ACG: Connecting Middle Market Companies for Unprecedented Growth

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.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here with Rachel Simon. This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Connect the Dots Digital. When you’re ready to leverage LinkedIn to meet your business goals, go to Connect the Dots dot digital. Rachel, great show today. How are how are things in your world?

Rachel Simon: [00:00:44] It’s eclipse day.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Eclipse day. So you got big plans?

Rachel Simon: [00:00:48] I’m going to sit in my driveway and see what happens.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] Don’t look.

Rachel Simon: [00:00:52] Don’t look at it. Uh, now we have a great show today. Very excited to have our guest, Gloria Kantor, who is the VP of operations for Atlanta and the southeast region of the Association for Corporate Growth. Super cool, amazing organization doing incredible things here in the southeast. So Gloria, welcome.

Gloria Kantor: [00:01:12] Thank you guys for having me. Appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:15] So, uh, Gloria, tell us a little bit about ACG for folks who don’t know.

Gloria Kantor: [00:01:19] Yeah, ACG actually has a brief four word mission of driving middle market growth. We are locally about a 600 member organization, 15,000 members throughout a 59 chapter uh association headquartered in Chicago. Um, locally, you know, we we, our members, allow us to facilitate great networking and content events for them to help drive business growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] And then how do you define middle markets for folks, you know, just so they can get.

Gloria Kantor: [00:01:51] Exactly. Yeah. Locally we define middle market as $15 million in revenue. And that’s that’s gross revenue to a billion in revenue. Uh, National Center for Middle Market, uh, defines it as 10 million to 1 billion. Atlanta’s business community and the great venture work that is done here through through some other organizations, we play nice together and in our sandbox of of growth equity, but really focus more on the private equity versus series A and uh, venture funding.

Rachel Simon: [00:02:19] So what are the kinds of companies that you tend to work with that are members of the organization?

Gloria Kantor: [00:02:24] The membership base is is, you know, really split up amongst corporate members. We do the Georgia Fast 40 awards, which I’m sure we’ll talk about a little bit later. Um, which for us is really great. It gives us connectivity into those, really the growing industries here in Atlanta and and in Georgia, you do have to be headquartered in Georgia. Um, but the rest of our members are a make up of advisory services, roles of accounting, legal consulting, um, as well as our private equity friends and investment bankers, uh, as well, and all of those kind of consulting roles that touch a merger or acquisition.

Rachel Simon: [00:03:00] So you’re helping to facilitate relationships between the company and then those.

Gloria Kantor: [00:03:05] We are the matchmaker. Yeah. The matchmaker of the of the of the group. So we, we put about 25 events on a year, uh, locally and throughout the country based, you know, we typically are not industry specific. Um, we pretty much play in a generalist space. But ACG is a is a global organization. We’ll do some, um, more specific content events for specific markets.

Rachel Simon: [00:03:33] Yeah. I was spending a little time just looking at the kinds of events that you’re putting together, and it’s sort of a mix of, you know, educational but also fun. Like you’re going to the Braves game. Exactly.

Gloria Kantor: [00:03:44] We have a we have a Braves game, uh, tomorrow actually, hopefully. And then actually our newest kind of social event, we’re doing a putting social on Thursday. Um, hopefully the weather holds out for us, but for the first day of the masters, for folks that can’t go to Augusta. Um, and then, you know, kind of our next big content event is May 7th. We have we will be announcing our Georgia Fast 40 honorees that evening, but also have a really great fireside chat with Yum Arnold of Leapfrog Services, who also happens to be president of the board of the Federal Reserve, and Paula Takac. I’m hoping I pronounce her name right. Um, who’s the chief economist with the Federal Reserve Bank? Uh, for our members and guests as well.

Rachel Simon: [00:04:24] So where do you see? Because like that mix of social but also, um, like educational value content speak to the value of the social components of it. Like how does that help facilitate the mission?

Gloria Kantor: [00:04:36] The social component really is to, to drive. Our mission is that that relationship business, you know, we are all about relationships and you fostering and building your network, um, is an emerging leader if you’re new to the or just in general, new to the industry of, of mergers and acquisitions, um, you know, 75% of our members do business with one another throughout the, throughout their membership life. Um, so it’s it’s are you going to get a deal on the first day? Probably not. But you build those relationships going forward, uh, for for your business growth and, and your client growth.

Rachel Simon: [00:05:12] That’s that’s amazing statistic 7,575%.

Gloria Kantor: [00:05:15] Right? I mean, and it’s you know, we do keep our our dues are a little bit higher, but it’s it’s the right people I think that you want to meet in this city in the country that are, you know, in the mergers and acquisitions space. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: [00:05:27] As my business coach would say, they meet the red velvet rope policy.

Gloria Kantor: [00:05:31] Exactly.

Rachel Simon: [00:05:33] Um, yeah.

Gloria Kantor: [00:05:34] So using that one, that’s that’s a good one. That’s a good one. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: [00:05:37] She’s always like, do your clients, does this person meet your red velvet rope policy because. Not everybody know.

Gloria Kantor: [00:05:42] That’s a really good. And those folks will, you know, will, you know anybody that wants to come check us out and see an event? We will. Absolutely. But if you are, if you’re the one that does not necessarily meet the Red velvet group, you know, they’ll weed themselves out pretty quickly. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: [00:05:56] So you’ve been with, um, ACG for almost a decade. What are some of the trends that you’ve seen over the last ten years?

Gloria Kantor: [00:06:06] You know, it’s it’s been now that I’ve been been with ACG and a decade seems like a really long time.

Rachel Simon: [00:06:13] Um.

Gloria Kantor: [00:06:13] Sorry to make you. Thanks. Um, I mean, it’s it’s to be, you know, it’s the best job I’ve ever had. Um, but what I love about it and the trends that I’ve seen, it’s interesting. From the networking space. Uh, we got to a really a point, and I don’t know if it was pre-COVID. Covid’s kind of that draw line for me. Um, we’re now just kind of getting out of. Folks are starting to realize the importance of building a network. We had emerging professionals and your young what you want to call young leaders, whatever you want to call them. The importance of building that got it kind of got away for a couple of years that they were just heads down doing work, not realizing that they were going to have business development goals or other things put on them. Um, I had a I had a lawyer say to me at one point, if I had known the law was going to be the easiest part of my job, I would have probably rethought what I’ve done with myself. Um, so I think that for me is the biggest trend is, is just building your network and realizing the value of of who you know and who you can meet in the city especially, you know, as transient as Atlanta can be. Um, on those pieces, that’s. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: [00:07:20] Yeah. I mean, you’re speaking my language right there with the whole building your network. And, you know, obviously from my vantage point with LinkedIn, like just it’s so hard to keep up with people and so making a concerted effort to track and kind of follow up with, oh, you know, I haven’t talked to so and so in a while I should reach out.

Gloria Kantor: [00:07:42] I should reach out. Yeah. And taking that time to, to go through and be like, who in my network, especially when it comes to, you know, award season or whatever, you know, who am I connected to, you know, from a CEO, CFO perspective that I can invite to these events, that I can do that, that puts them in the room with with their peers as well as, you know, some business connectivity with advisor partners that that they can meet.

Rachel Simon: [00:08:05] Yeah, I mean, there’s the value of your own network, but then you become a valuable commodity when you can bring people together and introduce them.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:16] Now, when you have a constituents that range from 15 million to 1 billion, how do you create programing that kind of brings them all together because they each have different kind of objectives, goals and needs from the organization.

Gloria Kantor: [00:08:30] Absolutely. We you know, from a social networking perspective, sheer social is sheer social that kind of touches everybody. Um, when it comes to content, a lot of the challenges that we hear from our CEOs and CFOs and C-suites that we talked to are relatively similar talent, huge issue. Can’t find the right people. Not sure where we’re going to find them. There aren’t enough of, you know, just all of those pieces. Um, and then we can kind of tailor, you know, for, for the folks that are already equity backed, we do some roundtables for, um, corporate, uh, you know, corporates that are private equity backed because they have a whole different set of challenges and reporting and all sorts of pieces there. Um, we don’t growth. To us, growth is growth, whether it’s organic or acquisitive. We also do roundtables for corporate development professionals. So strategic acquirers that are buying throughout the life cycle. Um, so we really, you know, we look at we survey our folks every, every couple of months and say, what are your biggest challenges and build around that now?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:36] How do you work with the other kind of acgs around the country, or do you work together in terms of, hey, it seems like there’s a cluster here in Georgia that are in fintech or whatever. You know, we have kind of superpowers here in Georgia. Absolutely, absolutely. And do you help kind of make those kind of connections?

Gloria Kantor: [00:09:52] So we do we we also both between industries. So you know, obviously fintech is big. Um, all of the and that’s a much broader, much broader piece than, you know, what do you define as fintech. Um, and so many different places, the health care, you know, the health care tech space is huge here. Um, we’ve seen a lot of manufacturing coming back as well and choosing Georgia to, as a place to do business. But we do connect with our other ACG chapters and really, you know, look at how can we do programing together. There is a from a ACG perspective, there’s an ag tech. So agricultural, you know, technologies that’s hosted in Raleigh every year. Um, because they have a big ag tech space. There’s a defense and aerospace contracting event in DC that we spend some folks to as well, um, kind of with a cyber unit out in Augusta and some other pieces. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:46] We’re like, if you’re Atlanta centric, you may not remember that Georgia has a extensive agricultural component to the.

Gloria Kantor: [00:10:52] Georgia is a much bigger state than Atlanta that people don’t realize, uh, for many reasons. But, uh, yeah. So that’s where we look at it while we are ACG Atlanta. Um, we do look at it from a state perspective as we are the only chapter, um, here, here in the state. Now, are you.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:09] Doing, uh, kind of. Or research and connecting collecting data regarding kind of what’s happening here, or is that just happen organically?

Gloria Kantor: [00:11:19] Yeah. We, um, ACG acquired a company out of, I want to say Pennsylvania or Connecticut called GF data. So they are actually a blind service. So you submit your deal based on NAICs code. So it’s completely aggregated. Um, which we can pull. We pull a bunch of data from them and they share that with us. Now granted it’s not drilled down and. Because it’s completely anonymous. They don’t drill down to where the deal takes place. We’re working on trying to figure out if there’s a way to kind of get around that, to make some regional, you know, look at things from a regional or local perspective. Um, by NAICs code versus versus specific deal.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:02] Is that something the members are kind of asking.

Gloria Kantor: [00:12:04] Members do have access to that as well as, you know, from our our investment banking partners and private equity folks and companies, we it’s a really great way to submit data with it being anonymous, unlike some of the other you know, there are some regulatory issues around PitchBook and some other sources. Um, from the private equity fund where this is not considered marketing because it’s it’s completely anonymous. Mhm.

Rachel Simon: [00:12:30] Interesting. So we talked about sort of like reflecting on trends in the last ten years. But where do you see, what do you see coming down the pike.

Gloria Kantor: [00:12:39] Depends on what happens in November. Um, I mean I think as I’m sure most of your guests probably are like, oh, well, we’re just kind of in a holding pattern. Um, we are seeing, at least from what I’m hearing from our members and folks, uh, ideal activity is picking up. I think that a lot of folks will try. And there’s still a ton of dry powder and money out there to deploy. Um, folks are holding on to it a little bit, a little bit tighter than they have in the past. But, um, it’s been interesting to see how how those how that’s going. I think it’ll be. I think also again, going with with what is the fed going to do with interest rates? It does make a bank dollar a little bit more expensive than, than other dollars. So we’re seeing a lot more alternative and alternative investments in different strategies. That’s been fun to watch. The creativity of deals and how people are getting deals done. Um, in that that vein.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:36] Now, what are you seeing from the return to office standpoint?

Gloria Kantor: [00:13:40] It’s a mixed bag. It really I mean, you know, for us, we’re we’re fully remote. Um, and we will continue to be fully remote. Uh, we have a, we have a mailbox in a storage unit, uh, because it makes it nice. And we have great members and, you know, firms that allow us to use office space. So for us, the dollar doesn’t quite make sense to spend there. Uh, it’s a mixed bag from the return to office. I think most people are probably going to be. You know, most days in the office, um, you know, with Georgia being one of the first states to open, we had a lot of folks that went back immediately that weren’t really, you know, it’s a small enough office, and there are enough doors and safety mechanisms that they were like, you know what? We’re going to go work from the office anyway. Um, on those pieces. So now.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:26] What about the commercial real estate component to the I would imagine your sponsors and, and other folks that are part of the ecosystem we.

Gloria Kantor: [00:14:33] Have we have a little bit. Um, our, our commercial real estate folks, we do work with a few different firms. Um. But they’re, you know, they’re kind of hearing the same, you know, they’re hearing the same thing, but it is picking up, you know, for them it’s picking up as well. Um, as far as space being, you know, people looking for more space. Yeah. And the return office. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: [00:14:56] Uh, tell us about past 40. Yeah. Um, and, you know, what is it for our listeners who may not be familiar, and it’s coming up soon. It is coming.

Gloria Kantor: [00:15:05] Up in June. We just finished our our application process closed at the end of March. We honor the 40 fastest growing middle market companies in the state of Georgia. So it’s based on you have to be headquartered in the state. You can be private equity backed, but your and your equity firm doesn’t have to be here. But your your headquarters has to be here in Georgia. Uh, you have to have between 15 million and 1 billion in revenue and the most current year. So for that would have been fiscal year 23. Um, and then we just need six data points. So we, we need three years of revenue growth and three years of headcount growth. And we do a little bit of math. And it’s all math based. There’s there’s no application fee. There’s no pay to play. Um, all of the things are there. And we we run the math and it’s we get, you know, 20 companies in the lower category, 20 companies in the upper category. And then we added the last couple of years, um, a category of 500 million to 1 billion, uh, that that is a growing category for us, but that also falls under those same categories. Um, and that so the 15 to 500 million, we get 40 companies and then the 500 and above, we get usually about 6 to 8. Um, and it’s a lot of them are alumni that have kind of grown out of the process and are still in the middle market, but. Yeah. So we it’s we get 100, 120 applications. We, we narrow it down via math and we actually do go out and interview them. Those interviews will start this week and next week, um, just to verify the revenue and headcount growth. So they give us we don’t publish any of the numbers. So it’s just a really great recognition of growth here and here in the state. Uh, last year, I think the companies have not run the numbers this year. Um, last year our 40 companies, you know, contributed two point over $2 billion in revenue to the state of Georgia.

Rachel Simon: [00:16:56] That’s amazing. Yeah, I love that. It’s completely math based as opposed to like, there’s no, uh, there’s nothing subjective.

Gloria Kantor: [00:17:03] There’s nothing subjective about, you know, and we’ve had people call us in the, you know, so we’ve been doing this six this will be our 16th awards technically 17 years. We did we did take 2020 off. Um, it wasn’t appropriate to celebrate 2019 growth in, you know, in June and try and talk to a CEO in April of 2020 to figure out, oh, you did really well last year. What? You know, what can we. How’s it going? How’s it going? Right. Like, let me not take 45 minutes of your time to, to do that. Um, but, you know, it’s been a couple of things. One, it’s been great. All of the companies that we have are definitely great companies that are headquartered here and have really great news. Um, and then the other piece is also watching the, again, going back to industries. And I should have brought that list with me and I totally forgot, um, just how cyclical the growth trajectory of, of specific industries are. You know, we’re always going to get the tech companies. We’re always going to get, you know, a little bit of manufacturing. But it’s really fun to watch. You know, obviously post post Covid, we had a really we had a bunch of really great construction companies because people were doing, you know, home renovations and all of the things. It was just really on trend with what was going on nationally. Now.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:20] Looking back through those 16 years, is there, um, kind of leading indicators like are you noticing like how we have a cluster here? So that might be a trend coming moving forward.

Gloria Kantor: [00:18:32] We I mean, yes and no. I mean, I think that that you always you always get the firms that are, that are going to apply no matter what. Right. Um, and again, it is kind of word of mouth. We don’t necessarily advertise it, but we have enough of a of inroads and that we can, you know, go out into, you know, chambers and other sort of things and say, hey, who are your members that that should be involved in this? Um, there are probably a few. I’m not sure that we’ve ever actually looked forward looking at the trending indicators. Definitely more back than than forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:01] But I would I would wonder, you know, those smaller ones are those really or those emerging, uh, industries?

Gloria Kantor: [00:19:08] Probably, yes. I mean, I think that, you know, you have, you know, you know, if there’s.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:12] One that may not be, but if there’s three, all of a sudden you’re like, wow, this is right. There’s more. You know, where these come.

Gloria Kantor: [00:19:18] From also is is and it’s something to look at. And we haven’t in a greater ACG world is should we take those industries and look at it from a, from an ACG perspective, as a growth perspective? Um, just because we’re focused here does not mean that it’s not necessarily growing in the, the industry or in the region.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:36] Now, do you have, uh, any learnings from what makes an, uh, you know, uh, growing company or there are certain things that you’ve kind of gleaned like, oh, you know what? These all have this in common or like, were there some foundational elements or is it just kind of the usual suspects? You know, I need talent, I need a culture, good leadership.

Gloria Kantor: [00:19:55] Um, obviously looking at looking at your c-suites and your leadership, you know, we’ve had folks that have made the list that grew a business in a basement and just, you know, the I’m going to call it the HP in the garage, you know, the HP in the garage. And we’re going to go interview this person, um, two serial entrepreneurs that have that have come in. And this is not necessarily the first time that they’ve made the list. Um, I do think that leadership probably and leadership at the top is, is probably the best indicator of if you’re going to continue to grow, um, and building that team around you from a talent perspective and bringing your folks along for the ride. Um, on those pieces.

Rachel Simon: [00:20:35] Yeah. I mean, you can’t underestimate the. Crucial importance of of leadership. It can make or break.

Gloria Kantor: [00:20:42] Absolutely, absolutely. And it’s and it’s also seeing you know, we had there was a company here that a medical company you know a one of the like doc in a box type places that obviously during Covid was they were the first ones to figure out how do we do these mass testing facilities. And so therefore we’re going to, you know, have significant growth. Now the past couple of years, they’ve kind of pivoted and figured out what they’re going to do. But it’s, you know, still in a really great, great position. Um, to be in there just not necessarily growing. They’re just still, you know, but they’re still a great middle market company here in town.

Rachel Simon: [00:21:15] Yeah. I mean, you have to. Right. That’s an example of like taking advantage of you take advantage.

Gloria Kantor: [00:21:20] Of circumstances and and for better or for worse, you know, looking at looking at the landscape you have, you know, that just broke I guess this week that prize picks which is another fast 40 alumni, um, is just taking on again another I think three. They’re building a 33,000 square foot space in the Star Metals building, um, and bringing on another thousand employees because of the growth of of that the esports game and, and, you know, game betting and all of that.

Rachel Simon: [00:21:47] And so prize picks is a UGA alum.

Gloria Kantor: [00:21:49] It is a UGA alum company as well. It is a UGA alum company but.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:54] And Tech Village right.

Gloria Kantor: [00:21:56] They started in Tech Village I think they I think they started in Tech Village. Do not quote me on that. I don’t need them coming coming after me. But, um, they’re they’re a fast 40 alum as well. But I read read about that last week.

Rachel Simon: [00:22:07] So yeah very cool. It must be like feel great to see some of these companies that have it’s been given this, you know, honor and continue to they.

Gloria Kantor: [00:22:16] Continue to grow. And then it’s also you know, there are some folks, you know, that that are no longer eligible because they get acquired by somebody else and they’re no longer technically their company headquarters is here, but they’re no longer really headquartered here. Um, you know, the favorite phone call that I ever got was. I think some, you know, a CEO called me and said, well, why didn’t we make the list this year? I was like, well, you’re the 43rd fastest growing company. I don’t know what to, you know, it’s all math based. I don’t know what to tell you. I. Congratulations on your success. But, um, which is fun, but it’s fun to watch, you know, the alumni and where they go and what they do and or all of them. Great stories. No. You know, there are a couple that have, you know, folded or, you know, things have happened, but, um, yeah, it’s the majority of them are good.

Rachel Simon: [00:23:01] Someone’s got to be that 41st.

Gloria Kantor: [00:23:02] Exactly, exactly. And, you know, I could get a lot more CEOs in the room if I dealt with slow growing companies versus versus fast growing companies. Um.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:12] Now, you said that right now is the time when you’re looking for those people to apply.

Gloria Kantor: [00:23:17] We just finished our application process. Too late now. It is too late to apply for this year. Um, but we do open that process again in the fall for the for the fast 40, um, which is our second largest event behind M&A South, which is our big conference in February where we’ll have, you know, 200 private equity firms in town. Atlanta is a really nice place to be in February when you live in New York or New York or Boston or Chicago, um, the folks that have moved to Miami are not as much. But, um, so that’s our that, you know, fast forward is and to me, it’s the most mission driven event that we do. Sure, we do celebrate those companies in June and then we will make the announcement May 7th. We typically do that via email this year. We’ll do it in person at our Spring Summit event. So that’s also a time to come and meet those folks. If you are a company, you know again, a company, please feel free to check us out and find find us and get involved before the application process.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:16] What’s the.

Gloria Kantor: [00:24:17] Website? It’s acg.org. Org forward slash Atlanta I.

Rachel Simon: [00:24:23] Have a funny story quickly about M&A South. So one of my clients attended and it was his first time going and he didn’t really know what to expect. And so he booked himself. And it’s like it runs like 20 minute meetings. He had like 20 I mean he was like he he completely overbooked himself. And the next week we had met and he’s like, I needed like two, three days to recover from that because it was like he had like 50 meetings in a day and a half. It was.

Gloria Kantor: [00:24:53] Bananas. We’ll have some equity for, you know, some equity firms and investment banking firms that between their team will have 200 meetings over. It’s like a day and a half Monday. Yeah. It’s Monday afternoon to Tuesday. Maybe some on Wednesday Wednesdays kind of light. But um, it is. Yeah. And then we do offer some content. What we did this year, um, instead of doing full hour long panels. Now, we did do a couple of hour long panels as well, but we added some micro learning sessions just in 20 minutes so that somebody could block out 20 or 40 minutes and be like, I don’t want to talk about myself. Let me go learn about AI or some other things affecting our industry. Um, some health care, you know, health care costs, things that things that folks need to know, which was really fun to watch that this year as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:39] Do you offer some coaching for those firms to get the most out of that experience?

Gloria Kantor: [00:25:44] We do not, but we probably should. So we do a couple of preview. We do a preview event. So we did a preview event in January this year. Um, there was a deal story with Scott Devaney of Chicken Salad Chick and their acquisition of Piece of Cake, because it was a really good Atlanta home grown story. Um, and so we did that as a kind of opening networking. Come meet some folks that you’ll see again. Um, but we probably should do, you know, we always kind of communicate here’s how to best get, you know, get the most, get the most out of it, you know, one register early. That’s that’s how you that’s how you get the most out of it is registering early so that you’re in there before, you know, when the, you know, the, um, application opens to schedule meetings. Um, how many.

Rachel Simon: [00:26:29] People attend that.

Gloria Kantor: [00:26:30] This year? We had over 1200. Wow. Yes, we had 12. Which which in the past we’ve we’ve said we’ve had 1200, but we you know, we were really pushing about 1300 this year, um, and trying to figure out at Avalon who was, who’s a great partner of ours, um, how we don’t outgrow the space. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:50] I mean, that’s a testament to the market here, right?

Gloria Kantor: [00:26:53] It’s absolutely a it’s a big number. It is a big number. And it’s also the, you know, from from the ACG perspective, it’s the first kind of major conference out of the calendar year. So folks will come in to fill their funnel to hear what’s going on. What are trends. What are, you know, what are people seeing for the year coming down the pike?

Lee Kantor: [00:27:11] Um, and this is human beings. So this isn’t a hypothetical. Like, this isn’t like you’re seeing 1200 human beings here.

Gloria Kantor: [00:27:18] 1200, right? There are 1200 human beings there. Um, and the great part about Avalon is that folks can walk to lunch and have a meeting. Or do you know, there’s some just really great, great space out there to be able to to facilitate.

Rachel Simon: [00:27:31] Up. Yeah. And it’s always the very beginning. It’s the first.

Gloria Kantor: [00:27:34] It’s the first week of February. So we’re I guess it’s the third through fifth next year. We used to be the week after the Super Bowl. Now we’re the week before the Super Bowl.

Rachel Simon: [00:27:42] Um, but it’s great timing wise with the calendar because it’s like you’ve sort of gotten through the first month of the quarter. And now.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:49] Exactly. It’s game.

Gloria Kantor: [00:27:50] On. Now it’s game on, right? It’s game on. It’s so funny. The number of people that come back, you know, we open registration in the middle of August, September somewhere in there January 1st, people were like, oh I need to register. It’s like too late. You can, but I don’t have any tables. You know, this year, you know, this year we sold out of all of our exhibitor tables the middle of December, um, which has never happened. Um, I mean, at least in the ten years I’ve been here, uh, our hotel rooms were sold, like, everything, which was great. Um, so we’ll see. We’ll see how that what that trend continues at. And we’re looking to add more tables. Um, we added some more tables and sold those out. So it’s, it’s, you know, all in the good problems to have category. Yeah. It’s all right. It’s all of the good problems to have category for that.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:33] And that’s why Georgia is one of these growing states. I mean this is I mean it’s it’s like you just don’t see an end to it. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s it’s.

Gloria Kantor: [00:28:43] Right. I mean, you look at it, it’s, you know, you look at it and it’s continuing to grow. There’s are there a ton of folks that from a private equity perspective, are there a ton of folks seated here and people not not a ton, but there’s a ton of investment and folks that are coming in and, and, and investing in the South and in Georgia and specific and the southeast, that is just it’s fun to watch and I. Not making any prognostications, but like, I don’t see it ending anytime soon.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:10] It’s just Georgia. So the economy is so diverse. And I mean that just when one thing’s down, there’s something else up. And invariably it just people don’t realize how diverse the economy is in Georgia. Absolutely.

Gloria Kantor: [00:29:21] Which is what, you know. Yeah.

Rachel Simon: [00:29:24] It’s awesome. Great. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:25] So, uh, one more time, the website, if people want to connect it is yeah.

Gloria Kantor: [00:29:30] Dot acg.org/atlanta and we’re on LinkedIn and all the social medias.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:37] So speaking of LinkedIn.

Rachel Simon: [00:29:39] What a great transition.

Gloria Kantor: [00:29:40] I’m so good at this. That was great. You thought I’d done this before.

Rachel Simon: [00:29:45] Um, yeah. So I, I actually put up a post, um, this week with this great tactical tip that I got from, um, somebody else. So there’s a gentleman named David Fisher. He actually runs social selling program for SAS. They have an internal social selling, uh, team, which is awesome to see. I love seeing companies investing in, um, like a real social selling program. But his tip that he shared, which I reposted, is that he takes a stack of ten pennies and puts those on his desk, and that is for every com. Like every time he drops a comment, he moves one of those pennies over. So it’s like a good way of a visual cue of activity on LinkedIn. So you could do that again for comments like, okay, I want to drop, I want to write, uh, share five comments on posts. Or you could do it for DMs outreach. But I love the visual cue of having something because and I do this for myself, I’m like, I really need to comment more. And then you get busy and you don’t do it. So when you see something and it could be paperclips or whatever, it shows you, did I actually do it? So that was that a week?

Gloria Kantor: [00:30:52] Is that weekly or is that.

Rachel Simon: [00:30:54] Well, he does it every single day a day.

Gloria Kantor: [00:30:56] Wow.

Rachel Simon: [00:30:56] So I’m not saying you need to do ten comments a day, but maybe you can do three comments a day or three DMs a day or something. You know, start small and build up. But having that visual cue I think is a awesome tip. I loved it.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:09] And then from a standpoint of activity on LinkedIn, is commenting better than like liking or like how would you kind of rank order? What is the activity?

Rachel Simon: [00:31:17] Commenting is always better because you can share your perspective on things. So no, not a thanks or good post or cool, but actually engage with what the person is talking about in a meaningful way because it’s a win win. It helps the the author’s content obviously get more seen in the newsfeed, but it also helps you because sometimes you’ll see in your news feed, you know, Gloria commented on blah blah blah post. So you get you show up in the news feed, but it also helps build that rapport with the person posting content.

Gloria Kantor: [00:31:50] So it also true that you you should use more than three words. Yeah, I mean I is what I hear like from a perspective of.

Rachel Simon: [00:31:57] Yeah, I mean the better you know, the more in depth you can go the better. Um, I like to ask a question or but comments comment first and then you can react. It’s a better order of operations.

Lee Kantor: [00:32:11] Good stuff. Well, Gloria, thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Gloria Kantor: [00:32:14] Thank you guys for having us.

Lee Kantor: [00:32:16] Yeah, you’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Gloria Kantor: [00:32:19] Thank you for having me again.

Lee Kantor: [00:32:20] All right. This is Lee Kantor for Rachel Simon. We’ll see you all next time on Sandy Springs Business Radio.