WBENC 2022: Anita Davis with Praxis Strategic Solutions

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, broadcasting live from WBENC National Conference 2022. And we’re inside the GWBC booth, booth 1812 if you want to stop by and see us. Right now, we have a great guest, Anita Davis, President, Chief Funding Matchmaker with Praxis Strategic Solutions. Welcome, Anita.

Anita Davis: [00:00:38] Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:40] So, how’d I do with the name? You challenged me.

Anita Davis: [00:00:43] I did. I did. Don’t get tongue-tied, so say it slow. You did excellent.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] Alright. Well, tell us a little bit about Praxis. How are you serving folks?

Anita Davis: [00:00:51] So, I serve clients that are ready to scale and grow their companies. I work with clients that need capital to be able to fund the growth of their business strategic growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:04] So, there’s one or two people out there that probably need capital. Does anybody say, no, I have enough capital, I don’t need anymore?

Anita Davis: [00:01:11] You’d be surprised, some people like to grow organically, and I think organic growth is fine if you want to grow slowly, but I believe that women business owners, in particular, need to consider rethinking growth and to think about growing through acquisitions or maybe growing through a expansion of territory, buying a competitor, doing things like that that make them accelerate their growth. And here at the conference, we’re focusing on corporate contracts. And so, they really do need to have some funding secured to be able to execute on those contracts.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] So, let’s think about this from a strategic standpoint. I’m a small business owner. I always thought, oh, I’m going to just grow organically. You’re saying think bigger than that, because maybe I’m aiming too low, maybe there’s a lot of opportunity out there if I just kind of open my eyes to what’s around me, talk about that conversation you’re having with that person who hadn’t even considered strategic growth and using capital to grow in that manner.

Anita Davis: [00:02:13] Those are great questions, and that conversation is my favorite conversation to have with clients. I want you to rethink the way you think about debt. In most cases, most companies think, oh, debt is bad, and debt can be a dirty word for some people if you’re not a smart business owner. But these women here at WBENC, they are brilliant business owners, and they have thought about how to scale their companies, and that’s why they’re looking at corporate contracts, but you do need to have resources available to you to fund that growth.

Anita Davis: [00:02:49] And so, sometimes, you may need to consider, what would it be like if I bought another company that can give me those complementary services or solutions that a corporate officer may be looking for, but I don’t have in-house right now, and that can allow you to accelerate your growth, versus someone who’s saying that, okay, this year, I’m going to grow 5% year over year, it may not enable you to execute on a corporate contract.

Anita Davis: [00:03:20] And some clients don’t really even think about, well, what would it be like if I strategically purchased another company and made an acquisition? What would it be like if my competitor is thinking about retiring, because they’re in that silver tsunami and they haven’t even thought about it, but they’re ready to exit. And then, if you position yourself with the right capital, then you might be able to make a strategic acquisition, buy a new territory, get into a new market. So, those are the solutions that Praxis will help a client work through.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:55] So, your clients, what could they be doing today to make them a perfect fit for you tomorrow? What are some of the activities they have to do to kind of clean up their books, maybe to show that, hey, you can trust me with this capital, I’ll use it wisely?

Anita Davis: [00:04:11] What a great segue, because at the conference, we have a solution called our financial funding assessment. And assessment basically walks the client through, are you ready for funding now? Are you close, but not quite there, or are you not ready for funding? And then, we will—through either one of those scenarios, we can walk a client through the process of positioning their company for funding. So, we help you either with some education, some financial literacy education, some strategies, some tools in our tool kit, so we offer a resource kit. So, if you come by booth 2312 here at the conference, then you can talk with our team about strategic growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:04] And talk about the show for a second. Is this the first WBENC show for you or you’ve been coming to these for a while?

Anita Davis: [00:05:10] So, I actually launched my business at WBENC in 2016, didn’t know what I was doing. I just used to be a banker, and I’m like, oh, these people must need money. Yeah, this must be my jackpot. Okay. Life doesn’t work that way. And so, I have come to—I think this is my fourth or fifth conference, and I’m on the host committee with Roz Lewis. And so, the host committee, we basically are here to help anybody who is from out of town and sponsoring this event, but also to make sure that they know what’s happening here in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:44] And then, for folks that are from out of town, how would you kind of attack the show? And maybe around town, what are some things you’d make sure to see?

Anita Davis: [00:05:55] I think at the show, you need to be prepared for who you want to meet. You can’t meet everybody, and everybody is not necessarily a fit for your company, even though they may have a big corporate name. So, you really need to decide, do you have the solutions that the corporations are looking for and have a strategic plan on how you’re going to convey that in a brief nanosecond, because that’s about all the time you’re going to get?

Anita Davis: [00:05:55] And when you do that, then that’s the best strategy for being prepared to be able to address what the conference is going to mean to you. And also, make a plan to meet all of these other brilliant business women owners around here. So, I tell people, it’s the 25th anniversary, make a plan to meet 25 people a day. If it’s not 25 people a day or that’s too aggressive for you, but make a plan for the whole conference to meet at least 25 people. Just go with the theme.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:55] Yeah, it’s right there for you. So, now, talk about GWBC. For women who haven’t joined yet, tell them why they should join.

Anita Davis: [00:07:04] I would tell you that this whole organization here, GWBC, from Roz, who is the president, all the way down to her team, the certifying team, they all want us to be successful. And I’ve had nothing but really great support from the organization and the people in it. They know me. I know them. And they want to see us grow. And if you’re in business here in Atlanta, you need to join GWBC. I just brought somebody over here with me just now to introduce her, because she wasn’t certified. I said, let’s go over here and let’s meet the team.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:40] That’s right. It’s one of those things. There are a lot of women businesses out there that haven’t taken the time to be certified. Talk to that. That’s an investment worth making. It is strategic solution.

Anita Davis: [00:07:52] It is a great investment. It was hard because I’m in the financing business, and I’m like, maybe these corporations don’t need me, but I’ve strategically figured out how to be able to provide solutions for them, for their suppliers that are in their supply chain that need—that might be creating some financial risk to the supply chain. So, you really just need to be able to think through, how can you serve the client? And it’s really about the client. With GWBC, they help you move along that track to be able to offer solutions for corporate, and then tell you how to make that strategy work for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:32] So, if somebody wants to get ahold of you, learn more about Praxis, what’s the website?

Anita Davis: [00:08:37] The website is, it’s a brand new fancy website, you guys, but it’s under Praxstra, P as in Paul-R as in Robert-A-X as in Sam-S-T-R-A. So, we, praxstra.com. If you go to praxstra.com, it’s a little bit unique, then you can have access to our site and see what we have to offer you as a business owner.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:05] Well, Anita, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing important work. We appreciate you.

Anita Davis: [00:09:09] Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:12] Alright. This is Lee Kantor, broadcasting live from 2022 WBENC National Conference, live from the GWBC booth, booth 1812. We’ll be back in a few.