Janneh Wright: Turning Vision into Sustainable Growth for Nonprofits and Small Businesses

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to introduce you to today’s guest, Janneh Wright, CEO of Primus Business. Business management, a firm that helps nonprofits and small businesses grow with clarity, structure and purpose. With over 25 years of experience, Jennie and his team streamline streamline operations, finance, and HR so leaders can focus on what truly matters. Mission and impact. He’s a first generation entrepreneur. He’s passionate about helping organizations build systems that create freedom, not chaos. Today we’re talking about scaling with intention, leading with purpose, and building businesses that last. Janneh, welcome to the show.

Janneh Wright: Thank you for having me I appreciate it.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, it’s very nice to have you on.

Trisha Stetzel: So tell us just a little bit more about you.

Janneh Wright: Uh, sure. Um, I am a I mean, I, I learned recently that I’m no longer a first generation, uh, entrepreneur. I found that my grandfather ran a business that’s similar to mine years ago, which is really exciting to me that this is part of my journey. But, you know, I, I started over 23 years ago in 2002 when I graduated college and I graduated, I’m in New York, and I graduated college right around, um, September 11th in 2001. And when I came back to New York City, there was really no one hiring somebody with an economics degree from from University of Buffalo. So I took my own initiative to really just start doing things in my neighborhood. Right. I started I had a minor accounting. I had been building computers my entire life and I understood how business works. So I started helping people in my neighborhood through their accounting, set up their systems, move things around. And that’s when I learned just from that, because one person would tell somebody else about me and tell somebody about me. So while I was doing this for free, I was being passed around to different organizations to help them get these things in order. That’s what I realized. There was a niche here, right? People start businesses because of the love of a craft or a trade that they’re in. And the reality that they learn is that the business section of it is a lot more arduous and a lot more strenuous than they wanted.

Janneh Wright: So that’s usually the part that causes them the most issues. So what I did was take primates, take what I was doing as a volunteer work, and just helping organizations and really creating a business from it, creating a system to help people really, uh, be able to focus more on why they started the business and not the business aspect of it, but over the years, you know, you start doing things that are all part of business. So I was doing marketing and it and the entire gambit. But you realize that that’s not sustainable. There’s just too many parts of running a business for me to do it myself. So me and my team took some time to really focus on what are the things that business owners really need assistance with, what are the things that really help them drive their company and would take a lot of pressure off their backs? So that’s why we started focusing on HR and accounting and just operational management. And that’s what we’ve been doing for the last probably like 10 to 15 years. That’s all we’ve been managing those three aspects, whether it’s consulting or or taking the entire thing over as an outsource fractional department or just helping with training and supervising other people.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, fantastic. So I’m curious, before we dive into Primus and some of the other topics around that particular part of the business, I’m curious about how your mindset shifted when you found out that your grandfather was also an entrepreneur.

Janneh Wright: It was awesome. It was awesome. I started asking so many questions of my uncles and it just as you start to realize, especially since my grandfather started a, um, a credit union, right, to help local, uh, local individuals in the neighborhood, local businesses. He also had a supermarket that he used to help with. So when I realized that the core of what he wanted to do was help individuals and help them grow their businesses and help them have the resources they would, I realize, wait, is that in my DNA? Is that is that like in the genes of what we want to do? So that made me very excited. It, you know, knowing that you are part of a legacy that is that is out there to support the world and support others in your community. It really made me feel really, really good really good about that.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Well, how fun for you to have learned that even maybe just since the last we spoke together, right? Uh. That’s fantastic. I would love to dive into this three C’s model that you talk about. So can you take us through what that is, um, how you developed it and how it actually helps organizations create healthier and more effective teams?

Janneh Wright: Sure. So the three C’s model came about with one of my, one of my employees, my number two in the organization, the CEO. Um, as she was doing work in the HR section of the organization, she really started to think through, you know, how can we help clients really get up to speed quicker? Right. And what is what are the mechanisms that will help us really put things in place to understand where it goes? So we took that initial workflow. We started really working on it and massaging it and getting better at it. And what we realized was as we walk into an organization, the first thing that should be on our minds is ensuring the organization is safe and secure. As an organization. So that became the compliance side. Right. So compliance is like that foundation for an organization. So we want to make sure that, you know, none of the none of the acronyms is coming to get, you know, IRS no doll. We want to make sure all that is really in shape and position and even even take it a little bit further. When you talk about compliance, we want to make sure that the compliance items are easily accessible, that you can get things because if if you’re about to get to go after a grant or you’re going after a loan, they’re going to ask you for all these things.

Janneh Wright: And most times, what we realize as we’re talking to individuals when we first start talking to them, hey, where is your, uh, your your your bio for your organization. No one knows where’s your incorporation paper. No one knows. So making sure that we we can see it, touch it, and then put it into a folder where it’s easily accessible. That means the strength of the organization becomes a lot more because now your foundation is secure. You’re doing everything you’re supposed to do to be a business owner, right? You have all the right insurances. The government is not messing with you and you’re you’re confirmed. So that’s the first part. So that’s the compliance part. And what we say is the foundation organization. Then we have to talk about you know as a business owner what is the interaction between between your organization and your employees. What’s the interaction with your organization and your customers, your organization. And anybody who is a stakeholder, whether it’s your banker, your funder, or however you see it, how do they interact with you? And that’s what we call the culture, right? The culture is really about the soul of the organization, the heartbeat organization. And you want that you need that to be as strong as possible, because that’s what helps people build the trust in you, build the idea that this is someplace good to work or someplace that is honorable, and somebody has that kind of ethics that aligns with them.

Janneh Wright: So they’ll continue coming back to your business and ensure that you’re getting the kind of, um, the kind of longevity that you want. The last part is the engine for your organization, right. How do we make sure this organization gets to 5 to 10 to 15 to 20 years? And that part is consistency, right? Doing the same things over and over again to make sure it’s done properly and really efficient. I always tell the story of of the rest of the restaurant we went to, and it’s something that I ate. I used to love to eat when I was younger, called Calypso Steak. Right. This is a very well marinated steak for one of my favorite restaurants. And, you know, I would go there at least once a week to sit there after work, get a steak. I remember the day that the chef left that restaurant, because that consistency in that steak completely changed. And I never went back. Right. Because that’s the only reason I was going there. Right. And that’s that’s the kind of things we talk about what consistency can bring to your organization. It brings loyalty. It brings devotion. It brings the kind of the kind of recognition of what you’re doing over and over again. Because now I can trust that, that you’re going to do the work properly.

Janneh Wright: I can trust that you’re not going to be unethical. I can trust everything in your organization. So that’s why we call it the engine organization. Because without that part, you’re not going to win. You can have the greatest culture, you can have the greatest product. But if no one trusts you, no one’s coming back to your business, right? And you know, when people start thinking about it, it’s it’s a kind of a circle. Because in this environment, things change so quickly, right? Ai is now the big thing in the environment, you know, and when you think about how you work, consistency doesn’t mean you stick into what you do all the time. It means you have now with this, with this framework, you have now the ability to go back and check on your culture to make sure the culture fits into what’s the current necessity for for the organization. And then you drive that back into consistency through creating SOPs, through training, through delegating, through all those aspects. So when we created this framework, it was really about how do I get the ownership of the organizations to really see their business in a much more community centric way and a much more longevity way, because you’re going to create the kind of things that’s going to allow you to be here for, for a very long time.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. I love that. It’s like full circle. I see how each part or each see contributes both forward and backward to the other sees that you have out there. It’s beautiful. I love this framework. Um, when you talked about yourself and how you got started, you were talking about working in a space where you weren’t getting paid for the work that you were doing, and even thinking about these nonprofit organizations and often not running them as though they are a business. And that will cause challenges, right? In these nonprofit spaces, especially in underserved communities, because they’re trying to give back to this cause, but they’re not thinking about running it as a business. So tell me your thoughts around working with, uh, because you have full span, right? Where you were part of an organization not getting paid to now assisting these organizations. So tell me more about those experiences.

Janneh Wright: Sure. I think that the one of the biggest things that we’ve noticed, especially with, you know, smaller organizations, that they’re starting to grow and starting to get to where they want to get to and where that that usual level of issues usually show up. Nonprofit does not mean not making a profit, right? I think that’s one of the lessons that people have to get in their head. A nonprofit does not mean not making a profit. It means that there’s no one person who’s going to accept that profit and put it in their pockets, right? You’re supposed to as a business, you’re supposed to make more revenue than expenses for a nonprofit. You do that and you take that excess money and you put it back into programing into the next year or the next factor. So the first part is, is understanding that as a nonprofit, you’re still a business. You still have to make a profit. But that profit is not going into anybody’s pockets. It’s going back into the community, back into the business. Once you start to understand that cycle, you start to realize that the things that other business does make sense, right? You have to you have to do things to make your clients happy. You have to do things to make your funders happy. You have to do things to make everyone who’s who’s supporting the business. You still have to accept their money and accept the way that that they’re looking for an organization to to run because you still have competition, right? There’s still other organizations who are doing the exact same thing you do. You’re going after the same funders for for funding. You’re going after the same people for clientele. So you have to think of it as still a business to be ran and a business to, to make a profit on.

Janneh Wright: Now the question of how do you do that? How do you really create the type of business mentality when you’re when you’re talking to individuals whose sole purpose is to save the world is a little bit harder, right? Because it’s it’s it’s a disconnect sometimes. Right. They don’t want to hear corporate talk or they don’t want to hear information. That’s like let’s talk debits and credits. Let’s talk accounting. They want to hear I helped X among the people this month. And if if I if my business goes out of business while I’m helping people they might be okay with that. But for me the longer your business stays intact, the more people you help. So you change the mentality from, I’m doing something to help the community, that I’m going to create this business to help a lot more people, because I’m going to run it in a much more effective way. And I think the other part, I had a conversation before of, you know, it’s not just your clients that’s being supported by this nonprofit, it’s your employees. So you have an obligation to create this business in a way that protects your employees as well and protect their future. So when when I’m working with with nonprofits, I’m trying to get that just across because I’m going to create the same financial reports I’ll create for a fortune 500 company, right? But I understand that I need to soften it a little bit and make it a lot more people centric than I would for a for profit organization, but it’s still being run as a business.

Trisha Stetzel: I know people are already ready to connect with you, Janneh, so can you just shout out your contact information so folks can connect with you if they’re already interested in doing that?

Janneh Wright: Sure. You can either email me directly at Jay Wright at Prime. Com or go to our website which is WW Prime US. Com as well.

Trisha Stetzel: Fantastic. Thank you for that. And you guys know it’ll be in the show notes. So if you’re sitting at your computer watching you can just point and click and connect directly with Janneh. I would love and I know you don’t just work with nonprofit organizations, but it is a space that you hold very near and dear to the work that you do. Do you have a particular success story or a story you’d like to share about a business that you’ve worked with in the past?

Janneh Wright: Sure. Um, it’s for profit or nonprofit. Either one.

Trisha Stetzel: Either way. Whichever direction you want to head. So yeah.

Janneh Wright: So one of one of my my I wouldn’t say my first, but one of my first five years of in doing this work, I had a client who was transitioning out of a fiscal sponsored organization. And what that is, is, you know, fiscal sponsorship organization, organizations who hold other nonprofits within them allow them to use their 500 1C3. The issue that they were having with this organization was really around culture, right? Because when you’re a smaller organization inside of inside of a bigger one, your culture doesn’t really matter as much as the bigger culture. And, you know, and getting information from that bigger organization is usually also hard, right? You you have your $100,000 in revenue. They have their $3 million in revenue, they’re going to spend more time on their $3 million revenue than yours. So as this organization starts to grow, what they wanted to do was really move away from them. So they came to Primus to help really design out and really run all of their back office services. So we became their accounting department, HR department and some operations. What we’ve learned over that time was because we were able to do this work for them and take these things off of the hands of the CEO and off of his staff. They were able to actually grow that organization like 100 times quicker than they would have if they stayed where they were, because now they didn’t have to worry about bills getting paid or employee concerns or employee issues because Primus was managing that.

Janneh Wright: So their ability to focus on their mission, focus on fundraising, focus on developing the program and the clientele made them a much stronger organization. And their growth rate was ridiculous, right? I mean, within the first like two years, I think they raised over like 2 or $3 million, which was great for them. One of the conversations that I love is, you know, as as the CEO of this organization was talking to other CEOs, one of his conversations always like, I don’t worry about accounting or HR, I don’t worry about bills getting paid. I worry about fundraising because I have the trust and knowledge with that. And his team are going to make sure that these things are being done appropriately and right. And the way I know that if something goes wrong, he calls me right away and say, hey, here’s the issue, we gotta fix it. This was going on. I don’t we don’t hold back anything. We’re very much, you know, very transparent as an organization because our job is to make sure that you feel secure in your work so you can continue pushing the organization forward. So their growth rate was was immaculate. They they developed an organization that was that was completely, you know, caught a lot of people off guard, how quickly they moved up and the amount of people they were able to help because they can focus on what was important to them was ridiculous.

Trisha Stetzel: That is amazing. And I, uh, you mentioned before the areas that you really focus on are operations, finance and HR. And a lot of us small business owners don’t like to do that stuff anyway. So thank you, Janneh, for taking care of the hard stuff for us so we can go and do the things that we love. Um, I’d love to talk about executive reporting or the data that you’re able to provide to these business owners to really catapult them into, um, strategically driving growth in their businesses, just like you just described. So talk to me more about how we can use that data to drive growth.

Janneh Wright: I think everybody has heard like, you know, the data is king, right? In any organization like the more information you have, the better you’ll be able to to make decisions for the longevity organization. So one of the things I talk to people about all the time is, you know, accounting isn’t just for tax season, right? You don’t have to do accounting from December to April and that’s it. If you have the right accountant and the right information, you design your accounting, your design, your chart of accounts appropriately. The information you can get year over year is very valuable. You can understand, like, you know, I, I have conversations with some of my clients now say, hey, one of the biggest problems we have is from February to to to May is a blank period. These are periods where none of our funders give them any funds, right? So as they’re going after new funding, they’re trying to go after funders who fall within that line because of the the information I can give them from the last four years of data, because we know exactly what’s going to happen. And even on the other side, expense side, we slow down spending during those times because we know it’s the slow period for your organization.

Janneh Wright: So data helps you really see information from a longer point of view and understand what’s happening. The same thing with HR. If you’re tracking, um, retention rates in HR, if you’re tracking information about manager evaluations and you start to see things like employees are leaving at a certain rate or a certain time period, employees are saying for the first couple six months. You can now go and do more investigation, understand why this is happening. So that way you can break it up, because the most expensive thing to your organization is trying to replace an employee, right? It can it can end up being $1,000 because you’re losing the productivity. The employee who left, now you’re spending time interviewing, and you have to spend time training after you hire somebody. So you want to use that at all times to understand what’s happening within and outside your organization. That way, you can make better decisions on how to tackle things and move the organization forward as quickly as possible.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. It’s so important. So did you guys hear that those of you who are afraid of the numbers, you don’t want to deal with all of the stuff you need somebody like Johnny and his company to come in and help you with that. And the bottom line. Right. Uh, we need to let you do what you’re great at so that we can go and be passionate about the things that we’re good at exactly. As entrepreneurs. Yeah, thank you for that. So, um, where where those listeners right now are thinking, gosh, this would be fantastic. Where do they start, Janneh? Like how what is it that they need to have in their business or get organized with? What’s the first thing or first piece of advice that you would give to people listening today who really want to move into this growth, but they don’t quite know what they need to do first to get there?

Janneh Wright: Sure, the first thing I usually tell I talk to organizations about is the leadership, right? The CEO, where we’re usually that’s the biggest bottleneck in any organization, especially as a founder like myself, we have too much control over every aspect of it, and for good reason. Right? We’re the ones who built this. We we ran with this for how many years? So yes, of course there’s going to be we’re going to be the person who wants to make all the decisions that can’t last. Right? So the first thing I tell people when you’re talking to a CEO, especially a founder, is I want you to sit down and write out your to do list, right. I want you to write it out like a job description of all the things that you are responsible to do inside the organization. Now, you take that list, and I want you to circle all the things you actually want to do within that list. Write the things that you don’t want to do are things that you need to either. Find somebody else to do it. This is the outsourcing side or the delegating side because one, you don’t want to do it and you’re not in your wheelhouse. It’s not something that you’re strong at. And if you spend the time that you’re doing these things you don’t want to do on the things that you’re good at, your organization will grow, right.

Janneh Wright: So understanding that that’s one of the first parts of this, like you need to understand what exactly it is that you’re good at and the things that you want to do out of your entire list of things. And our list as founders is long. And once you realize that, I think that’s when you’ll start to understand where do you put all your energy and time in growing your business? What is what is the best utilization of your skills, your visionary view of your business? And it’s definitely not doing the accounting right. It’s about programing. It’s about raising money. It’s about the service or the project that you’re making. So once you develop that as the first part, the second part is now what do you do with that list of the things you don’t want to do, right? Having a number two in your organization is an important part. Who’s that person who’s helping you get things done right? Do they have the specialty to do anything on that list? If they don’t find someone else, outsource it. That’s why necessarily that’s what promise was created, right? You could outsource the entire HR and accounting process to us.

Janneh Wright: Now you and your staff can focus on program, focus on service, focus on products. I think developing that is one of the first things we talk about. I learned this, um, this phrase from one of my mentors a few years ago. It’s something he developed called today versus tomorrow. Right. And today versus tomorrow is an ideology that as a CEO of the organization, my job is about tomorrow, right? My job is to grow the company is to see the vision, is to move the company forward, to make this work. You need somebody who’s responsible for today, who’s going to keep your clients happy. He’s going to make sure the product goes out on time. Who’s gonna make make sure everything inside the organization is done in a way that enhances the building of the organization going from today backwards. So once you develop those two things right, you start to understand where you need to live. For me to grow your organization, who you are inside the organization, how the organization is going to survive with or without you because you should go on vacation every once in a while too. And once you realize you divide, you make that distinction is possible.

Trisha Stetzel: Uh, I love this. And yes, we should all get to go on vacation. The business shouldn’t be completely dependent on us. And I, I love that you’re helping other businesses with that. Specifically where we need to let go of some of the things, especially if we’re the founder owner, uh, and the doer of everything. Right. And creating that list. What a what a great way to get started. So your entrepreneurial journey has spanned a couple of decades plus. What? What’s a lesson that has really stood out for you? Uh, it could be the hard, you know, the hard ones or the easy ones. But what really stands out for you as you’ve gone through your own journey?

Janneh Wright: I think one of the things that I usually talk about for me is the discovery of the difference between being a business owner and a specialty business owner. Right. And to explain a little bit is like, you know, by trade, I’m an accountant, right. And for many years before I added on all the parts, I ran an accounting business as an accountant, I understood that that’s what my business Lane was. But I didn’t want to be just an accountant. I wanted to be a business owner. So my ability to pivot and bring in other places and other aspects of the organization that was valuable to, to, to my clientele was part of what changed me from being an accountant business owner to a business owner who does accounting. Right. So now I can see where where my clientele needs were. Right? The HR part, it was a need that I saw came on. The admin part would need us all came up. But if I was only solely focused on being this one thing, it puts your organization at risk, right? Because anything can happen that can that can jeopardize one part of your revenue source. So understanding what you want to accomplish is more important than the skill level that you have in that one area, right. What is the longevity? What is the what is the end result? What do you want to do with your business? Because I’ve seen organizations who go out of business because the environment around them changed, right? You have an organization who sells a certain product to a certain demographic in a certain neighborhood. If that neighborhood demographic changes, do you shut down or do you adjust your your product offering to accommodate the new people in demographic, in your demographic? I think that’s where a lot of people get themselves in trouble when they get really too focused on one item, not realizing that pivoting and expanding is part of this journey of being an entrepreneur.

Trisha Stetzel: Diversification, right? Good word. Diversification. Alright, as we get to the back end of our conversation today, I have one more question for you. Um, when you think about the leaders that you’ve worked with throughout your journey, both in your business and those in that you’ve worked with, uh, on your business, um, what’s one piece of advice you’d share about leading with purpose and building something that lasts?

Janneh Wright: So it’s a it’s a weird piece of advice. I think it was the greatest piece of advice that I got. Um, someone asked me, what’s the end result of this business? Right. What is my what is my exit strategy? Where do I want to go with this business? And as a business owner, sometimes we don’t think about that, right? We’re not we’re not thinking about. Oh, as my business shutting down or or am I passing on to my kids or am I selling it? We’re not really thinking about that. But to think about that is an important part of this journey as well, right? Because it if you’re selling your business the way you I’m going to go into the accounting side of my brain right now. If you sell your business, the way your balance sheet looks would be different than if you’re trying to transfer this business off to your kids, right? Because if you’re if you plan to sell the business, you want to reduce how much loans you have, you want to reduce how much liabilities you have. But if you’re trying to transfer this business to your kids, getting more debt so you can grow, the business is part of it because you’re trying to expand and get bigger. So all these things are part of that conversation and trying to figure out exactly what it is that you want to do at the end of the business retire, sell it, pass it on to someone else. It helps you really create a vision for the company and what you want to do.

Janneh Wright: Right. So I go through this process every couple years and I that I create, like a five year game plan. Right. So the five year game plan is where I want to see this company in 2020, in 2030. And I’m going to follow that game plan all the way through. Same thing when get 2030, I’m gonna create another one, because I’m getting close to the point where I want to be done and retire. What’s the next problem? And for me, part of what I want to do with this company is pass it on. Maybe not to my kids, but pass it on to somebody else. That way there’s always going to be an organization out there that’s clearly focused on supporting nonprofits and small businesses, but I don’t want to see that idea die out, and I want to see it expand even more. So my goal is to to to pass this on to somebody else, whether it’s family or not. So the way I’m designing out this company is for that is for that reason, right. So it’s really designed to be able to give it on to someone else, but it’s helping me focus on what I want to do and why I’m doing what I’m doing going forward. So that was the biggest advice that I’ve ever received, and I think it was one of the most precious things I hold dear to. Someone who said to me is like, understand what you want to do with this business at the end of your tenure with that business?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Begin with the end in mind. That’s such good advice. And many of us don’t think about that. We don’t think about ever leaving the business because we’re so busy working in it. Right. Or our heads are full all the time. Janneh, this has been so thoughtful and I appreciate all of the, um, amazing bits of advice and information you’ve brought to the conversation today. Thank you.

Janneh Wright: Thank you, I appreciate it. This was great conversation.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Tell us how they can get in touch with you one more time.

Janneh Wright: Sure. So you can email me directly at J, right. W r I g h at com prime seo com or just go to our website, see what we got and send us a message at Prime. Com ww.com as well.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that and let Johnny and his team do the things that you’re not good at, and you don’t want to do the things that you did not circle on your list of things that you’re doing today. I love that, Johnny. Again, thanks so much for spending the time with me today.

Janneh Wright: Thank you for having me.

Trisha Stetzel: All right, my friends, that’s all the time we have for this show. If you found value in the conversation that Johnny and I had today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or a Houston leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours. Your business, your leadership, and your legacy are about one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.