Business RadioX ®

Yazdan Navabi With Food Upcycles

by

FoodUpcycles
Atlanta Business Radio
Yazdan Navabi With Food Upcycles
Loading
/

YazdanNavabiYazdan Navabi is the Founder of Food Upcycles.

Food Upcycles is on a mission to combat global warming and other environmental issues by giving businesses a chance to send their foodwastes to be reused and converted back into healthy organic soil.

They divert food wastes and organic waste away from landfills and upcycle them into a product of higher value!

Follow Food Upcycles on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Choose Food Upcycles to compost
  • Target customer
  • The current status of food waste that Food Upcycles is working to eradicate
  • Composting is better

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. OnPay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at unpaid. 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 fun one today on the show. We have Yazdan Navabi with food upcycles welcome.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:00:44] Hey everyone. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be back on Business RadioX. I’m so excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] Well, I’m excited to get updated about food up cycles. What’s been going on over there?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:00:56] Yeah, there’s been a lot of a lot of discussions, a lot of talking, a lot of phone calls, a lot of visits. I was I was really hoping last time I was on the show that I could have paying customers next time. That’s not the case. We’re still pre-revenue, but we got very close to launching a pilot this summer. We got we got a lot of traction with Publix grocery stores, but that kind of fell through just because of our size and our volume capacity. But that’s kind of like the biggest news of the summer, really. That was that was really big. However, even though we didn’t move forward with that, they’re still very interested in the way I understood it. As soon as we can handle more volume, they’re going to be there with to work with us

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] Now just to remind folks, tell us about food up cycles in terms of what the concept is and how you’re serving, folks.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:01:52] Yes. So we are a food waste collection service. We’re subscription based, but we also offer per request pickups. And so basically, just to give you a gist, instead of sending organic food waste to landfills instead of just throwing it away, we want to we want people to have a separate bin where you can put all your organic trash. Separate from plastics and papers and whatnot.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:17] So some folks have like composting. Is this kind of taking the place of composting?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:02:22] Yes. Well, this is compost, yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:24] But like, I’m doing it instead of like I have a bin for aluminum and and things like that. And I would have a bin for the stuff I would compost if I don’t want to put, you know, set up my own composting thing in my backyard.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:02:36] Right, exactly. Exactly. And so we come and we pick up the bin, we swap it out with a clean one that’s kind of like the industry standard. Then we take it to our site. We let nature do its thing. We let the waste turn to compost and then we supply to farmers. And then that completes the cycle.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:57] And then and that’s the upcycle that you’re talking about in the name, right?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:03:01] Yeah, most people actually don’t know what that is. It’s a fairly new world and everyone knows that recycling is recycling is trying to minimize the waste when you’re disposing of something or trying to use part of it. But when you’re talking about upcycling, you’re actually turning that thing into something of higher value. So something that’s kind of like easier for people to understand is imagine you have a bunch of driftwood just floating in a lake and then you turn that to like a very expensive high end table, for instance, that would be upcycling. And that’s essentially what we’re doing with trash. We’re upcycling trash into beautiful, nutritious soil that farmers can use.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:45] And then that’s an important part of this, right? So people may not understand when they’re just kind of throwing stuff down the garbage disposal. That’s like kind of gold. For some people, all of that material could be put into soil and the soil becomes that much more rich and nutritious. And it’s it’s valuable to somebody, right?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:04:07] Absolutely. Actually, I’m I’m very happy. You said that some people, not many, but some people call compost black gold because it is so valuable. And fun fact to get the same amount of vitamin A from one orange that your grandparents used to get, you would have to eat eight oranges while they would just have to eat one orange. And that’s how our food is of nutrients. Farmers are forced to use synthetic inputs, synthetic fertilizers, things like that, and it does make the foods grow. But it’s not even comparable to to what it should be.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:42] And this is one of those businesses that if if everybody was just kind of accepted this like we do now of having bins for recycling and just have bins for this composting and have an efficient system to take this away and then repurpose it and upcycle it. This would benefit lots of folks, this is something that could really make a difference and and it wouldn’t take like we don’t need 100 percent compliance in order to make this go. If you just had a good amount of, I would imagine, kind of restaurants, businesses like grocery stores like that to do this. And eventually, I’m sure the consumer this can make a big difference in how much more nutrition we would be getting in our foods.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:05:26] Correct. Correct. And the, you know, the nutrition part, having more nutrition in our food that would take slightly longer. But the immediate effect and our 4Front problem that we’re trying to tackle is actually all the gases, the global warming gases that are released from these food wastes when they’re in landfills. And it kind of gets really scientific and really nerdy, and I try not to get too much into it because I get really caught up. But basically when you put food in any type of organic waste in a landfill because it’s so pressed down, it doesn’t get oxygen and proper water, it rots and aerobically. It rots in the worst way possible, and it creates a lot of methane and a lot of carbon dioxide and pound for pound. If you were to take, let’s say, a thousand pounds of waste and put it in a landfill or compost it, composting it would produce 90 percent less greenhouse gases. And that’s just an insane amount because landfills. It’s there like the fourth or fifth global contributor to global warming, and some figures will even claim it’s almost there. So by composting this, we can reduce these gases by 90 percent

Lee Kantor: [00:06:41] And you’re going to create an upcycled product that’s super valuable and beneficial. So this is like a total win win win all the way around, like. It’s just taking up space and it’s negatively impacting the space it’s taking. This is something that seems so obvious and simple. It’s just a matter of, you know, kind of getting the escape velocity. You need to get this thing up and running. Now what businesses like you mentioned a grocery store. What types of businesses should be kind of at least experimenting with this and working with you?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:07:14] Yeah, so our company, our main, our main target, our main mission is helping the environment and cutting back these these global warming gases and also doing more positive things in the long run. And so we’re focused on volume. We want big volume, so we’re not trying to service households and things like that. One pound here, two pounds there. We’re trying to go to the source. We’re going to be driving trucks and using fossil fuels, for sure. So we want to make sure that those trucks are are having the most positive impact they can. And we’re going to be doing that by targeting targeting grocery retailers and large, large volumes. And once we’re able to scale more than we want to go after apartment buildings, large, large volumes, that’s what we’re focused on. I’m not sure if that’s a good question.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:02] Yeah. So that’s your first target are kind of the the bigger, bigger players here because you can get more bang for your buck in terms of impact.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:08:11] Right? But see, now the challenge is we’re like a small company and we’re trying to go after these volumes. So we kind of broke things down into three phases phase one or stage one. We’re going to be servicing vegan restaurants and juice bars just because that’s a lot lower cost for us. It’s easier and it’s just a lot more streamlined. And then as soon as we can get some more funding and move to bigger space and we can handle larger volume capacities instantly, we’re going to be jumping into retailers, big stores and then a few years down the road, then we’ll progress the apartment buildings

Lee Kantor: [00:08:47] And then talk about the Main Street Entrepreneurship Seed Fund. How did that? How’d you get involved with that?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:08:53] Yeah, I was. I was. That was the culmination of a lot of hard work, but also just a lot of luck and a lot of just a blessing. You know, sometimes things happen and I was actually, you know, I’ve been working on this for over two years, and I was at a point where I felt like I didn’t have. They were they weren’t new things coming into the mix, and it was just kind of like the same thing. And even though I was trying to talk to new people and trying to do different things, nothing new was happening. And then, you know, it happened a few months and then I heard back from Main Street. I kind of almost forgot about it. I was like, You know, I didn’t get it, but I just kept following up every now and then it felt like I wasn’t in. And then I just heard back like, you’ve been selected and it’s kind of hard to believe.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:42] And then explain what you got and how you’re kind of using the resources that they provide.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:09:49] Basically, it comes down to things, you get some funding and you get some resources and they set us up with with a mentor. So we have like one main mentor. But but honestly, people from the N.I Institute are so helpful. They’re so they’re really like a family. They’re so, so caring. And so even though we get assigned to one mentor, we really kind of get to tap into the entire institute. All you have to do is reach out and ask for help, and they’ll be there and they’ll answer your emails late night. I mean, it’s been it’s been a lot of support. And we do get some funding too, and we do get support for our presentations. Or let’s say, I have a meeting with a potential customer and I have some some doubts going into it. I could just reach out and be like, Hey, do you think I should say this or do you think I should say that? Or support?

Lee Kantor: [00:10:40] Yeah, so that type of kind of business intelligence really can prevent you from making a mistake and really help you accelerate your growth and maybe open some doors for some folks that could become your customer.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:10:53] Yeah, one big thing I struggled with because my my startup just kind of intel, so many different parts and different players, and we have farmers, restaurants, big businesses. I had a huge problem with with just like trimming down and consolidating my information, and I am kind of wearing all the hats here. So I’m the R&D guy, I’m the CEO guy, I’m the marketing guy. And sometimes in the beginning when I was present, I would just have so much information. And for an outsider who doesn’t really know about compost, it’s all just mumbo jumbo. And they’ve really helped me to be more selective with the present, with the information I’m presenting and kind of like what to leave in and what to leave out.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:39] Well, congratulations on all the success. I mean, it’s it feels like you’re on the brink of something really important and and really kind of worthwhile a mission worth going on. Congratulations.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:11:53] Thank you. Yeah, I’m hoping to start our pilot this fall, for sure. We’re talking to different restaurants and hopefully we can get that launched soon. You just need more funding and we need more partnerships. So anyone listening please spread the word.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:07] And if somebody wants to learn more about the business, what is is there a website? Is there a way to connect with you or somebody on your team?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:12:16] Yes, because we are a new startup and we’re strapped for cash. Our website is not live yet, but all our social media handles are food up cycles, and it’s it’s spelled just how it sounds. And our website, once it’s live, will be food, upcycled dot org.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:34] And then and then there are way like which one is the best one to connect with you? Is it LinkedIn? Is it?

Yazdan Navabi: [00:12:41] I would say Instagram.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:43] Instagram, yes. Ok, so if they go on Instagram and look to look up food up cycles, they’ll be able to find you and then connect with you and then hopefully do some good for folks.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:12:56] Yes, and learn about composting. We, we try to like make a blend of educational and entertainment on our Instagram because I know compost is not the sexiest thing out there, so we try to make it fun.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:09] Well, it’s important. I’ll tell you that. And and it’s it’s one of those things where it’s valuable and it’s sitting right in front of all of us. And if we would just pay a little bit of attention and if there’s a way to make it as easy as possible, I’m sure more people will do this just like we sort stuff out every day. I mean, then organizations that are dealing with this, there’s no need to be throwing all this away. There’s a better way to deal with all this waste. And I think that you have, you know, come up with a way that makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:13:40] Yeah. And I think most people are open to it. It’s just another thing to do. Right? It takes a person or a company to kind of like,

Lee Kantor: [00:13:48] Make things up, make it easy and then they’ll do it if it if it kind of can work seamlessly into their workflow. They’re going to do it with that. It’ll be a no brainer because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the if you can make it easy, they’ll they’ll do this for sure. I believe that.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:14:05] Yeah, me too.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:06] Well, congratulations again, and thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Yazdan Navabi: [00:14:13] Thank you so much, Leigh. Thanks for having me again.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:15] You got it. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on GSU. Any radio.

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Michele Faith Condon With Faithful Consulting Enterprises

by

Bay Area Business Radio
Bay Area Business Radio
Michele Faith Condon With Faithful Consulting Enterprises
Loading
/

Leah-Davis-Ambassador-logo1

The proud Berkeley native, Michele Faith Condon, CEO at Faithful Consulting Enterprises is on a mission! Retiring at age 35 from healthcare to go to Hollywood; Michele was ready to step out on Faith!

However, life threw her an immediate curveball. The detour from superstardom led her to the center stage in the world of finances, insurance, real estate, and entrepreneurship! Michele embraced it all and dived full force into her consulting business that she started in 2008.

Michele always understood the importance of multiple streams of income, protecting your income, and establishing a strong financial future, but she wanted to help others do the same. She decided to take it up a notch by partnering and joining forces with like-minded individuals to go out and empower, not only her community, but the entire Nation!

Michele loves sharing stories about her journey in life that led her to become a Wealth & Health Coach! Showing others how to create generational wealth while doing the same for her 1-year-old son is her #1 goal in life!

She loves cooking and catering fabulous meals for her love ones, as well as hosting empowerment events at her home. When she’s not in the kitchen she’s writing material for her next comedy performance or being a Supermom to her son!

She’s also the Host with the Most, so catch her at an event near you or book her for your next event to really bring the fun, excitement, and great energy! Michele’s big personality combined with her expertise and knowledge when it comes to financial consulting makes her a powerhouse!

Educating others and sharing her knowledge with the world through storytelling is one of her greatest abilities. She plans to share her gift with the world by reaching and helping as many families as possible!

Follow Faithful Consulting Enterprises on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Financial literacy
  • 3 Enemies to Your Money- Inflation, Taxes, Risk
  • Living benefits
  • “Why I do this- MY WHY!”
  • Personal financial check-ups (PFC)

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Bay Area Business Radio and this is going to be a good one today on the show we have Michele Faith Condon with Faithful Consulting Enterprises. Welcome, Michele.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:00:31] Thank you so much for having me today, Lee, I really appreciate the opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about faithful consulting enterprises. How are you serving, folks?

Michele Faith Condon: [00:00:42] You know what? We are serving everyone, whoever we can reach any and everyone who we can reach with the mission of financial literacy. We’re all about educating people and helping people get their finances in order and really talking about anything that has to do with insurance, real estate and entrepreneurship as well, because those are the four pillars to really create wealth.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:06] Now, how did you get into this line of work? What’s your back story?

Michele Faith Condon: [00:01:09] Well, my back story is that I was in biotech since I was 16 years old. However, I always had this entrepreneurial spirit. So when I was 20, I actually went into real estate. So by the time that I got about twenty three, I decided to start my own consulting company, Saiful Consulting Enterprises, when I was predominantly just doing real real estate on the side. However, by the time I got 35, I decided, You know what? It’s time to step out on faith. I want to be a superstar and a stand up comedian, and I’m going to quit my job, retire early, leave corporate America and go to Hollywood. However, I wanted to make sure that the money that I had invested in my 401k that I did the right thing with it after spending six years in the biotech industry. So I wanted to make sure that I wrote it over into a platform because you know what? You can go to Hollywood and still end up broke. But in doing so, I realized, Oh my gosh, there’s so much I don’t know about retirement. The number one thing being that I cannot retire, I’m not in position, and it made me realize how many other people don’t know this financial information. So, you know, my life just took a whole 360 and I decided, You know what? It’s really time for me to dove headfirst into my financial services company and to really go out and educate the community and make it a mission to empower them on financial literacy and how to leverage insurance to create wealth.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:40] Now, are there some kind of, let’s say, maybe some enemies or villains in the story in terms of people in their money? Are there some things that are there that really could negatively impact people’s financial wealth if they don’t plan for it properly?

Michele Faith Condon: [00:02:58] Definitely. Definitely. Listen, the three main enemies to our money are inflation, taxes and risk. And right now we are in the midst of an inflation storm. You know, in August, inflation was like five point four percent. So the thing about it is is people don’t understand if your money is not in a pay in a place where it’s outpacing inflation. Typically, inflation is about three to four percent a year. So if you’re not going to raise on your job of three to four percent a year, if your money isn’t in the bank getting three to four percent a year, if your investments aren’t getting three to four percent a year, your money’s going to fall short at some point. And then also taxes, like so many people are saving for their financial future and retirement, you know, and they’re using 401ks in different vehicles. However, they don’t know the tax obligation. When you go to withdraw this money, you know, and when it comes to taxes, when you when you purchase things, you pay sales tax, you know what I’m saying? You know anything you do. It doesn’t matter when you die, you pay their taxes. You know, there’s always taxes associated to every aspect of our lives. So if you don’t know the different types and different categories of taxes and how they work, you won’t be able to set yourself up for a financial future where you don’t have to pay as much taxes without this education.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:04:18] And then last but not least risk, you know, we saw in 2020. In March, we saw the stock market drop 30 percent over like twenty two days, right? So a lot of people who had these different accounts, especially 401Ks, they took a big hit. And for me personally, you know, it really resonates with my family and my story because I moved my dad’s 401k. I moved it in in December of 2019, right before the market crash in March. You know, and he did not lose a dime. And then my father ended up dying in August and it became my inheritance. The one thing I know was that he felt really good knowing that we did not have that big loss that so many people in the world, in America, everywhere had when the market crashed because of the COVID 19 pandemic. So, you know, you have to have a solid financial future. Everything can’t be risky. You know, a lot of people like the reward, but that risk can really just take you out of the game. And so that’s what we really educate people on their options to grow their money safely without the risk.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:25] So now we are having this conversation with folks, are they typically at the beginning of their kind of financial journey or are they already have accumulated some wealth?

Michele Faith Condon: [00:05:36] The thing about it is, is we work with a wide range of people. You know, it doesn’t matter your age, the earlier you receive this information, the better. But whatever stage in life you’re at, because it’s a lot of people who get this information and they’re thinking they’re about to retire. However, they realize, Oh my gosh, I’m not in position. I didn’t know that I still have to pay taxes on this money before I withdraw it. Oh, I had no idea that my money was at risk. So the thing about it is is we want to work with people wherever they are in their journey because this information will help any and everybody. If you plan to retire at some point in your life, you need to hear this information.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:19] So now, if you’re if you’re a young person and you’re at the accumulation stage of your journey, it’s a different strategy than if you’re, you know, 65 and you’re looking to get out of the working. How do you kind of help each of those people kind of manage that unique situation that they’re dealing with themselves?

Michele Faith Condon: [00:06:42] Well, FFO consultant enterprises, we work with over 40 different financial institutions, so the thing about it is, is we’re we’re not just we don’t have one option for people. We work with a lot of different companies to make sure that our different clients and their different individual needs can be met. One company might have a plan that’s perfect for the 22 year old. However, another company might have a plan that’s perfect for the sixty five year old. So that’s why we want to make sure that we work with a multitude of companies so we can have multiple options to be able to serve everyone.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:17] So that way, the more resources you have at your disposal, the better you’re able to serve your clients.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:07:23] Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. And then we also have additional resources. You know, sometimes you can go into your budget, go into your finances, and there’s just not enough money there. And a lot of people have dreams and goals that are a lot bigger than the current salary that they have. So we also help people find additional streams of income and really tap into their entrepreneurial spirit. So that’s a big part of what we do because we all know in this day and age we’re living in, we need multiple streams of income and we definitely help people connect the dots there.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:55] And that’s an important consideration. A lot of folks don’t realize that they think that that just having a job is enough, but most people that have accumulated some wealth have multiple revenue streams.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:08:07] Definitely. And that’s exactly what we try to educate because a lot of times people are like, Oh my gosh, I feel like I’m just walking in circles and working in circles, and it’s like, I want to buy this house, you know, I want to send my kids to college. I want to retire early. But the thing is, you have to have a financial plan in place because if you don’t know, you can say you’re going to do these things all day. But if you don’t have a plan with specific steps that you need to take and a and specific amounts that you need to save and and generate over a course of time, you’re not going to be able to accomplish accomplish those goals. So that’s what we want to do. We want to help you connect and align your dreams and your finances.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:53] So now when you’re working with somebody, they’re coming to you initially because they have some anxiety may be about their financial situation and then you help them through that and then it expands to these other areas.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:09:08] The thing about it is you can think you know everything about finances, but think about it. We’re never taught about finances in school, even if you go to school to begin to become an accountant. The different financial principles that we teach a lot are they’re very basic, but they’re powerful. So, you know, some people think they know it all and then they hear this information, they’re like, Oh my gosh, well, I didn’t know that or I didn’t think about it. And even a lot of times with financial advisers, they advise you what to do with your money now and how to save you on taxes now. But we take a deep look into the future and think, what can we do to save you and help you in the future? And that’s the difference in a lot of the different platforms that people use to teach financial literacy. Ours is about helping people now, so they don’t have to struggle later in how to build the wealth, how to create generational wealth and to have a financial future that consists of a little bit of freedom.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:07] Now, in order to really create this kind of holistic plan for somebody, you have to really help them get clear on what is there, why like, what is the big things they want to accomplish, right? And have a long term view of all this.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:10:21] Definitely, see, the thing is, is this you have to have a strong why in life, no matter what you do, you have to have fuel behind you, financial goals, especially purchasing your first home, you know, becoming a real estate investor, becoming an entrepreneur, creating a business that’s going to generate income. And we’re all about helping people create business to generate passive income. You have to have a strong reason why to keep going. And for me, you know, my my reason is I really I have a one year old son and I want him to be able to have a strong financial future. I want to be the bank for him. Mommy is going to be the bank, and that’s what fuels me. Just knowing that the steps that I take now can really change the dynamics of his life and my grandkids life. You know, generational wealth is within our reach. You just have to know what steps to take and when people really find out like, Oh my gosh, if I just sacrificed this amount for this certain amount of time, I can change the generations to come. They’re like, they’re all in there ready for it. You know, everybody needs, you know, everybody’s not born with that silver spoon in their mouth. But there’s a lot of things that we can do to give the next generation an advantage. And that’s exactly what we want to do here at faithful consultants.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:38] So now what are some kind of baby steps or some easy things that anybody could do right now if you were to tell them to do do one or two things right this minute? There are things that they could do right this second to help them.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:11:52] Dove into your finances and take a look. Write down all of your expenses, see what it is going out every month and see what it is that is going in every month, you know, down to that $10 subscription you have for a cosmetic box, your Netflix, I mean, down to the nitty gritty, how much are you paying for your son to go to soccer every month, right? Like, look into it. How much are you spending at McDonald’s and really see where the bulk of your finances is going and where there’s room for improvement? Where are some things that you cannot offer that list and sacrifice and make adjustments so you can reach your financial goals? And so what you could do right now is to contact me. And what we like to do is personal finance checkups. So pretty much we like to start with the education piece because when people are educated, they want more for their life. We’re not about sales. We empower people. And when you’re empowered, you know more and you want more. And then we go and connect the dots to this financial information. We connect it with your dreams and your life and your finances through a personal finance checkup. And we start. What are your dreams and goals in life? Because a lot of times they’re their goals are not in alignment with their finances. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes we make is that we don’t get our finances and our goals in alignment. So we’re dreaming for all of our lives, but we really have to have things in place because we see what’s going on in the economy. You know, the economy is just all over the place. You don’t want your finances to be all over the place.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:30] So now when you’re working with people, it doesn’t matter where they’re at, right? Like even if they’re in debt, even if it seems hopeless, even if they’re super wealthy, it’s worth having a conversation with you or somebody on the team because everybody’s situation you, you probably can help them in some way or another.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:13:48] Listen, you said it best. Everyone can receive this information and get a nugget or a jewel from this information. The thing about it is is, like I said, I retired at thirty five and had no idea of the taxes I would be paying. And it’s like, we don’t know, you know, I got another 30 years before I could really retire, right? So it’s like, we don’t know how much the taxes are going to be in the future. So the thing is is we help you just really understand that there are some different ways and platforms to secure a financial future with a tax advantage as well as without the risk. And that’s just really the game changer that can really set anyone at any stage in their financial journey ahead.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:37] So if somebody wanted to learn more about what you got going on, is there a website?

Michele Faith Condon: [00:14:42] Yes, yes, yes, you can go to for consulting enterprises. You can set an appointment and you can. We can talk about what it is that you desire to achieve in life. And I will help you get your finances in alignment with that dream. And I’m available to help everyone. This is what I do full time. Twenty four, seven, you know, I’m a stay at home mommy and I operate my business and I’m a hundred percent thousand percent dedicated to this cause.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:12] Well, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Michele Faith Condon: [00:15:17] Thank you so much for having me. I truly appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:21] All right, this is Lee Kantor. This episode of Bay Area Business Radio is brought to you by Leah Davis coaching inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy. We’ll see you all next time.

 

Joseph Ashkouti With Yieldi

by

JosephAshkouti
Atlanta Business Radio
Joseph Ashkouti With Yieldi
Loading
/

yieldiJoe Ashkouti is a seasoned real estate developer focusing on residential, commercial, multi-family, and lending.

Ashkouti is the co-founder of Yieldi, a platform that provides an online marketplace for investors and borrowers, offering high-yield, short-term real estate investments directly to investors without brokerage fees.

He also serves as Principal and Founder of Heritage Capitol Partners, which owns, manages, and develops Real Estate in the Southeast.

He brings over 14 years of experience in land development and construction, anchor leasing, and real estate fund management to the company. He is responsible for developing and successfully executing the company’s strategic plan.

Joe is heavily involved in giving back to the community through several organizations.

He is an honorary board member for the Trinity Communities Ministries and Special Olympics Georgia and volunteers with the Atlanta Children’s Shelter and the Shepherd Center throughout the year.

He is also a member of the Marist Alumni Association as well as the Auburn Alumni Association.

Follow Yieldi on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Yieldi
  • Investors kind of working in the flip world where that typically they would be investing in the home
  • Range of returns for investors

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:00:43] Hey, how are you? Thanks for having

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

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:00:50] So yield is a private lender. We have set it up as a technology company, so we formed a marketplace to bring investors and bring borrowers together. So we we underwrite all of our deals. They’re all asset based, real estate backed, and we put them up on the marketplace and we close them with investors that can choose which deals that they like to invest in. So it’s it’s been great to be able to to build off that and build a marketplace to be able to bring technology to what is typically a mom and pop business, to be able to give investors an opportunity to invest in deals that they would never be able to see unless they were institutional type investors.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:39] Now are these investors kind of working in the flip world where that typically they would be investing in the home, they would be rehabbing it and then and then selling it again in this enables them to kind of cherry pick the deals they want to get in on maybe the smaller level, but just a more scale.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:01:58] Yeah, that’s right. So our investors can choose which which deals that they want to invest into. So they we lend on all asset types. Commercial, residential, multifamily and our loan amounts are between two hundred and fifty thousand and about five million. So the investor has the opportunity to pick and choose which deals they like, and they can also determine how much they want to put into a deal. So if they we have typically $50000 minimum, so if they want to invest one hundred thousand, they can say, Hey, we like this single family house in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s a $500000 loan, but we would only like to put one hundred thousand into it. And so it gives them the opportunity to pick and choose. And then on the other side, the borrowers, you know, we’re lending to fix and flippers and developers to commercial guys that are buying, you know, they just need bridge loans. They’re all one year loans. So that may need a bridge loan in order to get the property fixed up to get a tenant in there to go get traditional financing.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:58] And is this something that is only for accredited investors or can anybody invest in this?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:03:04] Right now we’re we’re set up to only work with accredited investors, so it keeps it keeps pretty much five to 10 investors in each deal and no more.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:14] And then for the for the listener, can you explain, you know what an accredited investor is?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:03:19] Sure, an accredited investor is somebody that besides your the value of your house has income equal to or greater than two hundred and fifty thousand a year, or has a net worth not including their residence of over a million.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:33] So if you kind of pass that test, then do you you are considered accredited, so then if I’m if I am that, how do I show that to you? Do I have to observe some documentation you have to see in order for me to do the deals?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:03:48] Yeah, we have a we have a third party that we use that is all streamlined. And when you go to sign up online, it walks you through those steps and the documentation we need in order to prove it.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:01] Now is the value or one of the values of this marketplace kind of the speed in which deals can get done because sometimes in traditional lending environments, it can be a little cumbersome.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:04:13] Yes, that’s right. It’s pretty much one of the reasons why we started the business just because we knew there was a lot of issues. Considering what happened in 08, banks are just not lending. And so in order to get a loan from a traditional bank, it is a brutal long process and it takes between 60 and 90 days, especially if it’s investment property. I’m sure a lot of listeners have gone through the process to get an owner occupied loan for a house that they buy, and that process is pretty cumbersome. So we saw an opportunity in the marketplace to be able to offer quick loans, underwrite quickly and close and sometimes less than 10 days. So that’s really where we’re providing a lot of value to our borrowers.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:00] And then you’re kind of your background makes you kind of uniquely qualified to to take on a project of this magnitude, right? You’ve you’ve kind of been on the other side of the table in terms of owning, managing and developing real estate for a minute or so, right?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:05:18] Yeah. So I’ve been in the real estate business for my entire career, and we developed a lot of grocery anchored shopping centers. We developed multifamily. We’ve done a lot of fix and flip. We had a fund that was buying distressed real estate for five years. And so I really, you know, I’ve worked with a lot of banks and lenders, and I was we were doing a lot of construction back in those five 06 and 08, not the great crash of 08. 09 came and we were just working out problems with banks. I I, you know, I’ve got I still have that memory like it happened yesterday. So in 2017, we started slowing down and lending on projects just because we felt like the market was in an all time high. Land prices were getting really expensive, as high as they’ve ever been, and construction costs were becoming uncontrollable. So we said, Hey, why don’t we just lend on on projects that we understand? And in that way, we’re in first position and at 60 to 70 percent of the actual value of the real estate. So if anything goes wrong, there’s a recession or a downturn, at least we know we’re still we’re still safe in first position. We can take the asset back. So that’s when we started in twenty seventeen on a small scale. And then in 2019, I met my current business partner and Josh Lloyd, and he had exited two technology companies. So he had a heavy, heavy background in technology and building systems, and he was doing private lending on a small scale. And I said, Look, with my real estate background and experience and your technology experience, we should be able to scale a marketplace in a business together, and that’s what the building was formed.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:57] So now how do you identify the opportunities? Are they just coming into the platform and then you’re kind of giving a thumbs up and thumbs down?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:07:05] Yeah. So we’re getting anywhere between five and 10 leads a day that we look at. They’re coming from brokers that we work with in the industry. We got 70 brokers that send us deals on a daily basis. And then we also do marketing direct to the borrower. So they’re going to our website and filling out the information on their deal and we get leads that way. So and we’re doing some outbound calling as well. And I would say out of the 70 or 80 deals that we look at a week, we’re moving forward on maybe one or two of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:39] Wow. So you’re being that kind of your due diligence is pretty intense.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:07:43] Yeah, we underwrite both the borrower and the and the property very thoroughly because a lot of these deals are, I would say, all of them. We’ve got a little bit of our own money. And so the reason we started the business was put our own money to work. And, you know, once we realized, Hey, look, this is a great opportunity for other investors to come in friends, family and then opening it up to the to the whole U.S. to be able to participate in these loans. We felt comfortable, but we wanted to kind of go through a litmus test of at least a year, a year and a half to make sure that the business work and and and we got all the kinks out. So now we’ve opened it up and we’re kind of wide open on a growth spectrum as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:25] So now the credit event and that investor who wants to kind of play what types of returns like, what’s a range of returns they can look for?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:08:36] Yeah. So our accredited investors are getting it depends on the deal and the risk level of the deal based on our underwriting, but they get between anywhere from a six to a nine percent return and that the way the company makes money is when we close deals, we get an origination fee, which is typically one or two points of the principal loan amount. And then the we also make a spread on the actual interest that’s collected. So if we give a developer a nine percent interest rate, we’re typically taking a two percent spread two and a half percent spread and paying our investors about seven and a half percent. Now they get they get paid on a we collect from the borrowers on the first and we’re paying our investors on the 10th of every month. Wow. Start collecting interest immediately.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:23] Wow. So that’s I mean, traditional lenders, they can’t compete with this at all.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:09:29] No. You know, I say traditional lenders today are are really for people that do not need money. They only lend to people who really don’t need it. It’s and that’s why this industry has has gotten so large. It’s private lending is fifty one percent of loans that are closed today, including an owner occupied. So the market has just grown tremendously over the last 10 years since the downturn.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:57] Now, as a veteran in this industry, that just must blow your mind, you couldn’t have ever envisioned that when you started out.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:10:05] No, no. And it’s just it’s, you know, the cost of money is is getting cheaper. And so you’re seeing you’re seeing some of these private lenders now, they’re almost the size of big traditional banks when it comes to how much they’re lending on a monthly volume basis and their rates are getting competitive with traditional banks in some instances.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:30] So now a person who wants to invest in this, they can go in and vest for six months or so, pull out all their money at the end of the terms of each of the loans. And then you go your separate ways. There’s no harm, no foul, right? Like this? It’s not like your your money is locked in there indefinitely.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:10:48] Correct. And all of our deals are 12 month loans, so they’re all short term. Sometimes we’ll offer, depending on the borrower and how the property is performing. We’ll offer them an extension for an additional year. So the borrower, the investor stays in the deal as long as the money is out to the borrower. So if the borrower pays the loan off in eight months, then we will email the investor and say, Hey, this loan is paid off. Here are some here at three or four more opportunities that you can invest in that we’ll be closing in the next 30 days or we can send you your money back.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:20] Now, is this something that the the investors got to kind of jump on those quickly because the deals are coming in so quickly and they’re being, you know, filled up so quickly?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:11:32] Yeah, that’s right. So everybody, everybody’s looking for alternative investments today and trying to put more money into real estate out of the stock market. And so there is a huge demand to invest in these deals. And typically when we post one on the marketplace, it gets gobbled up in twenty four hours. So you do need to be kind of quick. And then typically, when a deal gets paid off, we give the investors that were in that deal first priority to invest in the deals that are coming up. And so if there’s leftover money and those deals to for investors, then we’ll post it on the marketplace and give them the opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:09] So now are you doing loans in all 50 states or most of the U.S.?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:12:14] We land in every state, but California and New York, the lending regulations are just too stringent for us to.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:22] And then so you started in Georgia and then have expanded pretty rapidly.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:12:27] Yeah, we started in Georgia, in Florida and then we started expanding to the Carolinas and Texas and Mississippi. And now I think we have active loans and about 16 states.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:40] Now you mentioned brokers earlier. Can you explain how you work with brokers and are you looking? Is that something that you’re constantly looking for more broker relationships?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:12:51] Yes, of course we’re broker friendly, so we’ve got a lot of relationships with great brokers who work with borrowers on a regular basis, and we pay them a percentage of the origination points at closing for bringing us deals.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:06] So you’re looking for brokers all across the country? Yeah. And then is that something that like how do you how do the brokers even know you exist with so much competition out there nowadays?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:13:19] Really, because I think we’ve just we’ve made a name for ourself in the industry when we work with brokers. They see how easy our process is because of all the technology that we’ve implemented. So it’s just it’s a completely streamlined process for the borrowers and for the brokers. As far as the documentation upload system that we’ve got, it’s just it makes it very easy for everyone involved and we do what we say we’re going to do and we close very quickly. And if we like a deal, we move on it. And so they enjoy working with us because of the ease of the process. And so I feel like word gets out to the broker community, Hey, these guys are active, they’re good, they’re detailed and they’re structured. So there’s this process of streamlined and easy. And so we’re getting a lot of repeat business and a lot of word of mouth.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:10] And then for the investors, the deals are happening. Are they happening at a fast enough pace or are they clamoring for more?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:14:18] Natalie, we’ve got investors lined up looking for more deals, so we’re really focused on finding great borrowers, and for us, we want to find that builder or that fix and flip guy who is doing four or five a year, and we want to be able to help them scale to do 10 or 15 a year conservatively. So we’re looking for great borrowers with experience so we can grow our business and help them grow their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:44] And then so right now it’s a chicken and the egg thing, right? Or you just need more of everything because it’s going so well.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:14:51] Yeah, I mean, we’re we’re, you know, we’re a young company. So we’re we’re going through some growing pains just trying to scale the business and and get more deals and also work with with more investors. So it’s a constant seesaw. Sometimes we’ve got 20 million dollars in loans that we’re closing in a week and sometimes it’s two million. So it’s just a seesaw activity.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:16] So if somebody wants to learn more and get onto the marketplace, where should they go,

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:15:21] They can go to the website. If they’re an investor, they can click on the top right of the website and choose Sign up and they can sign up and they’ll start receiving newsletters and we email out the New Deal offerings as well. So you get them in front of people quickly. That’s the easiest way for an investor to get started. And if you’re a borrower looking for money, then you can. You can sign up on the website the same way and then we’ll contact you to send send your deals.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:51] But it’s one of those things. If you’re thinking about this, it’s probably a good idea to go through the paperwork and get kind of blessed by you guys so that when the deal comes in, you’re ready to move instead of, you know, going through the process, you know?

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:16:04] Yeah, that’s that’s exactly right. I would I would definitely go ahead if you’re interested. I mean, that way you’re you’re signed up and get our newsletters, you get our deals. You can start looking at them and kind of get an idea of how we how we were. You can look at all the paperwork and understand it. And so you’re ready to go when you find a deal or a deal passes your desk that you like.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:24] Well, congratulations on all the success.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:16:27] I appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:29] And that’s yield Hawaii LDI. Thank you, Joe, for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Joseph Ashkouti: [00:16:37] No problem. Thanks for having

Lee Kantor: [00:16:38] Me. All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Nicholas Marco With Hand and Stone

by

NicholasMarco
Franchise Marketing Radio
Nicholas Marco With Hand and Stone
Loading
/

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.

Marco’s journey with Hand & Stone began when he was a kid. His dad fully developed his spa brand — including a business plan and interest from outside investors — but could not decide on a name.

The elder Marco promised Nick and his sister a car if they could come up with the perfect name. Nick Marco suggested “Hand & Stone” and the name stuck. Now the brand has grown to more than 500 units, and owns multiple units.

Marco invested in his first spa in 2014, added 4 more to his portfolio, and now will take over the four New Jersey locations.

Marco can tell you about how he always wanted to become more involved with the family business, and how, as a former nurse, his passion for healthcare has helped him succeed as a Hand & Stone franchisee.

Connect with Nicholas on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Hand & Stone Massage and Facial Spa
  • Ideal franchisee
  • Technology is the biggest advocate to making multi-unit owners in business successful

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 Nicholas Marco with hand in stone massage and facial spa. Welcome, Nicholas.

Nicholas Marco: [00:00:44] Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, before we get too far into things, educate our listeners about hand and stone. How are you serving, folks?

Nicholas Marco: [00:00:52] Yes, Hand in Stone is a massage and facial spa franchise that also does waxing hair removal services, and it’s a national franchise with a national membership program where clients come usually once a month for their massage and facial services. We’ve been around since 2004. Our founders, actually my father, John Markoff longtime physical therapist, passion for massage therapy inspired to bring massage to the masses. And that is what we’ve done since 2004, and we’ve really introduced massage therapy and now facials to many, many people, and it’s become part of their lifestyle. And so I’m a franchisee and regional developer for the state of Ohio, for the brand, and obviously I’ve been part of it since it began.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] Now for you growing up and seeing it evolve, what was that like when you were deciding what to do as a career? Was this something that you knew all along that you were going to get involved in the business in some form? Or was it something that you were like, Oh, that’s nice for dad, but I’m going to do something else.

Nicholas Marco: [00:02:02] Yeah, it’s a great question. I really always try to stay involved, but at like kind of like a little bit of an arm’s length because I also had just this mentality that I’m great at science. I was always great in school, that I’m going to go the medical field route and become a doctor. And it took me a while to just get free of this kind of idea that I trapped myself in to feel like I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t break away from that path. And so as I got pretty good in the business and my dad allowed me to get involved with training owners and then managers as I knew the business more and more, and I saw these long time established people in the corporate world. They buy a franchise, they spend all this money and then all of a sudden, I’m like their lifeline with my knowledge and I’m so young. I was just enamored by that role, and I just knew that not only did I love the business, but I loved this franchisee kind of franchisor support role. And so I am in the health care field, but I just got a bachelors degree in nursing, which I was able to do pretty quickly.

Nicholas Marco: [00:03:19] I still work in the ICU, but per diem and I now am a multi-unit owner, so I’m very fortunate to kind of be able to still have exposure to health care, but in a much more manageable way where I didn’t have to make the commitment to such a long road to becoming a doctor. When I just I’m such an entrepreneur at heart that I’m sure I get so much of that from my father, you know, and franchising now kind of has become an addiction of mine. I love reading about franchises. I really just think it’s such a an effective way to run a business because it’s based on support from a headquarters who just wants to drive your success. But then it’s also being motivated by those who actually own the business themselves, which is going to be so much more effective than just the manager only model. So, yeah, it’s been a wild ride. We have over 500 locations in North America, and I’ll never forget the day that it first opened in November of 2004. And you know what an experience to just grow up in. It’s been amazing.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:31] Now, when you were deciding on the career path and you were kind of, you know, you were seeing your dad, I’m sure, on a regular basis and seeing the growth of what he was building. And then you were like, OK, I’m going to do health care. I’ve talked to other kind of I don’t want to say yours is the family run business, but family members are part of the business. But sometimes the founder likes the children to go out into the world and learn and bring back. What they learn is there are things that you’ve brought back as a nurse and kind of involved in health care and looking at it through that lens that you bring back to hand in stone that says, Hey, this is an area where we can really make a difference. This is an area maybe we haven’t been paying attention to, but maybe we should.

Nicholas Marco: [00:05:19] Absolutely. And I can tell you, my dad really there was no pressure from him for my involvement in the business. It was really just I found my own path and just went along it kind of at my own pace. But there’s a lot of similarities to being a nurse, and I’m actually I work for the largest employer in New Jersey, which is where I live, and they happen to be a health care provider. But there’s a lot of similarities between being a licensed massage therapist or licensed esthetician or licensed nurse. They’re all a service provider in some capacity. And when you work for such a large organization and I’m an employee, you know what it’s like on the other side of that versus then being the employer? So it’s it’s it makes me a very good employer, I think, and in stone has always connected with massage therapists because it was founded by a physical therapist who practiced every single day, went to people’s homes and did home care and rehabilitated them to improve their lifestyle and get through those injuries or whatever it was specifically that my dad was treating. And so, you know, that carries through with me being a nurse and treating people in really the most dire situations, being in intensive care. And it really, I just think gives me a connection with my massage therapist and esthetician. What they do for our clients every day is really a game changer. And I can tell you through this pandemic, we’ve only come out in higher demand because people need the escape of just the chaos that society can be when it comes to just the news. Send social media and just the tragedy of COVID 19, so. But but service professionals need a lot of support because of what they do for those, and I see that directly being in the nursing profession. And so, you know, I my product is my people, and if I take care of my people, then I can be very successful and I just continue to not forget that. And nursing is a great reminder.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:34] Now is the ideal franchisee, somebody who comes from that health care background that is kind of lived. It maybe as frustrated by the bureaucracy and the politics of that, and they want to kind of go their own way. Or is it more of a, you know, kind of that second act executive that’s retiring? Or even now these professional kind of franchisees that are buying brands in order to build out a portfolio?

Nicholas Marco: [00:08:01] Yeah, it’s a great question, I think it’s hard to specifically land on which profile makes a fantastic franchisee because we do have great diversity and variety in our current franchisee network. But any professional that has success has been made through growing a team. And if those team members are in a industry that involves serving others clients directly, one on one, you know, so not necessarily running a team of people who do back off this type work and are sitting at a desk all day? You know, if you can coach a team that is, you know, on their feet every day serving clients, whether it’s in the restaurant space, the hospitality space, the salon space, the spa space, then you definitely have an advantage because your team feels like you’ve walked the walk instead of just talk the talk there and you know you can have a great start. But that’s the beauty of franchising is I can connect with an owner who has been an attorney and had an assistant, you know where they did even the administrative stuff for them. And I can give them the coaching and the training to be a successful owner and to relate to their employees and also be a great leader. And we have that playbook, which is why I think we maybe have one or two owners that they themselves are a licensed massage therapist and maybe a few others that have been a licensed esthetician. Great benefit, great perk, but by no means a requirement.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:38] Now is there a different difference in the profile of that kind of person who is buys one unit or as opposed to the multi unit franchise owner? Is that a different profile at all other than obviously financially? But is the makeup or the, you know, kind of the temperament or the makeup different or their or their background and career different?

Nicholas Marco: [00:10:02] Yeah. Well, one of the things that I feel fortunate to have learned at such a young age is how to work on your business and not in it. So I would say those with a, you know, corporate background where they do have to be far removed from the actual action or the front lines, if you will tend to be less intimidated by on how to be a multi-unit owner and get those scale much quicker, they establish their role in the in the business. Right from the get go is, you know, I’m not at that front desk, I’m not even managing the business. I’m kind of a consultant to my management team and and that can work fine. I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, it’s it’s as long as you care about the culture of your spa and you put great leaders in place and you hold those leaders accountable and you create the different ways to inspect what’s going on without physically being there, but also have ways to physically be there as well. To do that actual inspection, they’re not going by just what you’re always told is going on. You can make that work. And I find, you know, that’s actually what’s been something that I have learned through some of these very successful multi-unit owners in our brand who just established that from day one, but they come from a background where they learned how to do that.

Nicholas Marco: [00:11:22] And technology is our biggest advocate to making multi-unit owners in our business successful because now I can just click a dropdown from my computer screen and look at every single appointment book in all nine of my locations. And we have some locations that have call centers to try to streamline the appointment booking process, which only then reduces cost to run the business. So, you know, there’s a lot of little organizations within our large organization that is to hand its own brand, and we actually just all met last week. Anybody who had four or more locations, we are now going to be actually a second time within a year period just to collaborate, share best practices and just kind of not make decisions, just listen to each other. And then with all of that feedback, make decisions, which is really what was, I think, why hand in stone has been so successful as they understand the franchisees are in this every day. Let’s hear what they have to say before we come up with an update to our playbook. And we just continue to thrive off of that feedback and that culture

Lee Kantor: [00:12:32] Now is that part of the playbook that the difference between delegation and abdication? You know, it sounds like you you can delegate, but it’s not something that you can just stroke a check to hand in stone and then say, OK, people go and make this happen, like you still have to kind of be involved in the business. This isn’t a passive investment, right?

Nicholas Marco: [00:12:55] Yeah, no. You have to have a way to inspect what you expect and. I’m like the king of that, I love figuring out how to do that. You know, and I just think in general, I’ve just learned regardless of how good the person is or how much you trust them. If you don’t have that counterbalance, then it just will always quarters corners will inevitably be cut. It’s just like human nature, especially nowadays, because there’s so many directions people are pulled in. So I always come up with here’s the routine responsibility or the as needed responsibility, and here’s how we’re going to make sure we know it got done. I use a project management tool called Asana. It’s amazing, and I kind of run my whole business utilizing it, and it’s exactly that kind of like, OK, we talked about it, I’m going to write it down. And when you do it, you’re going to check it off. So I know it was done and that way, there’s just no, he said. She said there’s no just kind of gray. It’s very black and white,

Lee Kantor: [00:13:55] And all the loops get closed. You don’t have these kind of miscommunications.

Nicholas Marco: [00:14:01] Yeah, it’s hard. I mean, like, I feel like one of the things that’s probably not catching up with this time that we’re in is our memories. You know, I think because we’re throwing so much information at once, our memory just isn’t what it maybe used to be. And so I just write everything down, and even when I’m talking to somebody, I’m typing what we’re talking about just so like we never say, what did we say again, that kind of thing. But you know, it’s just, I find it to be very effective when you operate that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] And this is where technology can be your friend, and this is where technology can really elevate a brand like hand in stone and separate them from others, because a lot of those loose ends and miscommunications can be handled through technology if you’re doing it right?

Nicholas Marco: [00:14:47] Absolutely. Absolutely. And I will say that’s what’s exciting about connecting with those of the younger generations to try to push them to ownership within our brand because those who have been in the corporate world for a long amount of time and then they come into a brand new business, they’re they’re more hesitant to adapt the technology because it can be intimidating. But I will say I have gotten some longtime executives to just be open minded to like this isn’t just some cool fancy application that young people like this is. This is a game changer. And then they realize, OK, I need this for my sanity.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:26] Now, any advice for an emerging franchise that wants to do better with multi-unit franchisees? Is there anything that there are some dos and don’ts that make that more attractive and more effective for folks that you’ve picked up over the years?

Nicholas Marco: [00:15:45] Sure. Well, I would say one, a big one that I’m just very passionate about is like, are they on top of their financials? And do you understand the financials of the business model that you’re selling? That’s huge. You know, is there support there? You know, take a look at a P&L, especially of your own franchisees. What does it look like? I’ve always said there’s the difference between a franchisee making money in a franchisee, not making money. And if you have too many not making money, you got to be like, fill that hole before anything. And then the ones that are doing well is, you know, don’t just even just have a phone call physically go there like, really, my dad spent a lot of time physically in the hand and stones of not just, of course, our corporate location, because there’s almost like kind of this this this unique feeling in the original locations of a brand that’s sometimes I feel hard to try to give people advice on. They’re always like, Oh, you know, what’s going on in Toms River, our original location? Just like, honestly, it’s just been around so long. It has such a loyal clientele. The brand is so, you know, just well received that it’s that’s hard to emulate physically going into. We went into Arizona very early as a brand and, you know, we’re not just talking to them over the phone, like, go there, see how they operate so that you can when you get information verbally, it can be very different than what’s the reality. And sometimes it’s not because somebody is trying to exaggerate. It’s just hard to get the full picture. So, you know, put a lot of time and focus into that support. I know sometimes franchise owners operate where the support person is maybe spread too thin and you don’t want that early on because you have to identify what’s working and then get everybody on board.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:40] So now as you expand, five hundred is quite the achievement, obviously, and that is special. How are you approaching the growth now or is it just now focusing on these kind of multi-unit franchise owners? Or is it still OK to begin with one and then kind of build out your empire as you kind of gain confidence and gain experience?

Nicholas Marco: [00:18:05] Yeah, I mean, look at the difference between New Jersey, where we have 60 forehand and stones, and I own nine handed stones in that state versus Ohio, where I’m the regional developer, where we have 14. And I know I can have 30. So that’s another 15 markets available. 16, actually. And that’s just the state of Ohio. I know there are other markets throughout the country where we really just have not penetrated at all. And then there are markets where we are heavily recognized, but there are some other markets that we can accommodate. It’s, you know, you think, yes, we all know New Jersey is densely populated, but sixty four locations is a lot and I can tell you they’re they’re very specific strategic markets because the demand for these services are so strong. So even at five hundred, I mean, we have a whole nother 500 plus to go, you know, to really feel like we’re too crowded in the country. So, yeah, it’s just one of the things that we’ve taken pride in is we don’t really look to be known as the fastest growing franchise because it’s hard. If you go too fast to support the franchisees, you know, just because they’re open, then we don’t leave them high and dry. It’s it’s constant support getting them to break even as quickly as we can. That first year is crucial. So we’ve on average opened about 60 locations a year and we’ve kept it around that number purposely. It’s a comfortable, controlled growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:41] And now what’s the most rewarding part of the job for you? Is it the, you know, kind of getting another multi unit up and running? Or is it just when that franchisee just calls you up and say, Hey, we just, you know, had a record month?

Nicholas Marco: [00:19:56] Well, on the support side, I can tell you when I see a family that the husband or wife no longer has to work because they’ve not only been able to replace their income but make even more money running this business and seeing how it’s changed the lives of that family. You know, I can think of actually my best friend from childhood. His parents were the original franchisees of our brand. My dad literally sold that deal at their kitchen table, and I actually very bittersweet, just acquired the two locations that they have had since their beginning as a as a franchisee. And, you know, it changed their lives in so many ways, and that has just been so rewarding to be a part of that. And then to add on the acquisitions that I’ve made is I love, especially when a location maybe isn’t doing as well, being able to have acquired it. And you know, it’s just make these little tweaks like the two spas that I just acquired. That was not of the people I just mentioned, but of a of another group of longtime friends. You know, we had already hit a record in monthly sales just last month, and I’ve only owned those spots since June. And it’s just, you know, opening up the floodgates based on what I’ve learned, what wasn’t being done that has kind of been the secret sauce for me. So that’s very fulfilling to as I love seeing the impact of what my team can do based on our own playbook within the hand and stone playbook. You know, I’m always fine tuning.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:38] Well, congratulations on all the success if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity, what’s the website?

Nicholas Marco: [00:21:44] Yeah, just hand in stone and just click on a franchise at the top and it’ll bring you to our specific site where it gives you the investment opportunity overview. We just there is no harm in talking to a franchise. Frankly, I still do it often. I love learning about the different approaches and business models out there. So whether you’re considering buying a franchise or not, you’re going to learn when you talk to somebody trying to sell you their franchise. And the more you can learn now, then the better position you’ll be to make that decision that I highly recommend you do, which is, you know, be your own boss. Own your own business. Prepare for life after retirement by having another source of income for yourself and hand in stone is a great thing to consider for yourself.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:34] Good stuff. Thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Nicholas Marco: [00:22:39] You got it. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:40] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

 

Dennis McKinley With Detroit Equities

by

DennisMcKinley
Franchise Marketing Radio
Dennis McKinley With Detroit Equities
Loading
/

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.

DetroitEquities

DennisMcKinleyDennis McKinley currently leads the Atlanta-based branding company Detroit Equities, which runs the Atlanta-based businesses Cru Hookah Lounge and the Original Hot Dog Factory.

Currently, he helps entrepreneurs and small businesses build their brands through strategic investments, and some of his previous background experience also includes real estate, e-commerce, and product development.

The Original Hot Dog Factory — Owned by Dennis McKinley. Known as an Atlanta staple, The Original Hot Dog Factory has received national exposure as it has been featured on BRAVO’s “Real Housewives of Atlanta” numerous times.

With locations in Atlanta, Philly, Brooklyn, Houston, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Birmingham, the chain is set to open locations in: Miami, Detroit and Cleveland.

He’s also owner of CRU Hemp Lounge, which has now become the largest black owned nightlife chain and largest hookah lounge chain in the United States. To date, they currently have four locations open in Atlanta (in Lilburn, Edgewood, Peter Street and Midtown), Houston, Dallas, Austin Birmingham and Charlotte.

Throughout this Summer and Fall, CRU plans on opening more locations in Atlanta (in Marietta, Alpharetta, Douglasville, Union City, and Morrow), Memphis, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Miami, Macon and Phoenix.

Business Mogul and CEO of Detroit Equities, Dennis McKinley, Former VP for Remy Cointreau, Patrick Charpentier, and Jerome Hyafil, a former EVP, Seagram’s Spirits and Wines, formed a dynamic team to create NYAK Cognac, which is now the fastest-growing cognac brand in U.S. history with an unprecedented 1,000% annual growth rate.

NYAK is now in the top 10 of leading cognacs and growing. NYAK is 80 proof with a distinctive, finely graded VS and delicate distilled flavor that is perfect over ice. Its golden color with hints of amber heralds its complexity.

The nose offers up delicious toasty oak notes (Bourbon vanilla, toasted bread) that stand out against a delightful peppery gourmet base (pear, grape, light honey). McKinley is a University of Michigan graduate.

Connect with Dennis on Instagram and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About The Original Hot Dog Factory
  • CRU Hemp Lounge is the largest hookah chain in the United States
  • Detroit Equities in the next five years

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by SEO Samba 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 good one today on the show, we got Dennis McKinley with Detroit Equities, home of the original Hot Dog Factory and Cru Hemp Lounge. Welcome Dennis.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:00:49] And they thank you for having me, I appreciate it. Look forward to chatting about franchising today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] Absolutely. So how did you get into the franchise business?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:00:58] Well, the short story is I was on the other end of the stick. You know, I originally was a Subway franchisee. And you know, I thought, totally, you know, something totally different when I wanted to say, Hey, I want to open a subway. Right? I thought it was, Hey, it’s subway, but I’m doing my own thing, right? And I quickly learned that’s not what franchising is about. So Subway was my first university into what franchising really is.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:23] So what is it? How was it different than you anticipated?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:01:27] Well, you know, you see a subway on every corner and you kind of really don’t realize that, you know, even though you are an owner or franchise partner, you know, Subway sets the rules. They set the menu, they set the pricing right. They set the hours of operation. So really, you know, it’s not Dennis McKinley subway. It is Subway. So I was introduced to really, you know what a franchise model really is. You know, you got rules, you got regulations, you have brand standards, really introduced me. What a brand really is, right? And it’s not so much about you as it’s managing and understanding what a system is.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:07] So did you sell that? Is that how that story ended?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:02:11] Yeah. You know, I got up to four locations and I quickly realized that, you know, Subway is probably making a little more than me. So I sold that and look for some other opportunities. But I say, you know what? My ultimate goal is? I think I want to be a franchise. All right. I’ll see some things that could probably be improved. Some things that I thought that weren’t too fair for franchise partners, and I said I always wanted to be a franchise or if I got the opportunity and found a brand, that would work.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:42] So then how did you did you kind of come up with your own brand or did you find kind of a mom and pop that you thought was doing good work and partnering with them?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:02:52] Yeah, a mixture of both. So what happened was, you know, I’m from Detroit, and if anybody out there been to Detroit or understands Detroit food culture, they know that we love our Coney Island hot dogs, right? There’s a Coney Island on every corner in Detroit, basically, which is a a beef hot dog with, you know, chili onion mustard. But, you know, after I graduated from the University of Michigan, I traveled all around this country and I quickly noticed that one. But for one thing, everybody loves hot dogs, right? But but the second most important thing is it doesn’t matter where you go across this country. Everybody likes something different on their hot dog. So with the Chicago, you know they got the Chicago dog, right? You go to New York. They love some sauerkraut and brown mustard. You go out to Seattle. They put cream cheese and onions on their dog. And I said, Man, you know what? If I could just put every hot dog originally from across this country? Put it under one roof? That may work. So I was in Atlanta at the time. You know, so, you know, one of my businesses and I would try to find my next thing and I had a craving for a hot dog. I went into this place called the original hot dog factory, and they only had, you know, three or four dogs. I said, this may be my opportunity. And I went in there and I talked to the owner every day until he sold it to me. He sold it to me. I changed the menu. I put every hot dog that I’ve experienced personally and I can find regionally. That’s that was the new original Hot Dog Factory. Twenty five hot dogs from across the country. And it was reborn in 2015.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:26] So then you took an existing it was a mom and pop a single location.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:04:30] Yes, single location, mom and pop. And I scaled it.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:36] And then you just kind of used your franchise magic to improve it and then take it to a new level.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:04:43] Indeed. You know, what happened was, you know, we changed that menu. People started rushing through the door and people were asking, Hey, why don’t you have one on the east side? Hey, why don’t you have one down here in Columbus, Georgia? Hey, I’m from Detroit. This would work up there. And I said, You know what? There’s a demand. And you know, franchising is the the fastest way to scale.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:05] Now, when you took them over, did they have kind of the playbook that most franchises have or is that something you had to develop and you kind of used your previous knowledge on how to build that?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:05:17] Yeah, not at all. I mean, they were just a mom and pop. They didn’t even even have recipes. So we started from scratch. You know, we took some time to, of course, perfected menu, get our vendors together. And then we we developed the franchise playbook from scratch.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:33] Now is that something that emerging franchises kind of don’t put enough time into?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:05:40] You know, I think so. You know, I talked to probably, you know, five or 10 concepts a week with people saying, Hey, I got a great idea. You know, this is good, I think, you know, we could franchise and the most common thing I always miss is just, first of all, menu development, right? You got to have a real good hold on. If I take this out of my city and go to another state, am I going to have the same vendor relationships, right? That, you know, they don’t put enough time into just mean you develop and making sure that this is going to be able to scale? Not only are people going to like your concept when you go to a different state, but can you make sure it tastes the same, right? And that vendor relationship is critically undervalued. You know, when you talk about franchising

Lee Kantor: [00:06:27] Now in your work, you kind of went from hot dogs to hemp. How did that transition happen? Was it the same thing? You found something out there. There was a mom and pop that you said, Hey, I can scale this.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:06:40] Well, I got to be honest with you. Just, you know, franchising crew was. That was that just happened because of, you know, also also demand, you know, when I was when I had another business crew was across the street from my office. So admittedly I got to tell you, Lee, I used to go there, you know, pretty much every day after work and I would entertain clients, et cetera. And one day I looked at my bill and I said, Man, I just spent a thousand bucks on here. If I owned the place, maybe just maybe I would spend as much cash in here. So I talked to the owner and I bought it right. And you know, another thing I was inspired by a club out in New York City and I took, you know, a piece of what they had going on and I remixed it and we called it crew. Now down south and just, you know, culturally around the country, like hookah is like becoming a phenomenon. You know, all the kids like to smoke hookah while they drink, you know, and eat foods. So we’re not a club, right? We’re not a lounge. We’re like a we’re not a restaurant, we’re a hybrid of all three. And I concept work, right? So, you know, we were getting very popular in Atlanta and people used to come from all over the country. You know, Atlanta is a hotbed for transients and entertainment. They call Atlanta Black Hollywood. People were like, Hey, man, why isn’t this in Houston? Hey, we will this work well in Charlotte? And the light bulb went off and enough people start asking me and I say, You know what? Let me replicate this model as well. And that’s how crew helped launch a franchise and was born as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:12] Now is crew stand alone, or is that something that if I have maybe a restaurant or a bar, I can just have a crew inside of my existing location?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:08:21] No, when we look for a second generation, you know, restaurants and bars, you know? So no, you cannot have that as a standalone. I mean, that’s an entire package.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:32] So it’s the entire package. So you have to kind of go all in.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:08:37] Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:38] Now is it different kind of scaling a hemp crew rather than a restaurant or is it kind of the same? It doesn’t matter now. Now that you got the recipe to scale, you can just plug and play whatever concept you’re dealing with.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:08:55] Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, you know, franchising, you know, in my opinion, is all about the real estate. You know, your concept has got to work with landlords. You know, landlords already have an idea when they build something out, they already have square footage. If you know that information before you get a concept going, I think you’ll win big time. That’s what I really didn’t understand. What the hot dog factory, right? Hot Dog Factory. We prefer spaces that are about eight hundred square feet. Well, guess what? No landlord has spaces, you know, eight hundred square feet. They’re normally about a twelve hundred. So, you know, look, when you’re franchised, you’ve got to understand both sides of the game. And I think real estate is very important. You need to understand that Game two so crew a little easier to find space where about three thousand square feet, second generation restaurants, you know, do the Koven. I mean, there are tons of opportunity out here for those spaces, so it’s been a little easier skill versus the hot dog.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:56] So now what’s next? Are you just looking for brands?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:10:01] Oh, definitely. I mean, we’re always looking for brands. We do about again, about five to seven interviews a week just, you know, looking for different opportunities. I’ve had some, some good graces here in the past where we’ve got into some brands helped them scale and ultimately exit. So we’re always looking for brands. You know, I’m pretty agnostic, but definitely I’m a foodie, so I do love concepts that are centered around food. But I look at anything we’ve invested, you know, into CBD stores and party bus transportation businesses. We’ve also did some meal meal planning work as well. So look, I’m really foodie centric, but I love culture, so I love things that are hot or you know that we will be hot tomorrow. So definitely if anybody’s out there and they have a concept that they think that could scale or they can franchise, definitely contact us

Lee Kantor: [00:11:00] Now when they work with you. Is that something that you just buy them outright or you do a joint venture? What is the relationship typically look like?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:11:08] Yeah, normally we do 50 50, you know, based on, you know, what’s really involved in, you know, how far they’ve already scaled, right? You know, I am, you know, founder and entrepreneur friendly, right? I think if you, you know, have more than one location that takes a factor. How long have you been in business that takes this factor, right? How much work we need to put into fixing, you know, what’s needed to get to that next level? Oh, that’s always a factor. But we try. We try to normally go in and say different departments.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:37] Now, when you’re working with folks or working with your own brands, how do you attract other franchisees? How have you cracked the code on that? Because a lot of folks struggle in that area?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:11:48] Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you what you know, I always ask during this interview process with new brands how many people have already asked about franchising? I mean, you wouldn’t believe how many of our franchise partners are just fans of the brand. They just love the brand, right? That’s where are you going to get the most traction, right? Because you have people who are not just in it for the cash, right? They actually love the brand. It’s a difference. You know, people can throw money around, but you know, if they’re just looking to make a buck out of it and they don’t have a passion for what you’re doing, that makes getting even tough.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:25] Now, is there any kind of sweet spot in terms of the investment that you typically work with or the investment could be anything depending on the brand?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:12:35] Yeah, it could be anything depending on the brand, you know, that is very, you know, from, you know, twenty five grand, which is normally average PhD, work up to half a million bucks depending on what’s needed and what stage they are in their development. Of course, every brand the investment, initial investment to get location to open are different, so it depends on what kind of infrastructure that they have, right? We need that employee employees, et cetera. So it varies. But look, there is a sweet spot. You know, at the end of the day, it’s all about the brand, it’s all about what you’re selling and it’s all about, you know, that fan base that you created from what you’re doing.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:16] Now, any advice for the person that maybe is a mom and pop and how do they know if they have something that could scale?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:13:26] Yeah. Well, I mean, people always ask me like, OK, I gave you all this stuff. We’ve done all these interviews. You’ve been to my location five times. Like, what’s the mathematical equation to know? You know, being an investor, right? And really, to be totally honest with you. Look, we can do spreadsheets and all that stuff, which is important to investors and banks. You know, analysts, et cetera. But really, it’s about the good right where you go in there and you can kind of tell, you know, is this owner passionate? You know, when people coming through the doors, are they excited to be here? Do they really love the food or is it just, you know, a convenience for them, right? Those things matter way more important in, you know, how much revenue you’re doing, how much cash you’re putting on the table, because that’s going to make the difference between, you know, 20 locations and possibly getting to that magic number of 100. Right? That’s the difference.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:18] Now what about advice for that franchisee like you, when you started out, you had some. I don’t want to call it a misstep, but a learning opportunity. How do you advise a franchisee to choose the right brand for them?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:14:37] Well, look, you know, a lot of people say, you know, hey, I want to own a restaurant, but. But guess what? That’s not enough, right? You got to really dig deep into what you’re passionate about and let your passion lead your choice of your venture. Because look, there’s a ton of franchise opportunities out here. Some better than others. And you got to really be careful, you know, when you dove in because these are not, you know, overnight projects. I mean, most franchise agreements are ten years. Ten years is a long time, right? So you got to make sure you understand that you’re doing these deals. You’re married, right? You guys are married. Of course, you can sell your franchise, et cetera, but it takes that initial work to get off the ground. You know, nothing is going to be profitable overnight, so you’ve got to really dig in and put work in if you expect to be successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:28] So now. So what? How do you kind of see the future? Like you said, there’s a lot of opportunity now with real estate because of COVID as we come out of COVID. You know, it seems like people are, you know, yearning for some back to normal stuff. What do you see in five years for Detroit equities?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:15:49] Well, I think we need to move where the future is going, right? I mean, if you look at a lot of real estate technology around where restaurants are doing with third party delivery, ghost kitchens, food trucks, you know, I really think, you know, any restaurant tour or any franchisees in the food business has got to take that part of business very seriously. You got to understand some of the trends going on right now. Vegan food is extremely popular. You know, look, we’re right around the corner from, you know, marijuana being legal here and probably the next three to five years. So I think that’s going to be a big part of the food industry as well. And also, look, every restaurant, every foodie. Really, it doesn’t matter what business you mean, everybody is having a tough time hiring. So I think you got to really look at really look at technology as it relates to automation and robots and how that’s going to affect your brand moving forward. If you’re a restaurant that’s going to make things from scratch, et cetera. Look, I don’t know, he may be in trouble long term, right? Technology is really going to take over for automation, flipping hamburgers from scratch without employees here in the next three or five years, I believe. So that’s that’s going to take a toll on some of these concepts.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:14] And the same goes with franchisees as well. Don’t don’t you need to have like kind of an app that you can do the whole transaction and then the franchise door can kind of keep track of things through that.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:17:24] And there’s a technology that’s coming out right now is making it very easy for franchise owners to to get data right. And that’s the big word right down to, you know, how is used, how is it going to be used in the future? What is going on now? Real time? So, yeah, most definitely.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:44] Well, congratulations on all the success if somebody wants to learn more about any of your opportunities or Detroit equities, if they have a brand they want to share with you. What is the best way to get a hold of you?

Dennis Mckinley: [00:17:54] No, I appreciate that. They go online at Detroit Equities. Click on the form. Submit your brand. I go out about three times a week all across the country just looking at brands and tasting food, you know, looking at different concepts. And it doesn’t have to just be, you know, food again. I mean, we’re pretty agnostic. We’ve invested it into a wide range of things. Looking at a kid brand right now, that’s very exciting. So look, it doesn’t matter what you have if you think that your business can be scaled. Reach out to us and we’ll see if we can work together.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:28] Good stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dennis Mckinley: [00:18:32] I appreciate being on the show. I appreciate it. All you guys. Good luck. Keep at it and I’ll see you on the road soon.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:39] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Darren Kanthal With The Kanthal Group Candid Career Coaching

by

DarrenKanthal
Coach The Coach
Darren Kanthal With The Kanthal Group Candid Career Coaching
Loading
/

TheKanthalGroup

DarrenKanthalDarren Kanthal is the founder of The Kanthal Group | Candid Career Coaching.

A New Yorker at heart, Darren has a uniquely unapologetic, yet compassionate style and his individualized, results-oriented approach helps leaders show up as the best versions of themselves at every stage of their career.

Darren’s career coaching builds upon an extensive background of HR consulting and staff augmentation projects.

Connect with Darren on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About emotional arborist
  • The practice and impacts of Positive Intelligence Executive Coaching
  • Career coaching

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Darren Campbell with The Kanthal Group candid career coaching. Welcome, Darren.

Darren Kanthal: [00:00:44] Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about candid career coaching. How are you serving, folks?

Darren Kanthal: [00:00:51] You know, there’s a little bit of a story, of course, and without being too long winded, my story starts in corporate America, which quite frankly, was not my place. Arguably, I was too candid. I would say I had a lack of discretion during that time frame, and when I felt like I experienced in corporate America was don’t talk about real problems, talk about surface stuff and move forward. And I didn’t grow up that way in my house. We talked about conversations and we were deep about the things we talked about. And so my coaching practice, I get I hope it’s OK to curse. I get cut through the bullshit, talk about the real things and help people move forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:31] Now what drew you initially to this corporate kind of career like so you were going through, you know, high school college and you were aiming at corporate and then you realize once you were there that that wasn’t the right fit? Or was it something you were kind of like on autopilot? This is what people like me do. We get a job at corporate?

Darren Kanthal: [00:01:52] You know, interestingly enough, my father was an entrepreneur my whole life, and he passed away in nineteen ninety seven in August. I graduated college in December of ninety seven and no joke. My dad’s side of the family is Jewish. So is Shiva, my uncle who like five foot four Puerto Rican guy strong as an ox said to me, You’re going to run your dad’s business. And being in shock that my father was passed, I was like, Yeah, I’m sure I could do it. And he held me by the shoulders and looked me in the face and said, No, you are going to run your father’s business. And that 30 second exchange was it meaning I finished my last semester of college and I took over my dad’s business. So when I left college, I was an entrepreneur from the gate or out of the gate. You know, my stories got some sympathy in there. I had a house fire. A couple of years later, I lost all of my stuff, personal and professional. Truth be known as the business was a dying breed, and I let it go. And without much of an idea of what to do next, I found myself in corporate America, stayed there for, I don’t know, 15 or 18 years. And without knowing it, I had this entrepreneurial burning inside of me or this entrepreneurial spirit. And in my last corporate gig, I had a boss, my last boss, who was the worst boss of my entire career. And I hired my own career coach and my words to her were I got to figure out how to play nice in these sandboxes. And The Sandbox is our corporate America and these bosses that I did respect. And her words to me were, Maybe you should change the sandbox. So just like the words of Uncle Ralph, a 30 second exchange with my coach led me down the path of I’m going to be an entrepreneur. And that led me to coach in.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:46] Now going, having gone through what you’ve gone through kind of makes you uniquely qualified to help a wide swath of folks, I would think because you’ve. Kind of were involved in the entrepreneurial pursuit. You know, maybe before you were really ready for it and you’ve kind of got all the scar tissue from corporate America, so you can really empathize for from an entrepreneur’s point of view as well as kind of a corporate refugees point of view.

Darren Kanthal: [00:04:17] They’re the corporate refugee. I like that. Yeah, I like to believe so when people ask me about my value proposition. Again, sometimes long winded, long winded, but I talk about a few things. First is I’m a New Yorker and I resonate with being a New Yorker, meaning I’m direct. I do speak with empathy, and I get that feedback before which I love and allows you to cut through the bullshit, as I said earlier. So that’s one. Two is yes, I have fallen flat on my face in corporate America. I’ve been beat up. I’ve been shut out. As a 30 year old man, I literally called my mom crying because I got let go from a job. And yet again, I was pointing the finger at myself, saying, What’s wrong with me? So I’ve been I’ve been around my own block. And interestingly enough, is the people that are drawn to me are often in similar boats, meaning they are unhappy at work and they don’t understand why their ideas are not being heard or explored. They, too, are finding that they’re working for leaders they don’t respect. And this is my story. All those things are the same for me. And so yes, I have a unique perspective. I started as an entrepreneur, as a young man, and I think you are right. I don’t think I was ready for it, but life didn’t really allow me to be ready. So that was it. I was raised to be independent and to rely on myself to make things happen, and that comes out in the way I conduct myself and my coaching. But yeah, I do think I’m well positioned to coach the folks that I work with now.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:48] What drew you kind of to the HR side of business and this career counseling or career coaching? Like, what about that kind of niche? Is what is what’s attractive to you? So what do you like about it?

Darren Kanthal: [00:06:06] Yeah. You know, I like a lot of people, I kind of stepped in air by accident and maybe it wasn’t really by accident, but in I think I think it was 2000. I had two interviews in New York City where I was living. One was with Samuel Adams, which is a Big East Coast beer brand. It’s kind of like fat tire out here in Denver. And I had this other interview with a recruiting firm, and without going into too many details, I accepted the job in the recruiting firm. And and that was the start of my HR career. And how it kind of morphed is I was good at it. It allowed me to kind of drive the ship. I was autonomous. I got to play quarterback. So there was an element of control in there, which I do have a little bit of control freak in me. And I was good at it, as I said. And so I went from a recruiter to leading teams. I was an our business partner, had a unique title out of Fortune, one hundred company of a talent acquisition program manager. So throughout my career, I had both had to influence with authority and also at times influence without authority. And the way that’s parlayed into my entrepreneurism now is that I’ve learned a great deal about the job search process. So the tactics and strategies of how to go about finding jobs. I also did a lot of work with professional development. So for those people that are either gainfully employed or aren’t quite sure what they want to be when they grow up, I’ve got a lot of coaching tools and H.R. tools that I can bring to the table to help folks figure that stuff out. And it all serves me very well, and especially I’ve heard from some clients is that it does give me some validity that I’m not just some guy off the street saying I can help you find a new job or whatever may be is that I’ve got that HR background and people value that. So it’s pretty cool for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:00] Now when you’re working, are you working typically with that executive or maybe the middle manager that wants to level up? Or maybe that new executive that hasn’t had this maybe leadership training before? Or is it a firm hires you to coach a bunch of their people? Like what is your engagement typically look like?

Darren Kanthal: [00:08:20] Yeah, it could be any of the above, which is a very broad stroke, what I would say is where I’m really carving out a niche is what I call the non c level executives. And I use that word executive a little loosely, and that could be shame on me, if you will. But more directly, as I work with the new leader up until the leader who is not quite at that C level or aspires to be. And it’s a really good it’s it’s a place that I know because that’s where I played to be direct. I did not achieve the sea level and, you know, I’ve not sat in the boardroom and some people say that makes puts me at a disadvantage to coach those folks. But the mid-level folks, those are the ranks that I achieved in corporate. I relate well to them. I find that oftentimes they’re quite willing to do the self work that’s required. Self-reflection, contemplation open the growth, quite frankly, exploring their emotions and how that drives their actions. And so I’ve really carved out quite a nice niche with middle management or those non C-level executives.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:27] And then what? What is typically the the impetus of them contacting you? Or are they just frustrated or they, you know, in kind of uncharted territory what is usually that trigger that creates that first engagement with you?

Darren Kanthal: [00:09:45] It’s usually multifaceted, but yes, it typically is built upon something in the frustration bucket. They’re frustrated, they’re annoyed, they’re unhappy, they’re unfulfilled, there’s dissatisfied, they’re stuck, they’re questioning the decisions they’ve made about their career. And oftentimes they’re not often, excuse me. Oftentimes enough. A spouse or significant significant other has not given an ultimatum per say, but it said something’s got to change because you husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whoever it is, you’re spending more time at work than you are at home, and the person contacting me is starting to realize that their life is out of balance. And so when they come to me, oftentimes these middle managers, non sea level execs are gainfully employed, and the way I describe it is they want to level up. They want to be better at life and at work. And oftentimes what I’m seeing is that their own internal struggle, their own internal insecurities, saboteurs, if you will, are holding them back. And what I get to do is the term I like to say is I help help them see the forest through the trees, recognize who they are, what role they’re playing in the outcomes of their life. And if we partner well together. I said oftentimes I think 12 times now, but oftentimes we see growth in them as human beings, their minds are more at ease. The conversations they have with themselves are more positive and the outcomes are greater performance at work. Healthier relationships and their own health and wellness improves.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:27] Now you use the word saboteur earlier, is that something that the people you deal with and maybe just humans as a whole have some built in saboteurs when it comes to their own behavior, their own thinking that they don’t see it? Maybe it’s, you know, subconscious unconscious that they are. They think they’re doing the same thing, but they’re kind of repeating the same mistakes over and over, and it is kind of a self-inflicted wound.

Darren Kanthal: [00:11:57] One, 100 percent. There is a program that has been life changing to me that I’ve also gotten certified in, and I get to lead others through it, which is called positive intelligence. It’s a very simple, very simple conceptually, and there’s a practice and a structure behind it without getting too detailed into it. Just at this moment is, yes, what you’re saying is one hundred percent accurate. We, as humans have these things behaviors, thoughts, actions, tics, nuances, whatever you want to call them, that are typically born from something fear based. Something negative. Insecurity. Fear of failure. Fear of being embarrassed. Fear looking foolish. Fear of something. And often what we do is we have these coping mechanisms to protect ourselves. And yet these coping mechanisms are often sabotaging us in the same way as protecting us, which sounds so bizarre to say, but it’s really what happens. So yes, we all have them in some way, shape or form. And the question becomes, are you is one willing to explore them and be open to what they may be doing to you?

Lee Kantor: [00:13:10] Now, can you share? Obviously, don’t name a name, but an example of what one of these? Kind of sabotage, sabotage, sabotage behaviors were with some. One of your clients so that maybe the listener can understand that this could be happening to them. To me, an area to explore in this under this kind of topic would be if you’re making the same or you’re you’re there’s a saying that says if you see a jerk. Today, you’ve seen the jerk today, but if you’ve seen a jerk every day, you might be the jerk. Is there anything that you can share like from your experience where you’ve seen a person just like, I don’t know why this is happening every time I do this, this outcome happens in these crazy people are all like, they don’t even see that it’s them that is at the heart of the the problem. But it just like kind of like, Wow, this is just everybody’s conspiring against me again.

Darren Kanthal: [00:14:14] It’s funny you say that. I’m laughing because I’m going to use myself as the example. I love the jerk analogy, too. That’s perfect. I love it in the world of positive intelligence. The names of the saboteurs are very simple. It’s things like controller, stickler, pleaser, avoider, victim, hyper achiever, hyper rational. And there’s two more that I’m forgetting off the top of my head. So these words, without even knowing the work of positive intelligence, I’m sure you and listeners can start to form what conclusion they may about those very names of saboteurs. For me, my top two are restless and controller. Now, it’s also important to point out that there’s a tense saboteur that we all have, and it’s simply called the judge. And some people relate to it as the imposter within us, the inner critic. I’ve heard people call it my dark angel. I’ve heard it referred to as Achilles heel. Whatever you want to call it, great holistically in peak intelligence. We call it the judge. Now, for me, very specifically, is my judge convinced me that I was unworthy. I was not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not good looking enough. And when things go wrong, of course, it’s my fault. And because I was coming from a place of a lack of worthiness. Bottom line is I was insecure about who I was. In order to try to compensate for that. The way I showed up was, I had to prove to you that I was right and that I was worthy because I had something to offer a situation based upon intelligence that was typically how I showed up.

Darren Kanthal: [00:15:56] And so my controller would show up in the sense of give it to me, I’ll do it and I’ll do it because I have to show you that I’m capable of doing it and prove it to myself as well. And that showed itself in a million different ways, anyone who is a control freak in any way, shape or form, I’m guessing, can relate. I’ll have some people in my life who are pleasers. I won’t name names. The pleaser often puts themselves second to you, being first. And what happens is the beautiful thing, right? We find them very altruistic and caring and that kind of good thing. The challenge is for the pleaser is they give so much to others and put themselves second, third, fourth that they become resentful. They bottle up their emotions. They start to have their own self-worth issues because they say, I do all this stuff for everyone else and no one does anything for me. So these are just two examples. There’s many more. And and I find that a lot of people can relate to being a pleaser, doing a lot for others or being a control and saying just give it to me because I’ll do it.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:02] Now in your work, you use the phrase emotional arborist. Can you explain that?

Darren Kanthal: [00:17:08] Yeah. I’m laughing, I was working with a with a coach who helped me with a keynote speech I was putting on. And when he asked me what I did, I told him I was an executive coach and he sarcastically and he’s like, Yeah, I know a million of those. And so over time, the emotional outburst was really borne because I love the image of trees. There’s something about nature and tree. I’m so drawn to that image. And as I was talking to my coach about the work of positive intelligence, my love for trees, he came up with the emotional arborist. So I give him all the credit for that. And depending on the setting, when someone says, Hey, what do you do? I say I’m an emotional arborist and like Smokey the Bear, I believe only you can prevent unintentional wildfires, emotional wildfires. And if someone is like, All right, what does that mean? The story says, I get to work with clients on three things. The first is your roots and just like a tree. We know that when you a human being man or woman, when your roots are strong, you feel confident. You feel secure. You feel competent. You feel happy. You feel positive. Now, just like a tree, we know that when you have really strong roots, you also need the right environment to grow. The right environment could be the right job, the right boss, the right relationship, the right house, the right physical location. We know that just like trees, when we have strong roots and the right environment, our canopies thrive, we perform great at work. We have really healthy relationships. Life is good. So as an emotional arborist, I get to work on my clients to strengthen their roots, find the right environment and watch them thrive.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:55] Now, if somebody wants to learn more, get on your calendar or learn more about the different programs or coaching opportunities, what is the best way to get a hold of you? You have a website.

Darren Kanthal: [00:19:05] I do so there’s there’s two ways I am lucky enough to be the only Darren Campbell on LinkedIn, and I am quite certain. Our family of cannibals is the only ones in the United States. My grandparents emigrated from Germany and during World War Two. So Darren Kanth on LinkedIn and my website is candid career coaching.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:28] Good stuff, Darren. Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Darren Kanthal: [00:19:34] Thank you, we appreciate you, too. Thanks a lot.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:36] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

 

Celia Willis With KWI Communications

by

CeliaWillis
Atlanta Business Radio
Celia Willis With KWI Communications
Loading
/

CeliaWillisCelia Willis is CEO of KWI Communications, the small but mighty force that serves as a key communication and community-building mechanism behind some of Atlanta’s most respected corporations.

A trailblazing leader, she boldly fosters a company culture characterized by collaboration, innovation, and a truly people-first vision, which guidesKWI’s approach to its client work and business. Celia connects with her team and manages the balance between growth and community within KWI.

She loves the challenge of building a company of dynamic, strategic consultants who move with an ever-changing client landscape. With a background in economics and communications, she brings a unique perspective to client projects and business management.

Prior to KWI, Celia was the communications director for Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a local non-profit, and The South Fork Conservancy, which focused on connecting communities with inner-city trails.

Her top strengths are Connectedness, Futuristic, Strategic, Ideation, and Arranger.

Follow KWI Communications on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About KWI Communications
  • A unique approach to solving business problems for your clients
  • Role of communication in business
  • End-to-end guidance and support

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Celia Willis: [00:00:43] Thank you.

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

Celia Willis: [00:00:50] Well, so Kateb, why is communications and management consulting agency based here in Atlanta? We actually began as an internal comms team with an embedded with embedded consultants who worked hand in hand with corporate communications staff to really build employee engagement within companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:09] Now, what is kind of the the typical client you have, are they like large enterprise companies?

Celia Willis: [00:01:16] Yeah, we tend to have sort of mainly private companies. Fortune two hundred and Fortune 500 generally at least one billion dollar companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] And then what’s the pain that they’re having that K-Y is the solution?

Celia Willis: [00:01:31] Well, a lot of companies reach a size where they suddenly realize they’re having trouble maintaining quality standards, reaching people, making sure people have all the information they need to do their jobs well. And that’s where we come in. Or is this how we started? So and we’ve expanded over the years to helping them with other pain points related to people. So not just communications, but how how is their structure enabling people to do their job as well? What do you need leadership development? You need coaching. So we do a lot of things to address people pain, so to speak.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:07] Now what are some of the symptoms that like things are happening? It’s a larger company. How do they know they have a problem like I do? Certain incidents happen is that they’re having a hard time filling slots. Is it? They’re getting a lot of turnover, like are there symptoms that are telling management that, Hey, this is something that’s not right, we’ve got to fix this?

Celia Willis: [00:02:30] Well, it’s interesting. You use the word symptoms. We actually like to talk about organizations as though they’re a human body. So if you think of the human body, there’s different muscles, there’s the skeleton, there’s the connective tissue. We say that the different departments may be the muscles. The connective tissue is the communications that keeps everything together. The skeleton is the company structure. And then at the heart of the people. Right. And so what we do is we kind of go in and diagnose the problem. We use surveys, focus groups or just anecdotal evidence if we can’t do those other things. And it’s usually we’re brought in because someone says they’re not hearing us. People aren’t doing what they need to do or like, you just said, we’re losing people, we’re not communicating well enough with our salespeople because they’re not selling the right products, you know, so it’s different for everybody. But we like to come in and do a really deep analysis of what’s going on

Lee Kantor: [00:03:26] Now, a trend that we’re seeing in just the economy, in business in general. Is this great resignation, right? What does that speak to you regarding this issue that the dissatisfaction that employees are having, it seems like across the board, across industries, at all levels?

Celia Willis: [00:03:46] Yes, the great resignation is something I’ve been talking to clients a lot about, and it was something that I kind of felt coming in the industry. I think that the past year and a half has kind of shaken people up in lots of different ways, and it’s caused them to pause and reevaluate their lives, which is a very common reaction after someone experience experiences something dramatic or traumatic in their lives as they reevaluate. And I think that to a certain extent is just that. But they’re looking at their companies and they’re saying, Why? What am I doing here, right? Do I feel connected to what this company is doing? Do I feel like I’m growing here? I mean, that I think is at the core. A lot of these people’s resignations is that they they don’t either connect to what the company is trying to do. They don’t feel like they are making a tangible impact. In some cases, they just realize they’re in the wrong careers and the companies can’t do much about that. But there it is, a time for companies to reevaluate their why and how they’re communicating that to their people.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:47] Now what about this kind of lack of trust between management and the employees in terms of, you know, with all the the layoffs and the reorganize and all this stuff that the employees are just getting kind of deaf to the promise of this better future where they just it just been there, done that. I’ve seen this happen. You know, why should I trust you now that this is somehow going to be different than it was, you know, two years ago before the last reorg?

Celia Willis: [00:05:17] Oh, man, this is this is the this is the question. It really comes down to, I think, companies taking fast action. So identifying what they can do right away. And then I didn’t find what’s going to take more time because on the other side, if they move too quickly, they’ll they’ll also get criticism for not doing things right and for not communicating enough and et cetera, et cetera. Right. So it’s sort of a catch twenty two situation, but I encourage companies to really identify those quick wins, the low hanging fruit that they can just go in and say, OK, we’re going to do this, this and this right away. Here are our long term plans and really involving the employees in creating that change and implementing it. So they have a saying that no one thinks their baby is ugly. If someone has a hand in creating something, then then they’re going to be much more forgiving of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:08] Now. Some of your work is around culture, and to me, culture is something that is going to be created, whether you’re taking any initiative and being proactive about it or not. What are some of the things that companies can do a better job at improving their culture, at least even having it resonate with their folks? Because it seems like there’s just a big disconnect between what maybe management thinks their culture is and what it actually is?

Celia Willis: [00:06:39] Yeah. Well, I think the first thing they can do is understand that culture is not a stagnant concept. It’s always changing. It’s always, as we call it, community and community to me is both culture and the people. Because as you bring in new people, as you bring in news, offering services, customers, your culture will shift as it should to morph into this new thing based on what people are bringing to the table. So I think companies really need to regularly tap in to say, Who are we now? You know, we’ve grown or we’ve shrunk or we have changed direction. So who are we? What is our culture? What are people value? What do they need? And that requires very regular touch, especially right now when there’s so much change happening and a lot of resignation and hiring and all sorts of challenges. So I think really, at this point in time, almost quarterly deep dove check ins in different ways could really help companies understand what their cultures are.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:35] Now, how do they how does a company kind of improve their culture and community when, you know, sometimes half, if not more of their employees are remote?

Celia Willis: [00:07:47] Yes, and that’s been a challenge. Again, I think it comes back to listening, I found that in a remote world, you know, it becomes a lot less about the office parks and things like that and more about how am I growing, how am I connecting again to that vision of mission? I think when we went remote, all those in office perks, especially for big corporations, were gone. And so what people were left with was, what am I doing here, right? So that clarity of mission and purpose becomes so, so important and also knowing how am I valued, which is how am I growing in the organization? Do they value me at all anyway? And making that very clear, I think is now the new the new currency

Lee Kantor: [00:08:30] And how well the job. Do you think that these large enterprises are doing when it comes to telling the story to their their people? How how are they able to articulate kind of their dream to their individual stakeholders? Because I think there’s sometimes a disconnect where the upper management, you know, they want to go somewhere, but the people that are doing the work are kind of like, I’m not saying that, that’s not how I see the company.

Celia Willis: [00:09:05] Yeah. I think the rate of change has been really challenging for companies and for the people. They feel lost in it. And I think the best thing companies can do in terms of how well they’re doing, it varies. I think everyone’s struggling with it. I don’t think anyone’s saying we’re amazing right now. We’re communicating perfectly for something. There’s not really such a thing. And especially now, it’s almost impossible to communicate everything going on because it’s so complex and changing so quickly. And so I think the best thing they can do is bring them along pretty transparently on that journey and say, Look, we’re in this together. We’re we’re all in a pandemic for the first time to hear, right? So come with us and talk to us, you know, really keeping that open line of communication is going to be their best option to make people feel connected to what’s happening now.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:57] To me, there seems to be an opportunity when you are kind of enabling and empowering your people to be the storytellers about their experience. In some ways, it’s a risk because you may not be happy about the story they’re telling. But on the other hand, it could be pretty powerful to the people around them because they’re getting to share what they’re seeing and articulating it and and sharing it among their team and the whole company.

Celia Willis: [00:10:23] Yeah, I think authenticity is a growing idea. Even in corporate America was not something that people even really thought was an option even 10 years ago to be their authentic selves. But with the digital revolution and the social media just taking over, there, really, companies cannot stop people from telling their own stories, so the best thing they can do is lean into that and empower them and really see their employees and their customers as their best assets, their best ambassadors, and be prepared for the negative feedback they get. But really empowering people to be authentic and tell those stories and about how they connect with the company. I think is is what companies really have to. Like I said before I lean into

Lee Kantor: [00:11:14] Now, are you seeing more kind of employee resource groups where there’s groups of like affiliate groups, affinity groups among their employees in terms of allowing them to kind of gather and kind of build community among themselves?

Celia Willis: [00:11:30] I actually know I’m not seeing it increase. I think that was definitely very active beforehand. And I haven’t really seen it grow since everyone went remote. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if those kind of groups took a little bit of a hit just because a lot of that was fueled in person. So I think it’s, from my perspective, stayed relatively stable.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:56] Is that a good thing, or do you think it’s something that that’s an opportunity for enterprise to really connect and build community among their people with that?

Celia Willis: [00:12:05] Oh, absolutely. I think that the idea of communities is changing and people are reevaluating what communities are. They’re a part of who they are. I think there’s a lot of identity soul searching happening right now, to be honest with you. And companies have definitely an opportunity to tap into that, that search and say, OK, well, let us help you figure out where what your community is and help us build a community that you feel like you could be a part of.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:31] Now, a lot of this stuff sounds good on paper. Is there kind of any metrics or stats that say, Hey, investing in our people in this manner and the community and the culture really pays off?

Celia Willis: [00:12:48] Oh, I mean, absolutely, Gallup is often a really great resource for stats like that. There’s lots of there’s lots of evidence. And I’m trying to think I don’t have any at the top of my head that say that the engaged employees are 10 times more productive and they are much more loyal. They stay the companies longer if you build a strong community. Ultimately, people, when you ask them why they stay at their jobs, it’s because of the people over and over and over again. They want to work with a team. They like that they feel connected to that. They feel supported by and a company they feel supported by. They want leaders who have vision. They want to feel connected to that vision. I mean, that’s really what it comes down to. It’s very relational, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:13:40] Relationships, I think, are critical. That’s a point of differentiation. I think among the successful companies that, you know, they say that people don’t quit companies, they quit bosses. So if you have a really strong team where people respect each other and want to be around them, that person typically isn’t going to leave to make a few thousand dollars more a year.

Celia Willis: [00:13:59] Right? Exactly. I mean, and here we go. Here we go. So companies in the top quartile of employee engagement are twenty one percent more profitable, seventeen percent more productive and experience 60 percent less turnover and plus companies with a great culture experience, they experience three times better stock performance. It’s just there are clear business results from it.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:24] Now is there any low hanging fruit a company could take to improve their community and their culture and their kind of way they’re dealing with their people?

Celia Willis: [00:14:32] I think so. You know, if a company isn’t able to take any major actions. I would tell them to at least do a deep dove survey and be really careful about the questions you ask, make sure they’re actionable because then what they need to do immediately after that is every action they take in reaction to their feedback they’re receiving from their employees. They need to say, because you said this, we did this. It comes back to that communication. Funnily enough, it’s really connecting the dots for them. You said this, so we did this right because they will not make that connection unless it’s very, very clear and they can be really, really small things. I’m trying to think of an example, but it doesn’t need to be totally restructuring the company. It could be, hey, we’re going to start communicating on a biweekly basis because you wanted to hear from us more or we’re going to stop sending so many emails because you said it’s flooding my inbox. I don’t have time to read all these is just things like that can make a huge difference as long as it’s in direct, direct reaction to what the employee needs and that makes them feel heard. It makes them feel like they’re part of something important.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:44] Now, when kW takes on a client as it typically start with one project and expands, or are you doing some kind of major renovation work when you go in there?

Celia Willis: [00:15:55] Oh, it just depends. I would say so. We either start from the very top, so we either go in and say, OK, we’re here to do a company wide community survey is what we call it, our community diagnostic. We go deep, we give them amazing data, we do focus groups. It’s a really fun process and so interesting. Or someone comes to us and says, Oh, I’m drowning, can you just help me? And then we can talk about the strategy later. So we come in from both ends of the spectrum. It’s really we try and meet our clients needs, but we have found that if we’re just there to execute, there’s a limited amount of impact long term that we can make. So we always try to bring in that strategic mindset as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:36] So you mentioned at the beginning, coaching is a part of this. How are you seeing more and more companies kind of lean into coaching and not just save coaching for the highest level people, but it kind of drilling down to some of the, you know, people throughout the company?

Celia Willis: [00:16:52] Absolutely. I mean, there was a lot of evidence, especially toward the beginning of the pandemic, that middle managers were hit hardest. By this, they were suddenly remote. They didn’t know how to manage remotely. They had trouble managing in person. And and so we’ve seen this huge increase in demand for training for four managers. We’ve been doing it for clients. We have St. Cloud, our leadership enablement program, and that’s for managers. It’s not for executives. The executives are actually their coaches. We empower their bosses to coach them after our trainings take place, but they’re finding that middle management really is the key to success. And so I’m really pleased to see that that level is getting a lot more attention than it ever has before.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:36] Now, if somebody was to institute a coaching program for the first time, can you share some kind of do’s and don’ts?

Celia Willis: [00:17:44] Sure. So I would say, don’t assume you know what your employees need, but meet in the middle tight business results. Give them a clear direction. What they’re trying, what they need to be doing. So clear competencies is always something that we, we really recommend be consistent. And I think we found great success is that we’ll we, for example, will do the trainings. We’ll do daylong trainings with employees. But having their bosses equipped to then coach them on implementing the things that we have trained them to do is essential to the success. So make sure you have a follow through plan. Don’t just tell someone to go do something and expect it to happen that follow up and that accountability is essential.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:30] So now your your company might have started out in communication, but obviously it’s expanded beyond that. Is there anything that you want to share about how to maybe begin an engagement, as you know, we talked a little bit about what they typically look like, but if the ideal client came to you, what would be that starting point?

Celia Willis: [00:18:56] Well, you know, I would say that the starting point is saying companies that say, you know, we’re having something’s not working right, we’re losing people, we have a people related challenge, right? They’re not happy, they’re not performing the way they need to. That’s the first indicator that we can serve them if they want to gather more information or great resource for that. If they want to build programs and say, Well, we’re not exactly sure what’s going on, but we know we need to do something. We can really come in and help them figure out what’s going on, what they need to do if they’re having. If they don’t know how to communicate, we will come in and build structures for them. We will help them staff. I mean, there’s a lot that we do in addition to helping them just get the work done.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:40] Now, if you can look into your crystal ball for the rest of this year and into next year, there’s this great resignation. Is it begin to wane? What’s going to happen moving forward in your mind?

Celia Willis: [00:19:53] You know, I think it’s difficult to predict. I don’t think we’re at the end of this sort of deep, self-reflective time period that people are in where they’re moving on. I’ve seen a lot of people just quit completely. They haven’t even gotten another job or they’re going out on their own to do something they’ve always wanted to do. I do think it will slow. I think it’s already slowing down. And I think it will. It will slow down. But we’re going to see a shift in how the marketplace works, I think.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:21] And if somebody wants to learn more about Kawhi and get a hold of you or somebody on the team, what’s the website and best way to get a hold of you?

Celia Willis: [00:20:29] Yeah, reach out to our team and we’ll take the conversation from there are our web addresses. Ww w w w.i seo com yeah. We’d love to talk to you. Well, thank you. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn too.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:47] All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Celia Willis: [00:20:51] Thank you for the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:52] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see our next time on it. Land that business radio.

 

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Dorian Webb With Dorian Webb Lifestyle

by

DorianWebb
Bay Area Business Radio
Dorian Webb With Dorian Webb Lifestyle
Loading
/

Leah-Davis-Ambassador-logo1

DorianWebbDorian Webb the founder of Dorian Webb Lifestyle, creates intentional semiprecious and precious jewelry, artwork, and bespoke home décor that celebrates women, the beauty of connection, and African American culture.

The company, which Dorian began while studying at Yale University, found early success at its first trade show where Neiman Marcus purchased the line for their stores, and a stylist featured Dorian Webb earrings on the cover of Essence.

This success led Dorian to expand into home décor. Not just utilitarian objects, Dorian’s chandeliers were shown in museums in a 7 year, nationwide traveling exhibition that showcased African American polyrhythmic art. Recently, a solo exhibition of Dorian’s most recent sculptures and paintings opened at the Thelma Harris Art Gallery in Oakland.

Community service plays an important role for Dorian Webb who often donates the proceeds of her designs to charitable causes. To encourage networking and mentoring opportunities for women of color, Dorian launched the “Women in Business” series for the Alameda County Small Business Development Center, now in its 5th year. A frequent lecturer at universities and conferences, Dorian was also the recipient of the 2019 Madame CJ Walker Entrepreneur Award.

A former board member of the Museum of the African Diaspora and a founder of the Yale Arts Alumni League, Dorian has written columns on design and life from an African American perspective for trade and shelter magazines.

Dorian is one of six recipients of the Natural Diamond Council’s 2021 Emerging Designer Diamond Initiative which supports BIPOC jewelry designers to develop a diamond collection. Dorian’s 18 karat gold and diamond collection, entitled Quality || Equality launched on October 15th, 2021.

Connect with Dorian on LinkedIn, and Twitter and follow Dorian Webb Lifestyle on Facebook,

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Create intentional pieces
  • About Dorian Webb Lifestyle
  • Latest collection

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Bay Area Business Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Leah Davis, coaching inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy. Today on Bay Area Business Radio, we have Dorian Webb with Dorian Webb Lifestyle. Welcome, Dorian.

Dorian Webb: [00:00:39] Hi Lea, so glad to be with you today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:41] Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Dorian Webb lifestyle. How are you serving, folks?

Dorian Webb: [00:00:47] So I create intentional jewelry and home decor. Intentional meaning pieces that have meaning that speak to the idea of celebrating women. The power of being in the moment and also my African-American heritage.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] Now what’s your back story? How did you get into this line of work?

Dorian Webb: [00:01:13] So I started my company when I was a junior at Yale University, and after spending a semester in in Italy, which I absolutely loved with a limited skill set, I decided that there are some way that I could find a reason to be able to go back to Italy six times a year. And so I kind of constructed the jewelry business around that. And then over time, that morphed from not only using Venetian glass, but then incorporating sterling, silver and semi-precious stones. And to my latest collection, which is now 18 karat gold and diamonds.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:54] Now, when you’re getting involved in that kind of work that’s in and around lifestyle, that it’s a kind of a nice to have product rather than a must have product. How did you decide to kind of position yourself in the marketplace?

Dorian Webb: [00:02:09] Well, I mean, I think for me, the the the thing I think that differentiated me early on was my use of color, which is very kind of celebratory. And I think also in some ways kind of speaks to African-American culture and that love of just really strong colors. Interesting color combinations and polyrhythms within the designs. And I think that people just really, you know, just really kind of responded responded to that.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:43] Now, what about in terms of pricing, how did you decide on what price point you’d be selling it?

Dorian Webb: [00:02:50] Well, I think a lot of that was determined by the materials that I was, was using or am using. And because I am, I mean, for me, it was a conscious decision to enter the kind of the luxury market because I think there’s something meaningful about having items in your life that surround you, that are of quality and that sustainability is not only about kind of recycled metals, which I which I use, but but it’s also just about purchasing things that you love that can grow with you over time and that kind of almost, you know, develop or with you so that there’s always something that you can kind of gain from, from using those, those items. So for me, that was that was kind of the driving influence and just knowing wanting to create things that people would, would love. And sometimes that comes with a without a sort of an elevated price point.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:54] The reason I’m asking is that a lot of folks, they don’t choose that route. They they choose a lower price or in order to reach more and more people. And I just. Is there any lessons for folks out there because I am on your side, I think that it’s OK to be a high priced service or product. I believe that that is in a lot of ways easier because you can find your clients a lot easier and you’re signaling certain types of value that when you’re lower priced, it’s more difficult to stand out. Can you just share a little bit about your thought process? Was that a hard decision for you? Was that just something that was just part of your confidence and your character? So then that wasn’t that big of a decision to go that route?

Dorian Webb: [00:04:46] Yeah, I think that there was a little bit of there was a little bit of trepidation. But I mean, I think in some ways that happened organically. In other ways, it was a very. It was a very calculated decision, and I say that it was organic in that when I did my my first trade show, Neiman Marcus picked up the line for their stores. So already there was kind of, you know, sort of validation that what I was doing had an audience and that had a very kind of specific audience. But I also just think that, you know, a lot of times when people start out beginning a business, especially if they haven’t had any experience in in running a business at all. Similar to my background, the inclination is to kind of draw people in with a lower price point. And it just so hard for people to. And I’ve done actually a significant amount of business consulting. And one of the things I always kind of underline in that is that it’s just so hard to compete on price because those customers that you get on being the cheapest are those are the same customers who will leave you if they find something else, that’s that’s a slightly cheaper. So what you’re doing has to be about more than just price point. You really have to give value. And I think that that also in kind of carving out your your niche in the market, you know, price has to be has to be a part of that. And it also has to be a part of the story that you’re that you’re telling. And I think again, you know, here is where perhaps the my African-American heritage kind of comes into play. But there is a lot of times an assumption that the things that I would be creating with my racial background would be kind of lower end. So it’s, you know, in some ways, it’s also just very. It’s, I think, just just, you know, kind of taking a stand on what I’m about and what my culture is about and ways that are not always typically seen or acknowledged.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:20] Yeah, I think a lot of people struggle with this in terms of having the confidence to charge what they would like to charge. And I think that a lot of people’s default position is to always their first move is to go cheaper. And I think that that’s a mistake in when you’re selling anything, whether it’s a product or service. And when I’m working with people and coaching them about this, I like to tell them at least the starting point is a rate that you can look at yourself in the mirror and not laugh. You know, you have to have the confidence to say that no, without blinking. And it’s just matter of fact. And a lot of people I find just instinctively don’t go higher. They go lower and it kind of drives me crazy. So I celebrate you and you have the the confidence to go after the price that you want to go after. I mean, a lot of this stuff is subjective. So why be subjectively cheaper when you could be subjectively, you know, have more deliver more value? So I say, you know, kudos for you for going there.

Dorian Webb: [00:08:34] Yeah. And as I said, it’s also, you know, the part of what I enjoy is the personal connection with my with my customers. So a lot of times that involves custom pieces that involves searching out particular stones, that involves, you know, again, the use of 18 karat gold or, you know, kind of finer materials and that sort of thing. So that’s also kind of part of the part of the advantage of of selling a luxury product is being able to also provide a luxury service that goes along with that experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:13] So now at the beginning, I guess your work was inspired by your love of Italy and wanting to go back there several times a year. Has what inspired you kind of evolved over the years?

Dorian Webb: [00:09:26] It has. It has. I think now I’m very much, and I think this is in many ways sort of a large part of what we’ve a result of, what we’ve all kind of been been going through the last year and year and a half. And so my work has become even more, even more intentional in terms of wanting to take a stand on certain social justice issues, inspiring women to vote, creating pieces around the Black Lives Matter, creating pieces around the idea of hope. And then the latest collection that I did quality to equality is still about that idea of using quality materials and the idea of having that access to resources are part of kind of leveling the playing field.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:31] Now in your work, jewelry is obviously an important component, but there’s also the art and sculptures and paintings. Can you talk about how that are those kind of hand in hand or is that kind of a different part of your brain that’s working on those kind of larger pieces?

Dorian Webb: [00:10:50] Those also tie in to just the idea of again, wanting to have things around you that are meaningful and eye, the paintings in the sculpture were part of a larger project that I called the marriage project and that was featured in a local gallery. I had a solo exhibition and and those pieces again, are kind of color driven. They use a lot of the elements of the of the jewelry in terms of incorporating semi-precious stones. And then the paintings are all kind of larger scale pieces that that just talk about the experience in the various stages of marriage and what it’s like for women kind of moving through that that space.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:40] Now, in a I guess a part of your work is to inspire and mentor others. Has were you doing that, you know, since day one or is that something that’s just kind of started happening lately?

Dorian Webb: [00:11:55] That’s something that, you know, I started my business of a fair amount of time ago, and I guess it was during after the recession, I closed my close my business for a bit and moved to from from New York to the West Coast. And at that time, I helped my employees kind of start their own businesses before leaving. And then when I moved to the Oakland area, I started teaching Low-Income women how to start their own businesses and then moved on to other types of business consulting. So that definitely has been kind of a part of what I’ve been interested in doing for for quite some time because I just think that there’s no reason for for anyone to kind of reinvent the wheel. And if there are those resources out there that you can access and then then you should. And people who have those resources, whatever those may be, I think, have a responsibility to share that, that information and those and that those opportunities with with others.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:03] So now when you’re talking to those women that are just starting out, what are you seeing? Are you seeing something or are they optimistic? Is this something that they were kind of born to do? They had an itch that needed to be scratched or they kind of just frustrated by the job market. So this is kind of just something they feel that that that they have more control of their destiny. Like what is kind of behind these women that are kind of going forward and kind of trying to carve their own path?

Dorian Webb: [00:13:36] Yeah, I think that it seems like lately that people have been leaning towards just I think again with after sort of going through all the things we’ve we’ve all been going through recently that that there’s a there’s almost a recognition that nothing is guaranteed that life is short and that you really if you have a talent or if there’s something that you really wanted to explore that that this is the time that that there’s no better time than than the present to kind of get started on those on those things. And and I think that there’s also to a greater realization of the resources that are out there and there is a little bit more support for businesses and women owned businesses, minority owned businesses, veteran owned businesses. So there’s there’s I think it’s a little bit. Um, I mean, it’s never easy, but it’s I think it’s a little bit easier in this time to really kind of be able to go to go out there and just start a business. And also with the recognition too, that there are a lot of places that rents are now lower. They’re more accessible and and people can start something that is that basically enables them to work a little bit more ways that are more streamlined with outsourcing help as well. So there’s there’s just all these support systems that are available now that I think that people are accessing, which is wonderful.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:14] So now for you, do you get the same rush of, you know, creating and selling a piece as if one of the people you’re mentoring, you know, has a victory?

Dorian Webb: [00:15:24] I do, I do, I do, I mean, I think it’s always that that that measure of excitement when you go take something from an idea to to a reality and then also realize that that that’s something that you’ve made is going to bring people joy, that there’s something in that that’s just that just pure magic each and every time it happens.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:48] Yeah, I’m of the mindset that the entrepreneur is an artist because they are creating something from nothing.

Dorian Webb: [00:15:54] Exactly, exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:56] Now what’s next for you? What is the end of this year and next year look like?

Dorian Webb: [00:16:02] So I’m excited to launch my my new, my new collection with a major online retailer modus operandi. And we’ll also going to be doing a kind of an introduction to the new collection on the here on the West Coast. We had just a launch last last week in New York. So very excited about that. And I’m also going to be putting into or giving life to a collection that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. That is that is based on Harriet Tubman. And they’re really excited about that collection as well. And yeah, just a lot of a lot of different projects that are kind of building on on the the the platforms that we’ve kind of laid laid thus far.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:56] Now, how has kind of the digital world impact your art? You mentioned this online partnership. You know, probably when you started, that wasn’t a channel choice for you. Do you think that that’s kind of expanded the reach of your work now that people all over the world can see or have the opportunity to see your work?

Dorian Webb: [00:17:17] Yeah, I think it definitely has. I mean, honestly, for me, there’s been a little bit of a of a learning curve because it seemed like this. Things change mightily when I was taking some time out and teaching and mentoring women. And so, you know, for me, it’s exciting to use these new this new technology to be able to access customers, to be able to kind of control the message, to not be as reliant on individual retailers, but instead be able to communicate directly with the customer. So that has been really kind of, you know, game changing for my business.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:06] And any advice for others that are in this kind of business have had to build that database and how to build those direct lines to customers that that way you do have access to them when you want to have access to them, rather than rely on other channels like, you know, Facebook or even, you know, the the retail stores.

Dorian Webb: [00:18:26] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that that’s the mailing lists and your database is that’s that’s the key to your future. We all felt a little a little bit of a jolt. I guess it was a couple of weeks ago when some social media platforms went went down for five hours. And for some people, that that meant that they had no more access to their customers. So it’s always so important to be able to whatever platform you’re on, however, you’re reaching your customers to make sure that you are transitioning them into your database and that you are nurturing them and giving them information that they need on a regular basis so that you are the primary contact with, with those, with those with those customers. Because otherwise, you know, it’s like if you don’t have access to your to your customers, then you are forever beholden to someone else.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:30] Yeah. Amen to that. Now, if somebody wants to get a hold of you and learn more about what you’re up to, what is the website or the best way to get to follow you?

Dorian Webb: [00:19:39] Yes, so I am at my website is Dorian Web.com, and that’s web with two BS and I’m also on Instagram, which is at Dorian Web. And I also would love to extend to your to your listening audience a 20 percent discount on on my pieces from the quality to equality collection. And that’s with code biz, radio biz radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:14] Well, that’s a very generous offer and thank you for doing that.

Dorian Webb: [00:20:18] Sure. Sure, sure. My pleasure.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:19] And thank you for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dorian Webb: [00:20:23] Thanks so much for having me on, Ali.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:25] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see all next time on Bay Area Business Radio.

Wendy Taccetta With Verizon Business

by

WendyTaccetta
Atlanta Business Radio
Wendy Taccetta With Verizon Business
Loading
/

Verizon BusinessWendyTaccettaAs Senior Vice President for Nationwide Small Business and Channel Chief for Verizon Business, Wendy Taccetta is responsible for driving results in several strategic areas of the business. They are focused on creating the best end-to-end wireless experience for small business owners who trust their business to Verizon.

She is also focused on developing a customer-centric Partner Program at Verizon. They understand that a great partner experience will always deliver a better customer experience. Channel Partners has called their strategic focus “a historic revamping” of Verizon’s channel program. Their ambition is to make it easier than ever before to partner with Verizon.

Her team of 1,400+ employees is committed to accelerating small business growth, driving transformation across the Verizon Business ecosystem, and fostering a culture of collaboration every day.

She has held a variety of roles during her 21-year tenure at Verizon, which has allowed her to build a diverse resume of experience in business and consumer sales, business transformation, and sales operations. Most recently, she served as Senior Vice President, Global Commercial Operations at Verizon Business.

She is a second-generation V-teamer, whose father was a field technician for 35+ years. She lives in New Jersey with her husband of 17 years. When she is not working, she is baking, spending time with her family, cheering for the Yankees (or Cowboys), or planning for their next travel adventure. She currently serves on the Executive Committee for the Northeast Boys and Girls Clubs of America. In 2020, she was named a Channel Chief of the Year by CRN.

Her personal ethos aligns with Verizon’s commitment to the four stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders, and society. She is a passionate employee advocate, committed to leadership development, and a champion of women and other minorities in business. She believes diversity is not only the right thing to do but that it creates a stronger company and society.

Quote she lives by: “When you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give others the same chances that helped you succeed.” – Michelle Obama

She works hard to keep the door of opportunity open and am committed to sustaining efforts that will give the same opportunities to others. She is proud of the work that she has played a role in over the last 20+ years and is excited about the possibilities that lie ahead.

Connect with Wendy on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Do not be intimidated by technology
  • More than 60% of the hacking starts with individual behavior
  • Expand the ways to support
  • Verizon has a pillar about helping society

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Wendy Taccetta: [00:00:43] Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about Verizon business. How are you serving, folks?

Wendy Taccetta: [00:00:50] So I am what they call a Verizon baby, actually. I’ve been with the company since 1999 and my dad was a tech for thirty five years. And it’s a different company than it was when my dad started. We are now all about mobility, making sure that people can stay connected, but that they can do bigger things as they recover from COVID and making sure that companies can not only survive this moment, but that they can thrive through it.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] So now how do you recommend small business folks to leverage all that is Verizon business?

Wendy Taccetta: [00:01:27] I think the biggest thing for small business owners is to not be intimidated by technology. So what’s interesting when we talk to small business owners, we just completed a survey of 600 owners and what they told us is they’re more optimistic about their future now than they were a year ago. But they also know that they have to keep changing if they’re going to keep pace. So of course, it starts with having a great cell phone and a great cell provider, and we are proud to be that and that’s been our legacy. But it’s so much more. If you want to be a small business owner these days, you’ve got to be agile. You’ve got to be able to do appointments at your customers home. You’ve got to be able to let your employees work from home. You’ve got to make sure your data is secure. All of those things are technology. And what we know is you may be a fabulous landscaper, but understanding cybersecurity that may not be your biggest strengths. So what we’re focused on is you can come to any of our stores across the country. We have 7200 locations, and on any day we will sit with you and do a consultation to figure out how to really enable your business to do even more than you do today. So it’s been exciting because business owners know they need to do this work. They don’t know where to begin, and they trust us because we’ve always been reliable. And what we want them to know is we are more than a cell phone company. We have so much more to offer them than we ever have in the past.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:00] Now isn’t the difficult part for an initiative like this is to even open the mind of your customer to even think of Verizon as a potential solution partner in this area. Their business, like it’s just been kind of ingrained in us that Verizon is the, you know, Verizon and cell phone are, you know, arm in arm, and that makes perfect sense. And it just to then to then say, OK, I’m going to also go to them because I’m having, you know, a strategy issue with my business. If I should, you know, go into this area or if I should, you know, you know, reach out to them because, you know, cyber, you know, somebody’s a friend of mine got hacked. I wonder if that’s going to impact me.

Wendy Taccetta: [00:03:43] So you are absolutely right. It is not what people have always thought of when they think of Verizon, so they created my role about four months ago and my job is to be obsessed relentlessly about small business owners, to listen to them and to listen to our teams about what are these businesses struggling with. And I want to give you a great, really great example. The biggest thing we hear is that I need more capacity and I need more agility. It used to be great to have the best location on the corner, but nowadays you need more than that because everyone doesn’t want to come to your location and you may want to serve customers beyond your own community. Well, there’s technology that makes that possible. But here’s the other thing we know customers are not willing to trade quality for access. And what I mean by that is they still want a rich experience when they do business with you. They want to see videos. They want to be able to do instant payment. They want to know that their data is secure. So as a business owner, you have to be thinking about those things. But there’s so much that comes with that you get access to more customers.

Wendy Taccetta: [00:04:59] If you can be digital, you get access to more revenue. If you have the ability to come to my home as well as to let me come to your office location. And you have access to more workers if you allow employees the flexibility to work from home or to work from your primary site. Technology lets you do all of that. And the good news is we are doing that with more than seven million customers across the country today. We have this expertize and what we’ve done is take the best of the things we do for enterprise customers, for government agencies, and we are making sure it is fit for small business owners. And the way that you do that is by listening to them. So every day I listen to what small business customers have to say. We check in with them. That’s what I’m doing in Atlanta right now. And then we talk to our teams, and if they’ve got a problem, we are going back to our teams and headquarters and saying, How do we fix it? Because customers deserve more and every small business deserves somebody willing to support them as they figure out what comes next. And that’s where Verizon business comes in.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:08] Well, it is a very noble aspiration and goal, and I sincerely hope that you achieve all that you dream of achieving with this initiative because believe me, all I do is talk to small and mid-sized business people every day. That’s all I do is interview business people and and there is a lack of support from enterprise level organizations. I have seen lots and lots of small to midsize business partners. Business folks struggle with the exact things you said. Like that landscaper, that landscaper is great at landscaping and then now the person wants to pay they they want their person to pay him with a check or something, and they don’t know how to pivot to a digital payment that would make the transaction easier or or, you know, seamless and safe and secure. And there’s a lot of opportunity there if you can get this right. So I’m very excited about this. How? Walk me through like, I’m that landscaper and I’ve been using Verizon as my cell phone carrier, so I got that part. How do you kind of kind of just open their mind to say, OK, is it go into your local Verizon shop and then have a conversation? Is that my new best friend? Like, is that my partner locally in my in my area that I work? And then together we’re going to come up with a strategy like, what is that relationship really look like when it’s happening to that individual business owner? Or how do you expand it beyond? Oh, yeah, that’s my cell carrier.

Wendy Taccetta: [00:07:41] So what’s interesting is that in the past, it would have been come to our store and we’ll talk to you. Part of what we’ve done is expand the ways we can support you. So I actually have a team that goes out to two small business owners, knocks on their doors, the ways we used to and comes to meet you where you were. We have the teams that are in our stores so you can visit any of our locations. But I also have a virtual team so that we can do a video conversation. We can do it over chat. We are willing to find you whatever way makes you comfortable so that we can start the conversation. But here’s the thing because ultimately what you’re saying is how do you get started? I don’t even know where to begin. I would like every small business owner to understand this. More than 60 percent of the hacking that we see starts with individual behavior. It starts with someone clicking into the wrong website, downloading a form. It starts with the access that your employees have and how. How you protect your data. So the first thing you can do is have a policy of what your users can and cannot do. And we actually have templates that let you get started and up and running in 30 minutes. But then you want the way to use a dashboard. How do you know what they’re doing? So we’ve built a product business mobile secure that lets you see what’s happening on all of your devices that you are connected to the internet.

Wendy Taccetta: [00:09:08] But those are simple things that every owner could do, investing less than an hour of their time just to get started. And here’s the way that I think about it any solution can be as big or as small as you want. So we have products like one talk, which allows your phone to ring. Whether you’re in the office, it’ll ring on your cell phone. It can ring on a desk phone. It can also ring on multiple people’s phones, all at the same time. It’s a phenomenal product because eighty five percent of people say they call a small business and they don’t answer, they’ll never call again. Well, we built this product. Initially, it had a desktop phone because everyone was in offices. Two months ago, we actually launched new pricing on an app so you can take the existing equipment you have and just start the app and immediately you’re answering all your phone calls and you’re not missing those customers. There are small steps that every business owner can make today that can change their business. And then as you want to grow, we can grow with you and you can grow into those desktop phones and you can grow into bigger technology. But, you know, I like to think every big business starts small, and it’s up to us to figure out how our small business owners can be as big as they want and sometimes as lean as they want with technology.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] So tell me about the partner program, how is that kind of coincide with this initiative of focusing on the small business owner?

Wendy Taccetta: [00:10:46] It does. So I’m also in charge of our third party partners who sell on behalf of Verizon. So you may you may actually do business with them as well. And my job is to make sure they have access to the same products that we are building for our direct sales teams. So it shouldn’t matter to a customer, whether they’re doing business with one of our channel partners, they’re doing business in one of our agent locations or they’re doing business in one of our direct stores. It is a one Verizon experience and my job is to make sure that the customer is never in the middle of that and that our partners have what they need to serve customers. Because here’s what I know people experience is what leads to a customer experience. So my job is to make sure that the partners, our sales teams, they have what they need because if they’re frustrated or customers are frustrated. So I get to obsess about a lot of things. But in the end, it’s about how do small businesses come back faster than we’ve ever seen from a moment like this? And I think there’s a path and that technology can help.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:51] So now who makes a great partner in your partner program?

Wendy Taccetta: [00:11:56] Pretty much. I would tell you that we are proud of everyone that’s in our partner program these days. We are pretty ruthless about making sure that we stay partners with people who put customer first, who do business with integrity and who can adapt to change. And I’m proud to say that that’s the partner portfolio that I represent today and whether that’s in one of our indirect stores or whether that’s through one of our partners that comes to you directly. I’m pretty proud of the partnerships that we’ve built, and we’re all committed to the same thing helping these businesses come back.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:33] So now right now, you’ve only been doing this, I guess you’ve been in charge of this just for a few months. Is there anything that you can share in terms of the success story that now that you’re going out there and meeting people and talking to people and seeing listening? Is there any learning that you can share that can, you know, maybe jump start a small business out there that’s struggling?

Wendy Taccetta: [00:12:56] So my favorite is that Verizon has a pillar about helping society, and we actually just launched small business digital ready, which is our commitment to do through grants and through tools and resources, support a million small businesses over the next decade. And we don’t mean to support them once and be done. We mean we will measure our success on the percentage of those businesses that are still thriving 10 years from now. I am super proud of that because when we talk to small business owners and when we say, what do you need, the answer is different for every one of them. So my job isn’t to create a single product that’s going to be fit for everyone, but we’ve created this digital platform that helps you be more present online helps you figure out how to really sell beyond your community. We’re pretty proud of it. We’re about a month into that and we are actually doing better than we expected, which is great news because that means we’re helping more businesses. And I had a chance to sit with a few of them last week, and their stories are just amazing. They’re figuring it out and these resources are good, but it’s the community they’re building, getting to know other business owners beyond the ones in their neighborhood. So so far, I’m excited about it. I wish that we would hit our million or million small businesses and before the end of the year, I’m sure we won’t get there, but that would be a phenomenal problem to have. But we know that they can’t come back alone. We have to support them with our wallets. But we also as enterprise, as enterprise businesses. We have to support them with our programs, and I think digital already is a huge part of that.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:40] So if somebody wants to learn more about either the partner program and or this small business initiative, what is the website?

Wendy Taccetta: [00:14:49] So the best place to start is Verizon forward slash business, and you will see all the information, including the survey that’s out there, that tells you what other small business owners are telling us. And you can enter your information and we will get back to you as quickly as possible or come into one of our stores and see us seven days a week. We are open and ready to help.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:12] Well, when they thank you so much for sharing your story today, you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Wendy Taccetta: [00:15:18] Thank you for having me. I love that you’re supporting this community, too. I think it’s going to take all of us.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:24] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

 

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Our Mission

We help local business leaders get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession.

We support and celebrate business by sharing positive business stories that traditional media ignores. Some media leans left. Some media leans right. We lean business.

Sponsor a Show

Build Relationships and Grow Your Business. Click here for more details.

Partner With Us

Discover More Here

Terms and Conditions
Privacy Policy

Connect with us

Want to keep up with the latest in pro-business news across the network? Follow us on social media for the latest stories!

Business RadioX® Headquarters
1000 Abernathy Rd. NE
Building 400, Suite L-10
Sandy Springs, GA 30328