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Decision Vision Episode 70: How Do I Build My Personal Brand? – An Interview with Jared Kleinert, Meeting of the Minds
Decision Vision Episode 70: How Do I Build My Personal Brand? – An Interview with Jared Kleinert, Meeting of the Minds
“How do I build my personal brand?” is a question many are struggling with right now. If you’ve been successful at building relationships face to face, how do you pivot in an environment where relationships must be developed digitally? USA Today‘s “Most Connected Millennial,” Jared Kleinert of Meeting of the Minds, joins “Decision Vision” to discuss this issue with host Mike Blake. “Decision Vision” is presented by Brady Ware & Company.
Jared Kleinert, Meeting of the Minds
Jared Kleinert is the founder of Meeting of the Minds, as well as a TED speaker, 2x award-winning author, and USA Today‘s “Most Connected Millennial”.
His invite-only mastermind community, Meeting of the Minds, curates top entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business owners for quarterly summits in places like Napa Valley, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, and Bermuda. Members of this network, typically operating 7-figure businesses with no outside investors) enjoy more predictable revenue, increased profitability, and sustainable growth for their companies in addition to new life-long friendships and long-term business partnerships.
In the last two years, Jared has invited over 100 diverse “super-connectors” and subject matter experts into Meeting of the Minds, including CEOs of 7, 8, and 9-figure businesses, creators of globally-recognized brands and social movements, New York Times bestselling authors, founders of pre-IPO tech unicorns, former Fortune 500 c-suite execs, and others.
Jared’s career began at 15 years old when he started his first company, and took off at 16 while working as the first intern, and then one of the first 10 employees, for an enterprise SaaS company called 15Five, which today has raised over $40M and has almost 2000 forward-thinking companies as monthly recurring clients. 15Five is the market leader for software powering continuous employee feedback, high-performing cultures, objectives (OKR) tracking, etc.
Later, Jared would become a delegate to President Obama’s 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Malaysia, write multiple books including the #1 Entrepreneurship Book of 2015, 2 Billion Under 20: How Millennials are Breaking Down Age Barriers and Changing The World, and speak at TED@IBM the day before he turned 20.
As a highly-sought after keynote speaker and consultant on engaging Millennials in the workplace, Jared’s clients range from organizations like Facebook, Samsung, Bacardi, Estee Lauder, IBM, Cornell, Berkeley, AdAge, and the National Speakers Association. His insights on entrepreneurship and networking have been featured in major media such as Forbes, TIME, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, NPR, Entrepreneur, Mashable, Fox Business and more.
Join Jared’s private email newsletter group at motm.co/newsletter.
Michael Blake, Brady Ware & Company
Michael Blake is Host of the “Decision Vision” podcast series and a Director of Brady Ware & Company. Mike specializes in the valuation of intellectual property-driven firms, such as software firms, aerospace firms and professional services firms, most frequently in the capacity as a transaction advisor, helping clients obtain great outcomes from complex transaction opportunities. He is also a specialist in the appraisal of intellectual properties as stand-alone assets, such as software, trade secrets, and patents.
Mike has been a full-time business appraiser for 13 years with public accounting firms, boutique business appraisal firms, and an owner of his own firm. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in venture capital and investment banking, including transactions in the U.S., Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
Brady Ware & Company
Brady Ware & Company is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm which helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality. Brady Ware services clients nationally from its offices in Alpharetta, GA; Columbus and Dayton, OH; and Richmond, IN. The firm is growth minded, committed to the regions in which they operate, and most importantly, they make significant investments in their people and service offerings to meet the changing financial needs of those they are privileged to serve. The firm is dedicated to providing results that make a difference for its clients.
Decision Vision Podcast Series
“Decision Vision” is a podcast covering topics and issues facing small business owners and connecting them with solutions from leading experts. This series is presented by Brady Ware & Company. If you are a decision maker for a small business, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at decisionvision@bradyware.com and make sure to listen to every Thursday to the “Decision Vision” podcast. Past episodes of “Decision Vision” can be found here. “Decision Vision” is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
Visit Brady Ware & Company on social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brady-ware/
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Show Transcript
Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast series focusing on critical business decisions. Brought to you by Brady Ware & Company. Brady Ware is a regional, full-service accounting and advisory firm that helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality.
Mike Blake: [00:00:22] And welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast giving you, the listener, clear vision to make great decisions. In each episode, we discuss the process of decision making on a different topic for the business owner’s or executive’s perspective. We aren’t necessarily telling you what to do, but we can put you in a position to make informed decision on your own and understand we might need help along the way.
Mike Blake: [00:00:40] My name is Mike Blake, and I’m your host for today’s program. I’m a Director at Brady Ware & Company, a full=service accounting firm based in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Dayton; Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Indiana; and Alpharetta, Georgia. Brady Ware is sponsoring this podcast, which is being recorded in Atlanta per social distancing protocols. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast aggregator, and please consider leaving a review of the podcast as well.
Mike Blake: [00:01:06] Today, we’re going to discuss the topic, do I need to go all in on building a personal brand? And ever since this coronavirus thing really hit home, and we’ve all been sent scattering to our homes and hastily building work-from-home workstations, complexes, turning dining room tables into corporate headquarters and so forth, I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic because I’m in very much an old-industry firm. Well, let’s face it. I think that some of our firms and us included are actively thinking about how to best adopt and adapt to modern business techniques, practices, methodologies.
Mike Blake: [00:02:00] But the fact of the matter is the world is and has changed. And I don’t think that it’s at all a guarantee that it’s going to go back to the way it was, say, February 1st of January 15th. And as I think about that, I think about my business partners, I think about my colleagues, I think about my clients, I think about people that are in my ecosystem whom I care about, and I wonder what is to become of them if their primary method for building a brand or buildings, not even a brand, but just sort of a circle of people that are helpful to them. I don’t know what the word for that would be, so I’m going to just use that very awkward terminology. But what’s going to become of them, right? What what becomes of you if your primary vehicle for initiating and developing relationships is networking, and exchanging physical business cards and shaking hands with people, or God forbid, hugging them? It’s just what becomes of you if that’s your world? And frankly, that’s how you have been successful for the last 35 years of your career.
Mike Blake: [00:03:23] And the honest, no-sugar-coating answer as I try to do on this podcast is an asteroid has hit. Now, it’s hit on the other side of the planet. So, the shockwave hasn’t really hit. It’s hit in Mexico, but we’re in Eastern Europe. And so, the shockwave hasn’t hit. The fragments of molten lava or volcanic rock haven’t rained down on us yet. So, there’s a little bit of time. But the fact of the matter is an asteroid has hit. And these conferences, these seminars, these professional meetings, trade associations, happy hours and so forth, at a minimum, I don’t know anybody that thinks they’re going to come back tomorrow. And I’m of the camp that I’m not sure they’re going to come back maybe ever, certainly not in the medium term.
Mike Blake: [00:04:21] And so, what do you do? As a company, I don’t care how many costs you cut, there’s not a single company out there that is viable long term if you don’t generate revenue. And I don’t care what ever sort of other things you do in terms of building infrastructure and trying to be else helpful to your company that you work for or that your own. And I’m on record of saying this, if you’re not a profit center, you are expendable. And as I’m recording this on May 8th, 2020, the most recent unemployment figure shows 14.5% unemployment, which is better than I thought it would be. I think we’ll see 20%. And you do not want to be in a position where somebody looks at you as a cost, and you’ve got to be a profit center. A profit center is somebody who, generally, there are exceptions to this, but somebody who is going to bring in revenue.
Mike Blake: [00:05:22] And because the world we’re in now, because that’s sort of active ping that we’re used to is just off the table, what do you do? And I think the answer is about building a personal brand where you don’t have to meet people directly. And I think I’ll say with as much modesty as I can muster, I’ve had some success doing that. And Exhibit A is that I have never met over half of my clients in person. And I think that’s a help. Showing them my face is not going to close deals, I promise. But the fact that my clients really don’t care if they ever meet me in person I think shows that there’s a personal brand out there that’s had some effectiveness. And it’s not because I’m great at it. It’s just because of something that I chose to do.
Mike Blake: [00:06:15] And so, I’m picking this topic and I’m picking this topic now because I think it’s something that everybody out there has to be thinking about, even if you’re not an executive. I received a LinkedIn message from a friend of mine yesterday who has a son that wants a business internship. I know very few people are handing out internships right now. They’re trying to figure out how to keep their 30-year or 20-year employees busy and paid. So, where’s that internship going to come from? And my answer was, if you want to stand out, start building that personal brand. I only came to this party 15 years ago. I wish I would have had the opportunity and the foresight at age 20 to start doing this. I’d be miles ahead. And that’s the way I think you’re going to stand out, even as somebody who’s looking for an internship, have a personal brand, have a reason for people to know you, to remember you, to identify you as a special individual that’s bringing something that’s unique and special to the table.
Mike Blake: [00:07:22] And happily, my thinking on this topic coincides with something that, for me, has been very fortunate. About a year ago, I made a new friend name named Jared Kleinert. And to be candid, I had never heard of him before, but he reached out to me and was introduced to me because at the time, he was planning to move to the ATL, which he has since done and we’re delighted for that, but it turns out that even in his teens, he has understood organically about the importance about building a personal brand. Literally, it’s not hyperbole to say that he’s a genius and a prodigy of doing that. And when I read off his bio, you’re going to see why.
Mike Blake: [00:08:12] He’s a guy that sort of has this in his DNA. And I’m delighted that he’s agreed to come on to talk about this because I cannot think of anybody better. You can have your Gary Vaynerchuks, you can have your Tim Ferris’s, and they’re all great. You can give me Jerry Kleinert every day of the week. So, I want to introduce Jared, whose current deal is he’s founder of Meeting of the Minds, as well as a TED speaker, as a multi-award winning author, and has been named as USA Today’s Most Connected Millennial. Okay. So, maybe maybe you’re kind of getting this now.
Mike Blake: [00:08:53] His invite-only mastermind community, Meeting of the Minds, curates top entrepreneurs, chief executive officers and business owners for quarterly summits. Members of this network, typically, operating seven-figure businesses with no outside investors enjoy more predictable revenue, increased profitability, and sustainable growth for their companies, in addition to new lifelong friendships and long term business partnerships. And we talked a little bit about this topic with Marc Borrelli in a previous episode, where he talked about professional and business peer groups such as Vistage and talked about the value of those sorts of things. What Jared does is the same thing, but I think it’s more exclusive and a little bit more amped up on steroids.
Mike Blake: [00:09:36] Jared’s career began at 15 years old when he started his first company and took off at 16 while working as the first intern, and then one of the first employees for an enterprise SaaS company called 15Five. And we had one of their founders, Shane Metcalf, come on to talk about how to be an effective remote worker. And I hope you enjoyed that podcast because it was terrific, and I’m still begging him to introduce me to Simon Sinek who, as everybody knows, I have a disturbingly high man crush on. And today, 15Five has raised over $40 million and has almost 2000 forward thinking companies as monthly recurring clients.
Mike Blake: [00:10:13] Jared is the author of multiple books, including the number one entrepreneurship book of 2015, 2 Billion Under 20, which I have read, How Millennials Are Breaking Down Age Barriers and Changing the World. And he spoke at TED at IBM the day he turned before 20. Jared, thank you so much for for coming on.
Jared Kleinert: [00:10:34] Yeah, thanks for having me. And I appreciate the flattery. I’m going to have to take the quote of, “You can have your Gary Vaynerchucks, you can have your Tim Ferris, but I’ll take Jared any day.” I appreciate that.
Mike Blake: [00:10:48] Well, it’s open source. I mean, I’ve already gotten the podcasts. I have no incentive to suck up to you. What you’ve accomplished is remarkable. And you’ve done so in a way where I presume it’s basically self-taught, where there are people my age with gray hair and arthritic ankles and all that we would love to accomplish that in a lifetime. And now, you realize, boy, we really need to accomplish stuff like that in a lifetime. So, having you with your talents and your story here, it’s really, I think, a terrific resource for our listeners. And frankly, I’m going to nag all the partners in my firm to listen to this.
Jared Kleinert: [00:11:33] Yeah. And none of us are completely self-taught. I mean, I’ve benefited from meeting hundreds of the world’s smartest and most talented millennials, and consulting for people who have New York Times bestselling books, and who are Rhodes scholars, and who are really world class of what they do. So, I’ve been very fortunate over time to download as much as I can from the people around me, but I think that’s part of why we’re talking about this topic today is that you are know the average of the people you meet and how high of a quality time you spend with them.
Mike Blake: [00:12:11] So, let’s start at the very beginning. Who needs a personal brand? Why do you need one?
Jared Kleinert: [00:12:18] Yeah. I mean, I think everyone. I started my first business at 15 and didn’t know anyone and didn’t know anything. I really began my career with a series of cold e-mails that I was doing to individuals on the West Coast of the United States when I was living in South Florida where I was born and raised. And so, in a way, I’ve been practicing some of the reach-out methods to influential people in the hustle and the relationship-building efforts that we can all apply during this time of social distancing. And so, started my first business at 15, failed miserably. I didn’t know anything about the industry I was playing in. I didn’t know anything about my competitors. I didn’t have enough capital.
Jared Kleinert: [00:13:10] Biggest mistake I made was poor mentor selection. And I was spending six months hanging out with a guy who I later found out had served time in prison for securities fraud on Wall Street, which is definitely not who you want to associate with if you want a long, prosperous career as an entrepreneur.
Mike Blake: [00:13:29] Yeah, nowhere to go but up.
Jared Kleinert: [00:13:30] Yeah. So, at 16, I had negative connections and negative experience, but I realized that I needed to do a 180 and surround myself with not just high integrity individuals because I think you have to be around great people first and foremost, but also people that were real subject matter experts at what they’re working on. I think that part is really important as well. And so, that’s when I sent a cold email to David Hassell, the CEO and founder of 15Five, Shane’s co-founder. And I reached out because I read about him. He was called the most connected man you don’t know in Silicon Valley, according to Forbes. And when I was thinking about reaching out, I had to think about what I could offer him, why would he give me his time of day. He was a serial entrepreneur, he had a successful business going, and he had a great network and a great brand, or another word we could use for brand is maybe reputation in this conversation. And I was just a 16-year-old kid in Florida who had spent six months learning under a former white collar convict and had a failed startup.
Jared Kleinert: [00:14:45] So, nevertheless, I sent him an email, basically offered to work for free in exchange for his mentorship. And that led to an internship in his company, which led to me being one of the first 10 employees at his company. And from there, that single super connector in David snowballed into a whole network of people that I’m still in touch with today, Advisors of 15Five, some of their clients. In fact, one of their former clients is now speaking at a camp or at an event I’m hosting in about a week at time of recording. And you also build the skillset of reaching out to more people like David.
Jared Kleinert: [00:15:30] You also pick up social proof along the way. Like I reached out to David. I’ve now established some experience in working for 15Five. I can leverage that in a tasteful manner, of course, but I can leverage the fact that he took a chance on me. I can leverage the trust that he’s built with other people in his network when I’m starting to build a relationship with those people off of his introduction or recommendation. When I called and emailed other people, I can leverage the work that I did at 15Five and anything else that I accomplished in the two years I was there, which I’ve done a TEDx talk, I got a book deal for my first book when I was 17.
Jared Kleinert: [00:16:12] And so, I replicated this model. I reached out to Keith Ferrazzi, who’s the author of Never Eat Alone, when I was 18. I sent another cold email. This time, I was able to better leverage some social proof I’d built up, which I think opened the conversation much more easily, but I still was looking to provide value to him as the first matter of business. And that effort turned into him becoming my first ever client of a marketing consulting firm that I ran. Again, I got to meet a ton of new people through him and with that case study.
Jared Kleinert: [00:16:46] So, I think what I’ve been able to do, which is definitely needed now more than ever, is find ways to meet influential people, build deep, meaningful relationships, and do so without relying necessarily on an in-person interaction at first; although, of course, that’s an important part of deepening relationships whenever you can do that. And I think at some point, we’ll go back to normal and we’ll have events. In my company, Meeting the Minds, it is driven by these three-day in-person experiences; although we’re figuring out how we do things virtual in the time being. So, I hope we go back to normal at some point. Yeah, even just the origin story of who I am and who I’ve been able to learn from and work with, it was all through a connections made virtually.
Mike Blake: [00:17:37] So, I want to ask you about the cold emails because I think that’s fascinating. Many people are reluctant to send cold e-mails. And I’m not sure why. The worst that could happen realistically is they’re just not going to respond. Unless you just say something completely just bad, they’re not going to bother to denigrate you with a response and they’ll just say … you might get an autoresponder, whatever it is. But what got you to start sending out cold e-mails because you’re too young to be scared of doing that, or did somebody advise you to doing out, or how did you get to that?
Jared Kleinert: [00:18:22] I think part of it was the pain that I had in having a really terrible mentor at first. So, I hope that you don’t need to have pain before you start cold e-mailing or sending more cold e-mails. And of course, the best cold e-mail is not having to send one at all. It’s to have a mutual connection where there is trust between you and that mutual connection, and then that mutual connection and whoever you’re trying to reach out to, be it a potential client, or mentor, or joint venture partner, vendor, et cetera, potential podcast guests. But if you are resorting to sending a cold e-mail, then how do we do that in the best fashion possible? Because even if you send the perfect cold e-mail, you may not get a response, as you were saying. It may take two, three follow-ups. Maybe they just are awful at e-mail or, perhaps, other things are going on like global pandemics that they have to deal with.
Mike Blake: [00:19:20] Oh, yeah, that.
Jared Kleinert: [00:19:21] Yeah. So, if you are going to send a cold e-mail, I think it’s a great strategy for potentially meeting some new people. And I don’t think there’s a huge barrier to doing it. It’s finding their e-mail address and sending a worthy message. And so, for me, I always start with the social proof that I have to offer. So, nowadays, it’s easy. I met Ted and TEDx speaker, award-winning author. I got this USA Today’s Most Connected Millennial thing. I have a lot of social proof that I can leverage. And then, specifically, for certain industries or individuals I’m reaching out to, I can reference a mutual friend in my subject line or I can reference something that we have in common.
Jared Kleinert: [00:20:07] But if you’re just starting out, then think about in the subject line of an email … before we even write the email, we’re just talking about the subject line. Think about social proof that you can offer, whether it’s awards that your company has won, or that you’ve won, or it’s a mutual connection that you see on LinkedIn. And if you can’t find some social proof, then, at least, try and spark intrigue, so that the other person opens your email. And you could do that by having something mysterious. Like one of my favorite subject lines is, “Quick question …” Or you can find a way to offer your value in the subject line of your email. “Hey, Mike, I have three podcast recommendations for you or three guests that I’d like to introduce you to.” You’re probably going to open up that email even if you had no idea who I was because it’s personal and it’s related to how I might be able to offer you value.
Jared Kleinert: [00:21:04] And so, then in the subject line or in the body of the email, quickly introduce yourself, but do it in a sentence or two. “Hi, I’m Jerry Kleinert,” and insert that social proof that you have or insert what you do. Then, the bulk of that e-mail should really be how you can help someone. And so, to send a proper cold email, you should be doing your research in advance. And that’s where the power of the internet comes into play and where you could actually start better initial conversations potentially than if you met someone randomly at a conference because you have the luxury of stepping back, doing a lot of research on what that person may want or need, what they care about.
Jared Kleinert: [00:21:50] And then, you can craft the perfect pitch or the perfect email to them to show them how you can be valuable, how you can be valuable right now, and what the next step should be, which is, “Hey, let’s …” You should end your email with a call to action like, “Let’s get on a call,” or “When are you available?” or “Let’s hop on Zoom,” something like that. So, I do think the cold email or the art of reaching out to new people digitally does pose some benefits from being able to think about what you can offer as valuable, what the other party is going to find as a trustworthy source of credibility, your social proof, and then the value you can offer them, which is why they’re going to pay attention to you and your message right now when there may be other competing priorities or other people reaching out, other salespeople trying to get money from them, et cetera.
Mike Blake: [00:22:51] So, you’ve built, obviously, a personal brand. I think, for good or ill, I hope this is accurate, but I do think of your personal brand as the millennial who really gets it and has figured out a lot of the secret sauce, secret formula to digital media, to digital relationship building, and so forth. And my question is this, is that at what point did you go from trying to find a mentor that was better than the train wreck that you initially had to becoming a cohesive plan around building a personal brand where you going to be known for X? How did that evolve?
Jared Kleinert: [00:23:39] Yeah. I think the biggest strength of my brand, as you call it, is the quality of my network. And I’ve certainly taken steps to not just build a great network, but then to amass social proof, to let it be known to the world that I am a quality person to connect with. And so, in terms of thinking about that social proof curation process, as we can call it, I would start with what your ideal customers, or what your ideal friends, or mentors would find to be trustworthy. So, things like Ted and TEDx are trustworthy.
Jared Kleinert: [00:24:20] I’m really clear about saying I’m an award-winning author as opposed to a bestselling author because I know that there is a lot of people that can write a book post on Amazon and be a bestselling author with three book buys and an esoteric category in an hour from their friends for 99 cents. I’m really salty about that. So, I say award-winning because it’s a lot harder to win awards. And if I was a New York Times bestselling author, I’d put on I’m a New York Times bestselling author, but I’m not. So, I’ve found different ways to leverage the assets I have and to go acquire those as quickly as possible.
Jared Kleinert: [00:24:57] If you’re part of my business as I’m a keynote speaker and I’m a consultant for major companies occasionally. And so, you have a potential speaking client is looking at me and my body of work, what are going to be the other companies that they’re gonna look at and sort of deem trustworthy? What are the news sources they’re going to look at and deemed trustworthy, the podcasts they’re going to look at, et cetera. So, I even if it’s working for free or taking a reduced fee, I went and tried to get Facebook, Samsung, Bacardi, Estée Lauder, IBM, you know, National Speakers Association, you could you can go to associations as well, those are all groups that I worked with because, in part, I wanted to shine a light on the quality of my work for other people who were interested in connecting with me.
Jared Kleinert: [00:25:48] So, there’s that aspect to it in terms of building my network because I think the quality of my network and the diversity of my network is where my brand and reputation really shine and why people connect with me. I think, again, there was a snowball effect at first with building my network. So, being a good person, looking to provide value up front, and then focusing my efforts on connecting with one super connector in David or in Keith Ferrazzi a couple years later.
Jared Kleinert: [00:26:21] And then, from there, it’s leveraging that connection to connect with more super connectors. And the dirty secret is someone like Keith Ferrazzi or someone like David has dozens, if not hundreds, of friends who are also very well connected, very well regarded in their fields. And so, I, in turn, can meet those people. And when I’m connecting with those individuals, we’re starting at a much deeper level of our relationship because we’re both leveraging the trust of David or whoever that connector is in that situation.
Jared Kleinert: [00:26:56] And so, it’s important to keep your quality of work high. And when I say be a good person, it’s not just Mother Teresa type doing good deeds, but it’s also having high quality products and services, and showing up on time, and working hard, and some of those basic statements. But as long as you’re continually a good person, and you’re continually looking to provide value, then your network is going to grow exponentially when you focus on these super connectors. And you can focus on super connectors in your industry. I’ve made it a particular point of interest to focus on super connectors from diverse industries and fields because that is my leverage in the marketplace as I have perspective across hundreds of industries and access to hundreds of other communities if and when I need it.
Jared Kleinert: [00:27:48] So, hopefully, that’s answering your question, but I think it’s being mindful about who you’re connecting with. And then, it’s also thinking about what’s it going to take for that other person to trust me. And so, that’s going to be a mutual connection. Or if you don’t have the luxury of a mutual connection and/or you want to bolster that mutual connection’s introduction, then you can go and amass social proof in the form of press, and podcast interviews, and all this stuff that you might say is your brand online. And then, make sure you put it in places where people are going to see it, your LinkedIn bio, your email signature, going on different shows that have a decent audience. So, I’ve been interviewed by Larry King and and New York Times bestselling authors like Neil Strauss with a big following in the entrepreneurial community, or have been referenced on James Altucher Show, even though I haven’t done a full interview with him. So, then it’s thinking about from a distribution standpoint, like where are my ideal clients, partners, friends going to hear about me in a one to many fashion, if it’s not through a mutual intro or it’s not through a cold email.
Mike Blake: [00:29:02] So, let me ask you this. So, you’ve done, I mean, the TED talks. And I realize I gotta go back and actually watch. I’m embarrassed I’ve not, but I will. Did did those come before you are in the process of building a personal brand, or did you look back to say, “Hey, I did these TED talks and I wrote this book. That’s pretty cool. I, now, have a personal brand that’s kind of evolving, and I’ve got to figure out a way to be a good steward of it or be a good caretaker”? What was the order of operations there?
Jared Kleinert: [00:29:41] For me, I think it was pretty the personal brand building exercises were centric around book launches and around sort of getting a certain mission out into the world. I think it’s cyclical too. I’m now thinking about how we grow Meeting of the Minds and what are the new assets in my brand that I need to build to better reach more of our ideal clients. And so, I can look back at what I’ve done, and comb through what I have, and maybe pick some of the top interviews, or pick some of the top places I’ve spoken at, or individuals that I’ve worked with, and then reference those.
Jared Kleinert: [00:30:29] I would recommend, if you’re listening to this and you don’t have a lot of social proof built up, I would build that as quickly as possible, so that you can go back to revenue-generating activities and some of the other stuff. I think that the main thing here is you want to spend as much time as possible leveraging your social proof and building your network and your business instead of what some of my peers do, and they spend a lot of time chasing press opportunities and chasing “fame,” for lack of a better word. I’m not really interested in doing too many paid or doing too many speaking gigs right now unless they’re paid. I don’t need more social proof in terms of stages I’ve been on. But at the beginning, when I was looking to build out part of my business or leverage stages I’ve spoken on for Meeting of the Minds or for book launches, it was very important for me to get as many high quality speaking gigs as possible, and get as many names or logos I could reference on my speaking pager or wherever.
Jared Kleinert: [00:31:33] So, it depends on where you’re at. If you’re starting out with a new business, or new industry, or you’re earlier in your career, then I would build that social proof as quickly as possible, so you could spend more time leveraging it. But it also makes sense to view it or look back at it cyclically and make sure that the assets that you’ve had reflects how you can be helpful in the marketplace right now because, a lot of times, even today, I get a lot of references to my books. And while it’s great that people are reading, I want more people to know more about Meeting of the Minds. And so, I need to adjust for that. I need to make sure that what I’m putting out in the world accurately reflects how it would help our ideal member there. So, that’s a good way to think about it.
Mike Blake: [00:32:24] So, I’m going to tear up the script up a little bit here. And I want to focus on-
Jared Kleinert: [00:32:30] Oh no!
Mike Blake: [00:32:32] Such as the script is, but I want to drill down into building social proof, right?
Jared Kleinert: [00:32:37] Sure.
Mike Blake: [00:32:37] That’s dominated this conversation so far. And I get it, it’s important. I’m [indiscernible], but, now, I’m somebody that I know I need to become intentional about building this personal brand, and digital is going to be likely a big part of that. What are the things I should be thinking about now if I feel like I don’t really have a lot of social proof? What can I do that’s intentional to try to build credible social proof relatively quickly?
Jared Kleinert: [00:33:09] Yes. So, for you, we can use you as the guinea pig, you’re-
Mike Blake: [00:33:14] Good.
Jared Kleinert: [00:33:15] You’re at Brady Ware, and you have to think about how to generate new clients, especially now more than ever. But in general, part of your work is is revenue generation. It’s upselling clients that the lifetime value of those clients is higher and higher. And that once you have clients, they need to trust you to do work with them. And then, they should also be excited about referring you and so on and so forth. So, for you, it’s looking at who is your ideal clients, and then thinking about where do those people get their ongoing education. What industry news sources would they regularly read; and therefore, they may trust those sources. It’s thinking about associations that your ideal client might be part of. It can be credentials. I never went to college, so I don’t have the college credential that many people use. But I found other credentials in terms of things I’ve done that showcase. That is hard to do that; and therefore, I had to get skills, and connections, and whatnot. But it’s thinking about your ideal client and all the different things around that person that are important to know.
Jared Kleinert: [00:34:46] And so, you can probably write this down if you took half an hour or an hour to think about it. You can also ask your ideal clients and be like, “Hey, where do you go to get your ongoing education?” or “What podcast you listen to other than mine?” or “Where are you hanging out virtually right now because you can’t go to conferences.” And so, then, it’s how do you … that gives you some of the information that you’re gonna need. And yes, social proof could be being featured in Forbes, New York Times. Those are sort of the wide ranging ones. But then, it’s also getting really specific as to what are the exact places that your ideal audience needs to to hear you and see you in order to trust you and know that you’re like the perfect person for them. If you’re focusing on some sort of book launch or product launch, then you could go even crazier with this and try and book 20-30 podcast episodes. And then, wherever your ideal client is turning, they’re hearing, and seeing you, and you’re sort of a surround sound influencer for them, I think that’s a great strategy as well for a launch of sorts.
Jared Kleinert: [00:34:46] And then, you become just a trusted source. And so, when you finally do reach out with a cold email or get that mutual or get that introduction, you’re going to start your relationship on a much better footing. And then, it’s also reference material. So, it’s when you are reaching out, someone’s gonna Google you, or look on LinkedIn, or see the email signature that you have. And at first, they’re going to be like, “Who the heck is this?” And then, they’re gonna be like, “Oh, they’re actually pretty cool,” or “I could really use their product or services,” or “They’re worth chatting with,” at minimum. So, there’s benefits there from a reference standpoint, but also sort of a marketing standpoint. And I would start with, you know, who you’re trying to influence, which is probably your ideal clients as one of the main buckets of people. And then, thinking what matters to them, where are they going to get their education, and try and be in those places.
Mike Blake: [00:37:02] So interesting. So, to sum up with your advice is to get connected with wherever your target audience gets their education, gets their information because that’s all they’ll be looking and you’ll happen to be there. Interestingly, you did not say go out and write a book. You did not say go out and become a TED speaker. And you didn’t say go get an award from a national publication. So, I’m curious why that is.
Jared Kleinert: [00:37:43] I think those could be indicators of social proof, and they could also be ways that you can offer value to people. But I think the best bang for your buck is is starting with any sort of blog posts, or guest blog posts, or being interviewed on a podcast, or getting featured in some press because those are also quick and easy. And that’s more of a marketing and positioning challenge or exercise; whereas, writing a book is two years minimum of absolute torture before you get something out into the world. And most books are not good. And I think you could use that two years in other ways. So, by all means, go write a book if you are going to dedicate the time and resources to it to make it fantastic and to really serve the needs of your ideal listener. By all means, start a podcast if you think you can put the necessary investment of time, and money, and effort into it, and you’re gonna be able to get interesting guests on a regular basis that are going to serve your ideal listeners’ needs.
Jared Kleinert: [00:38:55] But you also have a business to run for most people listening to this, or you’re running a business within a business, and sort of you’re an intrapreneur. And so, again, I think if this is a conversation about networking, then it’s how do I acquire the social group as quickly as possible, so that I can go on with my life and leverage that social proof. Most of my time is not spent talking to the Ted organization, or it’s not spent talking to Forbes where I used to have a column. It’s talking to potential clients. It’s serving their needs. It’s networking with other peers, and learning from them, and discovering how I’m going to pivot my primarily in-person events business to a virtual format for the next six to nine months and how I can do my pivot in a way that maybe integrates with our long-term strategies that we can do a virtual part of our Meeting of the Minds and also an in-person part.
Jared Kleinert: [00:39:59] I think there’s a lot going on, and your network is is one big part of that, and your social proof for how you find other people in your network should become an increasingly smaller part of that. The ultimate goal is when you reach out to people, they listen. When you get introduced from someone, you immediately get a response. So, over time, you should need less and less social proof or need less to get that connection going and get to the fun stuff.
Mike Blake: [00:40:33] So, anybody who sits down on Google’s personal branding online influencer is going to run into the term “authenticity” early and often. Can you explain to our audience what authenticity means, and why is it important, and how do you project or make sure that your brand does come from a place of authenticity?
Jared Kleinert: [00:41:01] I can share what it means to me. So, it goes back to that being a good person aspect. It’s doing the work required to both have good intentions, and then to reflect that in your work. So, it always starts with the quality of your product, the quality of your service. Being authentic also means if I’m going to then start marketing or broadcasting who I am and what I do, I’m doing it in a way that reflects my values. And sure, occasionally, you may say something that is risque, or unique, or different, but it’s not to put anyone else down. It’s only to reflect who you are and what you’re working on. It’s apologizing when you mess up and providing even more value to deepen that relationship or mend that relationship.
Jared Kleinert: [00:42:04] So, for me, it starts with the work that you’re doing before you ever talk to anyone, and building great products, services, and then getting that out into the world. When you talk about networking, or marketing, or sales, I fully believe that if you have the best solution in the marketplace, then it’s a disservice if your ideal clients aren’t using your or your product or service. But if you’re selling snake oil, and then you’re trying to run a bunch of ads or leverage these social proof tactics that we’ve been talking about, I don’t think that’s authentic. I think that’s when you risk influencing people in a way that’s not in their best needs. Can you really sleep with yourself a night selling a low-quality or detrimental product or service to someone?
Jared Kleinert: [00:43:03] So, I think that’s where authenticity comes in. And I’ve never personally been too afraid of wearing what I want when I’m speaking or talking how I’d like to talk. I mean, those parts can be authentic too if you’re in a more corporate environment, being able to just be you. There’s no difference, really, in how I am sharing with you now versus how I am at home. I’m an open book. So, I guess there’s a version of authenticity there that could be debated or could be implemented or not. I mean, I respect privacy as well. I do have parts of my life that are private, but I’m pretty much the same person 9:00 to 5:00 that I am 6:00 to 9:00 or whenever.
Mike Blake: [00:43:52] So, one thing you’ve done now or you’re doing now as well, I would consider, the advanced classes that you’re evolving from Jared kind of the personal brand of the network building wonder kid into building now online communities. And so, why is that desirable to you? And how do you go about doing that?
Jared Kleinert: [00:44:21] Yes. As I was building what some have called a world-class network in record time, you have a limited amount of time. And so, you have to think about how to help as many influential people as possible with the limited time that you have. You also have to think about how you can offer value to people. And many times, I’ve found that one of the best ways to offer value to other people is by connecting them to other great people. And so, pretty early on, maybe 17 or so, I was actively creating Facebook groups and creating spaces where I was curating, which I think is a really important word and exercise. I was curating great groups of people and giving them an opportunity to meet each other and provide value to one another. And then, that becomes one-to-many networking.
Jared Kleinert: [00:45:20] And you’re also creating an environment where it’s sort of like a neural network of a brain. When two people in your online community connect with each other, they’re going to sort of think back to you as the person who connected them, even if you did nothing other than create the setting for them to connect and maybe put some guardrails in place for who’s in there, how they’re supposed to interact with one another and things like that. So, I’ve been building, I guess, online communities since 17. Nothing massive, like not tens of thousands of people, but hundreds of the perfect people.
Jared Kleinert: [00:45:55] When we were writing Two Billion Under 20 and Three Billion Under 30, we were building online communities of some of the world’s smartest and most talented millennials, so that the same people that were contributing to our book could meet each other. And that was one of the ways that we convinced these book contributors to partake as we said, “Hey, we’re asking you to contribute three to five pages of your formative life experiences to our book. And we’re going to give you access to this entire community of other world-class millennials. And then, of course, we’re going to give you exposure via the book sales and people reading your story. And I, personally, will connect you to as many people as possible or be your cheerleader. However, I can help you, I’m there. And that’s how you convince, like the founder of WordPress, or the co-founder of Duolingo, or champion athletes, or social media influencers to all partake in that work of yours.
Jared Kleinert: [00:46:51] And so, there’s all my communities. I saw it in different lenses when I was, I guess, 22 or so. So, after a few years of writing these books, building a readership, getting to speak at some great places, also building that consulting firm, which started with that connection with Keith Ferrazzi. And then, I had a marketing consulting firm where I worked with other top thought leaders. There’s only so far. You can only scale a consulting business to such capacity. And while the work I was doing with my clients I thought was very valuable, I realized that the most valuable thing I could offer was to take my clients, and to take my book contributors and readers, and bring them together, so they could meet each other because, then, they’re working with me and they’re also working with each other to grow their businesses.
Jared Kleinert: [00:47:43] And so, that’s where we started Meeting of the Minds. I do truly believe in the power of online or the power of in-person connections, even though most this conversation has been about virtual connections. So, the Meeting of the Minds, our core businesses running three-day summits where these people are flying from all over the country, sometimes, even internationally, to hang out in Napa for three days, or Bermuda for three days, or Upstate New York, or Atlanta, and they’re building deep, meaningful relationships with one another where they’re not talking about work. They’re talking about personal hobbies and things that they’re doing to better themselves. Then, they’re talking about pressing problems in their business, or exciting opportunities and projects, and helping one another, and masterminding. But that can be done digitally as well. And we’re doing that now as a way to sort of deal with the pandemic.
Jared Kleinert: [00:48:41] But ultimately, that is one of the best ways I can offer people value is by creating these spaces where someone can get a connection with me and value from me, and they can also meet all these other people that I’ve deemed trustworthy and awesome. And so, I’m now taking the social proof that I’ve built over time and extending it to my clients and extending it to my friends, and creating the space where two new strangers who I’ve curated can leverage my social proof and my relationship with each of them individually, and start a relationship with each other, and do all the things that we’ve talked about, whether it’s work together, partner, support each other, mastermind, things like that.
Jared Kleinert: [00:49:26] So, if you’re listening to this, I think you have to start with how you can best influence your ideal clients or your ideal boss if you’re looking for a dream job. Start with that like first set of connections. Then, you might think about what are all these diverse advisors, mentors, peers I’m going to need to educate me along the way and hold me accountable, make sure I don’t go off the beaten path. And then, after you’ve accomplished that, and you’ve built a great network for yourself, then it’s how do I offer this network and how do I offer what I know to others in a way that will allow my network to grow exponentially but it’ll also provide exponential value. And so, that’s where the online communities come into play. That’s where the in-person event series come into play. And anything where it’s a one-to-many communication channel. Even a podcast, I have an email newsletter that I’ve been pouring a lot of effort and energy into. That’s where the groups come into play and could be extremely valuable.
Mike Blake: [00:50:37] So, you touched upon one issue I want to make sure that we cover. I think a lot of people, even people who are experienced, frankly, can be easily discouraged because you go on YouTube, you see something that’s got 250,000 followers. If somebody’s got a LinkedIn, and they’ve got thousands of followers and so forth. You know what I’m talking about. I’m starting up, I turn on my laptop, I’ve got eight followers. And so, the question is, am I so far behind that I just can’t catch up. Is number of followers even the right metric to be looking at your opinion in most cases?
Jared Kleinert: [00:51:23] I don’t think so, no. I also struggle with the same feelings sometimes. I think it’s all about your goals. I mean, for me, I would rather have a network and a following of very influential people. So, if I have a thousand email list subscribers but they’re all serial entrepreneurs, they’re all community leaders, podcasters, authors and can influence millions of people collectively or tens of millions of people, to me, that’s success. And that’s what I was trying to accomplish with our book series. And we had 75 book contributors to both books. And so, I had a network or a community of 150 of the world’s smartest, most talented millennials. And through them, if I had something that was very compelling and worthy of the masses, we could reach 50 million plus social media followers and we could reach half a million to a million people on their various email lists.
Jared Kleinert: [00:52:21] Such as my personal goal is to be an influencer of influencers in the humblest way possible, I want to work with the the entrepreneurs, business owners, the CEOs who have a vision for how the world should work or how their industry should evolve. And I want to help them get that vision out into the world, grow their company, reach more people. Some other people have business models that are predicated on total amount of viewers or total amount of listeners. And so, then, it should be your goal to get as many people as possible to listen to your stuff. So, it’s all depending on your goals, but I’ve personally focused on the quality of my connections.
Jared Kleinert: [00:53:05] It’s also a lot of people that will take in content that may not sort of raise their hand and tell you that they’re raised or listening to the content. You may have 1000 or 5000 regular podcast listeners, and maybe five of them have told you that your show’s awesome in a review or maybe they’ve reached out on social media, but they’re still influenced by you, and they’re still coming to you every single week. And so, I’ve had countless stories of friends who have seen a Facebook post that I had about like my weight loss journey; and yet, they never liked it, they never commented, they never told me about him. Then, six months later, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. By the way, you made a post on Facebook about how you lost 20 pounds, and I started doing that. And now, I’ve lost 20 pounds.”
Jared Kleinert: [00:53:55] And so, I think it’s important to keep in mind who’s absorbing your content and information, who’s watching you from afar, and just how you’re building your career, and how you’re working who will never raise their hand and tell you that they’re doing that. And that, I guess, is truly your reputation. It precedes you before you ever meet someone. It will allow you to start new conversations with sales prospects much more easily or more difficultly depending on how you’ve built your reputation. So, I wouldn’t be fooled by subscriber counts or lack thereof. I’d really focus on just the quality of your work and the quality of the people taking in your work as you define who is an ideal customer, listener, friend for you.
Mike Blake: [00:54:51] Jared, you were very generous with your time. And I know you’ve got to go because you have a packed schedule today. I want to scratch the surface of what I had hoped to ask. How can people contact you for more information about this? If they have something we haven’t gotten to today, can they reach out to you?
Jared Kleinert: [00:55:08] Yeah.
Mike Blake: [00:55:09] How do they do that?
Jared Kleinert: [00:55:09] Jaredkleinert@gmail.com. You can find me on on social media. I have a private e-mail newsletter that I keep, which for the last 18 months I have not had an opt-in page for, and I’ve added everyone one by one because I want to keep in touch. But now, you can go to MOTM.co/newsletter and join that. I’m not going to tempt you with a free e-book or anything like that but you can see some of the past newsletter updates I’ve sent out before you subscribe. So, that’s that’s the place I’d love people to go to, reach out to me just directly through email. And seriously, I’d love to chat with you. I’ve been on a ton of podcasts, and you’d be surprised even the shows like 250,000, there’ll be two people that would reach out. So, don’t be afraid to reach out to me. You could send me a cold email, “Quick Question …” or “Mike’s podcast,” and let’s start a conversation.
Mike Blake: [00:56:12] So, I actually talked over you. Can you repeat the email address, please?
Jared Kleinert: [00:56:16] Yes. Jaredkleinert@gmail.com. So, just my name.
Mike Blake: [00:56:20] So, K-L-E-I-N-E-R-T.
Jared Kleinert: [00:56:20] Yes, sir.
Mike Blake: [00:56:24] Good. Well, Jared, thanks so much for joining us. I learned a lot, and I know our listeners have too. That’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Jared Kleinert of Meeting of the Minds so much for joining us and sharing his expertise with us today. We’ll be exploring a new topic each week, so please tune in, so that when you’re facing your next executive decision, you have clear vision when making it. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcast aggregator. It helps people find us, so that we can help them. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor is Brady Ware & Company. And this has been the Decision Vision Podcast.
Leo Falkenstein with Consume Media, Steve Barha with Instant Financial and Eyal Benishti with IRONSCALES
Leo Falkenstein is a brand strategist, video producer, and co-founder of Consume Media. Leo has been working in video marketing for eight years and has worked with a wide variety of clients in fields including technology, consumer goods, municipalities, and healthcare.
Currently, Leo spearheads the Strategy and Customer Success divisions at Consume Media with the goal of crafting engaging and innovative video content. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia.
Connect with Leo on LinkedIn and follow Consume Media on Facebook and Twitter.
Steve Barha has spent the past two decades utilizing the key principles of “operating with integrity” and “acting with urgency” to develop successful technology companies. The Founding CEO and now serving as the Executive Chairman of Instant Financial, Steve brings an extensive background delivering financial technology to large enterprise customers.
Prior to Instant, Steve served as both the CIO and EVP of Mobile for TIO Networks (acquired by Paypal) leading the mobile business unit while driving the company’s engineering, IT, and product teams.
Steve was also previously the Founder & CEO of Santra Technology, the pioneer of Web Services QoS and performance monitoring, along with holding management positions at Saba Software (NASDAQ: SABA), TELUS Enterprise Solutions (TSE:T) and Emerge Online.
Connect with Steve on LinkedIn and follow Instant Financial on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
As Chief Executive Officer at IRONSCALES, Eyal Benishti pioneered the development of the world’s first self-learning anti-phishing email security solution that combines human intelligence and machine learning technologies for automatic prevention, detection and autonomous incident response to cyber-attacks in real time.
Under Eyal’s leadership, IRONSCALES has filed four patents for anti-phishing and email security solutions and secured three funding rounds from K1 and Israel’s RDSeed totaling more than $20 million. IRONSCALES has received numerous awards, including Frost & Sullivan’s AI-Powered Email Security Innovation Award and Best Enterprise Email Security Solution by the Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards.
Eyal brings to his executive leadership role nearly 15 years of software industry experience with enterprise and startup companies. Prior to founding IRONSCALES in 2013, he was a security researcher and malware analyst at Radware and worked as technical lead for various information security solutions at Imperva. Previously, he held a variety of R&D roles with Comverse and Amdocs. A passionate cybersecurity researcher from a young age, Eyal earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science and mathematics from Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Connect with Eyal on LinkedIn and follow IRONSCALES on Facebook and Twitter.
About Your Host
Joey Kline is a Vice President at JLL, specializing in office brokerage and tenant representation. As an Atlanta native, he has a deep passion for promoting the economic growth and continued competitiveness of communities in and around Atlanta, as well as the Southeast as a whole. He has completed transactions in every major submarket of metro Atlanta, and works primarily with start-ups, advertising/marketing agencies, and publicly-traded companies. With a healthy mix of tenacious drive and analytical insights, Joey is a skilled negotiator who advises clients on a myriad of complex real estate matters.
With a strategy and business development background, Joey is first and foremost a pragmatic advisor to his clients. Most recently, he was the Director of Business Development for American Fueling Systems, an Atlanta-based alternative energy company. While at JLL, he has become a member of the Million Dollar Club, and has built a reputation as an expert on the intersection of transit-accessibility and urban real estate. With intimate involvement in site selection and planning/zoning concerns, Joey approaches real estate from the perspective of the end user, and thus possesses a unique lens through which to serve his clients.
Joey holds a Master of Business Administration from Emory University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a founder, board member, and the treasurer of Advance Atlanta, and also sits on the Selection Committee for the Association for Corporate Growth’s Fast 40 event. In addition, he is a member of CoreNet and the Urban Land Institute. Finally, he is part of LEAD Atlanta’s Class of 2019.
Connect with Joey on LinkedIn.
Economic Forecast for 2020 and Beyond E2
Economic Forecast for 2020 and Beyond E2
At the start of 2020, most investors and economic analysts expected the 11-year bull market to continue. And then the spread of COVID-19 changed everything. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected to contract sharply by 3% in 2020. In addition, there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the future of the outbreak and the economic impacts associated with it. While the epidemic’s economic impact is difficult to predict, the economic forecast says we are on track for a major downturn. The question is how bad and for how long.
Economic experts Jim Rounds, George Hammond, Dennis Hoffman and Steve Zylstra join the Arizona Technology Council’s May 29th podcast to share their assessment of the damage, needed measures for economic growth and the prospects of recovery in the coming months.
Featured guests covered:
- Arizona’s economic recovery
- Hard-hit industries that will take the most to recover
- Expected growth rates for Arizona
- How 2020 compares to the crash of 2008 and the Great Depression
- How can IoT and renewable energy help kickstart an economic recovery
- The innovation and opportunity a downturn can spur
While the epidemic’s economic impact is difficult to predict, we are on track for a major downturn. The question is how bad and for how long.
Rounds Consulting Group advises both public and private sector entities on matters of policy and economics. The firm specializes in economic development; data collection and analysis; fiscal planning including revenue forecasting and budget development; strategic planning and marketing; impact and market studies; litigation support, and keynote speaking, and more.
Jim Rounds is president of Rounds Consulting Group, a firm specializing in economic development and tax policy analysis; education research; transportation economics; fiscal planning including revenue forecasting and budget development; strategic planning and marketing; impact and market studies; and litigation support.
He regularly provides economic advice to policymakers at the State Capitol, mayors throughout the state as well as city council members, county board members, and other public and private sector leaders in the community.
Rounds a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute and serves on many boards and foundations, including the Maricopa County IDA, the Helios Education Foundation, Achieve 60 AZ, the Rodel Foundation, the Arizona Board of Regents and various state universities, among others. He serves as the lead economist for multiple rural and urban area healthcare and hospital associations and is a member of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee’s Finance Advisory Committee. He has also served on scores of committees and task force efforts at both the state and local levels.
His recent areas of study include advanced workforce analysis; minimum wage impact analysis; State Trust Land finance; public employee pension reform; utility infrastructure investment; and state and local area tourism planning. Recently, Rounds has been supporting the concept of “growing from within,” which includes efforts to better understand small business development issues, and strategic investment in education and workforce training.
Rounds began his career as a Senior Economist and Senior Budget Analyst with the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee and has been engaged in policy related economics for more than two decades. He has a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in Economics from Arizona State University.
Follow Rounds Consulting on LinkedIn, Facebook, and connect with Jim on Twitter.
Founded in 1913, the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz. is one of the largest colleges at the University of Arizona, with over 5,400 undergraduate students and nearly 700 graduate students. Employing over 130 faculty members, the business school offers programs in accounting, economics, finance, marketing, management information systems, operations management, entrepreneurship and business administration.
Its interdisciplinary program in entrepreneurship is perennially ranked one of the world’s best. As the highest-ranking college at the University of Arizona, Eller also boasts the #1 Public Management Information Systems and ranked #7 Entrepreneurship programs nationally. The MIS program has been ranked in the Top 5 by U.S. News since the inception of the rankings, one of only three programs in the U.S. with such a distinction.
George W. Hammond directs the Economic and Business Research Center in the Eller College of Management. A specialist in econometric forecasting for more than two decades, Hammond has designed, built and used economic models to produce more than 100 forecasts for state and local economies, and completed more than 50 regional economic studies on topics including economic and workforce development, energy forecasting and the impact of higher education on human capital accumulation.
These forecasts and reports reach thousands of business leaders, policymakers and citizens each year through conferences, public presentations, publications, EBRC’s websites and social and traditional media. Hammond is a frequent contributor to local and national news services. His analysis and commentary have been featured on NBC Nightly News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bloomberg Businessweek and The New York Times.
In addition to directing EBRC and spearheading EBRC’s Forecasting Project, Hammond is also a research professor with academic research interests focusing on the determinants of local economic growth in the U.S., the impact of state and local policies on economic growth and the contribution of higher education to local workforce development.
Follow Eller College of Management on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The L. William Seidman Research Institute serves as a link between the local, national and international business communities and W. P. Carey School of Business. It collects and disseminates information about local economies, benchmarks industry practices and identifies emerging business research issues.
Dennis L. Hoffman is a Professor of Economics at Arizona State University where he has published numerous academic articles and a book in the area of macroeconomics and econometrics. He has received both teaching and research awards from ASU. He received the Distinguished Faculty Research Award in 1992 and has held the title of Dean’s Council of 100 Distinguished Scholar since 1996. He served as a visiting research scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis during the summer of 1996. In 1997, Dr. Hoffman was named the Arizona Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation.
In addition to his academic appointment, Dr. Hoffman has held several administrative appointments; Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, 1998-2004, Associate Dean for Research; 2004-2008, and Director of the Seidman Research Institute, 2004-present. Dr. Hoffman is also director of ASU’s Office of the University Economist, 2005-present.
In his role in the Seidman Institute – as University Economist, Dr. Hoffman is responsible for the production of policy white papers with regional, education, fiscal, and labor market emphasis. This work is supported directly by the Office of University President Michael Crow. In addition, Seidman serves as the applied contract research arm of the W. P. Carey School averaging approximately $800,000 per annum in external research contracts meeting the needs of government, community and business clients primarily in the southwest. This activity is summarized at https://seidmaninstitute.com/. Seidman is also responsible for responding to the majority of business/economic media inquiries received by the university and has considerable connections with both local and national media outlets.
Dr. Hoffman’s sponsored project efforts include the construction and maintenance of the tax revenue forecasting model used by the Executive Budget Office of the State of Arizona each year since 1982 – serving eight different Governors. Dr. Hoffman headed groups of economists who measured the economic impact of several fiscal initiatives for the State of Arizona in 1989 and in 1990. The 1989 study was commissioned by Governor Mofford as an input to fiscal initiatives that were contained in her State of the State speech in 1989. The 1990 study was requested by the Joint Select Committee on Fiscal Reform of the Arizona Legislature. In 1996 Dr. Hoffman was appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Economic Incentives of the Arizona Legislature. He also served as technical advisor for Governor Napolitano’s citizen’s fiscal reform committee (2004). At the Governor’s request, Dr. Hoffman served on the Board of the Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) from 2012-2017. As Director of the Seidman Research Institute,
Dr. Hoffman has closely studied the regional economy in Arizona. His extensive experience with the state and local economy positions him for his current research interests that include defining and measuring the role of research universities in regional development, quantifying the value of education investments to the economic prosperity of a region, and measuring the impact of various fiscal initiatives on regional development. These current research interests align with Dr. Hoffman’s administrative assignment, Director of the Office of the University Economist, undertaken as a strategic university initiative at the direction of Arizona State University President Michael Crow. Dr. Hoffman is the faculty director of the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research where he directs the Productivity and Prosperity Project.
Connect with Dennis on LinkedIn and follow Seidman on Twitter.
About the Show
AZ TechCast is dedicated to covering innovation and technology in Arizona and beyond.
Through the art of connected conversation, AZ TechCast’s guests will share their expertise, success stories, news and analysis about the region’s leading startups, companies and emerging technologies, as well as the latest industry trends and critical issues propelling the state’s growing technology ecosystem.
About Your Hosts
Steve Zylstra serves as president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council, a role he assumed in 2007. He is responsible for strategy, operations, finance and policy development. Zylstra is a vocal spokesman for the value technology can provide in raising social and economic standards in Arizona.
Zylstra serves on numerous councils, committees and boards, was named “Leader of the Year, Technology,” by the Arizona Capitol Times, and “Most Admired Leader” by the Phoenix Business Journal. In addition, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of science in technology from the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Ariz.
Zylstra earned a bachelor’s degree in automotive engineering technology from Western Michigan University.
Karen Nowicki is a successful author, speaker and the creator of Deep Impact Leadership™ and SoulMarks Coaching™. She is a two-time recipient of the prestigious national Choice Award® for her book and personal development retreat. Karen was crowned the first-ever “Mompreneur of the Year” Award in 2010 for the southwestern states. She was recognized for her leadership, business acumen, and work-life balance.
Karen has been an expert guest on regional TV and radio shows, including Fox Phoenix Morning Show, Sonoran Living, Good Morning Arizona, The Chat Room, and Mid-Day Arizona. She has been a regular contributor to many print and online magazines – publishing articles and blogs for business and education.
In addition to working with private coaching clients, Karen is also the Owner & President of Phoenix Business RadioX. The Business RadioX Network amplifies the voice of business – serving the Fortune 500,000, not just the Fortune 500. Phoenix Business RadioX helps local businesses and professional associations get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, profession, and community.
Of all the experiences Karen has had the privilege of participating in over her vast career, she shares that Phoenix Business RadioX is a pinnacle adventure!
Connect with Karen on LinkedIn and follow Phoenix Business RadioX on Facebook and Instagram.
About Our Sponsor
The Arizona Technology Council, Arizona’s only statewide organization serving the technology sector, fosters a climate of innovation to enhance technology in Arizona.
A trusted resource in strengthening Arizona’s technology industry, the Council proactively eliminates impediments that companies face, accelerates the entrepreneurial mindset in the state’s expanding innovation ecosystem, and works to create a destination for companies to be, thrive and stay.
Follow Arizona Technology Council on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
Beau Henderson, Rich Life Advisors and Dr. Bill Lampton, Championship Communication
Beau Henderson – Rich Life Advisors
Beau Henderson is the Bestselling Author of several books including The RichLife: Ten Investments for True Wealth, The Roadmap to a RichLife, The 5 Thieves That Will Steal Your RichLife, The RichLife Stewardship Principle and Masterful Communication For Success With Business and Life with Dr. Bill Lampton.
He holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Georgia as well as the designations of Retirement Income Certified Planner, National Social Security Advisor, Certified Long-Term Care, Master Certified Success Coach and Certified Master Behavioral Analyst, in addition to his role as CEO of The RichLife Advisors.
As a media contributor, Beau’s message of the RichLife has been featured in media outlets including The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNBC, and MarketWatch.
Beau was studying at the University of Georgia to be a psychologist when his father passed away at 49 years of age from lung cancer. He felt helpless as he watched his mother, who had been married to his father since she was 18, struggle with financial decisions. He left college to return home and help her piece her life together.
Through his family’s heartbreaking experience, he found a silver lining when he realized that he could make a profound difference in someone’s life by helping them navigate important financial decisions. His interest in psychology, coupled with his fascination with financial matters, led him to a career he loves. Now over 16 years later, he has never stopped learning and growing through his work.
Dr. Bill Lampton – Championship Communication
With his comprehensive experience in teaching, writing, broadcasting, consulting, coaching, emceeing, directing seminars, and speaking to diverse audiences, Bill is available for:
PRESENTATIONS
- Meetings, Conferences, Conventions
- Keynote and Motivational Speeches
- Commencements
- Seminars and Breakout Sessions
- Master Of Ceremonies for Major Events
OTHER SERVICES FOR ORGANIZATIONS
- Consulting
- Media Relations Advising
- Narrating Audio and Video Productions
- Directing Board and Staff Retreats
- DISC personal style analysis
- Sales Training
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GNFCC North Fulton HR Forum: Re-engaging Employees
GNFCC North Fulton HR Forum: Re-engaging Employees (“GNFCC 400 Insider,” Episode 38)
The pandemic-induced business environment has created a host of unique HR challenges, including managing work at home employees, interviewing and hiring virtually, and providing a safe environment for employees returning to the workplace. Five leading North Fulton-based HR professionals contributed to a GNFCC HR Forum panel discussion on these topics and much more. The host of “The GNFCC 400 Insider” is GNFCC CEO Kali Boatright, and the show is presented by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®. Business RadioX is the Media Sponsor for this series of Economic Recovery Forums.
Moderator:
Misty Fernandez, Georgia Power
HR Professionals Featured in this Forum:
Michael Young
HR Site Head – JCM/JCD, R&D Quality & AVS
Alcon
Michael Young’s passion has been to connect with people by connecting to the hearts and minds of all those that he encounters. As a child Michael always knew he wanted to be an Educator, he chose the corporate route where he finds fulfillment in Human Resources by connecting people with opportunity. From his days in High School to now he has directed camp programs for Inner City Youth, served on boards for institutions that focus on education, and taught at Vacation Bible School.
In the corporate world, after developing talent in support of several departments across several industries, Michael began working with Alcon in 2016. Today Michael is the HR Site Head for John’s Creek where he continues to connect opportunity to Alcon’s vast talent pool to serve our patients to See Brilliantly.
Julie Weith Smith, MBA-HRM, SHRM-SCP, SPHR
President and CEO
Custom Human Resource Solutions (CHRS)
Custom Human Resource Solutions (CHRS) was founded in 2007 and provides HR strategy and practitioner services to small and medium sized business across the country. Julie Smith is the President and CEO of CHRS and has been practicing human resources for more than 30 years. She has earned a bachelor’s of science degree in business management and an MBA with a concentration in Human Resources Management, and holds a Professional in Human Resources (PHR-practitioner) and Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR-strategist) designation which identifies depth and breadth of HR knowledge on a national level. Julie’s high-level HR competence is credited through the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) through her achievement of the SHRM-SCP designation (Senior Certified Professional).
Julie has been recognized for industry achievements throughout her career including such honors as being named Top HR Professional and recognized as a Business Rising Star and top Women in Business – San Fernando Valley Business Journal. She also provides industry commentary on multiple media channels such as CNN Online, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) and NPR. Julie was featured in Voyage Atlanta Magazine in their Trending category for 2017 and in the Atlanta Journal Constitution for Best of Atlanta 2018.
Jim Cichanski
President and CEO
Flex HR, Inc.
Jim’s experience includes operational HR management knowledge globally in 32 countries and has merged or transitioned well over 350 companies.
Jim also spent 26 years in the Army National Guard achieving the rank of Colonel, was inducted into the Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame, and received numerous awards including the Legion of Merit. Jim has served or is serving on several boards, was an inside board member of 17 companies and is an angel investor is start-up in several Atlanta firms.
Jim was recognized by the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce as the Small Businessperson of the year and was also listed in Catalyst Magazine as 1 of 18 Companies, CEO’s in Atlanta would like to own. Outsourcing Gazette magazine listed Flex HR as the “Top Most Promising HR & Staffing Service Vendors of 2015”. Inc. Magazine in September 2008, 2012 and 2013 recognized Flex HR, Inc. as an Inc 5000 “Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in America”. Jim is married to his wife for 47 years, has two daughters and 4 grandchildren.
In the past 2 months Jim conducted over 30 COVID-19 Zoom Webinars touching more then 5,000 small companies in helping direct the Human Capital aspects of this epidemic.
Sonya Buckley
Chief People Officer
Hire Dynamics
Sonya is a Staffing Industry Professional with over 20 years of experience in the Atlanta market. She brings a wealth of knowledge in Senior Executive leading Talent Acquisition, Leadership Development,Human Resources, retention strategies and building a best place to work culture. Sonya has a proven track record in professional recruitment, management, leadership development and succession planning.
Sonya specializes in “Top Grading” methodologies. She has built and transformed a talent acquisition organization resulting in an industry leading retention rate. She has built several innovative initiatives to build leadership depth and entry level apprentice programs. Sonya’s top human capital metric is attracting, engaging and retaining top talent.She has led leadership development and spearheadedEmerging, Growing and Transformation leadership programs to support the growth of Hire Dynamics.
With Hire Dynamics tripling in size over the past three years, she has been instrumental in building a best place to work culture in all the markets they serve.In addition, she works with clients to develop their leaders and culture.At Hire Dynamics, our believe is that “Every Experience Matters”. Her greatest success is building a workforce that delivers consistently a great experience for over 62,000 talent placed in 2019 and over1500 clients served. For the past 10 years, Hire Dynamics has been ranked in the top 2% in the staffing industry clearly rated net promoter program.
Sonya is active in the American Staffing Association (ASA) taking leadership roles inWomen in leadership and Staffing as a career. She served as President of the Georgia Staffing Association and was on the board for 5 years. She is a Penn State graduate.
Mark Bryan
Director, Field and Segment Marketing
Verizon
Mark Bryan is director – Field and Segment Marketing – Verizon Business Group for Verizon, the largest wireless provider with the nation’s largest 4G LTE network. In his role, Bryan is responsible for Marketing activities supporting the $12B Business Markets organization.
During his 14 years with Verizon, Bryan has held positions in the company’s Indirect Sales, Business Sales and Marketing channels as well as its Business Transformation organization. Bryan is a member of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors and is the Chairman of the Board for Haiti Outreach. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance from Mercer University and is a certified Lean/Six Sigma Black Belt.
About GNFCC and “The GNFCC 400 Insider”
“The GNFCC 400 Insider” (formerly “North Atlanta’s Bizlink”) 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 the complete show archive of “The GNFCC 400 Insider,” go to GNFCC400Insider.com. “The GNFCC 400 Insider” is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
GWBC Radio: WITH/agency CEO Blair Brady
As the Co-founder and CEO of the WBE Certified WITH/agency, Blair Brady is an ambassador of the movement for female entrepreneurship and leadership as well as in diversity of talent. With her leadership, the award-winning agency has received recognition for its work in brand strategy, creative and advertising.
WITH proudly serves as an agency partner for Atlanta’s iconic brands such as AT&T, The Fox Theatre, Georgia Power, Kaiser Permanente of Georgia, EarthLink and others. Blair has also led the expansion of the agency’s business and Atlanta’s creative talents to new markets through the agency’s partnership with Pacific Gas & Electric in California.
Blair co-founded the WITH/agency in 2012 to find a better way to serve Atlanta’s brands. When Blair assumed majority ownership of the agency in early 2018 and became CEO; her mission for WITH was realized: to reveal a world that works better together by creating unmatched creative work for clients while progressing a vibrant culture focused on cultivating and empowering diverse talent contributing to the rise of Atlanta’s creative community. As a trailblazer, Blair’s leadership style is centered around her intentionality to be the change she wants to see in the world around her.
The WITH/agency is an Atlanta born and based agency with service offerings including creative, strategy, advertising, video production, and branding. As a purposely small agency serving big brands, WITH is making its mark on Atlanta’s creative scene.
Blair also advocates for Atlanta’s creative community through participating in key professional organizations including:
- The Forbes Agency Council – Member
- Metro Atlanta Chamber – Board of Advisors
- TimesUp Advertising – Board Member – Atlanta Chapter’
- Network of Executive Women (NEW) – Member
- Atlanta Advertising Club – Corporate Member and Event Host
Connect with Blair on LinkedIn and follow WITH on Facebook and Twitter.
Show 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 Open for Business, part of GWBC’s radio show that we run here at Business RadioX. Our guest today is Blair Brady, and she’s with the WITH/agency. Welcome, Blair.
Blair Brady: [00:00:33] Hi, Lee. Thank you.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:35] Well, before we get too far into things, can you tell us about the WITH/agency? Who do you serve?
Blair Brady: [00:00:41] I’d love to. We are a full-service marketing, advertising, and design agency right here in Atlanta. And we proudly serve a lot of Atlanta’s greatest brands AT&T, Georgia Power, Kaiser Permanente of Georgia, and another wonderful client that is really Atlanta’s gem is the Fox Theater.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] So, how-
Blair Brady: [00:01:07] Other clients … sorry about that, Lee. Our other clients include Pacific Gas and Electric in San Francisco. And also, a wonderful re-emerging Atlanta brand of EarthLink.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] Oh, wow. I was with EarthLink when they were MindSpring. I have a-
Blair Brady: [00:01:27] You have?
Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] … an email address, MindSpring email address, probably still. I’m probably still paying for that. Yeah, that goes.
Blair Brady: [00:01:34] Yeah. I mean, that’s a throwback. That’s a good one. Hang on to it.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:38] So, now, how’d you get into this line of work? How’d you get started in your career?
Blair Brady: [00:01:43] I have always been on the agency side of business. I began early in my career with an agency that was born really out of sports marketing. But then, moved into general, a full-service, integrated marketing. And I was fortunate enough early in my career to serve really big brands from a young stage. So, I got to learn how to navigate corporate culture, which can be really, really rigid for a lot of good reasons as why they’re rigid. But as a marketer, you have to find a way to breathe life and creativity into those structures. So, I got to see that up close and personal early in my career.
Blair Brady: [00:02:28] And then, about eight years ago, my co-founder, Jamie Sims, and I decided that we wanted to make a new kind of agency. We thought that there was a better way. So, we founded the WITH/agency in 2012 and really bootstrapped from the very, very beginning, and years of really hard work and trying to align ourselves with the brand-forward companies who believed in creativity and really believed in brand strategy and brand storytelling was how we approached it. And we are, as you know, a proud, certified women-owned business.
Lee Kantor: [00:03:13] Now, why was it important for you to become a certified women-owned business?
Blair Brady: [00:03:20] That’s a great question. There are a couple of reasons. One, we believe that you need to be the change you want to see in the world. And, especially, in the creative industry, this rings very true. I believe that the best creative product that is really going to connect brands to people has to come from a diverse set of talent and has to come from several perspectives. And the old framework of doing things that limited female voices, diversity, that was not going to allow brands to reach the hearts and minds of people in the ways that they needed to.
Blair Brady: [00:04:12] So, we restructured, and it was important for us to certify because that meant that we were committed in going about this. And a lot of our corporate clients, they have a real need for diverse suppliers, especially in the creative industry, because a lot of really big multinational agencies are held by large companies, large holding companies that are predominantly male. And so, they are getting that. We were able to provide them a unique service and a unique perspective to serve today’s brands and what they need to reach their audience.
Lee Kantor: [00:04:51] Now, speaking of today, right now, we’re going through this coronavirus. And it’s a challenge for a lot of businesses. I’m sure you’ve had to make some adjustments. But from putting in your marketing hat on, how are you kind of consulting with your clients to help them kind of re-strategize or maybe pivot in order for them to continue to stay relevant during this?
Blair Brady: [00:05:16] That’s a great question. It is a real challenge right now because we live in a world of connection. And right now, we’re isolated physically. So, it’s a whole new way of working. And early on, in the first week of this, I challenged my team to think about the plans that we had for our clients for the year and consider that those plans were probably not going to happen. And what we needed to do to serve our clients the best way was not found in those plans because we’re in a new world. So, I urged them to take each of our clients, strip them down to their brand’s purpose and their brand’s promise. Why do they exist and what do they deliver? And then, put the new filter of today all over that. So, how are we going to exist and deliver based on this new on this new world?
Blair Brady: [00:06:19] And three of our key clients are essential business. Health care in Kaiser Permanente, obviously, they’re more essential now than ever. Pacific Gas and Electric and Georgia Power in energy and utility. Specifically with Pacific Gas Electric, we are working on how they position themselves to best help and speak with small businesses because, right now, they are in dire straits. And then, third would be in EarthLink, an Internet service provider. Everyone is at home right now working, trying to keep their kids engaged in school, and we are relying more heavily on our internet connection than ever before and in more ways. And so, we have to stay connected. That’s the way that we stay connected now. We can’t physically be connected. So, those three clients, we really leaned, we really pivoted strategy, and we quickly got in front of them to say, “You know what? We’re here. We have you. We understand that everything’s changing. But we’re ready to change too.”
Lee Kantor: [00:07:22] Now, what about when it comes to the messaging, when those people are going out to the world and saying, “Hey, we’re still open for business. We still are here to serve you. While our business may have been executed in this manner yesterday, today, we’re still here and we’re executing in this new manner,” is there any advice for those business people out there that maybe have to kind of re imagine themselves, but they don’t want to go out there, and be salesy, and yet want to be sensitive? It seems like a tricky time for marketers to communicate what they need to communicate and in what maybe a more elegant way.
Blair Brady: [00:08:07] Right. You’re so right. There is such a delicate balance right now. And you’re seeing, as you turn on the television, or Netflix, or anything, and you’re watching, brands are putting out all kinds of material that is pivoted now to the world that we’re in. And you’re starting to hear vocabulary that’s becoming cliche a little. You continue to hear words like, “In these uncertain times,” and “We’re all in this together.” And it’s difficult for marketers because we do want to speak and connect on a human level. We do want to serve the brands who are relevant to this crisis. But you can’t come across in a disingenuous way or kind of way that sounds like you’re pandering to a bad situation. You’re taking advantage of a crisis. So, it’s a very delicate line.
Blair Brady: [00:09:04] The way that that we approach it and the way that we advise our clients is that we should only put a message out there or we should only engage with consumers when we are directly relevant to what we’re talking about. We do want to pander. So, when you do put out a message, first, you have to say, “Is what we’re talking about, is our service directly relevant to what is happening in people’s lives right now?” And then, how do we make that message ring true and be genuine, so that they don’t feel like they’re being sold to and taken advantage of in a time of crisis.
Blair Brady: [00:09:44] It’s interesting. I’ll give you one more example. Our client, the Fox Theater, obviously they cannot operate right now. Their doors are closed. And we’re not sure when they’re going to reopen. But their purpose in the world is to or their promise is to create a grand sense of occasion. It’s all about coming together. It’s all about people experiencing something amazing. How can we do that? How can we come together and say something amazing when we’re apart? So, that’s been our creative brief as an agency to help them make people feel like they’re connected and experiencing something wonderful while they’re not apart. And it’s not because they’re looking to sell tickets. It’s because they’re an Atlanta icon, and they’ve made a promise to the city a long time ago to remain that way. And so, they have to continue to tell Atlanta that that promise isn’t gone. But certainly, there’s no ticket sale message at the end of that. It’s just articulating that our promise still stands.
Lee Kantor: [00:10:49] Now, when you’re working with especially a client like that, where their business is in person, people physically going to their location, is there any kind of, I don’t wanna say therapy, but it’s kind of therapy to help them kind of focus on the long haul and to help them just not panic? Because at some of these, like even the Fox as an example, I mean, the Fox is an icon to many that they’re a little special, but if you’re just like kind of Joe and Mary’s theater, this is a tough time.
Blair Brady: [00:11:26] You’re right. And so, I have to say that part of being a really good agency partner, there is a percentage of therapists that’s in your job. One of the things that we always say is that we believe in a world that works better together. And that goes in good times and bad times. And so, I spent a lot of time on the phone with my clients talking about their personal lives, talking about their work lives, talking about what they’re concerned about. And it’s just because we genuinely love to be with people. I mean, that was how our agency was built. And so, a lot of it is time spent just listening because everyone feels so disconnected. So, we don’t even have to have conversations that are directional towards a project or a campaign. Sometimes, it’s just to catch up.
Blair Brady: [00:12:26] But what I do find when … because we do need to look towards something. So, for for some of our clients whose business is a little bit on a hiatus right now, what we started doing is working with them on re-emerging plan. So, when we come back into the world, what does that look like? And though we don’t know when that may be, there’s no date on the calendar necessarily, having the actual plan there not only give a sense of something to look forward to, but it makes them feel like somebody is at them, or they’re not alone, or when the time to reopen comes, they aren’t left saying, “Well, what do we do now?” That when the time comes to reopen, that we’re ready, we have a plan. We’re not just sort of slowly starting to get going. We’re already catching our pace.
Lee Kantor: [00:13:18] Now, how have you been working with your own team to keep their morale up? And maybe you can share some tips for others that are dealing with this with a team that’s working remotely. Maybe you’ve been already working remotely prior to this, but if you weren’t doing a lot more now.
Blair Brady: [00:13:39] Yeah, I can definitely share some on that because that has been one of the biggest things for me personally. In our office, it’s a very open office. We are a very close knit group. We are together a lot. We’re a very family-like environment. So, almost overnight, we were completely separated and isolated from each other. It was really difficult at first. It was a really heavy feeling for me. So, things that I had done and we have done together since then that have really helped, we do a lot of video conferencing. I know everyone does that.
Blair Brady: [00:14:21] But one thing I will say is get in the habit of always turning on your camera and showing your face because when you see each other’s faces, it makes it so, so, so much better. That, to me, is so important. I always want to see everyone’s faces. And we do quick morning check-in meetings every morning where we just see each other’s faces, write down a quick connect for what is going to happen that day, what’s really important, what somebody needs help on, what someone’s stuck on, any updates that we had got overnight. So, that’s been really helpful.
Blair Brady: [00:14:58] Another thing is that first week I was mentioning, I felt really disconnected. It felt really heavy. On the Sunday night of that first week, I just turned on my web camera on my computer, and I talked to the team. I just recorded a video of me talking about what I talk about, and then closing it with a fun … I played like a fun song. And so, I have done that every Sunday since the first week. So, we have seven episodes of what we now call the Sunday night sit-down. And it goes to my team every Sunday night. It just goes to is. It’s not posted on social media anywhere. It’s just a message to the team. And that’s been a really great way to connect. I’ve gotten really good feedback from them that they enjoy those.
Blair Brady: [00:15:50] And then, the other thing is we’ve done just agency polls. Like just fun things. What’s a new hobby you picked up during this time? What music are you listening to? We made a quarantune playlists on Spotify. So, finding those ways have really, really been a great way to keep everybody connected.
Lee Kantor: [00:16:13] Now, you had some great advice earlier about coming up with that kind of how are you going to emerge plan with your clients. Is that something that you’ve also done internally? Like how are you going … like how does the future you’re going to see yet the work you’ve done? And are you doing work that matters? Are you looking ahead to yourself as well?
Blair Brady: [00:16:38] I am. And that’s something that that we are addressing currently and recently. I’ve been referring it to as a mental box that I’ve just sort of been putting my thoughts in and keeping to the side, and I will address them when the time is right. But the time is right. We are going to be coming out of this. And that plan is not going to look like what I thought our year was gonna look like in January. When we started this year, we had a very, very robust plan for growth. It was going to be a very transformative year for the agency.
Blair Brady: [00:17:28] And so, I think in the first few days of this crisis, I probably personally merged that a little bit, that that was probably not going to go the way I wanted it to go and the way that I really wanted our team to that had gotten. Everyone was so excited and we were ready to go. And so, it took me a while to mentally adjust to that. But I have now. And we’ve been working on a plan to reemerge. And I think a lot of the ways that we were going to transform this year will still happen. They just may happen a little later, and they may happen in some different ways. We’ve learned a lot through this.
Blair Brady: [00:18:16] And I don’t think it will change everyone’s business. I don’t think anyone will just hit the on button again and just go on as usual like they did before. I think this crisis will challenge everyone to rethink the way they operate internally and with their customers, or clients, or who they serve. It’s just the plan is there, and it’s an important one, and it has to be done with with such intentionality, and we certainly can’t rush it. But I am immensely proud for the way that my team has conducted themselves through all of this. I’ve leaned into them hard, and they have stood up and done so much more than I had ever had in mind. So, I am immensely grateful to them. And I just think that the promise of reemerging is so much brighter.
Lee Kantor: [00:19:14] Now, what’s the ideal client for you? And what pain are they having where the WITH/agency is the solution?
Blair Brady: [00:19:23] Oh, that’s a great question. So, our ideal client doesn’t come in the shape of any specific category or vertical. We are not B2B, exclusively B2B, or exclusively B2C. Our ideal client is a brand-forward company. So, a company that believes in their brand and their brand’s ability to connect with people. And so, we start every piece of work, every project, everything with strategy. The strategy is really at the centerpoint of what we do, whether that manifests itself into a television campaign or manifests itself into a new visual identity for a brand. All of that must start with strategy. And so, companies that really invest in their brand and in their brand story, that is our ideal plan.
Lee Kantor: [00:20:27] And if somebody wanted to learn more and have more substantive conversation with you, what’s the website?
Blair Brady: [00:20:34] We’re at thewithagency.com.
Lee Kantor: [00:20:38] Well, Blair, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work.
Blair Brady: [00:20:43] Thank you, Lee, I appreciate you.
Lee Kantor: [00:20:45] All right, that’s a wrap for this episode of GWBC Radio. We will see you again next time.
About Your Host
Roz Lewis is President & CEO – Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®), a regional partner organization of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and a member of the WBENC Board of Directors.
Previous career roles at Delta Air Lines included Flight Attendant, In-Flight Supervisor and Program Manager, Corporate Supplier Diversity.
During her career she has received numerous awards and accolades. Most notable: Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2018 Diversity & Inclusion award; 2017 inducted into the WBE Hall of Fame by the American Institute of Diversity and Commerce and 2010 – Women Out Front Award from Georgia Tech University.
She has written and been featured in articles on GWBC® and supplier diversity for Forbes Magazine SE, Minority Business Enterprise, The Atlanta Tribune, WE- USA, Minorities and Women in Business magazines. Her quotes are published in The Girls Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business book by Susan Wilson Solovic and Guide Coaching by Ellen M. Dotts, Monique A. Honaman and Stacy L. Sollenberger. Recently, she appeared on Atlanta Business Chronicle’s BIZ on 11Alive, WXIA to talk about the importance of mentoring for women.
In 2010, Lewis was invited to the White House for Council on Women and Girls Entrepreneur Conference for the announcement of the Small Business Administration (SBA) new Women Owned Small Business Rule approved by Congress. In 2014, she was invited to the White House to participate in sessions on small business priorities and the Affordable Care Act.
Roz Lewis received her BS degree from Florida International University, Miami, FL and has the following training/certifications: Certified Purchasing Managers (CPM); Certified Professional in Supplier Diversity (CPSD), Institute for Supply Management (ISM)of Supplier Diversity and Procurement: Diversity Leadership Academy of Atlanta (DLAA), Negotiations, Supply Management Strategies and Analytical Purchasing.
Connect with Roz on LinkedIn.
About GWBC
The Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®) is at the forefront of redefining women business enterprises (WBEs). An increasing focus on supplier diversity means major corporations are viewing our WBEs as innovative, flexible and competitive solutions. The number of women-owned businesses is rising to reflect an increasingly diverse consumer base of women making a majority of buying decision for herself, her family and her business.
GWBC® has partnered with dozens of major companies who are committed to providing a sustainable foundation through our guiding principles to bring education, training and the standardization of national certification to women businesses in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Customer Experience Radio Welcomes: Wes Moss with Capital Investment Advisors
Wes Moss the host of Money Matters – Atlanta’s longest-running live call-in, investment, and personal finance radio show – on News 95-5FM and AM 750 WSB. Wes is also the Chief Investment Strategist and Managing Partner at Capital Investment Advisors (CIA). In this role, Wes is responsible for communicating CIA’s position on markets and investments. CIA currently manages more than 2.5 billion dollars in client assets.
In 2017 Wes was featured in Barron’s Magazine where he discussed his career in financial advising as well the investment strategy that he pursues, investing for income. Barron’s Magazine also named him one of America’s Top 100 Independent Wealth Advisors in 2017 and 2019. From 2014 through 2019 Barron’s Magazine named him one of America’s top 1,200 financial advisors. In 2012, he was named as one of the top 40 fee-only investment advisors (under 40) in the country by Wealth Management Magazine. Wes was also named one of Atlanta’s 40 Under 40 by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2015.
In addition, Wes is a regular contributor to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution both online and in print, and a regular contributor to ClarkHoward.com. In 2014, Wes was the host of Atlanta Tech Edge, a weekly TV show on Atlanta’s NBC affiliate WXIA, covering the fascinating business of technology within the state of Georgia. He was also the financial consultant for Spike TV’s show, Life Or Debt.
Wes holds a degree in economics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and four sons and loves spending time with his family, coaching lacrosse, and playing golf and tennis.
Wes has written several books including Starting from Scratch (Kaplan) and Make More, Worry Less (FT Press), and has served as a financial expert for both local and national media including CNN, CNBC, and Fox Business Network. He has been interviewed by USA Today, Forbes, Time, The Wall Street Journal, and Yahoo Finance.
His latest book, You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think – The 5 Money Secrets of the Happiest Retirees (McGraw Hill 2014) has been a best seller in the retirement planning category. The book’s unique message and research has struck a chord with readers and the financial community since its release in May of 2014.
Follow CIA on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Transcript
Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, it’s time for Customer Experience Radio. Brought to you by Heineck & Company, real estate advisors specialized in corporate relocation. Now, here’s your host, Jill Heineck.
Jill Heineck: [00:00:18] Well, hello and welcome to this very special edition of Customer Experience Radio. I’m your host, Jill Heineck. And I’m a business owner, a real estate adviser and customer experience enthusiast. I’m super excited to have Wes Moss on with us today. He’s the host of Money Matters, Atlanta’s longest running live call-in investment and personal finance radio show on News 95.5 and AM 750 WSB. He’s also managing partner of Capital Investment Advisors here in Sandy Springs. He always delivers at such a high level. So, I thought it’d be really interesting to hear how Wes and his teams are working to meet the listeners and his investment clients where they are and especially in the environment that we’re in. And so, I thought that we just have a conversation with Wes. And I’ve been listening to a lot of his recent shows and a special podcast that you’ve been airing. And first, just give the listeners a little bit of background about who you are and how you got where you are now.
Wes Moss: [00:01:22] Thanks for having me on, Jill. It’s a lot of fun. I know that we’re doing this via a video, but I know this is via radio. And maybe you should have your own TV channel. It’s what you should have. Radio and television show. And Jill, for those listeners that are not seeing this because it’s all via audio, Jill is broadcasting from … most people have like a plan, and a family photo, and all that. Jill is in the bedroom, and she got two lamps and her bed. That is her home office. And maybe … is that a guitar in the corner?
Jill Heineck: [00:01:54] It is.
Wes Moss: [00:01:55] Yeah, that’s cool. Anyway-
Jill Heineck: [00:01:56] It’s our home office.
Wes Moss: [00:01:56] … she had a cool background. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I will tell you that we are a financial advisory firm. So, we do investments. Our mission at our firm is helping families find happiness in retirement. And that is the guiding light at our firm. I wrote a book seven years ago called You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think: The Five Money Secrets of the Happiest Retirees. And that was really kind of an outcropping of a survey that I did for habits of happy retirees, and those who are unhappy and were effectively trying to reverse engineer how to be a happy retiree.
Wes Moss: [00:02:34] A lot of that came out of what I saw as those going through retirement, they were really enjoying it, and those who were not as much, and just comparing and contrasting. So, it was almost an outcropping of that. And then, that’s even become even more so the philosophy and the guiding light at our firm. But I’ve been in the investment business right out … I studied economics at the University North Carolina back in the ’90s. Became an advisor right out of the gate. Actually, I was still in school and did an internship at Atlanta in the mid to later ’90s. And then, I’ve been a financial advisor ever since. And I started with a really big firm and always wanted to go independent. And now, we have an independently owned – me and another family, two of our families have an RIA, registered investment advisory firm that we’ve had now for going on 20 plus years.
Wes Moss: [00:03:28] So, that is what we do for a living. As far as the media, my second job, which takes up a lot of my bandwidth and time these days is radio as well. And being able to educate the public on so many new things has been a huge part of what we’ve been able to do and bring to the table as a firm, and a lot of it just goes … people are constantly saying, “Oh, Wes, you must be doing so much work to get ready for the radio. And then, how do you—” A lot of it is, what I’m doing on radio, and I do all these special podcasts now, in addition to Money Matters, the show, really, these are pieces of research and insight that I’m looking for economically to make investment decisions anyway.
Wes Moss: [00:04:17] So, a lot of it is just utilizing the content that we want to glean and find any way. And then, we can produce it in a way. We can publish it in either a podcasts, or radio, or videos, or both. And, obviously, we turn a lot of that into written content on my website at westmoss.com. Again, the media side of the equation, I was on The Apprentice with Donald Trump, if anybody remembers that.
Jill Heineck: [00:04:44] I remember.
Wes Moss: [00:04:45] I don’t know if anyone’s heard of Donald Trump at this stage, but there is a guy named President, or there’s a guy named Donald Trump who is a real estate mogul back in the day, and he had a show on NBC. And that show, I ended up on it, and it kind of opened my eyes up to the media. And the show is really run by Mark Burnett Productions, the guy who started Survivor and, ultimately, kind of woke up to, “Wow, there’s this whole another world of media,” and that kind of got me into doing radio. And I’ve been doing radio now for about 12 or almost 13 years now.
Wes Moss: [00:05:21] So, I do that in conjunction with what I do from an investment standpoint. I’m the chief investment strategist at our firm, and I’ve been been an investor or investment advisor for over 20 years now. And I think all those pieces kind of just come together. So, I’m able to be able to do our client work. Then, I still have individual families that I work with. And then, running the firm that we serve about 3000 families at our firm – Capital Investment Advisors. And then, just trying to bring the most current, up-to-date information on understanding what we need to understand at any given time. And today, that’s the virus, it’s coronavirus, and how that impacts the economy, how it impacts markets, how it impacts real estate. And we’re trying to make sure we’re bringing the leading experts from Johns Hopkins, and Harvard, and the Brookings Institute, all to our podcast because I want to get educated on it. And then, I can turn around and share that knowledge with our clients.
Jill Heineck: [00:06:22] So, let’s go back to real estate for a second. So, you’re talking to your portfolio clients, and they are potentially beginning their retirement journeys or they’re midstream. And now, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and they’re looking at the tickers. And I’m sure they’re asking and looking to you for guidance on, “Do they liquidate? Do they hold on, continue to look at it from a long-term perspective?” And are these questions you’re getting and what kind of guidance are you providing to them?
Wes Moss: [00:06:58] Beyond what is for my 401(k) or my IRA doing, and how much income am I generating, that’s the kind of primary conversation at our firm. And then, number two, second only to that, is real estate. Hey, what should I do with this house? I’d like to go buy my family … my wife and I, the kids are out of the house now, so I’m ready to go. I’ve been eyeing a place in St. Simons, Wes. What’s the best way to go do that? Should I wait? Should I keep my house here in Atlanta, and then go buy the place in St. Simons? Should I rent out my place? Should we pay off the mortgage? Should we refinance the mortgage? So, we do a lot of consulting around, Jill, the best financial … how does your how does your real estate, particularly your your personal real estate? And this is not necessarily commercial real estate, but your personal real estate that might be rental income too, how does it fit into the bigger plan? Because it’s such a big chunk. I mean, whether you’re … it’s always a big chunk. It’s always a big percentage of your personal balance sheet.
Jill Heineck: [00:08:03] So, are you seeing your clients, what percentage do you think of your clients are in the midstream or are jumpstarting, they were going to jumpstart their retirement journey before COVID actually really hit, before SIP maybe, or did you have a group? I’m always curious. Like what happens at that point when you were ready to do it, your maybe in your mid-50s, and you had planned all along to do it, and then COVID hits? And then, do you have to recalibrate and figure that out, or do you just keep rolling?
Wes Moss: [00:08:38] Mathematically, Jill, and we’ve all heard of these statistics that 10,000 baby boomers retire every day, and I’m in the middle of that. And I was shocked. I am constantly surprised at just how many people continue to hit that age of 65, and they’ve been eyeing retirement. So, just mathematically and statistically, a lot of people just retired right before COVID because a lot of people are retiring every day.
Wes Moss: [00:09:04] And everybody has to be prepared for big market correction and big dislocations because they happen all the time. And even though this has been really painful, and I think there’s a higher level of emotional burden, because we’ve all been sequestered in our houses than ever before. The crash of ’07 and ’08, the crash of 2000-2001, I mean, here we are in the third massive crash, and we were down almost 40% of the Dow, at the Nader, if you go back to March, we had three of these now in the last 15 or so years or call it in the last 20 years. So, to some extent, you’ve got to plan for it and figure out how real estate goes into that.
Wes Moss: [00:09:49] And one of the chapters or one of my favorite chapters in You Can Retire Sooner Than You Think has to do with one really interesting, let’s call commonality between happy retirees is they’ve essentially either paid off their primary residence or they have a plan to do so in the next five years. So, interestingly, as years to pay off mortgage goes down, and this is a cool chart I have in the book, as years to pay off mortgage goes down, happiness levels go up.
Wes Moss: [00:10:23] I want to try to … my goal typically is trying to help a family figure out, are you downsizing the house? And can you downsize? And if you can go from a $600,000 house to a $400,000 house, does that help you then have no mortgage? And that’s a huge part of that. I love that conversation is how can we get you to a point where you might be moving at this point, we’re eyeing a place that you haven’t lived before, and I keep using the coast, but I have a lot of folks that want to go from Atlanta to do some sort of other housing situation when everyone’s out of the house. My kids are out. It’s just me and my wife, or it’s just me and my husband. Does it make sense for us to have this big house still or are there places that we can maybe move now that we weren’t able to move before all within big metro Atlanta? I mean, it’s a huge area here.
Wes Moss: [00:11:22] And then, of course, people that are thinking, “Hey, is there a deal in the mountains? Can I go get a place? I’ve always got to do that,” or “We want to go closer to the coast and get something near St. Simons, or on the Florida Coast.” So, those conversations are happening all the time. And I think that you’ve got course. And then, you think of renovation, Jill. You think about like, “Hey, what do I need to do to fix up my house to sell it?” or “Do I want to spend $200,000 to stay here? Would I rather just sell it and go somewhere else?” So, it’s so unique to every family. And it’s kind of a fun … I will tell you, people like talking about their housing situation a lot more than-
Jill Heineck: [00:12:02] They do.
Wes Moss: [00:12:02] … they like talking about their 401(k). Like, “Okay, Wes—”
Jill Heineck: [00:12:03] Yes, true.
Wes Moss: [00:12:03] “… we’ve talked about my retirement account. Now, let’s talk about the house.”
Jill Heineck: [00:12:09] That’s the sexy part. Nobody wants-
Wes Moss: [00:12:10] It’s a lot of fun.
Jill Heineck: [00:12:13] Nobody wants to worry about their 401(k).
Wes Moss: [00:12:15] I mean, everybody can worry about and spend time thinking about the house because we-
Jill Heineck: [00:12:18] That’s right.
Wes Moss: [00:12:18] And now more than ever … and this is what’s amazing over the next several years, Jill, is how much will our insights about our primary residences change in this?
Jill Heineck: [00:12:31] Right.
Wes Moss: [00:12:31] And they’re going to be-A
Jill Heineck: [00:12:32] A lot.
Wes Moss: [00:12:33] A lot. I mean, big time.
Jill Heineck: [00:12:35] A lot.
Wes Moss: [00:12:35] If I didn’t have two doors to get to this office, I would be really rethinking my house situation. We’ve been forced to do work from home. It’s worked out so well. And I have a company of 40 people on our main company, and then 20 people in our ancillary. It’s 60 people working from home, not skipping a beat. So, why would we ever go back to 100% of people going back to the office when we could, forever, if I’ve already done to get back to work office plan. And the third phase, which is the phase one, two, three, we haven’t even started phase one yet, but phase three, I have 30% of us still working virtually until further notice.
Jill Heineck: [00:13:21] Right. So, from a an experienced perspective and cultural perspective with your teams, they still need to be able to deliver whatever they need to deliver to your customers from that perspective. So, how are you motivating them and continually kind of keeping the energy high remotely and being able to still deliver on a high level to your clients?
Wes Moss: [00:13:53] The challenge is that we’re not together. And as humans, we want to be in the same room. And there’s nothing that will ever replace that.
Jill Heineck: [00:14:03] Correct.
Wes Moss: [00:14:03] I would say, being in person, that’s an A plus. Being on Zoom is like a B plus or maybe an A minus, maybe a B plus. It’s a B plus. It’s pretty good. And I don’t think you can build a brand new culture around it, and I think it’s tough to build … I think that it’s easier to maintain a culture via Zoom for, at least, a while than it is to build a culture via Zoom. We got to be together to really build a culture. You’ve got to have holiday parties where somebody maybe made a little bit fool of themselves, and they’ve gotten over it. That’s how you really become close, right? But-
Jill Heineck: [00:14:47] Yeah.
Wes Moss: [00:14:47] But it’s been fine to be able to maintain that. As far as customers are concerned, Zoom has been … I think it’s a really good evolution. It’s not a substitute. It’s an evolution on new communication. I did a client … I never thought I would do this, but I had a group of … I had about 80 clients on a Zoom call just as kind of a test, talking about what we’ve been doing. I do a lot of this via radio and videos where I’ll just send it out and it’s kind of just a message. But this was the first time I’d ever done, hey, I’ve got a bunch of my own clients collectively on the same call. And I’m a little bit nervous about that thinking like, well, are people gonna think, well, you just … now, we’re altogether. Why are we not talking one-on-one money so intimate? Yeah, I just want to talk to you.
Wes Moss: [00:15:41] So, it’s not a substitute for that, but it’s an evolution of saying, “Hey, we can do an update, live update, and everyone together.” And I get so many emails and text messages from clients like, “Thank you for doing that. That was awesome. Let’s just do our next meeting via Zoom anyway when the world returns. I don’t want to drive down to your office. Let’s just do Zoom. I love it.” So, it’s an evolution, Jill, not a substitute. I think that’s a way you can keep your client experience very much up to date and continue the intimacy and that emotional connection. And it’s not a substitution. It’s an evolution in the way we’re doing business and communicate.
Jill Heineck: [00:16:21] I love that. I think that’s incredible. We’re doing the same thing here. I’m not necessarily doing group calls, but it’s been a great way to take a little bit more time to be real clear on what the client is signing, what they’re signing up for. We can talk really intimately without worrying about rushing to get into the car to get into rush hour to leave the office. So, it’s been a really relaxing way to go through everything that the client needs to know. So, I appreciate that so much. And so, when it comes to your listeners, I know you get bombarded with questions, and they just want to know what you think. Have you changed the way in which you are delivering your information? I see you’re doing a few more podcasts now. Are you able to give them everything that you feel like they need? It sounds like your listeners are still very engaged, still really have their ear to the screen. They want to hear what Wes has to say. Are you changing any way that you’re delivering this information?
Wes Moss: [00:17:26] It’s a tricky environment, Jill, because not only is it about the economy. I mean, our job as an investment firm is to help people meet their goals and make sure that their portfolio structure is in a balance. And we are an income-oriented firm. Meaning that what we own for clients are generating income, whether it’s dividends, or interest, or distributions. And that velocity’s still remains. Now, we have changed and upgraded the balance sheet and quality of the type companies that we are owning. We’ve gone a few rungs up the ladder in quality because I think we need to in this particular economic environment.
Wes Moss: [00:18:11] But I think the other thing is when you’re talking about the economy, it’s such a political issue. It’s so polarized politically. So, I’ve had to be really careful about … I mean, I’m not a politician. And I’m not necessarily … I’m not a radio host. I’m not a shock jock to have these … I’m not here to polarize. I’m here to really try to be objective. And I’m always trying to do that. Now, I’ll still get comments on my podcast that, “Oh, because you want to reopen the economy, you’re clearly way right wing radical.” And if I say something here, we should be careful about reopening, I’ll get a message like, “Well, you sound like a liberal.” And just to me, it’s very difficult. It’s impossible today to really totally walk the line in the middle.
Wes Moss: [00:19:00] But listen, my goals, I think as long as you’re aligned objectively with your clients, and you want the same thing. If you’re totally aligned, you want them to meet their goals, my opinions about reopening the economy are, look, the economy needs to be reopened. We don’t want to go into a depression, which I don’t think we will. But if we stay shut down forever, we will. And we’ve got to have some reasonable balance about getting the engine restarted. And I’m not going to shy away from that. I think it’s important because, then, ultimately, companies have to be able to have customers. Ultimately, that flows through to earnings. Ultimately, flows through to stock prices. And that’s-
Jill Heineck: [00:19:42] That’s right.
Wes Moss: [00:19:42] … my vested interest for my clients. And I guess it has become a political issue but, to me, it’s an economic issue.
Jill Heineck: [00:19:52] Well, and your clients look to you for your opinion. Now, again, it’s still your opinion. So, what people perceive to be political is, I guess their problem.
Wes Moss: [00:20:05] This is the world we live in today.
Jill Heineck: [00:20:06] I know.
Wes Moss: [00:20:06] Which is the world we live in today.
Jill Heineck: [00:20:09] Right.
Wes Moss: [00:20:09] So, are you seeing … I mean, I would think, are you … now that we’ve been sequestered for probably, call it seven to eight weeks, let’s call it two months, I don’t know, are people starting to … now that Georgia’s reopening, are people looking in to you and say, “Hey, I’m ready to make or thinking about making a move?” Are you seeing [crosstalk]?
Jill Heineck: [00:20:30] Yes. Our business has exploded in the last four weeks. In the last four weeks, we’ve written six contracts. We have several more in the pipeline right now. It has been incredible, the amount of agreements that we’ve signed to engage our services because part of the reason because of Zoom, we’ve been able to just coordinate it easier and faster. And so, for us, the opposite of what you would think it would be. There’s two more layers to getting contracts solidified. So, I’m going by myself to the property COVID-ready, doing the Facetime walkthrough with the client who’s at home after they’ve already scrutinized online properties, and videos, and whatnot.
Jill Heineck: [00:21:19] And we’re very, very careful. It’s taking a little bit longer. But at the end of the day, it’s not slowing down interest. And so, as we all know, real estate really is the backbone of the American economy. So, as long as people are wanting to buy and sell property, that’s a great thing. But we also know that sector of the economy that’s not working is also going to impact real estate. So, we’re keeping our eyes out, and we are praying, and we’re much like you, very optimistic. So, we are optimistic.
Wes Moss: [00:21:55] I’m very optimistic that we get this right. There have been so much because Georgia was somewhat first to market on reopening. And optically, maybe we didn’t do it in the perfect way by starting with tattoo parlors, right?
Jill Heineck: [00:22:07] Right.
Wes Moss: [00:22:07] But the idea of getting back to work, I’m very much behind and very much in line with. But there’s been so much criticism. There are a couple of different articles that I’ve seen just this week that are bashing the State of Georgia, and there are people that are like rooting against us.
Jill Heineck: [00:22:28] That’s right.
Wes Moss: [00:22:28] And that really bugs me that you can … it really bugs me that you’ve got such polarization. There are folks that are almost they’re scorning us from afar. You’ve got people in the northeast, you’ve got people out west looking at us saying, “You’re irresponsibly reopening.” And I think that what I think is that just because we’re allowed to reopen doesn’t mean everybody does reopen, number one. Number two, just like you’re mentioning, and I think about the … and you hear commercials on our station at WSB Radio, every single one of them is like, “Here’s how we have adapted to do business.”
Jill Heineck: [00:23:10] That’s right.
Wes Moss: [00:23:10] Even roofers are like, “Look, we’re not going to come and shake your hand. We’re going to do this via Facetime. We’ll come and we’ll fix your roof.” Everywhere from roofers to any other industry, they’re trying to figure out how to get back to work safely.
Jill Heineck: [00:23:25] That’s right.
Wes Moss: [00:23:25] And to me, that’s the spirit of entrepreneurs is to adapt to the environment we’re in, not just throw our arms in the air and say, wait. What? We’re gonna have to wait till everything’s perfect again because it never will be. You’ve got to be able adapt to the world that would be, the cards that we are given.
Jill Heineck: [00:23:43] That’s right. That’s right. And I really appreciate your insight and your time today. I continue to be a big fan, and listen, and hope that every time I listen, I glean something that will be able to be applicable to our situation. And I know a lot of our listeners really appreciate your insight. So, I wanted to say, is there anything that you would like to impart on our listeners before you leave? Any piece of advice or tell us where they can find you?
Wes Moss: [00:24:15] Well, one, I would say that I’ve followed Jill Heineck and her team for a long time. And you guys are some of the very best in the business. So, that would be one of my pieces of advice for your listeners.
Jill Heineck: [00:24:25] Thank you.
Wes Moss: [00:24:25] They probably already love you. The second part is that from a financial standpoint, we are, again, available just like anybody else, through Zoom and chat. We have had no business interruption. It’s easier to coordinate today more than ever. And the my thought is, yeah, people can find us at wesmoss.com, which is where we post a lot of our resources and articles about the world we’re living in today to try to keep people informed. And then, you can contact us through that. And I think that that’s a good hub for you to find my firm and the Money Matters team. Our firm name is Capital Investment Advisors. So, you can find our firm through our website, and we still love to chat with folks and see if we can help.
Jill Heineck: [00:25:17] Excellent. Well, I want to thank everyone for listening. I’m proud to share this show with you as these stories prioritize the customer experience as a legitimate business strategy, reminding us that no matter the business that you are in – entertainment, investments, or real estate – the customer experience should always be at the heart of the business.
About Your Host
Jill Heineck is a leading authority on corporate relocations, and is highly sought after for her real estate industry acumen and business insights. As a published author, frequent panelist and keynote speaker, Jill shares her experience and perceptions with people from around the globe.
Jill is a founding partner of Keller Williams Southeast, established in 1999, and the founder and managing partner of Heineck & Co. Her real estate practice specializes in corporate relocations, individual relocations, luxury residential, and commercial properties. Jill’s analytical approach to problem-solving, along with her expert negotiation skills and sophisticated marketing, deliver superior results to her clients. Her winning strategies and tenacious client advocacy have earned her a reputation for excellence among Atlanta’s top producers.
While Jill has received many accolades throughout her career, she is most gratified by the personal testimonials and referrals she receives from her clients. Jill’s unwavering commitment to the customer experience, and her focus on the unique needs of each client, serve as the foundation of her success.
Follow Jill Heineck on LinkedIn.
Decision Vision Episode 63: Should I Buy a Business? – An Interview with Ray Padron, Brightworth
Decision Vision Episode 63: Should I Buy a Business? – An Interview with Ray Padron, Brightworth
Why buy a business? How do I manage the process of buying a business? How do I prevent an acquisition from destroying the culture of my existing business? Ray Padron speaks from his experience as CEO of Brightworth, an acquisitive private wealth management firm. The host of “Decision Vision” is Mike Blake and the series is presented by Brady Ware & Company.
Ray Padron, Brightworth
Brightworth is a boutique private wealth management firm that empowers its clients to focus on what matters most. They do that by helping their clients build, preserve and to make an impact with their wealth.
Their advisers have deep expertise across the financial disciplines with certifications that include the CFA,CPA, CFP and CIMA, JD and CFTA. The major client focus of Brightworth includes the dental industry nationwide, corporate professionals and executives, business exit transition services, and retiring well.
Ray is Brightworth’s Chief Executive Officer, leading strategic and management operations across the firm. In addition, as a Wealth Advisor, he provides comprehensive financial and investment advice to help clients achieve their financial goals and dreams. His experience working with senior executives and business owners and their complex transition and succession strategies helps him guide both Brightworth’s and his clients’ success.
Ray began his financial career with what is now PricewaterhouseCoopers, later working for the Marriott Corporation and then serving as Vice President of Accounting Operations and Financial Reporting for Finalco Group, Inc. In 1986, Ray became a Principal and Senior Vice President of Finance for Capital Associates, Inc., a regional venture capital firm that provided both capital and funding services for portfolio companies.
In 1988, Ray created ARC Financial Services, a financial planning firm that focused on the unique needs of business owners. He later merged that firm with Ron Blue Trust, a national wealth advisory firm, starting their Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Md. branches and eventually becoming the Vice President of Practice Areas and Chief Financial Officer at the national headquarters in Atlanta.
Ray is a Certified Public Accountant and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner. He has completed the Investment Management Consultants Association’s Investment Analyst Program at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and is a Certified Investment Management AnalystSM. In addition, he is an Accredited Estate Planner®, a Chartered Life Underwriter and a Chartered Financial Consultant. Ray has been named several times in Atlanta Magazine‘s list of Five Star Wealth Managers*.
Ray is currently on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce as well as Junior Achievement of Georgia, the Executive Committee of the Buckhead Coalition, and is past President of CEO Netweavers, a community of CEOs and trusted advisors committed to helping and improving the Atlanta business community. He is also a founding board member of Matchbook Learning, a national non-profit K-12 school management organization focused on a unique blended, competency-based model of learning for struggling schools.
He is an active member of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a non-profit organization focused on bringing the private sector together with our government partners to apply best business practice solutions to its most difficult national security challenges. In addition, Ray is a past member of the board of directors of the Financial Planning Association of Georgia, and a past chairman and board member of an international faith-based ministry.
Over the years Ray has been a frequent speaker to executives on retirement planning. He has also spoken on operational excellence within the financial planning and wealth management industry.
Ray and his wife, Sharon, have four grown children and ten grandchildren. His hobbies include international travel, golfing with friends, reading and exercise.
For more information, you can visit the Brightworth website or email Ray directly.
Michael Blake, Brady Ware & Company
Michael Blake is Host of the “Decision Vision” podcast series and a Director of Brady Ware & Company. Mike specializes in the valuation of intellectual property-driven firms, such as software firms, aerospace firms and professional services firms, most frequently in the capacity as a transaction advisor, helping clients obtain great outcomes from complex transaction opportunities. He is also a specialist in the appraisal of intellectual properties as stand-alone assets, such as software, trade secrets, and patents.
Mike has been a full-time business appraiser for 13 years with public accounting firms, boutique business appraisal firms, and an owner of his own firm. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in venture capital and investment banking, including transactions in the U.S., Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
Brady Ware & Company
Brady Ware & Company is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm which helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality. Brady Ware services clients nationally from its offices in Alpharetta, GA; Columbus and Dayton, OH; and Richmond, IN. The firm is growth minded, committed to the regions in which they operate, and most importantly, they make significant investments in their people and service offerings to meet the changing financial needs of those they are privileged to serve. The firm is dedicated to providing results that make a difference for its clients.
Decision Vision Podcast Series
“Decision Vision” is a podcast covering topics and issues facing small business owners and connecting them with solutions from leading experts. This series is presented by Brady Ware & Company. If you are a decision maker for a small business, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at decisionvision@bradyware.com and make sure to listen to every Thursday to the “Decision Vision” podcast. Past episodes of “Decision Vision” can be found here. “Decision Vision” is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
Visit Brady Ware & Company on social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brady-ware/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradywareCPAs/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradyWare
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradywarecompany/
Show Transcript
Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast series focusing on critical business decisions. Brought to you by Brady Ware & Company. Brady Ware is a regional, full-service accounting and advisory that helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality.
Mike Blake: [00:00:20] And welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast giving you, the listener, clear vision to make great decisions. In each episode, we discuss the process of decision making on a different topic from the business owner’s or executive’s perspective. We aren’t necessarily telling you what to do, but we can put you in a position to make an informed decision on your own and understand when you might need help along the way.
Mike Blake: [00:00:39] My name is Mike Blake, and I’m your host for today’s program. I also touch my face, at least, 35 times a day. I’m a Director at Brady Ware & Company, a full-service accounting firm based in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Dayton; Columbus, Ohio; and Richmond, Indiana; and Alpharetta, Georgia, which is where we recording today. Brady Ware is sponsoring this podcast. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast aggregator, and please consider leaving a review of the podcast as well.
Mike Blake: [00:01:07] So, we’re talking about a subject that I’m a big fan of. And I’m a big fan of it because I think it’s extremely important, and nobody talks about it. And that is whether you should buy a business. And I say nobody talks about it because I’m in the transactional world, and I do my fair share of M&A, thankfully. And one thing that I’ve noticed is that there are plenty of seminars around that will talk about how you should sell your business and why. And there’s some that will even talk to you about succession planning, how do you transition at your business to a succeeding generation?
Mike Blake: [00:01:54] And I think those two subjects get covered a lot, quite frankly, because I think that’s where the most money is made. There’s a lot of money to be made, certainly, anytime a business sells, or brokerage fees, or legal fees, or accounting fees are, I don’t know, after deal dinner fees. There’s a lot of money on the move that occurs and is set in motion because a business is going to be sold. And that’s usually initiated by the seller. Not always, but usually. And to a lesser extent, that is true for businesses that are in succession. There’s a whole industry now around succession planning. There are organizations that offer some form of accreditation or some source of letters after your name because you’re a really awesome succession planner.
Mike Blake: [00:02:41] But buying a business, it’s really crickets. And even to the point where it’s actually hard to find an investment bank that wants to take on what we call buy side transaction. They don’t want to work for buyers because the perception is that buyers have less of a motivation to buy a business than a seller has to sell a business. And therefore, if you’re working on contingency, it’s a less reliable source of income. But buying a business, I would argue, is just as hard, if not harder than selling a business because the burden of information is on the buyer and it’s going to be in the asset that you buy.
Mike Blake: [00:02:41] So, Warren Buffett is famous for saying that “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” And if you do things right, you hope that value is, at least, equal to or maybe greater than the price. But the seller walks away with money, and they know what money is worth. But the buyer, they may not understand exactly what they’ve bought for a year or two or more after they’ve bought the business. And so, this is a rich topic for discussion. This can be one of these things. I may ask our guest to come back for a second part because I can just see right now that we’re going to cover a lot of ground and leave ground uncovered.
Mike Blake: [00:04:11] So, with that having been said, I would like to introduce you to my friend Ray Padron, who is Chief Executive Officer of Brightworth, a boutique private wealth management firm headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1997, they empower their clients to focus on what matters most. They do that by helping their clients build, preserve and make an impact on their wealth. Today, Brightworth has over 1400 individuals and families across the US, whom they helped build, preserve and be generous with their wealth, which is currently, according to their website, about $4 billion under management, letting them spend more time on the things that truly matter to them.
Mike Blake: [00:04:48] From the beginning, Brightworth built their firm to align their interests with those their clients that they’re always on the same side of the table with those they serve. A critical way in which they accomplish this is by being fee-only, selling no proprietary products and refusing to let compensation influence the guidance Brightworth provides to its clients. That’s important. Fee-based advisors are hard to find. Fee-based advisors who are good are very hard to find. That is not a usual model. So, pay attention to that.
Mike Blake: [00:05:16] They’re a team of over 50 professionals in Atlanta and Charlotte who are dedicated to providing independent and objective advice, taking care of their clients in the same manner they would want their own parents taken care of provide. By providing outstanding depth of expertise, the uniquely personal approach, they continue to create lasting relationships with clients to help build their financial future with confidence. Ray Padron, thank you for coming on the program.
Ray Padron: [00:05:40] Mike, it is a pleasure to be here. I’m glad you and I are getting to spend time together.
Mike Blake: [00:05:45] So, you’re now CEO and grand poobah of Brightworth. I know you’re a co-founder, but have you always been the CEO?
Ray Padron: [00:05:54] No. Actually, I took over the CEO position in 2014.
Mike Blake: [00:05:59] And in that time, how many acquisitions have you led Brightworth either through or maybe better yet into?
Ray Padron: [00:06:06] Sure. We actually have done three. And it was a very fortuitous. We had a chance to do a very small transaction first, which helped us sort of learn the ropes of integrating an individual practice into our firm. Then, the next transaction, which was probably within 12-18 months of that, it was sort of a team that was rolling out of another firm, they wanted to leave, and we brought them into our firm. A little more complicated. There was a lot more client work to do, paperwork, more conversations with the exiting that was taking place, et cetera. And then, there was a very large transaction we did, which doubled the size of the firm in 2017.
Mike Blake: [00:06:49] So, I’d like to talk about that one because it was clearly so material and so important. Why did you want to make that big an acquisition? Were you nervous about making that big an acquisition?
Ray Padron: [00:07:02] Right. Two questions. Yes, we were nervous, but the big reason for doing the acquisition was we decided we needed to actually have a a non-organic growth strategy. We’re in an industry, the wealth management industry is not actually that old, particularly the fee-only practice. So, when you look at what’s happening in our industry, there is issues around succession planning. We have literally hundreds, if not thousands of firms that are struggling with their own succession plans. All the first-generation owners who’ve created this business now were in what we would call a succession trap. They can’t sell their practice or their businesses to the next generation. It’s too late. It’s worth too much. And what’s happening is there’s this huge amount of consolidation that’s actually taking place because they have to do something.
Ray Padron: [00:07:54] At the same time, we’ve got private equity firms that are in large banks like Goldman Sachs that are buying up RIAs because they’re seeing changes in their own industry. So, there’s a lot taking place because the industry’s matured to the place it is. So, our choices are stick with organic growth or to do things that put us in the better position for the future. The future of this industry, there’ll be a handful of national firms. There’ll also be maybe 5 to 10 regional firms. And our decision six years ago was we want to be a regional firm. Let’s work towards that. And then, we can go from there. So, from a strategic standpoint, we needed to to do something and we needed to learn our way there. So, that’s pretty much the motivation for why we wanted to do an organic growth.
Mike Blake: [00:08:45] So, I like that distinction. That’s important kind of vocabulary point, organic growth versus inorganic. For our listeners who may not necessarily know that, organic growth simply means growth that you drive on your own by either expanding revenue from existing clients or adding new clients to your portfolio.
Ray Padron: [00:09:02] Exactly.
Mike Blake: [00:09:03] Right? So, I infer something. I wanna clarify. I wanna make sure I’m not assuming, but I infer from what you just said that you had a concern that if you did not acquire to become larger, you are at risk of potentially being acquired and maybe not under the best circumstances that you would like.
Ray Padron: [00:09:26] Sure. That’s exactly right. We actually had made the decision to work on our own succession plan 13 years ago. I was only 50 years old at the time. I was the oldest partner. So, we started our transition and our strategy for our own internal succession plan well in advance. We’re now at a point where the next generation, and we’re almost into third generation owners, own more of the firm than the original founders do. In fact, two of the founders are already gone. And the other two, myself included, will probably be gone in the next five to seven years. So, we’ve taken care of our part. Now, the question is, what do we want to become? And with all the consolidation taking place, it really is we wanted to be the masters of our own destiny. We’ve sold all our own succession plan. We should be able to survive all the changes that are taking place in the industry.
Mike Blake: [00:10:18] So, this big acquisition that you did in 2017, it’s hard to imagine. It’s three years ago now. How long did that take?
Ray Padron: [00:10:27] Longer than I anticipated. There was a really interesting process. We actually had met several years before that. They were interested in their own succession plan, wanted to meet with us to understand how we had done ours, and approached one private equity firm, in particular, to help them do that. After, I think, working with them for 18 months realized there wasn’t enough time, and they came back to us and said, “Would you be interested? We really like you. Why not consolidate the two firms?” And that was a great opportunity for us.
Mike Blake: [00:11:04] So, you said that the acquisition took longer than than expected. What knock-on effects did that have on other aspects of your business or maybe the acquisition itself? How did that change the tenor?
Ray Padron: [00:11:19] Sure. And I didn’t really s answer the last question well in a sense of why did it take so long. But there are a couple of things that had to take place. You have this whole LOI, which is our first time we actually did something as formal as sending out an LOI. You start doing some due diligence, and you realize, “You know what? The way we structured the LOI, some of the provisions really did need to change.” And one of those was there was a follow-on transaction that we felt was really important. There were two parts to the transaction. There was the investment, the registered investment advisor. And then, there was a planning firm. And there was issues with the planning firm. We realized we needed more than just a — what would you call it? An option. We needed an actual drop-dead date where we would actually be able to do something.
Ray Padron: [00:12:09] So, anyways, that process required us to sort of renegotiate from the LOI a different transaction. And that really is the reason why it stretched out. The cascading consequences of that are both positive in a sense for us and negative. The negatives, as I’m sure everybody can imagine, the longer you take, it’s like a death march. The more time people have to think of things, they want answers that I’m trying to explain to them, we’re going to answer those things on the other side of the transaction. So, where there are blanks in in people’s minds, they filled it with usually negative things. So, it’s this constant grind of trying to solve things and ghosts, I call it, that they think exist that just aren’t there. So, those are the negative things. The positive things where the firm actually grew during all that time, the firm we were buying. So, our initial upfront cost relative to the revenue we’re buying ended up becoming much lower.
Mike Blake: [00:13:10] Now, that’s interesting. And that speaks to the fact that on the sell side, they ran their process well because the more frequent outcome you see as that the firm stagnates or even declines in the sale process because selling a firm, and as I think you discover, buying a firm becomes a full-time job in and of itself. And so, frequently, the very asset you’re targeting can be neglected. If it’s not run well, if it hasn’t scaled well, it’s not as valuable an asset at the end of the process as it was when you started, but you encountered the reverse phenomenon.
Ray Padron: [00:13:42] Yeah. Good point.
Mike Blake: [00:13:43] And that must have given you, then, a lot of confidence. You found the right partner. You are doing the right thing.
Ray Padron: [00:13:48] Yeah, they’re a very focused business. They’re focused on the dental industry. So, they were able to continue to—what’s the word? Kind of run their flywheel. And they have this great marketing engine, which is one of the things that absolutely attracted us to the acquisition. And that marketing engine just kept working.
Mike Blake: [00:14:08] So, actually, I want to I want to touch on that ’cause something you led off with and now are coming back to, I think, is a very important instructive point, which is you didn’t buy a business for the hell of it. You bought a business because you had a specific objective that you wanted to meet with buying one or more businesses, right?
Ray Padron: [00:14:30] Correct.
Mike Blake: [00:14:30] And presumably then, you are prepared and perhaps did walk away from potential targets that we’re not going to help you meet that objective.
Ray Padron: [00:14:38] Correct.
Mike Blake: [00:14:38] Right? So, a there’s a deliberate process. And I think that’s important because— actually, what I’m going to back out, I’m assuming some of that may not be true. Do you, on occasion, receive unsolicited offers? Some firms or brokers say, “Hey, this this thing’s available. Would you like to buy it?”
Ray Padron: [00:14:54] Absolutely.
Mike Blake: [00:14:55] And most the time you say?
Ray Padron: [00:14:57] No.
Mike Blake: [00:14:57] Why?
Ray Padron: [00:14:58] Well, there’s some very specific things that we’re looking for. One is we love the idea of there being a succession trap because, usually, that means we can get this at a decent price. But there has got to be a whole host of things that have to be behind that to make it work. You got to have talent. There’s got to be a set of hungry next generation people who’ve been waiting for something to happen, so they can take over this business. I can’t just ask somebody from Atlanta to move up to Charlotte to run the firm.
Ray Padron: [00:15:31] So, we were looking for several things. One is a strategic location. If I get an offer to buy a firm in some small town in Alabama, I’m not interested in that. So, Charlotte was a strategic location. You’re looking for a strategic talent – the credible talent and group of next-generation people that were ready to take over the business. And then, I’m trying to think of what the third thing was. Oh, a strategic market. So, our Atlanta business is very focused on corporate executives and professionals, as well as with business owners. Having a business up in Charlotte that’s entirely focused on the dental industry nationwide was a really cool and very unusual. You, usually, don’t see that in our industry.
Mike Blake: [00:16:13] And we had another guest on, Rod Burkert, who talked about the need to specialize. This is not really in our script, but I sort of have to ask you, do you feel that specialization has been a benefit?
Ray Padron: [00:16:24] Absolutely. People want to work with people who know their business and the phase of life that they’re in.
Mike Blake: [00:16:32] Yeah. And I think clients appreciate not having to educate their advisors-.
Ray Padron: [00:16:39] Absolutely.
Mike Blake: [00:16:39] … about their business. And being a generalist, it’s hard to sort of defend to a client that says, “Hey, should I get somebody that’s done one of these before or not?” No, you don’t need someone who’s done one of these before. Your business is any old business.
Ray Padron: [00:16:58] Right, exactly.
Mike Blake: [00:16:58] I’ve never been able to really figure how to carry that conversation and not sound dumb doing it. If there’s a way, please send something into info@decisionvision.com, whatever the hell our email is. Help me figure out how to do that.
Ray Padron: [00:17:11] Really.
Mike Blake: [00:17:14] So, this opportunity came about because you had some kind of relationship, and there was sort of a slow-burn conversation. Let’s just sort of dip your toe in, and I think sort of gradually weighed in. Is that fair?
Ray Padron: [00:17:25] Yeah, that’s fair statement.
Mike Blake: [00:17:27] So, at some point, you then flipped the switch from conversation to real negotiation discussion. You touched on this before, but I want to really dive into this. What was your due diligence process like?
Ray Padron: [00:17:40] So, the due diligence process actually went incredibly well. There are several reasons. The individuals we were dealing with, some of them actually were attorneys. And so, they had a really good understanding of some of the things we were going to be asking for. We also had a private equity firm, our financing arm, if I may, that was helping us do the acquisition, had done literally dozens and dozens of these in this space. So, we really knew exactly sort of what to ask for, and how to build out the data room, and et cetera. So, that process actually went really well and smoothly. We have a full-time compliance officer who knows exactly, again, what we need to be doing and looking for. So, it was a pretty smooth process. It didn’t take very long.
Mike Blake: [00:18:27] How long did it take? Do you recall?
Ray Padron: [00:18:29] It’s about 30 to 45 days.
Mike Blake: [00:18:31] Okay. That’s a well-run due diligence process, which I’m sure your buyer— I’m sorry, your seller appreciated.
Ray Padron: [00:18:37] Yeah, it was.
Mike Blake: [00:18:38] Because a seller, when I advise sellers, I tell them to be prepared for a 90-day, sometimes even 120-day due diligence. And that gets them to the death march things you talk about.
Ray Padron: [00:18:48] Exactly.
Mike Blake: [00:18:48] Everybody’s happy and cheerful for the first two weeks of questions. And then, after that, it’s, “Oh, God. I got to do this again,” right?
Ray Padron: [00:18:55] Yeah, yeah.
Mike Blake: [00:18:56] I can’t imagine what it’s like by day 100. You just want to chuck everything and say, “You know what, I’m just gonna sell this to the government.”
Ray Padron: [00:19:03] It’s funny, and I mentioned it earlier, there were these two parts – the getting the RIA part in the due diligence done. Really, we had that done all in 90 days, including the purchase agreement. It was renegotiating the aspect of the LOI that required the acquisition of the other part that took us another 12 months. It was that, which where we had the death march.
Mike Blake: [00:19:26] Now, what’s interesting in the due diligence too is that in your world, you’re a highly regulated industry.
Ray Padron: [00:19:26] Very, very very.
Mike Blake: [00:19:36] And one in which potential liability and, frankly, disaster is lurking around every corner. And as you said, you have a compliance officer, all RAs either have an internal or outsource compliance officer. You pretty much have to, I think.
Ray Padron: [00:19:51] Absolutely.
Mike Blake: [00:19:55] How afraid were you, concerned were you about finding that or maybe not finding that gremlin under the rug that, all of a sudden, now, it becomes your responsibility? How big a concern is that in your industry?
Ray Padron: [00:20:13] It’s a big concern. Obviously, there’s two things that you do. Well, or maybe three things that you’re doing that kind of help mitigate a lot of that. Obviously, we did an asset purchase. We weren’t buying the stock of the company. So, there’s sort of step one.
Mike Blake: [00:20:28] So, that gives you some level of protection.
Ray Padron: [00:20:30] They actually have compliance files, which they have to have. And if they’ve been recently audited, they’re probably very up to date. So, that gives you another layer of comfort. You’re going to do an audit of their CRM. Well-run firms got every client conversation or every issue sitting in CRM. So, you’re going to do a set of tests through their CRM for, particularly, their larger clients where there might be larger financial exposure. In this case, the firm that we purchased did have one issue with a client. It was disclosed to us right upfront. It wasn’t a big deal. Clients get upset sometimes.
Ray Padron: [00:21:08] And then, the last thing is the clients are required to sign a consent on the transaction. So, we can’t just buy a firm and then the clients go, “Wait a minute” all of a sudden, “Who’s Brightworth?” So, there’s this whole communication process. And the clients actually consent to the transaction. So, there’s another set of affirmations that there’s no problems lurking out there or if they are, they’re going to make a decision not to come.
Mike Blake: [00:21:32] So, that’s interesting. I think I kind of knew that but hadn’t really internalized it. Is a client consent such that they consent to be transitioned over or could a client potentially even hold a transaction?
Ray Padron: [00:21:46] They can’t hold a transaction, but what they can do is isolate what issues are. And effectively, then, they would not sort of consent to moving over, and they can no longer be a client.
Mike Blake: [00:21:57] They can opt out basically.
Ray Padron: [00:21:58] And then, it changes the math of the transaction.
Mike Blake: [00:22:01] Now, I wonder, the way you kind of work through this due diligence process and compliance, I guess I wonder if in a way it’s easier because you can kind of look up with FINRA what kind of actions have been taken, if any sensors, anything like that, that’s gonna be a matter of public record.
Ray Padron: [00:22:18] Exactly. And that’s not just at the firm level but also at each advisor level.
Mike Blake: [00:22:23] Okay.
Ray Padron: [00:22:23] Right. If there’s an action against a specific advisor that maybe they even hired after that issue came up, it’s all gonna be out in the disclosure systems that we check.
Mike Blake: [00:22:34] So, that’s a luxury relative to a lot of other industries-
Ray Padron: [00:22:38] Absolutely.
Mike Blake: [00:22:39] … that the skeletons, they can’t be in a closet or it’s a very easy closet to open.
Ray Padron: [00:22:44] Exactly.
Mike Blake: [00:22:47] So, you’re working through a due diligence process. At what point does your conversation talk turned to pricing terms?
Ray Padron: [00:22:56] Most of the pricing terms were worked out upfront and were in the LOI. We structured it that way. We are basically saying, “We’re going to purchase your revenue at X. And we’ve built out an earn out of whatever, over a five-year period.” And so, most of the pricing was already determined.
Mike Blake: [00:23:14] And how difficult was that? Was there a lot of back and forth? Or did you and the seller find that you had kind of a similar mindset?
Ray Padron: [00:23:22] In this case, it was very similar mindset.
Mike Blake: [00:23:25] In other cases. were there not? Are there cases where you found that a show stopper?
Ray Padron: [00:23:30] No. In the other ones, it was less of an issue because there was much smaller transactions and the multiples were just one time; where this was an earn-out calculation. So, it gets a little bit more complicated. And when you have market volatility like we do today, yesterday anyways, it becomes a much more complex conversation.
Mike Blake: [00:23:51] So, did you do this transaction yourself or did you have a team of advisors helping you with us?
Ray Padron: [00:23:57] Great question. Probably one of my— I call it both a strength and a fault was this one transaction, in particular, I did most of the work from a Brightworth perspective. Now, the good news is I had a private equity firm that specializes in this. So, they were a big part of helping keep things on track, make sure our thinking was clear, and moving the transaction forward.
Mike Blake: [00:24:23] You said you had a private equity firm. In what way? What? How are they involved? Were they a client that’s just sort of helped you along the way or professional contact?
Ray Padron: [00:24:30] No. They’re actually an investor in the transaction. So, it’s a-
Mike Blake: [00:24:33] Oh, I see. Okay.
Ray Padron: [00:24:34] Yeah. They’re just partly a Brightworth private equity purchase of the business.
Mike Blake: [00:24:39] Got it. Okay. So, I didn’t know that out of the transaction. So, it sounds like, I would think initially, my first reaction would be having another seat at the table would make the transaction more complicated, but it sounds like in your case, it also made it easier.
Ray Padron: [00:25:01] Yeah, it absolutely did make it more complicated. Quick funny story. My wife and I have a place in Florida condo. One day where I was working, negotiating with and against the private equity firm on pricing, I was working on the transaction itself, negotiating compensation. I don’t think I got off the phone over a 10-hour period, and I’d walked over five miles just inside my home working through those kinds of issues. So, yeah, it can get really complicated.
Mike Blake: [00:25:36] Now, a lot of people talked about the importance of culture. I’ve known you long enough to know, you are a big culture guy.
Ray Padron: [00:25:44] I am.
Mike Blake: [00:25:44] This is not something that’s just a Harvard Business Review article that you read. This is something that is critical to you. It’s part of who you are and what’s made you successful.
Ray Padron: [00:25:54] Thank you.
Mike Blake: [00:25:54] You are acquiring a large firm. How did you explore culture and get comfortable that an acquisition of that magnitude wasn’t going to blow up what you’d spent the prior 20 years building?
Ray Padron: [00:26:09] Yeah, great question. And probably the biggest concern that you have with your own team when you’re proposing this to your own management committee and your partners, in this case, it was really kind of an interesting process. Step one, and I do this as I’m looking at firms that are out there that I would call targets, they’re what I’d call stealth targets. I’m not using their name. Nobody else in the firm knows. But I actually go to their website, and I’ll sit there and look at the bios of what I would call the next-gen leaders or the senior team that we would probably be buying out. And in this case, when I looked at their website, it was, “Wow! I could take that that bio and that person, lift it out, I could set it right in the Brightworth, and you would know the difference. They’d look and feel just like a Brightworth advisor.” That’s not culture, but it is a big step. You see the things that they’ve done. You see what their hobbies are. You see what’s important to them, their certifications, et cetera. They were definitely felt like Brightworth.
Ray Padron: [00:26:09] The next thing is you’ve got to talk about how they make decisions. How do they govern themselves? That’ll tell you a lot about the leadership. Is it a top-down kind of thing? Is it consensus building? And then, the other part is you actually go in there and you show them, “Here’s how we run our firm. Here’s what we expect from ourselves as human beings working together to get things done for our clients. We want to look as healthy on the inside as we look to our clients on the outside.” And the other thing is you spend time with them. We encourage to do assessments if we can get them to do there. Step one is I share mine, “Here’s my assessments. I want you to see what my profile looks like.” The fact I’m a take charge person and I tend to be a bit spontaneous, et cetera. Those are the things I want them to know about. So, I open the firm up to them. And at the same time, hopefully, allow them to be and feel more open to us. And we kind of learn our way there.
Mike Blake: [00:28:15] I’m glad you say that one. When my firm was acquired by Brady Ware two and a half years ago, I volunteered my profiles because I wanted them to know what they are getting into, and I wanted them to self-select out. And my profile basically says that I am a raving lunatic that is always pushing the edge of stuff, that is a creative type, that doesn’t follow rules, that doesn’t pay attention to administrative detail and doesn’t acknowledge that they’re even important. And basically says that you’re retaining an anarchist.
Ray Padron: [00:28:51] Right.
Mike Blake: [00:28:52] Right? And I thought it was important that they sort of understood what they’re getting into. That when I told them that, I wasn’t just being self-deprecating. I have empirical data that demonstrates that’s the kind of person that I am, so that they understood what they kind of getting into.
Ray Padron: [00:29:10] Sure.
Mike Blake: [00:29:10] And I think that’s why our relationship has, although it’s had some bumps, I’ve only threatened to burn the building down twice, it’s had its bumps along the way, I think it survived because we also realized a culture is going to be a threat. And even as one person who was a loud mouth going into 160-person firm can be just as disruptive to culture if you don’t play it correctly-
Ray Padron: [00:29:38] Absolutely.
Mike Blake: [00:29:38] … as a large acquisition.
Ray Padron: [00:29:40] Yeah. If you think about it, you really are. The closer you can get the authenticity or in transparency is the sooner you can get to a win/win. They don’t want to buy trouble, and you don’t want to inherit trouble. And the best thing you can do is lay it out there, and just be clear on what life forward is going to be like.
Mike Blake: [00:29:59] And you don’t want to walk into trouble either.
Ray Padron: [00:30:01] Exactly. The other thing, and I did mention this, that you should look for, and that is turnover. Go back through the last five years and see how much turnover did the firm actually have.
Mike Blake: [00:30:12] And you’re an industry that has some turnover.
Ray Padron: [00:30:14] It really does. In large part because the way these businesses have been built, they tend to be very siloed. Everything’s concentrated at the top. And you have all these young advisors coming up through the ranks who are looking for opportunity. If you don’t bring that to them, which includes ownership, something we solved at Brightworth a long time ago, they get frustrated and leave. And we earn in talent race in our business.
Mike Blake: [00:30:37] Yeah. So, you’re the chief executive officer, but I don’t think you’re a dictator. You didn’t come in wearing a sash or a big hat and frilly shoulder pads or anything like that. So, how did you get your other partners on board? How involved were they? And how did you manage the— I don’t want to say politics. That’s not the right word. But how do you manage the relationship and communication, so that they would be inclined to be a constructive force in the transaction?
Ray Padron: [00:31:11] Sure. Great question. And there’s sort of several parts to this one too. There’s the management committee and the partners. And then, there’s the entire Brightworth team sitting in in Atlanta. So, one of the things we already had was what were our critical success factors in our mergers and acquisitions strategy that we were looking for? Check the boxes, strategic location, strategic talent, a focus in a niche market. Check, check, check. So, all of the basic things were covered.
Ray Padron: [00:31:43] The other part to this is that you have to realize that there’s sort of a— I call it there’s two kinds of people. At Brightworth, I saw two kinds of people. There’s always the wow group, which is, “Wow, this could be amazing and great.” They see the check next to the critical success factors. And then, there’s the other group, which is, “How in the world are we going to pull this off?” And you really have to take your time with the hows because they’re going to have a billion questions sitting in their head about, “How is that going to work from a compliance? How is that going to work from an investment standpoint? How are you going to integrate all this?” There’s all these millions of questions. And I’m an influencer. I am a very positive person. And at the same time, I have to be patient. You’ve got to bring them along. You’ve got to give them the time to process these things. And partly, you’ve also got to say, “Well, you’ve got to have a little bit of faith here.”
Ray Padron: [00:32:39] I had a great question at a staff meeting when I announced that we were pursuing this large acquisition. A gentleman in the group, he was one of our planners, said, “What makes us think we can pull this off? Like, what makes you think we can actually do this?” And the fact of the matter is I didn’t know we could do this. I can’t prove to them that we can do this. But I looked around the room, I said, “Look, we’re one of the few firms who’ve invested a lot in our next-generation leaders. They’ve done an amazing job over the last 10 years of moving from where they were to where we are now. We’re at the right place in our maturing as a company to go find out. I don’t know if we’re riding a 5-speed bike, a 10-speed bike, or an 18-speed bike. But the only way we’re gonna find out is to attack the hill, and let’s go see.” And that really won a lot of people over.
Mike Blake: [00:33:30] Interesting that you bring up, and not just bring up but that you involved your employees. I think that’s an unusual step to take. I think when most executives pursue a material transaction, buy or sell side, they try to keep that a very closed discussion with a very tight inner circle, I think, primarily, because they’re afraid of causing fear and uncertainty.
Ray Padron: [00:33:58] Sure.
Mike Blake: [00:33:58] Right? Although, I think that tends to backfire. We’re kind of seeing now with the coronavirus thing, the more that you try to cover up, all that does, it makes people’s imaginations become more active.
Ray Padron: [00:34:12] Yep.
Mike Blake: [00:34:12] Right? So, it hurts in the long run. But also, what you did is that you made yourself subject to scrutiny. You put yourself in a position of a public forum where one of of your planners said, “Basically, what makes you so great? Who do you think you are that we can pull off this really successful thing?” and gave you the opportunity to put you in the position of being vulnerable and saying, “Well, I don’t know. But here’s what my faith is based on.”
Ray Padron: [00:34:41] Yeah, exactly.
Mike Blake: [00:34:43] But not all leaders appreciate being questioned right by the “rank and file” of the organization.
Ray Padron: [00:34:50] Sure. Just from a personal philosophical standpoint, I have found that the benefits of having the open conversation and the challenge outweigh the other way, which is don’t tell them anything. And we actually used to have that culture of telling these people very little. I want to have the questions in advance on a card. And that’s just not my style.
Mike Blake: [00:35:18] Well, I think you get buy-in. We just recorded a podcast with another individual talking about CPA firm relationships, and what he said was that the most disruptive thing to a CPA relationship is a surprise, a material surprise. Very few things are more surprising than an e-mail at 8:30 in the morning on a Monday saying, “Hey, we just acquired a firm equal our size in Charlotte. More to come.”
Ray Padron: [00:35:46] Right. Yeah, exactly.
Mike Blake: [00:35:48] Is that really helping you retain people? And B-.
Ray Padron: [00:35:52] No.
Mike Blake: [00:35:52] And [B], have people be more comfortable with the transaction than if you’ve kind of at least said some information along the line?
Ray Padron: [00:35:59] Exactly. Exactly.
Mike Blake: [00:36:02] So, you made this acquisition in ’17. You’ve had a few years to step back. How has it change your firm?
Ray Padron: [00:36:09] Okay We have not stepped back. That’s the funny part.
Mike Blake: [00:36:12] Okay.
Ray Padron: [00:36:12] All the work starts. You get that signature, you cut a check, and now you’ve got a lot of work to do. And we went from, like I said, with effectively, what were we? We were about 25 people. They were 16. We’re now 80 people. It was a big giant step for our firm. So, we had an awful lot of infrastructure we needed to build out while we were integrating. So, at the time that we did the acquisition, I was effectively CEO, CFO and COO. Well, that couldn’t last very long. So, over the last two years, we’ve spent time building out the infrastructure. We now have a chief operating officer, a chief financial officer, people officer. I’m trying to think what else, but we’ve built in the matrix management between the two offices, so that it’s really clear where all the planners actually report to. And it’s taken an awful lot of time and effort.
Ray Padron: [00:37:13] We’ve answered all the questions that I tried to push off until the other side of that the transaction, and that’s worked out really well. We follow through with our promise, which was we told them, “Look, we realized you’re the same size as us pretty much.” We had more infrastructure built out than they did, but we told them, “We will figure this out together.” I’m sure that was a Jimmy Carter ‘Please trust me” kind of a comment but we follow through. We said, “Look, okay, let’s go sit down. Let’s start talking about CRM. Let’s talk about our trading software. Let’s talk about where trading should take place.” And we’ve worked through all those things together.
Ray Padron: [00:37:51] Now, that’s going to be a lot harder on the next one because we’ve made a lot of decisions about how we’re going to organize ourselves, et cetera. So, the next one won’t be as— what’s the word? Together, if I may. It’s going to be-.
Mike Blake: [00:38:03] Quite as collaborative.
Ray Padron: [00:38:06] Thank you. We’ll be quite as collaborative. It’s got to be more our way than the highway or whatever, but we’ll still take the best. Like if we find another firm that’s of substantial size, and they’re doing something we really like, I think the pain of change now is going to be way better than just trying to force people into a system that’s not as good. So, we’ll make changes. It just won’t be as many changes as we’ve done this time.
Mike Blake: [00:38:34] So, you sound like you’re happy with the results of the acquisition.
Ray Padron: [00:38:37] Yeah. Great team. I love our partners. I can’t tell you how many times they’ve come up to me and said, “Man, we are so glad that we’re part of Brightworth now.” And from that standpoint, people’s standpoint, I could not ask for a better decision. Their firm, if I may, their part has grown by leaps and bounds. And so, everything’s working out. But it’s, again, really hard work. There are periods of time where they probably feel like, “We’re starting to feel like the stepchild,” and it means I’m not spending enough time up there or we’re not putting the right resources there. And we’re working through how to do all of that.
Ray Padron: [00:38:37] Our decision making around hiring, for example, is a little bit more driven around real calculations of what capacity is across the organization. Theirs was a little more by the— I’m not going to use the word seat of the pants, but hey, we’re feeling really busy. I think we need to hire somebody. So, now, we’re bringing structure around all that. They’re not used to that. And we’re learning a lot of things from them. So, it’s been a lot of, I would say, really a win/win from that standpoint.
Mike Blake: [00:39:43] Are you finding that your offices still have slightly different cultures? And maybe that’s a good thing.
Ray Padron: [00:39:49] Sure. And part of that is their service model is a little different. It needs to be. We’re very, obviously, Atlanta-centric. We, obviously, have clients all over the country. Those larger clients, we go fly to. And the Atlanta clients, they just kind of drive to the office. Well, their space, the dentists are all over the country. They actually have the dentists fly into Charlotte. So, the dentist will come in, come to the building. It’s almost like a Mayo Clinic structure. They’ll meet with the attorney. They meet with the transition’s person, the TPA, the CPA, and they meet with us. So, there are some cultural differences but we really are merging the cultures, and that’s working really well. We have very defined sort of terms and accountability around our culture. So, there are a lot of things and behaviors we don’t tolerate, and we’d make sure we jump on those. So, we’re seeing it really come together.
Mike Blake: [00:40:43] I don’t know if this is either here or there but I feel compelled to add in. Microphone’s turned on, so I’m just going to say it. But we were the result of the acquisition of Brady Ware and several firms, including two in the Atlanta area that became the Atlanta office. And our Atlanta office does have a different culture, I think, than the rest of the firm. And I think that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing for me because I do believe that our office is a little bit more entrepreneurial. We do feel like we’re kind of the rebels a little bit, and we’re not afraid to kind of do skunkworks kind of stuff and put things in place that we know are going to hurt the rest of the firm, but we just don’t feel like we got to wait for everybody to catch up to realize how brilliant we are and that we’re right. And we think that if we set a good enough example, the rest of firm will come along.
Ray Padron: [00:41:35] Sure.
Mike Blake: [00:41:36] Personally, our headquarters are in Dayton, Ohio. I don’t know that I would thrive in our headquarter office because it is the central office. It is the core of the firm. They are accountants. There’s nothing wrong with accountants. I worked for an accounting firm but it’s much more of a by-the-numbers kind of place.
Ray Padron: [00:42:00] Sure.
Mike Blake: [00:42:00] And so, personally speaking, having another location of the firm that is willing to be a little bit different where I can be a better fit, for me, has been a huge benefit. And I actually think it benefits our firm.
Ray Padron: [00:42:15] Sure. And I think that’s a really good thing. And I would think every organization, and this is even true around operational issues, which is what are things that have to be absolute, and what are the things where we have some flexibility around? And part of that is also culture and how people operate. But there are also some boundaries where things are just plain not acceptable. And we think those boundaries are really also important to enforce and make sure that there are no exceptions, particularly at the partner level. If we let the partners live in the exception area, the staff will never follow. So, they have to see that at the partner level. And we’ve actually had issues around that, and we’ve dealt with them. And that really speaks volumes to the team.
Mike Blake: [00:43:03] So, you’ve been through a couple of these. And thank you again so much for spending all this time with us and sharing your experience. If someone listening is thinking about buying a company, if we can distill down to a couple of pieces of advice, couple of bullet points, can you do that? Or are there a couple of pieces of advice you’d just give blanket thinking about buying a business, what do you need to think about?
Ray Padron: [00:43:26] Couple of things. One is we talked about it, it’s the death march. So, it’s almost like preparing for a marathon. You have to mentally say, “Okay. I may get this done in six months, but it also may take a really long time.” And just prepare yourself, which also means linked to neglect. So, you have to prepare. Also, know your team. Who are you going to draw into the process and when? And sort of understand how they’re built, right. Are they a wild type of a person or are they going to be a how type of a person? Knowing that it’s good to have those people were always asking how because they’re the ones you’re going to help you with the due diligence and really ask a lot of good questions. So, know your team, expect a long march.
Ray Padron: [00:44:07] One of the things that really was hard for me was realizing that everything matters to somebody. And I have to realize that, “Even though it may not matter to me, like, yeah, that’s just not an important deal point. Why are we bothering with that?” it matters to somebody in the firm. So, you have to take the time to address it and address it well. So, in a sense, details matter. Everything matters.
Ray Padron: [00:44:31] Know your boundaries. I work a couple of times where I got hooked on some policy that they had that they wanted to keep, and it was an absolute no for Brightworth. But when I really looked at it, it was just not a big deal. And I let it bother me. And I was really ready to just say the heck with it and walk away when the PE firm or our attorney would step in and go, “Ray, it’s just not that big a deal. It’s just small potatoes. We’re talking billions of dollars of assets to manage. Who cares whether you’re going to charge your parents or not for the services you’re doing,” that kind of stuff.
Mike Blake: [00:45:08] You want to charge a $5 million fine for a 50 cent crime.
Ray Padron: [00:45:10] Yeah, right. And then, the other thing is when you’re doing the LOI, again, it was my first time, there’s just an awful lot of cascading consequences of anything that’s in there and you need to think ahead. Like what are the cascading consequences of putting this specific thing in your LOI? I found myself having to cover a lot of areas that I didn’t think about because you’re sort of sold that the LOI is just this general document, you want to put too much detail in it, but sometimes you do. You really want to think ahead. Those are my suggestions.
Mike Blake: [00:45:47] I’m going to use that quote. I may even make it my quote of the day that I do on LinkedIn, “Everything matters to somebody.” That-.
Ray Padron: [00:45:53] Really do.
Mike Blake: [00:45:53] That is profound and insightful.
Ray Padron: [00:45:56] Thank you.
Mike Blake: [00:45:56] At least, to me, it is. I think, to other people, it will be as well. If somebody wants to ask a question about how to buy a business, as somebody who has been through the wars before, can they contact you?
Ray Padron: [00:46:05] Absolutely.
Mike Blake: [00:46:06] How do they do that?
Ray Padron: [00:46:07] Well, there’s always the website. My my email address is ray.padron@brightworth.com. And you can always call our phone number, which is 404-760-9000.
Mike Blake: [00:46:20] That’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Ray Padron so much for chair for joining us and sharing his expertise with us today. We’ll be exploring a new topic each week, so please tune so that when you’re faced with your next executive decision, you have clear vision when making it. If you enjoy this podcast, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcast aggregator. It helps people find us, so that we can help them. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor’s Brady Ware & company. And I’ve just touched my face three more times. And this has been the Decision Vision Podcast.