Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Michele Lee Malo With MIchele Lee Malo Consulting

October 29, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Michele Lee Malo With MIchele Lee Malo Consulting

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Michele Malo delivers an appetite for sanity to entrepreneurs and corporate go-getters needing to make a change in their lives and businesses.

As a coach, she creates strategies in personal branding, marketing, career and business acumen for her clients. As a speaker she motivates audiences all over the world, and as an author she empowers others to confidently live a life without regrets.

Michele fuels an appetite for success through her Success Menu Programs, that opens up their mindset with the idea, “If the rug gets pulled out from under you buy a new rug.”

Connect with Michele on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Opportunity comes in all forms
When the rug gets pulled out from under you buy a new rug
Personal branding and the importance of a consistent message
Who do you think you are?
Who do others think you are?
How to lose 185 lbs in one day

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show. We have Michelle Lee Melo with Michelle Lee Melo Consulting. Welcome.

Michele Lee Malo: [00:00:43] Hi, thanks for having me.

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

Michele Lee Malo: [00:00:49] The best way that I know how and that’s trying to uplift folks as careers through personal branding. But if folks don’t want to go back to work, what we definitely help them do is start their own business.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:02] So now what’s the vibe out there? Are people really resigning at the rate you’re are you finding that to be the case as well as with everything you’re hearing about in the media?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:01:12] Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of things that have happened. First and foremost, a lot of people’s rugs got pulled out from under them. So where so there was no choice. So a lot of them are saying, You know what? This is the perfect time for me to follow my dream. It started and start that career I was looking at doing or that business or completely change what they were doing. So if they were marketing folks, I’m seeing people going into training or into accounting just completely 180 ing everything that they were doing. But but yeah, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of movement in the industries right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:46] Now what’s your back story? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:01:50] Well, I was in corporate fortune five hundred for a little bit over 20 years and you know, the crafts and catalogs of the world doing brand management and just leading the hospitality divisions for the for the marketing. And I did that so long and I was on so many airplanes and I loved it. But as fate would have it, I was probably the sickest 28 year old you’ll ever meet. I was over three hundred and ten pounds pre-diabetic, high blood pressure. All of that, and I decided to turn my life around and lost one hundred and seventy pounds. And what I was finding, though, is that that was slowly starting to creep back up with the lifestyle that I was leading. And I thought I could have a bigger impact actually going out on my own and helping other people get their lives back on track because everything is intertwined. Because if your health or your finances, your career or any of your relationships, if any of that’s off kilter, more than likely it’s affecting all of that. So that’s why I decided you’ll let me see if I could really do something on my own and and really make a difference in other people’s lives.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:00] And then you’re still kind of using the maybe umbrella of branding and you’re still singing about from a branding standpoint, just showing an individual how they can leverage maybe this tool that enterprise level people talk about and think about all the time, but they can use it themselves individually?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:03:18] Yes, absolutely. I mean, basically what it is, it’s more of a process in order for folks to really start to think of themselves as the product versus what they’re doing because people buy things from those they know, like and trust. So if we can establish yourself on social media and when you go on radio shows or podcasts or any of those sort of things to be very consistent in their messaging and how they show up in the world, and I show them how to do that. And if that means starting a business, it’s also doing the whole strategy and marketing behind that and getting that infrastructure going so that what shows up and who that business is serving really likes, knows and trusts the person behind the curtain.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:03] And that’s one of those things where a lot of branding is that kind of being congruent and authentic in that what you’re saying, it all matches up right where people aren’t saying one thing, doing another, or they’re saying they’re, you know, super elegant and high class, and then they don’t visually show that.

Michele Lee Malo: [00:04:23] That’s exactly right. Whenever I’m working with my folks who are looking to do a career change or to make a change within that area, I always said we want to make sure that the resume you’re LinkedIn and how you show up in an interview, there’s no gaps. It all makes sense because you’ve always I don’t know about you, but I have met folks and you read about them or you follow them on LinkedIn or other platforms, and then they show up and you’re like, Wow, that just something doesn’t match and it and it feels off. You’ll never get the job and you’ll never get the sale. So we have to make sure you’re absolutely consistent across every way you show up. Like I said in the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:05] Now you mentioned earlier that you lost a lot of weight. Was that exercise of that to the actions you had to take to make that kind of a drastic change? Are those some of those lessons transferable to business as well?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:05:20] It absolutely is, because I tell everyone jokingly that I probably lost and found a thousand pounds in my life so far because whatever triggers you and that mindset, because mindset is everything and whatever you do. And once things start going wrong or there’s certain triggers in your life, it’s you start to fall back into bad habits. So while I was very successful on the health piece of that was and why people gravitated towards me is because I understood there was an empathy there to really start to look at, OK, we can look at the diet, we can look at exercise, but what else is going on there that’s throwing everything else off? Because maybe that’s another area that we need to really talk about before we make any significant changes so we don’t go back to the bad habits.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:10] And it’s one of those things where when you’re going on a journey like you were going on, it’s you’ve got to kind of work at every day and then a bad day can turn into a bad week and a bad week can be a bad month. And that’s the same in business. Sometimes you lose track of those daily activities you have to do every day, and then a bad day turns into a bad week, a bad month. And then all of a sudden you don’t have a business anymore, you don’t have any more clients. So to me, there’s a lot of similarity when you when you’re doing any type of kind of having an achievement that of that magnitude.

Michele Lee Malo: [00:06:42] Absolutely. And I think you have to also give yourself space with grace because things do happen. But to your point, you need to get back at it. So writing goals, personal goals for the day, for the week, you know, and have those go out and really start to look at them constantly and have gratitude when you start to make progress forward. Because I see a lot of things in the industry where you’ve got to hustle, you’ve got to push, you’ve got to do that. I 100 percent agree. But the hustle has to be strategic. It can’t just be busy so that you’re actually doing things that matter, that you see a pound off at the scale you. You launch the next phase of your business. Or you put that product even further into the go to market strategy or you’re finishing up that resume and making calls to to get interviews. So making small, very strategic and focused action is what really needs to happen, to keep you to keep you always moving forward. And I think happy also because accomplishing things and at least for myself, checking things off the list and saying, Hey, I’m in a better place today than I was yesterday, is everything right?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:54] And like you said, it doesn’t have to be super big wins every day. You know, moving the ball an inch is still moving the ball.

Michele Lee Malo: [00:08:01] That’s it. And speaking as a as someone who tries to run half marathons and marathons, I say I’m running because that’s very loose of what I do, but it’s it’s getting to the start line. And just as one foot in front of the other and then just seeing it all the way through to the finish, and it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get there and remember that.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:23] And and I think that this is the value of coaches and consultants in this process is that they become an accountability partner. They become a sherpa guide to kind of light the way and show you what you could do and maybe push you to aim a little higher.

Michele Lee Malo: [00:08:39] Yeah, absolutely. And the accountability also comes in helping with the time management piece of things. So setting goals in terms of OK, by this date, you know, we will have you know this done because it’s a critical milestone just to keep the process moving forward and then if there’s a problem. You could you can address it first to your point, earlier, it’s OK, it becomes a week, it’s the month because you don’t know how to deal with some kind of blockage or or a problem in a certain area with the coach, you can kind of work through that. So you don’t just kind of push that aside or procrastinate. And then, like you said, nothing’s getting getting accomplished. So coaches are definitely a way to get things done. I always say I never do yell at folks like, Oh my goodness, you don’t know me at all. Not at all. But I will be very assertive and question every day. What are your goals? What did we set out to do? And I don’t want you to let yourself down.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:38] Now what is kind of an engagement look like for you? Is it one on one? Coaching is a group. Coaching is a mastermind group. Like, how do you work with your clients?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:09:46] Absolutely. Right now, especially with COVID, it’s been one on one. I had to do pivoting. I had pivoting. I had to pivot on that because I was doing a lot of public speaking, speaking at with workshops and things like that. I am a certified mastermind instructor, but I didn’t do that on Zoom and I will look to probably relaunch that coming up here. But right now, it’s definitely one on one. I’ve got a couple of clients working with that are in the process of launching some pretty big ideas and still working with all my my career folks. So that’s that’s where we’re at right now, but we’ll see what the future holds with everything that’s going on.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:27] Now what is kind of the pain that they’re having, where you’re the ideal fit when in terms of choosing a coach?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:10:35] Basically, the they the pain I’m trying to solve is that they know that they’re not alone. And what makes me very unique is that I have a very wide network because of a lot of different experiences and different industries and platforms and things like that. So when they are stuck and they don’t know how to do it. As an example, one of my clients currently, she has invented this brilliant idea and. She just came to me and said, I don’t know how to do it, I’m the inventor, but I have no business background. And so I give them the reassurance and they trust me to take a look at their whole goal and what it is. They’re bringing in their target market to give them peace of mind, that the gaps in their knowledge I’m able to fill for them so we can get their product to market and get them making some money pretty quick.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:31] So now. But could it be also like an executive that is, you know, maybe in a leadership role? Can you help that person as well that maybe they’re thinking, Hey, maybe I want to have I see the writing on the wall here? Maybe I need a second act?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:11:46] Yeah, actually, absolutely. Quite a few clients that come from the executive ranks because again, once you get to the VP roles, even senior directors and all of that because I was one of those folks and I did get a coach myself when I was trying to figure out how do I leave? Do I stay with what I’m doing because I was very successful at it? And that’s actually something I really love doing because we get into my intake form and kind of my process is to understand the life that they want to live, not the career not defined by their family or anything else like that, but really digging down to see what does life look like. Because once we understand what they’re trying to achieve on a personal level, then we’re able to peel back the onion layers and start making a strategy and branding and a plan for them to get to the next level based on their goals for their life.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:42] Now what’s been the most rewarding client you’ve worked with? What what story have you helped? Do you mind sharing a story where you’ve helped someone get to a new level?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:12:53] Oh, absolutely. This is one of my absolute favorites. She came to me. She was a single momma from Chicago and had met me at a conference, honestly two years ago. So I tell everybody, you never know who you’ve affected. It might be a phone call the next day or two years from that day, but when they need you and if you’ve made an impression, they will get in contact with you. And she was like, I said, a single mom and working for her kiddos. But in her heart, she’s always been a musician. And she wanted to start doing as her kids, her kiddos were getting close to college and all of that to start moving towards that career. And but she was unmotivated, she didn’t know how to do it. She was struggling with depression. And, you know, we just made a plan for her to start getting out there, how we can get her to do little things every day. So she’s always practicing because she was a bass player and an a vocalist. And fast forward, she now is the voice of Wal-Mart. And she also scored on last season’s The Voice. She was in the top 10. Wow. Now she’s and now she’s even doing television, she’s got a couple of different roles that she’s walking onto. So I went from she went from someone who’s very, very strong but was very, very tired to. Realizing her absolute dream and goals, and honestly, I felt like a proud mama just to see her do that because when she called me and said she did thing, she was like, I did a thing like, What did you do? She goes, I tried out for the voice and she had done American Idol way back. But it was a bad experience and I said, I’m proud of you. She’s like, Well, we’ll see. It’s time. And it’s her time. Well, I’ll probably be just a little piece of that.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:47] That’s an amazing story. I mean, you see the on that show, especially the back story of a lot of those folks are just this is kind of their last swing at a dream. And then when it comes true, it’s just amazing.

Michele Lee Malo: [00:15:00] Yeah, it’s it’s so and to see the pride in her and she’s also like a fashion icon. And I just it was everything we had talked about. And now this is five years in the making. You know, so on and off and for her to follow things, but you got to stay with it. I think that’s the moral of the story is never give up on that dream. You don’t have to be twenty two to become a musician. You can have life happen. And it still can come true, and that’s with anything you do, so that’s why having people in your corner to be your cheerleader, also when you’re down and say, OK, let’s give OK, let’s get back up what’s going on and giving them small tasks to just keep them on the road towards what they’re truly, truly wanting to do and having them win in life.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:48] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more or maybe get on your calendar or, you know, schedule a call. What is the best way to do that?

Michele Lee Malo: [00:15:59] Sure. You can look up the mindset menu if you want to sign up to have a call with me, or you can reach out to me on any of the social media platforms at Michelle Lee Malvo. Those are all my handles. I’m in one. Michelle, so make sure you get that. But that’s the best way to get a hold of me. Like I said, reach out on social or go ahead and schedule a calendar event with me through the mindset menu.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:27] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. Today you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Michele Lee Malo: [00:16:32] Oh, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:36] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Marketing Coach Robynn Anton

October 29, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Marketing Coach Robynn Anton

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Robynn Anton is the author of Three Days to Thrive: How to Write an eBook in Three Days or Less. She is the owner of RGA Creative Marketing Agency for 20 years.

She is a mother of 3 plus 2 bonus kids! Can’t get enough of Her fiance, Brad, embarrassingly obsessed with Friends and can be found in the kitchen dancing to Maroon Five’s Sugar on repeat.

She is a writer at heart, a marketer by default. She prefers a beach, but also loves to ski, scuba, and shark diving – always up for an adventure! She is an EX-procrastinator – “life is too short!”

Connect with Robynn on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

For Course Creators, Coaches, and Consultants: Launch It Like You Mean It!
Creating and Offer Your Prospects WANT & NEED
Organic Marketing Strategy
Launch Program

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Robin Anton with Robin Anton, which is owned and operated by RGA Creative Enterprises. Welcome Robynn.

Robynn Anton: [00:00:48] Hello. Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Robynn Anton: [00:00:54] So I work with coaches, consultants and course creators, helping them develop their primarily getting their business started up and running online. So I work with people who have been trying and struggling for years, either trying to sell their course online or their programs online, or I work with one on one coaches who say, Hey, I want to take this online and I want to scale my business.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] So how’d you get in this line of work? Have you always been working with coaches?

Robynn Anton: [00:01:18] Yeah. So I’ve been a marketing consultant for over 20 years. Don’t want to age myself, but I’ve been doing this for a really long time. I’ve primarily started out working on B2B environment and probably just in the last few years have kind of transitioned into, I call it, the beat environment, right where we’re working with businesses and entrepreneurs trying to sell to other businesses or individuals.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] So what drew you to this crowd?

Robynn Anton: [00:01:42] I’ve always had a passion for small business owners and trying to help them. I mean, years ago I started a website called Pops Pages and it was all about. It was a directory, an online directory for small business owners, and I worked with Entrepreneur Magazine and we had had eight hundred thousand people in the program. And I really just always wanted to help businesses kind of promote themselves online small business owners because you’re always competing against the larger organizations and they don’t have the money and the funds to do that necessarily. So I really just always had that passion. And when I finally came up with this program and something I started and it worked for me, I’m like, I’ve got to help people do this. So I’ve kind of transitioned into helping people launch their programs online.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:21] So now for the folks out there that are trying to do this alone without any expert advice, do you see them making kind of similar mistakes?

Robynn Anton: [00:02:30] Yeah, so what’s what’s been happening and what I was stuck in, I was kind of stuck in the screen too. I really started online trying to do things online since 2004, so I’ve been doing this for a really long time, but I kept getting pulled back into my traditional business and my marketing agency where I worked with might be to be clients. But I’ve always had, you know, my my finger on the pulse of what’s going on, what are they teaching? What should I be doing if I want to start something online? And most of the online gurus teach you how to create a freebie and sell it. Ninety seven another course and kind of start way down here. I’m like, You can’t see me visually, but start down at the bottom and work your way up to higher priced programs. And so what I’ve done and what I the program that I’ve created is I’m teaching people how to flip their value ladder. So for example, if you’re a one on one coach, you’re already working one on one with people. You probably have a higher price already. So take that program and I teach them how to turn that into a small business or small group program and and really scale their business quickly. So I actually get the coaches that I work with. It takes 30 days. I give. I give them an outline of what they need to do for the first 30 days to get their business up and running, and they are launching their program within 30 days.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:36] So now are the programs some variation of group coaching, you know, kind of a master minded thing where you’re sharing some expertize but giving people a community to help each other, but together you’re going to all grow.

Robynn Anton: [00:03:52] One hundred percent, right? So that’s kind of what we’re all the kind of the online course programs are going right. You have a course, typically some type of content that you want to share with them. What I encourage my my coaches to do is number one, you can sell it before you actually create it. You have to have the idea in the concept and you have to understand how you help someone develop and change or you figure out what that challenge is and how you get them through that. That challenge, you have to already know that you can’t make that part up as you go. But what you can make up is not make up might not be the right word, but I teach you how to to create an offer they can’t refuse. And then I teach you how to actually launch the offer and market the offer. So what I have then do is walk through this process in 30 days and in 30 days, they’re actually in front of their dream prospects, selling their coaching services on and, like you said, in a community type face situation where they have a Facebook group for the people that are joining.

Robynn Anton: [00:04:43] They have a course program that they they either create or have already created. And then what I have them make sure that they add in is that that one on one or one on one, but the small group coaching. So for example, I encourage them to take an hour a week where they meet with everybody who’s in the program and answer their questions and work with them in a really intimate situation, like on a Zoom call so that they can see the people that they’re working with. They get to know each other. They work together as a community, and then they also share information in the Facebook group. I encourage my teams to go into the Facebook group, share your information, talk about what you’re doing, ask what, what you need help with. Show us what you’re like, show us your landing page or show us your ad. Show us what you’re talking about and we we all work together to help everybody get to a better level with their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:26] Now, do you find a lot of people are just afraid that like they don’t like they plan to plan like their never want to take the leap and take action, but they there’s always some reason that it’s not ready.

Robynn Anton: [00:05:41] That is the number one excuse, right, it’s always you’re trying to perfect everything, you’re trying to make sure I can’t watch my course on my horse riding. I can’t, I can’t do my I can’t create a landing page until I know what my horse is about. I mean, there’s always a reason, right? I have to learn the technology. I have to do this. There’s always a reason why you can’t get it done. So obviously imperfect action is the way all entrepreneurs, especially with online, you need to take imperfect action. You need to take that next step. You need to take the leap if it’s something that you really know that you can help people. If you know that you can help people solve a challenge and you really have this urge. Entrepreneurs typically know if they’re entrepreneurs, right? You know what that feels like to be an entrepreneur and you want to be successful. You cannot dwell, right? You have to take action. And that’s why in my program, I have a 30 day kickstart. So within 30 days, they’re actually marketing their program, figuring out what the offer is and launching. And that’s one of the always the missing component. Typically in an online program, the people that I talk to, they’re missing that launch component, but I teach them how to do that.

Robynn Anton: [00:06:37] I teach on how to launch the program, not just market it, but launch it. And they’re doing this within 30 days so that they can’t. They don’t. It helps you not to get scared. It helps you not to procrastinate. You just have to do it, you have to follow it, you have to get the program done and then you tweak and refine and make things better for the next launch. So I teach you how to get it going and just to do it. And because of the way I have my program structured, it’s set up in a step by step check off list. And it’s really cool because you know, when you’re you’re behind. And if you need to extend something for some reason, that’s fine. I get it real for all business owners. We’re all busy, we all have lives. But my goal is that within 30 days you’re launching your program and you know what you’re doing and you’re excited about it, and then you’re just looking at the results and making the changes that are necessary to make it better the next time.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:20] So what are the components of a successful launch? Do you have to already have some built in audience or built in mailing list of some kind in order to be successful at this? Or can you do it just, you know, for someone that’s just starting out?

Robynn Anton: [00:07:34] So the way that I’m teaching, the way that I work with people, it’s really cool because you don’t have to have a huge email list or any email list at all. You get that by doing what I teach you as far as your organic, your organic marketing, right? I teach you all the organic marketing stuff that you need to take. And what’s really cool about the way when you’re selling high ticket, you don’t have to sell it a hundred people. You want to sell to three to five people the first round and you’re making five to ten thousand with your first launch. So you don’t your audience is much smaller, much more intimate. And so therefore you don’t have to have 250 people on an email list. I didn’t have any email list when I started. I had my email list for my own business from years ago, but I’ve never used that. I have developed my email list and my program specifically, by the way I teach in the program in the course. So whatever I’ve done, that’s been successful for me. I’m teaching people how to do that, and it doesn’t include an email list. It doesn’t include having your your your course created in advance. And it’s just a matter of getting yourself out there and talking to in the face group Facebook groups and getting yourself out there on Facebook. As an expert and I teach you how to do all of that.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:37] So it doesn’t require like a huge ad budget for Facebook or any of these platforms.

Robynn Anton: [00:08:43] No ads, no email list and of course, which mean people like, well, that that’s not going to work. I’m telling you, I have. I had one of my students just recently. He’s had a windfall. It’s been amazing. He ended up selling two hundred of his smaller courses by putting a program together, and then he sold another six of his thousand to fifteen hundred or two thousand. I’m not sure his final price point that he gave some discounts, but let’s just say it’s around one thousand to fifteen hundred of his of his big mastermind course. So no, and that was without a plan. Without anything, he started from scratch with what I taught him and went for it.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:20] And then so what is required of the person just being an expert at some something?

Robynn Anton: [00:09:27] Yeah, you definitely need to be an expert. And when and when I say expert, I mean that you’re able to help somebody through a transformation or challenge all the transformation or challenge. So typically, if you’re not like a business expert or you haven’t been doing this for 20 years, it could be you’re an expert at losing weight because you did it yourself. You lost one hundred pounds, you lost 50 pounds. So I don’t expect people to necessarily always have the business acumen for what they want to actually create a course for it. It could be something that you’re passionate about, that you know about that you’ve gone through a challenge yourself and you know how to solve that challenge for people. That’s all I requires that you have that expertize. I don’t want you making something up or trying to figure that part of it out. You already have to have that in my mind. Part of my business is the way I teach you. I want you to already know what that is, and then I just help you figure out how do you market it? How do you make it into an offer that people can’t refuse? Because there’s two parts to an offer they need to want it not only want it, but they have to meet it as well. A lot of times entrepreneurs create programs that people want but don’t necessarily need, or programs that they need. But they don’t necessarily want, right? They have to want it and need it. So I make sure I go over that part and I make sure I teach you how to do that. And then ultimately they have to be able to know how to launch. I work with them on launching it, so I do the three things that organic marketing, the launch and the offer. But you have to have the expertize. You come with the expertize. I can get you where you need to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:48] Now do I have to invest in kind of a lot of marketing automation or mailing list kind of services in order to kind of nurture all these people and to and to sell them something?

Robynn Anton: [00:11:02] Yeah, these are great questions. You kind of you really you did your homework or you already you understand this business, right? So a lot of times you’ll get with with with experts or coaches helping you do this and you end up having to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on extra extra programs. The only programs I have them do is I use I used to, I use Clickfunnels and it’s ninety seven dollars a month and I use active campaign and it’s nine dollars a month. So that’s what I had asked to be. Those would be any extras that they have to spend. Otherwise everything else is either free or you don’t really need a lot. I try to minimize the technology because I know technology is what people back. And so I make it very simple. In my program, I actually hand you my funnel, I hand you my sales funnel, I hand you my everything that I do in order to get people into my program and sell them. I give you all of that information, and I also give you all of my email, email campaigns and all the series that I use and all the automated automation that goes with that. I hand it to you and drop it right into your account, and all you do is go in and tweak it with your colors and your photo and your your copy and you’re all set to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:05] Now, one of the components of your final, I would imagine, is this how to write an e-book in three days or less? Is that right?

Robynn Anton: [00:12:14] Actually, it’s funny you said that. No, it’s it’s not one of my components of this program. It is definitely something that I encourage people to do in order to become the go to expert. It’s just something fun and something that gets you noticed in your market.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:29] So that’s just a value added as part of your program.

Robynn Anton: [00:12:33] Yeah, for sure. If you have a if you have an e-book that helps obviously with your organic marketing because you can use the content from the book. But it’s not something that I require because I actually when I first started this program, I did think I would include that as a component, but I don’t want to overwhelm. So and that’s one of the things I teach my my coaches is you don’t want to overwhelm, you want to overdeliver, right? You want to simplify the overwhelm or the overdelivering is simplifying, simplifying the process so they can get something done and the allotted amount of time that you tell them they’re going to be able to get it done. And by creating the component of the book, that’s kind of in the next phase of my business, a next phase of my mastermind that if you go into the second phase of the mastermind you, I would encourage you to do create an e-book. But at the beginning, I don’t encourage that only because I want you to stay very focused on what you need to do in order to get launched in the first 30 days.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] And then the launch is kind of foundational. In order to build kind of the cash flow you need, maybe to take the program to a new level.

Robynn Anton: [00:13:30] One hundred percent. I teach them how to do this a five day challenge launch. And then I also teach you that that’s one of the conversion strategies, but you have to have a launch program in place. And this is a really interesting launch program because you have it kind of contains all the components of a launch. It lets you show yourself as an expertize. You’re able to develop a relationship with your prospects. You don’t have to have a large group in the program. I mean, you can have one of my launches. I had three people that showed up every day for five days and I sold it to two of them. So actually, I sold it to three of them. The third one ended up putting it on hold so you don’t need a large group in order to make sales and in order to make money quickly. But my idea is that you can actually you learn this first component of how you convert and how do you launch a program and then you can later on do other types of launch programs that can either come. The challenge or it can take place of the challenge, so yes, it creates cash flow quickly and then you can learn the other aspects of marketing your courses and your programs.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:29] So the launch is typically on this kind of short term. Activity that you’re getting people to buy into this smaller three day, five day challenge or something along those

Robynn Anton: [00:14:41] Lines, yeah, so it’s a five day challenge and I encourage it to be free. There’s later on in your program, you can charge for the five day, but I encourage when you’re first starting out to do a five day for free and really show your expertize and I break down the day’s kind of how you can build those relationships and what you need to do. And typically like, there’s a lot of people, not a lot, but there are other people out there showing and teaching people how to do the launches. And I’ve kind of have a few secret source components, and I’ve kind of mentioned one of them here. I think it’s really important to me anyway, is to build to build those relationships with your prospects, and most coaches will teach you to do it like any type of a course or a launch. I’m sorry on a Zoom call or not a Zoom call. I’m sorry. Unlike a Facebook Live on the live, where you’re where they you’re not really interacting with them other than through chat. I really encourage my my folks to do it on Zoom so that they can see the people they get to know them when they start the program. I say know a lot of men before talk to everybody so you can see them. Normally they’re saying, Oh, say hi to on chat. I think it’s so important to have that face to face connection, especially with the online world, especially the entrepreneurs are facing right now. It really helps to develop those relationships, and I think that’s really, really important in order to get to get your business to where you want it to go, to bring in the flow and make the sales because they trust you, you build that trust, you build that authority factor and then you also build a relationship. But they really like working with you, so they want to buy it. By the end, they’re ready to sign up.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:05] So what’s your personal best in terms of a client who who hit it out of the park?

Robynn Anton: [00:16:11] I say the personal best right now would be Steven Hochman, he actually has an SEO program and he’s someone that I just was speaking about earlier. He just, you know, he was already he had a small course designed to. He had he was doing all the thing I was saying. He had the smaller courses he was trying to sell for. I think two hundred dollars, a hundred and ninety seven dollars and he’d been doing it for a couple of years and just wasn’t able to get it exactly how he wanted it or get the traction that he wanted. And he started working with me. And like I said, within 30 days, he had somebody who partnered with him. And he ended up selling, I believe, 100 or 200 courses. I don’t know why I can’t give that that number. I think he I think he sold it. I think he did sell. I think he sold two hundred of the courses and then he went back and sold to those people, got them into his mastermind program. You got six of them to sign up for the mastermind just through an email series. So it was a it’s a that was a great success story. He’s thrilled with the program. He’s so happy. I mean, we just had a meeting today and he’s like, Robin, he goes, I just can’t believe it. This all happened and he feels like his business is really taking off, and he now understands his business and how it’s going to work.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:11] And for a lot of these folks, all they need is that escape velocity and they get frustrated because they never can reach that. And it seems like that it just wasn’t meant to be when a lot of times if they just know a few tactics, it can change the game.

Robynn Anton: [00:17:26] Oh, Tonya, because I was the same way I started this, you know, in two thousand four, I kind of I’ve been dabbling. I’ve purchased every program from every big guru and sat through hours and hours of seminars and webinars. And then I kind of was always trying to piece meal things together. And what’s really key with my program is I have a system and structure that you follow and and you know, if you do everything by the book, you’re going to make something happen because here’s what it is. I obviously can’t promise somebody they’re going to sell, right? I can’t promise you that you’re going to sell your course or your program, but I can promise you that you’re going to know how to market it. You’re going to know how to create an offer that people can’t refuse, and they’re going to actually launch the program and get them to at least be in front of you. And here’s the thing you have to do this and within 30 days, and let’s just say you run the program and nobody buys. Well, that’s data, right? That’s data that you look at. What was your message? What were you trying to sell? How did it your how did your marketing tie into your offer? Like, there’s all these things you have to look at all these components it didn’t match. And I’ll tell you why I say this, because when I first started, I launched and I had 40 people sign up for my program.

Robynn Anton: [00:18:25] The first program, which I was thrilled and I had maybe twenty to twenty five showing up live every day, which was crazy. But my my message when I marketed was, Hey, if you’re a small business owner, come to my program. What I realized before I even launched is that I had the wrong message, I had the wrong people in the group, so I had a water. For now, my whole message, my whole week long event, in order to make sure that people got something out of it because I wanted to make sure these, I ended up with a bunch of traditional brick and mortar small business owners, as opposed to people who are really trying to take their course or their program or the coaching program and launch it online. So I had to I had to evaluate. I had to sit back and go, OK, I just had this amazing launch with all these people show up, and I didn’t sell anything because I didn’t have my original message tied with my offer. So it’s really crucial that all that aligns and that and that you like I said before that you do it quickly so that you have the data to evaluate and then you can move on. Once you’ve done done your first launch,

Lee Kantor: [00:19:20] And that’s a good message about clarity of message and being really precise when it comes to your ideal prospect or client. Yeah. And a lot of folks don’t want to kind of have that niche and they think it’s it’s limiting, but I think it’s freeing.

Robynn Anton: [00:19:38] Well, I’ll tell you, I teach them, and that’s one of the things I teach in my my mastermind and I talk about it in my five day launch as well. You have to pick one person, you have to pick one person to talk to. It’s kind of like if you go into a party and you look at all these people, who would you go up to and actually want to talk to you and have a conversation with? And that doesn’t mean the other people standing around that person aren’t going to listen in and join in on the conversation. But you have to talk to that one person to get somebody’s attention if you try to talk to everybody. You’ll talk to nobody. That’s kind of what I teach.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:06] Right. But that’s counterintuitive. Not everybody sees that.

Robynn Anton: [00:20:11] Correct, correct. And then it’s hard. I mean, it’s even hard. Still, it’s hard for me because I’m like, I’m going to do course. Our coaches and of course, creators and, you know, I want to work with all these people. I ultimately have my message narrowed down to and here’s here’s the key. You want to the coaches that are out there, you want to work with the people who are are already on the journey. People who are already like, in my case, creating courses are already a coach or consultant. I don’t want to have to be the person that convinces them, first of all, that they’re an expert. Second of all, that they should take their business online, right? I want to be the person that’s in that third section where you’ve been, you know, you’re an expert. You want to take your business online and you just don’t know how to do it. That’s why you only have to make one decision. You want to say, Well, I want to learn how to do it. I’m gonna learn how to do it from Robert about that as a coach, how that plays into your scenario.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:57] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more, maybe get in on one of your challenges. What is the website?

Robynn Anton: [00:21:05] The best place to go to my website, Robin and. It’s Anton. Anton, Robin, Anton, but can pronounced Anton, but Robin with two answers. Robbie and Anton and I have a banner slide down a little bit. There’s a banner on my page and it takes you right to the next challenge.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:23] Good stuff. Well, again, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Robynn Anton: [00:21:29] Oh, no problem. And thanks for having me on the call today. This is great.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:32] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will sail next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Beau Billington With The Free Agent

October 29, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Beau Billington With The Free Agent

00:00 /

Beau Billington is the founder of the Free Agent, a consulting company immersed in the strategic-layer of the Gig Economy.

The Free Agent has a vetted bench of executive leaders with backgrounds in Sales, Marketing, and Technology that are available on a Fractional, Interim, or Full-time basis.

The Free Agent works across a multitude of industries and disciplines, with a keen focus on technology companies with revenues ranging from $10M-$200M.

Connect with Beau on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Executive Headhunting and the Gig Economy
Create Opportunity in the Gig Economy
Position Yourself for a win in the Gig Economy
Price your Solution or Service in the Gig Economy
Attract and retain talent

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by on pay built in Atlanta. On Pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at onpay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Beau Billington with the free agent. Welcome, Beau.

Beau Billington: [00:00:49] Glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to this. This sounds like a pretty big disruption in the industry, so please share with our folks about the free agent. How are you serving, folks?

Beau Billington: [00:01:02] Sure. And that’s that’s definitely the key in the interest here is the disruption, right? So, you know, essentially we’re we provide executive head hunting and consulting services to high growth technology companies that have a product software service. So most of our our customers have revenue somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to two hundred million. They’re growing rapidly. And the common theme with a lot of those high growth companies is personnel and the lack of access to top personnel. And that’s basically where we come to play, where we sit down with these companies, help them understand their gaps and then bring executive level individuals to the table on a full time interim or fractional basis. And lastly, we focus across really just the sales, technology, product and marketing silos.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] Now, what’s your back story? How did you get into this line of work?

Beau Billington: [00:01:54] Yeah, so I kind of fell into it, to be honest with you, I had already, I always aspired to be an entrepreneur. So for me, it was never a matter of if it was a matter of when and the last job that I had in corporate America. This was about four and a half five years ago, was actually a professional services company, and I had the concept of the free agent about two years prior to even starting with this company. But bottom line, we’d go in and we’d have conversations with CIOs and CTOs and sell this grandiose vision of what we can do for them the next one, three, five years and then we’d actually have to go out into the marketplace and then go find the people that we actually didn’t have on a bench. Right. And so it’s kind of a light bulb moment for me, to be honest with you that at that time, Leigh, where I was thinking, there’s got to be an easier way, right? And perhaps maybe there’s individuals that are available that are ready, and we could essentially act as broker intermediary between the companies that need them and the individuals that are actually looking for the work.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:47] Now, you know, the term free agents been around for a minute or so, but it typically applies to maybe in sports or entertainment, and it sounds like you’re trying to apply it here to the business world to have people kind of on demand available when they’re needed in the capacity that they want to to be needed. And it’s it’s any time you have this type of a marketplace, it’s kind of a chicken and an egg thing. How do you kind of maintain the bench and then maintain the opportunities and make sure that you know the matches are there when you need them?

Beau Billington: [00:03:22] You told me definitely took it in the egg, but we rewind a little bit in regards to kind of the namesake. And long story short, I was sitting in Toronto about to miss Christmas with my when my newborn kids and ESPN was playing in the background and they’re talking about so and so as a free agent, I thought to myself, How cool would it be if I myself was a free agent? And at the time I was in sales and marketing, and essentially I could plug in to an organization on my terms, and that’s kind of what spawned the concept of the free agent. And then we kind of moved that across sales, marketing, technology and product to answer your question in regards to a double sided marketplace. That’s that’s really kind of the toughest proposition proposition here, to be honest with you, because you’ve got to have enough demand to kind of ensure that the supply can eat, if you will. What we found, however, though, is that there is a tremendous amount of supply. The gig economy is real and due to the fact that the gig economy exists, there’s actually a tremendous amount of individuals in the marketplace that are looking to be independent consultants. And so part of our value prop is that we’ll look to network with those individuals, know they’ll go through our vetting process and they’re therefore become part of our bench and some are available when needed. Other times, you know, maybe they jump on to another project, but ultimately we don’t lock these individuals into our organization. They’re free to kind of do what they please.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:42] And then have you had like, what was your first kind of match in this under the free agent?

Beau Billington: [00:04:51] Chief Revenue Officer Right. So basically high growth company that you initially came to me and was interested in full time. And I hate that acronym, mind you. But they were interested in a full time chief revenue officer. And basically, after further exploration, we kind of collectively agreed that maybe that wasn’t the right move now that they’re probably about a year or two premature from meeting one of those individuals. And so ultimately, I went out into the wild, went out to the marketplace and found an individual that that was available on contract and we plug this individual in. And it was a huge success. And so we started thinking, how can we replicate this?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:27] And then what do kind of the free agents do to kind of catch your eye? What are some of the things they could be doing so that they are kind of sought after in this regard?

Beau Billington: [00:05:38] A couple of things I think, you know, because we also do executive head hunting as well as consulting as it pertains to the consulting side of the business. I think first and foremost, I think people need to choose a lane, right? Either they’re looking for full time employment, that’s kind of their shtick or they want to be a contractor and hang out their own shingle. If you’re really talking about the ladder versus the former, I think it’s highly important to create your your persona and your profile of the LinkedIn website, et cetera, that really mirrors the work that you’re trying to to accomplish. So if you’re setting out to be an independent consultant, then if somebody were to Google your name, that’s what they should really see and that should be representative of your brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:18] And then for the the companies that are seeking the talent is there are things they can be doing to make their opportunity that much more attractive because it seems pretty competitive nowadays.

Beau Billington: [00:06:30] Oh man, it’s this has been the the best year and the worst year for me. It’s been that’s been really insane. It’s funny. You mentioned that about 10 minutes ago on LinkedIn, I actually posted something in regards to employee branding, employer branding, rather as well as the importance of the candidate experience in the hiring process. And basically, I think first and foremost, companies really need to look at their online, their social footprint. Reviews on Glassdoor and what they look like to a prospective candidate and really try to kind of tighten that up across the board, as well as when they’re actually looking to attract individuals within their company and they’ve engaged with them on a one on one basis. They need to do a better job of enhancing the increasing the candidate experience. So ultimately, anybody who’s to walk away or gravitate towards that position is going to write a nice review or at least speak pleasantly about the employer. And I think that’s first and foremost critical step in the talent war that we’re currently in.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:24] And then is this something that you are free agents? Are they kind of of all demographics or is this kind of more attractive to the senior level person that maybe got laid off or is, you know, kind of going their own way for the first time? Or is this also young people that are just kind of frustrated and want to have that flexibility?

Beau Billington: [00:07:43] It’s really across the board, you know, I’d say our typical demographic is probably 40 45 to, you know, upwards of sixty five or so, but we’ve got outliers on both sides. For us, it was really important is trying to carve out a niche and not compete with the staffing agencies that are out there in the middle tier of staffing. And so for us, you know, we typically work executive head hunting side of the house, you know, in excess of base salaries, you know, one eighty five plus. And if we’re talking on the contractual side, you know, we’re talking bill rates 80 100 with our average around one hundred and twenty plus. So we do work across demographics, we do work at different age groups. But I’d say majority of individuals we do work with somewhere between forty forty five sixty five and have run teams and worked at a very, very high level at an organization typically director, VP or even higher.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:35] Now, since you’re the marketplace, are you like, who do you kind of who are you advocating for at any given time? Or are you on the side of the free agent? Or are you on the side of the business that’s looking for the free agent? How do you kind of thread that needle?

Beau Billington: [00:08:49] Yeah, I typically I’d say I do the majority of the work on the free agent side of the House, just because there’s a lot of aspiring contractors, individuals that are looking to kind of hang their own shingle. And that’s that’s where I kind of get involved and may have some one on ones with these individuals and what they can do to kind of create a better footprint, social footprint to attract more opportunity. A lot of times companies or are much more say, established as it pertains to what they also want. And so we kind of it’s a little bit less hands on, I’d say, on the company side of the house.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:22] So when you’re working with that free agent, is some of your work kind of educating them and managing their expectations because they might have come from a corporate job and had certain, you know, monetary compensation and now their free agent. And now it’s a different world. And, you know, sometimes they’re going to have to make less. So do you help them on saying, OK, you know, the value in the marketplace for what you do is X not, you know, X Times seven that it used to be great.

Beau Billington: [00:09:53] Great. Great question. Great point. And yes, life lessons, right? I mean, I think, you know, part of my role is is kind of a psychologist, if you will, managing expectations and really helping people find a path because ultimately, you know, the free agent side of the house, you know, being a freelancer or being an executive contractor, that’s not for everybody. It’s kind of like starting a business sleepless nights. It’s very tough to get started. When you can get some momentum, it can be the holy grail, but it’s really not for the faint of heart. And so ultimately, I really help these individuals, you know, from pricing their service, helping them kind of position themselves for a win and ultimately trying to create more opportunity in the gig economy and being an independent consultant.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] Now, in today’s world where everything or not, everything but a lot of the things are remote, is it opening up a lot more opportunities where the person, you know, maybe did get laid off or retired and, you know, was like, Hey, now I don’t have to travel the good side. I don’t have to travel five days a week like I used to. Is it possible to find opportunities wherever you are, you know, working anywhere in the world now, I would imagine.

Beau Billington: [00:11:00] Yeah. Hundred percent. I think it’s really opened up opportunities on both sides of the house because you have individuals, individuals that are more inclined to take positions maybe they wouldn’t have before because of, you know, travel requirements. Conversely, you have companies that may have had, you know, stringent in in office policies that have, you know, really lightened that up. And frankly, a lot of the companies that I work with currently that I’ve had relationships with pre-COVID may have been less inclined to have a fully remote worker. Fast forward 18 months or two years, and now they are totally fine with somebody being located in the U.S. versus Atlanta southeast or specific state that I may be working outside of Georgia

Lee Kantor: [00:11:41] Now for you. What’s been the most rewarding part of this adventure?

Beau Billington: [00:11:46] So I was I guess I was on a, you know, some sort of soul searching, if you will. And so like for me, you know, I don’t like the mundane, I don’t like doing the same thing day in and day out. And so starting a company four and a half years ago for me has been extremely fulfilling just because every single day is different, good, different, bad, different. It’s all across the board, but every day is different. And so for me, that’s been the most exciting and most fulfilling part of actually starting a company.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:13] Now you mentioned that your work is around sales and marketing and technology. Is that. I mean, that covers pretty much every industry. Is this industry agnostic or does it kind of gravitate towards health care or fintech or certain kind of niches?

Beau Billington: [00:12:28] Yeah, we’re industry agnostic. But for us, excuse me, we typically work with technology companies exclusively companies that have a product software service, but we don’t niche down to, say, manufacturing, health care or fintech. We do work with fintech companies. We do work with health tech companies so long as they have a technology component, then then they’re a good target for us. But we’re not going, you know, sheerly after the manufacturing vertical.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:52] And but you are as long as they have technology at the heart of their business, then you probably have somebody that might be able to help them.

Beau Billington: [00:12:59] Correct. Precisely.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:01] And then so at this stage, what do you need more of? Do you need more companies? I would imagine every company has got their hand up looking for more talent. It’s just a matter of finding the right fit.

Beau Billington: [00:13:12] Yeah, I know it’s a phenomenal question. Pre-covid there was, you know, tremendous amount of individuals looking and now it’s it’s really kind of flipped and it’s companies and companies can’t find enough personnel. And so yes, I’m definitely looking for more talent to add to and bring in to our exchange. One hundred percent.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:33] And then from the talent standpoint, you just want, are you you’re you’re it’s kind of two sides, right? You’re actively looking for them and then you want them to kind of raise their hand and and kind of join your marketplace.

Beau Billington: [00:13:46] Yeah. Correct. So we’ve got kind of a marketing strategy and outreach strategy, and we’ve professionalized that over, you know, pretty pretty recently, actually over the last one to two months. But it’s a combination. I mean, we go out and have a persona and have a profile of individuals that we believe kind of check the boxes as it pertains to our exchange, our marketplace, and we’ll actively go out into the market and reach out to those individuals and try to establish a relationship. We also networking is critical to the success of our business, not only at the company side but also in the free agent side. So we network and then also to what we’re trying to figure out just to be candidly is how we can flip the funnel and drive more of these individuals to us versus us having to go out into the marketplace and find them.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:28] And individuals are saying free agents, you want the free agents to to come to you.

Beau Billington: [00:14:33] Exactly. And then I think that’s what everybody runs into, right? It’s how do you flip the funnel on its head and have the inbound lead flow versus having to go out and grab people right?

Lee Kantor: [00:14:44] Right. So you haven’t cracked the code for that yet, but that’s where you’re working on.

Beau Billington: [00:14:48] So it’s a work in progress, right? A lot of moving parts, and I feel like I’m getting closer every day. But no, I haven’t cracked it to this point. Now that’s it.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:57] From the standpoint of the organization, the enterprise level organization, what are kind of some of the the reasons to go this free agent route rather than the more traditional route?

Beau Billington: [00:15:09] Yeah. So it really kind of depends on a lot of times the size of the company and what the initiative is, right? So if you’re talking about a smaller company, a lot of times, you know, at first too, I think that companies, you know, most individuals and most companies are knee jerk reaction is, Hey, I need a full time resource to take care of this, this this job, whatever it may be. And that’s not always the case, especially with the smaller companies. You know, ultimately, they they may be these individuals may be cost prohibitive, you know, they may not have access to the same level of talent that larger companies have. And so if you kind of flip the flip the the interest here and what you’re trying to accomplish and go out and look for a contractor that can open the doors for access to a different level of talent.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:56] And then but you just have to kind of change your mindset in terms of how you’re deploying that talent and instead of looking at it, checking a box and being done with that, you’re looking at it more on a project basis or kind of trying to achieve certain milestones.

Beau Billington: [00:16:12] Correct. So if you go back to the example I used earlier about the chief revenue officer, that company that I referred to was not if they brought a chief revenue officer in, that person wouldn’t have been set up for success ultimately. Right. And so we walked kind of through that process what they were trying to accomplish, and we realize that there’s a lot more groundwork that needed to be laid before they could bring in a successor of this contractor that then would be in a position to to really kind of take the reins and drive revenue, right? So it really depends on kind of where the company is in the lifecycle as well as where that specific department is in its lifecycle as well. And a lot of times, you know, the companies bring us in where maybe there’s a new initiative that they’re trying to stand up, something’s broken. Or frankly, maybe somebody’s key executive left and they need to stop the hemorrhaging and bring somebody in quickly on an interim basis.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:03] Well, good stuff. Congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to connect with you or the free agent, is the website the free agent?

Beau Billington: [00:17:12] Yes. Don’t ask me how I got that URL. The websites that you know the free agent that can be found on LinkedIn at Beau Billington, B.U. Billington. Pretty, pretty easy there. And then also to. I’ve created a new website in a podcast called Finding that next year. And it’s that finding that next.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] Good stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Beau Billington: [00:17:34] Thanks for your time. I appreciate you having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:36] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Jim Inglis With Inglis Retailing

October 28, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Jim Inglis With Inglis Retailing

00:00 /

Jim Inglis is a world-renowned expert with sixty years of experience in the retail home-improvement industry. He served in executive positions with The Home Depot for thirteen years, where he held the titles of Vice President of Merchandising, West Coast; Executive Vice President of Merchandising; and Executive Vice President, Strategic Development.

He also served as a member of the Corporate Board of Directors. Currently, he serves as President of Inglis Retailing.

Inglis has helped shape the industry worldwide as a special adviser to the boards of leading home-improvement retailers across the globe: Sodimac in Santiago, Chile; Hornbach in Bornheim, Germany; Bunnings Warehouse in Melbourne, Australia; and Komeri in Niigata, Japan.

He is also a past member of numerous boards of directors including for: Home World in Tianjin, China, Chamberlain Manufacturing, K&G, and the National Kitchen and Bath Association, among others.

n 2015, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Global Home Improvement Network and the European DIY Retail Association. He is also the author of Breakthrough Retailing: How a Bleeding Orange Culture Can Change Everything.

Connect with Jim on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

The History of The Home Depot and Its Journey to Market Domination
Lessons from The Home Depot’s Bleeding Orange Culture and Customer-Centric Approach
Culture is the Secret Elixir of Business Success— Especially in Retail
Ten Principles that Drive High-Productivity Retailing from Advertising to Self-Service
Develop a Winning Supply Chain
Six Traps that Inhibit Innovation in Mastering the Art of Merchandising
Create Brand Loyalty and Manage Pricing in Today’s Competitive World

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay built in Atlanta. On Pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at Onpay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one, but before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Jim Inglis with Inglis retailing and the author of Breakthrough Retailing Welcome Jin.

Jim Inglis: [00:00:52] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:53] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm. How are you serving, folks?

Jim Inglis: [00:00:59] Well, English retailing is a consulting firm, and we focus on the home improvement retail industry, basically working internationally with home centers all around the world Japan, Australia, South America, Europe. And this comes out of my work history where in my career I was executive vice president of Home Depot and during the very aggressive growth years of the company. And so we focus on helping at home centers in other parts of the world who would like to emulate Home Depot and become the dominant player in their market, just as Home Depot has become the dominant player in the North American market. And so that’s what we focus on. And fortunately, in most cases, whether it’s in Australia or or Europe or South America, typically we work with either the number one or number two retailer and in each of those markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:08] So now is the home center retailing is at a different animal than other types of retailing.

Jim Inglis: [00:02:14] Well, yes, it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a specialty type of retailing where if you, for example, if you think of a Home Depot, it’s a big box store, has a lot of merchandise, but essentially everything in that store is focused with one mission. And that mission is to provide maintenance, repair or remodeling for the home. And so it doesn’t, you know, you won’t find a lot of other products that you might find, say in a Wal-Mart, which would be a general merchant general merchandise company, but rather it’s a specialty retailer and that is focused specifically on being a solution provider for the homeowners.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:58] And then when being a big box is a different kind of strategy than the maybe the smaller box that attacks the same market like an ace hardware.

Jim Inglis: [00:03:08] That’s right. I mean, what you see in the United States is really two extremes. You have three really big box warehouse stores Home Depot, Lowe’s, and in the Midwest, there’s a third called Menards that control the the biggest dollar amount of shares in the market. But at the other extreme, you have the small neighborhood store, which is the ace type store. And it it’s a very viable retail format in itself because it is local. And in fact, it’s very highly, highly rated when you come to when you do. Market research like J.D. Power gives Ace Hardware a very, very high rating. So. So they don’t control the major dollar amounts because they’re much smaller stores. But there’s there’s two two extremes in the marketplace. Typically, the the customer that’s looking for maybe repair and maintenance might find it very convenient to go to an ace hardware, whereas if they’re doing a bigger project, a remodeling project, then most likely they’re going to to need the assortment and services of of of the big store. The big box store.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:23] So then the customer for the big box store is not only the consumer, but sometimes these other kind of service providers.

Jim Inglis: [00:04:30] Yeah. In fact, if you look at the current Home Depot statistics, forty five percent of the business done in a Home Depot is done with professional customers. And these these are professional customers who essentially are doing the same. Three things that the homeowners are doing repair, maintenance and remodeling. So there’s a certain synergy between the homeowner who’s looking for the same products, the same type of pricing and assortment and service that the professionals looking for. And as a result, a big box store like a Home Depot can can can very well serve both of those markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:11] Now, when you’re going into do your consulting with one of these firms overseas, is the marketplace similar in America? Like is this just people take care of their home in a similar manner and then they go to these kind of places in a similar way, like it’s just the same thing, but different in another country.

Jim Inglis: [00:05:30] Well, you know, the desire is the same. You know, the homeowner wants a better standard of living. They want to take pride in their home. They want to improve their home. And so yes, the desire and the need by the homeowner is the same, whether you’re in Japan or whether you’re in South America or whether you’re in Europe. Now there are certainly significant differences in each of those markets. For instance, if you go to Germany, you find that there’s not as many single family homes that are privately owned. There’s a lot more renters in those markets. If you go to South America, you’ll find that you don’t have as large a middle class. You also find that the homes there are made of cement instead of wood. And so that creates a whole different product mix and sometimes a different complexity and doing the do it yourself jobs. So each market is unique in its own way. But but the basic need of the customer is the same. And so really, the principles of how to drive a high productivity business really remain the same. The tactics the tactics may change depending on the legal situation or the economic situation or the type of construction that’s used or the competition that’s there. So or the culture of the local culture. So the tactics may change, but the overall strategy is really very similar.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:05] Now does the overall strategy that Home Depot kind of relied on to get escape velocity when it was starting out and through your. With the organization, does that transfer to other organizations that aren’t necessarily, you know, retail even or even in the home market? Well. Like from a culture standpoint, you know, being so customer centric, those kind of areas, I would think transfer those are industry agnostic.

Jim Inglis: [00:07:38] Sure. I mean, if you ask, you know what, what is the success of whom do you go? And you know, why is it the largest home center business in the world? And it is. It’s by far the largest home center business in the world and also the most profitable. If you if you trace that back, you trace it back. Well, it is the culture and it’s a culture that is highly customer centric. And so certainly, if you take the same principles that were established by Home Depot of of developing a company with a culture that in fact is customer centric and customer focus, and you empower your people to take care of those those customers and you not only empower them, but you, you educate them. And not only the how, but the way of taking care of those customers. They’ll they’ll they’ll they’ll take on that mission and they will fulfill it. Well, certainly, you know, regardless of whether you’re in the home improvement business or the furniture business or the or the, you know, the clothing business, those principles are still intact. And of course, my my book is called breakthrough retailing. But the tagline is how a bleeding orange culture can change everything. And that’s what my whole book is about is how important that culture is in in creating the environment that allows rapid growth that allows you to dominate the market and that that domination comes by simply being the best store for the customer.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:15] Now how how are those retailers like Home Depot dealing with the online merchants that I don’t think we’re there when Home Depot started?

Jim Inglis: [00:09:27] No. You know, when when Home Depot started, it was it was a pure DIY. Do it yourself business, you know, called stack it high and sell it low. That was that was the model. And over time, a lot of things have changed. The population has changed. There’s more people want services and the DIY market is still very important, but so is the professional market. And and then, you know, the next evolution, of course, is the whole digital world with the with the e-commerce and Home Depot. I went through a period where they when they first got involved with the the digital world in e-commerce and they made a lot of mistakes and that the the the e-commerce business was set up sort of as a freestanding business separate from the stores. But they quickly learned that that it’s not a separate business, it’s an enhancement of the existing business. And so what you find today is that is that at Home Depot, they call it interconnected retailing that it’s really well to use the words of of the CEO. The internet’s the front door of the store. In other words, people will start their projects at home looking at the internet. They’ll do their research on the internet. But as they as they begin to put that project together, they want to touch and feel the merchandise, or they need some additional hands on help with their project and some advice or some design, or they need some delivery. And so what you find is that the internet isn’t a separate market. It’s not a competing market. It’s just an additional tool that gets the customer engaged with the business. And while the while the internet’s the front door of the store, most of those people ultimately find their way into the store and and a typical project may go back and forth many times between the physical store, between the call center and back to the back to the to the internet again. So it’s not it’s not two different businesses. It’s one interconnected business.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:35] And but at the heart of it, it’s like you said earlier, this customer centric approach where you’re just trying to serve the customer in any way they want to be served and give them an experience that is memorable and that is reliable and predictable. That’s different than some of these online operators where they never interact with the human being and they’re just buying an item, you know, in order to save 50 cents. But some customers would rather have a human being interacting with them.

Jim Inglis: [00:12:06] That’s right. Well, you know, your internet business, like I say, it’s the front door of the store, but many times the customer needs that, some additional help. So they actually end up as their next step coming into the store. But also, you know, if you look at, for instance, the internet business at Home Depot, over half of the product. That the customer actually start makes the purchase on the internet. They actually go to the store to actually pick it up. So it’s not, you know, the store, the store, the store is, like I say, an interconnected piece of that internet and that customer is is going to get great service. And you know, if you look at if you look at there was a there was a survey by Forbes magazine just very recently and they were interviewing customers to find out what was their attitude toward internet retailers. And they came to the conclusion that that Home Depot was the number one trusted brand for the internet. So you can have a good experience on the internet and you can have a bad experience on the internet.

Jim Inglis: [00:13:13] And one of the things that Depot is doing now is they’re investing literally billions of dollars in the largest logistic systems so that they can provide the best delivery. The other thing that that you realize is that when people buy on the internet, three times as much return goods are done on a purchase from the internet than are purchased in the store because people don’t know until they see it, until they feel it or they try it on or or they buy too and see which one they like. So your returns are three times as much. Well, the advantage of having both the internet and the store is the customer can then quickly and easily bring that back to a store because the stores in the case of Home Depot are very convenient to virtually 90 percent of the customers in the United States. So. So there’s the internet. That’s a very cold, distant internet. And then there’s the internet that’s interconnected with the local store, and there’s a world of difference in service between those two extremes.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:16] Now, is there any advice for a retailer out there? And maybe it’s not an enterprise level, but even a mom and pop that they could be doing right now that could, you know, make a difference in their business?

Jim Inglis: [00:14:28] Well, the most important thing is to understand how does the customer see your salespeople, the people that interact with your customers? Do they see your salespeople as competent? Do they see them as dependable? Do they see them as trustworthy? And do they see them as caring? If they do, then they will take those attributes and they will apply them to your brand and you will become the preferred place to shop the preferred destination store. So it’s so critical that your people believe in your mission. You know, people think, Well, I’ve got to advertise to let people know about my store and my mission and what I do. But the first people that you have to market to is your own salespeople. They have to believe, and if they believe, then your customers will believe.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:32] So the first step is to really get the culture right. I mean, if you have the culture right and the mission is obvious and everybody’s on board and everybody’s rowing the same way, then you have a chance.

Jim Inglis: [00:15:44] Bingo. That’s that’s the bottom line.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:47] So now does that is that the same way in order to create the brand loyalty you need and to be that top of mind provider is that it starts with the people again because that’s foundational.

Jim Inglis: [00:15:59] That’s correct. You know what, what we what we always said at Home Depot was that is that what we expected was not we didn’t we didn’t say, Well, our people are inherently better, but rather we have ordinary people. But they perform at an extraordinary level because they’ve bought into the mission because they believe in the company. And and so what you find is, is that the leadership of the company sets values and demonstrates behavior that creates a culture that is in fact mission driven. And when those employees buy into that mission, you end up with extraordinary performance by ordinary people. And you know, another another statement that I’ve heard is that great people are everywhere, but it’s the culture they are in that determines how they will be perceived by the customer.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:02] Now, do you see a kind of way out of this supply chain issues that we’re dealing with now? Is this something that we’re going to be dealing with for months and months? Or you think that there’s a light at the end of this tunnel?

Jim Inglis: [00:17:15] Where the light might be a train coming at you very fast. It’s a serious, serious problem the the supply of product. Not many of our products are in fact produced outside the United States, and even the products that are produced in the United States quite often use component parts that are produced overseas. And so what we had in the past, we had a situation which the the the smart retailers, the smart companies bought into this whole idea of of just in time management, just in time supply chain. And this was started by the automotive industry that said, Hey, you don’t have to have an investment in inventory. You use just in time supply chain. And that’s been the modus operandi for like the last 20, 30 years. And it’s been taught by every consultant and every every professor that just in time is the smart way to run your business. Well, what’s happened with this COVID situation has proven that, well, there’s a downside to that. And just in time may change to a strategy of just in case. Hey, just in case we better have a Plan B, just in case we better have a Plan C, we better have, you know, diversification we may meet. It might be ideal to buy from all your product, from a company, from Country A, but maybe you should have a backup in Country B or Country C. You’ve got a supplier A that could supply 100 percent of your product, but you better have Supplier B and Supplier C in line so that you can. Have assurance that you can, in fact, get products, so I think the biggest thing that biggest change is going from just in time to a just in case mentality. And I’m not saying by that that we should stop buying, that we should stop having free markets and we should set up tariff barriers like Trump wanted to do and like Biden is doing. I think that’s counterproductive. I believe in open markets, but at the same time, diversity within those markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:43] And do you think that that’s going to cause maybe an increase in manufacturing in areas that there weren’t manufacturing before in order to kind of be that Plan B and Plan C.?

Jim Inglis: [00:19:54] Absolutely. I mean, today you see a lot of a lot of manufacturing is moving from China into Thailand and to Cambodia and to Malaysia. Yeah, you see, it’s already happening.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:08] Sometimes the market, kind of when they have the most to lose, they’re the ones who take the most action.

Jim Inglis: [00:20:14] Well, that’s right, I mean, and all of. You know, a problem is, is the is the mother of invention.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:24] Well, congratulations on all the success. The book, though, is written for the people in retailing is that the the market for it or anybody in business would learn from some of the things that you went through in your career?

Jim Inglis: [00:20:37] Well, the book is is actually a very large book. The book is over 400 pages, so this is this is a typical business book is about half this size. So this is a big book and and the reason it’s really two books on one. The first half of this book is the history of Home Depot. How did it get started? Who started it? How did it get started? What did they do that that that changed the marketplace? And how did they become the largest company in the world? How did in home improvement retailing? How what problems did they come through because they went through some very dark periods as well? And and then, you know, how did they how did they right the ship and and continue the incredible growth they’ve had? So it’s a great it’s a great history story. And how many people are involved with the Home Depot? Well, all the people that work there, all the people that sell the Home Depot, all the people that buy it home, people. So anybody who’s interested in the story of Home Depot, that’s the first half of the book. The second half of the book is as as as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been teaching other retailers around the world how to emulate Home Depot, and in doing so, I developed 10 principles that each company needed to understand and needed to implement to be the dominant retailer in their own market. And so each of those 10 principles is a chapter in the book, and that constitutes the last half of the book. So the first half of the book is a history book. I think it’s an interesting history. And then the second half of the book is really the principles that that you can apply to create a high productivity retail business. And of course, that business doesn’t have to be in home improvement. It could be in any business because the principles are universal.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:25] Well, Jim, thank you so much for sharing your story. If somebody wants to get a hold of the book or get a hold of you for some consulting, is there a website?

Jim Inglis: [00:22:33] Yes, it’s breakthrough retailing. One word breakthrough retailing.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:38] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jim Inglis: [00:22:42] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate the opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:44] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Ryan Johnson With Cxmmunity

October 28, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Ryan Johnson With Cxmmunity

00:00 /

Ryan Johnson is a graduate of Oakwood University. Currently, he is completing his master’s degree in Sports Administration at Georgia State University. Since completing his bachelor’s degree Ryan has worked in various roles in the technology, sports, and entertainment industries.

With expertise in sponsorships, business development, brand partnerships, consumer insight, and trends. Now he is combing his passions and talents to build and expand Cxmmunity.

Ryan began his professional career as an Account Executive with Vonage Business. He was responsible for maintaining a client base that met monthly and quarterly metric goals. Shortly after he accepted a role as an IT Consultant with Adapture. Adapture is an award-winning IT firm located in Sandy Springs, GA.

Winning CRN Tech Elite and Atlanta Business Chronicle Pacesetter Awards, Ryan was able to quickly develop skills around business development, project management, and customer experience with corporate organizations. In 2018 he joined RIISE Ventures and assisted in business development and event initiatives. RIISE Ventures had a focus on the esports, technology, and entertainment industries.

Ryan was able to curate events and create business partnerships at events including CES, NBA-All Star Weekend, Dreamhack Dallas/Atlanta, NCAA Final Four, and E3. Most recently, Ryan helped form a partnership between his nonprofit Cxmmunity and Twitch to create the HBCU Esports League.

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Social impact
Maximizing corporate partnerships
Creating sustainable academic STEM programs
Integrating media and sponsorships into your brand

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay built in Atlanta. On Pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at Onpay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of GSU ENI radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Ryan Johnson with cxmmunity. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Johnson: [00:00:42] Hey, Lee, thanks for having me, how are you?

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

Ryan Johnson: [00:00:50] Absolutely. So Community is the leading EA Sports career and competitive pipeline for students of color. What we focus on is ensuring that minorities have representation in the growing EA Sports and video game industry, and we do that by partnering with underserved K through 12 institutions as well as HBCUs, and ensure that they have the appropriate resources to provide STEM curriculum and also EA Sports related competitions for the students on their campuses.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:19] So now why don’t you educate the listener a little bit about EA Sports as kind of an industry? Can can you talk a little bit about how large that is and where the opportunities you see lie?

Ryan Johnson: [00:01:31] Yeah, for sure. So the EA Sports industry is just a subsegment of the holistic video game. Industry is projected that the video game industry by the end of this year will reach. One hundred and seventy five billion dollars of recurring revenue in EA Sports currently makes up about one billion of that number. It is consistently growing. So you can consider EA Sports to be the competitive and professional and competitive amateur video game competitions. So essentially what you will have if we look at the state of Georgia as an example, Georgia was one of the first states in North America to actually recognize EA Sports as an interscholastic high school sport under the Georgia High School Sports Association. So you have schools that are competing in titles like Madden, Rocket League, League of Legends and Overwatch. And just like you would have them compete in a traditional sports schedule like basketball, football track and field or even swimming. So essentially, what you have happening in the state of Georgia is students that are competing at a super high level and winning state championships with their teams in high school are actually getting scholarships to attend.

Ryan Johnson: [00:02:39] Institutions like Georgia State, Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia and Kennesaw State, which also have East sports teams that are hand out scholarships as they’re looking to chase now national and collegiate titles. So the reason why this is important specifically for minorities is that if you look across the landscape, most EA Sports are played on gaming PCs instead of consoles and systems like Xboxes and PlayStations and Nintendos. So naturally, what you have happen is a socioeconomic divide within the school systems based on which schools and which districts can afford gaming PCs, and then also who can afford to pay a stipend for an EA Sports coach. So naturally, you lose majority of the inner city schools throughout North America. And then also most HBCUs do not have the additional resources to bring their EA Sports program to life. So holistically, that’s what we focus on. We’re an advocate and an advocacy group to help raise awareness for these institutions that want to be a part of this growing industry, but may not have the resources to do so themselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:48] Now is the opportunity for the young person to be a player and then get a scholarship or earn money being a professional or is the opportunity in being a creator and being involved in EA Sports in terms of being part of the teams that are creating the games or creating the communities within the games? Or is it both?

Ryan Johnson: [00:04:11] I would say it’s both. And then there’s another layer, which is the career path of STEM. Right? I think a lot of times we overlook the fact that at the end of the day, the video game industry is nothing but a subsegment of technology. So what we really focus on is ensuring that young students of color who love video games have they understand that within gaming, there is career path within production, within business and marketing and law that there’s career paths within computer programing, video game design, 3D animation. So where we really focus on is actually the career pathways because our ultimate mission through our company is to ensure that there’s a larger representation in the actual workforce and the gaming industry. But supplemental to that comes actual varsity competition like we’re talking about with EA Sports leagues, competitive collegiately and at the high school level. But then there’s also the casual and recreational competition that all exists within that same ecosystem. So we like to identify or really showcase the students those three variables or pathways to actually becoming professional. So playing and making money, playing casually and being part of an entity or actually working in the space as a working professional across I.T. and or business.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:33] So now with your work with community is that you’re advocating and evangelizing this opportunity. I guess you’re starting. With the young people in an elementary school level, is that where this begins?

Ryan Johnson: [00:05:48] So we we do have some students that are in elementary and middle school, but our true target is sophomores, juniors, seniors in high school and also college students. Because the idea is that once sophomores, these seniors in high school, you know, it could be a chance where they have not yet had the opportunity to identify what they want to study in college and or what college they want to attend. So as we continue to build out these EA Sports programs, especially at the HBCU level, if we take Atlanta as a perfect example, we infuse and interject gaming into the Atlanta public school system and simultaneously we help build out the e-sports ecosystem within the Atlanta University Center. So now students within apps know that they have the opportunity to attend a Morehouse or Clark, Atlanta, Spelman or Maurice Brown and be an active participant within that EA Sports program and even have the opportunity to earn scholarships and internships through our programs as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:46] So now who is your customer? Is the customer, the high schools or the individual consumer?

Ryan Johnson: [00:06:54] Our customers essentially are the academic institutions, but our largest stakeholders are corporate brands. So actually, how we drive revenue, if you can imagine over the last year and some change, there’s been upwards of five to $10 billion allocated from corporate America specifically to communities of color in response to a lot of the racial and social injustice in the country. So our largest constituent is actually taking everything that we talked about so far, packaging our entire program, competitive and career, and then go to a corporate brand like Microsoft or Verizon or Comcast or Red Bull. And they provide us marketing and social impact dollars, and that’s how we actually operate our business at large. So as it comes to being from the school standpoint, we actually don’t charge students or the schools to be a part of our program. We generate all of our revenue through social impact, dollars in corporate social responsibility, sponsorship and media investments from our corporate brands. Because one of the unique elements we’re able to leverage because we’re in the space of e-sports is a platform like Twitch. So when we’re able to take our programs that we’re describing our esports competitions, we create broadcasts and we throw it on a platform like Twitch. In our first year, we aggregated over 10 million live viewers that actually viewed our content. So brands are able to actually give back to communities that they’re looking to serve that are underserved, but also at the same time reach massive audiences on platforms like Twitch VR public broadcast.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:33] So then the value to the brand is not only just doing good, but it’s also there’s an opportunity for them to get their brand associated in these, you know, highly sought after environments.

Ryan Johnson: [00:08:46] Absolutely correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:48] So what do you need more of

Ryan Johnson: [00:08:51] At this point, we’re actually raising capital in our first year. It was really just myself and my co-founder, Chris Pierre. Now we have a team of nearly 17 people. We’re currently just looking to build out new IP within our business. So we’re actually looking to raise money right now to expand our operational expenses so we can bring on more programmatic directors, more curriculum directors, but more so is actually bringing in more marketers and brand directors. Because as we build our brand grow, our audiences grow our social channels, that actually makes us become more valuable to the corporate sponsors that we’re already working with just allows them to expand their reach and really say seek out the market segment that they’re looking to reach, primarily being the multicultural audiences in these inner cities throughout the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:42] Now, how did you get involved with the Main Street Entrepreneurship Seed Fund?

Ryan Johnson: [00:09:47] So for graduate school, I attended Georgia State, where I actually just finished this past summer with my master’s in sports administration. So just through being in the Georgia state network, that was my connectivity to the entrepreneurship, the actual the Maitri Seed Fund and then also historically, I’ve had a friend of mine go through it, so I was able to essentially observe his journey. So when the time became appropriate, I went ahead and applied.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:13] So how was that involvement helped take community to a new level?

Ryan Johnson: [00:10:18] I truly just through the mentorship and in relationships that we’re able to develop, one of our biggest advocates within the group is m’kay. And even this year through the program, we were able to work on a side project with Inc that allowed us to do a lot of market research and just do a little bit more discovery about our own business. So that was the main thing. It’s just relationships. That’s one of the biggest challenges, especially as a young company and young entrepreneurs is not necessarily knowing which doors to open or even who to talk to that has access to certain doors. So that’s why we’re really even excited for this upcoming Thursday to twenty eighth of October for demo day. Just an opportunity now to present ourselves to some of the more senior stakeholders and investors that we’ve been looking to connect with over the past couple of months.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:07] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to connect with you or take a look at community, is the website live yet?

Ryan Johnson: [00:11:15] Yeah, absolutely. Our website is live and running and it’s Community Echo, but we spell our name and I t y Dot CEO. And that same, our website is basically how you can find this across all social media platforms. And if you’re interested to connect with me directly. Ryan Johnson on LinkedIn. But on Twitter and Instagram, you can find me at. Ryan ran it up so RIAA, NRA and I teamed up. So now I’m really appreciative of this opportunity and just grateful to continue building.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:50] Well, again, congratulations on all the success and thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you and that website one more time to see immunity. Ceo Ryan Johnson, thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on GSU. Any radio.

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Croft Edwards With CROFT and Company

October 28, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Coach The Coach

Croft Edwards With CROFT and Company

00:00 /

Croft Edwards is a Master Certified Coach, President of CROFT + Company, and the genesis behind LeadershipFlow, the study of how to help individuals and organizations be at their best.

He has been helping leaders and their teams find their Flow since 2001 in a variety of fields: mining, refining, government agencies, manufacturing, small businesses, and healthcare.

Two miles down in a mine or up on the 8th floor, Croft coaches wherever there are leaders who desire a different result.

Connect with Croft on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About LeadershipFlow
LeadershipFlow in individuals and organizations

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one. You better get your pencil and paper out because you’re going to be taking a lot of notes. You’re going to learn some really good stuff from our guest today. Croft Edwards with CROFT and Company. Welcome.

Croft Edwards: [00:00:49] Hey, Lee, great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Crofton Company.

Croft Edwards: [00:00:54] So we are a leadership development firm, which we help organizations create high performing leaders and do do that mainly through a lot of coaching, both one on one and a lot specifically on the embodiment of coaching and what it means to be a leader.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in coaching?

Croft Edwards: [00:01:14] A long story, but I can tell it short, when I was eight years old, I read Omar Bradley, the World War Two generals autobiography, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but it just peaked in me. A fundamental question I’ve been exploring ever since, which is why was he or any leader, for that matter, successful? So what does it mean to be a leader and then how do you do that? And then that led me through a career both in the Active and Reserve Army and then for the last 20 plus years, coaching leaders in organizations.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:48] So now when you were in the military, how did you kind of assess the leadership that you were able to kind of experience?

Croft Edwards: [00:01:58] Well, I’d like to think that I I was a great leader, but I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t. And so what I what I learned was leaders all kind of face the same challenge, which is we’re human beings. And leadership is an art. My assessment is really is it’s not something that just happens. Yeah, there are some people that maybe are better at it, but it’s it’s how do I how do I ultimately create a situation where other people are inspired and motivated to take actions that align with what we’re trying to do as an organization?

Lee Kantor: [00:02:33] Well, that brings up an interesting point. Like at the end of the day, what is a measure of successful leadership in your mind?

Croft Edwards: [00:02:43] Oh, wow, that’s a great question. I mean, ultimately, I think at the end of it, the results are there, but it’s results which take care of what individuals and the organization and the leader care about. So I would make the assessment a distinction we’re using. Leadership is. Management is the authority granted to the individual by the organization? Leadership is the authority granted to an individual by their followers. So if we’re going to have success ie the follower have to get my needs taken care of. The organization needs their needs taken care of and as does the leader, so we can get results. But if it’s at some cost, then it’s not likely going to be effective leadership.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:29] And how have you seen it evolve? Because back in the day, you know, it was just get the job done, make it happen and don’t make any excuses kind of world. And in today’s world, that seems a little more gray than that. Everybody’s individual needs and cares are now kind of in play, whereas maybe a while ago that wasn’t as important to leadership. How have you seen that transition occurring? And and I’m sure you believe there’s room for improvement.

Croft Edwards: [00:04:03] Well, I think one of the things I’ve and I actually I have an issue kind of with what’s what’s going on right now is there’s kind of a mindset that, oh, we have to the employee has to come first and the individual has to come first. And don’t get me wrong. Those needs are important, but those needs can’t circumvent or be more powerful than the needs of the organization. Because ultimately, organizations exist to fulfill a promise that individuals can’t do by themselves. So whether we’re an airline or the military or a family, the organizational need. The reason there’s an organization is because there is something bigger that individuals can’t do themselves. So individual needs are important, but they can’t be more important than the outcome for the organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:58] Well, the individual needs might be important for that individual, but they just might not be the right fit for the organization. Yes.

Croft Edwards: [00:05:06] Right. Yeah. And so I see this a lot in organizations where it’s the the old adage that the inmates are running the asylum. And real leadership says, no, no, we have a we have a bigger care and we’re going to we’re going to all work together to get everybody’s care taken care of, but they’re going to be times when your care can’t be the primary care. Because for the organization to exist, right, there are times when we’re going to have to work late. But where it becomes an issue is if we have to work late every night of the week, then the organization’s care is outweighing the individual care, right? So if the individual care isn’t, is it becomes the issue that it doesn’t take care of organizational care.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:51] Right. You can’t kind of twist yourself in a pretzel to accommodate a handful of people. They might have to kind of leave the organization and kind of go their own way in order for the organization to kind of make it.

Croft Edwards: [00:06:06] Yeah. And then what ends up happening? My assessment is when we get high performing organization, there’s there’s and I don’t like the word balance because it implies that both sides are equal. There’s a place where there’s harmony to where. All of the needs, the three cares, the organization, the leader and the individuals cares are being taken care of to an extent which will sustain and allow the organization, the individual and the leader to thrive.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:34] It’s an interesting concept that you bring up, is this something that you’ve kind of come upon yourself or is this influenced by? It’s obviously influenced by other kind of education and learning or maybe mentors that you’ve had in the past, but is this kind of the methodology of the craft and company organization?

Croft Edwards: [00:06:52] Well, I am very proud to say I’m part of a historical discourse and my background in training is in three domains, which are all kind of one, which is the ontological, an ontology study being here. And so ontological coaching, generative coaching, which is fundamentally ontological coaching in the context of organizations. And then I do a lot of semantic work. So I am I am part of a lineage and a discourse around how do we that we fundamentally look at the phenomenon of what it means to be a human being? And then how do we max? Surmise the human performance

Lee Kantor: [00:07:30] And then is that is you call it leadership flow. Is that kind of at the heart of this?

Croft Edwards: [00:07:36] So my methodology of leadership flow is the idea that that flow is the state of ultimate performance. So you see flow in places like elite athletes or. And everybody knows flow. It’s that moment in our lives where time stands, still stands. Still, we’re so in the moment that we become the task. This is the research by a man named me sent me, I and who. And actually just passed away last week, so a shout out to Chuck sent me high because he really was the godfather of this, but it looked at the idea of flow is how do we get ultimate performance? And then my realization was ultimately the role of a leader is to tap flow. Because if I can tap flow, if I can bring out the greatness in each individual on my team and the greatness of my team, a lot of the stuff will fall by the wayside because we’ll actually create what we want to create.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:32] Now, is it possible to kind of create flow on demand or is this something that is just all the stars have to align in order for flow to occur?

Croft Edwards: [00:08:42] Great question. Yes, and no kind of thing. So there is what’s called the flow cycle. And so for if you think about this pick something you love, there is a place where there is a challenge that is above where we’re at. So. So an example when a kid, for instance, is learning how to ride a bike, there’s a point where the writing of the bike is too big of a challenge. But at some point, the challenge gets within reach. So we have this challenge or struggle. And then there’s a place where we release and we just kind of let go and we get into the moment we have flow. And then flow is not a continuous state, it’s not something we’re always in, because in that moment, our body is functioning in its ultimate performance. All the chemicals in our body are lining up, et cetera. But at some point that’s we have to stop. And so there’s the relaxation and then recovery phase of flow that we have to go through. So we can’t just create flow and anybody that’s a if you’ve done anything, if you’ve done writing, writers will tell you they get a writer’s block, right? They just can’t find it. And then something happens and then they release and oh, the sentence just came along or songwriters or elite athletes. So it’s not something we can just create. But if we are willing to get into the act, it’s a lot of times it’s just being a practice that will create the flow.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:09] So now how do you kind of teach this in your in your training and your coaching, like, is this something that can be taught that it’s OK, you do these 14 things and then you can be in flow? Is it is it a checklist type thing or is it a mindset thing?

Croft Edwards: [00:10:28] It’s it’s it’s not so much mindset. It’s it’s embodied practice. So think about anything you’re good at, and if you’re good at it, you embody it. Well, leadership is an embodied practice, so a lot of what we do and we actually go to organizations. We have what we call leadership flow dojos and traditional going in organization, and I’m going to stand at the front of the room for eight hours and I’m going to lecture to you and we’re going to do some exercises. What we actually do is we start having conversations and as we do that, we start to introduce new distinctions and we practice literally. How are you standing when you’re having a conversation or how do you experience a mood of openness, a body of openness? And the only way you can get good at something like that is you have you have to practice. So we actually when we go into an organization, a lot of what we do is we just practice having the new conversations. And then my role or one of my team members role is to facilitate and train and teach people how to actually have those conversations.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:32] And so this is not just an intellectual pursuit, this is not something you read and then get. This is also there’s a physicality to this the way you’re standing, breathing, feeling, you know your hand.

Croft Edwards: [00:11:46] Yeah, so let’s say I’ll give you a quick example, let’s see you and I needed to get good at having really open and honest conversations. Well, the only way we would actually do that is to actually have really good and open, honest conversation, so the way we might practice that is if you and I were standing in a room is we might stand literally stand face to face and we would be about less than an arm’s length away. And as we’re standing there, and if you can imagine this is you and I standing there, our bodies make it very uncomfortable. Right, because you and I are standing there looking each other in the eye, face to face, which for many people, it’s like, whoa, that’s way too intimate. Yeah. And if I don’t practice that, how can I have a conversation with another human being in that? So we literally have to get into our bodies and practice the conversations because I make the declaration that the body is the holy grail of leadership because if I can be in my body, be comfortable in my body, say having that difficult conversation now, I can have that conversation. But I can’t go to a class and just have somebody say, have that conversation and then not practice it because think of anything you’re good at. And if you’re really good at it, you’ve the one thing I can guarantee you’ve done is you’ve practiced.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:07] Now in sports, people can practice on their own like somebody. Steph Curry could practice shooting the ball by himself. Is there an exercise that I can do to get into this flow state by myself, or does it always require others because I’m always leading others? But I guess I have to lead myself at some point as well?

Croft Edwards: [00:13:27] Yeah, I make the assessment. The most difficult person you ever have to lead is yourself. So, yeah, there’s many practices and we call them things like centering meditation, yoga, martial arts. If you take, for instance, a martial art, the fundamental practice in martial art is we learn to master our body by mastering our mind, and we learn to master our mind by mastering our body. So for instance, if if you’ve ever met somebody that is very high level in their learning and practice with martial arts, they are also probably very likely very calm. Very centered. Because as they practice, they’ve learned to show up. And be in a place where they’re open to many different conversations. So, yeah, you can practice this. Sometimes I’ll coach people that, for instance, their practice that we they sometimes come up with maybe something like improv comedy. Because improv comedy is about getting together with a group of people being in a sense by yourself and being connected with other human beings. And lots of different practices.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:39] So like, if you were to implement something like that, that’s something that it kind of stretches the business person because that’s typically outside their scope of what they do on a regular basis. But it’s teaching kind of the same skills of active listening, you know, giving the floor to the other people and holding other people up rather than just, you know, shining it on yourself.

Croft Edwards: [00:15:03] Yeah. Improv comedy is great. One of the fundamental distinctions, if not the fundamental distinction in improv comedy, is the concept of yes. And so whatever you say, I say yes to and I add to it. So now we’re much more collaborative than I want to go off this direction and just be about me. No, I have to work with you and meet you where you want right?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:27] And I have to listen to you because I can’t just force fit my next thought into the conversation because I have to build on yours. So my whatever’s going on in my mind is secondary to whatever you’re saying.

Croft Edwards: [00:15:39] Yes, and from a flow perspective, there’s a concept called Group Flow, where where you see this, a jazz band is a great example of group flow or a band. I’m a big Beatles geek, but if you if you listen to a band like The Beatles when they were doing what they do, it’s that whole jamming and riffing and just kind of they’re in sync together. And the only way they do that is they in a sense, surrendered to the collective and just see where it goes.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:10] Now is this type of coaching. Do you work primarily with like kind of creative organizations or does this can this work in manufacturing? Can this work in any type of business? Is it kind of industry agnostic or does it work better in kind of?

Croft Edwards: [00:16:26] Well, when people ask, what is my typical client? I say it’s a human being trying to coordinate action with other human beings in the context of an organization. So it doesn’t matter the organization because we’re all fundamentally doing the same thing. So I have clients in mining refining. I just did a three year gig at a medical school. Right now, I’m coaching very. Senior leaders in the U.S. military is an example. So it doesn’t matter where the actual. The only thing that’s the limit is how open the individual is. Because if I show up as an individual and say, look, I’ve got the answers, I don’t have anything to learn here. I can’t help him as a coach.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:11] Now are you finding coaching becoming just part of the DNA of more and more organizations? And they’re kind of equipping all of the the people on the team with some sort of coaching or because historically it’s been just for a handful of, you know, the higher highest performers or upper echelon.

Croft Edwards: [00:17:31] Yeah, my my assessment is it’s becoming more commonplace. The one downside, though, is it’s also becoming a way so that I, as a leader can sleep at night so I can go, Oh, you know, I’ve got my people, they’ve got coaches. But it’s not a cure all, and if I send coaches in to solve problems that won’t actually solve the problem, it will perpetuate it because really when when I see coaching work, it’s because the senior leader is the most coachable person and they’re willing to say, Look, I’m going to challenge everybody on my team and I’m going to set the example, I’m going to be vulnerable myself. So for instance, when we do leadership flow dojos, if the if the leader isn’t in the room, I kind of have to tell them, I can’t get you the result you’re going to probably want because you have to be the change you want to see.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:26] And it becomes a it has to become kind of part of the company culture for it to be effective.

Croft Edwards: [00:18:33] Yeah, yeah. And you see if you look at high performing organizations, learning and development as part of my background is obviously as army. If you look at it, a typical 20 year lieutenant colonel in the United States Army while enduring those 20 years, probably four years or so of that time has been spent in school learning. Right, so high performing organizations, learning is a part of it. And when you have that learning, you can’t just delegate it to somebody and say, Here you teach my people what it means to be a leader. You have to have the leaders of the organization teaching people. So, you know, when I was a young lieutenant, I was being taught by captains. When I was a captain, I was being taught by majors and lieutenant colonels. Lieutenant colonels are taught by colonels. If I’m a taking battalion command of the United States Army, I get to go to a command course where I get to meet the four star generals in the army, and they’re going to tell me, here’s what I need from you as a leader. So it’s got to be the senior leader of the organization having the conversations right.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:44] You can’t abdicate this. This is something that it has to kind of you have to lean into this in order for it to really be effective. Otherwise you’re just kind of checking a box that you think you’re doing something, but it’s not going to be as effective.

Croft Edwards: [00:19:57] Yeah, if a leader says, fix my people, I know I know where the breakdown is, because what they’re basically saying is I don’t know what to do. And so using my answers I can I can start on that, but I can’t actually do that. You’re the person that needs the coach.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:13] Now, what is the kind of symptoms that an organization is having where they might be kind of a little? Uh, I don’t want to say off kilter, but maybe they’re not maximizing all of their people.

Croft Edwards: [00:20:28] The simple way we look at it is as a leader, are you dissatisfied? And then is your team performing at the level you want to be, and if not, then then you have a leadership issue? But it’s easy to blame, well, you know, we can’t get good people. That’s the leadership issue. Well, you know, times are tough. That’s a leadership issue. So the way to look is as a leader, if you’re not getting the results, then actually I know where the breakdown is, you’re not showing up as a leader that’s creating those results.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:00] So you think that leaders are in control of a lot more than maybe they want to admit?

Croft Edwards: [00:21:08] Yes, and I wouldn’t I wouldn’t use the word control because it’s to me that’s more of a machine type thing. But if you look at the idea of leadership. It’s the leader that says, wait, wait, here’s a different future. When people say, Oh, I want to be a part of that future, so when we actually when leaders try to control it, it’s more of a management thing. All right. Everybody is going to go to this leadership development class. So we get everybody through and we go, look at that, we got everybody through, but we never say, Well, wait a second, did we actually get any new behaviors? Right, so the leader or the leader determines which conversation, so there’s a law in computer programing called Conway’s Law, which basically says if I put a team together to design computer software and they’re right, real, loose and kind of fired by the seat of their pants, the software they design will be the same way. So I have what I call Croft’s law, which is the same thing if I want to see how an organization performs. All I have to do is go to the senior leadership team. Because the behaviors I see in that room will be the behaviors I see in some form out in the organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:19] Now is there any advice you can share right now, something that’s low hanging fruit for a leader to kind of just up their game a little bit today?

Croft Edwards: [00:22:30] Yeah. The most difficult person you ever have to lead yourself. So your fundamental practice as a leader is how do I get me out of the way? And the more I get me out of the way, then I can start having the conversations I need to have with my team, with the individuals, with whomever, but mostly leaders, what happens when the event happens? I get I’m on that leader. I get triggered and now I’m dealing with my emotions and I’m in my moods or my whatever. Instead of going, Oh, the event happened, and here’s how I choose to go around it.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:06] Well, it’s a it’s an amazing story. Crofton, we it’s just fantastic the way that you’re dealing with this and congratulations on all the success to get. Buy in from the, you know, diverse group of people that you’re working with is amazing. And I think that this is something that a lot of folks should be thinking about. And I don’t think a lot of folks are this level of personal accountability and the amount of impact that a person can have if they’re kind of taught some of these type kind of tools and and methodology, I think it could be kind of game changing. Is there a story you can share about maybe a success story that maybe somebody came to you and they had a problem? You don’t have to name the company but just share what was the challenge and how you were able to help them take their organization to a new level.

Croft Edwards: [00:23:59] I could think of hundreds of stories, but I think the one one of my clients, one of my favorite clients, the it was the senior leader who and this sounds a little bit corny, but he led the way on everything. So when he would get the team together, he was the one that was in the conversations and he demanded the conversations from his team, which then that became the practice. And so the organization and that’s where I really learned this idea that it really organizational change is how much is the leader willing to change? And so that’s I saw that time and time again, the more the leader stepped up and became the change, the more the organization changed.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:47] And then that had a big impact on the organization moving forward once that happened.

Croft Edwards: [00:24:53] Very much so, and even well, and I could even make the point that even the leaders, it didn’t change then that influence the future of the organization because the organization kept doing what they were still doing. So it’s always the leader, by definition, I mean, whether you’re not getting into the politics, but the past two presidents we’ve had have had very different ways of being, and they both have created very different futures. Well, if somebody wants to write,

Lee Kantor: [00:25:21] If somebody wants to learn more about your practice and get on your calendar, what is the website?

Croft Edwards: [00:25:30] It’s Croft and Co. The great thing about having a name like Croft is there are not many of us. No other croft Edwards that I know of, except for my great grandfather who’s no longer with us. So if you Google Croft Edwards, you’ll find me Twitter, my LinkedIn or my web page.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:49] And that’s Croft Croft and Co..

Croft Edwards: [00:25:54] Yeah, yep. Three words croft and company.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:58] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Croft Edwards: [00:26:02] Thank you, Lee. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:04] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Alan Worley With Money Pages

October 27, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Franchise Marketing Radio

Alan Worley With Money Pages

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.

Alan Worley began his career in Advertising and Communications in 1996 after having graduated from Campbell University in Buies Creek North Carolina. He set his sights on Jacksonville Florida where he transitioned into Radio Marketing as an Account Manager.

After several years in the radio business, Alan ventured off to start his own endeavor with a direct mail and advertising magazine company called Money Pages.

Today, Money Pages provides savings for over 762,000 homes and has expanded into franchising opportunities for a growing demand in multiple markets.

Connect with Alan on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Money Pages and its services
How Money Pages grow during the pandemic
How franchising impacted the success of Money Pages

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 Alan Worley with money pages. Welcome, Alan.

Alan Worley: [00:00:42] Hey Lee, how are you? Thanks for having me.

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

Alan Worley: [00:00:49] Well, primarily we’re serving folks by saving them money. But it started in two thousand and one I actually used to be in the radio business and then saw an opportunity in the city of Jacksonville, Florida, to provide an outlet for people in a controlled area to broadcast their messages and be able to reach the homes through the mailbox. And since that time, we have grown that into six states, so we’re in the business of saving readers money and helping businesses grow their business with the local community.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] So now was it always set out to be a print offering?

Alan Worley: [00:01:31] It was Lee. We found that this was a good way to target different parts of the city so they could have a control of where they wanted their message to to go, as well as be able to control the cost. It’s a very economic way of being able to market and advertise local businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] And then was it always built to be a franchise or did that happen kind of organically over time?

Alan Worley: [00:01:56] That really happened organically. I always had the vision of wanting to be a media player in Jacksonville, Florida, and that worked really, really well. And then I wanted to be able to expand that out. So we started expanding outside of Jacksonville into some surrounding cities. And then we started looking at what it would take to franchise. And in 2012 we took the plunge and started our franchise business. And since that time, we’ve been able to expand into six states and growing. Right now, we’re mailing to a little bit over 13 million homes annually, and we’re really trying to double our footprint into 40 more cities by twenty twenty three.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:41] So now how was it as kind of the CEO and founder to manage that kind of business because that business is a little different than probably the money pages local in Jacksonville business?

Alan Worley: [00:02:52] It is. I have a great team that supports me. Chris Sexton is the VP of franchising, and he has been with the company for over a decade himself. He launched a franchise in Greenwood, South Carolina, which is still mailing today, and we brought him on to run the franchise company. And since then, I’ve just built a solid group of people that helped me on a day to day basis and making sure all those operations run smoothly and effectively.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:27] Now are there any lessons you can share about making that transition from a locally owned kind of mom and pop to a franchise?

Alan Worley: [00:03:35] Some of the lessons I learned is to don’t be afraid to fail. Some of my biggest. Opportunities of learning is when I’ve made mistakes, and I’m a big believer on just being confident giving 110 percent to what you do, you’re going to make mistakes. Embrace it and take the best things you can learn from it. Also, I learned from a financing perspective is to after you get your business up and running, it’s a great time to look at getting some financial resources because it’s a lot easier to get financing from banks and other areas when you don’t need it until waiting until you do.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:20] Now, when you took the plunge and decided the franchise, was it somebody that had seen it in Jacksonville that said, Hey, how come there’s not one of these over here?

Alan Worley: [00:04:31] Well, we started out with a licensing arrangement and that’s what expanded us. And Chris Sexton was really instrumental in that, too, when he went to Greenwood, South Carolina. And what we found out was licensing. We went that route. One reason was because of cost. There’s a lot you have to invest to build a franchise system before being able to to offer it as a franchise company. And it took a little bit of time and energy of seeing what would work in the growth and what wouldn’t. And so then we finally were at a position that we could afford and invest in the franchise system, and we hired the I franchise group to come in and do some consulting for us, and they brought in a team of experts that helped us build out our system. And that took, I don’t know, about two years to do. And then we were ready to hit the ground running. And the Grindle is Don and Walker Grindle were our first franchisees, and they have continued to grow with us and now own four different franchise cities and and are still having their best year ever.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:43] And and in order to kind of take that plunge, though, you felt it was necessary to hire kind of an adviser on that on that you tried it initially, I guess you were doing the licensing and trying to do it on your own. And then at some point you were like, Hey, we need experts in here.

Alan Worley: [00:05:59] Well, yes, Lee, I’m not an expert on on writing a operations manual or a training manual. And what the franchise group does is they come in and each one of the elements that it takes to build out a franchise system. They bring in those consultants to work alongside of you to bring your vision to life because I know how to run a business. But I wasn’t as familiar with how to write the manuals and all that it took to get that, and they were a great instrument to help us to get off the ground. And then once we had our system put together, then we started using the broker networks to help us spread the word.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:48] Do you feel like now you have that escape velocity that now it’s just a matter of just getting more people aware of the opportunity?

Alan Worley: [00:06:54] Oh yes, I think each year you, you learn more and more each and every year with any business, and we’re at a very good spot of where we know what we’re looking for in individuals. We have a few cities that we’re really looking forward to getting into. We’ve earmarked some in the Carolinas. So we have in Tennessee, but we’re open to moving across the United States. Our furthest franchisee is in Oakland, California, right now. And yes, I believe we’re confidently at a spot that we’re just ready to continue to tell the money pages, story across the country and see as many businesses as we can help and cities that we can provide savings to.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:35] Now, when you’re kind of identifying that ideal franchisee, is it built around kind of their skill set or is it a built around kind of the the zip codes or the areas that you serve or both?

Alan Worley: [00:07:48] Well, it starts with the interest of the party. We’re not opposed to really going to any city, but we do look for someone that has that entrepreneurial spirit that is wanting to be able to help the community and be able to partner with local businesses and be able to save readers money. It’s a very fun, warm and friendly circle to be in when it gets down to the actual logistics of picking zip codes and carrier routes. We help them along the way during the process of onboarding to really focus in on the areas that are going to best serve them in their city.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:29] Now is the franchise opportunity such that the kind of your boots on the ground or the franchisee is primarily there to network and meet people and sell as opposed to, you know, writing ads or printing or anything like that.

Alan Worley: [00:08:45] That’s a great question. The way that our system works is our franchisees primarily are the face of the company, and they have the ability to go out and build relationships and maintain that and and be the voice in their local area. All of the back office support comes from corporate. We have a team of people, so from day one. Our franchisees have an amazing support system that allows them the freedom and flexibility to to grow those relationships and corporate does all of the artwork, all of the layout, all of the mailing, we even do all of the invoicing on their behalf.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:25] So literally all they have to do is just kind of meet people and make friends that easy.

Alan Worley: [00:09:33] Once you meet people, you definitely want to have the passion to want to help them and showcase how you can do that with with money pages and the areas that they’re mailing to. But yes, they have the ability, the ability to hit the ground running and not have to worry about hiring a team of people. It’s low overhead. They don’t have to worry about getting into an office or buying a bunch of equipment. We have all of that. So really their job is to go out and grow their business if they want to hire account managers alongside of them. We encourage that. It’s not a requirement, but like anything else, strength or in numbers. And any time you can hire a salesperson alongside of you just replicates what you do on a daily basis.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:21] Now, how did you guys handle the pandemic? Because I would imagine there was some obviously negative implications regarding so much kind of chaos from the retail level, but there might have been a lot of opportunity. Also, because your offering doesn’t require an office or kind of face to face meetings, really, you can do everything virtually and keep serving the people that are still thriving in that environment.

Alan Worley: [00:10:46] I was thankful that we had made some adjustments to our technology, we were able to pivot pretty quickly. So when the markets closed down one, we were in a central business because of what we do and how we do it. But we found ourselves really in the opportunity of helping, especially restaurants, be able to tell their stories of their closures and how to get curbside service and also updates to their menu real time. So we saw an uptick in that. And then we also saw the home improvement business because of people being at home so much. It went through the roof. I mean, we had probably upwards of twenty five to 30 percent increase in call volume last year in our home services clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:36] And then for you, how have you handled kind of this transition from this kind of owner operator of one to now kind of this whole empire you’re building? Is that more rewarding this kind of because now for you, a sale in a market is a win as opposed to, you know, getting that salon to sign up for you in Jacksonville.

Alan Worley: [00:11:59] Yeah, I think both are important to me. I have a heart to help people, and that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to do franchising is to give other people an opportunity to see some of the success that we’ve had in Jacksonville and show them a roadmap to do it in their markets. But I I still, from time to time, help with larger clients not only in Jacksonville, but some of our franchise markets. I still go into markets and help them with larger meetings, but it is rewarding. It’s I never thought I would be sitting in the seat where we would have the circulation that we have, and I feel very humbled and honored to be able to represent so many people and so many businesses on a monthly basis.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:49] And then as you are kind of imagining a future, is it always in the mailbox money pages or are you kind of also open to other kinds of money pages, channels?

Alan Worley: [00:13:03] Lee A lot of people ask that question to us. And as long as we have a mailbox and it’s constitutionally possible to be able to mail things, I think that is going to be our magic sauce. We also not only have the mailbox, but we do have an app that we have. So if people would prefer to utilize technology in that way and all of our markets, you can download the Money Pages app and use it in any city across the country that we’re in, which we’ve really enjoyed seeing some of the usage of that go up, but still primarily with phone volume, coupon redemption and usage. I still feel like the heavy lifting is going to be left to the magazine in the mailbox, and that’s the key. The USPS is probably a key to this.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:57] And then when the local franchisee, how did they kind of serve the whole business community? What are some of the things they’re doing in addition to, you know, kind of selling ads in the magazine?

Alan Worley: [00:14:10] Well, we encourage community involvement in many ways. We’re a part of multiple nonprofit organizations. We encourage that through our franchisees, so we see them doing the same things in their markets. We see them getting involved in the community chambers, in BMI groups. So it’s not just about them. We’re all really big on helping other individuals, helping our communities, helping our schools. It’s been very rewarding in that way. And when you have a magazine and you have real estate and a vehicle to get information out. That’s a pretty rewarding space to be in, especially when you want to help a nonprofit or a school or a local event that is happening, so that’s primarily where we’ve given back to the community. And I know just in Jacksonville alone, dreams come true. The Tim Tebow Foundation are two of our larger philanthropic efforts.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:16] And then do you typically have a national effort and then it’s drilled down locally? Or do can some of the franchisee locally have their own initiatives locally or both?

Alan Worley: [00:15:25] We encourage locally, really, because. Everything we do is about the local community, which again, is why I wanted to go the franchise route instead of corporately owning all of these markets. We want there to be an owner operated local presence that they can give back to their community, and we support them from corporate. We support some of their local initiatives, but primarily we leave it up to them to get back into their local community and cities.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:59] Well, congratulations on all the success. If there’s somebody out there that wants to learn more about the opportunity or just kind of check out the money pages, is there a website?

Alan Worley: [00:16:07] Yes, it’s money pages franchising. You can also look at our site at money pages, but we would love for you to check out our franchise system and love to look at a city near you.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:20] Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today, Alan. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Alan Worley: [00:16:25] I appreciate it, Lee. Thank you so much for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:27] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Rejess Marshall With Karaoke Noir

October 27, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Rejess Marshall With Karaoke Noir

00:00 /

Rejess Marshall is the founder/CEO of Karaoke Noir. She holds a BBA and MBA from GSU.

Her experiences as a frustrated karaoke user and professional DJ has led her to the creation of Karaoke Noir.

Follow Karaoke Noir on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Tech startups
About Karaoke Noir
Advice to entrepreneurs

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay built in Atlanta. On Pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at Onpay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of GSU ENI radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Regess Marshall with karaoke noir. Welcome.

Rejess Marshall: [00:00:42] Hi, Lee. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about karaoke noir.

Rejess Marshall: [00:00:48] So, yeah, karaoke noir is really just started. And as a out of a frustration that I had, I was doing karaoke a lot with my friends and I just couldn’t find songs that really were reflective of my musical choices and the choices that I saw my family and friends wanted to do. And so I had this idea, and during my usual social media scroll, I saw that a e and I had a Main Street Entrepreneurship Fund and they were taking ideas as applications, so I decided to apply.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] So what exactly is the idea? So does it? Do you go into a karaoke area with this device or this special device sold to karaoke places?

Rejess Marshall: [00:01:30] No. So what we are as an AI powered app and web based application where you can actually have a subscription based account where you can log in and do your favorite songs? We specialize in music of the African Diaspora, so gospel, hip hop, R&B trap, Afrobeats, reggae, reggaeton and those type of genres.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] So how does it work for the user?

Rejess Marshall: [00:01:52] So for the user, once we are fully launched, you’ll be able to sign up for a subscription or get a two to three day party pass and then sign in and enjoy your favorite karaoke tunes.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:03] And then how will it be played like if if I’m at a location that has karaoke and they don’t have any songs I like and I want to use this, can I use this there?

Rejess Marshall: [00:02:13] No. So the only way to experience karaoke you are will be in your home with our subscription based plans or with the karaoke to our DJ. So you could hire karaoke to our DJ that will be licensed to use our service.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:25] So it’s meant for kind of like parties, private parties, right?

Rejess Marshall: [00:02:31] And then an in-home

Lee Kantor: [00:02:32] Use, right? In-home use and that could be just by yourself or with friends. Just kind of casual, having fun with your friends, but not like I’m going to a place and it’s a work party and we’re all doing karaoke. That’s not how it’s going to go.

Rejess Marshall: [00:02:48] No. Yeah, that would be that individual locations choice on what vendor they decided to use at some point. We plan to grow and scale to where locations could decide to contract with us to use our service.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:01] So now what equipment does that individual user need in order to use the service?

Rejess Marshall: [00:03:08] Really, all you need is a laptop or mobile device, laptop, cell phone or a tablet. You’ll be able to log in and sign up and then you can get the singing. If you have microphones, that’s great. One of our plans down the roadmap is to offer all in one karaoke machines along with speakers and microphones.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:27] And then, have you tested this? Do you have kind of a minimum viable product right now or is this still at the idea stage?

Rejess Marshall: [00:03:35] We’re probably like in between I did in VP. So that’s what we’ve been able to do with the Main Street Entrepreneurship Fund was really learn a lot about some of the legal aspects of the business and what it really takes to build an application. So we’ve been able to set a solid foundation to continue to raise funds and go forward with building the app.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:54] And then did you have a technical background to build apps or is this something that you had to find kind of a technical help?

Rejess Marshall: [00:04:03] No, I don’t have a technical background in building apps, so I was able to find a technical co-founder and then I also have a legal co-founder who’s really legal savvy to help us with the music licensing. So one of the key terms or key items that we’ll need to tackle in order to have a successful product is obtaining all the music licenses to use current music that’s out there. And of course, that is quite expensive. So that’s another reason why we were able to use our funds to really brand ourselves and get started so that we can go on other pitch competitions and seek other investment funds.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:37] And yeah, so I would imagine that that’s going to take up a big part of the budget, right? Is the licensing the music now? So when you first had the idea and you started kind of going through the steps to solve the problem? And it seems like there were problems everywhere. How did you kind of get through each one of them that it seems like that would be a pretty daunting challenge?

Rejess Marshall: [00:05:01] Yeah. I mean, we really spent a lot of time learning and researching what karaoke looks like in America and what the licenses that are required to have karaoke services here in the United States. And so we really learned a lot about the mechanical license and the synchronization licenses and all these terms that we need in order to move forward. We also spent a lot of time archetype and understanding what technologies were available to us to help build our ideal product.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:29] Now what about the market? Is there a big market for in-home karaoke use?

Rejess Marshall: [00:05:34] Overall, karaoke is a $10 trillion global industry. Unfortunately, it’s so new to the United States it doesn’t have its own necessary lane or market quite yet in the United States that you can kind of carve out. And there are actually only two major competitors that have karaoke apps, and none of them are American based companies. So we kind of have a wide open market to try to come in and get a piece of that market share and also create and cultivate a karaoke culture.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:01] Now what efforts are you doing to kind of develop that karaoke culture?

Rejess Marshall: [00:06:07] I mean, really, a lot of it’s already been done right. So there’s all kinds of karaoke events, so we know that people love to do karaoke, there’s trap karaoke, there’s afro karaoke, there’s always a bar or an establishment having karaoke night. But what we noticed was the DJs. One couldn’t find the song, so they would have to go on established platforms so they would have to go on YouTube. When we did a lot of our customer discovery with the DJs and with individual consumers, we found that a lot of people had to go to YouTube to find songs that they like. And so for us, we saw that really as an opportunity to seize that market and just to open up something new and introduce a new product.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:44] Now is this your first entrepreneurial venture? It is. So how’s it been?

Rejess Marshall: [00:06:50] It’s definitely been interesting, right? So I had to learn a lot. These aren’t skills that they really teach you in school. And so just did a lot of self learning and listening to podcasts, reading and really spending time in this Main Street program has really helped me learn all that kind of goes into starting a business.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:09] So what are some of the kind of the benefits you see of being part of the Main Street Entrepreneurship Seed Fund?

Rejess Marshall: [00:07:16] Well, I would first say the relationships that we’ve built, having an entrepreneur in residence that we can text or call it any time, it’s been really helpful. The classes and workshops that they provided have been really, really helpful just from the learning aspect. Like I said, we started with an idea, so we didn’t go into this knowing how to run a startup or start a business. But we just kind of had an idea and a hunch that this was something that kind of needed to exist in the world. So this program has really helped us develop that idea into a real strategy so that we can continue to go forth and build it.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:51] Now, when did you kind of get a sense that this could be something big?

Rejess Marshall: [00:07:56] Um, usually it’s just when I asked people during the customer discovery finding out that either people didn’t know of existing karaoke platforms available to them, or that when they did do karaoke, they used YouTube because YouTube would have the songs that they wanted. And then three, I asked, you know, when they went out to do karaoke? Were they able ever to find their songs that they liked? And a lot of people said they couldn’t find songs that they liked, you know, especially in the African Diaspora genres. You just don’t see that representation there.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:28] And then when you were building your team, how did you find each of your co-founders?

Rejess Marshall: [00:08:34] I really just started asking around, so I asked some lawyers that I knew if anybody knew what entertainment lawyer. And that’s how we got our co-founder, Devin, who handles the legal aspects and then my sister’s husband is actually our chief technical officer. So that was a pretty easy fine.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:53] And then how has GSU helped? Because with their emphasis on entrepreneurship permeating kind of the whole school, it’s it’s unique compared to other universities. Have you found that to be helpful?

Rejess Marshall: [00:09:09] Absolutely. Like I said, just the vast network. The fact that they’re able to provide us funding was really amazing. So we were able to really make leaps and bounds with that funding that had we did, if we didn’t have it, you know, we’d probably still be stuck somewhere around the ideation phase trying to figure out, where do we spend money? How do we allocate money, what resources were worth us allocating to? But because of Main Street, you know, we’ve been able to really get a good, solid foundation. We were able to afford systems and processes to last us for at least the next 12 months and keep us afloat while we continue to try to build this product and and bring more awareness to the karaoke industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:46] Now any advice for that budding entrepreneur that maybe just has an idea that’s just kind of bugging him. They see a problem that’s kind of bugging them, but they don’t they haven’t taken that leap to be an entrepreneur. You know, it’s just one of those things that are back burner.

Rejess Marshall: [00:10:00] I mean, I feel like you just have to go for it if there’s a something burning inside you and a problem that you just know needs to be solved. You just got to try. And that’s kind of really the first step is not being afraid to see what, see what’s possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:15] And then what’s been the most fun part so far for you?

Rejess Marshall: [00:10:20] The entire experience, I mean, every every time we do something with this business, it’s a learning experience, right? And so every day we’re learning, every day we’re getting better, every day we’re discovering new things. So that’s really been the best part that it never gets old, it never gets dull. It’s just an exciting adventure, and I’m really excited to see what happens.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:37] So what do you need more of?

Rejess Marshall: [00:10:40] Uh, definitely, we need more resources, right? And that could be financial resources, it could be technical resources or people with technical skills, and it could also be advisers and mentors within the Atlanta music industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:54] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success if somebody wants to learn more. Is there a website?

Rejess Marshall: [00:11:00] Absolutely. You can visit a site karaoke, NORTHCOM or karaoke noire on all social platforms. And if you want to email us, if you’re interested in being a beta tester one day, feel free to do that at info at karaoke NORTHCOM.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:13] And that’s KUAR, Aoki and OIRA.

Rejess Marshall: [00:11:19] That’s correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:20] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you. Thank you. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on GSU. Any radio.

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Victoria Blount With The Cheesecake Specialist

October 27, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Victoria Blount With The Cheesecake Specialist

00:00 /

Victoria Blount is from College Park, Georgia, and is a junior at Georgia State University majoring in finance. Her other educational pursuits include a minor in music and an undergraduate certificate in professional sales.

She is a student in the Honors College and part of the Class of 2023 cohort for the Eric J. Joiner Achievement Academy (JAA), a competitive personal and professional signature program in the Robinson College of Business. She is also an active member of LaunchGSU, the student business incubator, and one of 13 founders chosen for the second cohort of the Main Street Entrepreneurs Seed Fund program at Georgia State University.

In March 2018, Victoria founded her company The Cheesecake Specialist which provides specialty cheesecakes to individual and corporate clients. Notable flavors include Honey Lavender, Pumpkin Spice, and Banana Pudding.

Victoria plans to use the knowledge gained in her degree program of finance towards growing her current venture and pursuing her post-graduation goal of being a successful entrepreneur.

In her spare time, she enjoys listening to audiobooks, attempting to guess the puzzles in Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, and playing business-related board games like CASHFLOW®, Monopoly, and Daytrader.

She has competed in several 5Ks, including a race that was on the 5th runway of Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. She hopes to run a marathon one day.

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Top-selling products
Ways do you have to grow your business
Some of the biggest challenges and one main lesson

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay built in Atlanta. OnPay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at onpay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of GSU ENI radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Victoria Blount, the cheesecake specialist. Welcome, Victoria.

Victoria Blount: [00:00:42] Hi, Lee.

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

Victoria Blount: [00:00:49] Okay, so I’m the founder of The Cheesecake Specialists, and it’s, as the name suggests, a specialty cheesecake company. Some of my notable flavors are honey, lavender, German chocolate, banana pudding and more. Currently, I’m looking for a shared kitchen space. I’m just doing some orders from home right now, but I am looking for a space to go into.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:15] So how did you know that your cheesecake was good enough to be have its own business?

Victoria Blount: [00:01:22] So I’ve been baking since I was a child. My love of cheesecake that started in twenty seventeen. I was helping my aunt with her monthly family dinners and each month we would try different cheesecakes along with other desserts as well. And they were probably like 30 plus people who would show up every month. And so they were kind of my first test market and they always love the different cheesecakes we would try. So one of her friends, one of her Spelman classmates, she insisted, I make this honey lavender cheesecake for her 60th birthday and that’s how everything got started.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:00] Now was there something about cheesecake that you like? Because I’m sure you were baking lots of things?

Victoria Blount: [00:02:05] I just like cheesecakes, mainly. I mean, that’s one of my favorite desserts, and I like them because they weren’t. They were kind of different. Not a lot of people are doing cheesecakes. Typically, people do cupcakes and like regular cakes. So I just thought, OK, I got some advice from another relative of mine who said, pick something and kind of stick to it. So I chose cheesecake.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:29] And then when did you start experimenting? Or was that from the very beginning of just instead of kind of the classic cheesecake? And then you just started kind of tweaking it and coming up with your own recipes in your own takes on this?

Victoria Blount: [00:02:42] I start experimenting from the very beginning I have I’m not sure when I even first made a New York style cheesecake, it was probably about a year after I’d started making them.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:54] So do you have as a child like a memory of a cheesecake experience that kind of got you thinking about cheesecake or was it just something that kind of just organically happened?

Victoria Blount: [00:03:05] I have a particular childhood experience. I mean, I’ve always loved cheesecakes in general. Now we didn’t grow up baking them from scratch per say, but I didn’t have a particular experience. It was kind of in twenty seventeen when I just started making them and then I realized I loved it. I loved it, so I just kept going.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:28] Now, when you were learning how to bake it, where were you getting that kind of learning from? Was it like cookbooks or was it YouTube? Or was it just a mentor that kind of showed you how to do it online?

Victoria Blount: [00:03:40] Mainly YouTube and not just videos, but also just reading the recipes and then trying them out and then tweaking them where it made sense. And then my aunt, she’s been baking for decades now, so she also would help me to sew together.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:58] You were kind of experimenting. Did you ever have one where it’s like, This is inedible? This is not going to. No one should have this.

Victoria Blount: [00:04:06] Hmm. That’s a good question. Have I ever had one like that? I tried a peanut butter cheesecake one time years ago, even before my experience with my aunt and. It turned out I burnt the cheesecake, so that’s why it turned out poorly. Maybe it would have been good if I’d done it correctly,

Lee Kantor: [00:04:30] But baking is one of those things that’s almost like chemistry, right? Like you can’t. It’s not like in some cooking, you can just kind of wing stuff, but this is very precise in how you kind of mix the ingredients and the ratios and things like that.

Victoria Blount: [00:04:43] You know, everybody says that every time I say that, I bake. That’s kind of the response. I get baking. It’s not like cooking. It’s very precise. It’s more like science. And there’s truth to that. But there is. There’s more room to experiment within baking than you think. Like, I can change the amount of eggs in a recipe and it’s not going to affect it too much. I can shift things around like the sour cream ratio, so it is definitely more precise than typical cooking. But you do have some freedom.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:15] And then when you have an idea, how do you test it? Do you have like kind of trusted people? You’re like, Hey, I got this idea? Why don’t you give me your take on it? Or do you just kind of just throw it out there and make it available?

Victoria Blount: [00:05:30] A combination of both of those things, so I’m. Kind of looking up recipes and tweaking them and whatnot as well, so I know just based off of some of the comments and whatnot. Ok. This should be OK. Then I changed it a little bit. And then I test it out with my family first. But then I also just make it available and see the reaction to it.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Now, do you remember, like kind of that first big sale where it was like, wow, that was a decent amount of money for this? This could be something.

Victoria Blount: [00:06:06] The first big sale, I would say. Here’s what I’m thinking of in particular, but it wasn’t the first one, I’ll say the first one was with the City of College Park. They were doing this event and bringing in a bunch of business people to look at some real estate, this space that they were trying to sell sell. And they wanted me to do seventy five mini cheesecakes and then a complimentary 10 inch for the special guest of honor as well. So that was like my first big sale, which was several hundred dollars. And I’m like, OK, yeah, this could be something.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:48] And then did you have to like when you’re making, you know, one or two? That’s that process is one thing. But when you’re making seventy five of something, that’s a different process, right? Like that that requires a different kind of organization. And then kind of production was was that a difficult transition for you or was that something like, OK, I just got to start earlier and just start cranking these out?

Victoria Blount: [00:07:13] So I currently offer two sizes of cheesecakes, I offer this full typical 10 inch size and then I do mini cheesecakes as well, which are kind of like cupcake size and with Minis, I always kind of have to do a dozen of each flavor. So even if I am doing a smaller so, my order size right now doesn’t go beyond like half a dozen go below that currently, unless, like, I’m doing like a special event and just offering samples. But so because I’m making a dozen always, it wasn’t so difficult to do seventy five, but it was still more than what I had done at that point.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:56] And then, like you said earlier that you’re making this now transition to get into a commercial kitchen and that kind of environment is, is that just part of the kind of organic growth you’re getting to a point where that’s necessary now in order because of the demand?

Victoria Blount: [00:08:14] Yes. It’s also necessary, so it’s necessary for growth for sure, like my refrigerator, the most cheesecakes I’ve ever made was two hundred and forty for the Atlanta Children’s Shelter. Wow, that was definitely at capacity. My refrigerator space at home. So yes, it’s definitely necessary for growth, but it’s also necessary for just licensing purposes and to be legitimate as well. So. Yeah, the commercial kitchen space is something I’ve been looking for for a while now.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:49] And then how did you get involved with the Main Street Entrepreneurship Seed Fund?

Victoria Blount: [00:08:56] So this is the second time around the second cohort that they’ve done for this program, and I knew about it the first time they did it. I didn’t apply this, so I had like just gotten into Georgia State at the time and I just thought, OK, it’s going to be too much if I apply for this program, along with just trying to learn the ropes as a college student. So I went to their demo day, though, for the first cohort and then, I mean, I was really impressed. So the second time around I saw it, I think the application I saw it around January of this year, I applied in February was we went through two application rounds. So just a written application and whatnot, which was reviewed by people at Georgia State internally. And then we went through a pitch round which we and we were pitching to outside entrepreneurs and investors. And after that, I was chosen as one of the 13 companies in March.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:00] Wow, congratulations. I mean, that’s what did you what have you learned most about having that kind of structure around your business?

Victoria Blount: [00:10:09] I have learned what have I learned most? Definitely focusing on the customer, which sounds so obvious when you think about it, but the average business person who goes into starting a business doesn’t really do that. They have an idea and they kind of look to validate that idea, though we had like a couple of workshops at the very beginning on customer discovery and focusing on like, who do you even want to serve in the first place? Think about that and then start from there and figure out what they want, what they need and try to find authentic demand for your offering and then tweak it. And because we had to design thinking workshop as well, like continue to innovate on it, to continue to serve them. So that was the main thing, just a shift in mindset and also just being around other student entrepreneurs and like an alumni and just, you know, kind of knowing that we’re all in this together and being able to talk to them about my experience, our experiences.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:22] Now has your customer today the same as it was when you started? Or is it it sounds like you’re doing a lot of work for groups and organizations that maybe, you know, not the individual consumer who buys the cheesecake.

Victoria Blount: [00:11:36] Yeah, so my customers starting out was definitely individual clients, mainly middle aged and older women. And then I still do that, but I have done more like more larger orders for organizations and whatnot. I am looking since I am a college student. I am looking to sell to college students starting at Georgia State. Of course, since we just got back on campus, I haven’t gotten that off the ground yet, but that is something that’s the market I’m looking to expand to.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:12] So you’re looking to create a product or just take one of your existing products and offer it to students?

Victoria Blount: [00:12:20] Well, I do want to create another size, maybe like a personal size kind of like how you have personal pan pizzas, maybe something like that for students and even vegan options, potentially since I’ve been asked about that quite a bit. So it could be an existing product that I tweak a little bit for students. It could be something new.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:42] Now, what’s been the most rewarding part of this adventure for you, because I mean, you’re in school, probably when you started, you were thinking, I’ll get go to school, get a degree, get a job and then now you got this thing going and it seems like it’s taking on a life of its own. So how do you kind of balance that?

Victoria Blount: [00:13:00] I was a great question lately, just very little sleep. We’re preparing for a demo day, which is coming up on Thursday. So but in general, I think it’s somewhat like picking days to focus on different things and also using like time blocking and just giving myself a certain amount of time for task. Because in my professional skills class, one thing we talked about is that a task will extend to the amount of time you get it. So if you give something five hours, it’s going to take you five hours to do that. So I just have to be very organized with my time to balance everything. Yeah. As far as your original question, like what’s been the most rewarding part of all of this? I think just the learning in like the growth of it all and just pushing myself and seeing what I’m capable of. It’s far greater than what I would have thought years ago at this point. So I think that’s the most rewarding for me now.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:06] Has your experience at Georgia State been what you anticipated being or is it? I mean, it sounds like it’s really stretching you in terms of maybe how you saw yourself initially and what you’re becoming.

Victoria Blount: [00:14:23] No, I mean, I knew Georgia State, I wanted to stay in state from from metro Atlanta just so I could kind of do the business and go to school at the same time. I knew Georgia State would provide me with a lot of options and I knew college in general. I was homeschooled, so I knew college in general would provide me with a lot of structure and structure that would help me just kind of stay organized and stay accountable and whatnot. But I didn’t anticipate, I didn’t anticipate all of the entrepreneurial resources that Georgia state has in the like the high quality level of them. They’re still fairly young and fairly new, but they are really high quality. So I’ve definitely gotten way more out of school than I thought I would. I didn’t think I would go to school and like, talk about entrepreneurship. I thought it was something I would kind of do on my own. On the side, I didn’t think there would be a community just available through my university to in resources, through my university to help me on this journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:25] So now in the growth of your business, is there kind of best selling cheesecakes that people are kind of demanding over and over again? You have kind of your people’s favorites.

Victoria Blount: [00:15:38] Yeah, people really love the assorted minis, which is just a dozen and a variety of pack of minis. And usually those flavors will be like red velvet, key lime, Oreo, honey, lavender as well. And then people as far as 10 inches. The turtle is really popular in the honey. Lavender is popular as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:01] Now if are they available for sale right now or is this something that you kind of special order whenever somebody comes to you and say, Hey, I need six or 10 or one hundred, then you just kind of serve them that way? Or is it like, can somebody go to a website in order one right now?

Victoria Blount: [00:16:19] Right now, my website is up, I’m not taking orders through it currently, so my website is cheesecake specialists. You can sign up for the email list and I’m hoping to actually launch like an online ordering system in the next month or two. Currently, I take orders more like on a case, not on a case by case basis, but on an individual basis. So you can also email me at orders. Cheesecake specialist at gmail.com or ordering.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:55] And then they can say, Hey, I got this event, I got like a family reunion, I’d love for everybody to have a cheesecake and then you kind of just

Victoria Blount: [00:17:03] Work out the dates, how many want and my Instagram, if you want to see pictures of them, is at cheesecake specialist. So.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:13] Well, congratulations on all the success. It’s exciting time.

Victoria Blount: [00:17:17] Thank you, thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:19] And then so once again, it’s cheesecake specialist to get on your mailing list or wait list if they are ready. At some point, you’re going to have the website up and running, so anybody on that list will probably be notified that, hey, you can order that right?

Victoria Blount: [00:17:35] Yes. Yeah, that’s how it will go.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:38] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Victoria Blount: [00:17:43] Thank you so much. I appreciate this interview.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:46] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on GSU. Any radio?