John Ray, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

2022 Legislative Wrap Up with Lauren Fralick, Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs

April 28, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

2022 Legislative Wrap Up with Lauren Fralick, Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs

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2022 Legislative Wrap Up with Lauren Fralick, Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs (GNFCC 400 Insider, Episode 74)

Lauren Fralick, Co-Founder of Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs, was the guest on this episode of the GNFCC 400 Insider. She and host Kali Boatright covered the 2022 Legislative Session, including how tax incentives were addressed in this year’s session, the Georgia Mental Health Parity Act, upcoming primary elections, the redistricting process and how it might affect races in this year’s elections, and much more.

The GNFCC 400 Insider is presented by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs

At Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs, their public policy, strategic consulting, business development, and procurement work ensures that clients have their fingers on the pulse and their fingerprints on the outcomes.

For over a combined 40 years, Fralick Bozeman partners have been at the table working with decision-makers to help resolve many of Georgia’s most complex and transformational public policy initiatives.

Their successes and reputations are built on being trusted partners. They believe that every client and public sector relationship is cultivated and preserved through honesty, integrity, creativity, hard work, and resourcefulness.

Whether serving in the public sector or championing causes for the private sector, Fralick Bozeman partners have built a solid reputation by relentlessly pursuing paths that help align decision-makers to achieve positive outcomes.

Company website

Lauren Fralick, Co-Founder, Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs

Lauren W. Fralick has over 15 years of lobbying experience in Georgia. Fralick is a co-founder of Roll Call Public Affairs Consultants LLC and Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs, LLC – firms designed to bring innovation, positive disruption and best in class service to the public affairs market.

Prior to forming these ventures, Lauren was a partner for seven years at a large lobbying firm serving clients of multiple industry sectors in Georgia. Before that, she served as the Vice President of Government Affairs for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Georgia’s leading business organization for nearly eight years. She represented the interest of the state’s business community before the Georgia General Assembly and the Constitutional Officers of Georgia on issues important to the economic competitiveness of our state.

She also oversaw the Georgia Chamber’s Political Action Committee and Independent Expenditure Committee by identifying and supporting pro-business candidates for office. Her legislative areas of focus have included agriculture, economic development, regulated industries, taxation, healthcare, transportation, workforce development, education, environment, and energy.

Before lobbying, Fralick gained political experience by working on campaigns in Georgia at the federal, state, and local levels. She was voted “Rookie Lobbyist of the Year” by her peers under the Gold Dome after her first year of lobbying. Fralick is a graduate of Leadership Georgia and serves on the Board of the Georgia Center for Civic Engagement.

Fralick is a native of Swainsboro, Georgia. She and her husband Frank have three daughters and reside in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta.

About GNFCC and The GNFCC 400 Insider

**Kali Boatright, President and CEO of GNFCC**

The GNFCC 400 Insider is presented by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce (GNFCC) and is hosted by Kali Boatright, President and CEO of GNFCC. The Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce is a private, non-profit, member-driven organization comprised of over 1400 business enterprises, civic organizations, educational institutions, and individuals. Their service area includes Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Milton, Mountain Park, Roswell and Sandy Springs. GNFCC is the leading voice on economic development, business growth and quality of life issues in North Fulton County.

The GNFCC promotes the interests of our members by assuming a leadership role in making North Fulton an excellent place to work, live, play and stay. They provide one voice for all local businesses to influence decision-makers, recommend legislation, and protect the valuable resources that make North Fulton a popular place to live.

For more information on GNFCC and its North Fulton County service area, follow this link or call (770) 993-8806. For more information on other GNFCC events such as this North Fulton Mayors Appreciation Lunch, follow this link.

For the complete show archive of GNFCC 400 Insider, go to GNFCC400Insider.com. The GNFCC 400 Insider is produced by John Ray and the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Fitness Trackers and Exercise

April 28, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Fitness Trackers and Exercise

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Fitness Trackers and Exercise (Episode 74, To Your Health with Dr. Jim Morrow)

On this episode of To Your Health, Dr. Jim Morrow covered the benefits of fitness trackers and wearables to track your heart rate, to improve your chances of exercising, and track your diet. He gave a formula for determining your ideal heart rate during exercise, the best kinds of activity and fitness trackers, and much more.

To Your Health is brought to you by Village Medical (formerly Morrow Family Medicine), which brings the care back to healthcare.

About Village Medical (formerly Morrow Family Medicine)

Village Medical, formerly Morrow Family Medicine, is an award-winning, state-of-the-art family practice with offices in Cumming and Milton, Georgia. The practice combines healthcare information technology with old-fashioned care to provide the type of care that many are in search of today. Two physicians, three physician assistants and two nurse practitioners are supported by a knowledgeable and friendly staff to make your visit to Village Medical one that will remind you of the way healthcare should be. At Village Medical, we like to say we are “bringing the care back to healthcare!” The practice has been named the “Best of Forsyth” in Family Medicine in all five years of the award, is a three-time consecutive winner of the “Best of North Atlanta” by readers of Appen Media, and the 2019 winner of “Best of Life” in North Fulton County.

Village Medical offers a comprehensive suite of primary care services including preventative care, treatment for illness and injury, and management of chronic conditions such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and kidney disease. Atlanta-area patients can learn more about the practice here.

Dr. Jim Morrow, Village Medical, and Host of To Your Health with Dr. Jim Morrow

Dr. Jim Morrow is the founder of Morrow Family Medicine. He has been a trailblazer and evangelist in healthcare information technology, was named Physician IT Leader of the Year by HIMSS, a HIMSS Davies Award Winner, the Cumming-Forsyth Chamber of Commerce Steve Bloom Award Winner as Entrepreneur of the Year and he received a Phoenix Award as Community Leader of the Year from the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. He is married to Peggie Morrow and together they founded the Forsyth BYOT Benefit, a charity in Forsyth County to support students in need of technology and devices. They have two Goldendoodles, a gaggle of grandchildren and enjoy life on and around Lake Lanier.

Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter

The complete show archive of To Your Health with Dr. Jim Morrow addresses a wide range of health and wellness topics.

Dr. Morrow’s Show Notes

Tracking Your Fitness

Exercise

The frequency of cardiorespiratory training is limited more often by patient compliance than by physiology.
- It is not inappropriate for one to exercise daily, but few people do.
The ACSM recommends a duration of 20–60 minutes of continuous or intermittent exercise
- and a frequency of 3–5 days per week for cardiorespiratory fitness and body composition enhancement.
- Intermittent exercise is described as a minimum of 10-minute bouts accumulated throughout the day.
The recommended intensity is 65%–90% of maximum heart rate in healthy adults
- and 55%–65% in very unfit individuals.
The challenge, of course, is to know one’s maximum heart rate.
Usual equations for HR_maxis 220—age in years
- Healthy adults should maintain a subjective rating of perceived exertion (RPE) of “moderate” to “heavy” or about 13–15 on the scale.
- Beginners can improve compliance by limiting intensity to “light” to “moderate” (RPE 11–13).
- It is not uncommon for athletes to reach “very, very heavy” (RPE 19–20) for short bursts, particularly during interval training such as wind sprints, but there is little reason to recommend these levels for patients.

Wearable Technology: Activity Trackers and Smart Watches

There is a variety of wearable technologies available in the market that monitor energy expenditure and heart health.
- Physical activity trackers help measure personal metrics involved in fitness,
  - such as the number of steps walked, heart rate, quality of sleep, etc.
- They come predominantly in the form of wristbands and smartwatches.
  - Wristbands are the most popular brand of activity trackers
  - Other wearable technologies include chest, patches, strips, and shirts (e.g., Zephry Shirt).
- Activity trackers typically sync to smart devices and/or upload to computers using wireless connectivity.
  - The companion apps, depending on the product, also enable the users to record and track things like food consumption, activities, weight, ECG, heart rate, and temperature;
    - and can share the data with trainers and medical professionals.
  - Researchers have demonstrated that the data from a wearable device and its companion smartphone app can be integrated into electronic health record systems
  - While wearable devices do require certain degrees of user inputs for accurate tracking,
    - research seems to indicate that they may be suitable as physical activity monitoring platforms
    - and are reasonably accurate for estimating heart rate, number of steps, distance, and sleep duration
  - Wristbands have also been shown to be an accurate, reliable, and efficient tool for physicians to track the adoption and maintenance of physical activity programs
  - However, there is some skepticism regarding their benefits for monitoring physical activity and other
    - Research also shows that the heart rate monitoring function is more accurate at rest than during moderately active exercise
      - and may not be suitable in helping clinicians advise their patients about health issues
    - Manufacturers are in a race to make medical-grade monitoring available with wearable devices.
      - A recent partnership between Fitbit and Dexcom is promising to bring continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) by integrating the popular Dexcom G5 sensor to the Fitbit Ionic.
    - Medical equipment manufacturers like Omron are poised to enter the market with their smartwatch that can provide medical-grade blood pressure measurements and sleep tracking.
    - There are also products on the horizon (e.g., Cronovo smartwatch) that can provide accurate heart rate functions
      - along with prescribing fitness regimens based on individual physical characteristics
      - and guiding the user through video tutorials, calorie, and dietary intake tracking, and integrating these functionalities with voice-based recipes
    - Given the risk factors associated with CVD, there are a lot of applications and technology aimed at generic health factors such as diet and exercise that decrease users’ CVD risk despite not being explicitly marketed for this purpose.
    - Activity trackers have huge user bases (recent filings indicate there are approximately 19 million registered users with over 9 million “active” users,
      - and research indicates that usage of wearable devices such as these does show an increase in physical activity
      - Similarly, diet trackers and calorie counters such as MyFitnessPal™ also show efficacy when used on a regular basis,
        with research suggesting users of this technology were able to maintain dietary changes better than those who did not use them
      - Similar generic applications are also available for blood pressure, smoking cessation, and other associated risk factors.
    - For CVD-specific mobile health applications or devices, the first priority for management needs to be personal risk awareness.
    - While social media is a good medium for improving general awareness, mobile health needs to be more personalized, where the user gains an awareness of his/her own risk factors and identifies what he/she needs to be doing in order to minimize his/her chances of suffering from the relevant condition
      - In addition to personal awareness, ideally, the application or device should provide users with information on what they can do to minimize or mitigate any identified risks.
    - This is a potentially complicated issue to address,
      - as ideally the aim should be to not only provide users with as much relevant information as possible,
      - but also to prompt them to seek advice from their health professional when warranted.
      - Lastly, these applications should have a monitoring component so users can see if they are making progress,
        and track whether any changes in health behavior lead to changes in the risk of having an adverse event

Electronic Activity Monitors

Pedometers continue to be useful tools to monitor physical activity,
- but are dinosaurs compared to the wearable electronic activity monitoring devices that have been developed in recent years.
These sophisticated fitness trackers can be
- worn on the wrist,
- clipped to clothing,
- or incorporated into smartphones.
Most utilize an accelerometer to monitor movement, even during sleep,
- and some versions add GPS technology.
Optical sensors for heart rate are common and provide useful data to optimize exercise intensity.
Virtually all monitors sync with smartphones or personal computers for tracking and graphic display of physical activity, calorie expenditure, and more.
Publications like PC Magazine publish online annual reviews of these tools and can provide comparative data for the latest models.
It is worth noting that not all activity monitors are water-resistant.
Like most consumer electronics, function increases, and cost decreases almost exponentially each year, so there are devices for patients in all economic groups.

Three Types of Fitness Trackers

There are 3 basic types of fitness trackers:
- Basic fitness trackers
  - Count the approximate number of steps you take and calculate the distance you’ve traveled using that data.
  - These are best for walkers and runners who want to track distance-based activity.
- Heart rate monitoring trackers
  - Do everything a basic fitness tracker can, but they also have sensors that can monitor changes in your heart rate.
  - These can help you determine the number of calories you’ve burned throughout the day
- Heart rate monitoring trackers with GPS
  - Can do all of the above, plus communicate with satellites to triangulate your position anywhere on the globe (provided you’re not inside).
  - This is a great option if you’re a cyclist or like to hit the trails.

The 3 Best Fitness Trackers

Garmin Vivofit 3 – Best Fitness Tracker Under $100

Fitbit Charge 2 – Best Heart Rate Monitoring Fitness Tracker

Garmin Vivosmart HR+ – Best Heart Rate Monitoring and GPS Fitness Tracker

The Elephant in the Room

April 27, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

The Elephant in the Room

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The Elephant in the Room

The elephant in the room is the preconception, often negative, a prospective client brings to the table when they think about your profession. In a lot of cases, the elephant offers an opportunity to build trust, depending on how you handle it.

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:03] Years ago, I had coffee with a financial advisor, and during that meeting, he told me that one of the attributes of his firm that he was most proud of was the average length of tenure for financial advisors at the firm. He said, “I think it was about nine years, if I recall correctly, while the average length of firm tenure for the average financial adviser in the industry was nine months.”

John Ray: [00:00:30] Now, I was in a chamber group with this professional and I asked him why he had never mentioned this in our meetings, as I thought it was an important differentiator. I don’t remember his answer and not much else, frankly, about what we talked about in that meeting, but I remember this particular fact. I haven’t seen him in a long time, but I looked him up recently and he’s still with that firm here years later, so he and his colleagues must be doing something right.

John Ray: [00:01:03] For this financial adviser, this length of tenure issue was his elephant in the room. You see, the elephant in the room is the preconception a prospective client brings to the table when they think about your profession. For financial advisors, clients wonder whether they’re going to change firms because financial advisors jump around. If you’re an attorney, the elephant is most likely charging by the hour. Everyone remembers the bill they got for that six-minute phone call. If you’re a CPA, it might be not returning calls or answering emails during tax season.

John Ray: [00:01:46] It could be something which isn’t profession-specific. Age is one example. I was running an investment management firm at age 29 and that was a big elephant I had to deal with at that time. It could be that you’re a solopreneur and the client is wondering what happens to their work if they hire you, and then you get hit by the proverbial beer truck. Now, I know it’s not intuitive, and sometimes, it might be uncomfortable, but I’ve come to believe that it’s always helpful to call out the elephant in the room.

John Ray: [00:02:22] If you don’t bring it up, the prospect often will, and you might as well deal with that elephant in your own way. Now, if the prospect doesn’t ask about it, that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about it, they might just be letting that question fester, and out of courtesy or some other reason, they’re not asking the question. They may be hoping you bring it up yourself. In any case, that question sticking in their crawl won’t get resolved and it will work against you if it doesn’t.

John Ray: [00:02:58] Further, if the prospect has a problem with your elephant even after you’ve addressed it, then you’ve done both you and the client of favor, you’ve quickly figured out that the two of you aren’t a fit, and you’ve granted yourself the freedom to move on. The most important reason to pet the elephant and talk about it is that doing so builds trust with clients, and all of us, as professional services providers, are in the trust business.

John Ray: [00:03:28] If you’re willing to initiate and calmly engage in a particularly thorny discussion about this elephant or anything else for that matter, your trustworthiness in the mind of the client goes way up. And that’s even true for the clients who don’t select you, by the way. Your willingness to talk about the elephant is a sign you’ll be straight with them during the engagement when problems arise, and that’s what clients are looking for. So, what’s your elephant? And how do you address it?

John Ray: [00:04:05] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found on your favorite podcast app\ or you can go to pricevaluejourney.com. And you can also send me an email, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The title of this show describes the journey all professional services providers are on: building a services practice by seeking to convince the world of the value we offer, helping clients achieve the outcomes they desire and trying to do all that at pricing which reflects the value we deliver.

If you feel like you’re working too hard for too little money in your solo or small firm practice, this show is for you. Even if you’re reasonably happy with your practice, you’ll hear ways to improve both your bottom line as well as the mindset you bring to your business.

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray The Price and Value Journey — **John Ray, Host of “The Price and Value Journey”**

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

John owns Ray Business Advisors, a business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneur and small professional services firms on their pricing. John is passionate about the power of pricing for business owners, as changing pricing is the fastest way to change the profitability of a business. His clients are professionals who are selling their “grey matter,” such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.

In his other business, John is a Studio Owner, Producer, and Show Host with Business RadioX®, and works with business owners who want to do their own podcast. As a veteran B2B services provider, John’s special sauce is coaching B2B professionals to use a podcast to build relationships in a non-salesy way which translate into revenue.

John is the host of North Fulton Business Radio, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Nashville Business Radio, Alpharetta Tech Talk, and Business Leaders Radio. house shows which feature a wide range of business leaders and companies. John has hosted and/or produced over 1,300 podcast episodes.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Lamar Tyler, Tyler New Media

April 26, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Lamar Tyler, Tyler New Media

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Lamar Tyler, (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 451)

Lamar Tyler, CEO of Tyler New Media, joined the show to share the work he and his wife Ronnie do at Tyler New Media. Lamar talked about how they got started through the Black and Married with Children blog (BMWK), how Traffic Sales and Profit (TSP) grew out of it, how to leverage digital marketing and social media, TSP as a mechanism to create more successful entrepreneurs, the upcoming TSP LIVE event at The Hotel at Avalon in Alpharetta, and much more.

North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Tyler New Media

Tyler New Media is the home of TSP (Traffic Sales and Profit), and BMWK (Black and Married with Children).

The founders Lamar and Ronnie Tyler have been named one of Ebony Magazine’s Power 100, a list of the top 100 movers and shakers in the black community, finalists for Black Enterprise’s Family Business of the Year, finalists for Infusionsoft’s Small Business ICON award and winners of the ClickFunnels Two Comma Award. They’ve been featured in Essence Magazine, Ebony Magazine, Jet Magazine, Parenting Magazine, CNN, HLN, Good Morning America, The Today Show, and many other press outlets.

BlackandMarriedWithKids.com is the largest independent African American marriage and parenting site on the web.

TSP Is The Premier Community for Purpose-Driven African American Entrepreneurs. Through their events, courses, & TSP Mastermind, they share the best strategies to help you exponentially grow your business.

They teach entrepreneurs across various niches and markets how to generate profit with ease in the shortest amount of time – regardless of email list size or budget.

TSP LIVE 2022 is coming up June 23rd- 25th at the Avalon Hotel in Alpharetta. More about TSP LIVE here.

Company Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

Lamar Tyler, CEO,

Lamar Tyler is CEO of Tyler New Media and heads a digital marketing education and consulting brand Traffic Sales & Profit. He performs public speaking at events and conferences across the country, conducts workshops and seminars, and hosts discussions on topics such as entrepreneurship and digital marketing.

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

Among the recognition received for his work, Lamar, along with his wife Ronnie was named one of Ebony Magazine’s Power 100, a list of the top 100 movers and shakers in the black community, finalists for Black Enterprise’s Family Business of the Year, finalists for Infusionsoft’s Small Business ICON award and winners of the ClickFunnels Two Comma Award. Additionally, in 2021 Lamar’s company Tyler New Media was ranked #2040 on the Inc. 5000 list of the country’s fastest-growing private companies and won the ClickFunnels Two Comma X Award for doing over 10 Million in sales using the ClickFunnels software platform.

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

What is Tyler New Media
Tell me about how you formed both of these businesses?
Why did you start your BMWK blog as a business?
Who do you work with at TSP?
What are the biggest mistakes businesses make online in digital marketing?
Tell us about the impact of TSP
Tell us about making the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies List
How to start a business effectively
TSP LIVE at the Avalon Hotel

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Kim Eickhoff, Kim Eickhoff Coaching

April 26, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Kim Eickhoff, Kim Eickhoff Coaching

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Kim Eickhoff, Kim Eickhoff Coaching (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 450)

Kim Eickhoff joined North Fulton Business Radio host John Ray to discuss her coaching work with small and medium sized businesses. Kim shared her focus on company culture, the need to set the values and direction upfront, how the strongest personalities will determine it if you don’t, the need for clarity from leadership about the mission and path forward to employees and potential employees, the need for leaders to focus on these strategies, what’s at stake, and much more.

North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Kim Eickhoff, Growth Strategist, Kim Eickhoff Coaching

Kim Eickhoff is a growth strategist and motivational speaker. She specializes in working with business leaders who have a deep desire to change the way they run their organizations. She has 20 years of experience in providing guidance and coaching support.

Navigating business challenges is never easy. She coaches leaders and their teams to enhance their self-awareness to improve organizational discipline and create lasting, transformative change.

As a motivational speaker, Kim provides a variety of presentations that guide leaders and their teams to become self-aware and identify their true value, improving interpersonal relationships within an organization.

In addition to coaching, she facilitates workshops and training sessions to support business owners and their leadership teams. Together, they identify gaps in their organization’s alignment, define clear goals and implement effective action plans.

When clients work with Kim, they transform into inspired businesses that have the capability to:

-Define a clear organizational vision -Establish and implement strategies that lead to productivity -Happier, healthier supportive work cultures -Increase sales goals and expand profits.

She believes that none of these goals can become a reality without understanding the essential role that every team member possesses.

In all of her programs, Kim is committed to team members understanding themselves and developing a mindset to support the challenges present in all businesses. When you choose to work with Kim Eickhoff Coaching, your leadership team will be in a state of constant discovery. You will identify your challenges, fears, and anxieties to develop mindset practices supporting a sustainable business. This work is not easy, but it is necessary for your business to have long-term success.

As a lifelong learner, Kim is committed to assisting organizational leaders and team members to get down and dirty and unpack their “stuff”.

In addition to an Executive MBA from the University of Colorado, Denver, and a Master’s Degree in Professional Counseling from Georgia State University, Kim has certifications in:

-Adding Zeros Certification, Team Coaching Certification, IMPACT Management Systems Training, High-Performance Leadership Program and Certified Soma Yoga Teacher.

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

What creates a toxic culture in an organization?
What are the components of a toxic culture?
How does a toxic culture affect the workplace?
Who’s responsibility is it to ensure there isn’t a toxic culture?
What steps can an organization take so that they create a healthy culture?
How does a healthy culture function in comparison to a toxic culture? Why is this important?

LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022: Craig, The Barefoot Forge

April 26, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022: Craig, The Barefoot Forge

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LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022: Craig, The Barefoot Forge (Organization Conversation, Episode 15)

Craig Cowan, owner of The Barefoot Forge, was at his third WORKBENCHcon when he sat down with Richard Grove to talk about not only what he enjoys about it, but what he’s learned over the years. He shared how he got into blacksmithing, how the business is growing, how he now has gotten into woodworking, his take on failure, and much more.

Organization Conversation is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Craig Cowan, Owner, The Barefoot Forge

Located in the North Hills of Pittsburgh PA, “The Barefoot Forge” is a collective blacksmithing group owned and headed by Craig Cowan, a young self-taught blacksmith native to Pittsburgh.

Craig started blacksmithing as a hobby over 10 years ago, inspired by boredom and completely self-taught, has grown his experience and passion into a unique skill set that allows for incredible, custom, heirloom pieces made traditionally. With a bit of luck and lots of experimentation, the methods used to hot forge beautiful Damascus rings were developed and now The Barefoot Forge is thrilled to make awesome rings for awesome people!

To them, your ring truly is special. The very idea of creating a lasting, custom piece that’s unique and somewhat random inspires them to do the very best work we’re capable of. Your wedding ring is something you’ve spent plenty of time considering, and it’s something that represents your relationship, shouldn’t it be something indestructible and unique?

Connect with Craig at The Barefoot Forge: Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

About Organization Conversation

Organization Conversation features interviews with movers and shakers in storage and organization, from professional organizers to the creative and talented Brand Ambassadors who use Wall Control products every day. You’ll hear tips, tricks, and how-tos for storage and organization, as well as receive first access to Wall Control promotions. We talk with our suppliers and partners to give you a look behind the scenes at how we operate, what makes our family-owned and operated brand tick, and some of the fun and interesting insights that go into making our business run. We love our guests, as they are engaging and entertaining with interesting experiences to share. By focusing on those guests and the amazing stories they tell, we hope you will be enriched and find your time listening to the Organization Conversation podcast as time well spent.

Organization Conversation is hosted by Richard Grove, and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and others.

About Richard Grove

Richard Grove, Host, *Organization Conversation*

Richard Grove‘s background is in engineering but what he enjoys most is brand building through relationships and creative marketing. Richard began his career with the Department of Defense as an engineer on the C-5 Galaxy Engineering Team based out of Warner Robins. While Richard found this experience both rewarding and fulfilling, he always knew deep down that he wanted to return to the small family business that originally triggered his interest in engineering.

Richard came to work for the family business, Dekalb Tool & Die, in 2008 as a Mechanical Engineer. At the time Wall Control was little more than a small ‘side hustle’ for Dekalb Tool & Die to try to produce some incremental income. There were no “Wall Control” employees, just a small warehouse with a single tool and die maker that would double as an “order fulfillment associate” on the occasion that the original WallControl.com website, which Richard’s grandmother built, pulled in an order.

In 2008, it became apparent that for the family business to survive they were going to have to produce their own branded product at scale to ensure jobs remained in-house and for the business to continue to move forward. Richard then turned his attention from tool and die to Wall Control to attempt this necessary pivot and his story with Wall Control began. Since that time, Richard has led Wall Control to significant growth while navigating two recessions.

Connect with Richard:

Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn

About Wall Control

The Wall Control story began in 1968 in a small tool & die shop just outside Atlanta, Georgia. The first of three generations began their work in building a family-based US manufacturer with little more than hard work and the American Dream.

Over the past 50+ years, this family business has continued to grow and expand from what was once a small tool & die shop into an award-winning US manufacturer of products ranging from automobile components to satellite panels and now, the best wall-mounted tool storage system available today, Wall Control.

The Wall Control brand launched in 2003 and is a family-owned and operated business that not only produces a high-quality American Made product but sees the entire design, production, and distribution process happen under their own roof in Tucker, Georgia. Under that same roof, three generations of American Manufacturing are still hard at work creating the best tool storage products available today.

Connect with Wall Control:

Company website | Facebook | Instagram

Anna Klimmek, Happy Food MN

April 26, 2022 by John Ray

Minneapolis St. Paul Business Radio

Anna Klimmek, Happy Food MN

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Anna Klimmek, Happy Food MN (Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Episode 38)

Happy Food MN provides corporate wellness events and healthy cooking demonstrations, as well as offering an online school of fun and informative classes. Founder and chef Anna Klimmek was on the show to talk about her fun approach to empowering people to live their best life. She talked with host John Ray about why she calls her company Happy Food, her tips to make it easier for people to cook with whole foods, her workshops, why she doesn’t ever talk about weight, how her business mirrors the way she cooks, her successes, and much more.

Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio is produced virtually by the Minneapolis St. Paul studio of Business RadioX®.

Happy Food MN

Happy Food MN was founded by Anna Klimmek, who received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and Le Cordon Bleu Training.

Combining more than one hundred dietary theories and a variety of practical lifestyle coaching methods, she crafts personalized workshops to help your employees achieve their health goals.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook

Anna Klimmek, Founder/Chef/Health Coach, Happy Food MN

Anna is a health coach and personal chef who teaches people to eat for their body in a way that works for their life. As a Le Cordon Blue grad, she has nearly 20 years of culinary experience. Her education as a Health Coach with advanced study in Hormonal and Gut Health from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition guide how she cooks and approaches food and gives her a unique perspective on the relationship between cooking, food, health, and life.

Anna’s mission is to empower people to live their best lives in the body that they are in. Happy Food MN offers programs that create self-empowerment, not only with food but with life choices. She is a personal chef and cooks for people with autoimmune disorders and food sensitivities. She does one-on-one health coaching, cooking classes and Healthy Living and Eating Workshops that teach you, “it doesn’t have to be hard to live healthy.” My superpower is that I make healthy living, tasty fun, and easy!

Questions and Topics Discussed in this Episode

What do you do?
How did you start?
Who do you serve?
What is your true mission?
You are in the process of rebranding “Healthy Cooking” to “Happy Cooking” – Why?
What do you want everyone to know about living a happy life?
How has your life changed since starting your own business?
What’s next?
Any advice for budding Entrepreneurs?

Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the Minneapolis St. Paul studio of Business RadioX®. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Why Clients Value Us: A Live Example

April 25, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Why Clients Value Us: A Live Example

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Why Clients Value Us: A Live Example

An answer to a question I asked a podcast guest is an example of why clients value us as professional services providers. The answers they give to that question might surprise us. (The complete podcast episode from which the audio clip we used is taken can be found here.)

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:05] One of the podcasts that I produce is Business Beat. It’s sponsored by top 50 CPA firm, Frazier & Deeter. Roger Lusby, who’s the partner in charge of the Alpharetta office of Frazier & Deeter hosts the show and I sit alongside him. Now, a few years ago, we had a show in which Roger invited a long-term client of the firm, Chuck Walker, to talk about the growth and success of his company, Chemlink Laboratories. Near the end of the interview, I asked Chuck about his relationship with Frazier & Deeter and how that relationship had contributed to his firm’s success. Listen in.

John Ray: [00:00:47] During this time, you’ve had this long-term relationship with Roger and Matt, other folks at Frazier and Deeter, so you talked about the value of having great outside counselors and advisors like Frazier & Deeter, talk a little more specifically about how they’ve been helpful to you.

Chuck Walker: [00:01:06] Well, I’ve been with Roger since well before 1984.

Roger Lusby: [00:01:12] A long time.

Chuck Walker: [00:01:12] Long time before that, ’81, ’82. And what I found in dealing with Roger, we’re both like younger then, number 1, but we had a lot of things in common. We both love baseball. We both like to talk sports. But then, as you could tell by hearing Roger on the phone, very calming effect. So, you would call Roger, “My gosh, we’re here”. “Okay, Chuck. Okay, Chuck, let’s walk through this step by step, by step.” And of course, he knew a lot more than I did about what the problems would be and how we would handle them, and that’s how it grew over the years. And then, in fact, Roger took me to the sixth game of the 1995 World Series, and we sat there, we had dinner, we watched the Braves win, they were only-

Roger Lusby: [00:01:59] Tom Glavine, one hitter.

Chuck Walker: [00:01:59] Tom Glavine and just as he hit the homerun. But sometimes, you talk to Roger, if you don’t even come away with anything, when you get off the phone, you’ve calmed down, but in most instances, you come away with things, you come away with solutions, or “Here’s what I suggest”, and that’s been a huge, huge help asset.

Roger Lusby: [00:02:19] Well, thank you, Chuck.

John Ray: [00:02:22] Okay. So, what were the first couple of things that came to mind for Chuck as he thought about his relationship with Roger and Frazier & Deeter? What were the first couple of things that came up in the heat of the moment? Well, Chuck could have mentioned Roger’s degrees or his many years of experience. He could have mentioned the firm’s many areas of expertise which he can draw on. He could have mentioned the fact that Frazier & Deeter is a Top 50 accounting firm. But none of those attributes got mentioned. He did get around to mentioning the solutions and the outcomes that Roger and his firm helped deliver for him, but that’s not how he led off the answer to my question. What was the first answer? It was baseball.

John Ray: [00:03:12] Well, with that answer, I think what Chuck was addressing was the relationship he enjoyed with Roger. Now, I suspect that for Chuck, the mutual love of baseball that he referenced was a symbol of a personal bond, which the two of them had developed. It was more than just going to the World Series together. It was that their conversations and times that they had shared at baseball games, and maybe on the phone talking about baseball, and how the Braves were doing, they were just a reminder for Chuck of the human traits that Roger has, which appealed to Chuck and attracted Chuck to Roger in the first place.

John Ray: [00:03:56] The second thing that Chuck mentioned was Roger’s calming effect, as he called it, when Chuck would call Roger about a business problem. As Chuck clearly indicated, sure, he valued Roger’s advice and counsel over the years, but there was something more. He started by talking about how Roger delivered that advice, and how that delivery, the calming effect of it, was important to him.

John Ray: [00:04:27] This conversation is an illustration of how our clients and prospects have intangible reasons for selecting us initially and for continuing to do business with us. Those intangibles have nothing to do with our degree, certifications, experience, all the things we might default to when we think about why our clients not only buy from us, but continue to do so over the years.

John Ray: [00:04:53] Here’s another thing to remember. Just as every client is unique, client intangibles are unique. To use this example, the intangibles which Chuck mentions for working with Roger, baseball or calming effect, might be totally different than what other clients of Roger’s might mention. So, understanding why a particular client might be interested in doing business with us, might hire us, or might continue the professional relationship, and in turn, justifies the price that they’re willing to pay for our services, all of that requires more than just judging their demographic, or psychographic, or what avatar they are, or some other commoditizing feature that marketers come up with.

John Ray: [00:05:43] That’s where the value conversation comes in, digging into in the initial buying conversation, and then over the years, as the relationship grows and develops, why our clients not only start doing business with us, pay the price they pay, but continue to do so. Digging into those hopes, fears, dreams, those intangibles that drive why the relationship begins and why it continues.

John Ray: [00:06:15] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found on your favorite podcast app or at pricevaluejourney.com. If you’d like to connect with me directly, you can send me a note, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Cary Matthews, Opal Partners Group

April 25, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Cary Matthews, Opal Partners Group

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Cary Matthews, Opal Partners Group (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 449)

Cary Matthews, Managing Partner of Opal Partners Group, joined host John Ray to discuss his work as a fractional Chief Operating Officer. Cary shared details on the role of a fractional COO, how he amplifies and improves the operations of his clients, leadership in navigating change, exit planning, success stories, and much more.

North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Opal Partners Group

Opal Partners Group, LLC (OPG) is a Fractional COO and operations consulting firm.

It was founded by Cary Matthews built on his experience leading all aspects of operations in small businesses for more than twenty years.

Our services are structured based on your unique needs. We help most clients using Advisory Services, Projects, and Interim Leadership.

The goal of your operations should be to extract value from every resource you invest in the organization. Our operations assessment helps you determine where you can make improvements.

Our assessment is completed with the leadership team and OPG. During the assessment, we will apply the Operations Hierarchy to all seven essential functions common to every business:

Leadership
Revenue generation
Production
Information Technology
Finance
Human Resource
Business Preparedness

Website | LinkedIn

Cary Matthews, Managing Partner, Opal Partners Group

Prior to starting OPG, Cary was COO and EVP of Operations for several small businesses in the greater Atlanta area.

In those roles, he led the project management, support services, accounting, human resources, engineering, and logistics departments.

Some of the improvements he achieved include reducing time to invoice customers by 80%, improving cash flow, increasing gross profit by 10% while absorbing a 30% increase in sales, shortening training curriculum development time, and reducing training delivery costs by 30%.

Cary earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration, both from Auburn University.

Activities include serving as a member of the MBA Advisory Board for Anderson University, board member and treasurer for Vision USA, and a member of Vistage International.

He has taken professional development classes at MIT and Georgia Tech.

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

For those who aren’t familiar with fractional executives, give us an overview of what you do.
What does a typical client engagement look like?
What is one of the most significant or common issues your clients are dealing with now?
What’s been your experience in dealing with implementing changes in small businesses?
What else are you seeing businesses struggle with or issues they must face in the future?
How do managers and business owners move to results-based management?
How do these things affect the average employee of a small business from their perspective?

2022 Legislative Wrap Up with Lauren Fralick, Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs (GNFCC 400 Insider, Episode 74)

Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs

Lauren Fralick, Co-Founder, Fralick Bozeman Public Affairs

About GNFCC and The GNFCC 400 Insider

Fitness Trackers and Exercise (Episode 74, To Your Health with Dr. Jim Morrow)

About Village Medical (formerly Morrow Family Medicine)

Dr. Jim Morrow, Village Medical, and Host of To Your Health with Dr. Jim Morrow

Dr. Morrow’s Show Notes

Tracking Your Fitness

Exercise

Wearable Technology: Activity Trackers and Smart Watches

Electronic Activity Monitors

Three Types of Fitness Trackers

The 3 Best Fitness Trackers

The Elephant in the Room

About The Price and Value Journey

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

Connect with John Ray:

Lamar Tyler, Tyler New Media (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 451)

Tyler New Media

Lamar Tyler, CEO, Tyler New Media

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

Kim Eickhoff, Kim Eickhoff Coaching (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 450)

Kim Eickhoff, Growth Strategist, Kim Eickhoff Coaching

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

LIVE from WORKBENCHcon 2022: Craig, The Barefoot Forge (Organization Conversation, Episode 15)

Craig Cowan, Owner, The Barefoot Forge

About Organization Conversation

About Richard Grove

About Wall Control

Anna Klimmek, Happy Food MN (Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Episode 38)

Happy Food MN

Anna Klimmek, Founder/Chef/Health Coach, Happy Food MN

Questions and Topics Discussed in this Episode

Why Clients Value Us: A Live Example

About The Price and Value Journey

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

Connect with John Ray:

Cary Matthews, Opal Partners Group (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 449)

Opal Partners Group

Cary Matthews, Managing Partner, Opal Partners Group

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

Our Mission

Sponsor a Show

Partner With Us

Connect with us

Lamar Tyler, (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 451)

Lamar Tyler, CEO,