrepreneurs producing out of the hatchery. And then, of course, we have a program called Hatch Made Meals, where we actually have one of our foundation partners who supported this program, where we’re able to pay catering companies at the hatchery to produce five hundred meals a week. And those meals are are donated to 12 different organizations on the west side who help individuals facing food insecurities.

Max Kantor: [00:08:51] Do you guys ever work with food trucks?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:08:54] We do. We have a few food trucks housed at the hatchery, actually, so we’ve got quite a few of them and we have the space both outside in terms of being able to load up. And then we have the commissary space space where you can prep all of your production for the trucks so that it’s ready to go.

Max Kantor: [00:09:12] Now, COVID 19 obviously was very hard on the food and restaurant drink industries. What were some challenges you guys came across during the pandemic and how did you work to overcome them? Or even how were you still working to overcome them?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:09:27] I would say the biggest challenge was pivoting of business models. The meal delivery model in particular, was not something we had anticipated. Our building was ultimately designed for more so consumer packaged goods brands or large catering business. We didn’t really have the flow of traffic built into the facility to allow for ease of handing over meals, so we ended up having to do a bit of a redesign and pivot ourselves in many ways. So we created a new pathway and space where we could have all of these third party delivery drivers come to the side of the building. And then we had to pick up and drop off location to make it a little bit easier. That’s something we’re always working on improving, and that’s definitely something that won’t go away. So we want to continue to see what role we play and how we can support these brands. And I think something that the industry as a whole is working on supply chain issues are a big challenge right now. So trying to get entrepreneurs to partner together when it comes to sourcing so they can hopefully reduce their costs, it makes it makes a lot of sense if somebody’s already delivering sugar or base commodity items to the hatchery and there’s another entrepreneur ordering the same thing, they can order in larger quantities and find ways to reduce their costs. So bulk purchasing is is a great strategy. And then looking at additional ways to support the labor market, we are relaunching our Impact Culinary Training program, where we are going to be training youth on the south and west side. It’s a subsidized program in partnership with chef Rick Bayless, where we will be training these students who will hopefully be able to fill some of the gaps we’re seeing in the food service space. But we know there’s also challenges when it comes to supporting labor. So higher wages, more benefits and support. That’s something that we’re constantly working on with our members as well as the industry altogether.

Max Kantor: [00:11:23] How do you encourage collaboration and networking, both among members and then among members and the community in the Chicagoland area?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:11:32] Yeah. For us, we always want to take an organic approach. We try to encourage service providers to realize this is a great way to build connections rather than just seeing networking opportunities as a chance to sell a service. So we do spend a lot of time vetting who attends our networking events, who’s part of our branch network program and supporting our entrepreneurs in any, any way we can. We’re very entrepreneur centric, so we always wanted to be a safe space and we always like for everyone to come at the angle of how do we work together to just make things better for everybody? And the way we do that is we like to ask questions. We like to push boundaries a little bit, even with the topics that we cover. We never want to sugarcoat things and make things seem differently than the way they are. We want to ask the real questions. We want to make sure that we’re really addressing what’s going on in the industry. So we always have our work cut out for us too, and making sure that we have great representation for diverse entrepreneurs and industry experts, and that’s something we’re constantly trying to work on. And we also want to make sure that this is a great option. Immunity for entrepreneurs to network with others in the industry, so we do provide holistic coaching, so really not just talking about the technical support, you need to establish a successful business, but how do you, as an entrepreneur, establish your speaking skills and your networking skills? How do you take care of yourself as an entrepreneur? We know that a lot of times you can burn out, and that’s never good for the business either. How do you build a strong team culture? So these are all things that we incorporate in our programing.

Max Kantor: [00:13:09] Now what do you need more of from members or sponsors, industry partners? What do you think the hatchery needs more of?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:13:17] We always want to bring great minds together. Anybody who’s interested in making change in the industry and particularly supporting entrepreneurs in the food and beverage space. We want to hear from you. Of course, if there’s anyone who wants to be a sponsor, a funder, a supporter. We are more than welcome to that. Those types of contributions allow us to keep growing our programing and provide even more support to the entrepreneurs, as well as reducing costs for rental space at the hatchery and providing even more equipment and additional items needed to grow the business. So we always welcome any kind of insights and we love growing our community.

Max Kantor: [00:13:57] What would you say is the biggest success story that’s come out of the hatchery?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:14:02] Oh, my goodness. Well, we are still quite young ourselves, and we’ve had so many incredible entrepreneurs who’ve reached great success. Hopefully, we played a good role in that, but we’ve had wonderful members in the past when they were starting out like farmer’s fridge and tow. Emily, from Little Box. There are so many great businesses that we’ve just they’ve been a joy to work with and getting to watch them grow is amazing. But I think to us the best success is really seeing community members on the West side get these opportunities to whether it’s opening up their own restaurant or cafe or seeing their business grow when they otherwise might have not had that opportunity. So those to us are great successes and we can’t wait to see more of them grow.

Max Kantor: [00:14:49] And Natalie, I have to ask you what is the most rewarding part about what you do?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:14:55] Hmm. I think getting to hear from the entrepreneurs and not so much hearing them talking about their business because we always hear about their being so grateful to have resources, to have time saved. But I think the biggest feedback we always hear is how grateful they are that we are there to listen. We’re there to support them. And even in the hardest times, they know they have someone to talk to who understands them and will be patient. Our team is a team of entrepreneurs and we always want to be there and understand that sometimes supporting entrepreneurs isn’t just giving them numbers or a table to fill in. Sometimes it’s just being there to listen and showing that they have a supportive community and getting to hear that feedback is extremely rewarding, for sure.

Max Kantor: [00:15:46] And as we wrap the interview, I do want to mention one more time you mentioned you guys have a virtual event coming up. Do you want to talk about that one more time?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:15:53] We do. Yes, thank you. So on December 2nd at four p.m., we are hosting our annual fundraiser, which will be virtual again this year. But it will be very interactive, very exciting and packed with exciting conversations. So again, we have a fireside chat with Julie Smalley and Ski and Dave, a TEDx talk from Dr. Erica Engel talking about gut health and some things we can expect to see in the future and innovative ways of thinking. And then we will follow that and conclude with five finalists from our Dream Commercial Kitchen contest who will pitch their ideas. They have five minutes each. We have a great panel of judges and then we have an audience vote. It’s just going to be a great way for us all to connect before the end of the year and celebrate some great successes. So we invite everyone to join and they can get tickets on our website at the hatchery. Org.

Max Kantor: [00:16:48] And speaking of your website, because that’s what I was about to ask if people want to learn more about the hatchery. You just mentioned your website. Do you guys also have social media?

Natalie Shmulik: [00:16:57] We do. So you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, we are on on Twitter. So we’re on most channels you can find us. Typically, the hatchery high is our handle, so please connect with us there or on our website. And if there is anything we can do to help, or if you wanted to share some insights with us, we welcome you to reach out to us through our website or you can email us at info at the hatchery. Org.

Max Kantor: [00:17:27] Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being a guest on today’s show, Natalie.

Natalie Shmulik: [00:17:31] Thank you for having me and thank

Max Kantor: [00:17:33] You again for the work you are doing for the Chicago community.

Natalie Shmulik: [00:17:37] Oh, thank you. We’re we’re so. Honored to be a part of it.

Max Kantor: [00:17:40] And that’s another wrap on another great episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:17:50] 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.