WBE Feature – Women‘s Month & Stress Awareness: Stress Management

Transcript
Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Lee Kantor here with Dr. Pamela Williamson. Another episode of Women In Motion, brought to you by WBEC-West. Dr. Pamela, have you fully recovered from the big weekend in Colorado?

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:00:42] You know, Lee, I am not going to lie, I have not. I think I need another three or four days of rest. The conference was fantastic. Almost a little shy of 5,000 attendees, 300 corporate members, and just a gigantic trade show floor to get through, so it was a pretty exhausting experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:06] And it’s so important that the conference happens like that in person, having 5,000 people like that, the energy must have been off the charts.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:01:18] I would say that it was beyond any chart that has ever been measured. It was absolutely crazy connections happening everywhere.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:29] Well, it’s great to be back with you here in the studio and so excited to be talking to our guests. The theme this month is Stress Awareness Month, and we have Sarah Hope and Heather Cox with us. Anything you’d like to share or talk to them about before we get going?

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:01:47] Yeah, I would love to. So, I have known both of these ladies for a very long time. I have watched them go through the trials and tribulation of growth and expansion and I have seen them both handle stress amazingly.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:02:04] So, I’m going to start with you, Heather, and have you introduce yourself. Heather Cox is the CEO and President of Certify My Company. And I don’t want to say this wrong, Heather, I am counting on my fingers, but I think you have five kids while you are also trying to run a very successful business that is expanding. Can you tell me a little bit about your business?

Heather Cox: [00:02:28] So, Certify My Company, we work with diverse entrepreneurs and corporations to make sure that (A) they get matched up, but also to make sure that everybody in the supply chain that should be certified is certified with the right certifications for them and their business. Otherwise, you know, like really use it for what they want to use it for.

Heather Cox: [00:02:48] And, yes, I do have five children. I started the company right after I had baby number one, which is when you start a business, right, like right when you have a new baby? And so, there have been plenty of conferences that I was pregnant at.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:03:02] So, I want to bring in Sarah Hope into this conversation. Sarah Hope, I’ve also known for a very long time. Sarah, I think when I first met you, you only had one company and your kids were at home. Now, if my recollection is correct, you have three companies. You you separate your time between here and Alaska, here being Arizona. But can you tell us a little bit about your company?

Sarah Hope: [00:03:31] Yes. It’s been ten years. Can you believe it? Next year is our ten year anniversary for Vertical Identity, which I’m the CEO and Founder and ultimate visionary. My biggest issue with Vertical Identity or any other business that I start is I love starting, and then I get absolutely bored whenever running it. So, I definitely need an implementer to help me just to run the companies and execute the vision for sure. That’s one of the biggest takeaways that I’ve taken from the last ten years, my love is just starting the company.

Sarah Hope: [00:04:12] So, I have Vertical Identity, which is a background screening and employment screening company. We do a lot of compliance also for trucking companies. We also recently started a easy trim weight loss clinic. So, after I lost 30 pounds, mind you, that I had gained because I was working 24/7 for the first seven years or so of my business journey, and gained some weight and then realized an amazing new technology that has basically come out, a medicine that’s really helping women all over the world at this point. It is a game changer for obesity in America.

Sarah Hope: [00:04:54] So, we switched over. We had drug testing facilities, four of them. We were also frontline in COVID and frontline with mass COVID vaccinations and testing. Got through that and then I just pivoted and did the weight loss clinics. And we also own a little wedding chapel. So, I have my hands in a bunch of different stuff. But, yes, my kids are gone, so now I can just work 24/7, right?

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:05:19] Thank you, Sarah. Hey, Heather, I do have a question for you, which I think is on all of our listeners mind, is, what is the secret of running a successful business and raising five kids? And none of your children are teenagers, right?

Heather Cox: [00:05:37] No. My big two are 15 and 13 so, yes, we have a lot of attitude also in the house now. I don’t think there’s a secret. I mean, people say to me all the time, “I only have two and I can’t do it.” I don’t know if it’s two or five, but I don’t think it matters. Kids are kids. They all need your attention in different ways, different times.

Heather Cox: [00:06:02] I will say that my kids are very independent from a very young age. They make their own lunches for school. My big two do their own laundry. Some people do allowances and they can earn money in the house, but there’s citizens of the household chores because we all live here, we all have to take responsibility. So, I think that independence is huge when it comes to having to run a business.

Heather Cox: [00:06:30] I started a second one and I have a JV as well, so I think it’s just a matter of keeping things going. Schedules are very important. During COVID actually, I was interviewed by GoDaddy. They asked me, you know, How are you doing it? I was like, schedule, schedule, schedule. Schedule is so important because everybody knows what’s expected of them at that point.

Heather Cox: [00:06:51] Same for me. I live by my calendar. If it’s not on the calendar, it’s probably not going to happen because this brain can only hold so much information and it’s already reached its limit. So, we do a lot of scheduling, and I think that’s really the only way. And then, as far as like the stress part goes, the gym is the reason that I don’t lose it quite often because I get that stress out at the gym.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:07:13] Well, I also see you, because we both were joined together on Peloton, so I see your name sometimes and I check out your workout.

Heather Cox: [00:07:21] I am in the Peloton cults. I do love it. It’s easy. It’s in my room. I run upstairs if I need to. But I just think that was such a great shift. Of all the technology, I think, that’s happened over the years, that one, because you still get the camaraderie of being in a class but you can roll out of bed and jump right on the bike.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:07:41] Yeah. Hey, Sarah, with your juggling your three businesses, how do you handle stress?

Sarah Hope: [00:07:51] Well, like Heather, the calendar is basically my Bible. So, if it is not on my calendar, it is out of sight, out of mind. A trick that I learned some time ago is that our internal mindset is really important. So, for a while, all I would do is continue to remind myself of the things that I had to do. So, in order to stop that, I keep extensive lists. So, I’m super old fashioned, if something comes up, either comes up in my email or someone asks me to do something, I give myself permission to not continuously think about it all the time.

Sarah Hope: [00:08:37] So, I have different lists for different things. I have a business list for each business, and then I have a personal list – and then I’m in a pretty big legal battle right now with an ex-employee that’s costing me a lot of stress – and I have a legal list. So that way, I don’t miss anything because I think, for me, there’s so much stuff going on all the time that I cannot miss anything as a result between my calendar and then keeping my list.

Sarah Hope: [00:09:11] But then the other thing too is – I hate this word, but it’s so important – compartmentalizing tasks, so I shut things off. If I’m going to do something, all of my notifications on my phone go off, I don’t look at my email. I focus on that one thing and get it done for an hour or two, which is really hard, but there’s no way that I can be as productive as I am without having major organization.

Heather Cox: [00:09:43] Do you delegate well to, Sarah? Are you a good delegater?

Sarah Hope: [00:09:45] Yes. At this point, absolutely, you have to delegate. We run on EOS, so it’s based on the book called Traction, so it’s the Entrepreneurial Organizational System. And we have our Level 10s at our meetings and how we’ve set up the company to where – you know, I’m famous for interrupting everybody’s day when I want to know a number or something – the promise of everybody is that on our Level 10, each company communicates to me where we’re at. So that way, I’m not having to blow up people’s day or hour or I want that because I know that I’m going to get all the numbers that I need on the Level 10. But, yeah, delegation is certainly key when you’re managing a lot of different projects.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:33] Now, were you always this way or was this something that you started having a bunch of kids or you started having a bunch of companies and you were like, “I better change some behaviors or else I’m going to have to manage this.”

Sarah Hope: [00:10:45] This was so much fun in the beginning, because my husband is in the business with me too. And we say we’ve been married now for ten years, but it’s more like 20 or 30 because we’re together all the time. But I remember when we first started the business, we were like, “There’s nothing going on, let’s go see a movie.” Those days are long gone. And we did. When we started the business, we had four teenagers at home and managing their schedules.

Sarah Hope: [00:11:15] What we did at that time, forget it. Our office, we had a tiny little office. We paid $350 a month. It was the best thing ever, like, ten years ago when it was simple. We would drive to that collection site. It was a drug testing collection site. We got a contract with Valley Metro at the time, and we started off that way. And then, we were only open, like, 9:00 to 3:00. Now, looking back, it was so cute, right? Like we were so cute. So, we would leave so we didn’t have to drive traffic. It was 30 miles there, 30 miles back. We would be like, “Okay. There’s no one coming, let’s go catch a movie.”

Sarah Hope: [00:11:50] Those days are long gone because you get so busy. You have to have so much grit to get through the last ten years. I mean, it’s literally flown and we’ve grown so much. I think the first year we did, like, 18,000 in revenue. The next year, we did, like, 50, we got up to 100. And then, we were like whew. whew. Well, two years ago – well, it’s been a few years now, we had a million. And then, last year we hit 4 million in revenue.

Sarah Hope: [00:12:20] I mean, the difference of the journey of what actually goes on and the multiple different levels of things that you have to handle, things that you don’t even realize that you had to learn because, as Allison Maslan says from Pinnacle, what got us here isn’t going to get us there. And so many things changed along the way and we have to adapt. As the leadership of the company, you don’t have a choice because everybody’s staring at you like, What’s next? So, yeah, stress management is really important.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:02] Now, Heather, let’s go back in time with you a little bit. What was the impetus of your business idea? Like what was the pain that you were going through that you were like, “Hey, I might be able to solve this.”

Heather Cox: [00:13:14] This wasn’t even my own pain. When I was pregnant with that first baby way back, you know, 16 years ago or 15 years ago – she’s 15 so nine months before that – I was asking, I knew I had to work. I didn’t know exactly what that looked like, but I knew I would have to work. And I’d always done sales and operations. And I was asking a lot of women about their experience as working moms, whether they were executives or part-time or worked for themselves, whatever it was, I’m asking a lot of questions.

Heather Cox: [00:13:43] And the business owners, I just really, like, gravitated toward. I thought they were amazing. I loved their energy, their passion. And when I started talking to the ones, especially the ones that were doing business-to-business sales, I really was like, “Wow. This is fascinating” and I just kept asking them more questions. And at some point a couple of them said to me, “Oh. There’s this certification that I need, they want me to get, but I just can’t get it done.” I’m like, “Hold on. You run a $2 million business, whatever, a $250,000 business, $2 million business, or $2 billion business, what do you mean you can’t get it done? I don’t understand.”

Heather Cox: [00:14:20] So, I went home and did a little research, and my husband’s an attorney, and he’s never worked in my business because I would like to stay married. Unlike Sarah, she’s much braver than I am. But I asked him, like, What’s an operating agreement or what’s a certificate of organization? He’s like, “Well, in some states -” I’m like, “Wait. Some states?” So, that’s when I realized that documents are called different names in different places.

Heather Cox: [00:14:41] So, if you’re a busy business owner and your time is – this is even before I was a busy business owner or a mom of five, I’m like, “Well, how do you know what it is?” And he said not everybody knows what they don’t know, and so they’ll be spending hours and hours trying to find their certificate of organization, only to find out their state doesn’t do that.

Heather Cox: [00:14:58] So, I said I could do it for you. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I never really thought about running a business before. And then, this one told that one, that one told that one. And then, someone said Can you do minority? Can you do this one? Can you do that one? And then, about five years later, we had our first corporate contract and they started calling me a certification expert. And I’m like, “Yeah. I sure am.” I went with it.

Heather Cox: [00:15:23] So, that’s really how it started, was just somebody had the need and I have always said one of my biggest attributes is I’m a very resourceful person. And so, I just figured it out, and now I have five people who work on my team with me to figure it out for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:40] Now, how did you kind of figure out pricing? You know, you figured out, I’m sure the first time you were doing it as it was as if they were doing it. So, you had to learn like they would have learned. But you’re just doing it now so many times, you now probably no shortcuts and you know where all the landmines are, where the regular person doesn’t know that. So, how did you kind of build it into a business that you could delegate and you could teach other people how to do it?

Heather Cox: [00:16:11] Yeah. I mean, until probably eight, nine years ago, it was just me doing everything. And, yeah, first the pricing is just kind of were like, “Yeah. This sounds good and no one said no,” the first few times we did it. And then, now, obviously there’s metrics behind it and there’s information statistics. We know how long it takes us. We know what payroll is. We have a lot more actual data behind what we’re doing. But we just kind of, “So, this is the price.” And then, I realized everyone’s saying yes, it probably means it’s too low. Everyone’s saying yes. So, we raised it and then slowly just kind of changed a little bit here and there until we really found our sweet spot.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:55] And, Sarah, what about you, what was kind of your back story on beginning your adventure in business?

Sarah Hope: [00:17:03] So, I have a huge risk. I have a huge fear of failure, so it dominates in everything that I do in my life. So, as a result, I have chosen businesses all the way up through the weight loss business that are required by law. Why? Because I felt like if it’s required by law that you get a DOT drug test, or that you have to have compliance for your trucking company, or that you have to do a pre-employment background screening because you have a federal contract, then that’s safe for me because then it’s more about not trying to convince someone that they need something, but they’re coming to you because it’s required.

Sarah Hope: [00:17:55] And so, as a result for me, it was easier because then I can go shop the competition. So, understanding your market and what you have to offer. And then, at first it was more about price. But now that I understand more about the values that we have and what we bring to the table, especially, for example, with our background screening process, we have really, really great turnaround times.

Sarah Hope: [00:18:23] I was talking to a friend that they were getting hired at a retail store, I’m not going to say who it is. But it took them, like, a month. They’re like, “I couldn’t get the job. It took a month to get my background check back.” And I just started giggling because we do a lot of school districts in Arizona and their turnaround time, we got them down to, like, three days. And that’s really important for whenever you’re trying to hire a teacher with a teacher shortages and they’re competing. They’re competing with another school to get the teacher. So, it’s not even so much about price. It’s more of how can you get us what we need in the timeframe that we need.

Sarah Hope: [00:19:02] Cooperative contracts have been really huge with the state, especially because the State of Arizona, they do have a DBE program, but it’s not very friendly as far as I’m concerned. So, getting in front of cooperative contracts – and I don’t know if everybody’s familiar with what a cooperative contract is. So, just imagine Costco or Sam’s Club. If you belong to Costco or Sam’s Club, then you can buy there at a certain rate. With cooperative contracts, every state has them and it’s like cooperative association.

Sarah Hope: [00:19:47] So, one of ours for the State of Arizona – actually, they cover a lot more – it’s Mohave Cooperative. And under Mohave Cooperative is they have, for example, electricians and plumbers and background training companies and people who build the outside yard toys for the kids and office supplies. And they bid them out every, you know, three to five years.

Sarah Hope: [00:20:09] So, this contract that I finally won, this my third try and it was actually another WBE that helped me, The RFP Success.

Heather Cox: [00:20:24] Love her.

Sarah Hope: [00:20:25] Yes. So, I had her check out my RFP because our lives revolve around responding to RFPs. And sometimes we’re too close to the tree or too close to – what do they say? – you’re too much in the woods to see the trees or whatever, so anyway, I had her check it and helped me with it. And we won the contract and now people are just lining up. So, it’s not necessarily price all the time. It’s you have to look at the market, really understand what people need.

Sarah Hope: [00:20:53] And, Heather, one of my biggest things is I became an ADA certified. Oh, my gosh. Do you do that?

Heather Cox: [00:21:01] No.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:02] She means she will do it shortly, right?

Sarah Hope: [00:21:07] I cried. I remember the process was so painful. It’s a federal certification. I remember getting back something that I didn’t do something right. And I remember being in Thailand on vacation, because I thought it was all the way on the other end of it, and I was in tears because I was like, “Oh. They’re asking us for something else that I don’t even know.” And it took me, like, two years to get the certification. It was the worst thing.

Heather Cox: [00:21:35] We have a partner that does it, and I have my own thoughts on it, but that’s not what this conversation is about.

Sarah Hope: [00:21:40] What about stress?

Heather Cox: [00:21:41] I will say, though, that your point was right, Sarah, you talked about changing over the years and it becomes less about price and more about value. So, now that we are the leaders in what we do, there are other people who say they do what we do. There is nobody who does it to the extent that we do it to the level that we do it. So much so that we’ve had a good number of our corporate clients who are like, “You know what? We want to divide your contract into two because this other company is less expensive.” And every single time, they’ve come back and given us the entire contract, every time, because they just don’t have the process. They don’t have the expertise that we have the way we do it.

Heather Cox: [00:22:21] And we’ve had other people who’ve tried to compete with us, but they’re just not in the same level. I mean, there are some people who are more expensive than us, people who are less expensive than us, but I always tell entrepreneurs, especially, I say after polling a bunch of our customers, we found out we saved a lot of our clients approximately 22 hours of work. That’s about the time that we’ve saved them by outsourcing the process to us. So, I tell them, you take what your hour is worth to you, whether it’s your billable hour, whatever it is, multiply it by 22. If it’s more than our fee, you’re saving money. If it’s less than our fee, then you might want to try to do it yourself. It just depends on how valuable your time is.

Heather Cox: [00:23:03] I outsource everything I possibly can. I remember one time all five of my kids got lice at the same time. All five. I was like, “Where’s that lice lady?” I called up a lice lady. I was like, I’m not doing this. There’s no way I was going to spend all that time and get it wrong. Because you know what? If you don’t have a time or money to do something once, you don’t have the time or money to do it twice. So, I did not need to do that again. So, I outsource everything I can, taxes, marketing. People are like, “Do your website?” It’ll look like I did my website and it’s going to cost me more in the end.

Sarah Hope: [00:23:34] I wish I had my card because when I first started my business in 2015, I was a lice picker on the side because I got paid $35 an hour.

Heather Cox: [00:23:41] Oh, that’s so funny. A lice lady.

Sarah Hope: [00:23:42] Yeah. And I was just like, whatever I could do to get a little bit of income. I mean, I would have stood in the corner of the road and sold water like they do in Hialeah when it’s hot. I would have been like, “Here’s some lemons. Here’s some water.” Whatever it is that you need to get your business going because you’ve got to make it and you’re so great in time. But, yeah, I just saw my card recently from the lice doctors.

Heather Cox: [00:24:15] And I think we used lice happens or whatever.

Sarah Hope: [00:24:17] Yeah. It was awesome.

Heather Cox: [00:24:19] See, outsource and delegate, that’s how you make it happen.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:23] Now, you both mentioned the importance of systems, processes, these kinds of delegation, can we talk a little bit about AI. Are either one of you kind of leaning into AI or leveraging AI at this point in your business? And if you’re not, are you seeing that as part of the future that you’re going to have to at some point kind of lean into that?

Heather Cox: [00:24:45] I mean, we are in some respects, obviously, a lot more automation than we’ve ever had. Through our CRM, we’ve included a lot of automation and sort of take away some of the manual tasks that are just time consuming for the team. So, we’ve definitely done a lot of AI with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:02] Sarah?

Sarah Hope: [00:25:03] I am really deep into AI. So, not only am I investing in every single AI stock that I can get my hands on, Nvidia was at 400 recently, up to over 900. I bought some AMD. So, I’m researching everything. But more importantly is I’m embracing it to the extent. So, I have just replaced my outbound sales team with outbound AI callers. So, I have basically two fulltime AI caller – I don’t even know what to call them – agents that are making outbound calls to trucking companies.

Heather Cox: [00:25:50] They’re like robocalls, Sarah?

Sarah Hope: [00:25:51] Yeah. But they sound exactly like a human. You listen to the call and you listen to the conversation that our potential customers are having with them and they’re like, “Yeah. do you want to get transferred?” And then, we initiate a transfer to the live team. But they don’t know. They don’t know the difference at all.

Sarah Hope: [00:26:13] And the most beautiful thing about AI is that you can upload your knowledge base, so you can upload the questions and answers. Like for us, it would be DOT Part 40 of the regulations of what a trucking company has to do to be compliant with the drug and alcohol testing policies, and the randoms and all the things that they have to do. Again, back to my fear of failure, this is not something an optional. Nobody wants someone in an 18 wheeler getting into an accident being on drugs, so we manage those processes for trucking companies. And as a result, every new trucker, we reach out to them. We were having live agents do that.

Sarah Hope: [00:26:53] And the AI, the AI doesn’t have any feelings. The AI is going to ask every single question that you tell it to ask and it’s going to have a conversation. So, it is completely fascinating. Our sales, since we launched that, have gone up drastically. So, we were getting about five new signups a week, and we’re getting three a day now. So, yes, it’s been huge AI.

Sarah Hope: [00:27:24] Then, the other changes that we’re making is that I know where this is going, so while I’m not [inaudible] yet, but I’m on it. Like everyday, I get up in the morning and I watch YouTube about whatever new came out. Because my goal is to transition a lot of the administrative duties that we have internally to an AI process, to where, literally, the AI can record your screen, follow whatever admin tasks that you’re doing.

Sarah Hope: [00:28:05] For us, a lot of times it’s like, What collection site for drug test do you have in zip code 85086? Now, it’s a human that has to go in and enter the stuff. The AI, you can train it to go log in here, check here, answer here. Imagine not only being able to service our customers 24/7 to be able to automate that process, make them feel like – well, it’s not just make them feel. Honestly, a lot of this, let’s face it, our employees don’t always do what we ask them to do. Our team skips questions because of whatever it is that they think is happening. The AI doesn’t have that emotional response. They’re just going to ask the question, and it’s so polite. And you can pick male voice, female voice. I mean, I can’t even tell you how much fun we’re having with it. It is absolutely amazing.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:03] Did you have someone kind of Sherpa-ing you through this? Like, how did you kind of find the service you’re using for this? Or is this just you kind of just dove into a ChatGPT and just started doing it yourself?

Sarah Hope: [00:29:19] Oh, I’m a ChatGPT queen, too. Let me tell you, I want to write a book about ChatGPT because it’s handling my entire legal case. By the way, I didn’t even hire an attorney. It is my attorney. It’s writing all of my motions. It’s writing everything for me. It’s handling my entire legal case with this ex-employee issue that I have, so I’m using ChatGPT for that.

Sarah Hope: [00:29:41] But I ended up going to Traffic & Conversion. And at Traffic & Conversion, there is one called AIRAI, and they kind of kicked it off. But at Traffic & Conversion, there was a company called Acquisition AI and that’s who I use. So, I liked their setup fee, it was pretty reasonable. Don’t quote me, I want to say it was about $1,000. It’s about, I want to say, $800 a month for two fulltime AI. So, I gave them the script, everything that we wanted, and then they set it all up, and then we launched. And I want to say, it probably took about ten days to get it all set up and for them to set it up on there, and test it, and run it, and run with it.

Sarah Hope: [00:30:28] But I did a lot of research. Again, YouTube is my best friend because how I use YouTube in the morning is I’ll sit and have my coffee, and then I’m like, What’s new in AI? And AI is going to revolutionize the entire world. And I know that there’s a lot of people that are like, “Oh. I’m afraid. I’m afraid.” Don’t be afraid. Open AI is the main source of the large language model, but it is written in an open language. So, there’s a lot of large language models that are being built under that.

Sarah Hope: [00:31:04] So, it’s not like one big brain. It’s kind of like the gremlins. You have one and then there’s a ton of large language models under it. So, I don’t feel like they’re going to take over and the robots are going to kill us all and all of that stuff. It’s more of, how can we use a large language model that can really understand our business, that can really help our customers, that can facilitate the changes that we need, improve processes, better customer service. I love it. I’m completely obsessed.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:38] Well, Sarah, I mean, you could tell how passionate you are about this. Is there a fourth business kind of lurking there? An AI business?

Sarah Hope: [00:31:46] I wish I had the time. That’s something I’ve been playing with. I actually named it and everything. I named it Denali Sky. But we’ve recently started purchasing a lot of property up in Alaska, so I’m starting a general contracting business up there. So, it’s called Denali Sky Builders and Contractors. So, I’m kind of involved in remodeling and flipping some houses up there while we’re there for the summer and just learning Alaska. But part of that is also subcontracting and using the technologies that are coming with AI and being able to facilitate a lot of these smaller businesses and being able to get their marketing out.

Sarah Hope: [00:32:24] But AI, guys, this is bigger than the internet. I don’t think that people are realizing the effect that this is going to have in all of our lives daily and how amazing everything is going to be. I am so excited to be alive to be part of this.

Heather Cox: [00:32:45] I also love it. I just need to make sure my children know how to actually write an essay also and not just use ChatGPT, so there’s that part that I need them to use their brains. But we use it a lot also for those type of things, marketing documents, things like that. That’s my only downside to it, is that I still have little ones who I’m trying to raise to use their intelligence and intellect.

Sarah Hope: [00:33:06] I don’t know if you’re going to be able to stop it though. So, that’s the biggest thing, is that unless we start taking things away —

Heather Cox: [00:33:15] Well, so far they don’t have smartphones. I’m a very mean mommy.

Sarah Hope: [00:33:18] Oh, well that’s good. But there’s a lot going on with AI. The thing is that people like jobs, right? So, I do think that a lot of analytical jobs that are going to be – I’m using it as an attorney. I don’t have no else to go. I’m not suggesting anybody go replace your attorney with this. But if I need a case law or whatever, I’m researching it, or what the rules are for Maricopa County, or what I have to respond to this motion or whatever, it’s a matter of prompting ChatGPT and asking the questions so you don’t have to be sitting out there waiting or going through tons of Google questions and answers, because it’s a conversation that you have back and forth.

Sarah Hope: [00:34:00] And there’s software out there that is doing automatic training, like day traning for you because it’s learn. And it can look at the stocks analytically in a way that our brain can’t do it. So, I think that the human touch is still going to be really important, that the relationships are going to be really important, but how we use AI to help our processes and our business, it’s going to help us be more profitable, keep our costs down in this very expensive world we live in. And it’s amazing. I’m so excited.

Lee Kantor: [00:34:44] Now, Heather, do you mind sharing a little advice for folks out there that have maybe joined some associations, got some certifications, but they aren’t leveraging it and they’re not kind of maximizing their investment into that. Because there are so many people that go, “Oh. I have to be certified or I have to join this group,” and they check the box and they think they’re done. And then, they go back to work and they’re like, “Well, where’s the ROI on this? I don’t see it. It’s not working for me.” So, can you give some advice to kind of maximizing your certification or leveraging your association?

Heather Cox: [00:35:22] Absolutely. I mean, we tell people all the time, it’s a tool and not a magic wand. It is not if you certify it, they will come. You really have to leverage it and use it, as you said.

Heather Cox: [00:35:32] So much so we created a whole program called Diversity Masterminds, because after hearing so many of our clients say like, “I’m not renewing my certification. I didn’t get anything out of it.” And I would say, “Did you do this? Did you go here? Did you talk to these people?” “No. I didn’t know I could. I didn’t know I should.” And so, we really wanted them to understand how to leverage the certification to maximize growth. And so, we created a whole program both on demand and in person to do that.

Heather Cox: [00:35:59] But it’s really about being part of the organization. I would say that’s probably one of my biggest pieces of advice is that, you know, when I moved from New Jersey to Nevada, I immediately reached out to Dr. Pamela Williamson and just said, “Hey. Now I’m one of your WBEs out here in Nevada,” and then I was all in. I was like, I want to be part of however I can support the organization because I think that – what’s that expression? – rising tides bring all the boats to the top, whatever that is. You know that expression?

Lee Kantor: [00:36:31] Yes.

Heather Cox: [00:36:31] So, I really believe in that. I believe in elevating each other elevates ourselves as well. And so, just any way that I can meet more of the WBEs, be part of it, show up, and you have to really let go of any kind of entitlement that like, “Well, I’m certified. Where’s my contract?” Because that will get you nowhere. It’ll actually get you less than nowhere, whenever that’s possible.

Heather Cox: [00:36:55] But that’s what I think what it is, is kind of wherever you can, sharing your expertise with those around you, and they’ll share with you, obviously you’re not going to give things away for free, but just having conversations with your other WBEs and the network, everybody knows someone or something that you don’t. And so, by being part of this organization and the network, you have so much exposure to resources you never even knew you needed and never knew you had.

Heather Cox: [00:37:26] And so, that’s what I think at the WBENC conference last week during the WBEC-West RPO breakout, both Dr. Williamson and myself mentioned that elevating the other people that were there at the conference was a game changer for your conference. Not just their conference, but your conference. And I think that’s what people underestimate.

Heather Cox: [00:37:45] And, also, the business development part of the certification, people get. They understand that’s the logical part. What people often forget, what entrepreneurs often forget is the company development and the leadership development opportunities that are out there. [Inaudible] scholarship to go to the talk education business, the executive MBA program, or being a part of mentorship opportunities, these are all parts of the organization, parts of your certification that are underutilized and under recognized, in my opinion, by the entrepreneurs out there.

Heather Cox: [00:38:21] I think there’s so much that they can take advantage of, even WBEC-West has the – oh, my gosh. Dr. Williamson, I’m blanking on the name of it.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:38:31] I’m going to take a guess, Platinum Supplier Program.

Heather Cox: [00:38:35] Platinum Supplier Program. Thank you. Platinum Supplier Program that really teaches you how to elevate the use of your certification. And so, I think people forget about those and they get so caught up in just filling out RFPs or just buy for me, buy for me, buy for me. They forget about the relationship part of it and, really, the other aspects of the certification.

Lee Kantor: [00:38:56] Now, who is the ideal client for you? What’s your ideal client profile?

Heather Cox: [00:39:01] Well, we really have two sets of clients. We have our corporate clients who utilize us to make sure that everybody in their supply chain understands the value of diversity certification, and what it is, and how to use it, so we do a lot of webinars and trainings. And, also, they’ll engage us to work with the suppliers in their supply chain that should be certified but are not, that they have relationships with.

Heather Cox: [00:39:21] And then, our the entrepreneurs that hire us are people who understand their time and worth of their time. But also companies who are already doing business-to-business sales or either have already started doing business with the Fortune 1000 or the government entities or are just about to, who maybe have been a tier 2 supplier previously and they maybe seen the opportunity cost. So, really anybody who understands the value of outsourcing and also the people who are business-to-business and are ready to take that next step.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:52] And if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website?

Heather Cox: [00:39:55] It is certifymycompany.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:59] And, Sarah, who is your ideal client?

Sarah Hope: [00:40:04] My ideal client is a company that needs help with compliance and screening their employees, basically. Making sure that they have the right team. One thing is the interview, but another thing is their history. You know, California Act, California recently just passed a law – before it was seven years. If you had any felonies before seven years, they didn’t show up. Now it’s after four years, they’re completely expunged. And now California has decided to not verify dates of birth.

Sarah Hope: [00:40:57] So, let us just take Heather Cox. I don’t know if there’s more than one Heather Cox in California. But if there is, it makes it very difficult for us to run a background check and then to actually verify who you are. And if you have an employee that has felonies – one of my ex-employees, the one that I’m in a legal battle with right now, had eight felonies and we did not know. We ran a background check, but California kept the information because they were not allowed to release it.

Sarah Hope: [00:41:42] And so, understanding that, we put everything into our business. Our business is everything. It’s like our children. And then, you allow someone like this. People can change. It just so happens that this person didn’t. And I found out about it after the fact in the investigation. I’m horrified. I’m horrified for myself and my company. I’m horrified for possible new companies that come in. But this is happening everywhere.

Sarah Hope: [00:42:16] You know, California isn’t the only one, but the ramifications that come from not having the right hire, which you’re not completely, I guess, immune to, I mean we are a background screening company and it didn’t come up. The background check was completely clear, so we didn’t do anything wrong because we didn’t have any idea. But then, what goes through my mind is, “Oh, my gosh. What if a teacher comes over from California and we’re hiring a teacher for a school district, and we can’t release this information or we don’t see?” There’s so much. There’s so much stress that goes along with it.

Sarah Hope: [00:42:58] So, I just think it’s really important to screen and to do the reference checks for as painful as it is to talk to their personal references, to talk to their prior business references. It’s not just about the criminal background check. You guys, check. Check who you’re hiring. Protect your company. So, that’s my ideal hire, someone that really wants to protect what they’re doing and have a background check and compliance. And let us be human with you and help you navigate this journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:43:33] Now, what’s a website for Vertical Identity?

Sarah Hope: [00:43:36] Vertical Identity, so vertical, like horizontal and vertical, and identity, like in stolen identity, .com.

Lee Kantor: [00:43:42] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. Dr. Pam, what an episode. A lot of smart people in this room.

Dr. Pamela Williamson: [00:43:50] There are a lot of smart people and a lot of great information. We discussed AI. We discussed health and stress. We discussed positive energy. I think we discussed everything possible under this topic. So, I really want to thank Sarah and Heather for joining us and sharing all the nuggets that they did. I appreciate you both.

Sarah Hope: [00:44:15] Yes. Thank you for having me. It was nice to see you both, all of you.

Heather Cox: [00:44:20] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:44:21] All right. Well, that’s a wrap for this episode of Women In Motion. This is Lee Kantor for Dr. Pamela Williamson. We’ll see you all next time.