George Martin with CorpCare EAP, Kelly Biggs with WSI Biggs, George Coundouriotis with Zambawango and Hannah O’Donoghue with BKS Partners

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lola Okunola: [00:00:24] Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Chamber Spotlight Podcast, proudly sponsored by Southern Live Oak Wellness. I’m your host, Lola Okunola, and today we have an exciting lineup of guests representing diverse industries. A big thank you to Southern Live Oak Wellness for supporting our community. Now let’s jump into today’s conversation. We have a full house today. Meet my guests George Martin, the founder of CorpCare. Kelly Biggs, the CEO of WSI World Digital. George Coundouriotis, did I say that correctly? George, owner of Zambawango. And last but not least, Hannah O’Donoghue, an advisor with BKS Partners. Now let’s start with George Martin. Welcome to the show George.

George Martin: [00:01:24] Thank you Lola.

Lola Okunola: [00:01:26] So CoreCare offers employee assistance programs to corporations and their employees. Can you tell our listeners about your business, the services you provide, any special offerings, who your target market is? How did you get into this? Who does it benefit?

George Martin: [00:01:46] Well, Lola, we are 33 year old company. We’re a national concern. We provide traditional forms of employee assistance programs, which means that we are emphasized clinical services on a personal basis. We still have some other virtual like telehealth systems that we bring to bear to, to help people in, to conveniently locate counseling services. Primary purpose is to help people get from a bad place to a better place in their lives. And we do so with a network of licensed, credentialed mental health therapists. We also add to that a the telehealth option through BetterHelp, and we have a series of work life related services that provide child care, elder care, financial and legal related consulting services. We I’ve been in the field since the mid, actually the mid 80s and have watched it change throughout the through that time. And when I was a marriage and family practitioner in private practice, I then was introduced as into the EAP world and saw the future of it as a very promising to help corporations and so on to assist their family members and their employees. And and our whole purpose, as I mentioned, is to get somebody to a higher performance level instead of letting their issues create some performance related problems. And a nutshell, that’s basically what we are and who we we work. We work with groups that are under 100 employees to just under 100,000. Wow. And we work with a dozen veterinarian associations, eight bar associations besides, and a number of private corporations here in, in based in Atlanta and elsewhere. So a little bit about us.

Lola Okunola: [00:03:28] All right. Mental health is very crucial in the workplace. And that is probably a benefit that we often overlook. Right. It’s not necessarily health insurance. It’s counseling right for. So bereavement divorce.

George Martin: [00:03:48] Yes.

Lola Okunola: [00:03:49] We have a crisis.

George Martin: [00:03:50] We cover the waterfront of of mental health related needs. It’s a prepaid benefit by the way, that the companies and contract with us. So their services are free to the employees and their family members. It’s not a full treatment model, um, like an insured related service, but we provide a certain number of counseling sessions available to them. And it’s interesting that one year we did a review of our utilization and found that 85% of those who used our service, uh, clinically, justifiably did not go on for further care to tap their medical medical benefit, if you will. They were able to take care of many of their issues within the confines of the number, limited number of sessions, or to, uh, connect to some of our work life services and resolve those problems and, you know, improve family life, improve work life. Mhm.

Lola Okunola: [00:04:42] Are you able to share any of, you know, examples of your clients. And if you don’t want to mention them by name, maybe the industries that they are in.

George Martin: [00:04:50] Oh the clients range everywhere from hospitality, food industry and so on. We, I mentioned the the associations we serve. We serve a private prison corporation for example, was an interesting group of people. And then as you would imagine, then, then we work with all of just a dozen city governments and county governments, for that matter, in Florida and Georgia. So we, um, we also have a, a jewelry company, a jewelry store company in Saint Thomas. And. The islands. Wow. That’s my client.

Lola Okunola: [00:05:25] Okay. Wow. Thank you so much, George. Very interesting. Now we are going to move on to Kelly Biggs, the CEO of WSI World Digital. Welcome Kelly.

Kelly Biggs: [00:05:42] Thanks so much. Great to be here.

Lola Okunola: [00:05:43] So Kelly um WSI is a digital marketing and IT company right. Could you share a little bit more about what you do?

Kelly Biggs: [00:05:53] Absolutely. And I know it’s confusing sometimes for people because when we first decided that that’s where we were going to go into business. And when I say we, I mean my husband and I. Okay. Which is another whole podcast.

Lola Okunola: [00:06:05] I know you have to tell us how how I can’t imagine. I mean, I love my husband, but I don’t know if we can work together. It’s been.

Kelly Biggs: [00:06:13] Fun. It’s been fun.

George Martin: [00:06:14] You need a marriage therapist.

Kelly Biggs: [00:06:16] Exactly. Especially through Covid. So. But we balance each other out, so that’s been wonderful. But to answer your question, WSI and digital marketing is really the way that people market themselves online from soup to nuts. We’re a full service marketing agency in that regard. And my background is actually sales. So I’ve worked for some some companies that you would recognize. And so I have a passion for not just getting leads for customers, but rather helping customers grow through their online presence. So whether it’s all website, all things start with actually I was going to say your website, but that’s not exactly right. It’s your Google business profile. And a lot of small businesses really overlook the power of that. So that’s one of the very first things we work with people on. So I call it like think about that as the the store front. If you have a storefront that would be your website. Mhm. But the window, the display is what people would see on your Google my business. And so then getting from that to getting found and how you navigate that once they find you, then getting them the information they need from your website and for that information to be really valuable so that then you’re selling through your website. So we optimize websites for selling. And really that’s the path simplified.

Lola Okunola: [00:07:47] Okay. Do you do any social media or anything on behalf of your clients?

Kelly Biggs: [00:07:52] We absolutely do. And actually with the advent of AI, social will become way more important than it ever has. And that is because we’re not only I’ll tell you something fascinating. For the last two weeks I have not used Google to search for anything. What are.

Lola Okunola: [00:08:12] You using?

Kelly Biggs: [00:08:14] There’s so many TikTok platforms. No, I use ChatGPT but also perplexity dot I it’s I need to write write that one down. Also there’s Claude Claude ai perplexity AI it looks almost like Google, but the reason I do it is because I want to make sure that as clients are paying me to show up on Google, that that’s what they need to do. I want to make sure that they also show up for perplexity and other searches. Right. And so, so can.

Lola Okunola: [00:08:48] I go and search for the chamber or myself on perplexity?

Kelly Biggs: [00:08:53] I absolutely can, you could say, and when I think about searching, you think about it in the realm of what would people actually say? Right. So put yourself I’m a business in Sandy Springs. What chamber would I need to be a part of? Would be a question. And if your name doesn’t come up to the top, you can. I do this all the time, so it’s a cheat. But I will say, hey, like I have a client, I’ll put myself like I put, what’s the great digital marketer in Sandy Springs? And if there’s somebody above me, I will say, hey, why did you put that person above me? Like, what is my site missing? That, that and it’ll tell you. And so you can start to look at that I see.

Lola Okunola: [00:09:37] It’ll tell you the differences. And so you can work on absolutely the gaps. Wow. I’ve learned something new. Great.

Kelly Biggs: [00:09:46] That’s what I try to do. I learned something new every day. And I want to educate my customers, not just for I want them to be smart about their business and growing their business and think outside of like, what is today and think about what’s coming tomorrow.

Lola Okunola: [00:10:03] Wow, wow. Okay, well thank you Kelly. We will come back to you. Next on is George Coundouriotis, the owner of Zambawango, a cafe that offers delicious gluten free desserts right here in the heart of Sandy Springs. Welcome. him to the show.

George Coundouriotis: [00:10:23] Thank you so much. Lola, thank you for inviting me.

Lola Okunola: [00:10:27] Yeah, thanks for coming. So. Zamboanga is known for its delightful gluten free desserts. Right. And also, you’re really authentic coffees, right. Tell us more about how you decided to start Zamboanga. So what are some key things that you would like for us to know? And I see you brought us some delectable looking treats, which we’re going to all dig into after the show. But yeah, tell us.

George Coundouriotis: [00:10:55] Or during the show. That would be.

Lola Okunola: [00:10:57] Nice. It might be hard to talk while we.

George Coundouriotis: [00:10:59] That’s true. That’s true. Um, so the funny part is the whole business, which we started in, uh, 2017, we opened in 2018 here in Sandy Springs came from a personal need. Um, I, I embraced the low carb. Um, they call it keto, but it’s really minimizing your daily carbs lifestyle. And had, um, back in the day, I was, um, about 65 pounds heavier. Oh, and I lost the weight rapidly and have kept it off for seven years. Increased my exercise. Um, everything became healthier. Um, the brain fog disappeared, all that stuff. And so we I started the business out of a personal need because I realized a lot of other folks, um, were in the same predicament. They were trying to lose weight. Um, they were doing calorie reductions or portion size reductions, and they were just failing. Um, with the low carb lifestyle, you’re just avoiding sugars, high carb, uh, high glycemic, um, foods that wreak havoc in your system in many different ways. And you’re never supposed to be hungry. You eat until you’re full. Um, so that makes it so easy. Um, so by being low carb, we cannot use grain flours, uh, because those are extremely high glycemic, and we use almond flour and coconut flours. And therefore, by default, we realize we’re also gluten free. Now, the low carb segment of the market is much bigger than the gluten free segment. Um, people avoid sugar because they’re pre-diabetic, diabetic, want to lose weight, they’re, um, more weight than they want to be.

George Coundouriotis: [00:12:57] Um, Alzheimer’s prevention cancer patients cannot have sugar because sugar feeds cancer. Um, so that’s 35 to 40% of the US population that cannot have desserts and breads and bagels and dinner rolls or should not be having it. Um, so that’s really our target, uh, niche. And one of the first questions we get from new customers is what sugar replacement are you using? Because there are so many junk, uh, sugar replacements that are actually worse than sugar, um, artificial replacements. And from day one, our criteria was our sugar replacement must be sold at Whole Foods. Number one. That’s the first thing. Okay, so it’s past a very regimented test already. Okay. And after that, it has to be baked and taste, um, like sugar or better, you know, um, so we’re not going to produce goods that have an aftertaste or have a gritty texture. Um, they have to look and taste, um, similar or the same or better than their sugar cousins. So from day one, we used, um, swerve, which is an accepted, widely accepted brand of sugar replacement. It’s considered by the FDA as natural because it’s entirely plant based. And then Allulose came into the market while we were open, um, midway like 2021 or so. And that’s considered also a superior natural sugar alternative. And we use a combination of the two very little because our customers are used to not having sugar.

Lola Okunola: [00:14:49] Right.

George Coundouriotis: [00:14:50] So by default our goods are more European style. They’re not very sweet. Um, and we if we have a chocolate product, we accentuate and bring forward the chocolate element, not the sugar element or the sweetness element. Um, the cranberries that you see here. We take fresh cranberries, we house dry them and sweeten them with a little bit of swerve. So those are very low carb cranberries rather than full of sugar, right.

Lola Okunola: [00:15:22] You tried them, right? Yeah.

George Coundouriotis: [00:15:24] And cranberries are naturally low carb, so they’re berries. That’s another very interesting thing. This is a raspberry mousse with topped with chocolate. Um, raspberry. The berries are a family of very low carb, um, vitamin and nutrition, um, bombs that you can have, you know, I call them bombs because they’re so healthy. Nutrition bombs and, uh, they’re low carb. You would never imagine a raspberry that is naturally sweet to beat low carb. But it is.

Lola Okunola: [00:16:01] I just always assumed that they were high in sugar. Blueberries, blackberries.

George Coundouriotis: [00:16:07] Those are our friends. Strawberries. So that’s a strawberry, uh, cupcake. We start with fresh strawberries and make this, um, the frosting and the cupcake. Everything. We’re obsessed with being. Um. I brought this from the corporate world where I worked for 25 years, always in procurement, which is a general management role. But you set certain parameters that have to be met. And then I was very blessed to find an executive pastry chef, Kathleen McDaniel, who embraced this concept and wanted the challenge. She came from the restaurant industry, some of the best restaurants in the country Boston, New York, Atlanta, uh, pastry chef. And she embraced the challenge to take rich desserts and make them low carb. Without her, we could have not executed the business. You need the executive pastry chef talent that embraces what you want to do. Um, and then she built rebuilt together a team of chefs, um, Amanda Murphy and some others that are here, um, supporting us and doing an amazing job.

George Martin: [00:17:18] You know, you’re aware of the correlation between sugar content and depression. Sugar blues.

Lola Okunola: [00:17:24] That was going to be my next thing I was going to say, you know, your physical and your mental health, right? You’re not just tackling. You are what you eat. You are what you eat physically and mentally. Yeah.

George Coundouriotis: [00:17:36] So this is very interesting. I’m a marathon runner.

Lola Okunola: [00:17:40] Wow.

George Coundouriotis: [00:17:40] And I’ve ran in three marathons since opening the business on low carb. Because you have clean energy, this provides you with clean, long lasting energy. It’s completely the opposite of what the FDA, um, or whatever dietitians have taught people that you need to carbo load. You never need to carbo load. Um, this energy is long lasting. It’s a reserve energy in your system that you can use over a long period of time, such as running a marathon. Um, and I’m not the only one like that. If you do a search about that keto lifestylers and athletes, it’s very prevalent, um, in the low carb keto lifestyle that you are an athlete.

George Coundouriotis: [00:18:28] Some of our top customers are athletes.

Lola Okunola: [00:18:30] I see. So other than pastries, do you do any keto meals as well?

George Coundouriotis: [00:18:37] So what we do, we’re strictly a bakery.

Lola Okunola: [00:18:39] Okay.

George Coundouriotis: [00:18:40] And, uh, what we’ve added since opening our focus when we opened was desserts, because that’s the toughest part of the menu, you know?

Lola Okunola: [00:18:48] Yeah, I’m a low carb because I can’t do dairy or gluten. Yeah. And so I’m always looking for places that and there not too many of them that offer.

George Coundouriotis: [00:18:59] Well that’s another story. Yeah exactly. I can get into that. But um, we expanded into bagels, dinner rolls, breads. Okay. Bread loaves. Um, the bread does have gluten because we add vital wheat gluten which is non carb impact, but it impacts that wonderful texture of the bread. Um, otherwise it’s very flat. This makes it into a real bread loaf with the right texture. Um, but the the fact that are there any other bakeries like us? It’s a tough business. First you have to find the talent. Mhm. Um, second, you have to source the ingredients which are alternative ingredients. So we go straight to swerve and you know, and I used my purchasing background to negotiate some special deals. Um, and straight to the distributors, main distributors of Allulose. Even though we’re a small company, we act like a big company and negotiate some great, uh, deals that we pass on to our customers. But this is a very difficult business, um, in every respect. Right. So when we opened, we were the only ones in the country that were low carb, keto friendly, bakery, period. And then. Several source in and started opening. Um, and I say that with confidence that they saw us and benchmarked us because when we opened in 2018, in 2019, literally the whole year. Um, we were getting completely inundated with phone calls. Do you ship, do you ship, do you ship, do you ship? And we listened to that. And open the commissary kitchen in Alpharetta where we ship from. In the meantime, um, Covid hit. So that was for shipping. That was a relatively positive thing. Um, it was different times. It hurt our retail, um, bakery here in Sandy Springs, but it helped our shipping, so things balanced out somewhat. Um, then, um, other keto bakeries open in 2021 and the shipping started declining a little bit.

Lola Okunola: [00:21:19] I see.

George Coundouriotis: [00:21:20] Now almost all of those have gone out of business. So the shipping is picking up again.

Lola Okunola: [00:21:24] Yeah.

Lola Okunola: [00:21:25] It’s because it’s your passion, right? If it’s not your passion, if you open something that’s difficult to do and you don’t have the passion to do it, exactly, you’re going to shut down.

George Coundouriotis: [00:21:36] It’s not, um, our items are a little bit more expensive than traditional, but actually we haven’t adjusted prices, so they’re now below most traditional bakeries. Oh, wow. Um, however, it’s, um, it is definitely a huge passion. It’s a very challenging space. And in Atlanta, within 25 miles of our bakery, there’s 6.2 million people. So if you take the statistics of 35 to 40% and the fact that we’re the only diabetic friendly, low carb bakery in Atlanta, if not in Georgia, um, we should not have to ship anywhere. You know, we should be able to have 5 or 6 shops here in Atlanta, uh, have wholesale businesses and all those things and penetrate the local market. So as a small business, one of our top, uh, challenges is getting embraced by influencers or people that can actually move the needle for us.

Lola Okunola: [00:22:40] Well, maybe Kelly can speak on that later, that maybe when we start talking about synergies, I think Kelly might have some some things to offer. So now we’re going to move on to Hannah O’Donoghue of BKS Partners. She’s an advisor there I want to hear all about, I think, not just me. Everyone that’s listening wants to hear about what BK’s partners does.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:23:08] Yeah. So BKS Partners is a public company. Um they do everything insurance. So we have a benefits arm, we have a commercial arm and we have a private lines arm. So I work in the they call it the private risk or personal lines sector. So we focus on insurance for the general consumer. So we would work on their home their auto, their umbrella, their collections insurance. Um, one of my personal things that I like to focus on is I have that like nosy piece of me that I love to learn about people’s collections. And, and a lot of our customers don’t realize, like, how much valuable jewelry or fine arts or maybe they’re they have a firearms collection that is possibly worth a lot of money, or a pinball collection that’s sitting in their basement that if their basement floods, that’s a it’ll be a couple thousand dollars gone. So I always like to kind of look for those different gaps in people’s risk portfolio and try to create a good solution for them and do it in a timely, you know, moment. Oh, um, one of the things I was going to touch upon from hearing you guys, I come from an entrepreneurial background also, that I used to run retail stores with my father. So working for your father is definitely not the easiest thing, especially an Israeli father. Oh, wow.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:24:36] I know about family business, but I also know about it’s all about the delivering good customer service. And that was something major that I learned kind of being in that retail spot for so many years. And then I transitioned into nonprofit from there. So even though insurance hasn’t been my life since I graduated, um, undergrad, it’s definitely a little newer for me. But, um, I think at the end of the day, I’m looking for my clients best interest, and I always want to be as responsive as possible. And even if I’m not helping them with their insurance, I can connect them to other helpful things in their lives, whether it’s a private banker, wealth advisor, an estate attorney. Because in the. To the day we get like very into their personal lives because we have to understand like all their assets and lots of times we find little nooks and crannies that they maybe haven’t thought about. Right. So we try to identify those problems and then kind of hook them up with the right people to help them with those solutions.

Lola Okunola: [00:25:43] So it sounds like you, I mean, and you can correct me if I’m wrong. Are your clients like, what is their net worth? Like, is there a limit? Do you work with everybody or are you working with corporations or high net worth individuals? It’s a.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:25:58] Great question. So our focus is a high net worth individual. And what that looks like usually a home that’s like $1 million or more and replacement costs, um, they have a few cars potentially. You know, we can work really well if someone has, like if they’re a car collector, even we have carriers that we can help with on that. Um, they have multiple homes. They’re looking at umbrella policies for maybe 5 million plus. You know, that’s kind of like our bread and butter. We can help in the middle market and in the high net worth space. But our price points with the carriers like Chubb, AIG, Cincinnati pure, that’s kind of their niche. So that’s where we can offer the best value. Um, one of the things I wanted to bring up, and I don’t know if you guys have seen this or felt it, is the nuclear verdict and being in the US and knowing that it is very easy to get sued. Yes.

Lola Okunola: [00:27:01] Very litigious. Yeah. You get in a.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:27:03] Car wreck and the person that you got in that car wreck, they sued you or, you know, you hit someone with a golf ball and now they’re suing you for our friend comes.

Lola Okunola: [00:27:14] To visit you and they fall in front of your house and they can sue you too. Exactly.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:27:19] So those are kind of the things we’re trying to instill into our client’s mind and remind them that an umbrella policy, it’s it is kind of a scary thing to think about, but it’s something to pay for that. It’s very minimal per year, but it’s really that backup plan to if something happens and the likelihood of being in Atlanta of getting in a car wreck, it’s probably going to happen at some point.

Lola Okunola: [00:27:46] Even if it’s with yourself, with the potholes. Right?

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:27:49] Right. So we want to just make sure our clientele know that they’re, you know, whether they’re looking at an umbrella policy and matching that up with their net worth or net assets, or possibly even a little higher, just so that in the event that you possibly get sued, that you have that backup plan and you don’t have to go into your personal pockets and take care of that.

Lola Okunola: [00:28:15] Wow, that’s pretty interesting. You know.

George Martin: [00:28:18] I was, uh, surprised when you mentioned the value of collections. And we had a home that we rented out, and the renter that we had at the time showed me his collection of tennis shoes, and he showed me a.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:28:30] Really up and coming.

George Martin: [00:28:31] Now he showed me a Jordan pair. It was worth $12,000. And I thought, good grief.

Lola Okunola: [00:28:38] Oh yeah, it’s a thing. Now we have.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:28:40] Carriers that literally all they do is they work on collections. But I would say for shoes that would probably be a more difficult one. Like we would really have to find a specialized market because I’ve had them tell me with the couture stuff they knock out, like maybe shoes, maybe bags for sure, but clothing, they try to knock out of the park so that there’s only so many markets that we can go to for those like specialized risks. But a $12,000 pair of shoes, you definitely. I mean, that’s as valuable as the engagement ring, if not more so you definitely want to protect that.

George Martin: [00:29:18] I offered him my old gray box, uh, for at least 500, but he didn’t. He wasn’t interested. No, it didn’t work out.

Lola Okunola: [00:29:25] Wow, this has been super cool just hearing how different you know, all your businesses are. So I mean, just off the top of my head I can see that there’s definitely synergies here, right? We we’re all sort of working in spaces that are related or dependent on each other in some shape or fashion. Um, Kelly, I’m going to go to you first because we all need marketing and exposure. And I want to go back to what you said. You know, you’re using new search engines like, help us talk to George. The George is you.

George Martin: [00:30:08] Know, I want to say I’m glad you brought that up because I, we our company spent the last two years in, uh, rebranding and then also getting an SEO, um, technician to help clean up things and then to, to develop. Are LinkedIn and so on, visibility and whatever else. And it’s still something of a mystery to to us.

Kelly Biggs: [00:30:29] We like to keep it that way.

George Martin: [00:30:33] So mental health is that same way too, by the way.

Kelly Biggs: [00:30:36] How we stay employed. But no. So it’s a couple things. One, I want to give a shout out to Sandy Springs Chamber as it relates to this. And so as Hannah was talking, there was a couple things that that, that you mentioned, which is she speaks to a lot of people. And having a venue like this, an organization where she can be valuable and just meet different people, that she can be of value to her clients is extremely important. Um, and then we talked about something called we didn’t call it this, but I will now domain authority. And so the domain authority of a sandy Springs is very high. And what do I mean by that? It means. So when you have a website, everybody I need to put up a website. And, and generally when I talk to people, sometimes they will say, oh yeah, I got a cousin that can put that up for me for $500. And I’m like, okay, you’ll call me later, but, you know, go do that. And when they do call later, it hasn’t been put up in a way that sound. Conversely. And what do I mean by that? There are things that have to happen on your website and I won’t get too technical, but there on site things like your meta tags, your middle titles, your meta descriptions, um, and a company or an organization like Sandy Springs has spent a lot of time and money doing that. Um, there’s another thing called eat, and it’s now it’s e a t.

Kelly Biggs: [00:32:13] What is your experience? So somebody who’s been in business for 30 years, Google respects more than somebody who’s been in business for one year. That’s not to say that the person in one year can’t make moves, but they can’t overtake this other person if if they’ve set up things right. Right. So it’s your expertise. Um, they also want to know your authority and that’s what we’re talking about. So one thing that helps with authority is your backlinks. So what is a backlink. Just it’s you have your own site and within your own site you’re saying you’re great and Google is like, okay, that’s interesting. Um, who else is saying else is saying you’re great? And every time somebody mentions your website, that’s a vote. That’s a vote, that’s a vote. But there are also things called toxic websites, and these are things that don’t have anything to do with your organization. So Google looks at that too. So there are some companies that will say, oh, we’ll get you a million back. So I’m the new company and I won’t back links because perplexity just told me I don’t have enough backlinks because I’m not ranking in the same way as my competitor. I’m going to go buy them. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. That is a quick way to destroy your website and have to start all over from scratch. So, you know, those are just technical things. I try to put them in layman’s terms that are just basically you have to have a website built by somebody that you trust that is at least having these conversations about, I’m going to build your website, but before we do that, let’s talk about some things like and we’ll go back to the pastry.

Kelly Biggs: [00:33:59] What makes you special. And it’s really clear the things that make you special are you have an award winning pastry chef that understands what’s happening with somebody with celiac disease, for example. You understand that you can’t mix ingredients. And the thing is, what I didn’t hear you were saying, I heard you say, like, I have a shipping place. I have all of these things and these things are happening. What we try to get people to do is to make things happen. Right. So just really understanding what are your goals for your business this year and let’s align those goals. So you talked about things like influencer marketing. That’s really more around PR. And we actually have a PR division in our in our team. They’re the experts I have. I just surrounded by a group of group of experts. This year I was able to hire on a graphic designer. Well, I can do some stuff in Canva. They’re dangerous right now. I can tell them, hey, here’s my idea, go do that same one thing that we’re seeing quite a bit of, and I would like to warn the community about, is people will come back to me and say, hey, Kelly, I don’t need you to write my blogs anymore. I got ChatGPT for that.

Lola Okunola: [00:35:15] But it’s so obvious now. You can tell it is. But it will get better. It will. Fine tune, but for now I think it’s quite obvious that the.

Kelly Biggs: [00:35:26] Wreck so I the the definition I like the most about I is it’s the science of making machines smarter, right? And so actually speaking of offers on my website you can go as W-w-w dot C Biggs digital.com. And you can download a free e-book on ChatGPT. We tell you how to use the prompts, right. Because there is actually a formula to it where it can get pretty good. It really can. And so you can go through that look at prompts that you want to use. We help small businesses get ahead. I think we’re on the cusp of something very remarkable and a change in that. And the more that you can equip yourself to know that, the better. I use AI, but the way I use it is to ideate. So again, I go to perplexity like what’s missing? And typically like your your content is in and so okay, great. What what should I add? A lot of times they’ll say, so here are some keys. If you’re writing a blog, refer back to places within your own website. Even at the end, if you say, hey, contact us, shoot them over to your contact page. So some inner links is like internal votes, but also they are starting to value even more. Where did your source come from? Are you just making opinions, or did you go to Sandy Springs to say this is where, you know, go to a domain authority, a high ranking domain authority and refer back to something that they have said.

Kelly Biggs: [00:37:09] And so I will take I will first research it and say who what competitors are ranking high. What should I write about that might be of interest, and what might an outline look like for me? But then I turn that over to the copywriter, right. And I say, here’s another key trick. This is lovely. This is fun. Um, another site you can go to for AI is Bard. Bard. That’s Google’s competition to open AI. And I like it because it can actually read websites. You can put your own website in and say, what’s my tone? Right. So it’s back to talking about branding. Branding will be on the forefront. So that was smart that you did that work? Okay. Branding will be on the forefront into everything you do. And the more that you know your brand and you’re able to be on brand, the more you’re going to stand out above any competitor that comes in with other gluten free meals to compete with you, because they’re going to appear like the copycat. They’re trying to do what you do well already, right.

Lola Okunola: [00:38:18] Oh, that’s a great one.

George Martin: [00:38:19] So my team is put together these various Facebook messaging, if you will, and it has this one obviously stress management tips and so on and that kind of thing. And I’m actually impressed in how they how they provide these brief informational, um, pieces. And I have no idea how they do this. Um, I get up to them, which is great, but I’m so impressed with what some social media can be able to do to demonstrate, I think, high level messaging. And so we’re we’re believers in this. I may have to talk to you.

Kelly Biggs: [00:38:54] So yeah, let me tell you what I love about this post. And like it’s really good. So I see your brand colors right. Like blue and yellow. And then if I’m scrolling I would stop my scroll here for a couple of reasons. One, people love people’s faces. Yeah, people love like you. Like just human nature. We like to see the faces of other human face on is is typically the best. But this is really good. Like, I want to lean in and know what it is. I know that we’re on podcast. It looks like somebody is whispering and I want to lean in and hear it. And that yellow tells me straight off the bat what it is that you’re doing. And then I see your, you know, your brand colors, you have your logo, and I’m going to stop and pay attention here. So they’re doing a fantastic job. And and you just want to win. This is one thing that I hear from a lot of people is, hey, I’m posting on social media and nothing’s happening. It’s not supposed to. Right. Um, what what what? And actually something is happening. It’s that you’re just creating that brand awareness. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Um, but now when you want to get leads, you’re going to have to put money in it. Um, so that’s kind of it. But that’s a great job.

George Martin: [00:40:21] Appreciate you saying that. I’m curious about one thing. If I can interject. Of course. So back in the 1991, when I started Corp Care, um, we were looking at promotional efforts and it was either the printed something or other magazines, whatever else. And now obviously social media is the place to go. What’s next?

Kelly Biggs: [00:40:44] Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s a fantastic question. It depends on who you ask. It depends on your business. I think social media ads will stay digital. In fact, I was in a, um, in a meeting just the other day and they highlighted digital ads will be like will be on steroids moving forward. Now where do you want to put that depends on your audience. You have to do the work to figure out where is my audience, the people that I’m trying to reach, where do they hang out and and interrupt that? So it will be the I think physical ads are going to be be more popular because now more than ever, people will stop. And even again, it’s what’s your goal? Am I probably going to call somebody based off of a flier? I get 3% of the people who you who see your ad, who see your messaging. Only 3% are in market for you right now. So your goal is to stay in front of the ones so that when they do think about you, that’s when they see you and that’s when they move. So I think it’s still going to be digital. Advertisement. Um, and I think that we’ll figure also out how and I’m sorry. Um, I think we’ll also figure out how, um, we will navigate through that, but something else will come along. And it’s again, how do I stay on top of it will be hard and perplexity and all these other things figure out a way to make money. Absolutely, absolutely. So it’s I think it’s probably going to be something on the AI front, but to be determined, I’m.

George Martin: [00:42:31] Hoping for a return of the Goodyear blimp.

Lola Okunola: [00:42:33] Oh, I think those days are gone. I think I agree with Kelly. I think AI is the next way. Right. So when social media started, you still needed someone to tell you where to put your money, what you needed to do. But now we have AI telling us, right? Ai is telling you, oh, do you want to reward that? I’ll reward it. Reward it for you? Or do you want to use this image? You know, so I kind of think that that’s where we’re going, where suggestions are going to be made for us to optimize our advertising. It’s a good.

Kelly Biggs: [00:43:07] Point, and I actually want to get back to a point that you made. What we’re seeing a lot of success on for products specifically is user generated content. So if you could have relationships with people that you met at the Sandy Springs chamber and, and they say, oh, I tasted this. You know, I have a really good friend who suffers from celiac disease. And so I know how important it is, like if I’m buying something from her for her, even if it’s lunch, like, we have to stop the waiter and say gluten free. Not no, no, no, not just gluten free. Can’t touch anything that has had a wheat product on it and all of these things. Right. But if you had somebody like this and I’m calling them micro influencers, right? And that person is using your product and that you’re able to tap into those networks. Powerful. Yeah.

George Coundouriotis: [00:44:09] We’ve experienced that. Um, especially if they’re not sponsored influencers. So they’re organic. Um, they come in, they taste something, and they just blast the bottles because they’re so excited.

Kelly Biggs: [00:44:24] I’m going to say this if you have somebody to do that, try putting some money behind that. Yeah I mean it’s 100% still work.

George Coundouriotis: [00:44:31] They want. Yeah. The ones that we’ve seen a big impact, um, are the ones that taste are good and um, post the bottom like there was a couple that lived here in Marietta that were called, uh, Keto Connect. And when we opened, we invited them over. Uh, that was back in 2018, and they have almost a million YouTube followers and they’ve got 500,000 Instagram followers. They’re very highly respected. They’ve gotten out of the space. Now they’re doing something else. Um, but they came. We gave them a tasting kind of like this, and they did a story. Then they did a YouTube. Um. They insisted that we don’t pay them anything and that gave them the credibility. That’s why they had that many followers, because they weren’t being paid to say, this is delicious. They could kill your brand, or they could make your brand.

George Coundouriotis: [00:45:34] Their opinion counted. And they absolutely loved everything. So that put us on the map for sure. For all of 2019. Lines out the door in Sandy Springs. Um, um, the shipping calls, shipping, shipping, shipping. Um, we’ve tried to connect with other influencers there, the pay for review type of model for most of them, and they don’t have the kind of following that these guys had. Mhm. Um, but what we’re doing for exposure, it’s a challenge for sure. We have email blasts um from actual customers. So we have about 15,000 uh, folks in our email list that have signed up to be on our email list. Um, that’s very huge. That’s powerful. If you have.

Kelly Biggs: [00:46:25] 15,000, that’s. Yeah, that’s that’s a huge number.

George Coundouriotis: [00:46:30] Um, then we have about 15,000 organic followers, um, that follow truly follow us on Instagram and 18,000 on Facebook. But, you know, at the end of the day, if we could get someone with a reputation, a following, a reputation that they know what they’re talking about, like a doctor, Eric Berg, for example, he’s an authority in this and he’s got 2 million followers. We’re trying to connect with him, uh, because he would be extremely interested, we think, in what we do. Um, but it’s tough to connect because they have 2 million followers, so they’re probably getting 20,000 messages a day at a minimum. And I can post a comment at Zamboanga on one of their posts of his posts that gets seen by his followers. That’s a very big thing, and it helps us. But to get him to say, okay, let me try your products, that would be hugely impactful.

Kelly Biggs: [00:47:33] So when you’re posting to his things, are you also are you linking your website? Yeah. So when you do that that’s called social bookmarking. Nice. And that’s super effective as well. People do that, people do that and they even do that on LinkedIn. I have a couple of people I follow, and the minute I comment something, the next thing I know, you know, I get all these people like, oh, connect with me, connect with me. So that that while you might not see it immediately, those types of strategies are are super important.

George Coundouriotis: [00:48:08] I agree totally. I’ve seen it. Um, in practice, like what you’re saying is actually does work. Yeah.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:48:14] Um, I wanted to mention kind of don’t forget the little guys, because you touched upon a couple of your passions like keto and low carb, and you brought up celiacs or marathon running. So I run a, um, a half marathon training group in Atlanta. So we’re based out of North Atlanta, and we kind of run all over from Roswell to Dunwoody to Sandy Springs. But already kind of I’m thinking about ideas of why wouldn’t we have like a party? Exactly. You know, with you guys, but that’s already accessed to like 30 to 40 people that can then kind of go and blog and put that social media piece about you. Um, another piece you brought up the celiac and the issues, the gastro issues that people might have. Yeah. Um, another thing that I’m heavily involved with is the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. So I feel like kind of getting into that network, not necessarily through, um, your main drivers like the big doctor names, but getting through with the volunteer parents that are putting together, like, we, um, do this big event that this past year we raised like $100,000 for Crohn’s and colitis through a Halloween trick or treating event. Nice. Nice. Um, and so you need.

Lola Okunola: [00:49:33] To be part of that.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:49:34] Yeah. So something like that is like I would say it would be great for you to have a table or have tastings, you know, have your brand all over the different marketing.

Lola Okunola: [00:49:44] Pass out for trick or treating. I can see it already.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:49:47] But I think based on like the conversation, I think kind of putting yourself out there and networking and don’t forget the little guys, because sometimes the little guys may have more influence, yes, than 100% than you realize, because I think sometimes trying to reach out to those, they.

Lola Okunola: [00:50:02] Come and they don’t go right, right. They’re not like the influencer. Once you’re up and you know they.

George Coundouriotis: [00:50:07] Eventually dies out, it dies.

Lola Okunola: [00:50:09] Down. But when you have the real followers, yep. They stay.

George Martin: [00:50:14] And I was thinking of something similar. But the their alliances, the medical health alliances, there’s one called. Earl von Hippel-lindau disease. It’s a rare form of family genetic cancer and their diets because it hits the pancreas. Their diets are all gluten free. I mean, they have to. They follow what you make. Yes. And they so often those who suffer from that are unable to really enjoy what they used to enjoy. And here’s your opportunity.

George Coundouriotis: [00:50:45] Let me ask you guys a question. Um, the whole table. But, you know, if you are in that position and you do and you’re interested in finding a bakery that can fill your needs, um, wouldn’t you do like a search? And on Google Yelp, we ranked number one, always number one, number one, number one in searches.

George Martin: [00:51:12] Um, you know, that’s an interesting question because I was just thinking about just my wife has VL that’s why I was thinking of that. And when we think about where do we go shop the Publix across the street. Convenient, easy. So we deal with whatever they can provide us and that limitation whatever. But, uh, to do something like what you’re suggesting to search on the internet for something like that, I would not even knowing that it even existed. Right.

George Coundouriotis: [00:51:38] Yeah. So that’s an interesting situation, because if I’m interested in a specific type of product or store, my first thing like we were talking about is a Google search. So if I wouldn’t wait to get it, like from the air, I would search for it.

Kelly Biggs: [00:51:55] A lot of a lot. I’ll start right now. Still, 90% of searches start on Google. Yeah, Google search engine. What’s important, though, is thinking about keywords in a different way, what you’re really looking for. So if I’m looking for a search my search might be around. Am I just information gathering? Right. What we try to look for is and that and if it’s just informational gathering, that’s what we call a short short word like you. Just one one word, gluten free, keto, those type of things. But what we what we’ll do is a Google search for we’ll talk to you. You know what? Who is your audience? What kind of things do you do? What makes you special? All of that. And then we go back and do some keyword searches like real generic. But then we move into this thought, and this is where honestly, I has been a tremendous help. And it’s saying because you have all these keywords of these keywords, which ones are the most transactional keywords? High intent. I’m looking to buy this today. Like what is that? Those are the keywords you want and those are the words you then kind of put on your page. Or you write articles about to drive people with high intent to your website. Exactly. That’s what’s important.

George Coundouriotis: [00:53:25] That’s great, great information because it’s like peeling the onion and getting deeper in layers to get. Ultimately, your goal is a transaction. You know, either online with our online shop which is local and shipping or walk into the bakery, you know. Right. So yeah.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:53:44] Transactional. Um, another great idea. And I feel like it could help with any business is having, um, people like implanted in the different moms groups online, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram. But I strangely, having an eight year old and being in the Jewish community in Atlanta, like, I get a lot of my information from the Jewish Moms group of Atlanta. And they’ll often be like, where can I find this cake? I need something kosher, but it can only have this, this, or this. And I feel like that’s a place that like, if you’re introducing a new product or something, you could have kind of plants already in all these different moms group because they’re listening to the people who they trust. Plus they want to support other people in the Jewish community or in the Atlanta community or Sandy Springs. So I feel like those are some other like avenues to keep in mind as well.

George Coundouriotis: [00:54:37] I think that’s huge. Um, and what we’ve done in the past and it’s hit or miss is, um, tag those groups on our posts, you know, like on Facebook or Instagram. And some of those groups are trending and then they, they go away like East Cobb moms was a big, important group for us. Um, and then that kind of like died down a little bit. But we do get a lot of mothers with it’s the cutest thing with little kids that come in and either they’re type one diabetic kids or there’s something else going on gluten free or something, and they just go crazy. The kids go, that’s like, that’s why we’re in. Isn’t this, you know, to be able to service folks that could not have that otherwise?

Kelly Biggs: [00:55:27] Are you asking them how they found you?

George Coundouriotis: [00:55:29] Yes. Always. Always.

Kelly Biggs: [00:55:31] So are they saying.

George Coundouriotis: [00:55:32] They do like they heard about us in the group? That’s common. Um, the other is there were driving around and they saw the big green signs that say keto, low carb, gluten free. And they said, we finally stopped in, um, because the location is is a good central location. But folks, um, have to search for us still because they’re on their way somewhere. It’s right by 400 exit five. So we’re right at the exit or entrance and folks are headed to 400 typically. So we do get a lot of cars in front of us, but they’re on a mission. Um, we need we need them to turn around on that mission. Take a brief stop.

Lola Okunola: [00:56:21] Well, hopefully today you have your, um, your customers that are listening and will know to stop or make a point to to come in. Um, thank you so much, Kelly, Hannah and George and George to George’s today. Um, for sharing information about your businesses. I would like for each of you to tell everyone how they can reach you. Like, what’s the best way, your website, your phone number, your email, whatever it is that you want people to know to be able to contact you, let’s let’s let them know. We’re going to start with you, George Martin.

George Martin: [00:56:58] I George, at, uh. Excuse me, I was about to give you my personal email address is wrong. Um, it’s corp care Corp as in Paul c a r e at corp. At um. Corp. Com Corp care erp com I know it’s sooner or later I will remember my own email on my, on my website corp care ERP. Com. And there you’ll see a listing of services and and the description of each of those services and so on.

Lola Okunola: [00:57:25] Yeah. So if you’re a company that is looking to provide more benefits to your employees, this could help you with retention. It could help you provide better benefits to your employees. Consider corp care their EAP program. Thank you Lila. Now, Kelly.

Kelly Biggs: [00:57:44] Yes. So in order to reach me, you can just go to Wtci Biggs digital.com. Our telephone number is (404) 682-2991. And I’ve really enjoyed speaking with all of you here. It’s been quite a blessing. Thanks.

Lola Okunola: [00:58:04] Yeah it’s definitely been great. I mean, you do not not want to call Kelly. Sounds like everyone needs to call Kelly. I can’t wait to get to my desk and go and look at all these new sites. Um, and next is Hannah O’Donohue.

Hannah O’Donoghue: [00:58:19] So you can find BCS partners online@bcs-partners.com. Um, I’m all over LinkedIn. So if you look up Hannah Vahaba O’Donohue it’s a lot of vowels. And so I’m not gonna spell it for you guys, but I think probably the best way to reach me is by phone or text message. We have like a nice zoom, um, phone setup. So you can reach me at 404 9477128. And that’s my work phone. But I can accept text messages or phone calls from there. And so that would probably be the best way to reach me so I can come and help do an insurance review for you guys.

Lola Okunola: [00:59:03] Yeah, maybe some tennis shoe collections or some artwork or something. And last but not least, George. Yeah.

George Coundouriotis: [00:59:12] So, um, we have two ways that you can reach us. One is the retail bakery and coffee shop on, uh, in Sandy Springs, and we’re located at 901 Abernathy Road in the Serrano, uh, mixed use condominium building. Um, between you might see it, I the eye clinic and the color bar hair salon right before 400 exit five. Um, and we are open Tuesday through Saturday, 9 to 4. And the phone number there is (400) 487-9973 one. Then we also have our commissary kitchen up in, uh, Alpharetta, exit 12. That’s not open to the public. That’s only by appointment. And we ship out of there nationwide. So if you have relatives, friends anywhere in the country, you can order on Zamba wingo.com. And if you’re local, you can, uh, select local pickup at checkout. And, um, set up your appointment the day and time, and we’ll welcome you at the commissary to, uh, give you the goodies.

Lola Okunola: [01:00:18] Awesome. Thank you so much, I can’t. Wait for us to be able to dig into these goodies that you’ve brought us.

George Coundouriotis: [01:00:24] I can’t wait for you guys to try them.

Lola Okunola: [01:00:25] Thank you so much. Well, that concludes another episode of the Chamber Spotlight Podcast, sponsored by Southern Live Oak Wellness. A big thank you to our guest, George Martin, Kelly Biggs, George Koundouriotis, and Hannah O’Donohue for joining us today. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Don’t forget to subscribe for more enlightening conversations with the community’s leaders. Until next time.