Business RadioX ®

Communication Advisor Madeline Schwarz

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MadelineSchwarzMadeline Schwarz is a Strategic Communication Advisor who helps quiet leaders speak up in a world of loud talkers and helps corporate teams articulate their vision in clear, concise messaging. Madeline has worked with clients at organizations such as Etsy, Mastercard, The Jewish Museum, Tommy Hilfiger and JP Morgan.

When she’s not coaching or facilitating workshops, you can find her playing legos with her 7-year old, community organizing, and creating playful ways to make communication more fun.

Learn more at Madeline Schwarz Coaching and download Get Clear on Your Message: 4 Easy Steps to Prep for Any Presentation even when you only have 5 minutes.

Connect with Madeline on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Madeline Schwarz with Madeleine Schwartz coaching. Welcome. How are things going over there in the in your empire, your coaching empire, you’re building to help people communicate more strategically.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:00:54] It’s great I have found that even more people want help communicating during a pandemic.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] Now what’s your back story? How did you get involved in kind of this passion of yours around communication?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:01:09] Well, my back story is that I have been telling stories in different mediums for my entire career. I started my career in book publishing where I ran the publicity department of a design book publisher, and I placed authors and books on NPR and in the New York Times and other major media. And from there, I made a career change and I moved into display design, where I design window displays and retail environments for big brands like Armani Exchange, Coach Diesel, Nike and Adidas. And our team was responsible for the first contact with customers and our work determine whether people came into the store. And that’s where I really learned how important it is to be able to get a message across in seconds. And what I also saw is that so many creative people are great at one part of their jobs, their amazing creative problem solvers, but they often struggle to get their ideas across, and that was the downfall of so many projects that I worked on. So when I decided to start a business, that’s the problem that I really wanted to solve.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:28] So now are there some low hanging fruit that folks can do a better job at being a more effective communicator?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:02:34] Absolutely. Just practicing presentations out loud, like doing one run through. If you only have time to do one and going through it, taking the time to save the words out loud and find the words before you walk into that meeting, instead of just flipping through your your deck and saying it in your head can make so much difference in how comfortable and confident you come across in that presentation.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] Now is your work kind of focused in certain industries, or is this kind of industry agnostic?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:03:11] I work with people across industries, so on an individual level, I help people get their message across clearly and concisely, whether they are giving a presentation, speaking at a conference or introducing themselves to a room full of strangers. And then on the team side, I really work with teams to help them balance out communication so that they’re not just hearing from the same five people over and over again and missing out on the other ideas that the the team brings to the table when you really hear from everyone.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:48] Now are there are some symptoms for people who are leading teams that maybe they’re just not aware of it. They might think that, Hey, I invited everybody to the room here. So I’ve done my part. I can check that box. I’m being inclusive and I’m including people. But while the discussions going on, like you said, there might only be a handful of people who are actually contributing and other people are just sitting silently. Are there some symptoms for that leader to kind of wake them up a little and say, Hey, you, you think you might be including everybody, but you might be missing some people?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:04:19] Yeah. So there are a few things that it’s so important for leaders to think about. One is how they are running meetings. What are their facilitation skills like? Because often they might throw out a question or pose a problem and say, let’s brainstorm. And while that seems like an innocent enough activity, the way brainstorming is traditionally done in most corporate environments is not an inclusive activity at all, because not everyone is able to process ideas and come up with solutions at the same speed. And so that’s one of those scenarios where you often hear from the same people over and over again and you miss out on the rest of the ideas. And I think it’s so important to remember that 30 to 50 percent of the population are introverts and and people are always astounded. Leaders are often astounded when I share that stat. And so when you think about that, you you need to make sure that you are engaging those people and providing time for those people to also contribute their ideas in a brainstorm. And so some really simple things that you can do is instead of just throwing out a question and everyone or not everyone, the loudest people start throwing up the answers instead pose a question or a problem. Give everyone a minute or two to write down their ideas and then start asking for for group feedback. And the other thing for leaders, too, that’s so important, especially if they are on the more loquacious side, is to really tap into their own listening skills so often people might throw out. A question, but they’re not wait for the answer. And and so listening and being comfortable with silence and allowing time for the team to come up with the answer is another really important skill for leaders.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:23] So I’m hearing you say that listening is really an important component of communicating.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:06:29] Yeah, it’s 50 percent of communication, but I think we treat it like the forgotten stepchild.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:36] So now when you say listening, is it just kind of listening with your ears or is it also listening with your eyes to kind of glean cues from body language? You know, there how focused they are there, you know, line of focus, they’re leaning like, there’s they’re listening. It encompasses more than just hearing, right?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:06:56] It definitely encompasses more than just hearing. And I like to think of it as listening with all of your senses. So you don’t want to just listen for the words coming out of people’s mouths you want to watch for all of the visual cues that you were talking about and all of the things that they are saying or not saying between the lines.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:18] Now in your work, do people you mentioned introverts and extroverts do introverts kind of. Are they self-aware enough to say, Hey, you know, I need some help in this area? Or are they just saying, Oh, well, I’m introvert, this is just my lot in life.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:07:33] So it’s a little bit of both. I do often work with introverts, and when we start our work together, they are often very self-critical and think they are at a disadvantage because they are introverts and that if only they were an extrovert, it would be easier to more effectively communicate their ideas. And one of the things that I do is help them see that it’s just the opposite that introverts have so many powerful skills and can really use their superior listening skills as a competitive advantage in communication. And so I think it’s so important to help people lean into the strengths that they already have instead of trying to emulate a different personality or style.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:21] Now do extroverts ever come to you and say, Hey, you know, I don’t think I’m connecting well with the introverts? Do you have any suggestions?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:08:30] Yes, definitely. So I have one client who I’m thinking of, and while she came to me wanting to work on her presentation skills, one of the other things that we have worked on is her facilitation skills and how to make more space in meetings for other people who might not be as inclined to raise their hand and immediately jump in. And again, this is where. Just making subtle tweaks in your in the way that you’re running, meetings can make a huge difference. So one of the tips that I shared with her and I shared with all of my clients is establishing some community guidelines in meetings can make a huge difference, and one that I really like is one to three and meet. So after you throw out an idea, you need to wait for three more people to speak and and share their ideas before you jump in again. And that’s just a great, really simple way to monitor yourself and give everyone else on the team a way to monitor each other.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:47] Now, do you find that some folks feel like, look, I got a lot of good ideas here, and how can I help this team if I don’t share all my great ideas? So in their head, they’re kind of I don’t know if they’re rationalizing it, but in their head, this makes sense to keep sharing because they got a lot of good ideas.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:10:08] Yes. And that’s where it’s so important for people to pay attention, not only to what they’re saying, but what are they listening to? Because yes, they might have great ideas and they probably have ideas, but they don’t have all the ideas rather, and they’re missing out on all of the great ideas that the rest of their colleagues or teammates or clients have if they don’t listen for them. And I think that comes down to humility to to and courage to be willing to consider that you might not have all the ideas or you might not have the best ideas and that together you and the other people in the room can come up with even better ideas.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:02] Now we’re talking a lot about speaking and presenting. How does this come into play when it comes to maybe networking and especially we’re in this kind of hybrid world where networking isn’t always face to face like it used to be, but maybe it’s on a group Zoom call, like how does an introvert kind of navigate the waters of networking?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:11:25] Yeah. Well, what’s been interesting during the pandemic and I did a survey in the spring was that just about 50 percent of the people who I talked to in this survey, where I surveyed dozens of introverted professionals, about 50 percent have been taking advantage of being on Zoom that they prefer that that they find it more comfortable to be able to network from the comfort of their home. And then the other 50 percent are finding it more challenging or avoiding it like the plague because they think it’s more difficult to be on video and to not have the benefit of body language and being able to. Read the people in a physical room, so I actually designed a five part framework for introverted and anxious networkers called comms. So five really essential skills that can transform your experience and those are curiosity asking questions, listening mindset and stories. And the reason it starts with curiosity is when you approach networking with genuine curiosity about other people as opposed to trying to sell them something. It really allows you to connect on a more personal human level. And when you strategically use curiosity to pique interest, it can also make the whole process easier. And so I, for instance, a number of years ago dropped the New York City all black, all the time dress code and started wearing really colorful prints to networking events.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:13:15] And that might seem counterintuitive. As an introvert, wear something that’s so obviously makes you stand out. But what it does is it invites people to talk to you. And so the first time I did that, I discovered I no longer had to walk up to strangers and start conversations because the conversations came to me. And that’s just one way that you can use curiosity to really make the process of networking easier. And then. You also use it to ask questions, so introverts might get nervous about talking about themselves and be hesitant to quote unquote brag about their accomplishments. But if they use their curiosity to ask better questions at an event again, this is a way to spark conversations and use the process and really connect with other people. And that leads into listening, which I think of as an introvert superpower. But all of those skills really wouldn’t work without mindset. And so I like in mindset to moving the furniture in your brain. So if you’ve ever moved the furniture in your living room, only you can have all of the same pieces. But if you just move the couch, everything looks different. Your entire perspective changes, and that’s what is different about networking and all areas of communication when you change your perspective and how you’re approaching it.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:50] And then when you’re working with folks, there is the usual point of entry that they have a presentation or something big is happening, and they need some help to kind of make sure they get it right. Is that usually how people engage with you for the first time?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:15:06] Yeah, that is often one point of entry. And then another point of entry is leaders who are meeting teams for the first time, who they’ve been promoted to leading a larger team. And either they have self-identified or their managers have identified that communication skills are an area that they need to grow in order to be more confident and be more effective in their roles of leading other people and being able to inspire a team and get them on board to lead a new direction.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:47] Now, do you find that communication is one of those skills where people just take it for granted that they have, you know, pretty decent communication skills, but when you really hold them accountable to it, they really are lacking some some things where a coach could take their communication style and even kind of the trajectory of their career to a new level if they can really level up in this area.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:16:10] Absolutely, because I think what often happens is people get promoted into positions of. Leadership and managing other people, but they don’t necessarily get any training in order to do that. And that if they have reached a certain level in their career, there’s often an assumption that they are also good at certain skills and that’s not the case at all. And so, for instance, like I was brought in to work with this nonprofit research firm and I was working with their team of data scientists. And so the entire team, they all have PhDs, they’re constantly presenting at conferences and speaking on panels. But their ability level was really uneven and some of the people were struggling to. Get their message across clearly and to answer questions without rambling. And so what I did was design a series of workshops to help them tighten up their messaging. Prepare for panels more effectively and use storytelling as a way to make the data come alive. And as a result, it reduced stress and anxiety on the team because everyone had a game plan to prepare for their presentations. It allowed them to use storytelling to really connect the dots between the the research that they were doing on an individual level, the research that the firm was doing on a collective level and how it impacted the end user. And the other amazing thing about facilitated learning is that those discussions that we had in that room allowed them to learn from each other and learn from how their colleagues had handled real life scenarios when they were on panels or moderating panels, and how to navigate those tricky situations that they too might come up against.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:18] Now, when you’re working with folks in this coaching manner, is this something that once they learn a few key tactics or strategies or mindset elements that then they’re kind of good to go for? I mean, I would imagine and once you learn this, then you’ve learned it forever. This is a skill that you’re going to be able to have, you know, forever. It’s not something that requires, Oh, now here’s a new communication skill. So is it like you come in and help kind of triage whatever that challenge is and then you’re available, obviously down the road, but you’re there. Kind of good to go for a while, I would think.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:18:53] Mm hmm. Yeah. So when I work with people, there are really three key areas that I addressed and that is the messaging helping people get crystal clear on their messaging and why it matters to the audience. The second thing we work on is delivery how to make their content and their material engaging to the audience and really how to create an experience for the audience. And then the third thing which is equally important is the mindset and how communication really is a mindset and how you are thinking about communication determines how you give presentations. It determines how you navigate difficult conversations, how you negotiate and how you lead. And those three things together really skyrocket confidence and build people’s professional and leadership presence.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:55] Well, if somebody wants to learn more, get on your calendar. What is the website?

Madeline Schwarz: [00:20:00] Yes. So they can find me at Madeline Schwartz coaching, and they can also connect with me on LinkedIn. And my last name has no teeth. So it is spelled C h w a R Z, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:20:16] That’s Emma de Belin IESE pH WRC coaching.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:20:23] Yes. And if they sign up for my newsletter on my website, I will send them a really, really nifty tool, which is four steps to help you prepare for any presentation, even when you only have five minutes.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:39] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Madeline Schwarz: [00:20:44] Thanks, Lee. It was great to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:46] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

 

Mark Mele With Paris Baguette

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

Mark Mele has achieved the Certified Franchise Executive (CFE) designation from the Institute of Certified Franchise Executives (ICFE) through the International Franchise Association.

An accomplished corporate franchise sales and development strategist, his vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable franchise brands such as Century 21 Real Estate Corporation, Country Inns & Suites by Carlson, Retro Fitness, Kumon North America, and Huntington Learning Centers.

Mele has achieved exciting company turnarounds and is recognized for his success in growing franchise brands. His strategic approach to expanding a franchise brand is reflected in his work as Vice President of Franchise Development of Kumon North America, Inc., where his leadership resulted in the opening of over 500 new franchised Kumon learning centers in 4 years.

In addition to Mark Mele’s exceptional track record in franchise development, he is also known for his ability to create and implement positive change in the areas of franchise operations and franchisee support. His franchise achievements have been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. Magazine, as well as other business media.

Mele is a member of the International Franchise Association (IFA) and is actively involved in an advisory capacity with start-up franchise companies.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn and follow Paris Baguette on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Leadership experience building and guiding franchise brands

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 have Mark Mealie with Paris Baguette. Welcome, Mark.

Mark Mele: [00:00:42] Hi Lee, how are you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] I am doing great. I’m excited to catch up with you and learn a little bit about what’s been going on lately with Paris Baguette. For the folks who don’t know, just give them kind of the elevator pitch.

Mark Mele: [00:00:55] Sure. So Paris Baguette is a French inspired bakery. Bakery cafe, we’ve been baking and going back to our roots in baking since 1945. So 70 plus years of baking has given us the know how to manufacture the dough that goes into each and every one of our pastries, our pastries. And the menu includes fresh bread, daily cakes, slices of cake pastry. There’s Chris Sants. Obviously baguettes, so sandwiches I mean a full menu that is really fresh and delicious, made every day, day in and day out. So Boston products and this is the bakery like you have in your head, like when you were a kid, you had a bakery in your neighborhood. This is this is the same kind of bakery. We’re doing things fresh every day there.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:01] Now, talk about kind of your journey in the is kind of how you’ve evolved in the franchising industry, you’ve worked for a number of brands. I believe this is your first food, but you’ve worked with a number of brands in different industries. Talk about how that’s kind of helped you navigate the waters and helping Paris Baguette grow.

Mark Mele: [00:02:24] Wonderful. Absolutely. So leave for me, it’s this is all franchising. This is basic blocking and tackling, right? This is I’ve been in franchise development for thirty five plus years. I go back a while, as you said, several different sectors. A handful of brands over that time span. And for a brick and mortar concept like this, it’s Paris Baguette. That is, it’s really about starting off with the quality franchisees that you bring in. So you’ve got to have quality franchised sales, you’ve got to have quality real estate because they’ve got to have the perfect location and quality design and construction. And then of course, we development will take it from prospective franchisee to ribbon-cutting. That’s that’s the department that I’m in charge of at Paris Baguette. So we’ve got a lot of people on hand to make sure that that franchisee is going to be successful from the day that we say hello to them and approve them as a prospective franchisee to be a new franchisee all the way to the ribbon cutting and then we transition them over to the operations team. So yeah, for me, it’s it’s having a great brand. Being a part of a great brand is is the most important thing to me in my career. If I can speak about my career, and that’s really why I think I chose Paris Spaghetti and why Paris forget chose me. You’ve got to. You’ve got a great brand that wants to expand in the U.S. and I was certainly up for the challenge. And you know, with it’s a global brand with nearly four thousand units and what an exciting time and what an exciting opportunity to be able to to expand this. In the U.S. past a thousand up to a thousand plus more units. It’s very, very exciting.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:31] Now, when you’re looking at a brand to get involved with, you mentioned the operations, you mentioned real estate, you mentioned kind of the selling. Are there a certain kind of red flags for you or green lights for you when you’re kind of analyzing a brand to see what’s the right fit? Because I would imagine in your experience you’ve seen a lot of things that maybe looked OK in some areas, but maybe had some warning signs and then other things maybe look too good to be true. Can you help the person who’s because I think a potential franchisee is almost in your situation? When you chose to work with Paris Baguette, you were vetting it also from probably a lot of the same places. They’re vetting it because you had to believe in the brand and you had to believe that this is something that you can proudly, you know, sell to others.

Mark Mele: [00:05:25] You’ve hit it right on the head. You’re exactly you’re spot on. That’s that’s exactly. And we want prospective franchisees to do just that. Complete your due diligence. Look at the brand, speak to our existing franchisees. What? What does the brand? What’s the perception of the brand globally? What’s the perception of the brand locally here in the states, in each city? Who are the franchisees? Are they profitable? Those types of questions need to be asked. And what does your franchise disclosure document look like? Do you have lawsuits? Do you have this? Yeah, I I spent a lot of time doing due diligence on the brand, and everything came up and very, very positive. And I and I love that because. At the end of the day, you have to be able to have the confidence in the brand and hopefully you can hear it in my voice. I am in a in a year’s time now with the brand very, very optimistic and excited as I was from the first day I joined the company. Even more so because I’m seeing the incredible response that the audience, the prospective franchisees are having for this brand.

Mark Mele: [00:06:38] So we’re we’ve got a huge push on to open a thousand units in 10 years or less. And look, I’ve been in the business for a long time. As I’ve mentioned in you here, you hear this all the time. One brand will say, Yeah, we want to get to four hundred units in X number of years or six hundred units. And it sounds good and it looks good. It’s a nice soundbite, but it’s a heavy lift and you need to put you need to have number one, the brand that is well liked, well perceived. And I think we have that and we have that global presence and I think we can drive the sales and I think we can find the best locations. And I think this, I think it’s going to be explosive and we’re starting to see it already. We’ve executed already year to date almost a hundred franchise agreements, 90 through the third quarter, 90 agreements and very, very proud of that. We’ve got a good, good sales team, good real estate team and a good construction team too. So a lot of a lot of good energy this year.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:42] Now, from a potential franchise standpoint, explain to them why it’s an advantage that Paris Baguette has such a strong global brand already and how that’s going to help them as it expands in the United States.

Mark Mele: [00:07:57] Well, a couple of things. Number one, global presence is in the success of that. Global presence is very, very important from a name recognition standpoint, but also from an operating standpoint when you look at the way that we’ve been able to refine the operations, the brand been around since nineteen eighty eight Paris Baguette. We own and operate other brands as well, some that we’ve created overseas and some that we just bought into where we’re master franchisees of other brands globally too. But Paris Baguette since nineteen eighty eight, has had an opportunity to refine the operational model for doing business here in the States. We started to franchise the brand in two thousand fifteen twenty fifteen, so. But we’ve been operating here corporately since 2005. That gave us a 10 year start to have 40 operating corporate units to be able to say, OK, you know, over the last 10 years, we’ve been able to figure it out and we’ve taken what they’ve operated overseas now since 1988 and refined that model and made it work here in the U.S. and that’s what prospective franchisees want to hear. You guys know how to run the business and we continue to operate. Lee, we continue to operate corporate units here and we will always operate corporate units. I love when franchise stores have units, whether it’s five units, two units or in our case, we still operate over twenty five units.

Mark Mele: [00:09:35] It’s just it gives us that knowledge base and I’ll tell you what else it gives us. It gives us a an operational bench, if you will, for of of human capital, right? When we have strong general managers and district managers, they can be moved up and moved over. They can help franchisees. They could be on the franchise ops team. They can be, you know, it’s just we recruit from internally as well when you have those kind of numbers. So I would think perspective and I know prospective franchisees are especially excited when they hear that, that we still own and operate a number of the units ourselves corporately. So that’s that’s what you want to look for, that operational excellence, that that makes that brand a reality. It’s one thing to have a wonderful break every day inside the cafe, which we do. Our products are just amazing. The cakes are just phenomenal. The pastries are amazing like you’ve never tasted before, but it’s it’s another thing to say wow. Operationally, they they believe in. They know how to operate and they believe what they do. Every day matters. So prospects see that they love it.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:50] Now, how have you seen an evolution of the franchisee have? Is the is the person that’s a franchisee today the same as it was when you started in franchising?

Mark Mele: [00:11:01] Oh, wow, I got to think back now. You know, I think in many respects, there’s still the state they come from the same. They have that bloodline, so to speak. They have that entrepreneurial spirit, right? They they want to do for themselves. They figure why I’m I’m working, whether it’s corporate America working for another company, I can go out and spend that much time if I find the right brand that I’m passionate about, that proven track to run on where you have a franchise system and I can plug myself into that system. But what I work every day and how I work it and how long I work at the success is mind, you know, and there’s there’s something about that. So from that aspect, I would say that has stayed the same. What’s changed is back from when I started in nineteen eighty five in my career to today is there’s many more opportunities, right? You have probably four thousand franchise brands spanning across dozens of different sectors and industries and all different investment levels. You know, in nineteen eighty five, yeah, there were still there were plenty of franchise brands, but not like you see today, it’s it’s pretty amazing. And I think it makes it easier for a prospective franchisee to determine their path. They will look at the brand, the strength of the brand and say, Hey, that brand has been around for, you know, since the eighties or for the nineties. And let’s look at how successful they are, whether it’s success here in the U.S. or abroad or globally, wherever and or are they a startup? Are they brand new? Do they have 10 units? Do I want to be affiliated with the brand that has a smaller number? Maybe that’s a good opportunity for you. I don’t know, but there’s so much to choose from today. And again, you can compare yourself and your skill set to that company and something that you’re passionate about and I think be successful. So the entrepreneurial spirit, I think, is still alive and well there now.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:10] Are you finding that folks involved in franchising as it matures, as an industry are becoming kind of professional franchisees where they’re putting together a portfolio of complementary franchises that have maybe a similar customer base? So that gives them some economies of scale in their marketing, maybe. And that they can, you know, share the that client with multiple franchises that they own.

Mark Mele: [00:13:36] Yeah, you see that all the time, especially, I would say, you know, in the restaurant sector, if you look at some of the trade publications that come out every now and then, with franchisees that have gotten themselves to the point where it’s no longer, you know, a multi-unit franchisee is no longer three or four or five units, some of these multi units are spanning a dozen or more brands, and they own hundreds and hundreds of units. They built themselves up and they have that nucleus set up for for doing the operation. And yeah, they’re so successful today. You know, they do it again and again and again, and they have figured it out. And I think when they plug themselves into a system and utilize that system, you’re right. They can go into other brands, other sector brands that that they can they complement each other. So 100 percent correct. We see that all the time in the franchise industry. You’re spot on

Lee Kantor: [00:14:37] Now. Are you finding for you that franchisee? Is that person or is it still kind of like you said, that executive that wants to go out on their own and, you know, kind of carve their own path?

Mark Mele: [00:14:50] We’re seeing both and fortunately, we’re seeing both. I like I like the we like to have the business background we like if they have the restaurant operations background, we like if they’re existing franchisees in the non competing brand, but still within the restaurant sector, the restaurant industry, we’ve signed franchisees this year that own and operate other fast casual brands, other breakfast food brands, casual theme restaurants we signed. Folks that have their parents had restaurants in the past or and they operate a successful business to outside of the restaurant industry. But but they have that background and they know how to operate businesses successfully. It might be a little bit more difficult for someone, even if they were just in corporate America, saying, Yeah, I want to get out and I think I know enough about accounting that I’ll go in and look for a franchise, something that interests me. We want the business background. So we we kind of want to take the guesswork out of it for ourselves. But but also. Give the franchise a chance to be successful to knowing that they they they have whatever it takes to be successful in their background too. So. So we’ve been fortunate to to look for both and we’ve found both.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:14] Now you said you’re shooting for a thousand in 10 years. Are there areas of the country right now that you’re kind of aiming at or is it the whole country? You know, how do you attack this as a whole or do you detect it in regions?

Mark Mele: [00:16:29] I prefer, you know, if I were starting from scratch, you know, you know, ideally you’d work up and down a handful of states and do concentric development and plant a few seeds here and there by opening up corporate units. But I think what what has been put in front of me when I came aboard, you know, we existed on both the East Coast and the West Coast. We had several units on both coasts that had been there for a very long time. We had some units in in a unit in Texas, units in Atlanta, Philadelphia units in Phenix area. So so we had a few sprinkled in. But the heaviest concentration was on North San Francisco, North California, Northern California with San Francisco and then, of course, Southern California, Los Angeles and then in New York, DMA as well. So right now and in Chicago, two is big for us. We’ve got a number of units there operating for to be exact and seven more coming. But we are absolutely interested in the top 20, 30, 40 cities in the U.S. and, you know, taking what we’ve done and already expanding across the country. We will just make sure that we won’t let one unit set out there by itself, and we have the opportunity to go in corporately and invest in a marketplace. So if we ahead of executing a franchise agreement, say, for example, in Nashville, Tennessee, I’ll be there first. I’ll be in Phenix. First, I’ll be in. For example, we just signed a lease in Winter Park in the Orlando market, so so we have that opportunity. So the short answer is, yeah, we’re expanding across the country and we’re taking a freight train approach a little bit at a time. But you know, being right for the right reasons, a lot of activity happening right now to get to that 1000 units.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:37] Now did the pandemic kind of cause you to adjust maybe the size of unit? Are there now, kind of different options that maybe didn’t exist pre-pandemic regarding size?

Mark Mele: [00:18:51] Not necessarily regarding size. You know, the brand itself when you walk into a Paris baguette, being a bakery, a lot of the menu. Well, the whole menu being the baked goods are all in front of you. They’re out. And as you walk around, you’re you’re you’re walking into the cafe. And whether you’re going to dine in or or place it to go or you’re basically picking up what you want, placing it on a tray. A paper lined tray walking up to the front with all your baked fresh baked goods, and if you’re leaving, they’ll kindly wrap it up for you and put everything in a bag and you’re leaving. And get your beverage and your and you’re out of there. It’s not like you’re walking up to a menu board and ordering a number five or number three to go. You’re experiencing the sights of all this fresh baked goods. You’re smelling it. You’re you just sense. Wow, this is going to be extra special. You’re looking at the refrigerated cases with the cakes and other fresh pastries that are refrigerated and keeping them nice and cool so you can buy a cake and take it home and surprise the family. But that’s that’s what makes it special and during COVID. The one thing we had to do, it’s just because who knew during that time? I remember when it was, Hey, wash your hands, wash your hands.

Mark Mele: [00:20:15] This is how it’s spreading turned into. No, you put a face mask on. That’s how it’s spreading, right? So we were wrapping and we still, to some extent, certain products. Everything has to cool down first. And then we were putting it into plastic into nice, you know, see through clear plastic. So you know, you go in and grab it and put it on your tray, but it’s wrapped. And I think that made everyone feel more comfortable. To an extent it still does today as well. But a lot of our product now is behind the glass cases. You’d open up the case, whether it’s self-serve or we’re handing it to you, it’s it’s on a, you know, it’s wrapped up. You can wrap it once. Once it is, it is put on your tray. But that’s really the only change that’s happened. We’ve used outside delivery services like the rest of the industry had pivoted with DoorDash and some of the others, whether it’s picking up orders that were called in ahead of time or place through our app, those things happen every day. You know, I don’t believe that we’ll be going out and putting in a drive thru anytime soon.

Mark Mele: [00:21:24] I don’t think that’s the Paris baguette experience, but maybe a 10 word for a preorder, something that’s there’s a lot of experimenting that we’re doing on the operations side. So. But you know, we were able to keep the cafes open for the most part, as long as the state would let us open. We were open with our cafes and and I think that did well for the brand. From a customer standpoint, they like the fact that we were choosing to stay open where a lot of brands said, now we’re going to we’re going to shut it down for a little bit here and decide what to do. But yeah, we definitely pivoted during that time, and I think we got stronger for it and got some innovation. And you know, this this year is especially good for us. I think our numbers are way up over 20, of course, 20 20, but 20, 19 as well, which, you know, there was no pandemic in the air at that time. And we’re we’re comping our stores are comping a lot better than twenty nineteen, which tells you people are out and about and it’s just a great product that we have.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:30] Well, Mark, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more about Paris Baguette near them or if they’re interested in the franchise opportunity, what’s the website?

Mark Mele: [00:22:40] They can go to Paris Baguette family and fill out the request form, and our franchise development team will reach out to you immediately and get you more information accordingly.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:56] Good stuff! Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, Marc. You’re doing important work. We appreciate you.

Mark Mele: [00:23:00] Well, thank you so much, Leigh. I appreciate being on the show.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:03] All right, this Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Sean Patton With Stronger Leaders Stronger Profits

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SeanPattonAs a US Army Airborne Ranger and Special Forces Green Beret Commander, Sean Patton earned the respect of his men and chain of command while operating in hostile and politically sensitive environments.

Now in the private sector, he has applied these lessons in new ways growing his own companies and helping others unlock greatness through Stronger Leaders Stronger Profits. Sean just released his first book, A Warrior’s Mindset: The 6 Keys to Greatness.

Connect with Sean on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • A Warrior’s Mindset: The 6 Keys to Greatness
  • Entrepreneurial Journey
  • The Pipeline For 2022
  • Where Are Stronger Leaders Stronger Profits heading?

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Sean Payton with stronger leaders, stronger profits. Welcome, Sean.

Sean Patton: [00:00:45] Ali, how’s it going today?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] It is going great, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about stronger leaders, stronger profits, how you sovereign folks.

Sean Patton: [00:00:54] So strongly, your stronger profits, you’re really focused on leadership mindset and business practices and what makes, I think, my our approach and my approach a little different is basically based on my background. So I served 14 years in the army, 10 years as an officer, including five as a Green Beret detachment commander. And after I got out, I started my own companies. So between an MBA and my entrepreneur experience and the special operations I think I bring, we bring a pretty unique approach to sort of melding those different worlds together and bringing an elite perspective to leadership mindset and business practices.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:36] Now for the listeners, can you just highlight maybe some of the overlap among an elite military professional, an elite entrepreneur? Where are some of the similarities?

Sean Patton: [00:01:52] Well, it really starts with mindset and purpose and a commitment to that mission. That’s what I I really see. You know, it’s interesting. I spent time in the conventional army, right? Big army, and that actually lets me relate to sort of the corporate leaders that I work with because it’s sort of a correlation there between the corporate, the world, the hierarchy, the systems, the standards, the leadership practices. And so I I sort of lean on that experience when I work with corporate clients and then I work with entrepreneurs. It’s more I sort of draw from the special forces experience where you’re trying to do more with less and you’re dealing with high performing, high functioning individuals, but smaller groups and some more complex mission sets and problem sets.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:45] Now is it something the way you describe it and correct me if I’m incorrectly summarizing, but traditional military is more like has more bureaucracy? Maybe there’s more politics involved. There’s still a mission, but there’s more complexity in terms of the layers necessary to take action. There’s maybe an element of CIA that isn’t there in smaller groups may be more entrepreneurial efforts. And then the special forces. This is a small group that’s charged to get something done. Less tolerance for excuses. There’s way more urgency. And there’s more. Just make it happen. Attitude?

Sean Patton: [00:03:31] Yeah, I think that’s accurate. But you know, I think it’s really it’s really a function of mission and size, right? So it’s in companies. Find this and one of my kind of specialties is actually working with companies starting to make that transition. I’m sure you’ve worked with and talked with a lot of high growth entrepreneurs that they’ve got their small team. You know, I’ve got the six, then they’ve got 12 people, 15 people, all in one room and everybody’s communicating. It’s very flat structure, it’s very fluid. You’re making quick decisions and all of a sudden they have some success and they need to hire 50 or 100 people and you can’t run one hundred and fifty person organization the same way you run with eight of your founders in a room. And so the more people that you start bringing in, the more complexity you bring in. It also requires you to develop more structure, more standards and more layers in the bureaucracy. So it’s really a function of size. I think more than anything in terms of what’s the optimal operating practice?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:32] Now is it possible to move from that nimble to the more bureaucratic in with this warrior mindset of I’m still going to be able to have a tremendous impact despite my size now not, you know, now the size, I’m going to use the size of the lever for even more impact.

Sean Patton: [00:04:53] Absolutely, and that’s that’s the key is frameworks, and that’s that’s the problem that I see with a lot of founders and entrepreneurs as they start to grow and get that high growth stage is it really takes a different set of skills and it takes strong leadership and frameworks to start transitioning to function with a larger organization. So, you know, for example, as you as you grow and you start getting levels. All of a sudden, you have to establish communications SOPs. Right? The CEO of a five hundred person company can’t have direct conversations with their with their sales staff or with their marketers, and not be looping in the leaders in the levels between them or chaos ensues. Right. So the wear’s mindset really is about. Keeping a framework freedom within a framework. Developing a mindset of gratitude. Developing a purpose for your life, a mission for your company and then you move into self discipline, and that’s really the strategic execution. And then we teach presser variance and resiliency and leadership as the final component. So really, the the key with the warrior’s mindset, what I try to do there was get leaders prepared.

Sean Patton: [00:06:20] To lead an organization of any size, but what I found working with larger companies as I was trying to teach or work with them on big organizational design processes and strategic planning and servant leadership. And what I what I realized quickly was some of these senior executives, even though, you know, they were great at their job, they were fine. They’re professionals, but they weren’t actually ready because they hadn’t built a foundation of strong self leadership. And that’s really what a warrior’s mindset is. You know, we have to we have to make sure that where we’re correct in what, how we handle ourselves. And ultimately, if you can’t effectively lead yourself, if you don’t have self-discipline, if you know, how are you going to not just manage but lead other human beings in an organization if your home life is a wreck, if your kids aren’t talking to you, right, like your values of what you say is important and what your actions are doing aren’t aligned, and that’s not a recipe to lead by example.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:21] Now, when you’re working with folks, are you finding them at the beginning of this journey or are they already at that established larger stage and have required some help to kind of maybe navigate through the. Maybe they didn’t go through the transition as elegantly as they would have liked?

Sean Patton: [00:07:36] Yeah, it’s really all levels. I’ve got some clients, you know, that are solopreneurs or just getting started and have a company with some revenue, but they’re adding their first few employees so we can really start from the ground up and focus on them. And then I’ve worked with some corporate clients where, you know, where they’re not going to pull them out of the organization and start from zero. They have a lot of skills, but we need to go back and fine-tune some of the the mindset, some of the values and some of the strategies to optimize their performance and their mindset so they can plug into their organization and make it even more efficient.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:16] So let’s help our listeners, no matter what level they’re at. So let’s work with the entrepreneur first. What are some low hanging fruit for the entrepreneur to do to kind of take control and take command of their situation right now?

Sean Patton: [00:08:31] So in terms of low hanging fruit, the first thing that you can do without a ton of sort of high level thinking and exercise is scheduled prioritization. And what I found is so many entrepreneurs are so flooded with tasks in their to do list that they’re working, working, working. We’ve probably done this right. We’ve worked, we work here 40, 50, 60 hours a week and you get done and catching your breath. And all of a sudden you’re like, What am I actually closer to my goals right now than I was on Monday? And so what I try to teach is that. We need to make sure we are scheduling our priorities, not prioritizing our schedule, so instead of. Sitting down with your to do list, which is what most people do, they start writing down like I do these 20 things and then you look at it to do list and then you start. Plugging them into your calendar based on deadlines. I’m going to do this first because it’s due tomorrow, and then this and this person’s rely on me and they you start using your to do list and you start prioritizing your schedule. Instead, you need to look at your calendar and list out what are your actual priorities like, what are your priorities in life? And then what are your seasonal priorities professionally? Then you go on your calendar and block out time for the things and activities. They’re the most important to accomplishment of your life priorities. And once that’s done and you identify what those priorities are and you have time scheduled for those priorities. Then you can go in and look and start putting those to to do list into buckets.

Sean Patton: [00:10:07] All right. Well, I’ve got a creative work block tomorrow to work on business strategy. What tasks go in there? What task do I have on my to do list that fit with networking or lead generation or systems development? And you can start plugging that into the calendar once you have times already on there. What what I found, though, is? Instead of doing that right, I’ll look at someone’s calendar and it’s packed full of stuff or just like they do list just hammering stuff out from the time they wake up at the time they go to bed. And then I look at, well, what are your life priorities? Well, if my family and then it’s my health and then it’s my well, I don’t see a single time on here to spend with your kids. I don’t see a single time on here to spend with yourself to think strategically. I don’t see a single time in here for you to get out, you know, for you to work out or to make your meals so you’re not having to get fast food. Like all these, all these components that are that are important and critical to them achieving their their actual life priorities and purpose. But because they don’t start there and they start with it to do list, they never get to the actual important things. And they spend their whole day just putting out fires and checking and responding to email and looking at social media and checking on competitors. And they never get the real work done. That matters.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:26] And then by identifying kind of these and it’s literally a handful, it’s not like you can’t have 500 priorities, so you’re you’re helping them kind of narrow down maybe a top 10 or five to 10 priorities, put those in the calendar first, block the time each week, then start kind of sorting through the To-Do list and where it fits, rather than kind of making your priorities fit in whatever time’s left over.

Sean Patton: [00:11:53] One hundred percent. And that’s really one of the first things we look at is what your calendar looks like. And the other thing I would say low hanging fruit is. Especially, you know, so many of us are working from home now, right, so especially entrepreneurs, so when they start working from home and we’ve got kids and family and other requirements and distractions. So we have to set ourselves up for success, so you have to sell your environment up for success, and as human beings, our brains work with patterns and associations. That’s just it’s how we’ve survived as human beings and gotten to the top of the food chain as we recognize threats and patterns and we set habits. And so you need to set your environment up for success, so one of the things I work on with clients is. You know, for me, if it’s during the workday, I never sit on my couch. The couch is for after work time. The TV does not go on until work is done. And conversely, when I’m at my desk, you know, I’m not watching. I don’t watch funny cat videos. I don’t, you know, I don’t. I don’t check funny emails or watch videos that aren’t about work. When I’m at my desk, the only thing I do at my desk is work. The only thing I do on my couch is relax at the end of the day. And so even when I eat lunch in the middle of the day, I sit in the dining room table or I stayed at the island.

Sean Patton: [00:13:10] And if I want to watch some videos or you’ll want to watch SportsCenter when I’m making lunch, I watch on my phone. And as you do these things, you start creating these neural pathways in your brain and these associations. And instead of having to fight these distraction, the self-discipline always being an issue. Whenever you sit down at your desk, your mind instantly says, Oh, we’re working now. And then the beauty of this thing is then when you sit on the couch with your wife or your kids. Now your mind is, oh, I get to actually relax, so it’s about focusing and setting your environment up, not just for work, work, work, work, but so that you can focus on working in one environment. Total relaxation in another environment. And then like your bed, like, don’t take naps if you have to nap or rest, the bed’s not for that. Do that from a seated position in another room because when you go to your bed and you shouldn’t read or work in your bed, either like read for work because then your body and brain doesn’t know what beds for, but bed should just be for sleeping like for eight hours or more. Right. So it’s just that’s another giant thing that most of us that work from home and most entrepreneurs struggle with. And the key is just to create environments for each component of your life, and it’ll maximize your ability to enjoy and be productive in each area of your life.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:31] Now what was it like for for you when you left the military and entered kind of civilian world and going down this entrepreneurial path? Was that a difficult transition or or were you able to kind of navigate that pretty seamlessly?

Sean Patton: [00:14:46] It’s so hard, it’s so hard and it takes so long. I think that’s the one thing that really surprised me is you think, Oh yeah, you know, it’ll take me a few months, it’ll I got to adjust, but. You know, I went in I went to West Point three weeks out of high school and I got to the military was thirty two, so literally my entire adult life had been in the military, in the army and all of a sudden all that was gone. And it takes you a while to start to reprogram your brain and you start to realize some of the things that are normal when you’re in the military, especially, you know, I was in the infantry and then I was in special forces. So, you know, all of a sudden you’re like, it’s just normal to blow stuff up and have bullets whizzing by your head and be in these high stress environments at all times. It’d be reading classified reports about all the worst things going on in the world. You’re just in that world so much. And also, you get out in the civilian world and everything kind of slows down and. You realize your mindset and what you think is normal is not normal, and it takes years to sort of reprogram yourself and start to relate to other people. You know, it’s so hard to relate to my first employees because I was used to being around Green Berets who had run through a wall and would, you know, go to the ends of the Earth.

Sean Patton: [00:16:08] And we’re committed to everything. And you had this big mission about life and death, and all of a sudden, you don’t realize why you’re your employee can’t just make 30 calls a day and you’re just want to strangle. It’s like, what is wrong with you? But it takes you a while to start to really see the world through other people’s eyes and assimilate back into a completely different culture. So now it was it was difficult, to say the least. I think I’m still doing it. I think after about six years, I’m starting to really feel like I’ve got a handle on it and also really starting to identify who I am as a human being. Outside of that identity, because your identity is for so long, you know, you’re the sir, you’re the captain, you’re the commander, you’re the you’re the army guy, you’re deploying, you’re doing these things and also all that’s gone. And it’s it does. It strips away part of your identity and you’re maybe 80 percent of your identity. And then all of a sudden you have this hole of, well, who? Who am I, really? And it takes time for you to start figuring out what do I really believe and how do I want to live my life? And how do I want to structure things? And it takes years to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:15] Now, do you have any advice for people like you were able to motivate people to really kind of go above and beyond and it had nothing to do with money. It had everything to do with the big why the mission? And then you go into the civilian world and people that you trusted are loyal to will leave you for five dollars an hour or more somewhere else. Is there any advice to kind of capture that spirit of mission and fighting for for a bigger cause than themselves?

Sean Patton: [00:17:51] Absolutely, and and in my book that comes out next week called a Wear’s mindset, this is a huge thing I talk about and that is establishing a North Star and not just for yourself, but you need to do that for your business as well. And what? What I have found and what I I use in the book is evolutionary biology and metaphysics and a bunch of other things to really hammer down and psychological principles. The fact is that we’re social creatures. And what I see as individuals and companies. Is that it to capture people’s attention long term, to motivate them to to have them feel contented, fulfilled and really buy in to what’s going on with the organization? Your purpose has to be social in nature. So it has to be about impacting other people. Your your individual purpose can’t be about. It can’t be a financial goal, right? How many miserable millionaires are there out in the world, right? And then they say, Well, as soon as I get this amount, I’ll be happy and they get that and it’s not really happen anymore. Well, maybe the younger girlfriend, maybe the new faster car, maybe the bigger house. Get those still not happy. And then I see that in organizations as well, right? It’s like, Well, we’re going to we’re going to hit this metric and do this goal and then you get there. And I was like, Oh, OK, but I’m not really fulfilled.

Sean Patton: [00:19:14] And so as human beings, from an evolutionary biology perspective, we we’ve survived because we’re communal. And so what I would tell you is that you have to identify an impact that your organization is having in the world, in the community and beyond. Just, oh, we provide jobs and make money. You have to you have to set up your organization to say, Look, we’re changing the world, right? We’re changing our community. Here’s the problem. And we’re alive. You know, we’re getting rid of suffering where elevating people’s spot in life and we’re granting freedom and we’re giving them this and we’re allowing them to spend more time with their families. And you have to tie in this human component. You know, every business really isn’t is in the business of serving humans. And so we need to make business more humane and that that will capture people that’ll hit them in their soul and their spirit. Because the end of the day, you know, money’s a satisfying, but it’s not really a driver, but people will take. And studies show this. People will take less money to be part of a great culture and great organization. And conversely, the number one reason in almost every study that of why people leave jobs is because of bad leadership and bad management. Money is really a secondary factor. You might say it’s five dollars, but really it’s a lack of culture and a lack of strong leadership.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:49] Yeah, they quit bosses, they don’t quit jobs. Absolutely. Now if somebody wants to learn more is is your ideal client? Is it that solopreneur, that entrepreneur? Is it that larger organization that wants to kind of get this training for their team? Like who? Who’s the ideal client fit for you?

Sean Patton: [00:21:09] So both but with different services, so with corporate clients, I have an elite leadership workshop that I can do virtually or in person, and we divide it up into three modules. We talk about self leadership, we talk about servant leadership and we talk about organizational leadership and strategic planning. And I can tell you that for senior executives or middle management, and I think it’s important for. For those organizations to come through with their peers, with with teams and then individuals, I can work with one on one and we’re actually getting ready to launch a stronger leader society group that will be up after this after the book comes out. And in that group, we’re going to have a support team around us and do some small group training as well. So services for both. I have found recently that the more that I talk with sort of these larger organizations or I said, really these these high growth early stage companies that are starting to explode that need that leadership training to help facilitate all the challenges that come with high growth. These elite leadership workshops have been instrumental in them setting the culture training leaders to not just to be leaders, not just managers and see great results.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:26] Good stuff. Well, Sean, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more about your practice or your book A Warrior’s Mindset, The Six Keys to Greatness. Is there a website where they can find you and the book?

Sean Patton: [00:22:41] Absolutely. If you go to stronger leaders, stronger profits, we’ll have updates on the book and a way to get a hold of me and different services and additional information. And then you can also, I’m on Instagram and Facebook as Sean Payton presents, and of course, I’m on LinkedIn just under my name, Sean Payton.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:00] All right, Sean, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Sean Patton: [00:23:05] Thank you, Lee. Appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:06] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

 

Jon Dwoskin With The Jon Dwoskin Experience

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Jon Dwoskin was recently the Chief Operating Officer of The Hayman Company and partnered with the firm in its restructuring. Previously, he was a Vice-President of Investments with Marcus & Millichap, specializing in negotiating the sales of multi-family investment properties.

After selling nearly 5,000 units valued at nearly $250 million, he was named the Regional Manager of the Detroit Marcus & Millichap office. He took over the office in August, 2008, and the recession that followed nearly obliterated us all the following month.

Despite the toll that the recession took, he successfully oversaw more than $4 billion in investment commercial transactions, building the Detroit office into one of the most profitable offices of 76 offices nationwide. He expanded the office to 45 agents by actively working with them to grow their agent teams and increase their bottom lines. He strategized, trained and improved their skill-sets and held them accountable to their business plans.

He was a regional and national trainer, assisted in turning around other branch offices, and was part of the CEO Advisory Committee. At that point, six years had passed and he knew it was time to move on.

Before his successful career in real estate, he created one of the first online marketing companies in the United States. This was one of the first times he remember tuning in to his instincts. The Internet didn’t exist, yet he knew it was going to be huge. Many people thought we were crazy, but he knew we were onto something new, uncharted and very big.

It was 1995. he was 23 years old and leading the sales team. He sold the company in 1997 to USWeb, the largest Internet professional service firm in the world. His brother and him, along with a friend, started this in their parents’ basement, working 100-hour weeks for years.

Being part of the Silicon Valley boom was phenomenal, but looking back, he wishes he took more time to breathe it all in. Everything was moving so fast; he was so young. And he loved every second of it. He’s honored to have been awarded the prestigious Crain’s “40 Under 40” award and to have received the Eastern Michigan University Alumnus of the Year Award, having graduated from there with a double major in Economics and Journalism.

Through it all, he has always had business coaches – as an agent, as a manager, always. Even before he knew about “coaching,” he had advisors to whom he could turn for advice and inspiration to support and fuel the drive he had within him. At times, he has had two coaches. It’s true! In fact, he currently has two coaches and uses co-coaching with other coaches in the industry. It is through coaching that he found his voice, especially when he took over at Marcus & Millichap.

He learned how to more effectively communicate with all the different agents, both locally and nationally, and how to work with and communicate more effectively with the C-level people of the company. He continues to use coaches because they hold him accountable and facilitate his own growth. After all, even us coaches have dreams and aspirations!

He has sat on the board of directors of nearly a dozen organizations in the past 20 years, served as a mentor to many, and continues to do so as his way of giving back and paying it forward. he wants to share one more important thought with you.

As a cancer survivor, he is a mentor with Imerman Angels (imermanangels.org). He is a 16-year cancer survivor (and counting!) with every intention of staying that way. He mentors men who are, unfortunately, going through a very scary experience. When he was going through his own diagnosis and treatment, his mentor was Jonny Imerman. His support was life-changing for him.

He lives in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan with his wife, Joanna, who makes true the old saying that behind every strong man is a stronger woman. She is a nurse and Reiki energy healer when she is not driving carpools, supervising homework, making meals, and raising their kids – all of which she does selflessly.

Their son, Jacob, is an awesome basketball and tennis player with a kind heart. Their daughter, Aria, is an amazing singer, dancer, and pianist with a heart every bit as kind as her brother’s.

When He’s not busy growing businesses or guiding people through their next endeavors, he’s playing tennis or basketball with friends or the kids, skiing, golfing, reading or listening to books, writing, or focusing on self-development.

Connect with Jon on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

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 brxambassadorcom to learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and you’re in for a treat today. Today on the show, we have John Dwoskin with the Jon Dwoskin experience. Welcome, John.

Jon Dwoskin: [00:00:44] Hey, well, thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to share what you are doing with our listeners. Tell us a little bit how you’re serving folks at the Jon Dwoskin experience.

Jon Dwoskin: [00:00:56] Yeah. Thanks so much for asking. I work with successful people who are stuck and get them unstuck in their business. I work with solopreneurs to Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies and everything in between. And really, you know, creating a space for them to get unstuck and then creating and working with them on a vision and then reverse engineering that vision and giving them and providing them and opening up a discussion, leaving them with immediate tools to implement into their business and grow their business to get and keep them unstuck.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] Now, the word stuck in unstuck has been bandied about quite a bit lately. I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or just a hot word we had grind a while ago. That was a hot word that we were talking about, but stuck in unstuck seemed to be floating around a lot lately. Do you find that it is the pandemic that has kind of made people realize that, hey, maybe I am stuck, maybe there is something more than what I have right now?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:01:55] You know, it’s been it’s been a word I’ve been using for almost seven years in my business, and I have found that it has been consistently something that people call me and say, John, I’m stuck. I need to get unstuck. I think the pandemic rose everyone’s level of consciousness and level of awareness to begin to identify that what they want is to be more fulfilled. What they want is to be more in alignment. And so because of that, they’re more aware of, they’re stuck. So I don’t know if it’s the word is new, but I think people are just kind of realizing that they’re stuck. They have been stuck. They just didn’t know it.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:36] So what are some symptoms of being stuck?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:02:41] So some symptoms of being stuck are

Lee Kantor: [00:02:45] Like, what’s it look like, how do I know if I’m stuck or not?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:02:48] Yeah, well, you’re complacent, you’re bored, you are doing the same thing and not seeing growth or results. The stuff that used to work isn’t working. The mindset of yesterday isn’t working, and just the way that you’re approaching your business is working. But it’s not. You’re not seeing the type of growth that you could see based on the little movements where if you move just a little bit, you’re stuck. See, what happens is as what the pandemic did was that it put people who were in alignment and taking action. It put them into an adjustment period. And so in this adjustment, where people are evolving, that’s where they get stuck and don’t know how to get back into alignment. And so if you feel out of to put it simply, if you feel out of alignment. That means you’re stuck in your adjustment. And and what I do is I help people get back into alignment. And so sometimes that’s a small little thing. I was, for example, I was on the phone with a client the other day and you know, there was one thing that they were doing in their business. We dove in and they made a million dollar shift in their business. So it’s about communicating and realize you need more mentors today because you’re more distracted today, right? So people are stuck, but people are also more distracted and they need people to pull the best out of them. So a lot of times, you know, there’s this quantum problem where things that we do, we don’t realize are so special because we do them. But if we can get somebody to bring the best out of us when we are so distracted, then we can turn that and monetize it and grow our business.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:30] Now in your career, you’ve gone down a variety of roads and have been successful throughout. Can you share with the listeners how when you became stuck or decided you had a point of inflection and you were going to, you know, maybe pivot tweak or just go a different path? How did you realize that? Did you have mentors and coaches that were helping guide you through those things? Or is this something that you just figured out while you were kind of in it?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:04:57] I’ve had business coaches and mentors for 25 plus years. And so through every career, I’ve always had people that I can turn to on a consistent basis to talk about and deep dove into my business and forecast three, six, nine 12 months out and say, OK, where am I today? Where do I want to be tomorrow? Am I fulfilled? Am I in alignment? What does that look like? How am I going to grow my business? How am I going to grow myself as my soul grows? So does the evolution of any business that I’m in now.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:30] Was that something you just kind of organically figured out during the course of this career? Or is this something that was with you at the start?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:05:39] You know, my dad was an entrepreneur. Everyone in my family were entrepreneurs, and from the time I was 18 years old, my my dad gave me a set of tape sets by Brian Tracy, the psychology of success. And that just kind of ignited something in me. So I became a student of learning, and so everything I read or listen to carried that message, and I would then carry that message in my conversations with my mentors and coaches. So I was always kind of in the on the path of fulfillment and evolving myself, evolving my business, evolving my soul. And so it kind of I would say it was a combination of art and science.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:20] Now, how did kind of the mingling of business and soul occur? Did something happen where you were like, Oh, like this? I had some sort of an epiphany moment or is this something that just said, you know, this is the holistic way of looking at life?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:06:37] I read a book called The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zuckoff. And in it, he says something. I may be getting a bit wrong, but not, but not really. But in it, what he talked about was the ideal human being is where the personality begins with the personality ends and the soul begins, and you can’t even tell. And I thought, Oh, that was so interesting, because if that is the case, I’m a bit out of alignment. And so that was kind of where I realized the connection of business and soul and being in fulfillments, being in alignment and constantly realizing that I needed to be in a state where I was always evolving and raising my level of consciousness. And so, you know, as you outgrow. You know, bosses or outgrow different careers. It’s because I was always evolving and growing my business acumen, but I was also doing soul work as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:39] Now how do you kind of marry this big wide, this big mission with kind of monetary or materialistic things? Or do you?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:07:52] Well, you know, I think I’m I’m really good with being a conscious capitalist. I believe that making money is a great thing, and the more money people make, the more money I make, the more people I can help. And so for me, I’m all about providing coaching over my lifetime for over a billion people and getting them thinking big by getting them unstuck and staying consistent and being fulfilled. And so I do it three different ways. I update content on my website every day. I have a daily podcast so people can get a lot of content from me for free every single day on my social platforms, my website, et cetera. I then have custom coaching, right, which is either one on one, you know, coaching trainings that I do keynotes that I do. Those are very custom to my clients. For those that can’t afford that, I offer a group coaching, which is every Monday night at 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Eastern Live coaching with me. It’s a private coaching group, but where my one on one coaching is full access to me. Even between sessions, my Monday live coaching group is the only access they have is my Monday coaching group and that’s $100 a month. So you can do, you can you you can learn from me for free for $100 a month or custom one on one coaching, which also the the tentacles of that are group trainings, private custom trainings and keynote talks.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:23] Now, when you’re working with a client, one on one. How does that work? Like is the beginning? Just conversations kind of deep dove. See if it’s the right fit, ask them questions about, you know, the outcome they desire and then kind of formulate a plan of action.

Jon Dwoskin: [00:09:40] Yeah. So I every client starts with a deep dove with me. That deep dove is typically three to five hours after the deep dove. They go into a maintenance program of 15 minutes a week or 30 minutes every other week. Some clients may do forty five minutes, but but the majority do 15 or 30 minutes. And and that’s the way to stay consistent. And I guarantee everything I do. I do no contracts. I am a month to month investments. I consider myself, my clients, consider me a profit center for their business and I guarantee everything that I do. I tell my clients, when you get the bill, don’t pay it. So I I’m very value add and I can provide and I can hear what’s not being heard. I can see what’s not being seen and I can take a company no matter what size and say, OK, here’s what you’re trying to do, what you’re telling me. Ask them a series of questions and say, Here’s what you really need to be doing and where you need to be going. Give them perspective, leadership, effective communication skills. You know, work with them on their vision, their goals, being specific, being miserable, miserable. I’m, excuse me, measurable and and really just diving into all of the nitty gritty detail that’s accustomed to exactly what they need in that moment to get unstuck, inspire themselves, inspire others and grow their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:05] And then it sounds very tactical to that. You’re getting really into the weeds and granular of do these four things this week and we’ll check in tomorrow. So you’re part cheerleader, part accountability partner and part tactician.

Jon Dwoskin: [00:11:19] Correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:21] Now for you in this journey is the most rewarding part. Their success is that kind of what brings you the most joy nowadays?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:11:31] Yeah, I love watching clients succeed and get unstuck. And you know, to me as a coach, my emotional intelligence, my intuitiveness is very high. So many times I can see things that are hidden in plain sight that they cannot see. I can hear and see things that they’re missing. And so that they’ve been missing for years, sometimes decades. And to me, it’s just as clear as day. And so once I can get them to the point and create that space for them to erase their awareness, their consciousness, or they can see what I’m seeing and then provide them the tools and the action plan on how to execute and evolve to the next level. It’s hugely fulfilling. For me, getting people unstuck is amazing to me.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:17] Now, can you share a story? Don’t name their name or their company, but explain what they’re kind of before looks like and explain your actions. And now then what the after looks like.

Jon Dwoskin: [00:12:29] You know, there’s so many, but one that comes to mind is, you know, working and I’ve done this many, many, many, many, many times is working with a team of salespeople who cannot sell and don’t have the proper training in place and training them on a consistent basis and on a group basis to get them to start selling, increase their courage, provide them tips to really multiply their pipeline in a major, major way and grow not only their own pipeline, but the company’s bottom line working with companies to train managers. Because most managers have not been, we’re promoted because they were good at their job but don’t know how to manage people. And then nobody trained them on how to manage people and coming in and teaching and educating people, how to manage people working with CEOs or leaders of companies who don’t know how to effectively communicate and make people feel like they matter and create and carry a vision on a daily basis and provide people the tools and the understanding and awareness of what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and the impact and the influence that they have, which most, most people don’t realize. And diving in and educating people on the simple and then giving them simple ways to implement it and execute it into their daily world.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:47] Now do you mind sharing one or two things that a person could do themselves right now to get unstuck or at least make them aware of their stuckness?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:13:56] Absolutely. Start of morning ritual where there are silent time, preferably meditation, and create a ritual of meditation and quieting your mind and your nervous system. Your best ideas are inside of you. You just if you’re running a thousand miles an hour, you can’t get to them. And so you’ve got to. I think everybody should meditate. You can call it whatever you want. Silent time going for a walk with no music doing something. Getting in nature but absolutely taking care of yourself and your well-being is absolutely number one, and having a morning ritual is absolutely critical. So whatever that is, five minutes of walking and five minutes of reading, five minutes of this something where you can get grounded in alignment and be ready to conquer the day because you’ve you’ve nurtured and fueled yourself.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:53] Well, John, congratulations on all the success. Just amazing story and just you’re really a gift to the people that follow you and that I’m sure are working with you. If somebody wants to learn more. Maybe get a hold of some of those free resources or, you know, get on your coaching calendar. What is the website?

Jon Dwoskin: [00:15:15] My website is John Dwoskin, John Diaz and David W0 Sky and John Dwoskin. My cell phone is two four eight five three five seven seven nine six. Anybody can call me and we can chat. I answer my own phone. I have a team of eight people that work with me so I can be with clients and return calls because people are buying me and and they want to hear from me. They can email me at John John at John Dwoskin Scam. And again, John Dwoskin dot com is my website, and two four eight five three five seven seven nine six is my cell and you from my website. You can add to all my social platforms where I have live stuff Monday to Friday, and my website is updated every day.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:01] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jon Dwoskin: [00:16:05] Thank you. I appreciate you having me on the show, and I appreciate your community for listening. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:10] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Brooke Wright With LOCAL

by

BrookeWrightBrooke Wright is partner and Chief Client Officer at LOCAL, a change communications agency that has been named an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing private company in America and one of Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Best Places to Work (twice).

An Atlanta native, Brooke is a seasoned marketing strategist with 18 years of experience helping B2C and B2B brands bring their story to life inside and outside the organization.

She has worked on both sides of the desk—serving agency and client brands, ranging from national/global non-profits, to Fortune 100 companies.

While managing large complex external brand programs, she realized one of the biggest limitations to success was directly linked to belief in the brand and program on the inside by the company’s most important asset – its people.

Her attention and passion shifted inwards to leading organizational strategies and transformation programs focused on strategic employee-centered design and communications to drive positive change and, in-turn, impactful external success.

In her free time, Brooke is an avid estate sale shopper and lover of all things old. She is passionate about designing curated spaces combining old and new.

Her most recent project was LOCAL’s very own headquarters, The Be Nice House, in Atlanta’s historic Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.

Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Local
  • About The Be Nice House
  • How the pandemic affected the plans and visions for The Be Nice House
  • Where the inspiration for BNH came from
  • The types of events that are a perfect fit for the space

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a fun one, 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 Atlanta Business Radio. We have Brooke Wright with local. Welcome, Brooke.

Brooke Wright: [00:00:41] Hey, Lee, thanks so much for having me.

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

Brooke Wright: [00:00:47] Yes, I’d love to. Well, we are a consulting firm. We’re located in Old Fourth Ward of Atlanta, our headquarters where we are today. We’ll talk a little bit more about in the show. It’s called the be nice house, but local was started about five years ago out of a need that my two business partners, Neil Bedwell and Andrew Esterday, who’ve been on the show in the past that we all saw coming out of some of our marketing careers working in or for Fortune one hundred organizations. There’s constant change going on in any organization, but especially those big ones. And so whether it was an HR team that was working on a massive reorganization or an IT team that had a new piece of technology that they needed employees to all use or just a training program to help a team become more brand focused or customer focused. We just saw a gap that a ton of times there was a lot of resources and investment put into these change initiatives that needed to take place. But when they got time to roll those out to employees, the communication of those often was just maybe even a series of emails that the change that they needed to stick wasn’t sticking because of the communication.

Brooke Wright: [00:02:04] So as marketers, we were all marketers in our prior career. We saw an opportunity. You know, if we were launching a product to consumers on the outside, we’d spend tons of time and resources looking at our audience first and then crafting very specific communications on different channels to those different audiences. And we just didn’t see the same thing happening inside of organizations. So we turned everything we knew as marketers on the outside to the inside of businesses and working with Fortune. One hundred companies today to doing what we call change, marketing, marketing, change to employees to to really drive inspired change versus change that’s maybe compliance based and thinking of employees is an audience that we’ve got to think about worth winning, not just communicating with through some pretty direct messaging and emails. So we’re really humbled. We just were named on the Inc five thousand fastest-growing companies and Atlanta’s best places to work for the second year in a row. So some exciting things happening down here in Old Fourth Ward at local.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:09] Now tell me a little bit about your work in terms of how the companies you’re working with. Choose the you to solve this problem. Every company is part of their mission statement, has a variation of our people are the most important asset. Yeah. And you can cut and paste that into pretty much across industry. It doesn’t matter the size. They all at least give lip service to that kind of the way of thinking are the. And it gets to the heart. I would think a lot of it is the culture of the organization. Exactly. And when you’re having these kind of conversations with your prospective customer or your your actual customer. How how much do they mean it? You know, they say it, but but, you know, actions speak louder than words. How much disconnect are you seeing or incongruity between the intention or the aspiration to to behave in that manner and the actual behavior?

Brooke Wright: [00:04:13] That’s that’s a great question we could spend all day talking about.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:17] All right. We have all day. Let’s let’s do it.

Brooke Wright: [00:04:20] But the quick answer, I think organization, a lot of organizations do talk about being people first. We talk about that in our own team here at local and people. First is it’s a great ambition. But to live that out, the bigger you get is really challenging. And so we just look at it really simply that being people first is really about listening first, listening to employees, listening to where they’re at. As we see these huge transformations happening within organizations, it’s often and very common that we see great intentions, but just not slowing down to see how that change may be received from an employee standpoint first. And again, like we do that in the marketplace, we listen to potential customers if we’re launching a new product. But people first really starts with understanding people and their needs and their feelings and how change may be received on their end. So all of our clients have great intentions of that. Unfortunately, the speed in which a lot of this change has to happen prohibits that and a lot of organizations. But we have seen with COVID just a huge uptick in looking at employees and employee engagement differently. As we’re working in virtual environments, we don’t have the face to face contacts that we used to have. There is just a much more intentional need for employers to be spending more time listening.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:46] Now, as part of your work as a marketer, I’m sure you believe in metrics and and choosing the metrics that matter as kind of the benchmark of how well you’re doing. Has the recent kind of employee tightness in the market and the demands of the employees really exacerbated some of these issues where these aren’t no longer? Yeah, let’s get to this down the road. But this becomes now vital to even just staying in business for a lot of folks that are desperate to, you know, to get the right employees to work there and keep them. Is this stuff really at the forefront nowadays, more so than maybe a couple of years ago?

Brooke Wright: [00:06:31] One hundred percent. We’re having daily conversations with clients from everything from talent acquisition. How what are we making appealing in our culture to get new people in? What are we doing to help those people grow and develop and want to stay a part of our culture once they’re here? And employee engagement data, as you mentioned metrics, that’s huge. It’s a key part of what we do. We have our own tools that we use and a lot of our projects and client work, but we’re also leveraging a lot of the tools that they’re using and their HR teams. Hr Teams is one of the main groups that we work with in our client relationships, and so that data is hugely important. But yes, COVID and the talent market that we’re in, all of that has elevated the need to look at metrics more closely.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:19] And it’s the metrics that matter. Like I would imagine one of the pain points that they’re seeing is, Hey, why aren’t we keeping enough people? Why are these great people, you know, going out the door as fast as they’re coming in? Hey, maybe we should call the local folks to help.

Brooke Wright: [00:07:34] We would love that. We would love that.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:36] But is that is that usually the pain point is that somewhere around the retention? Because that’s a noticeable thing for anybody. They don’t have to be that paying that close of attention to notice, Hey, where’s where’s Mary? She was great. How come she’s not here anymore?

Brooke Wright: [00:07:53] Yes. Retention is one of the key metrics that we look at, and we a lot of the work we do with clients is around that. So like I said, that talent acquisition and and retention, how do you keep people happy? And that’s not just about giving them the tools that they need to do their job, it’s it’s looking at them like a human being and and knowing and understanding them and what makes them tick within their job, what they care about, what they’re passionate about and how the organization is nurturing up.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:21] Now in your work internally for your own organization, you decided to invest in office space. That is a little different and maybe is kind of has a bigger y associated with just coming up with a different type of headquarters for your company. Can you talk about that?

Brooke Wright: [00:08:39] Sure, I would love to. Yeah, it’s maybe a little bit ironic that we’re talking about a physical office space in the middle of a pandemic. But funny enough, we’ve signed the lease on a new space in the middle of Old Fourth Ward a month before the pandemic. Hit so we have continued to evolve our vision for what return to work looks like in the future of work for our own company, just like we do for a lot of our clients. But we’re just really excited to kind of officially show the world this space. It’s a space we created to really create community and culture within our own team, but also as a hub for the community here in town, for the film industry to utilize the space. But it’s a historic building on Edgewood Avenue that was humble beginnings as a engine repair shop turned church turned yoga studio turned skateboard skateboard manufacturing facility. And now it is what we call the be nice house. The owner, prior for 20 years, had painted a beautiful graphic on the side of the building before selling it a couple of years ago. That said, be nice and just a reminder to the neighborhood of just a simple, simple thing we should live by. And so we wanted to carry on that tradition. And so we call this space to be nice house. It’s a nontraditional office space, not a desk in sight. A huge twenty five hundred square foot outdoor courtyard and a lot of living space. That was what we created as a safe way for our team to return with plenty of room to spread out. But also our team just loves coming together and one of the safe place to do that, even in a COVID work environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:25] So now with this space, the way that it’s configured, how, how, how does that impact the community as a whole outside of your own folks?

Brooke Wright: [00:10:36] Yeah, that’s a great question. So we wanted the space to be a place of gathering and people coming together. So we’ve been using it for community events, meeting lots of bringing local business owners together and the old Fourth Ward community to come together and think about community initiatives that we need to be all collectively participating in to help the neighborhood. Just next week, we’ll be hosting an event with the Atlanta Design Festival on design and the black image with some, some great speakers here. So just as a gathering place, you know, community and culture is key to what we do as a business, and we wanted this place to be more than an office, which is why we call it a house and a place together.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:23] Now can you walk through the thought process? Obviously, it happened pre-pandemic, so maybe the thinking was different once the pandemic hit. Maybe there was some changes in how it how you finished, but talk about, like why it was important to build something that serve the community, not just, Oh, let’s just get a good space for us because that’s what we need.

Brooke Wright: [00:11:45] Yeah, our team, you know, we’re a team that’s passionate about change, obviously, with the work that we do within organizations, that change comes in a lot of forms and a big part of that. And what’s important to us as a business is change in our community and not just talking about it, but actually doing something about it. And so having a physical space to do that, just it gave us a great platform to be able to come together with others in the community who have the same passion.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:16] And then since you it’s open now, right?

Brooke Wright: [00:12:20] Yeah, we’ve been open since January, so it is open now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:25] So now how does it work if there’s somebody in the community that is interested in, Hey, we have this event now, they can look to you and say, Hey, you might be able to do it here, hosted here.

Brooke Wright: [00:12:37] Is that how it works? Yes, you can reach out to us on our website, local industries. And there’s a nice little tab there for the B Nice House with lots of fun photography to actually see the space. It’s kind of hard to describe a space. It’s kind of like trying to describe what a delicious cheesecake tastes like to somebody, but you really need to come and see it and experience it. So we love to have coffee with anyone who is just even interested in thinking about what does a future workplace look like in this world we live in? Or they have a great event coming up that you’re looking for a unique environment to do that, that that can be safe as well. So we would love for anyone who’s interested to come grab a cup of coffee with us.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:18] So it could be, you know, a one time event or semi-regular. Or it could be like, Hey, I want to work out of there, like I moved my small team there.

Brooke Wright: [00:13:28] Yeah, they can. If you want to host a meeting with your team, we call it kind of a retreat from business as usual. You know, everyone needs a chance to get away. And because we have ample outdoor space, that’s been a great option for people. We’ve hosted a lot of photo shoots and film events with the local film industry here, in addition to some of those community events that we just talked about. So lots of different use use cases for the space.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:53] So now in your work and serving organizations and their people, does it do you still get to scratch the itch of marketers and helping them with their marketing? Or is your work solely just internal?

Brooke Wright: [00:14:06] That’s a great question, so we work with a lot of marketing teams still, but mainly on the internal side, so helping marketing teams selling ideas across the organization. When we were working in corporate America, one of the things that we saw is that marketing teams, you have these big ideas for things you want to do on the outside. And then we joke that they get dropped into the corporate blender and they come out kind of a fraction of what they started as. And we saw that as some of the dysfunction of ideas just not circulating well internally to get them sold in, to be able to to do what you wanted to do on the outside as a marketing team. So we support a lot of marketing teams from that standpoint. We don’t do external marketing, but we help the teams make sure that their ideas can come into fruition on the outside.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:55] Well, congratulations on all of the success. If somebody wants to connect with you, whether it’s to help them kind of optimize their own team, or if they’re a local business that wants to, you know, check out the event space, what’s the coordinates? What’s the website?

Brooke Wright: [00:15:11] It’s local industries and there’s an easy place on there just to email us at hello at local industries and we would love to chat and grab a cup of coffee.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:22] Well, congratulations again on all the success, Brooke. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Brooke Wright: [00:15:27] Thank you, Lee. It was fun.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:29] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on the Atlanta Business Radio.

 

Darcy Eikenberg With Red Cape Revolution

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RedCapeRevolution

Darcy Eikenberg is a leadership and career coach who’s worked with high-performing professionals at The Coca-Cola Company, Microsoft, State Farm, Deloitte, and Hewlett-Packard, among other great companies.

She speaks inside organizations and at professional group events on career growth, personal development, and overcoming leadership challenges. Plus, Darcy’s the author of Red Cape Rescue: Save Your Career Without Leaving Your Job and blogs regularly on leadership and career issues at Red Cape Revolution.

Her ideas have been shared in the Harvard Business Review, Thrive Global, Chief, CNN.com, ABC News, The Ladders, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Forbes and elsewhere.

She graduated from Northwestern University and started her business in Atlanta, where she lived for 15 years.

She’s constantly sharing new ideas and tools, which you can get for free each week when you sign up at Red Cape Revolution.

Connect with Darcy on LinkedIn, and Twitter and follow Red Cape Revolution on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The biggest mistake most professionals are making when they hit a tough time in their life at work
  • The biggest trap we get stuck in when we’re ready for change in our careers
  • Drop Some Balls

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Lee Kantor hear another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. We get to catch up with an old friend, Darcy Eichenberg with Red Cape Revolution. Welcome, Darcy.

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:00:23] Hey, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Well, I’m excited to catch up. Tell us about Red Cape. How are you serving, folks?

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:00:29] Yeah, so Red Cape Revolution is a leadership and coaching firm, but really, the idea of the Red Cape Revolution came out of thinking about when you were a kid and you grab a towel or a sheet and you throw it around your shoulders and you would feel confident you’d feel in control and asking, What do I need to do to feel that way every day in my life at work? And so a lot of the work that we do with our clients and companies is to help get that feeling back at work to make people feel they can take control again in their lives, at work so they can soar once more, no matter what’s going on in our world.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:11] Now do you find that a lot of folks are kind of just going through the motions at work like they feel like they’re maybe a cog in the machine and it doesn’t really matter what they do or don’t do, and they’re just kind of showing up and they kind of lose that spark that maybe they had right when they started.

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:01:28] You know, I think we all struggle with the battle of the brain, right, there’s a little part of our brain that is just sending us the messages to try to keep us safe and small and and like, Oh, don’t do that or don’t don’t put your, you know, keep your head down, don’t lift your head up, you know, follow the rules. But our modern workplace doesn’t work like that anymore. And I think what I’m seeing is that some of the frustration and the concern and the stresses that are happening and especially our professional workplaces, our knowledge workplaces are really what’s happening is that people are hearing a different voice. They’re hearing that voice. So they’re more heroic self, the one that says I, I want to make more of an impact. I want to have more meaning in my work or I want to work differently. I want to work with less stress or with people that I enjoy or on things that I care about. And yet we hear we listen to that lizard brain voice, that other part of our brain. And so we don’t take a step forward. We don’t take control. And a lot of my work and what I’ve been writing about in my next book is to how do you have the tools that you can take back control of your life at work and how to make it simple and practical and ways that you don’t need anybody else’s permission to do some of these things for yourself? You don’t. But it also you can look at the world and the world of your work in different ways that you might not be seeing right now. And you don’t have to be a cog in the system or just somebody you know in a cube, just pushing papers around. There’s somebody out there who needs you. There’s meaning that you need right in your own company and you can go and find that.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:18] So now what is an engagement with you look like? Are these people kind of just frustrated and they feel like they don’t know where to turn and they turn to you and your team? How do they, you know, like what’s kind of their the symptoms of this, this agenda?

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:03:34] Yeah, it’s a great question. So I sometimes say that my biggest competition in my business is my client, him or herself, because people will usually come to me after they’ve been struggling for a little bit because they’re smart. And this is even the the story that they bring to me or that, you know, they’ve share later. It’s been going on in their head. They’re like, I’m smart. I should be able to figure this out. You know, something’s not quite right, but I should have the tools to figure it out. I should if I only take the weekend or I’ll figure it out on my next vacation, or I’ll figure it out when the project’s over. The merger is done, but eventually there’s a catalyst moment. There’s something that hits where someone realizes, Hey, you know what? I’m not figuring this out. I’m I’m actually something’s not right in my life at work, and that doesn’t always mean that they’re doing anything wrong or that anything is wrong with their company. It just may be a feeling it may be prompted by hitting a birthday that has a zero on the end. It may be prompted by something else external, a merger and new leader, anything coming in. But when people come to me often they’ll think that if something’s not right at work, they only have two options. That one option is what they need to go find another job. And so like, can you help me find another job? Or they’re like, Well, finding another job is hard. I need to just suck it up and deal, and there must be something wrong with me.

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:05:11] So can you help me figure out what’s wrong with me? And the truth is that neither of those options are true. Very often you don’t have to totally leave where you are to create a situation that works better for you and whatever you want right now, or you don’t have to suck it up and sacrifice, you don’t have to say, Well, I must not be good enough. This is the best that I can do. I’m just going to have to deal or or I have to be fixed. There’s something wrong with me. So a lot of our work here is around how to help you help people get clear about what they want, which we often don’t take time to do. Build the confidence and trust themselves again, that those things are possible. That they can have those and then take the actions to take back control. Whether that means having different conversations inside their company, whether it means making different choices about where they’re spending their time, what they’re doing, or sometimes it’s as simple as just changing a thought instead of making an assumption that this situation is broken. Maybe it’s it’s changing the assumption that these this group of people, this team I’m working with doesn’t. No, any better, they don’t have another alternative, so maybe I’m the one that they’re waiting for that I could bring the alternative. So it’s a mix of things, but it’s always about finding new possibilities that work for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:42] Now, I’ve been reading a lot lately, and the word stuck has been showing up, I’ve seen books called Unstuck. I see the word stuck. Do do people feel sometimes that they’re stuck, that there isn’t any options and that they’re kind of they don’t feel like they’re they have any control over their situation?

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:07:03] Oh, we we all feel stuck right? And this is, I think something we don’t recognize is actually a normal part of any career. I talk to people all the time that I use the term. They look good on paper, right? They’re a senior VP of digital marketing at XYZ Company. And from the outside, it’s like, Oh, wow, you know, that person has it all together, but they don’t feel like it. This is just human beings. This is how we are. We all get into places where we feel stuck, and I think we have to normalize that. We have to almost anticipate the fact that at some point in your beautiful and long career, you are going to hit a speed bump, you’re going to hit the wall. Something’s not going to go right. So what do you do then? And that’s really why I wrote my next book, Red Cape Rescue. Save your career without leaving your job because I wanted to give people the tools for when that happens, not if because it’s going to happen when that happens. This is what you can do that you control.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:18] And then when you have that awareness that it’s going to happen, it should take some of the surprise and the unexpectedness out of it. And I would imagine that you’re better equipped to deal with it when you know it’s ahead. Like I read a book that’s called the obstacle is the way obstacles aren’t there to sabotage you. They’re just part of the journey. And when you know that and you know the big rocks in the road in front of you, you now go, Oh, that’s here’s the point when the Big Rock comes in front of me, and now this is where I go over it, I go around it or I go under it, I go through it. I just, I know it’s coming. It’s not like, Oh, wow, woe is me. Why did this happen to me? It’s just part of the journey. And it sounds like you’re saying kind of a similar thing that there is a point where you’re just going to feel this way and when you know that ahead of time, you can plan accordingly.

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:09:13] Mm hmm. Or you can not be surprised and get into what I call the swirl right when when things happen. First of all, I think we forget a lot of times that our work is organic, that our work changes all the time and we change what we need, changes the environment around us changes. And just because we might have been in one particular job or role for a period of time, a stretch of time doesn’t mean it looks the same. And so recognizing that, yeah, you know, something is going to happen at some point and that’s going to be OK. Instead, when the thing happens, when that boulder drops in the road or that you know, you wake up to the announcement that your company is being bought by your worst competitor, which just happened to a client of mine, it’s it’s like, Oh, OK, new data. New information. You know what? Now what’s next for me right now, what right and and not? You know, not being in the mind space where I’m always worrying about when the next shoe will drop because that’s no fun, right? That’s that swirl of worry. Worry never wins. But the expecting that there’s always a messy middle, that there’s always something that happens and when that happens, great. Ok? Do I have the tools? Do I have the confidence in myself that if it’s not clear, I’ll figure it out. You know, how do I create? How do I be creative when there’s chaos instead of succumbing to the chaos? And those are things that we can plan for and prep and build our skills for now?

Lee Kantor: [00:10:54] Now, some of the recommendations in the book are counterintuitive. Can you talk a little bit about your advice of dropping some balls? What does that mean and how can someone do that in a way that makes sense to them?

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:11:09] Yes, so often today where I’m hearing from people and you probably hearing this too of when people say they’re stuck, a lot of times it’s they’re overwhelmed or feeling burnt out, or they just have they feel like they’ve just got too many things to do and they’re not feeling successful at any of them. But I had a mentor who once said Overwhelm isn’t about having too much to do. Overwhelm is about not choosing what to do. And when we recognize that it’s a choice and that we can actually take a step back and assess the things that we’re doing, we can find the balls that we should drop. We can find the things that might be being pitched at us because, you know, and we’ve been maybe trying to catch them and throw them all back because we want to be a team player or we don’t want to show up as lazy or any of those labels that we put on ourselves. But the truth is that the things you might be doing now that take time and that also are not in what I call your superpower space, the place where you’re at your best and highest use that by looking at those and saying, maybe there’s another option here. I often find working with clients when we look through clients as they are overwhelmed or close to burnout.

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:12:32] When we look through the things they’re spending their time on, we can find 20 to 30 percent of things they’re doing that they can drop and nobody will notice. There are always things that we organically added into our jobs. Things like meetings that maybe a year ago when the team was new were essential. But now the team has its rhythm and they don’t really need that time on the calendar every week. Maybe you can drop that. Maybe you can just not go to those meetings, reports things where systems have replaced access to data. I am constantly seeing people spend tons of time on PowerPoints and things for meetings where once when you talk to the person they’re meeting with or the executive, like, I didn’t read it. What’s the headline? So did they need to spend that time to begin with? But really assessing that and dropping some balls is counterintuitive. But it’s the way to magnify how you are making the best contribution in your superpower space and the things that also feed you and make you feel like you’re the hero in your life at work. Not that you’re doing everybody’s grunt work, that you’re actually contributing to the company in the way that they need you to contribute.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:54] Now are your clients, typically these seasoned executives that are maybe frustrated and want to get to a new level? Or do you sometimes work with recent grads that are just starting out on their journey or is a combination?

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:14:08] So I mostly work with a mid to upper level professional, right? Somebody who already has what again, paper looks like a successful career. They they have, they work at a good company. They have a good job, they work with good people. They maybe make good money, but there’s something that’s going awry for them and they’re. They’re questioning themselves. They’re saying, what’s wrong with me? I do volunteer work with ads, and I think some of the differences in somebody who’s new in the workforce is really recognizing that what from the outside world of work looks like, it’s very buttoned up and structured. And this is how we do things in a Google world. We’re looking for the magic answer, but they don’t exist. It’s all made up and recent grads. I’ve always advised need to spend more time connecting with people and understanding, you know, building relationships and seeing things through other people’s eyes in different parts of the world of work, as opposed to spending too much time behind the screen, trying to figure out what’s the perfect way that my résumé should be, or what’s the perfect way that I need to show up. But yet we still keep teaching some of these things, and I will tell you people don’t hire resumes anymore. People hire people. So whether you’re recent grad, whether you’re an experienced person, all change comes through connection with others and also the connection with ourselves. What we want.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:49] Good stuff, Darcy. If somebody wants to learn more about your practice, maybe get on your calendar or get a hold of your book. What is the coordinates? What’s a website?

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:16:00] Yeah, I’m at Red Cape Revolution and the book is at Red Cape Rescue. You can find me both ways, but the new book comes out soon. And looking forward to sharing it with more of the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:14] Well, thank you for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Darcy Eikenberg: [00:16:18] Thank you. Appreciate being here.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:20] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on high velocity radio.

 

Donna Poudrier With Effective Speech Communications

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Donna Poudrier grew up in a sales-oriented household.

Her father and mentor was a salesman, sales mgr., sales trainer, speaker, author, etc.

She followed in his footsteps in sales, sales mgt. marketing & new business dev. with Nestle, Ore-Ida, Unilever, and General Foods.

She moved into teaching public speaking at the collegiate level, recruiting, and career coaching.

Connect with Donna on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How to land the right job for you
  • Three key insights for today’s job seekers
  • 3 actions/takeaways a job seeker can use to land the right job for them

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Donna Poudrier with effective speech communications. Welcome, Donna.

Donna Poudrier: [00:00:45] Hi Lee, how are you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] I am doing great. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about effective speech communications. How are you serving, folks?

Donna Poudrier: [00:00:53] Thank you. I love that slogan. How am I serving, folks? Well, I think of myself as a people stager. If you’ve ever sold a home, or perhaps you have friends that are thinking about selling, we often stage our homes and I stage people and I help them present the very best version of themselves to then be able to speak well to a hiring manager or to an HR person to get the job they want. So I’m a career coach and I’m a recruiter. So that’s pretty much how I serve them.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:23] So what’s your back story? How’d you get in this line of work?

Donna Poudrier: [00:01:27] You know, it’s really interesting. We can never seem to. But don’t guarantee our our our linear view of where our career is going, I started out in sales and marketing and the reason being my father was all about the sale. He was a sales manager, a sales trainer. He wrote books on salesmanship. He was a public speaker about sales. So it’s no surprise around our dinner table. That’s all we ever talked about was how to close the sale. So of course, I started out in sales and I worked for a major blue chip corporations like Nestle, Unilever or Rita Hines, General Foods Barilla. All in sales, marketing and new business development. So what’s interesting about this is that I was spending my career creating products, selling them, marketing them, and now my client is my product, so I work with them the very best we can. Where a team approach in creating the best version of themselves with all of their marketing materials, their LinkedIn, their resume, the two minute pitch, their interview strategy and then, of course, to close the sale. So that’s kind of how I get started. It’s all about the sale and it still is right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:39] How how do your clients come to you? Like, are they at the beginning of a job search, like at the beginning of their career? Or are they kind of executives that are trying to get to a new level? Like, what? What is the pain they’re having, where Donna and her team are the right solution?

Donna Poudrier: [00:02:54] That’s a good question. I really work the entire spectrum. I work on my own as a career coach. I work with other career coaches in terms of helping college grads get hired and working with universities or just working with those grads on one on one. And then I also work with an outplacement company where I’m sure you’re aware of when companies are downsizing. They hire an outplacement company and then each of those people have a chance to relaunch their career. And I’m a coach for them so I can be with anyone from just starting out right out of college to executives that are making anywhere from 250 to half a million a year.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:30] Now, is there anything, say, a middle management person can be doing to get on the radar of a recruiter? I’ve always heard of some people are like, Oh, recruiters are calling me left and right, and then other people are like crickets. No one’s calling them about anything. What it kind of catches the eye of a recruiter and what kind of kind of a regular person be doing in order to kind of capture the attention of somebody that might help them land that dream job?

Donna Poudrier: [00:03:56] Ok, that’s a really great question. First of all, I think the number one mistake that everyone makes when we’re looking for a job these days is to kind of sit back. You might you might expect that recruiters are going to just reach out and find out about you through LinkedIn or what have you, but you’ve got to be proactive in your search. But if you want to be found out. Once a recruiter does find you, if you want to be within their radar and pursue opportunities within that firm, you’ve got to have a resume that really speaks to the potential job. Like the first third of the resume, the top third is the most important and average recruiter myself included. We’ll look at a resume anywhere from five to eight seconds. So in that top third of that resume, if it’s not jumping off the page as to who this person is, how many years experience, et cetera, what they could do for the potential company that I’m representing. And fortunately, it goes in the garbage, so you’ve got to be proactive and you have to have the right sales materials.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:54] So that’s the the first step to be found is to kind of kind of get your foundational assets ready.

Donna Poudrier: [00:05:02] You have to have your assets. And what I would say, the other mistake would be that so many people wait to be found or they’re just applying online. And what’s really interesting about this search one something that I learned when I crossed over from being a recruiter to a career coach and combine the two that over 80 percent of jobs right now are secured through networking and directly reaching out to hiring managers, believe it or not, over 80 percent. So if you are sitting at your computer all day and I’ve had people call me up and say I actually applied to 70 jobs today, you know, I can’t wait to hear back. Well, good luck, because no one. That’s not the way to find a job. That’s the smallest portion of the pie. It’s only 10 percent of jobs are secured through online. And secondly, if you’re applying online, you need to be using an applicant tracking system, which is a whole nother scenario. So you really have to be reaching out and networking. Use your network. That is how to get a job.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:58] Now, if when you advise people to, you know, in their career search, you mentioned just now that kind of applying. And people think they’re being proactive and they think, you know, they’re doing work. Obviously, it takes time to do all that and do those 70 applications and submissions. And you’re saying that it’s not. Maybe that’s not the best use of your time, but that is a use of your time. How would you go about if you were this kind of person that’s looking for a new job is your first move to just really identify the type of job first? Or do you identify the company first and then you kind of try to find who knows somebody within there because you mentioned the power of the network, and that’s really where you’ve got to get a friend of a friend to maybe refer you. How would you kind of go about this job hunt if you were putting aside what seems like the obvious and easiest is just making submissions in?

Donna Poudrier: [00:06:56] Right. Ok, so that’s a great question, and this is something that we all need to focus on when we’re trying to find a job. First of all, you got to have a list. If you just say to yourself, I believe your job for six months, my first question would be is, OK, well, you know, who have you applied to? Who your targets? Who do you know in your network? So you really have to have a good list of companies saying to yourself, All right, I’m in the medical device industry. I want to stay there as an example. And if I want to stay there, who are the companies specifically? I think I want to work for and make that list? Or perhaps you’re coming out of publishing as an example, and you know that the publishing industry isn’t doing very well. Well, publishing might be one category you’re looking at. And then what are the other areas? What are the transferable skills you have from publishing you could bring into another industry, so you might have two or three industries that you’re looking at with a list of companies?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:50] So is that that that’s where you really help your client, right? This is what I would imagine that you’re going to save them a ton of time and them kind of barking up the wrong tree or not even realizing they might have gold in their back pocket and not even know it, but.

Donna Poudrier: [00:08:05] Absolutely. They might know somebody that they didn’t think to contact. But the most important part of this is being proactive, as you said, and making that list so you can be checking them off. Because as you know, there’s so many people applying to jobs all the time for each job is probably more than two hundred and fifty applications. So you’ve got to have a lot of conversations going. So if you’re just having put all your baskets in one opportunity and that one falls apart, where does that leave you? So that’s number one. You’ve got to be proactive, then you always have to think about it as a sale. You have to have an approach, a demonstration and a close. You know, the approaches, who are you approaching the demonstration or all your sales materials, as well as your interviewing strategy? And then how are you going to go into that interview and close the sale? And how are you going to as part of your approach? How are you going to reach these people?

Lee Kantor: [00:08:51] And then I find that a lot of people get hung up on the right person, and I think that in when you’re networking within an organization, I don’t think the right. I mean, ideally you’d want to get as close to the right person as possible. But when you’re starting out, anybody in the organization could be the right person for you, whether you know them well or not, because they might know the next person and you’re going to be slowly getting closer to the right person.

Donna Poudrier: [00:09:15] That’s exactly right. I think, are you in this industry?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:19] No, but I mean, it’s just I’m in sales, so that makes sense to me. Like a lot of people get hung up with or if I don’t know the person with the golden ticket, why bother? It’s not. Everybody else is a waste of my time, and I’m like, I don’t think so. I think these kind of weak ties help you because they give you credibility, and then it helps you get one level closer to where you’re trying to go.

Donna Poudrier: [00:09:39] That’s exactly right. You never know where that break or the next job is going to come from. So here I’ve got a quick story about that and you want to hear it? Sure. Ok, so here’s an example of putting the referral opportunity and networking together. And one. This is a smart kid. He actually. We’re back talking about medical devices, actually. He was in the medical industry. He decided that he wanted to work more in the device aspect of it. And he didn’t really know anybody. So he starts going looking on LinkedIn. Now this is, I don’t know this person directly. I know my client, whom I talk about in the second. He’s looking on LinkedIn and he actually finds a client that I’m working with, and he sees that they have a lot of like minded interests. They’re young, they’re, you know, out of school a few years, both like sports. So this kid says to himself, I think I’m going to try to connect with him because he’s actually working at a company that I would love to work at. They don’t even know each other, so no one check off the first box, right, because he’s actually connecting, trying to connect with someone on LinkedIn.

Donna Poudrier: [00:10:40] So my client, of course, says, Yep, you can. I’ll connect with you. Next thing you know and pick up the phone, he says, Can I have a conversation and they have a conversation? They don’t know each other at all, by the way, they connect on the phone. They’re talking about sports teams and industry and sales, et cetera. And then the kid says to him, You know, do you think your company even has any openings? And my guy says, Well, I don’t know. And he says, Well, do you think if I sent you my resume, could you send it down to HR? You never know. Sure enough, sending the resume, my client sends it down to HR. He ends up getting hired. They end up being very good friends and my client gets a referral fee of like almost $3000. Wow. So you just never know. This is one they didn’t know each other from Adam. And then they turn out to be good friends. They’re both working for the same company. Wow. Very interesting.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:26] You never know. And it’s one of again for young people listening. I hope that you kind of can get up some nerve and some confidence to reach out to strangers in this manner because people want to help other people and and don’t be afraid to go maybe a few levels higher than you think you should, because when people are at higher levels, they want to give back and they’re excited to hear from a young person that’s hungry and that wants to learn, they’ll give you some time. So don’t be afraid of that. Take the shot because there are so many older people that want to help the younger person succeed. Because it’s good for their legacy. They feel good about themselves.

Donna Poudrier: [00:12:09] I agree completely. I have a real soft spot in my heart for new grads. My father was such a help and a mentor to me. Coming right out of school and showed me how to do it. And really, it hasn’t changed that much. And the other interesting point that you bring up when you start a little higher is that when you start a little higher on the totem pole in terms of where these people fall, for instance, a couple of different things. If you’re if you start in the middle management, suppose you end up being good friends with somebody like this. Like the story I just told you, if you’re referred in by someone in middle management as an example, you have a better than 50 percent chance of being hired. Like here we go back to the referral system, right? If it’s at the director level, it’s better than 90 percent. And if you start hire that person or that director, so to speak or VP, will trickle it down and their underlings will say, Well, I better interview this person. You know, this person, the VP told me that this person is good. So that’s great advice that you’re offering.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:06] Yeah, I think that people underestimate how much that it means for the the mentor or the, you know, the hire, the more seasoned executive that they want to make time for young people. I mean, they might be too busy or may today or this week or this month might not fit. But don’t be. Just keep trying because if you’re hungry and want to reach out, they’re going to make time for you in most cases. That’s how I’ve seen I. When I was younger, I had a lot of more seasoned veteran people make time to talk to me because I was hungry and relentless, and they saw that, and they want to know that that’s good for their business. You know, that could turn into an employee for them, and that’s who they want to have. Is that person that’s hungry and relentless?

Donna Poudrier: [00:13:53] Yeah, I totally agree with you, and I’m telling these kids that all the time, they have a hard time reaching out networking. It’s something we really need to work on with all of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:02] So now what is kind of the most rewarding part of your job? Is it the, you know, that moment when you get the call? Like, I did it, I got I got an interview, I got the job. Is that really where the joy comes in in your work?

Donna Poudrier: [00:14:16] It is with all levels, whether it be the college grad or the senior exec. Absolutely. And and I also think. Being on their timeline and working according to their plan, for instance, I have people call me and say, you know, I really need a job quickly. You know, I’ve been I had somebody recently. They were out of job. They were out of work for an entire year, which is not uncommon in these days and didn’t have a coach just pursuing it on his own decided to hire the coach. He and I work together, and he had a job within like two, two and a half months, which was record time because we we had a lot of the information. We just had to reposition it and retarget his efforts.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:58] And and that’s another thing for people who aren’t familiar with the way that kind of resumes or handles him processed. If you don’t have an expert advising you, you could be saying the right thing, but using the wrong words that it’s the machines aren’t going to know who you are or why they should speak with you. You’re not standing out, and there’s a lot of kind of advice and information out there. If you know how to do this, that you’re going to get a lot better result doing the same exact thing.

Donna Poudrier: [00:15:27] I know, and it’s really too bad that it’s come to that with applicant tracking systems because you could be very qualified for a position. But if you’re not using the correct keywords that have been included in that job description, you can immediately eliminate yourself when in fact, you might be the best person for the job. But you can’t get the interview

Lee Kantor: [00:15:46] Right now when when people see kind of all these places where you can submit resumes and it makes it seem like there’s thousands and thousands of jobs, and I would imagine there’s thousands and thousands of people submitting on all those places constantly. I. Is that like a lottery ticket? Like, are you really just, I mean, are people getting jobs that way or is that really kind of, like you said, the one out of 10 or one out of one hundred?

Donna Poudrier: [00:16:17] They do. They they absolutely do get jobs that way, but it requires the candidate to be even more focused, customize and tailoring their marketing materials. And of course, it helps if you know someone in the company as well, you might be applying online, but at the same time focusing on someone you might know in your network that works at that company say, Hey, I just happened to apply online. You could put in a good word for me or sending them an additional resume. Whatever you can do, like just one step sometimes is not enough, but I have seen it happen. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:51] Now, do you? Could you explain maybe to our listeners of if you’re in that chair of the I’m the HR person at ABC Big Company and I put an ad in, you know, Monster.com or something.

Donna Poudrier: [00:17:04] Mm hmm.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:04] What like, what’s it look like from my end? Like, what did I do to kind of find the right person and what’s going to happen like when I get all those thousands of people like, there’s no way a human being is looking at all the people that submitted. So I’m sure a machine is kind of getting rid of 90 percent of them. But how does it work so?

Donna Poudrier: [00:17:25] Well, just exactly how you said machine gets rid of about 90 percent of them, and maybe you’ve got, I don’t know, 50 or one hundred left. And then from there you begin with perhaps reaching out with an email, having a quick telephone conversation. If that goes well, then maybe it goes to a higher view where you’re not even actually meeting directly face to face. Then it might go to a Zoom interview and then it might go to personal one on one. There might be projects in the interim. It’s quite a long list. There can be,

Lee Kantor: [00:17:55] But is there? So in order to get past the machines, that’s the hardest part. That’s where they’re going to get rid of 90 percent of the the applicants is how do you know what the right keywords are? How do you know kind of how to position yourself in order to make it through that gantlet?

Donna Poudrier: [00:18:12] The way to make it through if you’re going to apply online, you need to be using an applicant tracking system. Now, one that I use frequently is called job scan, where you have the opportunity to take your resume and post it on their website. Of course, the names coming off, of course, and then also post the job description and you literally press a button scan and and it will tell you what percentage chance you have of getting an interview. And people generally start less than 20 percent and then it will tell you the soft skills and the hard skills that have you have not included on your resume that you should have based on the job description.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:49] And then that’s going to give you kind of an edge.

Donna Poudrier: [00:18:52] It’ll give you, well, it’ll give you a better chance. There’s no guarantee you’re right. But I tell my clients, if you can get yourself up to like 70 percent, 80 percent, you’re in a much better position, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:19:03] And that’s again, the power of a coach. I can’t emphasize enough that your time is worth something. And then when you hire a coach, you’re saving so much time. And if you’ve been out of work for a year, if somebody can, if you would have known at the beginning, oh, instead of a year, it’ll be nine months or six months. You would have taken that in two seconds. And it just you have to invest in yourself a lot of times in order to kind of accelerate your career.

Donna Poudrier: [00:19:33] You do. And you know, what’s good about this is that once you’ve invested the time and effort with a coach or a company or whoever is going to help you, this is really a lifelong lesson. This is not going to change the days of picking up the phone and saying, I’d like to apply for such and such a position. Those are way over, right? Right. So this is really good to learn.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:53] Right. And like you say, it is, it’s going to you’ll be able to help somebody else. You help your kids. You’ll be able to help lots of people with this information once you get it. So it’s definitely worth the investment. So when you’re working with companies, how is it different than individuals, like when a company hires you to find the right person? What does that look like?

Donna Poudrier: [00:20:15] Well, because I’ve done so much interviewing and worked with people so much as yourself and just speaking with them. I feel that I have a good sense of a candidate that might work. I spent a lot of upfront time with the company, first of all, trying to really understand the type of candidate that they want, looking at the personalities, the people involved, who the person would be working for, et cetera. In addition to the resume. So I spent a lot of time drilling these people to the point where I would know I would either I would hire them for the position. If I wouldn’t hire them personally from my company for that position, then I don’t send them on

Lee Kantor: [00:20:52] Because that’s a that’s an important consideration when you’re hiring the right person, the skills. That’s one part of it. But if they’re not the right culture fit, you’re going to have a problem, no matter how skilled they are.

Donna Poudrier: [00:21:04] Absolutely. And it goes the other way, too, for the potential potential individual looking for the job. I always say to them. Think of the when you’re speaking to the hiring manager and you’re going to the company or you’re online and zoom, whatever. How do you feel about them? Is this somebody you feel that you could work well with because as an individual and you want to be hired, you want to place yourself in the right position and set yourself up for success. And sometimes it’s not always a good fit.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:34] Right. And that’s I mean, the older I get, the more I realize all I care about a good fit. You know what? I’m looking for a partner, an employee, a client. I only want the perfect fit because life’s too short. It just it’s not worth it. A lot of times you think you force fit something because you have to and then you’re going to pay for it emotionally or in money, or in some ways you’re going to pay a price.

Donna Poudrier: [00:22:00] It’s not worth it. There is something else I’d like to mention and bring up is you can put all of the best marketing materials together and get yourself in front of the prospective hiring person for the interview. And you can do well in the interview. But there’s there’s a crucial part of the interview that people cringe. May I tell you a story about that, OK? And and I remember this even brings me back to when I just first got out of college, my father was coaching me and how to interview with companies. And I remember him saying to me, Donna, when you’re done and you both you and the interviewer are kind of looking at each other, you don’t know what to say and you think it’s over, but you don’t really sure know how to end it. You have to look at that perspective. Hiring manager and say, Tell me based on our conversation today, how do you feel about moving my candidacy ahead? Or what are my chances of getting this job or based on our conversation and the other people you’re interviewing? Where do I stand? And I remember cringing at that, but thinking, how could I ever? And today happens all the time. I talk to my clients and they’re like, No, I don’t want to ask that question, but it is so crucial and it’s crucial. As you and I both know, being like in a sales situation is that that’s what gives the job seeker the chance to overcome any potential objections. And it also is a signal to the hiring manager that you’re serious about this. Like I tell my clients, it’s funny. I say, like, would you go to a networking event? And just at the end of the conversation, you’re meeting somebody new. You don’t just walk away. You would say, Well, I really enjoyed meeting you. Let’s exchange cards or I’ll be in touch with you. There’s some type of ending, right? Does that make sense? Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:41] Well, there it has to. There has to be that call to action or or you have to close the sale. You have to ask for this.

Donna Poudrier: [00:23:50] That’s right. You’ve got to ask for it. So I’ve got a story here. A couple of stories interesting, like when people do this, what they find out. So I had one college grad, actually, that it was funny because he had he was just done with the job search. You know, he just he said, this is too much work. I just got to college. I just want a job. I just want to get over it like I know you do, but you have to find the right one. So he wanted to take a job actually selling. We’re going a kick out of this advertising space for a radio station. And I said, you know, I think that would be OK, but I think there’s other opportunities for you here. And you told me about this other company that expressed interest. Are you going to go for that interview? And he said, All right, you, I’ll go. So he goes for the interview. And he was on the cusp. He didn’t have that job offer yet for the radio station, but he knew he was going to get it, probably like the beginning of the next week. So here he is on a Friday interviewing with another company, and Airbnb is going really well, and at the end, he says to them, Tell me, you know, what are my chances of getting this job? Not that he really wanted it. And that was the signal to the company that he had a productive job search going on. In fact, maybe he had another job offer and they know, but they really liked him. And instead of telling them what his chances were, they said, Well, what’s your timeline? Because they knew this, they liked him and that he was serious. He said, Well, I’m making a decision on Tuesday because he’s wanted out. He wanted the whole thing over. He was in the parking lot. He left. They shook hands and said, Thank you, and we’ll be in touch right away. He was in the parking lot when they called him up and said, Could you come back down on Monday? And he ended up taking a job offer from them.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:20] Wow. It just goes to show you and and maybe having that other job in his pocket gave him the confidence to to say, OK, I’m going to play this out because I know I’m going to win no matter what, and I have a job that’s that’s so critical. And if you can, even if you can fake that confidence and be brave for those 20 seconds to ask for that, ask for ask for the sale or ask for what happens next like you described. That can make all the difference because you got to know.

Donna Poudrier: [00:25:52] And then I had another client. This interesting, you just have to have the it’s confidence, but it’s also I tell. I tell women, especially we’re not in the scenario so much now because it’s all online on Zoom. But think of I think a woman is a little bit different when they go in for an interview versus a guy. You know, you might get your hair done and your nails done, and you might buy a new outfit and get the get the new heels. What have you like, really? Go all out? Plus, all the preparations, you’ve put a lot of time and effort and you want to know where you stand. So I had a client with this woman, she goes in. She did a great job as a financial analyst position, really wanted the job. And then she said at the end, You know, where? How do you feel about moving my candidacy ahead? And his comment was, Well, I think you’d be a good candidate, but you’re right now, you’re number two. So she said, OK, I’m number two. Well, tell me, what does number one have you in a conversation? Sweet kind of tone. What do I have to do or what does number one have that? Perhaps I don’t right now? And he kindly, you know, was giving her the chance to overcome objection. And he said, I think she’s she. I think she has a little more analytical experience than you do. She could dig into more problems, a little more diagnostic quality, just more experience. And I’m not sure you’re there yet. Not to say you won’t get there, but I’m not sure you’re the right fit right now. So she took it in. We talked about it and I said, You know, you’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s write them an email and say, If you’re willing, I’d like to show you that I do have these qualities you’re looking for. If you give me a project, this was like at the end of the week, I will have it on your desk for you. Monday morning she did the project. She got the offer.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:27] Yeah, by being proactive, controlling what she could control and and being bold and asking for the order. I mean, that’s the I mean, you got to do that today. It’s a competitive landscape for those kind of high quality jobs.

Donna Poudrier: [00:27:42] It is it’s really it’s fascinating, though it seems so basic, just as in terms of sales, but we don’t always think of getting a job as closing a sale, but I’m a firm believer that it is.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:52] Yeah, and I think it’s serving you and your clients well. If somebody wants to learn more about your work, get on your calendar and maybe get some coaching or help a company find the right fit for their organization, what’s the best way to get a hold of you?

Donna Poudrier: [00:28:07] I think the best way is initially just to try to just not try to link in with me and tell me and a brief message why you want to get together or chat or what have you. You can also email me at DPU. I think you have my email at effective speech com to Ms Dot Net, and you can call me on my business line. Very easy two oh three two five nine one two three four

Lee Kantor: [00:28:33] And then and LinkedIn. It’s just your name spelled out. It is. Yeah. Ok, good stuff. Well, Donna, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Donna Poudrier: [00:28:45] Thank you. I really enjoyed chatting with you, and I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:49] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Brian Radin With Fintwist Solutions

by

Fintwist

BrianRadinBrian Radin is the President of Comdata Prepaid. In his career, he has proven success with market leaders and start-ups across software, business services, human capital management, and finance industries.

He also has an impeccable record of maximizing the strategic business model, optimizing business processes, and creating innovative initiatives that facilitate sustainable growth, and generate traction in competitive markets.

Radin has been recognized for identifying/securing key partners and sales channels, raising capital, building strategic C-level relationships with the investment community, and for developing highly engaged leadership teams that increased revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

To learn more, visit the Fintwist website.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn and follow Comdata on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How earned wage access (EWA) address some of the challenges many industries are facing with retaining and recruiting talent
  • How companies help financially empower their employees
  • How businesses step back and revisit their Human Capital Strategy
  • The critical shifts to make with regards to digital in the year ahead
  • How will FinTech companies influence this future

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Lee Kantor hear another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today. On the show we have Brian Radin and he’s the president of Comdata prepaid. Welcome, Brian.

Brian Radin: [00:00:24] Hey, nice to be here. Thank you very much, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:26] Well, Brian, before we get too far into things, tell us about Comdata number one. And let’s also mention Finn Twist Solutions. Let’s let’s talk about how these two tie together.

Brian Radin: [00:00:38] Sure, absolutely so. Finn Twist is a is a brand and a product that Comdata launched a couple of years ago in the payment space, and Comm Data is a subsidiary of Fleet Corp., which, like you, is in Atlanta headquartered, which is a public payments company quite large, about a twenty two billion market cap as of today. Stock market and data itself was the originator of the pay card solution about thirty six years ago. So. Com Data subsidiary of Fleet Core. Finn Twist is the brand that I created with my team when I came to the company about four years ago, and that product covers a number of solutions, primarily payroll cards, but other prepaid type payments products that are in the market today.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:33] So now talk to us a little bit about the evolution of these kind of cards and and how maybe Finn twist came about. Like, what was the problem that you developed it to solve?

Brian Radin: [00:01:46] Well, the the origin of the Corp pay card goes back many years, as said back into the nineties, and really it started as a way for consumers or employees who didn’t have a bank account, didn’t have access to a bank account, didn’t know how to get a bank account to get paid by their employees employers. And so the cards really became at its simplest form when they started a place where money was loaded, pay payroll was loaded down onto the card in their early iterations. It literally was a card that you could take cash off of. Maybe you could use it as a debit card, and pretty much that was it. Over the years, the product has evolved broadly in the market and it data where it has become more of a payments platform and a solution. And while it’s still probably the majority of users are still in this call, underbanked community versus non bank community, the product is evolved into much more of a competitive payment solution, and Finn Twist is really the current evolution of that that we launched, as I said a couple of years ago, which allows our clients employees to use the product not just to get their pay loaded and take money from a cash machine or a bank, or use it a debit card. It’s a full credit rails with MasterCard. It has complete bill payment, P2P type payment solutions, other wellness and budgeting tools, and recently we launched our fin twist on demand, our earned wage access product on the Twist Pay Card. And so it’s become a much more robust product, and it’s I would say our product is is as good if not better than others that we compete with. But I would say in general, the industry has evolved that way from its origins as really being a way for the non-bank to get paid.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:50] Now in in this iteration, you’re working with the employer and this is helping them with their payroll.

Brian Radin: [00:03:58] Correct, so about 70 percent of Americans get their pay through a direct deposit, it’s probably how you do and how I do, but there is about 20 percent that use this pay card product across kind of across the workforce, both part time and and full time, and also even ten ninety nine gig workers. While it’s not payroll because they’re ten point ninety nine, they’re getting paid at a similar a lot of on a similar type product. And surprisingly, still, eight to 10 percent of people are getting checks, although that has dramatically been impacted during COVID. Obviously, it’s a lot harder to pay people that don’t come in or can’t have access. And so there was there’s been a bigger push to move to electronic payments, and we’ve tried to step in with our product. But but broadly, electronic payments have disrupted what’s left of the of the paying people by Czech market. And so we do work with the employer. We provide a program for free to them to offer this product to their to their employees. And again, initially it was for those low bank. The Underbank then then it broadened, and our product, we our typical employee is not somebody who is making purely minimum wage, they’re earning closer to fifty thousand a year. And a lot of the people that use our product also have a bank account as well and use ours as either a way to help plan budget and then use money at a later time. Some use it as a second second way to disburse funds to their others in the family, and still others use it to describe or to set aside money to make specific payments and put the rest of the money in their bank account. So it’s not. It’s not what it was many years ago in terms of this stepchild for Underbank, it’s really a payment platform that we believe into us competes with a lot of the consumer products that are in the market, as well as other pay cards that are being offered through competitors, through the employers themselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:01] Now, from the person that is not using Finn Twist yet, but our kind of the person that could use it when they’re banking the way that their banking doesn’t that don’t they suffer with a lot of fees that are maybe not obvious or not in the brochure of some of the other platforms that they’re using, that they’ll have to pay a lot of fees in order to get access to their money.

Brian Radin: [00:06:28] You know, its fees are an interesting discussion, both in the core banking world. At your bank, as well as other ways in which employees get their their money and then get access to their money, and there’s no question that a lot of the consumer products that you’re bombarded with through digital marketing or you see even on television or other advertising, there are definitely hidden fees. I think the question when we’re looking at it for the people that are not using our product that work for our clients and they’re at a bank, clearly they’re going to get hit with fees. There’s minimum deposit fees, their specific transaction fees, there’s out of out of network ATM fees. So while there are fees on our product, they are more nominal. And also, we feel like access to their money, their work, their payroll is much easier facilitated through using the Fentress Platform one, because obviously we’re working with their employer and to because we’ve launched this on demand or twist on demand, earn wage access product, which which allows them to actually get paid as they work, as opposed to getting paid when their employer processes their payroll, which would not be something that would work with their bank account.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:55] So educate us about the earned wage access. How does how does that work? And that means they get as they work there. It’s almost like in real time as they’re kind of earning the money. They have access to the money.

Brian Radin: [00:08:09] Yeah, you described it pretty well. The companies, I think right now, if I step back. We talked to a lot of HR leaders, business business leaders. Clearly, people in the payroll and operational side of companies, and it’s very clear that. Companies today are challenged by how do I recruit and retain workers? A lot of the types of clients that use our product tend to be in the industries that got hit very hard by COVID, whether it’s retail, hospitality, staffing. And so those companies now as the workforce is beginning to go back to work their challenge and many individuals are still slow to come back to work because they’re still getting unemployment benefits, even if the extra federal subsidies have recently ended. Obviously, there’s still a fear of COVID. We know what’s going on with the Delta variants, particularly in certain locations, and a lot of them have found different jobs. So instead of working in a restaurant, I can work in an office. It’s maybe a little less difficult kind of job, and they’re giving me greater work from home flexibility, which is clearly changed the dynamic between employers and employees. In the old days, the employer set the job, set the hours, set the pay. You came in and you didn’t want to get somebody else. Well, now that’s all been very disrupted and employees have an upper hand, frankly, on employers, so that that puts a lot of pressure on recruiting, particularly since today, recruiting isn’t Hey, we’re filling some new jobs or we’re growing. We need to get people in here to work the work, the manufacturing line or to work in the restaurant or we’re losing business.

Brian Radin: [00:09:54] So this is a pervasive issue for employers. It’s not an HR issue or a payroll issue, and Finn twist on demand is is one way in which companies can attract those employees. It’s not the only way, but with nearly 80 percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. And I think we’ve seen all kinds of numbers, but about 40 percent don’t even have enough money to cover a $400 expense. And in today’s health environment, that’s obviously critical. So they need their money when they work. And as you described it, well, it’s I work. I’ve accumulated a certain number of hours and in the old days I waited for my employer comp data, for example, to process my pay on a weekly or biweekly or semi monthly basis. Today with our platform, what happened simply is I work a certain number of hours. I’ve earned it. I go into our mobile. I say I want to get my earned wage access money or on demand, and they get their money, real time. And that’s really the difference between getting paid and a regular payroll structure and getting paid as you work. And we think that that in talking to our clients and just looking at a lot of research involving evolving in this area, that it does relieve stress because the financial stress that employees encounter is one of the most debilitating and clearly has an impact on their productivity at their job.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] Now you mentioned that there, I guess we’re at the beginning of doing this in this manner in terms of having any research to support that. But I would imagine just common sense wise that this is very attractive to the employee getting, you know, fast pay, make fast friends so they might stay more loyal. You might have better retention if they’re getting paid as rapidly as as you’re describing.

Brian Radin: [00:11:48] Yeah, I mean, there’s been there’s actually while two years ago there was less than something like two or three million in total transactions transactions. Today the number is in the multiple tens of millions. It’s grown incredibly fast over the last two years. And while a number of the providers, as well as people like Deloitte and others, have done research in this area, and what they’ve what they’ve concluded is that it’s a compelling part of a solution that you need to develop as an employer to attract and retain employees. And so, for example, they’ve done studies where I might give an offer of a five hundred dollar sign on bonus to come be a driver at UPS or another company. Or I’ll give you. On demand or an earned wage access option, and more people choose the earned wage access option than the one time five hundred dollars lump sum. So it’s it’s compelling. I would also say that this is only a part of what companies need to do, right? So we’re part of one element of a solution, but I definitely think they need to rethink their wages. They need to think about how do they provide more financial literacy education. So many people who are in the kinds of jobs that are living day to day that are living paycheck to paycheck don’t understand how to to really plan. So they’re not left holding the bag on a lot of expenses. I think better, better other benefits. Some traditional, whether it’s health care or other like employer sponsored benefits are important. I think all of those things have to be combined, and a lot of employers are rethinking it. Many of them cost more money. The good news about our solution is it’s free to our clients. It’s relatively simple, in some cases, very simple to implement, and it’s part of a core platform that we’re already delivering and have been delivering for for quite some time.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:07] So now when they’re working with you, is this something that this is what they’re getting? Whether, as you mentioned, this doesn’t cost them anything directly like you describe, but it’s still you’re helping them holistically solve a bigger problem and you’re helping their employees kind of become more educated so they can make more informed decisions with their money.

Brian Radin: [00:14:29] Absolutely, I mean, it’s you you asked and answered my friend. It’s really it is really that, you know, it can often be trite or sometimes a bit, maybe people who don’t buy into it. But for me personally and our team, we do have a mission and that mission is helping workers become more financially secure. And so that is part of what we’re doing across our broader set of initiatives within data, particularly in the in the Finn twist business, because we’re one of the singular businesses within com data and frankly, flea core that that really is directly in touch with the consumer. The consumer here is generally employees, but we also have, as I said, ten ninety nines and other individuals who are getting paid through our platform. And so when we’re putting those products into the market, we’re always trying to find ways to stay close to that mission. And so that means better ways for people to get access to their money. It means better education. And when I have the money, what do I do with it? Better ways to save it so that I’m not either paying big fees or that I’m truly able to think about the day after tomorrow and have some funds, either for myself or my kids. And how do I think about planning for that? All of those are our pieces of how we look at our constituency and we look at the employers in a way where we’re trying to help them, as you said, facilitate that communication to their employees. Some do it better than others. Frankly, some have a big investment in it. Others are just realizing that I better make that investment because COVID has stimulated this real disruption in the employer and employee relationship.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:25] So now looking into your crystal ball about how you see payroll going forward, is this kind of earned wage access? Is that going to be a must have rather than the nice to have that it is today?

Brian Radin: [00:16:39] Absolutely. And and let’s let’s start at the beginning if if the beginning was today with where technology is in the in the payments world, you would never build a payroll application that says, OK, I’m going to collect hours or I’m going to have salaried employees and over a period of time, I will pay them. Now some of this is clearly employers use that pay to do other things in their business. So if they’re paying out everything every day, it changes their cash flows. It changes their treasury. So I don’t know if we’ll ever see a consistent. Everybody gets paid every day because it has big impacts to the Treasury side of a business. What I do see is which which, frankly, is why it’ll probably never be, even though technology would allow it the way in which employers, particularly the people that are employing, let’s call it, 50 percent of the workforce. These are companies with more than one hundred employees there. They’re going to probably continue to offer the standard way to provide payroll, but I do think this will become one of those components that are part of why do I come to work here? And that’s today. Tomorrow will be if I don’t have it, it’s a reason why people won’t come to work here or we’ll think about going somewhere else. But I don’t think it’ll replace the way or the construct because that construct has financial implications to the businesses themselves, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:18:22] But it might be something that happens gradually, then suddenly. I mean, if there’s enough of a groundswell of people are going to be gravitating to companies that pay when they do the work, it’s going to be it’ll change and it has to change. Now for you, do you have.

Brian Radin: [00:18:39] I think I think. Go ahead. No, would just say, I think just to that point, I think it will change, I think people will offer it all. My point was only I don’t think it will be. I come to work and every day people are going to get paid for the work they’ve done because I mean, let’s let’s look at it this way. If if you could get paid today, tomorrow, on the next day and the money was put on to your fin twist card or your your wallet, or it was if you weren’t using fed to us into your bank account, you’d probably want that versus waiting until Friday or next Friday, because it’s better to have it in my hands than than my employer’s hands if I’ve done the work. And so I think that would be the way they would want it. I just understanding the corporate mentality and understanding how businesses are using cash and how they manage payroll. I think what you’ll see it is, is a very standard offering as part of the. The the the package in which I use to attract employees in my business, and if I don’t, to your point, if I don’t offer it, I will be at a disadvantage down the line as opposed to today, where it’s still at an early enough stage where it’s an advantage because not everybody is using it yet. And so I can use that as a as a leader in in trying to get through this very difficult time of getting employees. I think over time, as the world gets somewhat normal again, it’ll be part of the standard package, just not the standard way in which employers process payroll right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:20] Is there a certain niches that this is going to work better in certain industries that that they should know about this maybe sooner than other folks?

Brian Radin: [00:20:30] Well, I think it’s it starts at the top where if I need people? And those people tend to be hourly. I need a way to get people here working, and I’ve had these conversations with people that run manufacturing businesses and and and retail operations and large franchisees and such like that that are in that bind right now. So I think it probably leans more to the hourly worker and the worker that essentially are in industries where you have less salaried and a little less white collar. But but ironically, when I talk to let’s call more white collar businesses, whether they’re in technology or services. And then you ask the head of HR. Well, what you work for us look like? Well, we have, you know, 80 percent of the people here are really salaried managers professional and then 20 percent are more administrative, clerical. Oh, and do those people get paid salaries? Oh, no, they’re hourly workers. And many of those people are making the same or less than than the typical quote pay card a six or SIC codes, which are in the hospitality and and retail and staffing those traditional industries. So I think it has a broader appeal. Sometimes the mentality or the perception of the head of HR or people in HR or as they think about how the solution should be applied sometimes is a little bit disconnected from if I went and asked those secretaries or administrative assistants, would you like to get paid when you work? Many of them would have the same answer as the person who’s cleaning my hotel room. So I think, well leans a little more to the service based industries like hospitality, restaurants, a staffing and manufacturing more that way. I think there’s opportunities across the board, and it’s probably more around the hourly worker who’s getting paid near minimum wage versus just an SIC code.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:46] And then the ones that are the hungriest for employees and or the most frustrated by the turnover are the ones that are going to be attracted to this, I would think.

Brian Radin: [00:22:55] Correct. That’s exactly what’s happening. I had a conversation with a guy who runs, you know, a pretty large manufacturing business. They actually manufacture foam packaging. The business couldn’t be better, as you can imagine, with everybody ordering online, et cetera. He can’t keep up with his demand. He’s losing revenue because he has hundreds of open spots on his line that he can’t get people to come and work in the factory. He just doesn’t have the ability to bring them in. We’re launching this in several of his locations. He has eight locations around the country because he needs to find a way to get people on the job and working because he’s losing money. And as I said earlier, I think that is a real difference between when you talk about added benefits for companies, for their employees, some employers, they’re great. They love to add as much as they can. They think very highly. They want their employees to feel good about working there. But it was less of an economic imperative pre-COVID in most cases. Now the people that we talked to are beyond payroll and HR, the head of manufacturing, head of operations, because they see a correlation between the bottom line and getting people hired. And if this is something that’s working, which, as you said intuitively, it makes sense, but there’s now more data and other people are doing it. They’re saying, let’s do this. And frankly, even on the pay card side, where we think the core pay card solution is a great solution, it really has a lot of use cases and applications. It was more of one of those nice benefits that people want to offer and getting employers to embrace it and push it was a little more difficult because it typically was a payroll issue or it was HR issue. This is really a business issue, which I think has very broad implications to the penetration of the service and the long term legs that I think the business end solution will have.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:05] Yeah, I’m with you. I think that this is a great solution. And if you go anywhere, you see all these help wanted signs. I mean, people are desperate for good talent. And if you have a method that help them attract and retain, then you, you almost have to pay that price because it’s the you’re losing money because you can’t stay open, you can’t deliver all these other things are happening. So I mean, at some point, those companies are going to have to figure out a way to afford to pay people, you know, in real time.

Brian Radin: [00:25:40] No question, and again, because it’s not there’s no cost to it, so there’s not a there may be some level of implementation, and again, it depends on how they’re paying payroll today, what systems are using and so on. But some some can be done in a matter of a couple of days, so it may take a little bit longer. But look, in the end, I think as you as you look at the world, the landscape leaders of businesses have to look at the reality and you just described it in terms of help wanted signs. I live in New York City, there’s one. There’s help wanted signs everywhere. And right next to them are the casualties of COVID, where the storefronts empty store right?

Lee Kantor: [00:26:22] The the closed store.

Brian Radin: [00:26:24] Right. So in some ways you have this paradigm. Hey, here at one end is what’s happened here. The other end there’s a guy who’s got his restaurant bar and all he’s he’s handing out. When you go in for a drink, he’s got on his napkins. Do you know anybody who wants a job? I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that’s going on. And then when you take that same concept above just the neighborhood bar or restaurant and you think about it at a UPS or a FedEx or some of the really large staffing companies that we do business with, it’s just it’s a whole new set of realities, right? They have to rebuild their labor force. They’ve still got the public health crisis going on before the before COVID even hit, a lot of our clients were getting better and more efficient. So I think over time, businesses because of COVID and as I said it was happening, are going to hire less people. So they’re getting more efficient. How do I how do I then conduct business in that new environment? Obviously, every employee wants to work from home. How do you work from home? If you’re you’re running a manufacturing facility, very difficult. But there’s a lot of other businesses where people were always in an office and now they don’t want to go back. That’s another whole new reality that lots of businesses are grappling with, and it’s obvious to me that employees want better and more impactful benefits, and they really look to their employers, whether whether we philosophically agree that the employer is the paternalistic person, a paternalistic organization that it should be, whether it’s in delivering benefits or education. I mean, there’s a lot of people that don’t think that on the on the business side, but that’s where we are today, and employees look to their employers to provide them impactful benefits and ways to improve their life. And this is just one of those ways in which an employer can do it. But there are many others that they need to address, considering all the changes that are going on in the workforce today.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:28] And that’s why it’s good to have a partner like you that can help them look holistically and also strategically and tactically. Now, if somebody wants to learn more. Tell us the website if somebody wants to learn more about the Finn Twist Solutions.

Brian Radin: [00:28:46] Sure, it’s WW dot fin twist solutions. Simple as that, there’s a bunch of information on what it is, including the core twist product, how it works, the benefits of it, some of the other, some of the other things that we’ve done to help educate both our cardholders, but also potential clients of ours as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:12] All right. Well, Brian, thank you so much. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Brian Radin: [00:29:17] Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate the time and again. I hope that people will respond. Employers will respond and step forward and help help their workforce.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:27] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on high velocity radio.

 

Tina Weede With Peerless Performance

by

PeerlessPerformance

TinaWeedeTina Weede is President, CEO of Peerless Performance and has more than 30 years of experience delivering award-winning and successful solutions that drive positive results.

Peerless Performance, is a woman-owned, WBENC certified Performance Improvement, Employee Engagement, Culture Engineering, and Incentive Agency.

The Peerless Performance design team constructs highly targeted strategies needed to address specific challenges and opportunities, from culture engineering and employee engagement to communications, rewards, recognition, incentive design, incentive travel, concierge travel, meetings and events, safety, and wellness programs.

Today Peerless has a focus on helping clients mitigate risk and bring people back together in a safe and compliant way, focusing on the overall well-being of companies and their employees. Creating safe environments for employees, customers, guests, and vendors is more important today than ever and holding onto your best employees is critical.

Tina served as VP of Research for The SITE Foundation for seven years and is Past President for Recognition Professionals International (RPI).

Connect with Tina on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How to manage the new OSHA ETS for vaccination and testing compliance
  • How to bring employees back into the office safely
  • How to mitigate risk and stay OSHA and HIPPA Compliant as a business owner
  • Services and tools available today that can help HR set and manage to new COVID-19 protocols
  • How to establish wellbeing and safety protocols

About GWBC

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

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Tina Weede with Peerless Performance. Welcome back, Tina.

Tina Weede: [00:00:30] Thank you, Lee. I’m just delighted to be here with you today. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:35] Well, I am so excited to get updated. Tell us what’s new at Peerless Performance. And for those who don’t know, just kind of give us an elevator pitch for Peerless Performance.

Tina Weede: [00:00:45] Absolutely. Thank you again, Lee. Peerless Performance is a woman-owned performance, improvement, culture engineering, and incentive company. And we have had a huge pivot during COVID, which I am somewhat excited about. People would probably be somewhat surprised and I will tell you, I would be surprised if I would have told you five years ago that I would be doing what I’m doing today.

Tina Weede: [00:01:14] So, I’ve been in this industry going on 34 years. And our purpose statement is, every day we get to enhance the quality of people’s lives, and that’s what we do. So, when COVID happened, of course, the incentive side of our business and travel and meetings and events kind of went away. And so, we had to find new ways to enhance the quality of people’s lives, and so we’ve done that. And at the end of the day, it’s about creating safe environments where employees can prosper. And if your employees are prospering and you’re able to retain your high potential, high performing associates in a safe way, then they’ll stay longer.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] Now, that’s a great lesson for folks. While your tactics may have changed, your true north really hasn’t changed.

Tina Weede: [00:02:16] That’s right. Lee, it’s very important to us that we do not ever deviate from our purpose statement, the real big, lofty reason why we come to work, or our core values. Our core values are how we behave, and these are things that we help our clients establish. It’s interesting many times we go into businesses that their core values may have been something that is generated on the internet, or the leadership team sat around a table, or have lunch and decided what their core values would be.

Tina Weede: [00:02:50] Many times there’s a disconnect between leadership and the employee base with regard to how people are really living core values and also culture. A lot of times there’s a disconnect at the C-suite and the rest of the organization with regard to a culture. We all know that you have a culture, whether you like it or not, whether it’s a good one or bad.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:13] That’s right. That culture is going to happen. If you’re not intentional about it, believe me, it’s going to happen with or without your help, so you might as well encourage a good one.

Tina Weede: [00:03:23] Exactly. Because you’re going to get a bad one if you don’t encourage a good one.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:27] Now, as folks are kind of dealing with this, hopefully, post-pandemic, but they’re kind of creating these hybrid, like some remote, some not remote, coming back to the office, not coming back, how do you help folks bring people back to the office in a safe manner? Like, are there are some things you’ve learned on how to do this as smoothly as possible?

Tina Weede: [00:03:54] Absolutely, Lee. And part of that is partnering, really, with the best in the industry to provide the best solutions for our customers. If I were to come right out of the box and, you know, made the statement that I was an expert in safety or compliance, it would not have been believable, right?

Tina Weede: [00:04:17] So, what we did is we went out and we found the best partners who provide the best solutions in bringing people back in a very safe way. So, several of those partnerships we have formed, what we call, the safety shield. And it’s comprised of different products, but products that have been developed by the experts in their industries.

Tina Weede: [00:04:42] And so, for example, HB NEXT is the go-to in safety consulting and safety compliance. And they have amazing tools like Clear2 and the SafetyCloud. So, we’ve partnered with them to be able to provide technology that does self-attestation, could even do temperature checks. And, now, we can do the upload of a vaccination card or manage to a protocol for testing. And it’s very easy to use. The system is very well-established and used throughout many clients. So, that’s one partner.

Tina Weede: [00:05:26] Another partner is a company called Specialty and Safety, and they provide clean air solutions. And the clean air solutions are to a grade that is higher than the typical hospital grade. So, there’s UV opportunities, there’s HEPA opportunities, and the systems that they have actually monitor the air quality. We also have individual units that can go into hotel rooms, or go into cruise line cabins, or into work studios.

Tina Weede: [00:06:07] And then, we’ve also partnered with a company called MRS. And they have a full suite of products where, now, we can even do onsite testing. And this testing actually filters back into our Clear2 product, which allows people to come back to work and demonstrate that they’ve met the protocol in order to come to work that day.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:29] Now, having decided to partner with these other folks, can you share a little insight on how you were able to, number one, identify the appropriate partner? And maybe number two, how you’re able to build a relationship where it’s symbiotic?

Tina Weede: [00:06:48] Well, again, a lot of times it’s staying in your own way. Knowing what you’re really, really good at and then looking to compliment your partners, and all that does is make each other better. But, again, when you’re finding a partner or a strategic alliance, the most important thing to do is do your research, ensure that there will be a cultural alignment. Because the worst thing that you can do is bring companies together where you don’t have the same belief system and the same value system.

Tina Weede: [00:07:25] And I will say HB NEXT was the first in having conversations, and actually our conversations went back for years. And then, there’s another gentleman by the name of Paul Breslin, who is the managing director of Horwath Hospitality. He and I are now working with HB NEXT to bring these products into hospitality, because that’s Paul’s area of expertise and where he is focused for more than 40 years. So, even though these products work within manufacturing, and in construction, and in any type of corporate setting, an additional initiative that we have right now is launching it into the hospitality sector.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:19] So, now, what does an engagement look like when you have this kind of team behind you? Are you still the point person who is kind of establishing the relationship and understanding the needs and desires of the client? And then, you’re deploying whoever is appropriate depending on the outcome they desire?

Tina Weede: [00:08:37] Yes. So, the way we go to market with this product – and, of course, HB NEXT sells the same product through their channels – if we’re going through our channels and we are working as the marketing experts to bringing this out to the end user, it will come through Peerless. And the benefit to that, too, being a woman-owned business, we’ve been certified, very much involved with GWBC, there’s a benefit to our customers for this product to run through Peerless.

Tina Weede: [00:09:17] And so, what we do is we’re creating this atmosphere of whether you come through our door or you come through HB NEXT or Horwath Hospitality, or any of the others with safety or MRS, we want there to be a seamless solution for our clients. So, it doesn’t really matter which door you go in, you’re still going to get that exceptional experience, and that’s important. That user experience right now is important, whether we’re consulting you on your safety protocol, whether we’re consulting you on the new mandate, the OSHA emergency temporary standard that’s coming out, which will eventually become a permanent standard through OSHA.

Tina Weede: [00:10:10] We have the expertise now to be able to guide our clients to set the correct protocols so that we can mitigate risk. When we’re looking from a management standpoint, we want to mitigate risk, we want to make sure that you can have favorable insurance coverage and rates because you are meeting the protocol and standard that’s required from an OSHA standpoint. You can keep your employee safe.

Tina Weede: [00:10:36] Right now, we have such a hard time bringing employees back to work and keeping them. What a great way to show your employees that you truly care by creating a safe environment, physically but also from a privacy and security of data. We’re able to provide that privacy of data and the security of data as well through our systems. And then, you look at H.R., who’s thinking, “Oh, my goodness. How are we going to manage all these new protocols?” Well, now we have a global solution that helps manage it for you with notifications, employee confidentiality, and management to that protocol so that you always stay compliant.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:19] And then, these kind of services, these aren’t nice to have services anymore. These are must have. And someone has to stay on top of all these regulations, the compliance, you know, between OSHA, HIPAA. There are so many moving parts to this and you can’t afford to kind of get it wrong. So, you need a trusted adviser in your corner that’s kind of watching your back when it comes to this stuff.

Tina Weede: [00:11:43] That’s correct. And that’s why all of the alliance partners are so excited to be working together, because, one, we respect each other for being the best of the best within our own industries that we represent in our own sectors. So, we’re excited about bringing this to the marketplace. And when I look at companies that are kind of building their own homegrown type of solution to manage this, it may be a great solution. But wouldn’t you like to have a name like HB NEXT behind you with the reputation of over 20 years experience in workplace safety, consulting, and compliance?

Tina Weede: [00:12:26] And, now, with the best technology – and I’ve seen a lot of technology out there being on the meetings and events and travel side of the business as well for over 34 years, I understand what’s needed in bringing groups back together, and bringing people into hotels, and bringing people into large event arenas and conference spaces. So, that’s why it was so important as we all kind of came together that we vetted these relationships. The products are tried and true and tested, and we’re just extremely excited about this new solution.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:08] Now, has your kind of ideal customer changed with this pivot or is this something that it’s the similar customer just new services?

Tina Weede: [00:13:20] Well, you know, since we’re in the people business, we work with companies who hire people. And so, our business, really, it’s expanded not just to people who are running reward, recognition, and incentive programs, it’s now anyone who is an employer who wants to create a safe environment to bring their employees back. Again, it can be construction, it could be any vertical, it could be manufacturing, hospitality. Really, any employer is a potential client and relationship for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:01] Now, does the size matter? Is it like 50 or more employees, 200 or more, 1,000 or more?

Tina Weede: [00:14:09] No. It really doesn’t. Our products are very scalable. There’s an entry level within the technology, but it’s priced extremely moderately so that people can utilize this tool. I mean, what we want people to do is really use it. Like, the self-attestation tool for Clear2, for example, allows you to do a health screen before you come into the office. If you pass that health screen, and you have met the criteria of your vaccine and your testing protocol, whatever that is, you are able to get a clear to come to work.

Tina Weede: [00:14:59] And we also have the ability to scan QR codes so that we know where you’re going from building to building, or from what would be a safe room within a pharmaceutical manufacturing company, or in the back of the house and looking at manufacturing. So, it’s been put together.

Tina Weede: [00:15:20] And, again, this was not created for COVID. This was created not for the vaccine and the testing management. It was created when COVID first started, because HB NEXT had the need with their large building contractors to be able to have safe environments when people came to work. And so, they were one of the very first to meet this need in the marketplace. And, again, it is so scalable to be able to use front facing with employees or just back of the house for H.R. and just simply managing your vaccination and your testing protocol.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:01] What a tremendous service you’re providing to these folks. I mean, this is such chaotic time, and to have somebody kind of watching the ball as closely as you are is really a gift to your clients.

Tina Weede: [00:16:13] Well, I appreciate you saying that. And, of course, we love our clients. And I look at the relationship in my business of just how much we care about each other. We have now formed a second relationship with HB NEXT and look forward with hospitality as well as MRS and safety. And we’re doing this for the right reasons. At the end of the day, doing things that are tied to your purpose are going to be much more meaningful than just doing it because you see an opportunity to make more money or more revenue.

Tina Weede: [00:16:50] And I know the hearts of the people that we’re working with, and they are dedicated to making a difference in each of our individual industries and really making a difference in the world. Because to your point, people don’t know what to do. But if you have a group of trusted advisers, like what we have created with years and years of experience, I would much rather go in that direction than creating kind of a homegrown solution that might work or might not work.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:19] Amen to that. Now, speaking of kind of having a strong network, talk a little bit about GWBC, has that network helped you kind of navigate this pandemic?

Tina Weede: [00:17:33] Oh, goodness, yes. So, we have been certified through WBENC for the last four years and also as a WOSB. And I have made strong, strong relationships within the WeBe network from leadership throughout all of the WeBes. And I sit on a couple of committees, so I sit on the Voice Committee that is chaired by Tina Stevens. And I also sit on the Mentor Protege Committee with Lissa Miller for Truist Bank. And Sheryl Burk with GWBC. And I’m on this committee, but I’m also a mentor.

Tina Weede: [00:18:29] And I’ve always said in all the years that I’ve mentored young women, I get more out of it, I think, than they do. And I’m just very honored to be able to be part of that, to give back. You know, women sticking together can help change the world. And I’ve seen that and I am seeing this. And I would urge any woman-owned business to get certified to join this network of WBENC and GWBC, and others. But it has really been life-changing to me, and we have wonderful leaders within GWBC, like Roz Lewis.

Tina Weede: [00:19:15] And it’s just been a great opportunity for me and my staff. So, my staff joins in on a lot of the webinars that we have, and the training that we have, and the networking that we do. And we have a meeting tomorrow, that’s a very, very large manufacturer out of South Carolina that would drive in tomorrow. And that opportunity came specifically through the relationships with GWBC.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:46] Now, can you give some advice, maybe to younger people who maybe aren’t a member yet or new to GWBC, how to get the most out of a mentor-mentee relationship?

Tina Weede: [00:19:58] Oh, absolutely. So, the more you’re willing to share in a mentor protege type of relationship, the more you’re going to get out of it. And the more both of you, the mentor and the protege, will get out of this. And really being vulnerable. Sometimes it’s a little bit difficult sometimes to be vulnerable, especially with people that you might not know too well. But you have an opportunity with a mentor to really gain insight into how to grow your business, how to make changes within your business, and sometimes changes are the hardest thing to tackle. But look at it as having an expert or somebody that really cares about you wanting to help you reach your goals.

Tina Weede: [00:20:47] And what I’ve seen during this, is, a lot of times when we first start talking and we first meet, the goals of the protege tend to be much, much different than the goals when we end the program after a year. But a lot of times you just don’t focus on money. Money is a byproduct of something really good. If you’re making the revenues that you want, then you’re doing a lot of things right to increase those revenues or change you have to make. It’s not just hoping for more money. So, it’s looking at how do we help them reach their goals and even redefine what their goals may be.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:30] Well, congratulations on all the success. And thank you for all that you do for your profession and the community. If somebody wants to learn more about what you have going on, what’s the website?

Tina Weede: [00:21:43] Our website is www.peerlessperformance.net.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:50] Well, Tina, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you

Tina Weede: [00:21:55] Well, Lee, I appreciate you. And I just appreciate you having me again, and the opportunity to advocate for women, and WeBes, and WBENC, and GWBC.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:07] Good stuff. Well, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on GWBC Open for Business.

 

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